On an Edge of Glass (13 page)

Suddenly, I miss his mouth.  I kiss up, up, up
, until our lips are fused and we are exploring—tasting, sucking, burning—ungluing everything.  A million tiny bells ring in my ears.  Everything brightens, like the sun has been shoved out of its hiding place from behind the clouds. 

Ben
is the first to break away.  I am left gasping and clinging tightly to his shirt so that I don’t go sideways or mysteriously disintegrate.  He lifts his long musician’s fingers to my face and presses his mouth to me.  He murmurs into my hair.  And, I’m not sure, but I think what he says is, “wow.”

I know it’s Ben when I hear the soft tapping
on my bedroom door that night. I’m incredibly grateful that I decided to put on my cutest pajamas
just in case
. 

Twisting to the side,
I usher him into my room and close the door gently behind him.  Then we’re standing in the middle of my green oval area rug staring each other down.  Ben’s hair is pulled back in a low ponytail and I can see his neck.  I have to push aside the thought that I know what it’s like to lick it. 

After an eternity of awkward
, sexually frustrated seconds, Ben hooks his hands in the pockets of his jeans and the corners of his mouth tip upward.  My heart expands. 

“I thought
you could show me your pictures,” he says evenly.

“Oh,” I say, covering up
my wilting heart. 
Oh, you mean you aren’t here to ravage me? 

He just smiles
like he can read my thoughts.

I shake my head to clear
it.  “Yeah, of course.  Just—just grab a seat.” 
Where?
My desk chair is currently being swallowed by LSAT prep books and forcing him to sit on the floor seems rude.  “On the bed.  The edge of the bed.” 

He sits. 

On. My. Bed. 

I’
m over at the desk fiddling with the keys on my laptop.  I find the file with the Paris photos.  They are the ones that I shot two summers ago when my parents took me with them to Europe for ten days.  I yank out the power cord and lop over to the bed with my arm looped under my computer.

The thing about m
attresses is that they dip when you set things on them.  Weighted objects, like bodies, tend to fall together.  Ben and I start out with a good half-foot of boundary space between us, but as the minutes pass, we slide closer until our hips are almost touching.  My whole body is on high-alert, 

Ben
sifts through the images, spending more time on a few of the shots—especially the ones that I’ve taken of people—mostly strangers I encountered on the street.

“This
one,” he says, gesturing to the screen of my laptop. “It’s really beautiful, Ellie.”

I flush.  The photo is
of a white-haired man holding a horn.  I remember that he’d been sitting outside a small Parisian café playing his horn in the afternoon.  I’d already been ready for the shot when the sky opened up and a thousand fingers of rain came tumbling down.  The horn player paused, his mouth an inch from his instrument, and looked up at the sky.  That’s the moment that I caught with my camera. 

Ben
’s going on.  He’s telling me that he likes another shot.  He’s describing qualities of light, but I’m somewhere in my head.  Lost.  I notice how his long musician fingers are touching the keys of my laptop and I’m remembering the way that they felt spread over the bare skin of my lower back.  We are too close and my skin is beginning to burn underneath my clothes.  My hormones are turning me into a fire hazard.

“What?” 
Ben’s lilting voice breaks through my reverie. 

God.  He’s probably concerned about
my heavy breathing and the unattractive red splotches that I’m positive are breaking out all over my face.

I let my hair fall forward like a shield.  “Nothing.  You were saying…”

But Ben has stopped talking.  When I chance a look, he’s doing that silent stare thing.  It’s alarming how much it affects me.  How it sucks away all of the air in the room.  How it sends tingles through my entire being and makes my body hum with anticipation. 

“Ellie,” he says
softly.  He shifts the computer so that it’s no longer a barrier between us.  The tips of his fingers gently brush the side of my face.  I close my eyes and part my mouth to breathe. 

“Ellie,”
he repeats my name.  Then, he leans toward me and his lips flutter over my eyelids, sending a wild hum through my limbs. 

I open my eyes and he’s looking at me with so much
heat and desire that I have to remind myself to breathe properly.  I pull his shoulders down until we’re falling back onto the mattress and Ben is over me.  Supported by his forearms, he hovers, watching me intently with those gold-flecked brown eyes.  His hands slip lower.  I lift my hips to meet his and the room tilts. 

T
here is nothing imaginary or gentle about what moves between us.  It’s like a tsunami.  Our mouths crush, crash, against one another.  Our hands pull—skin, shirt collars, hips.  I am frantic to have all of him pressing down against me.  I yank the shirt he’s wearing over his head.  I slide my fingers over his rippled bare chest and edge my way along the waist of his jeans.  Ben moans into my mouth.  His knee comes up between my legs and I do some moaning of my own. 

With h
is hands, he traces tiny circular patterns on my body, bringing every one of my pores to life.  He is the musician and I am the instrument.  I glide beneath him, barely breathing, barely thinking. 

His lips move over my neck, dropping down to my collarbone.  His eyelashes flit against my skin soft and feathery.  I fall.   

