Chapter 13 – Oliver
SATURN LOOKS LIKE . . . WHAT !?
OLIVER
Give Vale a little freedom and her whole demeanor changes.
I watch her, studying the way her body moves.
She dances around in the driver’s seat, belting out lyrics to half the songs I play.
She’s so worked up around me normally that she fidgets constantly, vibrating with nervous energy.
I don’t say a word because I want a chance to admire her.
I want to see if she’s able to forget I’m there, and she does.
I’m proud of her, but I don’t tell her. I have a feeling she wouldn’t appreciate it.
I like watching her when she doesn't know I’m there. Today, I watched her dance around her living room. She was wearing these tiny shorts and a baggy T-shirt with a gray kitten in the center that floated around her when she danced in a circle.
I’d intended to ask her if she wanted to use the pool today, that was why I went there in the first place, but when I saw her dancing, I couldn’t stop myself from observing her every move. Her body was taken over by the beat.
When no one’s watching, Vale moves gracefully, with confidence. It’s a sight to behold. I want her to be like that when I’m there, no modesty, no hiding, and no reservations. I want all she has to give.
When she parks the Jeep, I sit there watching her from the shadows, my arm propped behind my head.
Vale’s neck is long and graceful. I can see her cute fairy-like ears because her hair is up in a clip.
She’s wearing a tight tank top with some sort of zombie on the front that stretches against her perfectly round tits.
She doesn’t seem to wear makeup or put on any pretense when it comes to the way she dresses.
She doesn’t have to. There’s nothing that can make her more beautiful.
Well, that’s not exactly true, when she’s angry or she comes, she’s even more breathtaking.
She’s unapologetically herself, but only when she’s alone.
I want her open and demanding. I want her to stand up for what she wants, even if she has to learn it by fighting with me.
I’d willingly be her scratching post. So many times, I’ve seen the way she disappears into her thoughts as if they’re the only place she’s safe. I want her to stop hiding.
“We’re here,” she says in a singsong voice, then looks up through the windshield at the sky. The headlights dim and darkness surrounds us. There’s a moment when she smiles so genuinely, it’s like I’m not here. She looks so content in the gloom.
Vale turns to look at me. I know she sees the shadows wrapping around me, trying to hide me, protect me. I can’t stop the way the darkness embraces me. I’m a predator built from the chaos of the heavens. But by some miracle, she’s not afraid.
Her body tenses when she notices me watching her. She doesn’t mind the shadows, but I make her nervous. I make her heart race. Honestly, I think she likes my darkness. I think she wants to experience it wrapped around her.
“What can I do?” I ask since she might need help setting something up.
She doesn’t answer, only bites her bottom lip nervously as if she’s lost in what she sees.
I wish I could touch her right now, but I don’t want to move in case she frightens easily.
Those shadows that embrace me have a tendency to hide my movements until I’m suddenly too close. I don’t want to scare her.
The dome light switches off and she jumps. I chuckle. “Are you afraid of the dark?” I ask, knowing she isn’t. She wouldn’t want me if she was.
“You know I’m not. I didn’t expect it, I guess.” She rolls her eyes before turning to reach for the door, embarrassment heating up her cheeks.
Vale jumps out of the car, and I take the chance to rearrange my cock.
It’s suddenly hard and throbbing because I can’t seem to help myself around her.
She’s waiting by the back door when I hop out.
After she fishes out her stuff, I hold out my arms, but she gives me this look like she’s surprised I want to help, like she doesn’t trust it.
“I got it. Show me the way.”
She hands me the blanket and a canvas tote bag, but she doesn’t trust me with the hard case in her hands. I don’t know if I should be offended that she doesn’t trust me with her telescope or not. She shuts the door and leads me up the hill a bit.
“You can lay the blanket out there. I need a minute.” She points at the ground, while she looks up at the sky.
She pulls her phone out, looking at some sort of map while I lay out the blanket that smells like her.
One minute she’s looking at the phone, the next she’s studying the sky.
She takes so long I decide to sit down and get comfortable.
