Nolan Trilogy Page 3

  He readily agreed, joining them on the floor with the pizza, and Leah probably would have stayed there all night talking with him about his photo shoots with celebrities—Mr. Nolan had photographed the most interesting people, including Elvis, although his daughter insisted she would never forgive him for not figuring out a way for the girls meet him—but Erica insisted on dragging her to the bedroom, where they stayed up well after midnight, playing 45s on her record player and doing far more giggling than working on their project.

  “How long have you known about your dad’s… collection?” Leah pulled one of Erica’s long nightgowns over her head to sleep in as they were getting ready for bed. The girls wore each other’s clothes constantly.

  Erica grinned, rolling over onto her belly on the bed. “A while.”

  Leah raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Yup.” Erica shoved her books off the end of her bed and yawned.

  “Doesn’t it make you feel…?” Leah struggled to find the right words, but all of them were far too embarrassing.

  “Horny?” Erica giggled at Leah’s shocked expression. “Oh come on, girls feel horny too. Do you think married women don’t like it?”

  Leah stared at her, contemplating this new thought. Maybe it was because her own mother wasn’t married that it had never really occurred to her? “So tell me the truth then… have you and Bobby… you know…?”

  “No!” Erica made a face. “I’m still a virgin. I definitely don’t want to end up with a bun in the oven! Geeze Louise.”

  Leah slipped into the sleeping bag Mr. Nolan had retrieved out of the hall closet, trying to reconcile Erica’s belief she was still a virgin with the fact she and Bobby had clearly done far more than just kiss, which was, admittedly, about all Leah had done. She just lived vicariously through Erica. And now that she’d seen those photographs, the possibilities had suddenly become staggeringly endless.

  “I sneak them out to look at them sometimes,” Erica confessed, turning off the light. “Which one was your favorite?”

  The darkness made Leah feel bolder, but she still felt as if she had to whisper, wondering if her friend would even remember the specific photograph. “There was the one I showed you, with the two girls and the one guy together...”

  “Oh yes, that one.” Erica’s voice grew warmer in the dark. “The one where he was on his back, and one girl was sitting in his lap, while the other one was sitting on his face?”

  “Erica!” Leah’s cheeks pinked, even in the darkness, hearing her say those words, but they brought the memory of the photo immediately up in her mind, blackly exciting.

  “Am I right?” her friend prompted breathlessly. “Was that the one? Where he’s having sex with one girl and going down on the other?”

  “Ummm.” Leah closed her eyes, trying to hide, Erica’s words astonishing her into agreement. “Yeah.”

  “I like the ones with two guys and a girl too.” Clearly she’d been holding this information in, keeping the secret under the loft from everyone, including her best friend, for far too long. She was eager to share it now. “Seeing her suck on a guy while he’s inside of her… I’d love to know what that’s like.”

  “Has Bobby...” Leah hesitated, biting her lip, squirming in the darkness. “Done that to you? With his mouth?”

  “Ohhhh God, yes.” Erica moaned softly, the sound of it making Leah glow bright red, her friend’s voice dropping even lower. “You can’t imagine how it feels. You know how good it feels when you touch yourself down there right?”

  “Erica!” Leah turned her hot face against the coolness of the pillow. They’d talked in general about boys and parking and petting and the difference between first, second and third base, and when it was or wasn’t appropriate to go that far, but somehow seeing those photographs, everything splayed out so clearly in black and white, had changed their dialogue. Things were more open now, shamefully, excitingly open.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never touched it!” Erica whispered, sounding dumbstruck.

  Leah’s voice was muffled in the pillow. “A little.”

  She knew it was a sin, but sometimes late at night Leah would wake up from a hot, throbbing, red-tinged dream with both hands wedged between her thighs, not even remembering the dream itself, just the feeling, a desperate ache for release she didn’t quite understand.

