by KD Robichaux
“Literally hiding under a rock.”
He snorts. “Nice one. But really, you’ve never met anyone in the Army, even living here your whole life?”
“Nope. I mean… maybe that’s the wrong word. I’ve met some at the gym, but never really talked to them aside from giving them their belay lesson. For the past four years, I’ve gone to school, the gym, home, and repeat,” I say quietly, feeling kind of embarrassed at how boring my life is.
“Nothing wrong with dedication, baby girl,” he soothes, and his term of endearment makes me smile.
“I guess once I found something I was actually good at, I just stuck with it. I’m loyal like that,” I joke.
“Loyalty is good.” The tone of his voice makes it seem that simple statement means a lot more to him than he’s letting on. “Look, I’m going to cut to the chase, okay?”
I gulp, and then pray he can’t hear it through the phone. “O-okay.”
“I don’t know what this feeling is between us. I’ve never felt anything like it before. This instant connection before even saying a word to each other. I put it out of my head at first, because I thought you were way too young, but when you told me you’re eighteen, I stopped ignoring it, and tonight was one of the best nights I’ve had in a really long-ass time,” he confides, and I realize I’m biting my lip, taking in everything he’s saying.
“Me too. And not just a long-ass time. I’m more like… ever,” I confess, and hear him chuckle.
“If that’s been your routine for the past four years, then I believe it. But I’m also jumping the gun here. Do you have a boyfriend, Vi?” he asks, and I barely keep myself from laughing.
“N-no. I don’t have a boyfriend,” I reply, my voice full of amusement. “If I had a boyfriend, I wouldn’t be talking to you at almost one in the morning about the crazy feelings you give me. I haven’t had one in four years.”
“Crazy feelings?”
“A boyfriend,” I clarify.
“Oh.” A pause. “And you’re eighteen?”
“Yeees…” I drawl.
“So are you… are you a—” He clears his throat, and my face turns hot when I realize what he wanted to ask but stopped himself.
“Yeah,” I whisper, and the answer hangs in the air. “So anyways, Friday? I’m there every day. Literally. Sometimes I’ll skip Sundays to give my body a rest, but that’s rare. I go from 3:00 p.m. when I get out of school until they close at nine.” I squeeze my eyes closed at my idiotic rambling.
“Wow, six hours a day. No wonder you’re so good. You definitely earned that Spidergirl nickname.”
I feel myself glow under his compliment. I roll over on my side, pressing my phone between my ear and pillow. “Thanks. How long have you been in the Army? What do you do?”
“I’ve been in the Army for almost three years, enlisted when I was seventeen, and left for basic the day I turned eighteen. Got here to Ft. Vander about two years ago. And I’m a sniper,” he replies.
“A sniper? Like in the movies?” I ask, intrigued.
“Yep, like in the movies.” He chuckles.
“And you’ve been here for two years?” I breathe, closing my eyes.
“Yeah, right here. In these same barracks.”
“All this time, and I didn’t even know.” My voice holds disappointment. I feel like I’ve somehow been cheated out of time with him for some reason, which is silly.
“Don’t sound so down, baby girl. Everything happens for a reason. We met when we were supposed to. Two years ago, I was still a little shithead, and you were only sixteen,” he soothes.
“Still a little shithead?” I prompt, my eyebrows furrowing.
“Yeah. I’m from California. That’s where all my family is. In high school, I thought I was a little badass and joined a gang, got in some trouble. Anyways, I got caught, and they gave me the option, either I could go to juvie, and when I turned eighteen I could go straight to jail, or I could join the military. I chose the military,” he explains, and I suck in a breath.
“What did you do?” I ask, before I can think better of it.
“Ah, that’s a story for a different day. I want you to fall for me before I go telling you my deep, dark secrets,” he jokes in his deep, sexy voice, and I nearly swoon.
“Fair enough,” I breathe.
