First Man Read online

  How was I going to last until the weekend?

  An unexpected heat wave rolled in on Wednesday, providing a welcome distraction as I waited for the days to pass by. 60 degrees might not be warm for the majority of the country, but for New Hampshire in mid-March it was downright balmy.

  We all knew the warm weather wouldn’t hold and that we’d be buried it sweaters and boots for at least another two months, but that didn’t stop us from taking advantage of the weather in a way that only New Englanders can. We peeled off the layers that had kept us warm for so many months, throwing on seasonally inappropriate outfits. The boys traded hoodies and heavy boots for shorts and beat-up sneakers. The girls reveled in the chance to wear skirts and dresses without freezing. Most of us still kept a sweatshirt or a coat crammed into our lockers as insurance against the unavoidable moment when the cold winds roared back in.

  When Friday finally arrived the temperature had climbed to 65 degrees. Only the largest chunks of ice still held court in the muddy school grounds. The warmth in the air had most of us almost starting to believe that winter had finally ended.

  I saw Brian trying to skateboard along the sidewalks that were still encrusted with rock salt and dead leaves. The wide smile on his face as he bumped and jostled his way across the pavement told me that he refused to believe winter hadn’t really ended. Poor guy. He’d be burying himself in flannels and grumbling about Hoth soon enough.

  I picked my way across the puddles of melted slush on my way to Adam’s office. I’d worn the dress for him. Red and orange faded together into a swirl of bright fabric that looked like flames. When I had looked at the tag in the store last summer, I had laughed at the sight of “EMBER” written on the tag in block letters. I’d put my favorite pair of sandals on, simple flat soles with braided strips of leather that wrapped around my calves.

  Adam had watched me with hooded eyes through class, staring at me like I was some delicacy to be devoured. I had slipped out of his class the moment the bell rang, escaping before he could get too clear of a look at me. Lingering at his desk was too much for either of us that day.

  I paused outside his office, giving myself just a moment for any indecision to make itself known, but none manifested itself. I wasn’t scared, and I had nothing to regret.

  I opened the door.

  INFERNO

  Adam

  Her lips tasted of honey and secrets, and I wanted to lose myself in their depths. Our first kiss had been in my office, surrounded by books and papers, less than a week ago. Now she was standing in my bedroom, slowly unbuttoning my shirt and kissing me like I was her lifeline. Any thought of putting a stop to this died when she stepped back and smiled at me.

  The sun was setting outside, and inside, her fingers were making quick work of the buttons. She pushed the shirt off my shoulders and reached for my belt. Her hands were steady. “Ember,” I breathed, and her hands stilled.

  Part of me needed to ask her if this was what she really wanted, if I was what she really wanted. An honorable man would have given her one last chance to escape. At that moment, honorable was the last thing I wanted to be, and I was certain that a part of me would die if she walked out that door.

  I had known her for close to a year. I had watched her pleasure at being in a class that challenged her. I had often wondered who was enjoying her independent study more, she or I. The hour she spent in my office had become the highlight of my day. I had stopped seeing her as just a student long ago.

  The spring day had been unseasonably warm, the unexpected heat melting away the last vestiges of winter that clung to the town. Ember wore a sundress, raw silk in shades of red and orange. I had watched her all day, fascinated by the way the fabric swirled around her knees like a flame as she walked through the halls. I slid my fingers under the thin braided strap on her right shoulder and pushed it off, following suit with the left. The dress pooled at her feet, and I pulled her against my chest, lifting her off her feet and carrying her to the bed.

  The Roman sandals she favored were still on her feet, and I removed them slowly, unwrapping the thin leather laces that crisscrossed her calves as she watched me with hooded eyes. I kissed each foot as I freed them from the shoes. I kissed her calves tracing the faded tanlines that followed the lines of the sandals. I felt her hand brush my hair, a ghost of a touch and I looked up at her. She traced the line of my jaw, barely touching my skin, and just stared at me with those unreadable blue eyes.

  Her lips formed my name silently, and I kissed her again, trying to pour everything I was unable to say into that moment. I wanted to tell her I had begun thinking of her as a constant in my life, that she was the second chance I never thought I deserved, that I had grown to love her. Instead, I broke away from her long enough to shed my pants, and when I returned to her side, she silenced me with another kiss before I could draw breath to speak.

  I was not her teacher, a man nearly twice her age who should have known better. I was a supplicant before her. There were no candles burning, no rose petals strewn across the sheets. There was only her, reclining on my mattress like a goddess in repose.

  It was a moment suspended in amber, something I would look back on for years, reveling in the memory of what it felt like to be with someone who understood who I was, who saw the world as I did. Someone who loved me even when I was being a sardonic bastard, and didn’t expect me to change.

  I wondered what it said about me, that I found a truly kindred spirit in someone so young. I had loved Lily, and our common interests had drawn us together, but Ember fit me in a way no one else ever had. Lily had made me feel old. Ember made me feel like myself.

  I tried to memorize each second, the whisper of the sheets and the sweet salt of her flesh. I buried my face in her neck, breathing in the scent of ginger soap and sweat, and muffling a harsh moan in her hair.

