Naked In School

"No? I thought you were attracted to me," she said.

Aha. Now we were getting somewhere. "You forget, Sugarlips, that when we did make love on Tuesday, I was the one that asked."

"No, I didn’t forget," she said. "So you got it once, you don’t want it again? Then why do you keep hanging around?"

"I never said I didn’t want it again," I told her.

"Well? Then why don’t we go back in the woods?" she said plaintively.

"Haven’t you had enough today?" I chuckled.

"There’s no such thing as enough," she smirked.

"Maggie’s philosophy of life?" She nodded, grinning. "Ah. Well, anyhow, let’s go."

"To the woods?"

"To the mall."

She sighed, and stared at me. "You’re turning me down again."

"If I was turning you down, I wouldn’t be asking you to go to the mall with me." She just starred at me. I took her hand, and led her to my car. I opened the door, and she climbed in. Then I went and got in the driver’s side.

"Braden, you’re insane, you know that?" she finally said. I just laughed. We drove to the mall, not saying much. When we got there, I took her hand again. And, I was right-goose bumps.

"I need to hit the CD store first," I told her.

"Cool. I could pick up a few things myself," she said.

We wandered through the CD store. I found what I was looking for, and she chose a couple for herself. Then I told her I had to go to the pharmacy, for toiletries and stuff like that. There was a clothes store right next door to the pharmacy. She wanted to go there, and we made arrangements to meet afterwards.

I got what I needed in the pharmacy-and then I saw it. It was a little teddy bear. It was holding a red heart, and on the heart was printed "THUMP! THUMP!" It was adorable. I bought it.

When we met outside the stores in the mall, I said to her, "Hey. Did you buy some stuff?"

"Sure did," she grinned. She showed me a shorts set, a dress, and a skirt-and-top set. "What did you get?"

"Oh, much more boring stuff." I went through my bag. "See? Deodorant, shaving cream, shampoo, candy bars." I took out the teddy bear. "This is for you." I handed it to her, very nonchalantly, and kept going through the bag. "Razor blades, soap, aspirin. You know, boring stuff." Not until then did I look at her. She was gazing at the teddy bear wide-eyed. "I’m starving," I went on, "you want to hit the Burger Hut?"

She didn’t look at me for a good minute. When she did, she practically whispered, "You bought this for me?"

"Yeah. You like it?"

"Yeah," she said. The next thing I knew, I was being wrapped in a hug. "Thank you," she whispered in my ear. She broke the hug, visibly regained her composure, and grinned. "Burger Hut, you say?"

"Yeah."

"Lead the way," she said. This time, she took my hand, clutching her bags-and the teddy bear-in the other one.

CHAPTER NINETEEN MAGGIE

A teddy bear. A fucking teddy bear.

I can’t remember the last time somebody bought me a teddy bear. It was probably my Dad. Or maybe Vinny. And I was probably about eleven. Jesus.

I pretty much begged him to have sex with me-and he wants to go to the mall instead. And then he buys me a teddy bear!

It was kind of pathetic, in a way. I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t. But I wondered-was I susceptible, to this degree, to any guy that treated me like an entire person instead of just a pussy with legs? Did I need to be treated that way this much? Or was it him? I couldn’t figure it out. And I needed to figure it out. Because he was making me so damn drawn to him that I didn’t know what the hell to do about it.

So, as we drove from the mall to the Burger Hut, I thought. I thought about him. Was I attracted to him? Hell, it was a lot more than that. Why? That was the tough one. Was it just because of the way he treated me? Was it because he was a ‘man of mystery’? Nah, it wasn’t the last-he was actually rather transparent, come to think of it. He was blatantly trying to make me fall for him. What was scary was that he was succeeding.

Again, why? Well, he was sweet. He was intelligent, witty. Of course, he was gorgeous. He was interesting. He was-hell, I don’t know! Who can explain this shit? Not me. Maybe I’d have to ask Jared and Amanda why they fell for each other. Actually, I’ve done that-and the only answer they could come up with was ‘we just did’.

That did not help me a whole hell of a lot.

Anyhow, we got to the Burger Hut, and got our food. Sat down, and I asked him, "You know what? I don’t know much about you. What do you do with your spare time? Hobbies?"

"I read a lot. That’s a biggie. There’s another one, but that’s more of a future career, I hope, than a hobby."

"Yeah? So what is it?"

"Easier to show you than tell you," he said. "After we eat."

"Oooooooh-kay," I said.

"Do you have any hobbies?"

"You mean besides sex?" I laughed.

"Yeah," he grinned.

"Well," I said sheepishly, "there’s one. I don’t admit this to too many people, doesn’t go with my image. Needlepoint."

"Really?" he grinned.

"Yeah."

"That’s cool, you know. Maggie’s got an artistic side."

I just grinned at him and kept on eating. We finished, then he walked me to his car. We started driving.

"Where we going?"

"My house. I want to show you my hobby slash career goal."

"OK." We drove for a bit then pulled up to his house. We walked in and the place seemed deserted. "What, do you live alone?"

He laughed. "No, Mom and Dad are in the Bahamas. Come on." He led me up a flight of stairs, into a door, and flicked on a light. It was obviously his room. It was huge.

Scattered all around were all kinds of stuff. Models, built out of papier-mache and cardboard and clay. Drawing-blueprints, really. In the center seemed to be a model and a bunch of blueprints for a house-an absolutely stunning house. All of it was quite incredible.

"You want to be an architect," I twigged on immediately.

"Yeah," he grinned.

"What’s that?" I asked him, pointing to the house thing.

"That’s my dream house. I’ve been designing that one for a long time. Someday I hope to build it."

"It’s fantastic," she said.

"Thanks. Buildings have soul, you know-the good ones. The ones that are designed with care and love. They have soul."

"I can see it in your stuff," I told him. "That house. That’s your soul."

"Pretty much," he grinned.

"It’s beautiful," I whispered. Now I saw. Now I saw what I was dealing with, finally. I’d had an inkling, but didn’t have the whole picture. Now I got it. It’s hard to explain so it makes sense. But I’d felt like I’d seen his soul. All of it. Instead of the bits and pieces I had been seeing. And it all made sense. And it was beautiful.

And he knew I got it. He saw it in my eyes. The next thing I knew, I was being hustled out of his bedroom-and into a bathroom. And he started taking my clothes off.

"What?" I said.

"Shower," was all he said. He turned it on, and dragged me in, and washed me-and if anyone can be breathtakingly tender and in an absolute fury at the same time, he was. It felt like ten thousand fingers skittering over my skin, washing me. Especially between the legs. He let me wash him, got out, dried us both off-then picked me up and carried me back into his bedroom! He placed me on his bed-and then was hovering over me.

"I needed to wash those other guys off," he said-I’d figured that out, actually, "because I want my Sugarlips untainted." I had to giggle at that. "Now, I’m going to burn every other guy you’ve ever had right out of your mind."

Before I could even think to come up with a snappy response to that, he was kissing me. And kissing me. And kissing me some more. Then he was kissing my neck, and nibbling on my earlobe, then down to my neck again, down my chest. Then he was sucking on my boob. Very nicely, I might add.