The Alphabet of Love Ch. 10

I sat on the edge of the bed and ran my hands through my hair, frustrated. I loved being here with Derek. It felt right in so many ways. I could even see myself in his house in Boston; he'd shown me pictures of it. A white colonial, New England issue, with big, airy rooms and the funky decorating style of Brenda, an art buff. His wife had gone back to work after the kids were older, finding a use for her art history degree managing a small art gallery. She and Derek ended up buying the gallery and ever since, she'd become a patron of the art scene in Boston, showcasing up-and-comers. One of them was the boy toy with whom she'd flown the coop.

I'd also seen photos of his two children, a boy and girl. The boy, Jonas, was in law school somewhere on the east coast, and the girl, burdened with the name Mercury, studied journalism at prestigious Bennington College. Derek had told me some time ago that his children were almost strangers to him since they'd grown up; his son had no interest in anything but law, and Mercury saw herself as a caped crusader for the left. She'd been arrested several times in protests, proudly posting it on Facebook when she was released, and then writing about it at length on a blog that she blatantly asserted she would turn into her Master's thesis. She had Derek's dark looks, tall, angular, not really pretty. Fire in her eyes, though, made up for anything she might lack. Jonas was more round, softer-featured like Brenda. Brenda wore her graying blonde hair very short, in a stylish bob, and a lot of edgy makeup. At least in the photos I'd seen of her, she looked assuredly 'artsy.' Derek said she didn't fit in or really like the medical community, and hadn't been with him to any conventions, dinners, parties, etc for years. It sounded to me like their marriage had been dead long before I met him and she met her young man.

"Hey," his voice came to me, and I opened my eyes.

Shit. I'd fallen asleep. He sat on the bed looking down at me, a gentle smile on his face. "Sorry," I said, struggling to sit up.

"It's all right. Sorry I was gone so long. I talked to my mother and then the kids. They actually talked to me."

"That's good," I propped myself up on my hands and slid to the edge of the bed, beside him.

"How about you?"

I shrugged, shaking my head. "He's upset with me. He kept telling me to do whatever I wanted. Well, duh. Of course I'm going to do that."

He looked at me curiously. "He's not willing to fight for you?"

"He can't, really. Not now. He tried to tell me you were too old for me, too old to be a father to my children."

"Is that the best he could do?" he laughed.

I sighed and shook my head. "I just want to forget about it. I'll deal with him when I get home. What about us? I think we should go on an adventure tomorrow."

"I like that idea," he nodded. "What are you thinking?"

"Maybe head down to the dam, get out in the desert. Stay in some fleabag motel somewhere and have hot dirty sex," I kept my eyes locked on his as I said it.

"How can I say no to that?" he said just before he kissed me. The kissing led to disrobing, and you know where that ended up. Christmas sex, I thought. What better way to celebrate?

When I woke, I rolled on my back expecting to find my lover's warm body. He wasn't there. I opened my eyes, squinting in the morning light, and found him at the table nearby bent over his iPad. He wore shorts and no shirt, a serious look on his face.

"What are you doing?" I asked as I sat up.

He looked over at me and smiled. "Morning, my love. I'm just looking at maps, see where we might like to go. Do you know we're quite close to the Grand Canyon?"

"Been there," I said, wrinkling my nose. The memories were agonizing. A family trip with my Dad, his snippy wife, and those two spoiled brat daughters of theirs when I was twelve.

"Do you want to tour the dam? Or have you been there before?"

"Yeah, I have, but if you want to go it's fine. One of those helicopter tours might be cool."

"How do you feel about hiking? I'd have to get some shoes, but it might be fun."

I shrugged. "I'd need shoes, too, but sure, we could do that. Maybe we'll find the bones of some old prospector propped up against a cactus."

He laughed. "There's a morbid thought. I have to admit I'm a bit of a rockhound. You know anything about geology?"

"Not really. But I'll help you look."

"Deal," he smiled.

I yawned and stretched. "Maybe I can find a rock identification app for my phone."

"Let's have some breakfast," he set the iPad down, and got to his feet. "Then we can get on the road, stop somewhere for hiking boots."

I dressed in jeans, and layered myself with a light long-sleeved t-shirt, button-up flannel shirt, and hoodie. I'd come prepared in hopes we might do something like this; I knew Derek liked exploring wild places. I hadn't, though, brought serious boots. My Nikes might suffice, but I agreed with him that we needed better footwear.

