Lulled by the relaxing atmosphere, I drift off into the zone of not quite slumber but not quite consciousness. A delicious dream starts to slowly take shape.

I half hear a male voice murmuring, "I'll take over, thanks."

A door quietly shuts, but the pressure on my back continues and, in fact, deepens.

"Beth," Chris says softly, "don't be alarmed, it's just me."

His hands knead my lower back muscles. I am wearing nothing but the towel that drapes over my hind regions and legs, and I force myself to wake up.

"It's OK. Sssssh," he says as he continues to ma.s.sage my back. "I know how to do this, so you're in safe hands."

My consternation is borne mostly of shyness, but I tell myself there's no reason to be shy in front of this man, whom I have seen naked. Besides, I agreed to this arrangement. It only makes sense that he starts touching me intimately at one point or another.

Still, the first time is always a rush a new experience, a new milestone on my sensual chalkboard.

His hands are a marvel, never too hard, never too soft at certain places eliciting a release of exquisite pleasure from my flesh that travels up to my brain, which in turn stimulates and releases more endorphins. He raises the towel to reveal the backs of my legs, and these he kneads with the precision of one who has been trained to do this.

I'm lost in the bliss of it all, and I find myself responding especially since I know who my ma.s.seuse is.

"Do you like it?" he whispers.

"Yes."

"I took a course in Bali."

Bali! Is there no end of surprises to this man?

After a while, he says, "Turn around."

He wants me to turn around? Naked?

This is the part where I get to grit my teeth and steel myself to cross another threshold.

"No penetration, remember," he says. "You don't have to worry."

Come on, Beth. You're a consenting adult. Don't be a prude.

With determination, I rotate my body so that I'm now on my back and facing the ceiling. And him. His appreciative eyes take in my revealed b.r.e.a.s.t.s and areolas, so pink and inviting to the touch. My s.e.x is still covered with the tangled mess of my towel, and my legs are bare.

He breathes sharply. "Oh G.o.d, Beth, you are so beautiful."

A deep flush spreads throughout my skin, tingling me with warmth.

He's naked, and his c.o.c.k is extremely erect below his pubic bush. His pupils are dilated and his nostrils flare as he breathes. I can tell that he's very, very aroused, and I'm excited as well, and filled with a deep yearning to be touched by this spectacular human specimen.

He doesn't touch me, but instead turns to a rack containing bottles with spigots beside my ma.s.sage bed. He taps a spigot and out comes dollops of generous cream.

"Lie still," he says as he lathers the cream onto my chest, the area just above my b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

His touch is heavenly, and the soft crinkling of the cream against my skin suggests there is foam in it. He rubs the cream into my flesh, and studiously avoids my b.r.e.a.s.t.s as he moves down to the soft curve of my belly.

I arch my back at the pleasure of it.

"Close your eyes," he says.

"Why?"

"I want to blindfold you. Do I have your permission?"

Blindfold? A momentary alarm seizes me. Why does he want to blindfold me? With a blindfold, I'm helpless. Blindfolds are reserved for people into kinky s.e.x and bondage at least, that is what I've been led to believe.

The sudden fear rises in me like bile.

"Beth, you have to trust me. This will be nice. Please. You're going to love this."

He looks so earnest and commanding that I relent. I weakly nod. Sometime down the line, I'll have to surrender.

He retrieves a black blindfold from a drawer on the rack. He's had this all planned out, I'm certain. He slips it around my head and presses it onto my eyes. It becomes a constrictive band around my temples. All at once, everything becomes black. I suppress the surge of panic that bolts to my throat. Stop it, Beth, you consented to this, remember?

"I'm not going to hurt you," he says gently. "Why ever would you think that?"

The darkness closes in around me and my breathing stills. In my ears, I can hear the embryonic thudding of my heartbeat. Even the sounds in the room have become muted. Somewhere within the background music of birdsong and flute, leaves rustle. I can almost imagine myself in a primary jungle. Everything around me is tinged with the corona of antic.i.p.ation.

His touch when it comes is firm upon my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I gasp. Both his hands grope at my mounds, cupping them, testing them for weight and tensile strength. His fingers brush against my nipples, and I feel them growing taut.

"You have beautiful, beautiful t.i.ts," he says in a smoky voice that lulls me.

A wetness settles upon my right nipple, and a tongue flickers out and licks it. Ohhhhhhh. I realize he has closed his mouth around it, and he sucks and licks it now in slow, lazy circles. His hands continue to knead my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, pushing and squeezing them together so that my nipples face upwards. His tongue swirls around my areola and worries my nipple like a swollen teat. The pleasure is intense.

Blood rushes to my face, and I feel a moistness trickling down my s.e.x. I am extremely aroused. p.r.i.c.kly sweat starts to gather on my back.

He transfers his mouth to my left nipple and repeats the sucking and licking. His hands trail down my abdomen . . . down, down to my pubic region, where they push away the towel my last refuge of modesty.

I am bared to him.

Naked to the soul.

With his mouth still fastened on my nipple, one of his hands brushes my pubic hair and dives down to my throbbing s.e.x. I give a little cry. His touch is fire on my already inflamed c.l.i.t.

