Rendezvous by Dusty Miller Page A

a
stroke of fortune was in Scarborough. She had no idea of his
doctor’s name.
    She had muffed the phone number. The
odds were that no one would check anyway. If Mother Superior or
more likely her chief side-kick Sister Patricia did check, come up
dry and ask a lot of questions, she could plead exhaustion,
emotional upset or just a plain, every day, old-fashioned mistake.
Lately she had feigned a couple of good headaches, not to get out
of work but just to be alone with herself for a while. Heather
figured on riding it out for the short term.
    “ Have a good weekend,
Heather.” Sister Dorothy would snap off the lights before she even
got halfway to the door, but that was okay with Heather.
    Let me be invisible to them. Undoing
her smock, she slung it over her shoulder and went looking for her
locker and the showers. Their team had won the basketball game, and
was leading St. Mary’s by ten points in the championship…it was all
very exciting, of course, and the voices of the other women were
loud and cheerful.
    Nine minutes and she would be out of
there. The key to the rental car, still on the lot, was in her
pocket. A familiar thud of adrenal juices lit up her insides at the
thought of Braden. She would be away from home, in a major city,
where no one knew her and she could do what she liked. They would
blend in, invisible in an anonymous crowd of strangers. Her heart
pounded. She was going to Burlington. She was going to be naked for
Braden within hours. Four or five hours, tops.
    With the trade show a yearly thing,
Braden had a hotel room reservation and knew a little about the
place. He had also promised something in the way of a present.
They’d talked for hours on the phone, almost every night for the
last week, with her locked in her tiny bathroom or away from the
convent. She was becoming a bit paranoid. But that intimacy was
revelation to Heather. It was unbelievable, to feel safe in
confiding her most hidden emotions in someone. It was spiritual
liberation, to have a friend of that intimacy. To say she had
poured her heart out would be understatement, and she had listened
very much to him as well.
    Braden was sincere, but just how
strong those feelings were was one question, and where it might
lead was another.
    Heather visualized herself
in Braden’s room, dressed in a filmy peignoir, wearing white lacy
stockings with a garter belt, dangling emerald earrings...her
nipples stood at full attention by this time, and she cast her
thoughts to the shoe store she’d looked up online. The right shoes
would be something else. The memory of how her feet looked, the
graceful curves of her calves, wrapping up and around Braden’s big
shoulders, making love beside the campfire, it was unforgettable.
Just the way her legs framed the big hips of Braden and the intent
look on his face. She could still feel Braden’s bristly chest on
her inner thighs, the wet feel of Braden’s mouth on her pussy. The
things he said, and more than anything the safe and cuddly feeling
she got when nestled in Braden’s arms. A lot of the time, kissing
and gazing were
the only things going on.
    Braden knew exactly what she needed.
Over the last three weeks, she had tried desperately hard not to
masturbate, not even be tempted. But it was no good. It was a lie.
She thought of him, but she also thought of other men, when she did
it.
    Was it true, then? That almost any
half-decent man would do?
    One of the personal revelations was
the fact that she needed love, and very, very badly.
    Braden had a face full of character,
although honestly, after three weeks, it was a bit hazy. Heather
had no idea how things would go this time. When she decided to call
Braden, for surely the choice was up to her, her mood lightened and
she felt good about taking the plunge. She had no regrets about
their time at the lake, only that it had ended and her fantasy was
over. But it didn’t have to end. All she had to do was to take that
fantasy and turn it into a new