The Love of an Angel 3/9
Chapter 3
On Saturday, exactly at eight o'clock, Gabriel approached Bessie's house with a six-pack under his arm. He'd appeared a bit down the street, not in direct view from the house, just to make sure, and he wasn't surprised when he noticed the movement behind one of the curtains. He would have smiled upon Bessie's teenager like behavior if he hadn't a small butterfly feeling in his stomach himself.
I'm not nervous, he reassured himself and rang the door bell. He took a deep breath before Bessie opened the door, though.
"Gabriel." She smiled at him and fingered her hair with one hand. "Please come in."
She led him to the kitchen. "You're right on time, the steaks will be ready in a minute. You like yours rare?"
"Rare sounds good." Gabriel put the beer on the counter and pried two bottles loose. "Here, take a beer, relax, everything is fine."
She took the bottle with a shy smile. "It's just … I'm a little rusty with the dating stuff." She admitted.
"That makes two of us." Gabriel raised his bottle and they clunked them together. "We'll have dinner, which smells delicious by the way, and we'll watch the game. Just the two of us hanging out."
While he helped her setting the table Gabriel thought about what he'd just said. It was true, he was fairly new in the dating department. He had sex whenever he wanted but he never really went through the trouble of dating.
He turned the TV on and settled down while Bessie fixed the plates. Steak, baked potato and a small salad, it tasted as good as he'd expected.
"You're a man who likes his food." Bessie said while he wolfed down half of his steak. The pride was clearly in her voice.
"Good food." Gabriel clarified. "I like good food and this is really good."
By the time they had finished their dinner they both had relaxed a bit and with a second beer they made themselves comfortable on the couch. The game was on but Gabriel had no idea who was winning not to mention which teams were on the field. He was pretty sure they played football but his attention was on Bessie and she didn't really look at the TV either.
"The zoo hasn't made it official but Nona is pregnant." Bessie said as if she herself was responsible for that. "We weren't sure if she could keep it but now it looks good. A baby will bring more customers in, god knows we need the money."
Gabriel was pretty sure she was talking about one of the elephants being pregnant and not about a co-worker or something.
"You know, it's not easy to breed elephants in zoos and for a small one like ours it's a pretty big deal." She beamed and warmed up to that topic. "Two times it didn't work out but the third one is the charm, right? We got the sperm from a zoo in Canada ..." She wanted to continue but was interrupted by Gabriel nearly choking on his beer.
"Sorry." Gaping for air he placed the bottle on the table so he won't spill it. "Did you just say …?" He made vague gesture with his now free hand.
"Don't be such a prude." She rolled her eyes. "Zoos exchange sperm of a lot of species all the time."
"If you say so." Gabriel chuckled and then leaned in and kissed her on the mouth. It seemed like the right thing to do. If he was reading the signals she sent right, and he was pretty sure he did, it was what she expected him to do, what she wanted him to do.
He didn't expect her to freeze with panic in her suddenly wide eyes.
"I'm sorry." Gabriel retreated to the other end of the couch. "I didn't mean to … I didn't want …"
Did he get it all wrong? Did he screw up? And why did it bother him that much if he did?
"No, it's okay." She hurried to say but looked away. "It's just … you surprised me."
If he didn't know better Gabriel would have pegged her as a virgin. But he knew better. He couldn't tell the circumstances but he could tell that she wasn't a virgin.
"You have been kissed before, haven't you?" Gabriel tried to keep the mood light-hearted but silently he begged her to confirm that she had at least one boyfriend before. He had no idea what he'd do if her answer was "no, never been kissed". What that would imply. He could have found the answer in her mind, easily, but that was the last thing he wanted to do. No way he'd violate her that way. Just no.
To his relief she smiled that warm smile of hers. "Don't worry, I have been kissed before." The and more unspoken but clearly there. "It's just been a while since Jimmy."
She took a long swing from her beer bottle, her glossed over eyes far away.
"We were both not among the top ten of the most popular kids in High School." She sighed. "Being with Jimmy was more about not being alone than about love. For both of us. Then college came along and suddenly half the country was between us. We stayed in contact for a while but there wasn't really a point in that." She shrugged and then laughed to cover her embarrassment. "Look at me. I'm sitting here with you and all I'm doing is talking about elephant sperm and old boyfriends. You should be running for the hills by now."
She bit her bottom lip as if she expected him to do exactly that. Instead he took her hand, gently uncramped her fingers and laced them together with his.
"I'm not running." He reassured her and he felt her tension melting away. "Nobody after Jimmy? I don't want trouble with your special forces boyfriend you forgot to mention." He tried to lighten the mood and it worked. At least a little bit.
"Men tend to avoid women who smell like elephant all day and can lift hay bales half their weight with ease." She tried to say it in a casual way but he could sense the hurt behind her words.
Gabriel scooted closer till their knees were touching.
"Hey, I first noticed you when your were shoveling elephant dung into a wheelbarrow." He reminded her. "I'm the one how brought you a pistachio ice cream while you were covered with that shit. Literally."
"You are a strange man, Mr. Cherry."
"Yes, I am." He cocked his head considering if he was rushing things too fast or not. "I'd like to kiss you again."
For a long second he thought she'd say no. But then she nodded. "I'd like that."
The kiss was more chaste than anything else but Gabriel didn't want it any other way.
The rest of the evening went by with easy chatter. They didn't kiss again but they stayed in constant contact, hand in hand or one hand landed on the other one's knee and at some point Gabriel had his arm around her shoulder and she seemed to like it.
It was way past midnight and the six-pack was long gone along with some hard liquor she'd in stock when Bessie asked him to stay over night. Normally he wouldn't think twice about it and just do the horizontal tango but the way the words rushed out of her mouth and the fact that she didn't look him in the eye told him she wasn't ready for this. He had spent an eternity studying human behavior and he could clearly tell that she'd asked because that's what she thought had to happen next.
He didn't call her on that, though. Instead he said: "I think I'm too drunk and too tired for more than sleeping." He stood and made a point of swaying a little. "I should go home now but we should repeat this. Seriously."
The good night kiss at the door wasn't that chaste anymore. Bessie was a quick learner.
And then Gabriel stood there on the street, alone in the dark night, and wondered what the fuck he was doing.
continue to chapter 4
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