by Monica Rossi
“I’m not that young,” she protested, but it was the perfect opportunity to ask about something she’d been wondering. “How old are you? You don’t look too much older than me but that would mean you had a wife and child when you were fifteen or so.”
He laughed, “No I’m 28, though my parents did think I got married too early. But I never regretted it.”
There was entirely too much death around their conversations, “Wow, a whole twenty eight years old. You must look forward to getting your Social Security checks soon.”
“Yes, and I plan on moving myself into a nursing home soon and wooing all the ladies with my superior bingo playing skills.”
“Ok, here you go,” the waitress, Cindy, placed their orders on the table.
“Oh my god,” Melissa said while viewing the slice of cake in front of her. “There are about ten thousand calories on this plate.”
“Well, it is called Mountain of Chocolate Cake. If you had wanted something smaller you might should have tried the anthill of Lemon Lime bar.”
They laughed as they ate, keeping the conversation light. Melissa’s cake and her coffee were delicious and even though she felt like she was going to explode, she really wanted to finish eating everything on her plate.
“If I eat one more bite I’m going to be sick, but its sooo good.”
“I know a secret trick to cure that,” Owen said.
“What?”
With his fork he snagged the last large chunk of cake on her plate and took a bite.
“Hey! Hands off, that’s mine!” she reached out and tried to pull his hand, and the cake, back to her.
“I’m just thinking of you. Oh God this is delicious.” He took another bite.
“Fine, I’ll just finish off your cake. Oh wait, I can’t because you’re greedy and ate it all.”
“Ok, here the last bite is for you,” he held the fork out towards her. She grabbed his hand and held it still so he couldn’t jerk it away at the last moment. Taking the last piece slowly into her mouth, she closed her eyes, savoring the rich chocolate and the smooth creamy icing as it hit her taste buds. She couldn’t remember eating anything this fantastic in a long time.
Melissa opened her eyes to see Owen watching her intently. He had that same hunger in his eyes that he’d had in his studio. Just knowing that he wanted her made her body respond instantly, quivers of desire dancing low in her belly.
They sat watching each other for a moment, each unsure of what to do. Melissa leaned in closer, touching his arm and letting it run up his sleeve as she gravitated towards him. God she wanted this man.
“Here’s your check, is there anything else I can get you before you leave? A to-go drink or maybe a box to take – oh never mind, you guys don’t need boxes,” she picked up the empty plates and took the check with the cash Owen handed her, thanking them for coming in.
For such a happy perky person, Melissa was pretty sure she hated that waitress.
“So how about a stroll through the market. Some of the vendors are still open at night.”
“Sure,” she agreed. What she really wanted to do is find a dark alley and molest him.
They walked between the rows at the open-air market, looking at handmade baskets and mass produced art. Melissa had been to the market dozens of times and the items rarely changed, mostly catering to tourists who were willing to part with hundreds of dollars for butterflies under glass or prints of the ‘old South’, so she was sure Owen wasn’t there to shop. Maybe he thought she’d never been.
“It’s getting a little late, might be time to head back,” Owen said looking straight ahead.
“Wow, you really are getting old,” she pulled out her phone and looked at the time, “It’s 11:17.”
“I know, but I’ve got a buyer from gallery coming in the morning, I’d hope to put on pants and a shirt before he got there.”
“Oh I don’t know, a lot can be said for pajama bottoms and shirtless. If I were the buyer anyway,” she cut her eyes sideways at him.
“You think so?”
“I know so, don’t act like you’re not aware of how attractive you are.”
“What?” he seemed genuinely confused, “I don’t brush my hair, I only shave occasionally, and I’m pushing thirty.”
“It works for you. Besides, you have this air of tortured artist about you that just adds to your allure.”
He barked out a laugh, “Allure. If my brother ever heard someone call me ‘alluring’ I’d never live it down.”
“Only because he’s jealous. There’s no way your brother looks as good as you. It’s genetically impossible.”
“Now that I might have to tell him.”
They arrived on his porch and Melissa wasn’t quite sure what to do. It was obvious Owen wanted to end their evening together, even if it did seem like he had a good excuse. “Well, I guess I should have called a cab when we left the market, that way he’d be here by now.”
“Why don’t you come inside and wait, I’ll grab us some of that mandatory sweet tea you were talking about.”
“Thanks,” she said as they walked through the door.
She went into his studio and set on a faded old velour couch that had seen better days while she called the taxi.
“I would have offered to take you home but then we’d have to walk another forty minutes to the garage I use, which is located in the middle of BFE.” He handed her a full glass of tea and sat down beside her.
“The parking situation downtown seems to be a bit of an issue. I’m glad I don’t have a car.”
“It’s good for when I need to haul my work into North Charleston or over to Mount Pleasant but I normally just walk everywhere. It’s more convenient. “
“I know what you mean. In DC I take the subway everywhere but back home you have to have a car, even if you just want to run to the convenience store. Public transport and living in a city has spoiled me.”
“I’ve been to DC a few times but there are just too many people. Charleston is the perfect blend of having a small town feel with all the conveniences of a city.”
