i can’t stop thinking about you.
i need what we did again.
As I send that second message, it occurs to me I might have gone at it a little high there. Pun intended. But nothing I can do now. Message received.
Fuck.
My heart pounds. The lanterns go around me in a huge circle time and time again. Isaac babbles. Girls squeal, the music thumps.
i need to see you.
This is madness. I’m begging the Master, a guy twice my age, by unknown text. I've officially lost my mind. Completely. And yet I know what I’m doing. I’m not an idiot. I’m not naïve. I want him. I aim to get him. All he can do is push me away, and if he does it again—right now—I’ll give it all up. I’m not going to push and push and be that girl who gets what she wants by being as annoying as a thumbtack stuck in a shoe.
So whatever he says next, that’ll tell me where we’re headed. To tell me if I should let go of Ben and grab Isaac by the perfectly square jaw and kiss him, or plunge into Ben completely.
Do you know the half-door in the stairway…
My heart leaps right out of me. I’d once seen it and giggled because it was like an enormous dog door. Do I know the door? I can see it in my head right this very minute.
yes.
It’s open.
Oh my God, oh my God.
Coming. I’m coming.
Twice? Good girl.
Annnnnd toe curl.
15
The secret door is behind my water heater. This afternoon, after Naomi walked away and I pressed my head to the door like an abandoned chocolate lab for roughly twenty minutes, I decided there was no way I could let her go.
Here’s the thing about nihilism. It’s all about letting go. It’s about believing that nothing matters so much you want to hurt over it. It’s like Buddhism without the peace. Just let that shit go. I believe in it because I've had to let everybody go. My dad. My mom. Our dogs. My little brother. Jobs. Money. Life is one long series of losses. The one constant in life isn’t death or taxes. It’s loss. And if you believe nothing matters, loss doesn’t hurt nearly so bad. Attachment is nothing but pain.
But I want her so fucking badly, I can actually feel the burn in my muscles when I think about her face. Everything she does makes it worse and slays me a little harder. The book, the question in class, the way she looks at me. The fury of her desire. The scar. But the small things too: I saw her at Shake Shack, where she’d only go if she was going to have a burger, so that really sealed the deal, a girl as beautiful as she is who studies philosophy and who also eats burgers. So as I’d sent that broken-heart emoji, I knew that if she came back to me, if she could understand what happened with Osgood earlier and decided she still wanted this as much as I did, I needed to be ready: I needed to find her a secret way inside.
I want to let her in.
I need to let her in.
For an hour, I ran around my own house like a burglar. I flung open doors and moved furniture. I rattled all the built-in bookshelves in the library to see if one of them opened as a secret door. I found exactly nothing.
So then I went outside and went up the stairwell running parallel to my house. It’s a crazy medieval winding thing, brick and stucco. Durham is full of them, like a rabbit warren. But there on the second floor, there’s a little door. Half-sized and strange. I tried to get the lay of the architecture. If this is the second floor and the wall is facing the quad…Shit! Shit. It went into my house, somewhere, someplace. So then I ran back down the stairs like a madman and attempted to look casual walking down the side of the quad by my garden, my barbeque, and my lawn furniture, which is so weird I cannot even get my head around it. All the things I don’t need and don’t know how to enjoy, even though I have them.
Back inside my house, up the steps two at a time, I raced down the hall, past the empty guest room and the empty office, and then to the closet with the washer and dryer. Bingo. Behind the water heater, next to the washing machine, the little Lilliputian-sized door.
Fuck yes!
Then I got involved in a complex Tetris-like engagement with the washer and dryer, which are packed in there so tight they have one inch of clearance on either side. I’d tried to shift the washer first, and then the dryer, edging them out just enough to get a look behind. No doorknob on the tiny door, just locks. Keyed deadbolt on this side, same as the other. Not a door that was ever really meant to be opened, unless there was a plumbing disaster.
