Amber Stigmatized

by Viktor Redreich

  “An omelet. French-style.” Daddy lifted his fork. “Eat up, teacup.”

  Amber picked up her fork and resumed poking at it, and tore into it, looking for fillings. Nothing. It was just a flat piece of egg all rolled up. “Is there ketchup?”

  He lifted his head and frowned at her, shaking his head. “French omelets are all about the egg. You don’t want to spoil this with ketchup.”

  Amber wrinkled her nose. She couldn’t see how this could be any different from scrambled eggs, then. Well, she’d eat it to make Daddy happy. She cut off a piece and put it in her mouth.

  There was butter on it, which she hadn’t noticed before, and the egg itself was light and fluffy. She’d never had anything like it before. “It’s good,” she exclaimed.

  “Aren’t you glad you tried it?”

  Amber nodded and dug in, suddenly hungry. Daddy watched her fondly while eating his own meal, looking so proud. He had to be loving that he could provide for her, feed her, dress her, take care of her needs.

  He was the best Daddy in the world, even if they weren’t having sex. She would do everything she could to be the best little girl for him.

  Chapter 10

  Secrets at night

  Amber breathed in a lungful of warm, fresh air and gave a happy sight. “I’m so glad I agreed to come out here with you.”

  Lawrence looked down at her from the top of the rise and flashed his charming grin, his white teeth gleaming in the afternoon sun. “I’m so glad you did, too. I really missed this.”

  She strode the next few steps to catch up with him, her sturdy boots giving her traction on the slippery slope. She wore a light pink blouse and a pair of salmon jeans to match, bright gear to make her stand out against the foliage just in case she got lost. A whistle dangled on a cord around her neck, the sound louder and more piercing than she could ever hope to make. It wasn’t only her who had to wear bright clothes and the whistle, however; those were staples of the hiking club. After all, it wasn’t like they were playing chess or traveling to another school to wrestle in the middle of the gymnasium while dozens of people watched. This was the wilderness. People could die out here, falling over cliffs or into rivers, or tripping and hitting their heads on rocks. Precautions had to be taken.

  They weren’t really alone though, not at this point in the hike anyway. The trails all mingled, crisscrossing, heading in the same directions, which meant the other club members were occasionally visible through the trees, in their red jackets or reflective orange safety gear. Laughter rang out through the trees, plentiful as birdsong, and there was a constant crashing of footsteps, of snapping branches.

  Once they all reached the communal resting point a few miles deeper, then they could range off on their own. For now, the club co-presidents and the professor in charge walked in zigzags across all the paths to make sure no one went astray.

  There was the illusion of being alone, however. She was off with Lawrence, a screen of pine trees and tall tangles of bracken separating them from the others. And they weren’t following the trail exactly, carving their way parallel to it. If she turned away from the packed dirt path and only focused on Lawrence, focused on his smile and the bits of leaf in his hair, and tuned out the sounds of the others, she could just about imagine they were the only people left in the whole world.

  Lawrence grabbed his water bottle and unscrewed the cap and took a few deep drinks. He gasped out a long breath and put the cap back on, returned the bottle to his belt. “I really like this place,” he said. “It’s not nearly as boring and flat as some of the other trails. It’s not really hiking if you aren’t being challenged.”

  Amber kicked at a patch of ferns, her boot sending frond leaves scattering. “I like it, too. And… I missed hiking with you, too.”

  He smiled at her and nodded with his head. “Let’s keep going. We don’t want to fall behind.” He moved off, not exactly the picture of masculinity in his purple t-shirt and patchy cargo pants, but pleasing to watch all the same.

  Amber walked beside him, a little too close. Their hands brushed together. “Sorry,” she said.

  Lawrence grabbed her hand back to his and gave it a bit of a squeeze. “Hey, don’t be. Don’t be sorry about anything.”

  She blushed a little and squeezed his hand back, and then found she couldn’t make herself let go. Her heart skittered, a loose pebble tumbling down a stack of boulders. “Is it okay if we…”

  Lawrence held her hand tighter and got to walking again. Their arms swung lightly back and forth between them. Their steps fell into more or less the same rhythm, though her legs weren’t as long as his.

  The wind blew past them, then twisted and came back around in the other direction, carrying the sounds of the other hikers away from them. Pine boughs creaked and groaned overhead, millions of tiny needles rustling in the wind.

  They came to a fallen log. Lawrence stepped over it with ease and stood firm on the other side. Amber held his arm and clambered over, getting covered in dust and pieces of bark in the process. “Yuck,” she said, brushing herself off.

  Lawrence reached to help her, patting his hands over her body. His fingers skimmed over her butt and she jumped a little. He didn’t say anything. His cheeks were a bit pink, but that might have been from exertion. She decided not to say anything either, since she didn’t know if it was an accident or if he meant to touch her there. Really, she didn’t even know if he realized where he had touched her. One thing she did know was she didn’t necessarily mind.

  They kept hiking, making their way to their destination at a steady pace.

  “Did you ever hear from that guy?” Lawrence asked.

  His question came so out of nowhere that she didn’t have time to consider making something up. She said, “Yes. We made up.”

