9. Elias
NINE
Elias
Somehow, in the last seven days, I’ve gone from “oh, this woman I’ve known my entire life has tits,” to “oh, this woman I’ve known my entire life has nice tits,” to “I’m going to massage her nice tit in my hand, suck on her neck, and then dry hump her twice.” I think that my life is falling apart, and my resolve is crumbling, has crumbled already, or maybe it’s always been like this.
Have I ever been able to say no to Mia? I think back on our lives together and realize I’ve always given her everything she’s ever wanted, that it’s a phenomenon that began with my toys.
“I want car,” two-year-old Mia would say, looking at me with her giant blue eyes. I would give her the car, and that was the end of that.
Maybe it’s so deeply ingrained in me, a learned response with almost thirty years of reinforcement, that it’s virtually pretty impossible for me to deny her anything.
Another memory pops into my head ( why does this keep happening, it’s like my life is full of flashbacks lately, forcing me to reckon with my past or some shit ), the one when Leo had just told me he was moving out, he wanted to live on his own, and Mia was there.
“My lease is ending. And I hate my roommate,” Mia said.
“So?” I asked.
“We could find a place together.”
“No, thanks,” I’d said, thinking how fucking weird it would be for my best friend’s little sister to hear my weekend shenanigans.
Three weeks later, we signed a lease on a two bedroom in Bed-Stuy. My only requirement was that our rooms were on opposite sides of the apartment.
It felt like I was on the verge of snapping. The rope that represented the last of my resolve was fraying, almost broken in two, and this last boundary felt like the last bit of twine holding the entire rope together. This was the last straw. There was no universe in which I could say yes to Mia’s request to get physical. The rope would snap in two, and then I would drown, or fall off the cliff, or whatever dangerous thing the rope was keeping me from.
I had hoped to come on strong with our last interaction, maybe scare her away, like you don’t want this; this is a terrible idea . Except Mia has apparently chosen option two, regardless of our conversation earlier, forgetting that it happened, doubling down, and becoming even fiercer than before.
“Am I doing this right?” she demands to know, shoving her phone in my face.
I take the phone regardless of the splitting headache caused by Mia, the hour and a half ride on maybe three separate trains we had to take to get to JFK, and the hour long security line.
I look at their message thread.
I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the summer.
About what, specifically?
Your voice. I like how husky it is. Like something or someone is stuck in your throat. Your smile. Your mouth, how pouty it is, how full your lips are.
We’re at the gate, waiting for our flight to start boarding. Mia is literally rocking in her seat next to me. I try not to notice, even if I know for a fact that she’s trying to get that hard part of her jeans, the one where all the seams meet in the middle, to rub in just the right place. I also try my hardest not to throw her phone on the ground and crush it underneath my shoe.
“Can I just tell him I want to put him in my mouth already?!” she shrieks.
My dick is all sorts of confused. “No!” I half-shout. I clear my throat, adjust my volume. “No, Mia. Sexting is… there’s an art. You can’t just throw all your cards out on the table. There has to be a build up. It’s like…” I cringe here, not believing I’m saying this out loud, “…actual sex. You can’t just jump right in to the main event. You have to build tension, build anticipation.” I sigh. “Also, maybe wait like five minutes before you send an answer. Don’t seem too desperate.”
She’s watching me closely as I tell her this, eyebrows furrowed, as if she’s really taking the time to hear and digest every word I’m saying, which is both the most uncomfortable and the most Mia-like thing imaginable. She nods to herself, once, thinking. She takes her phone out of my hand and… sets a timer for five minutes.
I can’t help but laugh. She smirks back, looking at me sideways.
“Have you looked at the schedule for the conference?” she asks me.
“Nope,” I tell her.
“Why not?”
“Why would I? We’re going to be in New Orleans. I wasn’t kidding when we were talking to my mom. I’ll probably just stop by one workshop, take all the handouts as proof that I’ve been there, then spend the rest of the weekend exploring the city. Have I looked for places to eat? You bet.”
Mia looks at me as if I’ve just told her I murdered a small puppy. “You…that’s… Elias, that’s so inappropriate.” Of all the things that have happened this week, this is what you find inappropriate. “Thousands of dollars of our school’s budget are going towards sending you here. To learn something. To improve our school. Not to go on a weekend vacation.”
“It’s Thomas’s fault for choosing to send me. I’m just a P.E. teacher, Mia. I’m not the one to depend on to ‘improve our school.’”
