Sweet As Cherries

|Chapter 2 | The Repairman

“You called for a repairman?” He muttered, his voice deeper than I remembered it. His eyebrow twitched upward as a few faint lines creased his tanned skin and his lips remained in a straight line as his eyes danced down from my face to my body as that same feeling came crashing back. The shock quickly replaced by the bashing of my heart against my chest as my hands ached to find something to cover up, but yet my legs were glued to the spot with my eyes wide. My fingers automatically fell to the rim of my shirt, yanking it as far down as possible.

“I- uh . . . yeah . . . I did . . .” I said weakly; my eyes took in the loose black t-shirt with scribbled quotes across the front. His arm's tensing with the slightest definition of muscle under the creamy olive skin. His jeans hung loosely around his lips; the edges were worn. Well, guess he still dresses the same. But his features had matured, his long nose was sharper now, his hair longer with stronger curls tucked under a baseball hat and a beauty mark pressed against his left cheek. His long slender fingers gripped the black strap of his bag a little harder as his eyes looked past my shoulder into the flat.

“Should I fix it then?” Wait. Does he even remember me? 

Either way, I could feel my skin burn under his glare, my legs tremble a little at how exposed they were. I hadn’t lost that much weight since I was seventeen. I mean rather than being a size eighteen/twenty I was finally a size sixteen but that didn’t make for much difference. The only thing I could claim was that I defiantly toned up a little more.

But still, under his gaze, it felt like I was suddenly thrust back in the past crying inside at how ugly all my flaws were.

The only thing I was grateful for right now was the fact that my shirt covered the handles of my hips and my stomach.

“Yeah, sorry,” I mumbled, quickly stepping aside and holding the door open for him.

He hurried in, his eyes landing on my computer and the brightly flashing screen. Taking a seat on the chair, he began typing commands into the keyboard as I stood back by the front door.

This was not happening. This cannot be happening!

“Do you have any idea what could have caused this?” Yes.

“Oh no,” I replied, my eyes glued to the back of his head as he continued working.

“What were you doing before the screen went all funny?” He asked, still not looking back at me. I slowly closed the door and took a few steps forwards feeling my stomach rumble to the point of pain. Crap, crap, crap! My cheeks burned, and I bit down on my inner cheek. 

“I was- uh. . . researching.” I forced out, my hands flying behind my back as one wrapped around my other wrist squeezing my nails deep into the skin of my tattoo. I cleared my throat, trying to steady my voice as I sat on the edge of the sofa’s armrest. “For work. Research for work.”

“Okay, but what were you researching?” His said annoyed. Wow. Not much has changed then. I couldn’t help the frown spreading across my forehead.

“How is that supposed to help exactly?” I shot back, knowing exactly how it would help.

“Because I can determine if it’s a virus instead of wasting time trying to figure it out.” He added, finally looking over his shoulder at me.

One way or another, he’d find out. The minute I saw him reaching into his bag pulling out a long black wire, my heart skipped a beat again. Please, God, kill me now. Right now. No such luck.

“Wait!” I yelled, jumping to my feet. He paused, one hand ready to connect the wire as his eyes focused back on me, his eyebrows raised. “I mean . . . you know I think I’ll just- buy a new one.” The panic was spreading through to my arms as they shook a little by my side, my neck crimson by now. His lips suddenly curved at the corners pulling into a grin. “What?”

“Do you usually research porn for work?” The words fluttered from his mouth easily without any hesitation as my mouth fell to the ground, my throat suddenly dry.

“W-what?” I forced out almost in a squeak. He chuckled, spinning in the chair to face me fully, the wire discarded behind him. 

“Explains a lot, like a virus affecting the hard drive probably corrupted whatever files you had on it, one commonly found from porn sites. Also explains why you suddenly don’t need me to repair it and it’s a perfect explanation for those red cheeks.” He leaned back in the chair as if chuffed at his deduction, his arms crossing over his chest. “So, which was it? Pornhub? Xhamster? Redtube?”

“I-” I cut myself off, my mouth slamming shut as my eyes narrowed at him. I could feel my blood suddenly turn hot with anger. Better anger than embarrassment right now. “What does it matter? Yeah, I had to research porn for my work, guess what? People write about s*x, you know! Like you don’t watch porn.”

