by R. R. Banks
I watched as Garrett took off my shoe and set it aside, then peeled away my sock. He placed my foot back down on the floor and picked up the other, repeating the process. The movements were slow, methodical. I wanted to speak, but something about the meticulous way that he was gradually undressing me kept me silent. Still on his knees, Garrett released the button on the front of my pants and drew the zipper down. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of my pants and wriggled them down over my hips and down my legs until I stepped out of them. When he had pushed them aside, his hands found my ankles and ran up the backs of my legs until they reached the panties I was wearing. They were white cotton to match my bra, a simple, practical choice, and I found myself feeling strange with him looking at them. I waited for them to turn him off, to be the final emphasis on how different I was from the person he met, but he seemed unfazed.
Garrett continued on with his slow, systematic undressing, guiding me first out of my panties and then out of my bra. Finally, I was standing completely bare in front of him, but he hadn't shed a single shred of clothing. He hadn't even kissed me. Without a word, he looped one finger around one of mine and led me across the room toward the fire pole that came down from the upstairs quarters. I remembered being a child and not believing that there were poles in actual firehouses. They were just on playgrounds and in old movies. That was the one truly enlightening thing about our field trip.
Maybe that was the mysterious moral of the trip.
Garrett led me to the pole and pressed me against it so that my belly faced the metal. He stood behind me and swept both arms up and over my head, clasping my hands around the pole. A second later I felt his hands come back to my wrists and something tightening around them. I looked up and saw Garrett tying my panties tightly around my hands, lashing them to the pole over my head. When he was finished, he ran his hands down my arms and down the sides of my body until he reached my thighs. Once there, he tucked his hands to the insides of my legs and pushed them apart. He grabbed me by my hips and pulled them back so that I took several steps away from the pole. This put me in a bent over position, my hands still wrapped around the metal and my body fully exposed to him. The dominance sent a shiver of nervousness through me, but I also found myself intrigued, excited by the unknown, by his quiet strength that made me feel at once perfectly safe and at his mercy.
I had been craving Garrett's kiss since I arrived at the firehouse and now I finally felt his lips on my skin. They burned along my spine from the base of my head to the dip in the small of my back, then his tongue came between his lips and ran back up, following the path that he had just made until he reached my neck. I gasped at the feeling, arching toward it. Garrett stood close behind me and I felt his hand touch my thigh again and move up to dip between them, finding my core and stroking my sensitive pearl with his fingertips. His other hand found one of my breasts and his fingers teased my nipple, squeezing it lightly and pulling it as he increased the speed and pressure of his fingers. I rose up onto my toes in response to the delicious sensations and Garrett responded by gliding his fingers back through my folds and pushing them into me. My entrance stretched, and my walls softened at his touch, wanting more and eagerly readying to accept it. He continued to play with my nipple as he turned his hand, pressing the pad of his thumb to my clit and swirling it in a dizzying pattern that made me cry out. In an instant, the intense pressure of a mind-blowing orgasm rushed over me and I screamed out, pressing my hips back toward him and spreading my legs further so he could push his fingers deeper inside me to soothe the still-aching need throbbing there.
Garrett withdrew his fingers and grasped my hips, pushing me back toward the pole so that I stood upright. He reached above my head and slightly loosened the panties so that he could turn me around to face him and use my shoulders to push me down to a crouching position in front of him. I watched hungrily as he slowly unhooked his belt and unbuttoned his pants. My hands twitched with desire to undress him, to hasten the release of the erection I could see bulging against his zipper. The fact that I couldn't only intensified my arousal and my mouth was watering by the time that I finally got to see his lush length stretching toward me. He stepped forward, so he stood between my spread knees and grasped the base of his shaft, directing the head toward my mouth.
I parted my lips and accepted the head between them. I let the tip of my tongue glide along the slit, gathering the sweet-salty taste of the crystalline drops that were forming there before dipping inside for a brief instant. I then brought my attention down, concentrating on the taut, sensitive bundle of nerves on the underside. I could feel the blood coursing through the swollen veins along his cock and I licked each of them in turn. Finally, I opened my mouth fully and took him in. Garrett pressed his hips forward so that he slid across my tongue and plunged toward my throat. I relaxed, welcoming him, accepting every inch of him until I felt him sink down into my throat and his hips begin to thrust.
Rather than trying to control the movements, I gave myself over to him completely. I allowed the movements of Garrett's hips to control how my mouth glided along his cock and the depth that it reached in my throat. I looked up at him, meeting his eyes and feeling my stomach flutter as he watched me without hesitation. We remained that way for only a few moments before he pulled out of my mouth and stepped back to undress the rest of the way. When he was finished, he approached me and grasped me by the sides of my ribs, pulling me up off the floor and to my feet. He reached up and grabbed onto the panties around my wrists again, twisting them so that I faced away from him as I had before. His hands moved swiftly as they brought my hips back toward him and my feet spread far apart so that again I was bent over and vulnerable to him. I heard the unmistakable rip of a condom wrapper opening and I wrapped my hands tightly around the pole, moaning loudly as he filled me with one thrust.
