by Amy Brent
“Come on, Cerise—we were both drunk,” he said, plaintively now. “I swear, I ain’t like that normally.”
“No,” she said bitterly. “You just like that when I’m pourin’.”
“At least lemme take you out for dinner, then,” he said. “You know, to say ‘sorry’ and stuff.”
Well, your fridge is empty, she thought. “Fine,” she said, after a while. “Where we goin’?”
***
The Oyster Shack in Center City wasn’t her ideal for a dinner, even though it was posh in all of the right ways. She never liked to be reminded that her upbringing was decidedly quite a few income levels beneath the ones that could afford fresh oysters. Hell, it was a miracle that they could afford a chicken for Sunday night dinners; as it was just her mother and her, they’d eat it all week if they could.
She’d once bought three oysters on a trip down the shore, in Atlantic City—it’d been a drunken dare between her and her college friends at the time, and three oysters had been all she could afford. They did their vodka shot and then slid the mucoid creatures down their throats. Rhonda had gagged as it went down, but she got it down in the end and didn’t throw it back up, unlike Aisha, who’d run underneath the pier five seconds later. But Cerise had managed it—easy-peasy, as if she’d been slurping those suckers down her whole life. “It tastes like cum.” Cerise didn’t remember who’d said that but for some reason the words had stuck in her mind, and made her confused about giving blow jobs.
All of which she confessed to Ben now, sitting across from the table at him, in the pause between the arrival of the wine and the appetizers. So this was why he’d been willing to wait the twenty minutes—that was how long it’d taken her to piece together her outfit: a cotton summer dress with a halter top and a silk scarf, ballet flats. Pretty, but not ostentatious—something that a “good girl” would wear on a date with her boyfriend, and as they’d made their way from the subway station to the restaurant she was aware of how many admiring looks they’d received. We do make a nice couple, she thought, as the waiter drizzled a light vinagrette on the half-dozen slime puddles on a bed of ice in front of them. “Enjoy,” said the young man pleasantly enough, backing away with a little half bow.
“Come on, admit it, you never thought I’d mean dinner,” Ben said now, a big smile cracking across your face. “Bet you didn’t think I’d be doing so well, didja?”
“Is it that obvious?” she asked, making sure that the teasing note was in her voice.
He shrugged and picked one up, tilted his head back, and tilted the creature down his throat. “Mm,” he said. “You oughta try one.”
As she picked it up she suddenly realized that this was some kind of test: swallow the oyster and pass, gag on it and fail. But the consequences of passing or failing were lost on her. They’d gotten along all right last week, but she wasn’t sure she wanted a boyfriend just down. She was okay with her life right now—she’d be better if she could figure out what to do about Jaxon and Miles—being single and hanging out with her friends and doing projects and things just because they were fun, well, who wouldn’t like it. But a boyfriend—she was flattered, but even as she tried to think of a way to politely-but-firmly tell him she wasn’t interested, she could feel his eyes on her, expectant.
She tilted the little thing into her mouth, feeling the cold quiver as it slid down her throat, surprised at how bright and light the vinagrette made it. “That’s—that’s actually really good!” she said, surprised.
“Better than cum?” he asked, and he reached across the table and took her hand.
“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I’ve heard it tastes different for each guy, and whether they dip their cocks in salad dressing beforehand.”
“Whoa—that’s kinky!”
“I’m not actually into that,” she said quickly, lest the night end with him getting his cock stuck in a bottle of ranch.
“All right, I’ll bite—what are you into?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, slowly. “I know what I’m not into,” she added, “if that helps.”
He took another oyster. “So then, what aren’t you into?”
“Do we really have to discss this now?” she asked.
“Not if you don’t want to,” he said.
“What are you doing now?” she asked, with no small amount of relief. How the conversation took that hard of a turn left was beyond her. Starting over, with the default first-date-small-talk, as probably the best that was going to happen.
“I’m a biology professor at Penn,” he said, mildly.
“You’re what?” she gasped. “That’s incredible!”
“Oh, don’t get your hopes up just yet. The wait-list for getting tenure is at least another decade.”
“But you always said you wanted to teach,” she said. “I’m glad that one of us is getting to live out their dreams, at least.”
“You’re not?” he asked, tenderly. “I mean, I gathered from the barkeeping gig that things took a little detour.”
She smiled sadly. “That was a venture my stepbrothers persuaded me to get into with them,” she said. “Promised me an easy gig, a one-third share of the profits if I went in with them for the costs. Gave them my savings that I was going to use to start a life in France. I was going to be an artist,” she said, sighing.
“I’d love to see your portfolio,” he said. “What do you draw?”
Her heart jumped into her throat at those words: she drew anime, which most people didn’t get and the ones that did invariably asked her about hentai, which was tacky and full of silly and random tropes, in her opinion. “I do anime,” she said, after a moment, watching his face, bracing herself to get up and leave at the slightest hint of ridicule. She was not going sit here and take it.
“That’s cool,” he said. “Teenage-diary drama, or kaiju and space monsters?”
