He sighed. "I'm not supposed to say this, but I think you look fine the way you are."
I raised my eyebrows. "You know exactly what I weigh."
His face had gone steadily redder with each glass of wine, but now the flush deepened still more. "Doesn't matter. You're my type."
His words seemed to surprise him. They certainly surprised me. "Joel, look. I—"
He shook his head. "Don't. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."
Not knowing what to say, and wondering whether he'd meant it, I changed the subject. "Are you sure I can handle a dessert?"
"Of course you can. What's one night going to hurt?"
I had chocolate cake. The icing was great but the cake itself was dry and almost tasteless. I ate all the icing, and then ended up eating the cake as well since I didn't know when I'd get a treat next. Might as well enjoy it.
When the bill came, Joel brushed me off and picked it up but his face paled at the total.
Fighting back a grin, I said, "Want to split it?"
He shook his head. "I asked you out, so I should pay."
Often how it worked, yes. But I probably made twice what he did. "I really don't mind."
He stared at the bill for another second, then said, "If you're sure, I would appreciate it."
I took the bill from his hand. "No problem." He gave me his half in cash, and I paid with my credit card.
Once we were out on the sidewalk, he said, "Would you mind giving me a ride home? I'm east of here, about fifteen minutes. Taking transit makes it twice as long."
It was on my way. "Sure."
We were quiet in the car, and something was growing between us. The air seemed thicker, significant somehow. I couldn't decide if I liked it or not. When we got to his house, he said, "Remember I mentioned that computer problem I was having? Do you think you could come in and take a peek at it?"
Doing free tech support is the bane of every computer nerd's existence. "I can, but I have to be home pretty soon. Need to feed the cat." I didn't tell him about Ruby needing her shot. He'd already said he wasn't a big fan of pets, so I didn't want to explain her diabetes to him.
His computer problem was minor and I had it fixed in a few minutes. "Well, I should get going," I said, heading for the front door.
He stepped in front of me and put both hands on my shoulders. "Stay."
His tone told me what he meant but I couldn't believe it. We did know each other fairly well, after months of weekly sessions, but he'd never given even a hint that he liked me. As I stood surprised, he pulled me closer. "I was serious before. You're totally my type."
His hands swirled over my back, rubbing and squeezing, and he lowered his mouth to my neck and ran his tongue in a long deliberate stroke over my skin.
Fire ripped through me, obliterating every thought, every memory, everything but my sudden desperate need. A whimper escaped me and my head fell back to allow him better access.
"You like that?" He nipped my neck, and I gasped at the pleasure that the hint of pain brought. With his mouth locked to my throat, he ran his hands over my stomach before I could suck it in and up to my breasts, again squeezing and rubbing me.
His touch felt dirty and wrong and terribly arousing. I'd never felt hunger like this, growing every second until it seemed unbearable then growing even more, and pulling away, making him stop, never crossed my mind. My mind had stopped working anyhow. I threw my arms around his neck and fell into him.
He rained kisses and bites down my throat and onto my collarbone then drew me to his untidy bedroom. After stripping us both quickly and efficiently he worshipped my body, kissing and sucking and nibbling, keeping his hands and mouth full of me.
He knew what he was doing and I responded immediately, coming again and again then immediately begging him for more, not even close to satisfied. His words fed my frenzy as he raved about how good I felt and how perfect my body was and what he would do to me next.
At first, it was amazing. Not only was I finally, finally, having sex again, but he didn't seem remotely bothered by my size. In fact, he seemed to like it. He obviously loved touching me, and he was surprisingly unselfish, since whenever I tried to do anything to him he pushed my hands away and carried on driving me wild.
But I slowly recognized that all his compliments were about as personal as a catcall from a stranger. I might as well not have had a head or a mouth, because he didn't kiss me once, didn't ever look at my face. Even when he left the bed and returned wearing a condom, he didn't look at me. He was so focused on my body that he seemed to have forgotten my mind and soul were present too. A blow-up doll would have filled my role just as well.
