Hearts on Hold

by Charish Reid

  Victoria leaned against his chest and rubbed his shoulders. “If you don’t want to do this, we can always go home,” she said, giving him an out. And he probably would have taken it if her breasts weren’t pressed against him while she loosened the tight muscles of his neck.

  “Mmh,” he groaned at the pleasurable pressure from her hands. “You’ll hold my hand?” he asked, letting his eyes fall shut.

  “Of course, I will,” she chuckled. “You’re not leaving me in there like your little girlfriend.”

  A smile spread across his face. “Kimberly Yates was really pissed.”

  “What was all that Halloween magic you talked about with your kids?” she asked applying that same pressure to his deltoid muscles. John was very close to agreeing to a number of dangerous activities, if she kept touching him like this.

  “I was talking about lighthearted spooky magic, as in Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin.”

  Victoria ended her massage by cupping his face and stroking his beard. “I can be your blanket, Linus,” she teased. “You can hold on to me for dear life all you want.”

  For the first time since they arrived to the haunted warehouse, John’s pulse slowed its rapid pounding and his breathing returned to normal. “You promise?” he asked as he held her flannel covered hips. She felt warm and alive, even in the chilled autumn air. A steady anchor for him to hold on to.

  She nodded as she ran her thumb along his jaw. “I do.”

  John blew out a sigh. “Alright then, let’s get this over with.”

  He could tell she was trying to hide her excitement as she took him by the arm and pulled him forward. John could keep his shit together for a few minutes if it meant Victoria could have fun. At the ticket counter, a large heavyset man collected money and distributed tickets. He took his role seriously, dressed as a ghoulish butcher with blood splatter on his dingy white apron. A real cleaver sat on the counter, covered in matted blood and hair. A realistic touch that made John sick.

  “What’s this year’s theme?” Victoria asked the man as she slapped down her cash.

  “Zombies,” he said in a menacing voice. “Also, half of the proceeds are going to Farmingdale’s no-kill animal shelter.”

  Victoria turned to John, her eyes shining. “Isn’t that nice?”

  He rolled his eyes and said nothing.

  “Can you please explain to my friend the basic rules of your haunted warehouse?” she asked the bloody butcher.

  The man dropped his menacing voice and switched to a thick Chicago accent. “Sure. It’s advised that pregnant women, folks who suffer from epilepsy, or those who have pacemakers not participate in the walk-through. If that doesn’t apply to you, just follow the marked path and you won’t get lost. If you have a hard time seeing in front of you, you’re allowed to use your cellphone, but we don’t allow photography. It kinda ruins the surprise for future guests. Lastly, the zombies are instructed not to touch participants. Don’t worry, sir, an actor is not going to reach out and grab you.”

  “See? That’s all there is to it,” Victoria said with an encouraging tone.

  “Hardly,” John said under his breath.

  “Oh, come on,” she said, pulling his arm. “You’re going to have fun.”

  “At best, I’m going to look very wimpy in front of you. At worst? I might throw up in front of you.”

  “You’re not going to throw up,” she said as they stood at the precipice of a darkened entrance. From somewhere inside there was a loud crash, followed by terrified screams that pierced the evening air. His heart thudded in his chest.

  “Before we go in there,” John said, gripping her hand. “Tell me why you’re attracted to this.”

  Victoria looked at him, eyes wide with anticipation and a broad grin. Her perky nose and the cute dimple on her left cheek eased his fear, just slightly. If John could remember this face, he might make it through this horrifying walk. “Because none of this is real,” she said. “It’s all pretend. I never take chances in the real world, because it could all go wrong. But here, where the zombies are actors, I can feel the exhilaration of danger and come out safe on the other side.” She squeezed his sweaty palm. “And you will too.”

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  John let her lead him, all the while hoping to make it to other side sooner than later.

  * * *

  Her laughter should have annoyed John, but he found himself joining in on the roasting that she was determined to give him. Victoria sat at his kitchen island drinking wine, while he chopped tomatoes for pasta sauce. “The way you used me as a human shield to get through that abandoned bus,” she cackled, tears already forming in her eyes. “But then that girl zombie jumped out from behind you...”

  John smiled to himself as he returned to the refrigerator for parsley. “That’s right,” he said, closing the door. “I used my date as a human shield.”

  She wiped her eyes. “Oh my god, the look on your face when the guy pressed himself against the quarantine fence.” She started laughing again. “The sheer panic!”

  “They were getting dangerously close to touching us,” John said. “I was told there would be no touching.”

  “I’m sorry, John,” Victoria said, attempting to be somber for a second. But once she met his gaze, she fell apart all over again, nearly sliding off her barstool. “I just remembered the guy on the hospital gurney,” she howled.

  John laid his knife on the counter and planted his fists on his hips. “Now how exactly am I supposed to redeem myself after that debacle?” he asked. “How can I possibly come out looking like a man?”

  She wiped her face and took a sip of her wine. “Johnny, if you were sitting from where I am, looking at you, you wouldn’t have to ask such a question.”

