Page 2 of All My Love
2
Ben
I pushthe stack of student exams to the edge of my desk and pull my laptop in front of me. I open it up, knowing already that I’m going to look at Liz’s blog. I only lack discipline when it comes to Elizabeth. Every other part of my life iseasy.
Too easy,actually.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and plow a hand through my hair, setting my elbow on the desk with my hand wrapped around the back of my neck. I don’t know what it is about Liz, but she’s been under my skin for a year and there’s nothing I can do aboutit.
“Hey brother, get your nose out of that computer.” Thomas throws a dry-erase marker my way and it bounces off the corner of my laptop. If he’d done sports instead of math team growing up, he might have betteraim.
“Don’t make me file a harassment claim with the city,” I say distractedly, scrolling down. The last time I saw her, she told me to follow the blog, read the blog, blog blog blog. My head was spinning by the time lunch was over, and her enthusiasm just made me want to kiss her even more than I did at the beginning. She loves her blog. It’s her baby. And even though she loves talking about things that excite her, what I wanted to do with her mouth was not have it go on and on about the blog. I wanted her kiss her thick, perfect lips, rake my hand up the back of her long, smooth neck, and pull her so close to me that our tongues would know each other’slayouts.
“Are we going to lunch?” my brother asks. He turns his back to the dry-erase board in my office and comes over to sit across from me. “What are you in the mood for?Crepes?”
I’m in the mood for Elizabeth and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. I know she would be sweeter than the best chocolate crepe in the city, more delicious and bubbly than the bestchampagne.
“I guess so,” I tell my brother. He is an engineer at a government agency that oversees public works and I’m a math professor. We’re both numbers guys, which says a bit about how we were raised: the two sons of a strict military man who instilled discipline and self-sufficiency and a mom who believed her time would be best spent in the home, raising her boys. She didn’t do it because she felt obligated; she wanted her sons to have every advantage available to them, and she thought being their sons’ guide through their young lives would be the best way to achieve that. Our dad pushed us hard into math and my mom supported us, and that’s how I got here, on a beautiful spring day in Paris and with the one thing I know would make me happy sorely missing from mylife.
I’m closing my laptop when my phone vibrates on my desk. I grab it and when I see Elizabeth’s name, I feel my palms become slick and my dick stands at attention instantly, pressing against the zipper of my slim wool dress pants. At thirty-eight I think I’m still a youngish guy, but not so young that I can’t control my baserinstincts.
I never never had a problem controlling those instincts until Elizabeth. I’m a man of discipline. I wasn’t always great at math, but I wanted to make my parents proud so I busted my ass until it started clicking, and now I have a professorship at a really good university. I run five miles every day. I’m up before the sun is. I have no problem keeping myself in check. But Elizabeth draws something out of me, something of a unique torture that I’ve subjected myself to over and over, and enthusiastically at that. I don’t know why the hell I do this tomyself.
She’s gotten into my head and refuses to leave. The last time I saw her was a year ago and I was helping her dad move her into college for her sophomore year. Her mom was having surgery on her knee that weekend, and I insisted on helping. Three pairs of hands would be better than two, I’d said, but really I just wanted to keep an eye on Liz. How much trouble she’d be able to get into in just the first several hours at her dorm I do not know now and did not know then, but I even took her and her dad out to dinner just so I could squeeze those extra couple of hours out of my time with her. There was something in the air between me and her, and when her father stepped outside to have a cigarette, he’d left the two of us alone in her little dormroom.
That was the first time I’d noticed her. She was twenty, she was built like a fucking stacked little blonde angel, and she was sweet as a juicy red apple. But paired with my attraction to her was my desire to protect her - from men, mostly. She had the kind of innocent sweetness that parades itself around without her even knowing it. Her sweetness has a mind of its own. And in that moment, knowing I was way too fucking old for her, I felt like a dirty old man wanting to get this angel’s skin all streaked with my dirty hands. So the kind of old-man perversion I felt, with its twin feeling of old-man protectiveness, combined to form a feeling that I’ve been trying to figure out for the pastyear.
With proximity to her, I would have been able to come to a resolution a whole lot sooner, I’msure.
I slide my finger across the screen to accept the call. It’s not unusual for us to chat on the phone every once in a while, but I’ve had to stop being the one to make thecall.
“Hello?” My voice comes out throatier and gruffer than I’d meant itto.
“Ben, it’s Liz. Is this a badtime?”
“No, not at all. I’m happy you called. I was just taking a look at your blog, actually, so you were on my mind. How areyou?”
“Um, I’m good,” she replies. I sit back in my chair and gaze out the window, at all the greenery and the trees out on the old lawn outside the building where my office is. It’s truly a beautiful day, and I often think about what it would be like to have Liz as one of mystudents.
“So you just called to catch up. I’m glad to hear from you,” I say, scrubbing the back of my head with my open hand. There’s a pause and I feel unease coming through the phone. “Liz, youalright?”
“Actually…Ben, I was hoping you could help me out with something. I’m in Paris and I think I lost my credit card or maybe it was stolen, I’m notsure.”
“Where are you?” I ask, shutting my laptop and going over to the narrow closet in the corner of my office. I grab my jacket and elbow the door shut as I shrug my arms through the sleeves. I leave my office and my little brother follows me. I lock the door behind me and Thomas walks next to me as Liz and Italk.
“I’m at the lock bridge,” she says, followed by a deep breath. “I don’t know what happened. I was just sitting here admiring the view one minute and then I realized I lost my card. I just got here too, and I feel prettystupid.”
The lock bridge isn’t far from campus. I start up into a little speed-walk and Thomas jogs after me, pulling up alongside and giving me a confusedlook.
“Stay there, Liz. I’m on my way,alright?”
“Thanks, Ben,” she exhales, a little whisper in hervoice.
“Everything okay?” Thomas asks. I turn toward him, take his shoulders in my hands, and stop him. Then I turn around and start joggingagain.
“Rain check on lunch,” I shout over my shoulder. “I’ll callyou.”
