First Class Stamp

by Aj Harmon

  He was stone-faced…expressionless and if Sophia hadn’t known him better would possibly be fearing for her safety about now. But she didn’t fear him, even though her heart was pounding in her chest and desire pooled between her legs. Never had a man made her feel this vulnerable and excited…two feelings that didn’t really go together at all.

  At last the doors opened and once again she found herself trying to keep up with Ben as he stalked down the hall to his apartment. Once inside, he commanded her to “sit” and then he disappeared down the hall, presumably to the bedroom. Doing as she was told, Sophia sat on the sofa, sinking into the plush velvet pillows and leaning her head back and closing her eyes. Her breath was shallow and her heart still beat wildly out of control and as she desperately tried to control both, the hairs on the back of her neck pricked and she slowly opened her eyes to see Ben sitting on the coffee table directly in front of her, leaning forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, inches from her.

  “Why won’t you talk to me?” he growled. “I called you dozens of times and you didn’t answer. I left message after message and you didn’t call me back.”

  His eyes were cold, almost black, not the usual beautiful blue she was used to seeing. His lips were pursed and she could feel the simmer underneath the controlled tone of his voice.

  “Where did you go that Saturday night? What was your previous engagement?” She knew she sounded like a jilted lover. In fact, she felt like a jilted lover. And she didn’t like it, not one bit.

  “To a friend’s for dinner. Is that what this is all about?”

  Sophia refused to answer him. He had broken her heart and if she let down her guard she couldn’t guarantee she could hide it from him.

  “I would have gotten out of it, but I couldn’t.”

  “You mean you didn’t want to.”

  “Sophia? Tell me what you’re not saying,” he pleaded.

  “I saw her…your date.”

  “How?” There was no possible way she’d seen him go to Maria’s apartment.

  “At your office. She gave you a drawing of the three of you.”

  In an instant, Ben realized what it must look like to her and hoped he could explain it so she would understand there was nothing between him and Maria. But it wasn’t going to be easy. He recalled Maria’s words to him in his office when he’d admitted that he was in love. If I was your woman I don’t think I would’ve wanted you there at all! Trying to see it from her perspective made him feel even worse.

  “I know that I said that I wasn’t looking for a relationship or anything serious,” she continued. “But then I slept with you. I opened myself up to you and I left your bed and you ran straight into someone else’s and I won’t…”

  “No!” Ben yelled. “I did NOT sleep with her, nor have I ever, nor will I ever sleep with her.”

  “It’s irrational,” Sophia admitted. “I know. I have no claim to you and…”

  “Yes you do,” he whispered. “You do.”

  Sophia looked up at him, her eyes wide open.

  “Maria, the woman you saw, worked in Brazil. I hired her personally many years ago and met her son, a sweet five year old who I have been a pen pal with ever since. The company recently relocated them to New York where she received a promotion. She invited me to dinner as a way of saying thank you. Nothing more.” He decided it didn’t do any good to divulge the rest of the story. It was irrelevant.

  “You didn’t sleep with her?”

  “I already told you I didn’t,” he smiled. “I didn’t kiss her. I didn’t touch her. After dinner, I tucked Luca in and said goodnight and left.”

  “Luca,” she mouthed. The boy Alex had seen from their window.

  “Luca is now ten and a very sweet kid. He’s had a rough go of it but is still a really great kid.”

  “He came here,” she said.

  “He did,” Ben acknowledged. “I babysat while his mom went on a date.”

  “A date?” That revelation surprised her.

  “Mmhmm,” he grinned.

  Sophia looked down at her lap, now deeply embarrassed in her assumptions and subsequent behavior.

  “Look at me,” he whispered. “Look. At. Me,” he said more forcefully when her head didn’t move.

  Sophia sighed and lifted her chin, her eyes gazing into his, noting the change in color from the harsh black back to the deep brilliant blue.

  “I have spent the last several years laughing at my father and mocking my brothers and their whipped state of marriage.” He used air quotes for effect. “I have told myself repeatedly that I didn’t need a woman to complete me, that I was happy and content with my life.”

