That night, after we’d eaten another dinner taken directly from the garden, Ben got a blanket, told me to put my shoes on, and said we were going to take a walk.
“We’re not going too far,” he said, “but there’s something I want to show you.”
My curiosity was piqued as we went out the back door, through the backyard, and down a narrow path. Everything we’d ever done up here, aside from a few trips to the grocery store to get a couple of things, had been outside, had been right in the heart of nature. We had gone to no restaurants, no stores, none of the usual things you might expect to do when you went somewhere new—and I was perfectly fine with that. There would usually be a part of me that was itching to check out whatever little shops or antique stores might be around, even if it wasn’t to buy anything, just to look, but that feeling had been largely absent, and I think it was because of Ben. There was just something about him, something about being around him that made me truly feel as if I were more in the moment than I was used to being. What I was used to, I realized as we walked, had been looking at my life through the lens of how it was going to translate online. There was a part of my mind that was always considering what photograph I should take next, what I should say to go along with it. I had never considered that to be a bad thing, but that was because I had really never considered it at all; it’s just the way things were. But when I was up here, where there were thousands of opportunities for some gorgeous, natural, and completely awe-inspiring pictures, I had no desire to take any, other than for my own personal memories.
“Here we are,” Ben said. We’d come to a clearing, and I realized this was the meadow that he had talked about. It was not very large, not quite the size of a football field, but there was soft, ankle-high grass on which he spread the blanket out. We both sat down. “Okay,” he said. “Now we’re going to lie back, and I want you to look up.”
I did what he said and looked up at the sky. It was like nothing I had ever seen before—so many stars against the velvet backdrop of the night sky. It was beautiful. It was more than beautiful, though; it was stunning, breathtaking, every word that you can think of to describe something that is really indescribable.
“Wow,” I breathed as I stared upward. Ben lay next to me, and he reached over and took my hand in his.
“Incredible, isn’t it?” he said. “Better to look at than any screen—in my opinion, anyway.”
“It’s just so... big,” I said. And I knew I was just seeing a fraction of it, that it was so much bigger than my mind could even conceptualize. But in the city, I barely ever looked up. I’d been out walking around at night before, and I never bothered to look toward the sky. Out here, though, it seemed impossible to not give it all of your attention.
“It is. And there’s really nothing like coming out here and just looking up and realizing how incredibly small we really are. I know that sort of thinking would probably freak some people out, but it actually makes me feel better. Like nothing that I’m worried or stressed about really matters, in the grand scheme of things. Like this shit with Camille? Yeah, it pissed me off to come up here and find a used condom just lying there on the floor, but then I come out here, and I look up at the sky and I see how huge everything is, how much shit is out there that we don’t know a thing about, and it puts it all in perspective.”
As I stared up at the sky, I realized how right he was. Any problems I had just felt insignificant, like they weren’t really anything to get upset over in the first place.
“Do you think anything else is out there?” I asked. “I mean, intelligent life?”
“Of course,” he said. “There isn’t a doubt in my mind. I can’t understand people who think that we would be the only intelligent form of life in the entire universe. And then beyond the universe.”
“There’s something beyond the universe?”
“There are countless universes. What scientists call the multiverse. The idea that there are all these parallel universes, existing at the same time, countless beyond our comprehension. To be honest, a lot of it is way beyond my comprehension—astrophysics, quantum mechanics, string theory, all that good stuff—but I don’t even need to understand it that well. Just knowing that these theories exist makes me feel better.”
He turned, so he was on his side, and he put his hand on my leg, rubbing gently, before he moved it higher, to my hip, then to the waist of my shorts. I turned toward him, entwining my legs through his. We started to kiss, and then our clothes started coming off, one piece at a time. The cool night air made my skin tingle, seemed to heighten my senses. Had I ever done it outside before? I didn’t think so. I couldn’t remember, anyway, and that seemed like something I would remember. It felt exciting, more primal, to be doing it out here. Ben started kissing my jaw, my throat, his teeth pressing gently against the soft skin there. I had my hand between his legs, stroking him, and as he got bigger and harder, I could feel myself getting wetter. It seemed almost unbelievable that another person could make you feel so good, but then again, our bodies were so perfectly in tune with each other. He traced a hand down to my breasts, squeezed my already taut nipples. I bit my lip as soft little groans escaped. His fingertips played their way down my flank, almost tickling me. He slid his hand lower until it was between my legs, his fingers easily sliding into the warm wetness.
When we broke apart so he could get a condom, I lay there on my back, the huge sky above me. My whole body was vibrating, thrumming with this incredible energy. The only thing that was missing right now was the fact that Ben wasn’t touching me, but I knew once he got the condom on, that would all change. How was it, I wondered as I looked up, that I could be this small, this insignificant, yet experiencing these physical sensations that seemed so huge they felt as if they could completely overwhelm me?
