Strings Attached (19 page)

“Whatever,” he said. “See you all in the morning.” He turned and ascended the stairs two at a time, then vanished into the blackness at the top.

“Why didn’t you go with him?” Reed whispered, her brows furrowed.

“You know he only wants what he can’t have, and this way I can make sure he won’t be asleep the minute after I climb in.” She stared impassively into the fire, her face and clothes flickering tangerine. “This whole stupid thing is just wrong; it felt like a mistake the minute we got back together.”

“You are one crazy girl.” Reed shook her head.

“But you guys love each other,” Jeremy said. “Shouldn’t you try and make it work?”

“Who said anything about us loving
each other
?” she laughed. “That’s exactly what one of our problems is.
I love him,
but he’s incapable of loving anyone but himself. Why else would he break up with me, then bring Brynn, that world-famous crack whore, to my party? I made jokes all night about shoving her off the balcony into the water, but it was really
him
I wanted to throw overboard. And the worst part is that he knows if he makes me jealous, I’ll go crazy unless he comes back. It’s all a game to him.”

“But why would he do that…you know…try to get you back, unless he loved you?” Reed asked.

She shook her head. “You don’t know how his mind works; it’s like his ego hunts for sport. He just has this effect on people. It’s like his looks and how charming he can be combine to make this weapon that he throws like…a sexual grenade. And people don’t know what’s hit them.” She sighed. “I’ve seen him do this since he was fourteen, to girls and teachers and moms and scoutmasters and the geek behind the McDonald’s counter. It’s whoever he needs something from. And since I know this, I’m always asking myself,
What is it he wants from me?
Or am I, like he tells me, the exception?

“And in spite of everything that’s wrong about us, we fit together somehow, maybe because we both want what we shouldn’t have. No one knows me like he does, which is both wonderful and scary as shit.” She pulled her knees up tight to her chest. “And most guys are scared of me; they’re intimidated. But Coby’s not,” she whispered. “He’s one of the only guys I’ve ever known who isn’t afraid to be completely himself around me…and somehow that helps me be more myself, too.”

“You’ve gotta move on, baby girl,” said Reed. “There’s a lotta guys out there who would love to be with you and would treat you like you deserve to be treated, every single day.”

“That’s for sure,” Jeremy agreed, nodding with conviction.

Silence descended, then a round of yawns volleyed. Ellie swung her legs off the sofa, planted them on the carpet, and stood. “It’s been about ten minutes; he’ll probably be all worked up in there by himself. If I wait any longer, he’ll be snoring and I’ll have to sleep in a wet spot.” She smiled, waving. “Good night.” Then she turned and headed toward the stairs.

“Good night, Ellie,” they answered in unison.

And then they were alone.

“Reed?”

“Um-hmm?”

“Let’s go upstairs.” He clutched her hand and gently pulled her up from the sofa as the last of the embers glittered, then died.

“Stay there. I’ll be right back. Could you light the candles?” She tiptoed to the bathroom and closed the door. He untied the elegant braided cord encircling his waist, paused, and then reknotted it. He found some matches in the nightstand and lit the twin red candles—thick as soda cans—that she’d set out on each of the nightstands, and then switched off the lights. The sputtering candles made the thrusting shadows of the bedposts shiver against the walls.

How was he going to get through this? He had little information to go on and, it seemed, even less instinct. What was he supposed to do first, and then after that? He’d heard that the first time was painful for girls; how could he experience any kind of pleasure when he’d be hurting her? What if he wasn’t able to stay hard? How could their relationship continue if he found himself uninterested in her, or even—God forbid—totally turned off?

“I’ll be out in a second,” sang her cheerful, muffled voice from behind the door.

Moments later, she emerged wearing a cream-colored bra and panties, and a confident smile. “What do you think? Is this appropriate attire for the lady of the manor?” Her coffee-colored skin glowed in the flickering light, and her hair, which she usually pulled back, fell down to her shoulders.

“Probably not, but I’ll never tell,” he said with a grin. “My God, you look so…incredibly beautiful.”

She stepped toward him. “No more than you, baby,” she whispered, as she clutched the lapels of his robe and slid the garment from his shoulders. It fell in a silken heap on the carpet. “Like I said, we go together like milk and honey.”

Their mouths opened to each other. Her hands smoothed his bare chest, then he hugged her close to his body. The warmth of her against his naked torso stirred him. He began to relax.

Her mouth broke away from his. “It feels like I’ve waited my entire life for tonight.”

“Me too. I can’t believe this is finally happening.” As their tongues rejoined, his hands caressed her breasts and pressed them and kneaded them gently, like tender fruit.

“Here, let me help,” she gasped, closing her fingertips onto the center point between the two generous cups. With a
thick,
her bra fell open. His hands slipped the disabled garment from her shoulders, then instinctively searched out her delicate nipples. They hardened under his touch.

“Baby, you’re so gentle,” she cooed. “You sure you’ve never done this before?”

