Ivan Horton's Choice Ch. 02

When they arrived back at campus Ivan let Gerry off at the fraternity house and swung around to College Town to take Rebecca to her apartment. She had awakened by that time, but remained silent with embarrassment except to quietly give Ivan the directions. Ivan pulled to a parking spot in front of her building and accompanied her up the stairs. She opened the door and they stepped in.

It was a modest little space, neat and orderly. It was kitchen, dinette, study room, living room rolled into one. Beyond were two doors that led to Rebecca's bedroom and bathroom.

"Make yourself at home," she said. "I'm going to change. You must be freezing."

"I'm alright. I won't be staying long. I just wanted to make sure that you got in okay." Ivan replied.

Ivan's clothes were still wet so he didn't sit on the couch. There was a kitchen chair without upholstery, so he alighted on that. After awhile Rebecca reappeared from the bedroom in a bathrobe, her head wrapped in a towel. Ivan guessed that she was nude underneath.

"Are you sure that I can't get you something?" she asked.

"No, thanks", was the reply. "I'm gonna go back to the fraternity house soon and have a few beers with Gerry."

"Ivan," she said, "I don't know how to say 'thank you' enough."

"You just said it," Ivan answered. He looked at her and saw a pensive expression.

"Don't you want to know what happened?" she asked.

"No, it's your business," he answered.

"I owe it to you, don't you think?"

"No", Ivan said. "I owe you for what you told me when we had coffee together. It helped straighten me out. I think we're friends now. I was glad that I was there to help you."

"Maybe if I told you, you wouldn't think so much of me," she replied.

"Then don't tell me, Rebecca, because I don't want to think less of you."

"I want to, Ivan; I need to. You said 'tell me yours' and I didn't. Now, I need to. I need a friend to listen to my story."

Ivan didn't answer. Rebecca pulled up a footstool near his chair and sat leaning forward with her chin in her hands. She recounted her story of Professor Gilbert cajoling her to the dinner in Elmira and his proposition. She told how they went to the hotel room and her flight. She neither omitted nor embellished.

At the end she dropped her face into her hands sobbing.

"I'm so ashamed! I did what I promised myself I would never do. I'm cheap and easy!"

Her self--condemnation stunned Ivan.

"Rebecca," he said, "you have no right to be ashamed. You have a lot of courage."

"If I had any courage," she answered, I would never have been in that hotel room. You're the brave one. You chased Gilbert away."

"You risked everything when you didn't have to. You could have gone through with it and no one would have known. You would be on easy street right now. I didn't do anything-just showed a scared guy that I was stronger and angrier than he was. Real courage is when you're scared and you do what you have to, just the same."

"I shouldn't have been there. I thought that I was smarter."

"Rebecca," Ivan said. "I couldn't respect anyone more that I respect you right now."

Ivan's assertion surprised her; it warmed her, too. She accepted the friendship that he offered by his affirmation. She determined to give back in kind one day, if she could.

"I'm finished at this University," she said. "I'll have to find a new one next year."

"I am, too" Ivan joked, "in a different way." They both laughed.

Rebecca leaned forward and kissed Ivan on the cheek. "My hero!" she joked back.

"You look tired, Rebecca, and my clothes are still wet. I better go now."

****************

On the following Friday Ivan was driving down Route 17 to Robin's family estate. He had a lot on his mind. Curiously, it wasn't the impending breakup of his engagement with Robin. He had decided on that already. The big item was Rebecca's ordeal that week, and her subsequent treatment by her spurned professor. She had been ejected from her carrel in the library and told that the renewal of her assistantship was 'uncertain'.

Ivan reflected on how unfair life could be. He reasoned that those few people who had power misused it while smaller people suffered for it. He thought of his own grasp for power through his engagement to Robin, daughter of the House of Tutlock from the Hamptons. He asked himself what he would have done with the wealth, had he consummated the ill-conceived marriage. He stopped thinking about it. It would soon be in the past.

He drove into the Tutlock Estate and parked the car. A servant hurried out to meet him.

"Mr. Horton, sir," he announced stiffly, "Mr.'s Marsden and Benton Tutlock are awaiting you in the study and request that you join them as soon as you arrive."

The butler escorted Ivan in and announced him, then left, closing the door behind him. Ivan strode to a spot facing the fireplace. Marsden and Binky stood facing him, flanking either end of the mahogany mantle. There was long silence. Each side waited for the other to move. Finally Marsden spoke.

