I was dizzy with happiness. I grabbed his hands and tugged him forward, and he let himself fall on top of me.
“You have nice arms,” I said.
He chuckled softly. I could feel his breath on my neck, his low laugh. “Thank you,” he said. “But don’t the kids call them guns these days?” He kissed my throat and then my jaw. When I didn’t reply, he raised himself and looked at me. “Well?”
“You’re kind of distracting me,” I said.
He laughed. “Sorry,” he said. “I’ll give you a pass this time.”
“So do you only do this for your top students?” I was joking, but he looked hurt for a moment, his face like a TV signal flickering into static. Then he said, “Just you so far. Kind of a one-off special.”
“Good,” I said. “I was worried I was Frank’s sloppy seconds.”
He laughed. “You’re a little preoccupied with my supposed flirtation with Frank.”
“I don’t like the competition,” I said. “Anyway, you flirt with everyone.”
“Oh yeah?” he said, and started kissing me again. “Like who?”
“You flirt with the whole class.”
He stopped and looked at me. “Really?”
I realized I was distracting him. “Kind of.” I drew him down and he kissed me and then lifted himself up again. I thought of him pulling himself out of the pool.
“I don’t mean to,” he said.
“I know,” I said, though that wasn’t true. I waited until he’d lowered himself again. “Were you jealous I was flirting with Dev?”
He laughed. “No comment.”
“Can I take that as a yes?”
“You can take it that I’d prefer not to comment.”
I sat up and pushed him back against the sofa so I was straddling his lap. “Tell me you were.”
“You’re forceful today,” he said.
“You were, though, weren’t you?”
He sighed like he knew arguing was futile. “You wouldn’t keep asking if you knew you were wrong.”
I wriggled happily. “Then say it.”
“Yes,” he said. “I was.”
I had expected to be delighted by this admission, but instead I felt a stab of embarrassment for him. I decided I just needed to hear more. He leaned toward me, but I held myself back.
“Tell me you want me,” I said.
“Since when are you a dom?” he said.
“What’s a dom?”
“Doesn’t matter. Charlie, I want you, okay? We wouldn’t be in this particular position if I didn’t.” He squeezed my legs playfully and moved to kiss me again.
“That’s not what you’re supposed to say,” I said.
He laughed. “What am I supposed to say?”
“It ruins it if I have to tell you,” I said. I hesitated, and then I leaned in close and brushed my lips down his jaw. I stopped just before I reached his mouth. “Tell me again.”
I was terrified he’d burst into laughter, but instead his breath caught. “I want you,” he whispered. “Charlie…”
I shivered. “Tell me you don’t want anyone else,” I said.
“I don’t,” he said.
I let out a breath. “Tell me I’m pretty.”
He looked at me. His eyes were so blue. “You’re beautiful,” he said.
I swallowed. I wanted to enjoy that he’d said it, finally, chew it over until it was gone, but the words wouldn’t go in; they drifted against a door that wouldn’t open. He looked so nakedly happy that for a second it struck me as pathetic. Was he really as small and predictable as that? Had I actually figured him out? I thought of him in our class, laughing at something, his head buried in his hands.
“What’s that face?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Come here.” I tugged on his shirt and pulled him to me. We kissed. My thoughts began to cloud over almost immediately, and I pulled away again. “Tell me you’ve been in agony,” I said.
He looked up at me. “Agony seems a bit—”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“All right, all right.” He looked off to the side. I could see the part in his hair, the dark roots that looked like a doll’s plastic scalp. I had to stop myself from running my fingers against it just because I could. “You remember how you caught me smoking?”
“That was me?”
He looked back at me. “Mm.”
“Was I the existential crisis?”
He nodded.
“The beard? The hollow eyes?”
“Some of that was just teaching,” he said. “But generally, yes.”
I sat back and put my hands on his chest. “Why did you tell me you had feelings for me and then not do anything about it?”
He fiddled with my shirt collar. “You know why,” he said.
“It was cruel,” I said. “To do that and then leave me hanging.” I said it in a teasing voice, but I meant it.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Can I make it up to you?”
That struck me as an impressively adult thing to say. I smiled.
“Yes,” I said.
He kissed me again. It felt like the sun coming out. We kissed more and more, until I couldn’t think, until it wasn’t enough. Desire ripped through me like I was a seam splitting open. He pushed against me as if he was dying of thirst and I was the only thing that could slake it.
I ran my hands down his shirt, farther and farther, until I reached his waistband. For a moment he hesitated; he took my hands in his and I thought he would push me away. But he tugged his shirt up and I helped him pull it over his head. His hair frayed out in a halo. I’d seen his body from a distance, but up close I could feel the small creases in his belly and trace my fingers down the veins on his arms. He radiated heat like a furnace.
I don’t know how long we kissed, but it was breathless, unthinking; I felt like a freight train unable to brake. His stubble burned my chin but I barely noticed. His hands went lower. He hesitated as he reached my waist, and looked at me. I took his hand and guided it down. I unzipped my fly and slipped his hand under my jeans, and he said, “Are you sure?”