“What am I going to do with you?” he whispers, holding my face and staring at me with clear eyes that swim through my veins.

No Strings My Ass

“You are so adorable.”

              I stop pacing and spin.  Ben—lopsided smile plastered on his face—is leaning back against my headboard with his naked arms crossed behind his head.  Silvery morning sunlight pours in through the window behind him making a hazy white outline around his body.  He sits up and all the tightly drawn muscles in his chest move with him.   The soft green sheets tumble downward settling around his waist. 

             
“And you’re distracting me,” I say, flipping a flashcard at him. 

             
He swats it away and ruffles his brow.  Out comes the bottom lip.  He’s all mock flustered and hurt, which is too charming to dwell on when I’m trying to study. 

“Are you kidding me?
”  He feigns offense.  “I’ve quizzed you for the past four nights in a row.  When you ace the exam, you can thank me.”

             
Now I’m smiling.  “And just how would you like me to thank you?”

              Ben’s forehead drops and a lock of dark hair falls across his eyes. 
God
.  He scoots closer and his fingers crawl up my arm all the way to my neck.  Golden brown eyes trail behind.  My stomach churns with anticipation and my breathing changes. 

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

              “Huh, like indentured servitude?”  My voice is ragged, like I’ve just come back from a jog.

             
He laughs.  Curling his strong arms around my waist, he pulls me down next to him.  Now, I’m on my back, looking up at his gorgeous face.  My heart thumps with embarrassing vigor. 

Ben blinks above me.  “
Yeah, sort of like indentured servitude.”  He angles one eyebrow playfully.  “Do you have a problem with that, Ellie?  Because if so, there’s a process that you can go through to lodge a formal complaint against the administration.”

             
“Me?”  I shift so that our torsos are pressed together and I can feel his warm bare skin against mine.  “I don’t think I’m in any position to complain.”

             
“Oh God,” Ben says, and his voice is weightless—floating all around me like air. 

He finds my wrists
and brings them up so that they’re pinned over my head. I stretch out my body, rolling my back against the bed.  When I arch my neck, his lips meet skin and my blood boils over. 

Moments later he whispers into my
mouth, “Sometimes I think that you could make me forget the entire world.”

“I just don’t get this
thing,” Mark is saying.  He’s sitting across from me with a quizzical look on his face.  His elbow is braced on the armrest of the chair he’s sitting in, and his head is resting on his hand.

             
My pulse crackles defensively. 

“I
don’t know what’s to get,” I respond, my voice coming out harder than I intend.  A man working on his laptop at the table next to ours glances over.  “Ben and I are having fun.  For once in my life I’m enjoying myself and I’m not worrying about what it all means or where it’s headed.  You, of all people, are going to judge that?”

             
Mark’s head jerks back and his bottom jaw drops a few inches.  “Jesus Ellie.  That’s not at all what I meant, and you know it.”  He waves his hands in the air.  “I’m simply pondering how this whole situation is going to play out.  You and Ben have been secretly going at it for about two weeks, yet you claim that you haven’t had sex with him.”

             
“Oh, what?  First I’m slutty.  Then I’m not slutty enough?”

             
“Don’t be obtuse!”  Mark’s chin juts forward.  “Even if you were sleeping with Ben, I wouldn’t call you a slut.  I’m just curious as to the
why
you’re not having sex with him.”

             
I laugh and roll my eyes.  “I know this is probably a foreign concept to you, but we haven’t had sex yet because we both have standards.” 
Because Ben keeps stopping things just before we get to that level.

              “Okaaaay…  And, remind me why Ainsley and Payton have no idea what’s been happening between the two of you?”

             
I let go of my breath.  “Because we made a pact!  Because it’s girl code!  Because if I tell them, it’s going to be this big
thing
.  Neither of us is ready for that kind of pressure right now.” 

             
Mark’s stare is unwavering.  “So, what you’re saying is that you’re only breaking girl code if you
tell
your roommates about it?  Just going back on your promise is alright?  Okay then.  Thanks for clearing that little detail up for me.”

             
“Ugh!” I put my face in my hands.

             
“Oh Ellie-bear,” Mark sighs.  “You’ve clearly developed feelings for this guy but you haven’t even been on an actual date with him.” He lifts a hand to stop me before I can talk.  “And if you call that tragic lunch with your dad a date, then you need to seriously reevaluate things…”

“I-I…”  My voice wobbles. 
 

“Look,
I’m just saying that the two of you hunker up in a bedroom and play around, but it’s not
real
.  It’s limbo.  It’s a make-believe relationship.  You barely know any of his friends and he barely knows any of yours…”

             
“Mark, you’re my friend.  Ben knows you.”

             
Mark’s eyebrows pull together.  “Yeah, and I’ve talked to the guy for all of five minutes.  I’m serious Ellie.  What’s the destination for this?”

             
I shake my head miserably.  “I don’t know.  Maybe there doesn’t have to be one.  We’re just… we’re just enjoying this.” 

             
“Have you considered the fact that Ben might be enjoying you as well as many other women?  Have you at least had the exclusivity talk?”