Waking Up (11 page)

Behind her, Jason approached with slowing footsteps until he was just behind her, watching her bent figure. She had her body folded into a surprisingly compact package, one slim, dark arm wrapped around her knees as she crouched, her sleek head bent. The position was not unlike many he had seen her in before, years ago, when tracing childish patterns in the dirt, with her nose peeling from sunburn and her skinny legs scratched and bruised. In his memory, she had always been sporting some new scrape on her knees, but it never slowed her up. Not once had she backed down from a dare because she had been afraid.

And now time and maturity had fashioned those same, long legs into sleek, curving, feminine grace, with high, delicate arches to her slim feet and trim, shapely ankles. Her bone structure had always been slight, prompting him to a protective urge before he even knew he had one.

“Ready to go?” His voice came quietly behind her, and she rose quickly and turned, holding out her hand to shake it dry.

“Did you tell John good night for me?” she asked, looking over at the hosting couple who were, as usual, surrounded by people.

“Yes, and he doesn’t want you to leave without seeing him first,” said Jason with a slight smile. She went over immediately to the blond giant who wrapped his arms around her for a tight, enthusiastic hug. John, like Marilyn, was a very affectionate person.

“Come and see us again!” he boomed, shaking Jason’s hand vigorously. “We enjoyed having you! Take care of Robbie, here, she’s just a little ol’ thing!”

For some reason, that made Jason laugh merrily, and Robbie scowled at him halfheartedly while they went through the house to the front. He was probably remembering the times when she had been as ready for a fistfight as any boy. As they walked down the quiet, dark street to his car, he once again let his hand rest at the small of her back. This, she reflected scathingly while feeling surprisingly sensitive to the touch, from someone who had once regarded females as anathema. She’d been okay despite the fact that she was a girl.

It was a balmy, clear night, and as they climbed into his sports car, they found the interior still hot, like the pool water, from the heat of the day. Down came the windows, and as Jason drove them home, Robbie let her hair out of the damp braid and ran her fingers through the wavy strands until it blew across her eyes, fluffy and refreshingly cool as it dried.

As they neared their neighborhood, she asked quietly, “Did you enjoy yourself today?”

He was unsmiling, seemingly remote until she spoke, his attention fixed on his driving and his private thoughts, but he flashed her a quick, albeit secretive smile as he replied, “Yes, I did. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.” That made her blink. She certainly hadn’t thought the party deserved that sort of praise. They stopped at some traffic lights, and he turned his head to look long and lingeringly at her. His eyes reflected the streetlights, brilliant glassy white and red and green flickering shallowly over the normal gray. “How about you, did you have a good time?”

“At first it was a bit much,” she admitted, turning away to stare out of her window. An incredibly noisy, battered car pulled up beside them, stinking of exhaust fumes, and a greasy, bearded man looked over at her, grinning. She glanced away quickly. “There were so many people! I wonder how she got to know them all? But it was nice, and Marilyn was happy we came. She liked you.”

“That,” he stated with some dryness, “was made abundantly clear. To be honest, though, I think she was prepared to like anyone you brought.”

After a moment, she said with a studied indifference, “She wasn’t the only one who liked you.” As his head shot around and he stared at her, wearing a queer expression, she could have kicked herself for saying such a thing. She didn’t want him to think she was, jealous. Nothing was further from the truth.

An impatient car horn sounded behind them, and Jason’s attention snapped back belatedly to the changed light and his driving. “Casey was certainly a very attractive woman,” he said cheerfully. She clenched her hand and heard a very faint sound. With a terrible shock, she realized that she was grinding her teeth. “But,” he continued, and this was with great emphasis, “she came on strong enough to send me screaming in the other direction.”

Robbie relaxed and then had to laugh. “You know what she does with another waitress, whom you haven’t met yet?” she said suddenly. “On the nights they work together, they watch the men who come into the restaurant and make bets on each one’s occupation and yearly income. They also rate each for looks on a scale from one to ten. It’s surprising how many they end up dating.”

