Good to See You

The sun was on its way down by the time he found his destination, a small, well-kept apartment complex consisting of four large buildings with brick facades. He took the steps up to the second floor two at a time, at an even, controlled pace, trying not to appear too eager, trying not to be too eager. He walked up to the door and knocked three times, then stood waiting, peering into the tiny glass lens just below his eye level and then looking away from it.

He looked back into the peephole after a moment, thought he could see something on the other side change, a tiny flicker of difference. A few seconds later, the door opened, and a freckled young woman with dark brown, shoulder-length hair and a wide, toothy smile threw her arms around him ecstatically . "Tintin!" she cried out.

Tintin, whose name was Russel, dropped his duffel bag and wrapped his arms around her in return. The warmth of being close to her again made him feel incredibly content, and he hugged her tightly for a moment, enjoying their long-anticipated reunion. He pulled back to look at her face, letting his hands drop to her waist.

"Good to see you, Ellie."

She smells nice, Russel thought to himself. I, on the other hand, probably-

"You stink," Ellie said matter-of-factly.

"Yes, well." Russel grinned an apology. "It's been a long trip. May I?" Ellie stepped aside, and Russel picked up his duffel bag and walked past her into her apartment.

Russel had resisted the nickname "Tintin" for about two months before he finally gave in and let it stick. It was an inside joke that no one in his group of friends quite remembered the same way, but one thing everyone agreed on was that Ellie had ultimately attached the name to him. The two of them had known each other since they were college freshmen, almost six years ago now, and Russel had been attracted to Ellie for about that long. He'd been drawn to her immediately: along with her animated, expressive face and a smile that seemed like it could reach her ears, the way she blended being playful and being bluntly straightforward had fascinated him.

Ellie closed the door behind them. "Did you take a cab here?" she asked.

"Nope. walked," Russel answered. "Got directions from the bus stop."

"Why didn't you call? I could've given you a ride."

"It was only twenty minutes' walk. The Greyhound got to a destination early for once; I wanted to surprise you."

"...But I knew you were arriving today. We've been planning this for weeks. What kind of surprise is that? All it means is I didn't have time to get dressed."

Russel grinned at her. "Planning on getting all dolled up for me?"

"No," Ellie said, rolling her eyes, "just maybe out of my pajamas."

She wasn't dressed up at all, which Russel liked: she wore a large, plain t-shirt and a loose pair of shorts, and he suspected from the way it had felt to hug her that she was braless. Ellie wasn't outrageously endowed, but her perky B-cups had been the subject of many late-night imaginings. His gaze snuck quickly over her chest, down her waist to the flare of her hips, and along the shapely legs that her shorts covered little of. He'd been going over so many possibilities in his mind that this was all it took before he had to calm the beginnings of arousal.

For her part, Ellie had picked up on his crush on her from the first day they'd met, but seemed to find his blend of easygoing and awkward difficult to take seriously as dating material. She had decided that the easiest method of turning him down was to mock him mercilessly about his crush before he even tried to ask her out. Eventually, he had started to fire back by being outrageously smarmy, and over time they had developed an easy understanding: he would always flirt with her, and she would always turn him down. It wasn't a problematic arrangement, since Russel didn't really feel like they would work well together in a relationship; this way he could be open without any worry about things getting awkward in one direction or the other. This never seemed to stop Russel from being attracted to her, however; he'd dated a few girls during his time in college, but some part of him knew that he'd always have feelings for Ellie.

"Hang on, let me fix the bathroom first," Ellie said, and hurried past Russel and into the second door on the right . Her apartment was not large, but it seemed comfortable: a 1-bedroom 1-bath, with a decently-sized living room past the small kitchen on the left, next to the front door. Russel placed his bag next to one end of a light blue couch, near the bar that separated the living room and kitchen. "This is a nice place," Russel called to her, looking around. He heard "thanks" muted by the bathroom door. The room was lightly decorated, with a couple of poster prints on the walls that put some of Ellie's interests on display: she had a close-up photo of a jungle cat's eyes peering through foliage, a few motivational and demotivational posters, and one brightly-colored poster from an anime he barely remembered. She had convinced him to watch the first few episodes. She could convince him to do most things.