  “Oh, I see.” Lawrence abruptly released her hand. “I didn’t know that.”

  Now I know, don’t I? He touched me on purpose.

  Amber sped up to stay with him and took his hand once more, curling her fingers between his. “It’s okay,” she said. “We… met up. And we talked.”

  And suddenly she was telling him all about who he really was, divulging all her new secrets to her one and only friend.

  Lawrence listened the whole time without interrupting. Around the time she finished, they reached the resting point, an open and circular overlook area at the top of a steep and stony hill. Over the next fifteen minutes, the members of the club gathered and sat on the benches and the ground, getting their breath back and talking about the scenery. One girl swore up and down that she had seen an owl roosting in the hollow of a tree, discussing its size and species and coloration in great detail to everyone in earshot until, finally, laughing, the rest of her group informed her that what she had seen was not an owl, but instead two squirrels mating.

  When everyone had rested sufficiently, their attending professor set them free to roam. Everyone was to return to this spot within three hours, so they would have plenty of time to get back to the parking lot -and the bus- before dark. Other than the time frame, they had no restrictions.

  Several groups immediately set off down the steepest side of the hill. A stream wound far at the bottom, through a pretty meadow. Others ducked off back into the pine forest.

  “Where should we go?” Amber asked Lawrence.

  “Let’s go back the way we came,” he said.

  Amber stared at him. This wasn’t anything like him at all. “But why?”

  “No one else will do that and I want to be alone with you,” he explained. “Plus, back at that log we climbed over, there was something else I wanted to look at.”

  “Like what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Really, she supposed it didn’t matter where they went. It would be a little annoying to go back down the trail, then turn around and come back here, and then turn around again to leave, but she didn’t really have anywhere else she wanted to go, so she couldn’t argue. “Okay,” she agreed.
>
  They started off, this time following their trail to make the going easier. The sounds of the others faded out entirely except for an occasional shout, or a shriek of laughter. And now that most of the humans were gone, the forest animals returned. Birds flocked to the tree branches and cried out their distinctive calls, sparrows, and dainty warblers, and jays with their abrasive caws. Somewhere, a woodpecker jackhammered. A squirrel leaped overhead from one tree to another, and a second raced through the undergrowth with an acorn in its mouth.

  Suddenly, something moved directly in front of them.

  Amber let out a yelp of surprise. She’d almost stepped directly on it, whatever it was.

  Lawrence threw his arm around her and caught her, huffing with laughter. “Careful,” he joked. “It might bite.”

  A turtle blinked blearily up at them and then trundled along, moving faster than a person would think, given their reputation for being sluggish.

  “What’s it doing all the way out here?” Amber asked. “This isn’t anywhere near the stream.”

  “Maybe there’s a pond nearby.” Lawrence shrugged. “I think it was pretty cool, even if it was only a box turtle.”

  “It was cute,” Amber conceded. At the very least, its shell had been pretty, flecked with white and orange. “But we didn’t really come out all this way to talk about turtles, did we?”

  “No,” he agreed. “I was kind of stalling. I don’t really know how to ask what I want to ask. I guess it’s not like I really have many options. I can’t exactly be subtle about this.”

  They were almost back at the log now. She recognized the area, plus she could see their footprints from before, imprinted upon the loamy soil. “What are you talking about?”

  He didn’t speak until they had reached the log. They went off the path and stood next to it. Amber didn’t really see anything else to look at, saw no reason why Lawrence would have wanted to come back.

  He turned to her and looked at her, not quite meeting her eye. “So you and this guy, you aren’t going to be doing anything anymore?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” she admitted. “Not right now we aren’t.”

  Lawrence stepped closer to her, almost close enough to be touching. “Does that mean you don’t want to do anything… at all?”

  She swallowed hard. He looked and sounded so serious. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Even closer now, his warmth reaching her. He grabbed her wrist, held tight. “I mean, I want to do things with you. Do you want to do things with me?”

  Her voice dried up in her throat. The unfortunate truth was she had no idea what she wanted right now. She had put things on hold with Daddy, that much was true, and Lawrence was right here in front of her, very available. He was so kind to her and treated her so well. Really, if she was going to do anything with anyone, she would pick him.

  Maybe I can move on, with him. I can at least get in some practice.

  Not trusting her voice, Amber nodded.

  Lawrence held her other wrist. Her bosom pressed against his chest now. “Do you want to know what I wanted to look at here?”

  She nodded again, the tip of her nose brushing his.

  “You,” he whispered. “Can you… turn around? I think you still have some bark on you.”

  She shivered and turned around for him.

  Lawrence placed his hand on her butt, cupping one cheek. He kept his hand there without moving, simply feeling her until he finally pulled away.

  Her stomach fluttering, she whispered, “Did you get it?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

  She turned back to him. His cheeks were definitely flushed, definitely red from heightened emotion and not the wind. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  A beat of awkwardness passed.

  Lawrence suddenly jerked his head and forced a grin onto his face. “What are we standing around here for? We’ve got all this time we can use to explore, so let’s do it. Let’s go deeper into the pines, where it’s really dark.”

  “Dark?”

