by Amy Brent
But by Friday she was starting to feel hopeful: nothing scandalous was coming up on Google searches for her name, and she’d even gotten a few replies from the companies that she’d applied to. And even though she hadn’t spoken to either Jaxon or Miles since that awful morning after the opening, they kept their promise to her-a third share of the profits—all the same. A week of deleting voicemails and ignoring text messages and blocking calls hadn’t released them from the contract they’d signed, and there was a nice fat three grand deposited into her account, with a digital memo to please, please, please come back and work for them. “Guy’s all right, but he don’t got that thing you do,” the little line concluded.
You mean he don’t got no tits, she thought sourly, as she debated whether to accept the money or not. Her job hunt was going well—she’d sent out fifty job applications by now and had already made arrangements to do her first few interviews for the following week. It wasn’t unreasonable to suppose that she’d make it all right without them, but three-thousand dollars—and that was just her share, too—after being open for exactly one week was tempting.
A girl needs to eat.
A girl needs to know that there are things that matter more than money. Still, there was no getting around the fact that dignity didn’t pay the bills.
She decided to sleep on it. It was Friday night—she could balance her virtual checkbook tomorrow when she wasn’t foggy-headed from crafting cover letters and tailoring her resume. A little beauty sleep would do her a lot of good—
There came a knock on the door of her apartment. “Who is it?”
“Cerise, that you?”
Ben Harmon. She wasn’t exactly glad to see him—she still remembered his hands on her body, but for some reason he was easier to forgive than her stepbrothers—but she couldn’t help grinning as she opened the door all the same. It wasn’t until he blinked, surprised, that she realized that she looked like a mess: still in sweatpants, a stretchy undershirt, her hair still in loose and sloppy twists winding around her head like Medusa. “Hey there,” he said, grinning at her. “You look lovely.”
“Please,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Come on in. You don’t have to hide the fact that I look like something the cat dragged in.”
“Well, the cat has good taste,” he said.
She had to smile at that. “Want something to drink?” she asked, opening her refrigerator. Shit. She hadn’t gone shopping all week—she had a few cans of some random sodas that she’d filched from the supply closet at her last job (she reasoned that if she was “supposed” to drinking them then it didn’t matter when) and a quart of milk that had been dated sometime last week. “You know what?” she said, closing the door. “Maybe we should go out for drinks instead.”
“I’m game if you are,” he said. “Thought you’d be working the bar—”
“Not after what happened that first night,” she said. “Did you—”
He shrugged, turning ever-so-slightly darker with shame. “I didn’t do nothing to encourage you, if that’s what you’re sayin’. I mean, I’m sorry I got you to take that first shot, ‘cuz it led to all the shit that happened later, but I didn’t think it’d lead you to that—”
“So you were there, and you didn’t stop me?”
He put his hands up and said, “Wasn’t anything I could do,” he said. “You was flinging yourself at me and takin’ off all your clothes and all I could do was go along with it.”
“You make it sound like I forced you,” she said.
He looked away, and then back at her again. “I’m sorry,” he said, quietly. “I was drunk, and I’ve liked you since forever—I think part of me just wanted to, y’know, have you all to myself, ‘cuz I seen how you looked at me—I knew what you wanted. I know it was wrong of me, but your brother was there—I remember thinking that he’d beat the shit out of me if he thought it was wrong, so maybe it wasn’t so bad to begin with?”
She could feel the anger rising in her blood, a sharp, hot, stinging anger that reminded her of what she’d been avoiding all week: the fact that this had happened while her stepbrothers were there. They were supposed to look out for each other—they were supposed to be there for each other and they were supposed to catch each other before stupid shit like this happened. “Fuck Jaxon and Miles,” she snarled. She could forgive Ben—it’d been years since they’d last seen each other, some mixed signals were inevitable, and it wasn’t as if he was family or anything. He had nothing to lose. She could forgive him—that didn’t mean that she had to.
“Come on, Cerise—we were both drunk,” he said, plaintively now. “I swear, I ain’t like that normally.”
“No,” she said bitterly. “You just like that when I’m pourin’.”
“At least lemme take you out for dinner, then,” he said. “You know, to say ‘sorry’ and stuff.”
Well, your fridge is empty, she thought. “Fine,” she said, after a while. “Where we goin’?”
***
The Oyster Shack in Center City wasn’t her ideal for a dinner, even though it was posh in all of the right ways. She never liked to be reminded that her upbringing was decidedly quite a few income levels beneath the ones that could afford fresh oysters. Hell, it was a miracle that they could afford a chicken for Sunday night dinners; as it was just her mother and her, they’d eat it all week if they could.
She’d once bought three oysters on a trip down the shore, in Atlantic City—it’d been a drunken dare between her and her college friends at the time, and three oysters had been all she could afford. They did their vodka shot and then slid the mucoid creatures down their throats. Rhonda had gagged as it went down, but she got it down in the end and didn’t throw it back up, unlike Aisha, who’d run underneath the pier five seconds later. But Cerise had managed it—easy-peasy, as if she’d been slurping those suckers down her whole life. “It tastes like cum.” Cerise didn’t remember who’d said that but for some reason the words had stuck in her mind, and made her confused about giving blow jobs.
