Ten Thousand Spoons

She smiled indulgently and chuckled softly under her breath. "I appreciate it, but this isn't that type of internship environment. You don't need to be the coffee gopher; just scan and upload documents correctly, and you'll do fine."

Jared nodded quietly and his strong jaw clenched. "Okay. But I'd still like to treat you to a cup of coffee sometime. I mean, if that's cool. Maybe I could ask you some things about what it's like being an attorney?"

Wednesday afternoon, she let him accompany her to Starbuck's to get a flat white which she'd already ordered and paid for on the app. He offered to buy her a pastry to go with her drink and she turned him down. "I appreciate it, really, but I'm the adult here. You don't need to spend anything on me. If anything, I should be treating you."

"You're not so much older than me, you know." Jared frowned and Nadia couldn't tell whether her offhand remark had offended him.

"I'm old enough. I'm closer in age to your auntie than I am to you."

He couldn't hold back a laugh. "That's bonkers. It doesn't seem like it." As they walked back through the building lobby and to the elevator bank, he asked, "So, since you wouldn't let me get you coffee, can I take you out to dinner?"

After work on Thursday, they went to the Chipotle on Broadway. The whipping, freezing wind pushed back against them as they walked down Water Street. Jared held the whistling restaurant door open for her as she rushed inside.

She ordered a bowl and he got two enormous burritos and chips and guacamole, and after he paid, they sat next to each other in the window seat counter facing Whitehall Station and the Battery. "So, tell me about yourself," he said jovially before taking a huge bite of his first burrito, and as he chewed, added, "What interests you, Nadia? What makes you tick?"

She shrugged. She wasn't convinced that she wanted to play "getting to know you" with an eighteen year old. Perhaps Jared picked up on some unspoken signal because he casually shifted his approach and said, "I'll go first," and offered that he was weighing school decisions between Princeton and MIT. "I'm really passionate about engineering. That's part of what's holding up my decision of where I want to go. I'm auditing Fluid Dynamics at NYU. I'm also into Forex; fluid dynamics probabilities have a lot of overlap with finance engineering."

She smirked and quipped, "So in other words, you're a lot nerdier than you look." Jared laughed genuinely. "Is that what you do for fun, Forex and physics? Don't you ever just hang out at the mall or something? What about sports? Trina mentioned you're on the Stuy team."

"I'm on the fencing and golf teams. They're okay."

She nodded and raised an eyebrow as she sipped her drink. "You look like you have football recruiters chasing you down everyday. You definitely must have little high school girls chasing you down."

Jared smiled. "Why; are you interested in chasing me down, Nadia?" he asked bluntly and chuckled. She knew he was teasing her and felt a tight, warm thrill radiate in her chest. She didn't mind the teasing; she liked the banter and she really liked the way he smiled at her when he laughed, the way his chocolate-brown eyes lit up and that his face and posture were easy and friendly. But she blushed and shook her head furiously, and so he shrugged a shoulder and said, "I have no interest in ever being concussed. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and mine could change the whole world someday. I'm not fucking my brain up on a football field."

"Trina mentioned you're a genius," she said. He shrugged and didn't answer. "Your auntie thinks you hung the moon. She's told everyone you'll be going to Harvard in the fall."

"She talks too much," he interjected with a light chuckle. "I'll bet she's talked your ear off about my dad's affair too."

"I wasn't going to bring it up, but, yeah, I've heard… a lot about it."

He nodded casually, but she noticed that his brown eyes were furiously dark. "Not surprised. I'll bet it's the most interesting thing anybody talks about in that boring office. Personally, I'm glad they're getting a divorce. My dad's fucking scum. T-B-H, I wouldn't even care if his plane goes down on his next business trip. Fuck him."

The air around them felt unnaturally still after Jared's wrathful comment as she said, "My parents died in a plane crash. Continental Airlines Flight 3407. You're probably too young to have ever heard about it.

"They were coming home; they were going to fly into Niagara and then drive the rest of the way home to Mississauga to make the trip a little cheaper. The plane crashed into a house near Buffalo. There weren't any survivors; everyone on the flight and in the house died."

