You Should Smile (9 page)

“Then take your shorts off.”

I froze for a second.  Then I realized his game.  He was in charge now.  The tables had turned.  If I wanted this, I was going to have to follow
his
lead.

I smiled.  “Alright.”  I moved the laptop farther back on the coffee table so it captured more.  I sat back in the chair.  I gripped the top of my boy shorts and lifted up from the seat, slowly pulling them down my legs, then over my feet.  I threw them to the side.  I noticed that his hand had moved to his crotch, rubbing slowly over the top of his jeans. 

“Now your underwear.”  His voice was all dark and husky.  I hesitated when I saw him stand up and grab his own shirt and pull it off, revealing his hard rock abs and chiseled chest.  I hadn’t seen him with his shirt off before.  Hell fire.  He had that “V” shape on his hips, hiding behind his jeans.  It framed a trail of hair below his belly button.  It looked like a path straight to his cock.  I wanted to lick that path all the way down.  So much. 

“No daydreaming, Shay.  This is here and right now.  Take off your underwear.”  Brooding, sexy Thad was back. 

I came back to the moment and nodded.  Standing up slowly, I leaned forward, breasts in view, and pulled my red, lacy underwear down my legs before stepping out of them, leg by leg.  I was completely naked.   

I looked up to see him entranced.  “You….Are…So.…Fucking….Beautiful….”  His emphasized the words, one-by-one, just in case I didn’t understand what he meant.  Whispering, he added, “Amazing, actually.”  I watched as he leaned over and pulled off his shoes and socks. 

Then, he reached for the button on his jeans, making eye contact.  I smiled and bit my lip.  And then he did it.  He grinned.  Panty-dropper grin.  Pickup Grinner grin.  My grin. 

I was lost.  I was gone.

He kept eye contact with me through the camera as he slowly pulled down his jeans, revealing blue plaid boxers underneath, highlighting his muscular legs.  I could see the outline of his dick through his boxers.  It was already hard and it framed a beautiful, sculpted body.  I felt the forces of pure lust and need hit me all at once.   

I was still standing in front of the laptop, completely naked, sweating, and wet – though my wetness really had nothing to do with the high temperature anymore. 

“Sit back down in the chair.  Don’t move.  I’ll be right back.”

I complied, sitting back down, watching his sculpted baseball-playing ass as he walked out of the room.  After less than a minute, he returned with a bottle of lotion.

He sat back down on the couch and I gave him a mischievous grin through the camera.  He smirked in return.

I wasn’t done blurting.  “I like your ass,” I said.  “It’s a baseball player’s ass.  You look good from behind.”

His smirk was still there.  “Yours isn’t half-bad, either,” he said cockily, “but I didn’t say you could talk.”

My eyebrows lifted.  Oh, so that’s how it was, huh?

Sitting on the couch facing me, he reached down and cupped his dick through his boxers again.  I licked my lips.

“Don’t lick your lips until I tell you to, Shay.”

Geez.  Okay.  I nodded.

He finally pulled his boxers down and threw them to the side of the couch.  Holy, holy, holy shit.  Okay, his dick was huge.  Huge.  I mean, I’d felt it when it was pressed up against me that one time playing pool, so I knew it was big, but good lord…..I could have daydreams about it forever. 

Looking down, he squirted some lotion in his hand and grabbed his dick and rubbed the lotion on it, slowly.  Then, he looked back up.

My mouth was open, I’m sure.  “Sit back in the chair and spread your legs,” he commanded. 

I sat back and slowly let my legs drop open. 

“Wider.  Show me your pussy, Shay.”

Oh fuck….I thought I hated that word.  I usually do.  But then I heard it from his sexy full, kissable lips.  When it comes from his mouth, it apparently just makes me wet.  I did as I was told and spread my legs wider.

He was gripping himself harder now and moving his hand slowly up and down his shaft.  I could see him flick his wrist at the head and roll his hand into the motion.  It was so hot to watch.  His eyes bored into the camera, captivating my own.

