Coral rang me at work.
It was a Friday night, three months after the wedding we attended. She knew me too well that my life currently revolved around over time.
"Sorry," she started, "I'm sorry, I ditched you."
My company at the surf club reception was poor; I deserved to be deserted.
"No," I fired fast, following her conscience-stricken words, "You made an effort to pair me. I was woeful."
"I will make it up to you," suddenly cheery, "I expect you at my place by eight," Coral instructed me like I was a teenager.
"Yes," I repeated three times between her giving me her new address.
I didn't finish my intended job; I told myself I could do it Saturday morning. When I tidied my office, arranged a cab and reached Coral's, it clocked to eight-thirty. I immediately categorised her apartment as part of an up-market modern complex.
I pressed her doorbell.
The door flung open faster than a Halloween surprise. It shut behind me quicker than sneaking frangers from a paper bag. I headed breathless into instant exertion inside Coral's hallway. My pants and boxers were yanked below my ankles. Coral's hands manipulated fabrics freneticly fast.
Her coat rack and umbrella stand toppled beside us to her hallway floor. The floor spawned a thick, lush carpet. Her indoor planter rack teetered. Coral launched a methodical ambush, though her body lacked camouflage. It was a beckoning sex beacon. She wore a scarlet, crotchless garter belt, suspenders and red stockings.
She swooped over me. Her lipstick and rouge smeared scarlet.
Over-applied makeup crossed my mind.
I started to freckle hunt and couldn't find them.
Concealed by a foundation!
Coral's hands routed further thoughts. She multi-tasked my erogenous zones. Her palm rubbed my chest after popping a shirt button in her rush to open it. Her extended fingers plied through the thickness of my maturing chest hair. She massaged my underused shaft vigorously.
Her left hand grabbed the flesh of my butt whilst her right teased my balls and sculpted maleness. Coral followed a sequence like prepping a cannon—mine—her tongue as her primer, her fingers the ramrod, and her mind the fuse.
She had come a long way with foreplay since the boathouse.
She delivered great head.
Delighted, I wondered, what did young ladies learn at Princeton?
Coral mounted me, reverse cowgirl. She arched forward in our joining.
Prosciutto came to mind.
Then, we were positioned for sex, not romance.
We drew on collective experience to sap and drain the self-pleasure from our privates pooled. We exploited what the parts combined could give.
I released a quiet moan.
Coral's sigh emerged dainty and delicate.
Then, the aha moment gatecrashed the pleasure; this wasn't romantic.
We were both romantics.
Coral deserved romance.
So did I.
As we recuperated, side by side on her light green carpet, I made the comparisons you should never make. I left the uniqueness of each woman I experienced. I compared their sexual expression.
Porn, delight and guilt, you can't edit your sex life.
Ruby, impromptu passion, the mistress of the unexpected.
Jenny's vulnerable sensuousness was revealed as she sojourned through joint bodily expression.
Coral, the planner, the sweet-hearted, affectionate choreographer of gifting.
I propped on my elbows in her hallway. Coral lay back. Her eyes uncannily matched her carpet dye.
She glanced at me.
For once lost for words.
My hand found my boxers, and I hoisted them hastily.
As I did, I noticed Coral assumed my role. She watched me undeviating. Eventually, she hunched, her fingers locked below her knees.
One of her gorgeous sheer red stockings had laddered. She ran her fingers over the tear.
They must have been new.
Her brow creased.
I supposed the stocking.
My ego hoped, not a response to the sex.
My conscience told me; it damn well should be a frown from the pair of us.
"Sit on my bed," she steered tenderly.
I paused because her smell beguiled me, hints of pistachio.
"I'll lose these stockings and join you."
She eased up, leaving me to gather my clothes and search for a button. I followed her buttocks wobble as she coasted. Her golden locks mesmerised me. They swayed as she turned midway along her hallway.
I realised my shoes and socks remained on. Everything in the hallway had happened fast. I slipped off my shoes and piled my clothes in a neat bundle beside the hallway planter.
I decided my socks needed to come off. My toes spread, flexing through the shag pile. I picked up the fallen coat rack and umbrella stand while scanning for my missing button. I put her khaki Burberry coat and a cream Givenchy umbrella back in place. My bestie's taste in fashion distracted me from heading to her bedroom.
I began to scrutinise a well-heeled, single girl's apartment. As I peeked, I would have preferred a tour by Coral. In my boxers, I strolled along her hallway. Her bedroom emerged on my right, and her kitchen to the left. Then an open plan sitting room and a shut door.
Behind the door, Coral groomed; I assumed her bathroom. A small laundry alcove completed the apartment. I moseyed to her bedroom.
I sat in the middle of her bed, above her doona. Instead of looking around, my eyes fixated on the door. I listened. I kept anticipating hearing the bathroom door open. Not even the sound of running water came to my ears. I assumed she decided to change.
Change into what?
I liked the scarlet garter belt and red stockings.
Strangely, I desired to erase the crotchless.
Maybe she would wear a bathrobe?
