Abel's Obsession

by Lynn Burke

  Her eyes twinkled and she leaned forward. “I think you have a secret to share. I adore secrets … especially digging them out of other people.” She stepped back onto the path and grabbed up her ear buds. “Tell you what … I’m going to go for a walk tonight and I’ll be passing this very spot at nine o’clock. I hope you’ll wander on down here like you want to. Because let’s be honest about one thing—” Dani winked and stuck in one ear bud “—you know you want to.”

  “You’re inviting me—a complete stranger—to sit with you out here beneath the stars?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  The smile on her lips faded, and I glanced up to find her eyes open and trusting. “Because I know I know you—may have known you—somehow, somewhere in history, and my gut tells me you would never hurt me.”

  “You have faith in me based on a feeling?”

  “You of all people should understand faith, Abel Beiler.”

  My brow rose. “You know somewhat about my community?”

  “I may have Googled a thing or two about your way of life.” Her eyes flashed as she smirked again. “See you tonight.” Without another word, she started off toward town, her footfalls racing away in time with my heartbeat.

  Chapter Eight

  Quarter of nine found me in Daed’s rocking chair as always, the kerosene lamp beside me lighting the cover of the Bible on my lap. I had been sitting still for an hour, contemplating Dani’s offer and how right or wrong meeting with her would be.

  Talking with those outside wasn’t a sin, wasn’t frowned upon, but I knew the reasons behind my wanting to meet with her weren’t proper. However, Dani was the first one other than Eli that I felt a deep connection to—like I had at one time experienced with my family. In some strange way, I felt as though our lives were meant to be entwined.

  Nothing wrong with making a new friend, I told myself while placing the Bible back on the table. Nothing wrong with choosing company rather than loneliness for one night.

  I grabbed a small throw quilt off the back of the couch and walked out into the deepening darkness. Stars splotched the expanse overhead, pinpricks of twinkling, winking light. A mere sliver of moon lounged in the sky, but my eyes adjusted enough to the night that I didn’t need more light.

  Once at the fence, I stared at the boards that had kept Dani and me on opposite sides the previous two times we had met.

  Climb over into her world, or invite her into mine?

  I frowned and chewed on the inside of my lip, the blanket heavy over my arm.

  Star gazing, she had said, but laying together on a blanket with no one around … I might have self-control, but I doubted my strength would hold out with her warmth mere inches from my body.

  With a flick of my hand, I shook the blanket out and spread it beneath the fence, half on my side and half on hers. I sat and propped my arms on the bottom board, legs stretched beneath into Dani’s world.

  She walked up in near silence, her soft footfalls reaching me seconds before she appeared in the darkness.

  Her smile lit my world.

  “Hey,” she said, stepping off the trail and approaching me. She, too, had brought along a blanket. “I wasn’t sure you would show.”

  My gaze ran up her jean-clad legs to the long sleeve T-shirt hugging her breasts. “I couldn’t stay away.”

  “Honesty.” She chuckled. “I like that.” Sinking to my blanket, she stretched out her legs as I had, leaning onto the board, our arms and legs inches from each other.

  My pulse thrummed and cock thickened as a flowery scent engulfed my senses. How easy it would be to lean over and kiss her plump lips, taste her breath, and feel the silken skin of her neck.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked, her sultry voice low and straining my cock.

  “You’re beautiful and you smell even better.”

  Dani’s head tipped back as she laughed. “More honesty. I like it—tell me more.”

  She sobered as I kept my silence, my focus on her face. “My father always warned me about the slippery slope that leads to eternal damnation,” I finally said.

  One of her red eyebrows arched. “And?”

  I inhaled a deep breath. “And after seeing you on Monday, I slid deeper into the mire at the bottom.”

  “I’m not hearing a compliment in your words—but I don’t think you’re meaning to insult me, either,” Dani said, her voice low, penetrating gaze searing right down to the depths of my soul.

  “I feel drawn to you like a moth to a kerosene lamp.”

