The Muffia (9 page)

I hadn’t fallen in love in a long time, and I’m not even sure that was what was happening, but I was falling into something with Udi. What was also immediately apparent and attractive about him was that he had no obvious baggage—Berggren had met him for the first time that night, too. I just thought he was the sexiest man I’d ever laid eyes on and the perfect zipless foreign fuck.

At some point, I had an awareness of people slowly beginning to get up to leave the party. Meanwhile, I’d been energized. After the two recent experiences at Book Soup and Babeland, both of which could have gone somewhere, I wasn’t going to strike out three times.

After saying our goodbyes to Berggren, Nissim and ZsaZsi walked behind Udi and me as he began walking me to my car. He took my hand and, after a couple of steps, put his arm around me as we continued for the twenty or so yards left. I fell into him, like we’d been walking like that for years. We fit.

Udi didn’t know which car was mine—how could he? As we reached the Prius, we slowed and I reached for the door. But he placed his hand on top of mine, keeping me from opening it, instead turning me to face him. Then he leaned down, gently kissing me on my lips. The electricity I felt during dinner now had to be visible to anyone watching. Slowly, his lips pulled away from mine and he raised his head. He clasped my hand in his and looked into my eyes with such passion I became unsteady.

“Wow. That was—” I began, but before I could complete the sentence, he was kissing me again and I was kissing him—lips, longing, lust, his body hard against me and me pressing into him.

What I’d hoped he would taste like, smell like, kiss like turned out to be the reality of him; such a wonderful thing—not to be disappointed. If he’d pulled my dress up right there on the dimly lit Mar Vista street, I would not have resisted. Without a doubt, we could have provided the neighborhood with triple-X viewing that evening, which I'm sure would have improved a few peoples’ view.

“Come back to my hotel,” he whispered.

Chapter 11

So I did. After all my prudery, whether put on or real, with both Book Soup Steve and Cullen of tapas and
Fleshlight
fame, I decided it was the most
mature
thing to do. I couldn’t see what would be gained by holding myself out as some ultra-valuable commodity that needed to be left in the store until full payment was made.

The truth was, I didn’t want to deny myself, because I’d probably lose the opportunity to be with him
ever
. Despite the connection we had—his honest smile, masculinity, and eyes that told me so much about his innate goodness—there was no guarantee he’d: (a) keep my number, (b) dial my number even if he didn’t lose it, or (c) ever come to the U.S. again. So I decided to go with the bird-in-hand principle, though the idea of a bird in my hand wasn't something I particularly relished. Birds often leave unpleasant surprises behind and I wanted Udi to leave me only with joy.

Udi’s hotel was close to Berggren’s house and, like a day when you go down your “to-do” list checking things off as fast as an airline pilot before take-off, everything clicked. It was like we were meant to be. Parking the Prius at his hotel, located in an area of Santa Monica known for parking hassles, was, on this evening, no hassle at all. A block away, a spot appeared and we swept into it. He ran around the car, opening the door for me, and lifted me up into his arms and began kissing me again. No one stumbled, nothing dropped. He was eager but not sloppy or in a hurry.

I was struck again by how neatly we fit together. My soft protrusions melded into his firmer ones and his hard cock pressed into my groin. Our respective heights served to allow our arms to gather each other comfortably and our lips to meet without neck strain. We were like that yin-yang poster, peas in a pod, water into soil, sugar into butter—so, so sweet.

Sometimes I think we endure the truth that we don’t always fit together very well because it’s easier than admitting the other person is not the right key for our lock. Finding that special key can be the challenge of a lifetime and some of us never find it. We settle—which kind of gets us back to that whole
being in denial/believing in illusions
thing. But let’s not wreck the mood.

Udi and I managed to walk the distance from the front door to the elevator demurely holding hands, but once inside, he looked at me again as if he intended to devour me. It felt like his eyes were boring holes through my body into my heated inner core. We were like radioactive isotopes seeking their purpose. I knew I was wet—in fact, I was past ready. The desperation of wanting him inside me at that precise moment made my legs feel as wobbly as a two-wheeled tricycle. I was swooning and he grabbed me again—this time to hold me up. His mouth came to my ear, my neck. Then it was his tongue and teeth, gently tugging on my earlobes.

Oh, my God, thank you, Berggren
, I remember saying to myself. I will never say or let anything bad be said about your dinner parties ever again.
Ev-er.
You are the queen, the goddess, the shepherdess and I shall not want.

