I met Law on Monday morning outside calc with a tuna salad rice ball.
"Olive branch." I said.
To my surprise, he actually took it.
On impulse, I hugged him. He was ungodly tall and his body rigid in my arms. Not even two seconds after I began patting him down, feeling the muscles he hid beneath crisp shirts and fine hoodies, and he shoved me away.
Good old Law.
"Speaking of Olives, Olive is having a party." Was that his feeble attempt at inviting me to go? Did he want to go? With me?
"Really? You going?"
"No," He said brushing past me. "We're going."
~·~
I walked into Film Studies later that morning feeling more in balance with the universe than I had in a long time. Which meant, of course, that the universe had to swing a big rusty wrench straight into my face.
He wasn't there. A sub sat at his desk.
"Where's Mr. Donquixote?" I said.
"He's not here." Law decided to state the obvious.
The sub shrugged. "His instructions say you can use this period to work on your semester project."
Law and I slipped out after she took attendance.
"This is fucking weird." I muttered.
"Why?"
Because he drove me home Friday. Because we made out in his car, in the rain. Because he said he thought of doing terrible things to me in his head.
"I don't know. He didn't seem sick last week."
"Mysterious illnesses often strike the elderly."
I took a swipe at Law but he easily (too easily for my liking) dodged.
"Are you going to spend the whole day pining for him?"
Yes. "I've got to get something from my locker."
"I'll be in the lab." He said before turning off down the hallway.
~·~
Where are you? I texted Mr. Donquixote when I was alone at my locker. I waited for a reply. Five minutes. Ten. Then I sighed, and tossed it in, and buried myself in schoolwork.
He finally responded that afternoon. Court date. Nothing major.
I didn't reply.
A minute later, he added, I miss you.
I stood at my locker as kids milled around me and felt like I was on a movie set, surrounded by extras. Their lives were so small, so simple. So scripted. No one had a secret life like this. No one was texting the teacher they'd fucked, the teacher they were planning to fuck again.
I want to see you, I said.
I expected a brush-off. I did not expect him to say, Can you meet me outside school?
Yes. God, yes. Where?
He gave me an address not far away for a pickup.
And then where? I said.
Anywhere you want.
~·~
I sat on an old cold case outside a derelict gas station half a mile from school. The sun banged of chrome pumps scabbed with rust, ricocheting into my eyes in bright bullets. Heat baked up from the cracked concrete. A tin sign poked with BB holes creaked mysteriously, no breeze touching it. I reclined in a cool bath of shadow, my body relaxed, my mind going a million miles an hour.
He pulled up like a movie star, one arm propped on the headrest, mirrored aviators flashing.
I got in. The seat leather scorched my legs.
We didn't speak. He took his sunglasses off. His eyes were tender and soft beneath. He wore a pinstriped shirt and tie with jeans, sleeves rolled up. Sun gilded the top of his hair in a holy spotlight, his hair a golden wind-tossed miracle to my eyes.
We didn't kiss.
Our hands met on the scalding seat between us. I breathed fast. I hadn't been this scared since I got into that roller-coaster car by myself. This was the same thing, really-getting on a ride that might destroy us.
Worst-case scenario: He loses his job, I get kicked out of school.
Best-case scenario:-
I don't know. What is the best-case scenario? Sneaking around, peering out of the curtains? Lying to everyone we know?
This is where my life forked. I could only go one way; in the other Gwyneth Paltrow plays my alternate self like in Sliding Doors, ending up miserable or happy. That was the question.
Which one was she? Which one was I?
I knew which one I was. The fearless one.
I squeezed his hand.
The silence between us rang. It made everything so clear. I saw my thoughts reflected in his face, the trepidation fighting with a very simple, very biological need. He looked at all of me, my fresh teenage skin, my adult certainty, my old soul. No one had ever looked at me so completely. No one had ever seen me as such a whole, rounded person.
Yes, I thought. This is the road I want.
He squeezed my hand back, then took the wheel.
~·~
It's amazing how you can communicate without words. We drove onto the highway, through neat green rows of soybeans raking to the blue horizon. My window was down, hair lashing at my face. The air smelled chemical with a tang of sickly-sweet fermentation. A blade of sunlight lay across my legs, making my skin glow.