A smile split his face. “Beginner’s luck.” He bent down and suckled her.

“You don’t feel like a beginner,” she gasped, stroking the hair on his head. “Let’s get into bed.” She pulled his mouth to hers and licked his lips, pushing him backward but staying together as a unit, joined at the mouth, like erotic Siamese twins, until his buttocks bumped hard against one of the bed’s posts. Their progress stopped, and she looked at him expectantly.

Was it his turn to be the aggressor? Her eyes told him
yes.
So he turned her around, grasped her shoulders, and laid her carefully back onto the cushy new comforter Arthur had so thoughtfully sent along. Her arms locked around his neck, and she pulled his body up on top of herself.

“Won’t my weight hurt you?” he asked.

“Only a little,” she murmured. “But I like it. I want to feel your whole body covering mine.” She reached between their bodies and, with a trembling hand, pulled the knotted drawstring of his pajama pants loose. “I want to feel all of you, baby. Inside me.”

Their eyes held, searching for deep truths.

“I love you, Jeremy.”

She’d been determined not to be the first to say it on this night of nights, but the restless phrase had fluttered out of her mouth before she could slam its cage shut.

“I love you too, Reed.”

She slipped her hands under his waistband to the top of his buttocks, then caressed them, delighted by their velvet solidity. His breaths deepened, and he began stiffening between her legs. She felt his unmistakable pressure against her and relaxed; her doubts about him, as well as her therapist’s admonitions, were unfounded. She felt it finally safe to surrender herself to the coming pleasure.

They were home free.

Her hands began sliding his pants down past his hips. “I want you, Jeremy. I want you so bad.”

“I want you too.” His lips grazed hers and then traced a trail down her neck. While leaning on his right arm, his left pushed his pajamas off, and his hardness brushed her thigh.

She’d better say something.

“Baby, isn’t there something you need?” she whispered urgently.

Her question shattered his single-mindedness into sudden jumbled static, but he forced a short mental inventory anyway.

Shit!

“Reed, I’m sorry. I…guess I forgot to buy some before we came up. But hold on, and I’ll run downstairs and get some from Coby.” He pulled up his pants and pushed himself off her, then stood. “I’m sure he’s got some.” He picked up his robe from the floor and threw it on, then turned to go. His hand was on the doorknob when her voice froze him.

“You forgot to buy condoms,” she said calmly, and he turned to face her.

He saw that she looked puzzled.

“Hey, it’s not a big deal. It’s…just that this whole trip was last minute, and I had so much to pull together, and I was nervous about driving up here on
that road,
and I had way too much on my mind. I’m sorry. I blew it.” He needed to see this event through to the end, and nothing was going to stand in his way.

“Mr. ‘I-Don’t-Want-to-Wind-Up-Like-My-Parents-With-an-Unwanted-Child’
forgot
to buy condoms.”

He crossed his arms. “We said that when the time was right, we’d both know it. But out of respect for you, I didn’t want to assume that this trip was going to be
that time.
I thought we’d discuss it more before it actually happened.”

“Discuss it more?” she asked, her eyebrows identical arches. “
Discuss it more?
What more could we discuss?” She pulled a corner of the comforter up to cover herself. “You must be the only teenage guy in the world who doesn’t have a condom in his wallet at this very moment. Even the ugliest, biggest losers carry condoms, if only to prove that they’ve actually got a dick.”

“Look, Reed, I’m sorry. This is all kinda new to me.”

“Oh, I get it. Wanting to make love to your girlfriend is something that’s new to you.” She tumbled out of bed holding her bra across her chest, then stomped to the bathroom where she retrieved her robe. She tied it on hastily, her breasts jiggling underneath. “Look, Jeremy. In case you haven’t noticed, something’s wrong here. I’ve tried to deny it since almost the beginning, but there’s just too many things that don’t add up.”

“What do you mean?” he asked defensively. “You’ve never said anything about this before.”

“I mean that you’re
just not normal.
” She stepped over to the bed and sat on the edge, arms folded.

“Would you mind telling me exactly what you mean by that?”

“Look, don’t get angry. I’m just trying to make sense out of all this.” She looked down, rubbing her temples. “What I mean is that you’re just not the way guys usually are with me, and I feel like I’m always getting things started when it comes to us being…together.” She cinched the tie on her robe, and Jeremy mimicked her action. “I’m not trying to brag when I say this or make you jealous, Jeremy, but ever since I can remember, boys wanted to be with me, to touch me, and they were really obvious; sometimes it was frustrating just keeping them off me, you know? And then you came along, and I didn’t have to deal with things like that.” She raised her eyes to his. “At first I thought it was because you were raised right. You know, a gentleman…which you are.” She half smiled. “And then as time went on, I started getting this feeling about our relationship—that we should be going through stages, and we’re not. Like when someone has a baby and they compare it with their friends’ kids, knowing that around a certain age it learns to crawl, and after that it stands, then walks, then…whatever. And I think even you see that we’re not going through the stages like we should.”

