out of high school in 1955 and stayed together for six years. The split was amicable. We just had nothing in common anymore. No kids, we both worked, our sex life was dull, dull, dull. He married again by the way, to a nice, mousey woman who seemed to make him happy. But that’s another story.
“As a divorcee, I slept around. That was a very loose time, before AIDS, very into me first. I found that I loved sex. I enjoyed pleasing the men I was with and I had fun learning how to do it. I was still just beginning to learn about fantasy when I met Bob. He had a wonderfully creative mind and taught me about all sorts of new things in the bedroom. When he suggested we get married, I thought I’d found my ultimate sex partner and in order to keep us together, I said yes.”
“He sounds like a wonderful lover.”
“He was and he taught me to be a giving, creative partner.”
“But…”
“But I couldn’t stand him outside of the bedroom. He and I were exact opposites. He was a neat freak, I’m a bit of a slob. He liked his meals at specific times, all organized, I like to scrounge for myself. You get it. So, after two fantastic years in the bedroom and two awful years everywhere else, we split, too. That was 1974, and it seems like forever ago. I was intensely glad when he left, but I was horny as hell. All the time. The one good thing about marriage is that you can usually have all the sex you want.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“It was for me. I still worked, of course. I was manager of the computer input department at a regional bank. I had very good people skills, as my boss called them, but I was bored. Bored, lonely and horny at home and bored, stressed, and frustrated at work. Not much of a life.”
Barbara patted the back of Maggie’s hand, well able to sympathize with the older woman.
“One evening I just couldn’t bear to go home to that empty apartment so I stopped at a bar near work. I’d been sitting at the bar for about an hour, feeling sorry for myself, when a cute-looking guy sat down on the stool next to mine.” Maggie closed her eyes and a smile changed her expression from despair to enjoyment as she remembered that evening. “I remember. I called myself Margaret at that time.”
“Hi,” the man said. “My name’s Frank.”
Maggie looked up, ready to brush the man off with a clever remark. But as she took in his charming smile, she changed her mind. “Hi. I’m Margaret.”
“Glad to meet you, Margaret. I come in here whenever I’m in town but I’ve never seen you before.”
“I’ve never been in here before,” Maggie said.
Frank placed his elbow on the bar and leaned his chin on his hand, studying Maggie’s face. “You know,” he said after a moment, “you don’t look like a Margaret.”
Maggie sipped her white wine, unwilling to make any overt gestures of friendliness toward this stranger who was in the process of picking her up in a bar. “And how would a Margaret look?”
“Oh, let’s see. Margaret is very serious. Tight bun. Thick glasses. Sensible shoes.”
Maggie thought about that and realized that, in the months since she and Bob had gone their separate ways, she had become just what Frank pictured. No, she thought, I won’t be that person. I’m only thirty-three. She took a large swallow of her wine and sat up a bit straighter. “Okay. I guess I can’t be that kind of Margaret. What would you call me?”
“Well, Margie is young, pert, and too cute to be believed, so that’s not you. And Peggy is an Irish lass with red hair and freckles.”
“Okay. Neither of those sound like me. So who am I?”
“You look like a Maggie. Nice-looking. Interesting and interested. Open to new experiences.”
“What a line you’ve got,” Maggie said, realizing that, whether it was a line or not, this man had made her feel younger than she had in years. She lowered her chin and looked up at Frank through her lashes. “And I must say I like it.”
Frank grinned. “Me too. And it usually works.”
Maggie laughed. “You admit that it’s a line? How original.”
“The line’s original, too,” he said. “And you’re the first woman who’s picked up on it so quickly.” He tried and almost succeeded in looking like a small boy with his hand in the cookie jar. It helped that he had medium brown hair naturally streaked with blond, wide blue eyes, and a fantastic mouth.
They talked for an hour, then went to a nearby French restaurant and shared a sumptuous meal which included a bottle of fine Chardonnay and a glass of sweet, golden dessert wine. She learned that Frank was divorced, in town from Dallas for a week for his firm’s quarterly department meetings and that he was charming and sexy and determined to get her into his bed. As he dropped his credit card onto the check, he took Maggie’s hand. As he held it across the table, his index finger scratched little patterns in her palm. “We could be good together,” he purred.
She had to admit to herself that she was turned on. But this was a man who had picked her up, not someone she worked with or who had been introduced to her by friends. He was only in town for a short time. She couldn’t even delude herself into thinking this was the beginning of a long-term relationship. But she wanted to go to bed with him nonetheless. “How can you be so sure?” she said.
“I can be very sure. I can see it in your eyes, your body, the way you smile, the way you can’t quite sit still. You want this as much as I do. How do you like your sex?”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. How do you like your sex? Long and slow, with lots of kissing and stroking? Hard and fast, like the pair of animals we are? Standing up with your back pressed against the wall and your legs locked around my waist? In the shower under torrents of hot water? Tell me and I’ll make it that way for you.”
Maggie shrugged. She couldn’t tell him how she liked her sex because she loved it all ways. “You tell me,” she hedged. “How do you like it?”
“Oh, Maggie, I think I’d like it every way with you.” He lifted her hand and nipped at her fingertips.
“No,” she said, more seriously. “Tell me. How would you like to make love with me? Create the fantasy and let’s see how we mesh.”
“You’re serious. You want me to tell you.” When Maggie merely nodded, Frank said, “I see you slowly removing your clothes while I watch. I watch you reveal your body to me, one small piece at a time.”
Silently Maggie reached up and unbuttoned the top two buttons on her blouse and parted the sides so the valley between her breasts was visible.
“Shit, baby. I’m hard as stone already.”
Maggie raised an eyebrow but remained silent.
“Okay. I see you in your bra and panties.” He looked around the tablecloth at Maggie’s shoes. “Yes. Black high heels. I like that. You’re not wearing pantyhose, are you?”
“I won’t be,” she said, contemplating a quick trip to the ladies’ room. She watched the flush rise on Frank’s face.
