Prey (5 page)

Lori

T
he evening at the coffeehouse went better than I expected. Ryan was nervous. He's not shy; I know that from my classroom. But tonight I could see that he was uncomfortable and unsure of himself and of me. I did all I could to put him at ease and it worked. As I watched him loosen up and begin to talk, share and laugh, I was again struck at how mature he is for fifteen. And at how beautiful he is to me.

I was mature at fifteen too, but for different reasons. No matter now.

Being with Ryan makes me feel carefree and young. Tonight I wasn't the sexy Ms. Settles he knows from world history. I was Lori, the pretty girl in the back of one of my high school classrooms. I was the girl guys liked to look at and longed to touch. I want Ryan to touch me. I saw in his eyes that he wanted to. When our legs brushed against each other, I felt his muscles tense, saw his hand tighten around his coffee cup. Dead giveaways.

When he looked into my eyes, I knew what he was thinking, and even now, sitting here in the dark in my apartment, I relish the smoldering fire he's ignited in me. I can't wait to have his hands and mouth on my skin. I think about when it will happen, and where. I don't want to plan it. I want it to happen when he's as ready in his head as he is in his body. And it
will
happen. I know it just as surely as I stare out at the night sky.

I take a sip from my wineglass, roll the stem between my fingers. The information about his mother was surprising. He wouldn't tell me how she died, and I knew better than to press him about it. He'll tell me when he's ready. Until then, I'll be patient and understanding. So very understanding.

Our coming together is like a slow dance to be savored and enjoyed. We come close, touch, retreat, spin and balance with purposeful and intricate steps that will lead to only one place. My anticipation is allconsuming.

Ryan

Lori and I go to the coffeehouse a lot. Mostly on weeknights when my dad's out of town. She picks me up after dark at the end of my block after we make sure no one's watching. I like being with her. I like talking to her. It's hard in the beginning, but then not at all. She tells me that she grew up in Seattle, went to college in California.

She says, “I always knew I'd be a teacher. When I was a little girl, I'd play school in my room by lining up all my dolls and stuffed animals and teaching them their ABCs.”

“Did they learn them?” I ask.

This makes her laugh. “Only in my imagination. I was an amazing teacher in my imagination, and could make a teddy bear do anything.”

“Do you have sisters? Brothers?”

“I'm an only child.”

“Me too.”

“Did you want siblings?” she asks.

I shrug. “Not really. Growing up, Dad never stuck with one woman long enough for me to think about it. He dated a few women with kids, but I never really liked any of them—the kids, I mean. They were always messing with my stuff and I didn't like that. I'm not a slob,” I say. “I sort of like things neat and organized.”

“It doesn't surprise me. I see it in your handwriting in the work you turn in.”

“You do?”

She pats my arm. “Don't panic. It's a good thing. I took some handwriting-analysis courses in college. It's been helpful to me in my classrooms.”

“But what do you see in me?”

“I see that you're smart and sensitive and older than your years.”

I like hearing this part. I want her to think of me as mature, not some dumb kid hanging on her every word. “Dad's pressuring me to start looking at colleges. I've been thinking about it. Where I want to go. Out of state or not.”

“I paid my own way through college,” she volunteers.

“Were you poor?”

“No. But I didn't want anything from my father.”

Her mouth is in a hard line whenever she mentions her parents.

“I like my dad well enough,” I say.

“He's a good father. Mine wasn't.”

“Your mother?”

“Not a very good one either.”

I want to know more, but start to think I shouldn't be prying. I don't want her to tune me out, drop me. At some point, when we talk, we start holding hands. I like the way it feels. I like the way she makes me feel. It's hard for me not to tell her that. Harder and harder for me to keep from touching her. I like watching her face when we talk, and the way her body sways when a jazz group plays music, and the sound of her voice tickling my ear when she leans over to whisper to me. It takes all my willpower to get out of her car after being with her all evening. To go home alone and go to bed with my head all around her and my body on fire.

