by Liz Durano
Two weeks later, we drive to Taos to visit her family. This time, I don’t get the second degree treatment from Daniel who also happens to be home, and for the first time, they invite me over for dinner.
While Nana and Pearl prepare the food and Sarah helps out with the salad, Daniel gives me a tour of the house. There are four bedrooms, a study, and a recreation room where one of the security guys uses as his bedroom while the other stays in the casita in the back. It’s what Daniel calls the unattached home at the back of the house that’s separated by an herb garden. And then there’s a workshop attached to the garage where Pearl does her pottery. It’s where we find Dax sitting on the floor, sanding a wooden box.
“What are you doing here?” Daniel asks. “I thought you were with Gabe.”
“He’s doing research on the computer. Says the internet is faster here than at their house so I figured I’d come out here and make this while he does his homework.” Dax holds up a wooden box with a lid that he lifts up to show off to us. “I made it two days ago at school. I’m gonna give it to Mom.”
“You like woodworking?” I ask as Dax nods and hands me the box.
“I still have to stain it to bring out the grain,” Dax says as I lift the lid and close it again. “And then it will be ready.”
“How long did this take you?” I ask as I hand the box to Daniel.
Dax shrugs. “A few days. I’m still learning but Mr. Smith says I’m actually really good at it. He’s my woodworking instructor at school.”
“Do you like it?” Daniel asks.
“I do. It’s… well, don’t tell this to Gabe, but it’s meditative.”
“You familiar with joints?” I ask. “Mortise and tenon, that kind of thing?”
Dax nods, looking offended. “Of course, man. That’s, like, basic stuff.”
“Ever heard of Takeshi Woodworks? He’s right here in town,” I say. “He does Japanese joinery. Or at least that’s what it’s called. My roommate and I bought a table from him. No nails or glue. He just cuts the wood a certain way and joins the pieces together. Sturdy as any table held together with nails or glue.”
“I’ve heard of him. Japanese guy. He’s got a workshop close to the plaza,” Daniel says, handing the box back to Dax. “Mom will love that.”
“Yes, he does. You should check out his work,” I say. “Long waiting list though. He might even consider taking on an apprentice.”
Daniel looks at Dax who doesn’t seem to have heard me, his attention on the box as he eyes it closely, as if making sure the surface is even. “Something to consider even though I’d rather he attend college.”
Dax doesn’t say anything. It’s as if his attention is focused only on the box he holds in his hands.
“Trade school?” I volunteer, a suggestion that earns me a disapproving look from Daniel. But as his gaze returns to his son, he exhales and shrugs.
“We’ll cross the bridge when we get there. Until then, he has to graduate high school first,” Daniel says as Dax picks up a sheet of sandpaper and files one of the edges of the box. He’s so focused on what he’s doing that it’s as if we’re not in the workshop with him anymore.
“There you guys are,” says Pearl from the door and I catch Daniel’s face light up the moment he looks at her. “Dinner’s ready.”
Dinner with the Drexels is a noisy affair. Separated by a colorful array of New Mexican dishes that line the center of the table, I get to know Gabriel or Gabe, Dax’s best friend who emerges from his bedroom telling everyone about the classes he’d like to take for his freshman year in college. Already he’s planning on getting straight A’s so he’ll get accepted to med school.
Sarah sits to my left while Nana, sitting at my right, keeps adding food to my plate. She even feels my bicep when I’m not looking and I catch her giving Sarah an approving look.
When it has nothing to do with the food which is absolutely delicious, talk around the table revolves around Dax and Gabe’s latest adventures, Sarah’s work in Shiprock and whether she plans on extending, my job and my upcoming trip to Arizona for a conference before it shifts to Pearl’s pottery and the next workshop she’s holding at a local art studio. I also learn that Daniel has just finished moving his office to a new building. It’s bigger and has a view of Manhattan and the East River. This weekend trip is his first in four weeks which Pearl says is too long for him to be away.
