by Kris Ripper
“I can’t…keep my head in the right space for this. I keep finding it and losing it. Sorry.” She sighed, letting her forehead drop to my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Alex—all stricken wide eyes and concern—said nothing.
In the stupid, pointless BDSM and Goddamn Dating class, we’d actually talked about things going wrong mid-scene. This wasn’t exactly that…but it wasn’t not-that, either.
“I’m not looking for a fucking service top, babe.”
She snorted. “You just called me ‘babe’.”
I made my voice as swaggery as I could. “You got that right, babe. Now you just relax and don’t worry your pretty little head about a thing. Uh.” I was probably supposed to follow that up somehow. “Anyway, I can just go upstairs.”
Jamie thumped my shoulders with her fists. “Get in the fucking bed. Our bed.”
“But—”
“Don’t.”
So I kicked back in the bed like it was my domain, like I had nothing to lose, and watched her turn to Alex.
I’d been jealous at first, of the way he looked at her. The way she captured his attention just by walking into the room. But Jamie’s confidence was all eggshell-brittle back then, a delicate balance of bravado and steel. She danced on the edge of self-assurance, performing herself so well that sometimes even she was fooled.
Not Alex, though.
He held out his hands and she took them, and I could see her hard swallow from across the room. “I thought Jus would break first,” he said. “I was holding out. Or trying to.”
“I want to be, you know, totally in this right now. I did real damn good for a few minutes there.”
“We don’t need that.”
“I think we kind of do, or your boy there’s gonna wig.”
I scoffed. “Excuse me?”
He led her to the bed and both of them sat down. Jamie leaned over her legs. Alex sat next to her and glanced at me, so I flipped over to lie down on her other side, close enough to nudge her. “I meant it, you know. I’m the last person you have to worry about needing you to be some kind of dominatrix.”
“I don’t know, Jus. Sometimes I think if we got real, you’d never talk to us again. Or me, anyway.”
It would have been easier if I didn’t know what she meant, but I did. I didn’t exactly keep in touch with people. I left jobs and abandoned everyone I’d worked with. I never saw people from college, which wasn’t so strange after ten years, but I’d ceased thinking about them directly after graduation. Jamie had only sneaked through by merit of becoming our roommate.
“We’re not real now?” I asked.
She shook her head. “We’re being careful. It doesn’t matter.”
Which I was pretty sure she’d just said in the attic. I looked up at Alex, who was looking at me now. Like I could fix this. Like I could make her feel better.
But that was ridiculous. I couldn’t make her feel better. I could only limit the damage.
“I haven’t told you guys about Enrico Hazeltine. Or rather, Chad’s current obsession with him.”
Jamie looked over. “Hazeltine. The AIDS activist?”
“Writer, artist, activist. Excellent multitasker.”
For a long, terrible moment, I thought she wasn’t going to go along with it. I couldn’t even register Alex in my peripheral vision because I knew—I knew—the betrayal I’d see there. I’d seen it plenty of times before, mostly when I was being petty or scathing or reactive. He’d never understand that this was different. That this was me saving us. I was her champion, dammit. I could make things normal again, and I was damn sure going to. Normal was what we needed. Not sex. Sex wasn’t normal. Normal was normal. And I could make it happen.
I flashed to the dream I’d had, the Polaroid picture of my dead face, and shuddered.
Jamie raised her eyebrows. “Well? You gonna tell us about Hazeltine?”
“Don’t ask Jus about Hazeltine,” Alex said. “I’m pretty sure he’s projecting.”
“I’m not! Though it did occur to me that Chad and I apparently have the same taste in men, which is ugly. Anyway.”
I sat up, and all three of us rearranged until they were sitting with their backs against the wall and I was cross-legged on the bed facing them, telling them about Chad, and how he hadn’t even done a Google search—he had no idea the dude he was madly in art-love with was gay. “I think he got a little teary when I mentioned that Hazeltine was dead.”
“Aww. Poor Chad.”
Alex shrugged. “Jus actually cried when he found out Hazeltine was dead.”
And it could have been nothing, or just stating the facts. Except it felt a little like he was obscurely punishing me, pointing out a weak moment. Highlighting the one that had just passed. It was probably nothing. It would have felt more like nothing if he’d been able to meet my eyes.
“Poor Jus.” Jamie raised her eyebrows. “You were hot for his brains, I’m sure.”
Probably not the time to mention I’d assigned him Alex’s hair. I nearly made a joke of it (I used to jerk off to his series of dirty limericks about ’80s politicians), but then I didn’t. “It was his…openness. The way he wrote, the way he drew. Like he saw people with so much…space. He had this expansive awareness that I really wanted to understand. And yeah, also, he was hot before I got sick.”
She frowned. “You mean he.”
“He what?”
“Before he got sick.”
It took me a minute to re-run the words I’d said. “Oh. Yeah. I meant before he got sick.”
Alex finally looked up. He didn’t say anything, just stared at me, and the three feet of space between us could have been the last fifteen years, stretched over the sheets, each piece of lint a different milestone, each wrinkle a different obstacle.
