Pool Man by Sabrina York Page B

it didn’t matter.
    I scored his scalp with my nails and then raked his back.
    But that’s what he’d done to me. Taken a perfectly refined woman with boring and banal taste in sex and turned her into a wild creature who, even when mating was finished, was possessed of the feral urge to mark her man.
    I could have held him all night. Forever.
    My heart lurched when he pushed away, but he didn’t go far. He eased back only enough to take my cheeks in his palms and kiss me with a brutal intensity.
    He didn’t say the words, but his eyes bespoke them.
    “Mine,” they said. “Mine.”
     
    We slept together that night in his bed, wrapped in black satin sheets and wrapped around each other. In the morning, I awoke to find his mouth on me, forging hot and hungry trails. We made love as the sun rose.
    And then he made me breakfast.
    French toast had never been so decadent. Fluffy and light and infused with the unmistakable hint of vanilla bean. The only thing that was more exquisite was his coffee.
    He was the perfect man.
    We spent the day lazing. I floated in the pool while he puttered around the house and then, when recalled to my mission, we curled up on his bed and plotted Harlan’s demise.
    Jimmy was a great help with sketching out my book. He seemed to have a talent for fiction and he was well-read, which I tried not to find shocking. He hadn’t been a pool boy forever, after all.
    He made references to King Lear and Dostoyevsky and esoteric writers of whom I’d never heard. He quoted Thoreau—though he had to tell me that was whom he was quoting because, even if I had read Walden —which I couldn’t recall—I hadn’t retained a bit of it.
    Over lunch we indulged in a spirited argument on the nature of utopia, but it’s difficult to say who won, because we ended up making love on the table.
    And I didn’t spare a single thought for Marlee’s china, smashed as it was on the tile, as he’d swept it from the table with an insistent arm.
    At least not until we had to clean it up.
    And then, that night, we made love again. We didn’t bother with the games. We went straight for what we wanted.
    That day formed the pattern for the next and the next. I allowed myself to sink into it, into the passion and the power of his embrace and the tranquility of this isolated spot. I steeped myself in the present and every time I glimpsed the calendar on my phone, ticking down the days until I had to leave, I dove deeper into the now. In fact, other than to take pictures of the idyllic surroundings, I ignored my phone.
    I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving here. Of leaving him.
    But, inexorably, my final day arrived. I didn’t mention it to him. I didn’t want to talk about it. And I didn’t want our last moments together to be those awkward, tentative, gee-it-was-great-to-meet-you moments. Mostly I didn’t want to feel his withdrawal as, undoubtedly, I would if he knew I was leaving.
    So I made love to him that last night, with perhaps a hint of desperation. But then, I felt it in him too, in his frantic thrusts, his determination to make each minute matter. It was a glorious last time. One I would remember to the end of my days.
    And I have to admit, as I dressed and packed quietly the next morning, and hunted for the card to call my evil taxi driver, there were tears in my eyes.
    I should have awakened him, but I didn’t want him to see.
    When all my things were piled, waiting beside the door, I crept back into Jimmy’s room and stared down at him. Apparently I’d exhausted him last night. He was sprawled on his back, tangled in the dark sheets, utterly oblivious to the slow creep of dawn over his features.
    I couldn’t resist. I needed this memory.
    I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of him, my lover. My wildest fantasy come to life.
    This picture would be mine to treasure forever.
    Jimmy, of course, belonged to Marlee.
    A muffled roar sounded from the front of the house and I knew it was time to go.