What if she removed it?
I hoped not; I didn't want a naked Coral on Coral's bed.
I jumped off the bed, raced out of her room, grabbed my white shirt, and whisked it on. I endeavoured to smooth the creases. It flapped as I flustered. At least it covered my chest and most of my navy boxers. The shirt presented shabby with one button missing.
I hurried into her bedroom, choosing to sit straight-backed on the edge of her queen-sized bed, facing the door. Coral strolled into her bedroom like she expected me here for a teenage get-together.
Cotton pyjamas replaced her sexy lingerie. A simple white band held back her hair—no trace of makeup.
My bestie laughed at me. I did not know why, yet it made me happy.
"Get under the doona; be comfortable," she instructed.
"Which side?"
"Goodness me, go left; I'll go right."
She shook her head heartily, and her hairband loosened.
As Coral snuggled under her sunflower yellow doona, she said, "Let's talk."
She adjusted her hairband.
Let's talk; it stuck with me; we should have done that at the front door.
I surmised my bestie considered similar thoughts in her bathroom.
"Was that any good?" Coral searched.
Her voice anticipated my response.
"No."
"No."
I specified, "The sex was okay. Better than okay. Alright?"
"Yeah," rasped Coral.
She gave me the speaking lead.
She was sexier in her pink cotton pyjamas than in a garter belt.
"Yeah," I echoed. "We weren't in it like it was not us."
Coral wistfully responded, "Not us. I thought it, taking off my make-up. I hesitated, unsure whether to say it out here or leave it behind with my laddered stocking."
Her pyjamas sported little white lambs gambolling.
One disappeared undocked under her armpit.
"Mmm," racking my brains, trying to place where we were as two souled beings.
"Where are we, Luke?"
Coral beat me to the question.
All the lambs had undocked tails.
"In your bedroom."
I chose trite because her question brought ripples from the past.
Coral gave a nervous laugh and lit a cigarette.
A packet in her bedside drawer. When Coral was in The States, I heard from her mother that she smoked when stressed. Sandy didn't say Granville.
Also, though I would never have told her - her high standards of health and exercise appeared lowered. She would have failed her hip pinch test. Her weight unconcerned me. The unknown cause did.
"Three months is a long-time bestie," and cautiously, I probed, "What happened?"
Coral puffed twice.
"His name was Simon," she took the deepest of drags.
The thinking time reminded me of a youthful Coral.
The smoking conjured a different girl.
"I met him at the gallery a few days after the wedding. He brought corporate art."
I pictured Coral selling art.
Coral and I shared art.
She should be a curator.
"We had a fun time. He had a swish car. A tidy apartment. He let me buy him shirts, ties and matching socks."
Would I let Coral update my wardrobe?
"It fell apart a couple of days before I decided to take him to see my parents," she faltered.
She hit her cigarette hard.
"Anyway, we were at a dinner celebrating his new promotion. He picked the restaurant. You guessed it already, Ruby's place. Well! Between our main course and dessert, he went behind my back. He dogged the casual waitress in the unisex toilet."
Stunned, I didn't know what to do or say.
I considered hugging her.
Instead, my hands crumpled the doona.
Coral finished her smoke. She stubbed it in a small glass ashtray on the top of her bedside drawer.
"Then the bitch served us cassata with a smile."
Coral's eyes burst full of green fire. An ire, like she wanted to 'dock' Simon.
I inquired respectfully, "How did you find out?"
"Ruby - as usual. She finds out everything. She rang me. Fuck Simon!"
"Ruby fucked Simon?"
"No, fuck Simon!"
"Geez, Coral, we've been here before; I'm not fucking Simon."
Neither of us laughed. I contrived it to snap her out of her sullenness.
I wished Coral content like the lambs. To see my buddy slightly unorganised, like the sprinkle of freckles on her cute nose. I wondered; if I had given them some attention in the boathouse, we might have made it together.
Reality check: nope.
Coral lit another cigarette.
She hurt.
"You'll kill yourself," I tried gently.
"I already am. And by the way, when you said 'we have been here before,' it made me think of us in the boathouse."
She paused, perhaps thinking about where to take this thought.
I believe we both sensed a physical together as a miscue in our relationship.
Yet she posed, "Do we know each other's shortcomings too well to be a couple?"
My conscience agreed; however, I let my ego push it aside.
My vain moment, "Coral, you won't kiss me when we have sex!"
Instantly, I regretted my words.
I searched her face, seeking her reaction.
Her nose screwed up, and her freckles crowded. She let my dreadful comment pass because it was god-awful true.
Coral's non-smoking hand pressed her temple.
I rued it deeper because Coral was my dearest buddy, and I hadn't stopped Josh from leaving her.
Worse, offering a lame joke, I brought Josh into the open in Coral's bedroom.
I suspected he wandered in her mind, and she never let him run away from there.
I could tell by her action that Josh, not Simon, occupied her mind as she let the smoke burn in her hand, and the ash drooped, ready to fall on her doona cover.