Star-Crossed (16 page)

Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin. My soul.

Lo-lee-ta.

As he was clearing the littered cartons, I softened and let myself seep in the familiar surroundings like a sea sponge. Soaking in the tang of dust polish and the sound of that damned, ticking clock.

I looked at the photos once more; at the girl with the light-brown hair and cordial-sweet face.

Will touched the back of my neck, and I closed my eyes, instantly flooded with a painstaking need to throw him down on the floor and have him right there. His touch, even the smallest brushing of skin against skin, had come to produce a maddening reaction that I both craved and resented. It was never enough.

“You're awful quiet about your past,” I said softly. “About the people in your life before you came here.”

He smiled weakly.

“Would you care for a little more transparency, or would that be too much?”

“Would it?” I asked. “I don't know. I don't know much right now.”

Will stepped closer, his hands running down the sides of my face with an intricate, trembling tenderness. He wiped the stray strands from my eyes and kissed the lids when they fell in response; my sight giving way in exchange for the subtle touch of warm breath against my skin.

“Something's wrong,” he said. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing and everything all at once.”

His fingers traced down my jawline, stopping at my chin, then drawing away. When I could no longer stand the sound of the giant ticking clock, I walked towards his bedroom; he followed, several paces behind, seeming hesitant. Uncertain.

We sat down on his unmade bed; gray cotton sheets and a white down comforter. The kind that makes you feel like you're falling asleep on a cloud. I grabbed the single pillow and hugged it to my chest. It smelled of Will, and I buried my face into the fabric.

“Are you going to talk to me?” he asked quietly.

I looked at him, as he sat with his legs crossed; completely formal, with not a single hint of a man who wanted to get me out of my clothes or under the covers. There was an invisible wall, albeit saran-wrap thin, between us.

“Do you remember that night I first kissed you,” I said. His eyes lit up. “When I told you that I was a monster.”

“Yes,” he answered. “You said we both were.”

“Right.”

“Is that what you're trying to tell me?” he asked. “That you're some kind of monster?”

“I just -” I paused, swallowing. I thought briefly about the girl in the photograph, situated beneath the constant-ticking clock. I thought of the past; of string-sewn words and brash actions, and whether transparency was really valued as something worth valuing. As something worth throwing yourself on the line; or worse, hurting another person. Another human being. “I need to tell you something. Something about myself.”

Mr. Tennant touched the tips of my fingers with his own, his eyes on the white comforter.

“You don't have to,” he said, after a minute or so had passed. “I don't need to know.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “You don't want to know?”

“I mean,” he said, pausing. His hair had fallen over his eyes; now shaggy, borderline too long. Too long to seem professional, and more fitting for the part of the moody musician. “I mean I already know.”

“And what is that?” I shifted closer, feeling his fingers enclose around a thin wrist. “What do you think you know?”

Will swallowed; his eyes darting briefly to my left hand, to the ring, before falling again on my face.

“You suffer, too,” he finally said. “You and me. We both do.”

A stark chill hung in the room, and yet an undeniable warmth radiated between our two bodies. A hungry, barren pull that seemed to draw the two of us together as it always had; and what stemmed it, exactly? The fact that he was a superior; a man arguably beyond my senior. That I was his student, his pupil; his minor even given the technical legalities. That I was, all things considered, an
adult
on paper.

We both suffered.

He was looking at me when my chin finally tilted upwards. Each movement, every centimeter that his fingers crept across my skin, was slow and agonizing.

“I want you,” I told him. “I want you right here. Right now.”

Mr. Tennant closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against mine as his hands found my shoulders; he squeezed them gently. A sigh escaped his mouth in the softest of sounds.

When our lips met, it was as if this entire game, this entire puzzle, had all come together for a single, sole reason. For myself and Will to find each other; two suffering, ill souls who had never found that small piece of solace that each and every human yearns for. The connection of skin-to-skin and something more.

I touched his face, smooth and without any shadow of stubble. Will's eyes were alert, flickering, startled. His breath had dropped into something shallow and quick.

Standing, I slid out of my top; the skirt followed, leaving me only in my panties and nothing else.

“Do you want me, Mr. Tennant?”

His eyes were all pupil; a dizzy, swirling ink.

“Come here,” he whispered.

I started to step forward, admittedly anxious. But he grabbed me before I could move or say anything at all.

The sheets were cold; my skin craving the warmth of Will's hands and skin as he shed his shirt and tossed it to the floor. I grabbed the front of his jeans, unzipping them slowly as his mouth found my neck; I was slowed only by the feeling of his tongue and teeth nipping ever-so-gently. Not enough to leave a grisly mark, but enough to leave something small enough for me to see tomorrow.

He sat up, my hands still clutching denim, and I slid his pants down to the ankles. I took his erection in my hand, warm and full, and kissed it.

Will groaned softly. His hands slid up my neck and through my hair, pressing me backward on the bed.

“I want you,” he breathed against my ear, my eyes closing like the words were a fast-working drug. I was fading into the sound of every syllable. “I've wanted you since the first moment I saw you.”

We were naked and seized by the same shared, blood-boiling, all-encompassing want to connect. To writhe in the core, carnal pleasure that seemed to seep from every pore and every breath. I could hear the voodoo-drum beating of our hearts against the distant ticking clock; the moans stifled from abrupt, greedy kisses.

I thought about the pain, I thought about saying something. About confessing, right then, that this was my very first time. But every time my lips parted, Will's mouth found mine, or his eyes caught my gaze in a hooded, heady fix.

He ran a finger over my lips, bitten-down and flush; his hair tickled against my cheek. I was underneath him; the length of his frame hovering just inches above mine.

“What do you want me to do to you?” he asked. “I'll do anything. Anything you want.”

