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“Really? I thought a lot about you, too.”
“You know, I think we have a lot in common,” he went on.
“Really?”
“Loners. Like our quiet and solitude. And then there’s that rich fantasy life.” He snickered a little and I found myself blushing.
“All true…” I hesitated a moment not knowing what to say, “but, um, what exactly are you getting at?”
We sat at opposite ends of my couch and I watched him pour two glasses of wine. He handed me one.
“I was just thinking back. You said you’re tired of being the good girl, and I think you are.”
“Well yes,” I fingered the glass nervously. I couldn’t seem to stop myself from blushing.
“Just speculating here…wondering if maybe your fantasies are so ‘out there’ that you’re afraid of what you might do.” He paused to let me comment, but I couldn’t think of a thing to say. “I get that you’re scared shitless. Every time you get close to something that really turns you on, you get scared and run.”
“My, you do go right for the heart of things…”
“Am I wrong?”
I shook my head. “No, you’re not wrong at all.”
“You said you weren’t the woman in your fantasies. But I think you are. If you’ll excuse the term, because I really mean it as a compliment, I think there’s a naughty little slut inside you just begging to get out.”
I felt like I was burning up inside – didn’t know what to make of a man who would be so blunt with a woman he hardly knew. His appraisal wasn’t that far from the truth, but I could hardly admit that to myself let alone him.
“So have I gone too far?”
Yes, he’d gone too far, but it had been so long since I’d had a man pay this kind of attention to me. Oh, who was I kidding. I’d never had a personal conversation like this with any man. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to stop, and yet, I was so nervous that I couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“Sorry, I’ve unnerved you, haven’t I? Didn’t mean to, really. Just wanted you to know that I don’t have any judgments about sex, or anything else for that matter. You don’t have to be afraid with me.”
“Thanks.” Whatever was happening between us, I couldn’t look him in the eye. I grinned bashfully, then took a sip of wine and stared toward the kitchen. “How about we talk about you for a while?” I finally said when I looked back.
He combed his hair back with his hand and chuckled. “Okay, I suppose that’s fair.”
I fiddled with my wine glass and practically spilled its contents.
“Am I making you that nervous?”
“Please don’t take it personally. I’ve always been this way with men.”
“So what do you want to know about me?”
“I don’t know, whatever you want to tell me, I guess.”
“Well for starters, I’m an artist—suppose you can guess that from my apartment. I did carpentry for a while before the art started to pay off. When money gets tight I do freelance graphic design. Not my favorite. Thankfully, I haven’t had to do that since I got a grant for a big installation at the museum a few years back. Since then, it seems like I’ve been doing nothing but work—not that I haven’t enjoyed it. I just don’t get much time to play around.”
“Play around?”
“I used to be in the club scene, lots of girlfriends, drinking, out late partying, drugs, sort of thing people expect from artistic types—which is really a bad stereotype. Thought it was good for my muse. After a while, I wasn’t doing any art at all.”
“Sounds a little dangerous to me.”
“It was sometimes. That’s why I had to clean up my act.” He laughed. “Freedom. That was what I was looking for. No strings. No rules. I was the proverbial bad boy doing whatever struck my fancy. But that life lost its luster. When my darker urges began to posses me, I spiraled into depression. Not pretty.”
“What made you stop?”
