by Naomi Niles
“You want me to help?” I asked quietly. His thighs were warm against mine.
“Not this time.” With an air of resolution, he reached for the button on my jeans and began to unzip them. He pulled at the legs, and I assisted by shrugging them off until they lay in a pile on the floor at my feet.
I was wearing a tiny pair of gray silk underwear, the kind with little ribbons on the front on either side. Zack knelt down and ran his hands along the top; I shivered at the touch of his skin against my waist beneath my belly button. With a firm tug, he pulled them down, around my waist, around my knees, all the way down to my ankles. I gave them a final kick, and they went flying across the kitchen floor.
“I just want to know one thing,” he said as he buried his face in my thighs, and I bit down hard on my lip to keep from crying out.
I grasped at the tufts of his hair with both hands, holding on as tight as I could. “What’s that?”
“How are you so perfect?”
This time I couldn’t help it: a shiver of pleasure ran through my body, and I let out a yell that could almost certainly be heard across the hall. I hadn’t even removed my shirt yet—was still wearing my glasses, even—and already I was experiencing a level of ecstasy that other boys had not managed even in our most intimate moments. Pleased at the effect he was having, Zack pressed on, and I screamed more and more loudly until finally, not able to handle it anymore, I fell over face-first onto the floor and pulled him with me.
“Lordy,” I panted, reaching for his hands, “if that was—we’re not even—”
Zack laughed and pulled me close for a kiss. “It’s okay, you don’t have to be articulate all the time,” he said, and I felt a surge of appreciation coursing through me. “Sometimes you’ve just gotta be still and surrender yourself to the moment.”
And over the next hour, that was precisely what I did.
Chapter Thirty-Nine Zack
That night, we lay in bed for some time after we’d finished, pondering the mystery of each other. She ran her fingers along the tattoos on my back and the stab wound in my side from the time I had been knifed in San Francisco by a deranged ex-Marine. The light from a flickering neon sign cast its green glow over the window.
“Sometimes it doesn’t make any sense to me, these bodies,” she said after a long silence in which we were just two creatures without names.
“What do you mean?” There was something oddly endearing and sexy in the strange philosophical insights Kelli always seemed to be having.
“Just the way we express love, and fear, and hope, and anything else worth sharing. There’s something mysterious and ineffable about it, this intertwining of soul and flesh. The spirit and the body.”
“Care to elaborate?” Maybe I shouldn’t have laughed, but I did.
Kelli sat up, looking a little frustrated. “It’s just that everything worth doing is done through our bodies. But we’re more than just bodies, or at least I think we are. When we make love, your love shines in your eyes and your whole self, and I never doubt that you love me, even if you never say it in words. You don’t have to. It’s the mystery of sex but I think it’s really the mystery of life itself: how is it that we become conduits of eternal things? I mean, if you turn off your penis and think about it for a minute, sex is actually pretty gross, but it’s how we show love and there’s something really good about it. Does that make any sense?”
I shook my head. “No, you sound so high right now, but I love you.”
It was the first time I had ever told her I loved her, and the words seemed to have a calming effect. She smiled a tranquil smile and said in a quiet voice, “You too.”
“Have you ever thought about becoming a college professor?”
Kelli shrugged her bare shoulders. “I’d have to go back to grad school. I got into journalism right out of college.”
“You ought to think about it.” I leaned over and kissed her bangs lightly. “Sometimes when you get going I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about, but I bet there are a lot of students who would love to hear it.”
I lay back down and for a while longer continued to run my fingers along the smooth skin of her arm. But Kelli sat up hugging a throw pillow to her chest with a pensive expression; she looked oddly beautiful in the glow of the neon light. “Professor Pope,” she said quietly. “I like the sound of that.”
***
By the end of the next week, Carson and I were back at the high school. But this time we had visitor’s passes, and no one was going to ask us to leave.
At the doors of the Taft building, we were met by a smiling woman in her mid-twenties wearing a blue cardigan over a striped green and white blouse and a pair of loose-fitting khakis. The tag on her blouse read “Sheryl Caine.”
“It’s only the beginning of the trimester, but my classes are already getting antsy,” she said as she led us through a low-ceilinged hallway filled with rows and rows of blue lockers. “We’ve watched Zoolander twice in the last week.”
“Hey, it’s a good movie,” said Carson.
“But I think they’ll be relieved to have a break from biology. I know some of the boys are going to be really fascinated to hear what you have to say—some of the girls, too, probably. A lot of these kids come from really low-income families and will be lucky even to graduate high school. And even if they can manage that, the best they can hope for is to eventually become a manager at Domino’s.” She paused at the door and turned to face me. “So what you’re doing today, it’s important. You’re not just coming in here to talk for a few minutes. You may actually be giving them a future.”
“Well, we’ll do what we can,” I said. I didn’t like having my job built up like this. But at the same time, it was encouraging to know that even if the kids looked bored, it didn’t mean our time had been wasted.
