Day 4

It's Friday. You know what that means. Donna and I will be working late tonight. Friday's are a big night for dates, which means I do everything within my considerable capabilities to make sure she has to be with me. I try for Saturday's too, but I usually fail. Working late on a Friday with Donna is fun. We usually go back to my place and order a pizza or wings, and when we're done working, we watch a movie or play a game.

So, right now, Donna is changing clothes in my bathroom. This happens every Friday night, and every Friday night I sit on my couch and think of the movie Porky's. Not that I would ever…well I might…

Anyway, tonight I'm not thinking of Porky's. Ok, maybe a little. But mostly, I'm thinking of that Victoria's Secret bag. My brain knows she's going to walk out of the bathroom in a pair of my boxers and my favorite Met's t-shirt like every Friday, but a small part of me is thinking that maybe she's going to surprise me by coming out here wearing…

Nope. Boxers and a Met's t-shirt it is. Not that I'm complaining. In fact, I'm not complaining at all. She looks absolutely adorable in my clothes, beautiful and small and innocent and I just want to rip the boxers off her, carefully take the t-shirt off, folding it and putting it away, and then show her just how beautiful I think she is.

"When's the pizza getting here?" I'm a little too busy thinking about your naked body to correctly tell time.

"45 minutes." I think. I don't remember. Did I even call for the pizza?

"So, what are we gonna do for 45 minutes?" Oh, I can think of a few things.

"I guess we could work?" I'm so NOT in the mood for work.

"I don't want to work." It's the pout; I love the pout. It's like a weapon. We should take it on the Hill and negotiate with it.

"Me either. Scrabble?" I know that a game of scrabble doesn't sound like an exciting Friday evening to you, but Donna and I can both bring the verbal. A scrabble game between the two of us can last hours, every tile being used, word scores in the 20's easily. The dictionary is almost always needed (because Donna is sure that I cheat), and we have an unspoken rule that neither of us puts a word down that's less than four letters. Basically for us, scrabble is bantering.

"Yes. And I'm going to kick your ass." She's already got it out and is setting it up on my dining room table. I, however, am now thinking about her ass.

Donna won the last time we played, which means I get to go first. Truth is, and I would never admit this out loud, I get to go first quite often. Tonight, however, I start with a great word. 'Temper'. "20 points with the double word." Donna keeps score. Again, something about me cheating.

"Well, you do know all about tempers, don't you?" She takes some of her tiles and builds off of my 'T'. "Tongue. 14 points with the double word."

"Well, you do know all about tongues, don't you?" I say, mimicking her statement to me.

"Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do." Well yes, as a mat…wait a minute, what? I need to review. 'You do know all about tongues --- yes I do' Whoa. I can't believe I just…and she just… and…whoa. There it is, ladies and gentlemen, that is how Donna Moss almost always wins this game. All of my focus has shifted from winning to sticking my tongue down her throat. And now I'm sweating.

I close my eyes and try to calm down, then look over my tiles and add 'r-o-a-n' to her 'g' making the word 'groan'.

The game goes on like this for a while. I have laid some outstanding words, including 'encore', 'harvest' and 'pebble.' Donna has been equally amazing, and our scores are very close. Ok, yes, she's winning, but barely.

Then, her next move throws me for a loop. She added 'f-r-u-s-t' to 'rated', which was already on the board. "Frustrated. 14, plus a triple letter, that's 22. How do you like that?"

"I can relate," I mumble. She just laughs. I take at least 4 cold showers a week, and she laughs. Heartless.

We keep playing until the pizza comes, and Donna gets up, with my wallet, to pay. "Don't cheat, Joshua. I'll know if you do." And she will. Know if I cheat, I mean. Along with the spy thing, it's entirely possible that she has cameras planted around my condo.

While she's gone, I take a look at the overall board. 'Frustrated', 'tongue', 'groan', and 'needs' are just a few of the words on the board. If someone walked in here and looked at this, they'd think Donna and I were engaged in foreplay. Of course, I'm always engaged in foreplay with Donna. She just doesn't know it.

"Figure anything out?" I look up from the board and Donna's looking at me. She's not smiling; she's just looking at me. Wait a minute; are these words here on purpose?

I barely whisper when I ask, "Is there something to figure out?"

"Yes." She puts down the pizza. "Your next word. It's your turn." She hands me four pieces of pizza on a paper plate for us to share and grabs a beer out of the fridge, also to share.

