Memories of Ben

I slid into the passenger seat. Ben closed the door, and walked around the car. When he slid in beside me, and turned the key, I half-whispered "Ben, you don't have to stop yourself from looking at me."

He turned, and did look at me. He found my eyes, and then I watched as his gaze slid down the curve of my neck, to my breasts, and then float back up to my eyes again. "Nat," he said softly, "you know I can't look."

"Why?"

He started the car and pulled out onto Booth. I watched him glance in the rear-view mirror at Sarah, slumped in the back seat of the car. "I don't know," he said. "The guy I'm supposed to be, the person I'm trying to be - he isn't supposed to be the guy who looks at you and thinks of you the way..., well, thinks of you, in certain ways."

The soft glow of dashboard lights in the car. The headlights illuminating trees and parked cars as Ben drove us slowly down along Booth. There had been a few moments since Ben arrived at Mad Planet when I'd felt ridiculous, essentially wearing a fishnet in his presence. But in the car, with Ben seemingly struggling with something as he sat beside me, I felt right somehow. I felt sensuous, and attractive, and very different from the young girl who had been at Ben's side for over 10 years now.

"Can I hold your hand?"

He looked at me for a moment, and a moment of indecision passed, before he eased his hand towards me. I took his right hand in my left, and held it firmly against my left thigh. My fingers locked through his, pressing the back of his hand against my skin. "Ben, do you know that you never hugged me, all these years?"

"I never hugged you?'

"Almost never. And you never hugged me tightly. Loose hugs when I crossed the finish line at some race, but then you'd let go quickly and reach for something, or say hi to someone you knew, and it was over. Was that a conscious decision all those times? To not hug me?"

"Nat, I hugged you."

"No," I said, squeezing his hand. "I'm talking about the kind of hugs you gave Sarah. Lifting her up off her feet and holding her to your chest. I can close my eyes and picture you giving her those hugs over the years, and I can feel the ache that I felt every single time, of being right there and being the one that you didn't hug."

"Nat," he whispered, as the Milwaukee city streets slid by at 4:00am. "Nat..," but he was struggling with the words. He gripped my hand and stared at the road ahead, and I continued to tremble at the touch of the back of his hand pressed against my bare thigh. "I always felt I had to be careful with you. Maybe I was too careful. If I never hugged you enough, I'm sorry. I wanted to. But in so many ways I was your dad, but not your dad, and I was your mom's friend, and I was married, and I was Sarah's dad, and it was too difficult in some ways. I felt like there were lines in the sand I had to be careful about, but then there was you." His voice trailed off for a moment, and it felt like something he wanted to say went silent on his lips. "I never wanted to do something improper, Nat. I guess that's what it is."

"It wouldn't have been improper," I said, squeezing his hand against my thigh. "It was you and me. It's always been you and me. We would have been the ones to decide what was right and not right."

"No, there's your mom, and Donna, and Sarah. They would have watched, and wondered, about any attention I gave you."

"You don't love Donna," I said, the words spilling from my lips after having thought them for so long.

A moment passed. A heartbeat. Ben slowly unlaced his fingers from mine and put both hands firmly on the wheel. He stared straight ahead, and we passed the rest of the trip in silence.

At Ben and Sarah's house, we hauled Sarah inside and took her down to the guestroom on the lower level, close to a bathroom. I changed Sarah out of her club dress and into a pair of pajama bottoms and a T-Shirt. Ben and I put her to bed, and then wandered down the hall to the rec-room. I watched for a few moments as he pulled out the fold-out couch, and started making it up with sheets and blankets from a closet. When he was done, he turned to me and asked if I wanted him to run upstairs and find something else of Sarah's for me to sleep in.

I whispered "no", and we stood there together, only a desk light glowing in the far corner of the room.

"I don't really," he whispered. "Donna. I don't love her anymore."

"I know."

"I don't know how this happens to you. But it does. Falling out of love."

"Will you hug me?" I asked. "Will you hold me, Ben?"

He waited a moment, but then stepped towards me. His hands, his arms, reached around and pulled me to him. I put my arms around his shoulders and lay my head on his chest. "Will you hold me, Daddy?" I whispered.

And he did.

He squeezed me warm against him, a mini bearhug, with my feet almost rising from the floor. And then with his hands warm on my back, touching my skin through that backless dress, he held me. I felt him nuzzle his face into my hair and breathe me in. We swayed together softly, and some deeply hidden weight within us began to shift.

"Do you have to go upstairs?" I whispered, my fingers linked around the back of his neck.

"I should."

"Will you lie down beside me? Keep holding me?"

