I meet Ryann for lunch at Los Betos by the university. She came straight from class and is carrying her backpack. She’s not made up this time and her hair is in a ponytail, but I still can’t find fault with her. We are at the counter and I have her order first. She’s looking up at the menu and makes up her mind. She orders a carne asada burrito and a Coke. “I’ll have the same,” I tell the short woman behind the counter, “but give me an horchata instead.” The total comes to ten twenty-eight and Ryann puts a twenty-dollar bill on the counter in front of me. “I’ll get it,” I say, but she insists on paying. “What about this. I get lunch and the movie’s on you.” I’m looking at her. She agrees and takes the twenty-dollar bill back. I pay and the short woman gives me my change along with our drinks. The tables all seem dirty. I put the drinks on the cleanest table I can find. I point to the table and give Ryann a look. She nods in agreement. The napkin holder has been overstuffed and I struggle to pull napkins out without tearing them. Ryann is laughing at me.
“You think you can do better?” I say.
“For sure.”
I’m finally able to pull out four or five napkins and give the table and the benches a quick wipedown. Not seven seconds after we’ve sat down, I hear the short woman call out our number and Ryann, being closer, gets up and takes the tray from the counter. I notice there are only two salsas on the tray and get up and ask the short woman for four more. She reaches for them under the counter and hands them to me. I’m back at the table with the salsas. “If we’re going to do this, we have to do it right,” I say and push two of the four salsas toward Ryann. We are eating our salsa-drenched burritos and I notice Ryann’s eyes getting watery and soon her nose as well. She takes enormous gulps from her quickly emptying cup.
“You can probably use a refill,” I say. “Coke again?” She nods.
I’m back with the Coke. “You didn’t have to play brave,” I say and take the other salsas from her. Tears fall from her eyes and she has to blow her nose. “That’s what you get for trying to impress me.” I tease her, trying to get a smile out of her, but all she can do is keep drinking. I feel bad for her, but soon she is better.
We are driving. “You finished the whole thing,” I said. “I didn’t think you’d be able to.”
“You owe me.”
“Well for now, you owe me. What movie are you taking me to?”
“Let’s rent something. My roommate’s out. She’ll be back late.”
Blockbuster Video. Thousands of movies and we can’t decide on one. “Have you seen Before Sunrise?”
“No.”
“You’ll like it.”
We drive to her apartment. I walk beside her along a walkway flanked by grass on both sides and stop by her mailbox.. From here I can see students sunbathing by the pool but noone is swimming. Ryann stands in front of a trash can, picking out the junk mail and throwing it away. We go up a flight of stairs and then another. When she opens the door I smell cinnamon. The apartment is meticulously kept, not a book or magazine out of place.
“You guys have a maid?”
“I wish,” she says.
I’m in the living room while she is making tea. There are bookshelves on each side of the television. I’m always interested to see what a person reads. The top two shelves were math books: Topology, Analysis, Number Theory, Abstract Algebra, Set Theory. Below those are philosophy books and several biographies. The autobiography of Bertrand Russell catches my attention and I pull it out and page through it. As I do, these words jump out at me, “There was a footpath leading across fields to New Southgate, and I used to go there alone to watch the sunset and contemplate suicide. I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics.” A boy’s life saved by the desire to learn math.
Ryann appears with two glasses of iced tea. “Ready for the movie?”
I slide the book back in its place. “Ready.”
I’m sitting on the couch watching her put the movie in. She’s crouching and I can see the pink top of her panties peeking barely over the top of her jeans. The movie starts and Ryann is sitting beside me. My hand is on her thigh. Several minutes into the movie, I feel her hand on mine. I occasionaly glance over at her. She’s enjoying the movie. An hour in, we are on the floor, side by side, our heads resting on sofa cushions. By the time the credits are running, we are holding hands, and I can’t remember how long we’d been holding them.
Ryann notices that my glass is empty and asks if I want more. “No thanks,” I say. She takes the glasses to the kitchen and come back and lies beside me again.
“I like this,” I say.
“What’s that?”
“This. Being here, on your floor, lying beside you. I feel so comfortable. Like we can talk about anything or not talk at all and just lie here with you.”
“I know. Me too.”
We talk about a thousand things. I’m running my index finger along her fingers, palm, and forearm all the while. I’m sitting on the floor with my back against the couch and she is lying sideways to me with her head on my lap. We are quiet for a while and then she gives me the look of wanting to be kissed, that barely smile and slight raise of the brow.
“I can’t reach,” I say.
“What?”
“I can’t reach.” I scoot down sliding beneath her so that her head is resting on my upper chest. I look down at her. Her face is turned toward me. We are kissing. She sits up and leans down to kiss me again. She kisses my lips and then my chin and neck. Her hands are on my chest. She kisses my lips again and holds my face gently between her hands. Now she stands and takes me by the hand, guiding me up to my feet. I follow her into her room. More books, none out of place. We stand kissing beside her bed. Our hands are on each other. Then I push her gently onto the bed and I’m on top of her, the kissing never stopping. My eyes are closed and all I feel are her lips and tongue. She pushes me off. I’m on my back. She works my shirt up and then off. I’m topless. Her tongue is on my nipple, then the other one. Her warm tongue leaves cool trails on my body. She begins to unbutton my pants. As she is pulling my zipper down, I sit up and guide her to her back. My hands are on her small breasts, under her shirt, and then she too is shirtless. I lick her body and feel her bra under my tongue. When I go to unbutton her pants, she sits up and pushes me onto my back. My pants come off and I’m lying in my boxers with this gorgeous nineteen-year-old’s tongue roaming all over me. She licks my calves and thighs, my belly, my chest. She kisses me. Then she rolls me over so I’m belly down and her tongue meanders down my back to the waistband of my boxers. She comes up, off my skin and starts down again just below my butt and works down my upper thigh, across the back of my knee, and down the calf. She makes her way up again, slipping her tongue just under the bottom of my boxers, and then, as if by magic, her tongue is on the small of my back again. I want to taste and smell her. I want to slip my fingers inside her and bring her to orgasm. I want to feel my dick inside her and bring her to orgasm over and over again.
We have switched places, now she on her back and I licking her body. I reach down and struggle to unbutton her pants with one hand. I’m kneeling at the foot of the bed, pulling her pants slowly down. Her pink panties show themselves an inch at a time. I imagine my lips on her pussy. A leg comes out. Then the other. With a toss, the pants disappear. I lick her legs, her belly, her neck, teasing her the way she had teased me. She’s delicious. Her eyes are closed, lips barely apart. I kiss her and reach under her to undo her bra. Her breasts are perfect, small and kissable. She is a goddess.
When I begin to pull her panties off, she stops me. “We’re not doing it today,” she says.
“I’m in no hurry.”
I don’t try again or beg or do anything of the sort. Instead, I kiss her body for another hour. We lie together talking about ourselves and the world. There is laughter and sadness and silliness. When it begins to get late, she says, “I want to go to your place. You’ve never taken me there.”
“It’s not much to look at,” I say. “It’s an in-between place. Just for now. It’s hardly furnished.”
“I still want to see it. I want to see where you live”
“I’ll take you one of these days.”
“Tomorrow.”
“It’s really not much of a place.”
“You don’t want to take me, do you? What is it? You live with some girl you don’t want me to know about? ” She smiles. “I know. You live with your mom and are embarrased to tell me.”
“It’s not that I don’t want you to see it.”
“Tomorrow then.”
I’m really starting to like Ryann and I don’t know what to say. Before I realize what I”m saying, I hear myself say: “Tomorrow.”
Chapter 18