I glanced at Mr. Donquixote. His look made something deep in me ache. I held on to the feeling, letting it open inside of me, blossoming, filling me from toes to fingertips with a tension somewhere between hunger and pain. By habit, I put my thumbnail between my front teeth. I hadn't meant it seductively, but Mr. Donquixote stared, a smile flitting around the edges of his mouth.
Great job, Lolita. Now you just need some heart-shaped sunglasses.
I felt his eyes on me, hot as the sunlight. I knew he was watching my every move. I tilted my head back, eyes half-closing, the wind playing over my face. My heart beat a slow, bluesy rhythm. It felt like acting, like being onstage, every camera on me, bewitched.
The car slowed.
We both looked at the motel sign, then each other.
He turned.
Crunching gravel. Parking space. Engine off, ticking. Heat swarmed into the silence, becoming almost a sound, a high locust whine buzzing against my skin.
I heard him breathing. He wasn't quite looking at me, his gaze landing somewhere on the dashboard.
We knew what we were doing, Your Honor.
He put his sunglasses back on and popped the glove box, handing me a second pair. I laughed softly. Like this would hide anything.
Maybe it wasn't for other people. Maybe it was for us.
It was a lot easier to face him without seeing his eyes. My reflection: a girl without fear, her lips slightly upturned, knowing.
He got out and headed for the registration office.
Panic attack.
I flipped down the sun visor, clawed my hopeless hair. What had I eaten before I last brushed my teeth that morning? What planet had I been on? No memory of anything between waking and the moment I got into his car. I couldn't sit comfortably in my own skin. Every tendon was a violin string stretched taught, dying to sing out at the faintest touch. What if it was different? What if I'd ruined it by lying, leaving? God, what the hell could he possibly see in a screwed-up seventeen year old? How screwed up must he be to get tangled in my life?
Footsteps on gravel.
I slapped the visor up.
No more thinking.
I opened my door, slammed it shut loudly, defiantly. My senses focused on small things: the pumice scrape of his shoes, a splash of sun on a steel bumper. He opened 112 and went in first. I followed, closing the door behind me.
Dim inside, afternoon light straining through muslin curtains. There were heavy drapes to either side of the window that we didn't touch. I had impressions of square silhouettes in the murk but all I really saw was him. Taking his sunglasses off, setting them on the bureau. Moving toward me. Taking my sunglasses off, too. I blinked at the dust suspended in the slice of sunlight.
I didn't realize I wasn't going to step further into the room for a while.
Mr. Donquixote put his hand under my jaw, raising my face. My body pressed against the cool metal of the door. I ached like I'd been asleep or watching a long movie and needed to be pulled, stretched, used. It made my face sullen, made his eyes narrow. We looked at each other with that resentment you feel when you want something so much it's causing you pain, so much you start to hate it a little. There was a whiff of gasoline and the city on him and that smokiness I'd become addicted to. I put my hand on the knot of his tie. His mouth opened, as if I'd touched some live part of him.
Our lips met.
What happened felt more like chemistry than a kiss. Pure liquid heat on my lips, dissolving into me, trailing a hot line down my chest and pooling in my stomach. My heels rose off the floor. All of me rose, unanchored, held down only by his weight pressing me to the chilly slab of the door. We kissed as we could not have done until now-like lovers. He tilted my head, slid his tongue into my mouth, not urgent or hurried but in a way that made me feel the inevitability of this. The hand on my jaw moved over my chest, my belly, to the button of my shorts.
I'd had some practice with unknotting ties.
When I tugged it free he pulled back, those lips of his slanting in a half smile. This made it easier to unbutton his shirt. He watched me, letting me have my way with him. Raised his arms obediently when I rolled up his undershirt. I wanted to press it to my face, smother myself with it like ether. But he took my wrists and pinned them above my head and something trembled in me, somewhere between blood cells and neurons, a liminal space where I wasn't quite mind or body. God, he was going to fuck me right here, against the door.
