Kit
Monday morning, and no call from Ben, not that I’m waiting around or anything. Not that I kept my ringer on high all day yesterday. Not that I couldn’t stop thinking about how easily Ben put me on that table, about how hard and strong he was all over, about how he tasted like chocolate and kissed like a dream.
Not any of that.
It isn’t that he left me hanging. He’d texted me Sunday morning to let me know he’d be at the salvage yard all day, filling in for his dad, who’d had a rough night of pain. He said he had a call in to the plaster guy, and he’d keep me posted.
But he hadn’t made any reference at all to what had happened, either.
I think of calling him, because I am genuinely a little worried for Henry, who tries so hard to act as if he’s not in any pain at all. But if I call to check on Henry, will that seem like I’m really only calling to check on Ben? And anyways, what is Henry to me other than the owner of a business I’ve been frequenting the last few weeks? Would I be crossing a line?
This kind of thinking—it’s not the way I am, not at all, and I’m frustrated with myself and with Ben, and with everything else that’s been bothering me since Friday. Alex and I shared a mostly silent breakfast on Saturday, except for when he tried to apologize, again, but I was so desperate not to get into it again that I’d put him off. I’d given him a half-hearted tour of the house before he’d headed off to the airport, and in turn he’d asked half-hearted questions as we moved from room to room. But it wasn’t the same, and I feel the pain of our fight as though it’s a bruise on my body. It’s tender and fresh and I’m trying to avoid it with every move I make.
So I’m up early, headed in to work by six, hoping I can get a couple of hours on the microscope before most of the grad students show up. The walk is good for me—it’s going to be another hot day, but right now it’s cool enough that I can move without sweating. The blooms of the crepe myrtle trees that line my street are fat and heavy with dew, and the air is sweet with the smell of cinnamon rolls from the bakery on the corner.
Block by block, I let my mind go to the place where I feel safest, to work and the lab, to where I can untangle problems I know how to fix.
By the time I arrive at my basement office, I’m feeling a bit more myself, and it’s at least an hour and a half before I hear signs of life in other parts of the building. I make progress on scanning a couple of my samples, but soon enough, it becomes a busy morning—I help Akeelah with her sample preparation, and Todd, playing to type, refuses my offer of help in positioning the beam on the microscope for his initial scan, but then fucks it up and has to ask for me to fix it anyway. I meet with Dr. Harroway, who was my professor in Intro to Non-Ferrous Metals when I was a graduate student, and show him a new animation I did one night last week for explaining crystal structure to undergrads. He’s so thrilled that he asks me to come do a lecture to his class this fall.
I’m eating lunch in my office when Dr. Singh knocks softly, his manner always so gentle and tentative that I sometimes wonder how he has managed to survive in this field, let alone how he’s managed to become one of its most respected scholars. He seems entirely comfortable in the background of things, and I think this is why I find it so easy to work with him.
I move a stack of papers from the extra chair I have and invite him to sit. When I first started working here, only two weeks after I’d graduated, I’d struggled to talk to Dr. Singh in any other way than progress reports—as his student, I’d always felt compelled to tell him how far along I was on my experiments, on my thesis. As his colleague, I frequently found myself doing the same, giving him an account of how I’d spent my day. He’d listen patiently until I finished, but then he’d just go straight into what he’d sought me out for in the first place—usually to tell me about a meeting or to ask a question about the microscope—without acknowledging my rambling. Eventually, I got used to the idea that he wasn’t checking up on me.
“I have good news,” he says, a faint look of displeasure crossing his face as he tries to get comfortable in the chair. It’s not going to happen since that thing looks as if it came from an elementary school classroom in the 1980s, but Dr. Singh would never complain. “We heard back from the Journal of Applied Metallurgy today. With some slight adjustments, they want to publish our paper.”
He says this with the same measured tone that he says everything, but this news is big, and we both know it, so we’re sort of dumbly smiling at each other across my desk. We worked for years on this paper, having started it in my final year of the master’s program. It has data from some of my most successful work on the microscope, data that I was hoping to save for this kind of publication. I’m so excited that I clasp my hands together in pride, squeezing them tightly to prevent an outburst of actual applause. “Congratulations,” I say, and Dr. Singh shakes his head, his smile dimming.
