“Oh—what?” he asked innocently, looking around. “You need a kitchen chair?”
“Christopher!” she scolded in a whisper.
He put the mistletoe back in a wooden sleigh and sauntered over to her, putting himself between her and any further progress through the shop. “Touchy subject?” he inquired.
“Not exactly. Well, yes, sort of. I mean, I don’t know. I’m just a little amazed at myself for what I did.”
“Any regrets?” he asked.
She shook her head slowly, looking up at him at such close range it would have taken only the smallest movement for them to be kissing again right here in Gustaf’s World of Christmas.
They chose his tree decorations after that—multicolored miniature lights, gold tinsel garland, some oversized gilded jingle bells and glass balls that appeared to have snow falling inside them when the light refracted off their transparent surface. They bought a tree stand and a fat red candle surrounded by holly, and a box of delicate ribbon candy, which he claimed he’d never seen before in his life and which totally fascinated him.
They hauled their booty to the truck and he asked, “Are you hungry?” It was 1:30 in the afternoon.
“Ravenous.”
He looked up and down the main street of Lindstrom, Minnesota, and said, “Let’s take a walk . . . see what we can find.”
They found the Rainbow Café, where coffee was served in thick white mugs, and napkins were stored in metal dispensers on the tables, and the locals were telling jokes over coffee at a long Formica bar.
She ordered a Denver sandwich and he opted for a hot beef, mounded with potatoes and gravy, of course.
Afterward, they found a tree lot next to a bank building and bought two fragrant green Norway pines, which they tied on the top of the Explorer before heading back to Anoka.
They rode without talking until well after the truck got warm and cozy. He turned the radio on softly and she sat low on her tailbone with one knee up on the dash. He looked over at her, relaxed, with her fingers linked over her stomach. Her nails were clipped short and the cuticles looked stained and ragged. It only made her more real to him.
“What time does Joey get home?”
She checked her watch and said, “Right about now.”
He asked, “Do you have to go home?”
Her head was resting against the back of the seat. She rolled it to face him and they jiggled along the road in the tightly sprung vehicle for another five seconds. He noted that at some time since they’d finished their lunch she’d put on fresh lipstick. She noted that his hair, much like hers, always seemed to look the same. After a whole day of being on the go, shaking snow off of Christmas trees, tying them onto the roof of the truck in the wind, his hair sprang up and away from his face as perfectly as ever. She absolutely loved his hair.
Did she have to go home?
“No,” she answered.
She thought he’d never look back at the highway.
He took her to his apartment complex, pushed an activator for an automatic door and drove into an underground garage. The door rumbled shut behind them, they parked, and he said, “If you’ll get the packages, I’ll get the tree.”
When he’d untied it from the roof of the truck she said, “It’ll make a mess unless you put it in the stand down here.”
“Oh,” he said—a novice. “Right.”
It took some tools, but he had them in the truck; and after ten minutes he had the tree in the stand and he carried it while she opened doors in front of him. At his own door he handed her the keys and said, “Both locks.”
She opened them both, thinking how different she was from Christopher in this regard. She who left her garage door up night and day and often never locked her house; he—the policeman—who recognized the value of a dead bolt.
Inside, he set the tree down and said, “Be right back. Take off your jacket and make yourself at home.”
He went to the bathroom and came back out to find her talking to Joey on the kitchen telephone.
“Hi, hon, it’s Mom.”
“Oh, hey, Mom, I’m glad you called. Are there any of those meat roll-up things left that we had for supper the other night?”
“They’re in the refrigerator in a square plastic container with a yellow cover.”
“Oh, great! Jeez, I’m starved. We had tripe for school lunch today. Hey, what time are you coming home?”
She looked up and found Christopher standing in the living room doorway, sucking a piece of ribbon candy, watching and listening. “I should be there by eight.” Their eyes met and held.
“Good, then I don’t have to wait to eat, right?”
“Right. Go ahead and warm up the beef rolls. Zap a potato with it, too, if you want. There’s sour cream in the fridge.”
“Okay. Yeah, that sounds good.”
“Well, I’ll see you around eight then, okay?”
“Yeah, sure, unless I go over to Sandy’s.”
“Home by ten, mister, right?”
She could imagine him rolling his eyes. He’d been creeping over the mark lately. “Yeah, right.”
“Okay then, ’bye.”
When she’d hung up, Christopher asked, “Everything okay?”
“Fine. He had tripe for lunch, but it seems he survived the ordeal.”
Christopher chuckled and said, “Come and help me decide where to put this thing.”
They lit lamps against the dusky afternoon, turned on the radio and studied his living room furniture.
“Where do you think?” he asked.
They cleared a spot in front of the sliding glass door and pushed the sofa into the exact center of the room facing it. It looked unorthodox, but the view of the tree was great, and with the stereo components on the wall behind the sofa, the sound came through beautifully, too.
Dumping their purchases from the packages, Christopher asked, “What goes on first?”