His hands let go and mine stayed raised, obedient. He unbuttoned my shorts, knelt to take them off. Warm breath sighed between my thighs, making me feel my own wetness. Large, careful fingers slid beneath my underwear, pulling, fingertips running down my legs. I bit my lip so hard I tasted sweet copper. He kissed my hip, moving along the soft crease of my thigh, moving lower as his hands spread my legs open. I couldn't. I couldn't anymore. I thrust my fingers into his hair and pulled his head back, making him look up at me.
My face said it all.
He stood, unzipping himself, taking the condom from his back pocket as I pulled him out of his jeans. His dick felt huge and burning hot in my hand. I slid my palm around the base and he froze, the muscles of his chest chiseled against his skin, unmoving. My fingers stroked the fine silk over that hardness, pumping slightly in my hand. Just touching it made me curl up, everything in me going super tight. He put the condom on himself. Lifted me suddenly under the knees, making me grab him for balance. Then it was only my spine against the door and his dick thrusting inside of me, and I lost all breath, all function, all everything. For an endless moment all I felt was penetration. Slow and hard. Slow and deep. He made sure I felt every single thrust. I was hard inside, too, my body coiled and tense, and the first few moments were so poignant it was almost painful. Then the rhythm took over, and the world began to fade back in. My bare thighs rubbing against his. The way his abs flexed, the muscle rolling, the little trail of bronze hair he pressed against my navel. The viperous motion of his body as he fucked me. He held me a few inches above him and raised his face, watching mine without kissing me. The way we looked at each other was more intimate than a kiss could have been. I saw his pupils dilating like pulsing black hearts. I saw every tremor of strain and pleasure the went through him. I watched what I did to him, how vulnerable he became as he gave himself to me, fucking me but also being fucked himself, that slightly lost, boyish look coming into his face as he got closer and closer. A fire built up in me, leaping from cell to cell, setting my body slowly alight, but I made myself keep my eyes open and watch him. His eyes closed, his fingers dug into the backs of my legs. His dick was so hard and thick inside me that all I felt was a sweet fullness in my core. Every time he sank in completely and compressed my clit, a bolt of pure electricity shot up through my belly. My eyes were open wide when the tension in me changed from resistance to surrender, and I started to gasp uncontrollably, and didn't tell him I was coming, but he knew. The fingers clenching my legs tightened like claws. I came so fast and hard it was like a flash of sheet lightning, a blinding white bliss, there one second and gone the next, and I gaped at the shadowy room, dazed. He kept going for a few more seconds, groaning, thrusting hard one last time then rocking through the aftershock, settling against me, our weight easing limply against the door.
His head rested in the crook of my shoulder. I ran a hand over his back, light, unsure of myself yet, of this closeness. It was like an awful pounding clock had finally stopped ticking. The silence in the room was peaceful, melancholy. I breathed in the smell of him. Of us. My sweat on his body, my wetness on his jeans. I wanted to pause this moment and linger in it, looking around, memorizing.
He pulled out gingerly but didn't let me down. His arms tightened. He carried me to the bed.
My breath fluttered in my lungs.
He laid me down and lowered himself beside me, facing the ceiling. We reached for each other at the same moment, our hands linking in the small gulf between us. Oh my god, I thought. Just that. A pleasant daze. My body was full of sunlight. No blood, just liquid blue sky.
I didn't know how much time had passed when his head turned to me. I looked over, everything was golden and graceful.
"Hi." He said, soft and low.
Something lit up in me like a candle. I propped myself on an elbow, swung my leg across him and crouched over his body. "Hi." I said.
It was the first time we'd spoken since Friday.
~·~
For a long time he held me atop him, looking at me. I kissed him but he broke it after a second. When I tried to get up, he pulled me back.
"Let me look at you," He said. "Before your guard comes up."
So I let him look.
At first I was nervous, my eyes flickering away, suddenly aware that I wore nothing below the waist. I tucked my hair behind my ear and it immediately tumbled back into my face.
Then I eyed him askance. There was nothing in his expression but curiosity, so innocent it almost seemed childish. My anxiety melted. A slow, small smile took over me. Cocky, not shy. The way I'd smiled at the carnival. I owned every part of my me, the nudity, the just-had-sex hair, every mistake I'd ever made, and wrapped myself in it.
