Thrill
Muscles aching from a long day turning a platter on her lathe, spinning her blocks of wood while she shaped them with a variety of gouges and chisels, Robyn sat limply at the kitchen table eating cereal, too tired to throw anything else together. Low, dark clouds made it feel much later than it was, and listening to the rain, she wanted nothing more than to crawl up to her loft and into bed.
The doorbell prompted no response from anyone else in the house, so she reluctantly roused herself to open the door to the chilly evening. Her body flashed hot and excited with false recognition. The figure standing on the porch transported her back to before Barb had moved in, back to when Barb had rung the doorbell, to a time when Barb couldn’t shut the door fast enough to get her hands on her.
Her body remembered this even though her brain quickly provided that Kristine’s friend from the barn, not Barb, stood dripping wet on the porch. Analytically, there wasn’t much this woman and her ex had in common. She puzzled over what had given her body the temporary flashback. The clothes she wore, she realized. Back when she and Barb were dating, Barb would arrive in a skirt suit. Once she’d moved in, she usually changed before finding Robyn, if she sought her out at all.
“You have another horse that needs feeding?” she asked, coming to her senses.
A series of emotions—recognition, surprise and confusion—passed over the woman’s face. “No. I’m looking for Jen?” She bent to pick up a large case she’d set on the porch.
“Ah.” Robyn stepped back, making room for the visitor to enter. “Up the stairs and straight back to the studio. She’s already practicing. Must be why she didn’t hear the door.”
Grace took a few steps toward the stairs but turned before she took the first one. “Still riding?”
“Yep.” She turned to shut the door, steadying herself. Even after she’d turned the lock, Grace stood there as if waiting for her to say more, but her heart pounded too much for her to think clearly.
The guest finally climbed the stairs, leaving Robyn by herself again. She returned to the kitchen, telling herself that it was the threat of soggy cereal that propelled her past the staircase when in reality she needed to sit, her head still spinning from the visceral memory of Barb’s early attentions. How long had it been since anything had sent a zing like that through her body, she wondered. Her thumb instinctively traveled to her naked ring finger as if the surge of desire was something to feel guilty about.
She had spent so many years tamping down her desire for Barb that it took little to flood her system, and she sat there feeling her body reawaken. Suddenly ravenous and her cereal finished, she searched for something else in the kitchen. She scanned the contents of the refrigerator and cupboards in vain, wondering when she had let even her staples get so low. She’d have to run to the co-op.