Several pictures of her were tucked into the sides of the mirror over his dresser. Most were school pictures, and one was of the two of them together, their arms wrapped around each other, both of them smiling at the camera. My hand, holding the brush that I had picked up from amidst the clutter on his dresser, stopped in mid-air as I peered at those pictures.
I glanced from her to my own reflection in the mirror, unable to help the mental comparisons. She was blonde and blue-eyed, petite and quite pretty. I was pretty in an unusual way, pretty in the right light, the right clothes, the right make-up, but I knew that I didn't possess that fresh, natural beauty anymore. That was gone—it had passed away somewhere between college frat parties and establishing my first 401K.
A heavy, sodden dullness settled somewhere in the pit of my stomach as I glanced from her picture to my naked reflection in the mirror, and then to Del, who was behind me, hauling up his jeans and cramming in the tails of his shirt.
"I've gotta shave," he said, moving to look over my shoulder. The mirror revealed him rubbing his cheek. He had a shock of light blonde hair that always seemed in need of cutting or combing, eyes like clear blue glass, and he moved with a slim, languid, muscled grace that still made me turn to watch him as he walked away.
He had a durably boyish face, but he was only eighteen. His features would change somewhat by the time he was my age—but I knew his eyes wouldn't change. His eyes were the thing that attracted me the most; there was some sort of reserve there that I still couldn't place.
"What do you think?" he asked me, pushing his bottom lip forward in thought and studying his face in the mirror. "Should I grow a beard?"
"If you want," I replied, finding my voice. I hadn't thought I could speak through whatever seemed congealed in my throat.
"I could leave the stubble," he said, wrapping his arms around my waist from behind and rubbing his cheek against my neck. I shrank away a little from the feeling, smiling indulgently. I loved the feel of his clothed body against my bare skin.
"Yuk." I wrinkled my nose, turning in his arms, away from the mirror and the pictures of his girlfriend.
"Okay," he agreed with a little smile. "Want to come watch me shave?"
"Do we have time?" I asked, putting my arms around his neck and beginning to brush the back of his hair.
"My mom won't be home 'til after three," he said, glancing at the clock over the bed that we'd just vacated.
"Okay," I said, pulling out of his arms and putting the brush back down on his dresser. I reached for my t-shirt. "Let me put something on."
"Nuh-uh," he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me in to him. He kissed my shoulder, my neck, nibbling on my earlobe. "Stay like this."
I raised my eyebrows at him, but just smiled when he took my hand and I followed his lead out of his room and down the long hallway to the bathroom. I loved his bathroom, and the bathtub most of all. It was a marble sunken thing that I'd been dying to soak in since I'd seen it three months ago, when Del and I had first started coming to his house on Saturdays when no one was home. I still hadn't had the chance and I didn't know if I would. Maybe there would be time this summer, if his parents went out of town for some reason before I went back to teaching in Japan in the fall.
I slid up on the counter and watched him take out his razor, the shaving cream, and a towel. I loved to watch him shave, to see him leaning over the sink to look into the wall-to-wall mirror, long-legged and slender, razor poised in mid-air. It was such a masculine thing, shaving, there was something about sharing it that made me more of a part of his world somehow.
I watched him lather his face and thought of the picture in his bedroom of him and Tracy. I remembered her arm around him in such a casual air of ownership. It bothered me. What bothered me more was the absence of my own picture in that mirror.
I think this was the first time I realized what they meant. They held the sweet promise of a future, something he and I didn't have. It was a foregone conclusion that the relationship would be over when I went back to Japan and he started college in the fall.
So, what did I expect? I knew when we had started seeing each other that I was going to be the "other woman." I knew it all along. He didn't lie to me. There was no future for us, there was only right now.
I realized that he was looking at me, half-shaved, razor poised, giving my face a long and interested search.
"Should I ask?" He raised one eyebrow in my direction. I loved that.
"Ask what?"
"What you're so lost in thought about." He put the razor back to his face and looked back in the mirror. "You're usually chatting a mile a minute when you watch me shave."
I just shrugged, planting an elbow on my knee and resting my chin on my cupped hand, my eyes following the razor's path, my mind wandering. I hadn't planned on getting involved. I was home to take care of some things with my parents' estate, just for a few months. I hadn't planned on meeting someone, let alone some high school kid fifteen years my junior.
But Del wasn't like most eighteen year olds, and I had found myself drawn to him, trusting him in ways I knew I shouldn't. Things had happened as naturally as breathing. He had seeped into my life, filling the cracks, dulling the cutting edge of my loneliness back here where things were so familiar but I didn't know anyone anymore. I hadn't planned any of it, but how could you plan to fill a void that you didn't even know existed?
"Are you going to see her tomorrow?" I asked, slanting him the question.
He hesitated and I wondered if he was going to play dumb. He didn't, but, as usual, he didn't give me a straight answer either. "You have a beautiful cunt, you know that?" he asked. His eyes fell to the triangle between my legs.
"Thank you." I smiled, knowing he was trying to distract me, and I let him. I put my feet up on the counter, opening my thighs, giving him a better view. "So are you going to see her?"
"Samantha." He said my name with a sigh. I didn't reply but just watched him instead.
"I might," he said, raking the razor over the few spots he had missed. I waited. "Probably."
More silence as he wiped his face clean with a towel. "Ok, yeah, I guess."