"I want my own beer."

"No." And it's as simple as that. She doesn't even bother with an explanation; just no.

The game goes on for a while. I'm concentrating on her, she's concentrating on winning, which she's doing. I'm fine until she comes up with the word erotic. Suddenly this game has taken a turn. "Erotic? You laid the word 'erotic'?"

"I know, it's only 8 points. I didn't have anything else. If I keep laying words like that down, you'll catch up." No, if you keep laying words like that down, we're never going to finish this game because I'm going to jump across this table and attack you.

"Josh. Earth to Josh. Are you in, Josh?"

"Leave me alone, I'm fantasizing." Did I say fantasizing? No, I couldn't have.

"Fantasizing?" She almost spit beer out of her mouth.

Ok, maybe I did. "Concentrating. I meant concentrating."

"And you're doing a very good job of it," she deadpans.

I look at my tiles; I don't have anything good. I lay an 'o-v-e- onto an l. "Love. That's it. That's all I've got."

"That's a very good word Josh." Then she lays an 'e-r-s' on the end of it. "But this one's even better."

"Better?" Better? What does she mean by better?

"Well, yeah, it's a double word score now." It's also making me want to rip your clothes off of you now. Well, except for the t-shirt, which needs to be handled delicately. It's my favorite, and it's very old.

I swallow hard; I've been doing that a lot lately; and lay a word down. "Duce? That's your word?"

"What's wrong with duce? It's a word."

"I know it's a word Josh, but it's not a word that people use."

"Oh, like erotic is a word people use." She can make me crazy for desire, but she cannot mock my choice of words.

"Erotic is a much more common word that duce." She's got to stop saying that word. Erotic, not duce.

"Duce is common. It's what Mussolini called himself. It means chief or leader. It's like me, I'm a duce."

"And I'm erotic." She says this with a big smile as though she's won.

"You're what?" I'm squeaking again.

"If you can be a duce, I can be erotic." Lack of breath, again. She does that to me. I'm staring at her. Just staring. "What?"

I take the beer from her hand and take a drink, still looking at her. "It's your turn."

"Oh, right." She looks at her tiles, looks back up and me raising her eyebrows, then adds an 's-e' onto 'duce'

"Seduce?" It was less of a squeak and more of a whisper this time.

"Yes, Joshua, 'seduce'." Is it hot in here?

Don't say it Josh; don't say it. "Are you trying to tell me something?" I said it. I can't shut-up around this woman.

She doesn't say a word. She just takes two of her tiles and puts an 'e-s' behind a 'y'.

"Hey, it's my turn, and no three letter words, you know the…" I drift off as I realize what word she made. Wait a minute. Wait a damn minute. That's a 'yes.' Yes, she's trying to tell me something? What is she trying to tell me? I quickly review the words she's laid. Seduce, erotic, loath, tongue, lovers…ok, let's get rid of loath. She is trying to tell me something. I look up at her and she's smiling at me the most beautiful smile I've ever seen. This is the smile I've dreamt about. This isn't the 'you're insane smile' or the 'you need professional help' smile, or even the 'not in a million years' smile that I received yesterday. This smile is… amazing.

"Donna?"

"Yes?"

"I'm going to come over there and kiss you now."

Again she doesn't say anything, she just puts a 'k' next to an 'o'.

I get up from my chair and slowly begin walking around the table, and our eyes are locked together. I get right in front of her and she stands up. We're so close to each other that I can feel her breath on my lips, and suddenly, I'm thinking about everything and nothing all at once. I can smell the pearberry lotion she's wearing, and I'm looking at her whitened teeth and hearing her say the next man who kissed her wouldn't be able to get enough. Then the Victoria's Secret bag is there in my mind, and I can't help getting the overwhelming feeling that I am going to be the one to see that stuff. And it briefly crosses my mind that maybe she's been seducing me all week. That this has all been part of her master plan. Nah.

She puts her arms around my neck and her fingers in my hair and she's warm and soft and I shiver down to my toes. I put one hand around her waist and one in her hair, and it's so silky, I could leave it there forever and she's shivering too. And just before I kiss her, and I'm going to kiss the hell out of her, I have to say one small thing. "Donna?"

"Yes?" It's just a breath.

"You're not getting the points for the 'yes' or the 'ok'."