My mind wanted to stop him but my body was still pleading for more, and it won. So he wasn't that attentive. He was a nice enough guy, and it wasn't like he hated me, and most importantly he was giving my body what it craved and I couldn't resist.
He drove me to yet another climax then rolled me onto my stomach and drew me up onto my hands and knees. His hands digging into my hips, he growled, muttered, "Damn, you're hot," and pressed himself forward.
As he slid into me, in a position where he couldn't see my face even if he wanted to, in a position where not even Bill had ever called me hot, I remembered the picture of his college girlfriend and realized what was happening. He didn't want me. My diet counselor liked fat girls and he'd picked the perfect career to find and screw them. Any fat port in a storm.
Physically he still stirred me, and without my realization I probably would have come yet again; with it, the passion drained from my body in an instant. I dropped my head, burying my face in the sheets, and prayed for him to hurry up. I couldn't stop him. What could I possibly say?
I could have gotten away, I certainly had the weight advantage, but to admit what I'd recognized would have been agonizing. Why had I let him? If only I'd waited for—
I hauled my mind back with great force. I would not taint Andrew by dragging him into this awful mess.
Joel, fortunately, was so turned on by my bulk he didn't last long. When he was done, he pulled himself away from me as if I'd suddenly become radioactive and sat on the edge of the bed with his back to me. "My roommate'll be home soon, so I guess..."
"I should go," I finished, and he nodded without looking toward me, then got up and went into the bathroom and closed the door.
Trying not to think or feel, I dressed as fast as I could and started for the front door.
"Rhiannon."
I turned back. He stood in the bathroom doorway with a towel around his waist.
"I'm sorry," he said, staring down at the carpet. "I just... since college, I—"
No way. I could not stand there and let him explain, then somehow find the words to pretend it was okay. I fled.
*****
My drive home was twenty minutes of pure hell.
I couldn't work with Joel any more. Bad enough if it had actually been somewhat romantic, but he'd basically been jerking off with me in the room. And we both knew it. But how would I tell the center I wanted to change counselors? Worse, what if they knew what he was like? How embarrassing to admit I'd fallen for it.
And how passionately I'd fallen too. He knew about Bill; he'd asked me early on if I had a boyfriend and I'd told him the basic story. Now he'd know I hadn't had sex since then. Nobody had wanted me since then.
Joel hadn't wanted me either.
A little part of my brain at the base of my skull felt tender and numb, like a hard punch on the arm right before it starts to hurt. That part of my mind was thinking something, and I both knew and refused to know what was happening in there. It could deal with it, with all the deeper meanings of the night. I didn't want to.
I cried at every red light but managed to stop the tears before driving off again so I wouldn't kill myself on the road, although I wasn't sure I cared. All I wanted was to take a shower and scrub off all traces of Joel and then sleep for as long as I could so I wouldn't have to think any more. Although I'd no
doubt be woken up by my damned nightmare.
When I pulled into my parking lot, relief swept me at finally being home then disappeared in a wave of panic as my headlights illuminated Andrew standing by the building's front door. I tried to pull myself together before walking to meet him, but he knew at once.
"What's wrong?"
"What are you doing here?"
My words came out colder than I'd meant them, and he flushed. "I got you a present. I was going to call first, but I was driving by so I thought I'd come over and see if you were home. You weren't, so I was about to leave but then I saw you driving up."
Curse my dreadful timing. "Why'd you get me a present?"
"It's your birthday, isn't it?"
Worst one ever, yes. "How'd you know?"
"I heard people talking about it at the water cooler this afternoon."
"About the naked fat girl's birthday?"
Andrew frowned. "Of course not. About how brutal it was of Kate to do that on your birthday of all days."
Tears choked me again and I just nodded.
His frown deepened. "Do you want me to go away?"
I didn't know what I wanted. Actually, I did. I wanted the last hour of my life to do over. But I doubted that was an option. Andrew had driven here, with a present for me. I couldn't send him away. I'd let him in for a few minutes, then tell him I was too tired for him to stay. It wasn't really a lie. "No. You can come in."