Udi . . . Udi . . . I whispered to him as he pushed me up against the dark paneled wall of the elevator, lifting me slightly. I felt his hand under my dress, his fingers grazing the outside of my panties, touching my engorged pussy through the silk, making me feel like a tea kettle just before it starts howling and sending up steam. I was oh so close to coming—remember, it had been a long time since I’d had an orgasm except with the Rabbit—when the elevator settled, dinged and the door opened. It was late, past midnight, and it was unlikely anyone would be on the landing waiting for the lift—at least not anyone who’d consider what we were doing to be odd. Clearly neither of us cared if anyone was there to see us like that anyway. 

Fumbling to get the card key out of his jacket pocket, he inserted it into the door and
boom
—we burst into the room. The door closed and, still clenched to me, he flicked the lock.

“I want to make you see the stars,” he murmured in between kisses, then stopped to look at me. “Look at yourself. Unbelievable.”
That accent again.

“Wow,” I sputtered incoherently, not believing I’d actually found a gorgeous man who I wanted desperately, who wanted to give me pleasures of a celestial variety. He didn’t say, “I want you, I’ve got to have you,” or any other thing that would have demonstrated his own desire. He was concerned with making
me
see the Milky Way. Besides, he didn’t have to tell me he wanted me—that part was obvious. His cock was rock hard against me, but he was content to let it be—so refreshing after some of the premature grinding I could recall from earlier in my sexual prime. He seemed content to let everything take whatever course it would take.

In between the kisses he would say only how he wanted me to feel, what he wanted to do for me. I couldn’t remember that happening before. I mean, I’m sure at one time my ex-husband had cared if he moved me or not, but this guy seemed all-consumed with giving me pleasure and watching how he affected me, rather than taking any pleasure for himself. Udi was into the process, whereas the other men I’d been with focused on the result—the orgasm, the big “O” and the first coming. Fitting, I thought, that Udi was from a different culture. Non-Americans could still be goal-oriented, but the process of getting to a goal—whether it was the Olympics, orgasms or the Olympics of orgasms, was of at least equal consequence.

He nuzzled my neck and breathed into my ear, warm and strong. “I’m going to make you scream,” he whispered.

I sighed him my wish that he would.

Gently turning me, he tugged at the zipper on my dress. As he pulled down on it, his mouth followed its track—from neck all the way down to the small of my back. Taking the shoulders of the dress, he lowered it, still following its descent with his mouth—a gentle nip on my butt, a kiss between my legs, which threatened to remove my remaining strength.

He lowered the dress to the floor and lifted one high-heeled leg at a time—fondling each as he did so—gently assisting me to step out of it. And in one swift gesture he’d lain it over a chair. Slowly coming to stand behind me, he ran one hand up to my belly, palming it before taking my breasts in both hands and letting me feel his cock, hard against my ass. I pressed back with equal force, so obvious I wanted him inside me, my body begging for it. My hand reached behind me, feeling his balls, so hard from the engorged blood, no titanium beads to be found, but soft to the touch and smooth.

“What can I do for you, Baby?” he asked so sweetly. I almost laughed.
What did I want? How about a grande latte?
I didn’t want my answer to sound as silly. “I want you inside me,” I begged, pressing my wet pussy up against him, only my flimsy panties between us.

I reached for my bag, for the condoms I’d purchased at Babeland. He seemed to know and took over the task. Thank God. I hated the things and had never mastered the art of putting one on elegantly. And even if I’d once been good at it, I was out of practice.

“Please, Udi. I can’t wait to feel you.” The panties were off now. Explosions were going off in my head, no stars quite yet, just the need for sex—driving, Formula-One style, in the frantic rush to consummate. Even now, I don’t recall ever having felt the way I did that night—not before or since—with the exception of that day in my solarium, of course, when Udi . . . But we’re not there yet.

He turned me around to face him and smiled at me with such tenderness I almost cried. He steadied me, then lifted me up and laid me onto the crisp white-sheeted bed, tossing the oversized pillows off with ease. He moved into me gently and we both gasped—it was that good. And I did see the stars. And he did make me scream, and scream and scream. If anyone was bothered by my screaming, we didn’t know or care. We fucked, and fucked, and then fucked some more. Like we’d never see each other again, which is probably what we both thought.

What I kept feeling was how lucky I was to have a one-night stand. It was the kind of thing I probably feared when I was nineteen—I honestly can’t remember—because of some idea that the guy wouldn’t respect me, or something. It was so liberating to just operate on desire and adrenaline, not caring what anyone thought.
What a relief!

