by Lym Cruz
The rest of the day was arduous. Focusing had never been so tough, plus the girls texted non-stop for an update. But they’d have to wait.
After my last class, I hurried home to get ready to meet my friends. I had a quick shower and changed into a sleeveless, rosy-pink dress. This was the fastest I’d ever gotten dressed. I called a cab once I was done.
The taxi dropped me off at Erica’s place which was only three blocks from Christina’s. Erica and her father shared the house after her parents’ divorce, long before we met. Her mother moved to San Jose with her new husband and Erica’s younger sister.
The front door was unlocked and I let myself in. “Where are you?” I sang, walking onto the cream tiled floors.
“Kitchen!” Erica yelled.
I followed her voice through the white corridor, rounded the corner to the kitchen. Both girls were sitting by the island eating pretzels in sweatpants and tees. A pile of books was neatly stacked at the far end of the isle. I assumed they were studying or attempting to. I sat next to them and pulled out a pretzel from the box.
“Who’s first?” Christina asked.
“Me.” Erica raised her hand, half-eaten pretzel still in her fingers. “Ian and I broke up. He got pissed ‘cause of Dave’s comment about my hair. We’ve been fighting, like, all the time about it. He wouldn’t let it go and even implied that I was seeing Dave.”
I missed that part while I had my own discussion with Andrew. Apparently, Dave noticed Erica’s shorter bangs and commented on it and Ian didn’t like the way he looked at her. If Ian thought that way about Erica, then it was good that they had broken up. Erica was too honest to cheat on anyone and besides, she couldn’t control how others looked at her.
I raised a brow as both Christina and I leaned in closer to her. “Is there any truth to what Ian said?” I teased her.
“Me? Of all people? No way! I don’t have an unfaithful bone in my body.”
“There’s always a first time for everything,” Christina said, moving closer to her face.
Erica pushed her away. “I don’t even know this David guy. I saw him once at the Bistro and then at the bar.” She raised both her hands. “That’s it, I swear!”
Christina crinkled her nose and moved back, went to the fridge and took out two soda cans and a bottle of water. “Dave is sort of okay, he does ask a lot of questions but he’s doable, and now that you’re single.” She shrugged and lifted her eyebrows. “Who knows?”
“I may be single, but he isn’t.”
“He isn’t?” I took a bite of the pretzel.
“He has a girlfriend.” Pouting, she added, “Monica.”
“How do you know?” I raised both brows. “Since you only saw him twice.”
Erica shot me a look. “Stop it! It came up at the bar.”
“She has the hots for the Dave guy but is too shy to admit it.” Christina slid a can to me and the other to Erica. “Anyway, Ian’s a dick. I never liked him.”
“You never like anyone, Christina,” I said and she simply scratched the bridge of her nose.
“I have to agree with you, Christina,” Mr. Henderson, Erica’s father, said as he entered the kitchen. “You deserve better. A lot better.” Mr. Henderson went around kissing each one of us on the cheek and took out a bottle of water from the fridge and reclined against the sink. “Go on with your conversation, pretend that I’m not here.”
I rolled my eyes. As if that were possible.
“You don’t want to hear what’s coming next, dad.”
“Try me,” Mr. Henderson dared.
Erica and her father had an excellent relationship and they were extremely close. Still, I doubted he wanted to hear what I had to say.
“How about you?” Christina attempted to change the topic. “Any woman in your life yet?”
He laughed. “I have all three of you plus Ally. My hands are already full.”
“So, you’ve never had sex since Mom left?”
Mr. Henderson choked on the water and coughed until his face was entirely red. “That’s not an appropriate question, young lady,” he said and coughed again, patting his chest.
“If this is how you react to such a simple question wait till Melissa starts talking about what she was up to last night.”
Grimacing, I narrowed my eyes at Erica. She offered a sweet smile in return.
“Perhaps, I shouldn’t listen to this.” Mr. Henderson shook his head and left the kitchen.