“I never said I didn’t, but I’m also not ashamed to admit it.” He added, still grinning as I stood there as red as a tomato. 

“Can you fix it or not?” I snapped, letting my arms cross my chest, forgetting for the moment that my top was unbuttoned and giving the perfect view of my silk bra.

“Thought you didn’t want me to fix it? Thought you were going to buy a new one.” He added, his grin widening as he rolled his eyes.

“You really still are a jerk.” I breathed seething. 

“Jerk? Last time I checked I was a pretty awesome guy, especially when you were seventeen.” So he did remember. I was taken off guard, my bottom lip trembling slightly as my frown relaxed into a mixture of embarrassment and bubbling anger. 

“Pornhub.” I shot out refusing to take the bait. Not today, Satan. 

“What?” He asked, that grin finally gone from his lips as he looked at me, confused. 

“I was on pornhub. Can you fix it or not?”

“Yeah, but I’ll need to come back tomorrow. It’ll take too long to do tonight plus I didn’t bring my laptop, wasn’t thinking I would be dealing with a virus.” 

“Fine,” I added, spinning on my heel and rushing towards the door, opening it. “Thanks for coming.”

“Looks like you did good for yourself.” He muttered, picking up his stuff and standing, taking slow strides towards the door. “What do you do? Besides watching pornhub,”

“I don’t- ugh. I write for a magazine.”

“That’s pretty cool. What magazine?” He asked, stepping out and turning to face me.

“Um, Blurred Lines,” I added, a little taken aback by the small talk. He nodded, his hands wrapping around the strap of his bag again. 

“Like the song, makes sense what with the porn research.” 

“You heard of it?” I asked, trying to ignore his last comment. 

“No, but I’ll check it out.” My eyes fell from his to the ground as I shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other the air around me, stuffy and tense. Why did my life have to be such a ball of awkwardness?! “You look good.”

Okay. That was it if I was red as a tomato before than the devil really has nothing on the shade of red I was burning now. My eyes flew up in time to see his drop over my body again and just like before, my chest bashing begging me to run from his view, begging me to shut the door before the next words out of his mouth would be something to send me into a frenzy of tears and a week of starvation. I was far too weak-willed for this s**t. 

“Thanks. I’ll leave the door open tomorrow; I’ll be out most of the day. Just, don’t make it obvious that no ones home when you leave.” Probably the worlds stupidest idea but spending any more time in a room alone with this douce would throw me overboard, me and my confidence. Well, whatever was left of it. 

With one last smile, I closed the door falling back against it and throwing my head back until the pain echoed across to my forehead. 

What a load of trash. 

Forget that s**t. I forced myself to calm down and stood up, walking back towards my room and grabbing my little purple notebook flipping to the free page as I sat behind the desk again. I let my eyes linger on all the writing I had scribbled down before. 

To be fair, this was the only place I could expel what I needed too. Somewhere along the line, I convinced myself that if I kept something like a s*x journal than maybe, maybe I could get that spark . . . that missing piece to align. Maybe I could own my sexuality through my thoughts. It had everything from past experiences, current problems, and frustrations to fantasies and interests. It contained everything to do with s*x, and it had everything that no one could ever see.

I scribbled down my most recent find and the way it seemed to trigger something inside me, I wrote down how it made me feel how badly I wanted to keep watching until disaster struck and the night was ruined. Pausing with the tip of my pen between my lips, I couldn’t help but flip back to one of the first pages, my skin heating a little as I read the title. ‘First Time’. I scanned the contents, my handwriting disgustingly terrible. A part of me wondered how my first time set up a precedent for the rest of my future encounters, but the more I read, the angrier I became. More so at myself. Every instinct in my body was screaming no, but my mouth screamed yes. I ruined it all on my own, couldn’t blame him alone.

That was the moment my eyes flashed in on the link, the thing I kept from it all—dirty talk. Before I didn’t care for it, actually I’m pretty sure seventeen-year-old Aubrey despised it, but it was the one thing that he had set up into motion. The one constant request that had burned itself into my future s****l endeavours, the one thing I took from my nights in his bed. Somehow, that hated dirty talk ended up being a real fetish. 

Ugh, at least there was one good thing to come from it, right?

Finishing up, I tucked the book into the draw and stood, making my way to bed. 

Tomorrow was going to be one heck of a day.