The Time Traveler's Boyfriend (14 page)

Wow, he totally had my number the whole time.

“Why don’t you want me to know where you’re staying?” he asks. He’s trying to look me in the eyes, but I’m avoiding him.

“It’s complicated,” I finally say.

He sighs. “You have to admit, I haven’t questioned you about most of your bullshit stories,” he says. “I know you’re hiding something from me, Beth. I’m not going to force you to tell me what it is, but I think I at least deserve to know where you live if you’re going to be my girlfriend.”

Something about his words tugs on my heartstrings. “I’m your girlfriend?”

His face colors slightly. “Well, not … I mean, I thought …” He takes a breath. “Do you
want
to be my girlfriend?”

I smile at him. “I think I might.”

“Well, too bad,” he says, returning my smile. “Because I’m already dating like five other girls.”

I can see his shoulders relaxing and I know he isn’t going to press me on the issue of where I’m staying. He’s kind of a pushover.

“Fine,” he says. “Don’t tell me where you live. But I’m going to find out everything sooner or later.”

“Yeah,” I agree, just to appease him. In reality, I know there’s no chance of that happening.

CHAPTER TWENTY

I get nervous when I don’t hear from Adam the next morning. Not that I’d ever expect to hear from a guy I just met every single day, but he told me that he’d call me and the Adam I know always keeps his promises. Plus we both know my time here is limited. Except he doesn’t know quite how limited. I’ve literally got less than five days left to make him feel good enough about himself to resist The Bitch and her evil red curls.

I consider calling him a few times, but I’m sure he won’t like that. Men don’t like women who are clingy, who make the first call two times in a row. It doesn’t matter that Adam and I have actually been dating for over a year—this Adam doesn’t know anything about that. And he’s twenty-four years old, which means he’s probably even less thrilled than my Adam about making a commitment.

So instead I walk around the city, trying to distract myself from thinking about the present and especially the future. I visit a couple of my favorite stores that have closed down in the last decade. I get lunch at this great Chinese restaurant that burned down in a fire in 2005. Everyone should get one chance to hang out in the past for a couple of weeks.

When I get back to the apartment around dinnertime, Claudia is already there, sitting on the living room sofa. She’s wearing tight boot-cut jeans and a tank top, and I can’t help but admire how damn flat her stomach is. Damn gravity—why can’t I look like that anymore? And trust
me, she is not on a perpetual diet.

Then I notice her face—she’s crying.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her, grabbing the box of tissues from the kitchen counter that we nearly emptied after Jed cheated on her.

“Got rejected for another commercial,” she sniffles, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. She’s got mascara dripping down her cheeks. “It was a Revlon commercial. It’s so unfair—I use all their products!”

“Well, maybe they think you’re already doing a great job advertising their products,” I say, settling down on the couch next to her.

Claudia gives me a look like she doesn’t think I’m funny. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” she whines. “How am I supposed to be an actress if I can’t even get a part in a stupid commercial?”

“Well,” I say thoughtfully. “Maybe you shouldn’t be an actress?”

“It’s such a great job, though,” Claudia says. “I mean, you look like you used to be really pretty. Didn’t you ever consider becoming an actress?”

Sometimes I honestly wonder if Claudia says stuff to me like that on purpose, just to piss me off. She doesn’t seem like she’s trying to be a bitch. I guess it just comes naturally to her. This is probably why I had so few female friends in my twenties.

“I think acting is a waste of time,” I say. “You have to be lucky to make it big. And let’s face it, you’re not lucky.”

Claudia leans back against the sofa and closes her eyes. “Yeah, that’s for sure. But I don’t want to be a waitress for the rest of my life.”

I feel a sudden rush of sympathy for my mother. I can’t believe I was so difficult. “Claudia, you went to college. I’m sure there are things you could do besides waiting tables.”

“Like what?”

“Like teaching, for instance.”

“No, thanks,” Claudia says. “That’s a job for old maids.”

If I strangle her right now, would that be committing suicide? “It’s actually a really rewarding, stable career.”

Claudia raises her eyes. “Wait, are you a teacher?”

I’m almost hundred percent sure I’ve already told her that, but the difference is that this time she’s actually listening. We spend the next hour talking about options to get her teaching degree, and by the end, she actually sounds pretty enthusiastic. Of course, she’s so lazy and spoiled that part of me feels like she’s never going to go back to school in a million years.

And then I remember that she already did it.

