On my way to the toilet, I glanced through the open door to the garage. Mark was bending over the hood of his jeep while he was covered in grease. He was a tall man in his forties with an athletic physique. His short-sleeved flannel shirt stood open, and I saw the sweat streaming over his stomach. Making me forget where I was going and keeping me nailed to the floor, as I kept watching how he worked while the muscles flexed in his well-developed arms. How I longed for him to stop what he was doing and take me into their warm embrace.
I startled as Mark looked up. ‘‘Hey there, can you hand me a towel from the kitchen?’’ he asked. His blond hair stood messy, and the clear blue eyes behind his glasses looked hellish in contrast to the dark smears on his cheeks.
After I brought him his towel, he cleaned himself up. I attentively observed how he took the sweat and dirt out his beard and off his body. One of his nipples popped up as the fabric of his shirt swung to the side. I bit my lip at the sight of the juicy tip in the middle of the circle. Imagining how it would feel like to run my tongue over it.
‘‘I’ll start dinner after I grab a quick shower,’’ he said. ‘‘Perhaps you can already set the table?’’
When I got back to the kitchen to take out the plates and silver from the cabinets, I could only think about how he was undressing himself upstairs. Unbuttoning his jeans and taking off his briefs whereafter his naked body stepped under the streams. How then the water would be running over his wide back, trailing all the way down to his tight buttocks. In my fantasy I stepped in with him, putting my arms around him and kissing the back of his neck.
Holding that thought I finally went to the toilet and jerked myself off as I was thinking about it.
***
That evening when I went into my current bedroom, my eye fell on the low bookcase beside the window. Specifically on the red cover that read ‘‘Little Red Riding Hood’’. I took it off the shelf and viewed the cover. I remembered having seen it before as a kid and how the drawing had fascinated me then as well. But now it occurred to me how the wolf and the girl looked suspiciously a lot like lovers. In the way his paw was holding her hand and the seductive manner with which he gazed into her eyes. While she looked up to him as if in willing surrender. Almost as if she would be happy to be eaten by the beast.
It also occurred to me that this book had contained a different version of the tale than all the others I’ve heard. I wanted to refresh my memory but first I was going to prepare myself for bed. I placed the book on the nightstand and changed into my robe, whereafter I headed for the bathroom.
Walking into the hallway, for the second time that day my eye got caught by an open door. Although this time it was only standing ajar. Through the crack I saw a fantasy unfolding itself as Mark was just taking off his briefs. In an angle that gave me a clear view of his beautiful behind with a hint of other flesh, which showed me just enough to determine he was well developed in that department as well.
He turned around and stared right into my face.
I flinched and in a haste of confusion I flew back to my room whereafter I closed the door behind me way too loud. My heart raged as I asked myself what to do. He had obviously seen me standing there, if only for a flinch of a moment. I could play it off as if I had been wanting to ask him something. But what could that be? Think, come on, think.
I heard movement on the other side of the door. Still not sure what to do, I threw off my robe and jumped into bed.
Mark knocked on the other side of the door.
I pulled the covers up with tense fingers. ‘‘Come in,’’ I answered unsure.
He entered the room. Fully covered this time and dressed in a dark grey dressing gown. ‘‘I see you already got into bed. Don’t I get a wish good night anymore?’’ he asked lighthearted.
His voice had always been hoarse, making it sound like he was whispering all the time. I had never really paid any attention to it, but in this setting, it struck me as oddly seductive.
‘‘I’m just really tired,’’ I said, while I was totally relieved that he didn’t mention anything about me peeking through his bedroom door. Maybe he hadn’t noticed after all.
‘‘What’s this, are my eyes deceiving me or are you actually reading?’’ He picked up the book on my nightstand and frowned his brow.
‘‘Oh, I wasn’t reading that. It just fell out of the bookcase. I wanted to put it back but then I remembered I… had to brush my teeth.’’
‘‘Really?’’ he said with a sarcastic face. ‘‘So did you?’’
‘‘Did what?’’
‘‘Brush your teeth? Because I believe to have seen you never made it all the way to the bathroom.’’
Damned! So he had seen me staring.
I was dumbstruck and lost for words. But Mark didn’t wait for an actual answer and walked over to the side of the room. Where he picked up my clothes off the armchair I had dumped them on, and replaced them on the dress boy right next to it. ‘‘Switching up furniture purposes, are we?’’