  Sophia’s eyes lowered and she wished that she hadn’t agreed to accompany her parents to dinner at the Lathem’s. She could be sulking at home right now in the privacy of her bedroom instead of allowing Ben to witness it in person.

  With a gentle touch, Ben lifted her chin with his finger and smiled. “Sophia, you have proved me wrong. It was only when I met a woman, my equal, that I understood why my brothers had chosen to marry and commit themselves to a lifetime of monogamy…to a lifetime of love and fulfillment.”

  There was a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his lips. “Sophia,” he said as he dropped to his knees in front of her. “You are that woman. I don’t want anyone else but you. I love you.”

  A lone tear dropped down her cheek. “Really?”

  “Really,” he whispered and kissed away the saltiness from her smooth skin.

  *****

  After stripping her clothes, Ben slipped out of his and lay next to her on the bed with her head on his shoulder and his arm wrapped around her, his hand possessively on her hip. He kissed her hair and her forehead and with his free hand he caressed her silky skin.

  “I love the way you smell,” he whispered into her hair and inhaled her scent. He kissed her again and Sophia climbed atop him and took his mouth with hers and kissed him with all the passion she felt, the feelings of embarrassment and shame gone, love and desire taking their place.

  She felt his staff beneath her, hard and long and she could wait no longer to feel him inside her. Pushing herself up, she lifted her hips and poised at his tip. Grabbing her head with his hands he pulled her lips back to his and darted his tongue in an out, replicating the most intimate act. As she slid down and down over his length, he let go and she straightened her spine and sat erect over his hips as she felt him deep in her core. He moaned with pleasure as he bucked to her and she responded by lifting herself upwards and then gliding back down, the movement driving him crazy. The perfect rhythm was soon established and their eyes locked as they pleasured each other until at the brink of ecstasy. In one swift movement Ben locked his arms around her and rolled so that he was on top and pounded into her until her eyes rolled back and she cried out his name as her body trembled and pulsed in sublime bliss. Ben arched his back and spilled his warm seed inside her and then collapsed next to her as he panted for air.

  The laid together, limbs twisted and lust satisfied, eyes closed and relaxed but not sleepy. Ben played with the silky strands of her hair and Sophia traced her finger over the ridges in his torso.

  “You didn’t use a condom,” she finally said.

  “I didn’t.” He paused and then said. “Would it be so bad if we had a baby?”

  Sophia longed to have his baby although it was only as he spoke the words that she let herself feel the desire.

  “Alex will make a wonderful big brother and I already know that you are a devoted and loving mother. I could not make a better choice than you as the mother of my children.”

  “Children?” she asked, surprise apparent.

  Ben pulled his arm from beneath her and sat up. Turning to her he placed his hand on her cheek and smiled. “We will be the most beautiful family. Marry me. Be my wife. Be my partner…my equal. Be the mother to our children. Love me forever and I you.”

  A tear escaped as he spoke. How could she deny hersel
f the man whom she loved, the man whom she desired, the man that made her understand what her parents had enjoyed for all these years?

  “I love you with all my heart,” she whispered. “And I will marry you.”

  Ben kissed her. It was a sweet kiss…one that held the promise of their future.

  *****

  As they showered together later that afternoon, Ben soaped her body into a lather and then rubbed himself all over her, laughing as she called him her own personal loofa. They played and laughed and loved and were deliriously happy. Sophia took the soap in her hands and rubbed it gently and lovingly over his body, under his arms, down his thighs, between his toes and reveled in the intimacy of it all. This was love. This was desire. This is what is was supposed to be. This is what she’d dreamed of. This is what she’d read about in the romance novels that were purely fiction. But not anymore. She’d won the prize. She’d found her prince and he’d been worth waiting for.

