I wish I could say why this took so long. I am, however, puzzled, and cannot decipher that reason. I hope that you enjoy this.

Chapter 12: Ares

Geraldine placed the final book onto the bookshelf and stood back a moment to admire her handiwork. Settling into the Vancouver apartment was a little sad, since Spence wasn’t there to share it with, as they had once planned. She sighed, and heard her mother calling from the kitchenette. “Okay!” she called back, and closed the door to the bedroom.

They shared a cup of tea and chatted a little. Her mom was going back to Winnipeg in the morning, and had come over just to make sure she was settled in. She didn’t bring up why Gerri didn’t just get a place in the dorm like so many other students. She gave her daughter a worried glance, though, and finally said, “You know, you could get a roommate anyway, just to help with the expenses.”

Spencer was supposed to do that.

Gerri sighed. What her mother was really saying was: “Why are you torturing yourself?”

The news that Spencer was the father of Sylvie’s child still was sinking in, even though he had told her two months ago, the day after grad. Her grandmother’s smugness had reminded her of the cat and canary analogy. She didn’t say much. She didn’t have to. Her sympathetic hug and her too-smooth words made Gerri more frozen up inside than ever. “Oh, you poor dear, what a bounder!”

Spence was a bounder in her Grandmother’s eyes. Who said “bounder” anymore? The image of Spence on his bike, his arms crossed infront of his chest, the bike balance between his jean-clad thighs…she shook her head. It was now an unattainable dream. How could something so sure end up so…like a bomb fell, leaving nothing alive. Nothing at all.

She sipped the scalding liquid, feeling very tired. Classes weren’t starting for another two weeks, so she had that time to herself, adjusting to the city and the campus. Inspite of the underlying sadness, the city excited her in the same way camping trips used to excite her. “Single pane windows!” she and her mother had laughed. No thirty below winters!

Her sister’s boyfriend, who had grown up here, however, cautioned her about the rain. For someone from the sunny prairies, it would be a shock, and she nodded and smiled at his sage advice, but he, in turn, shook his head. Until she experienced it, she wouldn’t know. The weather in Vancouver in the winter could be demoralizing for someone like her.

“She’ll get plenty of fresh air,” her sister had reassured. “She runs everyday! Right, Gerri?”

Gerri and her mom discussed the weather for a while. Her mom wanted to make sure she had the right footwear and jackets and umbrellas. They had gone to the nearest grocery store earlier that week, checking out the neighborhood, testing the transit system, laughing like schoolgirls. They explored the mall, getting lost twice in its crazy corridors.

Finally, after a small silence, her mom said, “You can’t stop thinking about him, can you?” She reached over a consoling hand, and petted hers a little.

Gerri nodded miserably.

“He was such a nice boy, too,” she started to reminisce, then caught herself and looked deep into her teacup. “I’m sure you’ll make lots of new friends at school. That’s where I met your dad,” she admitted.

“Mom,” Geraldine’s voice was quiet, but intense. “Did you ever love anyone else besides Dad?”

Her mom froze a moment, then relaxed. “I had a couple of boyfriends before I met your father, but they were nothing compared to him. They were more like…I don’t know, chums. I couldn’t really take them seriously, although, now that I think about it, I did have a crush on this one boy, when I was in grade seven.” She laughed a little. “He did look a lot like your father, but not so high-strung. He was much more easy-going, but then we moved away from that town, and came to live in the city, and I lost touch. To tell the truth though, I don’t think he knew that I was alive….”

Her mother’s face had become soft with the memory, and Gerri was taken aback by the admission and by her mother’s expression. “Mom!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you ever wonder…?”

“He died of leukemia when I was in grade eleven. My parents heard about it through the grapevine. I think I cried for an entire week.” She let out a sigh. “He had a very gentlemanly manner, so soft-spoken…such a nice smile.”

“That’s so sad, mom.” Gerri said. “I’m so sorry. I wish people didn’t have to die.”