All of which she confessed to Ben now, sitting across from the table at him, in the pause between the arrival of the wine and the appetizers. So this was why he’d been willing to wait the twenty minutes—that was how long it’d taken her to piece together her outfit: a cotton summer dress with a halter top and a silk scarf, ballet flats. Pretty, but not ostentatious—something that a “good girl” would wear on a date with her boyfriend, and as they’d made their way from the subway station to the restaurant she was aware of how many admiring looks they’d received. We do make a nice couple, she thought, as the waiter drizzled a light vinagrette on the half-dozen slime puddles on a bed of ice in front of them. “Enjoy,” said the young man pleasantly enough, backing away with a little half bow.
“Come on, admit it, you never thought I’d mean dinner,” Ben said now, a big smile cracking across your face. “Bet you didn’t think I’d be doing so well, didja?”
“Is it that obvious?” she asked, making sure that the teasing note was in her voice.
He shrugged and picked one up, tilted his head back, and tilted the creature down his throat. “Mm,” he said. “You oughta try one.”
As she picked it up she suddenly realized that this was some kind of test: swallow the oyster and pass, gag on it and fail. But the consequences of passing or failing were lost on her. They’d gotten along all right last week, but she wasn’t sure she wanted a boyfriend just down. She was okay with her life right now—she’d be better if she could figure out what to do about Jaxon and Miles—being single and hanging out with her friends and doing projects and things just because they were fun, well, who wouldn’t like it. But a boyfriend—she was flattered, but even as she tried to think of a way to politely-but-firmly tell him she wasn’t interested, she could feel his eyes on her, expectant.
She tilted the little thing into her mouth, feeling the cold quiver as it slid down her throat, surprised at how bright and light the vinagrette made it. “That’s—that�
�s actually really good!” she said, surprised.
“Better than cum?” he asked, and he reached across the table and took her hand.
“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I’ve heard it tastes different for each guy, and whether they dip their cocks in salad dressing beforehand.”
“Whoa—that’s kinky!”
“I’m not actually into that,” she said quickly, lest the night end with him getting his cock stuck in a bottle of ranch.
“All right, I’ll bite—what are you into?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, slowly. “I know what I’m not into,” she added, “if that helps.”
He took another oyster. “So then, what aren’t you into?”
“Do we really have to discss this now?” she asked.
“Not if you don’t want to,” he said.
“What are you doing now?” she asked, with no small amount of relief. How the conversation took that hard of a turn left was beyond her. Starting over, with the default first-date-small-talk, as probably the best that was going to happen.
“I’m a biology professor at Penn,” he said, mildly.
“You’re what?” she gasped. “That’s incredible!”
“Oh, don’t get your hopes up just yet. The wait-list for getting tenure is at least another decade.”
“But you always said you wanted to teach,” she said. “I’m glad that one of us is getting to live out their dreams, at least.”
“You’re not?” he asked, tenderly. “I mean, I gathered from the barkeeping gig that things took a little detour.”
She smiled sadly. “That was a venture my stepbrothers persuaded me to get into with them,” she said. “Promised me an easy gig, a one-third share of the profits if I went in with them for the costs. Gave them my savings that I was going to use to start a life in France. I was going to be an artist,” she said, sighing.
“I’d love to see your portfolio,” he said. “What do you draw?”
Her heart jumped into her throat at those words: she drew anime, which most people didn’t get and the ones that did invariably asked her about hentai, which was tacky and full of silly and random tropes, in her opinion. “I do anime,” she said, after a moment, watching his face, bracing herself to get up and leave at the slightest hint of ridicule. She was not going sit here and take it.
“That’s cool,” he said. “Teenage-diary drama, or kaiju and space monsters?”
Their main courses arrived at that moment, saving her from having to be astounded that he wasn’t laughing at her choice of medium. The waiter lifted the cloches, revealing a ceviched scallop for her, the translucent slices arranged into a delicate fan, decorated with sprinkles of some sweet-smelling green herb and brushed with a clear, lemony sauce. For him, he’d ordered a lobster tail, artfully butterflied and draped with silvery-white threads, and somehow the effect was that it was peeking out from under a layer of snow. When she tasted it she found herself wanting more of the sauce, a fact that annoyed her until she realized that was the effect the chef wanted.
“It’s delicious,” she said, to his unspoken question.
“Is my apology accepted?”
“Very well,” she said, feigning petulance. “But if my brothers put you up to this you can tell them to go—”
“They didn’t,” he said. “It just felt wrong, to leave you like that—I really did want to say sorry to you.”
“But?”
“But, well, I can’t say that I’d be devastated if you’d agree to a second date with me.”
“That’s a little forward,” she said, “considering that you haven’t brought this one to a proper conclusion yet.”