"Ivan, let us get immediately to the point. Benton and I wish to speak with you about your engagement to Robin."

Another period of silence followed, although the older man had insisted on 'getting right to the point'. Ivan's impulse was to jump ahead and announce to them his intent to break the engagement. He stifled the urge. He thought that he owed it to Robin to speak to her first, and then explain himself to the family. He also wondered about the reason for the brothers' pendulous summons and he knew that his disclosure would silence them. He waited.

"Ivan," Marsden finally continued, "your wedding with my daughter will not take place. It must be called off! Robin already knows; she is not here. She's at her aunt's home on Martha's Vineyard."

"Of course," Binky added, "our offer to join our firm will be withdrawn.

As Ivan absorbed the announcement it occurred to him to think before speaking. True, it was his intention was to break the engagement, but he realized that disclosure of that now would end discussion. He wondered if his recreation with Beryl was to blame. He didn't think so. If that were the case, Binky would not have been in the room. He fathomed that the brothers, for some reason unknown to him, were sheltering their lineage and fortune.

"Am I to know the reason?" he asked. "I was counting on that job. I could have had other offers, you know. I have an offering letter from your firm."

"Rather not state the reason, Ivan. It's nothing personal; it just isn't the right thing. We're sorry for your obvious disappointment. Look, here is the engagement ring that Robin left behind," Marsden answered. Ivan took the ring from him.

"There could be some compensation for the lost position," Binky piped up. He was the brother with all the charm.

Ivan's outlook brightened. It had been a long time since he had been so smart. It had been 'fourth and long' and he knew he was about to cross the goal line. Ivan looked them in the eye and nodded.

"What will it be, then? We could advance you a sum that could..."

Ivan raised his hand to stop him.

"I have something else in mind, gentlemen."

The brothers leaned closer, listening intently as Ivan presented his demand.

When Ivan finished the brothers looked at one another incredulously and shrugged.

"That's it? That's all you want?" asked Binky.

Ivan nodded.

"Then you shall have it!" piped up Marsden, borrowing some of his brother's charm. "There are conditions. You must never come ask for more. You must never attempt to contact Robin again in the future."

"It's a deal," Ivan said. He thought to shake hands on it, but preferred not to, and the brothers didn't offer, either.

"If there's nothing else, then," said Marsden, "we'll say good bye."

Ivan turned and left. He didn't glance about for a last look at what could have been his. It didn't matter. All of it would have been ill-gotten goods, bought and paid for with his body, pimped by his own hands.

As he retraced his journey on Route 17 that night he felt better than he had in months. He was free and a man. His opinion of his worth had justifiably grown. He knew his decision on the marriage had been correct. The Tutlocks would never find out that their imposed breakup had been an anticlimax. He felt himself ready to reach out to capture a new life. It would be one that he needn't cover over with borrowed opulence to hide the stains.

******************

The next weeks passed quickly. Ivan resurrected his relations with his parents. He was surprised at their relief of the breaking of his engagement with Robin. The friendship between Rebecca and Ivan grew. She tutored him in her apartment, since she had lost her carrel privileges. Ivan worked hard. He never became an 'A' student in Biology, but did his best. They were intimate in their confidences to one another, but had never contemplated a physical union. Neither of them had a date nor a lover. Their tenure at the campus was too temporary to warrant the effort.

Ivan and Rebecca both had decisions to make. After the Summer Session each would be without a place to be. Rebecca knew that Professor Gilbert would ruin her place at the University because of her rejection of his advances. Ivan had no job prospects and was running out of money.

It was a bittersweet meeting on the evening before the final Biology exam. After the next day, there would be no reason to meet for tutoring, and after that events would drive them their separate ways.

"Tell me again the difference between meiosis and mitosis," he called out to her in the kitchen, as she fixed a light meal for them.

"Look it up," she said. "Then you tell me!"

He promptly obeyed and she was satisfied that he had learned the concept.

"Here is a twenty-minute quiz," she said. "Eat your sandwich and take the quiz. You can look up the answers if you have to. While you're doing that, I'm going to take a shower."

Ivan bent to the task with the sound of the shower running in the background. The quiz had some hard questions, but wasn't too bad. In the end, he found that he could answer about three quarters of them without looking up the answers. While he self-corrected the test he heard the shower turn off and the hair-dryer running. He thought to ask her to go out for pizza later. As he finished, Rebecca emerged from the bathroom, wearing her terry-cloth robe.

