Hidden Patience
Many people believe I am not a patient person. Two ex husbands, uncounted number of ex assistants and department heads would attest to this “fact.” I absolutely disagree. I believe it has more to do with the level of patience displayed. I am currently lying in the dark, shifting in my enormous bed to relieve the ache in my shoulder caused by too many hours in the same position as I review the Book. The ability to sit and comb over layout and page designs and minutae…is this not patience? Hmm, perhaps not the kind the children are talking about when they ask me to be more patient with them when some incident or other comes up. But still, patience none the less.
My ex husbands would say I have no patience as they ask for dispensation when they interrupt me yet again for some nonsense about dinner at the club or the like. The resulting dismissal is only their due. No patience indeed. In the case of my first husband, Greg, five years without an orgasm I believe shows remarkable patience. Or at least perseverance. Surely they could be counted as one in the same? Or maybe not. How does one measure such things?
I shifted again to my back glancing at the clock by the bed 11:50p.m. I let out a slow sigh and stared at the shadows on my ceiling. Patience…to wait…I thought back to the night cap I had just an hour before bed and the warm way the liquid made its way into my blood stream, a slow moving flame. Aged for 20 years my favourite scotch definitely required patience to drink. To sip and roll the liquid over my tongue and feel each individual taste bud come to life. Each fiber of oak and ash and then intense aging that makes a fine scotch. Each sip an eternity. Surely that was patience?
I blow out a breath as I continue my insomnia ritual and run through my next day schedule in my head. Board meeting at 10 am. Really what a ridiculous time…some of us will have been working since 5am. But Irv must be indulged. There! That was another thing was it not? The patience to deal with that toad of a man in a suit no amount of tailoring could save. The oily, oozing presence as he tried to leave his fingerprints on the glossy pages of my lifes masterwork. Surely it took patience not strangle him with my belt? Idly, I wondered if he would know the shade? Patience to sit and listening to him meander through meaningless numbers when I had countless other uses for that hour. Unbidden but not unwelcome the memory of slim fingers and a delicate tongue come to mind.
And there…was there not patience as well? Albeit of a different sort. After being starved of physical satisfaction in a famine of epic proportions was it not patience when presented with the buffet of carnal delights not to indulge in every waking opportunity? But to wait and build and…well trust that the times with her would not leave me wanting? Hours upon endless hours of exploration…the urgency of passion banked with the fires of her need and her desire. Trusting that as I took so would I be taken and not left wanting? Patience to begin a day with casual touching that leads to the slightly less casual teasing only to be broken up by the responsibilities of the day. The flame in embers reignited by the heat of a text on the screen. “Thinking of you…need you…tonight can’t come soon enough.” The words so innocent but so full of heat and combustion. Surely, that was patience. The patience of the lover.
I turn my head to look at the clock, 11:58 p.m. What else do I have for my day tomorrow. The new Chanel fall line. Of course. Chanel. Chanel and patience. The woman who walked into my office in boots up to the thigh versus the girl who she had been before. We passed. One coming the other going. My head on a swivel…my eyes drawn down over the rims of my glasses to the perfection that was that silhouette. And lingering there. Everything in my body tightened into a coil of pure lust but did I spin and catch her arm? Did I drop that ridiculous call I was on? Did I forgo my responsibilities to bend her over the glass top of my ultra chic modern desk and have here there? No. And that my way well be my one regret. But it was patience that forced its way into my mind through the lust singing in my veins. Wait and see that insidious little thread whispered. And I did.
I heard the sound of the door. The subtle click of the lock loud through the empty foyer. The sound of a modest heel on the stairs. My heart, despite being patient, picked up its beat and I tried to still the sudden race of adrenaline in order not to greet on her the stairs. I must maintain some level of restraint. She would stop as she did every night to open those doors and check on the red headed devils I called my daughters. And this one act…this one loving act…resolved my impatience…reminding me of the rewards of waiting…the rewards of loving and the needs that could be fulfilled before ever knowing you had them.
The door eases open and her shadow falls across the bed. Finally, because I have reached the end of my not so inconsiderable patience. She steps into the room and the door closes.
“Andrea.”