Chapter Text
Anne was surprised she hadn’t been bothered at all on Saturday but expected she might be on Sunday, so she dressed appropriately in preparation, quickly going out to a nearby empty lot to get more food for her caterpillars but otherwise staying in and doing her laundry. She texted back and forth with Jen and Liss about Friday night and Saturday morning. She was tempted to text Will but didn’t want to bother him.
When she still hadn’t been bothered by 2PM and with her laundry washed and dried, she took a trip to the grocery store to pick up some fruits and cheese that she could eat after work instead of ordering out. The cherries she finished as soon as she got home, however, as they were her favourite fruit.
If she thought the sex with Will would have slaked her desire, she was very wrong, and by the evening she sought out her bathtub to relieve herself under the tap. It didn’t hold a candle to Will and toward the end, the uncomfortable but familiar thoughts of her own humiliation and pain came to her. Resisting them rarely worked but she thought of the things she and Will had talked about: blindfolding, fisting, and overlapping them with the memory of his tongue. The fantasies got intense. Double-fisting and orgasm torture among other things, but far tamer than usual. She was happy afterward. It was nice to get off to something she imagined could be pleasurable rather than the alternative.
On Monday morning Anne found her boss and his wife in a surprisingly good mood. Neither mentioned her leaving on Friday. Anne quickly cut the business cards that had been printed and then Ifshah called her and Jen into her office.
She said it was good that both Anne and Jen were there, and that Anne not staying late had meant Miraj had come home earlier and apologized for some harsh words he’d said to her earlier. She asked about Anne’s evening, and Anne admitted she’d spent it with a man she liked from her class, though she didn’t go into detail. Ifshah, whose marriage to Miraj had been arranged, admitted to a crush she had that she’d never act on. She mentioned Miraj’s open crushes and implied he could have them and not act on them either. Anne said she didn’t know if she and Will would go past friends. Jen for her part kept her answers vague, to avoid revealing that most of her crushes were on women.
The rest of the day was relatively straightforward and Anne only had to stay a half hour afterward, and that only to prepare for the following day, when she wouldn’t be able to.
Her heart began to pound as she rode the bus after work that Tuesday. Would he be happy to see her? Would he act like nothing had happened? And what about her? If he touched her could she keep it together? God, she wanted him to touch her again, to hold her, to squeeze her, and so much more.
She saw him in the hallway on her way to the bathroom to change into her pants.
“Oh hi!” he said with a wide grin and opened his arms.
She gladly hugged him, feeling her breasts and groin tingle. Her cheeks were very hot as well. He squeezed her and then pecked her on the lips. She wanted to fall into him and hope he’d take her somewhere secluded but she kept herself standing. He ran a thumb over the top of her cheek, which made her heart thump. He then let go of her and sighed.
“Um…” She cleared her throat. “I have to go change.”
He raised his brows suggestively but said, “See you in class,” and tickled her shoulder before heading to it.
She exhaled slowly and continued to the bathroom, imagining him following her in and having her hard and fast. She tried to clear her mind as she changed, breathing deeply. She applied cold water to her face after washing her hands, which made her feel a little refreshed but otherwise didn’t help much.
In class, they spent twenty minutes going over the material, and Anne’s glimpses of Will’s forearm beside her made it difficult not to remember the strength she’d felt as his hands had clasped hers.
They went to pick up their study material at the professor’s desk and as Anne took her copy the professor frowned and asked, “Are you wearing lipstick?”
Anne could have died on the spot. “Uh…no.” She thought she heard Will whisper “hot sauce” behind her. She clearly her throat. “Uh…hot sauce.”
The professor grunted and turned back to his computer.
She thought she heard Will laughing very softly. She shook her head and headed outside. There they picked up their tools as needed and headed to their areas.
At least there Anne could focus on the physical work and even if she was still aroused nobody would be able to see it so clearly on her face.
But Will leaned over and whispered in her ear, “The way you keep blushing is gonna make people think we had sex.”
His grin was at once attractive and made her feel like challenging him. If their time together had been as good for him as he’d said then he must be aroused too—she avoided looking at his crotch. She cleared her throat and said, “You said something every surface, was it?”
He raised his eyebrows and then reminded her, “Not just surfaces.”
“Well, if you’re not too busy, you will have to tell me where.”
His eyes narrowed, but she headed off to her area, imagining him coming up behind her and driving himself inside her.
He came up with a water bottle. “You always forget these,” he said.
She rolled her eyes but accepted it. “It doesn’t taste good.”
He chuckled and then gestured toward the large rock she’d dug up. “I wanted to help you celebrate all that work you did.”
“I don’t know, I was pretty sweaty,” she said.
“I know,” he whispered.
She felt a flush of heat at her groin, uncomfortable in the July warmth, but imagined his mouth on her while she’d sat on that rock.
“I need a few things from the shed,” he said. “Maybe you can help me carry them and then I don’t have to make as many trips.”
“Okay,” she said, her smile matching his.
“Wanted to fuck you here on the hillside,” he said quietly. She imagined the tickle of grass and the view of the sky as he pounded into her.
He led her down the hill and pointed to a tree in the near distance. “It’s got what looks a sturdy hanging branch. Wanted to take you there and sit you on it.” What would that be like? Swaying in the breeze while he held her thighs and tasted her?
“I thought about you taking me into the shed,” she told him as they headed there.
He smiled. “Yes, I could do that.”