“Lights,” she said, and while he began pulling the tree lights out of their boxes, she said, “Christopher, didn’t you ever do this at home?”
“Nope,” he said, tending to what he was doing.
She heard the brusque note of defensiveness and decided this was no time for unhappy memories. “Well, plug them in first so you can see what you’re doing. I think it works best to start at the top and work your way down. How’s the ribbon candy?”
“Spicy. Have a piece.”
The tree was six feet tall, so he strung the top ones while she did the bottom, and they both sucked the hard candy. They got out the tinsel garland next, while Kenny Rogers came on the stereo with a sentimental song about a married couple playing Santa on Christmas Eve. Lee gave Christopher the end of the garland and said, “Start up at the top.” He draped it from branch to branch while she did the same below, weaving back and forth, and somehow she got in his way. The gold-spangled garland caught on her mouth while she was dipping beneath his arm, and as she tried to swing free, it caught on the turtleneck of her shirt, pulled out of his hands and off the last branch he’d decorated.
“Oops, look what I’ve done. Sorry.”
“Hey, there’s more on you than on the tree.”
She looked up and he saw a single golden filament caught on her lipstick, glistening there like a fragment of a fallen star.
“Hold still,” he said, and reached out to remove it with a . ngertip. It stuck to her glossy lipstick and he had to use a fingernail to free it, while she stood as still as an hour hand, holding her lips open, looking up at him.
They’d delayed it all day. They’d been responsible, clear-thinking, non-libidinal adults while they were out in public. They had refrained from ardent gazes, touches, intimate exchanges and all the tens of things in which two healthy, red-blooded, attracted people might well have indulged. But her lips were open . . . and he’d touched them with one finger . . . and the kisses they’d shared two weeks ago had remained in their thoughts ever since . . . and around them a gravelly voice was singing a
bout the greatest gift of all.
He dipped his head and put his mouth on hers so tenderly not a hair on her head moved. The golden garland, still in his hand, draped onto the floor where it pooled and glistened like the dropped belts of angels. They remained just so, lips scarcely joined, each tipping slightly toward the other until she teetered a bit and touched his chest to regain her balance. He opened his eyes, caught her hand with his and carried it to his mouth to kiss its roughened knuckles.
Into her eyes, he said softly, “Let’s finish this first.”
They finished festooning the tree, never touching, politely handing one another ornaments, realizing full well it was only six o’clock.
When the ornaments were hung and the floor was littered with Christmas scree, she knelt to pick up loose pine needles and cardboard boxes and cellophane. He turned off the lamps and went to stand behind and above her, touching the top of her head. “I’ll do that tomorrow. Come here.” At her delay in rising, he doubled forward, running a hand down her arm to make her drop the cardboard box full of pine needles. “Come here,” he whispered again, and pulled her to her feet, then led her to the sofa.
There, he stretched out on his side and drew her down beside him. The cushion gave and she rolled lightly against him. He put a hand on her waist, tipped his head and gave them both the only Christmas gift they wanted at the moment. He wet her lips and abraded her tongue with his own and wiped out all the pent-up longing of that day, and the days before it, and the nights they’d lain awake in their separate beds wondering when this would happen again. They took the sweetest of time, exchanging a candy-flavored kiss that stretched on . . . and on . . . and on . . .
When they opened their eyes they saw red, green, blue and gold lights pieing the walls, the furniture, their clothing and hair.
“Can we talk about it now?” he asked, still with his hand on her waist.
“Talk about what?” she whispered.
“About what we’ve been feeling since that night. What we’ve been feeling all day today. What made you resist getting up from your knees and coming over here a minute ago.”
A beat passed before she confessed, “Guilt.”
“About what?”
“What I did on that kitchen chair.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Didn’t I?”
“I shouldn’t have teased you about it today. I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was bothering you so much.”
“I’ve thought about how others would see it—my mother, my daughter, my sister. I think they’d call it seduction.”
“It went both ways.”
“But I’m fifteen years older than you.”
“So you’re not allowed to express your emotions?”
“I shocked myself.”
“You shocked me, too, but I loved it.”
“It’s been a very long time, you see, and kissing you was suddenly so irresistible. This is irresistible . . . lying here this way. You were right, it’s unnatural to go without . . . without this kind of physical affection for so long. It’s been two weeks since we kissed on that kitchen chair, and I haven’t been able to think of anything else since.”
“And so you feel guilty?”
“Of course, don’t you?”
“No. You’re female. I’m male. What’s there to feel guilty about?”
“Our ages, for one thing.”
“I figured that was coming.”
“And my long drought, for another. I imagine women can do some pretty dumb things when a younger man pays them some attention after years of none at all.”
“Is that all I am to you . . . a younger man paying you some attention?”
“No, you know you’re not.”
“So what’s your big problem with us? All we’re doing is kissing.”
“You were Greg’s friend.”
“And that’s the first time his name has been mentioned all day long. Do you realize that?”
She hadn’t. Her eyes told him so.
