That's the Way Love Goes: Part II
(Flashback 5/5)
"Can I touch it?"
"Touch it. Why do you think we're here?"
"Are you sure you know how to work it?"
"Yes, as well as flip it and reverse it."
Springwood Estate, Hyde Park
A stone's throw from the Hudson River, Springwood was home to the sprawling estate of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, itself nestled inside the larger Hyde Park. Fitz and Olivia marveled at the history contained within the buildings' walls and grounds.
Eleanor had the home dedicated in 1946, after Franklin's death, indicating that the place was one of healing for him. A place where FDR came to renew his spirits; to think and commune with nature. He came into maturity here. Springwood also served to convene politicians away from bustle of Washington. Its isolation and quiet allowed brilliant minds to proffer real solutions over political theater.
Away from Washington themselves, Olivia and Fitz toured the FDR Presidential Library and home, where they learned that the Roosevelts had separate bedrooms, and that this was de rigueur, at the time, for couples of affluent families.
"Did you and Mellie…?"
"By the end it was easier that way for both of us."
"I can't imagine my parents having separate bedrooms. Their room was next to mine, and sometimes I could hear them."
"Oh, no."
"No, you perve!" Olivia playfully scolded. "Talking. I heard them talking. They'd get into deep conversation sometimes. You know how the adults in the Charlie Brown cartoon sounded?"
"Sure."
"They sounded like that to me. I can't tell you what they talked about, just that there was always conversation." Olivia turned wistful, until Fitz brought her attention back.
"My parents didn't start out with separate bedrooms, but by the time I was ten, separate rooms helped lessen the tension."
As the took in the beautiful grounds, Fitz insisted they stroll Sarah Roosevelt's rose garden. Olivia enjoyed this view of him: focused and joyful, surrounded by reminders of his mother's own joie de vivre. The interest he carried for the seemingly infinite number of floral buds and species that existed allowed her to delight in watching him. When she had found Vera outside her door, she looked up the symbolism of the red gardenia that very evening. What she knew of Fitz meant that his choice was deliberate. Vera signifies admiration, respect, but most of all love. The kind held secretly between two people. The latter meaning, she resisted internalizing, especially after seeing Fitz with Angela weeks later.
For Olivia, a visit to the stables were a must. She regaled Fitz with memories of learning the right posture and control to sit atop a prized horse, let alone getting it to obey her commands. Springwood's stables were empty, but the architecture brought her back to her time in Switzerland. She was nostalgic.
"They are such majestic creatures. I wanted so badly to have my own. But the lessons made enough of a dent in my dad's pockets. I'm sure you've had a horse or two between your legs, Mister."
She had not meant it to come out the way it did, but neither did she regret it.
"I'm going to bypass how rude that sounds…but, yes, of course. I grew up with them and we had two at the ranch in Santa Barbara. Mellie got that property in the divorces, so…" Fitz trailed off. He took breathed in the horse-free air. "Can't say I've thought much about owning one again."
They began walking away from the sage and brick colored structure. "There's no freer feeling than riding," Olivia said.
"So, it's settled. Our next date is horseback riding."
X
Olivia exited the restroom, stepping back into the estate grounds. Surveying her surroundings, looking for Fitz, who seemed to have wandered off from the place she left him, she failed to locate him. The sunshine caress her bare shoulders. An Instagram alert disturbed her peace. It was Jake. Olivia frowned, reminding herself to kill those notifications for him and any others she had been neglectful to silence.
Olivia humored herself by tapping the notification banner. Doing so revealed a photo of Jake with an older woman squeezed against him, showboating smiles plastered on their faces. The Washington Monument lent a stoic backdrop to an otherwise average tourist photo.
~Jbsmithso: Mom surprised us! Too bad my lovely lady had to work and couldn't join us for a day out, even though it's #LaborDay. No worries, we'll see her later! #DC #lovemymom #busygirlfriend #touriststhings~
Relief was much stronger than her perturbance. He was still full of denial. The fact that their entanglement was over should have sunk in after nearly two weeks since Olivia had made it clear to Jake. The subsequent lack of contact should have been the lacquer on the coffin of their dead relationship. Her finger hovered over the 'block' button before deciding against it. She unfollowed him instead. To block a person so deluded of reality would engender a feeling of self-importance. Jake was not short on that. Then it occurred to Olivia, was this the 'nice' thing he wanted to do for her this Labor Day weekend? Why he pleaded for her to stay in DC in lieu of escaping to New York? Talk about dodging a bullet.
She threw her phone into the nude-colored raffia bucket bag hanging off her arm. Since Fitz had not presented himself, Olivia started in the direction of the stables, where she last left him. Like a heat-seeking missile, her eyes sought his whereabouts. Her smile went limp when she finally spotted him leaning over a railing. Blue jeans, white shirt. The sight of him made her heart hurt. But before she could acknowledge the glove-like fit of his dark wash jeans, and the strength of his now naked, tanned forearms on display, she was distracted by the inappropriately close blonde next to him. With every stride Olivia took towards them, the girl appeared to inch closer and closer into Fitz's personal space. Even if Olivia had been hallucinating that, the flip of the woman's long hair back over her shoulders, to reveal the jiggle of her large, perky twenty-something breasts, was undeniable. The classic Aviators Fitz wore made it impossible to read his eyes from this distance. His face remained friendly; his arms crossed over his body.
Having looked away from…Beth? Cassie? Sarah? Fitz's face transformed, revealing a smile which Olivia reflected at him, a result of the transfer of his energy across the ten or so feet that remained between them. He reached out his hand, subtly, in anticipation of her arrival. Jugs McGee continued to flirt in earnest, her attention anchored on Fitz.
"I bet you've come up from the City, right? Or are you from Connecticut? You don't look like a Jersey guy," the young woman giggled. "Here for just the weekend or a longer vacation?" Her head tilted to the side, still squarely fixed on the subject of her attraction, and not the woman approaching behind her.
The girl's question to Fitz hung in the air—expectant, entitled, and heedless of Olivia's presence. Fitz did not answer immediately. Olivia reached Fitz, and he burrowed her into his side before tenderly placing a kiss on her lips.
"Emily, is it?" Fitz began.
"Yeah," she said, happy that he remembered her name, but now feeling awkward.
"This is my girlfriend, Olivia. And we're both from out of town. I hope that answers your question." A possessive hand rand up and down Olivia's arm. "It was nice to meet you."
With Olivia in tow, Fitz walked off. "Are you ready for that picnic? I'm famished."
XXX
When they had stopped to sit on a park bench the Roosevelts themselves had graced, it occurred to Fitz to take a selfie.
"Sunglasses off," he had insisted.
Positioning their faces for the picture, Fitz extended a long arm in front of them to capture the memory.
A middle-aged woman approached them, smiling. "I can take that for you, if you'd like."
Fitz looked at Olivia before handing his phone to the woman. Olivia adjusted the dropped shoulders on her yellow and white dress, smoothing down the perforated tier of the layer covering her breasts.
"Are you ready?" Fitz turned to whisper.
Her confirmation came with a turn of her head and a small, admiring, smile before they assembled in a pose.
"Good stuff!" The woman said
Losing count of how many snaps the woman must have captured in the last few minutes, Olivia and Fitz declared in unison, "I think we've got it."
"Thank you," Olivia was sure to add.
"You are truly a beautiful couple," the woman declared as she handed back Fitz's iPhone.
It was from that bench, perched on a hill that they spotted the hidden valley they now occupied for their picnic.
