Flexibility

By Yolanda King

Zoé, a young woman in her late twenties, leads an uneventful life as a tour operator in Chicago until, one day, she meets a dashing stranger. Head over heels for him after an unforgettable encounter at the spa, she slowly discovers who he really is. To complicate matters, her ex-boyfriend reappears. And what about Robert, the handsome vet she meets at a party? As though her love life isn't interesting and confusing enough, Zoé also gets entangled in a lawsuit. Will she lose her business on top of the man she loves?

• Language: English
• Publisher: TWENTYSIX
• Release date: May 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9783740754631

Yolanda King

Yolanda King was born in 1977. She lived in North America for more than two years, traveling and working, and she also lived in Florence, Italy for one year. She speaks German, English and Italian fluently. Yolanda is married with two children. She and her family live in a small town in the northern part of the Black Forest. She is a teacher and translator who has now turned her hobby - writing - into her new profession. Yolanda started writing in elementary school, continually encouraged by her teacher. Writing has been her constant companion since. https://mewe.com/i/yolandaking4

Book preview

Flexibility

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Copyright

CHAPTER 1

INVITATION

to our flatwarming party.

WHEN? Saturday, February 23rd

from 8p.m.

WHERE? Steel Road 9

Just bring yourselves and plenty of time!

RSVP by February, 20th, please.

Mandy & Thomas

Zoé was sipping a glass of wine while her supper was warming up on the stove. She was lying on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table and cuddling one of her three cats, and browsing through her mail. She had made various piles: junk, bills and other. It was always the other pile she looked at first. And right now she was looking at this invitation. I'll be damned, she muttered. So Mandy really moved back into town. I wonder if it's because of that dude she mentioned when I last saw her.

Mandy and Zoé met sporadically whenever Mandy's work took her back to Chicago. Mandy was a flight attendant for long-distance flights and last time she was considering a transfer to the domestic flights department to return to Chicago permanently. The two had met in grad school and remained friends even when their paths eventually parted, Mandy to work for a very renowned airline and Zoé to set in motion her business as a tour operator for special tours of Chicago. It had taken a few years but now she had gained a great reputation and generated enough turnover to afford a comfortable life. By now she had two employees who did most of the tours, as well as an assistant who pitched in with anything that needed to be taken care of around the office while she took care of most of the paperwork and planning of new tours. She made sure, however, to show at least three groups around herself every week. It helped her to stay in touch with people's interests.

Now Zoé picked up the phone to call her best friend, Miranda. Hi Miranda, it's me. You won't guess what arrived in the mail today!

An invitation to Mandy's flatwarming party, Miranda responded promptly. I got one, too. Miranda joined Zoé and Mandy for an occasional night out when Mandy was in town.

That's great! said Zoé. I was afraid I'd have to meet a bunch of strangers and engage in boring small talk all by myself. Anyway, what flatwarming gift shall we get them?

The party is in about three weeks. Why don't we meet, Zoé heard Miranda turn a few pages in her pocket calendar, next week Monday to shop for one? Let's have lunch and browse around the stores.

Sounds like a good plan. I'll see you at The Tree House at 12.30 p.m. They disconnected. Zoé got up to place the invitation on the kitchen counter and to note down her appointment with Miranda. Then she threw the junk mail into the trash. The bills can wait until tomorrow, she mumbled and yawned. I'm ready to call it a day.

The following day, Wednesday, was extremely busy and Zoé was only too happy when Thursday came around. Thursday was her pleasure and leisure day. She would take care of some paperwork for a couple of hours, lead a special guided tour of nearly three hours, have a relaxed lunch with Miranda, and then she would be off to the spa for the rest of the day. That was where she was heading now.

The spa was rather empty on Thursdays, thus Zoé had the necessary quiet she craved. The spa had four indoor pools of various sizes and differing water tempartures as well as a hot outdoor pool that sported massage jets let into the side of the pool walls and a jacuzzi that fit up to eight people at a time off to one side. She spent little time in the pools because she preferred the saunas, though. All in all, there were fifteen of them, plus two spacious rooms with comfortable beds and woollen blankets for people who wanted to rest, as well as a lounge where fruit, snacks and assorted teas were available for free and where a crackling fire was burning.

Zoé usually drifted from sauna to sauna, napping and snacking in between. When she felt that she needed some excercise, she would do a few laps. It was her weekly retreat, her time to relax and switch off. She seldom felt the urge to engage in conversation and kept any kind of interaction to a minimum; she merely nodded and smiled at the regulars but otherwise kept mostly to herself. She had to speak so much in her line of work that she was glad about not having to converse with anyone.

The spa closed at 10 p.m. Zoé had about one hour left before she had to go and shower so she decided to swim some laps and enjoy the jacuzzi for a while.

When she lowered herself into the pool, she noticed the man she had seen in the sauna earlier. He had to be a visitor because she had never seen him before. He stood out of the crowd, however; literally. He was very tall and athletic, and pulling himself out of the water now to sit on the side of the pool. Just like before in the sauna, he smiled his roguish smile at her that lit up his entire face and made Zoé's heart skip a beat. It was impossible not to smile back.

Zoé thought. She felt the man's eyes following her as she was doing her laps. Spontaneously, she resolved to skip the jacuzzi and take a shower instead. The man's presence made her feel self-conscious and nervous because she felt observed, which she clearly was, and because she was attracted to him. When she left the pool she turned around to look at him again, she could not help herself. As though he had expected it, he flashed her another smile that made her blush. Hastily, Zoé grabbed a towel and disappeared in the shower. She took off her bikini and turned on the hot water.

Crap, I forgot my shampoo, she muttered under her breath.