It had been a slip of the tongue. I was tired. It was late. Things between the three of us were uncertain. I hadn’t meant before I got sick, but now Alex was thinking about me in the hospital. And I was thinking about that dreamscape Polaroid of a dead man with my face.
“When we were teenagers, Jus talked about Hazeltine like he was someone we knew. You read that book, what, every three months for years?”
“There are other books. I’m reading them now.”
He nodded, not looking away. “Is it like reuniting with an old friend? Or lover?”
I didn’t know what the fuck we were talking about, but I didn’t think it was entirely about a book I read years ago. “I still love the way he makes language into a textile, how I can feel the things he describes through his words.”
“So nothing like an old lover then. Or else you wouldn’t remember anything about him.”
Jamie blinked. “I’m missing so much right now. You two care to explain?”
“I think Alex is calling me a slut. Which: fair. Though I resent the judgement happening—” I waved my hand in his direction “—over in this area here. Anyway, I think we should really not have sex. You two are way too good for my slutty ways.” I stood. “Goodnight, lovebirds. Sleep tight.”
“Um. Okay?” She frowned again.
Alex didn’t say anything, so I left, abruptly feeling hollow and shaky. I wanted the pressure of Jamie’s palm against my throat again. I wanted him to look at me like I could fix things and I wanted to actually be worthy of that.
I wanted…another chance. Except I would have done and said the same things.
This was why you didn’t entertain foolish notions of having sex with your best friends, who also happened to be the people you were stupidly in love with. I sank down on the edge of my bed and fought a misplaced desire to take a run. A long, punishing run, preferably until I puked.
Puking had never been my thing, in general. And at the time when I was most disordered, I hadn’t thought of running, or lifting weights, as being things I did to claw my way back into control of myself after losing it. If I worked out until I puked, that was a sign I was back in the dr
iver’s seat. I may have started running because blah blah body image blah binge eating, but I kept running because it was a thing I could force myself to do, I could push my body past all the factory installed safety settings.
I don’t run anymore. Not even on treadmills. I go to the gym an acceptable three times a week, never more than once in a day. I eat regular portions of food, and I don’t tailor the length of my gym trips to how much food I’m eating. On the surface, I’ve basically conquered my bad old eating disorder self.
When I realized there were a lot of other ways to control my life I quit the behaviors that were red flags to other people. I wasn’t healthy. And I hadn’t really fixed my head. I just learned how to not attract attention. I still had the edged comfort of rules I couldn’t break, but I’d changed their nature and converted them into laws: I will always be alone. I will always hurt the people I love. I will never be happy.
Only I wasn’t allowed to work out anymore, so this is what it looks like: I couldn’t control how much some dark place in me yearned for the two of them, almost desperately, and I hated myself for it. I eyed the floor, thinking about push-ups, planks, squats. They deserved better. They needed to be protected. I was their champion. Intimacy with me was a slow acting poison. The only way to save them was to cut them off, and I couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough. I listened to the wind and thought about running down the beach, feet digging into sand, the burn in my throat as I tried to breathe.
But I would not break my rules.
Instead, I lay in the bed, stiff as a corpse, shaking with the tension of staying there. I didn’t know how I finally fell asleep, but I managed not to move, not to do any of the old self-destructive things I wasn’t allowed to do. It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that I’d replaced my runs with a constant litany of unworthiness, which was less physically damaging, but arguably still pretty fucked up.
I didn’t have to grapple with any mental health professionals. I could work out right now and no one would know. But over the years I’d somehow found a way to make myself sick without moving.
Power of the human brain, baby. I felt like I should get some kind of medal for my discovery.
I still didn’t trust myself to move.
Chapter Eleven
I HEADED EVERYTHING off at the pass the next morning. I didn’t even wait for the coffee to be brewed. My entire body felt jittery as hell, but I managed to sound totally reasonable. “We can’t do this. It’s a bad idea. If you want to drop me off at the nearest BART station, that’s fine.”
Jamie—disheveled, eyes puffy from sleep—yawned. “Jus, the nearest BART station is…what, like Richmond? Is there a BART station in Richmond?”
I batted my eyelashes coquettishly. “When you put it that way, you may as well go the extra mile and drop me at home.”
“We’re not dropping you anywhere,” Alex said. “Unless you mean on your head off the back porch, which I’d be more than willing to do.”
She shoved him. “We said we’d accept whatever answer he gave.”
“We meant, we wouldn’t be jerks and pursue him if he wasn’t interested, but he is interested, he’s just—” He broke off. “Whatever. You’re stuck with us unless you want to call a cab. We need the hands.”
Jamie yawned again. “I’d bargain a ride for sexual favors, but you already nixed that, so what he said.” She slumped against the counter. “Oh my god, I need coffee.”
And that was that. Everything was far less complicated without all those pesky…complications. This was the natural order of things. The two of them would go back to being perfect and happy and wonderful, and I would go back to being myself. Not trying to be the man they fooled themselves into thinking I was.
* * *
We miraculously got the stairs up over the next few days. They were a little uneven at one end (turns out when you have the store cut your lumber, it’s not necessarily all the same size), but they were stairs. And we’d done it mostly ourselves, with satellite help from Denny, who surveyed our work via Skype.