“The congratulations go to you.” He’s clearing his throat, shifting his eyes downward.
Shit, I think, anticipating what’s coming. This is the worst part about academic publishing, that you’re going to get asked to change your work so much that it won’t even resemble what you’d originally done, that you’d have to sell out your work to get the publication credit. For me, this isn’t such a big deal—I’m not faculty, and it doesn’t really matter to me or my bosses whether I get publications, so I can tell journals to stuff it if I want. I’d be disappointed, but I’d try again with another journal. Dr. Singh, though, is going up for promotion next year, and his case will be a slam dunk if he gets this publication in this particular journal—going somewhere else could take months. “What kind of changes do they want?” I ask, afraid to hear the answer.
“Very minor,” he says, and then repeats it with emphasis, as if to convince me. “It’s actually more that—that I’d want to make a change.”
“Oh?” I’m confused. Dr. Singh has been happy with every draft of the paper I’ve given him. On the last draft, he’d not made a single change, a fact that had filled me with giddy pride.
“I want to make you primary author on the paper.”
My face goes immediately hot, the same feeling you get when you’ve narrowly missed some kind of disaster, a car wreck or a nasty fall. I’ve never been first author on a publication, and it’s rare for someone in my position to have that kind of professional credit. I say the first thing that comes to mind. “No. No, that’s—that’s really okay.”
Dr. Singh leans forward, tapping his hand on my desk. “Ekaterina,” he says, and now I really do feel like his student again—the way he says my name is an admonishment. “You cannot turn this down. Aside from it being short-sighted for you do so, in professional terms, I am actually insisting that the change be made.”
“But I’ve explained,” I say, and I hear that my voice has gone a little high, a little desperate. “I’m not looking for other professional opportunities. I’m very happy to be where I am. This position suits me. This is what I want.” I look away from his skeptical expression. “The first author thing—it doesn’t matter to me. At all.”
“Everything in this paper is your work. All of the data. You’ve written it. Yes, I provided the equipment, and yes, the funding came from my group, but this is your work. It may not matter to you, but it matters to me that I not overstate my contribution.”
The hands that I had clasped in celebration before—I’m wringing them now, and I make a conscious effort to stop, setting them in my lap. I want to seem in control here, but I feel panicky and startled, unprepared for this confrontation.
He seems to recognize my discomfort, and takes a deep breath before continuing. “You know very well, Ekaterina, that your work is more sophisticated than every postdoc we have here. It’s more sophisticated than some of our faculty’s. I know you have your own reasons for staying in this position when you could be doing more, and I certainly benefit from whatever keeps you here. But you were my student, and perhaps you are too comfortable standing behind me, rather than out front, on your own.”
“That’s not it…” I begin, but he holds up a hand to stop me.
“Maybe not. What keeps you from doing more is not my business. But what is my business is how this article sees the light of day. I’m not comfortable being lead author on a paper that I’m not responsible for.”
Someone else might hear this from Dr. Singh and wonder whether there’s some kind of embarrassment about the work, some concern that it’s not good enough to have his name attached to it. But this isn’t it, and I know it—my work is solid, the data precise, the writing strong. I may be doing a job that I’m overqualified for, but that doesn’t mean I underestimate my own talent or capability.
“If you have my permission, though,” I say, quietly, not sure how I want to finish the thought.
“We have a week,” he says, standing from his chair, “to reply to their acceptance letter. You let me know if you accept my terms. If not, I’ll decline their offer to publish the article.”
He gives a nod, almost a slight little bow, one of many gentlemanly relics Dr. Singh has, before leaving my office, his soft steps fading down the hall.
Lunch seems entirely unappetizing at this point, even the small piece of cake I packed as a treat for myself. I hate that Dr. Singh has changed the rules on me, that he tells me now—when the paper is only a step or two away from publication in such a prestigious journal—about stepping down as lead author.
I feel duped, angry.