  “I promise I’ll never burn you, Abel.” She smiled, easing some of the heaviness of our conversation.

  “Strangely, I believe you,” I replied, returning her smile.

  “Tell you what.” She shifted a few inches away, smirking. “Let’s be friends—confidants. Let’s get to know each other and erase some of your loneliness. Deal?”

  My smile widened although my body longed for more. “Friendship is safe enough.”

  Dani angled toward me and rested her chin on her forearms. “So do you farm for a living?”

  “No. I make furniture for a local store to sell.”

  “What kind of furniture?”

  “Shaker. Bedroom sets, dining room tables, and chairs … those kinds of items.”

  Dani smiled. “You’re quite a craftsman, then.”

  I shrugged by habit, not wanting to draw attention to my accomplishments and talents.

  “So what’s the best thing about being Amish?” she asked.

  “No worldly distractions.”

  “Like?”

  “Technology. Constant disturbance and background noise to hinder reflection.”

  “Technology isn’t so bad,” Dani said. “Without it, I wouldn’t have learned a bit about your faith, which is similar to my Baptist upbringing by the way, and a little about your way of life.”

  I kept my focus on her face as we chatted briefly about the similarities. Blemish-free skin, a touch of pink on her cheeks, and the swipe of mascara darkened her long lashes. She looked like a fresh peach, and I wanted to sink my teeth in. “How about you tell me what else you learned through technology, and I’ll tell you the truth of our way of life?”

  “You got it.” She pulled her blanket around her shoulders against the cool spring night and launched into the typical Englisher’s view of how the plain people live. I threw in a correction or two about indoor plumbing and diesel engines before she finished.

  “I’m impressed,” I said a little later, the peep frogs long since quieting for the night. “I can’t believe you looked all of that up—or that you would want to.”

  “You interest me, Abel.” A small smile lingered on her lips, but would probably disappear if I told her how much she interested me.

  “Tell me all about you,” I said, shifting to ease the erection I thought had faded for the night. “Your family, friends, and work.”

  She heaved a deep breath. “Well, like I said, I grew up on the other side of town. My parents still live in the same house, but my older sister lives in Jersey. She’s a doctor.” Dani pulled the blanket around her shoulders a little tighter. “We weren’t ever really that close—she’s six years older than me. I always looked up to her, though. She’s the reason I went into physical therapy. I don’t have her brains, but still want to help people.”

  “I think that’s very admirable.”

  Dani smiled, kick-starting my heart and softened penis. “Thanks.” Her husky tone hardened me to the point of pain. Again.

  I shifted on the blanket, wishing I could adjust myself.

  “You okay?” she asked, smirking.

  I cleared my throat. “So what made you return here after vowing you never would?”

  Dani glanced over my shoulder, her gaze distant, a line appearing between her red eyebrows. “Honestly, I’m not sure. After graduation, I filled out dozens of applications for jobs in various cities. On my parents’ insistence, I sent my resume to Wes
twind. I interviewed with six different therapy centers, and Westwind was the only one to offer me a job.” She shrugged and turned her attention back to me. “Figured this was where I was meant to be.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Me, too.” Dani heaved another heavy sigh. “I really ought to get going. Six rolls around pretty quick for a non-morning person like me.”

  “Gut thing there’s coffee,” I said, hopping up to lean over the fence and offer her my hand.

  “The dark brew is my best friend.” She laughed and grabbed hold of my hand. As like the first time our palms came together, lightning shot up my arm. She stood, but we continued to hold hands atop the fence, her pinky once more gripping me as my thumb swirled across the back of her hand.

  Her soft smile drew me in, and I leaned against the fence. “I really enjoyed being with you tonight, Abel Beiler.”

  “I enjoyed your company as well, Dani-Lyn Trego. It was nice to not spend the night alone in a quiet house.”

  “We’ll have to do it again some time.”

