Chapter 17

The daylight peeking around the window shades woke me. I was afraid to look to see what time it was, because whatever the time it meant that I would have to leave soon so she could erase all traces of me before her parents got back.

I thought back over the last day. This had felt very different from the other times we’d been together. I loved spending time with her, but I always knew that it was going to be just a few hours, and that there was a limit to how close we could get because of the time factor.

This time it felt less hurried and I found myself falling into a comfortable rapport with her. The romantic attraction was always there, but this was something more, like a shared rhythm that our minds had developed in which we knew the other was there to consider a thought, share an idea, fine-tune a question. It felt natural.

And I knew that we probably wouldn’t be able to repeat it before we had to leave again for school. We’d be able to spend a few hours together here and there, but not an extended period of time. And that felt like losing something valuable. Still, we knew that this was going to be our life for the next few years and at least I’d found that she liked this togetherness as much as I did.

She chose that moment to stretch under the sheets. I watched her wake up.

When she turned over she said, “Oh. You’re awake?”

“Just for a couple of minutes. It was so pleasant to lie here with you that I didn’t want to wake you just yet.”

“That’s sweet. This is nice, isn’t it, waking up next to somebody? Especially if it’s somebody you like.”

And that reminded me of the time at the frat house party where the sorority girl Allie had organized a game of Never Have I Ever with the adult rules to keep her girlfriends from bailing when the band was late arriving. I told her about it.

“And one of the questions was ‘Never have I ever woke up next to a stranger.’ I was surprised how many people took a drink. It was pretty much the same theme among all of them, men and women: Too much alcohol, having fun dancing, then the next thing you know you’re waking up naked next to someone or several someones you don’t know and wondering just what you did that you can’t remember right now.”

She giggled. “Well, thank God I wouldn’t have to admit to that. Though I heard lots of stories like that at school. But I do like waking up next to you.”

“We have that in common, then. I wish we could do it more often. I was just thinking about that. This will probably be it for us for the foreseeable future, as far as overnights go. We’re both off to school soon. It makes me a little sad, but I’ll have this to think back on. This was special.”

“Yes, it was. How about a shower and breakfast?”

I really didn’t feel like moving, but she was adamant so we shared another shower. We’d been doing everyday things like brushing our teeth, but as soon as she stepped into the shower it was like a Playboy pictorial come to life. And she didn’t even realize what she was doing. She bent to let the water get to places it couldn’t, she stretched to reach the soap, and those simple actions became so erotic that I immediately had a stiffy.

I went through the motions of getting soap everywhere and rinsing off, but it wasn’t long before it was obvious that I had a problem that water wouldn’t take care of.

She shook her head and said, “Honestly. You’re so predictable. Give me that soap.”

She lathered her hands energetically and positioned me, saying “Stand there.” She moved to my side and wrapped both hands around my dick, stroking with one and twisting with the other. I put out both hands, one on the glass door and the other on the shower wall to steady myself while she jerked me off.

It didn’t take long. I could feel it forming and in moments I was shouting. Most of it landed in the drain and was sluiced away. She kept stroking until I had to beg her to stop.

“There you go. Clean yourself off and meet me in the kitchen. Hurry up.”

Easy for her to say. I was still focusing on not falling down, but eventually I got it under control and washed my dick again. I dried off, found some clean clothes and got dressed.

She’d found a robe and was working at the stove.

“There’s coffee made. Omelet’s almost done. Oh, right, the toast.” She pushed down the toaster handle and very soon we had a spinach-and-cheese omelet and toast on plates and coffee on its way to my stomach.

I hadn’t been aware of how hungry I was. My eyes were on my plate until it was empty. When I looked up, she was watching me, her elbow on the table and her chin resting on an open palm.

“What? Did I do something gauche?”

“No, not really. Just watching you enjoy your breakfast. Was it okay?”

“Okay? It was fabulous! Now I really am going to have to learn to cook. I feel like I’m not keeping up.”

“Aha. My devious plan has worked. Okay, you’ve got about four months to get your act together. A full dinner will be the test.”

“Assigned reading, classes and this too? You slave driver.”

“Life’s tough. Only the tough survive.”

She collected the plates and put them in the sink to wash. “I don’t know when my folks will be back. Better to assume earlier than later, so let’s make the rounds to see if you’ve left anything behind.”

I knew this would happen, of course, but I wanted it to be later than now. But she was on a mission and she wasn’t all wrong, either. So I followed her reluctantly and checked all the places we’d been since yesterday. I found my dirty clothes and the condoms, and almost missed the dirty socks under the bed but she caught it.

She put the lube and the dildo back in her hiding place and did a last walk-around. She pulled the sheets from the bed and told me to grab the damp towels from the bathroom. We dumped them in the washing machine and started a wash cycle.

“Your jacket’s in the closet. Don’t forget it.” I put it over my arm, the backpack on my shoulder, and seemed unable to move toward the door.

She put her arms around me and held on for a moment. “This was fun. I needed to do this more than I thought I would. It sorted out a couple of things for me. I have to think about them for a while, but this was the right thing at the right time. So thanks for the house call, Dr. Carter. Send me your bill.”

I had no response to that, so I kissed her and she sent me out through the side door in the garage.

It was close to noon when I got home. The car was gone and the door locked, so probably on an errand run. I put my dirty clothes in the hamper, stashed the condoms in my hidey-hole and put away the unused bathing trunks. I lay on my bed and thought about the last twenty-four hours.

The more time I spent with her the more right we felt together, yet I knew we wouldn’t be able to be together at least until we graduated, and maybe not even then if grad school loomed, as it probably would. Who knows where she’ll end up? And where will I be, at some different grad school in some distant city?

Every time I thought about this it sounded hopeless, yet I couldn’t give it up. We’d have to find some way to be together. At least my paranoia and self-doubt had been locked away for a while. They’d probably be back, but for now I knew that she wanted me the way I wanted her.

I heard the door bang against the wall as someone pushed it open with a hip. “We’re home.” My mother’s voice.

I went downstairs and she asked me about my trip to the mountains. She had bags of household things she’d gotten at the local discount mega-mart.

“I didn’t expect you back so early.”

“Well, one of the drivers had some family thing he had to get back for, and since I didn’t get much sleep I thought I’d come home and try to get a nap in.”

She made me tell her what we’d done, who was there, and I had to think fast and concoct an evening of mutual reminiscence about high school, and pranks and bad jokes. I begged off because I said I was tired and did go up and take a nap. Because I was tired. Though for a different reason.

The next morning found me walking through the door at work. “Morning, Carter,” said Ted without looking up. “There’s the first lot of orders on the counter.”

“Okay, I’ll get started.”

“Take a look at this before you do.” He handed me the printout on which we’d laboriously entered the stock counts for each item.

“The ones that I’ve highlighted in yellow? Those are the ones that are going on sale. I ran the sales reports for the last few years over the weekend, and these are the things that sold poorly, and in a couple of cases not at all. I’m going to print up a small sale catalog with just these items in them and mark them way down, mail them out and see if I can thin out the stock.