by Penny Reid
His eyes narrowed a fraction, but I saw reluctant understanding ignite behind his expression.
“Are you always like this?”
“Like what? Brilliant?” I teased.
“Yeah…brilliant.”
***
I caught Martin staring at me no less than twenty times during the next few hours. And each time he looked a little dazed, like he was caught in the web of his own imagination. Sometimes I’d stare back, narrowing my eyes and administering a mock suspicious look. He’d smile—slow and lazy and sexy—then kiss me.
One thing was for certain: Martin Sandeke was using his big brain to work through an issue of enormous proportions.
Meanwhile, I worked on my last term paper in between conversations with Martin. He told me about his vision for the future of telecommunications and how satellites were going to play an essential role.
Science may not have been my passion, like I was wondering if music truly was, but I had a great deal of interest in science related topics. He told me all about the seventeen—SEVENTEEN!!—patents he held. Although, when I’d asked him if he was going to use the money from his inventions as the source for the sixty million he needed for the venture capitalist project, he’d laughed.
Inventing stuff, he explained, was fun. It was his hobby, but none of his inventions would ever bring in enough money.
When I asked him what he defined as enough money, he responded grimly, “Enough will be three times whatever my father is worth at any given time.”
Seeing as how his father was a billionaire, this answer struck me as supercilious and off key. Making enough money sounded like an unhealthy obsession and dissonant with happiness.
I didn’t voice this opinion.
By mid-afternoon the boat was ensconced in a torrential downpour, I’d grown used to his dazed stares, and—sadly—it was time to head back to the island.
We weren’t going back to the big house, as we were going to the aforementioned cottage on the opposite side of the island, where Eric and Sam had been since Wednesday. I hoped she wasn’t too irritated at me for my lack of communication…
I felt guilty about it, like a bad friend.
At present, Martin was in the captain’s chair, steering us back, and I was trying to catch him unawares by lobbing rapid-fire questions at him, attempting to get him to admit something embarrassing.
“Favorite movie?”
“Wall Street.”
“Favorite food?”
“Black licorice.”
I paused, his answer surprising, but then pressed forward. “Favorite color?”
“Black.”
“Black?”
“Yes.”
I thought about this, then asked because I felt compelled, “How can it be black?”
“Most people’s favorite color is black, but they’re too fixated on what others think to admit the truth, even to themselves. Think about it, what color is represented in your closet more than any other? Is it blue? Green? Red? No. It’s black.”
“But black is depressing, it’s the color of funerals and dark rooms and despair.”
He gave me a half smile and almost rolled his eyes, but not quite. “In Japan, the color associated with funerals is white. Dark rooms can be fun. Also, black feels like something new to me, like the sky right before dawn.”
“Martin Sandeke, that was almost poetic.”
“You’re easy to talk to.” He didn’t sound precisely happy about this.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It might be. I say things to you I’ve never said or told anyone.” He looked serious as he admitted this, gazing down at me with either resentment or longing, I couldn’t tell which.
So I tried to disarm the sudden tension by saying, “That’s because you loooove me.”
He rolled his eyes. But he also smiled.
***
“Spill it.”
“What?”
“Everything.” Sam elongated the word, over-pronouncing each syllable. “Spill it all. Spill it all over the place. Dump it out—on the floor, on the ceiling, on the duvet—spew it all, every last bit of it, because I am so far past interested, I’ve entered the neighboring territory of obsessively curious.”
I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. She was staring at me, wide-eyed, mouth in a tight line, jaw set. It was her game face. She meant business.
It was nearly dinner time. We’d arrived about a half hour ago. Martin had anchored the boat and tied it to a small wooden dock adjacent to the cottage, then we’d raced through the rain to the cottage.
The cottage was actually everything I thought of when I thought beach cottage. It was cozy and small, had two bedrooms and one bathroom, a postage stamp kitchen with a breakfast bar, and a combined family room/living room. The place was also decorated in nautical themes. Crafty mosaics of sea glass and shells lined the walls, and a big, rusty anchor hung above the front door.
Sam and I were currently in my room—well, the room Martin and I would share for the night—and I was going through my things. Sam and Eric had brought most of my stuff from the big house, but several items were missing; so far one of my textbooks, a folder of class notes, and several shirts. The textbook and the shirts were no big deal, but I needed the folder.
Also, it gave me an excellent excuse to postpone responding to Sam’s questioning.
“Kaitlyn…you’re stalling.”
“I’m trying to figure out if all my stuff is here.”
“You’re stalling.”
I huffed, turned to face her, and threw my hands in the air. “Yes. Yes I’m stalling.”
“Why are you stalling?”
“Because I don’t know how much I’m ready to share with you. I haven’t decided.”
“How much? How much?” she sputtered for a moment, her eyes sweeping up then down my body. “Well, how much happened?”
“A lot.”
“Are…” Her eyes narrowed a bit as she considered her words. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Are you and Martin okay?”
