With Your Eyes

“You’re undressing me with your eyes again,” she said and sat opposite him in the overstuffed chair.

He smiled faintly and removed his eyes from the place where they’d been stuck ever since she entered the room. He glanced down at his Sunday Times.

“I can tell that look. Every woman can.”

She reached over and pulled down his paper. “Look at me,” she said.

He folded his hands and did as he was told.

“That’s a different look right now,” she said. “Before, when I came in the room your eyes were flashing. Now they are filled with layers of perplexity and something else, amusement, perhaps.”

He let one hand drift out to his side, palm up, and shrugged his shoulder.

“Ah, the arrogance of men,” she said, “searching, searching.” She shifted forward in the chair and arched her spine. She placed her hand on her chest, fingers encircling her breast and stretched the tissue of her blouse against it so that every detail reflected to the surface, the slant from her upper ribs, the arc of the underside, even the areola and nipple pressed into view.

“Is this what you want?” she said.

No matter how hard he tried he could not suppress a smile.

“Men are so predictable. You know this breast. You’ve kissed it, licked it, photographed it, watched it drift over you in bed. There is nothing new about it yet you simply cannot resist.”

She reached inside her blouse and brought it out for three seconds then nestled it back in its home. His lips parted unselfconsciously.

“Show a man a nipple,” she said, “and he turns to silt.”

He reached for his espresso, took a long drink, wiped his lips and was about to reach for his paper when she took it from him and sat next to him.

“Are you seducing me?” he asked.

She linked her arm in his and leaned into him. “Just curious,” she said.

He allowed himself a slight chuckle.

“You’ve seen hundreds, maybe thousands of breasts. Probably touched a great many. You’ve watched them grow on daughters and young ladies. Yet you never lose your fascination.”

He made a gesture to speak but she interrupted him. “Nor do I want you to,” she said, lifting one finger.

She put her head on his shoulder.

“I watched you undress Clarisse at the office party the other night... ”

“Aww, come o. . “

“... with your eyes. And don’t deny it. It will ruin this conversation if you lie. Besides, I liked, maybe even loved, watching you do it.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Absolutely serious. It was a turn on. Think about it. The fact that you were examining her body, familiarizing your self with her narrow waist, the round hips, the tilt of her breasts... it’s a cut to the core.”

“What core?”

She took his mug from his hands and finished the remaining electric contents.

“We walk in a lie all the time. You wanted to fuck Clarisse but you were not allowed. Partly that arouses even more desire on your part but the social morays deny you that right. The arc of marriage and family denies you that right. That doesn‘t mean you don’t feel it. The excitement is in how you process your desires in the tight constriction of social graces. That makes for tension of the most delicious kind and that is the kind that is very exciting.”

“You’re jealous.”

“Actually, yes. But, do I want you not to undress Clarisse? No way. It just made me hold on to you more closely. We were dancing, remember? That moment was the one I pushed your hand down on my ass and forced my thigh between your legs. You see, we both got a thrill out of it.”

She snuggled tighter into him, crossing her leg over his lap.

“I think you don’t understand women very well.”

“Probably not. Now that you mention it, I’m sure I don’t.”

“You’ve had your first lesson. Now let’s see if we can understand men a little better.”

“Uh oh.”

“Now about this breast business, tell me why you can never get enough.”

A troubled look came to his face. It took him a while to come up with, “I’m wired that way.”

“So you’re giving me that wolf-pack mentality jazz. Wolves in men’s clothings. Survival of the species. That shit. Impregnate the universe so that little children can carry on the family traits.”

He remained silent.

“Don’t pout. Just go deeper.”

He got up and went to the kitchen. She followed. He poured another cup. She hugged him, grinding softly against him from behind. He turned and leaned against the counter.

“Part of it is a... quiet flirtation.”

“That would be your imagination working. Plus a little self-serving arrogance on your part. You presume the woman is flirting.”

“No, not at all. Take the way Clarisse was dressed.”

“You liked that?”

“What’s not to like? Face it. Her neckline dropped dangerously low then crossed under her belt like she was wearing a Roman Toga. But the material was so silky that it clinged to her skin...

He stopped, realizing how this was sounding.

She laughed out loud. “Go on. Go on. This is exactly what I’m looking for.”

“It’s going to make you mad.”

“I promise.”

He shot her a doubtful look, shrugged and continued.