After a quick breakfast we returned to our room, threw in some things for an overnight stay somewhere, and hit the road. Derek liked driving and had talked about the two of us taking an epic road trip up the Pacific Coast Highway. Before his situation changed, I'd considered this a pleasant fantasy. Now I found myself mentally reviewing my work commitments, thinking of talking with Dr. Couslard about a block of time off in the Spring.

On the outskirts of Vegas we stopped at a shoe store in a strip mall; we both found hiking boots discounted, and loaded up on socks while we were at it. There was nothing stopping us now.

I did find a rockhounding app for my phone. I scrolled through the detailed photos and descriptions, wondering if we'd find any of these beautiful stones, or just run-of-the-mill dusty old rocks. Derek found a radio station and we rolled toward Hoover Dam, happy and relaxed.

After we drove through Boulder City he turned down the radio and looked over at me. "You doing okay?"

"Sure," I smiled.

"You know I talked to my kids yesterday," he said, with a hint of something more to come.

"You told me."

"I told them about you. Not that they really care what I do but I thought they should know."

I tried not to sound as uneasy as I felt. "How'd they take it?"

"Jonas said, 'whatever, Dad,' and Merc asked me if you were a floozy."

I laughed. "Just call me Doctor Floozy," I rolled my eyes. I'd been called worse.

"Yeah, she backed off when I told her you were a doctor. Then she found out you live in Seattle and wanted to know if I thought you'd put her up so she can 'check out the scene.' I told her I doubted it."

"You think we'd get along?" I asked him, smiling indulgently.

"No," he said without hesitation. "She's a wild one, she has some anarchist ideas in those nasty dreads. I wonder if she ever washes them."

"Oh my god," I laughed out loud, "you're sounding like a dinosaur now, Derek!"

"Well? They must be pretty lenient at the fancy-ass money pit of a college she's at. Fucking Bennington and all its pretensions."

"Whatever you say, Mister Stanford Johns Hopkins," I cited his two upper level alma maters.

"That's completely different," he asserted. "I got a useful education. I can't see she's learning anything about journalism. I've read her blog. Did you know she has a blog?" he looked over at me.

I shrugged noncommittally. He didn't need to know I'd cyberstalked his kids.

"She's not a bad writer, but I thought journalism was about being objective and telling the facts. She's got a real bias."

"Maybe she'll get on with Mother Jones," I suggested, naming a radical leftist magazine.

"They'd be the only ones that would hire her," he said, huffing a bit.

"Derek," I moved as close as I could to him in our seats, "your kids will be fine. Sounds to me like she's blowing off steam while she's young, and that's not bad. And she's standing for something she believes in. Some people never have the balls to do that, all their lives."

He kept his eyes on the road, his lips pursed, then he glanced at me. "I hate it when you make sense."

"You only love me for my boobs," I teased him.

"What kind of man would I be if I didn't?" he shot back.

I ran my hand down his thigh. "I love the man you are. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. But I'm not sure I want your daughter coming to stay with me."

He smiled. "Not much chance of that, unless she wants to drop out of college. If she does, I'll disown the little communist. I've spent thousands on that place."

I laughed. "We'd be a really weird family, you and me, if we hooked up," I said. "Two doctors, your commie daughter and lawyer son, my anti-social cat."

"And your unavailable lover boy stuck on his Dad's Presidential campaign," he added.

"Yeah, him," I sighed. I still wasn't sure if I wanted to write Trevor off completely, but the longer I spent with Derek, the better I liked the idea of being with him permanently.

"Sorry," he apologized. "I should have kept my mouth shut. But I'm not ashamed to admit I'm jealous, and I'm willing to do whatever I have to do to keep you."

"Really, now," I smiled, raising an eyebrow.

"Really," he assured me.

"Oh!" I cried, pointing. "There's a sign for the helicopter tour!"

He slowed down and around the next corner we turned in the entrance.

"I hope we weren't supposed to make reservations," I said as he parked the SUV between other cars.

"We'll find out," he said, grabbing the keys.

One helicopter sat on a pad, which I figured was a good sign. A few people milled around, taking photos and laughing. Hard to tell if they'd already been on a tour or if they were waiting. We learned that the wait was about forty minutes; we decided to grab a snack at a convenience store across the highway while we waited.

