Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder Ch. 02

Author's note: This is the second part of Laura and Richard's story. If you haven't read part one, you should probably start there.

Special thanks to Bad_Hobbit for editing and giving me the confidence to publish this. Any factual or writing errors are my own and I would be very grateful for your feedback.

Chapter 2

Richard

I fell in love and it didn't go well.

I was twenty-two, only a few months into my PhD and full of dreams and romance. Annette was fucking breathtaking. Stunning. Intoxicating. She walked into the graduate bar on a Friday night, spotted me and asked me to buy her a drink. A couple of hours later she invited me back to hers.

I think the phrase they use in police reports is "they quickly entered into an intense physical relationship". Before she'd even closed the door my mouth was on hers, my fingers tangling in the soft blonde curls at the nape of her neck as she teased my lips with her tongue and began to unbutton my shirt.

Annette was wearing a delicate strappy silk top and I felt the lace pattern of her bra and the hardness of her nipples as I cupped her breasts. She put both hands on my arse and pulled my body into hers, hooking one leg up over my hip like a tango dancer and grinding herself into the bulge already growing in my jeans.

Maybe it was a sign of things to come that I broke a strap of her delicate top as I clumsily pulled it down to kiss her body. She just gave a throaty laugh, turning me on even more, as I tugged the rest of her clothes off and licked and sucked and worshipped her golden skin with my mouth.

I fell to my knees in the hallway, pulled her knickers down and buried my face in her. I licked her thirstily, savouring the taste of her. The pleasure I was giving her was almost incidental as I relished her sweet saltiness. I slipped a finger inside her, then two, and she didn't take long to come after that, gasping and panting and holding my head as she clenched and shook.

Then we swapped places and she sucked my cock, wrapping her tongue and her lips around me and gently playing with my balls as she warmed me up. She began to suck in earnest, and it felt like she was sucking my brain and my eyes and my lungs out through my cock. I couldn't tell her to stop, even though a minute ago I'd been desperate to fuck her. She took me deep in her mouth and I tried to make it last, but I couldn't. I came hard down her throat, squeezing the last spurts of cum into her mouth as she looked up into my eyes. I fell onto my knees again, and it was a few minutes before I could get up.

But I was twenty-two, with the energy and enthusiasm of a puppy, and my cock was ready to go again before my brain had really recovered. She took me to her bed and produced condoms, and we fucked hard and fast on all fours, slept for a bit, fucked again slowly and thoroughly with her on top, more sleep, and then leisurely spooning in the morning.

I lost myself in her.

For weeks we spent all our free time together, and quite a lot of time that shouldn't have been free. We ate out and went to gigs, and I bought her jewellery and books and music. I burned through what little money I had and went into my overdraft. We talked all the time, shared secrets, laughed at inane jokes, and we planned holidays and living together and getting married and having children. We fucked like we were addicted to each other.

My PhD supervisor asked if I was serious about my academic career, and my parents worried about me, and my brother told me I needed to keep things in perspective. I didn't give a shit: I was in love.

***

When I came back from the kitchen, Laura was sound asleep. Her head was tilted back and her chest softly rose and fell with her breath. I covered her gently with a blanket, sat down in the opposite corner of the room and ate the sandwich I'd brought for her.

I wished she hadn't come.

What I knew about Dr Laura Black was that she was smart, independent, and hard-working. I'd seen her presenting her work, I knew she was shit hot at her job, and that most of the credit went to her scumbag boss. In meetings and seminars she had a knack for asking the right questions and not being fobbed off with bullshit. She was no respecter of rank or reputation: if the Dean said something vague, Laura would ask for clarification.

And she was hot. Gorgeous brown eyed framed by long lashes, a cute dimple in her left cheek, and lips that made me thirsty just to look at them. Long legs and perfect curves cunningly disguised under the jeans and comfortable tops she usually wore at work. Crouching on my doorstep with her hand stuck in my letterbox and her eyelashes clumped together with rain, she'd looked insanely gorgeous. I'd given her my favourite cosy long-sleeved T shirt and a grey woolly jumper that swamped her, and I was fucking entranced like a groom on his wedding day. She'd taken off her damp trainers and socks, and her feet were fucking perfect too. Damn.

If you're wondering whether her wanker of a boss had tried his luck, he hadn't wasted more than a couple of weeks. That was one of the first reports in the Alan Williams Hall of Shame I'd been reviewing earlier. She'd made a complaint, clearly and compellingly, and when it resulted in the predictable slap on the wrist, she'd stuck at her job despite having to work with the bellend.

She impressed me.

And Laura had always pronounced my name right. If you're called Smith or Lopez or Patel you won't get it, but if you really want to know who gives a shit about you, try having an unpronounceable name. All you Palaszczuks and McCaughreans and Chaimongkhons, you know what I'm talking about. In my first week I was dragged around the department to meet everyone, and I made sure I introduced myself rather than leaving it to the administrator to fuck it up. The wonderful Dr Laura Black, who with a name like Black had no earthly reason to care, listened with a concentration that unnerved me, repeated it back perfectly and smiled as she shook my hand. Remembering that moment made my chest hurt.

