Yearning (13 page)

‘Thank you, but no.’

Solomon forced himself into a relaxed position against the door frame, wondering what was coming. ‘So, is there a problem?’

‘No. No problem. She tells me you really helped her last week.’

Solomon shook his head, confused. He didn’t know what to make of this. If she knew what had been going on this was the strangest dressing down he’d ever had in his life.

She smiled apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, you’ve probably forgotten. With her essay? You’ve been very encouraging. It must be annoying to have kids dropping in on you on your time off.’

The depth of his relief made him weak. ‘No, no she’s not bothering me at all. I like my students to be comfortable with me.’

She gazed at him and pulled at a stray thread on her apron pocket. He shifted against the doorway, crossing one foot over the other and held her gaze. She looked down at her feet.

‘You know, your daughter shows a lot of potential as a writer. Is that a family thing? Do you write?’ He smiled warmly at her. She blushed and waved her hands at him, fanning him away.

‘Oh, Mr Andrews, don’t be silly, of course not.’

He could see she was fluttering in spite of herself. He crossed his arms over his chest. Strong biceps bulged under his hands. ‘Please, call me Solomon.’

Jude glanced away down the street, reddening under the intensity of his stare. ‘I’d rather stick to Mr Andrews, if that’s all right.’

Solomon nodded. Jude smoothed her apron and met his eyes. ‘I was just wondering if you might have some time to tutor her? She’s never been strong in English and this year she’s finally showing some interest.’

‘Sure. I have a spot free every Tuesday night.’ He grinned, quietly admiring the girl’s clever ruse.

Jude put her hand in her pocket, then took it out again. ‘I was thinking fortnightly. I’m not sure weekly would be necessary.’

He studied her. She stood tall and proud, her clothes neat and her face and hair well groomed, but her dress was thin, her shoes worn and old-fashioned. He knew she couldn’t afford tutoring, but she’d be too proud to admit it.

‘Weekly is better for the kids. They retain more, improve faster. Perhaps we can come to some kind of arrangement? She could help me with the garden once a fortnight to take care of the other week.’

‘We can afford to pay, Mr Andrews.’ She had flushed at his suggestion.

‘My apologies, I’m not suggesting you can’t. It’s just a mutually beneficial arrangement. She can come weekly, the same as my other students, you’ll pay fortnightly fees, and I get free help with my yard, which I need pretty desperately. Have a look at it.’ He waved at the long grass and tangled roses that choked his front fence. It looked like a jungle next to the manicured garden next door.

She twisted her apron in her hands as she surveyed the overgrowth. ‘Well, if you’re sure?’

‘Absolutely. Suits me just fine. It will suit us all just fine.’ Solomon smiled warmly at her. He reached out and took Jude’s hand in a warm grasp and shook it, keeping eye contact with her all the while. ‘We can start next Tuesday night if she likes. Say eight o’clock?’

‘Are you sure that’s not too late?’

‘Nope. That’s my last appointment so I can give her all the time she needs.’

‘That’s very generous of you. Thank you.’ Jude patted her hair. Her hands flapped around as if she had no idea where to put them. She began to leave but hesitated on the
doorstep. She turned back to him, a conspiratorial look on her face.

‘She thinks the world of you, you know. I think she has a little crush to be honest.’

He laughed. ‘I doubt it. What would a teenage girl want with a stale old guy like me?’ He watched her giggle girlishly.

‘You’re hardly old and stale, Mr Andrews. You let me know if she’s any trouble.’

‘No need to worry, Mrs Baxter, she’ll be fine.’

He watched Jude make her way down his front steps, feeling his heart thumping hard against his chest. That had been a close call. But the new arrangements were shaping up well. Her mother suspected nothing, and between the tutoring, some gardening and her morning runs there’d be no inconvenient lying or sneaking around. Perhaps this little affair wasn’t going to be so difficult after all.

*

It was easier than he thought to keep his distance from her when he needed to. He made sure he was remote in the classroom. More than ever he ignored her raised hand and offered no favour that might bring attention to them. She told him she understood. It was worth it, she said, and he was relieved.