But as I move through the rest of my workday, setting up scans for two grad students in Harroway’s group, ordering a part for the SEM, running a diagnostic on one of the older scopes we’re trying to keep online, I realize I’m less angry at Dr. Singh than I am at the very idea that he brought up, that I could be doing so much more. This is what Ben has said to me almost every time he’s tried to sell me on Beaumont, that I’m wasting my talent, that I have no vision. And this is basically what Alex said to me too—staying in one place, everything easy.
By the time I’m ready to call it a day, I’m doing that thing where you too aggressively pack your bag, too thunderously go up the stairs, too forcefully open the door. I’m fucking pissed, actually. Who are these men, anyways, to tell me what I should be doing, what my talent is good for, what’s easy? Who are these men to say that I have to live a life where work takes over, where I’m always worried about the next thing? Who are these men who think having vision means making money, making things? And who are these fucking men to tell me what’s easy? What’s easy about becoming a part of a community, about reading the local paper every week, making sure you try something new, even if it’s scary and you have to go by yourself? What’s easy about making best friends, about forming relationships that are going to last, when someone has your back and you have theirs? What’s easy about trying to make a home for yourself, when you’ve never had one before?
I don’t notice anything on my walk home, don’t feel the oppressive heat of the early evening, don’t even bother to wipe the sweat that I feel trace down my jaw. I don’t do anything but march toward my house, feeling righteous and defensive and ready to unleash all my anger on the next person who does me wrong.
And lucky for me, there’s Ben sitting on my front stoop, waiting.
* * * *
I’m a nightmare when I’m in this kind of mood, and I know it. I’m alternatively quiet and remote, making everyone around me feel responsible for some unspoken error, or I’m quick to lash out, touchy and argumentative. But as soon as I draw close to Ben, as soon as I see the way his big, rangy body takes up space, the way his hands are loosely clasped between his spread knees, the evening stubble on his jaw—some of the fight goes out of me, so I stop in front of him, managing a grudging, “Hi.” Even if the things Ben has said to me over the past few weeks are part of why I’m mad, I know it has nothing to do with what happened today with Dr. Singh.
“Hi,” he says back, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. He looks—I don’t know. Relieved, I guess. Relieved to see me. “Couldn’t get a hold of you today, and I had some news, so I thought I’d come by.”
I dig into my bag, pulling out my phone. Shit, he did call twice. I just forgot to turn on my ringer after my meeting with Harroway. Now I have exactly zero things to be annoyed with him about, which is really ruining my righteous indignation mojo.
“How’s your dad?” I ask.
“He’s all right. He had PT this morning, and they loosened him up a bit. He’s feeling good.”
“Good.”
“I found a plaster guy for you. He can come by tomorrow morning to have a look.”
“I have to work.”
“I figured. But if you’re okay with it, I can meet him here, let him in. If you’re not, no problem. He could come Wednesday after five too.”
“Wednesday,” I say, because I’m still feeling stubborn, not because I don’t trust Ben to be here. Maybe because I trust him to be here, maybe because I trust him more than I’m willing to admit.
He leans back a little to take out his phone and types out a quick message before tucking it back in his pocket. “All set.”
“That’s the news?” This sounds dismissive, sarcastic. I close my eyes briefly, scolding myself.
“Kit.” The way he says my name, it’s a caress, smoothing down all the hackles I have raised. This should annoy me, maybe, this sense I have that he’s handling me in some way, but it doesn’t. It makes me want to sit right next to him on the stoop, to settle myself into the same crook of his body where he held me close on Saturday.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It was a rough day at work.” I know already I shouldn’t say this to Ben, whose job it is to look for ways to exploit any unhappiness I might have in my current situation. But I’m tired of fighting the closeness I feel with him. I had a taste of it Saturday, and I just—I just want to feast on it right now.
“I didn’t have the greatest day at the office, either,” he says, surprising me. “The office” is not how Ben usually talks about work at the yard, so he’s got to be talking about Beaumont, and while we’ve spent an awful lot of time talking about how I might be involved there, in general Ben doesn’t say much about the day-to-day of his real job.
“Yeah?”
He smiles up at me. “Yeah. I spoke to my partner about how things are progressing with your case.”
