“Have sex with him,” Charlotte explained to her younger brother, as I pushed the dog through the screen door, hoping he'd be enticed to empty his bladder or worse on the lawn instead of on our rented carpets.

“I'm not having sex with anyone,” I said, cutting her off, “and you're both going to bed RIGHT NOW!”

“Sure, Mom, get rid of us, so you don't have to tell us what's really happening with Peter.” Charlotte managed to look both insulted and disapproving.

“Nothing is happening with Peter, but a lot is going to be happening to you two if you don't get your behinds into bed. Come on, enough now.” She gave me an evil glare and took herself off to bed, as Sam yawned, spilled his Dr Pepper as he set it down, and went to retrieve the dog from the garden. They were both back less than a minute later. He and the dog from hell, who wagged his tail so hard in delight to see me that he swept the remains of the Dr Pepper right off the kitchen counter.

I tucked Sam into bed, and sat down on the couch in the living room with a sigh before I went to my own room, to climb into bed with Charlotte. It was hard to keep up the feeling of romance when I was being tormented by the children. And how was I ever going to explain this to them? It was becoming rapidly obvious to me that there was no way I could introduce him in a major way into my household. We could go out to dinner, or take them out with us occasionally, and he could hang around, certainly. But I couldn't even begin to imagine his ever spending the night with me under the same roof as my children. There was no doubt in my mind that Charlotte at least would call the vice squad. Oh well, I thought wistfully, as I turned off the lights and wandered off to bed … maybe someday. After Sam left for college.

And inevitably, Charlotte's predictions proved to be right. Peter suggested he come out for the weekend when he heard that the children were spending Labor Day weekend with their father. I was expecting him to stay at the hotel, as usual, and was startled when he suggested that this time I stay at the hotel with him.

“I … uh. I didn't … I don't … I don't usually…” I said smoothly, suddenly mortified despite the inroads we'd made in that direction since the beginning of August. And then I surprised myself, as I reminded myself that I was an adult, and Charlotte would know nothing about it. “Why don't you stay here?” I asked softly.

“That would be nice.” I could imagine him smiling as he said it. And I was still blushing when I hung up the phone. It was ridiculous to be shy about things like that at my age. Ridiculous maybe, but I felt like a runaway teenager about to get caught by the cops when I watched him drive up the driveway. I was wearing pink jeans and a pink shirt, and a new pair of pink espadrilles. I had thrown out all my old ones. And as I glanced in the mirror, I thought I looked like a giant mass of cotton candy, but Peter didn't seem to mind it.

He kissed me as he came through the front door, and set down his bag. That single act seemed suddenly ominous to me and like a symbol of enormous commitment. What if I chickened out, and didn't want to “do it”? What if I changed my mind? What if Charlotte and Sam hadn't really left, and were hiding in the closet? But I had seen them drive away only two hours before with Roger. Just enough time to sink into a hot bath, and transform myself from motherhood to sex queen for Peter.

“Hi,” he said, pulling me into his arms and kissing me again, as I wondered if he knew I was nervous. “I brought some groceries,” he said calmly, and then he looked at me with a question in his eyes. “Or would you rather go out? I'm actually a pretty fair cook, if you trust me.” That was, in fact, an interesting question, to which I was not yet sure of the answer. Did I trust him? The truth was, I did. But should I? What if he did this all the time? … picked people up in small hotels, wined and dined them for a month … and then what? What did I think he was going to do to me? What if he really wasn't divorced, or had a thousand girlfriends in New York and California? But as I helped him unpack the groceries and he kissed me again, more passionately this time, I decided it didn't really matter. I was crazy about him. And however evil he might turn out to be in the end, he could be no worse than Roger.

We managed to get the steaks he'd brought into the refrigerator, and the makings of a salad. And he set the bottle of red wine down on the table somewhere behind us, and somehow at that point, I lost track of the groceries, and he began to slowly unwind what I was wearing like so much cotton candy. And seemingly effortlessly, our clothes vanished in a path of pink and white and blue and khaki, and the next thing I knew, we were lying on my bed naked, as the sun went down slowly over the ocean, and I was breathless. I had suddenly never wanted anyone as much as I wanted this man, never trusted anyone as much, had never given myself in quite the way I gave myself to him, not even to Roger…. I was starving. And what happened after that seemed like a dream afterward when I thought about it. We lay in each other's arms and talked and kissed and whispered and dreamed, and discovered things about each other that I longed to know, about him, and he needed to know about me. It was after midnight when we finally thought about dinner.