She led us into a classroom where about two dozen kids were seated. There was a desk in the corner of the room by the window looking out on the courtyard. On the dry-erase board at the front of the room, Ms. Caine had been writing out complex formulas. A copy of a Bill Nye DVD stood on the chalk tray beneath it.
I hadn’t been in a classroom in so long—when I graduated, Facebook wasn’t even a thing yet. It was all so familiar and yet strange at the same time. I wondered if they still used the boxy TVs we’d been forced to watch in the early 2000s, or if they’d upgraded to flat-screens.
The students were between the ages of fourteen and fifteen, and they all looked exhausted, like they had been forced to wake up before dawn and run for an hour in the pale daylight. A girl seated three or four seats from the front was quietly reading a novel. I decided to leave her alone, figuring at least she wasn’t plugging away on her phone.
Carson and I stood together at the wooden podium.
“Hey, listen up,” I said, and two dozen pairs of eyes looked sleepily up at me. “Today we’re gonna be talking about something that you’re gonna want to listen to. Because it’s about more than whether or not you pass an exam. This is your future. Everybody with me…?”
Chapter Forty Kelli
Two years later, and I was in graduate school studying world cinema with a concentration on early twentieth-century Expressionist films. Two nights a week, I taught a class on film theory over at Columbia. I was too busy to spend more than a couple days every week in the office, but Evan had graciously allowed me to retain my position as executive editor.
Zack and I had moved into a studio apartment in Bushwick. He was still employed as a recruiter and finishing his book in his spare time, though mostly for therapeutic reasons. There had been no further outbursts like the one on the trail back in Texas; the worst fight we had ever had was over a movie. (He wanted to watch Attack the Block ; I wanted to watch Garden State ).
Work and school kept me busy. Some nights, we barely saw each other because I had a mountain of papers to grade in addition to writing my master’s thesis on the use of intertextuality in the early films of Fritz Lang. In
the last couple years, Zack had been made to watch more German films than he cared to remember. It was a testament to his devotion that he never complained about it.
One evening in late September when I was up late hunched over my desk, he came into the room carrying a plate full of cookies and a glass of hot cocoa.
“Thanks, sweetie.” I gave him a quick smooch on the lips. He was wearing a ridiculous-looking apron with bears on it, and the apron was covered in flour. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know where the flash drive is, would you?”
“I haven’t seen it lately,” he replied, pulling up the other swivel chair. “How soon do you need it?”
“I just need to transfer some files through Gmail, and it won’t let me load them because there are too many. Anyway, I’m sorry. This is boring. How are you?”
Zack laughed lightly. “Girl, you don’t ever bore me,” he said. “You could sit there and read to me in German, and I’d listen. Wouldn’t understand a word of it, but I’d listen.”
“That either means you’re a good person or you just really love me,” I said with a smile. Even though he was relentlessly encouraging, I never felt like I was being doted on. Everything he said felt right and sincere, even when I thought he was being too kind.
“I know things have been hard lately, what with both of us working and you in school.” He took my hand and massaged it lightly. “But that just means we’re on our way in the world. Someday we’ll have reached the top and we’ll be able to relax a little.”
“I can’t imagine ever relaxing.” I reached for my cocoa and held it in my hands, letting it warm me. “Like, what do you do? Do you sit on a beach? Do you go bowling?”
Zack shrugged. “Beats me, but that’s the kind of woman I’m dating. You’re too hard-working and ambitious to let up even for a second. Anyway, what’ve you got going on tomorrow?”
“Evan wanted me to come in early tomorrow,” I replied. “Says he’s got a story he wants me to cover.”
“I thought you gave up reporting when you started school.”
“So did I, but he says I’m really going to like this, and there’s no one else in the office he would trust with it.” I let out a sharp laugh. “Like I haven’t heard that before.”
Zack grinned. “Maybe me and Carson need to go pay him a visit.”
***
In the two years since I’d taken the editing position, the Bugle had left the basement and claimed about half of the first floor of the Frost Building. When I came into his office that morning, I found Evan seated at a large semi-circular desk playing the Killers on Pandora and scrolling through our main page. He glanced up excitedly when he saw me.
“So here’s where we’re going; are you ready for this?” He lifted a fat binder and shoved it into a handbag. “One of the old trees in Central Park is slated to be torn down, and there’s an old woman who’s chained herself to it. She’s been there for three days with a water bottle and a bag full of sub sandwiches. You and I are gonna go over there and interview her. I’ll take pictures while you talk to her.”
“Okay, but I don’t see why one of your other reporters couldn’t have done this,” I said as he ushered me through the door. “Dennis usually takes the ‘mad old lady’ beat.”
Evan pondered this for a second as though trying to think of a good reason. Finally, he said, “You’ll understand when we get there. Come on, we don’t have all morning!”
