The Original Sinners: The Red Years

“What are you doing?” he asked as he came deeper into the dark kitchen.

“If you’re going to pout, I’m going to drink,” she said, pouring herself a steep glass of red wine. “I read somewhere that red wine is good for diabetics. Want one?”

“I’m not pouting. And I don’t drink.”

“There’s a lot you don’t do.”

Nora sat on top of the kitchen table across from him. She watched him, daring him with her eyes to either speak or leave.

“I’ve got homework,” he said.

“Then go.” Nora gestured to the door.

Wesley moved to walk past her. But Nora reached out and stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“Or stay,” she said as she took a deliberate sip of her wine before setting the glass down on the table next to her. “Staying is better.” She grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled Wesley to her, positioning him between her knees. His face was a blank mask and his eyes would not meet hers.

Nora laid her hand on his stomach, smiling as the taut muscle quivered through his T-shirt.

“Nora, don’t—”

“S?ren and I used to play a game on his kitchen table,” Nora said, ignoring the plea in Wesley’s voice. “Did I ever tell you about that?”

“No,” Wesley said, visibly tensing as Nora raised his shirt and slid her hands underneath, pressing her palms into his warm skin. She saw his fingers curl into fists.

“Simple game—he’d fill a wineglass with one of his expensive reds and set it on the edge of the table. Then he would fuck me. Hard.” Nora grinned as Wesley flinched. “If I thrashed too much, or fought him and knocked the glass off…then the wine wasn’t the only red that we spilled that night.”

Wesley closed his eyes as if trying to block out the image.

“The secret is,” Nora said as she raked her fingernails up Wesley’s chest and back down his stomach, “sometimes I’d knock it off on purpose.”

“I won’t play that game with you,” he said as Nora continued relentlessly caressing the delicate skin of his chest and sides. “I won’t play this game with you, either.”

“But it doesn’t have to be a game, Wesley.” She narrowed her eyes like a cat’s. “It can be very real.”

“Don’t do this.” His voice was a plea. His breathing was getting harder, everything was getting harder now. “Not to me.”

“Your heart is racing.” She let her hand rest on the left side of his chest.

From his chest she traced a languid path down his stomach, his breath catching as she deftly unbuttoned the top button of his jeans.

“Nora…”

“I’m not holding you here. You can go if you want to. Do you?”

She grabbed his belt loops and pulled him even closer until his hips pressed against her inner thighs. She knew she shouldn’t be doing this. But Wesley was a constant source of frustration. Sometimes she had to retaliate. And she knew that every now and then he forgot what she really was. It didn’t hurt to remind him.

“I don’t know,” he finally answered.

“Now that is a refreshing bit of candor on your part. Since we’re being so honest now, tell me, why are you being so pissy about Zach?”

Wesley’s eyes widened. Nora bit her bottom lip as she waited for his answer.

“You like him.”

“I do like him.” She took another deep drink of the wine and set the glass down again. “But we’ve just met and we’re not fucking. Not even I work that fast.”

At that Wesley gave a grim chuckle and looked up at the ceiling.

“I couldn’t care less if you were fucking him.”

“My God, did you just say ‘fuck’? You’re a good, clean Methodist. You don’t swear.”

“You have no idea what I do.”

“I do know what you do. I know you sleep with your bedroom door unlocked,” Nora retorted. “Expecting company?”

“I know you stand in my door at night and watch me sleep. Expecting an invitation?”

Now it was Nora’s eyes that widened. But she recovered herself quickly.

“You’re pretty good at this game,” she said, nodding her approval. “For a beginner.”

“I told you. I’m not gonna play with you.”

“Too bad. I think you’d like the prize.” Nora went for the next button on his jeans, but Wesley grabbed her by the wrist to stop her.

“Harder,” she instructed. Wesley let her go as if her skin had burned him.

“I thought so. Go,” she said, dropping her hands to her sides. Wesley took a step back, his palm pressed into his stomach. “Go do your homework, kid.”

She picked up her nearly forgotten wineglass and lifted it to her lips. But before she could drink, Wesley took the glass from her.

He held the glass in his subtly shaking hand before raising it and drinking. Finished, he lowered the glass and set it next to her on the table. He left the kitchen without another word.

Nora picked up the glass and stared inside.

He’d drained it to the dregs.

Nora set the glass back down and turned to follow Wesley. She hated when they fought even though it was almost always her fault.

Wesley would be fine, she told herself. He needed a little toughening up anyway. She’d never forget the first day she saw him. She walked into his classroom at Yorke, and the first thing she’d noticed was a pair of big brown eyes looking at her like he’d never seen anything like her before. And the minute he opened his mouth and those soft Southern syllables came out, she knew this kid was going to be no end of trouble. She’d made all her students talk about their favorite story. Wesley had said his favorite was O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi—the story of the wife who sold her hair to buy her husband a watch chain and the husband who sold his watch to buy his wife combs for her hair. Nora had called it a horror story. Wesley had objected and called it a love story. The debate had continued even after the class ended. Two people who give up their most precious possessions for love and end up with nothing—that’s a love story? she’d demanded. Wesley had argued that they still had each other. She’d laughed and told him he might see things a little differently when he was her age.

She knew she’d been too rough with him tonight, but she couldn’t stop herself sometimes. After all, S?ren had put her through ten kinds of hell when she was Wesley’s age. And now she was grateful for the discipline he’d taught her, the fortitude he’d instilled in her. Now a guy like Zach could look her in the eyes and tell her she wasn’t worth his time and energy, and she could look back and smile and ask him if that was the best he could do. S?ren had made her strong and for that she’d be forever grateful. And Zach was making her a real writer, which was the one fantasy S?ren could never make come true for her. And Wesley…she looked down at the empty wineglass and quickly refilled it in his honor—Wesley was just making her crazy.

Nora turned and saw her book and Zach’s notes lying on top of the kitchen table.

“Goddammit, Zach,” she said to herself and poured the wine down the drain. “Why did you have to tell me it was going to work?”