4. Unforgettable
Nine Years Ago…
I sat at the local college bar with Nikki, our Long Island Iced Teas with long straws sat on the countertop in front of us. The music pounded throughout the bar since it was more of a club than a pub, so drinks and dancing were the most popular things to do there. A conversation could only be held either outside with the smokers or at the one part of the bar perfectly positioned away from the speakers. Nikki, having heard me say the magic words, “We broke up,” had dragged me to the bar and forced her way to the pair of choice seats we then held.
She took a deep drink, then turned to me with a look of practiced commiseration. “Tell me everything.”
“I was just tired of it, you know? He’s so pretentious, and he’s not even smart enough to be as pretentious as he pretends to be!”
“You’re not upset about the breakup?”
“No. I dumped him. I’m ecstatic it’s over.”
“Oh thank god, I don’t have to pretend to be sad with you,” sighed Nikki as she took another gulp of her drink. She signaled to the bartender to grab another round.
“He was always talking over me or saying that I was wrong about the shit that I was studying. If I had known what a chauvinist pig he was at the beginning, I never would have dated him. But he’s…”
“I know,” she groaned.
“He’s so goddamn pretty, you know?”
“He’s the biggest asshole, but I wouldn’t mind it if he threw me a bone once. But I would make a point to tell him how I am strictly using him for his body and that I will never speak to him again afterward.”
“Not sure that would have the impact you’re going for,” I said. “And he was pretty good at sex. At least when he wasn’t practically demanding a blowjob.”
“Well then, here’s to you,” she said and raised her glass. “Congrats on dropping the dead weight just before graduation! Huzzah!”
I clinked glasses with her and gladly took a long, slow pull of the sweet and strong drink. “Huzzah!” I repeated.
“Now you’re free to pursue what and who you really want.” She grinned at me so happily, then her eyes darted over my shoulder and her eyes lit up. “And perhaps sooner than you think.”
“What are you talking about?” She gestured behind me, waving wildly at whoever she’d seen. When I turned, there was Jason quickly closing the distance between us. I turned back to Nikki and practically hissed at her, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Just call me Cupid.”
“I’m going to call you stupid. He’s with Annie, they’re practically married.”
“But not yet. No legal documents have been signed.”
“Like that makes it better?”
“Hey guys,” said Jason at my side.
“Hey, what are you doing at the bar alone?” said Nikki.
“You don’t know he’s alone,” I said.
“Oh, I am alone. Just felt like getting a drink, see if anyone I knew was here, and here you are.”
“What a crazy coincidence,” drawled Nikki, her mischievous eyes on me.
“So what are you both doing here? Blowing off steam? Finals are coming up soon.”
“No, we’re celebrating our dear Gemma’s freedom!”
“Freedom from what?” he asked.
Nikki’s manic grin pointed at me, and she waited. Finally, I said, “I broke up with Paxton.”
“That theater guy?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. When did that happen?”
“Tuesday. And you don’t have to be sorry. I broke up with him because he is the literal worst.”
“Oh, well then congratulations, I guess.” He smiled at me and I felt my toes curl ever so slightly.
“Why didn’t Annie come with you tonight?” asked Nikki. “Is she out with the sorority this weekend?”
“No idea,” he said. “She dumped me three weeks ago.”
Nikki’s practiced expression appeared again. “Oh, no! What happened?”
He shrugged. “She said I was boring. I’m too bookish and not adventurous enough for her ‘wild spirit.’ So she said she was going off to find happiness and I haven’t seen her since.”
“She called you boring?” I shouted. “That’s insane!”
“No, I mean, she’s kind of right. I’m either reading or I’m writing. I never took her to a concert, and she doesn’t like theater. I don’t know. I’m not even sure what kind of adventures she wanted.”
“You’re a college student with a job. What more can she expect? Hell, the occasional movie is about all you can really afford both money and time for.”
His smile withered a little. “We could never really agree on what films to see.”
“Sounds to me,” said Nikki, “like you’re better off finding someone else. Perhaps with some shared interests?” Her gaze flicked back to me briefly.
