Apples and Oranges

1.

The first time I saw him we were reaching to squeeze the same orange. I hate buying oranges that look so delicious and then taste like damp, bland fiber after you've peeled them. Our eyes met. His were shining out of a dark, rugged face and so damned blue, I could have drowned in them. I realized I was staring and made myself look down.

"Excuse me." he said, "After you."

Those were the innocent words spoken but I had suddenly felt as if he had said, 'Take your clothes off. I want to fuck you'. I felt my neck grow hot as I went from orange to orange until I had a half dozen. I felt his eyes on me the whole while but I didn't dare look up. I put the oranges in the basket and moved down the aisle. I waited until I was past the fruit to look back. He was gone.

I was distracted as I went down the rest of my grocery list. From one aisle to the next I kept hoping to see him. I even scanned all the lines as I waited at the checkout. If that single minute of contact had not been so vivid though, he might have been a figment of my imagination.
On the drive home, I let the few words he had spoken drift through my mind. There had been no noticeable accent. The words themselves had been innocent. His sound had been unique. It was a one of a kind voice. Still, how had he filled a polite apology with all that sexy undertone? I shook my head to rid it of his echo and chided myself for acting like a love struck schoolgirl.
Getting out of the car with the groceries, I dropped my keys and almost lost the eggs retrieving them. He was still in my head. It was as if thinking about him was making me clumsy. The answering machine was loaded. I listened as I put things away in the kitchen.

"Miara, Miara, Miara! Pick up! It's Jenny…..O.K. I guess you aren't there. Give me a buzz and promise you're not going to back out on me Friday night. Trust me, Bill's friend is hot and you need to get out more. Later, Girlfriend."

Beep.

"Miara. Tom Jenkins. There's a teacher's meeting after classes tomorrow. Just more crap from the Dean about student evaluations but I can't get you out of it. See you there,"

Beep.

"Miss Miara Martin? I hope I'm pronouncing that right, anyway this is just a courtesy call from Sun Coast Condos to let you know you've won…"

I shut it off. I wondered why no one had yet released a deadly virus that exclusively targeted tele-marketers.
Classes had been even more discouraging than usual. I hoped a long soak would get rid of the tension in my neck. I went into the bathroom and started a tub. I thought some bubbles might brighten my mood, so I added a big dollop of the peach scented stuff I had put in my own stocking for Christmas.
I put one of my Edith Piaf CDs in and cranked it up loud enough to reach the bath. I kept promising myself that I would learn how to say more than merci beaucoup in French but I hadn't yet. It didn't matter though; I enjoyed her voice, even without being able to translate the lyrics.
While I was undressing, I thought about the double date Jenny had set up for Friday. Her last attempt had been a washout. The guy had been better than average in the looks department and had dressed nicely. I thought when I first saw him that the evening might go somewhere. No spark though and when he finally asked me to dance I couldn't wait for the music to end. He'd put an arm around me and leaned in to say something. Christ… his breath was awful. Poor guy must've had a gum disease or something, Anyway that had been it for me. I would have to decide whether I felt like rolling the dice again with this friend of hers and Bill's on Friday.
In the bathroom, I lit a couple of lilac candles and turned out the light. I pulled the pins out of my bun and let my hair down. I lowered my head and shook it out. It almost touched the floor. I tossed it back over my shoulders. Naked, I studied myself in the mirrored tiles behind the vanity. My reflection was softened in the dancing candlelight. The woman in the glass was attractive. Beautiful even. She was I. So why didn't I feel as beautiful as she looked? 
I turned off the taps and lowered myself into the bubbles. I had to force myself down into the heat. I always got it too hot but that was the way I liked it. It was actually painful at first but as the pain faded, the pleasure increased. The extreme of one sensation seemed to quantify the other. 
I put my head back, closed my eyes and drifted on Edith's voice. I couldn't understand a word of her songs and yet they were so sensual. I knew she was singing of love, and pleasure, and yes, pain too. There was the sound of yearning in it. Yearning for what? The ultimate lover? Sex? Yes, it was definitely sexy.
I opened my eyes as it dawned on me. The sound of his voice, uttering those four words, displaced the soft French lyrics. Now I knew how I had recognized what he had really been saying to me. I was sure I was right. I had not imagined it at all. That handsome son of a bitch had reached out with four disguised words and sexed me up. No wonder I had felt so confused. It had been too bizarre to recognize initially. Even being certain, I had mixed feelings. My first impulse was toward anger but I had to admit that I had gotten a vicarious thrill from the encounter as well.
I closed my eyes again and let his dark features and those sapphire eyes come into focus. It had felt as though his eyes were holding me. Even remembering it, I felt my nipples fill and felt compelled to touch them. I pinched them to try and stop my thoughts but it only felt better. I brought my knees up and pressed them together hard. Of its own accord one hand moved down over my belly. Like a small, silent sea creature it slithered its way between the tight press of my thighs. Its fingers coaxed me with their promise of pleasure and my legs surrendered and fell open. My cunt began to throb then. I was helpless against its demands and my other hand left my breast to help answer them. I could hear his damn voice again as I began to frig myself.

