29 JANIE
JANIE
“A bear hunt?” Benedict’s gorgeous face frowns on my phone screen.
“Not a literal bear hunt. We’re hunting for Bear, the reindeer.”
“We’re going to kill the mayor?”
I chuckle, “No! We are just trying to spot him. Just another ridiculous tradition, no one ever sees him. There’s no way he’s still alive or if he is, he probably migrated north years ago.”
“How d’you know it’s him for sure?”
“One of his antlers is broken off to a sharp point. Or at least that’s what legend says.”
“Right but this sounded like a competition, there was a prize in your spreadsheet.” I fight a smile but he catches it. “Yes, wifey, I read every word. Consider it foreplay.”
“The hunt is on Friday, not Saturday.”
“I’m painfully aware of that.”
I smile wide because I can’t help it. “If anyone actually spots our four-legged mayor, they get the $500 prize.”
“Five hundred dollars! I’ll get us the world’s best and brightest flashlights.”
I snort, “Will the flashlights you pick cost more than the prize?”
“Probably. See you tomorrow then?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“And you’re positive tomorrow is Friday?”
“Afraid so.”
“Alright, it’s nine fifty-nine,” he makes a show of looking at his designer watch. “I’d better bid you goodnight,”
“Bid me? Bid me? What is this, eighteen-fifty—”
“Goodnight, wifey!” He yells as he hangs up on me.
I laugh. And he says I’m fun to bother.
But as I flip off the light by the glorious guest bed in this dreamy house Ben bought, something in my chest tightens.
Like it has every night since he took care of me.
Since I admitted I didn’t want to be alone and he came through for me like no one ever has before.
Not even Gran was as attentive or gentle when I got sick as a kid.
No boyfriend has ever doted on me like he did.
He never mentioned the Saturday sex we had to miss and he even offered to stay in Juniper Falls with me instead of popping up to Toronto for the week.
Juniper Falls over Toronto?
That cannot last.
Even sex-starved, he’ll get bored eventually. He said so himself. And I’m not going to be sitting here pining after him when that happens. Even though I’m tired of doing it over and over, I open the dreaded album on my phone and flip through it one more time before going to sleep.
_____
“There is no way that was a bloody raccoon!” Ben says again as we enter the house.
“It absolutely was.”
“Raccoons do not snort like horses.”
I pause to look back at him, “Snort?”
“Yes, you know,” he says and then he inhales and is he really going to—
He exhales through his mouth, leaving his cheeks lax, flopping his head back and forth violently, sounding, I must admit, exactly like a horse. I can’t help it, I laugh, hard.
“Did you really just…do that?” I gasp, doubled over and cackling.
He beams at me, “You’ve never heard a better impression of a horse snorting, admit it.”
“Are you going to neigh next?” I say.
“Don’t be preposterous, reindeer do not neigh…wait, do they?”
“I have no idea,” I say, wiping my eyes. “I do know that no normal person uses the word preposterous in casual conversation.”
He rolls his eyes, “Normal is overrated.”
“Uh huh,” I say, but the second syllable gets caught in my throat as he approaches me. His expression has gone dark, hungry. My insides melt at the sight.
“Listen,” he says in a low voice that he is absolutely wielding as a weapon of mass sexual destruction right now. “It’s after ten. I think you should just tuck yourself into my bed, that way I won’t have to come find you at 12:01am.”
I deflate, remembering. “About that…” He frowns. “No, I can still, we can…um, I can take care of you at 12:01.”
“What? I mean, yes, please do, but what do you mean?”
I wince, “It’s that time of the month for me.”
“Oh. And?”
“And I’m not having sex on my period.”
He cocks his head to the side, “You don’t want to? Or…”
“I mean, no? Right? What do you mean?”
He puts his hands on my hips, casually, like we do this all the time, stand and talk about period sex in the kitchen.
He’s been touching me all night long. Touches me all the time now.
He hugs me hello, kisses my head. Kisses my mouth too, though he has refrained from trying to make out while in public so far since we started swapping orgasms.
“Firstly, showers exist. As does shower sex. Second, do you have any toys? Surely you do.”
My eyebrows raise, “What makes you say that?”