I nodded. Slowly, slowly, he slid his hand down lower. He watched me as he did it. I felt that ache again as he touched me, a warm red point that spread outward like the distant glow of the sun rising. I tried to move closer to his lap, to put my hands on him, but he shook his head and took my wrist and interlocked our fingers again.
The ache grew stronger, until my thoughts went blurry. I laid my other hand on his chest. He felt reassuringly solid. He was breathing hard too, and he looked serious—so serious that I wanted to laugh at him.
I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against his; I thought of him in the pool, cutting a clean arc through the water, and then in the meadow at the hotel, with the sun behind him, smiling at me. I braced myself against him as the glow got warmer and redder, and his fingers were steady and sure, and then it crested through me in a sunburst and I could only think in images: clean, sharp, vivid ones, reds and greens and yellows, expanding and contracting.
After a minute I came back to myself and opened my eyes. He was looking at me.
“Was that good?” he said.
I laughed softly. “That was good. I just need a minute,” I said. I laid my head against his chest and slumped into him. He stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head. I pressed myself closer to him, and then I felt something.
I looked up at him and he said, “Oh, that. Sorry.”
I felt my pulse speeding up again. I’d done that—I’d turned him on. “I can take care of it if you want,” I said, trying to sound sultry.
“No, no, no,” he said. “I’m fine, really. Just relax.”
“Come on,” I said. I slid closer to him and reached my hand down.
He shifted uncomfortably and caught my hand. “Seriously, kid, it’s okay. I’m happy just to have made you happy.”
Suddenly I felt like I was going to cry. “Please,” I said.
&n
bsp; His expression changed as if he’d heard a catch in my voice. He took his hand off mine. “I guess if it’s that important to you…”
I laughed and blinked a few times. “It is,” I said.
I reached down again, wishing I knew what I was doing. My hand fumbled against his clothing; I was sitting so close to him that I couldn’t see anything, and for a second it seemed like there were reams of fabric, all empty seams and bulges, and I flushed, thinking he would have to take my hand and guide me to it. Then I heard his breath hitch.
“Feel good?” I said, reasonably sure I was touching the right place.
“Not bad,” he said, sounding out of breath.
I shivered and kissed him. Then I moved back so I could see what I was doing. I could see it now, looking different under the fabric than I had imagined. I’d thought it would just stand straight out in a huge proud tent, but the fabric was tight, and at a certain angle I would have assumed it was just a bulge where the seams had bunched oddly. I ran my hand up the fly experimentally.
“Jesus,” he said. He was breathing hard again now.
I laughed, delighted that I’d given him pleasure. I fumbled again, trying to find his waistband.
“Are you sure about this?” he said as he watched me.
I looked at him and ran my hand up the fly.
His breath hitched again. “You make a good argument,” he said. Then his own hands went to his waist and he pulled the fabric down, but the elastic on his pants stuck and I laughed and helped him. “Thanks,” he whispered. He kissed my neck. “That always happens.”
I stopped for a second—it looked much bigger under his boxers—and thought of the other people who’d done this to him, the other times he’d said something like that, whispered and laughed and kissed their necks. Rachel, Rachel, Rachel.
“You don’t have to,” he said.
“Oh, no,” I said. “I was just, uh…”
“Anything I supply here will make me sound bad,” he said.
I smiled. “I was just admiring your incredible, um, taste in boxer shorts.”
“Don’t be too impressed, but they come in packs of five.”
Finally, slowly, I pulled his boxers down. I touched it experimentally; it was warm and firm but not rock-hard, as I had imagined it would be. It wasn’t angry-looking or alien. He hadn’t taken it out for me to service. It looked hot—like a physical manifestation of how much he wanted me. But I thought suddenly of him in our classroom, teasing Lila, and fear shuddered over me.
I paused only a second before I kissed him again. I shucked off my jeans before I could tell myself I shouldn’t. His hands were under my bra, gentle at first and then with more assurance the longer we kissed. He knew exactly where to touch me. I moved myself closer and closer until he was against me and a layer of cotton was the only thing separating us. We were so close now that I felt slightly desperate. I started to pull down my underwear.
“Whoa,” he said, his voice hoarse, which only turned me on more. “Are you sure about this?”
“You seem sure,” I said.
He laughed softly. “That’s not really a good barometer. Parts of me are always sure.”
I didn’t know how to take that. I tried to kiss him again, but he turned at the last second. I leaned back and looked at him, my heart sinking.
“I don’t think—” he said.
“You don’t want me.”
“Charlie, of course I want you. It’s taken me this long to stop myself because I want you so much. But it’s—” He rubbed his hands over his face. “What the hell am I doing?”
“Let’s just— We’ve already gone this far,” I said. “Why not just keep going and worry about the rest later?”
I expected him to laugh but he didn’t. I leaned next to his neck and kissed him gently on his jawline, up to his ear. I’d read in Cosmo that earlobes were an erogenous zone. Goose bumps stiffened on his arm. So Cosmo had proved to be good for something.