I lie back with my forearm under my head.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been stargazing. I don’t remember the last time I did.
Is it strange that I don’t often look up at the sky?
Mortals and immortals are similar in this.
I think most of us are short-sighted, only seeing what’s right in front of us.
But here I am, watching the night sky and it’s so clear, the stars so bright.
Directly above me, I see a meteor chase across the sky.
“Vale, look up,” I blurt out. “It’s started.
” My eyes are wide with excitement as another darts across the sky.
She drops down to the blanket, then lies back beside me. Chin tilted, she looks up at the sky as she brings the case closer, like it’s some precious thing she wants to protect.
“That’s not the Aquariids. It’s the Perseids starting up.
You can see them all summer, all you have to do is look up.
It’s early right now. They’ll be more soon, but we’re looking that way.
” She points to the southern horizon. “It’s still a little early.
It should start in the next couple of hours,” she says as she checks her phone again.
A couple of hours? How long does she normally do this? I know I’ve caught her out there at all hours of the night, looking down into the dual eyepieces of a telescope. Sometimes she’s out there till dawn.
When the screen goes dark, she sits up and opens the case.
She turns toward the quarry, looking up every now and again.
She’s doing something in the case with a tiny screwdriver, and I wonder if she can see anything or if she’s done this so many times she remembers the steps.
The equipment breaks into two parts, and she holds a cylindrical piece in her hands for a moment.
Vale holds the small telescope up to the sky, and I think she’s trying to focus it, but it’s not the same kind as what she uses on the platform, it’s much smaller.
She’s quiet as she searches. When she finds whatever it is she’s looking for, she stops and reaches for me, tapping me on the shoulder to get my attention.
“Come here,” she whispers, waving me forward.
I sit up and scoot to her side. Her heart has sped up, but I don’t think it’s because of me. “Look through there,” she says as she hands me the telescope. “I’ll line you up. You won’t be able to see anything for a minute because of the light.”
I look through the eyepiece, but I don’t see anything, not even a star because it’s all green. I turn my head and watch her on her phone. She holds her palm out, cupping the underside of the telescope. “Are you looking?” she asks, annoyed.
I smile. “I was watching you.”
Our eyes meet and her cheeks heat. “Yeah, well, you want to get your eye on that because I’m turning the screen off. Just look.” I like her secretive smile.
I put my right eye back onto the eyepiece and close my left. The color changes as my eye adjusts.
“Do you see it?”
I’m trying to focus my overly sensitive eye because it’s wanting to focus on a single speck of dust instead of the sky, but eventually I see it.
“Is that—” I start, but then she focuses it even more. “Is that Saturn?”
I turn toward her excitedly. She nods her head, a huge grin on her face. She’s beaming like a beacon in the darkness, her smile genuinely happy.
I look back into the eyepiece. “Wow, it’s Saturn.
That’s another planet. It looks so small,” I tell her because it’s a tiny reddish dot in the sky, you can barely see the rings around it.
It almost looks like an eye actually. There’s not much detail, not anything like what Hubble sent back years ago.
There isn’t much to notice, but I can see a protrusion through another circle.
“It should look small, it’s almost a billion miles away from earth. We’re lucky to see it like this. It gets hazy here in the summer and it’s much harder to see anything.”
How have I lived so long and not seen through a telescope?
Why am I only seeing this for the first time now?
This girl makes the world new again. She makes it brighter.
I smile so big my cheeks hurt. I take one last look through the telescope, examining the ruddy color and the tiny indent of the rings.
So this is what she does all night. I think she’s searching for new worlds. I hope she finds them one day.
I sit back and catch her watching me. I like it when her eyes are on me, especially when it makes her blush. “Thank you,” I tell her. I reach for her other hand and squeeze it. “Vale, thank you, truly, for showing me. It’s amazing.”
Her smile gets bigger. Praise makes her light up like she’s never heard it before. She starts laughing.
“What is it? Tell me,” I demand.