Spread out on a classic blue and white gingham picnic blanket was a glorious assembly of, mostly, savory delights. Olivia was, admittedly hungry since she had eaten nothing all day, save the peppermint tea and lemon poppyseed muffin she consumed on her way back to the hotel. The array and startling variety of food—fresh, vinaigrette-dressed salads, fruit, crudité, and charcuterie of smoked meats, olives, tapenades, and an assortment of crackers—piqued Olivia's appetite more than she expected. There were even a few snack-sized bags of green plantain chips and spiced roasted chickpeas.
"Where did you even get this?" Olivia said, popping open the bag of chickpeas to sprinkled on her salad assortment.
Fitz watched with curiosity. "Patel Brothers."
"No, I mean all of this." Her hand gesticulated across the swath of food. "I can't believe all of this fit in that picnic hamper, or that the basket fit in that tiny trunk of yours."
"Believe me, it wasn't easy, but it was worth it."
"Why didn't you just pick a smaller basket? We could have had fewer options," Olivia said between bites of the most mouth-watering pineapple she had had in a longtime. Summer in a bite.
"Something smaller wouldn't have been enough for all of this," he answered simply.
He could have regaled her with anecdotes of his morning spent travelling the Upper West Side—and other places—to gather the things he knew she would like, and the things he intuited from their past conversations. His only regret was being too short on time to visit Garrett's downtown to get her popcorn, after visiting four other shops. Their day had been delayed far more than he had anticipated. None of this he had done to impress her, but to please her, make her feel satisfied and at ease.
"I'm sorry about the popcorn," Fitz said.
Olivia clutched her stomach in satisfaction; there was not a thing she was missing. The mild breeze lifted errant tendrils of tiny corkscrew curls that spilled forward, like a cornucopia, from her crown down to the top of her forehead.
"You've given me more than enough. I certainly don't need popcorn. It's too nice of a day," she said.
"Not only is there no cheese, but dairy is completely absent," Olivia observed as she looked over the half-half consumed items and the things still left untouched. "Hmmm," she remarked, tapping her index finger against her jaw knowingly. "I wonder why."
"A subconscious omission on my part."
"Hmm," was all she said, squinting her eyes.
Several beats later, Fitz put down his plate. "Ok, I'll say it. You were right about those cream-filled donuts. It's too hot for dairy."
Olivia continued to look at him, vacillating between smugness and sympathy.
"What?" Fitz asked. They sat crossed legged facing each other.
She cleared her throat, feigning seriousness. "Nothing. It's just…here I was thinking you left it out because you know I'm lactose intolerant, as most Black people are."
Fitz knitted his brow, marshalling as shocked a look as he could convey. "You're Black?!" he said with faux indignance.
They tittered together, both—separately—recalling the earlier Emily incident, knowing what lay beneath the young woman's recalcitrance.
X
"Don't you just love the outdoors?" Fitz asked, relaxing under the waning rays of the late afternoon sun.
Many questions remained that Fitz wanted to ask of Olivia. He could produce a question for every day he had not seen her. The four, carefully worded lines that she slipped under his door, did they indicate closure or a concealed appeal for him to wait for her? Why had she not tried to talk to him? Did he choose the wrong path by respecting the boundaries upon which she had insisted? Had she been waiting for him to defy her words in some ridiculous rom-com scenario? There were days he could kick himself, if only to banish the nagging feeling that Olivia wanted the opposite of what she said; that perhaps she wanted him to show up and fight for her. Which flap of the butterfly's wings would have changed things for them? He was not convinced either of them knew. He assuaged his need to know, reminding himself of the promise he made to give her a relaxing day. He did not want to overwhelm her.
Olivia surveyed the wide bucolic vista surrounding them at Hyde Park. The late afternoon sun, calmer now than when it roared high in the sky as they sauntered around Springwood.
"You were right; this place is very relaxing. How did you know I needed that?"
"I didn't. How could I?"
That was not what she expected to hear.
Before she could open her mouth to interrogate his meaning, or lack thereof, Fitz offered her the final bite of the remaining pineapple. Because it was her favorite fruit, and because he loved watching her bite into it. Whether or not she was aware that she closed her eyes, savoring the flavor of its sweetness, Fitz did not know. That this ritual of hers ignited pleasure in his chest and discomfort in his groin was of little concern. It was worth seeing one last time.
A year ago, he was jealous of a tomato she spoke of eating years ago in Italy. At the time he wished he grew on a vine in Tuscany. Watching her now, as her lips enveloped the pineapple, her mouth delicately receding to reveal the prongs of the stainless fork, he was no longer jealous of that tomato, or this pineapple. His vantage point was superior.
He took a breath to calm himself before beginning to explain.
"I planned the evening. I knew what I wanted to show you. Once the ideal 'where' was confirmed, everything else was improv".
"Comedy?" posed a bemused Olivia.
"No, jazz. Let's be loose. I just wanted to be outside with you, unconfined, in the light. It's something we haven't had."
"Touché." Where this composition was headed, she was not sure. She just knew she just wanted to be present for as long as it lasted.
XXX
Their picnic packed up, and the untouched food given over to a park ranger for distribution as she saw fit, Olivia and Fitz lounged on the checkered blanket in the golden light of forthcoming dusk. She felt a sublime freedom laying supine next to Fitz, who was on his side. One arm propped up his head, and the other lazily stroked the skin on Olivia's arm.
Olivia racked her brain to figure out what famous, or special sites were in the mid-Hudson area of New York. There was the Vanderbilt Mansion nearby. But it would be closed by the time the sun went down. Any statues, artwork, or scenery there was to see, none of it was ideal to be seen in the dark. Was it a grand display of fireworks, perhaps? Can't be, that's too clichéd for someone like him. Maybe a carnival? Perhaps she should have worn the shorts after all. Give me certainty over surprise any day, she ruminated. About surprises Olivia found much to protest: the manipulation; the build-up, and—should it be a flop— the careful consideration of the person who planned the underwhelming event far above one's own disappointment. Olivia positively hated surprises, including whatever he had planned for tonight. Instead of settling into the ease of their afternoon—which she was very much enjoying—she began to tense from trying to unravel this puzzle piece.
Olivia was unaware of her frown, lost as she was in Nancy Drew land, contemplating the mystery of their night-time destination.
"Beautiful as it is, may I never be the cause of that frown," Fitz remarked.
His voice knocked her back to the present.
"Was I frowning? I was just thinking."
"About…tonight?" he said, instinctively.
How did he know? "Maybe."
"I know you hate surprises, but if you hate tonight, I will never surprise you again."
"Ohhh, surprise me again? You're awfully sure of yourself today. Declaring me your girlfriend…announcing our second d—"
"That was for Emily's benefit," Fitz interrupted. "The girlfriend thing." The last thing he wanted to do was give her reason to feel crowded and cornered. It was the opposite of why they were in Hyde Park.
"Relax, Fitz," Olivia giggled, reaching out her arm and placing it in on his chest. "I didn't take you seriously."
"You should." He fixed his gaze upon her, and the mood shifted.
"I do." Olivia turned to her side, mirroring his position.
"I love your hair like this. These curls are beautiful. I don't think I told you that when I saw you. Forgive me, I was caught up in the moment." He imagined his hands in her hair, wrapping a finger around a tightly coiled tendril. She inspired in him a tenderness because beneath all her strength, he glimpsed a fragile soul.
He plucked a tiny daisy out of the grass and handed it to her.
A demure blush crept into Olivia's cheeks, as she had completely forgotten that she looked different from how he'd usually seen her, after work. "I like them, too." She brought the tiny flower up to her nose, smiling, before she stuck it into the mount of spirals atop her head.
An ease settled between them, as if the tumultuous year that drove them apart had never happened. But of course, it did, and both tried, gingerly, to address what had and had not changed since then. What would become of them after today?
"Fitz, I have a confession. One that's hard to admit".
When her words stopped there, Fitz drew her body closer to his. Earnestly, he searched her face.