He held my hand, as I sat down on the bed, still in my sheer club dress. He sat beside me, and soon we were lying face to face in the near-darkness. I was on my right side, looking at him as he lay on his left. He reached up, with his right hand, and slid his fingertips across my forehead, continuing the motion to brush wisps of hair around my ear. He teased a fingertip along my earlobe, down along the lines of my jaw and chin. Then settled his fingertips on my left cheek, brushing my skin absently.

I parted my lips, and watched Ben's gaze slide from my eyes to my mouth. His fingers moved, and he began brushing a soft circle around the oval of my mouth. Index finger. Middle finger. Tracing the curve of my lips. I took his right wrist in my left hand, and drew his hand closer, taking his middle finger into my mouth. I pursed my lips around his finger, and bobbed my head slightly forward, and then away, stroking my mouth, full of saliva, along the length of Ben's finger. I closed my eyes and moaned softly, almost whimpering. Good God, taking his finger in my mouth like this made me instantly, and drippingly wet. Ben pulled his middle finger free and offered me his index finger, and I drank it back as well. I stroked my tongue down along the length and then took it fully into my mouth, moaning and drooling saliva all over it. Finally his ring finger as well, coating daddy's fingers with my saliva, making them so wet.

He slid his fingers from my mouth, and we stared at each other as his hand drifted down, and he touched the backs of his fingers, and his knuckles, against my left thigh, keeping his fingertips raised, protecting the saliva glistening on them. He caressed the backs of his fingers down towards my inner thigh, and I parted my legs, lifting my left leg up, and hooking my ankle onto his right leg. "Touch me, Ben," I begged, so wet now that I was writhing and aching for him to slide a finger deep inside me. "Ben...,"

He brushed the backs of his fingers against my inner left thigh, his knuckles gracing across the lacy front panel of my thong, and then he dragged his fingertips down my inner right thigh. He continued that way for a few moments, torturing me by dragging the backs of his fingers and briefly his fingertips around my inner thighs in circles. When he finally touched his middle fingertip onto my thong, and slid that finger up, stroking through the material against my slit, I moaned loudly. I gripped his shoulder and then his neck with my left hand, and then pulled his forehead to mine as I opened for him. Ben shifted his touch, and slid his fingers under my thong. He touched a wet fingertip against my slit and stroked, skin to skin, down the length of my slit, and I simply melted.

One fingertip.

Touching me.

Writhing for more. Urging my hips forward, Ben, more Daddy... please...

And then, down the hall, the sound of Sarah throwing up.

Ben's heat, and mine. The densely intimate lushness of the two of us coming together. My mouth aching for the stroke of his tongue against mine. All of it, shuddering, to a silent, agonizing, halt.

No. No. No. Don't take this away. Don't let this end yet. No.

"No."

But a moment passed, and his touch upon my skin disappeared. We lay there for another few heartbeats, our eyes locked together, a million things floating unspoken between us.

We would never get this chance again. I knew it with more certainty than I'd ever known anything in my life. I cupped my hand against the back of Ben's head and brought his forehead to mine again. We breathed together, and for a few final moments, savoured this small island of warmth and need and intimacy.

"Go to her. She needs you. Go to her Ben."

IV

Two years passed. My second and third years in St. Paul.

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and summer back in Milwaukee. Rinse and repeat.

Ben and I jogged together. He gave me rides to and from school. At times we seemed to deliberately hold back from each other, barely touching, and at others it was like we wanted to prove that that night had been nothing to be embarrassed about, so we hugged fully, warmly. Either way, it was never the same. The 'what if' of my life with Ben was gone now, replaced by 'we can never have this'. I loved him, but my heart didn't race anymore, and with that gone, life in many ways felt diminished.

The summer before my last year of school, my mom announced that she was going to leave Milwaukee and move close to my grandparents in Oregon. At the end of August, just before I went back to St. Paul, there was a goodbye party at Donna and Ben's house. We had an early dinner at the house before the guests arrived, just me and mom, Donna and Ben, Sarah and the Columbus boyfriend. A few drinks, some wistful smiles, and then the guests began arriving. Ben lit the Tiki lamps in the backyard as the daylight seeped out of the sky.

I wore a light summer dress. My hair fell down over my bare shoulders.

At one point, as guests lingered on the deck, in the yard, in various rooms in the house, I looked down from the deck and saw Ben and my mom sitting on a wrought iron bench together. My mom was obviously moved by whatever she was saying, and eventually she gripped Ben's hand in hers and I could make out the words "Thank you Ben" obviously flowing from her lips. He took her drink from her and put it down in the grass, and wrapped his arms around her, holding her.

*

"Do you let yourself ask 'what if' very much?"

"How do you mean?"

"What if this, what if that, you know, 'What if'?"