  He squared his shoulders and puffed out his chest. “Don’t worry. You’ll be safe as long as you’re with me. If another turtle comes and bothers you, I’ll punt it.”

  She laughed and reached for his hand. “I’m glad I have you with me to take care of those pesky reptiles.”

  He grabbed her hand and off they went, venturing deeper and deeper into the pines until they couldn’t hear even the slightest sound from the other hikers. Shadows bunched thick over their shoulders, swallowed the ground. Amber felt like she was walking on glass over the surface of a deep black lake.

  Her boot came down in water and she jumped back in surprise, the line between daydream and reality blurring for a single heart-stopping moment. Lawrence wrapped his arm around her, once again preventing her from falling.

  Geez, I didn’t realize I was so clumsy. And jumpy.

  She hadn’t realized until someone was there to catch her until she knew the difference.

  The sun burst out from behind a thatch of clouds, illuminating the forest floor in dappled golden light. The two of them had walked into a small clearing without Amber having noticed. The dark loam of the forest floor, typically devoid of small plants due to the lack of light, suddenly became a carpet of green meadow grass that came up to their knees. Rippling ridges sloped down to the pond in which they were almost standing, its border ringed with sandy soil and rocks ranging from baseball to beachball in size. The pond wasn’t much, little more than a stagnant collection of water, but it was glassy-calm and reflected everything as clearly as any mirror.

  One of the rocks at the edge of the pond moved. It was the turtle they had passed before. No, Amber decided, crouching down and taking a closer look, this one was bigger. No way the other one had beat them to this place, anyway.

  Lawrence crouched down beside her. “Is this turtle bothering you?”

  She laughed.

  As if sensing it had been threatened, the turtle pushed off the shore and into the pond, drifting away. Lawrence still could have punted it if he wanted to and he was looking at the water with such rapt attention she worried he might actually do it.

  “Geez, I’m thirsty,” he sighed.

  Amber laughed. “Drink your water?”

  “It’s gone.”

  “You should have saved some.” She took her own water bottle from her belt and held it out to him. “I still have a bit left.”

  “Thanks!” He snagged the bottle and drank from it, pressing his lips to the rim.

  Her own lips had been there, right where his were. She watched him, unable to look away, wondering what it was like, if it felt like kissing someone.

  Lawrence handed the bottle back to her.

  Amber took a sip herself, putting her mouth right on the wet area where his had been. Disappointment flooded through her. It didn’t feel like much of anything and it tasted the same as always, like water with a bit of a metallic tinge.

  Oh, well. Maybe she’d get a chance to find out some other way.

  It consumed her mind, the wondering. She spent the rest of that hiking trip looking for a way to justify sneaking in a kiss, even if it was on the cheek. The time was never quite right, or there were others around. Even on the long bus ride back to college, when night fell and the interior of the bus resembled a deep cave, she didn’t dare risk it. Lawrence wasn’t paying attention anyway, not to her. He had earphones in and she could hear an echo of his terrible music.

  The bus let them off in front of the college. Everyone filtered off to their cars, their rooms. Lawrence took his earphones out and walked Amber back to the outside of her dorm, right on the border of where he was allowed to be. “I really had fun today,” he said. “Spending time with you was great. Maybe we can go back there on our own some time.”

  “You really think your truck could get us there?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “We could take the bus. Or the train.”

  O
h! Is this him suggesting another date?

  “I’d really like that,” she said. “Maybe you… Tonight doesn’t have to be over.”

  What am I doing? Really, what am I doing?

  His gaze burned into hers. “What do you mean, Amber?”

  “Do you want to come into my dorm?”

  He pulled in a sharp breath. “You mean…?”

  She reached for his hand. She could do this. She had the freedom to do this.

  Lawrence took her hand.

  Amber pulled him into the dorms after her and snuck him to her room.

  Chapter 11

  Come out and play

  As soon as she shut the door behind her, Lawrence grabbed her and pulled her tight to him. His hands roamed over her, not rough, but needy, touching her everywhere she hadn’t ever been touched before. He panted, pushing her up against the wall. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this.”

  Amber held onto his shoulders, laughing a little, his desperate gropes tickling her.

  Lawrence lifted his head and suddenly his lips were on hers, his hands wrapped around her face.

  She held still, shocked at how quickly things were happening. She’d expected to cuddle and then move into doing something. She wasn’t ready yet. His lips on hers didn’t feel like much of anything, just softness. The arousal she knew so well from her texting sessions with Daddy didn’t so much as make an appearance.

  What’s wrong with me? she wondered, as Lawrence continued to kiss her and rub his body on hers. He was her friend and he liked her. Why wasn’t she getting all tingly? He was good-looking. So many other girls would have fallen all over themselves for him.

  Maybe she needed a little more time. It was her first kiss, after all. She couldn’t say she knew what kissing was like.

  Amber kissed him back, rubbing her lips on his. Lawrence grinned and tangled his hand in her hair, his lips pouncing all over hers. Warm, wet touches on her lips told her he was starting to use his tongue. French kissing, they used to call it in the schoolyard. French kissing was what big girls and big boys did. It was for adults. Despite her unease, pride flowed through her veins. She could do this.