“Not with that attitude, you aren’t,” she frowns, poking me in the arm. She is silent for a moment, gears turning in her head. “I think you could really learn something, Elias. Look,” she says, pulling a giant textbook out of her backpack. “This is the ELA curriculum that Thomas is making everyone teach. It’s scripted, whole group, and test prep.” She deposits it in my lap. “What do you think is wrong with this?”
I page through it. “Well, it seems like it would be easier for teachers. They don’t have to plan anything. They can just read from the book.”
She actually hits me. “The kids, Elias, think of the kids. Why would this be bad for them?” She waits patiently when I don’t have an answer. “Think of the train kid. The one who can’t focus on anything that isn’t train-related for more than two minutes. Why would this be bad for him?”
“Well, obviously it wouldn’t work for him, but that’s one kid out of the how many hundreds?—”
“That’s my point, Elias. It’s not just one kid. It’s most, if not all of the kids. Do you know any eight-year-old that will sit in a row and not only listen, but learn, from a teacher talking at them for fifty straight minutes? Think of what you were like at eight.”
“I was feral, but I wasn’t like most kids?—”
“I think it’s safe to say that there isn’t one eight-year-old that could sit through a fifty-minute lecture,” she says firmly. “My job this weekend is to go to panels and workshops that will prove to Thomas that this scripted test prep bullshit is a bad idea. The leading minds in our field will be here, and I’ve already identified the talks that will give evidence to my point.”
“I’m so happy for you,” I deadpan.
“You should come with me. Don’t forget that we’re improving your teaching, too,” she insists.
I’m tired of saying yes to this woman. “Maybe,” I say instead. Take THAT.
“You’re coming,” she mutters under her breath, and I already know I am.
The timer on her phone goes off. She pulls it out and types a message, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. I look away. She elbows me in the side, tilting her phone towards me.
I can’t stop thinking about your mouth, either.
“That good?” she asks.
I nod, eyebrows raised, actually pretty impressed. She left room for only one kind of answer. I know exactly what I’d say back to that. I wonder vaguely if this Adam kid’s game is as good as mine.
Mia hits “send” and puts her phone in her bag, before it dings again. We read it together, the hair on our arms brushing.
About what, specifically?
I smirk. Touché, asshole .
Mia, on the other hand, is so turned on that I can practically feel the waves of pheromones she’s giving off.
“I know what to say back,” she says, a little breathless.
“Don’t say it yet,” I garble at her. “Wait until we’re just about to take off.”
Mia tilts her phone towards me as our plane taxis towards the runway.
About how good it would look wrapped around my tits.
I give her a curt nod, adjust my confused boner, and pretend to take a nap.
We’re in a cab on the way to the hotel, and the two of us are so fucking wound up that I think our taxi driver can taste it. He blasts the news he has playing on his radio, which works for me, so I don’t have to hear Mia’s fucking breathing or listen to the seat under her creaking with her squirming anymore. I look out the window while Mia types furiously on her phone. She’s long since stopped showing me her texts.
“Don’t forget to take it slow, Mia. Make it last. Build tension,” I can’t help but tell her.
“Oh, the tension is built, all right,” I think I hear her mumble. But she puts her phone away.
We pull up to our hotel, one of those massive chain ones close to the river. Luckily for Mia, the hotel is a short walk from the convention center, so she won’t have to go very far to get to her sessions. Luckily for me, it’s a short walk to the French Quarter. Actually, the hotel is pretty equidistant between the two.
I’m ready to check in, drop my bag, and jog to the French Quarter. I need a drink. Maybe three.
We march to the check-in desk.
“Last name?” the woman at the front desk asks me impatiently.
“Oh, we’re not together,” Mia says quickly. “We’re coworkers. So two separate last names. Mine is Roberts.”
The woman’s tune changes real fast after that. She smiles at me, blinking her fake eyelashes so hard I’m afraid they might fall off. “And yours?” she purrs.
I flash her the Dimple, mostly by force of habit. “Miller,” I say simply. I look down at her name tag. “Thanks for all your help tonight, Stacy.”
Mia frowns at the woman, who can’t stop giggling or flicking her eyes back and forth between me and the screen.
The computer’s light on the woman’s face flashes, indicating a new screen. Her smile freezes. “You two are booked for the same room, it seems.”
I want to die, but Mia doesn’t seem surprised. She shrugs. “One way for Lina to save money. We work for a public elementary school, Elias, not a Fortune 500.”
“Also, I have bad news,” the front desk lady grimaces.