"Liv, there's nothing you can't' tell me. What is it?"
"I resented you."
Fitz, paused, taking in her words. When she said confession, this was not what he imagined. "When?"
Olivia sighed; unsure she could convey her words without being thought unreasonable. She turned on her back and looked up to the sky.
"It was right after Cyrus put me on leave. Admittedly, I was spinning. And when I saw you and Lillian Forrester on television, it felt too familiar. The way you looked at her. You remember her, right? What happened there, by the way?"
Fitz thought back many moons ago when Lillian was briefly in his orbit. He had been nursing a lot of pain himself back then.
"That was the State Dinner", he nodded. "I do remember. Weren't you still engaged then?" He could prick, too.
"That wasn't the point, Fitz" she said, well acquainted with this type of obfuscation.
"At the time, it was the only point." A darkness shadowed his features. "You left me."
Olivia clasped her hands over her abdomen. She shook her head. "I didn't leave you. I told you I couldn't be with you, then you left my apartment. And me. Over a month went by before you left that momentous note at W&B—that was the only time I heard from you. I was…" how could she put this to him? "Surprised. I was surprised that after all the feelings you had in my apartment, and on that rooftop, that you could so easily move on. And then I saw on TV why that was. Things started to make sense. It hurt me—"
Fitz felt the need to defend himself. She made him leave, neither did she reach out to him. "Olivia, you must know that wasn't the case. I was respecting your—"
"Fitz, please let me get through this. I know how it sounds, but I need to tell you."
"Ok, I'm sorry."
"Don't be. Just listen." Fierce as she was, her ego was still delicate.
"I may not have been entitled to feel hurt, but that's the truth. I tried. I really tried not to feel that way. Being angry with you, resenting you, that helped me move on. But only so far. The original letter I wrote you—the one I tore up—in it I tried to explain. But my edges felt too raw. I couldn't bear to have these thoughts committed to paper, have them living out in the world. What if your silence just continued after you read it?"
A wall of tiny knives stabbed at her skin, conjuring a potent pain. A world away from where they were now.
"It took many, many months before I could admit that my heart was broken. And that I had participated in my own suffering as much as you did."
This was exactly what he was afraid of: they had both nursed their pain in solipsistic bubbles. Fitz hated to think of her being hurt in any way, let alone that he had been part of the cause. Fitz traced the outline of Olivia's chin. His finger made its way down her neck, settling briefly in the dip that separated the lines of her collarbone.
"I was so thoroughly buried in my own world of rejection; I mistook your refusal. I thought you must not have felt the same as I did. I knew you felt the magic between us, but it stunned me how easy it was for you to let that go. At least that is how it seemed. Liv, I didn't know you felt this deeply."
How could he? It was impossible to assume what was in that mind of hers. Or to tell her what was right for her because of his own desires. She had different constraints to contend with. He thought he was being respectful.
"Did you…" Now, he had an uncomfortable question to ask.
"Spit it out, Fitz," Olivia said, moving from her back to propping herself on her side, mirroring Fitz again.
"I thought I was giving you what you wanted. Are you saying you wanted me to chase you?" he said.
She shook her head. "I wanted you to be my friend, not a stranger." She did not think she would cry, but a tear rolled down her cheek, nonetheless. He wiped it away, and Olivia held his thumb against her face.
"It's selfish, I know. But it's what I needed. Not until they ceased did I realize how much our meetups at Maroon meant to me. I was in free fall, and I missed the safety of our conversations."
Well before Vera arrived, she needed him to bring flowers to the cemetery where her heart was buried. She huffed mirthlessly, thinking of how ridiculous this confession was. But it was also raw, real and righteous.
"I resented how easy it was for you. That you could just move on while I was left with another heart to break and pieces to mend, including myself. The person I needed was the one who cracked everything open."
It unlocked Fitz's understanding. Though that time did not feel easy for him, it was not a competition. What she experienced was unique to her in many ways but longing for their friendship was not. He was incapable of being a friend back; how could he when he was certain he loved her? But wanting something despite the dangers of having it was all too familiar a human feeling.
"Come here." Fitz took Olivia into his arms, holding her the way the way he wished he could have when she was entrapped by loneliness and longing. A mutual pain they had shared separately, they were finally able to express to each other today. But he accepted that for her it had been different.
"I'm sorry," he offered. When he felt a slight dampness at his neck, he drew back. Difficult as it was to hear from her, knowing he carried his own pain during that time, her opening up to him was exactly what he needed from her.
"Thank you for telling me that," he said, cradling her face.
"You made sense of that?" she said self-consciously.
"It made perfect sense. It was just impossible."
"I know."
Fitz placed his hand at the small of Olivia's back, drawing her body closer to his. What was golden sky a short while ago had transformed to salmon, chased by aubergine clouds eager to bring about nightfall. They laid there in the setting sun, absorbing its rays and the inconvenient truths they shared.
"You asked why I brought you here—to Springwood and Hyde Park. You brought us here. To talk and enjoy each other. In your voicemail you said you missed that. It's not Maroon, but…"
Olivia's eyes, soft and yielding, sparkled under his gaze. He did not seem real sometimes. She wanted to tell him she missed him, but she held back.
"Where's the wine and the Scotch?" Her lips were smiling, and she leaned in toward his.
"That's for later." Fitz quipped, just before she covered his lips with her own.
Their bellies were sated, but they craved each other. The sensation of his hair running through her hands was her new favorite feeling. Their tongues did not battle; they created melodies—soft and velvety. Their rhythms complimented each other. Slipping in, slipping out, sucking, tasting, feasting, savoring, they explored every sensation held within their kiss.
Olivia lay half on top of Fitz. Their mouths were still inseparable in the petering light. A fine dew was present in the air, collecting on blades of grass surrounding their blanket. She could not help but to open her eyes, watching him enjoy their kissing. But then his hands lay claim on her ass, moving her body completely atop his.
"Fitz," she gasped in shock and delight. Fitz bookmarked that sound, vowing to elicit it again.
She could feel the turgid evidence of his desire against her dress-covered thighs, which soon parted to straddle his hips. She did not start the fire; his dick did that, she reasoned. It was the kindling that caused her hips to rock the way they did.
"I could get used to you being on top of me," he said.
She forgot her surroundings, then, as she deftly rolled onto her back, bringing him with her. Oh, to feel the weight of him on top of her!
"And now?" She cheekily said.
"Well, this is a classic".
"Livvie," he whispered before kissing down her neck.
"Yes?" She said as her arms caressed up and down his back. Her too-high platform shoes had long been discarded, leaving her feet to travel up and down the back of his thighs.
Her reply hung between them unaddressed because Fitz hadn't intended to ask a damn thing. Soon his tongue was occupied with hers as they continued touching and slow grinding like a couple of teenagers recently released from detention.
Seconds before seeing and hearing the encroaching presence, Olivia felt the shadow, not of night, but of a someone.
"Sir. Miss," the U.S. Park Ranger said after clearing his throat and shining the aggressive light of his torch at them. "The park closes at 8PM and it is now 7:52. I'm gonna need you to make your way out."
"Our apologies," Fitz said as he rolled up the picnic blanket and gathered his aunt's vintage picnic basket. He placed Olivia's shoes in front of her feet.
The Ranger looked around where they were: far beyond the area in which visitors are allowed. "Being in a restricted area is a violation of code §312.041.2, for which I am entitled to issue a fine up to 300 dollars," the ranger announced. His voice was stern, his eyes shielded by the wide brim of his hat.
Olivia tried to stay silent, letting the laser-like heat of her stare bore into him instead. She could not. "I'd like to see you try…"
The Ranger reached into the breast pocket of his shirt. "Your name, Miss?"