"Excuse me." he had said, "After you." 

But now I heard,

"Come for me. You know you want to."

I got my feet under me and arched up. I drove two fingers as deep as they would reach and crossed them, while my other hand strummed my clit frantically. With the water around me, I felt as though I was riding the crest of a giant wave. I came so hard that I yelled into the empty house. I trembled as smaller orgasms shook through me like the aftershocks of a quake.

2.

All I had wanted was an apple before I saw her. I had been maneuvering through the usual after work rush hour when the craving came over me. I had plugged in a jazz CD and was refusing to let the half-assed drivers get to me. The car's motor and gears were more impatient than I was. A 911 just does not sound patient in slow traffic. 
All at once I wanted to take a big bite out of a nice, juicy Macintosh apple. These sudden fits have always been with me and I've always dropped everything to satisfy them. I whipped the Porsche out of the commuter hassle into the lot of the first supermarket I saw.
I broke the law and left it in the fire lane up front. I loped in to get my apple. I picked out a big ripe one and dropped it in my jacket pocket. I was on my way out when I noticed her. She was picking through some oranges.
She was maybe an eight. Attractive, but by no means super-model material. She was dressed like a librarian. Hardly any make up and had her hair done up all tight and proper. I'm not sure what it was about her that turned me on but it was like with the apple, I wanted her.
I moved up the next aisle until I was across from her. Up close, the attraction was even stronger. I checked for a ring and saw that finger was bare. I willed her to look up but she was intent on feeling up the oranges. So I took hold of the one she had her hand on and she looked up then. 

"Excuse me." I said, "After you." and pulled my hand back.

Her look of irritation faded as I caught her with my eyes. I had her gaze locked with mine and for a second I was sure that if I had said ' Follow me.' she would have dropped the fucking orange and done so. She recovered though and broke the look. I stayed there, willing her to look up again. She wouldn't do it. She moved off up the aisle without looking back. I'd lost her. I hate losing. 
I made an instant decision and left. I pulled the Porsche to the corner of the lot and waited for her to come out. It took awhile but I had the apple to amuse me and I ate it slowly. It was the nicest apple I think I've ever had. 
She got into a dark blue Volvo wagon and I was one car back when we left the lot. It was easy to stay with her. I wondered if she had a lot on her mind or was just another half assed driver. She led me out to a typical, middle-priced burb. In fact, everything about her was so typical that I couldn't figure out why I was bothering to follow her. She started moving along quiet neighborhood streets, so I dropped further back. I was ready and when she pulled into her driveway, I eased to the curb. The only difference between her little ranch and the rest of them was the color of the paint. She dropped something on her way to the door and almost lost her groceries. 
Once she was inside, I rolled up the street and parked directly across from the place. I studied the house. After awhile I could almost visualize the layout inside. There are only so many floor plans a ranch can have and the window placement can tell you a lot.
I saw her shape moving about for a while in what had to be the kitchen. Probably putting away the stuff she'd bought, I thought. Then she must have moved to the back of the house. I waited but saw no more movement. Probably in the bedroom. Maybe she was running a bath.
I had no trouble picturing her naked. As briefly as I had seen her, I knew exactly what her body would look like. She'd had a high, round ass and long thighs under her drab skirt and nice calves showing too. She was one of those long waisted women. Her breasts would be widely spaced, with dark, dollar-sized areoles. She had carried her head well and below that elegant neck, I knew that her collarbones would be prominent. 
I wondered if she let that long, lustrous hair down when she bathed. Of course she did. It made sense, all wrapped tight at work and loose as a goose at home. Seeing her in my mind's eye had gotten me hard. I had half an urge to come but I'd never been much of a wanker. No, I'd wait for it. Wait for it until she begged me to take it. Some things just took a little longer to resolve than an urge for an apple.

3.

The morning's classes were, thankfully, less frustrating. Perhaps the students were beginning to get it. My desire was to bring the past alive for them. I believed in the theory of cycles. History has never been the dry record of dusty, irrelevant events. It has always been the key to the future. Not understanding and heeding its lessons was what had led to us into the futile quagmire of Viet Nam and now had us embroiled in the no win mess that Iraq was becoming. Our involvement in these places would have been considered ill advised by any astute student of history. Unfortunately, the value our policy makers placed on historical precedent was on a par with that of my freshman students. 
Jenny caught me at lunch in the cafeteria. She was the women's track coach and her only frustrations centered on her stopwatch. She was a small, wiry bundle of chocolate energy. She would probably have made an Olympic team if her stride had been longer. I knew what would be on her mind. She was determined to get me hooked up. I supposed I should be glad that she cared. When I had begun teaching at State, it had surprised me when the first one to befriend me had been a black woman. Since then she had become my closest friend.

"So you are still down with me on Friday night, right?"

"How's this guy's breath?" I breathed at her, elaborately.

“Don’t start, girlfriend! His name is John, I met him the other day with Bill and he is fine. A year from now the two of you gonna be up all night long with a yellin’ tow headed brat and you’ll have me to thank.” She laughed.

“I’ll be there but don’t you dare even hint to him that he’s going to score.”

