Beautiful Stranger

loved you?”
    “Yes. And, as is often the case in life, it was unrequited.”
    Sara’s eyes grew a bit dark, her red mouth curved into a frown. “That sounds pretty flippant.”
    “Believe me, I am anything but flippant about Cecily. She’s fine now. Happily married in California. But for a time, she was under a doctor’s care.” Before she could say more, I added, “She was a good friend, and her decision to leave everything here showed me she wasn’t very . . . stable. Really there were many reasons she left the city and I was just the most recent disappointment. I simply didn’t love her the way she loved me.”
    Sara blinked up at the ceiling and seemed to consider this. “It’s better you were honest with her.”
    “Of course,” I assured her. “Her mental state was, ultimately, not about whether or not I loved her. She was troubled regardless . . . but that doesn’t make very good newspaper copy, now does it?”
    Sara looked back at me and her eyes softened, hersmile returned. “So people became interested in who this man was, the man who broke the local star’s heart and drove her mad.”
    “And thus I was made into a mystery. The press loves a good roguish playboy, and her letter was quite dramatic. Their portrayal is true, and it’s also not. I do love women, and I do love sex. But my life’s rarely as interesting as the tabloids hope. I’ve learned to not care much one way or another what people are saying.”
    Our cabbie swerved to miss hitting a kid on a bike, and laid heavily on the horn. In the jostling, Sara’s breast pressed against my arm and I pressed back, grinning, as her eyebrow rose in mock exasperation. “There are a lot of pictures of you online.”
    “Some of those women were lovers, some weren’t.” I ran my thumb across the swell of her breast, and she looked down to watch, eyes hooded. “I’m not abnormally averse to commitment; I just haven’t made one in a very long time.”
    Her head snapped up and I could see with perfect clarity how her pupils dilated, her lips twitched in a smile.
    “Yes,” I admitted, laughing. “I suppose our arrangement is a commitment of sorts. It just doesn’t count when you refuse to ever go on an actual date with me.”
    The smile shrank slightly. “I don’t think either of us is good at anything more.”
    “Well,” I admitted, “we certainly are good at what we do. Speaking of which, I discussed you with Will,” I told her,letting the vibrating heat of her irritation focus on the side of my face for just a moment. She was fun to rile, this one. “Without names, Petal. Settle down.”
    I waited for her to ask what I said.
    And waited.
    Finally, I looked over at her to find her still watching me carefully. We were stopped at a red light and everything in the cab felt completely still.
    “So?” she said, giving me a slow, wicked smile when we accelerated forward. “You told Will you found a woman who likes to have sex in public?”
    “Not in my cab!” the cabbie yelled so loud we both jumped and then broke into laughter. He pumped the brakes, jolting us. “Not in my cab!”
    “Don’t worry, mate,” I told him. I turned to her and murmured, “She doesn’t let me fuck her in cars. Or on Tuesdays.”
    “She doesn’t,” she whispered, though she did let me kiss her again.
    “Shame,” I said into her mouth. “I’m good in cars. And especially good on Tuesdays.”
    “So this conversation with Will,” she said, reaching across and shoving her hand beneath the suit jacket I’d laid across my lap. “If you didn’t tell him my name, what did you tell him?” She pressed her palm against my cock, squeezing.
    Was she going to give me a wank in the cab?
    Fucking brilliant.
    “Sixty-fifth and Madison,” I told the driver. “Take the long way round.”
    He shot me a look, most likely at the prospect of driving through Columbus Circle at rush hour, but nodded, taking Fifty-seventh toward Broadway.
    “No sex in cab,” he said, quieter this time.
    I turned to Sara. “I mentioned I’d met a woman, whom I was fucking quite happily. I may have also mentioned this woman was unlike other women I know.”
    Sara tugged at my zipper, deftly pulled my cock out, and gave me a rough squeeze. A strange warmth spread up my spine as I registered at the same time as I hardened that she was learning how to touch me quite familiarly.
    “How am I different?” Leaning into me, she sucked on my ear and then whispered, “Other