Maybe the whole event shouldn’t have been so shocking to me. I suppose an argument could be made that the possibility of having a romantic sexual encounter with one of the hundreds of thousands of people who move through Los Angeles on their way to somewhere else in any given month should be one of the frequent perks of being a city girl. There were plenty of prospective sex partners. So why had it taken so long for me to find one?
Was
he special? Or was I kidding myself?

At any rate, I never expected to see Udi after that incredible night,  even though I certainly wanted to. After all, he was only thirty-six—way too young for me. And I’d been disappointed by men for so long that when he said he’d be back in LA in a month, I smiled and nodded like an Asian comfort woman and said, “I would love to see you,” to which he replied in that intoxicating voice, “I will call you when I know the dates. I have to see you again soon.”

If my friends had been there, listening, they probably would have said,  “Maddie, don’t sabotage this. He’s nuts about you; of course he wants to see you again.” To which I would have demurred, “Yes, but it’s just physical.”

See, it was only normal for me to protect myself from potential emotional devastation. And at the ripe old age of forty-two, I’ve begun to cultivate the Buddhist philosophy that if I have few expectations, I won’t be disappointed.

I had no idea what was going to happen with Udi—I mean, how could I, given that we’d started with the classic characteristics of the one-night stand? The truth was that no matter what happened next, this time I wouldn’t be disappointed. I couldn’t be. I’d just had the best night of physical connection I’d had in years. And if I never saw nor heard from him again, the way we had been together had given me back my faith that such a thing was possible.

Chapter 12

When Udi called me on my cell from Tel Aviv a few days after he and I had shared multiple concurrent orgasms in his Santa Monica hotel room, I almost drove my hybrid under a Hummer.

“I will be there on Thursday,” I heard him say. “I know you are busy, Baby, but I cannot stop thinking about you. I hope you can make me some time.”

Some guys sound stupid when they say ‘baby’—politicians, for example. Well, maybe not Bill Clinton or JFK. But Udi made it sound like it was my rightful name.

I was about to respond with, “I can’t stop thinking about you either. My body’s aching and I can’t stop fantasizing about us in bed”—which was the truth— but Lila was in the backseat hyperventilating after the close call we’d had with the Hummer. I didn’t want to upset her further with the kind of breathless sex talk she’d hopefully only heard on television. She’d only be confused, if not flat out disgusted.

Up to this point, I hadn’t seen the need to tell her about the man that Mom met a few nights before. Nor was it appropriate to tell her, given that the extent of my relationship with Udi was hotel sex. Great hotel sex, but hotel sex nonetheless.

“I want to see you, too,” I whispered loudly into the phone with as much longing as I dared. It was an understatement in the same way saying it’s time Angelina Jolie stopped adopting children is an understatement. The truth was I’d been thinking about Udi incessantly and those thoughts had led to frequent practice sessions and complete mastery over my purple Rabbit. I could make myself come with very little effort in just under two minutes.

“How long will you be here?” I asked.

“Three days.”

Three days, I thought dreamily, swerving to avoid a semi, which prompted a frightened gasp from Lila. “God, Mom. Drive us into a truck, why don’t you? Hang up the phone.”

But I didn’t want to hang up the phone. I wanted to reach through the line and touch him, pull him to me.

On our night together, somewhere between flights of passionate sexual bonding, he’d told me he was a sky marshal and that he never stayed anywhere for very long. I had to figure out how I’d get clear to see him.
Three days. If only we could spend them all in bed.
I’d drop whatever wasn’t critical. Shit, did Lila have a ballet concert? Or a volleyball game?
Please, no
. There was the Muff meeting at my house but that wasn’t until the end of the week. Udi would be gone and I’d be flushed from ravishing by then.

The biggest hurdle to getting deliciously disturbed and distracted with Udi was the possibility of starting a job with the Olympic Sports Mediation panel. It was looking very promising after four interviews, intense scrutiny and a series of role plays negotiating resolutions between jostling speed skaters, some weight lifters accused of spiking each others’ power shakes with testosterone, and a bribe-taking dressage judge. I successfully resolved these disputes, but—and this is typical for mediation—nobody really got what they wanted.

They say mediation is win-win. But if you're being honest, it’s also lose-lose. As a practitioner, I’m a fan—the process generally saves people time and money that would otherwise go to courts and lawyers. Still, we live in an adversarial society and no one can take away the glory of winning in court, or anywhere else for that matter. In any event, I still hoped I’d get the job, but also that I could postpone the start of it so I could see Udi.

“Do you want to come to my house? It’s nice, private. You might like seeing another part of LA,” I suggested.

“I would like to do this very much,
daahhling
,” he murmured to me over the crisp connection. “You are in the countryside?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “But close.”
Not that we’d have a lot of time for hiking.

