Ride 4

I'm riding in the back seat of the car that she arranged for me. Queen Street West is still busy, edgy with rain threatening the dark streets.

My pulse is hammering in my chest. I feel a high-voltage electric thrill of anticipation. Tonight, after she's done at her gallery's show opening event, we will fuck for the first time. She knows it and I know it.

It has been eight weeks, two months of collaboration since she first contacted our firm. After her first inquiry, she had come to Montreal at our invitation so we could give her our pitch. It was nothing unusual for us. She was a Toronto gallery owner thinking about starting another location here in Montreal. It's what we do. If she liked us and signed on, we would work out the concept for her new space, find it and then make it a reality.

Since then I haven't felt so infatuated about a woman since I was in high school. Curse my over-thinking head. Curse my imagination, seeing the things that have happened and might happen yet. It is as if my head is an editing suite and it's a movie that's taking shape. I see how the flush came to her neck that day in the lobby when we said goodbye. I see how she moves, her dancer's bearing, the clothes that fit her body so perfectly. I see her in the golden light that morning at the unfinished space we were renovating for her in Old Montreal. A t-shirt, neither too tight nor too loose, hinting at her nipples. Her worn blue jeans, worn through at the knees and riding low and comfortable on her hips. Her hair lit by that perfect crossing light, a golden halo in the dusty air.

"We could do some things," she said when we were alone last week in Montreal as we rode down in the elevator to our building's lobby. She didn't mean the firm, not Charbonneau and me together. She meant only me. We could do projects, or build a new business together, she with her network in the Toronto art scene and me with my kind of creative abilities. Her words spoke about our careers, the possibilities we could explore, the thrill of adventuring into an exciting future. Yes, we could do some things, but I wanted more. I wondered if she did, too.

Finally in the lobby, it was time to say goodbye. Our handshake turned into a hug, the hug into a kiss on the cheek, neither of us wanting to break the hug. There was something in the way she pressed her body into mine. She looked at me as if she were trying to read something off the back of my skull, and that's when I knew that she and I wanted more than just projects.

She said the words again.

"We could do some things. Come to Toronto."

We could do some things.

We could fuck.

I've been unable to stop thinking about her and what is going to happen tonight ever since then. She's invaded my mind and taken it over almost completely. I find myself staring off, dreaming and imagining. She is front of mind, during the day when I'm supposed to be doing things, even more at night when I try to sleep. A week of this, since the last moment we had in the lobby of our building, the moment when the foreplay began.

And so now, a week later, I know and she knows what will happen tonight.

A light ahead turns to green, but the traffic is so socked in that nobody is moving. The intensity I'm feeling continues to build.

The movie in my head sees things that haven't happened yet, things that will happen, the things behind the real reason that I've come to Toronto. Wrapping her hair into my fingers and bringing her lips to mine. I hear the soft buzz of her zipper, the hiss of fabric as it slides from her body and the smoothness of her skin under my touch. I imagine the way she smells, the sight of her bright eyes. I see our clothes slipping off to the floor, the sensation of her naked skin against mine...

We hadn't provided a car for her when she came to Montreal the first time. Maybe we should have. Charbonneau, my business partner, mocked me about the arrangements she was making for my visit to Toronto the following week.

"Elle veut faire des affaires avec tu, et non l'entreprise," he said once she was gone. Maybe it's me, not the company, that she's interested in. But earlier this week we received her fax with all the papers signed. Officially she's a client. But she's interested in me, too, and the feeling is mutual.

And so here I am in the back of a pretty slick Audi, being driven to her gallery on Queen Street West in Toronto. And no, Charbonneau wasn't invited.

The driver, Tomasz, has taken me to my hotel already and he waited while I dropped off my bag. He doesn't know it, but I do and she does, too: it's not likely I'll be spending the night in the hotel.

I'm supposed to be at the gallery by nine o'clock, but right now, we're stopped in traffic. Tom has quietly called her to tell her we're running a bit late.

I hate being late, but I

really

hate being late for

this

. I'm all keyed up in the back seat. I'd say that this intensity started last week in the building's lobby, but really, it started long before that. My mind drifts to our first meeting in Montreal.

My first glimpse of her was from behind. As I had come through the boardroom door, she was facing away, talking with Charbonneau. His eyes had darted away from her and she had noticed so she began to turn around to face me.