"Ever been in a helicopter?" Derek asked me when we'd returned to our SUV, and sat inside with the doors open, drinking cold sodas.

"Yes," I answered. "My Dad has a pilot friend who flew us over some of the dams on the Columbia River. Grand Coulee, Chief Joseph, Wells Dam. It was pretty cool. My Dad's an engineer at Rocky Reach, another one of the dams."

He laughed. "So you've been over dams before, this will probably be no big deal."

"No, it'll still be fun," I said, nodding. "What about you?"

"Been in life flight helicopters twice. Flew with patients to bigger hospitals when I lived in Maine, transplants gone bad. I had to really assert myself to be allowed to go."

I smiled. Derek had genuine love for people, and no doubt had fought tooth and nail for his patients before he'd gone strictly into research and academia.

"You miss the one-on-one with patients?" I asked him.

"Sometimes," he nodded. "It's hard to know if what I do makes any difference when I'm not seeing it up close. The rewards aren't tangible like that. I have to rely on other nephrologists to report to me."

I nodded. "That's what I'm not liking so far, even though I love my new position. I had to give up a few patients to devote myself to this, and Dr. Couslard tells me I'll eventually stop seeing patients directly. He wants me to be on his administrative and research team full time. They just have to assign my patients to other doctors."

"Are you going to stick with it?"

"For now," I said, considering. "I mean, I really don't know yet exactly what he expects from me, or what I'll be doing. I can always tell him no thanks I suppose. But it'll be hard to give up the money. I'm going to have my student loans paid off in a year."

"Congratulations," he smiled and nodded. "That's huge!"

"Maybe I can think about buying a house. I splurged on a car but I've held off on bigger purchases until I have less debt. You know?"

"Prudent," he agreed. "You're a smart, levelheaded woman, Shiloh. Besides being smoking sexy hot."

I kissed him. He gazed into my eyes and said, "You know, we make a great team."

"I know we do," I couldn't deny it.

We kissed a few more times.

"Damn," he said, pulling away from me. "You make me so horny. I want to do it right now."

"How old are you again?" I laughed, and gave him another wet, warm kiss.

"You'd better stop, woman," he said weakly.

"You ever dry humped?" I asked him, looking at the console between our seats, assessing whether or not I could get over it.

"What?" he stared at me.

"We can do it with our clothes on," I said.

"I'll come over to the passenger side and you sit on my lap," he said at once. His initial shock gone, he now loved the idea. I looked out the windows at the parking lot; no one was nearby. Either people were on tours or taking photos with the helicopter that had just landed.

Derek got in, I wriggled on top of his lap, facing him, and he shut the door.

"Now what?" he asked, and I started kissing him, and grinding myself against him. He started to undo his zipper but I stopped him.

"No, all clothes on," I whispered as I licked his ear.

It drove him mad. We writhed against each other like two desperate lovers about to be executed before a firing squad. I felt his erection through his and my jeans. My panties were wet. Suddenly I orgasmed, and at the sound of my gasps, he must have come, too; he let out a groan and wrapped me close.

"Holy shit," he breathed hard. "I just jizzed in my shorts!"

Laughing, I kissed him. "God, I love you."

"Think they'll smell it on us?" he asked, opening the door to let in some air.

"Who cares," I said, jumping out.

"It's about time to go," he said, following me, shutting the SUV door. He reached for my hand and we walked over to the loading area.

"That was fucking hot," he said in my ear while we waited. I squeezed his hand.

It was hard to get my mind on the helicopter flight. Maybe that was a good thing; the pilot seemed surprised that we were so relaxed as we boarded, joking and still stealing little kisses from each other. He even asked us if we were just married.

The tour was short, but magnificent. The views of the dam from above took my breath away -- and that was saying something, being an experienced viewer of dams from the air. When we returned to the landing pad, we took pictures before we got back into the SUV.

"That was fun," I said, scrolling through the pictures I'd asked a bystander to take, choosing a couple to upload to Facebook.

"Sure was," he agreed. "But now what?"

I looked over at him. "Hiking? Still feel like that?"

"If you know where to go. Or we could find a town and a motel and relax the rest of the day," he grinned.

For a man in his fifties, he was awfully horny.

"Well, it's after four," I said. "It'd probably be a good idea to find a room, get some dinner. And I forgot, I need to call my friend Isabel. I blew her off yesterday and I really need to get in touch."

"Sure," he nodded. "We could just go back to Boulder City."