He followed me into the building without speaking, and without returning to his car to fetch any presents. In the elevator, he turned me to face him and his eyes widened, shocked. "I couldn't see you properly outside. What the hell happened to you?"
"I've been crying. My day sucked, in case you didn't know."
The shock became confusion, and then a cold set expression I'd never seen on his face, like he'd retreated inside himself. "Not that."
"Then what?"
He didn't speak again until we were in my apartment, but I could feel something strong, a powerful emotion, coming off him and I didn't know why.
At least, I didn't know until he said, "Look in the mirror."
I stepped into the bathroom and stood staring at the unmistakable hickeys and bite marks on my neck and upper chest, at my rumpled clothes and disheveled ponytail, at my lipstick smeared and worn away by Joel's sheets. So painfully obvious what I'd been doing. "Oh, God." I threw my hands over my face.
"Hey, no worries." His voice was forced. "You can do what you want. I do think you should have said you have a boyfriend, though."
I dropped my hands. "I don't."
He frowned, then horror and rage flashed in his eyes. "Did someone attack you?"
Define 'attack'. I shook my head. "I was stupid. I..." I gave up trying to speak and let the tears take over again.
He stood still, and I felt even dirtier. Then he put a hand on my shoulder. His touch was tentative, but I threw myself on him, clutching him with all my strength. I needed to be held.
He did close his arms around me, but I felt his whole body stiffen after a second and he pushed me away. "I recognize that cologne, don't I? It was him. That diet idiot."
My stomach twisted at the revulsion in his eyes. I sniffed, and sure enough, I reeked of Joel. I stared at him, unable to speak.
"Why? Why would you sleep with a guy like that?"
If only I knew.
"He's not good enough to even talk to you, never mind that. How could you let him touch you, kiss you, let him—"
"He didn't," I blurted out.
Andrew cut himself off mid-rant. "Didn't what?"
How could I tell him? There were no words.
He stared at me. "I don't understand."
"You should go. I'm no good."
"Stop saying that!"
His sudden rage shocked me silent.
"Damn it, you are too good. I don't know what else to say to you. And I so don't understand. Did you sleep with him?
I gave one short nod, more of a twitch.
His eyelids flickered as if I'd slapped him. "So he must have touched you."
Another twitch.
He frowned, looking confused and hurt, then his face cleared and his eyes clouded simultaneously. "But he didn't kiss you?"
I burst into tears again, hanging my head so he couldn't see my face.
"You let him have sex with you and he didn't even kiss you." It wasn't a question. It was a statement, and the disgust and anger behind it made me cry harder.
I tried to turn away, but he took hold of my shoulders then pulled me into his arms. I clung to him, hardly able to breathe, sure he'd never touch me again after this and desperate to stay in his embrace as long as I could.
"That asshole," he said, quietly but with barely-controlled fury. "If I ever see him again—" He bit off the words and held me in silence for a few of my racking sobs before he said, "Why did you let him?"
The sadness in his voice tore at my heart, and I gasped out, "It's been so long. Couldn't have dated even if I was ready. Too fat, too ugly. I thought he wanted me, but he only wants fat girls. Doesn't like me at all, just my fat ugly body. God. I'm so stupid."
Sobs took me over again, and Andrew squeezed me tight and let me cry. Kate's sabotage, my failure to catch it, the horror of Joel's attempted explanation, the fear I'd lost Andrew... I released them all in a storm of weeping longer and harder and more painful than anything I'd experienced before. I hadn't even cried like this after Bill's death.
Bill. That little bruised place in my brain let out a moan and I cried for Bill too, for what I'd had and what I'd lost and what he'd have thought of my actions tonight. I couldn't imagine.
When at last I calmed, Andrew eased me back away from him, and my tears rose again at the sweetness and compassion in his expression.
He shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. "You have no idea, do you?" He gently brushed the tears from my cheeks and smoothed my hair back. While Joel's touch had left me both turned on and uncomfortable, Andrew's sent pure sweet shivers through me. "Okay, you're not a size two. But look at you."