  “Oh, Leah, you have no idea!” Erica whispered, moaning again softly and Leah could hear a faint, wet sound. “Bobby’s tongue right here, right on this spot...”

  Leah froze. “Erica, what are you doing?”

  “Touching it,” her best friend confessed. She could hear the rustling in the dark. My God, the audacity! Leah knew she should be aghast, appalled. But like the photographs, the sound of Erica touching herself was irresistible, making her breath come faster, her heart race. “Go ahead, Leah. Touch yourself.”

  “It’s a sin!” she protested, but that gentle pulse between her thighs had grown unbearable. There must be something to make it stop! Leah did something she’d never done, at least while she was awake—she slipped her hand down over her underwear in the darkness and cupped the swollen mound of her sex. It ached, and felt better when she touched it.

  “But it feels so good, I can’t stop,” Erica protested, the wet sound growing louder, her breathing fast too. “Doesn’t it feel good?”

  “Mmmm.” Leah rocked her palm up and down, back and forth, hips moving in spite of her apprehension. “Ohhh yes. Yes!”

  “Rub it with your finger,” Erica urged. “Right at the top. Right… ohh… right there.”

  “Inside?” Leah washed herself regularly, religiously, and yes, it felt nice when she ran a soapy washcloth between her legs, in a pleasant sort of way, but this was different.

  “There’s a spot, a little spot, right up top,” Erica explained. “Do you feel it?”

  “Ummm...” Leah focused, fingers slippery with wetness—gosh, things got so wet down there when she was excited like this!—parting the soft, curly hair, probing through her own slit. Everything felt so puffy and hot. “Oh! Ohhhh!”

  “That’s it.” Erica giggled. “That’s the spot. That’s right where Bobby puts his tongue. Oh the first time he did it, I was so embarrassed, I thought I would die, but he wouldn’t stop. He kept licking. And licking. And licking. Until… until...”

  “Until?” Leah panted, her fingers making easy, natural circles around that tender nub of flesh. What was it that made it feel so good? How could she have such a sensitive place on her own body and not know it? “Ohhh my. Oh that’s so nice!”

  “I’ll say.” Erica was practically panting now. “Just keep doing it. If you keep doing it, something amazing happens. I can’t even describe it.”

  “Something… amazing…?” Leah had never felt anything like this. Her body was doing things all on its own, the muscles in her thighs growing taut, her bottom clenching. She was ashamed to feel her own nipples hardening under her nightgown, rubbing against the soft cloth. Her breasts were tiny, and her nipples so sensitive they sometimes got hard enough they hurt when it was cold outside. But they didn’t hurt now. The more they hardened and moved under the material as she squirmed, the more aroused she became. It was as if there was a direct line of fire from her breasts to the sweet spot her fingers were working between her legs. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could stand this much heat without exploding.

  “Totally amazing,” Erica agreed, breathless. Leah knew her friend was rubbing herself, just like she was, both of them doing such shameful, sinful things in the dark. She knew it was wrong, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Erica had been quite right. It felt too good to stop. “Beyond amazing. Beyond beyond...”

  “I just keep seeing them, all the pictures, all the bodies, all that flesh...”

  “Yes,” Erica whispered. “All the sex. All the fucking...”

  “Oh my God, Erica!” Leah was truly shocked by her friend’s language, but her body undeniably liked it, her excitement g
rowing as if someone had just thrown gasoline on a fire.

  “All the licking and sucking and fucking!” Erica hissed, the springs on her little twin mattress bouncing with her motion on the bed. “Ohhh! Oh! Oh! Oh!”

  “What’s happening?” Leah whispered in the darkness, not just asking Erica but herself as well, toes curling, nipples straining under her nightgown, her fingers making furious circles over that critical spot.

  “It’s happening! Oh it’s happening!” Erica moaned softly on the bed, and Leah listened, remembering photo after photo, body after body, all the licking, all the sucking, oh and yes, all the fucking going on. It was all so strange and overwhelming and oh, so very exciting.