I stiffen immediately, noticing now, for the first time, that I’d slowly been tipping forward a bit, leaning in to him as we’d talked. I should not trust Ben, ever. I should always remember what he came to me for in the first place. It doesn’t matter what’s happened since.
“Kit,” he says again, but it doesn’t help this time.
“Listen. This has been a really shitty day. Every time we’ve talked about Beaumont, I’ve managed to give you calm, rational answers about why I’m not interested. I don’t really have the capacity for that tonight. But my answer is the same. It’s no. I’m not coming to Texas. I’m not going to do the job. Ever.”
“I don’t care,” he says.
“You don’t—?”
“I called my partner to tell him I’m off your case. I’m not able to recruit you.”
I stare at him, unsure of how to process this information. I should be relieved, thinking Beaumont has given up, that I won’t have to field any more of their queries. But all I can think is: Does this mean I won’t see Ben anymore?
“I’m not able to recruit you because I’m involved with you.”
There’s a pause, a lull—and I’m so grateful for the sounds of the early evening, for the faint hum of traffic going by a few blocks away, for the cicadas starting their evening song.
“What does that mean?” I’m intentionally vague with my question. Maybe I’m asking what it means for Beaumont’s pursuit of me. Maybe I’m asking what it means for him and his job. But maybe I’m asking what it means for him and me. Because when I think of being “involved” with Ben, I think about his clothes on my bedroom floor. I think about all his weight on top of me, that chocolate-sweet kiss.
“It means,” he says, looking right at me, looking right through me, really, “that if you say okay, I’m coming in this house with you and finishing what we started. It means I got Sharon to stay with my dad tonight, so I have every intention of taking you to bed and keeping you there all night. It means I haven’t stopped thinking about your mouth since Saturday. It means that right now, I don’t give one good goddamn about anything other than making sure I have you every way I can before you have to go to work tomorrow.”
I make a sound—I think it’s probably some combination of a whimper and an unf—and lean against the porch railing, trying to catch the breath Ben stole with that speech, which is actually the hottest thing anyone has ever said to me, and this includes the time my college boyfriend said he thought I’d win a Nobel Prize someday. Ben’s posture is as relaxed as it has been since I got home, but there’s some kind of new tension underneath, an energy I feel pulsing beneath his skin. “Okay,” I breathe, and he stands up before I have it all the way out.
“Inside,” he says, and that one word is hotter than the speech.
I go inside, Ben right behind me.
* * * *
Being with Ben is a reminder of the limits of my imagination.
Because while I’d thought of this, late at night, alone in my bed, I hadn’t had much of it right, other than the fact that I’d suspected it’d be good between us. I hadn’t expected that we’d come together the way we are now—greedy, a little clumsy, him against my back as I drop my bag, spinning me around so he can get his mouth on mine, open and searching. I hadn’t expected that I’d so quickly wrap my arms tight around his neck, one of my legs hitching up around his hip, and I hadn’t expected that he’d so quickly, so fiercely, grab on, pulling my other leg around him so that he could carry me up the steps, our kiss frantic, bumpy, his teeth nipping my upper lip, my tongue seeking his lips even as I reach up to pull off my glasses.
“God, Kit,” he says, when we get into my bedroom, “We’ve got to—”
“Don’t. Don’t say slow down.”
I’m on my back on the bed, Ben a planet above me, broad and strong and so hot that I have to close my eyes for a second, catch my breath. Maybe we should slow down. I hear a rustle of clothes and I open my eyes to Ben pulling off his shirt, and it’s—wow, it’s all systems go. He looks incredible, hard packs of muscles on his abdomen, the wide expanse of his chest leading to those bunched, sinewy biceps.
“Off,” he says, tugging at my top at the same time his other hand reaches for my jeans, unbuttoning, lowering the zipper. I’d help, but I’m too busy, splaying my hands on his hot skin, arching up so he can remove my top but also so I can open my mouth against his shoulder, taste his salty skin. “Kit, fuck. Get your clothes off.”
His words bring me back to myself, and I take over, tugging my jeans off before pausing. “Oh,” I say, and Ben stops biting and licking at my collarbone long enough to look at me.
