Rikki

by Abigail Strom

  When I pulled that drawer open, it was full of seasonal clothes. Shorts from the summer past and wool sweaters for the winter to come, along with gloves and hats and scarves.

  Not finding the pajamas right away, I rooted around to the very bottom. When my fingers touched something smooth I pushed a sweater aside to see what it was.

  I froze.

  It was a porn magazine. Not one of the hardcore ones, but definitely porn.

  Of course I wasn’t completely naïve. I took it for granted that guys looked at porn online and in magazines and wherever else it was available, and even though I’d never connected Sam with porn in my mind one dirty magazine wouldn’t have been enough to shock me.

  No. What shocked me was the item next to the magazine.

  My panties.

  I recognized them instantly. They were the pair that had gone missing last summer—white cotton bikinis with purple polka dots.

  My mind was reeling. Amid the tumult, one thought emerged: Sam could never, ever find out I’d been in this drawer. If he did I would die, and eighteen was too young to die.

  With shaking hands I replaced everything as perfectly as I could. Then I shut the drawer and walked back to the bed, changed into my pajama top, and slid under the covers.

  Sam had taken my panties. That day last spring, when he was alone in my room before I came up, he’d seen my open underwear drawer and taken a pair of my panties.

  My face burned but my hands were icy cold. I put my palms on my cheeks to warm them.

  Sam masturbated with my panties. Sam masturbated with my panties.

  At least, I assumed he did. I mean, why the hell else would you take a girl’s underwear? And even if he didn’t actually use them to masturbate—as that thought crossed my mind, so did the searing image of Sam lying naked in bed, my panties wrapped around his penis and his hand wrapped around both—there could only be one reason to keep a pair of my underwear in the bottom of a drawer along with a porn mag.

  They turned him on.

  I turned him on.

  Unless… was it possible that any girl’s panties would have done? That he’d grabbed mine that day because they were accessible? That someone else’s would serve the purpose just as well, or better?

  But if that were true, he’d have a pair of Mena’s underwear too. Right?

  Then again, maybe he did. I hadn’t explored every inch of that drawer, after all. Maybe he had a whole collection of panties in there. Maybe—

  The sound of a key in the lock interrupted my thoughts. I jerked up to a sitting position and swiveled my head, and in the next moment Sam was standing in the doorway.

  Chapter Twelve

  I was worried that guilty knowledge radiated from my very pores. When Sam didn’t say anything right away, I was sure of it.

  But then I noticed the look on his face. Something had happened, and it didn’t have anything to do with me.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Mena and I broke up.”

  He closed the door behind him, crossed the room to his bed, and lay down on it with his forearm covering his eyes.

  In the quiet that followed, I watched Sam’s chest rise and fall as he breathed.

  I was trying to make sense of my feelings. How could I have two contradictory emotions at once? I hated to see Sam hurting… but a part of me was fiercely glad that he and Mena weren’t together anymore.

  I tried to stifle the second thing and focus on the first.

  “I’m sorry,” I said after a moment. “Are you okay?”

  He took his arm away from his face and turned his head to look at me.

  “My heart’s not broken if that’s what you mean.”

  Okay, that was a good thing. Right?

  I tried to feel my way through this. “Does that mean the breakup was mutual?”

  Sam sat up in bed and scrubbed his face with his hands. “No, it wasn’t mutual. I broke up with her.”

  I waited, but no more information was forthcoming.

  Sam leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed and his jaw tight. I stared at him a moment before asking, “Did something happen? I mean… it seemed like everything was fine when you left here to go up to her room. Did you guys have a fight?”

  When the silence that followed my question stretched out a good ten seconds, I spoke again.

  “It’s none of my business. Forget I—”

  “I invited her to my house next month for Thanksgiving. She’s not going back to England until Christmas break, and I thought she might get a little lonely here with most of the students gone home.”

  And that had led to a breakup?

  “That was really nice of you,” I said tentatively. “I mean… wasn’t it?”

  He shrugged. “Mena didn’t think so. She reminded me that she’s not looking for anything serious and that she’s seeing other people. She also told me she doesn’t want to be with someone possessive.”

  “Possessive? Because you asked her to Thanksgiving dinner?”

  “Yeah.” He paused. “I don’t think I was being possessive, but I was asking Mena for something she doesn’t want to give. And I finally realized that neither of us is going to change. I’ll never be interested in an open relationship, or any of the things Mena’s looking for. I think she’s great, and I admire her for being so open about her sexuality and what she wants. I just don’t want the same things.”

  There was a funny blockage in my throat that made it hard to speak. But I took a deep breath and then another, swallowed hard, and asked:

  “What do you want?”

  Another silence. This one went on even longer, but there was no way I was going to interrupt it.

  “I don’t know,” he said after a minute. “But whatever it is, it’ll be one-on-one.”

  Then he swung his legs over the side of his bed and got to his feet. “I’m starting to think you have the right idea.”

  “I do?”

  He nodded. “Friendships good, relationships messy.”