  Sophia dropped to her knees, the water cascading over her shoulders and dripping from her taut nipples. She took his penis in her hands and caressed him. She felt him shudder and step back, finding the wall for support. She leaned in and kissed his tip, tasting the saltiness of the bead of moisture waiting for her, and only her. Then gently, she opened her mouth and took him in, feeling the steel under his velvety skin. She pushed from her mind the memories of whoring herself to her ex-husband in order to get what she needed for her son. Those memories would now be replaced with new ones, of loving moments like this one, of unions that were yoking them together for their life that lay ahead, of the promise of a beautiful future.

  She gently sucked and licked and she could feel Ben’s muscles tighten, fighting for control. But she didn’t want him to control it. She wanted him to feel pleasure and to know her love for him so she nipped and sucked and kissed until he grabbed her hair and held her mouth to him as his hips thrusted forward and she tasted him again as she swallowed the warm liquid that filled her mouth.

  “Aargh” he cried out and when it was over, and she’d released him from her mouth, he sank to the tiled floor with her and cradled her in his arms. “I love you,” he whispered into her mouth as he kissed her. “I love you forever.”

  20.

  “I have to go,” she said for the third time, unwilling to extricate herself from his embrace.

  “I don’t want to wait,” Ben said, a seriousness in his tone that made Sophia raise herself onto her elbow to look at him. “I want to be a family now. I want to make a baby with you. I want to be the father to Alex that he needs.”

  Sophia wiped away another tear that fell. “Nobody has caused me to feel such love that I cry all the time,” she chuckled, “until you.”

  Ben smiled and kissed her. “I’m serious,” he repeated. “Let’s go tell Alex and be a family.”

  How could she argue with that? They quickly got dressed and Sophia looked in the mirror at her hair. It was a disaster.

  “It looks like you’ve been having a good time,” Ben winked as he grabbed her hand and pulled her from the bedroom.

  They walked to the foyer, hand in hand and Ben let go to retrieve his wallet and keys. It was then that Sophia noticed the overflowing plate of stamp books. She reached for one and opened it to find all stamps inside, so she reached for another and another, noting there were no stamps missing from all but two of the books. She looked up at ben who’d been watching her.

  “First class stamps?” she asked.

  Ben shrugged. “I needed a reason to come and see you,” he grinned.

  Sophia pulled him to her lips and kissed him soundly. “I love you,” she smiled.

  Within minutes they were running across the street and up the stairs to her apartment but Alex wasn’t there. Sophia checked her phone for messages but there were none, so they ran back down a flight to her parent’s apartment. The door was locked and no one answered when she pounded on the wooden door.

  Ben looked at his watch. It was just seven o’clock. “You don’t think they’re still at my parents’, do you?”

  With the touch of her finger to her phone she dialed her father and confirmed they were in fact still at the Lathem home. She heard Maureen yell in the background, “Tell them to come here. We’ll wait for them.”

  Ben rolled his eyes but pulled her back down the stairs and out to the street where he hailed another cab to take them back up to his childhood home. “Something is afoot,” he chuckled.

  But Sophia didn’t care, she clung to his hand like a life vest and couldn’t stop her lips from smiling. When they arrived back at the Lathem’s home, the four parents sat in the living room, with Alex watching a movie downstairs.

  “We need to speak to Alex,” Ben stated as they walked past the adults to the stairs.

  Maureen winked at Gloria, who beamed when she saw her daughter and Ben holding hands. Peter sighed and Aldo looked confused.

  “Sadly, I’m used to this,” Peter announced to Aldo. “You only have one child. Lucky you.”

  As Ben and Sophia sat next to Alex on the couch, he looked over at them suspiciously, but turned off the television and placed the remote on the end table. “Where did you guys go?”

  “We had some things we needed to discuss,” Ben replied.

  “Why is your hair wet, mom?”

  She looked at Ben and then back at her son. “Alex, we have something we need to talk to you about.”

  “We want you to tell us how you feel after we tell you, okay?” said Ben. “Whatever you feel is fine, you just need to tell us.”

  Alex nodded but the suspicious look hadn’t left.

