Harmony Ch. 02

She woke some time around dawn, the light creeping into the room, and for a moment she didn't know where she was. But Calvin was next to her, on his back, one arm up behind his head, clutching the pillow. Even in sleep, he looked like he was deep in thought. The night before came back to her and she felt a searing humiliation. I should leave, she thought. But he'd been so kind to her, so understanding--he had refused to sleep with her when she was drunk, which was a level of respect that she hadn't had from a man before. And she wanted him. She'd wanted him the night before when she was in his arms, and she wanted him no less now in the light of day. She had been wanting him for weeks now.

She slipped quietly out of the bed so as not to wake him and padded to the bathroom. Her head hurt some, and her mouth was dry, but she wasn't really very hungover. She found a bottle of mouthwash in his cabinet, which helped some, and then went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. She was standing in front of the sink, draining the glass, when she heard footsteps; before she could prepare herself he was there, leaning his big body against the doorframe.

"Hey," he said softly. "How are you feeling?"

She couldn't bring herself to look at him, instead gazing at the glass in her hand. "I've had worse mornings. I'm more embarrassed than hungover."

"Why?"

She laughed dryly. "You've been nothing but kind to me and I treated you abominably the other night. Then I show up on your doorstep, drunk and incoherent--"

"You were hardly incoherent."

"And then I threw myself at you like some kind of--"

"I rather enjoyed that part."

How could she get him to understand? "You should know what I was doing before I came here." She set the glass down on the counter. "I was actively trying not to think about you. I went to a bar and I met a guy."

"Am I going to like this story?"

"Just listen." She closed her eyes. "He bought me a drink. We danced. He asked me if I was into indie rock. I asked him if we could get out of there, so we go out on the street, start ambling to his apartment. Then he tells me we have to take a detour to the convenience store. Inside he went straight to the register and said to the guy, 'Can I get a couple packs of Trojans? The purple ones?' Then he turned and winked at me. I guess he thought he was being chivalrous or something. And all of a sudden I thought--oh, I don't even know what I thought. I just took the condoms and walked out. I just wanted to find you."

She waited, still not looking at him, waiting for what was certainly coming--disappointment, disbelief. Now he would tell her he was sorry, now he would ask her to lave.

But what he said was, "You really took the condoms?"

"They're in my purse." She risked a look at him. He was grinning. The he started laughing. And she laughed, too, from relief, and from the absurdity of the situation. It was, after all, pretty funny.

"Oh, God," she said, wiping her eyes. "At least let me make you breakfast."

"I feel bad just standing here watching you cook. I'll do all the cleaning." He was standing in the doorway while she fried the last of the eggs he had in the fridge.

"Don't. I like to cook. I cook for Cynthia all the time."

Cynthia, he remembered; the elderly woman she worked for. It reminded him of how little he really knew about Ginny, even after all these weeks working together. It wasn't that he didn't want to know about her; it was more that she had a way of shutting down any questions about herself or her life. He wondered if she would answer those questions now. "How'd you come across that job?"

"Well, it's her family I technically work for. Her son is a dentist in Brookline and his wife can only abide her mother-in-law from a distance, so I cook and clean for her. Sometimes I drive her to her doctor's appointments. We watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy together and I'm frequently told to get my tuchus out of the house to go have fun."

Calvin was laughing, but he found it an unappealing prospect and was surprised she seemed so pleased by it. "How long do you want to keep working for her?"

"It's a nice deal. I get two thousand dollars a month and I don't have to pay rent. She lives in a fabulous apartment. I'm socking away quite a bit of money."

"Two thousand a month? Is this woman impossible to live with?"

"She is for her daughter-in-law, but not to me. She adores me. She's the one who wanted me to dye my hair." She ran a hand through her neon-red locks. "You'll have to meet her sometime."

Calvin liked the implications of that, if not the actual suggestion. "Where are you from, Ginny?"

"Everywhere. My parents ran a traveling circus. We toured eight months out of the year and spent the rest of the time in Florida. We lived in a giant RV and a clown taught me algebra."

He stopped pouring coffee. "Are you serious?"

"Oh, yes. My father was the ringmaster and my mother tamed the animals. I rode on the back of an elephant."

"And you thought me growing up in Manhattan was weird?"