“Well, you never know,” her mother replied laconically, “You may get hit by a bus tomorrow.”

Gerri gasped and smiled, “Or you!” she exclaimed.

“Or me,” her mom agreeably concurred. “You…never know…what life will dish out.”

A small silence settled in the kitchenette, then Mrs. Tilson cleared her throat. “I’d never pry, Geraldine, but did Spencer ever say that he didn’t want to be with you anymore?”

Gerri felt an iron ball form in her throat. “No.” she whispered. Then she cleared her throat a moment, and repeated it more strongly. “No. He said he’d understand if I no longer wished to have anything to do with him anymore, but he’d leave the door open for me. He told me that there was nothing between him and Sylvie, it was all just an accident, but I…” Gerri hung her head. “How can I be sure he just didn’t want to…do it with her because I wouldn’t let him..” Her voice trailed away.

“That’s okay, I shouldn’t have pried,” her mother quickly said. She stood up from the table and came over to give her daughter a hug.

“It’s just the thought of…It’s just that ….when he got excited, he just let her stick his dick inside of her?” She knew it sounded crude, but the image in her mind of his hard on against her lips…he had put that in someone else.

Her mom kissed the top of her head, and said, “Ah, penises and vaginas.” She laughed a little, and Gerri let out an exasperated noise. “Come on, let’s go for an evening walk. The neighborhood is so beautiful.”

The two held hands as they strolled down the street, and Gerri felt all the soothing motherly sympathy leaking all around her. She leaned her shoulder against her mother’s and grabbed her elbow with her other hand. “Thanks mom. I thought this would be hard.”

“You still have two empty weeks ahead of you before classes begin,” her mother reminded her. “And call me anytime, and Gerri,” she gazed steadily at her youngest daughter, “You’re going to have to forgive him sometime, or it will eat away at you.”

“But I can’t understand…” she began.

“You don’t need to understand in order to decide to forgive,” her mother interrupted.

Geraldine lapsed into silence. Finally, she said, “I’m going to miss you mom.”

“And I’m going to worry about you,” she replied.

They let go hands and walked side by side for a while, and started talking about the school and her Uncle, who lived on the island, a ferry ride away.

The next day, after her mother left, she found that her mom was right. The apartment was empty, and although now more organized, she started organizing it again. She went out for her run, and found that the city felt kind of alien, as if she had landed not in another part of the country, but in an entirely different country.

Every day she struggled with the mental agony that worsened bit by bit every day. She threw herself into her exercise, and although she abhorred it, explored the mall and the downtown area, Granville Island and Stanley Park. She visited Chinatown, the observatory and took a walk along the docks. She bumped into a few neighbors and made friends. She gave herself a couple days to familiarize herself with the campus, which was a twenty-minute ride from her place.

Finally, she got caught up in the routine of her classes, and although her schedule was busy, she had four days on, and three days off. She buried herself in her work and found the time passing by more swiftly. She took her lunch at the cafeteria, and at first, saw no one to sit with. She kind of stood there hesitating, when the guy behind her gave her a nudge. “You new here?” he asked.

She looked at his fresh face, dusky, smooth, his eyes slanted, his voice quiet, and his accent nearly incomprehensible. She nodded.

“Sit with me, so long as you don’t call me Chinese,” he said with a laugh.

“Oh?” she asked, and followed him to a nearby table.

“I’m Korean,” he explained. My name is Ngueyn. Kim”

She introduced herself to him. They started talking about which classes they were in, and she found that he was enrolled in pharmacy, and was in his third year. “No time for nobody,” he admitted. “I’ve had my nose in a book for three years. My family is still in Korea, I return there next year. In the meantime, I work at a restaurant, and manage to make them meet.”

At first, she didn’t know what he meant, and it took a couple of seconds for her to realize he meant “to make ends meet”. She smiled at him.

He followed her into her apartment, not at all puzzled as to why she had invited him there. Since meeting her, he had noticed the hurt behind her gaze; it made her vulnerable, worthy of his attention, of his protection. Something within him rose up to save her. It was all he could do to get her face out of his mind.