“I promise but I know you gonna want some of this man’s rock in yo' roll!” she leered. ”He got my panties wet when I saw him and you know I hardly ever eat white bread.”

“You lie like a rug, Jenny. You’d date a schizophrenic albino if he had big muscles.”

“Where can I find one?” she joked, “O.K. I gotta motor. See you Friday night and pahleeze don’t show up dressed like Miss Grundy.”

I watched her trade laughs from table to table on her way out of the room. She was one of those naturally social creatures. I had been planning to cancel on her but after the other evening I changed my mind. If a chance meeting of minutes with a stranger in the produce section had me masturbating, it was obvious that I needed to get laid. Maybe I did want a relationship. 
My lecture that afternoon had examined the New Deal era and its profound effect on the average man's expectations. There had been rabid opposition to such revolutionary concepts as Social Security and unemployment insurance. Unbridled greed had placed the U.S. on the verge of economic collapse and the possibility of revolution had been real. Only the establishment's terror at this prospect had allowed an astute F.D.R. to gather the power necessary to force these reforms down the throats of big business. They had hated the idea that a man or woman might be allowed to rest and enjoy a small part of their time on earth after a lifetime of toil. They would have much preferred that everyone beneath them die in harness, yoked to the wagons of the wealthy. The fact that unemployment insurance might allow a person the time to find work they enjoyed rather than be forced to do as their betters bid also irked them. Not only had they actively opposed these advances in the human condition, but in the years since, their sons and grandsons had taken up the task and were working behind the scenes to reverse this progress. 
The lecture had been well received and I hoped I had them thinking. Then we sat through an hour and a half meeting that was, as Tom Jenkins had predicted, an exhortation to be tactful with our evaluations to the parents. They wrote the checks and the Dean did not want us pissing them off.
It had been a long day and by the time I left the campus I felt like plopping down somewhere next to a stiff drink. There was a small pub called 'The Pig and Whistle' on my route. I had never stopped there but I decided to give it a look in.
There were people aplenty inside. Probably most of them having a drink while they allowed the traffic to thin. I sat at the end of the bar, facing the room so I could people-watch. I saw Pimm's No. 1 behind the bar and ordered a Pimm's Cup. It was good but not exactly as I remembered it from my one trip to London during my student days. I surveyed the interior and saw that, in fact, it was another one of the pseudo English pubs that had sprung up over the past decade. Somebody must have made a fortune peddling all those obsolete red phone booths to these people. I figured there must be a factory somewhere turning out 'Piccadilly Circus' signs.
I was debating whether to order another or leave, when he came through the door. What were the chances of this happening? The same guy appearing the very next day? Well, the supermarket wasn't that far from this pub. Maybe this was his neighborhood. All these thoughts tumbled through my head as I watched him.
He glanced around; the way people do when they enter a room. Nobody greeted him. At the bar, he got a draft beer, which he carried over by the dartboards. Alone, with his back to me, he began pitching darts.
I am no expert on fashion, as my friend Jenny has often told me, but I doubted that what he was wearing had come off a rack at the mall. He looked…well, tailored; I guess is what came to mind. His black slip-ons had that dull, expensive looking luster. I couldn't study his features but he moved easily when he went to retrieve the darts, which he flew accurately with an almost lazy motion. I suddenly felt stupid. There I was, analyzing his dress, his form, my God, even his shoes.
What the hell was wrong with me? He had probably never even given me a second thought after I had ignored his tricky little come on. There would be no shortage of hungry fish in the sea for a man with his looks. I made up my mind that I had to either put him out of my mind and be on my way or just walk over and introduce myself.

4.

I was parked on her street, bright and early, when she left for work. It was not much of a surprise when we arrived at the university. Maybe she really was a librarian, I mused. She was too old to be a graduate student. I cruised past her parked car. A teacher! How had I missed that faculty sticker earlier?
I waited for a space within eyesight of her car and finally got it. I found the admissions office and a cute, little work-study chick gave me a big smile along with the university catalogue I requested.
I found a shaded bench outside and sat down to find out just who this woman I had decided to seduce was. There she was, all right, in the faculty section. The picture did her no justice at all. Strange, I thought, had I not been drawn to her in person and that photo had been on the front page of the paper, I would have never bothered to read the article. I read about her now though:

Martin, Miara. Born in Haverhill, Mass.
Graduated, Freetown High School 
B.A., history, Barton College.
M.A., Political Science, Northeast University.
Dept: History. Course: Modern History.

The rest was a course description and schedule. No real information beyond her name, and birthplace and the fact that her last Wednesday class let out at 3:30. I had not expected much more. Nowadays, people had to be careful about what they let be known about them. There were all manner of crazies loose in world. I was confident that her school history might give me a clue or two though. I tossed the brochure in a litter basket and walked back to my car.
Traffic was light and I was back at my apartment in the city before noon. I parked in the basement garage and took the elevator up. I always enjoyed pressing the button for the top floor. There were only six apartments up there. Each one had its own roof garden and terrace. At night, the city below was a carpet of Christmas lights. It cost a bloody fortune but what the hell, I had money and the only thing I planned on leaving behind was a pot full of ashes.