Forever, Interrupted(19)

“I like you too,” I said. I kissed him again and he grabbed me. He put his hands around my waist and he moved me toward him, closing what little gap there was between us. He kissed my ears and jawline, sending goose bumps up the back of my neck, for what felt like hours. I finally had to stand up. There was a cramp in my hip.

When I looked at the clock, it was after 8:00 p.m.

“Wow,” I said. “This is . . . that was . . . a long time.”

“Are you hungry?” he asked me.

“Yeah.” I nodded, realizing that I was hungry. “Are you?”

“Yeah. What should we do? Go out? Cook here? Order in?”

“Well, pizza is out. We had that last night.” We hadn’t eaten it together, but I knew the way I said it implied that we had. I liked hearing myself say it. I liked that I sounded like his girlfriend at that moment—which made me feel a little insane. I was ready to get monogrammed towels for us and I barely knew him.

“Right. So my vote is order Chinese or cook here, depending on what you have.” He gestured toward the kitchen. “Can I look?”

I stood up and showed him the way. “Be my guest!”

We walked into the kitchen and stood in front of the refrigerator. He stood behind me, his arms around my torso, his face in my neck. I showed him what I had, and it was sparse, although had either of us been a decent cook, I’m sure we could have come up with something.

“Well, that settles it,” he said. “Where’s the Chinese food menu?”

I laughed and fished it out of the drawer. He looked at the menu for only a minute. “How about we split the kung pao chicken, a bowl of wonton soup, beef chow mein, and white rice?”

“Make it brown rice and you’re on,” I said.

“Because this is a first date, I’m going to say okay, but all subsequent dates, absolutely not. Brown rice tastes like cardboard and I simply cannot meet you halfway on that in the future.”

I nodded. “I understand. We could get two different orders of rice.”

“Maybe when the romance is gone we can do that, but not tonight.” He turned in to the phone. “Yes, hi. I’d like to get an order of kung pao chicken, an order of beef chow mein, and wonton soup.” He paused for a moment. “No. We’d like brown rice, please.” He stuck out his tongue at me, and then he gave my address, his telephone number, and hung up.

When the food came, we ate it. Ana called a few more times to try to find me. Ben made me laugh over and over; he made me cackle and hiss. He made my abdomen hurt. We kissed and we teased each other; we wrestled with the remote. When it got late enough that it was do-or-die time, I spared us both any awkward misinterpretations and said, “I want you to spend the night but I’m not going to have sex with you.”

“How do you know I want to have sex with you? Maybe I just want to be friends,” he said. “Ever consider that?” I didn’t need to respond. “Fine. So I do want to have sex with you, but I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

Before meeting him in my bedroom, I thought carefully and consciously of what to wear to bed. We weren’t going to have sex, so lingerie or sleeping naked was clearly out of the question. And yet, it wasn’t an asexual activity. I still wanted to be sexy. I settled on a pair of very small boxer shorts and a tank top. I checked myself out in the mirror before I left the bathroom, and I had to admit, I looked accidentally sexy when it was anything but an accident.

I walked into my room to find him already under my covers. His shirt was off but the blanket was covering him. I crawled in next to him and put my head on his chest. He bent his head down to kiss me and then turned to see where the light switch was.

“Oh,” I said. “Check this out.” I clapped loudly twice and the lights went out. “I got it as a party favor years ago.” I never used the Clapper anymore. I’d honestly almost forgotten that I’d plugged it in. Ben was floored.

“You are the coolest person in the world. Just hands down. The coolest,” he said.

It was pitch dark as our eyes slowly adjusted, and then there was a buzz and small flash of light. It was my phone.

“He’s STILL THERE?” Ana had texted.

I turned off my phone.

“Ana, I presume,” Ben said, and I confirmed. “She must be wondering who the hell I am.”

“She’ll know soon enough,” I said. He put his finger under my chin and lifted my head toward his. I kissed him. Then I kissed him again. I kissed him harder. Within seconds our hands, arms, and pieces of clothing went flying. His skin felt warm and soft, but his body felt sturdy.

“Oh!” I said. “The parking meter. Did you put enough money in? What if you get a ticket?”

He pulled me back to him. “I’ll take the ticket,” he said. “I don’t want to stop touching you.”

As we rolled around each other, I somehow kept to my word. I did not sleep with him that night. I wanted to. It was difficult not to. Both of our bodies pleaded with me to change my mind, but I didn’t. I’m not sure how I didn’t. But I didn’t.

I don’t remember when I fell asleep, but I do remember Ben whispering, “I’m not sure if you’re still awake, but . . . thank you, Elsie. This is the first time I’ve been too excited to go to sleep since I was a kid.”