before climbing on top of him. At this point, after a dozen trysts, we’d figured out how we fit together; there was less of the awkward bumping of elbows and knees and more of the thrill of discovery. How it felt when you touched there, or were touched here; what this body part might do when in contact with that one. A children’s science experiment, but with so much more at stake.
And that—the shocking heat of his mouth on my breast, the damp slide of his stomach against mine—was why we didn’t hear his father enter the cottage. We were so absorbed with each other that we didn’t have time to scramble for cover until he was already in the doorway, his bulk blocking out the light from the living room. And then Benny’s father’s hand was on my arm and he was yanking me off of his son, and I was shrieking and grabbing for a sheet to cover myself while Benny was exposed on the bed, blinking and stunned.
William Liebling IV. He looked just like the photos I’d seen—a big, bald man in an expensive suit—except that in person he seemed so much larger than life, even bigger than Benny. He must have been in his sixties, but he wasn’t at all frail; instead, he had that air of gravitas and power that comes with inherited money. And unlike the pictures that I’d seen, the opera photos where he looked so benignly at ease, his face was beet red and his eyes were burning coals inside puffy folds of skin.
He ignored Benny, who was scrambling out of the bed with his hands covering his groin, and addressed me instead. “Who are you?” he barked.
I felt damp and exposed. My heart was still on fire in my chest, my flesh still suffused and sensitive; I couldn’t reconcile everything racing through me. “Nina,” I stammered. “Nina Ross.” My eyes darted to Benny, who was tripping over his giant feet as he grabbed at the boxer shorts he’d abandoned on the floor. He inched toward the doorway, his eyes fixed on the jeans lying on the floor of the hallway.
Mr. Liebling turned and barked at Benny. “Stop right there.” He turned back to me and examined me for a long time. “Nina Ross.” He rolled the name in his mouth, clearly committing it to memory, and I wondered if he was the kind of dad who would call my mother to complain. Probably. Or maybe Benny’s mom would do the honors. I imagined my mom telling them both to go fuck themselves.
Benny had succeeded in getting his underwear on and he stood hunched there near the doorway, his thin arms covering his naked chest. “Dad…” he began.
His father whirled around and lifted a finger in the air. “Benjamin. Not. A. Word.” He turned back to me and tugged on the bottom of his suit jacket to straighten it. This seemed to calm him. “Nina Ross. You will leave now,” he said coolly. “And you will not come back here. You will leave Benjamin alone from now on. Do you understand?”
I could smell something in the air, pungent and sharp: It was the anxiety pouring off Benny as he watched me with a helpless expression on his face. He looked shrunken and young suddenly, like a little boy, even though he had at least a half foot on his father. I felt a surge of emotion, a desire to protect him from everything that might break him. I thought of the Nina in Benny’s drawing, the superhero with the dripping sword. My heart wasn’t racing anymore; I felt calm as I tucked the sheet tighter around my torso. “No,” I heard myself saying. “You can’t tell me what to do. We love each other.”
The muscles in Mr. Liebling’s face twitched, as if jolted by an electric shock. He stepped close to me and leaned in, voice dropping to a hoarse bark. “Young lady, you don’t understand. My son cannot handle this.”
I looked over at Benny, hunched in the corner, and for a stinging second I wondered if his father was right. “I know him better than you do.”
He laughed then, a mirthless, condescending sound. “I am his father. And you”—he measured