"I have," I said. "Average at best."
"Nope. You haven't looked, really looked." One hand cupped my face, warm against my skin. "Nothing average about you."
I swallowed hard. I couldn't tell him about the hours I'd spent over the years staring at my body, cataloguing every little and not-so-little flaw. I knew exactly how I looked. "Average at best," I repeated in a whisper. I wouldn't scare people on the street but that was about it.
He shook his head. "Not even close. I wish you could know how I see you."
From the glow in his eyes, so did I. "Tell me," I breathed, hardly able to speak over the happiness and hope rising in me.
A smile twitched his lips. "We've only got two days before work on Monday. Not enough time." The smile faded as he lowered his head until our mouths were nearly touching. "Can I show you? Rhiannon, may I kiss you?" His hesitant tone told me this meant as much to him as it did to me, and that he was asking permission made it clear he understood everything.
I wanted this, and for the first time I was certain right to the depths of my heart that I was ready for it. All of it. I raised my face and whispered, "Yes," and he bent to meet me.
His kiss, my first kiss since Bill, was sweet and gentle and reverent, and I was suddenly so glad Joel hadn't kissed me. This was how it should be. I slid my arms around his waist and let him tell me without a word that I was more than I'd ever dreamed. Melting against him, savoring the beauty of his mouth moving tenderly over mine, I couldn't have asked for more.
Then he gave me more. After an eternity of those soft silent kisses, he began to talk, to murmur "brilliant" and "stronger than anyone I've ever met" and "so good to Ruby" and other little snippets of what he saw in me. He made us both giggle when he called me "queen of the computer nerds", although we kept kissing even through the laughter, then made my tears fall again with his "more beautiful than I could ever tell you".
&n
bsp; I took it all in, kissing him back and trying to accept it and believe it, and as he continued to speak I realized that nearly everything was about me, not my body. Andrew knew me, the real me, and he liked me.
I knew he liked my body too: he held me close enough that I could feel his erection. He wasn't pushing it against me but he wasn't trying to hide it either, and I liked that he wasn't embarrassed. But despite his obvious arousal, I knew with every fiber of my equally-aroused body that this moment was about emotion and feeling, not sex. And I loved it.
Time ceased to matter but it was still far too soon when he whispered, "Do you see?" against my mouth and drew back.
Tears filled my eyes again, but they were soothing not painful. "Thank you."
"Thank you. You're glorious."
And I saw it. Through his eyes, I saw it. I was. Could I hold on to it? I didn't know. But for that moment, I felt it, felt how amazing and unique and wonderful I really was.
I pulled him close again. "I'll never be able to thank you enough for that. But part of my heart still feels terrible."
"Me too," he said softly. "I'm so sorry you got treated like that. And on your birthday no less."
"No, I feel bad about what I did. Because of you."
His arms tightened around me. "You don't need to. We're not... you know. Together."
I pressed my face to his shoulder to draw up enough courage to tell him the truth. No question in my mind now. I was ready. "I want us to be."
He held me in silence for a moment, and I was about to squirm away in horror at having somehow misjudged the situation when he said, "Really?"
The happiness in his voice brought tears to my eyes yet again, and I looked up at him, at his glowing eyes and huge smile, and nodded since I couldn't speak.
He brushed his fingers along my cheek. "It's not my birthday, so why am I getting such a great gift?"
I gave a grunt of laughter. "Used goods."
His eyes flashed. "Don't you dare talk about yourself like that. God, Rhiannon, I..." He pulled me hard against him and squeezed me so tight I could barely breathe.
I squeezed him just as tight, then we loosened our grips and held each other close and comfortable in a peaceful silence. I felt the awful shame and self-hatred disintegrating, fading away into nothing; there was no room for them in his embrace. The words he'd said, the things his kisses had said... I'd never forget them, and I'd never be the same.
Toronto Collection Volume 1 (Toronto Series #1-5) Page 69
