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handing him the box. “I need to grab my purse.” I ran upstairs to find
my bag, taking one last look at myself in the full length mirror on my closet
door. I thought I looked pretty good. Ben had told me how much he liked it when
I wore skirts, so I wore a tight stretchy black skirt that came right above my
knees with a fitted burgundy corset style top. On my feet I had on a pair of
pointy toed stilettos that had small square silver buckles on the toes. It was
September, but still warm outside, so I didn’t bother with pantyhose or tights.
    I squirted myself with a bottle of Opium perfume that a friend had given me recently. I headed back
downstairs to find Ben studying his watch with a frown.
    “I hope you’re ready. I don’t want
to be late.” He leaned towards me in surprise. “Wow, you smell good.”
    “Thanks.”
    On the way over, driving in Ben’s jeep,
he started running his hand down my leg. “I see you wore a skirt. I like it.”
    I smiled teasingly. “I wore it
just for you.”
    “It looks very nice, and more
importantly, it feels nice.” His hand began to wander up my thigh.
    “Where do your friends live
again?” I shifted in my seat, balancing the cake box on my lap as I tried to
push back any feelings of arousal from Ben’s hand on my leg.
    “That perfume’s really turning me
on.”
    I reached over and put my hand in
his lap. He wasn’t joking. I could feel the definite beginnings of an erection.
When our eyes met I started to laugh. “This is crazy! Don’t you want to go to
this dinner?”
    “Sure I do. Maybe we could just
stop someplace first.”
    I was tempted in a tantalizing
sort of way, but when I thought about having to reapply my make-up, fix my hair,
not to mention certain other things, I didn’t want to deal with it.
    “Let’s be totally radical,” I said,
moving my hand away from him. “Let’s go directly to their house and have a nice
time. You just said you didn’t want to be late.”
    Ben sighed. “You’re right. It
would be rude.” He took his hand off my leg. “Whew! That was a close one,
wasn’t it?”
    I nodded, and we both grinned.
    His friends lived in a sedate craftsmen
style bungalow near Green Lake with gray and white trim and an old fashioned
country porch. There was already a group of people standing out on the porch, drinking
wine and chatting as we drove up. They waved to us and watched as Ben parked
alongside the house. Even sitting in the front seat, viewing them through the
window, I could tell that this was going to be a long evening.
    “Ben!” A man in his late thirties
with a booming voice, graying beard, and an exceptionally taut physique, cried
out as we walked up the front steps. “I’m glad you could make it!” He turned to
me, “And this must be Kate! Hi, I’m Bernard!”
    “Hello.” I gave a little wave.
    He introduced me to the other
people on the porch, though their names barely made a dent in my synapses. All
I kept thinking about was how out of place I looked. None of the women wore a
stitch of make-up and all of them must have been at least fifteen years older
than me. Everyone was tanned a rugged brown with deep crow’s feet lines, the
kind you get from climbing mountains so high that when you reached the top
there’s nothing but a Kleenex tissue of atmosphere between your face and the blazing
sun.
    “Let me take that from you!” Bernard
motioned at my cake box, which I promptly handed over to him. “Come on inside! I
know Megan really wants to meet you. Ben has told us a lot about you!”
    We followed Bernard inside the
house which was decorated in muted earth tones with an Eastern touch here and
there. They had a large Buddha head on a bookshelf and some Asian prints on
their walls. The house smelled like a variety of foods cooking—bread, garlic, and
chicken—along with the scent of eucalyptus from a ceramic vase they kept filled
with leaves by the front door. There were people on couches in the living room
and a