“We could have gone up to your room,” I snarled. “You didn’t have to do that to the poor man.”
“Who’s next?” Erica continued as if she hadn’t heard me.
“I spent the night at Andrew’s place.”
Christina brought her hand to her forehead with her jaw hanging and sarcastically said, “I would have never guessed.”
“We just slept. Nothing more.”
“We, like, totally believe you.” Erica opened her soda and drank from it, hiding the grin tugging at the sides of her mouth.
“We might have done a little, or he did a little.”
Thinking about it made me all hot again, and images started to flood my memory.
“Was it good?” Christina asked. Her eyes were wide with curiosity.
I covered my face with my hands, knowing a blush covered my cheeks, but Erica pulled them away. “Was it?”
I trapped my lower lip between my teeth nodding. “I can’t stop thinking about it.” But then my grin faded a little. Both girls laughed until they noticed my vanishing smile.
“What?”
“His ex, Ashlyn, showed up.”
“Wait, I’m confused.” Christina shook her head lightly. “Did she show up before, after, or during …?”
I told them all about what happened and the things she said. Andrew had admitted that they were together for almost nine years. That meant they were together when we met. He was at a strip club and took me home whilst having a girlfriend back at home. He did also say they broke up a lot, so maybe they were apart during that time. Damn, I was already making excuses for him.
“Melissa, no ex has anything good to say about their previous boyfriends and that girl is just bitchy.” Christina opinionated, “If you want to fuck him … do it. They’re over. She shouldn’t dictate your sex life.”
“Christina’s right. I broke up with Ian, and I have only horrible things to say about him. So, exes suck.”
“I wanted to do it. Let him have me right there against the door. I even offered to return the favor, but he didn’t allow me to. He was so sweet.”
“Aww,” they both whined theatrically.
“Also, I agreed to do something with Ezra this weekend.”
“What’s new about that?” Christina scoffed, throwing her hair back. “You always agree but never show up.”
“I’m going to go this time. I mean it.”
“Mel’s on a roll.” Erica playfully shoved my shoulder. “Two hunky men at your mercy. God, this is like an episode of The Bachelorette. I wonder who’ll get the rose. Is it the Hip-swayer or the Attorney?”
I felt a meek grin take over my lips. “We’ll have to wait and see at the end of the episode.”
Andrew had the lead. There was a pulse or pull or something that lingered between us. He held me throughout the night, regularly kissing and checking on me while I laid serenely folded in his arms. It was what I imagined happened that night. I couldn’t deny how great it felt. The sense of peace and safeguard he brought about was different from anything I’d experienced. And I wanted to feel it again.
“Okay. Christina’s next.”
“I was with Rob, but then that’s nothing new.”
Erica stood, skipped towards the freezer and retrieved a plastic carton of chocolate ice-cream. “Are you seeing each other or something?” She asked over her shoulder and pulled out bowls from a nearby cupboard.
“You know me. I’m all fun and no feelings.” Christina exhaled a long, pensive breath, and turned to me. “Relat
ionships nowadays are unconventional. If you want Andrew, then go for it. If you want Ezra, then screw his brains out. If you want both, even better. Have fun and go with the flow, once it gets too much get out. Simple as that.”
How Christina did it dumbfounded me. She jumped from one guy to another and never got emotionally attached to them. Ever. It was her special power.
“I’ll suck to that.” Erica raised an ice-cream filled spoon and scooped it into her mouth. “But I’d never do that. In my opinion, you should do one at the time. Put them on a scale and see who weighs more.”
“I wish I had your skinny ass,” Christina murmured, staring at how Erica devoured the ice-cream. Christina may have been the curviest out of the three of us, but she was nowhere near fat. Regardless, she was obsessed with her weight and kept track of every calorie that passed her lips.
“And I wish I had your luscious ass and that I wasn’t this pale,” Erica said, looking at her hands.