I think you might be needing this, said a deep resonant voice behind her. Zoé spun around and saw the man from the pool standing in front of her and holding her bottle of shampoo which she had forgotten when she took her towel and hurried into the shower. She felt her heart beat frantically in her chest. She looked into his mossgreen eyes and was unable to respond. Zoé knew she should tell him to leave but his eyes held her captive, asking her permission to stay, and if there had been any feeling of rejection toward him being here to begin with, it had vanished instantly. This was thrilling! Zoé was a stranger to this kind of sexual arousal, a stranger to being the focus of an attractive man's desire. Although she knew that sharing a shower was against the spa's policy, it did not scare her. On the contrary, it turned her on! Her, Zoé, a young woman who never got intimate with anyone outside her bedroom walls. She suddenly craved the man's touch standing in front of her.

He took a step closer, poured some shampoo into his hands and rubbed them together until they were foamy. Then he took her hand and began spreading the foam onto her palm and slowly up her arm, over her shoulder, chest and back down on the other side. Zoé closed her eyes and relaxed into his touch.

A tiny part of her brain told her to caress the man, too, to feel his powerful muscles under her fingers, but she could not bring herself to move. It seemed like he demanded absolute passivity as to best explore her and assert his dominance over her.

Zoé thought fleetingly, but with a smile. His hands glided back up her arms and down onto her breasts, which he cupped and gently kneaded until Zoé moaned softly. Then he lowered his head to nibble on her hard nipples while his hands wandered down her belly to find her bushy privates. Playfully, he rubbed Zoé's clitoris until she squirmed. He put his finger into her slick and warm moisture and moved it in and out while he continued to caress her clit. Zoé was panting hard by now. Suddenly, the man scooped her up, pressed her against the wall under the hot running water of the shower and entered her, pushing rhythmically, then faster and harder until they both climaxed and he had to stifle her scream with his mouth.

Thus they stood until their breaths had slowed. He bent to kiss her again, lingering, but eventually he extracted himself from Zoé and left.

Zoé stared after him. she thought, but she could still feel her body tingle from his touch. It took her a moment longer to collect herself enough to peak out of the shower, but the man had vanished. Still dazed, she finished showering, dressed and left the spa. Zoé was ravenous so she stopped by at her favorite Thai on the way home. She wanted to call Miranda immediately but she did not want to retell what had happened on the phone and it was too late to meet now. Therefore, Zoé texted Miranda and asked her to have lunch together the following day.

Miranda's jaw dropped. You what?! You gotta be kidding me!

Zoé shook her head. The two of them were sitting in a café and munching on a sandwich while the lunch crowd was beginning to trickle in. Miranda scrutinized her friend.

You don't know anything about this guy except that he has a mesmerizing smile and mossgreen eyes but you have passionate sex with him in public? I can't believe it! Miranda laughed. Oh, how I wish something like this would happen to me! What do you want to do now?

Nothing, Zoé shrugged. As I said, we didn't exchange a single word. Let alone addresses. But Miranda, I haven't had such great sex since I split up with Leo. No, scratch that, I've never had such great sex! She grinned. And believe you me, I'd do it again without a second thought. They mulled that over for a bit.

Well, girl, you deserve it, Miranda finally said. Leo was a cheating fuck and a crook and you had put up with him way too long. But it's a pity that you don't know a thing about this hunk.

It seems totally unreal, you know. I mean, that's so not me to have sex with a stranger and on top of that, to have sex with a stranger in public! I was a bit confused and self-conscious in the beginning but I forgot everything around me, including myself! It was wonderfully liberating; I could develop a taste for it, Zoé laughed and then she sighed. Back to reality and work. Are we still good for next week Monday?

Miranda nodded. They paid, got up and left. Miranda hugged Zoé good bye.

Zoé did not return to the office immediately, she needed to clear her head. The air inside the café had been stuffy and her head felt as though it was about to explode. She went for a brief walk instead, despite the biting wind that was whirling flurries through the air. She walked down to the waterfront and sat down on the beach. When her headache subsided, she called her assistant, Henry, to tell him that she was not going to come back for the weekend because she did not feel well. Zoé left precise instructions regarding the bookings for Saturday and Sunday and told him to expect her back on Monday morning. Then she called her sister, Susan, who responded almost right away.

Hey sis, what's up? she asked Zoé.

I gotta get out for a bit. Are you home this weekend, can I come up?

Sure! When will you be here?

I guess in the early evening.

Great, later!

They hung up. Zoé hurried home, threw some clothes into a duffel bag, grabbed the car keys and knocked on her neighbor's door on the way out. When no one opened, she dropped an envelope with a short note and her apartment key into their mailbox. They usually fed her cats when she left town. Zoé got her car and drove through Chicago traffic heading north on the I-94 W toward Milwaukee. It was Friday and many people finished work early. The Interstate was not congested yet but the vehicles were moving along slowly. It did not matter to Zoé, she had time. She looked for a classic rock radio station, munched on her peanut butter candy and enjoyed the ride.

She and her sister met regularly every month. Most of the time Zoé drove up to Green Bay as it afforded her with a break from the often hectic big city life. As much as she loved Chicago, it felt good to get out every now and then. Zoé found pleasure in strolling through Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary, Cofrin Memorial Arboretum or along Fox River State Recreational Trail, as well as watching an occasional Packers game. Granted, she equally enjoyed watching the Chicago Bulls play but a change of scenery helped recharge her batteries.

At twenty-eight, Zoé was seven years older than Susan and although their lives and characters could not be any different, they were very close. Susan's vivacious, carefree behavior relaxed and invigorated Zoé to such an extent that she was able to shed some of her timidness and allow herself to enjoy life without always thinking about the consequences.

Like having wild sex with a stranger, Zoé