One Plus Two Minus One (17 page)

They went out
again, and she kissed him once, at the bar, and held his hand under
a table.
She liked it. She actually liked
being out with him, and that bothered her enough she took him home
and fucked for an hour until she couldn’t think.

“
What do you
want?” he said once.
“Where do you want
to be in the end?”

“
Trinity at
Cambridge.
You?”

“I used to say Google, or the Google that’s
coming that they don’t know about yet.”

She caught
something in his tone.
She asked,
thinking maybe she shouldn’t, “And now?”

“
Trinity at
Cambridge,” he said, not meeting her eye.
“With you.”

She nodded slowly, and kissed him, and didn’t
say anything more.

It was
turning into something more than fucking, and Beth wasn’t sure she
minded.
They seemed to be friends, had
become friends fairly easily. They got on, and they had good sex,
and there was something comfortable about being around him. She was
surprised how much she liked him even though they spent most of
their time in rooms alone, and that normally made her hate people
almost right away.

He was good
for her.
He reminded her who she’d used
to be, before she’d started worrying about teaching and her career
and what Robert thought. She skated again. In the middle of the
day, no tricks, just up and down the street. She tried to remember
why she’d stopped, and had an awful feeling it was Robert’s idea.
She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it seemed like something
Robert would have wanted her to do. Robert had ideas about what she
should do, and told her them, and then kind of guilted her into
doing what he thought was best without her really noticing. Ethan
just watched her skate. Watched, then followed her inside and
pushed her onto her knees, grinning, on the hallway floor, and
stuck his cock in her mouth. Then made her come with his, halfway
up the stairs, too horny for her to wait until they reached the
bed.

She couldn’t
work out why kneeling in front of Ethan with his hands twisted into
her hair made her feel less controlled than just listening
to
Robert talk, but it did. Ethan didn’t
want her to do anything particular, she thought, and that was the
most important thing about him. Ethan let her be who she was, and
he was who he was too, and part of being him was pushing her around
during sex. But it was just him being him. Robert wanted her to be
someone else, to be who Robert was, and that just pissed her
off.

Beth was
happy.
She wasn’t used to being happy,
and she started to like it.

She didn’t
really notice time passing until it was the week she had to hand
out her mid-semester assignments and she hadn’t actually written
them yet.
Then she realized it had been
most of two months, and she was still spending whole days with
Ethan, fucking Ethan, doing Ethan’s homework for him, and she still
wasn’t bored.

Then summer
ended, and the leaves turned, and Ethan was still at her house all
the time.
One morning, as they walked to
their lecture across the sports fields, the grass was white with
frost, and they were wearing coats and scarves, and their breath
was misting in the air, and Beth let Ethan hold her hand until they
reached the actual campus, and she realized she’d been in this
thing, this sort-of relationship, for so long the semester was
almost over.

It was
good.
She needed this. She wasn’t bored
with him, and usually she got bored with people very quickly. He
gave her space, and the sex was good, and other than his being a
student, everything was right.

They might actually get through this, she
thought, and was quite surprised how much she wanted to.

One day Beth looked at her phone and saw she had two missed
calls from
Robert, two hours apart. She
hadn’t answered the first because she was in a lecture, and hadn’t
answered the second because she was fucking Ethan. Robert rang
again, a third time, after they’d finished, but by then Beth was
worried, wondering why he kept calling back, and didn’t want to
pick up and find out.

Robert
left messages saying he needed to talk to her,
but not what he needed to talk about. She’d hoped he’d get clearer
as he left more messages, but he didn’t. Just the same thing three
times.

In the end,
wondering what was wrong, she went outside and phoned
Robert and said hi and sorry she’d missed him
earlier. Her breath was misting in front of her face and she needed
a scarf and a coat just to stand outside, but she didn’t want Ethan
listening, and didn’t want him to leave either.

Robert
said he was interviewing for a job in the
polisci department. He’d applied months ago, but hadn’t told her
because he didn’t think anything would come of it. What he’d heard
now was that an internal candidate had pulled out, and now they
were actually interviewing for real.

Beth
listened, and felt her world coming apart, and made herself sound
pleased, for
Robert, made herself sound
happy. She wasn’t. She really wasn’t. It was too soon for this. She
didn’t know where things were with Ethan, and if there was anything
real beyond the sex, and she didn’t know where things were with
Robert, either, and if she still even wanted him. She needed more
time to work both out, to let the fling with Ethan run its course,
but she didn’t have it.

She was angry, a little resentful, that she
wasn’t going to get that time.

She said goodbye, and went inside.

“What’s up?” Ethan said, as she took the coat
off.

“Nothing.”

“Because you always go outside to make phone
calls.”

“Nothing yet.”

He thought about that. “Tell me when there is
something wrong, yeah?”

She nodded.

“
Do you want
head or something?”
he said.

Because that
was all they ever really did, she supposed.
A solution to everything. And it probably made sense that
he asked. He must have seen her a dozen times start off all
stressed and angry and worried after a shitty day, and then half an
hour later be calm and happy because he’d eaten her out.

“
Nah,” she
said, and sat down beside him.
“Just hang
for a bit, okay?”

He put his arm around and pulled her over,
and after a while, despite herself, she leaned on his shoulder.