  “Oh. Right.” My heart sank, and I told myself not to be an idiot.

  He grabbed the backpack he’d dropped on the floor. “I’ll be right back.”

  When he returned, he was wearing his sweatpants and T-shirt. He dropped the backpack again, got into bed, and reached for the light. “Is it okay if I turn this off? Or do you want to read in bed or something?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  “Okay.” The light went off. “Good night, Rikki.”

  “Good night.”

  Silence fell.

  After a moment I glanced over at the other bed and saw Sam’s silhouette in the darkness. He was lying on his right side, facing away from me.

  I turned onto my right side, too, and looked at him.

  I’d learned two things tonight, and my mind veered from one to the other.

  The first was that Sam and Mena had broken up.

  The second was that Sam kept a pair of my panties in his drawer.

  Maybe he’d put them there at the beginning of the semester and hadn’t looked at them since. Maybe he’d forgotten they were even there.

  But at some point, at least, he’d thought of me in a sexual way.

  I’d read somewhere that men have a sexual thought every seven seconds, but I’d never understood how that could possibly be true. How could you function? How could you get anything done? I could go without having a sexual thought for hours. Maybe days.

  But now sex was all I could think about.

  Whatever else these thoughts were, they were not conducive to sleep. I’d never felt more wide awake in my life.

  Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Sam?” I whispered.

  The shadowy bulk of him stirred in bed. “Yeah?”

  “Are you awake? I mean, awake enough for me to ask you a question?”

  Sam shifted onto his back and then onto his other side, facing me. “Sure.”

  I was glad the lights were out. “You don’
t have to answer if you don’t want to. But… I was wondering. Did you…”

  I stopped, and after a few seconds Sam prompted me. “Did I what?”

  “Did you and Mena have sex?”

  As soon as the words were out I covered my face with my hands. “Oh God, forget I asked that. It’s none of my—”

  “No,” he said. “We didn’t have sex. We might have tonight, but…”

  “But you broke up.”

  “Right.”

  Silence fell. The darkness and quiet seemed to wrap us in a kind of intimacy.

  “Is it ever hard for you?” I asked after a moment.

  “Is what hard?”

  “Being a virgin.”

  It was hard to tell in the shadows, but I thought Sam was trying not to smile. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  “Of course. I mean of course not.”

  “Why are you asking me this? What is it you want to know?”

  I thought about it. “I guess… I always assumed the raging hormone thing was worse for guys than girls. And I know you dated in high school, so…”

  “So why am I still a virgin?”

  “Yes.”

  “One person wanting sex doesn’t mean sex happens. I wanted to sleep with Felicia junior year, but she wasn’t ready.”

  I remembered Felicia. She and Sam had been a pretty sweet couple, actually. Maybe they’d still be together if she hadn’t moved away after junior year. “But you wanted to?”

  “Hell, yes. But there were two people involved.”

  I thought about that. “Was the situation ever reversed?”

  “Once. I went out with a girl the summer before senior year who wanted to sleep with me.”

  “But you didn’t? Why not?”

  “I wasn’t feeling it. I kept thinking I would, but I never did. We broke up after a few weeks.” He paused. “That was the summer my dad got diagnosed. It might have had something to do with that.”

  “You didn’t date much senior year,” I remembered.

  “No. Too much on my mind, I guess.”

  I was quiet for a moment. “I hope I don’t sound like… I don’t mean to imply… that is, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a virgin. Obviously. I mean, I haven’t had sex yet either.”

  “Why haven’t you?”

  “Why haven’t I had sex?”

  “Yeah.”

  It was a fair question, considering I’d asked him the same thing—and considering he’d answered me. I thought about it for a minute, wanting to be as honest as I could.

  “I’m not sure,” I said finally. “Sometimes I think I want my first time to be special, and with someone I love. A part of me wants to hold out for that.” I took a breath. “But other times I think I just want to get it over with. With someone who really knows what they’re doing, you know? Like a male prostitute. Sometimes I fantasize that I hire this gorgeous male prostitute and we have amazing sex which no one ever does their first time, and then it turns out he wasn’t really a male prostitute at all but just a guy who saw me in a café and was smitten, and when he overheard me talking about my male prostitute plan he used it as a ploy to get me into bed.”

  “Wow. That’s a really elaborate fantasy.”

  “It’s the product of years of reading romance novels.”

  “Huh. So you don’t want your first time to be with someone inexperienced?”

  My face felt hot. “It could be awkward,” I said after a moment. “But what about you?” I went on quickly. “Wouldn’t you rather have your first time be with someone who can guide you around the curves?”

  “I guess there would be advantages to that, sure. But I also like the idea of two people having their first time together. I think if they were in love… and both of them were ready… then it could be kind of amazing. Not perfect, but amazing.”

  My eyes had adjusted to the darkness and I could see Sam more clearly. His face was really handsome at night. Of course it was nice in the daytime, too, but at night his bone structure seemed almost… I don’t know, noble or something.