Solomon couldn’t believe how good it was. There was something about the forbiddeness of it, the secrecy, and not knowing when she might show up with that coy smile on her face. The constant flow of his weekend liaisons slowed and eventually halted. He lost interest in the lure of
lonely wives and cheap roadside motels. This arrangement was so easy and frequent he had no need to pursue other lovers. She had excuses to come over at least two or three times a week, and outside of that he had time to himself with no obligations. No worrying about regular phone calls or dinners or false flattery, no hysterical pleading with him to stay, or leave. The whole situation suited him well. He simply faded from the social scene, leaving the town gossips to speculate as to why.

He loved her surprise visits in the mornings the most. He lay half-awake in the dull early morning light waiting for those shy, nailbitten fingers to come creeping over his stomach. He’d hear his bedroom door click and feel the shiver of spring air she brought into the room with her. Her Dunlop runners hit the floor with a thump as she shucked off her tracksuit. Then he felt her cool skin sliding into the warm spaces around him. He’d pretend to be asleep while she explored him with her hands, then when he was hard he’d roll over and enter her while she squirmed and gasped beneath him.

She was an eager lover, always hungry for him. He loved the way she was usually wet for him before he’d even touched her, loved the way her folds withheld her juices until he probed her open with a finger or tongue. Then she flowed for him, running like a river, an endless trickle. He lapped it up, this ambrosia. He felt like a god drinking from the font of youth.

If she ever seemed unsure he drew back. He stroked and kissed her until she felt safe and reassured again. No matter what happened between them he was careful not to force her, or make her feel she’d failed him in some way.
He treated her tenderly and reminded himself constantly that this was her first time for everything. If he was to keep her quiet she must feel happy and safe.

Educating her, educating her body was an inspiration. She was so compliant, so open to discovering what pleasured them both. He was delighted and surprised by her. She wanted to know everything: how to give pleasure and how to receive it; how to talk, move, touch; how to avoid getting pregnant. Solomon drew from everything he’d learned. He planned it out, all the pleasures and dangers of the body he knew of, and put them to her so she would open up slowly.

Lesson one: foreplay and the delight of the five senses. He brought out his Tibetan bells and prepared platters of sweet fruit and chocolate. He played music and lit incense and massaged her with fragrant oils. He taught her about touch; that there are many ways and many places and timing is of the essence. Here, now, wait, again. Fingertips, hair, tongue, the possibilities are endless. Then the tease, his hand hovering just above the curve of her alabaster skin, the art of withholding and temptation.

Lesson two: cunnilingus. It taught her to trust him. Relax into the experience and focus on the sensations in her body. He spread her wide open with his fingers, taught her to lay still, close her eyes, feel it. A gentle tease with his tongue, slow strokes becoming firmer and wider, curling the tip of his tongue around the bud of her clitoris. Like the strings of a Stradivarius she quivered and hummed under his mouth, the muscles around her vagina pulsing and contracting in response to each stroke, as if she were kissing him back.

Lesson three: relaxation and breath. Don’t be afraid to give your passion a voice, he told her. It heightens sensitivity. Let go. Breathe deeply. Relax. Let the pleasure rise through your pores. Feel it. Make noise. Listen to your lover’s body. Whisper. Dirty words, appreciative words. Growl, howl, moan.

He sank into her slippery tightness and an animal growl escaped his lips. She liked it. The more he growled the wilder she became, gripping his hips, forcing him into her, whispering obscenities into his ear. Lascivious begging. Wanting. The sound of it driving him to madness. He hammered her savagely, snarled over her like a rutting animal until she screamed and bit his shoulder.

Lesson four: fucking. He showed her how to move her hips, to rise and fall like the sea. Stop, start, breathe together. Go slow. Hold back. Don’t give in to the urge to let go. The secret is in the withholding. Halt a coming orgasm like this, pull gently down on the scrotum, press two fingers into the perineum. Lift knees, hips, elbows. Twist. Be playful. Stretch into the body. Condoms, make them sexy, use your mouth.

Lesson five: fellatio. He waited until she was ready for this, until she suggested it. He let her go the first time and she gagged and choked, all the while pretending to enjoy it. He wasn’t surprised.

He pushed her gently away from him and held her face between his hands. ‘Hey, relax. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.’