  “Ember,” I breathed, loving the way the word felt in my mouth, strange and forbidden. So close, but still I held myself back.

  She caught my face in her hands and stared up at me, willing and warm, those endless legs wrapped around my hips. “I’m not going to break, Adam,” she said, holding my gaze as she spoke. “I choose you,” she added.

  A better man would have left her. A better man would not have been entranced by her silvery hair and her those pouty lips that spouted brash challenges to anyone who stood in her line of fire.

  I was not that better man.

  Instead I kissed those pillowed lips and sank into her warmth.

  As with everything else in her life, Ember held nothing back. Her nails dug into my back, and I knew I’d be wearing red stripes down my skin for days. She moved beneath me, her hips rocking in that ageless rhythm that matched my own.

  She was not quiet. She arched her back, pressing her body closer against mine, as though she was trying to climb inside my skin. Low moans and sighs fell from her mouth, growing louder as the pleasure built within her.

  I think I knew, even in that golden moment, that what we had couldn’t last. The inevitability that someone would catch us and tear us apart pricked at the back of my mind. I pushed it down, burying it with every other harsh thought that plagued me. She was mine in that moment, and nothing could take that from us.

  Dusk had fallen around us as we had laid tangled in each other. I hadn’t asked if her parents were expecting her home, and she hadn’t volunteered the details. After our first frenzied coupling the mood had changed.

  Ember had emerged from the tangle of bedsheets and walked unselfconsciously across his bedroom floor to the stereo. Unabashedly, I stared at her swaying hips and long legs and the deliciously forbidden place where they met. She flipped through the pile of records next to my stereo and, after a moment, seemed to choose one at random. The music that filled the small room was a low hum of electronica, quiet and dreamlike. She stood by the stereo, listening to the music with her eyes closed.

  “Come back to bed.”

  The spell broken, she turned back to me, h
er lips curling into a sensual smile as she saw my appreciative gaze.

  “See something you like?” she purred, standing at the edge of the bed.

  “Many many things.” I wrapped my arms around her waist and tugged her back into my bed. Being able to finally touch her after living with this desperate want simmering just below the surface was intoxicating.

  My hands were two travellers across her body, and Ember was more than willing to lay back and let herself be venerated. Her skin was pale, all but the faintest remnants of her tan having faded in the long winter. Her icy blonde hair was a wild tangle after our earlier activities, and the meticulously applied dark makeup that lined her eyes was smeared and smudged. Somehow that loss of perfection made her more beautiful.

  I kissed the hollow of her neck, feeling the flutter of her pulse beneath my lips. I peppered the smooth skin with nips and kisses, wanting to mark her somehow. I felt her pulse quicken as my mouth followed the curve of her throat.

  I continued following my path down the length of her body, lavishing attention on the round swell of her ample breasts. Her rose pink nipples stood hard and aching and the loud cries that escaped her when I closed my lips around one of them made me wonder if her other lovers had ever bothered to do this.

  She shivered with small tremors as I touched her, circling the hard peaks with my tongue. “Adam!” I could hear the strain in her voice, the desperate need that surprised her with its sudden urgency. My hand dipped lower, finding that warm, sweet place between her milky thighs. Her hips bucked upwards at my touch, and she cried out my name a second time as I brought her to a shattering release.

  The diffused glow of the streetlights filtered through the windows, and the shadows grew across our skin as dusk deepened into night. We who clung to words and books like long lost friends made love in that half light, silent except for our breath and the crackling music of the record. There were no whispered declarations of undying devotion that night. Even then, we both knew that the stolen moments wouldn’t last.

  The cold winter winds had blown back into Portsmouth, and a thin dusting of snow covered the ground again, forcing the students grudgingly back indoors, but all their grumblings couldn’t dampen my mood.

  It was strange being back in the classroom with her the following Monday. I wouldn’t quite call it surreal, but it was an odd juxtaposition, seeing her studiously taking notes in jeans and a royal blue sweater as I droned on about The Scarlet Latter when she had been naked and moaning my name in my bed a few hours ago.

  Of course, I was well aware of the effect I had on her as well.

  We had been stretched out in my bed, exhausted and finally satiated. I had glanced at the clock and the glaring red number read 9:14. “You should be getting home,” I said grudgingly, making no move to let her leave.

  She kissed me and whispered “I can stay” against my lips. “I told you, I like to be thorough. Officially, I’m staying at Angie’s tonight. So I can stay.” She paused and, seeming almost shy, added on, “If you want me to.”

  Shyness and self-consciousness seeming ill-fitting on Ember. “I want,” I growled, the smoldering heat between us springing into a full flame. “I more than want. Stay forever.”

  “I love your accent,” she said. “I don’t know how I manage to get a decent grade in your class. Every lecture, all I could do is hope you’d call on me so I could hear you say my name again.”

  “I’ll remember that,” I breathed. “Ember.”

  My mind wandered as I continued my lecture. I had never been a teacher that stayed at my desk and lectured from behind a podium. I infinitely preferred patrolling the room. It kept the usual teenage antics at a minimum and forced the students to at least pay enough attention to ensure I didn’t sneak up on them.