“Touch yourself.”

I hesitated – not because I was embarrassed that I touched myself, but just that no one had actually ever seen me do it before.  He seemed to read my mind.

“Have you ever touched yourself in front of anyone before?”

I shook my head no and he shut his eyes and threw his head back, grinning.

“Fuck yes.  I want to be the first to see this beautiful sight…..”

I hesitantly brought my hand down in between my legs and gently touched my clit.  He growled and began pumping his hand faster, before slowing the rhythm down again.  “Show me how you touch yourself.  Lick your lips.”

I began rubbing my clit in small circles and closed my eyes. Then I licked my lips.   It was too much to take in all at once.

“Open your eyes, Smiles.  I want you to see what you do to me,” he commanded softly.

Oh god.  That name.  This time, it was far more than just a nickname.  It was a term of endearment.  It was intimate. 

I opened my eyes as I played with my clit and watched him jack off through the computer. 

“Are you wet?”

I nodded.

“Stick a finger in your pussy and let me see how wet.”

Oh my.  I hesitated, looking into the camera.  He started to grin, cocked his head to the side, and his beautiful lips mouthed, “Please”……

Well, hell.  That was all it took.  I stuck my finger inside of me and held it up to the dim light.  It was glistening.  He grinned as he continued to stroke himself.

Then his face got serious again.  “Taste yourself.”

I hesitated again. 

“Fucking do it, Shay.  Now.”  Apparently, Bossy Thad was back and he wasn’t fucking around anymore.

I did.  It tasted…..salty and sort of tangy. 

I heard him groan as he watched me lick my finger.  I looked at the camera again and then continued rubbing my clit.  I moaned.  It felt so fucking good.

He was pumping harder as he watched me moan and play.  Without his prompting, I took my other hand and played with my nipples.  He either didn’t notice or didn’t care that I’d done this on my own.  I could feel the climax building deep within.  Thad was slowing down his movements again, but breathing heavily as he watched me. 

Then he said them.  The words I’ll never forget. 

“Do you have any idea how bad I want to fuck you?  Do you ever think about it?”  He looked up at the camera, still sliding his hand up and down his cock.

I swallowed.  “Yes.”

“Then I want you to imagine it right now.  Imagine me sliding into you.  I’m so close to coming just thinking about it.”  He bit his lip.  “Fuck, it’s all I ever think about.”

I was on the edge, getting ready to fall. I watched Thad stroke himself and pictured his dick inside me – and that did it.  I started to come…..hard.  I bucked my hips and my legs started to spasm.  The waves of pleasure overtook me and I breathed out, “.…..I’m coming….”

Thad growled something incoherent.  I looked up, still feeling the effects of my orgasm, my hands still on my clit and nipple, as his eyes watched my movements.  Then, he shut his eyes tightly and his hips bucked upward off the couch.  He screamed out a guttural sound. I watched as he turned his cock upward so that ropes of come shot across his abs.  His hand continued to pump as he breathed heavily, come still dripping out of the head of his dick.

It was the hottest thing I had ever seen in my life.  I said it out loud.

“That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

He shook his head and let out a deep breath.  “Not
nearly
as hot as what I saw from here.” 

Silence ensued.  I had to fill it.  I had to make sure it wouldn’t be awkward later.  “So, uh….thanks…..Sorry if….”  What was I talking about?  What was I even saying?

He looked up at the camera and frowned.  “Shay, it’s okay.  Don’t apologize…..and don’t
thank
me.  Hell…..This…” – he gestured toward the camera – “was hot as fuck.  It was ‘ultimate fantasy level’ shit.  Don’t ever apologize for that.  Okay?”

“Okay.”

“It was a very bad idea that turned into a very good idea.”  He grinned at the camera again, this time giving me creases.  I knew what he was doing.  He was trying to appease me.

“Alright.  Just making sure.”  I don’t know why I was so hesitant afterwards.  I suppose it was because I’d done something so out of the ordinary and then I had to go back to being myself again.  It was a strange transition.