Fitz was unperturbed. Noticing that the clasp on one of Olivia's shoes remained unsecured, Fitz bent down to fix it. He would not want her to trip as they traipsed across the grass. "You can issue that ticket to me, Fitzgerald Thomas Grant," he said as he multitasked. Fitz then stood up to his full height. "The third."
Hands on his hips, his mouth drawn in a line, Fitz remained focused on the Ranger, who had to tilt up his head slightly to look at Fitz.
The Ranger was familiar with these Westchester County types. The ones who proudly announced names that evidenced their lineage. They did it so that people like him were forced to say their own names aloud. That way they'd know exactly who to have fired or demoted when they eventually complained. If that's what they wanted. He hated being under the whims of people like this entitled prick in front of him. The type who had enough money to pay women to speak disrespectfully to him so he could orgasm. The ranger wondered if Fitz was that type. He sneered, satisfied that he had ruined their plans, forcing them to take whatever they were doing some place else.
"Let's get you two out of here," the Ranger said as he abruptly turned around, now pointing his torch towards the park's exit.
Olivia grabbed Fitz's waiting hand and held on tight.
Vassar College
The pair had arrived at the Victorian entrance of Vassar College, where a guard waved them down. Fitz, being neither student, escort of a student, nor faculty, was asked to hand over his driver's license for inspection. As he waited for the security officer to check his credentials and grant them entry, he looked over at Olivia whose eyes were busy peering through the arch of the tower forming the main entrance.
"I've met plenty of Vassar students in my Princeton years, but I can't recall ever visiting this campus. Though I have heard some wild things about the parties here," Olivia said.
"Keg ragers?"
"No, I'm talking commandeering-all-the-ambulances-in-Dutchess County-in-a-single-night kind of wild. Whether or not they still— "
She was cut off by the guard grabbing Fitz's attention, providing directions to their assumed destination.
A college campus, she thought skeptically. There was positively nothing of worth on a college campus for an adult woman to see at night. However beautiful this campus claimed to be, surely it would be better seen by day. Olivia could not imagine why Fitz would bring her to a college campus. She tried not to build up expectations for this 'surprise', nor let its potential disappointment ruin what had been a near-perfect day with him. Well, until they were caught like a couple of teenagers by an unhappy little man.
"I don't supposed Professor Elmegreen will be there?" Fitz dubiously posed to the guard.
"All it says here is that everything is ready for you," the guard returned.
Fitz thanked him and made his way down the narrow road, following the instructions he had been given earlier.
He could feel a strange energy emanating from Olivia, which he felt compelled to dissuade. He'd kept her in the dark all day. An emotional payoff was not something he expected from her or felt owed. But if he was honest, he really wanted this to make her happy.
Reaching for her hand, he started, "Liv, it's OK if you don't like it, or if you find it ordinary. Nothing I've done today has been about impressing you." He brought her hand up to his lips for a gentle kiss. "All I want is to be with you."
She urged herself internally to relax. "Me, too." She smiled up at him.
Olivia looked out the window at the low moon hanging over the shimmering black lake, an amphitheater of trees looking on as spectators. The night was dark and full of twinkling jewels sparkling above them.
Soon, she felt the car slow to a stop.
"We're here."
X
"Fitzgerald!" Gwendolyn said, as her fingers gripped her nephew's forearm. Her face—stilled moments ago—was now animated with the spark of an idea.
"I know the perfect place where you could achieve your vision. You won't even have to leave the state. But I need to make a call or two before confirming," she announced.
Befuddled, Fitz looked at her askant. His strength was coming back by now. It had marked nearly four hours since his stomach betrayed him. "Would you mind sharing first? It is my— "
"Darling, I would not want to give you a glimmer of hope only to immediately destroy it." Gwendolyn held up a slim finger as she left his bedroom, promising to return with news.
For nearly an hour, Fitz heard the muffled sounds of his aunt making phone calls, leveraging favors, reminding trustees of her decades of generosity, the future of which would be contingent on what happened in the next twenty-four hours. When she re-entered the bedroom, she gleamed with triumph. Her short, silver-white hair complimented the graceful maturity of her face. With her hands clasped together, she announced, "My boy, they've agreed a last-minute private hire. The place is yours, but the evening will be up to you."
X
"Welcome to the Class of 1951 Observatory," Neil, who managed the public bookings for the grounds and buildings greeted the couple. "Before I let you go upstairs and leave you to it, I wanted to give an introduction to the space and…a few instructions."
Neil gave them a practical introduction to the space before launching into history. Neil threw out facts and figures, including its cost to build, its illustrious architecture, and Vassar's long history of support for female astronomy scholars. The current astronomy department was headed by Professor Deborah Elmegreen, but also that the old—now protected—observatory, down the road, has been renamed after Maria Mitchell, the first professional female astronomer in America, and the very first Professor of Astronomy at the College. "Mitchell is the reason the original observatory was built."
Before she saw the sign, Olivia thought the three burnished silver domes resembled something on a farm. Places where one might store bales of hay or grain. She had not expected to hear much of what Neil said. It was her first time being in a proper observatory.
"Matthew Vassar was committed to getting whatever Mitchell needed to launch the astrology program here. In 1863, just two years after the College's founding, he acquired a state-of-the-art telescope, made by celebrated telescope maker, Henry Fitz. And—"
"What's become of the old observatory?" Olivia interrupted.
"Good question" Neil pointed, as he stole a glance at his watch. "Since it was the first completed building on the campus, it's been carefully renovated and now houses the Department of Education. It's a national history landmark as designated by the U.S. Park Service. So, you can't have access to that one, unless you're student or staff."
At the mention of the park service, Olivia and Fitz instinctively looked at each other and finally managed a laugh about their earlier encounter.
Clueless and nonplussed, Neil began to grow more impatient to move things along. He began, "I think that's everything you need from me. I'll be in the adjacent building. Fitz, you have my number. Call me if you have any questions, or if there's an issue. The scope and your other requests are all set up. Enjoy your evening," he concluded. A tight smile masquerading as pleasantry filled his face. "You must be very special to swing this place for yourselves at such short notice."
Fitz squinted but held out his hand. "Thanks, Neil. I think we've got it."
Olivia trailed behind Fitz as they ascended the spiral staircase, which ensconced the second largest telescope she had ever been witness to, the first being at the Air and Space museum. But she had never been this close. This machine extended from mezzanine up to the retracted rooftop. Olivia stopped in her tracks. She was not prepared for what awaited her on the upper observation deck.
"Fitz…what?" Articulation escaped her as she looked around and then up at the vast twinkling night sky. Its near clarity transfixed her. "Do we get to use the telescope?" She asked with childlike glee and anticipation.
"Of course. Otherwise, we might as well be sitting on a blanket outside." His arms encircled her from behind, swaddling her in a desire to make her happy. He peeked around at her face as it held fast to the heavens in awe.
"Fitz, this is spectacular."
"Wow," he said of the up-close view he had of her wonderment.
Olivia's lips were parted as she continued to be enraptured by a sky that had always existed but was now somehow different, in a way she found challenging to describe, but felt deeply.
"Your face right now," Fitz said, their bodies gently swaying. "Is everything I hoped to see tonight. This is not a view you can get in the City. I know it's not Vermont's sky, but…"
She turned around to face him, her hands clutching the back of his shirt as she looked at him. Her eyes were glassy with emotion.
"It's perfect. I love it."
Olivia thought back to the moonlit spring night when she and Fitz stood on the corner near her apartment building. They had been playing twenty-one questions for weeks. Questions that started them down a dangerous road of intimacy.
Episode 7, Part II
"When you go up upstairs, and get into bed, what's your most comforting thought?"