We caught the train through Forest Hills and Jackson Heights to Central Park. Once I had finished answering my emails, I put the phone away and sat marveling at the view through the windows: two- and three-story brick houses, residential streets lined with trees and tugboats gliding past on the water. It was one of those crisp fall mornings where the city and the world are beautiful beyond telling, where a quiet magic seems to radiate even from the gray asphalt.
“Ready?” asked Evan as we disembarked onto the platform at Columbus Circle. He looked unusually chipper, and I thought what a relief it must be for him to escape the office for a few hours.
I followed along behind him for about a quarter of a mile. It was one of those blustery, cloudy mornings that are so common in New York in early fall, and I could tell just by the feel of the wind on my skin that rain was imminent.
We walked until we came to a waist-high classical column standing in the middle of an open area with latticework all around us. I scanned the trees in the distance looking for any sign of the old woman Evan had warned me about, but there was none: no woman, no chains, no sandwich bag.
An ominous quiet fell as we stood there, motionless.
“Evan?” I said quietly. “This isn’t the place.”
“Just wait,” said Evan. He was removing his camera from its carrying case with a look of supreme unconcern.
I waited, still peering into the distance wondering what we were looking for. Finally, a tall, sculpted figure emerged from the bushes and came striding into view. In almost the same instant, I realized what this was.
“Hey, darlin’,” said Zack when he was close enough to speak without having to yell. “So, I realize this is kind of an ambush, but we couldn’t think of any other way to do it. You’re so clever you were bound to see through whatever we tried to pull.”
“We?” I motioned to Evan, who was circling around us at a distance snapping pictures. “Did you and he plan this whole thing out?”
He shook his head. “No, it was me and your sister. The two of us spent days together in the coffee shop while you were at school trying to come up with something, and well, here we are.”
My stomach gave a nervous lurch as I waited, in silence, for what I knew must surely be coming.
“My buddies and I used to joke that I would never be able to settle down,” Zack went on. “That when I found a woman the relationship would be over in a couple weeks because I’d get bored and move onto the next person. In the platoon when we started dating, they laid odds on how long we’d be together. Some said a month, some said a week.
“But I don’t know what happened when I met you. It’s not like I don’t notice other women but none of them are you. And when we broke up the first time, I was pretty excited at first about being back on the market, but the longer it went on, the more I realized I didn’t want anyone but you. That was the hardest withdrawal I’d ever gone through; giving up drinking was easier. I felt like an addict who would never be satisfied unless you were with me always. I knew then that we belonged together, and that if you wouldn’t have me I’d be single for the rest of my life.”
We had never talked about those fraught, painful weeks after the first breakup, but it was like he was speaking my own experience back to me. This was the thing I loved about Zack: that I had never felt so enjoyed and understood by another human being.
By now, we were standing close together, so close that his voice was barely a whisper. “So I just have one question, and you can say nom but I have to ask because I need closure on this, and I need you.” He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and produced a thin silver band. I’d been expecting something like it, but even so, my eyes teared up at the sight of it. “Kelli, will you marry me?”
I didn’t hesitate even for a moment. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, of course.”
He placed the ring on my finger. We held onto one another in silence for a moment as the clouds broke, and a light rain began falling. “You know there were several guys in your unit who asked me out?”
Zack smiled down at me. “And why’d you pick me over all those other guys?”
I shrugged. “I guess I wanted our babies to be half-Texan.”
He laughed and tousled my hair. I took his hand, and we began walking back toward the grove of trees to the east, where we were joined a second later by a beaming Evan. I’d been so busy getting engaged that I’d almost forgotten he was there.
“You ready to head back now?” I asked him. “Now that we’re all sorted?”
“Not until we find that woman,” he re
plied, and he went tramping off to find her. I turned to Zack, feeling puzzled.
“Did you tell him about this?”
Zack shook his head, looking as flummoxed as I felt. “I was wondering why you brought him, to be honest.”
I shrugged. “Maybe Renee told him. You want to head back to the house?”
“What about your assignment?”
I watched Evan disappearing into the grove, his shoulders hunched in determination like a hunter of wild game. “He’ll be fine. Let’s go.” And we turned and raced back to Zack’s car while the rain fell in torrents around us.
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SEAL’D BY HIM
By Naomi Niles
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Naomi Niles
Chapter One
Dwayne
I knew that we were flying through the air, but I couldn’t fully convince myself that I was in a plane. The light hit the seat in front of me and took on an elusive quality as if it were a mirage reflecting off of the Afghani sands below us.
Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack.
The sound seemed to rise up out of nowhere, almost like I had been dreaming and now I was waking up.
Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack.
I was dreaming. I couldn’t imagine how it happened. The sound of the helicopter rotors drowned out everything, even my thoughts. I had to focus. There was a group of children holed up in a school less than a hundred miles from where we were flying now. It was my job to go in and take out the Taliban operatives holding them prisoner before they killed the kids.