He held on to my underwear. ‘‘This goes in the laundry basket,’’ he said. He tightly gripped my red briefs, turning his knuckles white. Whereupon he brought the fabric to his nose and sniffed it.
He placed the dirty laundry in the corner next to the door and moved the chair over to the bedside. ‘‘May I?’’ he asked. To which I gave an improving nod.
He sat back in the chair, moving his legs slightly apart. Making the fabric of his robe move sideways and creating a gap that revealed a small piece of the inside of his right upper leg. Offering a sneak peek to a realm of desires, just like the door that had been standing ajar. I wanted to lay my hand there. Follow the road of his flesh to the forbidden place. The centerpiece of his manliness. But all I could do was swallow my drool.
‘‘I know you’ve been going through a rough time lately,’’ he said. ‘‘These changes you’re going through can cause a lot of chaos in your head. You probably question both yourself and the people around you. We’ve all been there, but once we get older, our memory tends to distort what life was like at your age. We idolize youth and its possibilities but forget about its hardships. But I haven’t forgotten.
‘‘Your father left you at an early stage, but you must know that wasn’t your fault. And maybe I haven’t been there for you either, at least not in the way you needed me to be. But just know that I’m here now.’’
He made another look at the book on my nightstand. ‘‘So for the future, if you ever want me to read you a bedtime story, all you have to do is ask.’’
I wasn’t sure if he was serious or just mocking me with that last sentence and I sat up straight in a state of defense. ‘‘Like I said, it fell out of the –’’
‘‘– Psst, let’s not waste our breath on it. Come, let me tuck you in. For old times’ sake.’’
A little astonished I watched as he came up to me and pulled the blankets over my body. Unlike what he just said, he never had done this when I was little. That had always been Medea. I definitely would have remembered otherwise, seeing how my entire youth I had longed for a loving gesture like that from a grown man. Longed for those very words he had just spoken. And now, being seventeen going on eighteen, for the first time in my life it happened.
Mark bent over me, and he gave me a small kiss on my forehead.
Warmth filled my entire body as if I got struck with hot flashes, and my heart beat faster yet slower at the same time.
He gazed into my eyes with his clear blues and gave me a gentle smile. ‘‘Good night little one,’’ he said.
He walked over to the door. ‘‘Wait!’’ I said. I didn’t dare to speak the words out loud, so I just grabbed the book and held it up in a gesture.
Mark smiled and came back to the chair, whereafter he took the book off my hands.
‘‘Once upon a time there was a little girl who went to take some bread and milk to her grandmother,’’ he read.
‘‘In the woods she met a wolf, broad and dark, with eyes that showed ones every desire. He asked her what she was carrying, and she showed him what was in her basket. To which he licked his lips and said:
‘Can I taste your bread to still the hunger?’
‘I’ve been told to say no to an unknown hand.’
‘Can I taste your milk to still the thirst?’
‘Daddy says I can, but mommy says I can’t.’
He asked her where she was going, and she told him about her grandmother’s house in the forest.
He asked her which path she would take, the path of needles or the path of pins?
She had always taken the path of pins but today she would follow the path of needles instead. Thus, the wolf hurried off down the path of pins, and before she arrived, he had already devoured her grandmother.’’
As Mark was reading in his whispery voice, I observed him and the way his fingers, strong yet graceful, turned the pages of the little book. The back of his hands were covered with blond hairs that followed a path which disappeared under cotton sleeves. His robe stood open in the shape of a reverse pyramid and revealed the contours of his upper chest. Broad and solid.
He scratched his short beard as he perused the pages from under his glasses.
‘‘Then the girl walked into the house, and said: ‘Dear grandmother, I brought you a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk.’
‘Thank you my love,’ said the wolf. ‘Why don’t you help yourself to some of the meat and wine on the table.’
When she took the meat, a cat jumped up onto the cupboard and said: ‘A slut is she who eats the flesh of her grandmother.’
‘Grandmother,’ said the girl, ‘there’s a cat telling me I’m eating your flesh.’
‘The cat lies,’ said the wolf. ‘Throw your shoe at it, you won’t need it anymore.’’’
Mark threw off his slippers and I looked at his big feet. He curled his toes and rubbed his soles against one another.
‘‘When she took the wine, a bird flew down onto the windowsill and said: ‘A whore is she who drinks the blood of her own’.
‘Grandmother,’ said the girl, ‘there’s a bird telling me I’m drinking my own blood.’
‘The bird lies, said the wolf. ‘Throw your cloak at it, you won’t need it anymore.’’’
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