“What are you saying?” he whispered, his eyes a show of calculated ignorance.

“What I’m saying, Jeremy, is I think we’ve already got our unwanted child…and it’s hopelessly retarded. Our relationship’s not working, for whatever reason, and it probably can’t.” She blew out a heavy sigh, and her shoulders collapsed.

“All this because I forgot to buy a condom?”

“Look. Maybe I’m overreacting, and if I am it’ll all look different in the morning. I think we both need to sleep on it. But in the meantime, I think it’d be better if we didn’t stay in here together, not tonight at least.”

“Yeah, I think so too,” he nodded, deflated. “I’ll go downstairs and sleep on the couch. None of the other beds are made up.” He snatched a couple of blankets from the foot of the bed. “Look, Reed, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. You’re the last person on this earth I ever wanted to hurt.”

“I know, Jeremy. Like I said, maybe things will look different tomorrow.” She gave him a sad smile. “Good night.”

He trudged down the stairway past the second floor, noticing as he passed that Ellie and Coby’s door was closed and the light was out. He then continued to the first floor, clutching the handrail for support, feeling exhausted yet jittery, like the nights he used to wait up for his mother to come home.

At once he saw that the living room was ablaze with flickering shadows.

The fireplace!
He’d forgotten to douse it before going to bed!

In five leaps, he was down the stairs, prepared to see the worst. But all that met his eyes were some hungry flames licking a giant log and Coby stretched out on the sofa, warming his shirtless body, the lower part of him covered in his green paisley pajamas, his feet piggy-pink from the heat of the fire.

“Hey, Tyler.” He raised his eyebrows, and his mouth made a crooked smile. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I…couldn’t sleep. And I didn’t want to wake up Reed, so I figured I’d sleep down here.” He stood at the edge of the sofa, his bunched-up blankets hugged to his chest.

“I couldn’t sleep either. Have a seat, bro.” He motioned to the cushion next to him.

He sat instead at the end.

“So…how’d it go?” Coby asked casually.

“Great,” Jeremy growled. “It was
great.
”

“Dude, I’m happy for you.” The fire popped like a cap gun. “By the way, did you know that it’s a scientific fact that once we guys get off, we can’t stay awake? It’s like
Wham! Bam! Snore.
”

“And?”

“And the reason I bring it up, my friend, is it means that if you’re here, wide awake, then something went wrong and you guys didn’t do it.”

“Again, none of your business.”

“Yeah, well don’t feel bad.” He reached across and gently shook Jeremy’s shoulder. “We didn’t either. It’s like Ellie’s been rehearsing her never-ending bitch routine ever since we got back together.” He stretched his arms back over his head and clasped his hands behind his neck, then flexed with a grunt. Jeremy saw that his armpits were as clean as a statue’s, having been recently shaved even though there was no swimming practice until after break was over. “I guess I’ll never figure out what that little bitch wants from me.” He yawned, flexing his biceps again, then moved his hands down from behind his head to the waistband of his pajamas, digging the tips of his fingers in to the first knuckle.

Jeremy could think of nothing to respond with, and his mouth was dry, so he got up from the couch.

“Hey, now where you goin’?”

“Get some water. Want some?”

“Nah.” He shook his head. “What I want, I ain’t gettin’, at least not tonight.” He grabbed at his crotch, and they both laughed.

Jeremy turned and made for the kitchen. His face suddenly felt sunburned.

He stood at the spigot, filling his glass and thinking,
Here we are, alone.
And just after the naked dressing room episode. How many shameful nights had his brain assembled similar fantasies and then zapped them down his spinal cord to be realized by his tremulous hands?

Could it be?

No. This was no fantasy. For starters, everyone knew that Coby Carson loved to fuck girls, and Jeremy wasn’t a girl. And neither was he gay. He was reading too much into this. He needed to relax.

The water running over the glass and down his wrist startled him. He shut off the water and gulped some down. He’d finish the rest with Coby, then find a bedroom for himself. He returned to the sofa, glass half empty, and folded himself carefully down into his spot.

“So—” Coby cleared his throat “—what’s up with you two?”

“Things are great with us.
Like I said.
”

“Then why are you guys, like, taking it so slow?” He rubbed one hand through his hair and slipped the other down his pants to the second knuckle.

“We just want to be sure; we don’t want to rush into anything we’re going to regret,” he said. “You know, so we don’t have to keep breaking up and getting back together twenty thousand times.”

“Oh, I get it. Ha-ha. You’re making fun of me and Ellie.” Coby smirked momentarily, and then his face became serious. “You know, dude, I think I know the
real
reason you can’t sleep at night.”

The fire popped suddenly, accentuating Jeremy’s lack of response. His heart boomed in his ears.

“Jeremy Tyler,” Coby whispered, nodding his lovely head.
“I know your little secret.”