It was a brief visit. They were both on the couch, and she wore a dress for the occasion. Eileen turned and reached for and held his hands. She thanked him—confirming his fear—for helping her get out of her shell. She told him that she always remember the wonderful time she spent with him but then said that much as he admired him and enjoyed being with him she did not love him.
Simon was good about it. He said he understood because he did understand. He did not admit it to her, but he had had his share of this conversation, from both sides, several times. With Eileen, though, he so hoped that it would be different.
Without further ado, he walked her to his door, opened it, and, after she gave him a peck on the cheek, watched her walk out of his life.
…and More
Eileen was sad but relieved. As she headed towards the parkway she pulled into a dead end and stopped the car. She first called Kerry and told her what she had done. She had not spoken to Kerry about it beforehand, and Kerry knew enough to give her Mom space to work out things between her and Tom and her and Simon, and now she told her Mom that she knew she made the right call. Kerry had only met the two men briefly, enough to say she approved of them both, but the vibe she got from her Mom made her preference increasingly clear.
Kerry hesitated before asking, but she asked and her Mom said, yes, she loved him.
Eileen’s second, and briefer, call was to “him,” i. e., Tom. She said she was on the road but could be in Chappaqua in half-an-hour. She asked if she could stop by, and he said he was waiting. Eileen turned away from the parkway and headed into New York and to Chappaqua.
When Tom asked her to come to his place for Thanksgiving, a few days before at the restaurant in White Plains, she told him no—and he was taken aback when she did until she asked his family to her house, where they could share the day with Suzanne, Mary, and Betty. (Betty’s boys, Peter and Michael, would be in Maryland with their dad for the day.) Eileen had not met either of Tom’s children, although she knew quite a bit about them.
Tom, of course, had long since lost his heart to her. Now she was making an impromptu visit. He ran about the house tidying what he could, throwing plates and glasses into the dishwasher and a pan into the sink, loading the hamper with stray clothing, hanging up a sweater, organizing the Times and Journal and Journal-News sections strewn around the living room. It was passable.
Twenty-five minutes later—that was fast—he saw her pull into the driveway and he went to greet her. For her, it had been bubbling the whole way.
“I love you.”
“What took you so long?” To her slap he added, “I’ve been there for a while. I love you too.”
At which point they laughed and kissed and hugged and, eventually, went inside. Neither had prepared for this. Both had thought of it. Once he realized that, yes, the master bedroom was in good shape with the bed made and the clothes put away, Tom led Eileen upstairs. He unzipped the blue dress she wore and it fell to the ground with her assistance. She undid the buttons on his blue shirt and draped it over his shoulders where it joined her dress on the floor. He was physically stunned by her, and it took several moments for his shaking hands to undo the clasp on her bra but once undone she shook her arms and it too was on the floor. Whatever stun-setting he initially felt was ratcheted up a notch or two, the next setting, he feared, being “kill.” Her breasts were perfection. His right hand grasped her left boob and its fingers moved to her nipple, now well extended.
She was not static as this was going on, reaching for and undoing his belt and undoing and unzipping his trousers and to the ground they went too, and he stepped out of them. Things stopped as she placed her lips on his and removed them for a moment as she said in a voice unfamiliar to both of them, “I want and need you now” and with that her hands went to either side of his briefs and she pulled them down, releasing his erection and then after he stepped out of them and was finally naked Eileen ran her fingers slowly up the shaft.
He groaned but had enough consciousness to reach to either side of her panties and draw them down her legs and she stepped out of them. She turned and pulled the blankets to the side so they could get on the sheets, then sitting on the bed’s side and kissing him, tongues aflame, when he sat beside her, her hand gently rubbing his cock.
He sort of interrupted the mood by jumping up and saying he had to get something and she was left alone as he scurried to the bathroom. When he got there, he had to pee so he had to relax and he was finally able to. He thanked his stars that he was optimistic enough to have bought a box of condoms at a Duane Reade and after a few seconds remembered where he had put them.
Tom was gone for a couple of minutes and Eileen was beginning to feel a bit uncertain. She needn’t have. She was lying, naked, on the bed when he returned. She was, and this is an objective observation, the most beautiful woman Tom had ever seen anywhere. In life, in film, in pictures. Her boobs were splendid, spectacular even, and each of her dimensions, each of her parts, complemented each other one.