"Beth, Beth, Beth," he murmurs. "It's OK. Stay still."

But how can I? It's exquisite all those sensations he evokes within me. I writhe and arch my back.

His fingers curl around my c.l.i.t, parting my thighs and the wedges of my s.e.x. I'm extremely wet down there, and he dips into this wetness and smears it all around the folds and contours of my s.e.x. His finger latches onto the hood of my c.l.i.t. I contort my body with the wonderful agony of it.

He applies an unrelenting pressure as he ma.s.sages my c.l.i.t. My hands dive to cover it so intense is the erotic pleasure but he catches my wrists with his other hand and holds them together and away from my stimulated zones. He's very strong.

"Don't think about it," he says, "just lie back and enjoy it."

His flickering of my poor, brutalized hood accelerates. I cry out piteously moans that ring out and echo in the cavern of my ears. My pleasure mounts, and I float along on an ascending crest, like a gathering wave.

I writhe even more. It's as though my body is a soaking whip of ecstasy.

Something clever, deft and wet which can only be his tongue descends onto my c.l.i.t. One scorching lick, and it's all I can do to trip into a blinding and deafening explosion of all my senses and consciousness.

Ohhhhhhh! For the sweet love of G.o.d!

My mind is a whirlwind of color and non-color, of sound and no sound, of everything tangible and intangible, and I ride and ride this ecstatic rainbow wave until it becomes a gargantuan tsunami, and I scream and scream until I have no voice left. It seems relentless and never-ending. Every time I think I'm about to ebb, another wave hits me and I'm buoyed by it even further. My body shudders and contorts and I grip the sides of the ma.s.sage bed as though I'm a lone survivor clinging to a life raft.

So this is what it's like.

It's heaven. And pure bliss.

Bliss on tap.

If only I had known it was going to be like this, I would have done it sooner.

The o.r.g.a.s.m takes me deep into the darkness, and I shudder and quake until it subsides. The fibers of my muscles b.u.t.terfly in its aftermath, and then still into a satisfied relaxation. The tsunami crashes onto sh.o.r.e.

I'm left delirious and basking in its afterglow.

I feel his lips against my mouth and his hand between my legs. I taste my own sourish wetness on him.

"It'll be even better when I finally take you," he says. "But not this week. I promised and I keep my promises. Unless you want me to."

I catch his hopeful antic.i.p.ation in my velvety darkness.

"I'm not ready," I say weakly.

"I understand." He tries to mask the disappointment in his voice.

CHRIS.

The next day is a Sat.u.r.day and I plan a whole day out for the two of us. I skirted briefly with impressing her such as with a fanciful dinner at a restaurant you have to book months ahead to get into. But then I figure that's not really the way I should go about it.

I should make myself out to be the most down-to-earth guy possible. Her type of guy.

Why the f.u.c.k am I trying to impress her anyway? That's the question I should be asking myself. It's like being back at high school, and even then, I didn't have to try too hard.

Except for Selena. I tried really hard for Selena.

Beth is Selena all over again. They even have the same coloring. A shared aura that awakes within me the desire to impress.

"Let's go to the pier," I announce.

"Navy Pier"

"Yeah. Candy floss, kiddy museums, barking seals, IMAX. What's there not to like?"

We go to Navy Pier and hire a speedboat to go out into the lake. Beth sits at the bottom, a sunhat shielding her eyes. The smell of fresh water stings our nostrils and our skin is chafed by the wind. With her long tresses streaming behind her, she's a glorious sight that can melt the hardest of hearts.

I grip the side of the boat. What the h.e.l.l is the matter with me?

We buy popcorn at a kiosk and take a river walk to watch the leisurely boats go by. I haven't been on a real 'date' for the longest time. My trysts have mostly consisted of dinner and clubbing, followed by s.e.x. I must admit that being with someone else even without the promise of s.e.x at the tail end is sorta . . . well, nice.

We are finishing a nice seafood and steak lunch at Smith and Wollensky's by State when my cellphone beeps.

s.h.i.t.

That's a number I never want to see flashing in such an urgent manner.

"Sorry, I've got to take this," I tell Beth.

She looks concerned. "Is there anything I can do?"

"No. Be right back."

I walk outside to the patio. The anxiety starts to gnaw at me as I press the 'Answer' b.u.t.ton.

"Yes?" I say tersely.

The voice on the other end briefs me on what I need to know. My heart sinks.

"OK, I'll be there in thirty minutes," I promise.

"So how long has she been ill?" Beth asks as I step on the gas. I'm doing more than fifty on a crowded street on my Lamborghini. I have to stop for traffic lights at each block, but the moment they turn green, I rev my engine into a high-pitched whine and blast down the block, only to be stopped by another traffic light.

"You got your seatbelt on?" I dart a glance at Beth, who is clinging to the armrests, her knuckles white. Otherwise, she is perfectly calm.

"If you want to go faster, I'm OK with that."

Seriously? I grin despite myself. I'm reminded of the incident with Lisa. Dependable Beth so new in the job and already displaying the outward stolidity of a much more experienced employee.

"How long as she been ill?" Beth repeats.

"Over fifteen years."

"It came on without warning?"