“Not to mention it’s beautiful here, that’s convenient for an artist,” she waved her hand taking in all the paintings hanging or stacked up against the walls.
“It is beautiful here, but honestly there’s beauty everywhere, just some places you have to look harder to find it.”
He was looking at her with those intense eyes and all she wanted to do was put down her glass of sweet tea and fall into his arms. It was really a shame that he didn’t feel the same, because now would be the perfect time to lean in and let her lips touch his. She could imagine how velvety soft they would feel against hers, how his tongue would feel as it brushed up against her lip.
“… and that’s really the reason I stayed in Charleston,” he finished. She’d completely zoned out.
“Mmm,” she replied, not having heard anything he’d said. There was really no reason why she couldn’t make the first move. She’d spent too long not doing anything, she finally felt like doing something and that something was sitting right beside her.
Now all she had to was find the opportunity. “So, are you going to make a painting from the sketch you drew of me?”
“Well, I actually hadn’t thought about it,” he said looking away.
“Come on, you said you could find beauty anywhere, how about in me?” She reached out and put her hand on his leg, lightly touching, unsure of herself and hesitant. Instantly she felt the energy buzz around them, his eyes held hers and everything else disappeared. In what felt like slow motion he leaned in towards her, his hand coming to rest on her side, tingles through her entire body. Their faces were inches apart and Melissa wasn’t sure she could breathe anymore, the anticipation of feeling his lips on hers almost making her heart thump out of her chest.
A car honked its horn outside and they both jumped, he looked towards the window and back at her, “I don’t think it’d be that hard,” he brushed a s
trand of hair behind her ear. “Your cab is outside.”
It had been three days and she hadn’t seen or heard from Owen. Before she’d left his house after their ‘date’ she’d given him her phone number and told him to call her if he decided he wanted her to sit for him again. So far, despite the numerous times she’d checked her call log, her texts and her voice messages, she hadn’t heard a peep from him.
It was driving her crazy. Her little house was spotless, she’d been binge watching old episodes of campy tv shows on Netflix, and she’d read a book and still she felt restless. She needed something to do to take her mind off of him. In the scheme of things, being sexually frustrated and infatuated beat moping and being depressed but at the moment Melissa just felt like she was running around in circles.
She had to get out of the house.
"Hey Tracey it’s, Melissa,” she decided to call her friend. It wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted to see her, it was that she hadn’t wanted to deal with the sympathy or the memories that would go along with seeing her.
“Oh my GOD! I’ve left you at least ten messages on your phone, umpteen Facebook messages, I’ve even tweeted at you. I thought I was going to have to resort to smoke signals to get you to respond to me,” her friend reprimanded her.
“I know, I’m sorry. I’ve just been… a little out of it lately.”
“How are you doing?” she could hear the sympathy in Tracey’s voice and wanted to stop it in its tracks before it became a full blown cry fest. She’d gone two days without crying and she didn’t want to break her record.
“I’m ok, I’m actually staying at Folly. I’ve got this nice little beach house and I was wondering if you wanted to come down and maybe go hang out on the beach? Or I could go there.” She really didn’t care which one, she just needed someone to distract her.
“You’re in Charleston now? When did you get here?”
Melissa didn’t want to answer that, she knew Tracey would be mad at her for not calling sooner. “Not long, a few days,” she lied.
“Well hell yeah I’ll come over. I haven’t been to the beach in a few weeks, my tan is fading. Give me the address of your rental and I’ll head over in a few.”
She gave her friend the address and hung up the phone, glad that she’d navigated their first encounter without an emotional setback. Now all she had to do was figure out which of her bathing suits would be most forgiving, considering the summer full of fast food and lying on the couch. Not to mention a mountain of chocolate cake.
⋆⋆⋆
“So then, when we get back to the dorm the guys have made a little racing track and have frozen palmetto bugs that they’ve painted numbers on. They had every intention of unthawing those nasty things and letting them free to run around the everywhere.”
Melissa laughed over the crazy anecdotes of coed life Tracey was catching her up on. And for the most part, she wasn’t faking. Normally tanning on the beach and listening to the radio wasn’t something she would have done, even before she’d sunk into depression, but she was actually enjoying herself. The sky was clear and blue with a hot sun sending them into the ocean to cool off occasionally, and the beach wasn’t crowded at all. Their section was almost empty except for a few random surfers, a kid flying a kite, and an old couple with their grandchildren building sandcastles.
“I’m glad we choose to get an off campus apartment instead of staying in a dorm, though I don’t have stories half as good as yours.”
“Oh that’s nothing, you should have seen the guy who thought it’d be a bright idea to make a ramp from the second floor and ride a grocery cart down it. Naked.”
“Please tell me someone put that on Youtube?”
“Yup, I’ll send you the link later,” Tracey said, taking a long gulp of water from her thermal mini keg.
“My life won’t be complete until I see it,” Melissa assured her.
“Speaking of your life, what’s been going on? And why have you been dodging me?” her friend rolled to her side to look at her.
“Honestly?”
“No lie to me,” Tracey rolled her eyes.
