soon shedding the rest electrified and petrified me.
Petrification being closer to my natural state, I stood in my coat and hat and inspected the house’s interior. It looked as if it were intended for one rather ascetic occupant. There was a small wooden table and one wooden chair at a window on the left. In the back left corner, a black wood-burning stove. A modest kitchen on the right and at the back and above us, a loft built crudely by hand.
I could have stood there all day gawking at the house’s unwrought interior, studying its architecture, speculating about its owner, had the young man not began to stomp the snow off his boots, in a manner that was uncharacteristically rambunctious. He seemed at once nervously excited and full of hesitation. It was only my fear of him losing patience that finally drew me up the loft’s treacherously steep stairs. Despite being raised in a home in which the wearing of shoes was banned, I couldn’t bear to take my boots off prior to ascending. It seemed entirely too suggestive. (What’s more I had a fear of slipping in my socks and falling to my death in advance of our encounter.) At the top of the stairs I removed my boots. Dutifully the young man followed me but left his boots on.
The house smelled mildly of Murphy’s oil soap and cedar, the loft of dust and absence. Upstairs, resting on a plank floor, we found a twin mattress covered by a blanket. I sat down opposite the mattress and was grateful for the near dark; for the lack of windows, the impossibility of eyes peering in at us. There was only an inverted triangle filled with horizontal slats. My own eyes soon adjusted. (Soon enough I would be grateful for that too.) As I took off my hat I was gripped by twin fears that I was supposed to be at the library or with Maria.
“What day is it?” I asked, trying to conceal my panic.
“Friday,” he muttered, sounding mildly offended, as if my ability to forget the day was tied to or perhaps synonymous with my ability to forget him.
“That’s right,” I said, involuntarily using the voice of a library proctor who’d administered an exam he’d passed easily. At the thought of it being my day off, of Maria being at the nursery until two, I relaxed slightly.
He stood next to the dangerously low railing and looked down as if contemplating suicide. I felt a wave of concern for him, joined with a new sense of responsibility. After luring him out of school through the snowy woods and into an abandoned house, was I not ethically obligated to seduce him? His cheeks were red with what? Shame? Arousal? Some tantalizing mixture of the two? Was he too suffering from a moral crisis or was he just cold? He looked ashamed. I took off my coat and moved toward him.
“Do you want to go back?” I asked yet again, unable to shush the relentless librarian in me who felt she ought to promptly return him to his homeroom.
“No,” he said quietly with the steady expression of one who does not wish to stray from the topic at hand. I touched his face, which seemed to make him happy, though the happiness was only evident in his eyes. His skin brought to mind Maria’s, the downy fur of baby animals hidden from view: asleep, untouchable, now unbelievably mine.
He may as well have been shirtless so apparent were the lines of his body in his white thermal shirt. One could see he would be well suited to a varsity sports team; when he moved he moved as if in service of a greater goal. And yet there was something sketch-like about him; perhaps it was merely youth, the impression he gave of one not quite frail but also not yet finished. I stifled the urge to say something idiotic about his beauty, grateful and amazed that I had any stifling power left whatsoever.
“I’m so frightened of you,” I said. “I’ve never been so frightened of anyone.”
“Are you being serious?” he asked, that dark look of his darkening a touch.
“Of course I’m being serious,” I snapped. Was it
Petrification being closer to my natural state, I stood in my coat and hat and inspected the house’s interior. It looked as if it were intended for one rather ascetic occupant. There was a small wooden table and one wooden chair at a window on the left. In the back left corner, a black wood-burning stove. A modest kitchen on the right and at the back and above us, a loft built crudely by hand.
I could have stood there all day gawking at the house’s unwrought interior, studying its architecture, speculating about its owner, had the young man not began to stomp the snow off his boots, in a manner that was uncharacteristically rambunctious. He seemed at once nervously excited and full of hesitation. It was only my fear of him losing patience that finally drew me up the loft’s treacherously steep stairs. Despite being raised in a home in which the wearing of shoes was banned, I couldn’t bear to take my boots off prior to ascending. It seemed entirely too suggestive. (What’s more I had a fear of slipping in my socks and falling to my death in advance of our encounter.) At the top of the stairs I removed my boots. Dutifully the young man followed me but left his boots on.
The house smelled mildly of Murphy’s oil soap and cedar, the loft of dust and absence. Upstairs, resting on a plank floor, we found a twin mattress covered by a blanket. I sat down opposite the mattress and was grateful for the near dark; for the lack of windows, the impossibility of eyes peering in at us. There was only an inverted triangle filled with horizontal slats. My own eyes soon adjusted. (Soon enough I would be grateful for that too.) As I took off my hat I was gripped by twin fears that I was supposed to be at the library or with Maria.
“What day is it?” I asked, trying to conceal my panic.
“Friday,” he muttered, sounding mildly offended, as if my ability to forget the day was tied to or perhaps synonymous with my ability to forget him.
“That’s right,” I said, involuntarily using the voice of a library proctor who’d administered an exam he’d passed easily. At the thought of it being my day off, of Maria being at the nursery until two, I relaxed slightly.
He stood next to the dangerously low railing and looked down as if contemplating suicide. I felt a wave of concern for him, joined with a new sense of responsibility. After luring him out of school through the snowy woods and into an abandoned house, was I not ethically obligated to seduce him? His cheeks were red with what? Shame? Arousal? Some tantalizing mixture of the two? Was he too suffering from a moral crisis or was he just cold? He looked ashamed. I took off my coat and moved toward him.
“Do you want to go back?” I asked yet again, unable to shush the relentless librarian in me who felt she ought to promptly return him to his homeroom.
“No,” he said quietly with the steady expression of one who does not wish to stray from the topic at hand. I touched his face, which seemed to make him happy, though the happiness was only evident in his eyes. His skin brought to mind Maria’s, the downy fur of baby animals hidden from view: asleep, untouchable, now unbelievably mine.
He may as well have been shirtless so apparent were the lines of his body in his white thermal shirt. One could see he would be well suited to a varsity sports team; when he moved he moved as if in service of a greater goal. And yet there was something sketch-like about him; perhaps it was merely youth, the impression he gave of one not quite frail but also not yet finished. I stifled the urge to say something idiotic about his beauty, grateful and amazed that I had any stifling power left whatsoever.
“I’m so frightened of you,” I said. “I’ve never been so frightened of anyone.”
“Are you being serious?” he asked, that dark look of his darkening a touch.
“Of course I’m being serious,” I snapped. Was it
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