He saw the small cabinet beneath the TV was open, and walked over to look inside at the games next to the PS3. "Ah, you finally got Mass Effect 2. How far along are you?"

"I just started it a few days ago," she called, still in the bathroom. Russel heard something clatter to the tile. "I've been too busy to play it a lot."

"Need help in there?"

"No, I've got it." A cabinet closed, and Ellie walked back into the living room. "It's all ready for you, so get in there. There's a towel and a washcloth by the sink."

Russel nodded, unzipped his bag and rummaged around until he found his soap and shampoo. He paused at the doorway to the bathroom and turned around, looking at her expectantly.

"What?" Ellie finally said.

"Aren't you coming?" Russel feigned surprise.

"Oh, of course," she replied, taking the hem of her shirt in her hands and lifting it just enough to show a thin strip of midriff before letting it drop back down and making the kind of you-wish face that Russel was all too familiar with. He smirked and shut the door. He stepped into the shower, turned the hot water knob, and thought about her under the steaming spray.

Ellie's teasing was never anything too intense, but coming from her it always drove him wild, especially since she had admitted, almost grudgingly but on more than one occasion, that she didn't exactly find him unattractive. Russel was tall, almost 6'2", and dark, his brown skin a sharp contrast to her pale freckles. He considered himself at least mildly handsome, and kept himself lean and muscular with a regular running and freeweight schedule. The main things that had pushed her away, from his understanding, was his apparent inability to take almost anything seriously, and his tendency to wear whatever he found comfortable, occasionally making him look a bit homeless. Russel had always found it rather weak of will to change for someone else, but he'd considered it for her.

They had kept in touch with fair regularity when Ellie had left their college town in Georgia two years ago. When Russel had told her that he was going to travel around for a while once his apartment lease was up, she had suggested that he come visit her at her new place in Maine first.

It was wonderful to see her after all this time, but Russel got the impression that she did not realize the full scope of all the things he still wanted to do to her. Perhaps coming here had been a mistake; if he didn't keep his head clear, he could wind up doing something stupid and losing her as a friend.

It was dark out by the time Russel stepped out of the bathroom, dressed in loose pants over boxers and nothing else. When he dropped down on the couch next to her, Ellie glanced up from using guns and psychic powers on robots to comment "You're supposed to get dressed before you leave the bathroom."

"Do I have to? It's unexpectedly warm for Maine in May."

"That's just the AC. Fine, keep walking around naked. Trying to seduce me?"

Russel chuckled. "Well, I was so effective the first five hundred times. Shall I make dinner? I should do something, since I'm the guest."

"Nah, I've got something else for you to do. Besides, I ordered pizza already. You still like mushrooms, right?"

They did some catching up while they waited for the food. She told him about the contracting work she was on vacation from, he told her about the pending publication of his first novel and what their mutual friends had been up to. Their conversation was interspersed with advice and commentary on the game Ellie played throughout. When the two pizzas arrived, she suggested that they watch a movie while they eat.

"I never did watch all of Seven Samurai," Russel said as they passed it on Netflix.

Twenty minutes into the film, only five slices remained. Ellie turned on the couch so that her back was to Russel. "Get to it, Tintin," she said, looking over her shoulder at him and pointing to her back. Russel smiled and shook his head at her abrupt demand; so this was what she had wanted him to do. He placed his hands on her shoulders and began to rub firm circles into the the base of her neck with his thumbs. He felt her relax as his fingers kneaded the muscles just above her collarbone.

She liked getting massages, and he liked touching her. They both knew she was using his attraction to her, but neither of them particularly minded.

"Any place you'd like me to focus on?" Russel asked.

"A little lower," Ellie murmured. All of the lights in the apartment were off, and Russel found himself fascinated with the way the shifting light of the black-and-white movie played over her pale skin. He caught himself staring at her face more than once, and shifted his eyes away, either to her back or the movie.