He shrugged again. “Maybe I just stay single for a while. Who wants to start a new relationship right before graduation, right?”
“You have a point. Unless you’re sure you’ll be able to stay in contact or make time to see each other, it’s just not practical,” I said.
“True,” said Nikki. “But sometimes the fates are against you. If something happens, who are you to close the door on something truly exceptional?”
“Jesus, Nik,” I muttered.
We sat and talked about classes, some articles we were thinking of running in the paper in the upcoming week, and had a few more drinks. Nikki kept ordering them, and I didn’t even realize she was doing it until I was filled with enough liquid courage to do something I never would have done otherwise. A song that had a decent beat thumped through the air, and I saw Jason bobbing his head a little.
“You wanna dance?” I asked.
In my periphery, Nikki froze.
Jason’s lips turned up into a little half-smile. “Sure.”
Out on the dance floor, the crowd was filled with students who hadn’t yet learned restraint when it came to alcohol, so they flailed sloppily in all directions. As I led Jason to a spot that seemed less prone to potential wild limbs invading our space, I wondered how this would go. We faced each other and started bouncing on the balls of our feet. I did my best to mimic the basics I’d seen other less inebriated people do: sway the hips, occasionally lift the arms, shift weight between the feet to the rhythm. I wasn’t a good dancer by any stretch, but it wasn’t like there were any specific dance moves anymore. No one went to a club to do the foxtrot or swing dance. It was all just gyrating to a beat.
As the music went on, I found I didn’t have to concentrate so hard on the movements. I looked up into Jason’s face and found him staring at me as we moved to the music. I wasn’t going to get another chance like this—it was too perfect. The music transitioned from one upbeat song to a slightly slower melody. My hands were still up above my head, so as I lowered them, I let my left hand rest upon his shoulder. In a heartbeat, his hands were at my waist, pulling me closer. I let the moment take me. My hands slid up his broad shoulders to the back of his neck, fingers teased at the edges of his shaggy hair. When our lips met, I felt a shock-wave rush through me, as if I was penetrated behind my navel by some ephemeral force that burst outward as soon as contact was made. I expected his arms to wrap around me, but instead they never moved, hands on my waist, fingertips pressed firmly into my soft flesh.
I only cared that he was touching me, his hands, his lips, it didn’t matter where. I’d been fantasizing about kissing Jason since a few weeks after our first meeting in an English class freshman year. We were seated next to each other and assigned to swap our short story assignments with each other to give feedback. I was floored by his vocabulary and the imagery he used to convey his plot, even if it was fairly formulaic. When he handed back my story, he seemed genuinely enthusiastic to read more of my work, and asked if I was interested in applying to the school paper with him. I agreed without even thinking twice.
That was the first time he smiled at me with his whole face, and his earnest warmth toward me was infectious. Spending time around him in class, working at the paper, even in passing, was uplifting. He was always curious to know what I was writing at the moment, eager to offer assistance with any blocks I had. His reassurance was refreshing, something foreign and fascinating.
I had been writing privately for so long, hesitant to share my stories with anyone for fear of them judging me or hating what I’d written. A teacher in middle school had called my parents to advise I be evaluated for something he’d found me writing during a study period, something that was taken out of context. Mortified and unable to speak for myself, I retreated inward and made sure to keep my stories out of sight. Nikki had always encouraged me to share more, but I had been scarred. With Jason, it was different. It was different because he was a writer like me, and he understood.
Since then, he’d remained a close friend, but only because we were always in relationships with other people. But there we were in the bar, both single at the same time, and I could not tear my lips from his. I stood on the balls of my feet, leaned into his warm chest, and thought, I could kiss these lips forever.
And then the world lurched violently to the side.
A group of very drunk students got carried away in the music and toppled into and over us, shoving us sideways into a high-top table at the edge of the dance floor. This could not have been the first time such an event had happened, because the table had been securely fastened to the floor to prevent it from crashing down. It would have bruised my ribs less if it had simply tipped over like any old table.