"How did you do?" she asked.

"About seventy-five. Don't you want to see it?"

"No," she said. "You'll pass. Just walk in and answer the questions. You know it well enough."

Ivan wasn't sure, but chose to believe her.

Rebecca turned quiet and subdued.

"This is your last tutoring session," she said. "Since you're soon to be a college graduate, I bought something for us to celebrate with."

She went to the refrigerator and took out a large green bottle with gold foil over the cap and picked up two wine glasses on the kitchen counter.

"You bought champagne?" He asked.

"What did you expect, Mogen David?" she replied. "Go ahead and open it."

Ivan said nothing, but was touched at the gesture. He opened the bottle and poured each a glassful.

They sipped the wine in silence, heavy with emotions and thoughts of the summer just gone by.

"You never told me why you called off the wedding," queried Rebecca.

Ivan thought for a second, and then answered, "I told her that I liked you more than her."

"C'mon, tell me the truth," she said. "And I don't care to be compared to other women, Ivan."

"Well, that's what I should have told her," he said.

Ivan paused. He knew that she was waiting for more.

"What if I said that I liked you more than anyone?" he countered.

"That would be different. Did you?"

"Yes."

"What about now?"

"Why would anything be changed now?" he answered, then went on, "If I had known you a few years ago, a lot would be different now. There probably would never have been an engagement to Robin."

"You mean that you presume that you would be engaged to me?" she demanded. She was touched by his words but would make him suffer for his presumption.

"Who knows what would have happened?" Ivan mused. "But, I would have wanted someone who could have measured up to you."

There it was: honesty as pure as could be told. Even though she had probed for it, she was touched by the simple testimony. It penetrated her and brought a tear of emotion that she hadn't felt since that night in Elmira in front of the gas station those many weeks ago. Even her ostracism from the Biology department couldn't plumb the depth of her so deeply. It had been Ivan's actions that had saved her self-respect at the hands of the Professor and reassured her later that night. Now, in his simple eloquence he had yet again confirmed it.

She contemplated their impending parting, now suffering even more at the loss. She longed to make him feel what was in her soul. Ivan had looked away, embarrassed at his revelation of feeling. Rebecca loosened the cord at the waist of her robe, not all the way, but just enough to allow the cloth to part from her chest and allow a view down to her breasts below if she were bent at the proper angle. It was a test of desire. It could be withdrawn if it were not there, or expanded if the impulse proved right.

She refilled the glasses with champagne. Ivan turned his face back toward her. Rebecca leaned forward to allow the loosened robe to fall away slightly from her chest. Ivan's instinctively took in what was offered, and Rebecca watched him enjoy the view.

"To friendship," she toasted.

"Yes, friendship," Ivan repeated. They clinked glasses and sipped. The toast had a double meaning to him. Certainly he felt the bond that the toast confirmed, but now more, which transcended the sexless bounds of the word. He pained at the possibility that a misread cue might damage what they carved out over the summer.

Rebecca leaned over and kissed him gently on the forehead, understanding him. Her lips felt tender on his skin. It was the softness of a woman. Ivan's pulse was quickening. Rebecca reached out with both hands and held his face on either side. She leaned in again and kissed his lips, slow, soft, warm, affectionate. First she kissed Ivan's two lips at once, then caressed his upper lip with her lower one, then stroked her moistened tongue on his bottom lip.

Ivan drank it in, savoring every aspect of it and feeling a deep wanting of her. He stood and kissed her back. It was a deep but gentle kiss that probed and claimed her. Rebecca stepped back several paces. She set her glasses on the table. In a single motion she pulled open the cord of the robe, slid it from her shoulders and dropped it to the floor. There she stood, naked and motionless. She wished Ivan to view her, and he did.

She was not like the other girls that Ivan had bedded over the years. She was slender from shoulder to ankle, not voluptuous as he was accustomed. Her breasts were not large, but were round and perfectly hung on her narrow chest. The hardened brown nipples bade Ivan to come forth and suck on them. His eyes roamed downward past her tiny navel to the triangle of jet black hair. It pointed to her juncture where they would soon be joined.

