short thing #17

the cardboard box

He pushed his way through the busy end of Swanston Street, carrying a heavy cardboard box. As he approached her, he pushed his austere face forwards, chin out, slight tilt to the eyebrows. Seemingly subconscious, of course.

Hi!

As usual she seemed impressed to see him. He was aware of how his chest inflated in ego-dripping pleasure at this. But he didn’t mind. She was good for his ego.

We have to get to there before any other students arrive. I know you said you wanted to eat first, but it needs to wait.

No, that’s totally fine. Of course.

He knew she’d say that.

Heading up the stairs, he’d insisted on climbing - it seemed more appropriate to be alone in the stairwell than alone in the lift – she walked behind him. He was aware of this, but had struggled with the choice of going first or last. If there’d been anyone else with them, it would have gone without question, his going first. However, with just two, it seemed less evident which was the best decision. One clearly represented his power, authority, age. The other gave her too much to think about. What does it mean him walking behind me? What is he looking at? She would adjust her clothing, as she always did, and he would no longer be able to see her face. The box determined the choice in a way as well, she held the door as he stepped in.

No the only option was him in front.

She made small talk on the way to the fourth floor, on which he refused to concentrate. He could only hmm and ah at what seemed appropriate times and feign interest. In fact, he wasn’t interested. What was the opposite of feigned? If it was in fact truth.

She had stopped talking for the final two flights. He was too aware of how he was now breathing. Age. Weight of the box.

And he.

He decided instead to speak of Paris and the works he had seen and completed while there. He spoke of his children. His wife. His colleagues in Europe. His mentor. His villa. He told her how stifled, artistically he now felt, back in Melbourne. How, although it pompously had an air of the art world, it was really more like art’s second cousin from the suburbs. Not as quaint and idyllic as the second cousin from the country. With clear cause for uneducated comments and antiquated folly. But supposedly educated enough to know, in more superior company, when one should stop talking. But art was always looking at this second cousin with exasperation. The suburbs were not the smartest of places.

Her tinkling laugh at this jolted him in the stomach.

As they came to the lecture hall, her holding the door again, he lost sight of what it was that he was doing. He had assumed he had this under control. He knew too well that no one was coming for over an hour. Almost two, to be truthful. She knew this, too. Yet she’d agreed that they hadn’t time to eat first.

He had fantasised about the entire afternoon.

When she followed him down the stairs to the lectern, she’d tinkled with youthful laughter. Slightly too loud and brash and inappropriate. Flirtatious. He had been witty, about others in her class. She encouraged the slander. She fed into his ego. She flattered him.

At the bottom of the theatre, they’d gotten to work. He’d unpacked the cardboard box onto the bench. She’d set up the computer system, the audio-visual equipment locked under the desk space. They worked, chatted, were silent. Chatted. Laughed again. He was aware of all of her moves. Her hair falling constantly into her vision. Her constant replacement of it to behind her left ear.

Once set up they’d leaned against the bench. Looking towards the screens.

And her.

Her hand brushed his arm. He turned to her.

His chest had lost some inflation. He thought, momentarily, he’d lost his nerve. She smiled.

He was fine.

From there it was less sequential and ordered. It was a blur of breasts and jeans and scarves and coats. T-shirts pulled over heads and boots left on. She naked, completely, over the bench. He clothed from the knees down. They kissed. He fucked her. From behind. From the front. She squeezed around him with muscles he’d forgotten that women had. They kissed. And fucked. Was she a woman. He fucked her anyway. He came on her. And she sighed in pleasure. He wasn’t sure that she’d come, too. He found he hadn’t really cared.

He pulled his jeans over the sag of skin that was now permanently part of his arse. She seemed to shrink a little now it was done. Now the act was over. She remembered where she was. Who she was.

And he.

He wasn’t sure for how long he’d been quiet. How long he’d stared at her mouth. Or her hair.

Her face was now dominated by an awkward smile, waiting for him to speak, or move down the stairs towards the lectern. Waiting for anything. As though waiting for a stroke patient to finish their sentence. That is exactly what he was to her. As attractive as a stroke patient. An old man. A mentor, yes, but one she had been paired with for educational purposes. Solely. An old man. Clever. Interesting. Sleazy. Old.

And her.

© Samantha Florence, 2013.