  When he lay on his side like that his shoulders looked really broad. The covers were down around his waist, and I could see his upper body distinctly. Even under his T-shirt every muscle was defined. Arms, shoulders, chest, abs…

  I remembered what Mena had said about him. The first time we kissed, I thought my panties would melt right off.

  “Can I ask you another question?” I asked abruptly.

  “Sure.”

  “How far have you gone? With Mena and your girlfriends in high school. If you don’t mind my asking,” I added belatedly.

  “What exactly do you want to know?”

  I remembered his touch on my skin, and how remarkable it had seemed that hands so big and strong and callused could also be so gentle.

  I wanted to know what else those hands had done.

  “I don’t know. I guess… what about the bases? Have you been to second base?”

  “Under the shirt? Yeah.”

  So Sam’s hands had been on a girl’s breasts. As I thought about it, my nipples puckered and hardened under my pajama top.

  “What about third?”

  “Below the waist?”

  “Uh huh. Anything short of actual intercourse.”

  There was a pause. “I’ve been to third.”

  “You have?”

  “Yeah.”

  So Sam’s hands had also been…

  There.

  Or maybe it hadn’t been his hands. Maybe it had been his mouth.

  “What is it like?” I whispered.

  “Third base?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a long pause.

  “It’s amazing,” he said.

  His voice seemed to vibrate through me. And then, in one overwhelming rush, I was picturing Sam with his mouth on my—

  “What about you?” he asked.

  My heart was pounding, and I struggled to keep my voice from trembling. “Me?”

  “Yeah. How far have you gone?”

  There was no way I could get out of answering his question. Not when he’d answered mine.

  “Second,” I said.

  Neither of us said anything for a minute. My heart was a distant drumbeat in my ears.

  Then:

  “Is it ever hard for you?” Sam asked.

  I blinked. “Is what hard for me?”

  “Being a virgin.”

  I remembered our last modeling session and the brush of his hand from my shoulder to my wrist. Goose bumps sprang up on my skin and a shiver went down my spine. And then, like that day in the art studio, I became aware of an ache in my belly and a throb between my legs.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  As soon as that word was spoken, I felt tense and shaky and vulnerable.

  I squeezed my hands into fists. “I mean… it’s hard for everyone. Right? People have needs and urges and… all that.”

  After my whispered yes, my voice now sounded too loud.

  I took a deep breath. “Maybe we should go to sleep,” I said. “I’m sorry I woke you up before,” I added, remembering that I was the one who’d started this conversation.

  “You didn’t wake me up,” Sam said. “But it is late.”

  There was a pause.

  “Well… good night,” I said after a moment.

  “Good night.”

  I turned over so I was facing away from him and waited for sleep to come. But in spite of all my efforts, I couldn’t stop thinking about everything we’d talked about… and what I’d found in Sam’s drawer.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Our next sculpting session was the following week. I was pretty close to normal over the weekend, but on Tuesday—the day of the session—I had a hard time concentrating on my classes.

  I had a hard time concentrating on anything.

  Especially English. Sam was across from me, and I couldn’t keep my eyes from going to him. Once I stared so long he mu
st have sensed it, because his head turned and his eyes met mine.

  My cheeks burned as I looked quickly down at my notebook. My heart was racing and I couldn’t catch my breath.

  When class was over I had my stuff ready to go so I could leap out of my chair and head for the door.

  “See you in a few hours,” I called out to Sam, because it would have been weird if I’d left without saying something to him. We usually chatted for a few minutes at the end of class.

  I went to the library but I couldn’t study. I couldn’t focus. Every few minutes I’d catch myself just staring out the window, lost in a reverie.

  My body felt… liquid, somehow. Almost weightless, as though I might float out of my seat at any moment.

  I wondered if there was a word to describe exactly how I was feeling.

  Lush. Voluptuous. Languorous. Rapturous.

  None of them was quite right.

  I knew what was making me feel this way. It was my anticipation about modeling for Sam this afternoon. I kept imagining myself lying there in my bra and panties, unable to see him but knowing that he was sculpting me. But this time, I knew he didn’t see me as just a still life.

  He saw me as a girl, too. A girl whose panties he kept in his drawer.

  As I walked slowly up the stairs to the art studio, one word kept coiling inside me and around me as though it were a living, breathing thing.

  Desire.

  The word itself took on new meaning, new life, new power.

  I had thought that word before, of course. I’d even felt it. For Derek, for a few guys in high school, for Jason.

  For Sam.

  That knowledge felt like the most delicious secret I’d ever known. It fed me more than food ever could; it quenched my thirst more than the coldest, clearest water.

  It felt like I could live on that knowledge. It was more powerful than gravity, because I seemed to be in danger of floating away.

  But all it took was seeing Sam in the art studio to bring me back down to earth.

  As soon as I walked in the door and saw him my heart started to pound. I went from feeling weightless to feeling heavy as lead, so heavy I couldn’t take another step. My throat closed up and all I could do was stare at him.

  He stared back, a worried look on his face. “Are you okay?”