“And...you were so nice to me. You flirted with me and laughed and I pretended that you would have done the same if you knew it was me.”
He cleared his throat. “Do you remember that New Year’s Eve party?” he asked.
“My god! Do I remember it? I think about it all the time!”
“So do I, and I’m so sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?”
“For what I did that night, of course!” he said. “It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever done.”
“But...I was glad it happened, I wasn’t sorry. I was just miserable when I found out you left.”
“That was the only thing I did right! I mean, that wasn’t right either, but it kept me from being even worse.”
“You don’t get it. You used me as a plaything and then abandoned me!”
He winced, but said, “I can understand that you see it that way. But my god, you were so young. You were still in high school.”
“So? I was eighteen!”
“And I was twenty-five! The same age you are now. Are you hanging around the local high schools, looking for a boyfriend?”
I sighed. “Of course not.”
“It was just...I wanted you so much, thought about you so much, and that night...I couldn’t stop myself. Thank god my dad interrupted us!”
“That’s not how I felt!”
He got up and walked to the window, raking both hands through his hair as he went. He turned back to me and said, “I took advantage of a sweet young girl! I didn’t sleep all night. Just sobered up and drove back to school. And Casey, I thought of you every day, I wanted to see you so bad, but I knew that if I did? I might not be able to stop myself again.”
“I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me that. It would have changed everything.”
“I almost…abused you. What was I gonna say? Sorry I practically raped you?” He laughed, but there was no humor in it.
I got up and followed him to the window. I simply had to be beside him. “Couldn’t you tell that I wanted you, too?”
“It didn’t matter. You weren’t legally underage, but morally? Wrong, wrong, wrong.”
“I thought…. I was sure that I’d disgusted you, that I was good enough when you were drunk, but sober? Like once you got a good look at me, you ran.” I took a deep, shuddery breath. “And then at that blind date…I kept thinking you would recognize me, that you would look at me and say, ‘Oh yeah, her.’ And you never did! And the longer it went on without you noticing, the more I knew--” Shit, I was going to cry. Might as well face it. “The more I realized that you never really looked at me before, when we were younger. That you never really cared.”
He was very quiet.
In my head, I screamed ‘Say something,’ but for the longest time, he just sat there and peered into my face.
Finally, he said, “You really have no idea how different you look, do you?”
“Uh. I don’t know.”
“Look,” he said. He took out his wallet, and carefully removed a folded piece of paper and handed it to me.
It was a card, my high school graduation invitation. My mom had sent it to him, and he’d never answered. Of course he didn’t come. The card, which had been white, was yellowed and dirty. The edges were soft and frayed, with bent, rounded corners. It had clearly been handled a great deal. I opened the card. Inside was an old picture of me. It wasn’t my graduation picture; it was a snapshot Mick had taken of me. I remembered that we’d been on a picnic and he’d just bought a new camera. I was laughing at something he’d said, my face soft and open, looking at the camera. I looked madly in love and deliriously happy. Which I had been. But I looked nothing like I did now. My hair was very short then, and light brown, not long and dark red, and losing weight had completely changed the shape of my face. I had contact lenses now. I hadn’t looked at an old picture of myself in years, and the difference was shocking.
I handed it back to him, and he gently tucked it into his wallet.
“Why did you bring that?” I said.
“I always carry it,” he said. “I guess I look at it almost every day.”
“Why?” came out of my mouth like a croak.
He looked at me and the moment stretched out. Then he said, “I think about you all the time.”
Our eyes were locked together. Outside my open window, a bird began to sing, “Chee, chee, chee!”
Without looking away from my face, Mick reached for my hand. He caressed my palm, and we twined our fingers together. He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it, gently, tentatively, like my hand was that bird outside and he didn’t want to scare it away.
My heart was beating wildly. It was as if little explosions were happening in my chest. He kept kissing my hand, more firmly now. The bird wasn’t going anywhere. With my other hand I caressed the side of his face, feeling the roughness of his unshaven cheeks and reveling in it. This was real. The real Mick saw me, the real me. And I knew the real him.
He pulled me to him with both hands and our bodies crashed together. He was kissing me, cheeks, eyes, ear. “My god, Casey, I can’t believe this is really happening. All these years!” And then his mouth found my mouth and I didn’t have to talk.
His kiss was rough this time. No finesse, no practiced caress of tongue and lips. Just real. Raw. Him and me and our need for each other. He held the back of my head and pressed me to him, plunged his tongue into my mouth and took it over.
He broke the kiss and looked into my eyes. “Casey. Kathy. Casey. Please—”
“Yes!” I couldn’t get the word out fast enough.
His mouth found mine again, and we swirled into another delirious kiss. His hands were busy with the buttons on his shirt, and then it was off of him, on the floor somewhere. I was half-senseless with desire, and plucked ineffectually at the buttons of the old pajama top I was wearing. He tried to help for a minute, but then ripped the old shirt from my shoulders. I had slept braless of course, so now we were both naked from the waist up.
I broke the kiss so I could look at him, at his broad shoulders thick with muscle, his solid, sculpted chest. He was like a wall of strength. He took in the view of my upper body as well, and slid his hands down my sides until he was holding my ass. He lifted me up, and turned me so my back was to the wall. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he pushed me into the wall. I plunged my hands into his rich, dark hair, and pulled him to me for another kiss. I could not believe the strength of my desire for this man. I had dreamed of him, yearned for him, and now here he was in my arms. Our bodies were grinding together, hips moving of their own volition. I was only wearing thin cotton pajama bottoms, and I could feel the long hard ridge of Mick’s erect cock between my open legs. He thrust against me over and over, making waves of pleasure wash through my body.
He kissed my neck, and said, “Casey, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. My dream of Kathy came true in you.” He kissed lower, onto my shoulder. “Say you’ll stay with me. I need you so bad.”
I was breathless, and could only whisper, “I will.”