  “What’s happening? What?” Leah cried, pulling the sleeping bag down a little, all frantic and hot.

  “Oh I want it,” Erica moaned. “I want him inside me, fucking me. Mmmm yeah like that. I want to know what it feels like to get fucked...”

  Leah moaned too, hearing the wet noises growing louder from Erica’s bed.

  “Mmmm! So close!” Erica panted, and all Leah could see when she closed her eyes was that woman on her knees, swallowing him whole, crying dark tears. Why was it so arousing? Leah writhed on the floor, her hand locked between the tight press of her thighs as she listened to the soft squeak of the mattress and box spring.

  “Are you close, Leah?” Erica panted in the darkness. “Are you going to come?”

  “Come?” Leah questioned, not quite understanding, just knowing her thighs were so taut they were trembling, breath coming just as fast as Erica’s, hand working between her legs, aching for relief.

  “Oh, oh, oh!” Erica cried, short little squeaks, and then a fast, whispered, “Come on, Leah! Come! Come! Ohhhhh I’m coming! I’m coming!”

  Leah heard her friend’s panting breath, the soft cries of her pleasure, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out, her own body beginning to quake. What was happening to her? It came out of nowhere. A quiver began between her legs and radiated outward, through her belly and thighs, up to her breasts, puckering her nipples in response. It was like an earthquake, a tidal wave, a volcano, some incredible force of nature that took her and shook her and left her limp and trembling in its wake. She couldn’t stop it, and she didn’t want to. It was beyond pleasure, beyond bliss, beyond ecstasy, beyond any feeling she’d ever had or known.

  “Did it happen for you? Did you come?”

  “Yes,” Leah managed, but that was all. Coming? Is that what they called it? It felt more like going—like running or dancing or flying. She finally understood then what all the boys wanted when they tried to put their hands down her blouse or up her skirt, what it was they were searching for all along—this final, sweet, rapturous release.

  And it was worth it.

  Worth the risk, worth the sin, worth the shame. It made her want to do it again—wondered if she could do it again—but she didn’t, holding still in the dark. They didn’t talk as their breathing began to return to normal and their hearts stopped beating a mile a minute. Leah felt the embarrassment begin to creep in and wondered if Erica did too. Her trembling thighs finally relaxed. Eventually, she heard Erica sleeping. Years of sleepovers made her familiar with the sound. Yet Leah couldn’t seem to drift off, and instead she rolled around in the sleeping bag, trying to get comfortable on the floor.

  Chapter Two

  Leah had never wondered before what Mr. Nolan did when she and Erica weren’t around. He read the newspaper and watched television and kidded around with them when he was home, but he traveled a lot too, leaving Erica in Solie’s care when he was gone. He fiddled with his camera, had people into the studio, and spent a lot of time in the darkroom.

  He also invented things. He’d created a new kind of film he’d sold to Kodak that made some sort of instant photograph, and had developed a camera lens he claimed would revolutionize landscape photography some day. He said he’d come up with the idea during the war—World War II—a time both Leah and Erica only vaguely remembered, as it had been around the time they’d had their first communion.

  Mr. Nolan had always been a constant in her life, but she’d never looked at him the way she was now. She couldn’t keep her mind from wandering to those photographs. No, not just wandering. She was fixated on them, wrongfully, she knew, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. When had those photographs been taken? Where? How? They were illicit, shocking, probably even illegal. She knew she should be dismayed and aghast, and part of her was—but another part of her was curious, intrigued.

  And there was something else, something beyond the existence of the “dirty pictures.” The thing she kept coming back to was Mr. Nolan, the man behind the camera, the shutter clicking, the time he spent developing each photograph. What had he been thinking, of the models, of the process? He talked a lot about beauty and light and composition and art. Did he consider those photographs artistic?

