Being Kitten Ch. 01: Rendezvous

I freeze mid-step on the sidewalk without knowing why. Just in front of me, a woman in expensive yoga pants holds open the front door to Rendezvous as she calls out good-bye to someone inside.

She turns, startled, when her heel bumps my toes with her next step backward. "I'm sorry," she says, gesturing for me to go past her into the coffee shop.

The guitar music streaming through the doorway penetrates my consciousness, and it's then I understand. It's been years since I've heard him play, but there's no mistaking his soulful voice and dissonant grunge style. My feet propel me inside.

I pass Rendezvous twice each weekday on the walk between my office and the metro station. Nestled between a dingy Moroccan restaurant and fast food gyro place, it's a trendy hipster café in a gentrifying neighborhood. I've never gone inside before, though I often amuse myself reading the chalkboard easel next to the entrance where the aggressively quirky specials – think lavender lattes and espresso with tonic water – are scrawled.

The interior is surprisingly spacious and airy despite the crowds. Campy drive-in horror movie posters ("Mutant Vampires from Outer Space!") clutter the walls. Rustic wooden tables stand at various heights, some surrounded by tall stools and others by low, padded benches upholstered in an eclectic mix of indie-folk-boho patterned fabrics.

My eyes confirm what my ears already knew. On an upraised platform at the back of the café, Seth perches on a stool in front of a microphone, strumming the guitar in his lap and pouring out his heart in song. I move closer, slowly but inexorably, unable to do otherwise. His dark hair is long, the way I always liked it best, and it drapes over his face obscuring one side in shadow. My fingers twitch with the memory of raking it back, soft strands sliding between my fingers. (Is it only memory or also desire?) His eyes drift closed as his voice soars and his body sways gently with the rhythm. I want to find out if he still smells as clean as I remember, if he still tastes as fresh. I want to breathe him in.

I lean against the edge of the service counter and watch, transfixed. The last time I saw him perform was 18 years ago – half my lifetime ago. That was also in a coffee shop, a different one whose name I don't remember. He'd invited me the night before when we'd gone out together – if you could call fooling around in the back seat of my parents' minivan going out. He'd kissed me senseless and then he'd guided my hand to the front of his jeans and my fingers had skimmed the length of his hard bulge. He'd looked at me with hazy, heavy-lidded eyes and said, "I want you, Katie." And I'd felt something open inside me like a flower bursting into bloom, and I'd known I wouldn't deny him anything. Petals unfurled, tender center exposed. Raw, swollen, dripping, bleeding...

Watching him perform the next evening, I drank in every intoxicating detail of him, every tiny shift in position and facial expression. His fingers coaxed the strings to music, their movements deft and sure and graceful despite the barely perceptible tremor that betrayed his nerves. He'd played me like an instrument the night before with those strong, calloused hands, driving me to helpless surrender. His song filled me now as his body had filled me then, the penetration literal and figurative. He filled me to the core, seeping like molten liquid into flesh, muscle, veins, the very marrow of my bones, integrating and solidifying. I buzzed with the power of it.

After his set, he sat beside me at the counter. But I wasn't his only groupie that night. A pretty blond sylph of a girl immediately climbed into his lap, wrapped her arms around his neck, and flirted with him shamelessly. He introduced her as a friend. My face burned and my stomach rolled. When she slid down the neckline of her shirt and the waistband of her pants to show him her new lingerie, I couldn't stand to be there any longer.

He followed me to the parking lot when I fled. "We never said this was exclusive," he said. "I can't do the relationship thing right now."

I accepted it, drowning as I was in the bottomless well of my need to please him, to be whatever he wanted. And after all, he'd followed me outside. That had to mean something, didn't it?

There were always other girls – girls he called friends and girls he called girlfriends – and when they inevitably let him down, he called me because he knew I'd always make myself available to him. I always did, until I went to college and met the kind, uncomplicated man I eventually married. Seth didn't feel the buzz of that power between us, and so it was meaningless. I had to move on.

Had I broken his hold on me? All these years I'd thought so, but seeing him again now I wonder if time and distance have merely allowed the leash to stretch. Could he snap it back if he wanted to?

I snap back to myself when the music stops. My numb hands join the applause automatically. Seth chats with some nearby patrons while he packs up. He hasn't noticed me yet and I know I should leave before he does. I turn and will myself back the way I came, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other.

If this were a movie, something dramatic would prevent me from leaving unnoticed. Perhaps I'd bump into a server in my haste and be drenched in coffee and the obvious thing would be to go home with Seth (he'd live conveniently nearby, of course) and borrow a shirt to change into. Or I'd trip in an endearingly clumsy fashion and sprain an ankle and he'd offer his arm to help me limp back to his place for some ice. But this is real life. I make it most of the way to the entrance, so close that a humid breath of outside air dampens my cheeks, and all that happens is that I hear him say my name.