She felt his body heat behind her near the shed door before she heard him say, “But what I really thought of was right here.” She was then pressed against the shed as he moved against her. She tried to keep her mouth closed as she felt the friction of his pelvis against her buttocks, but she wasn’t quite successful. His hand came up to cover her mouth and he licked her neck. As her knees buckled he turned her to face him and palmed her breasts with both hands before slipping one hand between her legs and rubbing. He took her mouth with his, and if she’d fleetingly worried about being seen, she certainly didn’t care now.
He stopped after a few seconds to say, “I’d really like to take you to my car right now and end class early.” He sighed and shook his head. “But it’s…”
“Hot?”
“Yeah. Don’t wanna roast.” He exhaled. “I actually do have to grab some mulch bags.”
“Okay,” she said smiling.
The carried the bags to his area and then he asked if there was anything she needed help with. She had thought bark nuggets would be good and they went back to the shed to collect those as well.
“You need help distributing those?” he asked of the nuggets. “And then maybe you can help me with the mulch around my trees.”
“Yeah!” she said and explained, “So I don’t need the nuggets piled up, I just need them kind of evenly scattered. You have a longer reach so you can get the upper levels more easily.”
“All right.”
At his own trees he poured out the mulch and Anne smoothed out a ring at each one so that it wasn’t touching the bark of the trees directly.
At the end of class, he asked, “How you getting home?”
She shrugged. “Bus.”
“Don’t have to go to work first?”
“Uh, no, actually.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t I give you a ride home?”
She felt herself smile. “I would appreciate that.”
She went to the bathroom first, relieving herself and then rinsing her armpits. She changed back into the long skirt she’d worn for work and her boots, not wanting to get his car dirty, but didn’t bother changing her shirt, thinking he likely hadn’t.
She was correct, though he like her had changed his pants or else had dusted them off very well.
The car was monstrously hot as they got in. “Oof-fff,” he exhaled as if to blow the heat away. “Yeah, this wouldn’t have worked. You can hang out outside if you want while I cool this down.”
“Ah, okay.” She watched the wide-open sky and heard the plaintive call of a plover. Golden hour was beginning and she pulled out her phone to take a picture, though she expected it wouldn’t capture. She missed her old proper handheld camera, but the cold had destroyed it one winter and she couldn’t afford another.
“Should be decent now,” he said and she got in.
She felt happy, dreamy in a way. Was it because it hadn’t been a one-time thing? Because they could still work together in spite of having had sex? Possibly all of the above, she considered.
“Would you like to grab something to eat first?”
“Uh, yeah, actually.”
“Somewhere you wanna sit in? Maybe cool down?”
“Uh, well, there’s a nice little sushi place downtown.”
“Sushi, it is.”
She directed him to the sushi place she and Jen visited when they could. The couple who owned it greeted Anne when she came in and she introduced Will.
“Salmon fan,” Will noted of her choices.
She shrugged. “I like what I like. Plus tuna has more mercury.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that. But I think one or two pieces is gonna be okay for me. No ginger or wasabi?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Soy sauce only.”
“Hm,” he said. “I’ll have yours then.”
She slid the small trays over to him, wondering if this counted as a date.
“What’s your favourite food?” she asked.
“Hard to say. Depends, I guess. But I do love a good burger or steak sandwich.”
“I like those now and then.”
“And what’s your favourite food?”
“Probably pasta. I mean I like a lot of other foods too. Sushi’s up there. But pasta with all my favourite vegetables and lots of cheese is probably the top. But it kinda has to be my own because restaurant pasta is rarely el dente, and hardly anyone wants to put all my favourite vegetable in one pasta even though I am clearly right.”
He chuckled. “So what are your favourite vegetables?”
“Zucchini, asparagus, artichoke, spinach, broccoli, and fiddleheads.”
“Fiddleheads?”
“Curled fern fronds, but you only get those in springtime.”
“Ah, I think I’ve seen those. What do they taste like?”
“You have to steam or boil them. It’s a very green taste. It’s nice.”
“Huh. What do you like on pizza?”
“Same. Lots of cheese and my favourite veggies.”
He chuckled again.
“What about you?”
“I’m a fan of the traditional: canned mushrooms, shredded pepperoni, and green peppers.”
“That’s traditional?”
“It is for this city, yes.”
“Really? I mean I knew we had probably the best pizza in the country but I didn’t know there was a traditional kind.”
“Generally called the super.”
“Okay. Well, I’m pescetarian so I can’t really do the shredded pepperoni.”
“Hm,” he mused. “What make you pescetarian, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I just think the amount of meat consumption is unsustainable. It’s not great for seafood either depending on the source but I eat that once a week at most.”
“So it’s not that you’re against eating animals?”
“No, I don’t believe it’s wrong for an omnivorous species to eat animals. I just don’t think animals should be treated as…something for our consumption, and I don’t think collectively we need to be eating as much of it as we do. And yeah, it’s not environmentally sustainable.”
“I can respect that,” he said.
She realized then that her heart was pounding. Often people who regularly ate meat got very defensive when she explained her reasons or else tried to ridicule her. She remembered Peter’s father shoving a hotdog toward her face.
But Will seemed sincere and she felt herself relax.
The young daughter of the owners came out to them with a tray of frozen cream puffs. Will was charmed and thanked her.
Anne smiled. “She does that when I come.”
“Great way to get people to come back.”
“They’re really nice.”
They paid separately for their food and Anne was grateful, unsure if he was going to mention her work situation.
He then drove her home.
“Well, here we are,” he said looking at her. “Whether I go up to your apartment is up to you, though.”
“I would really like it if you did,” she said with a grin.