I’ll die. It’ll be worse than being the butt of jokes in high school because that ridicule was about my clothes and this will center on the part of my soul I’ve always kept hidden. It’ll also be the truth, and I won’t be able to deny it. I am a pervert.
I have to return the telescope to its original position. This is the only acceptable solution. I tap the metal tube.
Last night, my man-crazy roommate was giggling over the new guy in three-eleven north. The previous occupant was a gray-haired, bowtie-wearing tax auditor, his luxurious accommodations supplied by Nicolas. The most exciting thing he ever did was drink his tea on the balcony.
According to Cyndi, the new occupant is a delicious piece of man candy—tattooed, buff, and head-to-toe lickable. He was completing armcurls outside, and she enthusiastically counted his reps, oohing and aahing over his bulging biceps, calling to me to take a look.
I resisted that temptation, focusing on making macaroni and cheese for the two of us, the recipe snagged from the diner my mom works in. After we scarfed down dinner, Cyndi licking her plate clean, she left for the club and hasn’t returned.
Three-eleven north is the mirror condo to ours. I straighten the telescope. That position looks about right, but then, the imitation UGGs I bought in my second year of college looked about right also. The first time I wore the boots in the rain, the sheepskin fell apart, leaving me barefoot in Economics 201.
Unwilling to risk Cyndi’s friendship on “about right,” I gaze through the eyepiece. The view consists of rippling golden planes, almost like . . .
Tanned skin pulled over defined abs.
I blink. It can’t be. I take another look. A perfect pearl of perspiration clings to a puckered scar. The drop elongates more and more, stretching, snapping. It trickles downward, navigating the swells and valleys of a man’s honed torso.
No. I straighten. This is wrong. I shouldn’t watch our sexy neighbor as he stands on his balcony. If anyone catches me . . .
Parts 1 – 7 available now!
An Excerpt from
FORBIDDEN
An Under the Skin Novel by Charlotte Stein Killian is on the verge of making his final vows for the priesthood when he saves Dorothy from a puritanical and oppressive home. The attraction between them is swift and undeniable, but every touch, every glance, every moment of connection between them is completely forbidden . . .
An Avon Red Impulse Novel
We get out of the car at this swanky-looking place called Marriott, with a big promise next to the door about all-day breakfasts and internet and other stuff I’ve never had in my whole life, all these nice cars in the parking lot gleaming in the dimming light and a dozen windows lit up like some Christmas card, and then it just happens. My excitement suddenly bursts out of my chest, and before I can haul it back in, it runs right down the length of my arm, all the way to my hand.
Which grabs hold of his, so tight it could never be mistaken for anything else.
Course I want it to be mistaken for anything else, as soon as he looks at me. His eyes snap to my face like I poked him in the ribs with a rattler snake, and just in case I’m in any doubt, he glances down at the thing I’m doing. He sees me touching him as though he’s not nearly a priest and I’m not under his care, and instead we’re just two people having some kind of happy honeymoon.
In a second we’re going inside to have all the sex.
That’s what it seems like—like a sex thing.
I can’t even explain it away as just being friendly, because somehow it doesn’t feel friendly at all. My palm has been laced with electricity, and it just shot ten thousand volts into him. His whole body has gone tense, and so my body goes tense, but the worst part about it is:
For some ungodly reason he doesn’t take his hand away.
Maybe he thinks if he does it will look bad, like admitting to a guilty thing that neither of us has done. Or at least that he hasn’t done. He didn’t ask to have his hand grabbed. His hand is totally innocent in all of this. My hand is the evil one. It keeps right on grasping him even after I tell it to stop. I don’t even care if it makes me look worse—just let go, I think at it.
But the hand refuses.
It still has him in its evil clutches when we go inside the motel. My fingers are starting to sweat, and the guy behind the counter is noticing, yet I can’t seem to do a single thing about it. Could be we have to spend the rest of our lives like this, out of sheer terror at drawing any attention to the thing I have done.