So I’d gone down to the kitchen. Nobody was there, which was almost unbelievable. This house, it’s like living in the White House or something, staff coming and going all the time it seems. But for that moment, I was alone. I dug through the drawer with all the manuals for the appliances and the spare keys. So many damned keys. Why would anybody ever need so many keys? Because this house is a mansion, that’s why. I put them all in a coffee cup, bolted back upstairs. With my torso slung over the washer and my feet dangling, I tried every one. Until I found it.
So now here I am, waiting for some magic doorway to open behind my fancy washer-dryer set. The rain has started lashing the windows, and the rumbles of thunder echo around in the sky. The thunder sounds different here than in California. Deeper and longer.
I’m all wound up and ready to spring. Seeing her. Feeling her. Touching her. Being inside that perfect thing that is Naomi. God damn it.
I hear footsteps outside the stairwell. I freeze. But then they go past me. A student, heading back to their room.
This is risky, but it doesn’t matter to me right now. If she’s willing to risk it, I’m willing to do the same.
I have never wanted anything more than this. Ever. I try to move the dryer a little more.
More footsteps, these thumping and heavy. A guy’s footfalls. Not her.
Suddenly, the door opens. I see her waist, and a navy polka-dot skirt. Even her knees are lovely. She bends down and pokes her head in. Smiling.
In a crouch, she shuffles in, and then she stands in the tiny triangular space I've made behind the dryer. I take her bag from her and then grab her body, hoisting her right up over the energy-efficient Maytags.
She’s in my arms. Fuck. She’s here. I’m frozen.
“Door!” she whispers.
Door. Door, God damn it. I lunge over the dryer and then carefully draw it closed without a bang. I lock it. Now, we’re face to face.
What I should feel, as the man in charge of her well-being and education and all the rest, is an immediate desire to stop this insanity. I should snap out of it. I should tell her to leave. I should tell her this is dangerous. I should say that once we get in deep, I’ve got a feeling there will be no undoing us. Until we’re both undone.
Maybe a better man would have.
But I don’t.
My hands meet her ass immediately, and I lift her up on the dryer, her legs spread around me. I’m rock hard and pressing against my pants. Our lips still haven’t touched. I smell that lemon sweetness all over her. I smell gin and weed. Her legs are smooth and silky under my hands, the muscles of her thighs giving way to the pressure of my fingers and thumbs.
“Are we really doing this?” she whispers.
“Is this what you want?” No hesitation and she nods. “Yes. I want to feel you inside me again. I want what we did again.”
“It’s going to be a lot more than that,” I tell her, my voice coming out gruff now. That darker part of me is emerging. All her fault.
“This has to be our secret,” I tell her, shifting her hair behind her ear. It’s so damned beautiful. Wild and untamed, almost. She’s wearing little pearl earrings that glisten against her skin.
“I won’t tell anybody. Never,” she says. She’s got her arms over my shoulders, and I feel her fingers pressing into my neck.
Contrary to every last impulse inside me, I’m still trying to be reasonable. Wise. Sensible. Her fingers on my skin, though, it’s making it damn near impossible. “We need to be careful.”
&n
bsp; “I know,” she says, her tongue sliding over my earlobe, “But don’t be careful with me.”
Kapow.
With that, I carry her right out of the washing machine closet. She wraps her legs around my waist and hangs on to my neck. One of her flip-flops slides off as I carry her down the hallway. “What’d you do to your hand,” she asks.
“You don’t wanna know.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Punched the wall. Cinderblocks.”
“Because of me?”
Carefully I maneuver us through the bedroom door, painstakingly aware of her body and the hard surfaces everywhere that could hurt it, scrape it, bruise it. The only bruising she’s going to get will be because of me, if that’s what she wants. “Because of you.”
She clings to my neck. “Sorry.”
