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photos, the cover of a box in a ‘couples’ store, and what I’d seen at his club
last night.  I pushed the heavy door open and took care to step inside
soundlessly while cursing the five inch heels I’d bought this morning in an
effort to sensualize my wardrobe.  The foyer was even more massive than
I’d expected.  The entire effect was that of a vault; a catacomb where one
could enter but never leave.  A chill ran up my spine and I struggled with my
fight or flight instinct, but finally closed the door behind me.  Every click,
step and movement echoed within the hall.  My breath sounded like that of a
racehorse, and at any moment I expected my bladder to give up its challenge.
    Music so soft and melodic, that at first it blended into the
background of the blood rushing through my veins, seemed to surround me.  My
heels clicked on the marble floors and threatened to disrupt the mausoleum
quality of his home.  I was tempted to take them off but didn’t want to ruin
the look that’d taken me an entire day to achieve.  If I could just stop
shaking so damn bad, get control of myself, maybe I could follow him.  You
can do this I told myself over and over again until I began to believe it.  Just walk right in there and tell him you’re ready .  Yet somehow his
marble floors had turned to quicksand and I was stuck here in his foyer, teeth
chattering and knee’s wobbling.
    “Are you coming in here or not?” he said brusquely from the
other room.
    That’s it, I’m outta here.  I turned and stared at the door
behind me with hope for freedom but my heels were deeply buried and refused to
budge.  This is ridiculous , I told myself.  I came here to find out once
and for all if this is truly what I need, and I’ll be damned if I’m just going
to make a run for it before I even know.  Still I was frozen in place.
    He moved in the other room and my body trembled.  I felt
like a squealing sorority girl at a haunted house.  “I think we’re going to
find it hard to discuss things with you standing in my foyer like a deer in
headlights.  Won’t you come in?”  He leaned against the door jamb wearing a
humored grin that made me want to whack him in the teeth.
    “I didn’t come here to be the butt of your jokes.   I’m just
a little intimidated, that’s all.” I said in a voice not even remotely my own.
    He shuffled a bit in his bare feet, and I didn’t miss the
fact that in his surroundings he fit in perfectly, as though the house itself
had been created with him as its centerpiece.  While I seemed to be shrinking
miserably in its midst, he rode above the grandeur and somehow made it seem
inconsequential, casual.  “Elizabeth, please come into the library.  I’ll fix
you a cocktail to calm your nerves.”
    He floated towards me with his hand outstretched.  I took it
more for stability than for the fact that I wanted to touch him, though that
part was true as well.  My pale southern hand disappeared within his dark
Arabian fingers, and the magic of their joining drained my fear.  He came to a
halt in the doorway, turning to me, “Trust me,” he whispered, staring into my
eyes.
    I’ve always been a sucker for a man with pretty eyes.  The
latest Cosmo quiz told me that I’m a woman looking for substance, not flights
of fancy and flowery words.  I need a man I can read, not one anxious to play
juvenile games.  Give it to me straight or I’m not interested.  This man’s eyes
are as dark as coal, and equally as baffling.  One minute they beckon me with
‘come hither’ and the next they reprimand me for each disturbance my heels make
in the crypt he calls home.  There are no warm fuzzies here.  Yet something
behind his eyes tells me that I will trust him, that I must.
    He settled me onto a sofa and I studied each move of his
body as he poured a cocktail from a polished silver decanter.  While I hadn’t
expected for him to be wearing a suit, I didn’t expect faded jeans