Russel had seen about an hour of Seven Samurai on a separate occasion, and he was glad it was still at a part that he'd seen before, because his attention was being drawn more and more to the woman under his hands. He was about a third of the way down her back, and his questing thumbs had confirmed that she was wearing nothing under her shirt. Thoughts of her bare breasts flashed through his head, fabricated in detail from many furtive looks despite the fact that he'd never so much as seen her in a swimsuit. Russel wondered what her nipples looked like when she was fully aroused, how they would taste on his tongue as he licked and sucked them, how she would react to him taking them between his teeth. He kept moving steadily down her back, trying not to give away how worked up he was becoming.

Ellie's back muscles had a few knots he could feel, and Russel took his time loosening them under her murmured guidance. His hands rested on her sides while his thumbs worked her back, and as he moved down they traced the soft curve from her waist to her hip. He loved feeling the cloth slide over her skin. She leaned forward slightly as he moved down, so that he could more easily access her lower back, and he wondered if she might take similar pleasure in it.

But that was the kind of thinking that led to liberties being taken. He had to relax, had to move his thoughts in a different direction. Russel started catching up on the plot of the movie to take his mind off of what he was doing, and off of the fact that he was rapidly approaching full mast. He shifted his hands further down, and his thumbs brushed the raised ridge of cloth that marked the waistband of her shorts, hidden by a couple of inches of her shirt's fabric. His eyes flicked over to the softly lit profile of Ellie's face. Her eyes were closed, her lips just slightly parted.

Russel didn't so much make a decision in that moment as let a desire slip out: his palms moved down to rest on her hips, and his thumbs dipped under the hem of her shirt, lifting it until they made contact with the bare skin of her lower back and stroking gently upwards on either side of her spine.

There was an intake of breath, barely audible but sharp, before Ellie said "Getting a little frisky there, Tintin?" in just a little too light of a tone. Her sudden speaking snapped him from his haze.

Russel pulled back, mortified. He had always massaged over her shirt only. It was a small thing to some people, but between the two of them what he had just done had to be unmistakable in its intention. What the hell had he been thinking?

More surprising, however, was Ellie's quiet gasp before she spoke. That kind of shy, encouraging reaction was so odd that he needed a moment to process it. They had an arrangement, one he'd become accustomed to: he would be forward, and she would turn him down. For her to change this when he was arguably at his most forward was like a wall vanishing as he leaned on it.

"Maybe a little," he finally answered, doing his best to sound casual. "Is that a problem?"

Ellie didn't answer.

The pads of his thumbs were still lightly touching her skin. He could withdraw them, continue the massage over her shirt as he'd been doing, or better yet just stop it altogether. That would be the safer thing to do. Their relationship was strong and stable; he didn't know what was going on in her head, but this could be a turn into dangerous waters.

These thoughts entered his mind and then swiftly departed as the rest of his fingers found the hem of Ellie's shirt, and his hands slipped underneath. He never had been good at resisting temptation.

Her back felt slightly cool against his palms, though it could have been Russel's hands that were warm, excited as he was. His fingertips grazed the sides of her stomach as he followed the curve back up to her waist, and he resumed the slow, firm circles. She gave no instructions now. Russel's heart was rattling his ribcage with such force that he worried she'd be able to hear it. He was also concerned that if she turned around, she'd notice the obvious bulge along his pants leg, accented by the small patch where precum darkened the cloth. It was still possible that he'd misread the situation, he figured, that she looked at this as just another tease; she might not even be aware that he was relishing every moment that his hands traveled over her silky skin.

As he mused, Russel's movements became less firm. He changed from kneading out tension to simply touching, running the backs of his fingers up her sides and trailing his fingertips down her back. He quickly realized what he was doing, but he didn't stop: he could feel her move back slightly into his hands as he traced down her shoulderblades with his thumbs and brushed his palms against her sides. Ellie's large t-shirt had a wide collar, and it exposed a bit of the freckled, slightly flushed area between her neck and her shoulder. After a moment of inner debate, Russel leaned forward kissed her there. In what seemed like an automatic response, she leaned back against him and tilted her head slightly to allow him access to her neck.