She laughed so hard she almost dropped the spatula, and he realized that she'd been putting him on. "But really, where are you from?"

"Put on some music," she suggested. "Something you wanted me to listen to."

Aware that he was being diverted, but going along with it for the moment, he went to the living room and chose a recording he thought she might like, the Debussy string quartet. They ate at his flimsy card table, which had never before hosted a guest; Ginny drank a great deal of black coffee. They were on the second movement of the Debussy now, his favorite. Playful and evasive, he thought, like her. "Do you like this?"

"I do. Calvin, did you always want to be a musician?"

"More or less. As soon as I realized I could write music as well as play it, I was sold. My mother likes to say that I never practiced piano until I started writing my own pieces and had to get a lot better in order to play them."

"Are your parents musicians?"

"Not professionally, but music is a big part of their lives. My mother works at an auction house, but she used to play cello. And my dad--well." He paused. "I don't even know how to describe him. Maybe you just have to experience him. We call him the Professor. He has a law degree and teaches history of law at Columbia. He has two bachelor's degrees, one in philosophy and one in history, and he has a PhD from Oxford. He did a minor in music when he was at Yale and he still plays piano every once in awhile."

"Wow."

"Yeah, he's a lot. He lectures everybody all the time, like he never leaves the classroom. He's very opinionated and very blunt. We argue all the time."

"About what?"

He shrugged. "Everything. He wanted me to go to a university, be well-rounded like he is. It infuriated him that I decided to go to a conservatory in Boston. The day I accepted we had an argument so loud my mother called it the Second Battle of Bunker Hill. He wants me to be just like him, but I only had one interest, and since I got a scholarship he couldn't stop me. We drive each other nuts, but my mother and sister kind of referee."

"You have a sister?"

"Three years younger. She's at Smith right now, which my dad also disapproved of, but he didn't give her quite the hard time he gave me because she's double-majoring in biology and psychology. She wants to be a doctor."

"A family of brilliant people. Your holidays must be something else."

"It's never quiet. What's your family like? Do you have siblings?"

"Honestly, my family's boring. I'm an only child."

She grew quiet after that, watching him scrub out the frying pan as she sipped more coffee and looked out onto the street below. She was still wearing his clothes; the way that the neckline hung loose off her shoulder made him want to kiss her there, run his tongue along her collarbone. His thoughts strayed nervously to the condoms in her purse.

"Do you need to get back to Cynthia?" he asked tentatively.

"No, my Saturdays are mine." She stood and stretched, lifting her arms just high enough to reveal a line of creamy skin on her abdomen. A pang of desire, almost painful, shuddered through him. She wandered into his living room, over to his CD rack, and he followed as if on an invisible lead.

"What do you want to listen to?" he asked as she peered at the options.

"Oh, you pick. You know more than I do."

He considered. "Ever heard Philip Glass?" When she shook her head he popped it in, explaining, "This is minimalism. It's a very repetitive style. It's all about subtle changes in the patterns."

As the first chords of the Metamorphosis rang through the apartment, she closed her eyes. He took advantage of the chance to gaze at her from head to foot. He wanted so badly to touch her. He took a step closer; they were inches apart when she opened her eyes again.

"It sounds like a trance," she said. Her eyes were blue, deep blue. He could drown in them. She reached up and caressed his cheek, running her fingers over the rough stubble of his unshaven skin. "I'm sober now," she said, very softly.

Suddenly he was terrified, almost paralyzed with fear. He didn't know what he was doing; he would be a clumsy, disappointing lover. He might even hurt her somehow. He had to swallow and take a breath before he could say, "So you are."

She exerted gentle pressure with her hand, guiding his head down until their lips met, and in that moment his fear evaporated just as suddenly as it had come upon him. It didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered but this; even if he was inadequate to the task, he would not stop kissing her.

There, in his living room, in a warm patch of sunlight, with Philip Glass's piano music filling the air, he kissed her slowly, deeply, trying to savor it. Her hands were in his hair. He slid his own hands lightly over her back, feeling the warmth of her skin through the thin cotton of the shirt she had borrowed from him; he moved down to her waist, even as her hands were exploring the corded muscles of his neck, his back. She squeezed his shoulders, as if testing their firmness, and he brought his hands back up her body, slowly, slowly, over her breasts, stroking her nipples through the fabric. She tilted her head back and sighed--with pleasure, he hoped.