There wasn’t much time to contemplate that, though, because Ben was easing himself down on me. I spread my legs wider, felt him push against me. There was a half-second of resistance and then he easily slid in, and we gripped each other, as if the tighter we held on, the stronger the sensations would be. He started moving and I let my eyes close, let the feelings take me where they may.
The orgasm caught me by surprise—usually, they came in waves, gradually getting stronger until the climax, but this one announced itself strongly. Not that this didn’t feel good, but I had never had an orgasm just through sex like this before, and had figured I never would. My anatomy just wasn’t configured the right way to warrant such an ability; it wasn’t that uncommon. So the pages of Cosmopolitan had told me. I’d just accepted it and hadn’t really given it much thought—until now, because it was happening.
It was really happening.
And it was happening, I knew, because it was Ben, because of how we fit together, but also because I truly felt like he cared about me, in such a way that was more profound than anyone else had ever cared about me before. It was like something I knew on a cellular level, more than an intellectual one, and it seemed that my body was responding accordingly.
“You make me feel so good,” I whispered in his ear.
I opened my eyes as I felt him come, his body tight, every muscle tensed, and I looked toward the sky, just in time to see a shooting star. My breath caught in my throat and I blinked, certain that I hadn’t actually seen it, that it had just been some sort of trick, but then there was another one. Ben slowly lowered himself the rest of the way on me, and I wrapped my legs around him and hugged him to me tightly, my eyes still on the sky, in case there was any more magic for me to see.
Chapter 20
Ben
There was most certainly a part of me that didn’t want to leave Guerneville, that wanted to stay up there with Teagan forever. It was like our own little paradise, and though I knew we were in the honeymoon phase of things, I really could not remember ever feeling happier. So of course I didn’t want it to end, but I knew that permanently moving up here wouldn’t be realistic—at least not yet, anyway.
There was also that whole issue about the place not being entirely mine. I hadn’t really thought about the used condom much more, once it had been taken care of, but now, as we were driving back to the city, getting closer and closer to reality, I found my thoughts drifting in that direction. Not the condom itself, thankfully, but the fact that Camille and I both owned something together that really only one of us should, or none of us. But not both. Unfortunately, untangling ourselves from this mess was going to require me talking to her, and I had a feeling that regardless of what I suggested, she was going to fight me.
“I need to figure things out with the cabin,” I said. “Don’t get me wrong—every time I go up there with you is like this dream I don’t want to wake up from, but it’s really not right if Camille and I still have that place together.”
“What do you want to do?” Teagan asked.
“Well... I wish it was just mine, free and clear. That not being the case, though, I’d just like this to be handled as smoothly and conflict-free as possible. I’ll have to talk to Camille and see what she’s thinking, but I can’t imagine that she’s too psyched about us owning the place together, either.”
“So it sounds like buying her out would be your ideal option.”
“I guess. I just don’t know if she’s going to get all crazy and say she wants to sell it for twice what it’s actually worth. She could do something like that.”
“But you won’t know until you talk to her.”
“Right. Which is not something that I’m really looking forward to. Hey, maybe you should call her.” I laughed. It would serve her right, especially leaving that nasty used condom on the floor for us to find.
“Sure,” Teagan said. “I’ll do it right now.” She held out her hand for my phone.
“Oh. Um... I was mostly joking. You don’t have to call her.”
“I don’t mind. It might even be helpful. I would just say that we’re driving back and we were talking and that it’s time to figure something out with the cabin.”
I thought about what she’d said. When she put it that way, it really didn’t sound all that bad, not to mention the fact that if Camille took any offense to it, it would really be what she deserved. For every awful, lying thing she had done to me, I had never done anything back to her. This, if anything, was more like a harmless prank.
“Yeah, go for it,” I said. “Phone’s in the glove box. Passcode’s 8734.”
“You’re telling me your passcode?”
“I trust you.”
I didn’t think she was actually going to go through with it, but I watched from the corner of my eye as she scrolled through my contacts until she got to Camille. She put the phone up to her ear.
“Hey, no, sorry—this isn’t Ben; my name’s Teagan. I’m with Ben right now; we’re driving back down from Guerneville.” There was a pause. “Yes. Um, yeah, I am. Anyway, he was thinking that it might be a good idea if you guys talked about the cabin, and what you want to do with it... He’s not expecting an answer right away, but we thought it might be a good idea to give you a heads-up so you could start considering which direction you’d like to go.”
Try as I might, there was no way that I could hear what Camille was saying in response, though it seemed like the conversation was going all right.
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Teagan was saying. “Sure thing. I’ll let him know. Okay. Thanks. Bye.”
She disconnected the call and then put the phone back in the glove box. “That went pretty well,” she said. “Better than I was expecting.” She laughed. “Did I really just call your ex-girlfriend?”
“I’m kind of having a hard time believing it myself,” I said. “But it seemed like it went okay? It didn’t sound like she was freaking out or anything.”
