Something Fierce (13 page)

He wondered if she was as ready as she thought she was to make the leap from a secret couple to a public one and if she had any idea how strongly he was considering it. The adjustment would be a difficult one. The age difference would stir plenty of raised eyebrows and backbiting and they couldn’t stay at the same school. It would probably be tougher for her than for him. He wasn’t a secretive person; his family and closest friends already knew about Kerri and had from the start. They had all been somewhat taken aback but were not surprised to see him following his heart over his head. They’d seen him land on his feet in the other areas of his life enough times to assume that he must know what he was doing.

He didn’t, of course, but for the first time in a long time, he felt good, like he was in the right place, on a path he’d chosen even though he wasn’t completely sure why he’d chosen it. Just then, she turned the music down. He looked up from his journal and caught her eye in the mirror. She smiled at him and said, “
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
”

“I saw it.”

“Put it on the list anyway. I want to watch it again…with you.”

Seth laid his journal aside and retrieved the list from the nightstand on her side of the bed. They had started it during that first weekend following their reunion. They had been discussing movies and realized that she had never seen many of his all-time favorites. In fact, there were a lot of great films that Kerri had never even heard of. Introducing them to her and rediscovering them himself was almost as good—sometimes better—than discovering them had been five, ten, even twenty years ago. Seeing through her eyes while simultaneously remembering what the movie had once meant to him and what it was to him now was hard to explain. Each perspective saw a different movie, erasing the boundaries that kept life plodding along in a linear fashion to offer, instead, a glimpse of a world that was timeless, in such a state of flux and rebirth that boredom was impossible…or at least, inexcusable.

After writing down Kerri’s suggestion—number seventeen—he thought of another one. “Have you ever seen
Cool Hand Luke
?”

“Never heard of it. Who’s in it?”

“A lot of great actors. Paul Newman was incredible as Luke.”

“He was the guy who made salad dressings, right? Died quite a while ago?”

Seth was mortified and yet, he was delighted because he got to introduce her to Paul Newman! In this case, some of his best work was long before Seth’s own time:
The Hustler. Hud.
“Have you seen
The Sting
?”

She shook her head no.

He wrote that one down. “You know Robert Redford, right?”

“I’m not an idiot. He started Sundance. He was in
The Horse Whisperer
. I loved that movie. It was one of Scarlett Johansson’s first roles. How about
Lost in Translation?
”

“I’d see it again,” Seth said, adding that one. “Speaking of Bill Murray, what about
Groundhog Day?
”

“I saw a chunk of it on HBO a while back. It bored me. This guy living the same day over and over again.”

“You can’t judge a movie by popping in on the middle of it for a few minutes,” he said. “That’s sacrilegious. You wouldn’t pick up a novel, read a random chapter and put it back on the shelf.” Then he looked at her realizing that she might.

“We do need more comedies, though,” she said. “Smart ones.”

Seth snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “Albert Brooks!
Lost in America.
Oh! Even better,
Defending Your Life.
” She would love that one, just like he had. “Which also has Meryl Streep. Who we haven’t even talked about yet. And foreign films. Oh, God, there are so many great foreign films. Maybe we should split the list up into different categories—”

She jumped on top of him, pinning his arms above his head. “Slow down, cowboy! You’re making my head spin.” Looking down at him, her damp hair hanging around her face, the minty scent of toothpaste on her breath, she smiled and said, “I swear if one more person asks me what’s come over me, why I’ve been so
nice
lately, or what I’m so freaking happy about…”

Only her brother, Timmy, knew about their affair and she promised to keep it that way until Seth was ready—if he was ever ready—to come out of the closet. “So what? Until I came along, you were mean and sad?”

“Pretty much.”

She had to be overstating it, but he’d seen a lot of changes himself. She was getting along better with her mother, talking more with her father, making an effort with her estranged brother, reevaluating her friendships, letting some of them go, while nurturing the ones worth nurturing. And she did look happy. He tried to remember how she’d looked on their first date and before that, when she was one of his students. Always, there was the flashbulb memory of losing his place in the lecture when their eyes met. There was something intriguing and intelligent and sexy about her, but would he describe that girl as happy? No, he wouldn’t. Maybe he was remembering it differently now that he knew her, but there seemed to be a big difference between that girl and the one lying on top of him now.

