Chapter 8: The Uninvited Guest
The week had been a slow grind of classes and hollow meals, and Saturday arrived with a text from Lucy that made my chest loosen for the first time in days. "Can't do tonight, sweetie. I’ve got a family thing. Rain check?"
I read it three times. I hadn't realized how tight my shoulders had been until they dropped. No session. No watching. Just a quiet night.
I should have felt relief. I did feel relief, a bright clean wash of it. And then, before I could think, I was planning.
Emily didn't know. I'd tell her it was a surprise. Flowers, the ones she liked, white roses from the shop on College Avenue. Movie tickets for the eight o'clock show, the romantic comedy she'd mentioned last week. Maybe dinner after, a quiet booth at the diner where we'd eaten on our first date.
I smiled for the first time in a week. I picked up the flowers at five, a heavy bouquet wrapped in brown paper, and the tickets in my back pocket. I'd grab Emily from her apartment at seven. I had the spare key she'd given me in September, small and silver on a ring that also held my dorm key. I never used it, but I carried it always, a promise of a future where she'd open the door for me.
At six thirty, I found myself walking across campus anyway. I couldn't wait. I'd surprise her early, take her to dinner before the movie. She loved that kind of thing, showing up unexpected. I'd done it once at back home, and she'd tackled me with a hug so fierce we nearly fell over.
Her building rose ahead, brick and ivy, the windows glowing warm in the dusk. I climbed the stairs to the second floor, my heart steady, the flowers rustling against my leg. Her door was at the end of the hall. I pushed the key into the lock and turned.
The door swung open.
The smell of cinnamon hit me first, thick and spicy. I was in Emily's building, Emily's floor, Emily's door. I blinked, confused. Then I heard the sounds.
A wet, rhythmic slap. A low, familiar groan. And Emily's voice, high and broken, crying out in a way I knew too well.
"Fuck, yes, right there, don't stop, please don't stop..."
I stepped inside. The door swung shut behind me with a soft click that no one heard.
The living room was lit by candles, dozens of them, their flames dancing across the walls. Clothes were scattered on the floor. A yellow sweater. A pair of jeans. A thin white nightgown, pooled like a ghost.
And on the couch, in the middle of the room, Emily was naked, straddling Kaleb, her body glistening with sweat. She rode him bareback, her hips rolling in a slow, deep rhythm, her head thrown back, her mouth open. Her breasts bounced with every stroke. Her thighs were slick.
Kaleb lay beneath her, one hand gripping her hip, the other braced on the arm of the couch. His face was a mask of concentration, his teeth gritted, his chest heaving. His cock disappeared into her with every downward thrust, wet and shining, then emerged slick and dark as she rose.
"Oh God," Emily moaned. "Oh God, Kaleb, you feel so good inside me, so deep, so fucking deep..."
I stood frozen in the doorway, the flowers in my hand, the movie tickets burning in my pocket. Emily's eyes were closed. She didn't see me. Neither did Kaleb.
Somewhere in the room, a phone buzzed. No one answered it. The only sound was the wet slap of their bodies, Emily's ragged breaths, Kaleb's low groans.
She came again. I saw her body stiffen, her back arching, her cunt clamping down on him. She cried out, raw and loud, and Kaleb held her hips and fucked up into her through it. Her whole body shook.
"Yes," she screamed. "Yes, yes, yes, oh fuck, I'm coming, I'm coming so hard..."
Her eyes opened. They found mine.
Time stopped. Her mouth hung open, still mid-moan, her body still grinding against him. A flush spread across her chest. She looked at me, and for a single endless second, nothing moved.
"Caleb," she gasped. "Lucy said I need to keep practicing."
The words hit me like a physical blow. The flowers trembled in my hand. White roses, the ones she liked. The tickets in my pocket crinkled.
Kaleb's eyes found me too. He didn't stop. His hips bucked beneath her, faster, harder, his breath coming in sharp grunts. She cried out again, torn between me and the pleasure he was driving into her.
"She said it keeps me ready," Emily sobbed. "For us. For our wedding night. I didn't want to fall behind, Caleb, please understand..."
Her orgasm hit her mid-sentence. I saw her eyes roll back, her body arch, her hands clawing at Kaleb's chest. She screamed, a broken, desperate sound.
And Kaleb came inside her. I saw his body tense, his jaw clamp, his hips driving up one final time, deep and hard. A groan tore from his throat, and Emily cried out at the heat flooding her pussy.
I set the flowers on the coffee table. The brown paper crinkled. White roses tumbled against a half-empty bottle of wine.
Then I backed out of the room. The door clicked shut behind me. The muffled sounds of their bodies, Emily's soft moans, Kaleb's ragged breathing, cut off as the latch caught.
I stood in the hallway, my back against the wall, the key still cold in my hand. The ceiling lights hummed. A door opened somewhere down the hall, then closed.
On the other side of that door, Emily was coming again. I could hear the faint cry through the wood, high and broken, a sound I had thought was only mine to hear. The key bit into my palm. I looked down at my hand and saw that I was still holding it, still holding it tight.
The movie tickets were in my pocket, a small paper square against my thigh. The evening had been planned, small and bright and ours. I had practiced the words I would say at dinner. The flowers were on her table now, next to the bottle of wine I hadn't opened. I turned from the door and walked down the stairs, one step at a time, my feet heavy on the worn carpet. The fluorescent light in the lobby flickered as I passed through. I stepped outside into the evening air, cool and damp, the streetlamps casting pale shadows on the sidewalk. I didn't know where I was going. I just knew I couldn't stand still.
I walked across the campus quad, past the fountain where Emily and I had sat on our first Sunday after move-in, her hand in mine, the world ahead of us wide and clean. A couple laughed on a bench nearby. They didn't see me.
I found a bench by the library, sat down, and stared at the ground. The key was still in my hand. I turned it over, the silver warm from my palm. Then I slid it back onto the ring with my dorm key, tucked them both into my pocket.
Somewhere behind me, a clock tower chimed seven. The evening I had planned was starting without me. The movie would begin in an hour. The flowers were wilting on a coffee table next to a bottle of wine. I sat on the bench and watched the lights come on, one by one, across the darkening lawn.
Then I got up to my feet. I walked back toward the dorms, my phone buzzing in my pocket. Emily's name flashed on the screen. I let it ring, and ring again, and when the third call came through, I silenced it and kept walking.