“Good God!” he expostulated with horror. “And you were callous enough to leave me alone with her?”

“As I recall, you were the one to leave, sweetheart, not I.”

“Well, it wasn’t as if you minded.” He sent her a look, which she didn’t see. “You sounded disgustingly keen for me to go.”

“Oh, sure, what else could I have said?” she retorted exasperatedly. “I have to work with the girl—should I have been rude over something as stupidly unimportant?”

“Ouch!” He pulled into their side street and parked his car smoothly in his parents’ driveway, turning to regard her with a smile. “I believe I’ve just had my hand slapped sharply. Next time I’ll know better.”

She opened her car door and climbed out while she tossed back, “What makes you think there’s going to be a next time?”

He climbed out also and slammed his door shut without replying to that last retort. She walked around the front end of his car and started towards her own house, which was dark. Her father would be in bed, as the time was nearing midnight, and he rose early to go to church. In fact, as she looked around, the entire cul-de-sac seemed secluded and dark, and Jason was walking towards her. Her hands began to shake.

“Whoa, hold up,” he said quietly, putting his arm firmly around her shoulders as he caught up with her.

“Thanks for taking me,” she said nervously, trying to pull away. “I’m glad you enjoyed it, but you really don’t have to see me to the front door.”

“Nonsense,” he said, with a shadowy, unreadable look. He kept a tight hold on her while determinedly walking with her across the lawn. “Remember, we’re pretending this is a real date.”

The last “pretence” had nearly shattered her composure. Her heart began to pound. “Come on, Jason,” she said desperately. “Don’t be so silly. I’ll see you later, good night.”

He stopped abruptly and drew her around, both hands heavy on her slim shoulders, compelling her to face him. “All right,” he said very low and fast, and the words throbbed. “Let’s drop the pretence, shall we? Let’s be truthful with each other. Let’s tell each other what we feel, Rob. Are you ready for that?”

He made her feel so strange. He made her feel shaken by acting so oddly, so aggressively, so full of a tension she could dimly sense but couldn’t understand. His hands on her body. The hot memory of his mouth on hers. The trembling he caused in her. She couldn’t tell him what he was making her feel. She didn’t understand it herself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered.

“That’s one of the few times you’ve ever lied to me.” His hand left her shoulder and slowly, deliberately tangled in her wildly blown hair. He drew her near with a gentle, inexorable insistence and started to bend his head down. She tried to turn her head away, but was caught, caught by his hands and his body, his lips slanting hard and rough over hers, caught by the shaking in her limbs and her own response.

She felt the faint rasp of his beard, the hard band of his arm crossing the back of her waist, his wet, warm mouth open and eagerly plunging, the shocking sensation of weakness at the back of her knees. Her hands curled into his shirt. His body heat seared her. His heart was racing against hers much too fast. His hand came around her waist, slid under her tank top, and cupped her breast.

Her head fell back. She made a sound, low and hoarse, at the back of her throat. His mouth left hers and slid down, open, tongue licking at her neck. It left a trail of first hot, then cold fire as the breeze brushed them both, and tangled her skirt in his legs. He slid his hard fingers under her swimsuit top and touched her nipple, his body taut.

It was too much. He pushed too fast; she was too shocked, not only by her own involuntary response, but also by his. She whimpered, feeling the beginning, strange ache in her loins and his own surging desire, and she tore out of his hold to put her back to him. There was a pulse beat of silence. She ran shaking hands through her hair.

He moved jerkily, saying in a tone quite unlike him, “Robbie…”

In a panic, frightened that he would touch her again, she broke into a run across her front lawn, stumbled through the unlocked front door, and slammed it shut behind her, pushing the bolt home. She raced up the stairs and fell into her room.