“Are you okay?” Jason shouted over the speakers. I nodded, clutching my side. “Do you want to get out of here?” he asked and gently took my arm to steady me.
My heart fluttered in my chest. “Yes, please,” I bellowed back. We swung by the bar to grab my purse and tell Nikki we were leaving. She flashed me a not-so-discreet wink, then turned back to the frat boy that was leaning over her.
I was suddenly overjoyed that we lived in the same building—he lived on the third floor, while Nikki and I lived on the sixth—and that it wasn’t very far from the bar. He held my hand from the moment we stepped into the brisk evening air all the way to when he opened his suite door for me. His room, like nearly all rooms in the building, consisted of a shared living space that joined a bathroom and two bedrooms, and each bedroom was shared by two students. The suites were coveted by many of the university’s students simply for the private bathroom and the living room for entertaining. It was rare for anyone younger than a junior to get a spot there, since upperclassmen received priority housing across the board. Rarer still were those to get a spot and not need the room at all.
“I don’t want to wake any of your suitemates,” I said.
“Don’t worry about that. The two in that room happen to be from the next town over, so they usually spend weekends at home. I don’t really know why they even bothered getting on-campus housing at all if they weren’t going to use it.”
“Oh. And your roommate?”
“I thought I told you this,” he said, amused. “Last semester, he claimed to meet the love of his life who has one of those high end apartments at the edge of campus. When I got back from winter break, all his stuff was gone, so this entire suite is basically mine.”
I hesitated as it sunk in that Jason had a four person suite to himself. It was unheard of. “You basically won the housing lottery,” I breathed.
He laughed a deep, warm chuckle. “Yeah.”
It was surprisingly likely that I could spend the entirety of the rest of that weekend with him in that room, and no one would bother us. My heart raced at the thought. Jason unlocked his bedroom door and turned on the light. The rooms all came equipped with two beds and two desks, all the same dimensions to allow for either bunking or lofting the beds. In my own room, Nikki and I chose to loft our beds over our own desks, allowing for the most possible floor space. Jason didn’t have to worry about that, so instead, he’d somehow lofted one of the desks over the other, then pushed both beds together to create a makeshift California king.
“Tada,” he said in a slightly joking tone.
“My god, I didn’t know something like this would even work.”
“Eh, it kinda does. There’s a lip that holds the mattresses in place, so it creates a bit of a gap in the middle. But I’ve made sure the two frames don’t slide apart, so it’s not so bad once you get used to it.”
I looked at him, the heat risen in my cheeks. “Used to it, eh?”
He was taken aback. “Oh no, I didn’t mean—”
“Relax, it’s fine,” I said with a smile. “I’m just messing with you.”
I walked past him into the bedroom, slipped off my shoes, hooked my purse over his desk chair and sat on the edge of the bed. He shut the door behind him and joined me, awkwardly. “So, what now?” he asked with a nervous laugh.
“I really like you,” I said quickly. “And I think you like me, too. But it’s the first time both of us have been single at the same time since we first met. So even though we know each other well enough, it somehow makes this moment more nerve-wracking than it has to be.”
“Right. And neither of us has been single for very long.”
“Exactly.”
“It hasn’t even been a full week for you yet.”
“And I kind of don’t care.” He seemed surprised with my cavalier attitude. “I’m not ashamed of it. I like you. I’ve liked you for a while. And I really want you.”
He was quiet for a moment, and my pulse rang in my ears. “I don’t even know why I brought you here, to be honest. My intention was to bring you back to your room, but habit just drew me here.”
“Oh,” I said, defeated. I’d really thought there was something there. His kiss had been so intense, so stirring, that I thought he felt the same. “No harm, then. I’ll see you on Monday,” and I stood to grab my purse.
“Wait, that’s not what I mean,” he blurted and stood up behind me. “I’m not usually this nervous, I’m sorry. I wanted to be a gentleman tonight, is all I meant. One kiss, and here we are in my bedroom. It feels like rushing.”
I almost laughed when I faced him. “We’ve known each other four years.”
“And we’ve been drinking for hours. I don’t want you to feel like I took advantage.”
