20. Kellen
Twenty
Kellen
I’m not sure how many hours pass at the restaurant.
Elizabeth and I have each had a few drinks, shared several pounds of bivalves, and are holding hands on the table.
I keep staring down to make sure it’s really my skin against hers.
A living woman. Someone I admire. She strokes my palm with her thumb and I feel the motion in every cell of my body.
“Tell me about your job search,” I say, dipping a piece of crusty bread in the buttery sauce from our dinner.
She frowns. “It’s a bit stagnant right now. I’m being really particular,” she says, and shrugs. “I can get by on the support from Todd.”
She hesitates, and I jump in, saying, “As it should be. Fucker.”
She squeezes my hand. “Yes, he is that. But it’s more like…I put up with bullshit for so many years. I just don’t have it in me to devote my time toward something that’s not dramatically fulfilling.”
“I love that,” I tell her. “Life is definitely too short to put up with bullshit.”
Elizabeth pulls her hand back, tucks her short hair behind her ears. “I am so sorry about your wife, Kellen.”
“Thank you.” I sigh. “Orla thinks I’ve been just waiting around to die.”
She laughs. “I don’t get that impression at all,” she says. “I’ve met your family. It’s a pretty wild bunch.”
“I agree,” I tell her. “It’s just…she’s a little bit right. I haven’t exactly been grabbing every opportunity, seizing the day.” I adjust my legs on the bench and my foot comes in contact with Elizabeth’s calf. I don’t pull it away and she doesn’t move her leg. “I’ve been…”
“Stagnant?” Elizabeth raises her brows at me and presses her leg into my foot. I nod.
Suddenly feeling anxious for reasons I can’t describe, I clear my throat and pull back my leg.
“Elizabeth, I love talking to you,” I tell her.
As the afternoon gave way to dusk, she and I sat here discussing history documentaries, our shared love of very dark chocolate, and Dolly Parton podcasts.
She opened up about some of the struggles Jake faces in schools when rigid teachers can’t seem to follow the impact of their strict rules on a young man who just requires more and different explanations than other kids.
I spent at least an hour of our conversation wanting to quit my job and go become a high school teacher so I could give Jake and kids like him a safe place to learn about physics.
“I love talking to you, too,” she says. And she flushes again. “I keep thinking about what we discussed…”
She doesn’t have to remind me which discussion.
The one this morning, where she was so open about needing some careful attention before we can be physically intimate.
“I…” I clear my throat and close my eyes, deciding blunt honesty feels best, even if I can’t brave the look in her eyes as I admit what I’ve been thinking all day.
“I’m worried I’ll hurt you and am equally worried my own performance will be absolutely terrible if we…
make love.” I hesitate on the phrase “make love,” because I don’t know that I’ve ever used those two words together.
Helen and I enjoyed a healthy sex life in the beginning, but didn’t exactly discuss what we were up to. Teenage Elizabeth and I didn’t use that sort of language either for our stolen moments of exploration and fumbling.
When I open my eyes, Elizabeth’s are dancing between mine, her expression hopeful. “Last night was wonderful,” she says. I nod. “We could go home and…build on that?”
I slap a wad of cash on the table and spring up from the booth at her words, extending my hand to her. She laughs. “You like that idea, do you?”
“I’m terrified and insatiable.”
The one mile drive home takes far too long, with pedestrians moseying through every intersection and a neighbor navigating a boat trailer down our narrow residential street.
By the time I park in my driveway, I can practically hear Elizabeth’s heart racing.
Or maybe it’s mine. I hurry around to her side of the car, opening her door for her and fumbling with the garage light to enter my house.
She bites her lip as I help her up the stairs and, as soon as we are in my kitchen, I gather her in my arms. “Beth,” I whisper, pushing her up against the closed garage door.
She shudders as I pepper kisses down the length of her neck and the taste of her skin is so overpowering, I forget how nervous I am that she is fragile.
She gathers the front of my shirt in two fists and pulls me against her body, pressing her lips against mine fiercely. “I want to lie down with you,” she pants. “I want to feel you lying on top of me.”
“Yes,” I breathe, marching down the hall, tugging her closely behind me. We stumble a bit en route to my bedroom, but she starts to giggle so I stamp down the worry that I’m somehow harming her injured foot.
When we get to my bedroom, Elizabeth crawls onto my bed and lies on her back, patting the blankets next to her. “Come closer, Kellen.”
I obey, trying not to fret that I’m still wearing shoes, that there has never been a woman in this bed since I bought it, that I am liable to come in my pants at the first hint of friction.
I support my weight on my forearms and kiss her as Elizabeth snakes her arms around my neck, along my back, fingers in my hair. “You feel so good,” she says between kisses. “You smell so good.”
I want to parrot her words, unable to come up with anything coherent.
I’m drunk on the experience of being here with her.
I’m near tears as I savor the feel of my body spread on top of hers.
I’m so hard I worry about the structural integrity of my pants, and I rock my hips just to see what will happen.
“Oooh, yes,” she moans. “More.” Elizabeth bites my lower lip, pulling my face closer to hers. I shift my weight so I can touch her face, and I rock my hips slowly against her. Her dress has rucked up past her knees as she opens her legs to allow me to settle between hers.
I feel the heat of her through my clothes, warm and safe.
I continue rocking and adjust my torso again so my hand is free to massage her breast. “Oh!” Elizabeth yelps.
“Oh, Kellen.” I glance down, my hand on her breast, squeezing, thumb dusting across the pointed peak of her nipple, and I feel Elizabeth’s hips churning beneath me.
“Kellen, I think I’m…oh, god, Kellen I’m coming.” I’m so surprised, so delighted by this news that I thrust once, twice more and I’m there with her, coming in my jeans just from dry humping and squeezing her boob.
We meet each other’s glance, mouths agape, and both of us burst out laughing.
I roll off of her and tug her against my side, careful not to press her dress against the wet stain spreading from my crotch. “That was undignified,” I whisper into her hair.
She props her head on her elbow and stares at me, looking extremely satisfied. “Who cares about dignity,” she says. “It just felt so damn good, Kellen.” She bites a lip. “I couldn’t help myself.” She traces a finger along my jaw. I turn my face to kiss her palm. “When did you grow the beard?”
I keep my hand around her wrist, seeking the skin to skin connection with her.
“It’s been years,” I say. “Maybe since I bought the house? I think it started during a time when something had to give, and that thing was daily shaving.” I drag a palm along my cheek, the crackling sound of my skin in the short hair filling the silent room. “What do you think of the gray?”
“Honestly?”
I grin. “No. Lie to me.”
She swats at my shoulder with her free hand and I snag her palm against my body again. “It looks amazing, Kellen.” Elizabeth sighs. “You’re like…exactly what you should look like as an adult.”
We’re quiet for awhile until eventually, I tell her, “It’s not what I expected. Adulthood, I mean.”
She nods. “That’s true enough.” She squeezes my hand with hers. “There are moments that take my breath away, though, Kellen. And I just want to pinch myself to see if it’s real.”
I lift my hand from where it’s connected with hers and pinch her bicep. “Definitely real,” I tell her, kissing the spot. Then I press my lips to hers again, kissing her slowly. “Definitely a dream, too.”