By ten-thirty, I (unbelievably) have a basic understanding of what I have to do for the assignment, and I pack up, then leave her to transcribe today’s tape-recorded lessons. Yes, she’s a freak. My eyes are killing me from the excessive reading, and I need something to drink that does not involve hot water or chamomile. I check for change in my pocket and skip down to the basement to buy a bottle of apple juice from the building’s sole vending machine.
And look what we have here. Russ staring at the machine. A balm for my sore eyes.
He spins around, surprised. “I forgot this doesn’t take loonies,” he says, fingering a gold coin, which I assume is Canadian.
“I don’t think so.”
He laughs and says, “You don’t happen to have an extra dollar do you? I’m not sure why I think we’re in Canada.”
“Oh, but I do,” I say, and hand him one. I pat his arm. “See anything good?”
“I had a craving for Pringles, but all this has is pretzels.”
“I have salt-and-vinegar chips in my room.” He doesn’t respond. I backtrack. “You don’t like pretzels?”
He gives me a lopsided smile. “I like chocolate pretzels.”
“Those sound gross.” I’m trying hard not to point out the massive elephant in the room that we’re both ignoring: the fact that he has a girlfriend and we hooked up.
A candy bar pops out of the machine, and he bends down to pick it up. “I shouldn’t be eating this,” he’s saying as I get an eyeful of his perfectly sculpted behind.
“Why?” I ask, very much distracted.
“Bad for the body.”
“Your body looks fine.” Oops. Didn’t mean to say that. I buy a bottle of juice. “Where do you want to sit?” Wasn’t that clever? I’ve implied he wants to sit with me.
“Here?”
We slide down to the floor. I wish there were chairs. No one’s stomach ever looks good when we’re crouching on the floor. He unwraps his bar and breaks it in half. He consumes his portion in one bite. I nibble on the corners and ask, “How are you doing?”
“Busy. You?”
“You know.” You know as in you know I’d rather be naked in my room with you.
He fiddles with the wrinkled wrapper. “I wanted to talk to you about the other night.”
Why is he staring at his hands? I’m getting a bad feeling here. He’s going to tell me it didn’t mean anything. I need to take a different tack. “What night?”
He blushes. How cute is that? “You know,” he says, looking at me sideways. “Spin the bottle?”
“Spin what bottle?” I scoot close to him and tap my shoulder against his. “Like this?” I put the lid on my juice and spin it. It hits my knee and stops. “First it’s a kiss on the cheek.” I kiss him on the cheek, quickly, then spin the drink again. It stops against his thigh. “Second it’s a kiss on the lips.”
Before he realizes what I’m doing, I lean over and kiss him. He doesn’t stop me.
“That’s-” more kissing “-what I wanted-” more kissing “-to talk about.” His lips are juicy. Sweet like chocolate milk. “I have a girlfriend,” he continues. And then kisses me again.
Tongue in my mouth, tracing my teeth. “And?”
“Who I care about.”
“And?” I finger the dark hairs on his arm.
He’s still kissing me.
I move my hand up to his chest and press my nails into the cotton of his shirt.
“I think we should stop,” he says.
“Do you want to stop?”
“No.” And then his hand is on the back of my head, pulling me closer, into him, under him. My back is flat against the stiff, cold, basement floor. Something sticky is in my hair. I’m thinking spilled liquid detergent from the laundry room down the hallway. I want to tell him that we should go to his room, but I’m afraid of breaking the spell.
I hear the sound of someone skipping down the stairs, change jingling in a pocket.
That decides it. “Let’s go upstairs,” I say. He helps me to my feet and I lead him like he’s a puppy. (That rhinestone leash would come in handy right now.) We pass someone from another Block and nod hello. Three flights later, we’re alone in the hallway. When he pulls his key from his pocket, I rub myself against his back. He moans and opens the door. He doesn’t turn on the lights. Instead, he shuts the door behind him and pushes me up against it, then rubs his hands up and down my arms, legs, breasts, stomach, like he’s trying to rub off my clothes.
My body’s on fire. I pull his hair and kiss him.
He pulls my shirt over my head and discards it onto the floor, undoes my bra and then bites my neck. I squeeze my hands between our bodies and unbutton his shirt and drop it next to mine. Now we’re getting somewhere. I squeeze in again for his belt, but he blocks me. Strike one. “Don’t,” he says, but continues sucking my neck. What is don’t? What guy says don’t?
His mouth descends to my nipples. Well, that’s better. At least now we’re progressing. Last time we hooked up, there was zero nipple action. I take his move as a sign to try for his belt a second time, but again he stops me. Strike two. I’ve never been on this end of the tug-of-war. In high school it was always me doing the hand block. The guy would stick his hand under my shirt, I’d use a Karate Kid move to stop him. He’d try again two minutes later, and again I’d do the block.
Interesting stat: since coming to B-school, I’ve tried and failed to have sex with two different men, on two different occasions. Is this normal?
My next move is the back-door move-I gently squeeze his ass through his jeans. Is he going to stop me? Nope. Not stopping me. He squeezes mine. Wahoo! We’ve successfully moved to our body’s lower quadrants. I push him to his bed.
He presses Play on his CD player. The song “Hero” from Spider-Man comes on.
I go for his belt again.
He doesn’t stop me. In high school, I used to give in at round three, too.
Three strikes and Sharon’s out.
russ caves in
11:45 p.m.
What am I doing, what am I doing? Don’t think, don’t think. She’s taking me out of my boxers now, stroking me. Must stop. Must say stop. Stop. Stoooooop. Her breasts are floating above me like magical, poisonous clouds.
I don’t know how I let this get this far. Honestly. Last thing I remember, I was minding my own business, craving Pringles. And then she was kissing me, I was telling her to stop (mentally), and the next thing I know I’m flat on my back and she’s undoing my belt.
Oh, man.
Maybe she has secret Iceman qualities and has (zing!) frozen me to the bed.
Ooh. Ah. She’s rubbing her nose on my stomach. Lower. Yes, lower. I don’t think I’ve ever been this hard. This is wrong. So wrong. I must stop. I must say stop. I should not be in this predicament. Can’t.
Now she’s licking me like a Popsicle. Then she wraps her whole mouth around me and sucks. This is even worse. Must stop her. So good. Must say stop. Stop. Yeah, right. Instead I say, “I’m going to come.”
The good news: she doesn’t stop. The better news: she swallows. Sharon never swallows.
At least I didn’t have real sex.
That’s a line I will not cross.
Doesn’t that count for something?
Kimmy rests her head on my stomach and I doze off.
Ring. Phone. Shit. Ring. Kimmy stirs. “You getting that?”
Ring. Gimme a break. ’Course I’m not getting that. It’s Sharon. How can I talk to Sharon when I’ve just come in Kimmy’s mouth?
Ring.
“No.” Thank God for voice mail. Imagine having to listen to Sharon’s voice echoing through the room. That would be so wrong. Not more wrong than what just happened, but definitely wrong.
Kimmy scoots up to my pillow and kisses my collarbone.