“The biggest problem we have now is whether we can ever Skype with our clothes on again.”  He was still grinning.

And even though I was still scared for some reason, I smiled back – for him. 

That memorable summer finally ended and a new fall semester began.  It signaled one year since I met Thad at the gas station and started my dissertation.  We continued our daily charade of acting like everything was normal at school, all while never really addressing the huge, lusty, horny, white elephant in the room.  We never even talked about the Skype event after it happened.  Weird, I know.  It was almost like if we didn’t acknowledge it, then we could still deny it had happened.  Again, part of me was glad we didn’t and part of me was pissed we didn’t.  I never knew which way was up or down half of the time.  Worse, I had no idea what he was thinking.  He never talked about his feelings and neither did I.  Overall, I was going insane.  Ms. L. and I were sharing a room in the loony bin.  She was a horrible roommate. 

I still met with Hanover and Thad once a week, along with various meetings with other committee professors.  A positive thing was that I was making good progress on the dissertation.  I was hoping to finish by the spring. 

The situation with Dr. Hanover kept getting worse, though.  I already knew Thad well enough to know he’d go ballistic if I told him, which did no good when you’re trying to remain covert.  I wanted to tell Grant, at least, but he wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret and then everyone would know.  I thought about implying I was a lesbian to Hanover.  I seriously thought about it, but the only girl I knew in the program was Melissa and I wasn’t about to explain or ask her to go along.  So I still said nothing. 

You can see why I drank a lot of wine.

On one of our scheduled meeting days, after successfully avoiding Hanover for an hour, I headed up to Thad’s office on the floor above.  I saw his door pulled closed with barely a crack showing.  I could hear him talking.....on the phone?  Yes.  It was just his voice.

“Gina, stop.  Did you get what you needed because I’m done with this conversation....”

Who the hell was Gina??  My heart was beating rapidly and I didn’t know what to do.  I know, I know.  You’re not supposed to eavesdrop.  You’d think I’d learn.  Plus, in the movies, there’s always a subtle moral message about eavesdropping – heroines who eavesdrop in movies usually end up regretting it.  Screw it.  This wasn’t a movie, this was real life and this heroine had some major trust issues.  I stayed put outside the door, listening. 

Quit judging me.

“It’s none of your business who I’m seeing now, Gina.”  My heart dropped.  Was he seeing someone?  Would he tell me if he was?

He paused, obviously listening to the other end of the conversation.  Whatever was said, it made him slam his fist on the desk and bark, “You know what?  There
is
someone I’m interested in.  She’s kind.  She’s smart.  She’s amazing….she’s….basically
nothing like you
.”  He emphasized that last part. 

Holy shitballs!  That was harsh.  Ouch!  I didn’t know who “Gina” was, but whoever she was, he didn’t seem to like her very much.  That made me feel better, at least.  Remind me never to get on his bad side, though.

I could hear screaming on the other end of the phone, even from the hallway.

“I’m not discussing this with you anymore.  I tried to be cordial, but like always, you make even that difficult.  Goodbye.”

I heard the phone slam down. 

You know that part of a movie where the enemy is introduced?  The reveal of that evil, awful, terrible, hideous, rotten soul of a person you’ll come to hate?  Yeah, well, that’s Gina.  I was about to find out all about her.  More than I ever wanted to know.

I tentatively knocked on his door and he yelled, “Come in.”  I pushed open the door and he was sitting at his desk with his head in his hands.  He looked up wearily and smiled.  No creases.

“Is it 4:00 already?”

“Yeah,” I say quietly.  “I, uh, I hope I’m not I interrupting....anything.”  I shifted my feet and looked down. 

He sighed and said, “You heard, huh?”

I looked to the side and pretended to check out the books on his shelf.  “Well, I didn’t hear much.  Just yelling….”

He nodded. “Yeah.  She brings out the worst in me.  Always has.”

I looked up at him.  Silence loomed.  Awkwardness reigned.  I walked over to the chair and sat down.  Fine.  Fuck it.  I’ll ask.  “Do you want to talk about it?”