"Katie, is that you?"

I stifle a groan and turn. Seth stands only a few feet away, poised mid-step with feet set wide as though he's been hurrying to catch up to me. I raise my face to his. My breath catches at the shock of those blue eyes, deep enough to sink into and never resurface...

But I did resurface, I remind myself. I got over him and moved on, not necessarily in that order. Surely he has no hold on me anymore, not after half a lifetime. I'm simply flustered, caught off guard. I can hold my shit together.

"Seth," I croak. "Hi. I was just...I was walking to the metro and I heard you..."

"Wow, Katie, it's been years..." He glances with a slight frown toward the door I almost managed to reach. "Are you in a hurry?"

I take a deep breath. "No...I didn't want to bother you..."

"Stay a while. Let's have some coffee and catch up." He reaches out, fingers grazing my shoulder, and I can only nod assent.

We find a table and I order whatever the server recommends, something steamy topped with foam and rose petals. I hardly notice the taste as we talk, filling each other in on the details of our adult lives. Our boring office jobs, my husband, Seth's girlfriend. (Of course he has a girlfriend.) We learn that our apartments are only a few miles away from each other in the suburbs.

Gradually I relax. I can talk to Seth. Of course I can. He's not the idol of my romanticized memories. He was just a boy then, thoughtless and self-absorbed and hormone-fueled as teenagers are, and I was a dewy-eyed dreamer looking to be swept away. Now we're adults, fully-formed and living clear-headed, practical lives with no place for sentimental foolishness. The past has no power anymore, surely, and nothing compels either of us to repeat old mistakes.

The conversation hits a lull and I smile at him openly and genuinely for the first time this evening. Seth smiles back for a moment before his expression sobers. He leans forward and lowers his voice.

"Listen, Katie, I want to apologize for the way I treated you back then. I took you for granted and you deserved better. I was a selfish ass."

I shrug and take a sip of my drink, hoping the steam will serve as a convenient excuse for the warmth rising in my cheeks. "No need to apologize, Seth. It's in the past. Anyway, all teenagers are selfish asses."

"Still," he says, "I am sorry."

He studies my face and I wonder if he can see through my affected nonchalance. I wonder why I'm having to affect it. I thought I was nonchalant. But the memories are as vivid and emotion-laden as ever. The way he spread me open and took what he wanted until I fell apart around him. The way his voice broke on my name when he cried out in passion. The way his arms tightened and trembled around me when I said I loved him...

But he didn't say it back. I didn't need him to say it, or to feel it. My love was unconditional.

Maybe he deserves my honesty. Clearing the air after all this time can only be therapeutic. I speak hesitantly, struggling to put my thoughts into words. "It wasn't all painful for me, you know. There was part of me that took a perverse sort of...pride, I guess, in being your backup girl. Knowing I'd always be there for you no matter what. You could always come to me and I'd fulfill any need I could for you. No claims or demands of my own. Just...offering myself to you."

Seth shivers visibly and his eyes darken. I feel it now, that magnetic pull, all too familiar. "That...is actually incredibly hot..." he says.

I lick my lips. I feel the warm tingle of his fingertips on the back of my hand. I look down, startled to see the diamond in my engagement ring winking up at me.

I practically jump out of my seat. "I should go."

Nodding, Seth stands with me. I walk and he follows. He places a hand on my back as if to guide me, but he doesn't press and I'm the one choosing the direction. Only instead of moving toward the front door I'm moving father back into the coffee shop, past the tables and down the narrow hallway with single bathrooms on either side. I don't know if it's the men's or the women's bathroom I'm entering, but still he follows, closing and locking the door behind us. Our impatience allows no time to find the light switch, so we crash together in the dark.

I see nothing and I feel nothing but him, everywhere, surrounding and overwhelming me. I'm crushed between the cool solidity of the wall behind me and the hard heat of his body. With desperate, greedy kisses we devour one another. Hands slide under clothing, grasping for bare skin, needing to shed the layers between us. I inhale his breath like oxygen, saturating myself with his familiar taste and scent. After all this time, my senses still know him in a way my mind had forgotten. He feels like home and belonging.

I skim my lips along his throat up to his ear and whisper, "I'm still yours, Seth. It's unconditional...even time wasn't a condition."