“If I were a woman with a clitoris filled with nerve endings I would have a whole armoire of them.” I choke on the air trying to get to my lungs. He smirks but is genuinely confused. “What?”
“Do you ever just think thoughts and not say them? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a man even say the word clitoris.”
“Then you’re using the term man quite loosely, yeah? If he couldn’t say it he probably couldn’t locate it either.”
This gets a laugh from me and he squeezes my waist.
“So do you? Have any?”
“Yes, I have a vibrator.”
“Brilliant, grab it and meet me in my bed.”
“I’m not sleeping in your bed.”
“Did you miss the part where we eat snacks, watch television and you switch between ranting at the screen and making fun of me for the next,” he pauses to look at the microwave, “hour and forty-one minutes.”
I pretend to be grossed out, “Ew, we’re going to eat in bed?” He lets go with a sigh, finally exasperated, and I quickly grab his forearm. His skin is warm and veiny under my fingers. I smile up at him, “I’m kidding. I will change and get it and meet you in your bed, but I’m not sleeping there.”
“Fine, you’re probably a blanket hog anyway,” he mutters, heading toward the pantry.
“I totally am!” I call to him as I walk through the house.
_____
“No one…has ever…done that…to me.” I pant.
“Really?” He asks, leaning over me. He brushes a hair from my glistening forehead and lifts his other hand, still holding my vibrator. “You’ve never used this with someone before?”
“Not like that,” I say, still breathless. I did not know I could have an orgasm just from having my nipples played with. I also didn’t know how turned on I could get during a blow job. Whatever just happened to me must have been the perfect combination.
Ben’s genuine elation when I pounced on him thirty minutes early.
I knew he was rock hard, just from cuddling side by side, and it thrilled me.
As did the way he blacked out when I told him to tell me what to do.
His bossy voice and hooded eyes. His inability to last very long, yet again.
All of that put me on the edge and then the magic he just performed with his mouth and the toy all over my top half.
I close my eyes and moan again just thinking about it.
“Good, then?” He asks
“Amazing,” I answer honestly. “You’re amazing.”
I open my eyes, expecting to see him gloating, beaming, teasing. But that’s not what I see. He’s…unsure? For a second. Then the Ben I know is back.
“Can you say that again? Just want to get my phone and record quickly.”
“You just want video of my boobs,” I say, sitting up.
“Absolutely I do.” He grabs my bra and shirt for me from wherever I threw it when I was ripping his pants off.
“Thanks, I’ll see you in the morning,” I say as I slip them on.
“Wait, look,” he whispers, grabbing me from behind.
“What?”
He holds me still and pulls up the Google Home app on his phone.
In a second, all the lights are off. The huge, single-pane windows that line the whole back of the house are a feature in his bedroom.
Outside them, snow is falling, and not a light snow either.
The snow is going nuts all around us, just like—
“It’s like a snow globe,” Ben says, pulling me into him. He sits back against the headboard and wraps his arms around me. It’s sweet. Romantic. Downright dreamy. Which is terrifying. “How badly do you want to run away right now?” He asks, and I can hear the smile in his voice.
“What? I’ll f-fine.”
He laughs at my stupid stutter that only appears when I’m lying, and opens his arms.
“I know, I know,” he sighs dramatically, “Can’t be British and handsome and give you life-altering orgasms and be romantic about the snow. I get it.”
I move off the bed and smile back at his moonlit face as I stand, “Life-altering, huh?”
“Oh, do please try and deny it, I can’t wait to hear,” he makes his voice sound like mine and stammers, “ what’s word mouth come out of your!”
“Ugh, I’m leaving and I’m flipping you off as I go!” I say loudly as I make my way out of his room, one hand raised in the dark. I hear him chuckle and I do too. But my smile fades as I climb into my own bed.
Because the truth is I wanted to stay with him in the snow globe. I wanted to stay with him all night. Not to have sex, either. To sleep. To whisper and laugh and hold him and be held by him.
And I think he knows it.
My only hope is that he’s enough of a gentleman not to call me out on it. We agreed, no feelings. Only itch-scratching. Desperate kick boxing and contractual friendship. That’s what this is, and that’s what it has to stay.
Because he won’t. He won’t stay. And that’s fine. I’ll be ready for that, I’ll be prepared. I won’t be left behind again.