Ben had found me in the house, and asked if I wanted to sneak away for a few minutes. We went outside and our feet found the sidewalk. At some point, walking side by side, his left hand found my right, and our fingers linked together, walking along hand in hand.

"What do you ask yourself 'what if' about Nat?"

"Are you sure you want to know?" I answered, winking at him. "This isn't the kind of thing you're very comfortable with."

"Well, you're leaving Milwaukee."

"Yeah, I'm leaving Milwaukee." With mom in Oregon, and with plans to apply to grad programs in a few other parts of the country, I didn't have much confidence that Milwaukee would be part of my life anymore. I squeezed Ben's hand but didn't look at him, my eyes focused somewhere in the city darkness ahead of us. "What if Sarah hadn't thrown up that night? What would have happened?"

Ben's fingers, holding mine, squeezed softly. He stopped walking, and we stood face to face, looking into each other's eyes. His left hand dropped my fingers, and settled on my side. His right hand touched to my cheek. "Kiss me," he whispered.

I put my hands on Ben's shoulders, and leaned in towards him. As my lips touched his, I closed my eyes.

V

Christmas Break

I puttered around the apartment, packing while drinking tea. An airplane ticket to Portland was in my bag, and I was killing time before the taxi arrived. It was snowing in St. Paul. I leaned against the window holding a cup of tea in my hand, watching the snowflakes falling faintly from the sky. It seemed impossible that Ben wasn't on his way to pick me up. That his finger wasn't soon going to ring the buzzer down at the door. In many ways I was trembling the entire morning, wanting that piece of the past to happen again. But no, just me, and silence, and my little apartment.

A taxi ride to MSP. Hugging myself in the back seat of the cab, dressed in a fleece lined jean jacket, scarf, and winter cap with a pompom on top.

At MSP I checked in, and checked my bags. I had an hour to kill, so I wandered around the airport for a while, feeling utterly lost. Eventually I found a seat near my departure gate and sat there, people-watching. An odd conversation about dog obedience lessons, and agility training, was happening behind me. I eavesdropped for a while, glad for the distraction from how wrong this all felt, but soon-enough the ache in my stomach returned. I didn't want to be here. I didn't want the taxi to the airport, the flight to Portland, or holidays with my mom. But what I did want was over now. Ben knocking on my door, me bouncing on my feet as I hugged him. That feeling of already being home because he was there holding me in his arms. Ben picking up my bags and carrying them to the car. A stop for coffee and then the road before us - the Beatles, and "These Eyes" and "Don't Do Me Like That" on the car stereo.

As I sat near the departure gate, looking at the planes sitting by the hangars, I could feel a chapter closing in my life, and I hated it. It felt like the world was going dark before my eyes. I brushed the heel of my hand against my cheek, wiping away the tear I could feel falling, and flipped to the photos on my phone. There was one Sarah had sent me recently. One I'd never seen before, though I remembered the moment - remembered hundreds of moments like it.

I stared at it, and this time, as the tears fell, I just let them slide down my cheeks.

[Natalie] I'm at the airport.

[Ben] Hey. Yeah. Was thinking of you being there.

[Natalie] I'm crying.

[Ben] ah, Nat. Damn. I feel like I should be there. I feel like I'm supposed to be on the road right now.

[Natalie] It sucks.

[Ben] It does suck.

[Natalie] I was just looking at a picture. Sarah sent it to me on Instagram a few weeks ago. I don't know if you ever saw it.

[Ben] Picture of what?

I pressed send and after a moment or two, it squeezed through the airwaves and was on Ben's phone in Milwaukee. It was a picture of the two of us, on the dock at the cottage. Our feet were in the water. I think Sarah had taken the picture as she had floated past in a kayak. Ben was in swim trunks only, his trim runner's body glowing in the sunlight. I was in swim bottoms, wearing a light T Shirt. My hair tied back in a wet pony tail. I would have been 16 or 17.

I was grinning. I was so happy.

Both of us had our hands on the edge of the dock as we sat side by side. If you looked a bit more closely, and it had made me simply weep when I noticed this, his hand was on mine, right hand on left, as we sat there.

[Natalie] I love you daddy.

A moment. Another. And another. Staring desperately at my phone as dozens of people milled about me, and hundreds more entered and exited MSP airport. How many thousands of people in the air, at that very moment, traveling from one part of their life to another? All of us in transit, all of us swirling around each other - and sometimes you need that one person who feels like home to you, sometimes you need that touch of their forehead to yours, as you lean into each other and breathe. Sometimes... sometimes... you need a few simple words, typed far away, to flicker to life on the screen of your phone.

[Ben] I love you too, babygirl.