30
KING
??------??
Looking over at her, watching her absolutely stew in the awkwardness of it, just fills my heart with joy. She's undeniably cute wearing her little helper pin. My heart is happy that she decided to give this a chance. Can't blame me for teasing her a little bit.
I poke fun at her the whole way to her apartment. When I park the truck, we go up to the apartment together. I take a short restroom break, wash my hands, and come back out to the living room.
She hands me a glass of water. “Look at my little usher. You're so good at it, you're even doing it out of church,” I tell her with a sly smile.
She shakes her head at my poking fun, then gives me a soft smile. “Well… one really good thing about it… probably the best thing… is that you're there.”
My smile instantly drops as my stomach fills with fluttering sensations. My face becomes really flushed.
“I like seeing you there too. Even if you don't believe,” I tell her.
It's clear from her face, how her gold eyes are shining, her teeth nice and white beaming for me, that she's happy.
“Thank you, King. I don't want you to think I'm ungrateful. I don't like it but… I am grateful to you. You're my hero.”
Erica tilts her head as her eyes sparkle. My face gets even hotter, but not for that reason.
“Don't say that to me,” I tell her, backing up slowly and looking off to my right.
She steps closer. “What, that you're my hero?”
“I'm not a hero. It makes me sick when people say that.”
Erica's expression becomes one of concerned curiosity. “Why?”
From the back of my mind there's loud music echoing, and my head starts pounding.
I flinch as Erica suddenly yells my name really loudly.
Looking at her, I'm confused as to why she's screaming at me. “Hey, where did you go just now?” her words come out laced with anxiety.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You spaced out. I was calling you like I was tapping your chest and everything and you wouldn't answer.”
I swallow and feel pale. “I don't know.”
Erica looks at me weird.
“Come sit here,” she says.
“I'm fine.”
“No, come sit. I worry about you too.”
“You don't have to worry about me.”
“No, don't tell me that. Just like you worry about me, I worry about you.”
As I sit to her left on the couch, Erica folds her legs up, knees pointed in my direction. She shifts onto her left side, resting her left thigh against the cushion, and starts gently petting my hair with slow, soothing strokes.
Immediately I take her hand and move it off my head. “Stop doing that.”
“Why?” she asks.
“It's not appropriate,” I answer.
She shoots me a playful look. “We've already done things that are not appropriate, King.”
“We shouldn't keep doing them. I've asked for forgiveness and you should too.”
“What's wrong with a kiss ?” she presses.
“It leads to other things,” I answer.
She seems to wear a dreamy expression, looking at the TV with its volume turned all the way down. “I miss kissing.”
My head slowly pivots to the right. “You were just doing it,” I remind her.
“What do you mean?”
“A few days ago with some random person.”
The thought makes me really angry. Her mouth was on a stranger. Just some random person.
She laughs.
“It's not funny,” I say flatly, rolling my eyes.
She leans in a little bit more to the right, teasingly. “Why are you getting that mad over a stranger kissing me?”
“Because it's wrong and it's loose and sinful behavior. Those people… you shouldn't be hanging out with them.”
Everything is a joke with her. Can't she see that I'm trying to protect her?
“You make me paranoid that something's going to happen to you because you're not aware of your surroundings or people,” I tell her with a twinge of anger in my voice.
She just looks at me, left arm around the back of the couch. Then she breathes in deeply.
“You told me I was on goop. What the hell is that? I didn't process it at the time.”
“Acid,” I answer.
“How do you know that?”
“The doctor,” I reply.
She squints at me suspiciously. “Yeah… but the name for it. Did you do acid?”
Facing her again, I say, “You know you can get a lot of knowledge on the internet, right?” When she doesn't answer, I return my eyes to the quiet television. “And I've seen people on it. Downers make you act like that and there's only so many.”
Erica smiles.
When she's quiet, I look back over at her and my attention immediately catches her lips as she's licking them slowly.
I can't stop looking at them.
The tip of her tongue drags very slowly from left to right along the edge of her top teeth and then back to the other side.
My throat feels tight. My pants twitch and when I catch that I'm staring, I take a deep breath. “I should go,” I say quickly, sitting forward off the back of the couch.
“Give me a kiss first,” she teases with a bright grin.
“No.”
“Kissing you was one of the highlights of my life and I'd like to feel that again,” she nudges.
There it goes. Erection. And it's growing fast.
Lord please help me to deny… Lord… what do I want to say? Help me to… rebuke this temptation.
My thoughts are interrupted when I feel a kiss to the right side of my face.
Looking over to my right, I just glare at her. Erica folds in her lips trying to fight a smile, her gold eyes glistening, batting her eyes almost comically.
“All right, how about you just hug me then?” she teases.
My face never changes. Or at least I don't think it does. “I got to go,” I say, rolling my eyes as I get up and walk toward the apartment door, slipping my feet into my shoes.
Looking behind me… is something I shouldn't have done.
Erica is still on the couch staring at me.
The thing is… I want to hold her.
In this moment, just like several times throughout my day every day, I get vivid flashbacks of me touching her vagina and her coming and me coming in her hand.
She's right. We've done worse.
Hugging someone shouldn't be that bad and I have discipline. I hug people at church all the time. It's illogical to be paranoid of a hug because nothing will happen unless I let it.