exactly 12:01, Mary Louise Jones strode off the elevator and moved down the hall towards Bob Lane’s office without a hint of introduction. Her poise and determination spoke volumes to the receptionist, who had had one run-in with her a couple of weeks before. Delay in clearance had stimulated the terms “sycophant” and “troll,” among a range of other invective. Shauna saw her coming and was up to the task with a positive account of fantasy weight loss and fashion genius, combined with “Go right in.” Mary sat, uninvited, as Bob finished an internal call complaining about a bad trade for a customer on the New York trading desk. He grew up doing a summer job at a similar trading desk and knew how to get his way. He hung up and looked up simultaneously.
Mary spoke in her customary brusque way. “Bobby, we’ve got a problem.”
“Shoot.”
“The authorities are all over me like a cheap suit on Blueacre Partners. That’s not a problem. I’ve taken two fingers to their hard-ons time and time again on these deals. Even if it calls for recapture, it’s a fine, not a crime. But this is different in two ways. First, the call came from Washington. That’s new. But my friend in the LA office also gave me a stange return after-hours call. All he said was, ‘Keep the blue bird from singing,’ and hung up with a ‘gotta go.’ Curious and unusual. Is there anything you know about this deal that I don’t know?”
“Hell, Mare, I’ll be damned if I know. It was three plus years ago, before I hit LA. It looked from the description page like a simple oil deal with an aggressive, but legal, write-off. But let me check with my old UBS friends. They might know something.”
They spoke of other things while pushing around lettuce and feta. She had become a confidante of sorts. He trusted her opinion and felt his words would remain in confidence.
Sure enough, the wine had been delivered as ordered, and Bob had plenty of time for a good swim. Almost daily, he would swim out past the riptide and then parallel the beach in a well-practiced crawl to a point a quarter mile down the shore where there had never been a rip, which meant easy access back to the beach. He would then walk back. It was there that good fortune introduced him to Joanna, whose bungalo was about half way.
“You better be in good shape, you animal.” Joanna was on her deck, reading a script.
“Don’t you ever work?” asked Bob.
“Finished the rewrite. Getting ready to don my swaddling clothes,” she drawled as she admired his pecs and engaged in a little good-natured penis envy.
“Good, you’re gonna get pushed all over the manger tonight!”
There was room behind her car to squeeze in off Pacific Coast Highway. Bob was dressed in an open magenta shirt and jeans and carried a bottle of white in each hand, chilled and ready. The door opened to a fabulous woman in a diaphanous white, almost see-through ankle-length wrap, with no accessories but a fabulous face. He admired the moves of her excellent figure as she grabbed the wine, gave him an opened-mouthed hello, and moved ahead of him to the kitchen with Madonna’s “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina” playing in the background.
Joanna Hayes was thirty-four and had loved writing ever since an English teacher had turned her on to her talent in her junior year at Daniel Hand High School in Madison, Connecticut. She read voraciously at Vassar, and won both the fiction and nonfiction writing awards her senior year. Five years at a Manhattan ad agency led to a boredom-induced trip to work in the writing department at ICM, a top talent agency in LA, and that segued into a career as a script originator and ”doctor,” with her ex-boss as her agent.
“I love writing, cooking and sex, and not necessarily in that order,” she said when she met Bob on the beach that day a few weeks ago.
She’d had “one stupid marriage” along the way, with no kids. Penne arrabiata, an endive salad with balsamic dressing, a warm loaf of sourdough and very cold and dry white had given way to candlelight and commentary.
It was past the time for the Hi, finish your cocktail and let’s screw … so long! that often happened in Malibu relationships. If you made it through the first month of dating without getting distracted by a nonfat latté grande with lots of cinnamon and her Mercedes 450, you could actually begin to get to know each other. What a concept. They were on the cusp, and still eager to learn.
The topic had turned to family and friends, and Bob was obviously reticent to share much about his family other than his upbringing on the eastern shore of Maryland, the largely unexplained death of his dad while in the employ of the CIA, and relocating with his mom to her parents’ guest house in Beverly, Massachusetts.
A scholarship to St. George’s School in Middletown, R.I. and Trinity College, CT, led to great friends, excellent grades and a summer brokerage internship, which culminated in an MBA from Wharton Business School at Penn and success in investment banking. His eyes uncharacteristically lowered as he reviewed his family and accomplishments. She moved closer to him to show caring and as a reward for his courage in opening up.
He soon had the erotic sensation of her breath on his neck as if to say good job, more will be revealed. He paused in midsentence to her tongue licking him, and knew from past circumstances that an ear nibble was on its way. He did not move a muscle. And, in his moment of insecurity, felt he deserved to be the receiver of special goods and services. It seemed forever before she got around to his lip for tender bites, with just a hint of balsamic.
He swung his hands up to her face and cradled her with a deep, emotional kiss, as if trying to touch her deep inside. She rose to rekindle his strength and raw passion. He obliged, grabbing her wrist in a vise-like grip and rising while pulling the sash from around her waist. One flick of the shoulder and she stood naked before him, with that look he adored: unspoken, immediate, wanton need to swallow his entire midsection. She ripped his shirt off, buttons competing for farthest from the source. His jeans were at half staff and needed but a gentle tug to create a step out.
Two hours later they both lay spent on a huge bed within sound of the rollers. He had spent time visiting every possible orifice in her body, causing every pore to vibrate as if he was he was pushing the starter on a paint mixing machine.
She had a secret that few knew about and that made her even more addictive than was believable. He had looked for this capability all his adult life, since seeing it in a peekaboo hut just off Times Square. Not only was she multiorgasmic and with ever-increasing ferociousness, but she was his first “squirter.” A gusher, coming with wet and wild fury. The phrase “wet spot” was a massive understatement.
He kept thanking God for her entire presence on the planet. Not a word of recognizable English had been spoken, other than a deity. He held her like a lost valuable before covering her with a sheet and blowing out what was left of the candles. He got behind the wheel, closed his eyes for a moment, and turned the key.
NEW HORIZONS….
Bob Lane loved it the minute he laid eyes on the gates. It might have been the early years on the eastern shore of Maryland or his time along the New England coast north of Boston, but one look and he was sold. As he drove onto St. George’s School quad during his tour of prep schools in the fall of his seventh grade year, the impact of the view was dramatic. When he stood in the middle of the varsity football field and looked down the rolling hills to several miles of magnificent beaches, admiring the roaring surf had him rubbing his legs together like a cricket.
Still an Episcopal-affiliated school, the campus was set against one of the great smaller gothic cathedrals in the United States that rose like a beacon to those who needed any motivation
