“I love you, Ian,” she finally sobs. “I love you so much. Make me yours.”
“I love you too,” I gasp into the delicate shell of her ear. “You are mine. Forever. Always. Mine.”
Then we are both shuddering as the cataclysmic pleasure crashes around us. Behind my closed eyes, I can see her face thrown back in ecstasy, her eyes glowing with desire and love. The purity of her heart shows through everything, making this coupling a reverential event. Our mouths find each other repeatedly, and we kiss until our lips are tender and bruised.
“I adore you, Mrs. Kerr.”
A smile more transcendent than every work of art in this great city appears on her face. “You love saying Mrs. Kerr.”
“You have no idea.”
“Maybe I do. Because I can’t stop saying I love you, Mr. Kerr, my man, my lover, my heart.”
Did I say love made you weak? I was so wrong. I could conquer the world so long as I have Victoria Kerr at my side.
WHEN WE GET BACK TO the city it is much the same—loud and vibrating with energy. While Paris was beautiful and we enjoyed our time there, particularly our private early morning tour of the Louvre, it is good to be home. Unsurprisingly Tiny liked the Orangerie, a small museum in Paris’s Tuileries Garden, better than the Louvre. It reminded her of the Frick in scale.
Sitting in the oval rooms surrounding by Monet’s Water Lillies was peaceful and captivating at once. We held hands as we sat on the bench and she told me of the first time her mother had taken her to the Frick.
“I was ten and I hadn’t wanted to go. Museums were boring and I hated everything I thought was educational because school was so painful for me. But we tagged along behind a tour guide and as I listened to her explain how each piece of the museum was acquired and how I could look at the paintings and learn, museums became one of my favorite places,” she’d explained.
“I’m surprised you didn’t become an artist,” I’d said.
“You have to have skill to be an artist and since I can barely draw stick figures, I decided that being an admirer of the arts was good enough.”
“And now you are a patron of the arts.”
She’d traced the veins on the back of my hand before answering. “I find that incredible,” she’d admitted.
“You are in charge of the art acquisitions for our homes, now,” I reminded her. The return look of love and amazement and wonder made me want to impregnate her all over again.
We’ve moved into our new townhome. Tiny insisted we keep the warehouse but we’re renting it out for the time being. Together we found a five floor townhome on the Upper West Side close to Jake’s office. Tiny bikes to work most days. I’ve hired two replacements for Louis, deciding that the work/life balance I am espousing couldn’t be easily achieved under the work load that Louis had toiled under alone.
After marrying Tiny, after learning of our impending parenthood, I reached out to Louis thinking to forgive and forget. In the intervening months my fortune had righted itself. Gains overcame losses, and filled with misguided benevolence I thought I would lend a helping hand to Louis. I’d heard that he was selling refinancing mortgage packages in Jersey.
But whether it was shame or anger or a mixture of both, Louis refused to meet with me and I let it go.
Today it’s Saturday and Tiny and I are going to take a trip to the Central Park Zoo and have lunch at the Boathouse. It was the first date we’d shared. Tiny argues it wasn’t a date but that I’d horned in on an outing with her mother.
Semantics.
We ate lunch together and I took them home. That’s a date.
“We should have dinner with Steve and his girlfriend,” Tiny says as we down Central Park West.
“Steve broke up with his girlfriend so that would be challenging and awkward.”
“What? When did this happen? I feel out of the loop with Marcie. She doesn’t gossip at all.”
“And Steve did?” I ask incredulously.
“No, but I was getting to learn his Sphinx like ways. Marcie is impenetrable. She could give lessons to those British soldiers in front of the palace. What happened?” she asks. “And don’t leave any details out.”
“He said it wasn’t working out. That’s the complete story as told to me by Steve.” I grin at her wrinkled nose. “Maybe you can kidnap him, tie him to a chair and torture the details out of him. Actually, no, you shouldn’t do that. Tying him up sounds vaguely sexual.”
Tiny rolls her eyes. “Are you always going to assume that every man wants me even when I’m eighty, wrinkly, and my boobs are near my knees?”
“Yes and every man that doesn’t is simply not right in his head. I won’t be able to get enough of your geriatric ass.”
She laughs and my heart squeezes at the sound of her joy. Hugging her closer, I press a kiss at her temple. We don’t make it another two feet before she yelps in amazement.
“Look at that!” she says excitedly.
At the corner of Central Park West and 72nd Street, a young woman is folding her bicycle into a compact arrangement of steel and rubber. Tiny hurries across the street, barely noticing traffic.
By the time I catch up, Tiny is already bent over inspecting the bike.
“I can’t believe how small it folds. And it’s comfortable you say?”
“I’m not going to bike any triathlons but it gets me places the subway can’t,” the girl responds. She flicks her gaze upward to acknowledge my arrival and then doesn’t look away. Her long perusal of my t-shirt and jean clad body is almost discomfiting. Tiny’s attention is, of course, still on the bike.
“Look at this Ian? Isn’t it cool and see how lightweight it is? It’s gorgeous.” She lifts her shining face toward me.
“I see something gorgeous,” I murmur softly. Tiny blushes under my gaze. Lifting the bike from her, I heft in my hand dutifully. “It’s very light.”
“I guess I don’t really need something like this,” she admits and hands the bike back to the girl.
“I’ll trade you the bike for your guy,” the girl says.
Tiny laughs in surprise and the slides her arm around my waist. “No, sorry. There’s only one Ian Kerr and I’m not giving him up.”
“Not for all the bikes in the world?” I joke.
“Not even for all the bikes in the galaxy,” she says and raises her beautiful face to me.
That’s a proper declaration.