Read Four Play: A Collection of Novellas Online
Authors: Amalie Silver
September 2, 2014 (Two weeks ago)
Andrea, the Volkswagen, tugged at her bottom lip and uncrossed her legs, leaning toward me. Tilting her head, she reached back, taking down her dark ponytail.
She gave me
a look
—a look I’d grown familiar with in the past twelve months: she was going to let me kiss her.
I hadn’t quite figured out the third base signal yet. It seems to vary from girl to girl; I may need to start a spreadsheet on it. At our age they’re still shy, insecure, and aren’t experienced enough to know how to give guys like me the go-ahead. Most guys my age need a written invitation as their ‘sign,’ but I’ve been learning to pick up the subtleties.
My eyes traveled down to the neckline of her shirt. She was hiding everything with her baggy sweater and tight jeans, but her eyes were giving her away. I briefly thought about what shade of pink her nipples were.
“What were we talking about?” she asked quietly, flirtatiously sweeping her hand through her hair.
I gave her my signature move—the one that I’ve heard most of the girls on the debate team giggle and whisper about—and slid off my glasses. She bit her quivering bottom lip. She must have heard the rumors that once I’ve done this, I had every intention of going as far as she’d let me.
I flashed a cocky smile and set them on my nightstand. My eyes flickered over to the doorknob to make sure the lock was set. Even though my parents weren’t due home for another week, I was still paranoid.
The flush that started at Andrea’s neck had moved to her cheeks, and her breathing shifted. She was easier to read than I thought she’d be. Or maybe I was getting better at recognizing the signs.
You know,
the signs
—the ones that let you know you’re about to tap that ass.
I closed the books on my bed and leaned down in front of her to set them on the floor. She gasped, thinking I was about to make a move, but my intentions were to prolong it as much as possible. In my experience with girls, the more I delayed the act, the quicker they came.
I sat back on the bed and patted the spot next to me in invitation. She swallowed loudly and nodded, her eyes wide with anticipation. Quickly rising from her chair, she moved to the space next to me and folded her hands over her lap, fidgeting with her thumbs.
“We were talking about uniforms,” I whispered, trying not to grin at Andrea’s obvious nervousness. It was such an ego boost knowing I got to a chick like that. “School uniforms.”
“Right!” she chirped, keeping her eyes away from mine. She shook her head and gained composure. “I don’t think I could wear a uniform every day. We have so many rules and restrictions that I don’t think I could handle the school telling me what I should wear too,” she added quietly, keeping her head down.
I lifted her chin so she was forced to make eye contact with me. “That’s good.” I smiled. “It’s a good start.” I grazed my thumb over her cheek and could already see my fly coming undone in the reflection of her hazel eyes.
I leaned into her and she stopped breathing altogether.
I smiled and swept her hair behind her ear so I could whisper into it—low and husky and with just the right amount of suggestiveness.
“But I’d like to see you in one of those skirts every day.” My hand moved down to her thigh and I grazed her inseam with two fingers, so that she was barely able to feel it. Her eyes pleaded with me to kiss her, and I grinned.
Yep, Andrea was definitely a Volkswagen: Reliable. Dependable. And oh so easy.
“You’re so smart, Simon. And you’re one of the most popular guys at school. All the girls want you. And you’re like…really hot,” she said a little breathlessly, closing her eyes, her cheeks burning with embarrassment by her admission.
I admit it all seemed like poorly filmed porn. The dialogue couldn’t get any worse. But it’s not like either of us were there for the quality of the conversation.
She exhaled. “I’m sorry. This is all a little surreal right now. And I’m really freaking nervous,” she added.
She needed reassurance. She needed to know that I was in the moment with her and that I would acknowledge her at school on Monday. Whether or not that was true—or if I’d even remember her name—was beside the point. She needed that cozy little blanket of knowing that I wasn’t using her.
Piece of cake. There was a reason I took Introduction to Performing Arts last semester.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted this moment?” I began, finding one of my go-to speeches I had prepared. “I’ve been watching you for weeks and hoping that Miss Shields would pair us up so that we could be alone. I’m just as nervous as you are right now. So whatever you’ve heard about me or think of my reputation, I can assure you: I don’t do this all the time.” I took her hand and placed it on my chest.
I looked down and scratched the back of my head, hoping she’d pick it up as nervousness.
Her swoon was how I knew I had her wrapped around my pinkie.
“This moment is as surreal for me as it is for you,” I added, taking her hand again and rubbing her knuckles.
“Oh, Simon,” she said, leaning in to kiss me.
I quickly closed my eyes and thought of Miss Shields. If she were Katie Shields, how would I react? What would she want me to do next? She’d be used to a more experienced man, one that wasn’t so eager.
This is what every girl in the past three years has been for me: practice. In every scenario I’ve been in, every sexual, kinky, or intimate moment in which I’ve partaken, I get to this point and close my eyes.
Katie Shields is waiting for me.