She looked up at the resplendent night sky, with its stars just visible under the veneer of noctilucent clouds. Better than NYC, she thought, but not a patch on the sky in her happy place.
"Vermont. I have never felt as peaceful anywhere as I have when I've visited Vermont. I'm not built to actually live there, and I haven't had the chance to go back in several years, but I tell myself one day I'll get a cabin there. A little retreat for myself. And maybe I'll learn to make jam or tap maple trees to bottle my own syrup. I imagine myself there sometimes when I can't sleep".
The wholesome simplicity of her fantasy made Fitz want to gift that entire life to her, even if she could only indulge in it for a single weekend in a year. She was the kind of woman to whom he'd give everything. But he pulled himself back, recalling that she had a someone who could give her what she needed.
X
"Can I touch it?"
"Touch it. Why do you think we're here?"
"Are you sure you know how to work it?"
"Yes, as well as flip it and reverse it."
Olivia crumbled into a fit of laughter as she and Fitz stood at the telescope, with Olivia in front. She reached back to whack him on the chest.
"You've been hanging around Kenny too much. Is this the kind of corniness I have to look forward to?" Not realizing what she said.
"There's definitely more where that come from."
Fitz held Olivia tightly as she peered through the lens of the telescope. All the stars were closer. Planets, too. She could see the marble-colored planet of Venus. It was peppered with mountain ranges and craggy volcanos. The yellow moon she looked at earlier now resembled an ash color and was so close she felt she could touch it. Appearing relatively flatter than Venus, or Earth, the moon was full of craters. Formations of Cassiopeia, Ursus Major and Minor, Lyra and Hercules were illuminated in front of her. They took her breath away. The stars—her first friends, and her favorite part—were large balls of gas, each emanating their own shafts of light. Like pointy, kaleidoscopic halos. Much more complicated than they appeared from Earth to the naked eye. The stars were as unique as snowflakes, each so different and beautiful. Their dazzling clusters saturated her senses with their sheer beauty and numbers.
Olivia thought about how darkness and light are intertwined; the ways in which they work together to reveal and conceal. Laying on a blanket hours ago under the sun, none of these galactic lights could be glimpsed. Darkness could be revelatory. And when she looked closer, a full range of beauty's possibilities were right before her. Fitz had brought her to the moon, the stars, and planets, too.
"Isn't it amazing how bringing something closer into view suddenly makes it feel real? So transformative?" she wondered aloud, more to herself.
She felt a bit foolish because emotion welled in her eyes. Something she did not expect. They were already poised to fall. She blinked and allowed them space. Moving away from the telescope, she turned around.
"I'll never forget this, Fitz."
"Neither will I." He did not have to ask if she was happy. The joy was written on her face.
As promised, the scotch and the wine were present. He had chosen a Gamay in anticipation of creating an atmosphere conducive to her feeling light and free. The approximation of candlelight, provided by electric lanterns, strategically dotted around and away from the velvet cushions serving as seating. Dinner was a catered affair to which Olivia lent a perfunctory protest. It was not extravagant, but she could not believe Fitz had achieved all of this in the time she had been in a Prosecco-infused coma on Chandani's sofa.
Their bodies were joined together swaying to the pacifying sounds of the playlist Fitz made for the evening. The mellifluous vocals of Johnny Hartman filled the space around them. Olivia ran her hand through Fitz's locks.
"Does that feel nice?" Fitz asked.
"A head of thick, wavy hair would feel so much better against my fingers; It's such a shame that you're bald."
A low, dark chuckle rumbled in his chest. "I can't wait until I get to run my hands through your curls." Fitz wrapped a tiny coil of Olivia's hair around his finger, letting it spring back. The elasticity amazed him.
She smiled wide before letting out a performative sigh. "I don't know about running your hands through it, but you can touch. If you play your cards right, I might let you have a tug or two."
"Someone's in a good mood."
"I am," she confirmed. "I like being here with you."
"Good." He tickled the tip of her nose with his own. "Because I don't want to be anywhere you're not." It felt impossible to hold her close enough to him. For her to feel just how much he had inside to give to her. Fitz began to sing along to the song to which they had been dancing.
"In a world of glitter and glow. In a world of tinsel and show, the unreal found the real thing is hard to know…"
Olivia's feet were bare, her face pressed against his chest. The sensation of his baritone vibrated against her cheek, and down through her body until it tingled her toes. She listened to him sing on about finding someone worthy and true, his ideal thing. Romantic and patently obvious, Olivia leaned back to look up at Fitz as he sang down at her. The 1960 song made Olivia wonder if that type of love still existed—that passion and surety. Or did people just sing about it differently now.
"You really are old-school," Olivia said, recalling Kenny's words to her.
"Is that a bad thing, Ms. Pope?"
"No, just rare." Olivia opened her eyes to everything that surrounded her. The cosmic wonders. The dinner. The location. Every detail he had thought about. "I can't believe you did all of this for me."
"Nothing more than you deserve for our first date."
Nuzzling his nose into her neck, he breathed in deeply to commit her sweet, spicy fragrance to memory. Not because it would be the last time, but for the in-between times.
Hartman's dulcet bass tones, supported by mournful guitar strings and piano, continued to fill the air. This time he sang of love lost. After experiencing a perfect year of song-like love, its dying embers made his broken heart cry nightly. Throughout his vocals, Olivia continued looking at Fitz, feeling relieved to have told him about the gaping wound of her self-inflicted heartbreak.
"I never told you this," she began. "But, when I was a little girl, I was obsessed with the stars. My mom said my dad had to take me into the backyard every night so I could look at them and point. Otherwise, forget trying to put me to bed."
Surprised and endeared, Fitz said, "So this has been a life-long fixation?"
"Very much. When my dad grew tired of that routine, he bought me a nightlight that projected stars all over my ceiling and walls. I'd put a blanket over my head and read books with a flashlight until I fell asleep," she recalled, smoothing her hands over the plane of Fitz's chest. "Shhhh, don't tell him."
Fitz threw back his head, his eyes squeezed tight in amusement. "I promise. Scout's honor," he whispered back.
"The simplest things bring you joy when you're a child."
They continued to dance, holding each other tightly without a care in the world. Olivia continued down memory lane.
"It really burned him that Air & Space was my favorite Smithsonian museum and not Natural History."
"What do you find so enchanting about that dark heaven?" Fitz asked, as he motioned his head toward the sky. His gaze, however, remained locked on her luminosity.
She twisted her mouth reluctantly. "It's so corny and clichéd."
"Come one, we're sharing, remember? Besides, didn't you say earlier that you like corny?"
Her eyes squinted in doubt. "That's definitely not what I said, Mister."
He held her tighter. She was safe in his arms, no matter where they were or what she had to say.
"Fitz, do you ever look up and think about how infinite the galaxy is, and that we're infinitesimal by comparison?"
"These were your thoughts as a child?"
She snickered. "No, I mean…when we were looking through the telescope and saw Venus, and floating asteroids, and how tightly packed those little balls of fire are up there? My mind cannot contain how much of the universe there is. I look up there and think about how unending and beautiful it all is, and that I can only behold a slice at a time. It… it puts life into perspective."
Fitz was thoughtful for a moment, connecting to her meaning. "It gives you hope?"
"Yeah. I find it very romantic. And before you have jokes, that's grown-up Livvie talking."
"I've missed calling you that."
"Then say it," she teased as she locked her forearms behind his neck.
"I've missed you, Livvie."
X
The couple continued to dance, their banter easy and without end. Janet Jackson sang softly on the nature of love.
"The other night you said you wanted to know me. I've been thinking about it a lot."
"It's been my quest since I met you. You're an unforgettable person."