***

I’m minutes from sliding into my bed that night when the phone rings. Claudia left a couple of hours ago, so I feel safe answering it. “Hello?”

It’s Adam. “Tomorrow night. You. Me. Pizza.”

“Awfully short notice, Mr. Schaffer,” I say, even though it’s clear to both of us I have no intention of saying no.

“You
gonna make me eat a whole pizza all by myself?”

I laugh. “I guess I can’t allow that to happen.”

I can almost hear him smiling on the other line. “I’d offer to come to your place,” he says, “but I don’t want to disturb you in your Fortress of Solitude. So would you like to come here?”

“Sounds good,” I say. We’re both silent for a minute. I picture him lying in his bed, holding his cordless phone to his ear. Before I can stop myself, I blurt out, “What are you wearing?”

Adam laughs. “A silky black nightie.”

“Come on, you’re no fun.”

“Fine,” he says. He sounds like he’s checking. “I’m wearing plaid boxer shorts and a T-shirt left over from college.”

“NYU,” I say,
then I curse silently. Why do I keep doing that?

“Right again, Psychic Girl,” he says, although he doesn’t sound angry when he says it. I imagine him lying in bed, wearing his old gray T-shirt with the purple NYU logo with the torch in the middle. He loves that shirt even though it’s covered in holes … except it probably isn’t covered in holes yet. The purple lettering probably hasn’t even faded. “And pray tell
, what might you be wearing?

“Oversized black T-shirt,” I say.

“Sexy,” Adam says. “And how about under that?”

“Nothing,” I breathe into the phone.

I can almost hear him swallow on the other line. Two years. It’s been two years since he’s been with a woman.

“Maybe I’ll bring a change of clothes tomorrow,” I say.

“You read my mind again,” he says.

We hang up, and I lie down in bed and try to sleep. Whenever I close my eyes, I see Adam. And I’m not even sure which version of him I’m imagining anymore.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

When I get to Adam’s apartment the next night, he immediately pulls me into his lap and starts kissing me. It startles me because my Adam is affectionate, but not nearly to this extent. I like it, although I get the feeling it would probably eventually drive me nuts. When you’re dating someone for a year, you don’t want them constantly pulling you into their lap.

The smell of hot pizza comes in from the living room. Like most New Yorkers, I’m kind of a pizza snob (and a bagel snob). I love a thin, crisp crust coated with mozzarella cheese and lots of oil. I’m sorry, but the Chicago deep-dish pizza just doesn’t do it for me. And a calzone is not a calzone without ricotta cheese—people in other cities just don’t seem to get that.

As Adam transports us to the living room, I see he ordered from Mike’s, which is one of my favorite pizza chains. There’s a Coke and a Diet Coke sitting on his coffee table next to the pizza.

“I suppose the regular Coke is for you,” I say.

“Ladies’ choice,” he says.

And I take the Diet Coke. Because young Claudia’s figure may be able to handle the extra three-hundred calories in that bottle of Coke, but mine definitely can’t.

“Do you have any music to put on?” I ask him. Maybe it has to do with eating in restaurants too much, but I love having music on while I eat.

“Oh …” He gestures at a small CD tower in the corner of the room. Wow, CDs. How quaint. “It’s mostly classical … do you like Mozart?”

Only when I have my migraines. The rest of the time, it reminds me of having a migraine—kind of a developed association. “Not a whole lot,” I admit.

“Sorry,” he says. “What kind of music do you like?”

“I love Peter Frampton,” I say.

Adam just stares at me blankly and shakes his head. “Who?”

I can’t believe my ears. “You know—Peter Frampton! ‘Baby, I Love Your Way’? That’s my favorite.”

He just shakes his head again. Oh, well, it’s not like Adam and I ever shared a great love for music. Although in 2013, he at least seems to know who Peter Frampton is. Maybe his music tastes matured.

It’s a little hard to focus on the pizza, knowing what’s going to happen after. Well, I don’t really
know
. Adam may joke that I’m psychic, but I’m definitely not. Will we just do a little more kissing? Will he try to take things further than that? I sort of hope it’s the latter. While I like kissing as much as the next girl, I’m really missing Adam’s famous oral sex. I could definitely use a little stress relief right now.

“Sorry I didn’t cook for you or anything,” Adam says. “I know takeout pizza is kind of lame.”

“Men cook?” I joke, even though I know, of course, that Adam is actually a great cook.

“I cook,” Adam says defensively. “Or at least, I will, once I get a kitchen that’s decent. This one’s terrible, but I haven’t been able to find any apartments to rent that are … you know …”

“Wheelchair accessible?”