Corazon touched my cheek and pulled me closer against him. My hair fell around us, enclosing us in a dark veil. I ran my palm over his chest, the smooth=carved muscle, the dense, solid bones. I let my hand move lower to the silky down of his belly. God, I thought. You are such a fucking man. His hands moved over me, outlining the slimness of my arms, my hips, stopping on my bare ass, his fingers pressing into my skin. The innocent look was gone.
"Did you see her?" I said
Movement beneath his bangs.
"The real me."
"She's right here." He said, and kissed me.
The afternoon became a blur of this: of kissing him, and being held, and not leaving that bed. He stepped into the bathroom to clean himself up and brought me back my underwear. I put them back on but took my shirt off, and we spooned, his hands all over me. We talked as much as we kissed.
"Tell me everything about you." He said. "What's your favourite movie?"
"Oh my god, you can not ask me that."
"Why?"
I sat up, giving him a horrified look. "First of all, because I want to impress you. Second, because it changes on a daily basis."
"You have one, you just don't want to tell me. I'll tell you mine."
My lip curled with hostility.
He laughed. "Say it together, on three. Ready?"
"No," I shrieked.
"One, two, three. Casablanca."
"Jurassic Park."
He broke out into a huge grin.
I flopped face-first into the bed. "I'm going to die."
"A modern classic." He said, tickling my heel. "I remember seeing it in the theater and thinking, 'Someday CG will be as real as real life.' My favourite scene was when the girl-"
"If you start quoting," I said into the mattress, " I will actually kill myself."
He laughed again. His laugh was laugh. Not mocking like Law's but giddy, conspiratorial. I glanced at him over my shoulder.
"Tell me everything about you."
His laughter faded, but the smile stayed. He lay beside me, his fingertips tracing the curves of my back. "What do you want to know?"
"How old are you?"
"28."
I felt a little less...guilty knowing that he was younger than what I had thought. He was 11 when I was born. No biggie, Law.
"Where did you go to college?"
"Northwestern."
"You from upstate?"
"Just outside."
"Snob, they always say they're 'just outside,' like towns don't have names up there."
"It's true. They don't. Very confusing for mail carriers."
He slid a finger under my bra strap and followed it up over my wing bone, cresting my shoulder.
"Why-," I started.
"My turn." His finger moved slowly toward my breast. "Why did you talk your way into my class?"
Fate, I wanted to say. Kismet. It was in the script.
"They actually screwed my registration up. I was going for Art." I took a deep breath.
"Really? You want to go to an art school?"
"Well, I was," Another deep breath. "But I've changed my mind."
His hand stopped and he sat up a little.
"I want to go to film school."
"Have you thought about any film schools?"
"I don't know yet. I mean, I have my top choices, obviously, but I'm trying to be realistic. Hopefully somewhere good. I'm kind of torn between whether to focus on indie or commercial film. Commercial is safer, I think, because I'll get a broad view of how the whole process works. But focusing on commercial shit can turn you into a philistine who churns out garbage, so maybe I should focus on indie stuff. On story telling, and art. But then maybe I'll be really naive when it actually comes to doing the work. I don't know."
I was rambling. I glanced back at him. He had a slightly dazed look on his face.
"You're serious about this." He said.
I gave a half shrug. "Well, yeah."
"What do you want to do? Jobwise."
"I'll take what I can get. I'd love to be a PA, get a general sense of how it all fits together. Because someday, I'm going to direct."
It was as if I'd said something enchanting, romantic. His eyes sparkled.
"You're a creator."
I thought about that. It seemed too lofty for me. All I did was watch a lot of movies and daydream. But he'd given me an opportunity, one I hadn't even really acknowledged because I'd been so obsessed with him: our semester project. I could actually make something. If it turned out halfway decent, maybe I could include it on my college applications.
"I don't know what I am yet." I said.
An electric moment between us, balanced between honesty and fear. Because I was young. Maybe I had more drive than most kids my age, but I was still a "kid my age." And you know that, Mr. Donquixote, I thought. That's part of what this is between us-the thrill of taboo. Teacher and student.