How could she explain to him that she wished she could have heard the ways in which he wanted to know her, or for her to tell him that in his presence, under his gaze she found it nearly impossible to be covered, to obscure the parts of her that were unfinished, raw earthenware. The parts that were still striving and becoming. Most difficult to conceal were the glazed pieces that had been kilned by fire and looked shiny and beautiful, but held within her enamel, scars from the very flame that produced the beauty that enamored him.
Olivia clutched Fitz's biceps, pushing her head back enough to see him. But she did not look at him. She found it easier to look at his neck instead.
With him she felt so very exposed.
He looked down at her, bringing a hand from the small of her back to brush her cheek. "Is that bad? Because I want you to see all of me, too."
His gaze could lacerate through every obstacle in its way, every shroud Olivia threw over herself. She grew expert at fortifying herself refusing to melt down into a puddle at his feet. A thing to be sloshed through.
Olivia looked from his perfectly coiffed locks to the expanse of his forehead, marred by a crease of worry. His eyelids held at half-mast in preparation for sadness. Slightly parted, his lips were primed to protest or reassure—whatever was necessary.
"Look at me," he said as he swiped his thumb over the very chin he delicately held within his hand.
This time Olivia looked up and met his gaze. This time would not be a denial, but a confirmation. Her love was not blind, and her desire was for him. She swallowed the stone in her throat.
"I do want to be known, Fitz. I want you to know me."
X
What Olivia had imagined on Maroon's rooftop was a poor simulacrum of this moment, Olivia thought, as she slid her dress down her body, revealing the white, French lace set she donned earlier. She anticipated his reaction. A furtive smile graced her lips. I've got on what you like. There was no need to say it aloud, for the moment she stepped out of the puddling dress at her feet, Fitz's soft, admiring gaze wasted no time coming closer, until he was reaching out to touch her body. `she raked her fingers through that most pleasing field of hair on his chest. It did something to her.
"I'm so happy that you came, Livvie."
Happy. How ordinary that word seemed now to describe how she felt. How he had made her feel today. In lieu of searching for description, Olivia would author her emotions all over him by giving him all she had tonight.
"Me, too," she said. "I've missed you."
Their mouths joined in unhurried worship—sugary and warm. The incandescence of the glittering stars above rained down on their heavenly bodies as they sunk to the floor.
He looked like a movie, smelled like a song. Better than she imagined for all those months, his touch was soft; his mouth unrelenting in its pursuit of drawing from her every moan, tingle and twitch her body could produce. She let herself fall into his gravity.
She tasted like sapphires, he thought. An indescribable beauty only nature could birth. Her eyes gleamed like tourmaline; her ruby red kisses blessed him with their brilliance and in turn he examined every facet of her diamond-like body under the heavens as the earth slowly spun, enveloping them in the magic of midnight. She unraveled spectacularly in front of him minutes after he put his mouth on her.
A sexual dilettante lost in forlornness for months after the forced chasm between them, Fitz was left emotionally unfulfilled. Fitz desired to know only this one being beneath him. Thoroughly and completely. An encyclopedic knowledge capable of updating himself in all the ways she would change. His mind, his body, craved forever holding on to this feeling, this wanting for as long as he lived. Now moving inside her, feeling the pull of her body's centripetal force, the sounds of her pleasure, nothing else existed in the world, but the two of them. The loving they made was righteous and right. Together they belonged.
He pierced her slowly and lovingly. His glacial pace inside her, thrilling. The throbbing, robbing her of …speech, of doubt, of awareness of her metaphysical surroundings. Because all she could feel was him inside her, and for those moments that is all that there was: him inside her; the weight of him on top of her; the warmth of his breath against her neck. She was being filled by him in all the ways she had longed for but was too afraid to confront. Luxuriating in the pocket of his love was deeply satisfying in a way she never again wanted to be without. The depths he was reaching inside her no man had excavated. So good she might cry.
He made her think of possibilities. Ones that brought the floor up to her knees. Doubt burned, shriveled up by the atmosphere because he took her to heights above this earthly plane, filling her with craving and then making her unspool into a soporific mass of pieces, slowly descending back down to earth from their perch above the moon. And when her body forced his expulsion, she and him, he and she stayed embedded in the slippery pleasure of skin-to-skin contact. Stayed there until flesh of her flesh, loin of his loins felt true. When bone and flesh had found their place again, inside her body and she felt complete, she saw in his eyes that the same was true for him.
"Hi" she said, her eyes glazed from their trip around the sun.
"Hi" he returned, still buried inside her. A feeling he considered unparalleled, one he vowed never to be without.
X
The roll of thunder heard Olivia's cry. Her orgasmic gasp had floated up to the heavens and cracked it open. Its barely audible rumble went ignored by Olivia, who was too lost to hear it. Still laying beneath Fitz, Olivia lazily stroked the dampened skin on his back as she felt his breath tickling her neck. She liked that feeling. Liked their sweaty bodies pressed together. She would let him rest just a few more minutes. It was then that she felt a drop on her forehead. Light as ever, barely discernible. So much so that she questioned if she had really felt it.
An alarm sounded. Two separate motor sounds whirred. A bulb, blue, not red—which Olivia found strange—began to flash. Fitz felt its incessant flickering against his closed lids, and he began to waken.
The barely detectable wetness that hit her forehead minutes ago was now visibly dripping down. They grew faster, fatter. Unending strings of raindrops trickled in.
"Fitz! Get up!"
They hurriedly grabbed for their clothing. Disappearing all the stars not yet hidden behind storm clouds, the dome above them contracted in self-protection.
They heard Neil burst in downstairs, flicking, securing, closing whatever necessary to preserve the observatory's interior. He was in emergency mode. Olivia and Fitz matched Neil's hast, not wanting to leave behind their mess. Suddenly Neil was there, pleading with them to leave the detritus of their evening. They would need to leave so that he could secure the building and ensure there had been no damage, in the short space of time, to the equipment and the internal structures.
Now back in the Alpha Romeo, the top had remained secure from earlier in the day. Olivia began to laugh. She could not stop herself.
"Please let me in on the joke," Fitz said after a while. He was deeply frustrated and yet she found humor amid chaos.
"You wanted jazz." She pointed at the windshield. "Here it is."
The rain was a sharp, unexpected note in their evening. Fitz thought this had not been how he intended their date to end: in a downpour of an unexpected storm. He tried to navigate them, as best he could, through sheets of unending rain. Between leaving Vassar's grounds and Route 9's spaghetti junction, a trickling rain turned to a deluge. The car he had borrowed from Uncle Bernard was wholly inappropriate for such weather. Doubts about making it safely back to the City in this gale, in this darkness, flooded his mind the way the rain flooded the streets. Fitz saw a sign for the Mid-Hudson Bridge, decorated with symbols promising shelter on the other side of the river. A major lift.
Danskammer House Bed & Breakfast
The smell of wet earth flowing through the open window filled Olivia's nose. Such a pleasing aroma, she thought. Fresh, clean, promising. The soil-scented fragrance powered the now much cooler air undulating the rise and fall of the sheer curtains decorating the room's window. The storm was a blessing, which is how she decided to interpret the detour of their date, which was now an impromptu sleepover. Not that she had gotten much sleep since they arrived, like pitifully soaked puppies on the steps of Danskammer House Bed & Breakfast. There was room at the inn, for which they had been grateful.
They showered, separately.
Hung up their clothes to dry.
Worshiped the beauty of each other's bodies by making love once more, cuddling like lions until sleep claimed them both.
Hours later, Olivia woke. Her throat was scratchy, her bladder full. Clothed in his now dry shirt and unable to slumber, Olivia watched Fitz sleeping peacefully. What a privilege, she thought, to watch someone in this state. Such a vulnerable and helpless position, sleeping next to someone takes real trust. A feeling of contentment filled her, and she reached out to sweep a floppy curl from his forehead. He stirred, and she got up so not to disturb him.