"That sounds fine," I said. Boulder City was only fifteen or twenty minutes back the way we came.

"We'll get some info on places to hike," he said as we started back.

"Okay, sounds good. Be a shame for those boots to go to waste."

"I considered being a geologist," he said, to my surprise.

"Really?" I laughed. "How did you end up in medical school?"

"I took an anatomy class and loved it. It was one of those 'rabbit hole' moments. I wanted to know how it all worked together, everything. I was hooked."

"That's funny," I smiled at him. "I think I told you I only went into medicine because of my Aunt, and all through my rotations I was so impatient because I knew I was going into nephrology from the day I was accepted."

"You did. I think you've done a fine job honoring her memory."

I sighed, shifting in my seat. "I hope so. She was the most important person in my life. Medical school was hard. I mean, damn hard. I didn't even enjoy it most of the time, but I was bent on doing this."

"That's something about you that I love, Shiloh. You're strong-willed and you don't give up. Those are good things to take into a relationship."

I laughed and eyed him. "You think it's good that I'm strong-willed?"

"Do you know how boring it would be to have a woman who never challenged me? That was one thing about Brenda, she challenged me. Jesus, she never liked anything I wanted to do, she argued about everything from decorating the house to what car to buy. You know she made me drive a Prius? I can't wait to get rid of the fucking thing."

I couldn't stop laughing. "You never told me you drive a Prius!"

"It's the economically and environmentally responsible thing to do," he affected a falsetto, mocking his soon-to-be ex-wife. Switching back to his normal voice, he went on. "I'm getting a sports car as soon as I can. Maserati or something. Ferrari. I'm just going to rub her nose in it."

"Wow, I thought mine was pretty snazzy," I said, and whistled.

"What do you drive?"

"An Acura NSX, the sporty two-seater."

"Nice?"

I shrugged. "I like it. But in Seattle traffic I don't get a chance to blow out the cobs, as my Dad would say. When I go back to Wenatchee, though, I let her rip sometimes. Got a ticket last year on the freeway."

"Leadfoot," he teased me.

"Are you really going to get a Ferrari?"

"Oh, I don't know," he sighed. "I guess it depends what I have left after she guts me in the divorce settlement. She deserted me, though, so it won't be as much as it would have been if I'd left. At least that's what my lawyer tells me."

I nodded. "So you're stuck with the Prius for awhile."

"Oh hell no. I'm getting rid of it. I'll drive a Yugo before I get in that thing again."

"Just because she made you buy it?"

"It's a symbol of everything that was wrong with our marriage," he said, his brow furrowing a little. "She had these socially conscious pretensions and I just wanted to live the good life. Fuck, I earned it. She stifled me in a lot of ways."

"I'm sorry, Derek," I said quietly.

He looked over at me. "I know you're not like that. You've never tried to tell me what to wear or say or how to be or think. I was under a constant barrage of that. I hope her boy toy is getting an earful of it. She's probably reminding him of his mother right about now, and she's old enough to be his mother."

"You don't think it'll last?" I asked, smiling a little.

"Oh hell no. He'll dump her after he's milked her for however much money she'll fork over before she wises up. Then she'll just flit off to the next project, the next 'star' she can have a hand in promoting."

"Is she an artist herself?"

He shook his head. "No, just like, kind of a groupie, more or less. She knows a lot about art but has no talent. Trust me, I had to live with some of her attempts at drawing and sculpture when we were first married. Godawful lumps and scribblings that looked like a cat walked into some ink."

This was the most he'd ever talked about his wife, and I found it interesting. I'd wondered if he saw anything of her in me, if he was replacing her with me because I reminded him of how she'd been when they were young. I was relieved that we had almost nothing in common. Derek was ready to wash his hands of that relationship and work on a whole new paradigm.

We rolled into Boulder City and found a motel easily. After checking in, he changed into his track suit and went for a run before dinner, giving me a chance to call Isabel.

"You're at Hoover Dam?" was the first thing she said.

It took me a moment to realize she'd seen my Facebook photos. "Oh, yeah, we drove down from Vegas. Just something to do."

"Well, your Dad called me and wants to know who your boyfriend is," she told me.

"What? I just posted those less than an hour ago!"

"I don't know, he just called me right before you did."

I sighed, kicking off my shoes. As soon as I did it, I realized I'd have to put them back on when we went out to eat. "It's none of his business," I said.