"Roland, I'd like you to meet Mireille Archer."

An English-speaking woman with a French name.

Even from behind I saw something in her. At first I wasn't sure, but then it dawned on me what I was looking at and responding to. It was something about her physicality, but not hot, raw sexuality. With Charbonneau off to the side looking at this young woman's ass whenever he could steal a glance, what I saw was her posture or her carriage. It was that special kind of athletic grace of a dancer. It's something in the lower back, I think, as if that beautiful curve anchors all the rest and all of the energy, the lift of the chest, the relaxed shoulders held down, I think it all starts in the dancer's lower back.

And that posture carries with it a lot about who she is. Disciplined. Artistic. Expressive. A mind and spirit conjoined with a dancer's body. I took all this in in a fraction of a second, even before I had seen her face or heard her speak.

I would say that I was attracted to her right from the start, but that doesn't quite capture it. It wasn't just a physical thing. It wasn't a sexual thing. It felt more like curiousity. Yes, I felt curious about her. I wanted to know about her dancing, what was important about it to her, why she danced. I wanted to hear her stories, to hear how dance related to her whole life, how her identity wrapped itself around the art. Yes, even before she had turned to face me, I was interested.

Tomazs has pulled the car quickly into an empty spot next to the curb. We are here. It's a no stopping zone so quickly I tip him and go out onto the sidewalk. He pulls away swiftly.

Entering the gallery's reception room, I scan the room for her. There. She is across the room standing in a small group. She hasn't seen me come in. Tonight she has forgone a suit or a dress and has chosen a look of rugged feminity, jeans, a leather bomber jacket and boots. It is as if she has just swung her leg over to dismount from her Hayabusa. I imagine her riding athletically, helmet and dark visor hiding her face. I picture how she feels the raw muscle of the bike, the engine's gutteral power, the rising whine between her legs.

Her ponytail hangs over the collar of the brown leather jacket. Her jeans fit so perfectly. Her body is made for clothes, her narrow hips, her tight ass. The denim covers her, not stretched tight, not binding her, but with no sloppy folds either, relaxed and perfect. Hiking boots, her feet are apart, as if in a stance of braced physical anticipation. She is solid, set, ready.

When someone in her group notices my stare, I am pointed out to her. She breaks free from the conversation, wine glass in hand, whirling to face me. She beams her smile. A thrill charges through me so powerfully that I almost shudder. And in her smile and her eyes, there is her confirmation:

Tonight. Soon.

I watch her eyes scan me from head to toe and back. Her excitement reflects against mine.

Together, we schmooze with the guests and artists for a good hour, but as soon as she feels she can she make her excuse, she speaks to her assistants about closing up for the night and we make our escape. Tomasz and the Audi are waiting at the door, engine running.

It has started by the time we open the car's door and get in. In the back seat of the car I'm hard already. I check the rearview. Tomasz seems discreet, not watching us. My hand goes to her breast under her open jacket. She presses against me in the back seat, kisses me deeply. She nestles into me, whispering, kissing my ear, a small wet lick.

Oh baby, tonight I'm going to fuck you so good.

Her whisper, tinged with her own arousal, her urgent anticipation. I wonder if her words alone could make me come.

At last, we arrive at her condo building. Tomasz drives off, and we enter the lobby. There is another couple in the elevator.

Probably a good thing,

I think. The doors open at her floor and we get off. The way she walks down the corridor ahead of me toward her suite. It is her hips, the way they swing, a kind of taunting jangle of her hips. It's not a model's runway walk, not so exaggerated, and the pace is too purposeful. She struts a little too quickly, as if her own eagerness fights with her self-control. Her ass taunts me, wants me, her sexual energy, a comet's trail bright behind her.

Already, even out in the hallway of her floor nearing her suite she has started to undress. She takes off her jacket and without even looking she flings it over her shoulder at me behind her. The scent of its leather smacks me in the face. She turns the key in the door but doesn't open it. Instead, she spins to face me, her back pressed to the door. Her eyes bore into mine and without looking, she quickly undoes her belt, the button of her jeans and rips the zipper down. I am the one who looks away. I look down and glimpse smooth skin below her navel and lower, a flash of purple lace. I want to kiss her there, kiss her everywhere. Her hands rush to undo the top button of her shirt but she stops there. She lifts her arms as if to put them around my neck and take me in to her for a fierce kiss. But no, she places the backs of her hands above her head flat against the door. She won't clasp herself to me. It's up to me, up to me to take her, up to me to accept her taunting offer. Submission, yes, but her submission is her sexual power over me, willful submission that knows me, controls me, forces my capitulation to her. I kiss her hard and she matches me but then her mouth relaxes against my lips and she laughs as if she has won the contest, breathing her mocking chuckle into my mouth.

