21. Take Care, Ms. Belanger
Chapter twenty-one
Take Care, Ms. Belanger
“I f I’d known you still had a table, I wouldn’t have got Chinese food.”
Bewildered laughter escaped Ben’s lips as he followed me into his kitchen, which had far more furniture in it than I’d expected.
“Can I ask what the connection is there?” he asked as I set the bulging plastic bags on the table.
“Isn’t it a whole thing to eat Chinese food out of the boxes while sitting on the hardwood floor? Or, like, a mattress without a bed frame? Or do I just watch too many movies?”
“I think that’s more for moving in, but same concept.”
“Oh.” I untied the bag handles. “Well, there goes my joke.”
He chuckled, then put a hand over mine before I could pull the boxes out of the bag. “There’s nothing stopping us from eating Chinese food out of the boxes in bed, you know.”
I’d been somewhat surprised when Ben messaged me earlier that day asking if I’d come over for dinner that night. Not that I wasn’t happy about it; I’d just thought that we’d have a quick get together to say goodbye and fuck before he left for California. But it was one of those moments that highlighted the years between us.
Me
You know I’d love to, but don’t you want to go out with your friends or something?
Professor Sexy
I saw most of them last weekend
Me
Yeah, but it’s your last night here. No one wants to take you out?
Professor Sexy
It’s also a Tuesday night.
Me
…and they don’t want to miss Taco Tuesday?
Professor Sexy
Well, most of my friends and colleagues don’t take summers off. It’s a work night.
I’d been embarrassed about not realizing that, but before I could type a response, Ben messaged me again.
Professor Sexy
But I would hate to miss my last Taco Tuesday with you…
Me
Luckily you won’t have to. What time should I stop by with a taco for you?
Oh, and how does Chinese sound for dinner?
So that was how we ended up sitting on Ben’s bed, passing boxes of chow mien and sweet and sour pork and beef and broccoli back and forth. Unfortunately, I’d made the mistake of taking my phone with me and setting it on the bed, so when it started vibrating incessantly, Ben noticed.
“Not that it’s any of my business—” he started when the third message in as many minutes came through.
“Ah-Ma-ee,” I said through a mouthful of chow mien, then chewed aggressively and swallowed. “Anne-Marie, I mean.”
“You’re not talking to her?”
“No, I am,” I said, reaching over and spearing a piece of sweet and sour pork on my fork without looking at him. “I just… need a break.”
“From what?”
Semi-reluctantly, I told him what had happened with JP over the weekend, though I skipped a few of the more important parts, like why he hadn’t been at the funeral and that he’d cancelled a date because of me and that whole “You are mine” thing. So mainly, just that Anne-Marie had nearly caught us and what she’d said while I was lying naked on JP’s bedroom floor.
“It’s fine, though,” I said. “Everyone says stuff behind other people’s backs. Confronting her about it would probably lead to questions like ‘Why were you in my brother’s bedroom?’ and ‘So I’m your maid of honour, right?’ It’s not like I’m holding it against her. I’m just taking some space.”
“You are still allowed to feel upset when someone says something hurtful about you,” Ben said. “You don’t think she’ll notice you’re not talking to her?”
“I’m not ignoring her completely. Just… not responding. Which probably doesn’t seem weird because apparently I ignore problems until they go away and she’s freaking out because she thinks I don’t have a date for this weekend.”
He nodded again. “It might be easier to tell her you’re going with JP, you know.”
“And give her the extra time to plan a surprise wedding during the Diamond Gala? No, thank you.”
He chuckled and scooped some vegetables onto his fork. “She seems very passionate about getting you and JP together.”
“I don’t even understand why. We’re both sluts.”
The word made Ben wince. “That’s not—”
“It’s not a bad word,” I said, popping another piece of pork into my mouth.
“I would argue that it, at the very least, has negative connotations,” he said.
“Why?” I asked pointedly. “Because it’s such a bad thing for people to sleep around and not commit to one person?”