  Ben continued. “I’ve asked your mom to marry me and she has said yes.”

  “Cool,” came the reply.

  “Is that it?” asked Sophia.

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “No,” he amended. “Where are we going to live?”

  “Well,” Sophia said. “We haven’t talked about that yet. Where do you want to live?”

  “In Ben’s apartment.”

  Ben chuckled. “Actually, we should probably get a new apartment…a bigger one, but in the same building so we can still be close to your grandparents. What about that?”

  “Cool,” he repeated.

  “Do you have any questions?” Sophia asked.

  “Do you want me to call him dad?” Alex looked at his mother.

  “You can call me whatever you’re comfortable with,” Ben chuckled.

  “Maybe just Ben then,” Alex nodded.

  “Ben is good,” Sophia agreed.

  “So do you ever go to football games?” Alex asked, as he picked up the remote and turned the TV back on.

  “I think he’s gonna be fine,” Sophia laughed.

  *****

  Upstairs, the parents waited for Ben and Sophia to return and when they finally did Maureen jumped from her chair and took their entwined hands in her own and smiled.

  “I’m so happy for you both,” she gushed.

  The look of surprise on Sophia’s face made Peter chuckle aloud. “She’s a pro,” he offered. “There is nothing you can hide from her.”

  Ben bent down and kissed his mom’s cheek. “Yes,” he announced. “I have asked Sophia to be my wife and she graciously accepted my offer.”

  Gloria stood, with the help of husband, and made her way over to the couple. “You have made me very happy,” she smiled and kissed her daughter and then Ben bent over and kissed his soon-to-be mother-in-law.

  “I’ll get a bottle of champagne,” Peter smiled. “This is a good reason to celebrate.”

  Epilogue

  The wedding was a relatively small affair and took place just eight weeks later. There was a small disagreement over which parish they would marry in…Gloria winning as she only had one child and had pointed out to Maureen that she’d been blessed with seven. Surprising the family, Maureen had agreed and her son was wed to Sophia in a church near Little Italy. The small reception was held in The Atherton Gallery where David was curator
. And The Bourbon restaurant catered.

  Sophia wore the palest of yellow dresses, made of satin with a chiffon overlay that had Ben’s jaw dropping the moment he saw her. She looked exquisite and Ben could not have imagined himself happier. Ella and Isabelle were flower girls, with two of Sophia’s young second cousins as bridesmaids. A very pregnant Lindsey was her matron of honor. The two women had become close and Sophia had been welcomed by the Lathems with open arms and she was thrilled with her new family. Gloria and Maureen had become friends and family gatherings were already including the Manning family as part of their own. Nic’s grandparents, the Wilkins, often joined too, as did Shelby, Katy’s young friend, so Aldo and Gloria fit right in immediately.

  On their wedding night, after making love with such intensity and love that Ben had shed a tear, Sophia whispered in her husband’s ear that she was pregnant, to which his reply was to make love to her again, thanking her over and over for making him the happiest and most content man alive.

  Sticking with family tradition and with Ben already owning his apartment, the leasing agent of the building relocated the renters in the apartment next to his and Matt signed it over to Ben and Sophia as their wedding present. A contractor had knocked down dividing walls and was in the middle of creating a large home with many empty bedrooms for the newlyweds to fill.

  Alex would stay with his father while the newlyweds honeymooned in Key West for two weeks. Willis had decided to be a better father. Perhaps it was the idea that he would lose his son to Ben, Sophia didn’t know, but in the two months since they’d announced their intent to be married, Willis hadn’t missed one visitation and Alex had even seemed to enjoy staying with his father. It appeared to Sophia that this marriage had blessed her life in every facet imaginable.

  While lying on a chaise on the beach, Ben had asked his wife what she wanted to be when she grew up. Sophia had laughed and Ben had asked again.

  “I want to go back to school and graduate with a degree in early childhood education.” She sounded determined.

  “You want to be a teacher?” Ben was surprised.