  “I’d like that.” I glanced down the dark trail toward town. “Should I … I mean, do you want me to walk you home?”

  She released her grip on my hand to pull the blanket back up around her shoulders. “Thank you for the offer, but I don’t think you’re ready just yet to cross over this fence.”

  We stared at each other for a few minutes as my mind and body warred.

  “Besides,” she said with a light laugh, “I’ve got a black belt and can take out anyone who thinks I’m easy prey.”

  “Black belt?”

  “Karate.”

  “Oh. You’re a bad ass, my cousin Eli would say.”

  She smiled. “He would be right. So. Meet me here again tomorrow night?”

  “Yes.”

  Dani started back toward the trail but tossed a glance over her shoulder. “Did I tell you that I love your simplistic honesty, Abel Beiler?”

  I waved and stood watching until she disappeared into the night, my heart light, my thoughts quiet and ready for rest.

  ****

  Dani and I met on and off for the next few weeks, some nights talking into the early morning hours. I repeatedly told myself our friendship was nothing more than that, simply two lonely people finding solace in each other’s company.

  I hadn’t spoken of the first time I had seen her even though she often spouted off ideas of where we might have met in our pasts. Even though I didn’t believe in reincarnation, she declared there was no other explanation for the close connection we felt for each other.

  We’d taken to holding hands beneath the first board of the fence, the outside of our legs brushing from foot to thigh. I longed for so much more—and jerked off after every single meeting to thoughts of her tied to a bed, naked and dripping between her thighs, panting for me, begging for me to mark her in some way.

  A full moon shone down on us Thursday night, and I soaked into memory every stray curl, freckle on her cheek, gold glints ringing her iris, and the slightly crooked eye tooth her wide smile always revealed. The scar on her forehead from crashing her first bike into a dumpster and the misshapen tip of her index finger from having slammed it in her parent’s front door as a teenager.

  Little imperfections, worldly women thought, she had told me, but I didn’t agree. Each and every detail made her Dani-Lyn, my Red. The woman who haunted my dreams—day and night. But, I kept those secrets to myself.

  “Do you think you’ll ever cross over this fence?” Dani asked, resting her cheek against our clasped hands.

  “Yes,” I answered without hesitation, realizing as I admitted the truth that I wanted nothing more.

  She sat up and peered at me. “Seriously?”

  “I want to step into your world. Make choices I never allowed myself at sixteen.”

  “I’ll take you out someplace far away where no one will know either of us or...” She glanced eastward toward town. “I live two miles from here, right along the trail in an old brick farmhouse with a bright yellow back door. Why don’t you ride your bike over and I’ll make you dinner.”

  “It’d have to be a late dinner,” I heard myself say over the pulse thumping in my ears.

  “A truly clandestine meeting.” Laughter escaped her lips. “I like it.”

  I had thought of that very thing countless times over the previous two weeks while relieving the sexual tension in my aching balls.

  “Are you available tomorrow?” she asked, a smirk still lifting her plump lips I suddenly couldn’t tear my gaze from.

  “Tomorrow? Friday night, like this Friday night?”

  “Yes.” She laughed and squeezed my hand.

  Cock thickening and draining the blood from my head, I simply nodded.

  Dani’s gaze narrowed although her lips still turned up. “Promise?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Chapter Nine

  Friday night I finished up my evening chores with time to spare, so I fired up the engine that ran the water pump and took a long shower, the best place to relieve my sexual tension. While some in our community frowned on English personal products, I had become a fan of deodorant years earlier. I stuck to the unscented kind, however, so no one would be the wiser and try to straighten me out as Eli would have said.

  Wash day was two days away, and I was lucky to find clean trousers and a navy blue button down. Once ready for my first non-English—and entirely against the rules—date, I sat in Daed’s rocker and stared in silence at the framed needlepoint Ten Commandments Mamm had stitched hanging against the far wall. I didn’t see words. My mind filled with thoughts of the evening ahead and the choices I expected lay before me. Dinner with my friend, or inappropriate evening with a woman I had obsessed over for six years?