“Well, it clung to her body everywhere, breasts, waist, hips. . I mean. . how do you ignore that?”

“You didn’t.”

“I mean she intended not to be ignored. Not only that, it was intended to come dangerously close to the line which means it was in the plans, consciously or unconsciously, to take advantage of what she knew would be a lustful audience, given the booze and festivity of the hour.”

“Oh, that’s classic! Typical man response. She asked for it? Isn’t that what rapists say?”

He turned from her and dropped his cup noisily to the granite countertop. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

“Jesus!” she said. “Just shake it off. We’re not in Sunday School. Dig a little deeper. Come on.”

He looked at her with a look of a bird in a trap, wariness mixed with a dilated pupil. I’m fucked, he thought. May as well continue.

He thought for a moment. She stood by, her eyes fixed on him, watching every emotion spilling forth.

“In every lie there is always a little truth,” he said.

She cocked her head in curious anticipation.

“I mean, down deep Clarisse wanted men to look at her, wanted their lustful eyes, wanted to feel the feel of a man undressing her, especially in the middle of a dance floor where no one has the balls to do it.”

“That’s what you think?”

“That’s what I think. She would never admit it because that plays into that date-rape game but it is there, down deep, I can assure you.”

“You’re going to be in trouble with woman’s lib.”

“I already am. But there is a distinction. I think it is not so much seduction as it is a wish to be wanted.”

“Explain.”

“Clarisse did not want to be attacked she just wanted the thrill of someone wanting to attack her.”

She was silent.

“Think of yourself. Don’t you want the desires of other men focused on you?”

“No,” she said. Then, “well.” Then, “Sometimes... May-be.”

“Point taken.”

She stepped away from him and launched herself up to the counter where she sat, facing him, hands clasped between her legs, eyes refocused on his.

“I told you I could be jealous of you. Are you jealous of me?

“No.”

“No?”

“No. I’m not.”

She was astonished. “Why not?”

“We are married. We had a long courtship. The marriage is stable. I don’t have anything to worry about.”

She jumped down from the counter and started pacing. “That’s arrogance,” she said. “Think about it. You think you are so perfect in your attractiveness that I would never be tempted to stray. It’s also stupidity. You think I don’t have the same desires you do. You think that the will to wander, to experiment, to jump to something new is only a male thing?”

“I’m puzzled.”

“What if, at that same party, I sidled up to your law partner, Jake, and started rubbing against him? Would you be jealous?”

He paused, then quickly said, “No, I wouldn’t.”

She looked out of the corner of her eye as she kept pacing. “What if I hugged him, wrapped one leg around him. What then?”

He was not so quick to answer this time. He considered. “Well, I still trust you are true to me and that you must have a good reason to be doing this, so, I guess no, I wouldn’t.”

“I think you’re lying.”

“I don’t think... no, I’m not lying.”

“Okay big boy. Suppose I took him by the hand and led him upstairs right in front of you. What then?”

He couldn’t answer.

She stopped, victorious. “You see,” she almost shouted, “You have your limits of trust.”

He had forgotten his coffee while it got cold. He refreshed it.

“Let me tell you something,” she said. “Perhaps you remember the vacation we took to Maine. As we were checking in the hotel a Navy Officer in his sparkling uniform passed me by. He only glanced at me but I was stricken with desire.”

“All day I thought about him. I was so weak I couldn’t walk at times. And I knew that if he were to want me, even if it were just for one hour, I would do anything for him. I would give up everything for him: you, our past, the future we had planned. All of it.”

“You and I made love that afternoon. It was strangely wonderful. But I can tell you that never, at any time, did he leave my mind. All night I could hardly sleep and I realized when I woke the next morning that he was gone. I was devastated but also relieved. The curious thing was, it didn’t interfere with my feelings for you at all. In some way it made them stronger, more complex, and a little sad.”

As she had been speaking she strolled back into the living room, grazing her fingers along chair backs, tabletops. She swayed, she gestured, she flopped in a chair. He followed as if in a trance, stunned by what he was hearing, not knowing whether to feel anger or pain or guilt or jealousy. Just knowing he was empty of all feeling.

She was in the soft chair, leaning to one side, draping her leg over the armrest. Her light skirt rose on her thighs like a blessing, traversing the spaces she made between her legs so that his vision was almost to the level of her sex but just not quite there. He noticed that the conversation, while it astonished his emotions it did not drive away his lust. His desire for her was ripping him apart.

