Her hand playfully kneaded right shoulder. His raised gaze, before it plummeted to the floor, determined the pictured landscape to be California. He dared not peek right. Her face and lips would be near his if he rotated face. Within right peripheral vision, past Melanie and the sofa arm, a predominately red, multi-colored vase stood on a table. He struggled to divert her pressing fingers into his thigh, say something, anything.
“Is that red vase valuable?” He shifted gaze left, from her, as soon as words spoken.
“Not really. A friend sent it to me from Mexico.”
The warm puff to his neck’s nape piggybacking Melanie’s explanation ignited tingling nerves up and down spine’s full length. “Oh.” Mind cells continued to race. Guys gossiped she’d been hired because she passed Chesterton’s Campbell Motel interview. One snapped a cell phone picture of President Chesterton’s car there. What would Chesterton do to him? Melanie’s voice interrupted before he could panic and bolt.
“How many were there?”
“How many what?” Her repeated leans toward him, then retreats, generated waves of nostril perfume attacks. Her hips, he sensed by the caved-in cushion, wiggled closer to his.
“How many at the union meeting?”
The words traveled inches to enter right ear. Shaky left hand rocked wine in his glass. He steadied the glass’s bowl with a two-hand grip. “About a hundred thirty.”
“When will ... when will this strike happen?” Words whispered closer, softer into his ear.
“Don’t know.” He briskly shook head sideways, nearly bumping skulls and dislodging wineglass raised to her lips. He reverted to a straight-ahead gaze. “That’s ... up to ... up to the executive committee.” He felt a forearm on right leg, fingers again kneading kneecap. Melanie’s left thigh pressed his right. Her fingers edged toward stomach. Last time the hand stopped. This time? He loudly exhaled when another question interrupted the uneasy silence.
“Will your friend Dino tell you ... give advance warming?”
When he didn’t answer, she splayed right hand across his stomach. “I’m sure he will, won’t he,” she whispered. “Think of us.”
Her fingers lifted; Noel couldn’t feel them land. A compressed outer thigh muscle triggered an eerie nerve sensation as her left hand squeezed between their thighs. Finger oscillation indicated she rubbed herself, each movement closer to his groin than knee. She wouldn’t.
“Don’t ... don’t know,” he sputtered. “Really ... really can’t say.” He raised a hand opposite her to smooth hair he couldn’t see expecting another question. A finger wiped forehead moisture bead. He’d have reached for handkerchief, but it was tucked in back pants pocket nearest her.
When silence ensued, he glanced toward Melanie. She’d abandoned wineglass on the coffee table next to the pictured female twosome. Her right hand unloosened a blouse top button.
The recalled warehouse cleavage exposure experience jolted Noel upright. “Must leave.” He didn’t turn to speak directly to her. “I shouldn’t have come.” His moist fingers on the wineglass stem slid to the half-full bowl. He bent forward and reached to set it on the coffee table, pivoted, and shuffled feet backwards around the table.
His eyes focused on Melanie’s right hand releasing the next fastened button. “What? What’s the matter?” Her eyelids dropped to half-mast; lips trembled as breasts jutted forward. “I’m not too old for you am I?” She reached, both hands encircled retrieved wineglass, righting temporary slant.
“No.” He hadn’t wanted to display fear or lack of interpersonal skills. “I don’t feel comfortable ... the union questions and all. Dino’s my friend. He trusted me.”
“Let’s sit at the kitchen table.” Widened eyes pleaded. “Please. We’ll have a nice dinner. No more questions.” Putting wineglass on the coffee table freed her hands to button blouse.
Noel, distracted by a multi-colored cat from origins unknown that scampered and brushed stomach fuzz across front loafer top, said, “No. It’s best I leave now.” Left foot stepped backwards. When Melanie rose from the sofa, he stopped turn toward the kitchen fearful the cat circled behind.
“At least you can give me a hug.”
Noel felt like loafers had been sucked into the carpet up to the ankles, a loose carpet thread stuck to dark navy-blue socks. After three steps, Melanie flung arms around his neck, upper body pressed into his. With the feminine warmth attacking exposed pores and trying to radiate through cloth, Noel’s physical urges competed for control. After all, he’d agreed, no matter how forced, to eat, if not enjoy dinner. Her face burrowed into right shoulder allowed the choking perfume to refill nostrils. He clasped the delicate hands encircling pulsing neck veins and pulled them apart. He rocked back, turned face momentarily to cough. Her eyes, he thought, glistened with fresh tear moisture. No. He had to exercise willpower and do it now. “I must go.”
The last words she spoke before he released the kitchen door a shout of “Shoo, Buttons.”
Noel’s drive to Kanosh apartment afforded him time to try and unravel unending confusion. Melanie acted sluttish. Why had he acted so righteous? Bill McNamar in the warehouse break room speculated the real reason Ms. Stark advanced to vice president had been because she lacked one or more genes God bestowed upon all other women. Stark’s missing genes, Bill said, replaced by a dominant male gene.
Noel didn’t know what to believe. He’d observed her warehouse behavior with its command, testosterone-like directness, and steadfast assuredness. Never was it soft, compliant, and geared to forge a consensus. Yet, a prissy female would’ve been ignored. He could respect a results orientated woman in a man’s work world.
In Melanie’s living room, Noel’s conscience trumped any desire to stay longer. His quelled qualms she could inflict pain at work vanquished his initial stay-away fear. Her age comment surprised him; he’d never have thought that. If rumor and his calculations matched fact, she celebrated eight more birthdays than he. He detected no unsightly wrinkles. A brownish neck blemish could’ve been a faint birthmark or a dark freckle. He didn’t regret being socially nice to her, but he anguished the betrayal of Dino. Well, at least not total betrayal.
When the first time came to make love to a woman, he wanted the memories to be unforgettable. A night planned by him, a night lasting forever in memory if not in fact. Not a quickie wham-bam reward for violating the trust of a friend.
Which would be worse: dashing out or if he’d never arrived at all?
Three
“I say strike now,” shouted Bill McNamar, a wiry, large featured man with full-bodied lips that stretched wide to adorn a tanned face beneath dyed black swept-back hair. A supporting chorus of you-tell’ems and whoops echoed unabsorbed by union hall textured ceiling tile.
President Dino Vikolas had summoned members of Amalgamated Warehouse Workers Independent Local No. 1 to a rare midweek meeting. Four days previous, the union vote authorized its executive committee to call a strike. All meeting long Noel sat quiet as a church mouse in a middle row, elbows tucked in, and head tilted to avoid recognition and Dino’s gaze. Even if Dino didn’t know, Noel endured the piercing shame of an imagined wearing of Judas’s cloak.
With metal clinks and feet shuffling, union members rose in mass from folding chairs to overfill the hall with repetitive chants: “Strike, strike, strike.” From the corner of his left eye, Noel caught sight of a slender, gaunt figure striding along the far wall to stop in front of Vikolas. The rambunctious members choked voices in mid-chant. The familiar graying pigtail rubber-banded above shoulder blades swung sideways as the man pivoted to face Noel and fellow union members.
“We’ve been at the table for three months now. For what?”
“Nothing,” called out a voice behind Noel.
Noel didn’t hear a folding