Her neck, an entire unexplored expanse, pale and lovely. He kissed her just below her ear and felt the response in her body, in the way her fingers gripped his upper arms. He worked his way down, taking him time, tasting her skin. Her hands wandered over the broad plain of his chest and down to his waist, and when she squeezed him gently through his shorts he nipped at her neck, purely instinctive, and her little gasp made him even harder.

How many men had she been with now? And not a one of them like him. She had always thought that kissing was overrated, but kissing Calvin sent wanting radiating through her entire body, made her feel like she was drowning in him. He was so gentle with his hands, exploring her body, making her wait. When he finally reached her breasts, the touch was a relief and a torture at the same time. She had to stop kissing him to breathe, but then he was kissing her neck, slow and hot, the prickles of his unshaven jaw sending shivers down her spine. She clutched him, letting his bulk anchor her; he felt so solid, but she felt more and more liquid. She reached down to see how hard he was and when she felt his teeth in her neck her knees went weak.

"Calvin," she managed, half a moan.

"Mmm," he replied, a low rumble in his throat. He was still making his leisurely way with his lips, at her shoulder now, where the shirt hung loose at her collarbone.

"Your bedroom," she pleaded. She didn't want to stop touching him, kissing him, but she wanted to get their clothes off, to feel her whole body against his, and that meant stumbling to the bed.

But then his hands slid down to lift her; her legs locked around his waist, her arms around his neck without her even choosing it, and it took her a moment to realize that he had picked her up like it was nothing, that he was carrying her to his room, as if he were the faceless male sex god of her fantasies. But Calvin was real; he crossed the distance to his room in just a few long strides, and when he briefly held her up with one arm to push the door open, she laughed, surprised and pleased, and squirmed against the deliciously insistent pressure of his erection. He laughed himself, as if he couldn't quite believe he'd done it, and laid her on the bed.

"God, that was hot," she told him.

He laughed again and grinned, a little sheepishly; she waited for him to join her but he stayed at the foot of the bed for a moment just looking at her. She pulled her shirt over her head so that he could see her. In his own shirt and gym shorts, with his hair mussed and an almost poignant expression on his face, he looked adorably boyish. Then he grasped her hips, hooked his fingers into the waistband of the boxers he'd loaned her, and pulled them slowly down her legs. His eyes followed the tracks of his hands, his fingertips tracing over her thighs and her calves to her feet. When he was done he looked up again and gazed at her with such intensity that she shivered. This was the Calvin she'd seen at work, in utter command of himself, completely focused; and he was not a boy.

He moved atop her and his lips found hers again. She arched her body up to meet him and clung to him for a moment, wrapping her legs around him again. She pushed him over until she was atop him, straddling him, and sat up straight, rocking her hips over his cock. He took a deep breath, and she saw that he was fighting to stay composed.

She didn't want him to be composed. She tugged at the him of his shirt and he sat up to lift it off. Broad-chested, broad-shouldered. Hers, finally. She trailed her lips over his chest, planted light, teasing kisses down his belly and the thin line of hair leading to the waistband of his shorts. Then she pulled them down and off his legs.

He was big--not the biggest she'd ever seen, but bigger than she'd seen in a long while--and impressively hard. She stroked his thighs, cupped her hands around his balls, tight and heavy, and ran her tongue over the tip of him. He let out a loud exhalation, but didn't break his gaze. She curled up on her side and started stroking and sucking him. His hand danced over her thigh to rest at the thin, damp line of her panties--not doing anything, just barely touching, and it made her delirious with anticipation. With the tip of his fingers he traced where the fabric met her skin. She took even more of him in her mouth and he finally lost some measure of his composure, closing his eyes and swearing softly.

She slid her lips off of him slowly, letting the flat of her tongue run over him. "Do you want me, Cal?" she asked in a low voice.

"I do." He swallowed. "Very much."

Then he slipped a finger inside her panties and stroked her. She bit her lip at the sensation. "And you want me."

A statement, not a question. How like him, she thought, to be so sure.

