by Sienna Ciles
One of the other class officers arrived on the scene and took over. “We’re going to have sign-up sheets for all the events, so make sure to put your name down so we know how many people to expect,” she said, in the chipper kind of voice that made me wonder if she taught kindergarten.
“We’re putting copies of the sheets here, at the school, and at the other hotel most of us are staying at,” the first guy explained. “We’ll be collecting them every morning, so get in early.”
I turned to Bethany. “What do you want to do, sweetie?”
She looked at me in surprise, as the rest of our table went to start signing up for different activities. “I figured I’d go to a few different things and watch.”
“I want to see you hula, girl,” I told her, grinning. “And I definitely want to see you dressed up like a nineties chick, dancing to The Cure and Nirvana.”
“I don’t even have anything that would fit into that,” she told me tartly.
“I think we can figure something out. I have a flannel shirt, and even if the weather isn’t great, we can probably find an open thrift store with some grungy jeans or something,” I countered.
“If I do it, then you have to do it too,” Bethany said.
“I’m game,” I told her. “I think you’ve been working too hard and not letting yourself go too much.”
She blushed, and I knew she was thinking about what had happened the night before.
I couldn’t quite get my mind off of that turn of events, either. With effort, I pushed it out of my mind and gave Bethany a nudge to stand up and head toward the sign-up sheets. “Let’s find some fun things to do while we’re being social.”
“I’m not good at any of these things,” Bethany protested.
“The point isn’t to be good at them, first of all,” I explained. “The goal is to have fun. Were you ever a kid?”
Bethany’s glance showed I’d pushed a little too hard and I grabbed her by the waist, using the excuse of my role to pull her close to me so I could kiss her.
“If you have a terrible time doing any of the things we’re signing up for, we can leave early and just go get drunk again,” I suggested.
Bethany gave me a long look but then nodded, and I led the way to the sign-up sheets. The kinds of activities that the committee had planned were not exactly my idea of the best way to spend a long weekend, even one among strangers, but they were pretty tame. There were parties of different kinds going on at all hours, in different locations--but all of them were within about two miles of each other, close enough to drive even in the iffy, cold weather.
I took one of the pens and started signing us up for things, ignoring Bethany’s protests that she’d never made a basket in her life and she hadn’t intended on starting at almost thirty, or that she was not going to learn hula. I figured the more we interacted with her former friends, the more she’d make the point that she was successful and well-rounded, and the more that we’d be able to show off how in love we were with each other.
We went back to the table where a few of the classmates were still working on coffee and pastries, and Bethany and I finished off our breakfasts as she good-naturedly complained about the ambitious schedule I’d set for the weekend. I grinned as people encouraged her to go through with it anyway, and when Jess arrived, she added her voice to the chorus until Bethany agreed to it. I thought to myself that I knew exactly how the two of them had been when they were in high school together. In fact, I could almost see them in my mind--Jess pushing Bethany to try things, and Bethany moping that she wasn’t already naturally good at them so why should she embarrass herself? Jess seemed to be the one at the table that Bethany was closest with--and I thought she might know what the deal was between me and Bethany.
We went back up to the room to get changed for the first event for the day, which was going to be a “fun fair” at the school, and I told myself that my major job that day would be to make sure that my fake girlfriend had some real fun.
Chapter Seventeen
Bethany
I had to admit that Ransom had managed to pick all the events that I had--secretly--been the most interested in going to or at least seeing, even if I hadn’t had the nerve to actually participate in any of them. When we got to the “fun fair” over at the high school, I was bundled up against the cold, and actually feeling a little excited.
It was a Tinkertoy kind of thing, since they’d had to move it indoors, with the usual county fair kind of things going on except for rides: games like ping pong ball toss, and bobbing for apples, and all the usual small-time fair things were already in progress by the time I’d gotten my coat and scarf off and put them at the makeshift coat check at the front of the cafeteria.
“What do you want to do first? Paint a tile? Bob for an apple or two?” Ransom leaned in closer to my ear and added in a whisper, “or is your neck too tired from last night for that?”
I gave him a mock punch to the shoulder and rolled my eyes at his little reminder of our tryst.
I didn’t need to be reminded of it. From the moment I’d opened my eyes a few hours before, right up until we started wandering around the cafeteria to figure out what to do, I’d been thinking about it. I wasn’t completely sure I’d actually had an actual orgasm, but if nothing else, I’d come as close to it as I’d ever been in my life before--and that feeling had given me at least an inkling of what I’d been missing out on for so long.
I could almost still feel the way my body had tingled with hot and cold flashes of sensation as something--I didn’t really know what--rippled through me, making my muscles tense and clench in a way I hadn’t felt before in my life. Every time I looked at Ransom, I thought about the sight of him tucked between my legs, licking and sucking me, fingering me while some deep-down kind of tension ratcheted tighter and tighter, like a rubber band stretching.
“Think you can win me a plastic fish?” I pointed to the ping pong ball toss, and Ransom laughed.
