"William was a gentleman to the core. I knew that the first time I layed eyes upon him at Mary Jackson's party. He must have thought me a lady because I watched him from the corner of my eye watching me for a while before I looked directly at him. As soon as I made eye contact, he came right over and introduced himself. We chatted about various things for a while. The conversation was pretty boring. World events, literature, books, things like that. He was well-read, but he was careful not to show me up if he knew more about a topic than I did. That impressed me. He wasn't much for gossip. I would have liked to find out a lot more about Mary's divorce. After all, it was a party to celebrate her new freedom, so it would have been a fair topic. And he knew her a lot better than I did. When he introduced himself, he did mention that he had been good friends with both her and Chuck for many years. But every time I tried to bring up the topic, he turned the conversation back to something impersonal, like the predominance of weddings and funerals over divorces in the latest crop of movies. You know, like in 'Four Weddings and a Funeral,' and 'Murial's Wedding.'
"He wasn't married, I figured that much out, so I wasn't surprised, after he had spent most of the evening talking to me, when he asked me to go out with him.
"I won't bore you with the details of our dates during the following month, except for the highlights. First, he never tried to make love to me. These days it seems like all men are very aggressive. They try to turn the first date into a honeymoon weekend and then move into your apartment on the second. He kissed me goodnight, acceptably passionately, I might add, after every date, but he never tried to seduce me. After a few dates, I felt comfortable enough to invite him in for a nightcap, but he turned me down rather graciously.
"He also had a strong feeling for fashion. As we got to know each other better, he complimented me on by appearance and dress. It turned out that he was expert on makeup. He began to give me tips on how to improve my looks. It was great. Like having a Vogue fashion consultant on your arm. I took his advice and other people began to give me comments spontaneously at work. That never happened to me before. He really liked my skin. He said that one of the things that attracted him to me at Mary's party was how clear and pale my face was. He said it shone like the full moon across the room at him. Whereas I always tried to add too much colour to my complextion, he knew how to exploit my pale colour. People said that I looked quite ethereal when I followed his suggestions.
"He was so knowledgable that I suspected that he might be into cross dressing or something, but I didn't care. I figured, as long as he didn't expect me to go out with him in drag, it wouldn't be any big deal. And if it turned out that he wanted to wear makeup to bed or something, I would deal with it when the time came. If that was the only flaw in an otherwise perfect husband, I could work out some kind of compromise with him.
"I was also getting very curious about how he earned a living. I asked him outright a couple of times, but he always dodged the question with some kind of joke about being a man of mystery. I didn't press him too hard because I didn't want to be rude and I figured that I'd find out sooner or later anyway. He had enough money. That was clear from the quality of his clothes and the plush places he took me for food and entertainment. I was kind of hoping that he was independently wealthy and was a little embarrassed to admit that he had never worked. I'd like a rich husband."
Anna smiled ingenuously. She was the only woman in their little group who was not married and had let her friends know that she was looking hard for prospects. She owned a successful kitchen boutique that specialized in selling expensive gadgets to the would-be gourmet chefs in the upscale part of town. Her friends suspected that a lot of potential husbands looked for greener pastures when they discovered how dedicated she was to her business. When she was in town, she spent seventy hours a week at the store. As well, she spent many weeks every year traveling to Europe and Japan looking for ever more exotic kitchen gadgets. It was amazing how many people in this town were willing to part with a hundred dollars for a Japanese hydrolic garlic press. It was a life that she loved and would not easily quit, even if she married a very wealthy man.
She continued, "After a dozen dates, going out to good dinners concerts, museums, art shows and the like, he finally approached the subject of sex. Like everything else, he was very straightforward about it, but excruciatingly circumspect, and slightly mysterious. We were eating dinner at Chez Cher and, in the middle of the rabbit cassolet, he suddenly said, 'I hope you won't think me too forward.' as though I would after dating him for more than a month and inviting him up to my apartment in the middle of the night, 'But I find you exquisitly desirable. I would like to make love to you.' I said, 'Now?' I was ready to forget the rest of the cassolet and go straight for the desert at his place, so to speak, but he said, 'No. I am more eager than you can imagine, but I would like to make this something special. Would you be willing to come to my place tomorrow?'
"I agreed and the conversation turned back to other topics, almost as though nothing extraordinary had just happened. He did one strange thing that evening was when he took me home. When he got out of the car, he reached into the back seat and picked up a large flat box. When he handed it to me, he said, 'When you come over tomorrow, I would like you to wear this. You don't have to, of course, but it would make me a little more comfortable.' That was his exact word, 'comfortable.' I thought that was a strange word for him to use because I didn't want him to be comfortable. I wanted him to be overwhelmed with passion. On the other hand, it was very consistent with his gentlemanly reserve to want to be comfortable at home.