“Jason,” I said carefully, as I drew closer to him. “I want you. Do you want me?”
His dark blue eyes leveled me with their ferocity. He reached out, took me by the waist as he’d done at the bar, and pulled me so that our torsos were pressed together. “Yeah, I want you.”
The low timbre of his voice lit the fires of my insides. My arms wrapped around his shoulders, and I felt the electricity of anticipation course through my veins. “Take me,” I breathed.
His mouth twisted over mine, arms snaked around my middle, and he lifted me off my feet. Instinctively, I wrapped my legs around his waist, pleased to feel his excitement growing between us as my own echoed with yearning pulses. He laid me gently on the bed and began to snap open the buttons of my shirt. His deft writer’s fingers flitted over my soft flesh as he went. My entire body sang with lust, every twitch of his tongue over mine, the heat of his breath on my skin filled me to bursting with desire for him.
My shirt opened, his hand drifted to squeeze my right breast still in the cup of my bra. His lips trailed down my neck and over the now exposed skin of my shoulder. I grabbed the bottom of his shirt and started to pull it over his head. When he sat up to finish the job, I also sat up. “Take everything off,” I said, breathless. I jumped out of the bed and stripped down as he flung his clothes to the opposite side of the room. As I struggled with my slim-cut jeans—why did they have to be so tight?—he grabbed a condom from a drawer.
Finally naked, I took in Jason’s form. I was surprised. With his clothes on, he appeared lightly pudgy, but in truth he was tightly packed. He wasn’t athletic by any means—no rippling muscles as seen on many a bodice-ripper—but his shape was pleasing. His backside was tight and slim, like two cheese wheels pressed together. When he turned back to me, also fully naked, I watched in amusement as he slowly raked his gaze from top to toes.
“Can I just say for the record, I’m glad you broke up with what’s his name?”
“Me too,” I said, and lunged for him.
Our mouths locked together, I pushed him onto his back on the bed and straddled him. I lowered down onto his stiff member, my breath catching in my throat briefly, and then let out a pleasured sigh. “Oh, god,” he breathed, and squeezed my hips. I moved over him slowly at first, rhythmically, relishing his touch, his hitched breaths, but everything inside me urged to go further, faster, fiercer. The exquisite bliss that each movement spurred through me seemed to pulse in echoes through my flesh.
My voice oozed like honey from my lips in low, soft moans as every wave of pleasure coursed through and over me. I shifted upright above him, my hips rocking over his faster and faster, my hands pressed down on his chest. He pressed his palms into the soft flesh of my thighs, my buttocks, stroked long lines up my stomach and chest, and without thinking, I pulled one of his fingertips into my mouth. I ran my tongue over the ridges of his fingerprint, circled the girth of his finger.
Suddenly, he sat up, one arm tightly clutched around my hips, guiding my movement. We moved together steadily, like a machine churning away, gathering speed with each union and separation. I pulled his face to my neck. His lips traced the soft space above my collarbone, the length of my throat. “Oh, god,” he grunted again.
“Oh, fuck,” I replied, breath ragged. I hovered on the precipice of pure ecstasy. My voice, no longer like honey, burst from me in short, explosive cries of reckless abandon. I wanted this moment to last. I wanted to draw this thrill out for as long as possible, but every thrust of his body into mine drove me past thought into a realm of sensory overload. I was no longer in control of my body, it moved of its own will, its own desire for ultimate bliss. “Oh, god, yes!”
Four years of dancing around our own desires for each other culminated in this moment. My head fell back, hair cascaded down my shoulders in waves. Jason held my hips and back in place to keep me from tipping backward. I felt him strain with each thrust into me, unable to hold back for too much longer, his exhales labored and guttural. His grip on my hips tightened. Forehead pressed to my chest, his grunts resonated through my core. With gritted teeth, he let out a savage cry of release. His body shivered against me, and the bliss began to ebb away.
We rocked a few times more, but he was spent. We collapsed onto the bed, and he kissed me sweetly.