*

Robert
flew in for the interview two days later. He
stayed the night with Beth, and seemed glad to see her, but it
wasn’t like it had used to be. They didn’t have sex. Beth would
have, had expected to, but Robert was thinking about his
interview.

She supposed it was the interview, but he
didn’t actually say.

That was what
decided her, though.
Something wasn’t
right between her and Robert, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to fix
it. She wanted fun with Ethan over hard work with Robert, and she
didn’t know quite how to tell Robert that.

She couldn’t
tell him, not really, not while he was getting ready for the
interview, and then not on the way to the airport afterwards, so in
the end she didn’t say anything at all.
He flew away, and was gone, and Beth decided telling him
probably didn’t matter. It had been a year, and they weren’t really
together any more, and he wasn’t likely to get this particular job,
so they’d probably just drift apart, amiably, without anything
needing to be said.

She’d told
Ethan that
Robert would staying with her,
had asked him to clear his things out, and Ethan hadn’t seemed
bothered. Not like Beth would have been if she’d been suddenly cut
off from sex. Ethan came back a couple of hours after Robert left,
and Beth knelt in the hallway and blew him, and then took him up to
the bed and fucked him, and everything seemed normal again. Normal
from him. She still seemed to be in a slightly odd mood, and she
didn’t know why.

He finished behind her, and she knelt where
she was, breathing hard, feeling him still solid inside her.

“
Fuck me,”
she said.
“Again. When you’re ready. Like
this.”

He nodded,
still panting.
She knelt there still and
waiting, watching him in the mirror. He started moving again, after
a few minutes tried to turn her over, but she shook her
head.

“I want to see your face,” he said.

“No, like this.”

“What’s wrong?”

“
I don’t
know.
I feel odd. Like everything’s
ending.”

He stroked her back, and held her hips, and
said, “Are you okay?”

“
I’m
okay.
I just want to fuck like
this.”

He nodded,
and started moving faster, and that made her forget whatever her
mood had been.
She leaned on her arms and
watched him in the mirror, and thought she caught him doing it back
to her. Like he’d worked out the trick, the right angle to see, and
he was watching her as she came.

After sex,
she felt better.
Ethan kept stroking her
back while she knelt there, and looking at her like he was
worried.

“
I’m fine,”
she said, and slid off him.
“I’m good
now.”

“Okay,” he said, agreeable.

She would have gone and wiped, but he liked
her to drip, so she flopped onto the bed and dripped slowly
instead.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Ethan
said.

“
Yeah.
Just people from the past. It put me in an odd
mood.”

“The guy?” he said.

“The guy.”

“Is everything all right?”

“
Yep.
He’s gone now.”

Ethan nodded,
and kissed her, and went to get a textbook.
Beth watched him and was pretty sure she’d done the right
thing. Robert was gone and it seemed like that was the last of him,
and she was actually relieved. She wanted this, with Ethan, and to
see what came of it without complications.

*

Two nights
later
Robert phoned again, and said he’d
got the job. They were in a hurry, everything was happening fast,
and that he could start immediately had helped with his
application.

“You got it?” Beth said, wanting to make
sure.

He got it, he
said.
They needed him to start in two
weeks. He was so glad he’d be back with her, he said, that he was
packing already.

“
I’m glad
too,” Beth said, dully.
“I’m really
pleased.”

She hoped her
voice didn’t sound odd on the phone.
She
was horrified inside.

*

It happened
that Ethan hadn’t stayed that night, that he’d been out with his
friends and gone home to sleep.
She
phoned him the next morning, at ten, as early as was reasonable for
him to answer the phone. She phoned rather than sent a message
because she had no idea how to explain in a few words.

“
Could you
come over?” she said.
“As soon as you
can.”

“What’s wrong?”

“
Nothing’s
wrong.
Nothing sudden or urgent or
important. Don’t worry. I just need to see you.”

“Is it the guy?” he said.

“Just come.”

“Is it me?”

“
Please,”
Beth said.
“Don’t do this over the
phone.”

“
Half an
hour,” he said.
“I’m on my
way.”

After twenty
minutes she got undressed and sat on the couch, watching the
door.
After twenty-five he knocked. She
stood up and opened it.

He came in,
realized she wasn’t wearing anything, and stopped.
She pushed the door closed, kissed him, and
started pulling off his clothes.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“Fuck me.”

“Is that all?”

She looked at
him and shook her head.
“There’s
something wrong but fuck me first, okay?”

She unzipped
his pants and he was already hard so she climbed up onto him, and
he leaned her against the wall behind the front door.
She’d miss that, the wall thing, if she had to
give it up. They’d been doing it there so often she’d started
leaving a cushion behind the door, for whoever was kneeling down
with the other in their mouth.

Today wasn’t
giving head, though, it was just sex.
He
held her up and had her against the wall, then carried her up the
stairs without pulling out. He dropped her on the bed, and kept
going but every so often he stopped and looked down at her, holding
her face in his hands, and each time she shook her head and said,
“Just fuck me. Later.”

He did twice,
and she liked that, would miss that too, if she had to give this
up.
She liked the way he filled her, then
rested for a moment and fucked her again, and how all the semen
he’d left inside her all oozed out. She liked how messy and fun sex
was with him. How he came inside her, and carried her around, so
she dripped these splattery trails all through the house, from the
door to the stairs to the bedroom. She liked how when she sucked
him he tasted like them both, himself and her mixed together on his
cock. She liked that togetherness.