It Happened on Maple Street

Our shoes fell off. He undid my jeans and tugged at them until they were off, and I undid his pants, pulling them down, too.

I was wet down there. Just like I’d been when he’d talked to me on the phone that night.

Tim lay down on top of me, taking my mouth with his as his naked body came into full contact with mine and I was completely on fire.

I could feel his penis nudging at my womanhood, and I lifted my hips to meet him, to press against him. In some faraway foggy place, I knew that this was where it was going to hurt and I just plain didn’t care. I loved him so much. And I felt right, completely right and honest and true for the first time in my life.

I wasn’t listening to the words of all those who guided me. Or to books or teachings or anything earthly. I was listening to my heart. Finally. And it had led me where it knew I needed to be all along.

Tim’s leg nudged mine, spreading my legs, and I opened to him, welcoming him in. I felt the head of him at my opening just as I had thirty years before. We were on Maple Street. In the downstairs bed again.

Only this time he didn’t stop. He nudged gently and that was when I left all sense of self. I was floating in an inexplicable space. Tim was there, sliding inside me. Without effort. My body knew him, recognized him. Greeted him with a moist warmth that guided him home.

There was no pain. No stretching. He fit perfectly. And I knew. My body had been made for him.

Only him.

He pulled back and slid in again, and with each thrust he filled me more, fit me better.

I’d never imagined anything so incredible. Tension was building inside me, but there was no threat. No defense. Just a welcoming of what his occupation would bring.

Belief was suspended. I didn’t have to work that hard. Didn’t have the option of disbelief. I rode with him, having no idea of what would happen next. Each moment was all there was. And each moment was perfect.

Until the most perfect moment of all. My body was reaching. Toward Tim. And toward a pinnacle it had never reached before. I heard my voice as I cried out and tumbled from one world to the next, pulsating around Tim just seconds before he groaned, and groaned again, emptying himself into me.

As I came back to a sense of where I was, I didn’t return to who I’d been. Tim and I . . . we were complete now.

And I was the woman I’d been meant to be.

We untangled, and still there was no awkwardness.

“Okay, Barney,” I said, filled with a new confidence, a boldness I’d lost somewhere along the way, “that one I owed you, the next one you will have to earn.”

Before he touched me again—and he would touch me again, I was absolutely certain of that fact—he was going to have to promise me some kind of future.

And before that, I had to tell him what he’d be signing on for. Because I didn’t kid myself. I knew that all of our encounters wouldn’t be as perfect as the one we’d just had.

I had issues. Times when just the feel of a man’s hand on my shoulder flipped me out. A form of post-traumatic stress disorder, I’d been told.

I was claustrophobic and had insomnia more often than not. I was high maintenance. And he had some tough choices to make.

Twenty-Five

TIM WENT TO WORK, I WENT TO SIGN BOOKS, AND THE WORLD rejoined our lives. I would be forever thankful for those magical moments in my hotel room, but by the time Tim picked me up that afternoon, life had intruded. I’d had a call from Chris on my cell phone.

He wanted me to have my stuff out of the house by the end of the weekend. And he was going to start charging me rent for the office space starting Monday. I wasn’t sure he could do that. But I wasn’t sure he couldn’t, either.

And the reality hit that my life was in the Southwest. Tim’s was in Ohio. I couldn’t move that far from my mother. I couldn’t tolerate cold and months of gray. And I was going to be strapped for cash for the time it took me to rebuild my life. He couldn’t leave a twenty-year career. He owned a home.

We’d come back to his room to have our talk. He was on a business call, and I was dreading the upcoming conversation. My stomach had returned to one huge knot.

I heard the words Tim was saying to his associate, and I stood. I needed to walk. Or take a drive. There was no place to go.

What if Tim didn’t understand? What if he judged me? What if James had been right and what had happened had somehow been my fault?

I hadn’t told him no.

What if I’d just reunited with Tim, finally owning his heart, giving him my whole heart, only to lose him again?