Beautiful Thing
Fraser/OFC, NC-17, 2267 words
PHEW. JUST under the wire, but this one kind of got away from me. Just a bit, as you can tell from the word count.
(In case you're wondering, this is a sort of extended scene for
25 things Fraser never told anyone. Number 5.)
In tenth grade, Ben emerged from years of being the child that no one talked to in school to find that it seemed that girls wanted to talk to him. He sat in his desk at school, his eyes forward on Mrs. Mackenzie and the discussion of the merits of modern Canadian literature, but he could feel the eyes on him. He didn't want to look away from the lecture, but when he heard the giggle behind him, he turned around.
Mary Carter was the most beautiful girl in their whole school. Her hair was long and sable brown, and she wore it in a long, sleek ponytail most days. Her eyes were a lovely shade of hazel, and Ben could see the curve of her breasts underneath her sweater. He felt the blush creeping up his neck and across his face as he caught her eye, and when she started to smile, he turned back around quickly, facing forward with his back straight, ignoring the tingling feeling across his whole body.
That day after school, he left the building to find Mary waiting outside with her friends, and when he tried to smile in her direction, her friends peeled away and left her standing there, alone. "Hey, Ben."
"Hello, Mary," Ben said. He couldn't remember the last time he talked to a girl, not since he was much younger, and he'd never talked to a girl when they looked at him like that and made him feel like this. He cleared his throat. "Are you going home?"
Mary smiled, flashing her straight, white teeth. "Yeah. Do you want to walk with me?"
It took a few minutes to walk to Mary's house, and Ben wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. If he was supposed to take her arm, what he was supposed to talk about, nothing. Mary asked him about his grandparents and the library, and Ben asked her about her mother and her father's dogs. She was very pleasant conversationalist.
When they finally got to Mary's house, the sun was going down, and their breaths were frozen clouds in the air between them. "Thanks," Mary said, pausing before the stairs.
"You're welcome." And then, Mary leaned forward, her ponytail swinging forward to brush against his face, and kissed him on the lips.
Ben had never kissed anyone before, and she smelled wonderful and felt even better as he kissed her back and rested his free hand, the one without his books, on her hip. When she pulled away, she was smiling, and Ben smiled back. He wanted to kiss her again, and he could still feel the ghost of her hair on his face. He wanted to bury his face in her hair and get his hands underneath her layers to coat and sweater to her skin.
"Bye, Ben. See you in school tomorrow?" Mary said shyly, even though Ben was certain, by then, that there was nothing shy about Mary Carter.
The next day in school, it was if everything had changed. He arrived at the school to find Mary waiting for him outside with her gaggle of friends, who were all smiling and giggling as he approached.
"Good morning," Ben said to all of them, his eyes never leaving the smooth, rosy skin of Mary's cheek. Mary stepped forward from the crowd and took his hand, and, just like that, he was Mary Carter's boyfriend.
Everyone at school talked to him now, including the boys who used to shun him, and he walked Mary home from school every day, leaving her with increasingly desperate kisses on her front stoop. After a few weeks, they hung back at school after everyone had left, and he pressed Mary gently against the back wall of the school, tasting the delicate skin of her neck.
After a few months, they had done everything they could do without a single private place to go, and Ben had no idea that he could ever be so hungry for something or that he could want someone so much. He thought about Mary all the time, and he barely got by his grandparents and their perfunctory questions about his day and what he had learned on his way to his bedroom. Once he got there, he tugged at his belt and the button and zipper on his pants until he took himself in hand.
It was getting quite ridiculous, how just the feel of Mary's lips and the press of her breasts against his chest were driving him mad.
On a Tuesday, Mary pulled him aside during lunch and leaned close to him. "My parents are going out of town this weekend, to Yellowknife." Her words held a world of promise, and Ben nodded and worked out the biggest lie of his entire life to tell his grandparents. It was difficult, because he didn't have many friends, but his grandparents did not pay much attention to his social life, and so when he said that he was going to spend Saturday night at Billy Kaguliak's, his grandmother nodded and told him to be home in time for chores on Sunday afternoon.
The days between were torturous, and Ben wasn't sure what to do. He understood the mechanics of human sexuality, and the precautions that they needed to take, but he'd always thought this experience would be much further off, and now it was staring him right in the face and he didn't want to humiliate himself.
On Saturday morning, Ben made a rather embarrassing trip to the general store, and he was sure that Jenny Sharp was going to tell all of her friends at school that Benton Fraser had been in the store buying condoms, and it would only be a matter of a few days before he had to answer to his grandparents.
To be honest, he didn't care. He had been aching for this moment since Mary whispered in his ear on Tuesday, and he was not going to be deterred. He almost-marched resolutely to Mary's house, his bag with the small box tucked inside slung over his shoulder, and he suppressed the rather ridiculous smile that threatened to spread across his face.
Mary answered the door, and she looked so beautiful. Her thick, dark hair was out of its customary ponytail and fanning around her face, and she was smiling. "Come in," she said, standing aside and letting him into the house.