Garrett pressed deeper and deeper into me until I felt the slight pain that made the ache within me release and filled me with a sense of fulfillment and wholeness. I felt something with him that I never had before, and I wanted more of it. I wanted everything that I could have of him, and to give him all of me that I had to give. Even if it was only the broken pieces. Even if it wasn't all of me. There was some of me that was locked away, kept silenced and untouchable, but what I was capable of offering him, I was willing to give.
Just when I felt that my body couldn't possibly accommodate any more of him, Garrett began to thrust inside me. His hips moved in a fast, even pace, his silence finally broken with his grunts that accompanied each stroke. My body was still humming with my first orgasm and now I could feel another growing, creeping up through me as it tightened my muscles and made my mind cloudy. Our panting and whimpering groans came out of us with abandon, filling the space around us, echoing off the walls and reverberating through me as I gave myself over to the climax that took me as suddenly and intensely as the first. I felt Garrett swell and throb within me at the same moment and his own animal growl covered even the sound of my cry.
As our bodies cooled, Garrett released my wrists and lowered me down to sit in his lap as he leaned back against the pole. I tucked my head against the curve of his neck and shoulder, breathing in the musky smell of him, and smiled. He turned and kissed my hair and I nuzzled closer to him.
"Maybe we should actually schedule a time when we can see each other rather than just finding ourselves here," he finally said.
"Maybe we should," I murmured.
"How about this weekend?"
I sighed and lifted my head, so I could look at him.
"I can't," I told him. "I have to go to my parents' house."
"Your parents' house? Is it far?"
"No. They live in Silver Lake. Well, just outside of Silver Lake. It's about ten minutes from my house."
He laughed.
"If they live that close, why is the visit such a big deal?"
"I'm their only child," I explained. "So, my growing up and moving out of the house was a major thing for
them. Besides, they always wanted to be the classic parents and grandparents welcoming the family home for visits. They don't have any grandchildren, so I'm it. I see them all the time, but they insist that every so often I come home and pretend that I'm returning after a long absence and spend the night with them. It's completely ridiculous, but I do it to amuse them."
"That is pretty ridiculous," he said, but there was still laughter in his voice.
I shrugged.
"It makes them happy. What about your parents? Don't they ever ask you to do silly things that you do just to humor them?"
Garrett's eyes darkened and his smile disappeared. I immediately wished that I hadn't asked that, realizing that I knew nothing about him or his family and that I had obviously just touched on something extremely difficult for him.
"No," he said.
That was it. No further explanation. No details.
I felt suddenly very aware of my nakedness in the open space and I climbed from his lap. I moved around as fast as I could, gathering my clothes and stuffing myself back into them. I was starting for the door when I felt his hand grasp my elbow. He turned me around and held me around my waist, leaning back slightly so that he could look into my face. My eyes explored his, searching for something within him, wanting to find what was hiding from me. After a few silent seconds, he leaned down and touched his lips to mine in a soft kiss.
That kiss was still on my mind when I arrived at my parents’ house the next evening. As I always did, I had brought several pieces of luggage with me. Though each one only held one or two items, it made it look as though I had made a grand journey to visit them. I hauled the pieces of luggage out of my car and carried them up onto the porch of the house. My mother burst out of the front door and held her arms open, gasping when she saw me as though we hadn't just gone to lunch the week before. I gave a deep sigh and mimicked sagging under the exhaustion of a long drive, and she rushed forward to wrap me in a hug. It was a charade that had played out every month or two for almost two years, and while I knew that it was silly and nonsensical, it also made my heart warm. I enjoyed the playfulness and it made me happy to know that even though I was still close and able to see them frequently, my parents still missed me and enjoyed having any opportunity to spend time with me.
Just as he always did, my father stepped out of the porch and eyed my luggage.
"Do you think you brought enough?" he asked.
"I think I have everything that I need," I told him.
He nodded and reached for two of my suitcases. Neither one of them could have weighed more than two pounds, but he put on a dramatic show of hauling them up off the ground and lugging them into the house. My mother and I laughed as she wrapped her arm around my waist to guide me into the house. It smelled just like it had when I was a little girl. In the background, it was clean like fresh linens with a wisp of flowers from somewhere, but the first thing that I smelled was dough and cinnamon. Every time that I came home I was welcomed by my mother's baking and the smell was always enough to soothe any hurt and make me feel safe and secure again.
I curled up on the couch while my father carried my luggage up to my childhood bedroom. They hadn't changed it since I moved out, but I found that comforting each time that I returned. It was as though if I were feeling out of control or like I had veered away from myself, I could come home and hit a reset button, anchoring myself back into who I was so that I could find myself again.
"How is the vacation planning going?" I asked.
My mother came back into the room carrying a tray overflowing with cinnamon buns and mugs of coffee. She settled it onto the table between the couch and her favorite chair and I mused that she was still the only person I knew who actually used a coffee table for coffee. I reached forward and grabbed a mug with one hand and a roll with the other, happy to feel that both of them were warm enough to start thawing me out from the chill outside.