Incredible to him was the mixture of emotional annihilation and switched-on lust. He wanted to fuck her, right now, sitting in her soft chair with her legs apart. It didn’t matter what she had said. Or maybe it did matter in another way, rousing him to want to possess her completely.

She caught his eye, hot on her body, and she smiled.

“I’m not going to leave you,” she said, sweetly. “You’re not going to leave me. But the possibility that one of us might leave makes love-making all the more intense.”

He had nothing to say. Though his mouth was slightly ajar.

“So I want you to touch Clarisse. I want you to feel her.” She was leaning forward now. “I want you to run you hand up and down that silky chemise of hers and I want you to take it off of her and to run your hands between her legs.” Her voice grew larger. “I want you to spread her on the bed and fuck her and fuck her hard but listen to me and listen very, very closely. Every single move you make on her comes to me.”

She got up and went to the foot of the stairs where she turned and beckoned to him. “You can have your Clarisse and I can have my Navy Officer and you will see that what comes from that will be well worth the trouble.”

Then she cocked her hip and looked at him with penetrating eyes. “Don’t you think that women might have a little of that wolf in them too?”

She turned to the stairs. He saw in her backside the backside of Clarisse and immediately moved in behind her. He watched her hips, Clarisse’s hips, move side to side as she ascended the stair as if seeing her for the first time. He placed his hands on them to capture that movement into his own body. He slipped his hands around between her legs and up her front side a little ways. She paused at the landing and swooned back into his arms which wrapped her completely from behind.

She freed herself and started up the stairs but his hands were all over her, stroking her arms, the curve of her spine, the saddle back of her waist, the wing of her pelvic bone, the way the hips flared then tapered into long thighs. He cupped her breasts from behind as they walked, half-stumbling down the upstairs hall, slamming against the bedroom door as they entered in. She was half naked by the time they stood in the bedroom, her blouse hanging delicately from one arm, her skirt half-way down her legs.

She turned abruptly and planted a sloppy kiss on him pushing her active mouth against him so hard that he was propelled backward long enough to lose ground in their hasty jaunt to the bed. But he overcame her and shoved her on the bed where for his watchful eye she caressed her own body, rubbing the little crease between the leg and the tummy, lifting her breasts. “Take me,” she whispered. “Please.”

He sat on the bed and watched her caressing herself until he was about to explode. What he saw was Clarisse, Clarisse showing her body for the first time. He was entranced by her bravado in the face of such newness between them. He was ignited by her willingness to give herself.

He undressed her, carefully, slowly, raising the tension to the breaking point. He knew he was the Naval Officer. He knew she was a highly sexual Clarisse.

He spread her legs. He commanded her to close her eyes. He spread her arms on the bed and stared at her. He made her wait. He put himself in her mouth. She lapped at him hungrily, taking him deep into her throat. She nibbled at him with her sharp teeth. She never did that before. He cried out and recoiled in painful pleasure but did not withdraw. She kept at it. He yelped but reflexly pushed further inside with an intensity that felt almost like anger. She began biting gently on him, opening her jaw between clenches so he could escape if he wished. He did not wish. The pain was great but the pleasure was greater. He was enlarging into the expanding realm of pleasure as if rising weightless into the clouds. He felt as if his penis had become three times larger, no, larger than even he himself, though it had not changed. So stimulated he could stand it no more, he turned to lie on top of her and enter her with such force she folded like a silk cloth catching a falling stone, arms and legs wrapped tightly around him, clinging, contracting, digging nails into butt and shoulders.

Clarissa was the one. She was the wife, the lover, the temptress, the unattainable hot woman across the dance floor who had offered herself to him. He could see her face in the face he kissed, could see her shoulders, the tight breasts, her thin midsection a fulcrum for the pumping of her pelvis against him.

They were on the bed by the window, the light from the open drifting around them like harmonious music you feel in your bones but cannot hear. The breeze lifted the curtain over them. In that rare moment, when stimulation surrounded by tranquility were both so great, they hardly recognized when orgasm had arrived until completely spent from the effort of it all. So it was for them, exhausted, still hanging onto the rhythms of love-making as if there might be one more drop of nectar to drink.

Spent. Exhausted. They lay on the bed half-sleeping in the wash of wind and rain that rejuvenating air offers the skin after exhilaration. They were content, jealous, afraid, and filled with satisfaction.

The wolf would rest. For a while.