She let go of his arms and laid her head on his chest. “I hate this part. Leaving. I hate it. Sometimes I feel like you are the only one who really understands me. The only one I can trust.” She kissed his chest and nuzzled into it. “I don’t know how I’m going to stand it when May comes and you leave here. Honest to God, I don’t.”

“We don’t need to think about that right now.”

“I do. I have to prepare for that. It will kill me if I don’t.”

“Maybe it won’t even happen and then you worried for nothing.”

She sat up and looked at him. “What do you mean? Maybe it won’t happen?”

“Maybe I’ll end up staying longer.”

“Is that possible?”

“Anything is possible. I talked to the Dean. There aren’t any full-time positions available and he can’t even promise that there will be any part-timer positions open next year, but if there are, they’d be happy to have me stay on. Maybe I could get back to the book. I am feeling more inspired these days.”

“You’d do that?”

“Yeah. It’d be tough financially. They don’t pay part-timers much and I’d have to go from a rent-free house to paying for an apartment, but it could be done.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Why do you think, Ms. Genius IQ?”

“I can’t think about it. Not unless I knew for sure that it was going to happen.” She noticed his journal. “Were you writing about me?”

“Of course.”

“Can I read it?” she asked.

“No.”

“Why? Is it bad?”

“No,” he said, leaning up, moving his mouth toward her breast.

She pushed him back down, pinning his arms over his head again and arched her back, keeping out of reach. “Then why can’t I read it?”

He laughed; he could have easily broken the hold. “Because it’s my journal.”

She looked into his eyes and he couldn’t tell if she was really getting angry or just teasing. He wondered if she knew herself. “I’m going to get a journal,” she said, “and write things about you and not let you read it.”

“You should. Journal writing is good for the soul.”

She kept looking at him, expressionless. Then she began to gently roll her hips over his groin. “Please. Pretty please.”

“Not fair.” He started to get hard and never breaking eye contact, she kept rocking back and forth, readjusting until he could feel her lips, fat and damp, through the thin fabric of her underwear. “Not fair,” he said again.

She leaned forward, putting her breasts in his face, still warm and tender from the shower. He kissed them and closed his eyes. “You smell so good.”

“Forbidden Fruit.”

“You ain’t kidding.”

“That’s the name of the lotion, smartass,” she said, reaching down, freeing him from his underwear and taking him in her hand. Looking into his eyes, she slid down, her ass rising in the air, until her mouth hovered over his erection. “If you read, I’ll suck.”

He grinned. “You are such a bitch.”

“No,” she said. “I’m just a girl. Just a girl who needs to know.” She ran her tongue, relaxed and wide, the full length of his cock, then brought her mouth down over him, rolling her tongue this way, then that. She lifted her head and gave him her dirtiest smile. “Do I continue…or not?”

“You’re a brat.” He picked up his journal. He’d never shared it with anyone. It was the place where he worked out his most private thoughts and feelings. Some of those he was uncomfortable reading himself let alone sharing with someone else. In this case, however, there was no shortage of things he could read to her, things she would find flattering. Lots of purple prose shamelessly describing how beautiful she was to him, these weekends, and the conversations about everything and nothing, the sex, the sex, oh great God the sex, falling asleep in each other’s arms, the chill of the mornings and the warmth of the fire, the smell of burning wood mixed with the aroma and flavor of their favorite coffee.

But what he chose was a passage he’d written last weekend. He and Kerri had fallen asleep on the couch and spent the whole night there. As he began to read, she took him back in her mouth with a smooth, easy motion. He read about how he had opened his eyes that morning just in time to catch the sun sneaking into the sky, pouring light across the sparkling, unbroken snow and through the tall pines casting ever-changing shapes across the smooth wooden floor and Dr. Jarrell’s now infamous Persian rug. He and Kerri had been wrapped around each other, cocooned in a blanket; all that had been left of the fire was a pile of glowing coals. “…their faint hiss,” he read, “the only sound in the world.”