Nadia rarely mentioned her parents or the crash that caused their death to anyone. She'd never mentioned either to Rad. She wasn't sure why she'd mentioned either to Jared. Her mouth was dry; she took a long sip from her soda in the silence between them that followed her story.

His face fell as he watched her drink. "Fuck…. I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

She might have shrugged off his sentimental apology as empty and illogical, and merely an embarrassment at the faux pas of his crass statements about his own father, but his warm, worried eyes showed that he was completely sincere. She half smiled and shrugged as she gave her rote and routine reply, "It's okay. I'm okay. It was a long time ago."

"'A long time ago' or not, that's not something people just 'get over'. I hate my dad right now, so I said that cause I'm angry. But real talk, I don't know what I'd do if he died. I just know I'd never get over it."

Nadia imagined Jared studying in his own room or perhaps watching TV, and hearing his mother's muffled cries coming from her bedroom, getting up and going to the kitchen to make her some tea. She imagined that he would put it in her favorite mug and be careful to stir in a couple of spoonfuls of whole milk and add five scoops of white sugar, the way Trina took her tea.

She imagined him walking down the hallway, used to shifting and ducking his big frame through low doorways and going to knock on his mother's bedroom door. If she didn't answer, he'd try the handle and if it unlatched, he'd quietly and unobtrusively go in and leave the tea on her nightstand. Sometimes, perhaps, she'd be too overwhelmed and withdrawn to acknowledge him. But sometimes she would reach for his hand as big tears rolled down her cheeks and whisper, "Thank you," as he smiled softly and nodded.

Nadia sighed and shook her head. "No, you don't get over it. But you learn to live with a tremendous amount of pain. And you get used to the way that everytime it seems like the pain is starting to heal, a new wound rips it all open again. My grandfather died my senior year of college, and my grandmother died last year. So when I got this job offer in New York City, I just decided to come here and try to make a fresh start.

"One of my therapists called it the emotional equivalent of losing a leg. That the body heals and you're still able to get around, but the loss creates a phantom pain that's always a part of you." She stared at her burrito bowl and fought tears down. "I'm always lonely," she admitted. "I always miss them."

Jared didn't offer any platitudes or condolences. He sat quietly beside her for a while. The silence didn't feel awkward; his presence was comforting. And then he softly said, "I already got my Harvard letter. I didn't get in."

She was surprised at his change of subject. "A lot of people don't."

"I know. I just… it was something that I thought would have made my mom happy again.

"My dad's not coming home. My family's never going to be the same again. But now, my mom's built up my 'going to Harvard' so much that I think she'll feel worse when she finds out. Like, I got into Princeton, and I got into fucking MIT. I know she's proud of me, but it won't matter. Cause my dad's never coming home again.

“You understand, right? You know how there are some things that are so important you can never fix or replace it when they're gone. No matter what, my mom’s going to be disappointed."

She nodded. Nadia understood very well that there were things in life that couldn’t be changed: no matter how much you wanted to fix them, no matter how much you wanted to claim them for your own. Jared understood that, too, and she was immensely grateful for that.

And she was also grateful that the rest of their dinner conversation wasn't so heavy! Instead, they talked about music and movies and books and their childhoods until eight p.m. when a cashier came and told them that the store was closing early due to the weather. Their conversation continued as they braved the chill and walked to the E-train together, and while they shared a pole on the cramped Jamaica station-bound train.

The usually endless subway ride was going by too quickly and she didn't want it to end. She stood close to him as she chattered on and he interjected occasionally with witty observations. They were pressed close enough that she could sense the heat of his hard body and noticed that his skin smelled like Irish Spring soap.

"Your stop is next," he said over the metal screeching of the train rounding a corner, "Make sure to get off, otherwise you'll be coming to Queens with me."

As Fiftieth Street approached, Nadia's heart was racing. She bit her lip and screwed her courage to its sticking place and asked him, "Do you want to come by my place for a while?"

He looked at her strangely but nodded. "Sure." At Fiftieth-Street, they transferred to the A-train together.