“Oh God,” he said in a sort of guttural groan, and he turned and kissed me again, hard. His hands went lower and lower and mine did too, and all I could feel was how much I wanted him. I had to say it. It expanded inside me until I felt like it would burst out.
I leaned against his ear again. “Tell me you love me,” I said.
The instant I said it, we both froze. I moved back. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and then he covered his face with his hands and said, “Oh, shit.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Forget I said that. That was stupid.”
He didn’t say anything; he just made that noise between a sigh and a whimper that I’d loved before.
I felt humiliated. “I’m sorry,” I said again, uselessly.
“It’s not you,” he said, but he didn’t look at me. “I just can’t believe I did this.”
“Oh,” I said. I slid off his lap and he didn’t stop me. I leaned against him but he didn’t respond; where his body had been warm and concave it was now stiff and unwelcoming.
“You okay?” I said when he hadn’t spoken for a few minutes.
He sighed and finally took his hands off his eyes. He still didn’t look at me. “Not really.” He pulled his pants up, and then he stood and retrieved his shirt from the floor. He pulled it over his head, and his hair frayed out again as if he’d rubbed a balloon over it.
Finally he looked at me, my shirt rucked up and my jeans tossed onto the floor. He picked them up and handed them to me. “You should get home,” he said quietly.
“Oh,” I said again. Tears clouded my vision so he looked warped and far away.
He was moving around the room, gathering up the books he’d spilled, and he didn’t notice me crying for a few moments. When he did, he said, “Oh, Charlie, I’m sorry,” and sat down next to me on the couch. That made me cry harder.
He hugged me again, but there was no sex behind it this time. It still made my heart speed up. “You don’t deserve this,” he said. “I’ve been so stupid. It isn’t your fault I’ve been so stupid.”
“I was stupid,” I said.
“No,” he said. “You’re not the one who needs to regret this.”
I’d thought I couldn’t feel worse. “You’re going to regret this?”
“No, not because— I worded that badly. How do I say this?” He put his forehead against mine and I sighed. “I don’t regret you. I regret what I’ve done to you. I hurt you. I broke your trust. This was a violation. It would’ve been a violation with anyone, but especially with you.”
I flinched. If it was wrong, then somehow I was wrong too; everything I’d done and thought and wanted was wrong. “But I wanted you to,” I said. “I wanted it all year.”
“But you needed me not to,” he said.
I shook my head. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It does,” he said.
“But I know what I need better than you do.”
He blew out a long breath. “Normally I wouldn’t disagree with you,” he said. “It’s just that this is…” He shook his head.
I leaned forward again and he put his hand on my head, as if by reflex, and gently ran it through my hair, combing it back. “You deserve better than me,” he said. “That night in the classroom—I should have stopped it then, at the start, because I knew it would only get worse. I don’t know, maybe it was too late by then anyway.” He sighed. “Listen to me acting like it was something outside of us—me—that I couldn’t control. I thought…I tried to tell myself it wasn’t getting worse, that I had it under control, but you were so— I couldn’t get you out of my head. You wouldn’t believe the things I made up to excuse it.”
I ducked my head so I wouldn’t have to look him in the eye. “Maybe it was so bad because we’re supposed to be together.”
His hand stopped moving. Finally he said, “I just wanted to…I wanted to protect you.” He looked down at the books that were still strewn across the floor. “It’s funny the stories you’ll tell yourself to pretend things a
re different.” Then his hand dropped. “I’m not a good person,” he said quietly.
I was terrified he would start crying. I had sometimes imagined him vulnerable and weeping, but faced with the reality of it, I didn’t know what to do. “Don’t say that,” I said. “Please don’t say that.”
He was silent for a long time. “Why did you have to be so…”
I moved toward him, but he flinched. “Sorry,” I said.
He shook his head and said, “I shouldn’t be— Ugh, I’m just making it worse. What I’m trying to say is that ultimately it doesn’t matter how I feel about you. I have to be the adult here.”
“I’m an adult too,” I said. “Technically.”
“I’m still your teacher,” he said.
“Doesn’t that kind of make it hotter?” I said.
He smiled sadly but didn’t say anything. A silence stretched out.
“Will I see you tomorrow?” I said finally.
He paused, then nodded. “Probably.”
I looked down. “You’re leaving.”
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “That’s the truth.”
I tried to ignore the pressure rising in my chest. “Okay.”
“I don’t know how to make this better,” he said.
“Run away with me,” I said. I tried to smile so it would seem like a joke.
He smiled a little too. “You’re going to do so well without me,” he said. “In a year this will just be an embarrassing story you’ll tell your boyfriend to make him laugh. How you got off with your loser of a teacher and he made an idiot of himself.”
“No, it won’t,” I said.
He watched me for a moment. Then he said, “Come here, Charlie,” and I embraced him desperately. I couldn’t relax. I was shaking so hard I knew he must feel it.
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