“Right,” Adam says, blushing slightly. “I’ve got this agent looking for me and her last suggestion was that I move into this senior housing development. I should probably fire her.”

“Why don’t you buy a brownstone?” I suggest. I’m giving all sorts of helpful advice lately, aren’t I? “You can afford it, right?”

“Yeah,” he says, giving me a funny look. “I can, but … I don’t know. I’m too young to buy a house.”

“Look at it as an investment.”

“An investment,” he repeats.

I shrug. “It’s nice to have a place to call home, isn’t it? Do whatever you want with it?”

Adam glances in the direction of his kitchen. I happened to notice that his bathroom isn’t terribly accessible, either. He’s got a grab-bar next to the toilet that I guess they let him install, but the sink and vanity mirror are far too high. He must have to stretch to even wash his hands.

“You’re right,” he finally says. “I’ll look into it.”

I get two slices of pizza in me before the make-out session resumes. He pulls me back into his lap, but I can sense he’s a little bit nervous. I can feel his hands shaking slightly as he runs them over my back. “Listen,” he whispers. “I better tell you something.”

I stare into his brown eyes. I watch him as he takes a deep breath. “I told you that you’re the first girl that I’ve … you know,
anything
, since my accident.”

“Yes …”

“So the thing is …” He lowers his eyes, unable to look at me anymore. “I can’t … you know. I mean, I
can
. I can get hard. It’s just not … enough. Not for long enough, not hard enough.” He lets out a sigh. “My doctor told me when there was a girl in the picture, I should call and they’d get me some pills. So this morning I called, but they can’t get me in till next week.” He tries to smile. “So next week, I’ll be totally good. But right now, I’m kind of … out of commission.”

“Oh,” I say. I don’t bother to tell him that I’ll be gone by the time he gets in to see the doctor.

“I’m really sorry, Beth,” he says. “If I knew I was going to meet you, obviously I would have … been prepared.”

“No big deal,” I say, trying to smile.

He hangs his head. I guess it’s not easy to admit to your girlfriend that you can’t maintain an erection. I can tell he feels really bad about himself right now, and I guess I don’t blame him. God only knows what The Bitch would have done in this situation.

“Hey,” I say, “we’ve only known each other a week. Who says I was going to let you score anyway? What kind of slut do you think I am?”

Adam rewards me with a very tiny smile.

“It’s okay, really,” I insist.

“Well, I thought,” he begins. “I mean, we can’t have regular sex, but I thought that we could … I mean, that
I
could … you know, pleasure you …”

He’s looking at me intently now. He’s offering me oral sex. “Have you ever done that before?” I ask, although I’m afraid to hear the answer.

“Yeah,” he says defensively. Then adds, “A couple of times.”

This has the potential to be not so good. But, hey, maybe it’ll be great. Maybe Adam has a natural talent for eating girls out. I mean, he’s certainly really talented at it in 2013. “All right,” I say. “Let’s do it.”

Adam’s face lights up and the embarrassment of a few moments ago is forgotten. He wheels in the direction of his bedroom, and stops when his footplate hits the bed. My Adam usually lifts me gently off his lap onto the bed, but this Adam isn’t quite as good at it—he pretty much just shoves me off his lap and I stumble a little, although I catch myself before I end up on the floor.

I help him out by pulling off my jeans and my underwear. I look at Adam, who is wringing his hands together nervously and tugging on his earlobe. I lie down on the bed, spread my legs, and close my eyes. Something about this feels like I’m going in for a speculum exam or something.

Adam dives in fast—too fast. He doesn’t tease me or toy with me like my Adam always does. He gets his whole face in there, so he gets an A+ for enthusiasm, but he’s not even remotely in the right area. Well, he’s
remotely
in the right area, but it seems like he’s missing the mark more than he’s hitting it. Worse, after tolerating this for a few minutes, I notice that he’s singing.

“Are you
singing
?” I ask, lifting my head.

Adam lifts his head. “Sort of,” he admits, blushing. “I read that you’re supposed to write the alphabet with your tongue, so I’ve been doing that. But I lost my place so I was singing it to get back on track.”

Are you kidding me? How is it possible that a man who’s given me the best oral sex of my life could be this bad at eating me out? He’s
awful
.

“Listen,” I say. “Don’t be offended, but can I give you a few tips?”

Adam nods eagerly.

“First,” I say. “Don’t sing. You can hum, like blow air, but no singing. Really.”