My heart was pounding; adrenaline shot through my veins like rope set aflame. I was dizzy with want, spinning with anticipation.

I kissed him, hard. Feeling the aftermath; the inevitable bruising on my lips.

“Fuck me, Mr. Tennant.”

I closed my eyes in the few, drawn-out moments that Will spent ripping open the foil packet, rolling the condom on. I didn't look, but rather kept my eyes on his; sharp, utterly aware of every centimeter of movement, every small exhale.

Then came the crushing weight; the gradual sinking of ourselves into one another. The pain came quickly, snapping and sharp, as he slid with a softly-serpent hiss into my body.

He kissed me tenderly, his breath a shattered noise. Each inhale was harsh, cutting against my lips with a sweet warmth. Our tongues moved together, hot and sweetly timid.

Fingers laced, I gripped his hand as if holding something more precious than even my own life; my heart, a ringing harmonic of plucked strings, vibrated with a deafening roar.

Will moved above me slowly; every inch rising and falling into the depth of my very core with a dull, beating ache. There was a small blossoming of something, even in the pain, that was incredible.

I wanted more of it. I wanted more of him.

I moaned, digging my nails into his back and burrowing my face into his neck. I didn't want him to see any sign of remote pain; any cause for alarm. I wanted to revel in that moment of first-experience; relishing every stinging thrust and gasp for air. I wanted to record this primal soundtrack of skin-on-skin; tongues moving like eels in a dance so fluid and childishly demure. Every kiss a soft, warm pressing of flesh against flesh.

My gaze was on his face. His eyes locked on mine and his lips were slant with a sharp, anguished ecstasy. I could see the imprint; every reservation slowly melting away like the first dusting of snow after the sun reveals itself.

We were two people moving as one; a warm current running off the fumes and vapors of our shallow breaths. The blood running hot through thin, blue veins.

From beneath his fair skin, I could see the lines run like a map up his forearm; tensed by his grip against my shoulders. His fingers ran down my face; a look of desperation pressing itself against his unearthly sallow cheeks.

My eyelids fell as the thrusts of his hips against mine developed into something more frantic; my hands fluttered above his back, touching his hair, caressing his face. We kissed like it was the very last thing this life would grant us; our last act before an enveloping darkness. The inevitable grave that would swallow us both while we were still alive and our hearts still pulsing.

Sweat pooled and ran down my temples. Strands of hair stuck to my skin in damp waves. My entire body trembled and swooned; drifting in and out of the impending lightening-strike of pleasure that grew in my lower-belly.

It was a small orgasm; the green-light of what was possible with practice. But I relished the feeling of Will as he gave that one final thrust before tensing inside of me; all ghostly gasps, panting breath, a gentle moan.

We swallowed saliva and tasted the sweat on our skin. I kissed Will's cheek, and he smiled.

I closed my eyes and tried to push the throbbing ache away, focusing on Will's hand as it dipped past my lower belly and in between my legs.

When he raised his fingers, there was blood. It stained the sheets and the tips of his fingers; the pale skin of my inner-thighs.

My skin prickled with fear; my limbs paralyzed by the realization that I had just given my virginity to a man who never knew.

We locked eyes. I didn't say a word.

“This was my first time,” I said quietly, eyes falling to the site of ruined fabric. “You were my first time.”

He stared at the aftermath of our act. At the sheets that he'd need to throw away; or maybe he would burn the evidence. He rubbed the red-paint mess of my tattered hymen between his fingers, lost in a look of disbelief, and swallowed sharply.

I didn't move. I didn't dare speak.

Of all the possible reactions, he kissed me. There was a feral intensity to the way our mouths met; our teeth occasionally clashing; lips chapped and snagging against unintended bites.

“Are you alright?” he asked, pulling me against him. I could hear his heart thrash from beneath the skin, rattling behind bones. “Are you in pain?”

I smiled, breathing in the scent of cologne and sweat.

“Sometimes I don't know if this is real, or if I'm just dreaming,” I said. “But either way, I wish I could do everything in this life with you.”

Will smiled, though it was small. The corners of his lips were weighed with the unspoken things that even I had no awareness of. A decade of experiences that I had no idea of; that I hadn't lived.

He lifted me in his arms, cradling me in the air as he carried me into the bathroom and set me down on cold tile. Quick-working hands wiped my skin down with a warm cloth; ringing out red droplets into the glaringly white sink. My blood. I watched the action with a morbid interest.

We bathed each other in the small bathtub; Mr. Tennant's limbs coiled to fit us both. I ran my hands down the plane of his chest, kissing a soft trail down his sternum. We listened to the clock tick and laughed at our sweet nothings until the oil-infused water had become tepid, our fingers pruned.

Afterwards, I couldn't help but cut a glance at the sheets. Mr. Tennant stood beside me, his eyes unwavering from the same spot. The two of us hovered in the doorway, naked and dripping and smelling of lavender.

“I'll find a new set,” Will said, dipping into the bathroom closet and returning with new linens. He changed the bedding as I tugged on one of his oversized T-shirts, and the two of us crawled into bed like a couple of teenagers; giddy and high on the soaring delight of our devilish secret.

We huddled against one another; arms wrapped around torsos; my head against his chest. As I began to doze off, uncertain if he was as affected by the drowsy sound of breath and street-clatter, I asked.

“Who is the girl in the photograph?”

He kissed my temple gently.

“I'll tell you later,” he answered. “You should get some sleep.”

I fell asleep to the sound of rustling sheets, the ticking clock, the occasional yawn and stretch of limbs against the mattress. There was a cool air that sank over the room; a comforting chill that made the heat of Mr. Tennant's touch that much more welcoming.