I listened to her quiet breathing and replayed the earlier conversation. She'd asked why I was such a grumpy twat, when it seemed like there was a real person underneath. Hopefully she would take the hint and leave it alone. I chose to be a grumpy twat. Other people were better off without my company. So I didn't smile, and I wasn't friendly, and I didn't fucking invite people round.

Maybe I shouldn't have let her in at all, but she'd already started shivering and it wasn't safe or responsible to leave her out in the rain with another couple of miles to walk. But that meant I'd broken my own rule, and she'd been exactly how I knew she would be: lovely, and grateful, and deeply threatening.

Laura didn't need to be awake to be asking me some tough questions about the splendid isolation I'd imposed on myself. Since I'd moved in, no-one apart from me had slept on that sofa, or anywhere else in my home. But she was warm and kind and made me laugh, and I suspected that when she went away my living room would feel emptier than before. Dr Laura Black had invaded my home, just as she'd stealthily occupied my thoughts without me really noticing.

I wished she hadn't come.

I didn't want her to go.

It began to look like she might be asleep for a while. I didn't want to disturb her, but I also didn't want to think of her waking up alone in a strange place. I poured myself a small measure of single malt whisky, picked up a pile of assignments that needed marking, and got on with work.

Anything to take my mind off what the fuck I was going to do when she woke up.

***

I'd marked most of the assignments when Laura stirred in her sleep. She made a soft noise that communicated directly with the contents of my boxer shorts, and I closed my eyes briefly and wondered what other noises she could make, and how it would feel to help her make them.

Then she murmured what sounded like "No". I looked over and saw pain and tension in her expression, and I told my crotch to calm the fuck down. A grimace flickered across her face, and she started to shake her head fitfully from side to side.

"No." she mumbled indistinctly, "Leemealone... No. Get off me." Her gasps were increasingly panicked and her legs twitched under the blanket.

OK, before you say it: I know you're not supposed to wake people out of nightmares. But I couldn't just sit there and watch her suffering. I just couldn't.

I went over and sat on the footstool next to Laura's feet. I said her name and nudged her knees through the blanket, but that just seemed to make her more agitated. I didn't want to accidentally grab anything too personal, so I tried to catch hold of her elbows. She shook me off and a flailing arm smacked me quite hard across the jaw.

Yep, I know. I asked for that. Trying to wake her like that was a fucking stupid thing to do, and I absolutely deserved a smack in the mouth. Twat.

Once she was properly awake, her eyes and mouth formed perfect round O's of dismay as she sucked in a long, shaky breath and I realised I'd just made her feel even worse.

"It's okay, Laura, it was just a bad dream. You're okay now."

"Oh shit oh shit oh shit, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" The nightmare had brought tears welling up and they spilled onto her cheeks as she reached out a hesitant hand to my face.

"My fault. I shouldn't have tried to wake you. Are you all right?"

"Yes. I mean, sort of. But... it wasn't just a dream. Can I explain? Because it explains about what happened earlier as well." I didn't see the relevance, but I nodded, and she took another couple of breaths to steady herself.

"I was assaulted when I was an undergrad." It was clearly something she'd explained before. "I'd been to a party with friends, and a guy offered to walk me the rest of the way home. Friend of a friend, I thought he was okay but it turned out he wasn't. I'd had a bit to drink, I tried to fight him off but he was taller and stronger and wasn't taking no for an answer." She took another deep, shuddering breath. "I wasn't raped. We were on the doorstep of my student flats, and he grabbed me before I'd unlocked the door. Lucky for me he was a bit too hasty." She gives me a wry, sad smile. "We were disturbed by a passing taxi before he had a chance to get me indoors."

I couldn't help a swell of rage directed at the bastard -- whoever, wherever he was -- that had hurt her so badly. Then I wondered if I was any better.

"I used to get the nightmares a lot, just reliving it, you know? Now I hardly ever do, but seeing that girl in the park tonight, it was... I dunno, closer to the surface or something. When I saw the two of you, I thought..." The vulnerability in her eyes was suddenly overlaid with a hard glint of cynicism that stung me. "Well, I don't tend to give people the benefit of the doubt any more. That's why I assumed the worst. So, I'm sorry again for that. And now I've smacked you as well. Are you OK?"

I gave her what I hoped was an encouraging grin. "I don't know, maybe we should both call an ambulance?" That raised a hint of a genuine smile. "Honestly, I'm fine. How are you?"

"I'm fine. I should go home."

I looked at my watch, then at the pale, exhausted woman in front of me. "Laura, it's past two in the morning and it's still raining. No way should you be going anywhere."

Before I knew it my arms were open for a hug. As she leant forward I realised I was desperate to know what her body would feel like against mine.

She leant cautiously into my arms, and her breasts felt amazing against my chest, and her arms around me were like heaven, and her head under my chin felt like it belonged there. We stayed like that for much longer than a reassuring hug from a colleague should last. I stroked the soft, glossy hair away from her face in a gesture that walked a tightrope between comfort and intimacy.

