“I certainly am,” he said, trying to sound as detached as she did.

“Should we meet at your house again? Or mine perhaps?”

“Actually, this time I was thinking we would meet at a restaurant.”

“A restaurant?” she said, her misgivings sounding clearly in her voice. “To learn about sex toys?”

He chuckled softly into the phone. “Don’t you trust your mentor, Candace?”

She was silent across the line for a couple of seconds and he knew she was thinking it over. Say yes, his brain urged her telepathically.

“Yes I do, Charlie,” she said.

“Great,” he said. “Do you know where Oceanview Restaurant is on the edge of Golden Gate Park?”

* * *

Candace was shocked by Charlie’s suggestion. She had been shocked ever since she and Charlie had hung up that morning.

When she had boldly called him, she was completely sure she was going to have no problem rolling with whatever Charlie was going to throw at her. She couldn’t suppress a shiver of delight as she imagined him using a dildo, or something even more creative, on her during this lesson.

She couldn’t help the flicker of disappointment when it didn’t look like that was going to happen. There was no way he could ply her with a dildo in a restaurant, was there?

Besides, wasn’t learning about having sex in new locations lesson four, not lesson three?

She checked her makeup and outfit one last time before stepping out of the car. The previous Saturday at his house, he had seen her under forgiving candlelight and fire glow. As the sun hadn’t set yet and he was going to see her in full daylight, she wanted him to think she was pretty.

She had dressed a little more risqué tonight than she usually would have for a date. She shook her head. This is not a date, she reminded herself again. He was her mentor and she was his apprentice.

If she read anything more into it than professional education, she was going to end up with a broken heart. Candace figured she already had enough of those as it was.

Nonetheless, she had dug out a gold-sequined tank top from the bottom drawer of her dresser and paired it with a flirty black skirt, which brushed the tops of her kneecaps when she walked. She had swept her ginger curls up onto the top of her head with a gold clip and wore small gold-hoop earrings on her lobes. The final touch to her outfit was a pair of frivolous spike-heeled black and gold sandals that she had never had the nerve to wear before.

She left the parking lot and walked up the pathway to the beach. Charlie was waiting for her on the steps to the sand, looking out to the Pacific Ocean. She noticed he had a plastic shopping bag in his hand and shivered, wondering what was inside of it.

She put her hand on his arm and he turned around to face her with a huge smile on his gorgeous face.

“Candy,” he said, “You look amazing.”

She blushed. “Thank you. So do you.”

He looked better than ever, which was really quite a feat considering how incredible he had looked the two other times she had been with him. He had dressed up slightly, wearing navy blue light-wool slacks and a pink pin-striped long-sleeved Ralph Lauren shirt.

He slipped her hand into his and was moving towards the front door of the restaurant. She pulled back slightly, saying “I’m curious about what you’ve got in the plastic bag.”

Charlie turned and smiled at her. “I was going to wait to give it to you until we went inside, but now’s as good a time as any, I suppose.” He opened the bag so that she could look into it.

“A pair of panties?” she said and looked up at him in confusion.

He nodded. “I want you to put them on.”

“Now?”

“Once we get inside, go to the restroom and change out of the panties you’re wearing.”

Candace felt her face turn red. “And then what?”

He shrugged. “And then we’ll eat and enjoy each other’s company.” He handed her the bag, then pulled her back up the steps towards the restaurant.

“Let’s go inside. I’m starved,” he said, and she had no other choice but to follow him.

Candace wondered how it was possible for her pu**y to already be soaking wet when all she had done was say a few sentences to the guy. He was turning her into a walking orgasm, for god’s sake.

They stepped into the foyer of the beautiful restaurant and he whispered in her ear, “I think the bathroom is just down the hall to the left.”

A shiver ran down her spine – not fear, but anticipation - as his breath stroked her cheek and she obediently headed off to the ladies room, plastic bag in hand.

Once in a stall, she took a deep breath and wondered if she should cut bait and run before she got in any deeper than she could handle.

But then she thought about the hundred pages she had already written of her new book and how well it was going, and she knew that a true professional should be willing to give everything to her work, to try anything if it had the potential of enhancing her art. So after listening carefully to make sure no one else was in the bathroom, she slid her red silk panties off of her bare legs, folded them neatly, and slid them into her gold hand-purse. Gingerly opening the plastic bag, she pulled out a black thong.

“Is this it?” she whispered to herself in the bathroom stall, as she turned it this way and that, poking her hand back into the bag to see if there was something else.

Wondering what the big deal was about the thong, and knowing it was bound to be something good if Charlie was behind it, with her heart racing, Candace slipped her feet into the thong. Settling the panties up on her hips she let her skirt fall back down over her hips to her knees.

Wadding up the plastic bag into a ball, she stuffed it into the garbage can in her stall and stepped back out under the fluorescent lighting above the sink. Taking one last look at herself in the mirror, she thought she looked pretty confident considering how jumpy she felt. She grabbed her purse from the counter in front of the mirror and pushed the bathroom door open.

She rounded the corner and headed back into the entryway, careful to walk slowly so she wouldn’t trip in her very high heels and make a fool of herself. She looked up and saw Charlie watching her carefully and she gave him a little grin. He reached into his right pocket and suddenly, she felt tingles, pulses between her legs.

She stopped dead in her tracks, propped herself up against the wall with her left hand and closed her eyes, trying to determine what had just happened to her.