  Gott forgive me, but I hoped for the latter.

  Not for the first time, I wished I had a cell phone to call Eli. I had no idea what to say to an Englisher like Dani while on a real date and wanted his advice. He would probably suggest I finally experience what I had been missing. Get straight to the sex, live my fantasies as far as she would allow, and get my rocks off.

  The silence settled heavy in my ears, the ticking of the clock on the wall behind me loud and distracting. I missed laughter and I missed the twin’s fights and howls. More than either, I missed comradery. A member of a close-knit community who still helped me in caring for the house, I ought to have taken joy in those around me. Appreciate the fact I had an extended family as we called our fellow church members.

  I sat on the outskirts, not feeling the connection others spoke of and thanked Gott for. Dani, a complete stranger turned new-found friend, had somehow touched deeper into my soul than anyone ever had—parents and siblings included. I had shared a lot of my inner reflection with her that even my parents hadn’t known.

  You don’t have to be alone tonight, a little voice whispered in my head.

  “No, I don’t,” I spoke the words out loud with conviction and stood. My mind made up for gut, the voice of the bishop and deacon silenced in the back of my mind, I went to retrieve my bike. I expected dishonoring my parents would fill me with guilt in the morning, but I needed to know. I needed a few hours alone with the woman I had dreamed of for years. I needed to finally exorcise the demons keeping me from the peace and satisfaction I had been begging Gott for.

  ****

  I paused at the fence expecting … something. Nothing but a driving force to pass over nudged at my limbs.

  Without further thought, I lifted my bike up and over and followed after it. Butterflies in my stomach and a smile on my face, I pushed my bike up the rise to the trail. I hopped on and pedaled off, a warm breeze accompanying my evening bike ride down the trail toward town.

  The sky above remained clear, the moon easily lighting my way. Pedals creaking and the occasional passing car on the road a hundred or so yards south of the trail accompanied my thrumming heartbeat.

  I had imagined a dozen scenarios of how the eveni
ng would pass. A friendly dinner without any physical contact. Perhaps my first kiss. Filling my hands with Dani’s breasts, tasting her skin. Exploring the wet heat between her thighs with my fingers and tongue.

  Riding a bike with a hard-on proved near impossible, and I turned my thoughts toward the work orders that needed to be filled before month’s end. When I thought close to two miles lay behind me, I began studying the back of the houses situated between the road and trail.

  Only one had the back porch light on, highlighting a bright yellow, inviting door. I hopped off of my bike and pushed it up the bank to the line of shrubs across the property’s backside. Leaning the bike against a tree half-way to the house, I studied the opened first-floor windows and the electric light casting rectangles on the flower beds below. Soft music carried on the breeze stirring my uncovered, too-long hair.

  Lacy curtains hung pulled back, and my heart picked up speed as Dani passed by, long red curls framing a perfect profile and brushing nearly bare shoulders. She appeared in the next window facing me, head down. The clinking of dishes and running water reached me.

  Seeing her attend homely duties caught my breath. I imagined her straightening up the house while I watched her from a chair, book in hand as I had often caught Daed studying Mamm. Longing I had never experienced before slammed into me.

  She’s not Amish, I reminded myself, swallowing against the sudden ache in my chest.

  Shaking my hands out at my side, I moved across the manicured lawn to the cement stoop. I didn’t think or hesitate—just knocked.

  Pattering footsteps approached, and the door opened.

  My held breath left in a rush.

  Dani smiled up at me, her bright green eyes twinkling along with the diamond stud in her nose in the bright overhead light. “I was afraid you would stand me up.”

  “Never.”

  She stepped close to me and lay a hand on my chest, burning clear through to my back. “Before you step into this house, I want you to know that there is complete freedom inside these walls.” Her expression turned serious. “You can be who you want to—when and how you want. There are no community-enforced rules in my house. No religious restrictions. Got it?”