He squinted at her, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, but he only raised his glass. She raised hers, too, not really sure what they were toasting, and even though her gut was saying, “I don’t think this is such a hot idea” she could feel herself throwing caution out the door—it was just one night, why not have a good time?
By the time they got back to her place it was late, almost eleven. “Where does the time go?” he murmured, as they rode the elevator up to her apartment.
She wished she knew. The evening had been wonderful—they’d talked about old friends that they both knew, former lovers that they’d lost, and his time in the army. “Two tours of duty,” he’d said, laughing in a way that made it clear he was hiding something, “in the shittiest places on earth, with people shooting at us left and right and IEDs popping up every other day, and I’m still too chicken to walk into Kensington alone.”
“Kensington isn’t that bad,” she’d said. “They aren’t smart enough to make bombs.”
He’d raised his eyebrows when she’d said that and smiled.
Now, as they were walking down the hall to her apartment, she wondered if this was what people meant when they said, “Love at first sight”, because she had spent the entire evening with him, talking with him and not to him. She knew more about him after four hours than she knew about men she’d dated for four months, and she was already felt as if her life wouldn’t be complete without him. There was a quiet desperation in the way their hands clasped each other, as if they couldn’t bear to let go
“Thanks,” she said, as she opened the door to her apartment. It was that awkward moment of a date, when she should be offering coffee except that a) she didn’t have any coffee and b) it was obvious that what they both wanted wasn’t coffee. At some point after dessert but before the dinner mint, their pretenses dropped away and it was all they could do to make it back to his car in the parking garage, his hands wandering up her thigh and playing peek-a-boo with her pussy behind her panties. It’d been fun, but now as she closed the door behind him things took a more serious turn. This wasn’t just about a good time anymore, and as she gazed into his eyes she could feel his soul surrender to hers. There was nothing that he wouldn’t do for her at that moment; and strangely enough, she felt the same way.
The kiss happened. She didn’t know who started it, but his lips were searching against hers, and as she tasted him and the lingering traces of the dinner mint on his teeth and tongue she became aware of something happening inside of her—it felt as if her heart had cracked, and there was some kind of warm, liquid light streaming out from it, reaching every last fiber of her being and illuminating her with a love that surprised her with its ferocity and urgency. Suddenly she was clinging to him with a desperation that she’d never known, a dizzying, almost frightening sense of need that had taken her over without her being aware that she was even capable of such need.
She was not a desperate person: she’d spent her entire life playing things safe, and even when she was in a tight spot she didn’t lose her cool, she kept her head and played the game and found her exits and kicked ass whenever she got the chance. But something about the way he touched her now, careful, slowly, savoring her curves even as he undid the halter to her dress one thread at a time, leaving her exposed, as if to say to the universe, “See, this is beauty,” kindled a flame inside her. She felt herself surrendering to his touch, letting him take everything—his fingers found their way to her clit and they began to pulse against it, each press weakening her knees until he lowered her onto her sofa.
He kissed her again, pressing warm gifts against her skin all the way down her throat. His lips were soft and smooth on her breasts, and when he took her nipple in his mouth he didn’t pinch her between his teeth. Instead, he mouthed her gently, insistently, sucking on it, pulling all of her awareness into her breasts—and then he ghosted his tongue over the tip, sending a shivering bolt of electric passion running through her spine, arching her back and slicking the folds between her legs with the hot scents of animal passion.
He opened her to the world and drank her in, his tongue flicking the soft skin of her pussy and worming its way inside her, rendering her helpless with waves of ecstasy that, for some reason, couldn’t make it past her solar plexus—she needed to close her legs, she needed to come, and he
wouldn’t let her, forcing her knees apart the way he did. She groaned and cried out in her need, her body’s desires too strong to be contained. If he didn’t—
His cock was inside her all of a sudden—her body almost couldn’t contain it. She could feel herself straining around him, and as he went deeper and deeper she felt him touch a spot inside her that she didn’t know existed. Just once, and then twice—and all of a sudden all of that ecstasy had had been building up inside her ripped through her body. Her mind shut down, and all she could see was stars.
She woke up the next morning, in her own bed, to the smell of coffee. She was still naked, but she was at least under the covers this time. Ben called, “Be about ten minutes,” from the kitchen, and she heard the ticking of the gas as he fired up the stove.
Her body felt new—she got into the shower and could feel every last drop of water on her skin, creeping over every nerve with the same delicacy of touch. Her breasts were especially sensitive—she groaned as she washed them, the same electricity arching through them when she touched herself as when he’d mouthed her the night before. She couldn’t stand to have the towel against her naked skin. She wrapped her hair and stood looking at herself in front of the mirror, wondering what could have changed so much between yesterday and this morning. Her body—the twin eyes of her breasts, the swoop and dip of her hips and waist—seemed to stare back at her.
She reached between her legs and spread apart the folds, marveling at the sweet pinkness of the flesh down there, how smoothly intricate it was. So that’s what I look like, she thought, and she remembered the strange woman who’d kissed her there. She wondered what she tasted like.