“What?” He almost looks panicked, as if we have to stop this he’ll actually expire, and I enjoy that so much that I make him sweat it for a second.
“I’m—Well. I’m not wearing, you know. Really sexy underwear.”
“Are you fucking kidding? Kit. I don’t care.” He bends down again, sucks at the join of my neck and shoulder. “I can’t tell you how much I don’t care. I won’t even look. Just—please. Get naked.” This makes me laugh, the desperate, growly quality to the way he’s talking. I hadn’t expected him to be this way either, all his calm charm stripped away. It’s funny, messy, the way my clothes come off, him pulling my bra off while I push my jeans down, limbs tangling, whispered curses when I remember I have to kick off my shoes. Ben is laughing too, and oh, God—it’s so fun with Ben, everything is always so fun and easy with him, even first-time sex with him, when usually I feel these whispers of awkwardness being naked with someone for the first time.
There’s no awkwardness when I’m bare beneath him, when Ben presses the long length of his body against mine, letting me feel all that hard heat, the cording of muscle beneath his skin. Between us, his erection presses against the soft skin of my stomach, and I’m hitching a leg around his hip, pressing closer, trying to tell him, without words, that I want him now. I’ve never felt this close to coming from what we’re doing—deep, hard kisses and Ben’s big, callused hand against my breast, his thumb flicking across my nipple with the perfect pressure, perfect rhythm. I break from his mouth, tilt my head so that I can lick up the side of his neck, nip his earlobe with my teeth, and he rewards me with the lowest, sexiest groan I’ve ever heard. I feel it rumble in that aching, wet place between my legs and I buck against him again.
“It’s good,” I breathe, in relief, in confirmation, in plain, pure happiness to be here with him now—close, naked, together.
He scrapes his stubbled cheek against my neck, all that delicious roughness, drags it down over my chest and licks across to my nipple, sucking it into his mouth and working me over until my breath is coming in quick, reedy pants, until I tangle my hands in his hair and whisper please, over and over. “Fuck,” he says, resting his forehead against my sternum before looking up at me again. “I don’t know where to start with you—I want to do everything. I’ve thought about this—I want to put my hands on you, in you…” He breaks off, tracing two of his fingers between my legs, around that aching spot where I want him most. “But I want to see how you taste too—and, oh God. I want to know the way you’d feel around my dick…”
“That,” I say, gripping the back of his neck, tugging him up. “That’s what I want, first. Everything else, we’ll do later. I promise.”
He smiles up at me, nuzzles at my breast again. “I’m going to hold you to that. If I can remember you’ve said it. I don’t even remember my own fucking name right now.”
“Ben,” I say, pulling him up for another kiss, wet and hungry. He pushes off me, and despite the warmth of the room, I feel chilled with the shock of losing the heat of his body, even though it’s only for long enough for him to grab his jeans and pull a condom out of the pocket. I prop myself up on my elbows, watch him roll it on, loving the way his body works, the way he’s heavy and hard, the way he comes back to me, using his hands to spread me wide as he nestles between my legs.
I don’t wait for him. I can’t wait for him—now that we’ve started this, it hits me how long I’ve really been wanting it with him, wanting the chance to be this way together. I reach between us, guide him to my entrance, lift my hips to him, and he’s licking into my mouth, grunting his satisfaction, and then—oh, he’s there, one hard, forceful thrust that tips my head back, that takes my breath away in the most perfect way, and I am lost to him. I hear him in my ear—Kit, So good, You’re perfect—and I think I’m talking back. I think I’m telling him how good it is, how full I feel, how close he has me already, but my body and brain have never felt so disconnected. In Ben’s arms, I am only the sensations he stokes in me. I am nothing but sweat and movement and frantic, pulsing need, and it’s only when my orgasm breaks over me, only when I release a desperate, threaded cry that a single thought breaks through, before I can stop it.
He feels like home.