I've taken so many cold showers that my skin's started to wrinkle and my balls have shriveled. I wash my sheets a lot because of Lori. There's no way I can wash my mind of her.

Honey

I open our front door when the bell rings unexpectedly and stare out at Ryan. He's grinning like a fool, as if popping over on a Saturday morning were a regular habit instead of a sometime thing. As if we're friends again instead of strangers. “Selling magazine subscriptions?” I ask. Sure, my heart's in my throat because he's shown up without warning, but I'm mad at him because he's been too “busy” to hang with me for over a month.

“It's freezing out here. Can I come in?”

“Knock yourself out.” I walk away and he follows.

“Hey, what's your problem?”

I head down to our walk-out basement, which my parents let me take over when friends come, before I say a word to him. “You haven't been around very much,” I tell him.

“I'm here now.”

I'd love to lay into him, but I don't want him to leave, either. “What's the occasion?”

“Just thought I'd say hi. When did I ever need a reason?”

“I guess you don't,” I say, backing down from a fight. Just seeing him makes my knees weak. “Joel and Jess are coming over. Joel has a DVD copy of some concert for us to watch. And Jess made brownies. Want to stay?”

He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rocks back and forth in his boots. “Am I welcome?”

Before I can answer, my kid brother comes barreling down the stairs. His face lights up when he sees Ryan, and Ryan waves. Cory comes over, impulsively hugs Ryan. No one can ever predict how Cory is going to act, and today he's excited to see Ryan. I envy his escape into Ryan's arms. By the time Joel and Jess arrive, Cory and Ryan are tossing a ball to each other.

“Hey, man.” Joel looks surprised to see Ryan. “Didn't know you were going to be here.”

“He just showed,” I explain.

Jess gives me an “are you keeping secrets from me?” look and I shake my head. No way.

“Can't I hang with old friends without them freaking?” Ryan asks. He's sounding irritated.

“It's just been a while,” Joel says. “Where have you been? What's been going on?”

I'm glad he's asking and not me.

“Well, I'm here now. How about that DVD? Is it worth watching?”

Distraction. Split the offense. Answer a question with another question. I've seen Ryan use the technique before.

Joel reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a shiny disk. “Bootleg copy, so the quality isn't great, but it's still good.”

I send Cory upstairs and he goes without a peep, and we all snuggle into the beat-up sofa and watch the DVD. I'm next to Ryan and his body heat makes it hard to concentrate on the grainy video. He smells good too, like cinnamon and warm sugar and sandalwood. A man-made male scent that smells grown-up and sophisticated.

When the DVD is over, we talk about the group and their music, then about school. It's Joel who says, “So have you heard if Lori Settles has said yes to Coach Mathers yet?”

“Yes to what?” Ryan is twirling a small cushion between his hands. He stops cold.

“Where have you been? It's all over the locker room. Old Mathers has been asking her out. The poor horny guy.”

“She should go,” Jess says.

“Why should she?” Ryan asks. He's sitting straighter and his eyes look wary, but no one has noticed except me, because I notice everything about Ryan.

“To give the old guy a thrill?” Joel says. “He really has the hots for her. Don't you notice the way he looks at her?”

“He gets all red in the face if she just walks past,” I say. Mathers is the girls' basketball coach. I like the man, but he's under Ms. Settles' spell totally. “He all but drools if they're in the cafeteria together.”

Jess sighs and flops backward. “Is she all you guys talk about in the locker room?”

Joel covers Jess's ears and winks. “I can't say what we talk about where she's involved. Too crude for your sweet ears.”

Ryan stands. “Listen, I got some things to do before Dad gets home.”

“I thought he was off the road.”

“He got held over in Chicago. He'll be back tomorrow afternoon.”

I follow Ryan up the stairs, wishing he would stay. “You want to come over for dinner? I know Mom and Dad would like to see you. And Mom never minds when you eat with us. It's been a long time.”

At the front door, Ryan turns. “Rain check.” He blesses me with a melting smile. “See you in school.”