‘But I’m supposed to. Everyone at school says boys love it.’

He laughed. ‘That’s true, they do. But it’s no fun for me if you don’t enjoy it, too.’

‘How do I do that?’

He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘Wait here.’

He left the bedroom and came back with a peeled banana. He taught her how to breathe and relax the muscles at the back of her throat. ‘You have to be in the right place in your head. The trick is desire, wanting to give pleasure, being in control. Listen to what it does to me.’

The next time she tried it with honey. It was sweet and easy for both of them.

He primed her, prepared her, and enfolded her. He poured himself into her unsullied innocence and revelled in the fun of her. He introduced her to Chinese food, champagne, Pink Floyd and meditation, all while she lay naked on his spacious bed.

It bothered him that she knew so little about the mechanics of sex, most of it ill-informed schoolyard hearsay. Sex education in high school was of the tab-A-into-slot-B ilk. It wouldn’t prepare her for the modern adult world she was entering. He bought her a progressive book about sexuality and reproduction, and left it on his pillow as a surprise for her. She found it when she came for her tutoring session.

‘What’s this?’

‘I thought it might answer a few questions.’

He watched her sitting cross-legged on his satin sheets, biting her nails and flicking through the pages. She stopped at the section about contraception.

‘You should read that. It’s important. Especially for a woman.’ He leaned over her and retrieved his tobacco from the table beside the bed.

‘Why?’

‘Because most men will leave it to you to worry about.’

She gazed at him, her face serious. ‘But you take care of it.’

‘Yes, but later on you’ll need to know.’

‘But why?’

She was pouting. Here was something more disturbing than her ignorance. Solomon realised this conversation was going in a direction he wasn’t entirely comfortable with. He considered her carefully through the smoke.

‘Babe, it’s part of growing up. You’re a young woman. You need to know how to take care of yourself.’

‘But you take care of me.’ She smiled and snuggled into his chest.

He was taken by the newness of her, the innocence of her skin, all fragile and full of goodness, like a freshly-laid egg. When she talked like this he sensed fear brewing in his belly. Every day she came through his door was another day deeper in this thing and it was turning him inside out. It was going too far, but with each lovemaking session it was getting harder and harder to put a stop to it.

‘If you really want me to read it I will.’ She pulled his hand down between her thighs. He crushed his cigarette in the ashtray by the bed and bent down to kiss away his doubts on the smooth porcelain of her belly.

*

She was so happy she could hardly breathe. At first she longed to tell Amanda, especially when his name came up in conversation, which it did, often. But she forced herself to keep her mouth shut. She’d made a promise to him and
that was more important than anything. Besides, he was right. If anyone found out about them there’d be trouble. Her parents would kill her. She didn’t think they’d ever speak to her again. And she didn’t know what would happen to Solomon, but she was pretty sure it would be difficult for them afterwards. They’d probably have to go away somewhere together, to the city or something. She’d have to get a job somewhere, maybe in a supermarket, and they‘d probably have a pretty crappy life. But that wasn’t what she wanted for herself anymore. It wasn’t what Solomon wanted for her either. It was best to keep it secret, see him when she could, just act normal the rest of the time.

It was hard having to be apart from him, though. In the time between visits she wrote furiously in her diary. The private pages became the only safe place where she could repeat herself over and over again.

I can’t believe that
I
am Solomon’s girlfriend. He loves me. Every time I visit we kiss and touch and more. I’m so lucky, I feel like an angel, like I’m filled with light. He’s so amazing. I can’t believe I’m finally with him, after all the times I wondered and watched him, just praying that he would notice me. He makes me feel so good. I can’t believe how good sex is. It’s the best thing ever and all I want to do is do it with Solomon. I am in love. I am making love. I am making love to the one I love. I love Solomon. I love, love, love Solomon, Solomon, Solomon.

It became her mantra. I love Solomon. She repeated it like a prayer.

It took a while for the butterflies in her stomach to settle. For the first few weeks if she heard his name, if he addressed her in class, she’d blush and stammer and feel light-headed. She was terrified someone would see it on her, like it was printed across her forehead – Not a Virgin Anymore.