He tilted his head. “Good point.”
I moved a piece of green pepper out of the way so I could get to more of the pork. “It’s not my problem if people think that’s something to be ashamed of.”
“I just don’t want you to think you have to reclaim a label in order to be proud of who you are,” he said. “Especially one I know hurt you before.”
“Isn’t that the same as being ashamed of it?”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
I helped myself to more chow mien, chewing in a quiet thoughtfulness as I processed what he said. Ben ate another bite before studying me in the silence.
“What’s going through your head?” he asked.
“The usual eight million things,” I replied.
“Do you always have eight million things going through your head?”
“Give or take.”
He nodded slowly like I’d said something telling, but he replied before I could ask why. “Tell me one of them.”
“Just one?”
“To start.”
When I started humming the Jurassic Park theme song, Ben nearly choked on a piece of sweet and sour pork as he started laughing.
“What?” I asked, grinning. “You didn’t say it had to be a thought .”
“I didn’t,” he said, coughing. “That’s true.”
“Although I guess I’m also wondering why it’s stuck in my head,” I said. “Got any ideas on that, Professor Cameron?”
“Oh, God,” he said, blowing out a breath like it was a heavy question. “I mean, they’re designed to do that, in some ways. Music triggers the auditory cortex. And like much of your brain, the auditory cortex loves patterns, so it ‘sings along’ and anticipates where the song is going, even after the music is gone. It’s why pop music is exactly that—popular. It scratches an itch. Much like a stim song does when you listen to it over and over again.”
“Okay,” I said. “But that’s a choice. The rest of me is a little tired of my auditory cortex scratching the ‘da-na-NA-na-na, da-na-Na-na-na’ part over and over again.”
“Well, yes, because earworms—songs that get stuck in your head—are more like bug bites. With them, the more you scratch, the worse the itch gets. And the way you scratch a song in your head is—”
“—repeating it over and over again.”
He grinned. “Exactly. So you hear a song you like, your brain latches on to part of it and ‘loops’ it, and now you’re thinking about dinosaurs.”
“Okay, except I didn’t hear it,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Like, I haven’t watched Jurassic Park in years. I’m sure I haven’t heard that song anywhere.”
“Well, brains can be odd in what triggers them, so it doesn’t always have to be something you’ve heard. Maybe the last time you watched Jurassic Park was in Montreal. Or after a funeral.” He lifted his fork. “Or when you were eating Chinese food. Something may have triggered the memory to play and, along with it, the song. Although it’s more likely it played over the speakers at the grocery store and you subconsciously picked it up.”
I stared at Ben’s bedspread as the Jurassic Park theme song played in my head, underscoring flashes of a memory from years earlier. Not one that featured Chinese food or a funeral, but a rainy day and handfuls of popcorn being thrown at an obnoxious teenager who was ruining the movie for everyone.
Swallowing my mouthful of chow mien, I suppressed that memory with everything I had in me and nodded. “Yeah. That must have been it.”
Ben didn’t seem to buy it. “Are you sure?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Remember that whole thing where it’s part of my job to tell when people are lying to me?”
“No, not at all. What’s your job again?”
He fought back a smirk. “What else is going through your head, Nellie?”
“If I want to be on top of you for the last time we fuck or if I want it on my hands and knees.”
“I… what?”
I blinked to break the hold his bedspread pattern had on me and reached for the chow mien, helping myself to another forkful. “I considered missionary since I do like looking up at you while you’re fucking me. But I also really like the noises you make when you let loose and pound me from behind. The problem is I also like watching your eyes follow my tits when I bounce on your cock.”
“Right.” He cleared his throat and set his fork in one of the other containers. “All excellent reasons.”
“What’s going through your mind?” I asked, then ate my chow mien.
“That there’s no reason we can’t do all those things.” He reached out and took my fork from my hand, setting it in the same container as his before moving it to the nightstand beside his bed. “But I want to start with dessert first.”