“Hungry?” he asked in a husky voice as he rolled over, and I touched the satin of his skin. But I could only groan at the question.

“God, Peter … not again … I couldn't.”

He laughed as he leaned over and kissed me, and whispered, “I meant dinner.”

“Oh …” I felt strangely shy with him, and yet at ease at the same time. It was all so new, and so different than anything I had ever known in my life before. There was something so tender about the way he looked at me, so kind, and yet we were friends even before we were lovers, and I liked that. “Do you want me to make you something to eat?” I asked, lying back comfortably on the bed we had made ours, sorry that we could not stay there forever, but immensely pleased that Roger had taken the children for the weekend.

“I thought I was going to make you dinner.” He kissed me again then and for a minute I thought it was all going to begin again, but we were both tired and sated and suddenly realized that we were starving.

In the end, we decided to pass on the steaks, and opted for an omelette instead, which Peter cooked to perfection with ham and cheese, and the salad he had brought to make for dinner. He was right. He was a terrific cook, almost as good as he was a lover.

We went for a walk on the beach after that, and then came home with his arm around me, and we fell asleep in each other's arms that night, with all the delicious newness and lack of expertise which comes from not knowing how someone sleeps, or what side they sleep on, if they like to cuddle or be left alone. But Peter made it easy for me. He just pulled me to him, held me close, and a moment later as we drifted off to sleep, I found myself wondering if Charlotte would know, with that hideous extrasensory perception of the thirteen-year-old, that we had “done it.” My eyes fluttered open as I thought of it, and glanced at Peter, and then I smiled … he looked so beautiful as he lay there sleeping beside me. Sorry, Charlotte.

There was more of the same the next day. We made love again when we woke up, and afterward I made him breakfast. We swam, we talked, we ate, we went for long walks. We spent most of the weekend in bed, and by the end of the weekend, more than I wanted to, or would have dared admit to him, there was a part of me that belonged to him. I was falling in love with him. Correction. Past tense. I had fallen in love with him. It had all been too sweet, too good, too right, too tender. I was a goner.

And when he drove me back into town on Monday night, after I closed the house, he mentioned that he was going to have to spend some time in California in September.

“Do you spend a lot of time there?” I asked casually, wondering if he was telling me this was the end of a brief summer fling, or something I'd have to get used to. I figured I could get used to anything for him. I hadn't felt this way since I was in high school, but hated to have him know it so soon. It was embarrassing to be head over heels for a guy I'd known for less than two months. How could this happen to me? I knew better. I had been married for thirteen years to a man I trusted and loved, and he had still managed to look me in the eye and tell me he didn't love me. This one would too eventually. I knew that. I was a grown-up. So I figured the announcement about California had a deeper meaning. But he seemed relaxed when he said it, and when we stopped outside my building, he kissed me.

“Everything's okay, Steph,” he said, as though he had sensed my panic. “And don't worry about the trip. I'll only be out there for two weeks this time.”. My heart pounded a little bit. It was as though he understood what I was feeling and the fact that now I would really miss him. “But I have a surprise for you while I'm gone. You won't even miss me.”

“What is it?” I asked naively, relieved by everything he'd said so far. He was going to California, but he didn't appear to be leaving the relationship. Yet. And I couldn't help wondering what the surprise was. I asked him about it, as he helped me get my bags upstairs. As usual, the doorman vanished as soon as he saw them.

“You'll see,” Peter said mysteriously, referring to the surprise again. “You won't be lonely for a minute,” he promised. He was leaving in two days, which gave us a little time to enjoy New York together.

The night before he left he took me to dinner at ‘21’ and everyone knew him there. And then we went back to his apartment and made love. It was even better than it had been over the weekend. The time I spent with Peter was magical, and I was sad to remember that he was leaving in the morning. The kids were with Roger and Helena for the night I spent with him, and when he dropped me off at my place in the morning, he told me he loved me, and I told him I loved him too. That was before I knew what the surprise was. I had forgotten about the surprise momentarily. It seemed suddenly unimportant in light of what he had just said. He'd said he loved me. But what did that mean?