“Hey, don’t go guilty on me again. It’s a healthy sign, you and me spending an entire day together and all we concentrated on was having fun. I thought we did rather well at it, myself.”
“We did. I loved it.”
“And you don’t think it’s significant that we never talked about Greg once?”
“Yes, I do. But it’s only been six months since his death, and maybe I’m . . . maybe . . .”
“Go on, say it. Maybe you’re still going through some grief process and this is part of it.”
“Well, maybe it is.”
“Maybe. Then again, maybe it’s not. And if it is, so what? We’re talking about it, it’s out in the open. If that’s what this is for either one of us, we’ll find out soon enough. The glow will wear off and we won’t feel so much like being together anymore. Personally, I don’t think that’s going to happen though.”
“Which will be disastrous, too.”
“Why?”
“Because Janice has a crush on you.”
“I know that.”
She picked her head up off his arm. “You do?”
“I’ve known that for a long time.”
“And you’d still do this with me?”
“I never gave her one iota of encouragement. Ask her.”
She laid her head back down and admitted, “I don’t have to. She’s already confided in me.”
“There, you see? Now what other hang-ups do you have here?”
“You make it so simplistic.”
“It is. All I set out to do was lie here for a while and kiss you and enjoy my first Christmas tree, and maybe make the two of us feel a little less lonely for a while. That’s pretty simplistic.” His voice turned soft, seductive. “It’s just my mouth . . .” He moved closer. “. . . on your mouth.”
And what an incredible mouth he had. He was so good at using it, suckling her lips, setting his head in motion and encouraging her to do the same. He kissed her the way she hadn’t been kissed since courting days, in the lingering, juicy, slow, sexy way that says, If this is what we’re settling for, let’s make it good. His sweet blandishments worked. She freed her mind of thought and let sensuality pull her into its lair, following his lead and immersing herself in the texture and taste of him. Long liquid kisses led to a dearer fit of their bodies down below. He lifted a knee and she made space for it between her own, welcoming the high, hard pressure he exerted as he lifted it against her warmth.
He made a pleasured sound, “Mmm . . . ,” and moved his hand up her back, pressing circles on it, touching her nape, her shoulders, riding his palm flat and hard down her vertebrae to the bend of her spine.
It had been so long since she’d lain with a man, fit herself against one, felt his arousal against her stomach. So long since she’d run her hands over firm, hard shoulders, into short, springy hair. His hair—ah—the feel of it was so different from her own, and when she sifted her fingers through it his scent lifted, the peculiar and individual essence she would ever after recognize as his.
It was as he’d said—this was so unutterably good, she had no desire to desist. His moist lips left hers and wandered her face, dropping kisses where they would—upon her cheek, eyebrow, hairline, nose—dampening her skin, sometimes letting the tip of his tongue mark its passing. He pressed his mouth to her neck, drew three circles with his tongue, bringing forth the scent of the perfume she’d sprayed there that morning.
At last he pulled back and looked into her face.
She opened her eyes and saw his at close range, with the tree lights reflected in them.
“My, you’re good at that,” she murmured.
“So are you.”
“A little out of practice.”
“Wanna practice some more?” He grinned.
“I’d love to . . . but my arm is falling asleep.” It had been pinned under him for fifteen minutes.
“I can fix that,” he said, and rolled on top of her, putting a hand under h
er back and plumping her over two inches at a time until he lay flush atop her in the center of the couch.
They studied each other’s eyes, searching for consent.
“Lee, I meant it,” he whispered. “Just kissing, if that’s all you want.”
“What I want and what I’ll allow myself to do are two different things.”
He kissed her mouth, bearing his weight on his elbows, crooking one knee along the side of her hip.
When the kiss ended she twined her arms around his neck and drew him down, his face falling above her shoulder.
She sighed. “Oh, Christopher, you feel so good on me I could stay here all night.”
“Good idea,” he said, intentionally shattering the spell that was getting too tempting. “Should I call Joey or will you?”
She laughed but her stomach refused to lift beneath his greater weight.
“Laugh some more,” he said, muffled, near her ear. “Feels great.”
Instead she grew still, closing her eyes and appreciating these minutes of closeness, and the realization that she was still desirable, still sexual, with a man again and enjoying it.
“Lee?” he said near her ear.
“What?” she murmured, lazily finger-combing the back of his hair.
He lifted his head and bore his weight on his elbows. “Promise me you won’t pull the same tricks you pulled on me at Thanksgiving.”
She said, “I’m so sorry for that.”
“I want to be with you on Christmas.”
“You will be, I promise. But how are we going to keep from giving ourselves away?”
“Trust me. You didn’t know how I felt about you until a few weeks ago, did you?”
“I had my suspicions.”
“ When?” he exclaimed, as if accusing her of fibbing.
“As long ago as the Fourth of July.”
“The Fourth of July!”
“When we were sitting side by side eating corn on the cob. And when we banged into each other playing volleyball. And on the Ferris wheel. A woman senses these things before a man does.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I never would have if you hadn’t said something first.”
“Why?”