And I wasn’t about to complain about that. Especially not when he finished his dessert, dug a condom out of the carry-on suitcase sitting next to his closet, then flipped me over to fuck me from behind for a while before deciding he wanted second dessert and pulling out to take a few more bites—well, licks, technically—from the back to make me come on his tongue a second time.
“That’s it, Ms. Belanger,” he murmured, his breath warm on my pussy lips and his fingers buried deep inside me as I quivered on them. “Fuck, am I gonna miss how good you come for me.”
“I’m gonna mi— ahh .” I gasped as he flicked his tongue on my oversensitive clit, making my whole body shudder. “I’m gonna miss coming for you.”
He groaned, lifting himself away from my pussy and slipping his hands beneath me so he could pull me against his body. His lips pressed to the back of my neck, soft and warm and enticing, before he helped me turn in place so I was facing him. But before I could crawl onto his lap, he stopped me, moving forward so I had no choice but to lie on my back.
“Relax, Nellie,” he whispered.
“I wanna ride your cock,” I whined as my head hit the pillow.
He moved between my legs and dipped down to kiss me. “Let me fuck you like this.”
The word slipped through the haze and I blinked. Ben had kind of aversion to the word and I was pretty sure he’d never said he’d wanted to fuck me before. I looked up at him and a wicked smirk spread on his lips as he pushed my legs wider, then positioned his cock at my entrance.
“Is that okay?” he asked.
“Fuck me, please, Professor,” I whispered, and both of us groaned as he slipped his cock back inside me.
He fucked me hard. Hard . The only noises we made were grunts and cries and moans, but somehow, it was like I could hear his thoughts in all those things. In the way his hips moved and the way his body slapped against mine. In the way he kissed, heated and primal, like he was driven by instinct and need and pleasure as he pounded me into that mattress on the floor.
And it seemed like he could hear my thoughts too, somehow. Like he knew from the way my hands tightened on his back that an orgasm was building up, fast and urgent and unexpected. His response was to fuck me harder, to reach down and put an arm under each of my thighs so he could push them back and make sure I had as much of his cock as I needed to clench around.
“Come,” he demanded, and a second later every nerve in my body exploded at once, nearly making me pass out at the overwhelming amount of pleasure being demanded from my body. I writhed as much as his body would allow me with how I was pinned to the mattress and how his arms were holding my legs up, my back arching and his sheets clenched in my palms while light burst in my eyes.
He lasted exactly as long as it took me to finish that orgasm before he pulled out, reaching down and practically tearing the condom off before wrapping his hand around his cock and stroking hard. His eyes scrunched shut and he let out a low, rumbling groan as hot cum spilled onto my mound and lower belly.
“Fuck,” he gasped. “ Fuck , Nellie.” He kept pumping his cock until every drop was out, dripping into the pool of cum on my body, then leaned down for a kiss before collapsing on the bed beside me.
He stayed there for all of five seconds, barely enough time to catch his breath, before sitting up and going to the bathroom to get tissues so he could wipe up the mess on my stomach. After that, he crawled back into the bed next to me and I shifted so he could collect me in his arms.
It was a moment that both highlighted and blurred the differences between us. I didn’t usually cuddle after sex, not when I was getting fucked in parking lots and pool houses and parks. Not with anyone but him. But for Ben, it was natural beyond the point of expectation. Natural enough that it didn’t require thought. That it made it easy to forget this summer was a coincidence of circumstance, that our paths had crossed in the oddest of ways before diverging in other directions.
Maybe that should’ve made me sad. We didn’t have to be in a relationship for me to know a good thing was ending. But maybe it was one of the many things that seemed to be wrong with me because I didn’t have any sadness about this being my last time with Ben while I was lying there in his arms. It was all good.
Good memories.
Good feelings.
Good conversations.
And a weird feeling, a strange sort of excitement that he was getting to go off and do something he was so passionate about.