When they entered her apartment, he placed his hands on her hips and pulled her toward him. He spun her around and without thinking, without breathing, he put his lips on hers, and she did not push him away, nor did she protest, but responded hotly to everything he did to her.

He closed the door with his heel. He was so overcome with desire for her he could barely think; barely stand. He knew it had been too long for him since he’d had a woman, and everything about her screamed that she would do for him what he dreamed of doing, yet the moment had been so impromptu, so without a plan, that he hadn’t bothered stopping at the pharmacist’s. Her kisses were sweet, insistent and demanding in turns.

He knew where this was leading.

They stumbled toward her bedroom, crashing onto the bed, grinding their still clothed bodies onto one another. “Gerri,” he muttered, his breath catching in his throat as he gazed down at her, seeing that need in her eyes. He felt her fingers reach up and rake his hair back from his face, and then bring him inexorably closer so that again, their lips met hotly, meshing, conveying the unspoken need, the unspoken meaning that neither of them wished to vocalize.

“Make me yours,” he heard her words whispered hotly beside his ear, while her lips traced his earlobe, and her body beneath his undulated against his, her legs, tightly clad, opened to wrap around his body. He knew, deep down, that she was using him. And he knew he wanted to be used.

His lean body beneath her hands was like a wire whip; ready to respond to everything she said and did. He was strong enough for her liking, everything about him driven to perfection: his schoolwork, his job, how he kept his body.

She could feel his hardness through his jeans, feel his exuberant energy covering her, matching her own. She felt his hands slide into the waist-band of her pants, and in no way did any little voice in her head give her pause or made her feel any guilt. She rolled him over, sat up and unhurriedly unfastened the button and zip of her pants, parting the material to show him that she wore nothing beneath, as if unwrapping a present for him.

His hands slid up beneath her cotton shirt, his eyes taking in the beauty of her translucent skin, the sparse strength of her abdomen. He reached up toward her breasts, encompassing them in his palms while she slid from her jeans, then began deliberately working on his. He felt her fingers tugging at the waistband, then the cool release as the zip came down, and finally, her hand gripping his turgid need.

He gasped, moaning out loud, and put his hand on her wrist, closing his eyes. “Gerri,” he said again. “I want you so badly. I want you right now. I don’t think that I can…”

She pulled off her shirt, straddling him now in her natural form, her eyes dark upon him, and she said nothing at all. He was saving her from so many things right now, he was unaware of the hero she had made of him. “I need you too,” she finally said, leaning forward, and kissing him, allowing him to roll over, guiding him to intimacy so close, she could feel the pulse of his heart everywhere she touched.

She opened her legs, and felt him drive forward onto and into her, and she let out a cry at the suddenness of it, throwing back her head and opening her mouth in a silent cry of desire that overwhelmed her. To feel him working harder and harder for her brought her to a plane of such deep reaction, her mind seemed to shut down, and a giant flower of heat and want and acceptance opened up in her body, seizing his movements, pushing down upon him until she cried out, helpless before her own wanton need. Tears came to her eyes as she let go her impulse to have him in her.

“You’re so deep,” she managed to say through numbed lips, her words barely a whisper, and he found within those words a goad that was nearly painful in its extraction of his genetic material, and he gave a flood of it from himself to her, like a gift without price. He found that her body’s grip on him did not lessen, but seemed to milk him over and over, and he felt that part of him change over to her, caressed, wholly accepted, and appreciated like no other woman had before her.

He collapsed onto her, breathing heavily, then rolled away, slowly extracting himself from her. He was covered in glistening sweat, as if he had just been worked over by the strictest dan. He reached over and pulled her, panting against his chest as he gazed up at the ceiling of her room, glad that he had come to visit her. Glad that he was able to fulfill a need that had risen up so suddenly. He smiled down at her while she placed her lips lazily against the skin of his chest and slowly explored his salty taste. “That was good,” he said.