I lay her down on the bed and fold at the waist with her. Our foreheads are pressed together, our noses side by side. “You should be,” I say, smiling and running my tongue over her ear’s curved edge. My hands are all over her now, taking her in, enjoying the fabric on her skin. She kisses me, and then nips my bottom lip as she pulls away. That little flash of pain, it makes a fuse blow in my head. The pistol at the starting gates.
I flip her over on the bed and lift up her skirt. She’s wearing these perfect pink panties that hug the curve of her ass just right.
Seeing her like that, thinking of her in lace for anybody but me… “Listen,” I say, crawling up her body. She turns to face me. “The other night, things got pretty rough.”
“I know,” she says. Her makeup is a little smudged, and she looks twenty times more sinful than I remember. “How’s your thigh?”
“Do you want it rough again?”
Those eyes, they widen. “Oh yeah. You know I fucking do.”
A growl shoots out of my mouth. She’s this elegant creature, but when she talks dirty, when she gets filthy, I've got this impulse to clean that filthy mouth. “I don’t want you wearing panties like this for anybody but me.”
Her tongue slides out from her mouth, and she holds it between her teeth, smiling. “You want me to be yours like that. All yours.”
“All fucking mine,” I say. “That’s the deal. Mine. Nobody else’s. I can’t stand it.”
Those eyes move up my body and finally land on my face. “Don’t be jealous, Master,” she says, “There’s no need for that.”
“Good girl,” I say as I begin peeling her panties off of her, inching them down that perfect body. I can see she’s been wet for a while, her panties soaked right through. I bite the perfect curve of her ass.
I want to devour her. I want to ruin her.
I want to fucking vandalize her.
For just one second, I get that pure, distilled scent of her. The desire of her body, sieved through the lace. Holy fuck. I want to keep these panties forever. I take them off of her completely and hold them on my finger in the air. “You don’t get these back.”
She rolls over and shifts her hair to one side of her head so it lies in a long, curly trail down one shoulder. “They’re yours...”
“Say it again.”
“They’re yours, Master.”
“Fuck.” It was hot before we knew what I was. That word was loaded long before Yale. But now. Now it’s way better.
The smell of her is still heavy in the air. I need to taste her again. With my thumbs I part those tight, prettily groomed lips. She is, quite literally, good enough to eat. Her taste is unlike any woman’s I’ve ever known. Her wetness thicker, her moans better. She’s all the superlatives.
Every stroke of my tongue on her clit brings her closer and closer, every adjustment of my speed makes her writhe. I like seeing her suffer. Just a little. I love having that power over her, because she sure as shit already has it over me.
I reach between her tight lips, feeling her muscles fight me and then pull me in further. As I hook my fingers inside her, her back arches and she lets out a sigh, her head rolling back into the pillows and her body rearing off the sheets. I touch her swollen clit, and then add my tongue, just pressing down on its edge. I’m trying to bring her back to me, but she stays gone and moans, “Please, please get inside me. Please, Master Beck. Please.”
I pull her off the bed by her ankles and make her stand. With her body in my hands, I walk her back against the closet and force her against the door with a thud. I pull her shirt off, and she starts pulling mine off me. As she does, I’m undoing my fly, releasing my cock. I keep her bra on and take her breasts in my hands, slipping them between lace and nipple. They get hard under my touch.
One hand between her breasts and one on her hip, I swing her back around and throw on the bed, making her squeal with delight.
“Get on your knees,” I say into her ear. “All fours, edge of the bed.”
She not only does it, but tucks her feet beneath her when she does. How can anybody be this fucking perfect? How can anybody know what I need before I do?
I am so ragingly hard I’m not even thinking as I separate those lips again, this time with my cock. A wave of contractions shoots up my abs and into my chest. Then I realize. Holy fuck.
“Naomi. Condom.”
She swings her head to face me, and one bra strap falls down. “We’re good. I’m good.”
This is absolutely insane, yet also so unbelievably right. “Me too…but fuck.”