Daniel takes Pearl’s hand and bring it to his lips. “It’s the last time, mi amor.”
“You promise?”
He nods. “I promise.”
I turn away just before they catch me watching and smile at Sarah who saw the whole thing. But I can’t help it. The way Daniel looks at his wife brings back vague memories of my father and the way he’d look at my mother. But that was a lifetime ago and she’s moved on.
She’s right. He’s dead.
But I’ll still wear his ring on a chain around my neck.
“Is this the way it is at your house?” Sarah asks. “With your parents? Is it this crazy, too?”
I want to tell her the truth, that it’s not like this at all, but that’s only because I’m there. I have a feeling the mood is probably more lively when I’m not, but I also don’t want to dwell on the past.
This is my future now, should I choose it, with the Drexels and their wild and crazy household where Dax and Gabe rave about the latest video game they’re playing, Nana can’t stop feeling up my arm muscles, and Daniel still gazes at his wife like she’s the only woman in the world.
After dinner, Sarah and I spend the night at my townhouse. With Mariano out of town, it means we have the place all to ourselves. While I go through my mail, Sarah stands in front of the entertainment cabinet trying to pick a movie for us to watch.
“These are all guy flicks,” she says, pulling out a Reservoir Dogs DVD from the shelf.
“I doubt you’d find chick flicks here, Sarah,” I say, chuckling as I return my mail back into the basket.
“Two choices so far,” she announces, holding up two DVDs. “Die Hard or Tombstone.”
I arch an eyebrow. “I’ve seen them both. Which one do you want to watch?”
“I’ve seen them both, too. But I’ll pick Tombstone, hands down,” she replies, biting her lower lip. “Besides, I want to be someone’s huckleberry tonight.”
“Doc Holiday’s?”
Sarah stares at me, looking shocked. “Doc Turner’s, of course!” Then she narrows her eyes. “In fact, I intend to distract you the whole time.”
I chuckle. “You think you can actually distract me from watching Tombstone? Be careful. You just might lose.”
“I bet you won’t last a quarter of the way through.”
I pull her toward me. “What do I get if I do?”
“Me.”
“Hmm.” I think for a few moments. “I think that’s a good enough deal.”
“Hey!” Sarah playfully swipes my arm, looking offended. “You’ll pay for that.”
“I can’t wait.”
I almost don’t make it, but by the skin of my teeth I do. By the halfway mark of the movie, most of Sarah’s clothes are on the floor and she’s straddling me, doing her best to distract me as the action on the screen gets more exciting with every passing minute. She’s managed to remove my shirt and unzip my jeans, the feeling of her lace thong grinding against my erection driving me crazy. Her breasts rubbing against my chest was bad enough.
It’s taken all my willpower to last this long but I’m ready to let go. Watching Sarah go from being determined to getting frustrated when things don’t go her way (even though they are but I’m not ready to let her win) is well worth the price of admission and now it’s time I collect my prize.
“No more teasing,” I murmur in her ear before nibbling her neck and she gasps, her fingers digging into my shoulders as I move down her neck to her breasts, taking one nipple into my mouth and then the other. “Hold on to me,” I murmur as she clasps her hands behind my neck and
I lift my hips, pushing my jeans and boxer briefs down my hips, my cock finally freed from its confines and pressing against her thong. I push aside the fabric, my fingers brushing along her clit before I slip them inside, deep. Sarah gasps and I chuckle.
“Someone’s wet. Very wet.”
She moans when I press my fingers on her clit again, sliding them along her folds before slipping them inside again. “You were too busy reciting every bit of dialogue to notice, Doc Holiday.”
“That’s Doc Turner to you, young lady.” I pull her to me with my other hand, capturing her mouth as I continue stroking her. She gyrates her hips as I move my fingers faster, loving the sound of her moans against my mouth and my tongue. She trembles, her fingers behind my shoulder, her nails digging into my skin.
“Benny,” she gasps. “I want you.”