There are a few things I am good at. School is one. Dropping panties is another. And arguing my ass off on the debate team is also at the top of the list.
But my passion is the debate
coach
.
It’s been three weeks since I turned eighteen. And every minute of it has played tug-of-war with my conscience. Turning eighteen has shone a whole new light on the potential I have with Miss Shields…I mean
Katie
. This is my senior year: my last year with her. My last chance to make something—
anything
—happen. And now that I’m eighteen, she doesn’t need to fight the attraction
I know
she feels toward me.
Sweet, blissful, 100 percent okay to have sex with an older, sexier-than-any-high-school-girl, woman.
I just need to make sure I know what I’m doing when I finally decide to make a move. So all of these notches on my belt were essential.
If a fairy godmother or a genie in a lamp would’ve granted me one wish at the beginning of this school year, it would have been a total no-brainer: I would’ve wished for Miss Shields. I wanted every breath from her full lips, every dark strand of hair on her head, and all thirty-three inches of her inseam.
Miss Shields—or
Katie,
as I like to refer to her—isn’t like the adolescent females in my school. She doesn’t spend hours texting, posting, or pinning. She doesn’t bother with selfies or applying a fresh coat of lip gloss between classes. And you can bet your ass that all of her status updates use correct grammar.
Mmmm…correct grammar usage will get me
every
time.
Oh yes, Miss Shields is different all right. She has style and grace. She wears clothes that cover just enough skin to get my imagination going. Her long black hair falls to her waist, but no one knows this since she always keeps it up in a bun. And she wears stockings. Every. Day. The kind that stop at the thigh and have an inch or two of elastic lace holding them up.
Ah, the stockings. They provided plenty of…um…
stimulation
for those lonely Saturday nights.
Good ol’ Miss Shields. Every teenage boy’s wet dream. And the only woman I could ever really want.
***
The bell rings as my last class ends. Mondays are always tough—especially if I’ve spent a recent evening with a girl like Andrea, a.k.a. the
Volkswagen
.
Avoiding them in the halls isn’t easy, because they’re looking for me. Of course they are: I’ve given them the best twenty to thirty minutes of their life (I was still working on my stamina, after all). So I usually have to take a different route to Advanced Physics
and
History of Russia just to keep my distance. There are days when evading the stage ten clingers feels like a full-time job.
You’re probably asking yourself how the word hasn’t spread through the debate team about my…
behavior.
Well I assure you, it has. There are almost thirty students on the team, and most of them are female. And as everyone knows, chicks talk. A lot. So why did they fall for my “charms” over and over again? Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was green-eyed jealousy—because what girl doesn’t want what their so-called friends have had? It doesn’t matter what they’ve heard, or even what they know to be true; they all think they’re going to be different from the one before—that somehow
they’re
going to be the one I decide to keep.
But there’s only one I want forever—and she doesn’t giggle when I walk into the room or think MTV’s
Catfish
is scintillating entertainment.
After spending an hour on homework, I set my phone down on my bed and stare at it.
It’s Monday.
My stomach rolls as I await my weekly text from Katie. This is, sadly, the highlight of my entire week.
She gets the debate topics on Mondays, and while the rest of the team gets them on Tuesdays, she’s always favored me and given me the information a day early.
That’s right:
I’m
her favorite. I just wish I got more out of the relationship than an early jump on the debate topics.
The anticipation pounds in my chest, and I walk to the window and look out to my car in the driveway. It was a gift from my father when I turned sixteen. It’s no Italian sports car, but it’s certainly the nicest car in the parking lot at school. Anything sexier than an Audi would raise eyebrows, anyway. I’d never want anyone to think I was a rich, spoiled brat with a small dick by getting a Maserati, Bentley, or—God forbid—anything convertible.
My parents were still around half of the year when they gifted me that car, but I knew it was just another donation toward the penance of their guilt for not being around.
I was eleven when they started traveling. Dad is in investments, and Mom stayed home with me. But once my dad hit it big with several high-yield investments and maturing CDs, he took half his earnings and invested them elsewhere, and the other half he’s spent with Mom around the world. They just got back from Japan the other night, after leaving two days before my eighteenth birthday.
I’m no dummy. I get it. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure as shit helps. Which is why at the age of twelve I told my father to take the next one thousand dollars’ worth of my allowance money and invest it in the same companies he had. And he was happy to help me out, hoping I’d follow in his career-obsessed footsteps.
It’s been six years since I invested that first thousand dollars. And I have a little over
one hundred thousand
dollars today. It’s certainly not enough to retire, but by the time I need to pay for college and additional investing, I won’t need to worry.
My bed vibrates, and I walk quickly (I won’t run—I can’t be that eager, even by myself) to my phone and snatch it up to read the text.
Hey, Simon. ;) Thursday’s discussion will be on whether or not single-sexed schools are better for students. Good luck! See you tomorrow. Miss Shields
I exhale, closing my eyes after reading her name.