He turned his chair around halfway and looked out the window, avoiding my gaze while contemplating my question.  I was certain he’d say no and we’d move on like we always did.  He surprised me when he began to open up.

“You remember the night at Moe’s when I said I’d been engaged before?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that was her.  Her name is Gina……I met her at an academic conference six years ago.  She’s from Iowa.”  He paused again, trying to find the right words…. “We were just dating casually, long-distance, but she then she told me she was moving here for a job.  I was still at the other university.  So she moved here for me.  I guess she thought it’d make us more serious….”  He looked up at me and said softly, “She’s the Director of Human Resources here, Shay.”

I tensed at the knowledge that she worked here on campus.  Fantastic. 

He turned back to look out the window.  “Things were going okay for a while.  She always wanted something more and I didn’t.  I made it clear where she stood, though.”  He drew in a deep breath and continued.  “Four and a half years ago, she told me she was pregnant.  I thought she was on birth control.  Not the smartest move on my part.”  He shook his head. 

I grimaced and I was glad he was looking elsewhere.  I did
not
want to think about him having sex with anyone else – ever.  Awful.

“I was smart enough to get tested afterwards, though….and, by god, wear a condom with anyone else from then on.”  He laughed derisively. 

Oh my god.  I did not want to hear anything else about his sex life with other people!  Why was he telling me this again?  Oh yeah, because I asked.  I’m a moron.

He sighed again and ran his hand through his hair. “She got pregnant on purpose, Shay….She’d left her diary behind after she moved out of my old place.  I shouldn’t have looked, I know, but I did….turns out getting pregnant was all a part of her ‘plan’ to marry me….”

He took another deep breath and sighed heavily.  This was hard for him.  I decided I needed to suck up my selfish fears and listen sympathetically. 

“I told you how my dad left my mom because she was pregnant.  I’d never do that to anyone.  She knew that…..she had me.  I asked her to marry me.  I didn’t love her.”  He began to nervously tap his toe on the floor as he continued staring out the window.

I knew then that she was one of
those
girls.  Throw the Rule Book out the window.

He kept going.  “About twelve weeks into the pregnancy, she lost the baby.  I was pretty devastated about the baby.  I’d wanted it more than I realized.  After we lost the baby, though, I knew I couldn’t carry on a farce anymore.  That child was the
only
thing keeping me in that relationship.  When the baby was no longer a factor, any reason I had to be with her was gone, too.  I broke it off about two months after.” 

He shook his head and looked down, the bad memories still powerful.  “She…uh….she didn’t take me leaving her very well.  She ended up in the hospital one night with an apparent suicide attempt by taking pills.  I went to see her.  When I was coming back from the restroom later, I overheard her on the phone telling one of her friends that she didn’t really take that many.  She was just trying to do something to get me back.  I was furious, as you can imagine.  I found the diary a few days after that.  I finally saw her for what she was…”

I blew out a huge breath I hadn’t realized I’d even been holding in.  That was some heavy shit.  “I’m so sorry, Thad,” I whispered sincerely.

He finally turned to face me.  “When she realized there was no way in hell I’d ever get back with her, she ended up threatening me, showing up at random places and times, calling, leaving voicemails…I threatened to file a restraining order against her.  That seemed to work because she’s very protective of her ‘image’….I also sold the house and moved to where I live now under one of our corporate property names.  So, over the years, I’ve been able to avoid her.  I hadn’t spoken to her in years until she called today.”

“So what’d she want?”

“To get under my skin.  She left a message to call her back about HR paperwork…..and then she wished me a happy birthday.....”  He flexed his jaw.  “I knew she’d come across my name eventually.  Kinda hard to avoid the Director of Human Resources….Who knows when she actually found out, though.  She waited to call on my birthday, and she knew I’d have to call her back if she said it was about work…..After the bullshit work questions, she asked why I took this job finally.  She’d tried to get me to come here while we were together, but I never would.  I think in her fucked up mind, she thought I finally took this job because of
her. 
The truth is, I avoided this job for years because of her and I’m not sure why I finally gave into the Dean…..I just said ‘yes’ that day without even thinking…..”  He smiled faintly, changing his mind about what he was going to say. 