“You’re gonna need some saws, Jamie.” She squinted and leaned in. “I can’t see a damn thing from here.”
“You should come up!” Alex called.
“As long as you leave your husband at home,” I added.
Jamie focused the camera fully on herself. “You could, you know. We could concoct an elaborate story about how I needed a woman’s advice on menstrual cramps or vaginal lubrication or something.”
“Vaginal lubrication!” Denny cackled. “He’d know that one for a lie, girl. I’m no expert in vaginal lubrication.”
Jamie and I wrinkled our noses. Alex leaned in to say, “Ma says menopause is really awful for that.”
“And well it might be, for those that have it. But I never lubricated much in the first place, so there wasn’t anything to lose!” She laughed again, while I surveyed Alex in horror.
“When did you speak to Ma about vaginal lubrication?”
He shrugged. “Guess it came up at some point. Anyway, I still think you should come see the house, Denny. If you have to bring your husband”—he continued over Jamie’s sound of outrage—“maybe we could drop him off at the local bar and forget to pick him up.”
“Forever,” I muttered.
“All right, all right. He may be no prize, but the three of you can stop picking on him now.”
Which she sort-of meant, but also was happy we picked on him, too. I couldn’t imagine being married for thirty years. Sounded godawful.
“You did all right.” Denny’s approving tone now, which made all of us smile. “At the very least, go on and pick yourself up a jigsaw, Jamie-girl. Get those ends neat, slap another coat of paint on, and get ready to paint it again next year. The sand and the moisture’s going to destroy your finishes, mark my words. You have a workshop or a shed or something there?”
I got my face half in the frame. “You mean the dining room we’re not using?”
She shook her head in disgust, making the picture go all earthquake. “Go pick up one of those build-it-yourself shed kits so you can keep your tools out of the worst of the weather.”
“Thanks, Den,” Jamie said. “Love you.”
“Yeah, you too. You be good to each other.”
“We will!”
Jamie put her phone away and surveyed our work. “We’re totally eating every meal out here from now on. Tables are for rich kids.”
“Amen, sister.” We high fived, and I didn’t miss Alex watching us, watching our hands. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, which was weird. Usually Alex was the transparent one.
Or maybe he used to be, and at some point he’d changed without me noticing. Which was a disturbing thought.
“You guys. We have like…four more entire days to enjoy our back porch. This calls for ice cream.” She pointed at me. “You in?”
“We have a coffee flavor of some sort?”
“What the hell do you take me for? I’m offended you even asked. Alex?”
“I’ll get it. You guys stay out here.”
Jamie and I shot melodrama eyebrows at each other before taking seats on the stairs. The stairs we’d actually built. She leaned into me a little. “I’m kind of excited Denny is making me buy a saw. I really like the idea of owning a saw. Even though I’m not sure how to use one.”
“There’s nothing YouTube can’t teach us, grasshopper,” I intoned.
“You’re damn right.”
“So we rebuilt the back porch.”
“I know. Steps, railing, and all.” She threaded her arm through mine. “We’re kind of badass.”
“We seriously are.” Jamie felt warm against me, enticingly so. I’d made a no sex rule and expected it to mean no cuddling, no casual leans, no more affection than we’d had before, which had been arguably more than I had with anyone else but had not involved sitting arm-in-arm.
If I were stronger, I would have gently enforced more space, wider boundaries. Because it seemed li
ke tempting fate, sitting like this. But it felt too good, and I realized I was relieved. That some part of me had expected everything to go back to normal, as it should have, but I would have grieved the loss of this connection.
Strange days when all I really wanted was to cuddle with a woman. I eyed Alex warily when he came out, wondering what he’d see, but he didn’t react. Just passed me the coffee-and-chocolate tub and popped open the cookie dough for them to share.
Like any regular day at the Saints house.
“You know what else is gonna be cool?” Jamie asked, reaching with her spoon to dig a chocolate chunk out of my ice cream.
I smacked her spoon with my spoon. “People who mine go to hell.”
“Already on my way, sweetcheeks. As I was saying, what’s gonna be cool is when we get back from playing on the beach and can just walk up the steps.”
“You mean, instead of climbing like apes?”
“Or chimps, or monkeys, or whichever primate group it is that’s big into climbing.”
“All of the above?”
“I’d google, but I’m busy.”
Was there something slightly nervous about the way we were talking? I couldn’t tell. Maybe. But maybe I was just looking for things to be weird because I felt like I had a neon sign hanging above my head: Turns down sex for the good of mankind.
Also, Alex wasn’t talking. That wasn’t totally unusual, but it felt pointed. Unless I was making that up, too.
Jamie licked her spoon. “Mmm. Ice cream tastes better when you eat it for no apparent reason.”
“Uh. Yeah.” God, her tongue was pink. And it was honestly obscene, the way she was worshipping that spoon. I was staring so hard my eyes shifted focus, and suddenly all I could see was Alex, watching me watch her.
The aloofness was gone, in that moment. All I saw was desire and hope.
I resolutely turned my attention to my ice cream. “Have you been at this? There’s nowhere near enough chocolate.”
“Oi! We just opened it!”