"When I got inside, after the usual goodnight kiss, I ripped the box open to see what I was expected to wear. I thought maybe a black corset and silk stockings, or maybe some even more lurid bit of red lace underwear with strategicly placed cutouts. But I was shocked to find a rather simple, drab dress; light cotton, ivory coloured, brand new, and exactly my size. There were also a pair of plain cotton panties and a very normal white lace bra. The bra was one cup size too large and the panties were a little snug. He obviously did not know the exact size of my underware. He had probably snuck a peek at the label in my dress during one of our kisses, but I was pleased to see that he had not gone to any extraordinary measures to discover the measurements of my more intimate parts. Even so, he had guessed pretty closely.
"The dress was definitely not to my taste. All of the items looked a little cheap, like he had been shopping at K-mart, though it was obvious that he bought his own clothes at the best stores in town.
"At first I was relieved that I was not expected to wear anything really kinky the first time we made love. I mean, I'm no prude. I probably would have gone along with it. But I would have worried about getting locked into some specialized kink right off the bat. Overall, I was relieved. But then I thought about it a little more and started to worry about why these cheap, ordinary clothes would be special to him. They were new, so they had not been worn by anyone else, but maybe they resembled the clothes worn by a formal girlfriend. A former girlfriend who had much cheaper taste in clothing than I do.
"There was a note in the box which gave his address and directions about how to find his house. As well, the note said that the purpose of the clothes was just to provide a more casual, relaxed outfit than I had been wearing when I went out with him.
"What could I do? I took him at his word. It seemed pretty strange, but I couldn't think of any alternative explanation.
"The following night I dressed in his dress and drove to his house. There were no pantyhose or shoes in the box, but he had empasized casual, so I just slipped a pair of sandals on my bare feet.
"He lived in a small brick bungalow in Winslow Heights. It was about what you'd expect from a well-heeled bachelor. The sun was already down but there was enough residual light that I could see that the yard and house were impeccably maintained. He answered the door as soon as I pressed the doorbell. He was dressed as casually as I was, slacks, loafers, golf shirt, but not as cheaply. I thought that maybe he wanted to feel like he was making love to someone who was socially inferior to him. But he didn't treat me that way in the least. With his typical impeccable courtesy, he invited me to come in and have a drink.
"His house was rather sparsely appointed. He led me to the living room which was lit only by a dozen candles scattered about. There was gentle classical music playing softly. Nothing I would recognize again. It was quite non-descript.
"He bid me sit in a low easy chair which had been placed in the middle of the room and poured a glass of white wine, my usual drink. While I was sipping the wine, he stood behind me and started stroking my hair and neck. He said, 'We are in no hurry. I would like to make you more than comfortable. I would like to make you completely relaxed. I confess that I find myself rather nervous and expect that you may be somewhat nervous as well. My goal this evening is to make you feel more contented than you ever have been before. I want you to relax while I minister to you. You might think that if I am devoting all my effort and attention to your comfort that I am somehow sacrificing my enjoyment. Please do not think that. You must take my word that your comfort gives me even more joy than I can give to you.' While he was saying this, he began to massage my neck and shoulder muscles ever so gently. He knew exactly what he was doing. He became increasingly firm as my muscles relaxed so that he was massaging deeper and deeper into the muscle tissue. He must have had some training as a masseure. I speculated, in a dreamy sort of way, that maybe he was a professional masseure and he had been embarrassed to tell me. He stopped briefly to take my empty glass away and then continued again right where he had left off.
"When he started again, he said, 'As we relax your muscles, I would like to relax your mind equally. Just enjoy the music and look at the picture on the wall and think about being there.' I looked at the picture. It was an unimpressive landscape. Well-painted, but meaningless. The kind of picture that you find in shopping malls. You know. Buy a real oil painting for two hundred dollars, painted by an authentic artist right before your very eyes. And a guy is sitting there cranking out another landscape every ten minutes, regular as clockwork, every painting the same and nothing in any of them to ever catch your eye. This particular painting was a moon-lit forest, painted in various shades of blue and silver. There weren't even any animals to hold your attention.
"He said, 'I would like you to try a relaxation exercise. Just look at the painting and listen to my voice. I think you are very beautiful. I want you to think about your shoulders. I want you to relax your shoulders. Very loose. Look at the painting and think about how peaceful it would be in the forest. I bet it would be a warm night. The warm breeze through the trees would sound like soft music in the leaves. Now relax your right arm.' And he started massaging my arm. All the time he kept talking in his deep, gentle, cultured voice. 'Think about being in the forest on a warm summer night. Far away from anyone. No one else to bother you. It would be so peaceful. You can close your eyes if you want. In the warm forest, you would be sitting on the soft ground leaning against a mossy tree. Birds would sing softly. Relax your wrist. Just let your hand lay limply on the ground. I will take care of your hand. Just let it relax.'
