Eager to Love (2 page)

“Little bit more,” I whispered.

“Can’t,” he grunted. Jeffery’s upper body was
strong, but the angle of his arms kept him from pushing me
higher.

“Think I heard something, Mick,” said the
female cop, her voice stern.

“Dammit,” said Jeffery. “My head. Use my
head.”

I hesitated, not wanting to.

“Go,” he hissed.

I stepped on Jeffery’s head and straightened.
My hands found the dusty concrete edge, and I pulled myself up.

I climbed over the short wall and found
myself standing on the track in the moonlight. I looked back into
the pit of the racquetball court, but without turning on my phone
light and giving away his position, I couldn’t see Jeffery. The
doorway cast an ever-broadening wedge of white into the dark as the
officer approached.

I bit my lip, wanting to do something but not
knowing what to do.

Then, in a flash, I had an idea.

I pulled off my tennis shoe and ran to the
opposite side of the track—the one overlooking the pool. With a
desperate heave, I launched the shoe into the abyss.

It arced through the night, plastic shoelace
aglets flashing once in the moonlight before it dropped, down and
down, and—
splash!
—right into the disgusting pool water
below.

“You hear that?” the man shouted.

Flashlight beams started moving in the pool
area. I ran quietly back to the racquetball court, the concrete
rough against my socked foot. The light had vanished from the room,
but I couldn’t see Jeffery and I didn’t want to use my light and
risk giving him away. I squinted until my eyes adjusted to the
black and hints of the strange graffiti began to distinguish
themselves against the inky dark. The room was empty. Jeffery had
bolted.

I went back to the pool side edge.

Two cops with heavy flashlights stood at the
edge of the pool, shining their light down at the rippling surface.
My pink and white shoe, now netted with bright green algae, swirled
half-submerged in their beams.

“What the hell?” said the man.

“I guess now we’re on the lookout for a
barefoot perp,” said the woman.

Metal squealed behind me, and both
flashlights immediately shot to me, catching me in their awful
whiteness.

“Stop right there,” the man shouted. “You are
trespassing on university property.”

I froze like a deer for a moment, then backed
away.

“Let’s pick her up,” said the woman, and
boots began to thud at a running pace.

I turned to see Jeffery, fresh from the
stairwell. “Come on,” he said, pointing back the way we had
come.

Together, we sprinted down the ruined track.
Will-o’-wisp flashlights bobbed in the mouth of the stairway, but
we’d already reached the wall. I went over first and tore down the
ladder as quickly as I could. Jeffery slid down like a fireman or
action hero, then darted ahead of me to pull up the chain-link.

“Nice thinking,” Jeffery said, noticing my
shoeless foot for the first time.

“Stop!” the cops shouted in near unison.

We didn’t stop, of course. We vanished into
the night, alive under the moon. Our hearts hammered, and our lungs
were stinging, and we practically couldn’t wait to tear each
other’s clothes off.

And tear each other’s clothes off we did.

Jeffery’s door had barely been closed before
I had his shirt off and he was going for the button and zipper on
my jeans. Naked, and with me giggling, he tackled me onto his bed
and kissed my down into the pillow. I kissed him back, my hands
tracing the muscled canyon along his spine. His fingertips moved
all over my body, electric. Gliding and squeezing and even clawing
hungrily, his trimmed nails making pink lines in my skin. I laughed
and rolled him over so that I was on top, straddling him. His cock
stood erect between my legs, the soft head lightly brushing the
area beneath my navel that still bore an imprint from my
underwear’s elastic band.

“Looks like someone’s glad we escaped,” I
said, wrapping my hand around his shaft and covering the tip with
my thumb.

Jeff reached down and ran his hands up the
inside of my leg. He found me wet and he slicked a finger just
inside in a come-hither gesture. A shuddered lightly and my legs
tingled, springing to life with goosebumps.

“Looks like he’s not the only one,” Jeffery
said.

I rose a bit, intending to brush the tip of
his cock against my sex—teasing him—but I didn’t get the chance.
Jeff grabbed me by the ass and slid down the bed, such that his
face lay directly below me, grinning and mischievous.