“I knew this would happen eventually, that she’d find out I was here and contact me.”  He raised his eyebrow at me and smiled, tentatively.  “She didn’t like it very much when I made it clear that my taking this job had absolutely nothing to do with her.  And then she wanted to know if I was seeing anyone.”

He paused, staring intently at me.  I glanced away, unable to look him in the eyes.  I swear, this was the most I’d ever heard him talk about serious things since I’d met him.  I wasn’t sure I liked it. 

He kept going.  “I told her I was interested in someone…..did you hear that part?”

There it was.  This was that moment in the movies when the heroine gets her heart broken, I thought.  This was the part where she gets let down easily, where the hero says something like “I’ve found someone else, but it was really fun to talk to you all the time and play ‘Mutual Masturbation Skype’ and all….I’d be glad to stay on your committee if you want….I hope you have a nice life….Good luck to your livid libido…..blah, blah, blah.” 

I went back to pretending like I was interested in his books.  I realized he’d stopped talking, so I felt compelled to turn toward him.  He was grinning.  Creases and all.

I was sweating.  Exasperated.  This was not a fun conversation for me.  At all.

“Hey, Smiles?”  He was still grinning. 

Wait.  He never called me that when we were at school. 

I met his eyes finally.  “Uh-huh?”  I tried to act nonchalant.

He suddenly got serious.  The grin disappeared.  “Shay, if she finds out about you, she’ll do whatever it takes to ruin you.  She’s that evil and vindictive.”

“Why in the world would she care about me?”

“Because I do,” he whispered, still staring at me.

I looked back down.  My heart sank.  You’d think it would soar, right?  You’d think it’d be happy as a little fucking dancing bear, but it wasn’t.  It was scared shitless.  This was confirmation in the worst possible way.  The best possible way.  He cared about me.  He was interested in me.  It was the culmination of everything I’d ever wanted – and everything I feared most – all at the same time.

He still wasn’t done.  “I’m serious, Shay.  It took me a long time to figure out how horrible a person she is.  She can’t find out about you.  I shouldn’t have let her goad me into saying there was someone I was interested in.  She’ll do everything she can now to find out who you are….and if she does….fuck….”  He trailed off, deep in thought.

A wave of anger flashed within me.  It’s just that I was so tired of all of the bullshit.  Everything in my life was some big sort of fucking pretend, hidden, secretive, dramatic issue and the
last
thing I needed was to deal with some crazy skank on top of all of that.  “Fuck her.  Listen, if I’ve learned one thing in my life, it is how to deal with crazy, fucked up bitches like her.  They
expect
you to walk away, to be the ‘bigger person’....That’s part of their plan.  She got you to ask her to marry her when you didn’t want to, didn’t she?  She knew you’d play by the rules.  But me?  I’ve been played by that game before and what she and others like her forget is that once the Rule Book is thrown out the window, I don’t have to play by it, either.  So fuck her and the manipulative Angelina bitches like her.”

I finished my rant and realized he was laughing.  Laughing.  “Why are you laughing?”

“I’ve never seen you so raving mad before.  You were really going at it there….”  Grinning.  Panty-dropping creases.

“Whatever.  She can still fuck off,” I mumbled.

He laughed harder as he rose from the desk.  He came around to the front of the desk to face me, eyebrow raised, smirking.  “Manipulative Angelina bitches, huh?”

“Yeah.  You know, Angelina Jolie versus Jennifer Aniston.  Some girls are Angelinas.  Some girls are Jennifers.  I’m a Jennifer.”  I waited expectantly as if I’d just relayed the most basic elementary explanation in the world.  Everyone knew this code, right?

He grinned and shook his head.  “There are some things I guess I’ll never understand….”