"Stay 'til the morning. You can take my bed."

"Okay, but only if you're in it too."

She was still crushed against me so I couldn't see her face, which was maybe why she'd had the nerve to come out with that. But it sounded like she was smiling. I was speechless for a few moments as I tried to process the tangle of shock, desire and fear that filled me.

I wanted her so much. But the invitation was an icy trickle down my back. She was a good person and she deserved to be with someone tender and loving and whole. Not this worthless mangled replica of a man. Not this unexploded bomb of jealousy and rage.

"I... I don't think that's a good idea."

She peeled herself away from me and leaned back, definitely not smiling now.

"Not because I don't like you," I added hurriedly, "I like you a lot. And I don't want to hurt you."

***

I fell in love. It didn't go well.

In books and films and soaps, the victim discovers the cheating in a dramatic fashion: walking in on his lover in bed with another man, or discovering some damning item of evidence. Not me.

Annette just came straight out and told me, after dinner at her flat one evening. She strangled my dreams with a few words like it was humdrum, like she couldn't get a table for Salvatore's on Saturday night, like the dress she wanted was sold out. She had met someone else, it had been going on for a while, she was breaking up with me, there was nothing more to say. He had money, and a house, and blah blah I don't remember the rest.

In the numbness that followed her announcement that we no longer had a future together, I somehow managed to talk her into one last fuck. I've no idea what I said to persuade her. I intended to record every detail of that final shag as a precious memento. Now I remember almost nothing apart from the end.

When I play the memory in my head, it starts with me already inside her. She's on her hands and knees on the living room floor, one of our favourite ways to do it, and I'm fucking her slowly but firmly.

And for some reason I start to think about her and the other guy.

I don't even know what he looks like, but I have a physical feeling of revulsion at the thought of them together. I wonder what they've been doing together. Does he fuck her like this? Does he tease her nipples, and playfully smack her backside, and kiss the soft hollow in her throat? What does she like him to do?

I keep fucking her with that same steady rhythm, but harder now. She moans my name and urges me on, but I don't reach around to toy with her clit, and I don't slide my hand underneath her to tweak her nipples, and I don't plant soft kisses on the back of her neck. I just fuck her.

She's kissed him, the way she and I have kissed. And he's been inside her -- his cock has been here, where mine is now. And he'll still get to do all those things with her.

I put one hand in the middle of her back, between her shoulder blades, and I push down firmly. She resists at first, and then succumbs to the pressure and lowers herself flat to the floor, and I follow her down.

My knees smart from the carpet and I feel disgusted with myself, disgusted with her, but I can't stop. I'm glad she can't see my face. She tells me it feels so good, and angles her hips and squeezes her thighs together so she grips me tightly. I ram my cock into her again and again, as if I could scrape the other man's stain out from inside her. I don't feel pleasure, just a leaden compulsion to keep going until it's over.

I wonder if he does things with her that I haven't done. Has he tied her up? Gagged her? Has he fucked her in the arse? The image of her tight ring stretched around some other man's cock, even as it destroys me, suddenly brings my orgasm close. She can still read my reactions better than anyone and tells me to come inside her. I grunt and do as she says, gripping her hips with both hands and slamming a few last thrusts into her. As I come, I push as hard and deep as I can, desperately trying to climb inside her. And a horrible calm descends.

Until that night, the moment after climax had been my favourite thing in the whole world. In those few minutes of peace and clarity, holding Annette and being held by her, I'd always felt completely and unconditionally loved. So full of joy and warmth and contentment and hope for the future.

But this time, the moment is utterly devoid of anything I could possibly want. I've never felt so alone.

I prop myself up on my forearms and look at Annette's head resting on its side, her tousled blonde curls and her softly closed eye and her perfect lips and her slender pale neck. And I wonder what it would feel like to wrap my hands around that neck and squeeze the life out of her. I wonder that for a really, really long time. Maybe for the rest of my life.

Like I said, I fell in love. It didn't go well.

The next morning I got up at 6am and went in to the department, and I worked until almost midnight. I did that every day until my health started to suffer, and then I added exercise and some non-cafeteria food to my routine. Within a couple of months I'd made up for the time I'd pissed away with her, and I was on course for the rest of my life.

Intelligent, hardworking, ambitious Richard. Broken beyond repair.

My PhD supervisor was impressed and pushed me harder, and my parents worried about me working too much, and my brother told me I needed to keep things in perspective and should take a weekend off sometimes.

I didn't abstain completely. There were plenty of girls out there looking for a one-night thing without any complications, and I quickly learned how to spot them. There was a sort of enjoyment in playing the strong, silent type: always their place not mine, always safe, good in bed but not too good. Gone in the morning and not interested in seeing anyone a second time.

I didn't want to risk caring about any of them. I knew if I let love grow in me it would turn sour and malicious, and other people would be at risk. I couldn't allow that to happen.

***