The next day was Sunday. His name was Chad.
"Hello?" Her voice betrayed her grogginess. She'd been sleeping restfully when the phone rang, and she hadn't been too keen about getting up to answer the fucking thing.
"Hi! My name is Chad. Fun-Mate gave me your number." His voice was cheerful, young, vital. She couldn't bring herself to resent him for calling especially after she glanced at the clock and found that it was nearly eleven-thirty..
But then she frowned in puzzlement. She'd only paid a fee for one contact, and Jeff had been the result of that.
"Hey, are you still there?" Chad asked.
"Huh? Oh, sure, sure."
"Gosh, I didn't wake you up, did I?"
"Well, I was sleeping too late anyhow," she answered truthfully.
"I'm sorry. Would you rather I called back later?"
"No, no, that's okay."
"Good, because I thought maybe you'd like to go bicycle riding."
Even though she'd just awakened from a warm bed to a relatively cool room, that appealed to her. Virginia found sports invigorating and considered herself athletic.
"That sounds pretty good to me, Chad," she said."Any place in particular?"
"Mound Manhattan. Today's the day the City starts closing off- streets and roadways to auto traffic for pedestrian malls and bikeways."
"That's right," she said, brightening. They made arrangements to meet at Central Park South.
"How will I know you?" she asked.
"I'll be standing astride two bicycles like Ben Hur," he answered.
Virginia started dressing as soon as she hung up the phone. Chad sounded young, near her own age, and he sounded like a live one, the kind of guy that enjoyed everything he did or didn't do it. She needed that kind of companion at thatmoment.
She quickly showered, eating a corn muffin and downing a glass of milk on the fly. She pulled on a pair of bell-bottoms and a lightweight long-sleeved knit top that buttoned up to a high wing collar. She left the top two buttons open, exposing the upper swells of her firm, full fit cleavage, then quickly tied her brilliant red hair back. She checked herself out in the mirror. From the front, her nipples were clearly visible through her top. The jeans were snugged against her cunt, and she could easily make out the split of her already swollen pussy-lips through the crotch of the pants and her bikini panties. The crotch stitch of the jeans was pulled tightly upwards between her labes, spreading and emphasizing their fullness.
She checked herself in profile. Her shoulders held squarely back, her tits stood up firmly, with an inviting offering to them that most women could achieve only with a bra. Her tummy and abdomen were taut and flat, that fitness emphasized by the cut of her jeans. Her ass stood out almost pertly. She' turned around and checked the rear view. Her figure was almost a classic hourglass shape from the rear, tapering from her strong, feminine shoulders to her trim waist and then flaring softlyoutward at her hips. The seam of her jeans ran in a perfect vertical line between her rich, strong butt-cheeks, pulled tightly between them just enough to separate and emphasize their ripeness, clinging to every softly molded dimple of the creamy curves of her ass. She purposely used little make-up. Chad was obviously the out-doorsy type; he probably preferred that type of woman.
"Okay," she muttered approvingly at her reflection. She pulled on the matching jacket jean top and buttoned the bottom four snaps into place, then strode out of the door of her apartment with her shoulder bag banging against her side with every vivaciously bouncy step down the stairs. Virginia took the subway, and walked the last two blocks through the crisp springtime New York City Sunday-morning sunshine to the edge of Central Park.
She walked through the small crowd of people at the corner of the park, beneath the statue, looking around for a person to match the voice she'd heard on the phone that morning. She couldn't spot anyone at first, so she turned to make another pass through the crowd. Maybe he hadn't gotten there yet. But then she saw a young man watching her,observing her. Their faces were identical questioning masks, as if to ask: "Are you… As if to answer the question, the young man carefully separated the two bicycles he was holding, snapped the kickstands into place and made as if to stand, straddle-legged, with one foot on each.
A la Ben Hur. Virginia smiled, chuckled a bit, and strode towards him. To paraphrase someone else, the closer she got, the better he looked.
The bigger, too. It was only as she got within a few steps of him that she realized just how big he was. He was easily six and a half feet tall, but looked shorter because of a tendency to slouch and the perfect proportions of his muscular young body beneath his casual jeans and open-collared flannel sports shirt.
"Hi, he said brightly, flashing a toothy smile at her. He was an attractive young man, though not as sensually overwhelming in his handsomeness as Jeff had been.
"You're Virginia, right?"
"If I wasn't, I'd claim to be.@ she said.
"You're Chad, right?"
"Right. Hey, I didn't know you were going to be a redhead and a damned lovely one at that."
"Thank you, gracious sir," she replied, curtseying slightly. When she straightened, she noticed that he'd fastened a saddle bag to the back of one of the bikes.
"What's that?" she asked.
"Picnic lunch," he answered."Let's get going, okay?"
For an answer, she slung one leg over the bike and they pedaled off into the park.
It was a beautiful day for bicycling in the park. The roads running through the park had also been closed to traffic, and already there were lots of people enjoying the day in the same way. They turned onto a bike path and followed it up the west side of the park, catching occasional brief glimpses of some of the old, stately residential hotels lining Central Park West through the trees, and at one point getting a quick look at the imposing, welcoming statues of Teddy Roosevelt outside of the Museum of Natural History. They pedaled past the rowboat lake and the little gazebo, long abandoned, on an outcropping by the lake side. Before much longer, they were whipping past the bulk of the crowd around the northern edge of the park and then wheeling back down on the east side. Chad led them off to one side, on a smaller paththat took them past the reservoir and the jogging track and within sight of the old castle housing the weather-bureau station. Below that, Virginia knew, was the Delacorte Theatre, where Shakespeare was performed for free on soft summer evenings.
Finally, just after they'd passed Cleopatra's Needle and the out thrust of the new wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art into the park, Chad told her they would pull off to one side. She followed him, walking her bicycle towards a shaded thicket. Large boulders were carefully arranged about, almost like table and chair settings.
"And will this suit the lady?" Chad asked with a cavalier flourish.
"Of a certainty," she replied gravely."Let's eat!"Chad grinned his toothy grin.
"Yeah, I'm starved, too." He opened the saddle bag and produced well-stuffed sandwiches and two containers of coleslaw and macaroni salad, then a small bottle of wine.
While they ate, Virginia learned that Chad was a copywriter at PLK Advertising and yes, he had been an athlete in college. With a little coaxing she got him to admit that he was a three-letter man. She liked that about him; he was not a bragger.
Just as they were finishing the wine, Virginia 4:05 AMshivered.
"Cold?" Chad asked.
"A little," she admitted. Clouds had crept over the sky while they'd eaten, and the overcast was genuinely threatening. She looked up and got a raindrop right between the eyes for her curiosity.
"Uh-oh… A"No kidding," Chad said. He quickly gathered up their waste and chucked it into the litter can, then took the reuseables and stuffed them back into his saddle bag.
"Me thinks we'd better start pedaling, Virginia," he said as a few more drops splashed down onto the rock that had been their table. The two remounted their bikes and Chad led the way around the southern turn of the bikeway, past the zoo and quickly west towards their starting point.
By the time they'd reached the entrance of the park, the heavens were starting to drip like wet laundry.
"Come on!" he shouted. Bewildered, she followed his lead back up the west side path. She managed to draw even with him just before they turned towards Seventy Second Street and the exit there.
"Hey, what about the bikes?" Virginia asked,slightly breathless. Her tits were heaving within the jacket top, straining the snaps."Hey, we-we have to return the bikes."
"Huh? Oh, no we don't. They aren't rented. They're mine."
"Oh. Where are we going?"
"Nearest dry place," he said."Mine."