Their easy and energetic conversation stilled awkwardly as he followed her up to her fourth-floor apartment and then through her narrow kitchen and odd-shaped living room and back to her small bedroom. Nadia knew she didn't want him to leave but wasn't sure, now that she had him in her home, what she wanted to do with him. But Jared seemed content simply to fill his curiosity about her apartment. "Wow," he announced, switching on the bedroom's dull overhead light and taking in the large platform bed and expensive bedding, "I guess attorneys do make good money."

His big frame was almost too big for her room. He moved carefully around, looking at her collection of photos and books and knick-knacks, things that Rad had passed many times but never made any showing of noticing and certainly never asked her about. He opened the door of her narrow closet, raised his arm and drew out the hanger with the Monique Lhuillier silver gray minidress hanging on it. "This still has the tags. You've never worn it?"

She shook her head but didn't say anything. The saleswoman had complimented her and called it a mantrap dress. Apart from the fitting room at Saks' she had never worn it anywhere, not even for herself. Nadia had come to accept that even though she'd bought it for Rad, as long as she was with Rad she never would have a chance to wear it.

She knew they would never go to restaurants together, downtown or uptown, where he would stroke her shoulder and whisper how much he wanted her. How much he needed her. The next time he came by, whenever that might be, they would spend just a little while in her apartment—not enough time to learn about each other, or even enough to argue with each other, just enough time for him to come inside her and perhaps polish off a bottle of wine—under the guise of him going to do something else with his day.

Jared looked at the dress and then at Nadia's body, and said, "Put it on."

"What?"

"Put it on. Model it for me."

She thought to explain why his request was improper, and why following his order was improper. Instead, she took the dress from him and shook it out, even though some of the silver embellishments fell to her bedroom floor. They were round at one end and tapered at the other, as if ten thousand little flat silver spoons had been sewn to the delicate dress to create its fantasy effect. She stepped past him and reached into the closet to rehang it.

"Please put it on," Jared asked softly, little more than a whisper, standing behind her and leaning over to speak against the crown of her head. The heat of his breath and his closeness were overwhelming and made her own breath hitch. She felt his fingertips lightly trail over her shoulder and every muscle in her body tightened deliciously. "Please," he whispered, "I've never seen anything so beautiful," and she knew with an astounding shock of clarity and gratitude that his words were a confession, not a seduction, and he was talking about her!

"Okay," she said, surprised by her own shaky voice. She felt him smile, satisfied, and as she turned to him he sat on the edge of her bed. She had the presence of mind to shake her head. "Go outside," she said, pointing to the door. "I'll let you know when you can come back in." He stood again, slowly and grinning, and his huge frame was overwhelming.

"Okay," he said. His deep voice had an animal-like rumble. "Hurry up."

He closed the door behind himself and Nadia waited a second, unsure whether she wanted him to just ignore her instructions and come back. When nothing happened, she unbuttoned her blouse and unzipped her skirt and took off her dull everyday bra. She slipped into the dress and glanced in the full-length mirror nailed to the back of the door.

Her thick wool ski socks looked silly, and so she stripped everything off, opened her drawer and found and put on the Wolford stockings. She pulled the Zanotti high heels from the back of her narrow closet. She put it all on; the dress had been clingy just a few weeks before but was now a bit loose on her.

Jared knocked lightly on the door. "You ready?"

She frowned slightly; her curly hair was a messy bun at the back of her head and she had no makeup on, just a swipe of Carmex lip balm to ward off winter-chapping. But when she opened the door and his eyes opened wide as he ran his gaze slowly over her body, she felt a satisfying, warm pride that he was so obviously impressed.

When his eyes raised to meet hers again, he held his hand out to offer her a rose. It was one of the blood-red everlasting roses that were from Rad and sitting in their hydroponic gift box on her coffee table. Under other circumstances, the idea of one man regifting her another man's gift would have seemed the height of tackiness. But instead it all seemed to fit perfectly.

"Thank you," she said quietly as she accepted the rose. She took a steadying breath waiting for Jared's assessment. "So, what do you think?"

He leaned against the doorframe and didn't say anything for quite a while. And then he came closer, still without speaking, and she let him reach behind her and unzip the dress and gently push it from her shoulders so that it fell in a heavy rustling pool to the floor. She stood before him completely bare except for the silk stockings and platform sandals and he slowly studied her.