With the witching hour now past, enclaves of grey struggled to burst through a once midnight sky, signaling dawn's coming. Olivia felt the breeze on her skin. The wind felt romantic after the rain, at that hour. How much things had changed in just 48 hours. Two days ago, she was passing out, the weight of regret blanketing her sleep. Now she's here, pleasured, pleased and pontificating.
"Is everything OK?" He approached. His voice was deep and gruff with sleep.
"After everything that's happened, why are you still here?" Olivia asked reflecting the thoughts running through her mind. Ones about which a half-asleep Fitz had no clue.
His arms encircled her waist. He kissed the top of her head. "I never left. Or should I say you never left my mind." Nor his heart. "Despite what you thought, or who you saw."
She continued to look out the window, her arms still leaning on the Juliette balcony. A doleful veil cascaded over her warm brown eyes.
Fitz turned her around by the shoulders, admiring the crisp whiteness of his button-down shirt, and the way it's light reflected against her brown skin under the pale moon's light.
"Don't ask me to explain why because it's not possible; It's not rational. I just know I want to be where you are. I have never been this sure about anything in my life, Livvie, as I am about you."
Standing there delicate, but sober, with their bodies connected, she admitted, "You never left me either."
How could he when she proved incapable of letting him leave her. He was the thing that had made her happy. Something she had not realized until she was left saddened without him.
X
"Fiiitz," Olivia mewled.
He was outlining the shell of her ear with this tongue whilst one hand massaged her pussy. The more he spread the gossamer liquid over her clit and through her folds, the more vowels she put in his name. The sound took him back to Friday night and what he had wanted to do to her.
Now he could.
"Take this off," he began to instruct, already unbuttoning his shirt from her body.
Olivia began assisting its removal as she bit her lip in anticipation. Her body shuddered, eagerly bowing out towards his mouth which was already latched onto her left breast.
Fitz's intrepid and curious tongue licked a trail down her abdomen until he fell to his knees. His cheek rubbed against the delicate skin of her inner thigh, and she could feel his nascent stubble tickling her.
"The other night, I wanted you like this." He placed one naked thigh over his shoulder, gently kissing the inside of the smooth flesh. Goose pimples flooded the plane of Olivia's body. He inhaled deeply as he ran his nose up her slit. "To bury my face, right here. Until your knees crumble, or you beg me to stop. Whichever comes last."
No man had ever spoken to her like this. A tuft of his hair was already clenched between her fingers as her breath came faster and faster. She looked down at the sight of him: a godly worshiper of hers. She had never begged for anything in her life—not forgiveness, and certainly not mercy.
"Well, buck up because I don't beg," she challenged. Her chest heaved and her nipples were still taught from where his mouth had just been.
Fitz went to work between the valley of her thighs, but not before he gave her a promising smirk.
Two, or was it three orgasms later? She had lost count and balance. Both of her thighs rested on his shoulders now, and his hands held her by the ass, in place, up against the wall. Her abdominal muscles were strong from years of yoga training. It helped her lift herself slightly off his face. She was too sensitive by now. Fitz chased her using the tip of his nose.
"Fiiiiitz, ohmygod, please…"
He dove his tongue inside her one last time. Deep. Lapping at her pleasure principle.
She gasped. "Fuck."
He placed her feet back on solid ground. "Now that you've begged me to stop, yes, let's."
"That wasn't begging; I asked you nicely."
He kissed his way up her body as he rose to a dominating height above her.
"Oh, yeah, because you're such a nice girl. Aren't you?" he whisper-mocked.
Before Olivia knew it, she was off the floor, her ankles crossed at the top of his ass, his thick and firm erection primed to enter her. Theirs was not chemistry; it was sexual alchemy, contained within it a touch of magic.
Before he went any further, he kissed up her neck until he reached her mouth, where she was waiting for him, expectant and hungry. The kiss would have to come later, for he was entranced by the beauty of her. He felt lucky in that moment, and she saw it in his face.
"Tell me what you want," Fitz instructed, his thumb rubbing her lips.
Olivia grew impatient at the temperance of his touch. Good as his thumb felt gliding back and forth over her lips, she wanted his mouth on hers. She snatched his thumb with her lips. She sucked and lavished her tongue all over it until his mouth was agape. That's when she went in for what he wanted. "Kiss me."
They were completely lost in each other until Fitz's twitching dick vied for attention.
Breathless from their kiss, he asked, "Is that all you want? Kissing?"
They had made love twice and both times it had been delightful and satisfying. He was a skillful lover. But she wanted the only thing he had not given to her all night.
"I want you fuck me, Fitz. Against that nice lady's wall," she said of Nancy, the B&B owner.
He grunted at the sound of her words, drenching the head of his dick in her wetness until he tunneled up to the hilt inside her. He moved slowly, deciding he wanted her to say those words again.
"Faster," she moaned.
He was controlling their pace. "Say please." Fitz barely recognized the words coming out of his mouth. She was unearthing melodies inside of him he had previously been reluctant to play. He drew back, leaving in only the tip as he waited for her to say it.
Her brow furrowed at the loss of him. For him to go deeper and deeper, without stopping, is all that she wanted right now.
"Pleeeease."
Aggressively, Fitz drove back into her like a plough through a bank of snow. The swiftness shocked her. Her deep guttural groan told him everything he needed to know.
They set an athletic pace, one worthy of garnering first prize at the Kentucky Derby. Olivia clawed at his back, marking his body with her presence. He found a way to devour her breasts without ever letting up his onslaught inside her.
"Tell me again," Fitz spat out through gritted teeth. "What you want me to do to you. What am I doing to you?"
"Fucking me."
"Again."
"Faaahck, Fitz. Fuck me!"
Fuck her he did.
So carried away with desire were they, that neither had thought of protection this time. Until now. When Fitz felt the pulsations and shower of Olivia's orgasm. Fitz was quickly approaching his peak.
Her hand pressed firmly against his thrusting, muscular cheeks, making her need clear.
"Don't go. I want to feel you. Stay."
A pang ripped through his belly, and he held himself back. "Are you sure?"
"Very."
Her wanting to feel him let go inside her spurred on his explosion even stronger.
Monday Afternoon, Central Park
The last twenty-four hours flooded every one of Fitz's senses. Both their hands were interlinked as they stood in the Park. A warm breeze hit them both. The hem of Olivia's dress danced around her. Her curls, more voluminous than yesterday, and free of clasps and hairpins served as wispy curtains over her delicate face. Fitz's hands intervened, needing to see her eyes when she answered.
"What happens now?" Fitz asked, as they stood in the lower east corner of Central Park, near The Pond. Fitz was seeing Olivia back to her hotel when she decided she wanted a stroll. But the inevitable conversation could no longer be delayed.
"I have work. And you have work. I know classes start tomorrow," she started practically. "When does Bank Street start for you?" Her nose scrunched in concern.
Fitz's shoulders fell slightly, though his hands maintained their place on her face.
"Livvie, I'm serious. What happens to you and me? To us?"
"I was being serious. I want to make sure we find time to see each other." Her arms wrapped around his waist, drawing him into her.
Fitz's mind flooded with all the possible meanings of 'time to see each other.' The lushness of the Park, with its greenery, vibrant colors and buoyant pockets of humanity faded into the background. He considered the possibility that after the entirety of yesterday, that her expectations going forward were more casual than what his heart was set on. He was bursting at the seams for her with an uncontainable conviction. Were her seams better reinforced than his? Or were her wants, her expectations tidier, fitting neatly inside that throbbing fist inside her chest?
