Yearning (5 page)

‘Oh! No! Really?’ – what crap.

There was only one thing for it. She had to forget him. Forget them both. She yanked her desk drawer open and
retrieved the binoculars. She had to get rid of them, didn’t want them within reach anymore. But how? She couldn’t face returning them to Tracey. If she threw them out she risked one of her parents finding them and then she’d have to explain where they’d come from. She glanced around her room until her gaze came to rest on the corner of a box under her bed.

She knelt and tugged it out. Her old toy box. Her dad had made it for her third birthday. It was painted lolly pink and had a discoloured transfer of a white bear on its lid. She opened it and pushed aside a handful of childhood keepsakes to make room at the bottom for the binoculars. She pushed them down into the gap against her old Snow White storybook. She covered the binoculars with stuffed toys and ribbons and drawings. A puff of dust rose as she let the lid bang shut. She kicked it back under the bed, forcing it to the darkest, furthest corner.

‘Forgotten,’ she whispered. She went back to gaze out of her window, careful not to look down into Solomon’s yard. In the corner of her eye she saw the light go on in Solomon’s study. She turned away and lay down on her bed. From her pillow all she could see out of her window was sky, a flat pane of anaemic blue, a colourless canvas stretching endlessly over her very plain life. She wouldn’t think about him anymore, she would swallow her feelings for him down deep and that would be the end of Solomon in her life.

But as the days and weeks passed, she couldn’t stop remembering him. The image of Solomon sitting at his desk had crept under her skin, hiding between muscle and sinew, lying down among the layers of veins and nerves and bone. While she carefully ignored his presence
at school, and his comings and goings next door, still she burned with want, and try as she might to stem the longing, she pined. Her body, her aching mind, simply refused to forget him.

It hadn’t taken Solomon long to realise that the small town was a disappointment as far as available women were concerned. Its pubs were filled with the masculine stink of beer and sheep shit, its supermarket littered with women who had married too young and gone to fat after childbirth. The few female inhabitants with any brains or aspiration headed south or east as soon as they were able, to the populated places with universities and opportunity and hope for the future. They left behind the ones who were happy to settle for the seasonal rhythms and simple expectations of a town in slow decline. When they found a willing mate they quickly traded their Friday night lipstick and heels for weekday overalls, practical haircuts and rough-skinned working hands.

Solomon looked beyond the farmers’ daughters to the town women. With hope he appraised them as they paraded the wide main street, neat and perfumed, in calf-length skirts and sensible shoes. He tried his luck with a couple of them only to discover they were conservative, churchy types who preferred local gossip to literature.
Some coyly welcomed his interest, but most were wary of his charming, city-bred ways. Solomon saw that even if he managed to entice one of them to step over her marriage vows and into his bed, it wouldn’t worth the guilty hysteria that was bound to follow.

He resigned himself to travelling to the larger towns to the north and south on weekends, a lone wolf, prowling the pubs and discos, seeking out open-minded and willing partners. His address book slowly filled. The local motels came to know him, expected his late-night call to book a room most Saturday nights. On Sunday mornings he dutifully saw his lover off with promises of being in touch again soon, leaving her to watch the back of his Monaro disappearing into the mirages wavering on the highway.

Within weeks of his arrival he became aware of his growing reputation. At the local pub, men peered at him sourly, leaving him to drink alone. The women he approached were either cloying or frightened or both. The way they treated him made him think they believed him to be a sorcerer who could hypnotise them into falling helplessly into bed with him. Still, there were some who were eager to meet him, and while their eagerness spoiled the thrill of the chase, they made for easy and satisfying lovers. He made sure his partners were under no illusion about what he wanted from them. Unperturbed by the virulent gossip that surrounded him, he made the most of his standing as the resident Don Juan in the small community.

During the week he filled his time with the routine of work, tutoring and writing, and revelled in the empty delights of small schoolyard flirtations with the sixth form girls. He was careful to ignore the watchful eyes of his
next-door neighbour. He’d seen the binoculars in the window above, glinting in the moonlight like strange alien eyes, drinking him in. Puppy-like, she followed him everywhere. He felt her gaze on him all through the day, as he walked to his car after school, through the window of the staff room as he chatted with colleagues, as he wandered around his backyard with his coffee in the morning.