“If you fucking tell me that there is only one bed?—”
Mia shoots me a look, and the lady laughs. “Oh no, we couldn’t have that,” she says. Mia then shoots her a look. “The room has two double beds. However, the water heater for the building seems to be down. We anticipate it to be up and running by tomorrow morning, but I’m afraid there are only cold showers tonight. We’ll discount the price of the room tonight, of course. You’ll see a refund reflected?—”
I tune her out then, relief flooding my body down to my toes. Cold showers are probably for the best.
The woman hands us two separate key cards, smirking at me when she hands me mine. On our walk to the elevator, I notice she’s written her number on the envelope holding the card. Mia glances over to see what I’m looking at.
“It’s just that fucking simple for you,” she says plainly, once the elevator doors close.
I shrug. It usually is.
“Unbelievable,” she mutters, shaking her head.
I don’t tell her it could be that easy for her, too.
We finally get to our room, and it is indeed two separate beds. I throw my bags on the furthest one from the door, which leaves Mia the bed directly in front of the door. Mia gently places her luggage on the floor. She pulls out her phone, climbs into bed, and starts messing with her phone.
“Well, I’m going out,” I tell her, teeth clenched.
She looks up at me, pupils dilated. I need to get out of here. “It’s already ten o’clock,” she says. “Our first session tomorrow is at eight a.m.”
“Cool,” I say, already halfway out the door. “See you then.”
I’m almost to Bourbon Street when I realize I left my wallet in the hotel room. I almost scream. I wonder how strict Bourbon Street bars are about ID’ing. Maybe if there was a woman checking IDs…
Not worth the risk. I may as well turn around now.
Ten minutes later, I’m walking back into the lobby. I wink at Stacy as I pass the front desk, her dark eyes following me all the way to the elevator. When the elevator doors shut, I fiddle with my phone, killing time and anxiety by finding a low-key bar to grab a beer at. An Abita on tap sounds nice. There is a bar that the GPS says is a sixteen minute walk away, which means eleven minutes in New York pace. The elevator doors open, and I power walk to the room, pulling my key card out of my pocket and unlocking the door.
And then, I think I go into cardiac arrest. In fact, my hand flies to my neck to check for an arrhythmia. Because, for the split second it takes before Mia scrambles to the bathroom, shrieking and slamming the door shut, it’s as if I pull back the curtains to my own personal porn set.
My brain scrambles for less than half of that split second. Vaguely, as separate entities, I note hair , tits , waist , pussy . Thankfully, my brain decides to get its shit together before the split second is over, and I can combine all those rogue thoughts together and fully take in what I’m looking at as one jaw-dropping, gorgeous entity. And I know on a bone-deep level that this image will be burned into my retinas for the rest of my life.
Mia had been facing the door. Her phone was propped up on its Pop Socket in front of her. Her mouth was slack, half open, lips red and swollen, as if she’d been biting at them. Her long blonde hair was teased, messy, and casually flipped over to one side. Her shoulders were pulled back, one hand resting on the bed behind her, her tits pushed out, small, rosy nipples tight and hard. The curves of her waist dipped in before flaring out at her hips, the smooth expanse of her flat stomach pulled tight between them. She was kneeling, kind of, at least her knees were bent, but her ass was resting on her feet. Her knees were spread wide, and because she was leaning back on one hand, I was greeted by a full view of the fat lips of her pink pussy. It was bare, letting me see exactly how wet she was. And she was very, very wet.
This is the sight that greeted me in the split second before Mia screamed and ran into the bathroom.
I look at the empty bed for a moment, unable to breathe or move. In a daze, I realize she left her phone. I don’t go straight to her recent photos. Instead, I read back through her and Adam’s text thread.
What are your nipples like? What should I imagine when I’m touching myself, thinking of sucking them? Are they pink, like the flush on your neck?
Mia’s next text to him was still in draft, a photo that has not been sent yet. I open the photo, because I’m sick, and I’m greeted with the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen, although somewhat paling in comparison to the real thing. My mouth waters. Should I send this to myself? the evil half of my brain thinks for a second. In an epic show of restraint, I don’t, thank you very much. But then I get… angry.
I delete the photo from the message thread. I go into her recent photos, and delete all the ones taken in the twenty or so minutes I’ve been gone from this room. I throw her phone back on the bed and walk towards the bathroom.
I don’t recognize my voice when I speak to her through the door. “This isn’t taking it slow, Mia. This isn’t building tension. Don’t you dare show him that pussy yet—” because now that I’ve seen it, it belongs to me , I don’t add. I take a deep breath. “I’m going down to the hotel bar for ten minutes to let you collect yourself. Then we’re going to bed.”
I don’t know what I mean by that, but I walk out of the room, anyway.