  I’d given this particular lecture every year with few variations, but this year the familiar speech on sin and punishment hit a bit too close to home.

  “The Scarlet Letter can be considered a feminist novel. Agree or disagree?” I waited, giving the class a chance to answer but every student found themselves deeply engrossed in the contents of their backpacks or notebooks. “Ember? Any insight?”

  She sat up a bit straighter. I could see the dark circles under her eyes that were, no doubt, mirrored in my own. We’d stayed up far too late last night, but I couldn’t bring myself to regret the lost sleep. “Absolutely,” she replied, “Hester Prynne did her best in an unthinkable situation. She had to overcome constant public humiliation and abuse from everyone around her while trying to raise a child alone in a harsh environment.”

  I nodded, pleased with her quick answer. “Exactly. Thank you, Ember,” I said, putting a bit more emphasis on her name that necessary. The look on her face showed that she was well aware of what I was doing. “By her status as a fallen woman, Hester actually gained freedoms that the good and honest women of Boston did not. She no longer had any fear about crossing those boundaries because she had nothing left to lose.”

  Once I had been that person with nothing left to lose. I’d lost my family piece by piece and consigned myself to a life as a wander. I’d met Lily and lost her in the same year, along with the so-called normal life I’d been building brick by brick beside her.

  And now Ember. She’d stormed headlong into my life without worry or fear, unjaded by the loss and tedium that had dogged my steps for too long.

  She had breezed into my office just a day ago, the hem of that mesmerizing dress floating around her knees like a wreath of flame, and the look she gave me was of someone who’d lived much longer than the short 18 years she’d had on this planet.

  “Take me home, Adam,” she had said, twisting her fingers through mine. There had been no doubt whose home she meant.

  The sheets on my bed were soft Egyptian cotton and the palest shade of blue I’d ever seen. Sometimes I doubted the color, wondered if they were really white and my eyes were tricking me. We didn’t have many days like this, days when there were no staff meetings or doting parents, no tests to be graded or papers to be written. When we weren’t teacher and student. When they just were. We spent entire afternoons tangled in those sheets, the pale fabric deepening the color of her skin and making even her light hair look dark against its pristine weave.

  The stereo was always on after that first night. Ember’s latest obsession was working her way through my entire music collection. She rarely recognized the music emanating from the speakers but she always liked it. Much of it was strange, alternative rock, indie bands with names that screamed underground. Half the albums weren’t even in English. I’d picked them up over the years, buying whatever record or CD had an interesting cover, a fact that surprised Ember.

  “It’s just hard to imagine you being fond of anything from this century.” Sprawled across the bed, wearing nothing but one of my worn grey t-shirts and a satisfied expression, she listened to the band of that afternoon - Hawksley Workman, an odd Canadian alternative band that I was strangely fond of.

  “You do realize I am only 33,” I said, dryly, twirling a strand of her hair around my fingers.

  “But your tastes are definitely a bit more early Roman Empire than that.”

  “I’ll give you that.”

  Ember had endless amounts of curiosity about the artifacts that peppered my apartment. She scrutinized the books and journals that lined my shelves and begged for the story behind every random object. Anyone else might have perceived her constant study as nosiness, but Ember only wanted to understand me. As a man far too prone to secrets, I couldn’t fault her methods.

  “What’s this?” Her fingers traced over the small blue and gold statue of a falcon. “It’s Egyptian style,” she murmured, thinking out loud. “Horus?”

  “Correct,” I said, slipping the comfortable teacher mask on as the memory flooded me. It was our first full day in Cairo, and Lily had been overwhelmed with the sights and sounds of the city. We had wandered through the marketplace, and the statue had caught Lily’s eye. Sh
e hadn’t had much practice with haggling yet, so she paid far too much for the small figurine. It had sat on our windowsill for the rest of our stay, placidly watching over us, until I numbly stuffed it in my carry-on before I flew to Greece alone.

  Ember watched the cascade of emotions across my face. “What was her name?”

  I looked up, startled. “How did you-?”

  Ember gently put the statue back down on my desk. “Teachers are worse gossips than students, and my locker is right next to the faculty lounge. That new art teacher still has a bit of a crush on you, and Mrs. Watson was telling her that she was definitely barking up the wrong tree. They all have some theories.” Ember quirked a smile. “’He must have some terrible tragedy in his past to be such a loner.’ They’ve made you out to be a bit of a Byronic hero, cloistering himself away in the snow after the loss of his love.”

  Ember’s eyes studied my face before continuing. “They’re not wrong, are they?”

  Closing my eyes, I nodded. “Her name was Lily. She died.” I opened my eyes to see Ember still watching me, waiting for elaboration. “We were together for a little over a year when I lived in Atlanta. She was sick, but I didn’t know about it to the very end”

  “She never told you?”

  “No, I found out. Sometimes I wonder if she would have ever told me, if I hadn’t forced her hand. I doubt she would have. I think she would have continued the ruse until her body gave out.”

  “That’s awful.”

  I shook my head. “You’re young, Ember. She was too, and she just wanted to stuff as much life as possible into those last few months instead of wasting them on tears and hospitals. I can’t fault her for that.”