Shhh... They Will Hear Us

Chapter 6

There was a knock at the door and a waiter arrived with a couple of large salads and a bottle of wine. Without being asked, he opened the bottle and poured two glasses. Reaching for my pants that were folded at the end of the couch I extracted a five-dollar bill and handed it to him. He thanked me and left.

The show that had caused such turmoil in our hitherto conventional lives was coming on. We paid it no attention and Gretta lowered the sound. We both knew the first fifteen minutes or so consisted mainly of rather pedestrian interviews in which they described their lives and social situations. We continued the conversation we'd been having before room service arrived except now we were picking at our salads and sipping wine.

Most people aren't really aware of it, but they routinely negotiate situations that are rife with sexuality in advance, before anyone really does anything. No one comes to any specific agreement, but a sort of general understanding is reached. I mean no one wants to be the one standing there with his d**k sticking out so to speak when the other person shout's "Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

That's really what Gretta and I was doing. Talking around the indisputable facts that had just taken place. Pretending it hadn't happened, that we'd been "dreaming". Our transparent justifications and denials helped us to ignore the obvious direction our conversation and decisions were taking us. Basically we were saying "All this is very innocent and we're really not going to do anything too terribly over the line but in case we do…just in case, let's make sure no one gets hurt.

The wine helped. As we continued to talk the words flowed a little easier and our comfort level with the situation rose.

"So" Gretta was saying "We've kind of agreed in principle that even if I get up on the coffee table and do a naked toe dance, we're going to keep it under our hats?"

"I think you've put your finger on the very heart of our understanding." I said, taking another long sip of the white burgundy so recently imprisoned in an unfeeling glass bottle. Now it bathed my consciousness in a warm feeling of good will that extended even to the airline that had stranded us here and certainly to my beautiful and sweet little sister.

Now I don't want you to get the idea I was drunk; that was definitely not the case. A small bottle of very good wine split between two people won't do that even if they finish the bottle. Gretta and I were nowhere near finishing yet, We'd had, maybe a glass and a half each. Of course we sipped them rather quickly. Still we were nowhere near being even slightly intoxicated.

"Well" Gretta said, looking at me rather sharply, "I believe we've got a deal, there's just one more thing."

"What's that?"

"After we leave here tomorrow, while a wild and crazy night of drinking and watching dirty TV might make us a little closer, I don't think we should talk about it with each other or bring it up in the future. What I'm trying to say is I don't think we should consider tonight some kind of precedent that changes our basic relationship, understand?"

"I think I do. In order for us to really relax with each other, we've got to be confident that it won't come back to haunt us during an argument about who gets the bathroom first."

"Exactly."

"Well, you have my word that what we say here and what we do here stays here."

Excellent", she said, glancing at the TV where things were certainly heating up, "You've got my word as well, now why don't you get on the phone and order up a couple more bottles of this excellent French wine, what did you say it was?"

"White Burgundy, should I ask them to bring up an ounce of reefer or a couple of hypodermics of heroin as well?" I asked sarcastically picking up the phone.

"We don't do drugs" Gretta said distractedly, "Oh my goodness look what they're doing now."