“Wait,” I said, not knowing why I said it. I
always felt shy when he went down on me.

“No,” he said, locking his mouth to me and
plunging his tongue inside.

I rocked forward with the sensation, losing
my balance. I caught myself on the bed with outstretched arms and
gripped the blankets as he worked his tongue up, down, and in loops
around the hypersensitive little nub near the front.

And then I looked up to lock eyes with the
stern face of Robert A. Heinlein, his eyes disapproving and
distinctly Gene-Hackman-esque above his quote about specialization
being for insects.

I tried to look away, but the damage was
done. Even as Jeff’s tongue continued his magic, Heinlein continued
to scowl at me.

Seriously, fuck Robert Heinlein. Fuck all
science fiction writers.

And then I started to get irritated with
Jeffery. Why would he keep such an aggressively unsexy poster
right
over the head of his bed? And then, coming with a
strange, lateral connectedness, I began to feel frustrated with
Jeffery for not realizing that he was sharing me with another man.
A much older man. A man closer to the age of the one currently
staring me down from Jeff’s poster.

Jeff kept playing with me, working deeper
now, but I had already been mentally ejected. No way I was coming
tonight.

I’d started thinking of Giacomo. Of his
mouth, of his firm hands, of—even—his cock. But it didn’t make me
feel aroused. It made me feel guilty. And I hated it, because I
didn’t
want
to feel guilty.

I lifted myself off of Jeff’s face. He tried
to follow me, his hands gripping my butt. I didn’t let him.

“Stop,” I said.

He looked confused, and that look of
incomprehension just cranked up the volume on my guilt.

“You don’t like it?” he asked.

“I do,” I said. It was a half-lie. In
general, I liked it. But right then, I couldn’t stand the idea of
him pleasing me without getting anything in return. It seemed...
wrong. “It’s just your turn,” I said.

I stood and looked down on him. He’d slid
down to get to me, so now his butt was at the edge of the bed and
both his feet were planted on the floor. His cock pointed at the
ceiling and had begun to wilt just a little bit. Probably from the
growing concern that I was going to bail on him again.

More guilt. I’d been a bad girlfriend.

“I owe you,” I told him, kneeling between his
legs.

He laughed, propping himself on his elbows to
see me. “You’re the one who saved
me
tonight,” he said. “I
owe you.”

“No, you don’t,” I said, and I took him into
my mouth.

He gasped and gripped the bed at the sudden
contact and suction.

I went up and down a few strokes, reaching up
to run my hands over his abs. I let him go, and his cock—now very
erect—quivered.

“Actually,” I said, thoughtfully, “you might
owe me a shoe.”

“If you keep doing what you’re doing, I’ll
get ten shoes,” Jeff said.

I ran my tongue from the base all the way to
the tip playfully. “Make it a hundred,” I said.

“Done.”

“A thousand,” I said.

“A million. All the shoes you want forever.
Just don’t stop.”

I laughed at him. “You’re a woman’s dream
come true,” I said.

And then I gave him a blowjob that left him
shuddering and breathless and stupid.

We lay together afterwards under the gaze of
Mr. Heinlein. I felt no less guilty. Jeffery slept.

Dr. Giacomo was lecturing about covalent
bonds, but I was just watching his mouth move. I loved the way his
clothes clung at his chest when he turned to motion toward the
screen behind him, the way his eyebrows arched with inflection, the
rolling rhythm of his mahogany voice. I was taking notes only
nominally, scribbling down whatever bullets flashed up on the Power
Point but not actually thinking about anything.

Okay, so maybe I was thinking about
something, but it had nothing to do with covalent bonds. Way more
fundamental. Electromagnetism, which is necessary for things to
touch each other. Necessary for friction. So what I was thinking
about was actually Giacomo’s hand sliding up my shirt and cupping
my breast, the warm pressure of his squeeze. I was thinking about
his arms wrapping around me, about him standing behind me and
pulling me into his embrace. About me tilting my head back and our
lips connecting. Electricity. Electromagnetism. Atoms brushing
against each other.

Contact was made of electricity. I wondered
what guilt was made of. Something heavy, I thought. Maybe iron,
accrued in the stomach and chest.