“Show me how bad you want me, Sarah,” I murmur as I withdraw my fingers from her clit.
She pulls away, licking her lips, breathing hard. Then she positions her hips over the head of my cock, her hand stroking the shaft, the head, before guiding it inside her.
“Fuck,” I breathe, the feel of her pussy sucking me in, robbing me of breath. Sarah begins to move her hips, first in circles, her eyes heavy with desire, her gaze never leaving my face. Then up and down, slowly, taking her time.
She moans when I cup her breast in my hand. I take one nipple in my mouth, her body trembling as she continues to move, up and down, then in circles, gyrating her hips. As she moves faster, I can barely think. With my other hand, I grip her hips, guiding her as I thrust upward, pleasure mounting, building.
The sound of our breathing and our bodies meeting fills the room, the movie long forgotten though I can still hear it in the background. But I’m not listening. No, all I see is Sarah, her face, her breasts, her flat belly slick with perspiration as she continues to ride me. I’m so close and so is she, her pussy squeezing, tightening, throbbing.
I bring my hand up to her face, tracing her lower lip with my thumb. For a brief moment, it feels as if time stands still. I stroke her cheek, holding her gaze.
“I love you, Sarah.”
She strokes my bearded jaw. “I love you, Benny.”
I pull her to me and kiss her hard, our moans mingling as her body trembles with each hard thrust of my hips before surrendering to her orgasm and sweeping me along with it like the tide claiming what always belonged to her.
My heart. My soul. My life.
Chapter Twenty-One
“You’re Sarah, right? From 4D?” A tall woman wearing pink glasses, her brown hair in curlers, asks me when I step out of the elevator. She’s standing in front of the wall of mailboxes in the lobby holding three envelopes.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m Sandra from 3B,” she says, shaking my hand.
“Nice to meet you, Sandra. Yes, I’m Sarah.”
“You’re the nurse, right?” She asks and I nod. “Someone came by to deliver flowers yesterday but you weren’t home so no one could buzz him in.”
I smile. Benny must have wanted to cheer me up. “He can always leave them in the lobby.”
“It depends if the manager happens to be onsite, dear, but if I see them again, I’ll tell them that,” Sandra says as she clips three pieces of mail next to her mailbox.
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
It’s been four days since Benny and I returned from Taos and he’s been in Arizona for a conference ever since. He must have figured flowers would cheer me up after listening to me over the phone yesterday whine and complain about missing him and the routine we’d established the past few weeks. I can’t believe how quickly I got used to it. The run behind the medical center right after work, breakfast of breakfast burritos with green chile at a nearby restaurant and then off to my apartment where he’d shower and change into his work clothes and I’d crawl under the covers, content.
Only I’m not content, not for the past four days since he left for his conference. His text messages and phone calls barely scratch the surface of how I feel for him, the ache deep in my chest that I’ve never felt for anyone before.
It scares me.
And so with every inch of exposed skin covered in sunscreen, I’m going for a run. It’s better than lying in bed with my arm constantly checking the empty spot next to me as if Benny would somehow materialize out of thin air and fill it. As long as there aren’t any delays on their drive back from the conference, at least, he’ll be back by tomorrow morning.
I drive a few miles out of the city to an area where Benny and I ran a few times. It’s on an Indian Service Route and it’s a pretty straightforward trail that others use, too. Today, there are two other cars parked at the trailhead.
I set my watch, estimating my run will probably take me an hour which will give me enough time to return home, shower and get ready for work tonight. It’s just what I need to clear my mind of many things. It also makes me happy especially when I hit the trails for it brings Benny back somehow. After all, he’d been the one to introduce me to them in Albuquerque. Before that, I’d only run on treadmills or the school track, too afraid to venture beyond the walls for fear that someone would recognize me. Back then, my affair with the professor had just happened and Dad was forced to get me out of New York. I lost friends and although Dad’s colleagues were probably more understanding—I bet they started double-checking their own affairs after that—it still put Dad in an awkward position with clients probably wondering if it was his daughter that everyone at the club was talking about.
