Champagne Rules. Susan Lyons

time in her life. Not just an orgasm but a mind-shattering one.

      “Afterwards, we lie down on my beach towel and explore each other’s bodies with our hands, lips, tongues. He makes me come with his mouth and I, you know…”

      “Give him a blow job,” Jenny finished, at the same moment Ann said, “Perform fellatio.”

      Suzanne felt her cheeks grow hotter. “He stops me before he comes, then he’s inside me so hard and fast and deep, and it feels so amazing that I come again before he does.” She cleared her throat and fiddled with her margarita glass, almost wishing she’d broken her two-drink rule, even as she remembered the reason she never would.

      “Jesus, girl, I didn’t know you had it in you,” Jenny marveled, reaching for another cheese-coated chip and shoving it into the guacamole.

      Suzanne closed her eyes, remembering watching as their bodies joined, separated, joined again. “Did I mention he’s black?”

      “You mean African-American,” Ann corrected.

      “Or African-African,” Suzanne said. “Or from England. Lots of English people holiday in Greece. No accent, though. Yeah, probably American, you’re right.” Damn, doing this analysis had thrown her out of the moment, away from Crete and back to the restaurant.

      “But definitely gorgeous, eh?” Jenny said. “And hung.”

      Suzanne nodded. “Yup. He was this delicious shade of dark chocolate and he had short dreads. His face was so striking. A sexy little goatee. His eyes were chocolate too, and sparkly. Vibrant.”

      “Wow,” Rina breathed. “A chocolate man. How yummy.”

      “He was.” Even now, she could remember that taste.

      “And of course he was a fantastic lover.” Rina sighed dreamily.

      “He was a stranger, yet sex with him felt like the most intimate act I’d ever committed. For a moment I even found myself wishing our lovemaking would create a child.” Suzanne gave a shiver. “Is that insane or what? Especially given my, uh, rather traditional feelings about marriage and kids.”

      “Traditional!” Jenny hooted. “Try archaic. Any woman whose deepest aspiration is to marry Ward Cleaver from Leave It to Beaver…”

      “Well, he was awfully good to the Beaver,” Rina said softly, wickedly, and this time they all hooted.

      Ann sobered quickly, though. “Suze, what you said about creating a child? You did use a condom, right?”

      Suzanne swallowed hard. She hadn’t meant to reveal that particular bit of idiocy. “I was on the pill, but I know it was utterly stupid. I plead insanity. Plus too much wine, and I’d been out in the sun for hours and had sunstroke. That’s why I—” She broke off abruptly, realizing she hadn’t told them the rest of it.

      Rina said, “Is that why you have a two-drink limit?” just as Ann demanded, “Why what?” and Jenny said, “So what was this demon lover’s name anyhow?” The three of them burst out laughing, then turned challenging gazes on Suzanne.

      And now they’d know what a complete idiot she was. She sighed, beckoned to a waitress in a red T-shirt, and said, “Could I have some ice water, please?” It was time to leave her fantasy cave, and come down to cold, hard Vancouver earth.

      She waited until the waitress brought water for all of them, took a long, cold swallow, and spilled the truth. “Jen, I don’t know his name. And I’ll save all of you the trouble of asking the logical questions. The last thing I remember is falling asleep in his arms, in the cave. My memory picks up the next morning, in my hotel room, with the chambermaid and a doctor hovering. I had sunburn, heatstroke and felt like crap. I barely made my flight home. And…”

      Another gulp of water, then she confessed the last bit in one long rush. “I’m not even surehewasreallyreal.”

      “Huh?” Jenny said, and Suzanne realized the other women wore baffled expressions. She’d spoken so quickly her words had all slurred together.

      “I’m not sure he was real,” she repeated flatly.

      “But…” Ann frowned. “What are you talking about? You just told us what he looked like, everything you did together.”

      “I still dream about it every month or so.” And, each time she did, she had an orgasm in her sleep. Way better orgasms than she’d ever had with any man other than her cave-sex lover.

      She heaved a sigh of frustration. “Maybe it was just a dream in the first place. I’d drunk about a liter of wine. And yes, Rina, I’ve never had more than two drinks since then.

      “Anyhow, wandering around in my alcoholic haze, I found that nude beach and felt so risqué, taking my clothes off.” She thought of her own naïvety, and gave a snort. “Let’s face it, it’s more likely I fell asleep in the sun and fantasized the whole thing than that I had unprotected sex with a complete stranger.”

      For once, she seemed to have rendered her friends speechless.

      Grimly she went on. “I’ve no idea how I got dressed again, or got back to the hotel.”

      “You don’t remember saying good-bye to the nameless god?” Jenny asked.

      Suzanne shook her head. “And if the whole thing really happened, we’d have had to say something, right? Like, good-bye, it’s been a blast, let’s leave it at that because we could never in a million years replicate the experience? That would make sense. I mean, he wouldn’t exactly fit into my life. He’s not the guy I want to marry and settle down with. I’m fine with everything”—especially those orgasmic dreams—“except not knowing if he was real.”

      “A dream lover,” Rina breathed. “How romantic.”

      “Yeah, but how could you be fine with letting him go?” Jenny’s brow was wrinkled. “If he was real, I mean. Maybe you couldn’t—what was that amazingly literate phrase?—‘replicate the experience’? But maybe you could, Suze. Wouldn’t that be better than hot dreams?”

      “Weren’t you listening?” Suzanne said impatiently. “Even if he was real, I never knew anything about him.”

      “It’s hard to track down a person when you have no information,” Ann agreed.

      “Hmm.” Jenny drummed her fingernails—hot-pink, decorated with rhinestones—against the table. “How about a personals ad?”

      “Oh sure, Jen,” Rina said, “like there’s any chance the chocolate man lives in Vancouver.”

      Jenny groaned. “Duh. Not the Vancouver paper, you twit, the internet.”

      Suzanne’s breath caught. She used e-mail all the time, and the internet for veterinary research, but she’d never thought of using the worldwide web to try to track down her one-time, maybe lover.

      Ann frowned. “That could be dangerous. Freaks and weirdos hang out on the internet.”

      Jenny rolled her eyes. “Suze wouldn’t use her own internet address. We’ll get her a free account with Hotmail or Yahoo. Anonymous. So what if she gets some flaky replies to the ad? She just ignores them.”

      “The odds of him seeing the ad are incredibly slim, even if he does exist,” Ann pointed out. “This does not sound like the kind of man who needs the internet to find a date.” Frowning, she ran her fingers through her hair, then suddenly gave an impish grin. “Still, there’s nothing lost in trying.”

      Jenny and Ann were talking like this had gone beyond the hypothetical. Suzanne’s heart thumped nervously. She turned to Rina, who was staring off into space. “What do you have to say about this?”

      “Hmm?” Rina said dreamily. “You know, sometimes we let people go out of our lives too easily.”

      Suzanne groaned. “This is not a good idea.