“I just haven’t been up for all the sympathy and well wishes from everyone. I’ve been depressed enough without someone reminding me every few minutes about what I’ve lost.”
Tracey nodded, “I get that, but you do know you’re just making it harder on yourself in the long run.”
“And how is that?”
“Well if you got it all out the way to begin with, the hugs and all the tears and sympathetic pats on the shoulder, then people would eventually stop doing it and life would get back to normal. Now you’ve gone off and become a hermit and everyone is worried about you and wondering how you’re coping. You’ve tripled… no quadrupled the amount of sympathy and concern you’re going to get.”
Leave it to Tracey to be as blunt as possible and cut right down to the quick of the matter. She was right and Melissa felt like an idiot. “I hadn’t thought about it like that.”
“Well if you’d have called me back I could have told you sooner,” Tracey shrugged.
“Shut up, I said I’m sorry.”
“Apology not accepted. Unless you go out with my friend Mark. He’s hot as shit, and from what I’ve heard pretty good in bed too.”
“Then why aren’t you with him?” Melissa asked.
“Well if you had called me then you’d know I’m dating someone.”
“Oh, well please tell me all about him and how hot and wonderful he is,” she joked, knowing Tracey couldn’t resist going into the gory details of her personal life.
“Nope, not until I’ve got you locked down in a date with Mark.”
A date wouldn’t be a horrible thing, but she was sure she’d be wishing it was someone else the entire time. “I really don’t want to Tracey.”
“Why, are you serious about getting out of depression mode or not?”
“Yes, that’s not it. It’s just…”
“Have you got herpes? There are treatment options.”
“Shut up. No, I do not have herpes. There’s just another guy I’m sort of interested in.”
“Ahhh, do tell,” Tracey drawled.
Melissa told her about how she’d met Owen and about their date. And also about how he didn’t seem to be interested in her.
“That’s ridiculous. He obviously sees something in you. Number one, he likes the way you look because he wanted to draw you. Number two, he asked you out so he obviously wanted to get to know you better. Number three, you’re awesome, who wouldn’t be interested in you?”
Melissa smiled, “Well he could have just been trying to cheer me up, I did have a bit of a break down in his studio.”
“Whatever, he still wouldn’t have asked you out if he hadn’t thought of you as more than just a subject to draw. Where is his studio anyway, we should go there after we leave the beach and let him see how hot you look all slathered in oil in a bikini.”
“It’s on Coming Street, right across from that Pepto Bismal sorority house. And there’s no way we’re going there. I’m sure my hair looks like something is trying to nest in it.”
“I know exactly who you’re talking about. I’ve seen him carrying his paintings around. He is hot as hell.”
“I know,” Melissa agreed, “And nice and artistic and I fucking can’t stop thinking about him.”
“Well you know what you have to do,” Tracey said.
“No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
Melissa felt stupid and she wanted to turn around and get back into the cab and crawl into bed when she got to her house. Instead she knocked on the door.
After much debate with Tracey she’d finally agreed to a plan that was the least cringe worthy to her. So there she was on Owen’s doorstep wearing an almost sheer dress and prepared to tell him a story about how she’d been in the neighborhood and thought she’d drop by to say hello. All lies, there was no way she would have walked around downtown wearing something so thin yo
u could just barely see the outline of her nipples through it. It had been bad enough that the cab driver had seen her and done a double take before she’d gotten in the car. Her face was probably flaming red just thinking about it, and now she was going to walk into Owen’s studio dressed that way. She turned around, intending to go buy a sweatshirt at the college bookstore and call the cab to come back and get her, this was just too embarrassing.
“Hey,” she heard his voice behind her, “It took me a while to get to the door because I was up –“
She turned around and his words were cut off. He raked his eyes over her, taking in the white sleeveless dress and seeing what was hinted at underneath.
Melissa was dying inside, “Uh, I was just, um, in the neighborhood and I thought I’d drop by and see how you were doing.”
He looked back at her face and she could see the hunger there, her own flaring in response.
“I’m good, why don’t you come inside,” he stood back opening the door just enough for her to come in. She brushed against him and fire ignited in her body, sending tendrils of desire out from her core and up through her chest. She paused and looked up at him, still touching him, waiting for something.
She didn’t have to wait long. Owen grabbed her neck and pulled her even closer to him, lips descending onto hers.
She had thought they’d feel soft, like velvet, that’s what she’d imagined in her daydreams about him, and they did but they were hard velvet, demanding that she give all of herself to him. That’s what she wanted to do, give him everything she had, everything she was.
Arching into him, feeling his hard body against her softer one through the little bit of clothing she wore, she moaned. The need he’d almost instantly kindled in her, added to the hours she’d spent daydreaming about this exact moment, was enough to send a surge of longing that shot through her body and landed directly in her core. His hands ran down her back and cupped her ass, lifting her up and closer to him. Automatically, she raised her legs to wrap them around him and he pressed her up against the door. She could feel his hardness pressing up against her at the crux of her thighs and felt a surge of wetness flow in response. She needed him now. Involuntarily her hips thrust against him, letting the fabric covered bulge slide against her.