He looked up again to her face and saw her watching him, observing his mounting desire, reveling in the view of her body exciting him. When she knew that he had seen it all she abruptly pivoted in about-face and walked slowly to her bedroom. Ivan watched her gently swinging buttocks. When she reached the door she turned back to him and spoke softly.

"I'll be waiting for you." She disappeared through the door.

Ivan promptly followed her. She had tuned down the covers after her shower. She lay on her back in the center of the bed, her ebony curls tossed back across the white pillow.

"Strip for me, Ivan," she whispered.

Her love for him did not preclude sensuality. In her experience she knew that the two sexual ends were complementary. She wanted completeness in their union, to leave no pleasure or emotion forgotten. In her secret dreams, Rebecca had envisioned Ivan's powerful, lean, muscled body descending and taking her. All her other lovers had been cut of a different cloth, intellectual rather than physical.

Ivan kicked off his shoes, then paused and looked down at her as she watched him. Her lips were slightly open and her tongue passed over her them as she anticipated the end of her waiting. Ivan stripped off his shirt, watching her breathing deepen and quicken, with the erect brown nipples swelling even larger and harder. He gripped his jeans and boxers as a unit and pushed them down his legs. He was naked before her. He stood with his arms to his sides, allowing her to inspect him, as she had done a few minutes ago.

He saw her gazing at his erection that was now dripping. Her eyes roamed the length of him. He would let her look as long as she wished, but he yearned to be down with her. Rebecca bent up her knees and spread them and reached out both slender white arms to beckon him.

Ivan paused to recite Rebecca's own words back to her. "It's when each person wants the other as a lover, and it hurts neither of them, nor anyone else."

Rebecca remembered the words and occasion, and smiled up at him. "Yes!" she whispered.

Ivan climbed on the bed and kneeled between her spread thighs. Their soft skin caressed his flanks. He fought off the urge to penetrate her immediately. He placed his hands just outside both her shoulders and supported his weight on his arms. He bent his head lower to kiss her, which he did. His swollen penis hung over her. She felt its warm drippings on her belly. It excited her and when Ivan's tongue probed through her lips searching for hers, she grasped his massive shoulders and pulled him on top of her.

There, they savored and ravished each other for some minutes. Desire was mounting. Ivan felt her erect nipples stabbing at his chest. He broke the kiss and slid down to suck on each one in its turn as Rebecca pressed his head to her chest. She thrust out her chest at him to deepen the sensation.

Ivan slid lower yet, below the triangle of black hair that adorned her vulva. He slid off the mattress onto his knees on the floor and turned Rebecca into him. He gently opened her lips and inserted his tongue. She let out a gentle affirming moan. He licked every part, and into her vagina and then found her clitoris. Rebecca gasped at the sudden pleasure. She thrust her hips up and pressed his head down into her. Ivan grasped her buttocks cheeks with his powerful hands and lifted her into his face.

He left off the tender tongue caresses on her clitoris. Rather, he pressed it hard with the flat of his tongue, and then sucked it between his lips. Rebecca, already on fire, exploded in release with a loud cry, then repeated as she pressed her sex at him even harder. She relaxed, temporarily drained of energy, descending from a climax that no lover before had ever approached giving her.

"Let me do you", she whispered as she tried to catch her breath.

"Later," he replied. "I just want to be inside you."

She eased herself back to her original position in the middle of the bed and reopened her legs to him, bent at the knees. She tilted her hips and her sex was pointing at him as he climbed between her thighs. Her labia were swollen and gaped open. Ivan inserted himself into her, only an inch or two for the first few seconds. He wanted to remember the first moments that he was inside her. He pushed forward. Her canal was warm and slick. He was fully within her. They remained that way for a minute, just enjoying the union.

Rebecca whispered up at him, "Raise up off me a little. Then hold still. Let me do all the work until you come inside me."

Ivan had never contemplated such a gift from a lover. He gratefully accepted and rose up as she had asked. In rising up, he withdrew from her halfway. Rebecca wrapped her legs and arms around him. She thrust up at him until he once again impaled her. She repeated the movement over and over. She felt him deep inside her and she started pulsing with pleasure. Ivan was approaching too, and he had to fight off the urge to thrust back. He remained solid and motionless as Rebecca had asked. She felt the imminence of their orgasms. Tightening the grip of her arms and legs even more she raised up with all her strength to press her slender body against his massive one. She completely left the surface of the bed, clinging only to him.