Page 52 of Come Back to Bed
12
Matt
Bernadette and I are the last to leave, but it’s not even nine-thirty yet.
Needless to say, the dinner never got any better. At one point, Liza leaned in to smell my shoulder with her eyes closed, sighed, and then she just ignored me for the rest of the night. No one stuck around to chat over coffee in the living room once we’d finished dessert. I’ve never seen people leave a dinner party so quickly and never wanted so badly to be one of those rude and hasty people. Mrs. Benson requested that I help her return the dining table to its original four-seater state, which also meant clearing the table first. Bernadette offered to help with that. Mrs. Benson ran to her bedroom to check on Alessandro, declared that she needed to take him for a quick walk and would do the dishes as soon as she was back.
It’s a strange combination of torture and relief, to be left alone with Bernadette in this apartment, knowing that our hostess could return at any moment.
We don’t say a word to each other the entire time she’s gone, and that’s how I know for certain that she is as eager and conflicted about getting into bed again as I am.
No one seems to have noticed our many furtive looks and stolen glances all evening, which is surprising, because it felt so obvious to me that my attention was entirely focused on her. Now, Bernadette basically only makes eye contact with my crotch and my hands while we are piling dirty dishes into the sink.
When she reaches out for me to pass her the empty wine decanter, I place it in her hands and then let my fingers lightly graze up the inside of her bare arm. I push her hair out of her face. She shivers in exactly the way I wanted her to, but she still refuses to look up at me. I am about to lean in to kiss her. When I hear the front door open we quickly back away from each other like schoolkids who are afraid of getting caught.
“You would not believe what we just saw!” Mrs. Benson calls out, as she lets the poodle off the leash. “Carl and my niece sucking face, right there on the sidewalk on Broadway! I’m so sorry things didn’t work out for you two,” she says, but she doesn’t look like she feels sorry for us at all. “I’ll have to have a good think about who I can invite for you both, next time.” Her eyes get that impish glint in them again when she says, “Unless you’re both spoken for by then, of course.” She attempts a slow wink, I think, but just kind of closes her eyes while opening her mouth wide for a second.
“Great!” we both say at the same time, a little too loudly, a little too quick to respond.
We both give her a hug as we leave, thanking her so much for a fun evening, overcompensating without guilt as we speed-walk towards the front door.
All in all, it wasn’t the worst two and a half hours of my life, and I feel like it was all worth it as soon as we walk out into the hallway and I hear Bernadette take in a long deep breath, preparing herself for the night that’s about to begin. To be honest, it feels like this has all been building up to so much more than just this next encounter. But, first things first.
As soon as we turn the corner of the stairwell, I pull her to me and kiss her. When I pull away from her, her eyes are still closed, her lips still mid-kiss. I run up ahead of her, feeling like an adolescent boy once again, as if it’s the running that’s making my heart race.
Oh wait—I forgot that I was rooting for the sex to be worse this time so I wouldn’t get hooked. Oh well. Maybe next time.
When we get to the top of the stairs, she grabs onto my shirt and pushes me against the wall. Her eyes are practically glowing with desire. All of the glowing desire that she’s been successfully hiding until now. She raises her face up to kiss me then retreats back, teasing me, as she starts unbuttoning my shirt.
“Tell me—is that the first time a woman has cried the first time she looked at you?” Her voice is hushed and husky and every word out of her mouth just sounds like “sex sex sex” to me.
“It was, and I hope it’s the last. At least she didn’t laugh.”
She pauses for a moment, fumbling with one of the buttons. “I don’t believe I’m the only one who’s done that.”
“You are.”
She pulls me towards her and kisses me hard, probably trying to make me forget that she laughed when she first saw me. I never will.
“What’s your favorite book, really?” she asks, in between kisses.
“It’s a legal reference book.”
The kissing comes to an abrupt halt. She frowns. “Why am I not surprised. That’s yourfavoritebook? Really? Like, if you could only read one book over and over for the rest of your life—that’s what you’d pick?”
“I couldn’t do my job without it.”
She shakes her head, genuinely disappointed. “We are very different.”
“We agree on that. Don’t let it stop you from coming over.”
“My place, this time,” she whispers. She takes my hand and leads me to her door. My hands are massaging her hips while she comically struggles to get her key in the locks. She’s trembling, and I can’t stop touching her. If knowing that it can’t go anywhere is an aphrodisiac, then not seeing her for a week, followed by hours of seeing her without being able to touch her is a fucking Viagra bomb.
It’s entirely possible that I’d feel this way about anyone that I’d have sex with now, but one whiff of her neck and I find myself holding in a sigh. It’s not cool. It’s not good. But damn, this woman is doing something new to me and I like it.
As soon as she gets the door open, she pulls me in, shuts the door and shoves me up against it. She’s really pushing and pulling me tonight and I’m fine with that. She doesn’t turn on the lights, and that’s fine too. Her lips find mine, she tugs on my lower lip with her teeth, sucks my tongue in a way that tells me she is just as fired-up as I am. Her hand finds the strong-willed bulge in my pants, and I hear her catch her breath.
My neighbor takes my hand, leading me further into her apartment. It’s still dark, but not as dark as when there was a blackout. I’d come so close to kissing her that night. I would have, if the lights hadn’t suddenly come back on and Alanis Morissette hadn’t started shrieking from the other room. Talk about a mood killer.