As we kiss again, she reaches behind unlatches the door. We stumble in. Her hand goes to my belt and I'm dragged through the darkened aparment into the bedroom. She flips a light on. Her eyes are bright, full of fun. In an instant her shirt is gone - the hell with buttons, she has pulled it over her head, flung it away. She bends away from me to loosen her boot laces and the sight makes me feel the artistic rush again. To draw what I see, maybe a painting, maybe a sculpture, something. The lean muscles of her back, her arms and shoulders working quickly. The curving ripples of her spine, another facet of her femininity, her beauty. Her thong peeks over the belt of her jeans, a thin string of purple. I need to have the moment and so I sear what I see into a life long memory.

She kicks the boots away and they bounce noisily to the other side of the room. She wriggles out of her jeans, tight over her hips, waggling one way then the other and at last the jeans are free. She leans forward as she pushes the jeans down, smiling, laughing, as if she's teasing me. Her breasts puff slightly above her bra. She uses her feet to dance out of the jeans crumpled on the floor and kicks them away, deftly strips off her bra and throws herself down on the bed. I see her laughing face, her breasts now free, bouncing once and settling, they hold their shape as she lies on her back. How beautifully they lift when she abandons her arms over her head, fingers relaxed and curled. Again, her false submission drives my arousal.

Suddenly she remembers something and rolls quickly to her side. She's propped on one elbow, the other hand reaching into the bedside drawer and pulling out condoms. She flips one at me aiming for my face, another, another. I can't get out of my clothes quickly enough, my cock springing free at last. She sits up and rips a condom package open with her teeth, spitting it away. Quickly her hands are on me, her touch, her fingers on my cock, she smoothes the condom down my length.

She rolls back and again lets her arms fall loosely over her head. They are my invitation to have her, to take her, unrestrained.

Do me. Do me.

She has left her thong on for me to remove. As I climb onto the bed and lower myself to her she raises her legs, the dancer's beautiful legs in the air, her flat stomach. I pull her thong away, the tiny purple triangle of lace, away from her pussy, over her legs and feet, then off. Finally she is naked with me. We embrace

As I enter her, her face lights up again, as if surprised, her eyes brilliant and widening. This is unexpected, different. With other women sex is serious and grave. Their faces strain and grimace, and their expressions and moans sound as if their arousal is a painful thing, an extreme, exhausting effort.

But with Mireille, as I glide more deeply into her, it is different. Her mouth is open in a wide smile and her jaw drops in exhilaration at the sensations. It is as if she is on a thrill ride, her mouth opening more and more and more the deeper I go, ready to scream as we drop over the highest peak of the rollercoaster, as we accelerate wildly through swoops and turns. I am buried deeply inside her and we are in the momentary weightless excitement of it. As I begin to move over her she squeals, laughs with every thrust. It is as if every blast of her growing arousal is something new, something amazing that her body is discovering for the first time. It is as if her body has never yet taken her to ecstasy, as if this new delight is something her body is giving to her as a present.

And when she comes, it is with laughter again as if her body itself has become the ride. Her orgasm is apart from her, something she needs to hold on to for dear life, something that could carry her away. She is laughing at herself, laughing at the way her body has her now, laughing at how her limbs jerks uncontrollably, laughing as her orgasm throws her spasming body around with a mind of its own.

Don't pull out! Don't pull out!

she says. I feel the tiny, pillowy pulses at the tip of my cock as she comes, small kisses around my cock, while the tremors jolt her violently. Now it is I who am hanging on for dear life. Six rhythmic clenches shake her. Her eyes, open and intense are riveted to mine, as if she wants me alongside her as she comes, six jolts, a pause, another and a longer pause. And then one more, as if her body is having its last laugh, her eyes widening in the surprise.

"Whew! Rollo!", she says grinning when it is over. I hold her close, breathing hard. I kiss her fiercely and as I too start to come down, as we start to relax together, I know for sure that in a while she will want to get back on the rollercoaster and ride again.