It wasn’t as if I could continue attending college in Manhattan anyway, and so I had to find some other place to finish my degree. At UNM, Benny with all his swagger and reputation as a man-whore was the last person I could have ended up with, especially since we weren’t sleeping together, but somehow it worked out. He liked hanging out with me just as much as I loved being with him.
We ran the trails together, we talked about life when we weren’t working on papers and reports, and he taught me the two-step. One weekend, he showed me the stars as we shared a sleeping bag on the flatbed of his truck and he told me the story of how they came to be in his world, about Coyote who couldn’t wait for the Holy People to arrange them in the sky and so when they weren’t looking, he flung the buckskin across the sky and the stars that had been arranged on it so carefully scattered about, ending up wherever they did. When the Holy People asked Coyote why he did what he did, he told them he didn’t like being left out. He named all the stars, too, and when one fell from the sky, he picked it up and named it So’Tsoh or Coyote Star and hung it on the horizon. Benny told me it’s the equivalent to the Morning Star and to this day, I think of him whenever I see it.
Benny restored my trust in men. Sure, I’d end up breaking that trust when I showed up at his apartment drunk and wanting to try out certain things with him but that’s the past now. What matters is that we’re together again and this time, it’s for real.
An hour later, I make my way back to my SUV. The other two cars that were there earlier are gone but there’s another one parked right next to mine. I pull out my fob from my fanny pack and unlock the doors, opening the rear passenger door to grab a bottle of water.
“Sarah?”
I almost fall backward at the sound of his voice. I stare at him, unable to believe my eyes. He’s wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, his blond hair hidden under a baseball cap. Aviator sunglasses hide his eyes.
I can’t even hold the bottle of water. It falls to the ground, its contents spilling, soaking through my running shoes. “Ryan, what… what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” he says as I look around. There are no cars for miles. “I heard you’re building a case against me.”
I walk backward, keeping the SUV to my left as Ryan approaches. I reach for my phone from my fanny pack but don’t pull it out. My hands are trembling. “You shouldn’t be here. I filed a restraining order against you.”
Ryan chuckle
s. “Oh, come on, Sarah. I just want to talk. Can’t we talk? We used to talk a lot. You used to tell me everything. Every. Thing. Remember?”
“We broke up, Ryan. And after what you’ve done with those pictures, there’s nothing we need to talk about,” I say, doing my best to sound like I’m not scared because I am. “That’s what lawyers are for.”
“Ah, that’s right. Your lawyers.” Ryan chuckles dryly. “That’s the problem, Sarah. Lawyers make things complicated. Did you know they’ve been at the hospital asking questions? Not only that, but their team of computer experts claim that they were able to trace from which computer the pictures were uploaded from and that they came from me?”
“Because the pictures did come from you,” I say. “In fact, you posted the latest one with my home address. My home address! Why would you do that? It’s been over a year since we broke up, Ryan. Let it go.”
“Why won’t you believe me when I say that my laptop got hacked?” he asks angrily. “I don’t know why you have to be a bitch about this.”
“Tell that to your lawyers, Ryan.” I reach for the door handle but he grabs my hand, knocking my keys to the ground. As I try to grab them, he reaches for me with his other hand and I take a step back. And another and another. My heel hits the curb and I fall to the ground.
Suddenly he springs forward, his fist slamming against my cheek and I see stars. My back hits the ground, the contents of my fanny pack spilling to the ground. My lip gloss, extra scrunchies, my phone.
He lunges again and I push him away, my nails digging into his face, his neck, his arms and he yells, his next punch landing on my shoulder and I roll away from him, fighting back the nausea that hits me. I scramble to my feet, gravel cutting into the skin of my knees and hands. I get up, fall down, and get up again, his fingers catching my hair, pulling my ponytail loose as I propel myself forward.
