My movements become even stronger and more deliberate. With each thrust I go deeper and deeper inside of her, and she takes me further and further into herself. And then, when my heart rate speeds up, so does the movement of her hips. We grind against one another until I finally feel gravity pull away from me.
“Aurora!” I yell.
“Henry!” she screams back.
We stayed up way too late the night before, and I feel it this morning. When the alarm clock goes off, my head throbs.
I haven't gotten up this early since I was a teacher, but this is one meeting that I cannot miss. Aurora is still in bed when I leave at eight o'clock sharp.
Luckily, I had ironed and prepared my outfit the day before, I even ironed my tie. The suit had cost me a fortune, but it is not very expensive.
My only hope is that it doesn't look cheap. I know that I'm not applying for a position at an investment bank or some customer facing job that requires me to look like a million bucks.
It’s a writing job and writers should have a certain sense of realness to them, right? Kind of like a man of the people?
Walking through the marble tiled lobby and taking the elevator to the 16th floor of a glass office that looks over Manhattan, I'm not so sure.
After a brief wait, a man by the name of Franklin Parks invites me into his office. He is tall and broad shouldered with good looking features but has an effect to him that makes me feel off.
His eyes are bloodshot with dark circles, indicating that he either stayed up all night working or partying. I'm not entirely sure which.
He looks at my resume as if it is the first time he has ever seen it.
“So, it looks as if you have spent quite a little bit of time teaching,” he says. “What was that like?”
“It was very rewarding,” I say. This is my standard explanation.
“And why is it that you are applying at a job here?”
“Well, to be honest, teaching has never been a big passion of mine. I mean, I enjoy spending time with children, but I have always wanted to be a writer. Teaching just happened to be the job that I got right after college and something that I just kept doing.”
“So, what's different now?” he asks.
“Well, I heard about this new division starting up and I saw that there were a lot of research writing positions, which I think I will be perfect for.”
“Have you ever done anything like that before?”
“No, I haven't, but I have a lot of experience writing research papers and conducting research in college. I did my thesis on—.”
“What sort of writing have you had published?” Mr. Parks asks me, appearing completely uninterested in my exaggerated research experience.
“I have attached a few short stories there. One of them was published by the New Yorker.”
“Wow, The New Yorker. Isn't that like the Holy Grail for a short story writer?”
"Yes, actually it is.”
“Given all of your experience, you think you’ll be okay with writing just true crime?”
“Yes, of course,” I say, nodding my head. “Those are important stories to tell, especially the unsolved ones. The public has a lot of interest in them as well so I see it as a win-win.”
Franklin skims my resume again and then gets up from behind the table and walks over to the elegant wooden sideboard with glass cut outs. Glass bottles of liquor crowd the top shelf and he pours himself a tumbler of vodka.
“Would you like anything?” he asks.
I don't want to remind him of the fact that it's not even ten o'clock in the morning, but I politely decline.
“Suit yourself,” he says with a shrug. “But you would be joining me if you had the kind of night that I had last night.”
“Oh, yeah?” I ask. “Do I dare ask?”
“Well, I went out with this girl.”
“Did it go well?”
“Not exactly,” he says, tossing his head back and laughing. “I've had an eye on her for quite some time. She's one of those girls who happened to say no to me and as you probably know, those are the ones that stick in your mind the most.”
I give him a slight knowing nod.
“The thing that's really fucked up is that I have a somewhat complicated relationship with her parents. Let's just say that her father owes me a favor, a big favor. Things are not looking so well for him and it looks like everything that he has worked for will be going up in flames really soon.”
“That’s too bad.”
“I really shouldn't be talking about this,” Franklin says, waving his hand.
“I'm all ears,” I say, sitting back in the chair, trying to make him feel comfortable.
“You know, of course, that this is the booze talking, right?”
He's asking me this because he's trying to look for a way out. He has already said too much and he's full of regret. Act as if none of that really matters.
I don’t particularly want to hear anymore, but it's the only way that I think I'm going to land this job.
“Anyway,” Franklin says, “Cutting this very long story short, let me just say that I wanted to go out with her for a very long time and last night I finally got my wish.”
“Was it everything that you had wished for?”
“No, and yes.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Well, it's hard to explain exactly. She shot me down and it was quite a sight to see, but it just made me want her even more. This may sound like I'm bragging, but I haven't had many experiences with women saying no to me. And I found it utterly irresistible.”
“Really? I've had a few women turn me down and I found it to be mostly embarrassing and humiliating.”
He looks at me, and then laughs from the pit of his stomach. “You know what? You're funny,” he says.
“Hey, I'm only telling it like it is.”
