He collapsed onto my back and I could feel his heart racing.
And I giggled and giggled and it felt amazing.
“What’s so funny?” he said, but he was laughing too.
“You used the C word. You used the C word and I loved it. It’s like the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m glad it pleased you.” He reached forward and pulled the rope loose from my wrists. “It’s certainly not one for the classroom.”
“Say it again,” I said and I was grinning. I couldn’t stop grinning.
He kissed my cheek and nipped at me and it felt so good. And then he slapped my ass.
“Go and eat your cunting breakfast,” he said.
***
Mark
“Penny for your thoughts?”
She pondered my question and the soft smile on her lips warmed me inside. She forked up another piece of cold sausage and looked across the table at me, and her eyes were innocent and dirty all at once, and her cheeks were still flushed, and her hair was messy from where I’d held her so tight.
And right there, with a plate of cold breakfast on the table in front of me, I knew.
I loved Helen Palmer.
I loved the girl in a way that defied all professional integrity. That defied all reason.
I loved her with the same kind of intensity I’d loved Anna, but this was different.
Helen was a pure little blossom in my jaded life, the promise of something beautiful and all-consuming.
And it worried me. It worried me that I’d never be strong enough to let her go.
“I’m just thinking,” she said. “About nothing. About everything. About you.” She smiled. “A lot about you.”
“What about me?” She looked embarrassed. Nervous. “I meant it, Helen, you can tell me anything.”
“It’s just…”
“Just what? Embarrassing?”
“No. Just… I feel shy. In case you don’t…”
I smiled. “In case I don’t understand?”
She shook her head. “In case you don’t feel the same way.”
“I see,” I said. “Why don’t you try me?”
Her eyes were big and scared but she took a little breath and swallowed another piece of sausage. “I’m thinking how I’ve never felt like this. How I didn’t even know it was possible to feel so close to another body the way I feel when… when you’re inside me. How I didn’t know it was possible to feel someone the way I feel you when your skin is against mine. I didn’t know how much I’d want to breathe someone else’s breath and feel their heart next to mine, and see what they see, and love what they love.” She chased a piece of mushroom around her plate. “I didn’t know being in love with you could feel like this. I didn’t know I’d want to crawl inside your skin and stay there, and be part of you, and never leave.”
And I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt tight and heavy. “Helen… that’s…”
“Not how you feel, it’s ok.” She cut up her bacon.
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
“It’s not?” I saw a flash of hope in her eyes.
“No. It’s really not.” I moved to her, freed myself from the table and dropped at her side and placed my hand in hers on her knee and squeezed her knuckles. “I never meant to do this.”
“I know…” she said.
“You don’t know.” I sighed. “You don’t know how much I wanted you to be free, to see you live your life the way a beautiful young woman like you has the potential to live her life. I wanted you to disappear from my class and soar through the sky, and maybe I’d read about you sometimes and I’d be able to smile and say ‘that was my student. That was my beautiful, talented Helen, and look at her now’.”
“But you can, right? You can still do that?” And she squeezed my hand so tight that it broke my heart. “But it doesn’t need to be in the paper, does it? You could come. We could do it together.” And she saw my face and her lip shook a little bit. “Say you will.”
“Look at me, Helen. Look at my life.”
“I am looking,” she said. “And I love your life. I love you.”
“And that’s exactly it,” I sighed again. “You shouldn’t.”
“Don’t,” she said. “Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t finish this.” She blinked away a tear.
“You think I’m going to finish this?”
“Aren’t you? It sounds like it.”
“It’s too late for that.” I brushed her cheek with my thumb. “You made me feel alive again. And I didn’t even know I was dead. I didn’t know I’d given up until you came along and reached out your hand to me and asked me to hold it.”
“Begged,” she smiled, and her eyes were wet. “I begged you to hold it.”
“I told you I don’t see the point in lying, and I don’t.” Her eyes transfixed me. Consumed me whole. “I love you, Helen, but that’s really a moot point. My dilemma runs much deeper than that.”