His relentlessly analytical mind kept chattering away at him: the Glass was a good choice for this. Oh, she likes it when I kiss her neck. She really loved it when I picked her up. God, look at her, she's beautiful. This happens every day to other people, how has it taken twenty-three years for it to happen to me? Oh, but this was worth waiting for. Wow, she's wet. She really wants me. She really does.

He worked the panties down her legs and tossed them to the floor, and she reached for her purse on the nightstand to pull out one of the infamous condoms of the night before. He watched intently as she opened it and rolled it onto him. Then she smiled, radiant, tossed her hair back, and climbed on top of him again, and he had to kiss her, he had to. He sat up, leaning on one arm, and looped the other one around her back just as she began to lower onto him.

She broke away and gasped, "Oh--"

"Are you okay?"

"Mmm." She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together; she looked like she was meditating. "You're pretty big."

He grazed his teeth along her neck. "Not too big, I hope."

"Oh, no," she sighed, and slowly, slowly, they came together. Her slick, silky heat was intoxicating. Don't you dare end this early, he barked at himself. But that was going to be a challenge.

"Can we stay like this for a minute?" she said, her eyes still closed.

"Of course," he murmured. "The last thing I want to do is hurt you."

Her laugh was clipped and low. "Oh, I'm not hurting."

And then she began to move. He responded instinctively, letting her lead but moving with her, as much as he could. How strange, he thought; I don't know what I'm doing, but my body does. She threw her head back and made a lovely noise of satisfaction. He was mesmerized by every little gasp and moan and cry, every rising breath, every flutter of her eyelids. She clung to his shoulders like a lifesaver and he loved it.

"Ginny," he breathed, for the pleasure of saying her name, and she opened her eyes to look at him. They both leaned into each other, and when he realized she was coming, not only because she let out a keening cry, but because he could feel it, in her body beneath his hands and inside her, around his cock, his mind went silent, like a radio shorting out, and he bent his head to her neck, overcome. For the first time in his life, Calvin stopped thinking altogether.

"Ohhhh," she said softly, tilting forward to rest her head on his shoulder. He held her to him with a hand splayed protectively across her back. The feel of her skin against his was--what was it like? Warm and damp. Who cared about the simile? The arm that propped them up was growing tired, but he didn't want to move.

She lifted her head. "You're shaking," she observed, furrowing her brow.

He smiled and kissed her forehead. "I'll be fine." Then he leaned back, taking her with him. She eased off of him--an altogether more disappointing sensation--and rolled onto her side. He carefully removed the condom, tied it off, deposited it in the trash can, and turned to face her. They were grinning at each other like children with a magnificent secret. He remembered the first time he'd seen her, how aloof and reserved she'd been, and then thought of her moments earlier, her head thrown back in ecstatic release.

"Cal," she said, "was that your first time?"

He thought about his answer. "Yes," he admitted finally. "I've had some other, ah, encounters, but essentially, yes. They were nothing like this." He reached to touch her, to run his hands over her skin. He felt again the inexplicable urge to bite her--the curve of her shoulder, or her neck again, as if to claim her. "Nothing at all like this."

"You didn't seem nervous."

He laughed. "I was terrified, actually. Right up until you kissed me."

"What were you afraid of?"

"That I'd disappoint you."

She smiled. "It was different for me, too," she said softly. "I've never done it like that."

"Sitting up?"

She laughed. "That, too, but I meant...it's never been so...intense."

"I always thought that was how it's supposed to be."

"Maybe it is." She looked almost sad for a moment, and he asked, "Ginny, what were you so afraid of?"

She rolled onto her back, looking up at the ceiling. After a moment, in a halting voice, she said, "Everything. How you feel. How I feel. What might happen."

"Are you afraid that I'll hurt you?"

"Oh, no." Her eyes darted back to him. "The opposite. I'm afraid that I'll hurt you."

His first instinct was to laugh, but he sensed that it would be the wrong reaction. She looked genuinely troubled. "I'll take the risk," he told her earnestly.

But she wasn't looking at him anymore. She seemed lost in herself. Having seen her radiant, it pained him to see her suddenly so distant again. "Hey," he said, reaching to caress her cheek. "Stay with me. Please." He couldn't have said exactly what he was asking for: the moment, the day, as long as she'd have him, the rest of his life.