"He kept that up for every part of my body. Arms, legs, neck, back. Every part that he could reach. I was almost asleep. I have never felt so relaxed in my life. It felt like he kept it up for hours. Finally he said, 'I would like to make slow, soft, gentle love to you. Come to my bed now. Just stand up. Ever so slowly. Lean on me. Let me guide you to my bedroom. He escorted me to his bedroom. Actually it wasn't his real bedroom. It was obviously a spare bedroom. Again it was lighted with candles; the thick pillars that burn for hours. There was a single bed in the centre of the room covered with a crisp white sheet. There were no covers and the bed was higher than normal. Kind of like a hospital bed that had been raised. I didn't care much about the details at the time. You can't imagine how relaxed I felt after the massage and relaxation excersises. The whole house was very warm, so I didn't even think about sheets.
"He laid me down on my back on the bed and started his massage again; this time starting on the feet and working upward. The table was exactly the right hight for a massage. He said, 'Just relax. We aren't in any hurry. Don't move at all. I will move you. You should be so relaxed. I want you to be so relaxed. Completely limp. Close your eyes. Let your mind go blank. Let all your thoughts fade away. Let your ankles go limp. I will take care of your feet.' I hardly noticed when he slipped my sandals off and started to caress my feet. He massaged each toe, each muscle in each foot individually. Then he worked his way up my calves and around the sides of my knees.
"When he got to the hem of my dress, I felt it falling away. At first I didn't understand, then I realized that he was massaging my right thigh with one hand and cutting away the dress with a pair of scissors with the other. I could feel the metal gently sliding against my legs. It wasn't cold, though. The the scissors had been warmed up to skin temperature. He had thought of every detail. I didn't even have to worry about the dress getting cut up. After all, it wasn't my dress.
"He must have spent another half hour slowly working his way up my body, massaging every muscle while he was cut away the dress one snip at a time. Then he did the bra and finally the panties. He left me laying there for a couple of minutes, limp as warm pudding lying among the shreds of the clothes while he got undressed himself. I didn't even bother opening my eyes to see what he looked like naked, I was that far out of it.
"I never moved a muscle. He picked up my legs and layed them down again so that they were spread apart, then rubbed warm K-y jelly into me. I was probably lubricated enough already, but, as I said, he was prepared for everything. He was fairly quick, maybe five minutes at most, but that wasn't even an issue; there wasn't the slightest chance that I would come. I was much too content to even want an orgasm. All the time that he was making love to me, I never even twitched a muscle. I was floating on a cloud in my own private heaven. That was the only time in my whole life that anyone ever made love to me that I really did not want to feel any sexual excitement whatsoever, and certainly not have an orgasm. And it may well have been the best sex I ever had.
"He left me there when he was finished. He moved my legs back, covered me with a single sheet, kissed my cheek ever so softly, and said, 'You were perfect. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever known. Rest here as long as you want. When you want to get up, make yourself at home.'
"And then he left me in peace. I got up, maybe an hour later, or maybe a few hours later, time didn't mean much to me that night, stumbled around the house a little, until I found him sleeping in a king-sized bed in another bedroom and crawled in next to him.
"The next morning when we woke up, we were both as cheerful as could be. He gave me another dress to wear; ever the meticulous planner, he had bought two identical dresses at K-mart. He fixed a perfect cheese omlet for breakfast, and, sometime around mid-morning, sent me home in his genteel, discreet manner."
Anna looked at her friends, but she did not look in the least happy. Janice said, "That sounds perfect. Maybe the best seduction I have ever heard. But you did not marry him? He seemed to like you, too. What was the catch?"
"The catch was that I found out what he really wanted a few days later. I was in heaven all week. Then Mary came into the shop to buy a new spice grinder. We just got a shipment from Italy. They were the neatest things. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Mary came in to buy the grinder and we went for a cup of coffee next door. I told her how grateful I was to her for throwing the party at which I had met William. She said, 'Really? I am glad that you two are hitting it off so well. It's wonderful. I worry that William seems so lonely sometimes. So many women get put off by the idea of dating a mortician.'
"You couldn't have hit me harder with a baseball bat. Suddenly it was all so obvious. His attraction to me because of my white complexion. His expertise with makeup. His directions that I should use pale colours on my face. His elaborate procedure to ensure that I was absolutely passive, in fact totally limp when he made love to me. I wasn't a woman sharing his bed. He made me a living corpse on a slab. And I knew, just as sure as I was sitting there, I knew that the last place his pecker had been before it was in me was in some dead corpse. There aren't many necrophiliacs in the world, but I had managed to get myself seduced by one of them.
"In an instant, the most perfect seduction I had ever experienced became the worst nightmare I could imagine. As soon as I got back to the store, I phoned his house and told his answering machine that I had just discovered what kind of a sick fuck he was and that I never wanted to hear from him again.
"I never did.
"I suspect that he had received that kind of message more than once in his life."
Cicely reached over an patted her on the arm in sympathy. "You poor dear."
Anna smiled bravely. "It's okay. It really didn't take all that long to get over it. And, you know, it'll make a hell of a story for my memoirs."