I wondered if being with Giacomo would be as
exciting as it was if it didn’t feel so wrong. If I wasn’t having
to swallow a mouthful of guilt for every lingering kiss.

Iron, I realized, was an excellent conductor
of electricity.

When class ended, I packed up my things as
everyone began filing out of the room. Giacomo passed by, his
leather laptop satchel slung across his chest. “Very productive
meeting the other day, Seager,” he said, with a look so subtly
meaningful that no one but me would catch it. “I look forward to
our next one.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, relishing the eye
contact.

And then, too soon, he left.

I ran a hand through my hair and watched him
go, metal in my stomach and electricity between my legs.

Later that night, I lay small spoon to
Jeffery’s big with my own arms wrapped around a body pillow. We
were in his room again, and I wished I didn’t have a science
fiction writer presiding over my inner turmoil. I couldn’t sleep. I
knew that I had to do something to change this current situation,
but I didn’t know what route to take. Especially since staying the
course seemed so much more desirable.

Sometimes when I was with Jeffery, my hunger
for Giacomo faded to a dull ache. Most times, my love for Jeffery
felt so strong that my chest hurt. He really was a perfect
boyfriend, and from some perspective I tried not to think from, I
knew it was possible to see Giacomo as a pervy old man.

Why did it have to be wrong? Why did I have
to choose?

Here, I think, was the heart of it. Jeffery
treasured me. And while it’s flattering and encouraging to be
treated like a princess, it can also be exhausting. There was a
kind of responsibility to being around Jeffery: a responsibility to
continue being his ideal.

With Giacomo, I didn’t have that
responsibility. In fact, I had zero responsibility with Giacomo. I
was a toy to him. I didn’t have to try to be anything I wasn’t,
didn’t even have to
think
if I didn’t want to.

Now pause right there, dear reader. I can
feel you judging me from here. What kind of self-respecting young
woman would willingly let herself be dehumanized to the point of
becoming a man’s toy? That’s what you’re thinking, right? Well, get
off your high horse. Any child would tell you—if they had the words
for it—that there’s freedom in not having to make decisions for
yourself. Besides, you didn’t let me get to my next point.

In his sleep, Jeffery shifted and squeezed me
closer to him. He shifted his legs against mine, and he sighed.

You see, I didn’t want to be either of those
things. I
wasn’t
either of those things. Caitlyn Seager was
neither ivory ideal nor plastic plaything. I was, however, a bit of
both. And I
wanted
both. I wanted the delight of being
treasured and the liberty of being small. And I couldn’t get both
of those things with just Jeffery or just Giacomo.

So I’d found myself in a kind of heavy
perfection. I was getting everything I wanted—everything I
needed
—but I was wrong for it. I was a treacherous woman of
the most conniving type. I’d become a
cheater
, and I hated
myself for it.

But I didn’t hate myself enough to actually
do anything about it. I couldn’t just break things off with Giacomo
and be done with it. For one, I’d be giving up all of that
mouth-watering sex. But for another, I would still feel guilty for
what I had done—even if I’d stopped doing it. The only way to make
things right from that angle would be to come clean to Jeffery,
which would shatter his ideal of him. And it would hurt him deeply.
I would lose both, so that option was no good. Breaking up with
Jeffery in favor of Giacomo was even more obviously out of the
question. I had no illusions about what I was to Giacomo, and I
knew he’d eventually get bored of me like anyone does a favorite
toy. I would lose both that way too.

To complicate matters, I hadn’t had a
blackout in almost a full week. This meant one of two things.
Either I was overdue and should expect one any minute, or…

I hugged the body pillow closer.

…or, just maybe, I was doing something that
made them fade. Maybe it was something I was eating, or maybe I’d
stumbled into the exact right balance of sleep and exercise… but I
really wasn’t doing anything differently. Not anything that I
hadn’t done at any other point in my life. Except for that one
thing. Except for that tiny fact that I was sleeping with two men
at the same time.

It didn’t make any sense, of course, but from
a certain standpoint: it was the only variable I had changed. And
it seemed to be helping.