  He raised a brow. Were they already in “Johnny” territory? As he studied her face, he noted the pinkish tint in her brown cheeks. John had reason to believe that Victoria was a little intoxicated. “Is that a fact?” he asked nonchalantly.

  She nodded. “You’re very manly,” she said. “Being afraid doesn’t make you any less of a man, it makes you more human.”

  He went back to chopping. “So you didn’t mind my excessive shouting during the tour?”

  “The girlish screams, you mean?”

  He chuckled. “There was nothing girlish about them. They were throaty masculine shouts of anger.”

  “I thought it was sexy,” she said sweetly. “Masculine posturing has never been a turn-on for me. It’s all a performance that gets old and tired.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” he said, transferring the chopped tomatoes to a bowl. “Are there any performances that personally tire you out?”

  She sighed, propping her head against her fist. “Oh, working at Pembroke is a constant performance. This semester especially.”

  “Tell me about it,” John urged. He’d been slyly wheedling information out of her for most of the afternoon and evening. So far, he’d learned about her parents, who were still married and living in Chicago, her education and what drove her towards studying literature, and her hidden wild streak that drove him to senseless frights. In the car ride home, she’d made a point to distract him from the horrors of the haunted warehouse by making him talk about his life. John had shared a lot of information about his family, ADD, and his career, and found Victoria to be an engaging listener.

  “I guess Pembroke has this aura,” she said, making a wide motion with her arms, “that’s old-money, WASP, and conservative. I still feel like I need to prove that I belong there. And you’d think I’d get the hang of it, after moving around so much, but I still feel like the new kid trying to find a place to sit in the cafeteria. You know what I mean?”

  John nodded as he started on another tomato. “Kind of,” he said. “I haven’t had to be the new kid too often, but the ‘fake-it-till-you-make-it’ nonsense fr
om graduate school still lingers.”

  “Exactly! And I feel like I’m faking it. I just want to know when I’m going to make it. I’m thirty-four and I’m an assistant professor, which qualifies as “making it” in academia, but I still have to do so much extra work to be seen. It doesn’t matter that I ran the same race, jumped the same hurdles as the assholes in my department, and I still have to put up with their shit.”

  Her rare curse word made him glanced up from his chopping to see her take another drink. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said with a sad smile.

  “Go on,” he said. “I’m not going to tell your department that you feel inadequate.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve talked to my girlfriends about this a million times. When you’re a woman trying to be yourself in these institutions that don’t want you, that didn’t ask for you to pull up a seat at the table... You get angry, and you want to lash out. But you don’t, because being angry comes with a whole host of implications. You end up getting called aggressive or hysterical by a man who hasn’t had to worry about job security since the ’70s.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I don’t know if any of that makes sense,” she said in an apologetic tone.

  John transferred more chopped tomato to his bowl before wiping his hands on the towel on his shoulder. “You’re actually making perfect sense,” he said as he ducked down to retrieve a skillet.

  Victoria frowned. “Yeah?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, placing the skillet on the stove. “My sister, Jessi, has said the same thing for years. She’s a civil engineer and it’s a regular boy’s club wherever she works. She never has the opportunity to be angry in public. She saves it for me actually. We usually hit the gym and beat the ever-living shit out of a punching bag.”

  “Does it help her?” Victoria asked sitting up.

  John turned on the heat and drizzled the pan with olive oil. “It’s hard to say,” he admitted. “She still has to show up to work the next day. She still has to put on the mask. I don’t know if it’s a performance you can really drop.” He watched the flame lick the bottom of the skillet, waiting on her to say something.

  “It is a mask,” she murmured.

  John now understood why their confrontation with Kenneth had rattled her so. She’d remained silent in the face of the old professor’s criticism because her job was on the line. Realizing that made him feel sad for her and angrier at her boss. “But you wear it well,” he said, looking up at her, “because you have to. In Jessi’s case, she’s a ball-buster who some men would call a bitch. Your mask might be wrapped in rules and regulations. If you can keep order and control all situations, you might keep the mask from slipping. But I’ll bet it tires you out, right?”

  “I’m exhausted.”

  “Then I’ll tell you what I tell my sister. You have to remember why you do the work you do. What are you bringing to the field that wasn’t there? How are you changing the world? Whose life have you touched with your work?” When the heat was high enough, John dumped a small bowl of garlic and shallots to the skillet and stirred them.

  She smiled. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I don’t claim to know the answers,” he said honestly. “I just know that when Jessi calls me about a new project that she’s starting, I hear the excitement in her voice and I know she belongs where she is. She might feel like she’s faking it, but I know different.”

  Victoria’s smile grew wider. “That’s really beautiful,” she said in a soft voice.

  John turned down the heat. “Now tell me what you bring to your work that wasn’t there before.”

  Victoria appeared to think about it. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Tell me.”

  She ducked her head to hide her bashful grin. He caught it, though, and held on to it. John found himself collecting her smiles as though they were currency. “I guess, when I first started to teach at Pembroke. There was this young man, around eighteen, who stayed after class on the last day of the semester. He wanted to thank me for teaching him how to read better. He went to a high school where his learning needs were ignored and he appreciated the time I took to break down the poems I made the class read. He looked so sincere when he said thank you...” She looked up from her glass of wine. “I guess I hold on to that moment when I feel shitty.”