"If you're going to film school," He said. " There's something I need to give you."
My heart skipped a beat. "What?"
"An education."
~·~
The first thing he taught me was how to make love.
Before you laugh, know that I always hated that phrase. It sounded so corny, so old. Hippies made love. People my mother's age, though I preferred to believe I was an immaculate conception.
People my age hooked up, fucked, had sex. We didn't attach frilly ideas of oneness and eternity to a basic biological act. Most of us were from single-parent homes. Those who weren't wished they were when their parents screamed and beat the shit out of each other. We grew up sexualized, from toddler beauty pageants to the constant reminder that adults were waiting to lure us into vans with candy. Their invention of the internet gave us a platform for the distribution of amateur porn.
That was a lot of conditioning to break through.
~·~
The afternoon light got that long slant to it, slowly folding into dusk. Half a day had passed since I'd eaten and I barely felt hungry. I didn't want to stop this thing, lying on a motel bed with this beautiful man, our hot skin always in contact, never breaking apart. He sat up and I sat in his lap, facing him, my legs wrapped around the long lean muscle of his back. I rubbed my palm against his cheek. He wore a sleepy, smoldering look, his lower lip jutting out, and it completely worked on me. If he'd asked me to do anything right then, I would have.I kissed that sulky lip. I couldn't tell the taste of his mouth from mine anymore. Only warmth, softness, pressure.
"I want to see you." He said quietly. "All of you."
I breathed quicker. Disentangled myself from him, my eyes locked on his, and stood. I felt like I was in a trance. I'd undress for other men, and I wasn't wearing much right now to begin with, but this felt different. He wasn't just going to see my body. He was going to see me. In the way I undressed, the way I stood there under his gaze, the way I wore my skin.
He moved to the edge of the bed.
I unhooked my bra, slipped it off one shoulder. Let it fall to the floor with cool disregard.
That was the easy part.
I was breathing hard now.
His eyes moved over me but hovered mostly on my face. That was almost worse. Who am I without this? I thought. Without the seduction I wear like armor, without my bravado and cocksure confidence? Am I really just a little girl under it all?
I tucked my thumbs into my underwear.
And I thought of myself getting into the front of that deathtrap roller-coaster all alone. Of swinging out from the water tower. Of getting into my teacher's car.
I slipped my underwear down until it fell. Then stepped out with one foot and kicked it away with the other. I never broke eye contact.
Corazon's lips parted in awe.
I'd like to thank the Academy.
"Now you." I said. He stood smoothly. His silhouette blocked out the slivers of sun filtering through the curtain. It limned the edges of him, a bronze arc of light on his shoulder, the tips of his hair illuminating into white blonde. His jeans clung tightly and he had to strip them off-though he did without ease, falling back onto the bed. I was beginning to understand that he was clumsy but it wasn't enough to dampen the sizzle in the air. He was hard again, totally hard, his briefs doing nothing to hide it. He slipped them off. My eyes didn't know where to stop. Apparently my hands didn't know either because they were all over him, following the cascading slabs of his ribs, his abs, the smooth chevron of muscle that led to the hard dick I took and wrapped in my fingers. His hands came down on my shoulders, heavily. His breath was heavy, too.
He leaned on me, eyes closed.
"I want you like this." I said.
He looked like he was drugged. I pushed him onto the bed. My knees fit to either side of his waist. We sat face-to-face again, but without any clothes between us. I was higher than him and he kissed my breasts, his dick stiff against my thigh. The heat of it drove me crazy, my blood percolating to strike.
If he didn't fuck me, I was going to force him.
He looked up. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." I said, my fingernails carving into his back.