I watch him hurry away, and wish with all my heart that I didn't love him so much. And that for once, just once, he'd look at me the way Coach Mathers looks at Lori Settles.

Ryan

“Are you dating Coach? How many times have you gone out with him?” We're sitting in Lori's car, in the rain, in front of her apartment. As soon as I left Honey's, I called her, said I had to see her, took a bus to her neighborhood and walked the rest of the way, meeting her at her car. We were supposed to go to “our” coffeehouse tonight, but I can't think of anything except Lori and Coach. I see pictures of them inside my mind, of him doing with her what I want to do with her.

“Mathers? I don't know. Who keeps count?”

“So you are dating him?”

She turns in the driver's seat to face me. “Is this an interrogation? I don't have to account for the things I do with my time.”

My stomach feels as if I've swallowed a hard cold stone. “I—I thought…I was special. That we were special.”

Her expression softens. “We are. Very special.”

Rain is pelting the windows, sluicing in long noisy rivers along the glass, like a knife cutting through my heart. The windows are fogged, moist from our breath and the heat of my anger. Hot wetness swells behind my eyes. I'm acting like a jerk, but I can't help myself. I have to know the truth about her and Coach.

“Ryan.” Lori reaches over, places her palm on my cheek, rubs her thumb across my skin. “Are you jealous?”

I can hardly breathe. Every cell in my body is screaming and on fire. “Of course I am,” I say. The confession hurts like crazy on its way out of my mouth.

“Oh, my dear, precious Ryan.” She leans forward, lifts my face and kisses me lightly on the mouth.

I take her shoulders and kiss her back. Hard, I kiss her, and long. Her tongue slides between my teeth, igniting a fever I can't control. Outside, the rain drums on the glass, giving a rhythm to some primitive force in me that I don't want to control.

Her hand slips onto my crotch, cups the bulge pushing against my jeans and makes me groan. She rubs me and I think I'm going to burst. “Do you like that?” she asks.

“Yes.” I kiss her again, driving my tongue into her wet, hot mouth.

We're both breathing heavily and all I want is her body against mine. I struggle to get closer, but the gearshift pokes me in the stomach. I break our kiss long enough to gasp from the pain.

Her eyes are wide, her pupils large, staring holes in my face. “What do you want?” she asks, her voice low and whispery. “Tell me what you want.”

“You,” I say.

She opens the door and the car fills with cold wet air. The rain plasters her sweater to her body, showing me every curve in detail. I see the shape of her bra and her breasts. I want to touch her so much it hurts. “Come upstairs,” she says.

I go, not feeling the rain, only the heat from inside my body. She opens the door and for a minute we stand on the rug inside it, dripping wet, shivering. And then her mouth is on mine and her hands are tugging at my jeans. Somehow, I don't remember how, we're in her bedroom and our clothes have come off. We're in her soft bed, and just before I think I'm going to explode, she hands me a foil packet from her bedside table and says, “Put this on.”

My hands are shaking so hard I can't open the wrapper, so she helps. And then the world goes away and there's Lori, only Lori, filling my universe.

Lori

I watch Ryan sleep. The rise and fall of his chest is mesmerizing. The light from the lamp makes his skin glisten. His body is beautiful. I knew it would be. The long muscles of his arms and legs look loose and limber, no longer coiled with energy. His face is serene, no longer brimming with passion and need. I like that look that says hunger on his face. The one that says, “I want you.”

We've been on this collision course for months. From the first time I saw him in my classroom, I knew that, with planning, we'd be at this place where we are tonight. Ryan with me, in my bed. Tonight, he wanted me, needed me. And I need him, too. He won't believe that if I tell him. He could never know how satisfying it is to have him touch me, his young hands stroking my skin. I rise inside like a surfer cresting on a wave, hovering in the curl, hiding in the blue-green water until the last moment before it breaks and sends me to shore.

Now Ryan sleeps. When he wakes, we'll have to talk about what has happened. I'll console him if he's sorry, which I don't think he will be. Males rarely are.