“No, it was actually good. She said she’d been thinking the same thing—that you guys should figure out something about the cabin—but she wasn’t sure how you were going to feel about it. Now, she didn’t give me any specifics, but I think it sounds like she’s going to be reasonable.”
“Or that could just be a ploy. She could be trying to lull us into thinking that she’s just going to go along with it, but then at the last minute she’s going to pull some crazy shit.”
“Really? She sounded pretty nice.”
And that was the thing about Camille—she could totally have you fooled, if she wanted to. How long had it taken me to figure that out?
“Look, it’s not that I’m just trying to be negative about this, but I know Camille, probably better than she knows herself. You know what I think? I think it probably shocked the shit out of her that my girlfriend was calling, and she was probably too stunned to do anything but agree with what you were saying.”
Teagan frowned, considering this. “She did ask if we were together.”
“Right. Camille just assumed that I’d always be there for her, so long as she kept me on the back burner. Not that she actually wants to be with me or anything, but I don’t think she wants anyone else to, either.”
“That way of thinking has never made sense to me,” Teagan said. “Although sometimes I think my ex also feels the same way.”
“It would be nice if people could just let others go, once they’ve decided they don’t want to be together anymore.”
“Sometimes people just don’t want to let things go. For whatever reason.”
But I took it as a good sign that Camille hadn’t freaked out and hung up the phone, or screamed that she was never going to sell the cabin, or done something crazy. Maybe this could work out, after all, with minimal frustration. I had put up with enough from her already.
***
After I dropped Teagan off, I started to drive toward home, but I got a text message from my dad, asking if I would stop and pick up some more Tylenol before I came back. There was a parking spot right out front of a Walgreens I was driving by, so I snatched it and went in, got the Tylenol. The Walgreens was right between a smoothie place and a bar, and I decided to stop in and get something. I’d been to this place a few times, and they made a really good strawberry, banana, and kale shake with almond milk. There were no other customers in the place when I went in, so I took my drink and sat at a table by the window, read one of the free newspapers someone had left behind. I wasn’t really paying attention to what I was reading, though—I was thinking about this past weekend, how good it felt to be up there, at the cabin, out in the woods, with Teagan. That was really what I wanted to occupy my thoughts with—not any bullshit with Camille. I felt as though I was really moving on from all that, putting all of it behind me, and it felt pretty damn good. In fact, I—
“Ben!”
I stopped walking and turned, looking to see who had just shrieked my name.
“Ben!” It was Meredith, and she was practically falling out of the door of the bar next to Walgreens. “I knew that was you! I knew that I was going to run into you tonight! It’s girls’ night, but that’s what I’ve been saying the whole time. Isn’t that right?” She turned to the two girls who were with her, one of whom I thought I sort of recognized from the gathering I’d gone to meet Teagan at that one time.
“That’s totally right,” the girl said, and they both nodded. “It was meant to be!”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but I’m actually heading somewhere,” I said. “It looks like you ladies are having a nice night, though, so please continue with that. Don’t mind me at all.”
“Oh, you can’t run off just yet,” Meredith said. She lurched forward, and I reflexively stuck my arm out, catching her before she could face-plant on the sidewalk. Instead of letting go of me, though, she clung tighter. “Ben,” she said, slurring her words slightly. She was a little tipsy, but not as bad as she was letting on, it seemed. Her grip tightened on my arm. “Ben. I feel like things didn’t get off to the right start between us. Really. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I know that it wouldn’t be cool to come back to your office and everything—
which is why I was hoping that I’d run into you sometime, just organically. And it’s happened! So I take that as a sign. That this is the right thing to do.”
I stared at her, no idea what she was talking about. Maybe she was as drunk as she was trying to come across as.
“What? What is the right thing to do?”
“This.” She took my face in her hands and pulled me toward her. She was surprisingly strong, and her lips were mashing against mine before I could even register what was happening. I tried to pull my head back, tried to open my mouth to tell her to back off, but the second she felt that my mouth had opened, she pushed her tongue in, grinding herself against me.
I had to reach up and take her wrists in my hands and forcibly remove her.
“What the fuck?” I said, vaguely aware of her two friends standing there, watching as though they had expected something like this was going to happen. “What are you doing? Don’t you have a boyfriend?”
“Does that matter?”
“Um, hell, yes—it does!”
“You don’t know the details about our relationship. I can fill you in, if that will assuage your guilt. We have an open relationship. He will always be my—”
“I don’t actually need to know anything about your relationship. You’re free to do whatever the hell you want, but leave me out of it.” I wiped the back of my hand across my face.
“Oh, come on!” Meredith said. “You’re being so dramatic. What’s the big deal? I know you hooked up with Teagan.”
This gave me pause. How the hell did she know that? She came toward me, like she was going to try to get another kiss.
“I know how incredible it was, and I think that’s awesome. That you can be so flexible with your clients. Which is maybe why I’m so interested in becoming a client of yours myself.”
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