Author's Note: This one is a small part of a much larger work I'm developing, as was one of my other stories, "The Time in Brussels". I probably won't publish the whole thing here -- too much of it is non-erotic. The character in this story is the same as in the other story, but the time is about thirty years prior.
The voice on the phone is from the past, Rob. We've been friends since before high school. Back when the Earth was cooling he was our drummer. It's been a long, long time.
"How ya doin' buddy?... Great!... Just a few days, working on a deal to sell my business."
We have a few laughs over the phone. It's amazing how time leaps back to the past and we are kids again.
We arrange to get together, but I put a condition on it: no strip clubs this time.
"Hey, it worked out pretty good for a while didn't it?" he says laughing, remembering Debbie.
I am thrown back into the time, how happy I was to be with her that year after she moved in with me, the good times, the love. When it was time for us to end it, we ended it amicably. I smile at my recollections of that time, the impossibility of our beginning. I smile as time suspends itself and the memory of the moment so many years ago ease into view.
Rob and I, we're walking into the club. The music and the darkness are a wall. Off to my right is the stage. The girl, naked, has a toned, tight body. Her ass is perfect. A fantasy forms quickly in my mind: the girl and I are standing, pressed close, kissing, I cup her ass in both hands, pull her to me, feel her respond as the kiss deepens.
But at the moment she's crawling away from us naked, on a blanket. She's moving slowly, sensuously, feline eroticism. It's enough for time to stop. Rob is talking to me, but already the girl has me entranced. I stand there and stare at her beauty.
The girl rolls onto her hip and swings a long leg high in an arc. The full pussy view, facing us now.
It's Debbie. And she's looking straight at me. I freeze.
Not three days ago, I'm at my desk, head down, writing. Jim Arsenault comes in to my office and introduces her, a grad student working with him. I've seen her around. She wants my help with her research bibliography.
She's in her late twenties, not a girl, not living inside the bubble of her own world. She is a young woman, has gained some wisdom already, has purpose now. She looks like a student, dressed down, plain. Plain, except for her hands. As she extends her hand to shake mine I notice her nails, long and manicured. The elegance seems out of place.
She's tall, lost in a bulky knit turtleneck that's big enough for two. She's wearing jeans, not tight. They're well-used, a few paint spots, a hole through one knee, the other nearly through as well. She's wearing boots, scuffed hikers with thick soles, but now I'm self-concious. Did I just give her a head-to-toe? She'll think I'm one of those.
She wears no makeup, hazel eyes sparkling at me. I see intelligence, but also her capacity for fun, for laughter, her natural way. Her face seems set into a permanent grin. That grin is just the root of her smile, a smile that blossoms, just a little crooked, enough to be distinct, interesting. Her left eye narrows almost impercetably as her full smile beams.
Her hair, dark and shining, is in a ponytail pulled through a baseball cap. The Stones logo. I notice that and it's how we start. She talks about the band, the last concert. It turns out that we both were there, our seats not that far apart either. She's confident, converses easily with me, unlike so many students who feel intimidated talking to their professors. It's refreshing to not have to go through that, to get straight to it, person to person. We engage in the conversation, familiar, informal, my new best friend. Jim dismisses us mockingly, but stays for a moment, leaning in the doorway.
Finally Debbie and I get down to business. To review her bibliography I invite her to come behind the desk so we can both see my computer terminal. I lean back to make room for her to log on in her own account. When I look up, I see that Jim has gone, so I roll my chair further away from her. Male professor, female student. Careers can be ruined.
As she bends over to reach the keyboard, her sweater rides up. I see her narrow hips, the shape of her ass, small, athletic. Her jeans have nearly worn through just below, horizontal tears . Worn white threads stretch and separate across the holes. Transparent red lace. Another image is captured in my mind: she is a different woman under those clothes. I roll my chair back a little further.
In a moment she's online. She moves away from the terminal so that I can roll forward to it. She takes her place behind my chair telling me what to navigate to in her thesis. I roll up to the keyboard, my turn now. I scroll down the entries in her biography, familiar with most of the sources, stopping here and there, asking her about a few.
She asks me to stop scrolling and leans over me toward the screen to point to a reference. Her face is beside mine, her right arm extended forward to the screen. I can feel her body pressing against the back of the chair, pushing it further into the desk.
But her left hand has landed on my neck where the collar of my shirt ends, pressing there for balance. I feel the warmth of her hand through the fabric and her fingers on my neck, skin on skin.
I'm frozen. Somehow, I haven't flinched, haven't reacted. This can't possibly be. We've known each other for less that five minutes. The door to my office is wide open, colleagues and students out in the hall. Is she aware of what she's doing? What should I do? I'm pressed right up against the desk now, trapped.
She seems unaware, as if her hand touches my neck idly, unnaturally familiar in my personal space. She is comfortable with the contact. It's as if this is normal for her, as if it's the way she is with everyone, social norms be damned. I try to relax, try to let it go, but it's impossible. I picture those long fingers, feminine, beautiful nails, curved, resting on my neck. I imagine her hand sliding up, caressing, in my hair.
She is still there, pressing against me, confident in the familiarity while I'm acutely anxious. That's it. I've got to stop this.
At that instant, before I can speak, she straightens, both her hands on the back of my chair. I rush, try to recover normalcy, try to return to my academic world so that nothing else can happen. What if there's more from her?
As if nothing has happened, we're back into her work, discussing it as peers. My mind is blocked, distracted. I am flustered, worried that I'm blushing and she'll see. I wonder if I'm babbling.
Still, she's engaged in her work. She seems to have no idea, but there is that permanent half smile on her face. I start to relax a bit. I turn away from the terminal to face her, swing my chair around. She stands above me, still too close, stands her ground and looks down at me. That grin, the smiling eyes. What is she saying?
Still talking, she steps back, relaxes, sits on the window sill. It's hard not to look at her. She is leaning back slightly, supporting herself with her arms straight at her side, hands gripping the sill. Even the thick heavy sweater can't hide her body as she leans back. One leg is straight, the other relaxed, open, revealing. Another image forms in my mind, her clothes vapourizing, fading out of view until there is only red lace, smooth skin, her tight body.
I realize I'm not making eye contact anymore and a gush of embarrassment flushes through me. When at last I meet her eyes, there is a pause, an instant of time frozen.
Her crooked smile slaps me, but playfully, mischievously. This happens to her, men look and stare. She's used to it, likes it.
Eventually she returns to the chair in front of my desk and in a few minutes we finish. She gathers her things, gives profuse thanks. She offers her beautiful hand once more, and heads for the door. My last glimpse shows her face, turned to me, smiling, an impish glint, as she disappears. She is gone.