In those agonizing seconds, the Park was no longer a park; It was Gethsemane's garden. The air was pressing, as he was momentously on the verge of salvation or betrayal. Deliver me, his heart pounded.
"Olivia, last night was—"
"Fantastic. One of the best nights, best afternoons of my life."
"Mine, too. I don't want that with anyone else. Which is why I need to know what you want when we get back to D.C. and the full reality of our lives. We've been in a bubble here, in New York." His face was earnest, his pleading etched across its surface. He swallowed and his eyes dipped down briefly before locking eyes with her. The landslide of his emotions unfurled.
"Being with you is fantastic. But also, real. Literally the best of both worlds. You are it for me. I don't want anyone but you. This is beyond making time to see each other for me." I am going to marry you, he thought. And fill our life with as many children as you would allow your body to nurture. But Fitz would never tell Olivia that in this moment. She was skittish enough.
"You're the only one that could ever make me leave you, Olivia. What do you want?"
A twinge of panic jabbed at Olivia.
"Fitz…" she looked down. Where should she begin?
The thing that no one acknowledges about the journey toward better choices, and the recalcitrance in closing off oneself to possibilities that frighten and excite, is how exhausting it is to be active and present all the time. Fear is useful, necessary; sometimes it points toward safety and sometimes it is a net that traps.
Should she begin with starry night fantasy caused by the circles he drew in her palm? Or should she start with the puncture of fear that burst that bubble every time? The one that had shown up many times in the past. The one she dread would follow them into their unknown future.
Her pause gave Fitz the opportunity to move his hands down to her hips, steadying them both. He placed a gentle kiss on her pout.
"Tell me something real, Livvie." He was thinking of how vulnerable she let herself be with him yesterday. What happened to that woman?
After their night, and the morning they watched come into being, Olivia's fears felt feckless, the taste of her insecurities insipid under the blazing September sun. But she wanted to tell him anyway. His face was an open and inviting blanket in which she could safely swaddle herself.
"I've left every man I've ever been with. Me. I found a way every time. Not once have I regretted my decision. It wasn't violation or cheating…to my knowledge. Or anything like that." She laughed mirthlessly. Her face looking off to the side, focused on the environment around her.
"Each time I would get this feeling that—and I tried to ignore it, but it would bubble up every time. Respect. I lost respect for each of them. It didn't matter how handsome they were, who they knew, their careers, or how wealthy they were. I eventually lost respect for them, then attraction. After that, love had no ground to stand on."
Fitz's eyes were half-lidded, half-committed to interpreting what it is Olivia was trying to convey in this crystal ball confession of hers. He wanted to scream that he was not any of those men, and did he not deserve a chance to prove that to her Did she not want to prove it to herself?
"But Olivia—"
"No, Fitz," she looked into his face now. "I need you to hear me when I say this.
"You make me feel out of control. I never actively wanted someone who would make me feel this way. It's daunting. But then you came into my life, and I tried to push against the force of you. It's like I'm not myself and completely myself at the same time. I have never wanted anyone the way I want you. Me, you, us—I want that. It feels different. I want to see the difference that different makes." Her head moved up and down, affirming her words.
"But if after all of that, what if the past repeats itself? If I repeat myself? Fitz, if we try and it doesn't' work out, I can't imagine hoping to love again. I'd be devastated. Because if I can't make it work with a man that makes me dream of pasts and futures, then I'm doomed. You could hurt me. Or changed how you feel. What if you've been holding onto a fantasy of me the last year only to discover in the next month that I'm nothing of the sort?"
"You got one thing right. You are nothing of the sort. I saw the real Olivia Pope stand up yesterday. I saw you. You're a woman who owns her own business and speaks seven languages, but you're also a girl obsessed with stars. You are flesh, and bone and blood. And hair. Beautiful hair."
Would his smile always be this infectious? Would he always know the right thing to say to her to diffuse her fears?
"But Livvie, all those real, human things are what I want with you. Not the façade. I can't tell you not to have those fears because that's the way love goes. I have fears, too. We're going to drive each other crazy. Experience euphoric peaks and disappointing valleys. Have the time of our lives, and hopefully take each other to places we've never been before."
His masculine hand made a delicate sweep over her exposed shoulders.
"There is one singular promise I know I can stand on. I will give you everything inside of me. I want to be with you. For us to be together. Dare to try. What do you say?"
Olivia's lips held a small smile. As her eyes caressed every feature of his face, the smile grew. The slight divot in his cheek, she could become obsessed with that. She tested it out by putting her hand against his face, and her index finger instinctively rested against her new favorite imperfection of his handsome face.
He inspired a fugitive feeling she desired to let roam inside her, pushing at her boundaries, shaping new contours she previously denied. A feeling she wanted to care for without caging. To need him. To be fearful of how much she loves him. She's never wanted that with anybody. He showed her new possibilities of how life could be composed. To author herself where she had only known self-governing and rigid regulation. Like OPA, her name was on this door, too. She could choose to open it to anyone she wanted.
When her eyes traveled up to meet his, they were patient and consoling. Steadfast. Then, suddenly, their current pulled her in, washing memories of last year ashore. This time her eyes were open, locked with those of the man in front of her and what they could co-write. The one whose body felt real and safe against her own as they stood under a clear blue sky. Cumulous clouds; 84 degrees. A butterfly flapped its wings a final time as it settled on a daffodil nearby.
"Yes. I say yes. Let's try."
Wanting to be with him was its own pleasure. She did not know if either of them could promise forever, but they could promise to try. Wasn't everyone just trying?
"So, is it too soon to be your boyfriend?"
Olivia threw he head back in laughter. "After one night? The cockiness!"
Present Day, New Year's Day, 2AM
"Chile, she went to New York single and came back with a whole boyfriend." Kenny yawned out, just as Chandani concluded the New York act of the Ballad of Olivia and Fitz.
Brock was sat on the floor, soaking up the love story with child-like wonderment.
"That's beautiful. I love a real-life happily ever after."
Chandani snorted. Abby looked on in pity. Cara looked up from her phone briefly, clearing her throat.
"Nobody said all that" Kenny interjected. A second ferocious yawn followed. "It's 2 AM. I can't believe they haven't' kicked us out yet."
"They've been in that office for an hour." Harrison's eyebrows danced before they dramatically shot up, stuck in place.
The potent ringing of the doorbell captured everyone's attention. Fitz and Olivia finally emerged, barreling towards the door as if they were expecting the interruption.
"Liv" Huck said immediately sidestepping Fitz as he opened the door. There was no time for holiday pleasantry. "I think I've found what's going on with your father. He's definitely hiding something from you."
He turned over the iPad to Olivia, and she furiously flicked her index finger across its screen. Her eyes grew wider each time she swiped across the screen.
"Take me to him. Now."
A/N: That concludes your 5-episode flashbackapalooza on how Olivia and Fitz came to be. In future episodes you may get some flashbacks to other times in their lives (separate and together), but nothing this extensive.
Please do leave your girl a couple of words in a review. Consider it a tip. I'd love to know what you guys thought of this episode and the way things concluded. Some prompts for the nerds (ignore if you are not a nerd):
1. Did anyone see the connection between a late confession Olivia makes and a mistaken fear Fitz has in 'Command Performance'?
2. You'll note the Johnny Hartman connection to episode 9. Also lyrics from Adele's 'When we were young' and 'I miss you' are sprinkled in here. They were early options for titles/mood for this episode.
2. Should Olivia block Jake on Instagram or was simply unfollowing the right choice?
3. Are there any other parts of their life you're curious to flashback to for future episodes?
4. What did you make of Olivia's picnic confession? Are you side-eyeing or can you understand her incongruous feelings?
Ok, I'm out. Back to the present next episode. See what's up with Eli.
As Always,
Petunia