He turned the page and closed his eyes, feeling the lazy swirl of Kerri’s tongue, the light graze of her teeth, her hair brushing and tickling his thighs, the cold, stone heart at the end of her necklace tapping against him while her body rocked back and forth, her head, up and down. A deep breath escaped him as he reached the moment where the burning impulse to come crashed head on into the cool desire to make it last longer. But Kerri was making the decision for him, slowing down, stopping, yet keeping him in her mouth. She pressed her necklace to her chest. She angled her head enough to gaze up at him, demanding and yet submissive,
keep reading
, her eyes insisted, then softened,
please
…

She let go of the necklace and began her slow bob, not engaging the tongue just yet. He took a breath, felt his mouth move into a lop-sided smile, and continued to read in a low voice about how he had pressed his cold cheek against the top of her head that morning, how he’d inhaled the warm, clean smell of her hair and kissed it, how she had turned her face to his, letting him know that she was awake too and how they just looked at each other.

Lifting her head while continuing to stroke him with her hand, Kerri said, “I remember that. I remember that look. Keep going. Please.”

“‘We didn’t speak,’” he read, as she resumed, taking his breath for a moment, “‘and there was sort of a smile between us. Maybe it was because…I was still partly asleep and the last thing we’d talked about was the possibility of past lives…’” His breathing was getting deeper, faster now. “‘…but I imagined,’” he moaned lightly as the sensations spiraled and tingled upward, glorious and unstoppable this time, “‘imagined that it was a mischievous smile…and with it…’”

He cried out, a memory of being in the ocean flashed across his mind: the sensation of the tide lifting his feet off of the sandy bottom and sucking him away from shore. He dropped the journal. As always, Kerri’s body tensed as she concentrated on finishing the job, then relaxed when she’d taken all of him. “Goddamn baby,” he said and laughed, it felt so good. Then he let himself melt into the bed as she sat up and took the journal from his chest.

Her eyes moved silently over the page until she found the place where he’d left off. She began to read. “‘…but I imagined that it was a mischievous smile and with it we were admitting to each other that we were immortal spirits, here by mutual agreement to once again perform this eternal play, confessing that these finite bodies—opposite in sex, mismatched in age and experience—were chosen to spice up the drama a bit and prove once again that love is the only real force in the universe and when it shows up, the only choice is to surrender to it because any attempt to ignore, fight, tame, control, or explain it will be in vain.’” She closed the book and gazing down at it, gently ran her hand over its smooth surface.

He was embarrassed. “What a corn-head.”

She shook her head no. “Beautiful,” she said, still looking down. “Do you believe that?”

“That we’re eternal lovers? That we’ve been here before only under different circumstances? I don’t know. Seems…a little out there.” She looked up at him, her eyes were full. “The part about love and the only real choice being to surrender? Yes, that part I believe for sure. For me at least.”

“Then why,” she asked, “haven’t you surrendered to it?”

He touched her face, voicing the answer as it rose in his mind. “I have.”

She took his hand in hers. “What does that mean?”

“It means…I love you. I am
in love
with you. And if you want to be a real couple in the real world, then I’m ready. I’m ready to go where that takes us.”

I
t was the first
sunny, warm day
of the year and as they parked at Headlands Beach, Kerri couldn’t remember ever feeling happier.

“This is amazing,” Seth said, as they set out, across the sun-drenched parking lot, their winter jackets left heaped in the backseat of the Escape. “It was snowing the other day. Snowing!”

“Welcome to northeast Ohio in March,” Kerri grinned, soaking in the sun and excitement the sudden weather change had on the world around them. The place was alive with bicyclists, skateboarders, joggers, dogs barking, and kids laughing and screaming on the playground. Seth started pulling her in that direction.

“Two empty swings,” he said.

“So?”