I walked into the dark house and sat on the couch, not bothering to turn on any lights. Twenty minutes earlier, I had dropped off Jessi at her apartment. On the second half of our drive home from the cabin, she had refused to say anything else after she had proclaimed that I did not love her enough. So when we reached her apartment, I tried one last time to talk to her. But my attempt to initiate communication with her failed. The young blonde just gave me sad-eyed look, kissed my cheek, and got out of the car. I got out too and helped her with her suitcase, but she did not allow me to take it up the stairs to her apartment. She did not even wave goodbye before she closed her apartment door.
After some time sitting on my couch, I made myself go back out to my car so I could bring in my suitcase and the leftover food. It was not until then that I realized Jessi had left her roses in my car. I took the flowers inside, placed them on my kitchen table and texted Jessi.
"I have your roses. Do you want me to bring them over?"
A few seconds later, her text pinged in: "no".
I was considering whether to ignore her text and take them over to her anyway when it occurred to me that I had never shown her the pictures that she had asked me to take. Given her current self-esteem issues, my first thought was that not showing them had probably been a good thing. However, as I thought about it more, I began to wonder if seeing herself happy, even that way, might help her feel better. And so the part of me that knew that sending her the pictures was a stupid plan was shouted down by the part that was grasping at straws to find something to make Jessi happy again.
I hurried to my office and booted up my computer. I then plugged my phone in and started to download pictures. I had decided that it might be better to send the photos by email rather than by phone, although I was not sure whether I had a valid concern or I just wanted to move the pictures to my computer so I could look at them on the larger screen.
As I was selecting the pictures to download, however, I saw the candid picture that I had taken of Jessi reading. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, she was wearing the pink turtleneck and a pair of blue jeans, and her legs were tucked up underneath her on the couch. I thought the colors of her clothes and the furnishings detracted from the beauty of both Jessi and the shot itself, so after I downloaded the picture, I used a black and white filter. The modified photo was breathtaking. I abandoned my prior plan to send the young woman the pictures of her covered with semen, as I recognized that plan was ill-conceived at best. Instead, I decided to send her a short email and attach the black and white version of the photo of her reading.
"This is what I see when I look at you. This is who I know you to be-a beautiful, exciting, adventurous young woman with deep thoughts and plenty of love to give to others, if she would just allow herself to be loved," I wrote in the email, then I clicked send.
I waited a few minutes for a response, then I began downloading the rest of the pictures from the weekend. I put them in a computer folder labeled with Jessi's initials. I pondered looking at those pictures in more detail after moving them to the computer, as what I had seen while downloading them had reinforced my initial reaction that they were incredibly erotic and arousing. However, instead of looking at the images, I decided to take some other pictures of Jessi off my phone as well. It had occurred to me that it was likely not a good idea to have explicit pictures of a former student on my phone, even though it was my private phone, as I often used it for work purposes.
While searching through the photos on my phone, I came across the pictures of Jessi and Amara that Jessi had sent to me when I was away with Jessika. I transferred those to my computer, then went through them, expanding each so that it filled the screen. Despite the fact that I had earlier told Jessi that I was spent after the weekend's activities, looking at the two women together and remembering the threesome with them, at least the part of it before Jessi had lost control of her emotions, was having an effect on my penis. It was not fully erect, but it certainly was not flaccid either.
Another thought occurred to me as I looked at a picture of Jessi's face between Amara's legs. Jessi had sent me a video of Amara and her, but I had told Jessika to delete it. I had turned my phone over to my brunette lover at that point because I had not wanted to see what else Jessi had sent.
Searching through the folders on my phone, I found no trace of the video. So, I performed an internet search to learn how to find deleted files on my phone. Unfortunately, none of the techniques that I found were able to locate the video. I was just at the point of accepting that it was really gone when I heard my doorbell ring.
Perplexed as to who could be at my door at almost 10:00 pm, as soon as I reached the door I looked through the peephole and recognized Jessi's blonde hair and large, black coat. I pulled the door open and found myself the subject of one of those hyper-intense Jessi stares.
"Did you come for your roses?" I asked, then my mouth was filled with the twenty-year-old blonde's tongue as she crashed into me and kissed me.
Grabbing my lover's slender waist, I steered us inside of my house, then kicked the door shut. The sound of it slamming caused Jessi to step back from me.
"I can't stay, Mark," she told me. "I just wanted to thank you."
"For what?" I asked, not sure where she was headed.
"The picture and what you wrote," she explained, a serious expression etched onto her face. "And for the weekend. And for saving my roses for me."
"It is the truth," I shrugged. "Both what I wrote and what the picture shows about you. You are not who, or what, you fear you are."
"I am, but maybe not in your eyes," she responded, her gaze locked on me. "And maybe someday I won't be that in my own eyes either."
"Jessi..."
"I have to go. If I stay, I'll want to fuck. And right now, I don't want to want that. I want you to think about me like you see me in the picture, not me on my knees or with my legs spread. Do you understand?"
"I do," I assured her.
The young blonde reached up and ran her fingers down my cheek, then she stepped closer and kissed me, her soft lips moving with mine. It was not as aggressive as when she had kissed me after I had opened the door, yet it was heavy with passion.
"It also helps that I took my meds and they evened me out a bit," she whispered before she stepped back again. "I'm sorry that I put you through all that."
"I understand," I said. "I'll get your roses."
"Can I borrow the book too?" she asked, referring to the hardback copy of Maia that I had bought at the used bookstore.
"Sure," I smiled. "I had already thought you would."
"Thanks, Mark," she said while I retrieved the roses and the book.