“Well, I gotta get some sleep. I have to wake up in about three hours for PT, and I know you’ve got school in the morning. Can I text you tomorrow? Or today, rather. Past midnight, so technically it’s Thursday, huh?”
“Of course. If I don’t answer right away, I’m in class. It’s not so bad having to wait ‘til Friday to see you again, when we can technically say it’s tomorrow,” I say, and I close my eyes and smack my hand over them. Oh, my God, how freaking corny and girly was that?
But his response makes me feel a whole lot less like an idiot. “My thoughts exactly, baby girl. Sleep well.”
“Night, Corbin,” I whisper, and I hear the phone disconnect.
I SIT AT MY desk like a zombie, hating life and counting down the hours until I can go to sleep, wake up, and it be the day I get to see her again. After talking to Vi, I never did fall asleep last night, lying in bed, unable to get her off my mind. Before I could doze off, my alarm went off, at 4:00 a.m. and I had to get up for our daily physical training. Four words kept circling my mind like a mantra I couldn’t shut up.
Vivian. Eighteen. Virgin. Mine.
Maybe it was her innocence that made her seem so young when I first met her. I’ve been with eighteen-year-olds before, both before and after I was that age. Fuck, I lost my own virginity to one when I was fourteen. But they were all already experienced, with an air of maturity surrounding them from the life milestone of sex alone. I wanted her before, but now… now I crave her.
Untouched. Unscarred. No baggage. No one for me to want to kill for having put their hands on what’s mine.
And completely moldable.
I scold myself, thinking that way. But really. I could be myself with her, teach her the things I like, no matter how fucked up they are, and she would never know the difference. She wouldn’t know that what I wanted… what I needed… wasn’t the norm.
“For the past four years, I’ve gone to school, the gym, home, and repeat.”
So sheltered. No room for intimate socializing and experimentation with a strict schedule like that. Always under adult supervision, no matter where she went.
“I’m loyal like that.”
God, could she be more perfect? Loyalty. The number one thing on my list of requirements.
My deal-breaker. My hard-limit. If you couldn’t be fucking loyal to me, then get the fuck away from me. I have zero tolerance for disloyalty. If you’re with me, you’re with me alone. You could be the most beautiful and most amazing woman on the face of the planet, but the second you break my trust, I don’t give a fuck who you are; I’m done with you. I’ve been burned too many times giving people second chances to ever give another one for the rest of my life. Never again. But for her to use that word, the most important one to me, right there in our very first real conversation? It feels like a higher power is at work.
Combine that with the immediate connection we had before we even spoke, that pull toward each other, that overwhelming sense of needing to be near her, to keep my eyes on her, to touch her, even just by brushing my arm with hers… It felt like fate. I believe in what I told her. Everything happens for a reason.
I’ve lived here two years. For almost a year of that, I’ve known about that rock gym she’s been going to every single day for almost half a decade, but I never took the time to go check it out. But then yesterday morning, I saw another ad for it in the paper someone had left on the table I sat at for lunch. And with it fresh in my mind, I’d noticed my cherry, Glover, staring into his bowl of canned fruit cocktail, looking like a puppy that had been abandoned. So I invited him to go with me. And there she was.
I can’t take it anymore. I’ve tried to leav
e her alone, knowing she’s at school, but I can’t go another minute without texting her. I look out the window behind me to make sure no one is walking up the sidewalk from the parking lot, and seeing the coast is clear, I snatch my phone out of my metal desk drawer and type out a message, pressing send.
Hope u got more sleep than I did. I never fell asleep last night. Awake going on 33 hrs now.
I drop my phone face-up into the drawer in front of me, keeping it cracked open enough so I can look down and see when it lights up, since I have to have it on silent. I’m actually not supposed to have my phone at all while I’m at my desk, but fuck it. There was no way I was going to miss a call or text if Vi decided to send me one. God, so wrapped up in her, and we only met yesterday.