* * * *
It’s later—much, much later, when I’ve fulfilled the promises Ben didn’t forget, and even some I hadn’t made—and I’m lying on my side, naked, a sheet tangled about my legs, Ben stroking those rough, blunt fingertips up the curve of my thigh, over my hip, down the dip of my waist, and up, again, over the light, curving bones of my ribcage. He does this again and again, learning that curve, and the way goose bumps chase his caress. My eyelids are heavy, my body sated and tender from everything we’ve done.
“I haven’t been up this late in forever,” I whisper. It’s lovely to be up this late with Ben. I’m hearing whole new sounds of the house at night, seeing the way light from the moon tracks across my bedroom window. After the second time we’d made love—surprisingly fast on the heels of the first time, Ben still eager, intense—we’d foraged in the kitchen, me swimming in Ben’s t-shirt, apologizing for the shameful contents of my refrigerator. But we’d managed with slices of apple and generous pieces from a block of cheddar, peanut butter on toast that tasted so good I’d licked the crumbs from my fingers.
Which Ben found very, very distracting.
“Want to sleep?” he asks, leaning down to press his lips against my eyelids.
I murmur my entirely unconvincing dissent, tilting my head up so I can kiss him. I don’t want the night to be over. For the first time in the years since I started my job, I consider a personal day.
“You know what I thought, when I first saw you?” he asks, his face pressed into my neck, his voice muffled.
“Was it about my goggles?” I say, pinching his side lightly.
“No, but I loved your goggles. You look great in goggles. Maybe that could be the first dirty picture you send to me, you in those goggles.”
“I’m never going to send you a dirty picture,” I say, laughing. But then I’m whispering again, in his ear, “What did you think, when you first saw me?”
“I thought, what a goddamn shame I’m here for someone else. And I know that’s not right, because I was there for you. I was just an idiot that day. But I wanted it to be you.”
I think we both know the issue isn’t who he was there for, but what he was there for, and it’s hard not to think of it now, as determinedly as I’d been avoiding it for the last few hours.
“Was it bad?” I ask. “I mean, with your partner. Is it going to mess things up for you?”
We’re so close together that I can feel him stiffen slightly, but he masks it, rolling on his back and pulling me with him so I’m cradled in in the crook of his arm. He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know,” he says, tightening his hand on my hip. “Jasper is my best friend too. And we had—there were some plans we were working on, which I’ve probably messed up. So it’s business, but it’s personal too.” He pauses, then says, with conviction that seems entirely borne of self-preservation, “It’ll be all right.”
I shift away from him, enough to put an inch of air between us. I’m glad he’s being honest, but this is hard too. It puts into sharp relief that what we’ve done here can’t only be a simple hook-up. It’s not that I want it to be, but it’s that Ben doesn’t really have a choice now that he’s sacrificed something important at his job for this. Even if he leaves to go back to Texas next month and we don’t see each other again—a thought that makes my mouth go dry—it’s not as if he won’t be taking back with him the baggage associated with fucking up his work for me. The sex was incredible, yes, and I like him so much that probably at any moment I could tip right over the tightrope I’m walking and fall into a raging, white water river of love. But to him, what does this mean?
“Kit,” he says, tugging me back against him. “Come on. Don’t do that. It’s my choice.”
“Yes, but…”
“But it’s”—he lifts his head from the pillow, cranes his neck to look at my nightstand— “it’s two thirty in the morning. My higher order thinking skills are compromised. Can’t talk.” It’s my turn to lean down, kiss across his brow, his closed eyes, those high, cut cheekbones, and he murmurs his pleasure, tugging me over so I’m forced to straddle him, and just that quickly I’m wet again, still surprised by the way my body reacts to his.
“What about it being two thirty in the morning?” I ask, rubbing against him, his hands tightening on my hips to hold me close.
“Don’t need higher order thinking for this,” he says, already reaching for the strip of condoms we’d stuffed under one of the pillows after the first time. “Wait,” he says, stilling my hips with one of his hands, looking up at me with a furrowed brow.
“What?”
He lifts up, the motion crunching the stacked muscles in his abdomen. His arm bands around me, pulling me close so my head tips forward onto his shoulder. Then he whispers in my ear, “I’m just wondering if you brought those goggles home.”
And it’s like that, laughing again, that he takes me one last time, before we collapse into a perfect, heavy sleep.