My serious face slipped as an involuntary and dreamy smile arrested my features. “Yes.”
Her eyes went wide again. “Are you and Martin officially together? Like girlfriend, boyfriend, committed exclusive relationship, I’ll go bat-shit crazy and burn all your stuff if I find you with someone else together?”
“Yes.” I sighed as I said this, and it was a girly, wistful sigh.
However, Sam’s expression was growing more anxious, pensive. “Did you…?” She licked her lips then nibbled on the bottom one, not finishing her question. Yet, the implied meaning was there. It hung over us both, the word sex in capital letters followed by a giant question mark.
I nodded, shifting my weight between my feet, unable to stand still.
“Oh my God.” Her eyes lost a bit of their focus briefly and I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Then she blurted, “Please tell me he used a condom.”
I felt a niggling bit of guilt or regret, which I pushed away immediately, instead deciding to roll my eyes. “Sam…”
“Kaitlyn, don’t you Sam me. Please tell me you were safe.”
“I’m on birth control,” I whispered. I didn’t know why I was whispering.
“So? Birth control doesn’t stop genital warts.”
“Sam…” Apparently my only defense against her commonsense facts was to roll my eyes.
“Kaitlyn, you are not stupid. So why are you acting stupid about this?”
“I trust him,” I said without thinking, and shrugged.
Sam’s eyes widened then closed, her chin dropped to her chest; I heard her exhale then say to the floor. “You think you love him.”
I didn’t respond. At my silence she lifted just her eyes. She looked sober, concerned, bracing.
I shrugged because, though I could guess the source and reasoning behind her anxiety on my behalf, I didn’t share her worry. My feet were
too far off the ground. I was basking in post-boat bliss. Martin loved me. I loved him. And the genital wart-covered world could go hide itself in a chemistry lab cabinet for all I cared.
“I do. I love him. I’m in love with him.”
“Oh.” She tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace. “Well, that’s…great.”
I laughed at her effort to be supportive. “I know what you’re going to say—”
Really, there were so many warnings she might give, concerns she might voice given the situation and how little she knew about Martin.
But instead she held up her hands to keep me from continuing. “I’m not going to say anything. Other than I hope you know that I will always be here for you should you ever need anything. Anything at all. Anything. And that includes a visit to the gynecologist or the name of a hit man.”
I smiled at my friend because there was no doubt in my mind that she did love me. “You’re a good friend.”
She returned my smile, but worry still rimmed her eyes as she spoke, “You too, Kaitlyn… And you deserve the best, especially from Martin Sandeke.”
Sam crossed the room and pulled me into a hug, and added in a whisper, “Never accept less than his best.”
***
Dinner wasn’t uncomfortable at all. It wasn’t. Really, it wasn’t.
Sure, Sam gave Martin the I will cut you glower at random intervals, but all in all, our foursome got along quite well. Her periodic awkward stare-downs were actually kind of funny because she’d typically pair them with ominous statements and dubious double entendre, like:
“Are you going to use the mustard, Martin? Or do you not use condom…mints?”
Then she’d lift her eyebrow meaningfully.
Another of my favorites was when we were discussing travel, places we’d like to go. Eric said he wanted to go to Australia and Sam blurted, “How about you Martin? Ever gone Down Under? Or is south of the equator not to your tastes?”
I noticed that Eric had to hide his smile and/or laughter behind his napkin on more than one occasion.
Martin didn’t smile. Instead he’d answer her questions plainly, as though they were just normal questions; but I could see through his poker face that he thought she was equal parts funny and irritating.
After dinner and dishes were done, Martin pulled me away from Sam’s suggestion that we play a game, setting his arm firmly around my waist.
“We’re tired,” he said.
“We are?” I glanced at him beseechingly, then back to where Sam was setting up Risk. Man…I loved board games. Especially games of world domination.
“We are.” Martin narrowed his eyes at me and I wasn’t so oblivious to realize he wanted more alone time.
I sighed my disappointment, then turned back to Sam. “I guess we’re tired.”
Her mouth was pinched and her eyes—appraising and unhappy—were moving between us, like she wanted to say something, but was quite literally biting her tongue.
I felt a small pang of guilt and mouthed, I’m sorry.
She gave me a small smile and shrugged as she packed up the game. “Don’t worry about it. Maybe you can play another time…when Martin isn’t so tired.”
The pang of guilt blossomed into something else, something resembling unease. I didn’t respond. Partly because I wasn’t sure what to say, and partly because Martin was already leading me out of the room. But I finally found my voice when we made it back to our bedroom.
“Are you tired? Because I’m not actually tired. And, something you may not know about me, I really enjoy a wholesome game of vicious world domination every once in a while.”
“I’m not tired.” Martin pulled me into the room, shut the door, pushed me against it, and moved in for a kiss. His hands were already everywhere, like an octopus with opposable thumbs.
I turned my head at the last minute, bracing my hands against his chest. His lips landed awkwardly on my jaw, but he wasn’t deterred by the misfire. Improvising, he kissed a wet path down my neck while his deft palms massaged my breasts through my bra.
