CLIO
When I’d returned to the beach house just a short time before, I’d been on cloud nine. I hadn’t been planning on giving Lila every nitty gritty detail of what happened on the beach that morning between me and a gorgeous, mysterious, older man.
But I had been excited to share how I’d tried something new, and I’d been assertive about what I wanted and the universe had rewarded me with a kind, hot man and the first orgasm I hadn’t given to myself.
Lila had returned with bags of food bursting at the seams with some of her own good news. Looking at one another, each of us could tell that what we had to share would take a while, so we decided to hold off so I could go clean up and change out of my wet clothes and she could get lunch set up.
I’d taken a little longer in the shower than I’d planned. Once the warm water streamed down my body, I found all the sensitive places that Aidan had touched waking up again. It was almost like no one had ever touched me before him, and while it was true that no one had touched me like that, even the way his fingers stroked my face had felt erotic.
Standing there in the water, I let my own fingers follow the paths his mouth and fingers had made, giddiness for what might come next making each stroke against my body all the more powerful.
If I wanted to, I could call or text the number he’d given me right now. I could see him again tonight, maybe. Then, I worried that would be too soon-that he would think I was too eager, and it would turn him off.
He did tell me not to leave him waiting too long, though. I worried about what to do for a while, but as I dried off, I decided that went against the whole point of what I was doing in Malibu and why I did what I did on the beach this morning. Aidan himself had encouraged me to be more assertive and go after what I wanted. So, what exactly did I want? I asked myself.
I smiled to myself in the mirror. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to text him that night.
I felt good about this decision, so now, I just had to try and not talk myself out of it before the evening hit.
I headed down the stairs with a spring in my steps ready to tell Lila about my mysterious beach man when there he was right in the kitchen. I froze on the bottom step as Lila introduced me to her father.
Everything in my head came to a screeching halt, thinking this had to be some sort of colossal joke, right? Maybe Lila ran into him out on the beach and thought this would be funny…except she didn’t know yet about what he and I had done on the beach. Oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no!
My mouth turned to dust as Lila happily walked me towards her father. What the hell did I say to the man? How did I not know? My mind raced. Somehow in all the time that Lila and I had been friends, I had never seen a picture of her dad.
And I certainly would have never guessed that the man I’d made out with that morning was old enough to have a twenty-one-year-old daughter.
The relief that coursed through me when he played along and pretended like this was the first time that we were meeting was only temporary because when we touched hands, I thought surely it was obvious what we had done. Lila seemed none the wiser, however, and I thought I just had to figure out an excuse to run upstairs for a bit and then I would hide.
Yup, that was the ticket, I would hide until he went away or at least somewhere I wasn’t. The more pragmatic side of me knew that was an absolutely ridiculous plan, but the only other alternative was staying in this room with this man who had, only a couple of hours ago, had his fingers inside me, and now apparently, was very much Lila’s father.
Oh God, get it together, Clio.
I sucked in a deep breath reminding myself that I was an adult that had endured much harder things than this. I would simply wait for an appropriate time to speak to Aidan privately and explain to him that the morning’s events should not be reflective of my character, that I loved Lila, and I thought it best to just pretend like nothing ever happened. There, that sounded perfectly reasonable and mature.
Except when Lila’s phone call took her out of the room and left Aidan and me with privacy, all of that reasonable and mature stuff flew right out of my frazzled head.
“Clio,” he said in a calm, deep voice, and I was kind of annoyed at how sexily he said my name, like all of this wasn’t hard enough.
Before he could continue, I rushed forward with an apology, hoping to just make this all go away as quickly as possible, even though it hurt my heart to completely throw away what had happened that morning between us.
“Look,” I blurted, “what happened obviously was not something I usually do, and I’m really sorry if you got a bad impression of me. I’m just asking that we forget anything that happened and maybe start over?” I babbled on, unnerved by the way he studied my face. His eyes dropped to where I was twisting my anxious hands together.
After a long pause that made me nearly break out into a cold sweat, he said simply, “No.”
I met his eyes, utterly dismayed. “No? What do you mean no?”
He stepped closer, and it took everything I had in me not to back up, but I stood my ground, not wanting to appear even more skittish. “First of all, Clio, you have nothing to apologize for. We are two consenting adults who engaged in something that I have no intention of forgetting about, nor do I think I could, do you?” I looked up at him with wide eyes, my heart thudding in my chest. I couldn’t answer that. I couldn’t tell him that I would be remembering the way he looked at me, the way he made me feel for the rest of my days. A person didn’t just forget a moment that made them feel that special. When I didn’t answer, he went on. “And for another thing, Clio,” he said, stepping right in front of me. I could still smell the salt air and sand clinging to his skin. “It would hardly do for me to forget what we did when I have every intention of doing it again. Are you saying you don’t want to?” he asked.
“It’s not an issue of whether I want to,” I said in a hushed voice. “We can’t.”
“Why not?” he asked quickly, his voice dropping to the same octave as earlier when he’d been murmuring encouraging words to make me come violently against his hand.
I opened my mouth to point out the obvious when the obvious point came sailing back into the kitchen. Lila was practically glowing and so excited about whatever it was she wanted to tell us that she didn’t notice how close we were standing. “You guys, oh my God, I have so much to tell you-my ‘maybe’ news is officially official.”
“Ah,” Aidan said, “so, I finally get to hear what the big news is.”