  John paused in his stirring to look at her. Victoria’s eyes shined brightly with the memory and possibly the wine. “There you go,” he said softly. “You’re not faking it, Victoria.”

  She nodded. “Thank you, Johnny.”

  He tried to not let the small gesture make his heart bloom. He cleared his throat. “Talking about these things usually helps,” he said in a perfunctory tone as he dumped the tomatoes into the skillet.

  “Well, I don’t think I talk about it like that often,” she said.

  “I’m going to let this simmer for a while,” he said, tossing his towel on the counter. “You want me to top you off?” He gestured to her wine glass.

  She shook her head. “I think I’m already tipsy.”

  John left the kitchen and moved towards the living room. “You want to move to the couch while we wait on the sauce?”

  Victoria slid off her barstool and joined him. When she sat down, he followed, giving her a respectful distance on the couch. He couldn’t stand the silence, so he turned on the television and put on the Dave Matthews Band station, setting it on low volume. She leaned against the cushions and tucked her legs under her. “This is awkward,” she murmured.

  He didn’t have to ask what she meant. They’d just finished their first real date after a week of carefree hookups. She was in his home now; he was making her pasta. It was almost laughable how “normal” they were trying to behave, instead of doing what was most natural, like ripping each other’s clothes off. “It doesn’t have to be,” he tried. “We don’t have to do anything but sit here and talk.”

  She shifted in her seat. “Thank you,” she said. “But I don’t want to do that.”

  John met her gaze and took a deep breath. Victoria stared at him, heady desire in her eyes. With some of her braids shrouding half her face, she looked downright wicked. “What would you like to do?”

  A small ghost of a smile played on her lips. “I’d hate to be blunt,” she said. “Because that takes the fun out of it.”

  She’d had quite a bit of wine, so John wanted to make certain anyway. “What would you like to do, my dear?” he repeated.

  Victoria didn’t reply. Instead, she left her side of the couch to stand before him. John watched quietly as she stepped between his spread legs and undid the first couple of buttons on her flannel shirt, revealing the top of a black lace bra and gentle curve of her breasts. John breathed through his nose as Victoria slowly ran her hands down to her waist. When her hands stopped she flashed him a wanton smile. “Would you like me to take this off or would you?”

  She was issuing him a challenge. “What would you like?” he asked.

  “I’d like you to take it off.”

  John rubbed his trembling hands along the tops of his tense thighs as if this was the first time he had undressed Victoria. Every muscle in his body was tense, ready to spring. He held his emotions at bay and concentrated on her body. One moment at a time. However, it didn’t stop his blood from rushing away from his head, straight to his cock. “Come here,” he said in a voice he could hardly recognize. A primal hoarseness surged from his chest, cloaked in the desperate desire to hold her soft body in his arms.

  Slowly, Victoria came to him, lowering herself to straddle his pelvis. On her knees, she lifted herself slightly so that she stared down at him. Her braids made a curtain around his face as he gazed up at her. “Is this okay?” she whispered above him.

  “Yes.” His hands found her thighs, squeezed their thickness, and slid up to her hi
ps. John pulled her downward against his growing erection and released a sigh. Her softness pressed against his hardness, creating a delicious sensation. He groaned under her weight and closed his eyes as Victoria ground her hips in a circle. John arched away from the couch, lifting his hips to make contact with hers. He breathed through her gentle rocking, pushing and pulling her by the waist. When she set her own pace, he dragged his hands past her stomach, and settled on her full breasts. Even encased in flannel, he still felt her stiff peaks pressing against her bra, waiting to be released. He ran his fingers along the surface of her exposed skin. It was warm to the touch. A thin sheen of dewy perspiration coated her neck and the valley between her breasts. Blindly, he fell upon her buttons and undid them one at a time. Cock straining against his jeans, Victoria’s slow grinding became an uncomfortable pleasure. When John finally opened his eyes, he sighed.

  Light filtered from the kitchen, casting a glow on his dark living room and illuminating Victoria’s face. Her eyelids were heavy as she locked eyes with him. She bit her bottom lip as she clung to his shoulders. Braids swayed against her face, covering the crease of her brow as she continued to swivel on top of him. Now exposed, she shrugged out of her sleeves and tossed the top on the floor. John cupped her ample cleavage, slipping his fingers under the barrier her bra created. When he brushed against her stiff nipples, she exhaled sharply and squeezed her eyes shut. “Johnny,” she breathed.

  He groaned at the sound of his name as he quickly slipped the bra straps down her shoulders. He unhooked the front clasp, releasing her bosom. John fanned his fingers across her small dusky nipples and squeezed her flesh in his large hands. Victoria curled her back and folded her body against his arms. Her hands slid from his shoulders to his chest and neck, digging her nails into his skin. When she let her head fall back, her mouth fell open and her eyes closed. Her sharp pants kept the same pace as her grinding, “Please,” she gasped. “More...”