“Hmm, maybe that's what I was experiencing all along,” Franklin pauses. “What did you call it, a little bit of humiliation and a lot of embarrassment? Is that what it is? When they say no to you and it's all you can do to try to convince them that they’re wrong?”
“The thing is that sometimes they're just not interested,” I say, feeling our conversation drifting.
“No," Franklin says, definitively. "That's where you're wrong. They may not want you right now, but that doesn't mean that they won't change their mind. Besides, you know how it is in the movies. The guy that they have the most tension with, the one that they claim to hate, that's the one that they always end up with.”
I clench my jaw and look away.
“That's just what happens in the movies,” I say. “That's not really what they want.”
Franklin finishes his drink and puts it down on the table, making a loud clicking sound.
"I am very glad that you came here to see me, Henry Asher.I wasn't sure what you could bring to the table really, but now I know that we have been brought together for a reason.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Really. The thing is that you have a lot to learn from me. A lot.”
My hands form into fists, but I don't say anything in response.
“The thing is that in this life, Henry, you have to go after whatever it is that you want. Be it a job or a woman. You can't take no for an answer. Otherwise you'll never get what you want.”
The next day, I find out that I got the job. I’m glad, of course, but a part of me is concerned. He is the last person that I'm interested in working for and yet he's the only one who is giving me a chance to do what I want.
I decide not to tell Aurora about what really happened at the interview and simply celebrate the fact that I have a job that pays over forty grand a year with benefits.
“I knew that you would get this job, I just knew it.” Aurora gushes over dinner at a swanky midtown restaurant that we avoided like the plague before tonight.
“Well, I wasn't so sure. It was really helpful that you had gone over some of thos
e popular true crime stories that all the podcasts are covering,” I reassure her. “He really liked the pitch that I put forth.”
This part is true, even though the rest of what I told her is not. When our wine arrives, I promise myself that this is going to be the last time that I'm going to lie to her about anything. From this point forward, I'm only going to tell her the truth. Little did I know how difficult keeping that promise would turn out to be.
23
Aurora
Henry got the job. It's hard to believe. In fact, I'm still in shock over it. Why would Franklin hire my boyfriend to work for him? The only possible explanation is that he doesn't actually know that I am Henry's girlfriend.
I search my mind for everything that I told him and then for anything that my mother could have. No, I'm certain that if Franklin knew that Henry is my boyfriend, he would not have hired him. But then again…
What if he did?
I ask Henry for details of what happened in the interview and he becomes evasive. There is something that he's not telling me, but I have no choice but to let it go.
I'm happy for him. And after all, it's not just Franklin who made the decision to hire him. I'm certain that my father has had some amount of influence. Maybe, that's why. Maybe despite what Franklin wanted, my father had insisted that they give Henry the position to help me.
Despite the fact that I am happy that Henry’s now doing what he loves, and he really does love it, I miss our days off doing nothing. Well, not completely nothing. I'm still going to classes and working on my thesis, but I miss having him at home to hang out with.
After we were evicted from his apartment, my parents let us move into my old one, which they of course have not rented out like they said they would. They sent their assistant over to help us get settled, and the moving guys lugged all of our stuff from one place to another.
“I can't believe that you don't actually move when you move,” Henry said with a wide grin on his face.
I rolled my eyes. Honestly, the perks of being upper class have still not gotten old.
When we first make the move, everything is great. Henry works long hours, but we're trying to carve out whatever time we can in our schedules.
I miss him and he misses me and we make up for it with intense love-making sessions in the shower and in the kitchen and everywhere else, just like we did when we first moved in together.
But then, as the weeks turn into months, something changes. His hours get longer and longer as he works on one deadline after another. He starts to travel. At first, it's someplace local like Long Island or Albany or Rhode Island. But then his travels take him to Chicago and Iowa and even Nevada, and I don't see him for weeks on end.
When he does return, things are different. We spend time together, but we are out of sync. There are things that I do around the house that are in complete contrast to what he thinks I should be doing, and there are things that he does that annoy the hell out of me.
I keep telling him that we should reconnect and we promise to try.
We go on dates. At first, we go to the movies, dinner, and after a while, when we get really tired, we just Netflix and chill. The only problem is that after all this time apart the chill part is no longer a metaphor for sex. We curl up on the couch, each taking a separate side, and fall sleep, like old friends, or even worse, distant roommates.
Still, we stay together. We are going through what I assume is just a dry spell. It's bound to get better. People have been through a lot worse and have made it to the other side. But the more weeks that pass, the harder it becomes. With each trip, he gets further and further away from me until one day, I've had enough.
“I don't think that we should live together anymore,” I say when he gets home from his trip to Nebraska.
“What are you talking about?” he asks.
“I don't know, but I don't feel like we're a couple anymore. Do you?”