“Mmmm. You’re so sexy, Baby. I want you so much. I had such a good time with you.”

Just hearing him talk sent another wave of desire pulsing through me. He kept starting me up, but my driving was suffering. The things he said . . . Yeah, they were kind of cornball but he was so sweet and sincere his words seemed to go straight from my brain to my nether regions, sending warm tingles throughout my body on their way. I was about to tell him the same, how much I’d been thinking about him, how much I wanted to kiss him, peal off his clothes and lick him, when I once again spotted Lila in the rearview mirror. She was looking out the window.
Was she listening?
I ventured not.

“Udi, you’ve made me feel things I never thought I’d feel again and—”

“Mom, would you concentrate on the road, please?” Lila stared at me in the mirror and I smiled guiltily.

“That was your daughter?” he asked.

“Yes . . . Lila. I just picked her up from school.” It was hard to leave that warm, sexy world we’d created over the phone and across the time zones that separated us, but it was probably safer.

“Be with her,” he said. “I just want to tell you how much I look forward to seeing you. I want to kiss you all over. As soon as the plane lands, I will come to you.”

Glancing into the rearview mirror again, I saw Lila had her headphones plugged into her ears, at least trying to make it appear that she wasn’t paying attention to the conversation Mom was having.

“I can’t wait to kiss you either. I’m so happy I met you. You have awakened me from some—”

“Mom,” came Lila’s voice—crisp and insistent. Clearly I’d let myself get swept away.

“Uh—sorry. Hold on,” I said into the phone, once again pointing the Prius away from danger. “Yes, honey?”

“That’s like really gross. Who are you talking to?”

“Just a second, sweetie. Hi,” I said back into the phone. “I’ll email you my address and directions. I’m so excited to see you.”

“OK, Baby,” he said. “I cannot wait to be kissing you. I will kiss you all over and make you see the stars again and again. You saw them the last time, yes?”

“Yes, thanks to you.” I was beaming and Lila was rolling her eyes in the back seat, her index finger thrust down her throat.

“Bye,” I said.

“Bye, Baby.”

“Bye.”

It was one of those “you hang up first” scenarios one usually outgrows at eighteen. I finally just hung up. I knew I was blushing—in front of my daughter, no less.

“OK, Mom, are you going to tell me who that was?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s what you always ask
me
: ‘Are you going to tell me who that was?’”

I didn’t whine like that, did I?
“Yes, I do ask that, but I’m your mother and so that entitles me to a certain . . . ”

“A certain what?”

Where was my diplomacy when I needed it? “He’s a friend. His name is Udi and we met a couple of weeks ago at Berggren’s house.”

“Berggren’s weird. And what kind of a name is Udi? Is he your boyfriend?”

“Listen to me, young lady. Berggren is not weird and I am entitled to have dates with men. I’m a grown-up. When you’re a grown-up you won’t have to explain yourself to me, or to any children
you
might have, OK? He’s Mom’s special friend and right now, that’s enough. If we see each other a few more times and things get serious, I definitely want you to meet him and—”

“Are you sleeping with him?”

“Lila—”

“I’m fourteen, Mom. I had sex education, like, three years ago. I know what’s going on. And you’re old. Old people do it a lot.”

“That’s enough.” I steered the car toward the off ramp. “You
know
I haven’t had a boyfriend or even dated a man since your father and I separated. I deserve to have a little fun, young lady.”

“Well, you better make the guy wear a condom, that’s all I can say.”

“Don’t be rude.”

“Well… you should.
Do-oh!
”

~

My daughter was more sexually aware than I cared to admit. I suspected, from what other moms had told me about their own fourteen-year-old daughters, that Lila may have already dabbled in that non-sex type of sex—the oral kind—despite her protestations to the contrary. I knew I couldn’t keep her from experimenting so I’d done what I could to prepare her—warning her about the perils of going unprotected and buying her condoms which I hoped she’d be better at using than I was. I’d tried to let her know that I wouldn’t judge her when it came to her own budding sexuality, difficult as that was proving to be, and that when she was ready, I’d help her with birth control. I actually felt lucky she and I could talk about the subject—though I’m sure she was selective in what she told me. I know I’m a hypocrite about all this, and even though I hate hypocrites I wasn’t ready to share stories of my own sexual experiences with her.

“I just want to make sure he’s good enough for you, Mom,” Lila said, interrupting the righteous blathering in my head. It’s the kind of thing I would have said to her. But from her, it was pure sweetness. Our eyes met in the rearview mirror.

“Thank you, honey.” I smiled. “So far, so good.”