-"How are you holding up? I'm sorry I can't come over, but with Andrew still there, I don't think that it's a good idea. I need sometime alone too." Robert said through the telephone receiver in an opaque voice, devoid of its usual vitality.
-"I'm okay. Thanks for asking. I think that I will take a sleeping pill and just go to bed early. Goodnight."
-"Jenny? One more thing."
-"Yes?" Jenny asked.
-"I love you. One does not say that often enough to those one loves when they are well and alive. Goodnight sweetheart." Robert said with emotion blatant in his voice.
-"Me too. Goodnight." Jenny said as she hung up.
Just then Andrew walks in embracing several grocery bags.
-"I brought prepared food from the deli, and other things. I did not think that we are up to going out, or to cook as well." Andrew said as he emptied the contents of the paper bags on the kitchen counter.
-"Jenny I know that you're still underage for a few months, but would you like to drink wine?
I am going to drink some." Andrew said as he reached for the wine glasses.
-"Yes, that would be nice. Thank you." Jenny said as she went to help set up the table.
Lacking a robust appetite, nonetheless, they both managed to empty a full bottle of red wine. They served this along small talk about their perspective schools, and future plans.
-"Jenny this is my last semester. In a few months, I will be coming back to settle back here. You know what I was thinking?"
-"What are you thinking?" Jenny asked as she supported her face with one hand.
-"That this house permeates my grandmother's essence. She inherited it from her own mother, and she lived here with my grandfather when she did.
It has so many memories that I don't want to see it go to strangers. I think that instead of having a quick sale, that I will offer to buy out my sister and my dad, and keep it for myself.
You are welcome to live here indefinitely as well. Anyway, I still have to finish grad school, and won't return to live here until the end of May." Andrew shared his plan.
-"That is a great idea. I think Maude would have loved that. She kept the most beautiful dresses since she was a girl in the attic, those perfectly preserved.
She loved to hang on to those things imbued with loving memories." Jenny said thoroughly relaxed thanks to the wine consumed.
-"But how much rent will you charge me?" Jenny teased.
-"Oh, I don't know, half the mortgage payment? I'll need to get an equity loan to pay Clara and dad off." After a considerable pause he changes his mind. -"I'm kidding. You won't need to pay anything, except your own bills. Don't think you are going to munch off me eternally - Not unless you accept me in marriage." Andrew teased with a peculiar glint in his eyes.
Jenny thought that this was hilarious and laughed out loud. -"It's so good to have you around Andrew, you always have the knack to make me laugh."
-"Jenny, I was not kidding." Andrew said as he looked down at his empty wine glass, careful not to show how hurt he was.
-"What? You weren't joking? Andrew, I really think that by tomorrow you will not have a memory of this talk, and you will have to deal head on with a massive headache." Trying to make amends as she saw that Andrew did not alter his guarded expression, Jenny reached out a hand to place it on his as a gesture of solidarity.
-"Andrew, the last few days have been very emotional, and we are vulnerable for just that reason. I am sorry if I hurt your feelings. I honestly thought that you were joking!"
-"No Jenny." After a long pause, he gathers the nerve to blurt out, -"Since the night you descended the stairs at my sister's wedding, I fell in love with you. You are so beautiful, and seemed so vulnerable then, that I could not help myself.
I did not have anything to offer you then, but now I will start my career soon, and we can live here. This would also be your home Jenny, as perhaps it is meant to be, if you feel that you could reciprocate my feelings." Andrew shyly said as he laced his fingers with her hand, and putting himself on the line, moved closer to Jenny, to place a sweet kiss on her lips.
Jenny did not want to further hurt Andrew's feelings by pushing him off. The wine made her feel lethargic and generous. He was a sweet boy, and he was her best friend. He had always treated her with an easy camaraderie, and always had a way to lift her spirits with his ever present humor.
She was free a woman. She was free to reciprocate perhaps not her feelings - for those were at the very least confused - but to comfort him to buffer in some way the acute pain due to the severe loss, which obviously he had suffered as well.
The incredibly sweet and tender kiss, morphed into something else when their tongues entwined fueled by a sense of our brief mortality. If she was going to get some needed comfort, what stood in her way?
Had the wine not been involved to assuage her unease, perhaps feelings of guilt would have afflicted her as she looked into his eyes, those like mirrors of Robert's eyes. But a sense of rebellion effervescenced within. She belonged only to herself and no one else, and that quickly brushed that pile of guilt under the rug.
She was free to do as she pleased, and once she made up her mind, she half dragged Andrew by the front of his shirt. She lead him into her room, as they did not break lip lock.
Andrew was taken by surprise due to her surge of passion and aggressiveness.
He had always put Jenny on a pedestal of virtue and innocence. She did not seem to be in the mood for loving, tender kissing at all as she pushed him unto her bed, and proceeded to take off her clothes.
-"Jenny are you sure? Perhaps we should wait, until we get to know each other in a romantic way." Andrew tried to reason, while at the same time he was busy taking off his own clothing, while not taking off his eyes from her nude form for a moment.
-"Andrew what you feel perhaps is simply a crush. You don't know a person in depth, at least not until you've slept with them. Don't worry, we don't have to go all the way, we can find comfort in each others arms for this night and gauge if there's a spark beyond a mild infatuation."
Jenny liked Andrew's kisses very much, and she intended to obliterate her sorrows tonight in his arms.
-"Just remember Andrew, this is only to find comfort this very moment, and to help test the water. This in no way commits me to you." Jenny warns as she slinks her naked body on top of his.
Andrew was speechless. How could he refuse?
-"One more thing. I am not a virgin, yet I have to protect my reputation. You have to swear that you won't mention this to anyone else. Not to anyone!" Jenny said as she gave free rein to her passion.
To be continued...
The Rokeby Venus by Diego Velazquez