“Listen, I'm really tired,” he says, shaking his head. “I just took the red-eye home and I can't talk to you about this right now.”
I know that this is the wrong time to bring it up, but I've been thinking about this ever since he's been gone and I didn’t want to talk about it over FaceTime.
“Can we get back to this tomorrow?” he asks.
I give him a slight nod and open my computer back up. I have so much work to do on my thesis, and yet I can't seem to focus. I haven't written a word in two weeks.
The following morning, he sleeps in late, and I go to class. When I get back, he's no longer there. Franklin has asked him to cover a breaking story.
“That's the gist of the text message that I got,” I tell Ellis over dinner.
I've called three other friends, but no one was available to talk. Ellis who had just broken up with her boyfriend was more than happy to go out on a girls’ night and have a few drinks and rag on some guys.
“He's an asshole,” she says quickly.
I shrug. “He's just working too hard and this job is taking over his life.”
Ellis shakes her head. “All the guys in this city are the same,” she insists. “I used to date a hedge fund manager, and he only came over to fuck. Actually, come to think of it, it was probably one of my most honest relationships.”
I laugh nervously, too embarrassed to tell her that it has been months since Henry and I have done it. At first, it was just the one thing that kept us together and gave our relationship some spice and then it was the thing that drove us apart.
I had so many resentments toward him for being away, the last thing I wanted to do was to have sex with him when he got back.
“I'm sure it will get better,” Ellis says, not very convincingly. “Either that, or maybe you should just dump him and find someone without a high-powered job.”
“That's the whole problem,” I say. “I'm glad that he is pursuing his dreams, but I just wish that he had a little bit more time for me in the process.”
“What can I say?” Ellis asks. “You know how I feel about guys, what one man can do another can as well.”
It’s a cynical way of thinking about relationships but then again, Ellis doesn't get hurt easily, so maybe she's on to something.
Still, I don’t want to give up. Not this easily and not without a fight. My phone vibrates and I look down at the screen.
“I need to talk to you,” Henry texts and I pay my bar tab.
When I get home, I brace myself for another fight disguised as a disagreement, but he surprises me. He takes me into his arms and kisses me and tells me that he's going to be better and that he will make it all good again. I take him back and our bodies fall into that familiar dance.
He runs his fingers up and down my sides and makes me feel alive. I try to protest, but my legs open up for him on their own.
This time, we don't make it to the bedroom. Our clothes come off only halfway and he presses me against the kitchen counter, bending me in half.
Still wearing the stilettos I wore to dinner I am the perfect height for him to come at me from behind. His hands search hungrily for my breasts and his lips kiss mine in that sloppy way that only two people completely overwhelmed by their senses can.
This time I don't need the blindfold or the tie around my wrists.
This time I just let myself go and I take off immediately.
I want him so much that I can't even stop if I had wanted to.
He moans my name soon after I scream his. Afterward we lie in each other’s arms on the hard tile for a few minutes, catching our breath. When he reaches over, he kisses me and we go again.
24
Aurora
I had hoped that night would have changed things, but two days later he is sent on a story to Kentucky and the distance engulfs me like a tsunami.
We text and FaceTime, but only occasionally, when he has a few minutes here and there. I know that couples in previous decades have endured longer separations with less technological connections, but this relationship is t
oo new and I need more reassurance.
In addition to writing articles, Henry is now hosting a True Crime podcast that he researches and records himself, having only nominal producing help. This is a great opportunity for him. His following is growing and he is really making a name for himself in the space, but that doesn't change the fact that we continue to drift further and further apart.
Finishing my thesis is an uphill battle. I waste time on Instagram and real brick and mortar bookstores reading books for pleasure rather than for analysis. Eventually, during the last two months of the semester, I really force myself to focus and finish it.
My presentation is scheduled for May fifth at two in the afternoon. I have to summarize all the research and the findings that I have done and take questions from the public. Technically, anyone can attend a PhD defense, including students, teaching assistants, professors, and even deans at the university.
I am not big on public speaking, meaning that I actually despise it, so I hope that my time slot does not prove to be particularly enticing for the university community.
When I show up to the empty lecture hall, I let out a brief sigh of relief, only to be unpleasantly surprised to discover that I’m in the wrong room. When it's almost time for me to present, and there’s still no one here, I double check the room number, and realize that mine is across the hall.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
Peering through the little window in the door, I see that the room is packed.
I take a deep breath and try to block out every negative thought that creeps into my subconscious.
They are not going to laugh at me.
They are not going to make fun of me.
Everything is going to be fine.
I'm not going to embarrass myself.
When I open my mouth and start to talk, slowly but surely, my anxiety begins to dissipate.
Dangerous Engagement (Wedlocked Trilogy Book 1) Page 12