Those long, coltish legs and wild auburn hair, the gleam of her clear alabaster skin made an alluring combination. Once upon a time he might have followed her interest and tried to have some fun with her, but not now. She was sweet and fresh and tempting, but she was far too young, even by his standards. He’d already made that mistake once and he couldn’t take any chances, not this time. The Department was watching him now, no doubt unconvinced he was as innocent as he’d claimed. He’d learned the hard way that teenage girls were hopeless at keeping secrets.

Even so, as adolescent girls went, this one seemed fairly harmless. She was quiet and tried hard to please him in class. He liked the way she flushed with embarrassment when he spoke to her, and the disarming way she looked down at her feet and kicked the ground with a scuffed toe. Her awkwardness was endearing, made him want to draw her close, smooth her hair, reassure her.

Given past experience, he thought it best to ignore her. He deliberately glanced over her in the corridors and bypassed her raised hand in favour of other students in the class. He’d come here to get away from all that teenage intensity. It was trouble he didn’t need. Besides,
all teenage girls need someone to desire – a pop star or a favourite teacher – and he was happy to fulfil that role for her, if that’s what gave her kicks. He paid no attention to her and allowed her to watch him, unacknowledged and unhindered, expecting her interest to pass as youthful obsessions usually did.

While the months passed, the watching continued unabated. Heavy winter days lengthened and lightened into spring, and still she watched him from her window above, a silent sentinel observing him as he wrote or tutored. He was surprised it could go on for so long. He expected she would have tired of him by now. She should be distracted by one of the lanky pubescent boys in her class. They weren’t choosy. One of them would surely take an interest in her and divert her attention away from him. A seed of concern began to germinate within him, but he dismissed it. There was nothing to worry about. What harm could be done? She was only watching him after all.

He didn’t want to admit he was beginning to enjoy the sensation of her young eyes admiring him from a distance. He found it enticing, sort of sexy in a secret way. He felt like he was being touched by her gaze, night and day. It raised his awareness of his skin and sparked new currents of desire inside him.

One evening he sat writing at his desk and he felt his skin prickle with goosebumps. He glanced up to see the bluish shape of her in the window frame. She had one hand in the middle of her chest while the other held the glasses. A shiver ran up his spine. He crossed his arms and rubbed himself roughly. When he looked up again she’d withdrawn back into the dimness of the room.

Solomon shook his head. This had been going on for – what – six months? Why hadn’t she tired of it? What was she thinking as she sat there with those silly glasses glued to her face? What had she been imagining all these months while she watched him? He could lay a fair bet she’d been indulging in all sorts of erotic fantasies. He knew first-hand how horny teenage girls could be. It was vaguely exciting, wondering what scenarios she might be inventing, what she imagined them doing together. It was enough to give him a hard-on.

As he sat wondering about her a mischievous urge struck him. He smiled and got up from his chair and moved to a part of the room where he knew he couldn’t be seen. Slowly he took off all his clothes and folded them neatly on a chair at the back of the room. Then, feeling the familiar stretch of his penis, he returned to the window. He leaned against the frame and gazed nonchalantly out to the garden, making sure she could get a full view of him. He walked casually over to the bookshelf and posed with his back to her. He selected a book and brought it back to the desk, pushing the chair out far enough so that she could see his cock, and sat pretending to read.

He didn’t look up at her but he knew she was watching him. This knowledge, combined with the brush of cool air against his bare skin, brought on an excruciating rush of desire. The hairs rose on the back of his neck and a river of sensual pleasure squirreled down his spine. This was too delicious. He let the sensation build until it became unbearable, then, snapping the book shut, he escaped to seek release in the hidden seclusion of his bedroom.