“Hey, you.” I tried to keep my tone light and conversational. “Maybe we could, um, slow down a minute and have a discussion regarding your feelings on world domination.”
Martin’s thumb swept over my nipple then he pinched me, hard. It felt good, sending spikes of Martin-juju-arousal-fog to the four corners of my body, but it also felt like a punishment, or retaliation.
“No,” he said.
“No?”
“No.”
The back of my head fell against the door and I huffed, liking everything he was doing, but disliking how single-minded he was being. In attempt to get his attention, I pinched the skin over his ribs.
“Ow!” He flinched a little, then laughed. It was a low, rumbly, sexy sound. Not at all the outcome I was going for. “Do you want to be rough?”
“No.” I pushed that alluring thought away with all my willpower. “I want you to listen to me.”
“And I want to bite you and lick you and fuck you and make you come.”
“Ah, Martin—”
“Kaitlyn, stop talking.” He moved his mouth to my ear and bit me before whispering, “I need to be inside you.”
My body trembled with a little pleasure earthquake as his hands slid to the band of my shorts and down into my underwear, stroking me. I began to melt against him. My objections—and whether I actually had objections—grew muddled and distant. But then as he pushed inside me with two fingers I felt more than a twinge of soreness. I winced in response to the discomfort and I shoved at his chest.
“Wait. Stop, that hurts.”
He stilled immediately, removing his fingers but not withdrawing his hand. Martin lifted his head and stared down at me, his green-blue eyes searching.
“That hurts?”
I nodded, swallowing before rushing to explain. “My pants aren’t used to frequent invasions, or any invasions. It’s been a busy week for my pants. As such, my pants need time to adjust, acclimate. My pants still like you a lot, but I think my pants need a rest.”
He was so close, crowding me against the door. I could’ve counted his eyelashes.
“Your pants?”
I nodded.
“We’re calling your pussy, ‘pants’? That’s what we’re calling it?”
“No. I mean, we can…I guess. But ‘pants’ doesn’t necessarily conjure the most alluring images. I’m open to other names if we have to name it. Why do we have to name it?”
His hand in my much-discussed pants slipped around to my bare bottom, caressing and squeezing. “We don’t have to name it. I just thought you were naming it.”
“No. I’m not naming it.” I shook my head. “I was just saying, or trying to say, that the area in my pants that is required for sexual intercourse is—”
“You mean your pussy.”
“Yes.”
“Then say it. Say, my pussy.”
I scrunched my face at him even as his hands continued to glide over my body and his hips rocked into me, making me feel muddled all over again.
“What? Why?”
“I just want to hear you say the word.” Martin unclasped my bra.
“Why can’t I say vagina?”
“No.”
“Vag?” I tried, half serious.
He made a face then shook his head, pulling my shirt and bra from my body.
“How about my nether region?”
The side of his mouth quirked just before he took a step away to discard his own shirt, his fingers then moving to unbutton his jeans. “No.”
“Dewy petals?” I batted my eyelashes at him.
“Ugh, what the fuck does that even mean?” He stepped out of his jeans, leaving his long, lithe, fine form in nothing but black boxers. He reached for me, and I let him.
“I have a ton of these.” I grinned at his reaction. “I play this game, really it’s a strange coping strategy, where I repeat synonyms for words—”
“I kn
ow. I told you, I heard you do it all the time during lab.”
“Oh, that’s right. Well, I know lots of euphemisms for the female anatomy.”
“Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.” Martin turned us, marched me backward until my legs connected with the mattress, then eased us down using one arm wrapped around my middle and a single knee on the bed.
It was an impressive display of upper body strength and core muscles. In other words, it was hot.
“Just one more?”
His hand slid from my collarbone, between my breasts, and down my abdomen; he hitched two fingers into my shorts at my hip and paused.
“Okay, just one more.”
“Meat curtains.”
He frowned in a way that wasn’t a frown, pressing his lips together valiantly before speaking mostly to himself. “This is what I get for falling in love with a girl who hides from me in lab cabinets instead of someone who wants to use me for my money.”
Martin’s eyes were bright with teasing, but they were also hot and focused. I could see his intentions before he licked his lips, his attention moving to my mouth.
So I blurted, “I need my vector calculus folder!”
“What…” He frowned at me, plainly confused, then asked, “Right now?”
“No. Not right now, but before we leave. I think I left it at the big house. I need it, as it has all my notes from this semester.”
“Ah, well…I’ll call tomorrow before we leave, see if Mrs. Greenstone can find it and bring it to us at the marina.”
“Why don’t we stop by on our way in the morning? I’m not one-hundred percent certain where it is.”
“No. We aren’t going back there.” Ice entered his words; his declaration was almost hostile.
“But what if Mrs. Greenstone can’t find it?”
“I’ll call tonight. If she can’t find it, I’ll go over there by myself.”
