Risking All for Love (Wattpadprize14)

Chapter Nine

Margaux opened her apartment door.

Gary stood in silence.

"Oh, Gary, I have been so worried about you." She reached out to embrace him, but he kept his hands to his side.

"Gary, I haven't seen you for over a week.  Day after day I left messages at the Peace Corps Office for you to call me."

Her heart pounded even more because Gary said nothing. He just stood staring. His look was so cold that Margaux felt unbearable pressure rising in her heart. Margaux thought to herself, why didn't Gary just call her a whore, smack her around, and trash her apartment?

Why didn't he just storm out after telling her that he never wanted to see her again? She would not blame him if he did.

Why would any guy date a girl, call her his girlfriend, knowing that she was having sex with others? What iron will of Gary's kept him from slapping her across the room?

Gary's continued in silence, his expressionless face, belied a real, deep-seated anger. What was more, he could not hide how much he cared about her. The lifestyle she was living had to be killing him. God, she thought, what was she doing to him?

What was she doing to herself?

Margaux wanted Gary. She respected him. She knew that he had wanted her. Why would he pursue a girl with so much personal baggage? Other girls' lives were less complicated, she thought.

Her pain, her shame were worse because Gary was the most decent guy she'd ever known in her life.

Gary's continued silence made a far better point than screaming would have, she thought.

If she did not know how much she loved him before that moment, she knew then. Right that minute she wanted him more than ever. He was the most handsome, kindest, most sensuous guy she'd ever met.

"Say, something, Gary! Don't you know I'm just a cheap whore, who wears elegant clothes and drives a Mercedes?"

Gary stepped around her, moving past her coffee table with its carved elephants and into her bedroom. She followed him to her closet where he began to rifle through her hanging clothes. Still silent, he pushed her garments aside one at a time until he came to her red party dress wrapped in plastic with a recent laundry tag still pinned to it.

Gary took out her dress. With care he removed its plastic wrapping and tossed it aside into her waste basket next to her bed. His methodical slowness at removing the red dress from its hanger caused Margaux even more anxiety.

"Why, Gary?" Margaux stood in tears. "Say something, please!"

All Gary did was to extend his hand, which held her dress. With care she took it from his gentle but firm  hand.

How handsome, how enamoring he was. She wanted those warm arms around her again and hear him say once more that everything would be all right between them. How could she dare expect that? Hadn't Gary seen her at her worst?  She looked for a clue in his expressionless face. Then it hit her.

"You want me to put this on, Gary?"

Without cracking a smile, he nodded yes.

"Gary, wait in the living room while I dress and put on my make up."

After a few minutes Margaux joined Gary in the living room. When he saw her coming out of the corner of his eye, he turned toward her. Standing there was the most sultry-looking, the most beautiful, the most ravishing woman he had ever seen in his life. Margaux was far more stunning, more enamoring than she was in the half light at the lounge that night.   The low light of the smoke-filled lounge had diminished her extraordinary beauty. If there was anything to forgive her for, Gary had done that already.

Why did he come here at all, she thought?

If Gary did not already know how his heart ached with love for this beautiful woman--a good person in spite of every sleazy thing she confessed or anything he had seen--he knew it when he saw this extraordinary woman before him.

When he extended his warm, gentle arms in quiet acceptance to her, Margaux knew that he loved her in spite of everything. When his firm, soft arms wrapped themselves around her, he put her loving heart at ease.

Locked in firm embrace, their lips pressed together with gentleness. At that moment theirs was a hunger, a long deep-seated hunger, a hunger for each other's soul, heart, and body. Their fulfillment began as they stood there although neither one spoke for an eternity. When their lovely lips parted, Gary placed his delicious mouth to Margaux's ear lobe, and his low voice at last spoke.

"Marge, I have been doing a lot of thinking since we last saw each other on that awkward night." They shared another passionate kiss. "Please answer my questions?"

"Oh, Gary, yes!"

"Marge, where is he?"

"He's gone from my life--forever."

"Marge." His low voice could not hide his true feeling. "I love you. I've never been in love before in my whole life." Again he pressed his hungry lips to hers. "Can you say in all honesty that you do not love me?"

"Gary, to do so would be a lie."

"Marge, do you love me then?"

"Ever since first laying eyes on you, Gary. But it took time for me to process everything. You're the man for me. So my answer? Oh, God, yes!"

"Marge, it nearly crushed my heart to see you in this red dress with him the other night,  but you were even then the most beautiful girl in the world to me." He held her closer, tighter. "I want. I want, I want what that man in the lounge had the other night."

He whispered again. "Marge, I want that beautiful girl, who loves me. I want that girl  in red to share passionate love with me, right now."

Although Margaux had worn her revealing red party dress for but a few moments, there was no protest when Gary undid its clasp and slid it off her. Standing before him in her bra and underwear, she surprised Gary, removing his clothes. She seemed too awkward for a girl who mixed sex and business. For all the sex she'd had, she ought to have been more savvy about it.  But Margaux for once felt an almost innocent expectation toward what was coming next.

Were there yet virgin-like qualities in Margaux, after all?  The difference between prostitute and tour guide with benefits was nothing more than semantics, wasn't it?

Sure enough, there was a newness, a naiveté about Margaux as they stood naked in tender embrace, again working magic with their gentle lips pressed together.

"Marge, I love you so much."

"At last I love a man, who loves me. Gary, I've never had a real boyfriend before. Now you're here with me, and I love you so much. After all the sex I've had, this is my first time to give my love with it."

Margaux pulled Gary on the bed, and they made passionate love.