Their main courses arrived at that moment, saving her from having to be astounded that he wasn’t laughing at her choice of medium. The waiter lifted the cloches, revealing a ceviched scallop for her, the translucent slices arranged into a delicate fan, decorated with sprinkles of some sweet-smelling green herb and brushed with a clear, lemony sauce. For him, he’d ordered a lobster tail, artfully butterflied and draped with silvery-white threads, and somehow the effect was that it was peeking out from under a layer of snow. When she tasted it she found herself wanting more of the sauce, a fact that annoyed her until she realized that was the effect the chef wanted.
“It’s delicious,” she said, to his unspoken question.
“Is my apology accepted?”
“Very well,” she said, feigning petulance. “But if my brothers put you up to this you can tell them to go—”
“They didn’t,” he said. “It just felt wrong, to leave you like that—I really did want to say sorry to you.”
“But?”
“But, well, I can’t say that I’d be devastated if you’d agree to a second date with me.”
“That’s a little forward,” she said, “considering that you haven’t brought this one to a proper conclusion yet.”
He squinted at her, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, but he only raised his glass. She raised hers, too, not really sure what they were toasting, and even though her gut was saying, “I don’t think this is such a hot idea” she could feel herself throwing caution out the door—it was just one night, why not have a good time?
By the time they got back to her place it was late, almost eleven. “Where does the time go?” he murmured, as they rode the elevator up to her apartment.
She wished she knew. The evening had been wonderful—they’d talked about old friends that they both knew, former lovers that they’d lost, and his time in the army. “Two tours of duty,” he’d said, laughing in a way that made it clear he was hiding something, “in the shittiest places on earth, with people shooting at us left and right and IEDs popping up every other day, and I’m still too chicken to walk into Kensin
gton alone.”
“Kensington isn’t that bad,” she’d said. “They aren’t smart enough to make bombs.”
He’d raised his eyebrows when she’d said that and smiled.
Now, as they were walking down the hall to her apartment, she wondered if this was what people meant when they said, “Love at first sight”, because she had spent the entire evening with him, talking with him and not to him. She knew more about him after four hours than she knew about men she’d dated for four months, and she was already felt as if her life wouldn’t be complete without him. There was a quiet desperation in the way their hands clasped each other, as if they couldn’t bear to let go
“Thanks,” she said, as she opened the door to her apartment. It was that awkward moment of a date, when she should be offering coffee except that a) she didn’t have any coffee and b) it was obvious that what they both wanted wasn’t coffee. At some point after dessert but before the dinner mint, their pretenses dropped away and it was all they could do to make it back to his car in the parking garage, his hands wandering up her thigh and playing peek-a-boo with her pussy behind her panties. It’d been fun, but now as she closed the door behind him things took a more serious turn. This wasn’t just about a good time anymore, and as she gazed into his eyes she could feel his soul surrender to hers. There was nothing that he wouldn’t do for her at that moment; and strangely enough, she felt the same way.
The kiss happened. She didn’t know who started it, but his lips were searching against hers, and as she tasted him and the lingering traces of the dinner mint on his teeth and tongue she became aware of something happening inside of her—it felt as if her heart had cracked, and there was some kind of warm, liquid light streaming out from it, reaching every last fiber of her being and illuminating her with a love that surprised her with its ferocity and urgency. Suddenly she was clinging to him with a desperation that she’d never known, a dizzying, almost frightening sense of need that had taken her over without her being aware that she was even capable of such need.
She was not a desperate person: she’d spent her entire life playing things safe, and even when she was in a tight spot she didn’t lose her cool, she kept her head and played the game and found her exits and kicked ass whenever she got the chance. But something about the way he touched her now, careful, slowly, savoring her curves even as he undid the halter to her dress one thread at a time, leaving her exposed, as if to say to the universe, “See, this is beauty,” kindled a flame inside her. She felt herself surrendering to his touch, letting him take everything—his fingers found their way to her clit and they began to pulse against it, each press weakening her knees until he lowered her onto her sofa.
He kissed her again, pressing warm gifts against her skin all the way down her throat. His lips were soft and smooth on her breasts, and when he took her nipple in his mouth he didn’t pinch her between his teeth. Instead, he mouthed her gently, insistently, sucking on it, pulling all of her awareness into her breasts—and then he ghosted his tongue over the tip, sending a shivering bolt of electric passion running through her spine, arching her back and slicking the folds between her legs with the hot scents of animal passion.
He opened her to the world and drank her in, his tongue flicking the soft skin of her pussy and worming its way inside her, rendering her helpless with waves of ecstasy that, for some reason, couldn’t make it past her solar plexus—she needed to close her legs, she needed to come, and he wouldn’t let her, forcing her knees apart the way he did. She groaned and cried out in her need, her body’s desires too strong to be contained. If he didn’t—
His cock was inside her all of a sudden—her body almost couldn’t contain it. She could feel herself straining around him, and as he went deeper and deeper she felt him touch a spot inside her that she didn’t know existed. Just once, and then twice—and all of a sudden all of that ecstasy had had been building up inside her ripped through her body. Her mind shut down, and all she could see was stars.