Ben had played over the different ways that this could go in his head; he'd be thinking about it during dinners with his grandparents, geometry class, shoveling the snow off the porch stairs, and all the way to Mary's house. He thought about dropping his bag inside the door and removing Mary's clothes in the front hallway. He thought about candles and love poems and running his fingers through his hair before kissing her. He thought about sitting next to her on her bed, sheets white, and leaning forward to kiss her before easing her gently down onto her back.
As it turned out, it didn't happen any of those ways. Mary took his coat and his bag, and, after dropping them next to the front closet, turned and said, "Do you play chess?"
Ben was an excellent chess player, and had long since outpaced his grandfather, who grumbled and refused to play with him anymore after Ben beat him in three moves the previous year. Mary was as good as him, if not better, and they played a game for the better part of three hours, each one taking their moves thoughtfully and deliberately.
He watched in dismay as Mary moved her queen and, smirking, said, "Checkmate."
"Best two out of three?" he inquired hopefully, but Mary was shaking her head and standing up to come around to where Ben was sitting on the couch.
"Maybe later," she said mischeviously, shaking her head to get her hair out of her face and swinging one leg over to straddle his lap. She sank down on him, and his hands came up almost involuntarily to rest on her hips. He could feel the burning heat of her skin through her jeans and through his own.
"Mary," Ben said softly. She was so very beautiful, and he could make out the light freckles across her nose as she leaned in. He tangled his fingers in the silky strands of her hair. "I don't -"
She silenced him with a kiss, and he discovered within seconds that her skin was, in fact, as warm as he'd thought, tracing his fingertips across the impossibly tender skin at the small of her back. He brought his feet up on the couch and turned them so that he was reclining against the cushions.
Even in his imagination, this had been much more difficult, and he had been fumbling, awkward. But now, it felt right. Mary's small hands were pressed to his chest, and he was tentatively moving his hands up to the back closure of her bra. He pulled away, and she made a small sound of displeasure and tried to get closer, to kiss him again.
"Wait," he said, gasping, "is this okay?"
"Yes. Don't worry," she said, and in that moment, he knew utterly and completely what it was like to fall in love. "I'll let you know if you're messing it up."
He did fumble with the damnable hooks on the bra, but then Mary was pulling away again, sitting back and stripping off her shirt, and he reached up to drag her bra off by the front. Her breasts were full and high, and he reached up to cup one, gently, running his finger along one taut, brown nipple. Mary shuddered and swore, then pressed herself back to Ben's chest.
"Did you bring anything?" she asked. "Because I want you to." And he did too. He had never, in his sixteen years, wanted anything as much as he wanted to be with Mary Carter. He wasn't sure how much longer he could wait. His erection was pressing insistently to the seam of his jeans, and he was very close to being unable to do what Mary was asking of him. He couldn't think of a greater tragedy.
"Yes, in my bag," he said, and Mary climbed off, padding over to the closet and rummaging in the bag until she stuck her hand up, triumphant, and walked back. She shed her jeans before straddling him again, her panties white and cotton, and he could see that she was damp through them. He could smell her, the dark, hot musk of her, and it was making his head swim.
He took control of the situation, and Mary laughed as he almost growled and flipped her, pushing her back into the couch. "Let me help you," she said, working open the buttons of his shirt, and he unbuckled and removed his belt, letting if fall to the floor with a clang.
"I don't know what to do," Ben said, helplessly, and Mary licked her lips.
"Neither do I. Just come here."
It felt so good to be there with her, what felt like miles of soft, warm skin underneath him, and he kissed her again, over and over again until he was moaning softly and writhing. "Ben," she said, her voice full of something he couldn't understand, and he backed off enough to struggle out of his pants and boxers. He hooked his fingers in her panties and dragged them down her long legs, and looked at her.
No late-night image of this moment held a candle to the actuality of the situation, and he held his breath while he put the condom on (and thanked his teachers for the human sexuality course the year before) and her hands nearly burned him, up high on his back, as he slid inside her.
She cried out, softly, but when he went still and then tried to pull back, she held him there, and then, a few moments later, she urged him forward again with her heels at the backs of his thighs. It was incredible, the most amazing thing he'd ever experienced, and if he never saw another mountain or ice field or the aurora borealis, he still thought he'd die happy.
It was over very quickly. It was too much - it was all too much, and Ben found himself whispering in her ear and surging forth until he cried out and came inside her, shaking uncontrollably and feeling like he wanted to cry.
Mary kissed him, her hands on his face, her smile still the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. "Thanks," she said. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to say back. I love you or marry me or stay forever, but none of those seemed appropriate, somehow.
"You're very welcome," he said sincerely, and she laughed softly like he'd told some great joke, one that went completely over his own head.
They cleaned up and got half-dressed. Mary ended up taking the chess tournament 3-2, but Ben didn't care, because when they were done, Mary took his hand and led him to her bedroom. Her sheets were white, and he spread her out on them on his back, just liked he'd imagined, taking his time and mapping her body. When he went home the next day, he could still taste her on his tongue.
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