  If the question had been posed to her in a school essay—not that it ever would be, in Catholic school or college, subjects were restricted and censored, as Erica often lamented in her role as editor of the school paper—Leah didn’t know what her position might be on “obscene” material. She’d never been exposed to any of it before her initial, surreptitious view of Playboy, and to jump from that to what they’d found under Mr. Nolan’s bed was like leaping from the Manhattan Project to full-scale Hiroshima.

  She knew what her mother would say. Oh the fall from grace Mr. Nolan would have, if her mother knew what he was hiding! Everyone knew he was eccentric, with his motorcycle and long hair. He was given a lot of allowances, because he was an artist—and a famous, rich one at that. Creative people were “eccentric.” So he took photographs bordering on the obscene. Did it make Mr. Nolan a bad man?

  She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Leah rolled around on the floor, listening to her friend’s deep, even breathing, too restless to sleep herself. It wasn’t just her racing thoughts keeping her awake, but her body as well. The latter was her barometer, always had been, and her inability to sit still tonight was telling. She couldn’t stop thinking, not just about the naughty photos, but about Mr. Nolan.

  In her mind, she saw him, the way he’d knelt in front of her to put a Band-Aid on her knee. There was something different, and while she hadn’t been able to put her finger on it before, she thought she understood it now. He wasn’t just Mr. Nolan, or Erica’s dad anymore. He was a man. That was a leap her head had never taken before, and it was scarier and more disconcerting to her, somehow, than the pictures they’d found.

  Leah climbed out of her sleeping bag, quietly making her way to the door. She opened it a crack and listened for the sound of the television or the radio, but there was just silence. Mr. Nolan must be asleep, she thought, heading down the hall to her right. After Mrs. Nolan had passed, when Leah got serious about dance, Mr. Nolan had installed a barre on the wall for her to practice.

  Back when they were little—when her mom had played euchre with the Nolans and their friends on Saturday nights—the Nolans had lived in a great big house right on the river, but after the death of his wife, Mr. Nolan had sold the house and had bought the warehouse, having it redesigned by a well-renowned architect as a dwelling. He always claimed it was for work, but Leah figured it was because of the memories in the old house. Too many ghosts.

  The warehouse had so much room and Leah spent so much time there, installing a barre had seemed practical. Mr. Nolan kidded perhaps Erica might take up dancing again someday, but the truth was, she had always been hopelessly clumsy. It was Leah who had taken to it immediately, and Mr. Nolan had recognized and encouraged her talent even back then, when she was hardly tall enough to reach a barre.

  Now she had her own studio in the warehouse complete with mirror, and a small collection of leotards and toe shoes for practicing. Leah went behind the divider in the corner to change, divesting herself of Erica’s nightgown, stripping down to nothing and pulling on a black leotard. The warehouse was alwa
ys a little cold in the winter and the early February rain-turned-to-sleet beating a staccato on the skylights above made her shiver. There was a lamp still on in the living room, but the circle of light only reached so far across the warehouse. Here in her little corner, it was dim and quiet.

  She didn’t bother with toe shoes or even music, although there was a record player in the corner. There was no point in waking anyone, because the music was in her head, a hot, pounding beat, moving her limbs. This was no prim, light dance of the sugarplum fairy, but the Latin heat of Don Quixote, the coquettish dance of a woman seducing a man. Leah threw herself into it, dancing the passionate pas de deux with an invisible partner, a man who usually stayed in the shadows, even in her imagination, but tonight he stepped forward in her mind for the first time.

  Tonight she was dancing with Mr. Nolan, dancing for him, putting herself on display for his pleasure. It made her feel beautiful and wanted, like those women in the photographs, teasing a man with the long, sinewy stretch of her body, even if the man was still caught in her imagination. He had a face tonight, and in her mind, Mr. Nolan was transfixed, captivated by the flash of her thigh, the curve of her neck, the sheen of sweat on her skin as she twirled across the smooth, hardwood floor in her bare feet.