My fingers tap against the top of my desk, and I play a game of solitaire on the ancient computer in front of me. My eyes constantly glance down to see if she responded. I light up my screen a few times to make sure I didn’t miss anything while I was looking away, but nothing. When I can feel my sanity starting to slip, my phone finally lights up with Vivian’s name.
I feel like a kid on Christmas morning as I open up the message, and I shake my head at myself. The fuck is wrong with me? But I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face as I read her text.
I ended up taking a bath to relax, and then finally got about 3 hrs of sleep.
My dick hardens immediately, thinking of her, naked in a bathtub, unable to sleep because she can’t stop thinking of me. I reply quickly, hoping she hasn’t left her phone yet.
Are u trying to torture me at work?
My smile widens at her response.
Huh? What do u mean? I just got to Chemistry. Cool teacher, so we can text all we want.
God, so innocent. I check the time, seeing that everyone will still be at lunch for another twenty minutes unless they decide to leave early.
Just thinking about u taking a bath, baby girl.
She takes a couple minutes to respond, and when she does, it makes me chuckle.
Oh.
But then I frown when I realize she still doesn’t get what I was trying to say, and growl at her follow-up text.
Thinking of me naked is torture? I don’t look that bad, do I?
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, letting it out slowly to calm myself before I write her back.
Vivian, I will tell u this 1 time, and 1 time only. Save this message to reread as u see fit if u have to, because this is the only time I will type out these words. U are fucking perfect. There is not a single thing about ur body that I would change. Never doubt I wouldn’t kill to see and touch every inch of ur perfection. No, thinking of u naked isn’t torture because u look bad. It’s torture, because I have the most painful hard-on right now, thinking of u naked, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I try to relax, reminding myself she’s inexperienced with the opposite sex, and even less experienced with someone like me. Her short reply comes a few minutes later.
Oh. I’m sorry.
I groan. So. Fucking. Perfect. No excuses. No defensiveness. No arguing. Just an apology. The only thing that could’ve made it better was if she had said it wouldn’t happen again, topped off with a “Sir.” God, when she called me that, her tiny hand gripped in mine when we first introduced ourselves, I could barely contain myself. My hand had tightened around hers, ready to yank her to me, so I quickly let go.
I can’t wait to see you tomorrow. I’m going to try to get off early so I can get there around the same time you do. Give us more time together.
Her response comes quickly, eager to latch onto my change in subject.
I can’t wait either! Will Brian be coming too? We’ll have to play takeaway.
The only thing I want to take away is everyone and everything separating us, including her clothes. But not wanting to scare her, my reply is much more G-rated.
Looking forward to u teaching me takeaway. IDK if Glover will come. He told me this morning that he’s sore as fuck.
I actually laugh out loud at her incoming text. Knowing she’s so tiny makes it even funnier, coming from her.
What a wimp. Tell him to quit being a baby.
My watch beeps, letting me know it’s a new hour, which means people will soon be walking in the door.
I’ll do that. I gotta get back to work for now, but I’ll talk to u later, ok?
I don’t get to see if she replies, because the door next to me opens and I swiftly hide my phone in the drawer, shutting it silently.
Three hours later, I’m in my barracks room, lying in my single bed. My roommate was deployed two months ago for an eighteen-month stint in Afghanistan, so I have the place all to myself. As you enter, my bed is in the corner, pushed up against the left wall next to the door. I look around, seeing only the backsides of two floor-to-ceiling wardrobes, one at the foot of my bed, and one to my right, making an opening just big enough to get into the enclosed haven I’ve created with the furniture, and just wide enough to peek out through to watch the TV sitting on a dresser across the room.
My eyes move to the ceiling, counting the tiny holes in the tiles. As exhausted as I am from not sleeping last night, I still can’t shut my brain off, even now, when I can finally pass the fuck out. The image of a small, almost frail girl with long dark hair, green eyes, and a smile that lights up an entire room won’t clear itself from the backs of my eyelids.
