(Click here to read Part 1.)
Sometimes you set out to make love, but you end up fucking.
Driving back to my place I took a big chance and made a friendly – but obscene – suggestion to a woman I had known for only a few hours. At the time I thought my intentions were good, but now I realize that she should have told me off, or smacked me good, or both. Maybe she let me get away with it because I was driving at the time. But I regret now, all these miles down the road, that I spoke to her like she was a whore.
I remember that she blushed, but that’s all I remember about the rest of the ride home, because my heart was pounding and my breath was short and I was sort of terrified about what was to come. It had taken most of my courage to make the play that I had made, and maybe Claudia was acting, but she hadn’t turned me down cold, hadn’t laughed at me. Still, I had used up most of my bravery, and now I had the feeling I imagine one gets before jumping out of an airplane: You have put yourself in this scary position, many have gone before, but the immediate future is hidden, there is real danger and no turning back.
When we got back to the house, her porno friends were there and everyone was deep in preparation to attend the awards show that evening. I was forced to meet everybody. I didn’t want to. It was three guys and I was jealous of all of them, though they were pleasant enough. Who was doing Claudia, I wondered. Probably all of them, simultaneously. She was easy and casual with them, just one of the boys. They knew her better than I did, and I was suddenly the outsider.
I hustled Claudia off to my room as soon as I could, but the spell was broken. We made out on the bed for a few minutes, of course, but it was rote, me staking my claim with mouth and hands and thighs. We didn’t know each other at all, and we made no real connection. I wondered if we ever would, or could. Eventually, all I had left to keep her there was the offer of a private place to get herself ready, and to make good on the offer I had to leave her alone.
I had a gig that night, but her event was scheduled to start hours before mine, so I hung out with the guys downstairs while Claudia Skye made herself even more desirable than she had been in her t-shirt, just that morning. It turned out none of them were doing her, and none of them much cared one way or the other. They were technical types, an editor, a cameraman and a hanger-on who must have done something, but I never found out what. None of them, including Claudia, were nominated for an award. I made conversation with them, though I wanted to dislike them because they routinely filmed Claudia – my Claudia – doing nasty things, and because it was their efforts that enabled the industry that paid her to do nasty things for the camera. I wanted to dislike them, but they were just a bunch of guys. They had some technical skills and they were using them to earn a living. You don’t set out to edit porno movies. I’m sure they would rather have been working on “The Godfather.” Hell, I was doing the same thing, playing Top 40 in bars, selling out.
I was miserable. In less than a day with Claudia, I had been distant and cool, friendly and helpful, bold and sexual, and now lovestruck and obsessed. I didn’t want her to be a porn star anymore. I wanted to run upstairs, drag her out of the shower and profess my love. Luckily, she appeared on the staircase before I could get that together.
Claudia was a natural, unconventional beauty. I can’t describe the effect she had achieved, but I vaguely recall that the homemade gown was off the shoulder there, slit way up the side here, plunging way the heck down there and completely backless. She was all accessorized and coordinated, with dangly earrings, matching choker, high-heeled sandals. The impossibly luxurious blonde hair was in some kind of sophisticated upsweep, accentuating her long neck. She hadn’t tried to hide her flat chest, or push it up or in or out. I loved that about her, and the fact that she was unconcerned that in her heels she’d be taller than many men.
When it was time for them to go I walked with her to the door, not wanting her to leave. At the last possible second, with the boys already out to the street and getting in the car, she turned and gave me that quizzical smile. I leaned in and she kissed me, not a goodbye kiss.
“See you tonight?” I couldn’t tell if it was a question, but yeah, I’d see her tonight, name the time and place. When she turned to go, carrying her wrap because it was a warm evening, the last thing I saw was the wash of freckles across her shoulder blades.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
I was dreaming of Claudia Skye. Her long legs, her high cheekbones, the storm of blonde hair on the pillow. We were wrapping our arms around each other and pressing ourselves together all the way to our toes, and any slight movement of thigh or shoulder was sending electric shocks through us. We teased and tickled, stroked and tormented. We came together and did what we always do – we used each other. To satisfy urges, assuage needs. We owned each other for a few hours, and we tasted and touched every inch of new terrain that fell beneath us.
I rose early in the morning, and watched Claudia sleep. There had been a lot of screaming. I wondered if she was acting. I wondered how I measured up. In a lifetime I wouldn’t gain as much experience as Claudia already had. She had a lot to compare me with, and I wondered what my score would be. If she gave me a score, would she tell me? I thought about her job. I had barely been able to let her go to a party. How would I feel when she was going to a shoot? I looked at lovely Claudia, and I thought of these things, and I let my fingers brush, ever so lightly, a few of the freckles on her shoulder.
Then I went downstairs to make some coffee.