He then took a knee before her and undid the straps of the sandals while she gingerly held his big shoulders and stepped out of them. His large hand caressed the silk of her stockings from her ankle to her knee and goosebumps broke out over her entire body. She gasped softly as he hooked his thumbs over her waist and smoothly pulled them down. She steadied herself against him as she stepped out of each foot.

He rose to his feet and stood before her again, and in her bare feet she felt inordinately small next to him. They hadn't said anything to each other. His deep voice finally broke the silence between them as he said, "It's a sexy dress, but you definitely don't need it. You don't need anything to be sexy." He reached for her hand and still holding eye contact, he raised it and bent forward to press it to his lips. "You just are." She laced her fingers between his and melted against him as he leaned over her and kissed her.

He bent low and tipped his head slightly to fit his firm, full lips against the crease of her own. She felt her nakedness even more profoundly as she pressed against him, using her mouth and tongue and breasts and hands to ask him for more. She parted her lips to touch his tentatively with the tip of her tongue. He sighed into her mouth and lifted her in his arms as he kissed her softly and slid his tongue slowly but firmly into her mouth over and over.

He flexed his hand in the thick curls of her hair and lifted her into his hard throbbing groin by her rear. He opened his stance slightly and slowly ground his pelvis against hers as he rocked her in his arms, and with each lazy thrusting movement, she felt his incredibly hard manhood against her rear from under the confines of his grey dress slacks. She moaned and ran her hands over the muscles of his biceps and shoulders and up his traps, savoring the feel of his strong arms holding her. She felt the blood rushing from her head to her own loins, leaving her panting and lightheaded.

She grabbed the back of his neck and drew closer into his kiss. He stroked her tongue with his and then fed her his tongue in deep thrusts to match his slow rocking, making her whimper and shiver. Still holding her by her rear and with almost no effort, he slowly leaned over the bed to lay her gently down and she unwrapped her legs and arms to release him so he could undress. He stripped out of his own clothes quickly as he watched her mesmerized. He caught her watching him and grinned as he climbed onto the bed beside her and took her in his arms.

They felt each other's bodies and marveled at shapes and sizes and textures. His manhood seemed huge and impossibly hard and throbbed in her hand as she fondled it. He tasted like he'd just brushed his teeth. "You taste… minty."

He grinned smugly as he nodded. "Cause I ate some Listerine strips while I was in your living room." His easy honesty caught her off-guard and she laughed like it was the funniest thing ever.

He leaned in to kiss her and she gently pushed him away with a chuckle. "I should go brush my teeth too."

He shook his head firmly. "You taste really good," he murmured, and with a natural, uncannily knowing seductiveness coaxed her back to the bed with a long kiss that took all of the humor out of the moment and left her stunned and supple. And just when she was gooey and malleable under him, he grinned and explained, "You taste like a burrito bowl." She burst out laughing in his arms again, and fell completely in love with the way that he smiled at her when he laughed, and the warmth in his eyes when he caressed her face.

His fingertips moved slowly over her cheek as the mood became serious. "I wanna please you. I wanna know what turns you on, and then make it feel even better."

For the first time she didn't feel nervous or ashamed to admit out loud, "I don't know what that is."

He kissed her gently. "Is it okay if we find some of it together?" he asked, and kissed her again as she nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck.

He spread her legs wide to make room for his broad shoulders, pushing her knees back a little, and placing himself between them. She lay completely exposed before him, moist and shimmering in the low overhead light. "Your pussy's so damn wet," he murmured absently licking his lips as if transfixed before leaning forward and planting a light, reverent kiss at the top of her bare mons, and though she craved his attention she also felt that lingering sense of embarrassment she always felt during sex.

He didn't latch straight onto the core of her pleasure; instead, he bypassed her most sensitive areas and placed light kisses and then licks and then gentle bites on her hips and then the inside of her thighs. He caressed her gently and slowly and went at the speed that let her adjust and relax before he spread his tongue wide over her and licked her in a broad demanding stroke.