For a moment, we just stay there, staring. Me with my cock in my hand, her with her chin on her shoulder. Every health class, every ad stuck to a side of a bus, every warning in the doctor’s office has said this is the worst thing to do. It’s all I can do not to press myself all the way in, but this is a precipice somehow. A reckless moment of no return.
“Promise.”
It’s insanity, but I trust her. And she trusts me. Barebacked, I press inside her. Instantly, instinctively, my neck rolls backwards. Jesus Christ, I’m 38 years old. I should be stronger than this, but I can feel that pre-orgasmic rush tearing through me already. “Why do you feel. So. Fucking. Good?”
Her whimpering moan tells me she’s got no answer either.
I undo her bra, and it watch it slip down to her hands. Hands on her hips, I overtake her, as I pump myself into her. Over and over again. She gets me so close so fast. It’s almost fucking unfair.
“Keep squeezing me like that,” I tell her, “And you’re going to make me…”
“I can’t help it,” she says, and I see her toes curl under her body.
I move my hands to her breasts and get as far into her as I possibly can, until all of me is gone inside her. The tip of my cock compresses against her cervix, and her head lashes back towards me.
“Where do you want it?”
“Inside me. Please…”
Holy shit above. That’s what I needed her to say. It’s just about to happen. I’m about to come inside her, flooding her with me.
“You’re sure?”
She nods, and her hair slides up and down her back.
The orgasm is coming.
But that’s when there’s a knock at the door.
We both freeze. I’m so close to releasing in her, I’m almost deafened and blinded by need and desire. I don’t pull out. I’m convinced we can wait it out. We have to wait it out. I’ve only just gotten my hands on her, and I’m not about to let go now.
Another knock. And then the goddamned doorbell, with its irritating midi Mozart ringtone.
It’ll go on and on forever. God damn it. She groans in disappointment as I pull out of her. “Did you come?” she asks.
“Not yet, and stay there,” I say, fumbling for my clothes. Pants. Shirt. I try to wipe her taste off my lips, like that’ll give me away. “Don’t you move, beautiful. Not an inch.”
Barefoot, I run downstairs, trying to get myself together. Pants, shirt, hair. We’re good. I pause in front of the door, sniff, and turn the handle.
Guess who. Standing there like a bloodhound.
Dean Motherfucking Osgood.
16
“I heard a squeal,” Osgood says.
“Jesus Christ,” I say. I wonder if that’s the face he has when he’s chasing his moth around the Burmese jungles with a butterfly net in hand. “Dean. Seriously. This is ridiculous.”
“From your house, a squeal.”
I cannot even believe this guy. “No you didn’t.” I put my hands in my pockets. “I was just setting up my direct deposit.”
But he charges past me heading for the stairs.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I race past him, getting in his way, raising my voice so she’ll hear me. “You can’t just walk into my house.”
“Beck. It isn’t your house. It’s the college’s house!”
I put my hands on his shoulders. “Seriously, Dean. What is wrong with you?” I’m keeping my voice raised. It’s not inappropriate, though. I’d be a whole lot angrier if I wasn’t trying to keep her safe. “If you want me out of here so bad, go to the Provost. Otherwise, get out of my house.”
I’m this close to punching him. I don’t care if I break another knuckle.
He relents. He glares at me. I step back.
Then the bastard tears past me into my bedroom.
Holy shit. Impending disaster. Tsunami incoming… Naomi in bed, undressed. It’s all about to explode. But when we get to the bedroom, she’s gone. Not a trace. Not her underwear, not her bag, not her bra, not even the flip-flop that fell off as I brought her in here. Just an unmade bed, same as any bachelor would have. Except that’s when I realize two things:
1.I've still got the key to that stupid door in my pocket…which means…
2.Naomi is still in here somewhere.
The doors to the washer and dryer are closed. She’d got to be in there. I lean up against the laundry closet with my arms crossed.
“Doesn’t seem to be anything untoward going on in here…”
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