Catered

Chapter Seven: The Road Not Taken (Austin's POV)

                I know I should protest. I know this is wrong. 

                 So how come you're not, you wimp? 

                Because she's sneaking her hand up my shirt and it feels really good. Because she's tracing that one tender spot, just above my hip, that turns me into putty.  Because I only went on one date with Aria, so she doesn't control me. 

                Yet.

                To silence the little voice in my head, I kiss Anna deeper. Now I know why I'm doing this. She's not just some rich girl living off of Daddy's  beaucoup bucks. She's, I don't know, real. And raw. And a really freaking good kisser. 

                She pulls my t-shirt over my head, while deepening the kiss. Talk about multi-tasking. Then she pulls away and examines me with a hand on her hip. 

                She looks me up and down. I feel uncomfortable. I mean, I'm no Ryan Gosling or some other celebrity with a twenty-four pack, but I'm not fat. 

                Reluctantly, almost cautiously, she reaches out her small hand and touches a spot just above my boob. (What do you call the area with the nipples? Only dudes who spend most of their lives in the gym call them pecs, and they're not like anything special that they deserve a special name. So in the name of gender equality, I call them boobs.) 

                Anyway, she reaches out to that spot. Where I happen to have a tattoo. It's a simple black ink tattoo, a line from my favorite poem, "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. I got it right after I graduated from high school. It was the day after graduation, and some friends and I, drunk on joy and cheap wine, decided to go to a tattoo parlor. And thus, I was marked for life. 

                "I took the road not taken, and that has made all the difference," she says in an awed, barely audible voice. 

                I shift around a bit, a little uncomfortably. She seems almost amazed. I don't want to break her spell by saying something like, "Yup. Just a tattoo." But it is just a tattoo. I've seen plenty of guys with a tattoo.

                "What's so special about this tattoo?" I ask, my voice too barely a whisper.

                "I don't know," she murmurs. "I've dated guys with tattoos. But their' s were always some big fancy design on their arm or leg. But yours is so simple. Just a little thin line of curly black ink. One line of poetry. And where it is. I don't know. It's just very...intimate. And it's almost artistic. Just your favorite line of poetry, in a small spot. I don't know. You probably think I'm stupid." She shakes her head, as if disgusted by her own stupidity, and turns away from me.

                "No, I don't," I say, grabbing her arm and pulling her to me. "In fact, you think exactly like me." And I don't feel guilty for saying that. Because somehow I feel that Aria will never understand me like Anna did just now. But I push my thoughts aside. I know I have to do some thinking later, but right now, all I want to do is finish what we started.

                And so we do. Afterwards, we lie together, with her head on my chest, her finger lazily tracing the tattoo. I get a feeling that this isn’t just a one-night stand. That I’ll be seeing a lot more of this girl.