Page 12 of All My Love
8
Ben
“Hey,”I say to my brother as I pull down the covers on my bed. I slip inside the sheets and prop myself up on one elbow. I talk to my brother almost every night before I go to bed. This started when we were kids and we shared a room in the attic. We were so close. Nothing could come between us. We’re Irish twins and I’m the older one. When he brought his first girl home, he snuck her in through the attic window after propping a ladder up against the side of the house. When I heard the ladder hit the window sill I knew that was my time to leave, but I didn’t get out quite on time to miss the girl. She said she didn’t want to get between the two of us and Thomas just laughed and told her that wasimpossible.
Now they’remarried.
I flip on the tv and try to find something stupid to watch. Normally I’d have my brother on speakerphone, but with Elizabeth just across the hall and what I want to talk about, I can’t do that. I have to keep my voice low and I can’t trust my brother to do thesame.
“Is everything alright?” Thomas asks. I throw the remote aside and scrub my face with my palm. Everything is not alright, and it’s because Elizabeth is on the other side of the room when she should be in here withme.
“I have it bad, and I know what I want to do, but I can’t do it. It’s not fair to her. She’s only here for a fewdays.”
He doesn’t have to confirm that I’m talking about Elizabeth. He knows. He also has a relationship where the odds were against him, but was brave enough to stand up to his wife Emily’s father when he went over to their house to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Her father thought they were too young, but Thomas persisted, showing up at their house enough to where Emily’s mom had to throw her hands in the air and tell her husband to just let them get married already so Thomas would stop interrupting her mahjong meet-ups.
“This shit ain’t easy,” Thomas sighs. I hear Emily say something in the background. They recently had a daughter. I was a lifetime smoker, but when I found out my niece was on the way, I quit cold-turkey, and it was so much easier than I’d expected. I thought I’d never quit smoking. When I found out about the baby I couldn’t stand the thought of her knowing I smoked and using that as rationalization to try it out herself when she was oldenough.
There’s a silence through the line that conveys what my brother thinks I should do. I didn’t think I’d see Elizabeth again for a long time. Now that she’s here, I’m going fuckingmental.
“Thanks,” I say after the long silence. He knows what I’m thanking him for - for not trying to talk me into this or out ofif.
I lay back on my bed and just listen to the shower running. There’s no escaping it; it’s a small apartment and if I were to go outside to the living room, I’d have a direct eye-line to the slice of hallway where Beth would have to walk from the bathroom to herbedroom.
Closing my eyes, I put my hand over my pants and swallow a groan. The contact instantly makes me think of her, of what it would be like to have her in here with me. A little spring break fling that would make a good story for her to bring home to her girlfriends. I’ve had students come onto me before, and I’m not stranger to a mirror. I believe vanity to be a bigger sin than lust, and it continues to amaze me the number of beautiful women, my age, younger, and everyone in-between, like to be around me, but there is a kind of confirmation of what you are most suspicious of when you see the simple, sheer number of women who like to hang around your office hours and afterclass.
But none of them has done to me what Liz has done. Even with a semester’s worth of contact and opportunity for attraction to grow, bloom, become manifest, I’ve never felt like this towardanyone.
It’s almost like a tickle in the back of my throat. But instead of my throat, it’s in my chest. It’s warmth and it’s radiating through me, and I don’t think this is heartburn from all the wine, cheese and chocolatecake.
I swing my legs around and let them find the sturdy floor, and it makes me feel a little better. The shower is still going, and when I walk out into the hallway I’m met with the sweetest lemon-sugar scent I’ve ever had the luxury of experiencing, which of course does nothing to help the situation I’mfighting.
Tea. Hot tea and a cold shower. That’s what the doctor ordered. I technically am a doctor, aren’t I? I’m not a medical doctor, no, but that’s a small detail when it comes to guarding myself against Liz’s charm, kindness and beauty. And the way I can’t get her off mymind.
I go into the kitchen, and here is where I’ll be safe. I pull a mug down from a cabinet and fill up my tea kettle, turning on the small burner with a hiss. I used to do a lot of cooking, but now I just live off of street vendors and cafes. I know from Liz’s blog that she likes to cook, so that would be a nice thing to do with her thisweek.
There’s nothing sexual about cooking. Nope, not atall.
I opt for a ginger, caffeine-free teas. My kettle starts to whistle and I turn around, and that’s when I seeLiz.
Liz, frozen in place, standing with her jaw on the floor, her pretty pink lips forming an O before she drags her bottom lip between her teeth. Her eyes are intense, on mine, and sparkling with a unique combination of mortification and curiosity. Her body is covered with a skimpy white tank-top, loose-fitting, but that’s making her look all the more forbidden. It bows away from her body after grazing her breasts, and her nipples are erect and piercing through the thin fabric. It is clear that she isn’t wearing a bra. Her legs are covered with barely-there silk shorts that are more appropriate to be called panties, and the curve of her hips in these things is enough to make my cock sprint to attention in aninstant.
“Liz.” I clear my throat and turn away from her, busying myself with the tea kettle. “What are you doing in here? I thought you were going tobed.”
“I was.” Her voice softly lingers through the air, and its tone of vulnerability is edged with excitement. There’s only pale blue moonlight streaming through the window, so I’m sure she didn’t notice what was happening in the front of my pants. At least that’s what I tell myself as I pour some hot water into my mug. Her tone, I also tell myself, try to convince myself, is the result of her being in a new place for the first time and wrapping everything up in one big novelbow.
“Mind if I grab some tea, Ben?” she asks. I nod over at her and she approaches me, taking one of the tea bags from the cabinet along with a mug. I pour her some hot water and she puts the teabag in the mug, bringing it to her lips slowly as she blows on the rim. She knew where the mug was. How long was she standing there watchingme?
“Careful,” I tell her, “the water’s veryhot.”
“Thanks, Ben,” she says with casual ease. I risk a chance to look at her as she walks away, and the curve of her ass as she makes a slow right at the edge of the kitchen to go back to her room has a dime of come gathering and then dripping down the length of mycock.
If she knew the thoughts I was having about her, she’d surely be on the next flight back to the states. If she onlyknew…
I finish preparing my tea, putting one cube of sugar in it, and I make my way back to my room. Liz’s bedroom door is closed, and I wait a beat before I keep walking to my room. Once inside, I do the only thing that I think ispossible.
I put my tea on my dresser, sit down on the corner of the bed, and reach into my pants to grab my throbbing dick. I tuck a groan into my chest so I don’t disturb the young, sweet woman I’ve volunteered to care of thisweek.
I’ve done this before, been attracted to younger women, but right now for the life of me I cannot remember any of them. My thoughts circle around Liz and Liz only. Of her in this room with me instead of across the hall, of how amazing and incredible her body would look splayed on my bed as I crawled between her legs to see what she has hidden between them. I know she would taste and sweet as she smells, and her body would be second to absolutely none. Her modest dressing and sweet demeanor only make her that much more attractive, but in this moment I don’t think it matters. Strip everything away from Liz and you’re left with a person, just this incredible girl who is kind and sweet and so undeniably sexy in her quietway.