His hesitation evaporated. Russel kissed Ellie's shoulder and up her neck, tasted the hollow of her throat. He slid his hands upward to cup her breasts and gave them a gentle squeeze, savoring the full curve of the undersides against his palms. Her nipples were already fully erect, and she pushed her breasts into his hands with a quiet moan when he took the tips between his fingers and pulled lightly. She turned and caught his lips with her own, their kisses interspersed with her soft sighs as he teased her breasts, rolling them between thumb and forefinger.

When they broke the kiss, they paused for a moment and looked into each other's eyes for the first time since they'd begun. Russel's breath was ragged. He was fighting to pace himself: the floodgates that had held back a growing lust for this woman for six years had broken in an instant, and he wanted all of her at once.

"Russel..." she said in a near-whisper. It was the first time he could remember that her actually calling him by his real name in years.

One of his hands left its place at her breast to run fingertips up from her knee along the soft, pale flesh of her inner thigh. Her legs immediately parted for him, but he paused when he reached the leg of her loose shorts. "You want me to touch you?" Russel asked, pushing the fabric up slightly and tracing teasing patterns onto heated skin. She nodded, and he meandered the last few inches into her shorts to make contact with her mound, covered by a thin pair of panties. She pushed forward encouragingly at the touch.

Russel was teasing her to give himself time to calm down. He knew if he let himself, he'd simply tear away any obstructions and drive his cock as far as it could go into her. He held off from moving her panties aside and just rubbed her through them at first, surprised at how wet she already was: the cloth was completely drenched, allowing it to slide easily over her slick, swollen lips. Ellie ground eagerly against his hand, hips jerking slightly each time he touched her clit.

His other hand came down to slip beneath her waistband, a moment before Ellie hooked her thumbs in it and lifted her butt off the couch enough to slide her shorts down her long legs. Her panties came down with them, and she tossed both to the floor. She turned back to him, now wearing just her shirt,and pushed him down onto the sofa; she straddled him so that all that remained between her soaked, heated sex and his now painfully hard length were his two layers of clothing.

Ellie kissed him with an intensity that he quickly matched, and then it was Russel's turn to breathe in sharply when she brought a hand between them, grabbed his shaft and began to stroke it roughly through his pants. If she kept that up, he doubted he would last ten more seconds; he reached between her legs and resumed the massage he had been giving before she took her panties off. She moaned at the raw sensation of his fingers gliding over her bare pussy, and pushed her hips back against his hand. He parted her inner lips with his middle finger and stroked up and down her slit, pausing to rub the hood over her slippery, swollen little bud and to tease her opening, which quickly had his digit coated in her cum. Her movements on his cock became more erratic, and she simply squeezed it with an "Mmn!" and dropped her head down to his shoulder when his finger slid effortlessly into her slick tunnel.

He added a second finger and curled them inside her. He could feel Ellie's hot breath on his collarbone as he rubbed her g-spot, her hips pushing her clit into his palm in a slow, shaky rhythm. The hand that wasn't periodically squeezing his shaft was digging her nails into his bare chest. Part of him was still trying to come to grips with what was happening, and he tried to use that to keep in check what was rapidly becoming a consuming need for her. Then Ellie moaned his name, and he felt a rivulet of her wetness run down his arm.

Russel reversed their places quickly and bit her neck from his new position on top of her. She sighed when he kissed his way down her throat, shivered when his lips brushed over her nipple through her shirt. When he pulled up her shirt to kiss her navel and then lick her lower stomach, Ellie realized what he was going to do. She tangled her fingers in his hair with a whimper and urged his head lower. That put an end to his ability to tease her, or himself, and Russel hurried the rest of the way down. He pressed against her entrance and gathered her wetness on his tongue as he dragged it up to her clit, rewarded by a long "Oooohhhhhhhhh fuck..."

It occurred to him that people compared the taste of a woman's juices to a lot of things, describe it as having this tangy, or sweet, or any number of things. He couldn't think of what Ellie tasted like. He simply wanted more of it, because it was hers.