“I could win you all of them,” he told me.
I shook my head, grinning.
“I think one plastic pet is enough,” I said.
We went to the table and he exchanged two of the tickets we’d gotten for a handful of ping pong balls, while a few other people gathered around the table to join us.
He actually managed to win with every single one of his balls, but I only took one of the fake fish in its bowl, which apparently I could exchange later on for a donation to some oceanic preservation society, if I wanted. We moved on to the next event, which was a darts game, and Ransom challenged me to do at least half as well as he had. Little did he know that I’d played more than my fair share of darts in college.
I scored two bull’s eyes, and landed the other three darts pretty close to center, and handed Ransom the oversized stuffed animal I won as a result. Some of the guys joked that I was clearly the one who wore the pants in the relationship, to which Ransom countered that he was glad to have a girlfriend he could count on to help with the hunting if the apocalypse came.
We stayed there for about an hour, going from one booth to another--and I eventually did give in and bob for an apple, and managed to get one after soaking myself to my collar--before someone announced that the next event, at the other hotel close to the high school, was about to get started. It would be an “art party” in the events room at the Helmston Lodge. Ransom--James--had signed us up for that one as well, so I got as dry as I could, collected my things, and we hurried out to my car to drive the short distance to the other hotel.
I’d been against participating in the “art party” because in spite of how smart I know I am, and the fact that I am realistic enough to know I do have some talents, I also know I have never been an art person. I was terrified that I’d make something hideous and get laughed at.
“Half the people there are going to make something hideous, and they’ll laugh at their own atrocities too,” Ransom pointed out when I raised that issue to him.
“Plea
se just don’t tell me that you’re some master artist on top of knowing enough to be able to pretend to be a chef, and whatever else it is you do in your normal life,” I said.
Ransom laughed. “No, I’m pretty much only good at line maps and stick figures,” he said. “But it’ll be fun. Make a mess and don’t take it seriously.”
We parked and headed into the hotel as quickly as we could--the top of my shirt was still damp and the wind had picked up, making the cold temperatures more of a problem. Jess had signed up for the event, too, and she was already at work at the modeling clay station, making some odd-looking animal figure.
Ransom took up a spot at a painting station and I went to the one next to him, drawing a still life, and after a few minutes of feeling like everyone was going to start laughing at me for how bad my art was, I started to actually relax. Someone had convinced the hotel to provide wine, and had made it into pitchers of sangria, and after one glass, I was feeling pretty loose.
But that just made me think of what had happened the night before, yet again--just when I was thinking I’d gotten it out of my mind. You cannot let that happen again. You shouldn’t have let it happen the first time, I thought as I tried to draw a pear without making it look like a cactus. But in the back of my mind, I knew that I really, really wanted it to happen again. I wanted even more than that--I wanted to see what actual sex with Ransom would be like.
I’d figured that a guy like him, who was hot and confident, had probably had more than his fair share of experience, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that he managed better than any of the other guys I’d been with. But there was something about the way he’d gone about his attempt to get me off that was even more important than the result. He’d worked at it, not just pounding away at me or mauling my clit, but getting me good and relaxed first and taking his time. When he’d finally gotten to fingering me, he’d kept it up--in the back of my mind, I’d realized that he was testing my reactions, finding out what I liked.
It had actually been an effort to hold back, toward the end, and I still wasn’t sure whether or not he’d succeeded in getting me off or if it was just so close to a climax--closer than I’d ever been before--that it almost didn’t matter. I’d felt so good, so strangely overwhelmed by sensation, that I couldn’t believe the way my first several attempts at sex had gone. I couldn’t believe that they’d been so mediocre in comparison to what had happened with Ransom.
You’re only together another couple of days, and then you’ll never see or hear from him again, I reminded myself, even as I felt the heat building up between my legs. I shifted in my chair, trying to shake off the physical symptoms of my own arousal. That was another thing: it wasn’t like I’d never been horny before, or never gotten turned on by the thought of a guy, but it had never felt the way it did as I bantered with Ransom and Jess and the other people who’d come to the art party--where my whole body was like a simmering pot, right on the edge of boiling.
“Are you two going to the dinner tonight?” someone asked me.
I looked at Ransom, and begged him mentally to say no. As much as I was enjoying myself--for once--I could see that it was going to be a major trial to be around people I barely had anything in common with for much longer.
“I think we’ll do dinner on our own,” Ransom said. “Though we’re going to that thing right before dinner--what was it again?” He looked at me and I racked my mind to try and remember.
“Some kind of craft thing, making paper flowers for a float that isn’t going to be in a parade anyway,” I said. I kind of--just a little bit--didn’t want to go to it, but it was something to do, and I realized that more time alone with Ransom might mean that I ended up trying to make something happen with him, and that was a terrible idea.
“I heard they’re going to turn it into a decoration for the dance,” Jess said.
I supposed that that made sense, and at least it would keep my hands and mind occupied, which the art wasn’t doing a good enough job of.
“I guess we can do our part,” Ransom said.