"Wonderfully!" my mother gushed. "You are going to love the place we chose this year!"
Every year of my life my parents had planned a big trip for the three of us for spring break, and each year they strove to keep it a surprise until the day that we left. They had only managed to achieve that a few times. Usually, they ended up spilling all of the plans at least three weeks before leaving, which I always preferred. As much as they tried to convince me that I did, I didn't enjoy not knowing where we were going or what we would be doing. Not only did it present a packing dilemma, but it made me feel queasy knowing that I had absolutely no control.
That thought reminded me of Garrett tying my hands to the pole and I felt a rush of heat across my cheeks. I took a sip of my coffee to try to cover it and focused back on the conversation with my mother.
"I hope that you two haven't come up with anything crazy," I said.
"Oh, don't you worry about us. We can handle anything!"
That sentiment was exactly why I spent so much time worrying about them. My mother and father might have looked like a sweet, quiet little couple, gliding on toward retirement age, but there were times when they certainly didn't act like it. Our family vacations were usually those times and I frequently found them engaging in behaviors that better befitted someone my age, or younger than it did them. Case in point, last year I nearly had a heart attack watching my father zip-line through a forest canopy while the year before found my mother submerging herself in a cage so that she could feed sharks.
"I sure hope you brought along everything you need," my father said as he came back down the steps and made a beeline for the coffee and cinnamon rolls. "But don't worry, even if you forgot something, we can always go up to the store and get it."
Yes, the store that was three minutes closer to my house than it was to my parents'.
That night I was tucked into my lace-edged sheets, staring at the inspirational poster I had hung on my wall during my junior year when I heard my phone chime from beneath my pillow. I had taken to keeping it there in the early days of college when my dorm roommate insisted that my alarm clock was archaic and produced too much light during the night to allow her to get sufficient REM sleep, so I would have to unplug it. An eight AM class necessitated me waking up reliably and using my phone alarm from directly beneath my head proved the only effective way of getting that done. The roommate didn't last beyond the semester, but the phone-pillow habit survived to this day.
I pulled my phone out and looked at the screen. It held a text message from Garrett.
'How was the road trip to your folks'?'
'Strenuous as always, but I got to listen to the top four greatest hits of the 80s, so that made it go by faster.'
'80s music doesn't make anything go faster.'
'Don't besmirch my 80s music.'
'Besmirch? Is that actually a word that is still used?'
'Oh, hush your mouth.'
'I'm not using my mouth. I'm using my fingers.'
'Hush your...fingers.'
'Maybe you should come over and I'll find something better to do with my fingers.'
I wriggled in my bed, squeezing my thighs together against the desire already growing there.
'I told you. I can't. I'm at my parents' house.'
'So, sneak out and come see me. I'll wait outside your window.'
I muffled a laugh against my pillow. I loved that he was playing along, but even more amusing was that he was suggesting something that I would have never even considered in high school. Leaving for my dates when I was a teenager happened strictly through the front door, the exact same way that I returned, always on time and with my goodnight kiss occurring no less than 30 seconds before curfew so that the front door was closed and locked before I could be considered late.
I was boring as hell.
I thought about my response for a few seconds, wondering if I should go along with his request, then thought better of it.
'Sorry. You're just going to have to miss me.'
I felt myself blush as I sent the message and chas
tised myself for the reaction that brought me just a bit too close to being an actual teenager. I was feeling completely wrapped up in Garrett, my thoughts drifting to him every few minutes and my dreams filling with replays of our encounters and fantasies of what more could come. Even as I felt myself floating when I thought of him, there was a voice in the back of my mind that told me to be cautious. It reminded me that I didn't really know him and that I couldn't truly trust him. I had to protect myself.
'Missing you will just make me want you more.'
I bit my bottom lip and tucked my phone back under my pillow, trying to will myself to go to sleep.
Chapter Nine
Garrett
"Are you kidding me, Jason? Are you seriously freaking kidding me?"
"I'm sorry, Dad."
"I thought that we had this conversation. I thought that I made it clear to you that you needed to straighten up."
"You did."
"Apparently I didn't because you just waltzed in here with a letter from your teacher."
I was furious that this is the way that my week was beginning. After a weekend of flirting and sexy banter with Gwendolyn, my Monday had started with the first fire call that I received since taking my position. An apparent case of arson triggered by a long-standing feud between two families. The blaze had destroyed several generations-old buildings on a farm just outside of town and started a brush fire that nearly got out of control. If it hadn't been for some dampness remaining in the ground from the melting snow, many more buildings and homes could have been obliterated. The team had spent hours fighting back the flames, rescuing livestock, and trying to cooperate with the investigation of the arson without compromising the safety of the area and everyone in it. I had come home exhausted and wanting nothing more than just to take a shower, eat something, and go to bed. Instead, I had found an envelope sitting on the kitchen counter. There was no name on it, but the top corner held a printed return address for the school.