The following morning, late, I woke when I felt him roll up against me and run his lips over my bare shoulder. “Hey,” I said, unable to wipe the smile from my face.
“Hey. I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of fiending some breakfast. Care to join me?”
“Sure. Mind if I shower first?”
“No problem.”
I was on a high. I had fantasized about spending one night with Jason for so long, to finally have it was like nothing I could have imagined. I took my clothes, purse, and shoes into the bathroom, determined to make myself appear less like the girl who was wearing last night’s clothes, and to clean off some mud I had apparently trudged through without noticing the night before. I scrubbed the shoes first and left them to dry on the counter while I showered.
Finally fresh and clean, redressed in my outfit I’d arrived in, I wrapped the fresh towel Jason had given me around my head and stepped out. Only there was suddenly a new person in the room.
“Gemma?” she said, surprised.
I jumped, not expecting her to be there. Annie stood at Jason’s bedroom door, her blonde hair perfectly pulled up into a ballerina’s bun, makeup pristine and understated, and dressed in typical conservative sorority girl chic—a white-collared shirt under a soft lavender sweater, slim jeans, and flat-soled boots that rose to the middle of her shins. I imagined that the two of us standing next to each other was a stark contrast from my unkempt hair down to my comfy sneakers that I wore nearly every day.
“Oh, hey, Annie. How’s it going?”
“What are you doing here? In Jason’s shower?”
Jason opened his bedroom door and stopped cold. “What—? Annie?”
“Jason,” she said curtly, “what is Gemma doing using your shower this morning?”
Confusion had taken hold of him and prevented him from uttering a sound. He stood, frozen, face screwed up in bewilderment, seemingly incapable of comprehending the situation he found before him.
“My shower broke yesterday,” I said, saving him. “Nikki was lucky enough to have taken the last good shower up there before it just went kaput. You know maintenance doesn’t work on the weekends, so Jason was kind enough to let me use his.” I told myself that Jason’s sex life—even if it included me—was not mine to share with his ex. I turned back to the bathroom and hung the damp towel on the hook by the door, grabbing my shoes and purse at the same time. “Thanks again,” I said, and turned to leave.
“Wait, hold on,” said Jason.
“See you Monday,” I shouted, and made a beeline for the stairs.
* * *
Present Day…
I lie flat on my back on my bed, legs hung off the edge carelessly, at least three Mai Tais gone while Nikki was propped up on her elbows above me, braiding my hair.
“I buried it so deep,” I breathed. “It was such a big deal!”
“Huge,” she agreed. “And when we had lunch in the dining hall that afternoon and you saw them walk in together, her hanging on his arm, you were devastated.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Devastated,” she repeated. “But I’ll be honest, I don’t know why he got back with her after your night together. The way you described it to me, it was earth shattering.”
“Maybe the feeling wasn’t mutual,” I sighed. “I mean, I didn’t orgasm or anything, but it was still some of the best sex I’d had at the time.” I propped myself up on my elbow and leaned over to face her. “Maybe I was too aggressive? Like I came on too strong?”
“Oh no,” said Nikki, getting to her feet with only a slight wobble. “I will not have you retroactively over analyze something that was clearly his mistake. Something you already tried to do, and I was not having it then, either.”
“Well wait, there’s always two sides to a story.”
“Nope. I heard someone on TV say that’s not true. Sometimes there’s three or four, and sometimes there’s only one. This is the case of there being only one side.”
“That’s bullshit, and even drunk Nikki knows that.”
“I am standing my ground on this. You two were so hot for each other for so long, and then it all explodes in one fantastic fuck… and then he goes back to the bitch who dumped him for being ‘too boring?’ That is some grade A sheisty snake oil, my friend.”
“I wish I was recording you right now. This would make a great viral video,” I mused and we plopped back onto the bed.
Nikki sighed in agreement. “Yeah, drunk Nikki is like a vulgar motivational speaker.”
“Empowering, but at what cost?”
“Don’t be a douche! Go out into the world and fuck with purpose!” she shouted. Then, with a giggle, she leaned up and said, “But always fuck responsibly.”