"You were never just a backup, Katie," he murmurs. He kisses his way down my neck, stopping just short of the junction with my shoulder, and lingers there to suck at the tender skin. I feel the scrape of his teeth and then they press harder, making me gasp. He holds me in place and sinks deeper, sucking hard enough to burst the capillaries, and I know what he's doing.

"Yes, mark me," I sigh, rolling my head to the side to bare my throat to him completely. "Claim me. You know you own me."

He growls and there's nothing but touch and breath and sensation in the darkness as he sucks and bites a ring of hickeys around my throat. The pain-sharpened pleasure radiates through my limbs to the tips of my fingers and toes. With one hand he pushes up my blouse and pushes down my bra, cupping my left breast and rolling his thumb over the nipple. He shoves his other hand down my pants and cups my pussy. He squeezes once, hard enough for me to understand his meaning – this is mine – before he slips two fingers inside my panties to rub my clit. I jerk and shudder against him.

He is everywhere, on me and in me, engulfing me, filling me, owning me, and I'm nothing and everything because I'm thoroughly his. He draws me higher and higher, sending my senses spinning out of control. Lost in a delirium of pleasure, all I can do is clutch him for support, digging my fingernails into his shoulders. My small, needy moans become louder and longer until I wail, "Seth, you're making me cum!" He crushes his mouth to mine to muffle my cries and swallow my ecstasy as I ride the waves. I grind myself uncontrollably, helplessly, onto his hand. Finally I collapse and melt into him, boneless and breathless.

Slowly awareness returns, centered on the sweetly satisfying ache at the base of my throat where Seth marked me. I wrap myself in his warmth. Part of me wants to stay here just like this, but I can feel the hard press of his cock against my belly and the part of me that wants to give him pleasure wins out.

I sink to my knees and grope in the darkness for the fly of his jeans, fumbling to unfasten the button and lower the zipper. I tug his pants and boxers down past his hips. His hand on my head guides me gently until my lips meet his cock. I kiss it softly, tasting salty precum, and then I lick, swirling the tip of my tongue around the opening.

"Suck me, Katie." His voice is quiet but strained with an undertone of need. Understanding this is not the time to tease, I open wide and consume him all at once. Though I nearly gag, I hold him there and let the muscles at the back of my throat go slack until I can accommodate him fully. Then I suck his cock. It's not a soft, sensual dance of tongue and lips. I fuck him with my mouth, gulping and slurping with shameless zeal. His grip tightens, fingers threading my hair, but he doesn't push or pull, just holds through the rhythm I set. I am relentless, starved for him after all these years. I need to make him cum, to feel him release into me, rewarding me for a job well done.

His fists clench in my hair. The sound of his breathing becomes increasingly harsh and labored with each exhale. I feel him shudder, feel his thigh quivering beneath my hand as his pelvis arches forward. If I could talk I'd tell him that I've never needed anything more than I need to feel and taste his pleasure on my tongue right now, but all I can do is moan plaintively around his cock and hope he understands. He seems to because he thrusts hard and deep, then goes still. A tremor starts at the base of his cock and spasms up its length until the first of several waves of warm, thick cum pumps down my throat. I drink greedily, still sucking as his orgasm subsides because I won't stop until I've drained him dry.

"God, I missed your blowjobs," he sighs, sliding his cock out of my mouth. I begin to stand, but his hands push down on my shoulders. "Lick me clean."

Obediently I bathe his softening cock with my tongue. "Good girl," he murmurs, stroking my hair. My pussy clenches with renewed arousal. I want to keep going, to see if I can make him hard again, but he pulls away. I hear the rustle and zip of his jeans. I straighten my own clothes. He takes my hand and leads me out of the bathroom and back down the hallway.

After retrieving his guitar and paying for our drinks, we go next door for gyros. Our knees press together under the small, wobbly cafe table as we eat. At first we lean in and hover close to the overstuffed pitas, folding the sides together in the clumsy attempt to contain the inevitable overflow. Soon enough, though, our eyes meet in a laughing glance that acknowledges the futility of clinging to propriety. We let dangling chunks of meat fall to our plates and pop them into our mouths with our fingers. We lick with relish at the grease and juices dribbling down our chins.

Once we're finished he leads me down the block to his car. Climbing into the passenger seat beside him seems so natural that I don't question it. Wherever he takes me is where I belong.

Seth never stops touching me while he drives. His free hand caresses my shoulders, my breasts, my thighs. My skin hums under his fingers and my eyes drift shut in blissful contentment. "I'm not going to let you go again, you know," he says after several minutes of comfortable silence. "You said I own you and I intend to keep you."

"Keep me?" I open my eyes and smile at him. "What, like a pet?"

He glances at me and grins – a flash of blue eyes and strong, white teeth. "Exactly, kitten."