“I wish I had straight hair.” I shook my curls.
“People are weird.” Erica chuckled, shaking her head. “It’s, like, we always want what we were born without. I bet if you had naturally straight hair, you’d wish to have it curled and if you ...” She pointed the spoon at Christina. “Had my skinny ass, you’d probably add Botox or something and if I weren’t as pale, I’d be over the moon. We’ll never be happy with what we have, we are always looking to change ourselves.”
We carried our slumber party up to Erica’s room. We all settled on her bed and spent the next hours chatting, laughing, and shoving a hundred pounds of ice-cream down our throats. Even Christina unwound a little and ate.
My phone chimed. I rushed to get it from my bag, excitement coursing through me. Andrew’s name flashed on the screen and I couldn’t help but smile. I unblocked him this morning. Immediately my heart raced as the image of him on his knees sucking softly and attentively on my folds like I was the sweetest thing in the world came to mind. I felt the heat in my cheeks and I blushed profusely.
“You know you’re supposed to answer, right?” Erica teased, drifting me back to reality.
I blinked a couple of times and cleared my throat before accepting the call.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said the second I answered. “What are you doing?”
“Hi. Nothing much, just hanging with the girls.”
“What time will you be done?” I heard what sounded like papers being flipped in the background.
“Hmm.” I raised my shoulder and dropped them as if he could see me. “When I feel like leaving.”
“What do you think of leaving within the next thirty minutes or so?”
My grip fastened around the phone. “Depends on what I’ll be leaving for.”
“To grace me with your company.”
“Booty call,” Christina muttered, followed by a cough. I moved from the bed to sit on a bench next to the window.
Andrew chuckled. “Only company, Mel. I promise.”
“Okay. I’d text you the address but you know exactly where I am.”
Andrew laughed. A low, deep laugh that made my belly flop. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
I ended the call. “He wants to hang out. Nothing more,” I explained before they could pry.
“Mm-hm,” Erica said, grinning. “That’s exactly what he wants.”
Christina laughed. “Nothing more.”
∞∞∞
Andrew laid two plates on the table and unpacked dinner. I had offered to help but he refused and told me to relax. He was in a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. He’d kicked off his shoes by the door and was strolling around in black socks.
Once he’d finished, he sat down and took a bite from his cheeseburger, humming appreciatively. I watched him eat for a while—even his chewing was remarkable. Oh boy! I rolled my eyes at my foolish thoughts. Something was terribly wrong with me.
Andrew frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.” I picked up my burger and looked away. I was not hungry at all, but he went to so much trouble so I ate what I could, stealing glimpses of Andrew juggling between eating and working on his computer. “Still working on the case?”
“Yeah, the parents are shit-heads.”
“How old is the child?”
“I’m not supposed to discuss cases,” Andrew said, then sipped his wine. “but she’s fifteen.”
“Hardly a child at fifteen. I’m sure she knows what she wants. I did. They should consider asking her opinion.”
Using a paper napkin, he wiped his mouth. “What did you want?”
I shrugged, ignoring the knot in my chest. Andrew’s question was casual. He didn’t mean anything by it, but it affected me. I looked down and toyed with the fries on my plate. “I wanted to dance and that got me into trouble.”
Andrew tucked my curls behind my ears and lifted my chin. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I mumbled beneath my breath.
“Did I say something to upset you?”
Avoiding direct eye contact, I tried to smile to disguise my distress. “No, it’s all good.”
He reached for my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Clearly, it’s something, you’re upset.”
Andrew stood, taking me with him, and guided me to the couch. He settled down with one hand encircling my waist and the other fondling with my hair. I rested my head on his shoulder, appreciating the comfort. We sat quietly, neither of us said a word.
The memory of everything I’d been through weighed heavily on my chest. I wanted to shed some light about the night of our first encounter, but at the same time, I didn’t want to talk about it. It was a part of me that I hadn’t shared with anybody else. A part of me that hurt and would probably never stop hurting.
