then as I lay gasping in the throes of passion, he whispered in my ear.
“There's something I want to show you,” he said hoarsely, clearly as overcome with desire as he made me feel. I should have been afraid ofhim then, I should have sensed something wrong about him right at the beginning, in Paris, but it was too late to remember any of that now. He owned me as he held me close to him, my body one with his, as he rolled me slowly over and over and over. And the next moment, as we seemed to catapult into the air, all the air in my lungs was sucked out of me, as we somersaulted in midair, still coupled, did a neat little pirouette of sorts, and wound up artfully, almost gracefully, with me lying on top of him, on the floor. I couldn't believe he'd done it, had no idea how he had managed it, and not hurt me or himself. He was laughing and I was smiling, as he explained it to me. “It's called a double flip, Steph … it's my specialty…. Do you like it?”
“I love it.” I didn't even mind the fact that somewhere mid-maneuver, his castaway little leopard G-string had somehow caught on my left ear.
“I managed a triple once … but I didn't want to hurt you. I thought we should start slow at the beginning … and work up to a triple … even a quadruple…. It adds something very special to a beautiful moment between two people, don't you think?”
“I do.” I was still more than a little breathless, and amazed we hadn't hurt each other. But he was unharmed and unruffled as he lifted megently back onto the bed, and tried it again. We actually achieved a triple, sometime early that afternoon. We never made it to the exhibit of Old Masters at the Met, but by then I didn't care. I was living in Nirvana somewhere, suspended in a world of his creation, my body the instrument he played like a Stradivarius, or something very delicate and precious. And as we sank into the bathtub together afterward, all I could do was close my eyes and dream. I was so pleasantly exhausted, so sated and well loved, that I didn't hear the phone ring, and when I did, I didn't care.
“Steph … sweetheart …” he whispered, as I drifted slowly to earth again, and looked at him. “You should answer the phone. It might be the kids.”
“What kids?”
“Yours.”
I couldn't have remembered their names at that point if he asked me, but I knew I should answer the phone. But he had cast a spell on me so powerful, he was all I could think of. Him, the triple flip.
“Hi, there.” A familiar voice sounded buoyant, and hearing him so energetic and alive, I winced. I looked straight at Peter in the tub across from me, and wondered how he did it. If it was a recording of his voice, the timing was very good. He was playing the phone game with me, but thistime I knew I would catch him at his own game. I had figured out that morning that the way he did it was by having such an ordinary conversation with me that my answers would be entirely predictable. And I would never realize it was a recording, and not a real person on the phone, talking to me.
“Hello, Peter.” I played the game with a wink and a broad grin.
“How are you, Steph?”
“Pretty sexy,” was my answer, instead of “fine.”
“What does that mean?” he asked. Another standard response to anything I might have said.
“I'm just lying here in the bathtub. We've been making love all afternoon.” There was a moment's pause, which made me smile. He had obviously left a space in the recording, which was clever of him.
“He's bionic, Steph. He's not real. He's entirely man-made, synthetic from head to toe, and he doesn't mean a thing he says. And whatever he does, it's strictly a mechanical performance.” From my experience, that made him fairly typical of his breed. Nothing unusual about that, or about what Peter was saying to me.
“We just did a triple flip.” Try producing a standard response to that. The conversation wasslipping rapidly away from what Peter might
“There's something I want to show you,” he said hoarsely, clearly as overcome with desire as he made me feel. I should have been afraid ofhim then, I should have sensed something wrong about him right at the beginning, in Paris, but it was too late to remember any of that now. He owned me as he held me close to him, my body one with his, as he rolled me slowly over and over and over. And the next moment, as we seemed to catapult into the air, all the air in my lungs was sucked out of me, as we somersaulted in midair, still coupled, did a neat little pirouette of sorts, and wound up artfully, almost gracefully, with me lying on top of him, on the floor. I couldn't believe he'd done it, had no idea how he had managed it, and not hurt me or himself. He was laughing and I was smiling, as he explained it to me. “It's called a double flip, Steph … it's my specialty…. Do you like it?”
“I love it.” I didn't even mind the fact that somewhere mid-maneuver, his castaway little leopard G-string had somehow caught on my left ear.
“I managed a triple once … but I didn't want to hurt you. I thought we should start slow at the beginning … and work up to a triple … even a quadruple…. It adds something very special to a beautiful moment between two people, don't you think?”
“I do.” I was still more than a little breathless, and amazed we hadn't hurt each other. But he was unharmed and unruffled as he lifted megently back onto the bed, and tried it again. We actually achieved a triple, sometime early that afternoon. We never made it to the exhibit of Old Masters at the Met, but by then I didn't care. I was living in Nirvana somewhere, suspended in a world of his creation, my body the instrument he played like a Stradivarius, or something very delicate and precious. And as we sank into the bathtub together afterward, all I could do was close my eyes and dream. I was so pleasantly exhausted, so sated and well loved, that I didn't hear the phone ring, and when I did, I didn't care.
“Steph … sweetheart …” he whispered, as I drifted slowly to earth again, and looked at him. “You should answer the phone. It might be the kids.”
“What kids?”
“Yours.”
I couldn't have remembered their names at that point if he asked me, but I knew I should answer the phone. But he had cast a spell on me so powerful, he was all I could think of. Him, the triple flip.
“Hi, there.” A familiar voice sounded buoyant, and hearing him so energetic and alive, I winced. I looked straight at Peter in the tub across from me, and wondered how he did it. If it was a recording of his voice, the timing was very good. He was playing the phone game with me, but thistime I knew I would catch him at his own game. I had figured out that morning that the way he did it was by having such an ordinary conversation with me that my answers would be entirely predictable. And I would never realize it was a recording, and not a real person on the phone, talking to me.
“Hello, Peter.” I played the game with a wink and a broad grin.
“How are you, Steph?”
“Pretty sexy,” was my answer, instead of “fine.”
“What does that mean?” he asked. Another standard response to anything I might have said.
“I'm just lying here in the bathtub. We've been making love all afternoon.” There was a moment's pause, which made me smile. He had obviously left a space in the recording, which was clever of him.
“He's bionic, Steph. He's not real. He's entirely man-made, synthetic from head to toe, and he doesn't mean a thing he says. And whatever he does, it's strictly a mechanical performance.” From my experience, that made him fairly typical of his breed. Nothing unusual about that, or about what Peter was saying to me.
“We just did a triple flip.” Try producing a standard response to that. The conversation wasslipping rapidly away from what Peter might
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