She gave me a wink.
Maybe she agonized over that seemingly insignificant emoticon. I imagine her in my head, smiling and deliberating whether or not she should give me that wink. Pulling her hair from the bun, releasing it so that its length drops to her hips. She tugs at her lip, smirking, knowing she’s flirting with disaster. That forbidden pull I imagine her feeling makes her fingers twitch with excitement as she types every letter.
I wish I could tell her what it does to me to read it. There are a lot of things I wish I could tell her. But I can’t.
Not yet.
After a silent dinner with my parents, I make the excuse that I need to go to the library to study. But really, I’m escaping to my
place.
I’ve given up on my parents ever being anything more than financial assistance. With the exception of my mother attempting to buy my love through my obsession with chocolate chip cookies, they both checked out of my life long ago.
I’m not going to talk about how many times I cried myself to sleep when I was little, wishing my parents had time for me. What would be the point? Maybe if I was a bit more self-aware, I’d see the connection between my lack of parental love and my fixation on an older and unattainable woman. But that would require more reflection than I’m capable of.
My
place
obviously isn’t a secret to others. There’s been some vandalism and graffiti done over the years, remnants of old bonfires. But I think of it as mine, and it’s a place I’ve never brought anyone. A place where I can relax and take a break from being Simon Blackwell, III.
Some claim this place to be an abandoned church, others say an old Alms house. No one really knows for sure, but it’s my getaway. There are only two walls left, made from more earthen elements, but there are also shards of stained glass and scattered bricks on the ground around it. The trees have grown up and through it over the years, so that their canopy is the only thing that comprises its roof.
As I approach the thick wooden doors, I realize this place has been visited more by strangers in the past year than by people like me. I try not to touch anything when I come here, and leave it the same way I found it.
I don’t bother using the front doors because a tree blocks the other side. So I walk around to find my spot: an old cedar that has twisted its way through the ground in the center of the structure.
I get through the dense foliage to find the entrance, and am surprised to see a girl sitting on the floor with her back propped against the tree I had always considered
mine
.
I want to see if she’s okay. But. I’m no dummy: I've seen enough horror movies to know that approaching a woman with long, dark hair, crying in the middle of the woods is a certifiable death sentence.
Her phone chirps, and as she looks down at it she begins to sob again.
I realize—as I stand there like a creep, watching some strange girl cry her eyes out—that I want to make her smile. But I have no idea what to say.
She still hasn’t seen me, and with the dim lighting I can barely make out the color of her hair, let alone see what she looks like. I can’t even tell how old she is.
She could be young girl lost in the woods without knowing how to get home. Or she could have been attacked by something out here and need help. Shit, I may have stumbled on a very serious situation.
I hold my hands in front of me, palms out, as I make my initial move toward her. It’s meant to be a placating gesture, one that says
I’m not a knife-wielding psycho, I promise!
She still hasn’t seen me—though by the sound of her noisy crying, a bomb could have gone off and she wouldn’t have noticed. Her phone beeps again and I stop moving. She looks down to read the message, and with a hard scream she throws the phone in my direction.
My initial thought when the phone slaps me across the forehead is ‘Nice arm.’ The second thought that races through my head is ‘Fuck, that hurt.’
“Ouch,” I say, reaching down to pick up the phone on the ground.
She jumps to her feet and lets out a gasp. “Who are you?” she asks defensively, yet breathlessly.
“Don’t be scared. I’m not going to hurt you,” I begin, rubbing my fingers over the small bump on my forehead. “Are you okay?”
She clears her throat, and after a short pause whispers, “I’m fine. Thank you.”
“Are you lost?”
“No,” she says with a humorless laugh.
My eyes are adjusting to the darkness, and as I take a few steps forward, I begin to make out her facial features.
She’s pretty. Like really, pretty. With long, dark hair and dark eyes. She’s got one of those faces that make you notice—even with black shit on her face from her mascara. I wanted to tell her she didn’t need that crap; she was really freaking hot without it.
“I didn’t think anyone really knew about this place. Why are you here?”
I look around and shrug. “I used to come here a lot when I was a kid. It’s been a while.”
She nods in the darkness and smoothes down her shirt in an obviously nervous gesture. “Oh, well, are you planning on coming back anytime soon?”
It’s a strange question. Why is she asking? Does she want me to stay? Or is that a diplomatic way of telling me to fuck off?
“I can,” is all I come up with.
She wraps her arms around herself as though trying to hold herself together. It makes her look even more vulnerable. “See you around then,” she says, and ducks underneath the tree, walking toward me.
I close my eyes as a waft of her perfume hits me. The vanilla scent stands out in the musty woods. Just as she passes, her hand grazes mine. She could have gone around me. But she seemed to make a point to touch me in this small way.
Why?
And why did my skin tingle from the feel of her cold fingers?
It’s the strangest thing I’ve experienced in my life—and that’s saying something.