Slowly, I inhaled, pushing down a bulk of emotions that rose whenever my past was brought up. And consequently, my breath became shallow and my palms grew damp.
After a long silence, I spoke, “I began dancing at the age of three, ballet, and by the time I was ten I’d swapped to Latin Ballroom. I fell in love with it and just wanted to dance forever.” I had ripped off the band-aid and I was bleeding from a wound that would never heal. The discomfort in my chest grew as I struggled to get the words out. I exhaled and pushed down on the couch, resting my head on his lap. “At fifteen I wanted to dance in places my father said weren’t fit for me. He never liked me dancing in public.”
At the time, I thought that my father was the enemy and we fought constantly about it. He would only allow me to dance in competitions or in places he deemed as appropriate. Especially, when all of a sudden, I started getting a lot of attention from boys. It was as if I went to sleep one night as a teenage girl and woke up the next morning with the body of a full-grown woman. My hips got wider, my waist narrowed, and my ass and boobs made an appearance.
“When I was sixteen, I met this guy, Dominic, he was an event promoter or something. He would always hang around my dance studio. One day he approached me and offered to turn me into the next big thing … he made a whole lot of promises. I avoided him for a while but then I gave into temptation and agreed to work with him. I naïvely trusted that he could help me reach my dreams.”
Andrew cleared all the hair away from my face. “Let me guess? It wasn’t what you expected.”
“At first it was. I danced for massive crowds in festivals, always wearing a mask because of my age. I had a body that led most people to believe I was older but my face … Even with all the makeup sometimes gave me away. I used a different name to make sure my father never figured it out. Dancing on large stages was exhilarating, an inexplicable thrill. Then the crowds got smaller and so did the costumes. The first time Dominic took me to a club for a show, I knew that something wasn’t right.”
Reliving that moment caused my gut to twist. The memory was nauseatingly painful. God, I was so stupid then.
“I refused to dance there and he was okay with it. He said he understood, but then I was offered some type of
drink and I can’t remember what happened next. The following day I woke up completely naked with an envelope next to me, it had my name on it.” My voice broke, my throat tightened and I could feel a wave of tears uprising causing a sting in my eyes. I blinked back the tears and swallowed. “I opened the envelope and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There were pictures of me naked, and others with random men all over me and a note that said: ‘Go to this address at nine or your parents and everyone you know will see these. We have videos too.’”
Recalling all of this was painful. I felt the first tear roll down the side of my face and I couldn’t stop them once they began. I fought to hold them back, but the more I did, the faster they came. I raised my hands to my face trying to hide the tears but failed. Andrew kissed my forehead and raked my hair, trying to calm me down.
“I should have just told my parents, but I was afraid of their reaction, especially my father’s. He saw me as his little star, and I didn’t want to disappoint him.” Choked by tears, I swallowed thickly. “I went to the address, and from there it all started.”
“I’m so sorry, Mel. I’m sorry this happened to you.”
I gazed at his brown eyes. They were heavily wreathed with sadness. I looked away, it was difficult enough trying to contain my own emotions, looking at Andrew only made it harder. I’d never felt as exposed and ashamed as I did now. But I felt that I could trust him. His eyes told me so. I wanted him to know all there was to me.
“I had only four clients. One politician, two American businessmen, and some rich Italian kid. Some of us only had high-class clients because of our upbringing. We were well-mannered and dominated foreign languages. We didn’t work on the streets; we were exclusive to certain clients and we danced at special parties only. The more time went by, the deeper I got in, and the harder it was to leave that life.”
“Didn’t your parents notice?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t work every day. It was mostly on weekends or private parties like the one you attended or when one of my clients needed me. It was during a time my father traveled a lot on business, my mother went with him most of the time and my older brothers were too busy being young and foolish to have noticed. Also, I mastered sneaking in and out of the house in the middle of the night without getting caught.”