God, the things I could do to her. The positions I could put her in. It would be effortless. And now, knowing that if I were to take her, I would be her first… it’s not even the virgin-aspect that’s so fucking hot about it. It’s the fact that I would be the one to set the baseline, the standard, for anyone after me. She would always remember me, as her first. She would always compare everyone else to me. The thought makes me both hard and want to punch something, just thinking about anyone else having her. Because another thought hits me.
If I were to have her, and things worked out between us, I would get to live my life knowing I was the only man to ever be inside her.
Before I realize what I’m doing, I take my throbbing cock in my hand, stroking it from tip to root then back up again, already feeling wetness at the head. I didn’t allow myself to jack off last night, no matter how badly I’d needed to come. I refused to let myself give in, knowing it was Vi who controlled my thoughts and need, and not me. She’d taken over without my permission, without even trying, just by simply… existing. And to both my relief and distress, I come within seconds.
I clean myself off and lie there for a few minutes, willing myself to go to sleep, but as I realize the sweet bliss of unconsciousness is still not coming, it makes me angry, and my anger brings me to my feet, where I pull on some basketball shorts and a fresh wife beater before lacing up my sneakers.
I grab my keys, glancing at my watch—6:37 p.m. Without thinking, I hop in my Camaro and head off base. Ten minutes later, I pull in and park, slamming the door behind me. I barrel through the glass entrance, making the bells above the door clang violently, and it does wonders to calm the raging bull inside me, the girl currently halfway up the rope two walls over being the red matador’s cape.
My loud entrance startles her, and she loses her footing for a moment, but quickly recovers before looking through the space between her lifted right arm and her body to see who had come in, her face annoyed. When she sees it’s me, her features soften before breaking out in a wide smile.
And just like that, all frustration leaves me and I’m left with a sense of completeness just being in the same room as her. “Evening, Spidergirl,” I call up to her.
“Howdy, soldier,” she giggles. “Be right down.” Instead of letting go of her grips though, she resumes her focus, and I watch, fascinated, as she finishes her route to the top, making the Expert level wall look effortless in her grace. “Falling,” she calls to her mom, who begins letting out slack, allowing her daughter to lower.
On her descent, making my heart stop for a mom
ent, Vi lets go of the rope with her hands and lies back, her body completely horizontal except for her dangling legs as she shakes out her arms. Sensing her nearness to the ground, she grasps the rope in one hand and pulls herself back up just as her feet touch the floor, and then unties her harness before slipping that down her long, bare legs.
She hands it to her mom, kissing her cheek and whispering something I can’t hear before finally coming to me. “What are you doing here? It’s not Friday yet.” She smiles shyly.
“Honestly, I have no idea. I went to bed as soon as I got off work at five, couldn’t sleep, and next thing I knew, I was here,” I confess, taking hold of one of her chalky hands and pulling her to me before enveloping her in my arms. God, she fits me so perfectly.
I’ve never been self-conscious of my shorter stature, but I’ve been told it could possibly be a contributor to my personality, a ‘Napoleon Complex’ someone once called it. They said my drive, my domineering and aggressive behavior, was an unconscious compensation for my height. I told them to fuck off.
I’ve dated women in all shapes and heights, ones who towered over me and ones who couldn’t even reach my chin wearing heels. I didn’t really have a preference. Until now. Vi, who had been stiff when I first pulled her into my embrace, is now completely melted against me, her face going into my neck and breathing me in deeply. When I loosen my arms, she stands back, able to look me in the eye, being as she’s only an inch or two shorter than me.
“Are you going to climb?” She glances at the oversized clock on the wall behind the counter. “We still have two hours before closing time.”
“Might as well,” I reply, swiping the tip of my finger down the bridge of her nose, where she had a streak of chalk. I’m surprised at my own touchy-feely behavior, not usually one for intimate gestures not meant specifically as an act of foreplay, but the pretty blush that fills her cheeks followed by another shy smile makes it worth my confusion.
And the next two hours are filled with these small, stolen touches, becoming an internal game of how many times I can draw out that sweet look on her face.