“I'm a writer,” he said, though she hadn't asked. “I'm on my way to the cabin I just bought, sight unseen.”
She pulled off her mirrored sunglasses, revealing gold-brown eyes as beautiful as the rest of her. “Writing the Great American Novel?”
“No. Just some trash. About a detective. Say… would you let me take you out for a coffee some time? I'd love to pick your brain about law enforcement.”
She wrote something on her pad of paper and handed it to him.
“I'll let you off with a warning this time. Slow down, Mr. Wittingham. What's the hurry? Life is all the things that happen along the way.”
He nodded. “Thank you, ma'am.”
As she walked away, he casually checked out her ass in the side view mirror. She glanced back and caught him looking, then smiled.
She'd written her phone number on the warning.
Part 2: The Cabin
It was March when he bought the cabin, and he split his time between Vermont and staying with his family in New York. He'd never lived alone before, and though the cabin in its current state wasn't exactly living, he was certainly alone.
The police officer, a woman who preferred to be called by her last name, Tomlin, kept him company a few nights a week. She seemed more interested in his outline for the detective novel than in him, but he didn't mind. As long as she was interested.
Tomlin liked to be on top. Not just sometimes, but every time. The whole time.
He'd pick her up in town on the motorbike, and they'd have dinner at a pasta place she liked, then pick up a pint of ice cream for later. The ice cream was Amaretto, that blend of cherries and almonds he grew to associate with Tomlin.
Back at the cabin, they'd sit on the couch and share the pint with two spoons.
She'd lick her spoon and say something sexy, like, “My pu**y is aching. I need to f**k you, like, yesterday.”
He'd already have the erection that had started when they'd opened the ice cream, and he'd follow her upstairs to his master bedroom.
They each undressed themselves—no kissing up until this point—and he'd lie spread-eagle on the bed.
She'd crawl up his body, kissing his legs. She'd be na**d except for a sports bra, and she'd suck his c**k with as much delight as she'd shown the ice cream. As she was powering up and down on his erection, she'd snap her fingers until he passed her a condom. They always used the unlubricated ones, and she'd roll it down his shaft using her mouth, which was a trick she'd learned from one of the working girls she'd befriended during police business.
It wasn't time for f**king yet, though, because she'd continue her voyage up his body, so she could straddle his face. He took his time, licking up and down and side to side, keeping an eye on her chest to gauge her reaction by her breathing. When her skin began to glisten, he slowed down his tongue, drawing her rising pleasure out, teasing her.
She'd abruptly lift away, shaking her head at his apparent incompetence. She'd slide back down his body, impaling herself readily on his hardness. Then the rodeo began. This part took longer than eight seconds, but not much. They fit together well, though, and usually came together. Sometimes she did and he didn't, but not the other way around.
He was neither happy nor unhappy with the arrangement, which went on for three months. When a week went by at the start of summer, and she hadn't called, he decided not to call either. He didn't want to be with a woman who held herself away from him, above him. If she really liked him, she'd call or show up unannounced. After three weeks without communication, he figured it was over.
Tomlin became a character in his mind, in his book he hadn't yet written. She would be the tough-as-nails cop who had an on-again, off-again thing with his detective. He had the whole story figured out in his head; he just had to write it down.
Instead of writing, though, he dove into research. The cabin was remote, but it was 2003, and the whole world was at his fingertips via the internet. In later years of writing, he would purposefully cut the internet off for extended periods, but for now he waded in happily. He wondered, how did people write before the internet? He split his time between google and the two dozen reference books he'd hauled up to the cabin. To further distract himself from the unpleasantness of the blank page, he started renovation plans for the cabin, to upgrade the kitchen and bathrooms.
He always left and did his grocery shopping while the maid was at the cabin, but one day, something was different. The cleaning supplies had been put back in different places, and the air smelled of perfume. Cheap perfume. Like the kind young girls just out of high school wore.
He tracked some mud through the cabin intentionally, and booked an cleaning extra session. At the last minute, he baked some cookies and left out a casual note.
When he returned from shopping, he found the most charming response scrawled on the notecard, from the young woman who'd been cleaning.
She would be perfect as the young woman who got kidnapped in his first novel.
In the name of his research, he continued to leave notes for her, getting gradually more flirtatious, until at last he was so ashamed of himself, he stayed behind at the cabin to apologize to her in person. He was probably gross and old to her, thirty-two and not in the best shape thanks to all those hours eating in front of the computer.
To his absolute surprise, this girl, Lexie Ross, seemed to like him. She wasn't judging him or keeping him at a distance. Perhaps it was because she was from a small town, or because she was young, or because life had finally allowed something good and pure into his life to balance other things out, but Lexie seemed interested in him.
He had no intention of seducing her when he asked her to type for him. He only wanted to be in the same room, to share the same air, with this sweet, innocent-looking girl.
Thanks to her help, he wrote the opening pages of his first novel, and seeing those words on a page was like seeing the thawing cracks on a frozen-over pond in the spring; the progress filled him with hope.
He didn't know quite how it happened, but they were kissing, her youthful lips like fruit in his mouth. They were in the shower together, and then they were on his bed, skin and against skin, bliss against bliss.
On top of her, he felt like a tiger, and when she cried out in ecstasy, he knew heaven.
At the point of no return, she cried out a danger warning, and he pulled away. She milked him, then, and he flooded her stomach as he came, and it felt even better than he could have dreamed.
She never came back after that one day, and he got an earful from her boss. The older woman assumed that he'd been f**king Lexie every time she'd been there for cleaning.