She was appalled, appalled; she didn’t know what was happening to her, she didn’t know how to take it. She couldn’t recognize the Jason she knew in the shadowed, urgent man she had left on the lawn. She couldn’t control her surging physical response to him and she shrank from the thought that he knew it. It was a base and powerful instinct, this sexual awakening of hers, and it frightened her to death.

Chapter Six

She prepared for bed feverishly, crawled in between her cool sheets, and tossed and turned. No position felt right; she couldn’t get comfortable. She was hot, too hot, and she threw off her covers in impatience. A quick whirl and she was standing to stride over to her window and throw it wide open. She placed both hands on the sill and took deep, steadying breaths. The wind licked against her brow, and the long, exposed line of her throat, feeling deliciously refreshing.

Her nightshirt fluttered against her slim legs. After standing for long moments with her eyes closed, she opened them to look around her, sighing. In order to get the most advantage from the night breeze, she lifted a slim arm and tucked her curtains well back.

The moon shone clear and silvery bright, throwing a pearly luminescence over the shadowed lawn and street. She leaned her forehead against the wooden border of the raised windowpane and wearily let her eyes wander over familiar trees, brushes, the driveway on which she had once played hopscotch. She was the stranger here, the one with unfamiliar thoughts and feelings. Everything else was the same as it had always been.

She looked at the nearby oak tree and let her eyes slide idly down its thick, mature trunk.

Suddenly her breath froze in her lungs, and her lips parted soundlessly. Not everything was the same. Not quite everything, for there was a shadow at the base of the tree, a quiet, unobtrusive, leaning shadow. It was in the form of a man, positioned so that he could stare up at her bedroom window, upon which the moonlight fell clear and unfettered. He must have seen her every movement, blurred though it would have been through the metallic mesh of her screen.

She trembled, licking at dry lips while heaving a deep, shuddering sigh. One hand rose slowly to touch at the cold screen in front of her. She could feel the tiny, bumpy pattern of the woven wires, such a flimsy separation between her and the free, outside air.

“Go away,” she whispered to the shadow, which was tugging at her silently. “Go away.”

She rose late, tired after a restless night, and trailed downstairs in her thin bathrobe to see if her father had left any coffee on the stove. He hadn’t and so she made a fresh pot and then trudged back upstairs to shower quickly and dress. The day was cooler than it had been for some time, and so she dragged on faded, tight jeans with a gray sweatshirt, which she rolled up at the elbows.

She had intended to do a little housework that afternoon before work, but she simply couldn’t summon up the energy. With her second cup of coffee half-empty in front of her, she laid her head in her folded arms and closed her eyes. She was tired and lonely. She wanted comfort and companionship. She wanted to have a shoulder upon which she could lean her head, wanted to have someone in whom she could confide and trust. She had thought that she might have found such a person in Jason as they renewed their friendship, but every time she thought she had a good understanding of their relationship, it twisted into something disturbing and different.

She loved her father, but theirs was a relationship built on a mutual, affectionate distance. How in God’s name could she confess to her parent the feelings that were stirring to life inside her? She simply couldn’t.

She had other friends, of course. Marilyn, perhaps, was someone she could confide in, but she wouldn’t. And the others were good for laughter and social outings, but there were certain things Robbie considered too private and simply didn’t discuss. That was the heart of the matter. What she felt was too naked, too new. She could barely confront the unfamiliar sensations in herself without wincing, let alone have the courage to confess them to someone else.

Her slim shoulders slumped in a curve of dejection. Surely she was the odd one in this modern age of freedom and openness. Surely she was backward. Perhaps it was because her entire sexual education had come from health classes in school, and her own reading. Perhaps it was because she hadn’t had a mother to influence her to femininity earlier. Whatever the reason, Jason must think her an utter fool for the way she was acting, and she supposed wearily that she was.

Jason stood outside the sliding glass doors, leaning on his upraised forearm as he stared in at Robbie’s slim figure. It was some time before he broke out of that watchful stillness to knock lightly at the glass.