I could have forced him. I had leverage. But I wanted him to do it, and so I let him take his sweet, torturous time, teasing my nipples with his teeth, sliding the whole length of himself between my thighs, pushing lightly, agonizingly, right against the focal point of that horrible ache in me. At first it was an insane test of willpower. I hit my limit again and again, somehow always starting over, finding a new reserve of patience. Then I realized that he was going to test my patience until it stopped being patience. Until I stopping waiting to be fucked and just experienced this. I made myself let go, made my muscles unravel. Draped my arms languidly around his neck. Looked at his face without thinking anything but how light it made my heart feel, as if pumped full of helium. And when I started to zone out and he slipped inside of me, I made myself stay relaxed. I let him penetrate me so gradually there was never a moment when it felt like he was finally fucking me. It all kind of blended together, fluidly, dreamily. His arms circled my back, holding me against the soft rocking of his body. This was different. This wasn't being fucked. This was something happening to my entire self, not just the useful parts. There was so little tension in me I didn't think I could come, until a warmth spreading from my hips and belly became hotter and hotter, and I looked up at the ceiling, gasping like I was suffocating for air, saying, "Come inside me, please, come inside me." That was it. No holding back. The heat in me detonated in a gentle nuclear burst, annihilating all sensation with soft light. IT came on slowly and faded slowly, leaving me tingling, buzzed. Corazon kept going a little longer, and then he slowed, and stopped. He was still hard.
"You didn't," I said drowsily.
He kissed me. I let it go on for a moment and then leaned back, clear-eyed. "Why?"
"I wanted it to be just for you."
It was as if he spoke in Greek. I stared at him.
And something very strange happened in my brain.
I rolled away and sat on the edge of the bed, curling my arms around myself. My hand clamped instinctively over my mouth. The room was dark now, its shadows tinted the colour of rust and old blood by the parking lot lights.
"Remy?"
The shadows swam in my eyes. I squeezed them shut. Corazon laid a hand on my back. "Why are you crying?" He whispered.
"I'm not." I said, and sniffled. Perfect.
His hand stroked tentatively. "Did I hurt you?"
"No," I laughed at myself, bitter. "I'm just a fucking head case."
"Why are you crying?" He asked again.
"Because no one's ever done that for before."
He swept my hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ear. "Done what?"
I don't think I was really crying about this. I think it was a cumulative effect, all the tension and anxiety of the past few weeks culminating in this perfect day, this perfect happiness. It was relief, not sadness. But he'd been the trigger, and I guess I owed him an answer.
"Done it for me," I said. "Just for me."
His arms were around me then, drawing me to his chest. He said something soothing, but it was merely sound. All I really heard was the deep submarine thump of his heart.
~·~
When I finally stepped outside it felt like walking into a different world. A million new roads stretched before me that I'd never seen before. We put our sunglasses back on in the car, grinning at each other. He took his off when he almost hit a streetlight. I laughed and said maybe he should let me drive, and surprisingly, he did. It felt both wrong and amazing to be driving my teacher's car. I stopped at McDonald's and ordered fried and a vanilla shakes, parking in an empty lot under the stars. Corazon said he'd make a special syllabus to prep me for film school.
"Private tutoring?" I said, dipping a fry in my shake. "How scandalous."
He smiled, but after a moment his eyes went distant.
"How is it going to be tomorrow?" I said.
"I don't know. I was hoping to learn magic and freeze time."
I gestured with my fry. "I'll be discreet. No one will know. I won't risk your job."
He looked at me. "It's not just about me. In fact, it's less about me than it is about you."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I won't risk your future, or your happiness, or your sanity."
"Good thing I only have one of those."
"I'm serious," He frowned. "Which on do you have?"
"Happiness." I said, and leaned over and kissed him. Vanilla and salt.
He looked at me a long time when I pulled away. It wasn't until later that I realized he'd hoped I'd say future. That's how you know someone loves you. When they want you to be happy even in the part of your life they'll never see. But right then I was too stuck in the moment, in the visceral pleasure of it all.
"Let's figure out our battle plan, comrade." I said.
~·~
I didn't get home till midnight, and getting out of that car was harder than it had ever been. I sat there until I finished every last fry. I was ravenous, insatiable, I'd done nothing but fuck him all day and wanted to do nothing else for the rest of the week. Month. Life. When he drove away I took a picture of the receding taillights, and after his car was gone I stood there holding the photo up to the street, pretending he was still there. What is this feeling? I wondered. What is this hunger that grows worse and worse the more I feed it?
They'd come up with a name for it a long time ago. But you already know what it's called, don't you?