Solomon so enjoyed the tantalising effects of her gaze on his naked body, he took to regularly hanging around naked in his study when he was alone. He realised he was onto something good. Never before had he so enjoyed a female at such a distance. It was thrilling – and perfectly harmless. They were both safely separated by walls of glass while he teased them both, giving her something of what she wanted, turning himself on, and all without any real contact. Guilt-free gratification.

It was a warm evening in early September, and Solomon was considering another naked flaunt, when there was a knock at his door. He opened it to find Tracey on his doorstep.

‘Hi, Solomon.’

Tracey stood on his porch, one ankle crossed over the other, one hip hitched, and chewing gum. Solomon surveyed her. He’d taken the measure of this girl from the moment he walked into her classroom seven months before. She’d winked at him, holding his gaze as she tapped her pencil sensuously against her pouting bottom lip. He’d recognised the carnivorous look in her eyes and saw why she might have earned herself a reputation for fellatio.

He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms over his chest, making sure his biceps bulged under his hands. ‘Hi Tracey. What can I do you for?’

She smiled. She hooked one thumb over the lip of her miniskirt and twisted her hips in a tiny figure of eight movement. ‘I need some help getting through the HSC exams. The olds will give you a nice fat bonus if you can get me a pass.’ She winked.

Solomon considered the generous mound of breast pushing out of Tracey’s halter neck top, the shortness of her skirt and the salacious curve of her lips. He stood back, opened his door wide and invited her in.

Solomon knew that Tracey was as dim as cataracts and no amount of tutoring would get her a pass, but it didn’t matter. He missed female company during the week and Tracey was as close to a woman as he was going to get. She took no time in making it clear she had other ideas about their time together, and they had little to do with tutoring. She tried many times, and in as many ways, to lure him into being more intimate with her during their first session. He laboured under her lack of intelligence for the pleasure of her playful tease. It was fun, and he nibbled at her bait, but stopped short of taking a full bite.

Nonetheless it was tempting. She was on the edge of eighteen and made no secret of the fact she was on the pill. She had a reputation even his teaching colleagues joked about. ‘Racy Tracey’ they called her, guffawing and elbowing each other in the staffroom. She was close to finishing school and in a couple of months she’d cross over into the adult world with all its responsibilities. Solomon guessed that Tracey was one student he probably wouldn’t get into trouble for.

A week later, Tracey leaned over his desk with her skirt hitched high. His gaze caught the sheen of her clear brown thigh and he reached out and enclosed it in the palm of his hand. He hadn’t meant to touch her and was as surprised by the physical contact as she was. She looked at him with a smile that was almost sinister and tilted toward him, looking for a kiss.

Solomon pulled back involuntarily, realising he’d crossed the line without thinking about it. As Tracey surveyed him he got the distinct feeling that he was prey. She pinned him with the cold, hungry eye of a predator. He realised she’d been building a tension in him, grooming him in a subtle way towards this moment. And adding fuel to the fire was the awareness of those young eyes watching them from above. The knowledge pressed upon something inside him. The lure of Tracey’s mouth proved too irresistible. He pushed back her chair and stood between her and the window. He gave in to her. He gave in to himself. And he knew he was being watched.

It was dark by the time Tracey left. He stood watching her saunter away down the street, drifting through the pools of streetlights. She never once looked back. He cleared the junk mail from his letterbox and brought it inside. Among the catalogues lay a small, pink envelope reeking of cheap floral scent. Intrigued, he carried it back to his study and rolled a cigarette before lifting out a short note. Although there was no signature he immediately guessed its author. Everything about it gave it away – the big, childish handwriting, the girly notepaper, the lack of a stamp or postmark. He didn’t look up at her window but he knew her gaze was hovering over him.

‘This passion consumes me,’ the note read.

It dissolves and embraces me.

A flame grows inside me, it gently licks at my heart until I am warmed and swollen with desire. The God of Love moves through me when I think of you. I dream
of your kisses, hot and wet. Yet there is nowhere to place these feelings. They flow like waves inside me and have no shore to break upon. I cannot touch you, I cannot know you. You remain desire to me.