“As long as you don’t complain halfway through, Jamie-boy,” I said, catching myself on the edge of calling him the “wrong” name. I need to back off of the sangria.
I got a glass of water and caught a knowing look from Ransom, who’d only had one glass of the wine punch before moving on to water himself. I took advantage of the moment to look at his painting. It was, as he’d promised, pretty terrible, and I felt weirdly comforted by the fact that there wasn’t yet another thing that he was just effortlessly good at, showing me up as a person and a student.
“They really should have done a nude study for this,” Ransom told me in a low murmur. “They could’ve gotten you to pose.”
“They absolutely could not have gotten me to pose,” I said, nudging him playfully to cover my instinctive panic at the idea.
“I could get you to pose nude, though,” Ransom countered, grinning at me. I raised an eyebrow and realized that we were talking just loud enough for the person seated next to him to hear.
“You could only get me to pose nude in private,” I said, nudging him again.
“Oh--that’s a great idea,” Ransom told me, grinning. I shook my head and danced away from his attempt to ensnare me with his arm, giving him a pinch that I hoped at least looked playful.
“I think I’ve just about reached my natural limit as a sketch artist,” I said, looking over my pitiful still life. I showed it to everyone and they laughed--but it was, as Ransom had promised, the good kind, punctuated with everyone else showing their terrible attempts in sympathy. In spite of how--almost painfully--turned on I was just from being around Ransom, and the fact that I was starting to get tired of pretending to be his girlfriend, I was actually having a good time. He’d been right about that. I would never admit it to him, but I could--I thought--admit it to myself, without risking my pride too much. But I would be happy when we were alone again, even if it was just for the sake of vegging out in front of the TV for a few hours. I had almost--almost--reached my limit, and I was glad that Ransom hadn’t suggested we go to the big group dinner that night.
Chapter Eighteen
Ransom
We’d decided to go to a restaurant apart from the hotel, a little ways down the road; it was windy and cold, but apart from the airport and the area around the town, most of the streets were navigable. The weather report had said that there was no real way out of the town, and Bethany’s parents’ house wasn’t accessible either. It was something about the snow ploughs or some issue with trucks.
“Aren’t high school reunions normally in summer?” I wasn’t sure if I’d made that point before, but as we sat down at an Italian restaurant--classic red sauce fare, with all the overworked dishes you would expect--I was curious again. It seemed weird to have a reunion in the middle of winter.
“They’d planned to have one in the summer, but everyone had other stuff to do, and it wasn’t all that well organized,” Bethany said absently, as she read over the menu.
It was a relief to be away from her former classmates for a little while, I had to admit. They weren’t bad people, and I’m sure in smaller doses I’d be able to handle them much better. But it was a strain to pretend to be Bethany’s loving, committed boyfriend, and keep my story straight, and chitchat with people who I didn’t know or care about.
“Someone should have done a snowman event,” I said, looking over the menu myself.
“I guess they were worried someone would complain...or make something not safe for work,” Bethany said.
I chuckled, picturing naked snow-women and giant snow dicks. “Yeah that would be a problem.”
In the back of my mind, I was still preoccupied with what I’d managed to learn the night before. I’d been fairly certain that part of the information I needed would be on the database that Bethany had access too, and I’d been right. Now, though, I was itching for the rest.
My parents had, in fact, adopted a child from
the agency that Bethany worked with. The information on who they adopted was separated from their dossiers, because--of course--their adopted child had been a minor at the time. That was more sensitive information that I would gain access to if we managed to pull off Bethany’s plan and if she didn’t go back on her end of the deal. I needed the file on the kid, and then on the kid’s birth parents--if it was even still available--to know what I wanted to know. The adoption had taken place about twenty years before, so I figured that if anyone had the data, it would be Bethany’s agency.
I’d done the usual public records searches, but since the situation had been a closed adoption, it was impossible for me to get access to what I needed. The state had only barely been involved, in terms of paperwork to get the kid from the birth parents and into the organization, and I hadn’t even known what name to ask for. A helpful clerk at the family court system had informed me that even if I had known the right name, it was likely that the paperwork itself had been destroyed, since so long a time had passed, and the more relevant paperwork would be held at the agency.
I’d known my parents had adopted, but I hadn’t known anything else--and I had to know.
“Welcome to Buonasera,” a waiter said, coming up to our table. “Did you know what you wanted, or do you need a few minutes?”
I looked up from my menu and looked at Bethany to see if she was ready.
“Do we want an appetizer?” Bethany asked.
“I could eat part of one,” I said, glancing down at that section in the menu.
“I guess the arancini would be a good thing,” Bethany suggested.
“Sounds good to me,” I agreed.
I ordered a chicken piccata and Bethany got one of the chef’s specialties which had penne, grilled chicken, spinach and fresh mozzarella. She let me choose the wine. We made some small talk while we waited for our appetizer and wine to arrive at the table, and it was good--just relaxing, talking to Bethany like any other person, not having to pretend like I was in love with her.