“Sorry …”

“Don’t apologize, just listen,” I say. “Also, don’t dive in like that. You have to start slow, kiss my legs and my thighs and my stomach, blow hot air on me, don’t just go straight for the clit. And when you get to the clit, go at it from the side, at least at first.”

“Can I write this down?” Adam asks.

I glare at him. “No.”

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly.

“Just listen to me, okay?” I say. “If you’re going to the alphabet, you don’t have to make every letter like six inches high. Make some of them big, some of them small. You don’t have to always move your tongue that much if you’re hitting the right spot. Also, you’re allowed to suck on me, but …” I need to put in a disclaimer here: “Not too hard.”

“Right,” he says, and I can tell he wishes he had a pen and paper.

“Also, you can use your fingers,” I tell him. “If you can’t penetrate me … the usual way, then you can do it with your finger while you’re licking me. And if you’re not using your fingers for that, you should be touching me. You could put your hands under my ass to bring me closer to your face.”

Adam nods soberly.

“Most importantly,” I say, “
when I get close, you keep doing whatever you’re doing. Do not stop. I repeat, do
not
stop.”

Adam nods again. “I’m going to make this great for you.”

That remains to be seen.

He makes a second attempt, this time following all my suggestions. It’s substantially better, but still nowhere near as good as he is in the year 2013. I guess he gets in a lot of practice between now and then, but I don’t want to think about that.

After I climax, he transfers into bed next to me, smiling nervously. “Was that okay?”

“Much better,” I say.

He pulls me into his arms and his chest hairs tickle my shoulder. “That was so great,” he says.

I laugh. “Was it?”

He nods vigorously. “I was so scared I wasn’t going to be able to satisfy you. It’s amazing that I could give you so much pleasure just with my mouth.”

Well, it wasn’t that
much
pleasure. Then again, my standards are pretty high these days, which is his own fault. “You were great,” I say.

“I’m going to practice,” he says. “As much as you’ll let me. I love seeing you cum, Beth. There’s nothing sexier.”

I can tell he means it. If I were staying here, I bet he’d work his ass off trying to get good at this particular skill, just to give me pleasure. It’s something he has in common with his older self.

***

Adam takes the next day off from work so he can spend it with me. He suggests a restaurant called Blue Hill in the village for lunch and I get really excited. “Oh my God,” I squeal. “I heard Obama ate there.”

“Who?” Adam asks.

Oh, right. He doesn’t know who Barack Obama is. “I mean, Bono,” I say. Bono existed in 2000, didn’t he? Yeah, I’m pretty sure
The Joshua Tree
came out in the eighties.

“The place just opened,” Adam says.

“Maybe I’m thinking of somewhere else,” I mumble.

“Somehow I doubt it,” he says.

At the restaurant, we brainstorm about things we want to do that day. He acts like I’m a tourist, but of course, I’m not. I’ve lived in this city my whole life. Plus it’s too cold for a lot of the best activities. It’s not snowing, but there were a couple of snowflakes falling as we walked to Blue Hill, which landed on Adam’s shoulders and quickly dissolved.

This restaurant doesn’t cost nearly as much as it surely does in 2013, so I pull out my wallet when we finish and offer to pay the bill. “Not a chance,” Adam says.

“Come on,” I say. “You paid for dinner last night.”

“You mean the
pizza
?”

I shrug. “Why won’t you ever let me treat you?” I wave my wallet at him. “I have the money,
it’s okay.”

Adam looks at me like he’s about to respond, but then he frowns. “Beth?”

“Yes?”

“Why do you have Claudia’s driver’s license?”

Crap. Why didn’t I just let the guy pay? I try to put my wallet away, but he yanks it right out of my hand. I watch him as he scrutinizes my driver’s license. The only positive thing I can say about this is that my hair is darker now than in the photo, so the picture probably looks more like young Claudia than it does like me. Except, like he said, what would her driver’s license be doing in my wallet?

“Is this a fake?” he asks me.

“What?” I ask, my mouth dry.

“It says it expires in 2016,” he points out. He shows me the license. Issued in 2012, expires in 2016.

“Right,” I say, and I take the opportunity to pull my wallet out of his hand before he can start looking at the credit cards. What would he say if he saw card after card issued to Claudia Williams, all expiring about fifteen years from now? “It’s a fake ID. That’s why I confiscated it.”

“But she’s twenty-two,” he says, sounding mystified. “Why would she need a fake ID?”