She woke up the next morning, in her own bed, to the smell of coffee. She was still naked, but she was at least under the covers this time. Ben called, “Be about ten minutes,” from the kitchen, and she heard the ticking of the gas as he fired up the stove.
Her body felt new—she got into the shower and could feel every last drop of water on her skin, creeping over every nerve with the same delicacy of touch. Her breasts were especially sensitive—she groaned as she washed them, the same electricity arching through them when she touched herself as when he’d mouthed her the night before. She couldn’t stand to have the towel against her naked skin. She wrapped her hair and stood looking at herself in front of the mirror, wondering what could have changed so much between yesterday and this morning. Her body—the twin eyes of her breasts, the swoop and dip of her hips and waist—seemed to stare back at her.
She reached between her legs and spread apart the folds, marveling at the sweet pinkness of the flesh down there, how smoothly intricate it was. So that’s what I look like, she thought, and she remembered the strange woman who’d kissed her there. She wondered what she tasted like.
She heard Ben come back into the bedroom. He’d set a tray down on her bed, a tray carrying an omelet and two mugs of coffee, and he’d also bought strawberries and arranged them on the plate. She stepped out of the bathroom naked except for the towel around her hair, and grinned when she saw his eyes grow wide. “Please don’t dress,” he said, as she reached for her robe. “I want to see how beautiful you are, all morning. I want to show you off to the world—”
“I’m not one for public nudity,” she said, but she climbed into the bed naked again, arching her back slightly so that her breasts were level with his face.
“That’s a shame,” he said, kissing her nipples, running his tongue around them, coaxing them to hardness. “It oughta be a crime to keep something so beautiful out of sight. I could sit here and kiss you all day.
“And I could sit here and—”
She heard the sound of the key in her door. What the—she sat up, too angry to worry about modesty: Miles and Jaxon had copies of the key to her apartment, just as she had a key to their places, as a precaution against getting locked out. But coming in without being asked—that was a step too far.
“Cerise—” Jaxon said, coming into the bedroom just as she was getting up to put on her robe. His eyes took in the breakfast on the bed, Ben sitting in the bed, his arm entwined around her waist, her nakedness—and he realized what he’d walked into.
And then Miles came in behind him, saying, “Cerise—look, we’re—”
It was silent for what seemed like forever, as the four of them stared at each other—mostly at Cerise, and she was too petrified with shame to move. Ben spoke first, “Well,” he said, his voice sounding oddly strangled. “I’d better get going.”
Jaxon and Miles moved away to let him out. She could hear him gathering his things, and then the door slammed shut. Still, the silence hung in the air, but it seemed that, with Ben gone, her modesty recovered itself and she wrapped the robe around her body. “What the hell are you two doing here?” she demanded.
“What the hell are you doing with a man like Ben?” Miles asked. “Don’t you know—”
“He apologized to me, which is more than either of you have done,” she snapped.
“We’ve been trying to reach you—”
“Not hard enough,” she retorted, folding her arms and scowling.
Miles and Jaxon both grimaced. What can I say, she thought. I have standards for the guys in my life. “I told you we should’ve gone to see her,” Jaxon murmured to Miles out of the corner of his mouth.
“She wouldn’t have let us in,” Miles said, but he was staring at Cerise as he said it.
“Sayin’ ‘sorry’ isn’t something that has to be done here,” she said.
Miles didn’t have a comeback for that. Finally he gulped and said, “Look, Cerise, we need you, ‘kay? Guy is all right for the weekdays, but he don�
��t get ‘em the way you do. We’re sorry. Truly, deeply, from-the-bottom-of-my soul sorry, about what happened to you. We’ve been going back through footage of the night—we think Ben drugged you.”
“Get out,” she snarled. Bad enough that they’d let her do a striptease on top of the bar, now they were trying to pin it on the one guy who’d actually had the balls to apologize?
“I told you she wouldn’t believe you,” Jaxon said.
Miles sighed and set down a USB stick on her dresser. “At least think about it,” he said. “It happens at ten before midnight. Please, just please come back to us. We need you for the weekends, at least. I’ll keep a water bottle under the bar for you, and Jaxon will watch your drinks while you’re pouring.”
It sounded like a reasonable plan and they’d clearly thought through ways to keep it from happening again, but there was one thing that Cerise wanted to hear that she still hadn’t heard yet. She waited, keeping her face a blank slate, even though their visible discomfort made her want to smirk and pump her fist in victory. Finally, Jaxon said, “And we’ll watch out for you and not take advantage of you.”
“There,” she said, coldly. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Miles and Jaxon glanced at each other, wondering what else she expected of them. Finally, Miles said, “Look, Cerise—the reason we didn’t want to come over—”
“Yeah?” she said, escorting them out of her bedroom. “You tryin’ to make excuses again?”
Miles gulped and said, “No ma’am. But it’s—”
And then Jaxon grabbed her arm and pressed a kiss to her lips. “I’m sorry,” he grunted. “I’m sorry it took us so long to apologize to you. I’m sorry that it took what happened last week for us to get the balls to do this—”