“My friend Kat says it looks like a clitoris.” She cracks up, sitting the telescope back into the case while she laughs. “I’m sure you’ll meet her one of these days.”
I grab the telescope and find the planet quickly now that I know which direction it’s in.
I see all sorts of things in the telescope that I could look at, but I want to compare notes about Saturn.
“I think Kat’s right. Though someone isn’t doing a very good job.
” I laugh out loud at my own joke, but I notice Vale’s not laughing.
I gently sit the telescope back into the case, and she starts the process of putting it back together.
“What do you mean by that?” she asks when she’s finished. No, she’s not laughing.
I narrow my eyes on her before shaking my head. “You don’t know?”
I can’t believe it. She doesn’t. I swallow hard, and Vale looks away, embarrassed.
“Are you really so innocent?” Surely she’s touched herself before. She must understand how her own body works.
She starts to fidget with her phone, flipping it over and over in her hands. Shit. I want to be the one who teaches her everything. I want to show her what her body is capable of. I hate myself for it, but I wish I could show her right now.
“I’m sorry. I didn't mean to embarrass you. I can explain if you want me to,” I offer like an idiot. We should be chatting about the stars, planets, and whether there’s life out there. Vale should be looking through that telescope, smiling like before.
“I’m not embarrassed. I just wish—” She stops, and I can see her wheels turning like she’s trying to find the right words. “Will you show me?” she asks.
I’m unprepared for the question. Now my wheels are turning, thinking about how I’d show her. I want to touch her. I want to make her come. I want to make her come so fucking hard that she sees stars. Stars she wouldn’t need a telescope to see.
“I’m sorry,” she backtracks. “You don’t have to. It’s okay. Forget I asked.”
I get up on my knees and sit behind her.
I wrap my arms around her shoulders from behind.
She stiffens in my hold like she doesn’t understand why I’m touching her.
“Relax,” I tell her. I spread my legs around hers, then pull her back against my chest. I don’t want her to look at me when I explain.
I don’t want her to get any ideas about what we’re here to do. I can’t even if it’s what I want.
Vale leans back, her head resting on my left shoulder.
Her hair tickles my neck. She doesn’t look up at me, but she does get less tense, relaxing against my chest. “Tell me you know how an erection works,” I blurt out.
Not in a million years did I think I’d have to explain this to anyone.
“You know, how a man has to be hard to have sex with a woman?”
Vale doesn’t say a word, only nods her head.
“I’m not trying to embarrass you, but I’m hoping you’ve at least touched yourself before. You know what your clit feels like, the shape.” She nods again. I want her words. I want her to tell me what she’s done, every dirty little thing. I want to know how she touches herself.
“It’s not so different from a cock actually.
When a woman gets turned on, it grows, gets erect, whatever you want to call it.
There’s a hood that covers it when you’re not aroused, but when you get really hot and bothered, the whole thing gets engorged with blood and grows.
If you have a good partner, they’ll do everything they can to get you turned on before they ever touch your clit.
It’ll be so sensitive that it’ll push through that little hood and be exposed.
It makes it easier for a woman to orgasm. ”
Vale takes a deep breath. “Okay, so you’re saying women have lady boners. I’ve heard that before, but it didn’t make much sense. W-well . . . ” She stutters this time and tries to straighten in my arms. I hold her to me, not letting her wiggle away. “I guess I didn’t know that.”
“I find it hard to believe you didn’t know that’s what was going on when you touch yourself. Though it’s not necessarily a drastic difference. You didn’t feel it change?” I ask even though I know it’s going way too far in this little anatomy lesson.
She doesn’t say anything. She struggles to stay still in my arms. “Let me go, Oliver,” she whispers as if she’s upset. “I need a minute, please.”
I drop my arms, but not before I feel her shaking. I want to hold her again. I want to calm the storm inside her. Why did she get upset? I told her to tell me what’s going on. I wish she’d trust me.
“Vale, talk to me. I won’t judge you, but I don’t know what upset you.” I reach out for her, but she jumps up and walks closer to the quarry edge. She’s trying to get away from me.