The sensation that I was losing something wasn’t there. We’d always known about the time limit and that neither of us wanted more than what we were. And it wasn’t like I didn’t have other things in my life to keep me feeling full. Like sure, Ben’s dick wasn’t filling me anymore and no one could fill me quite the same way, but I had other people to—
Or did I?
I blamed the fact that I’d come so hard for the extra moments it took me to notice the hazy way JP had floated his way into my mind, bobbing into the path of my thoughts like a cloud instead of the out-of-control U-Haul that he was.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. JP was supposed to be a good time. He wasn’t supposed to be my date for a gala. We weren’t supposed to cancel dates for each other. I wasn’t supposed to be his confidant, someone holding his hand and waiting for whatever stormy thing was unsaid behind his eyes to come to light.
Neither of us were supposed to want this , like what I was doing with Ben. JP and I were supposed to be fuck buddies who met each other at the same level of horniness and need and, honestly, skill level, because I was pretty confident in saying that I was at least as good in bed as JP was and—
“Want to tell me one of the seven million, nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-seven things on your mind?” Ben murmured.
I half-laughed, but it came out a bit more despairing than I’d intended. “How am I supposed to pick one?”
His arms tightened around me. “Pick the one most relevant to where you are right now.”
“It’s nice being held,” I said.
“It is,” he agreed.
“Why?”
He chuckled. “What do you mean, why?”
“Like, why… do people want to cuddle after sex? When he knows—I know—when I know it’s just a casual thing?”
If Ben caught my slip up, he didn’t call me out on it. “Psychologically speaking, it makes sex more satisfying.”
“Seriously?”
“Mm-hmm. Obviously in traditional monogamous relationships, you’d consider it increasing the bond between partners. But even in situations like ours, it comes down to the endorphins experienced post-intimacy. Instead of being a measure of increasing connections in a relationship, it’s more of a relaxing indulgence.” He chuckled again. “Honestly, if we could cuddle with ourselves after masturbating, we probably would.”
“So it means nothing,” I said. “My body just likes being touched.”
“Something like that.” He shifted, his head twisting so he could look down at me. “Is that, ah, a… problem?”
I buried my face against his chest. “Not right now.”
Ben’s body stiffened. “Nellie, you know this can’t—”
“No,” I said quickly. “No, not this . Like, not that you’re not great, but I know what this is. That hasn’t changed.”
“Okay,” he said, not sounding entirely convinced.
“I mean it’s not a problem right now . Like not… not with… you .”
The statement seemed to hover above us as he realized what I meant. The tension faded from his body and he didn’t say anything else as he pulled me in closer.
And honestly, it was a testament to how well Ben had gotten to know me. Because while anyone else in the world might have pressed me to say more or guessed at what I meant or told me it was okay to change my mind even though it wasn’t , he said nothing.
He just held me and let me process what I’d just said out loud, along with the seven million, nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-five other things on my mind until the room was dark and I was roused from half-sleep by a kiss pressed to the side of my head.
“I would love for you to stay,” he whispered. “But I know you like to sleep in and my flight is first thing in the morning. I have to be at the airport at five.”
“Rude,” I murmured. “You could’ve taken a later flight, you know.”
He chuckled. “Had I known you would make this the summer of a lifetime, I would’ve. But I booked this flight in April.”
Ben only pulled a pair of jeans on while I got dressed, so he was still shirtless when he walked me to his apartment door. After I put on my shoes, there was a moment where we just looked at each other.
Then his face broke into a smile and we reached for each other. I squeezed my eyes shut, listening to his heart thump steadily in his chest.
“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice muffled by my hair. “For this. All the conversations. The absolute pleasure it was getting to know you.”
“No problem,” I whispered back, because if I spoke any louder my voice might come out watery and I couldn’t have that. “Thanks for all the orgasms.”
He laughed as he let go of me.
“Take care, Ms. Belanger,” he said.
“Goodbye, Professor Cameron.”