Fifty Tints of Beaver (Chapter Two)

Fifty Tints of Beaver

Chapter Two

Part One

I had seen the postman from a distance, but I’d never known his name.  We’d never had reason to come in contact.  We’d never been close enough to feel the energy of each other, to let each other’s silent pheromones speak in their evolutionary code.  Now I’m staring at him through the door frame.  It’s drizzling, and his soft sky blue uniform clings to his legs.  He has a nice figure.  I can tell that he walks his route.  Neither rain nor sleet nor . . . How does that go?  I can’t think straight right now.  His arms, tanned from the weather, drive down to his wrists, which confidently grasp a brown box.  He’s holding his package, and he’s about to give it to me.  His package is about to become my package. 

“Mrs Forester?”

I snap out of my daze.  “Ms,” I stammer.  “Ms Forester.”  I swear I see a glimmer in his eye. 

“Could you sign here?”  His bold step forward with an electronic pen and pad contradicts his politeness.  There’s a rawness to this man, the same rawness I saw in Arabelline when she devoured her tuna.  He masks it, but I can see through.  I take my own bold step forward, out into the rain. 

“I  . . . I didn’t know the postal service was using these,” I manage to say.  He laughs.  “FedEx doesn’t have it all,” he says.  “Only for special packages, though.  You know.”  I don’t know, but I want to hear more.  God, he may as well be winking at me.

“I don’t even remember what I ordered,” I tell him.  I ordered baking supplies.  This package is full of assorted creams.  That’s why I have to sign for it.  It’s one of those special refrigerated deals.

“It’s one of those special refrigerated deals,” he says.

 “I was just thinking that,” I say back.  We stand for a minute.  My lips tremble.  He laughs.  He’s nervous.  I’m making him nervous.  Aren’t I? 

“Well,” he says. 

“Florence,” I chime in, extending my hand.

“Florence Forester?” he asks.

“My maiden name is O’Neil.  I just haven’t gone back to it.  Yet.”  He nods. “Legal stuff.  You get that.” Is he younger than me?  I can’t tell.  He keeps himself in such good shape.  Should I tell him more?   “Well,” he says again.  “Have a good day.”  He walks away.  I ogle, now completely shameless.  I want to call back to him, but instead I watch him disappear down the useless suburban street.   

I close the door and fall back against it with a sigh.  Oh my God.  What is happening to me?  I feel like a school girl.  I’m so . . . Oh my God.  I’m so wet.  I kick off my shoes, soaked with the drizzle.  I should have invited him in.  Better, I should have let him take me there on the porch.  No one was out on the street.  Even if they were.  Even if they saw us.  Even if they watched him ravage me in my front yard, if they witnessed us, covered in mud and grass, rolling in the unmowed lawn, tearing away uniform and oversized sweatpants alike.  So what?  So what if they observed every minute of his dark brown fingers weaving in between my pale white ones while he pressed against me, crushing my pleasantly helpless body between man of stone and earth so soft?  So what if the neighbors strolled past the imprints each day after our communion?  The marks our bodies left would form a moat of passion.   I would order cream every day inside my virgin castle, and every day I would pray for rain.  And every day my knight would return to take me again.  Beaver Lane would envy us. 

I scold myself for my fantasies.  Bad girl.  You didn’t even get his name.