Man Hands

by Sarina Bowen

  “I’ll do whatever it takes, honey. Calm down.”

  “I WILL NOT CALM DOWN!” I don’t even know why he’d tell me to calm down. Oh wait, maybe I do. I’m shouting and vibrating like a scared Chihuahua.

  “Will you come inside with me? I need to call my agent and make sure she gets to the bottom of this.”

  “O-k-k-kay,” I say, as my teeth chatter. “What if my mother sees it?” Actually, I can’t worry about that yet. She only watches the Home Shopping Network.

  “I know this is bad,” he says. “But I need you to come inside with me so I can try to figure it out.”

  “D-do you have any chocolate?” I whimper. “It’s good for shock.” I ask for chocolate because I’m pretty sure “making a cherry pie and getting fucked on the counter” is off the table.

  “Hmm. I don’t have straight-up chocolate, but I do have it in ice cream form,” he says.

  “Close enough.”

  I follow him inside.

  17 Chocolate Mousse

  Tom

  Brynn is rattled, and it’s all my fault.

  Okay, it’s not really my fault. I never filmed her, and I certainly would never share a video of that on the internet. If I’m ever naked with Brynn again, I’ll hold her as closely as those crazy people on Hoarders cling to their garbage.

  But not in a creepy way. I am not a creep! But, hell, why would this woman ever believe me? We had sex once, and now it’s all over the internet.

  In my kitchen, she’s buzzing around like a nervous bee. And—even worse—I’m out of chocolate ice cream. She’s flinging cabinets open. I don’t mind at all, except that she’s stressed.

  “Aha!” she yells, grabbing a container of Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa.

  “I don’t even know why I have that,” I hedge. My ex must have bought it.

  “Stand back!” she says. “I know what I’m doing.” She tugs the top off and takes a deep, worshipful sniff of the contents.

  “Okay…” I walk slowly backward, leaving her in the kitchen. By the time I’m out of the room she’s grabbed a carton of eggs from the refrigerator and a carton of heavy cream.

  I leave her to it.

  Thirty seconds later I’m on the phone with my agent, Patricia. My agent is one hundred percent Don’t Fuck With Me New Yorker, accent and all. “We found the source,” she says without any preamble. Good ol’ New Yorker. No time for bullshit. “Someone sold it to Like a Hawk.”

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “A skeezy blog. They paid five grand for it.”

  “I’ll pay six to get it back.”

  “You already offered ten,” she says. “They’ll take it. They already had their fun. But it’s been downloaded thousands of times already.”

  “Fuck!”

  “Yes, that’s a good title for it. Nice work, hot buns. Who hates you, anyway?”

  I growl into the phone. But she asks a good question. “Could have been anyone. My college buddy threw the party at my place just because he likes that patio.”

  “So you don’t know who to sue?”

  “Nope. We’ll have to do this your way. But if it’s been downloaded all over hell, why

  buy it back?”

  “When you own the video, you can file takedown notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Thirteen states don’t have laws against nonconsensual porn, so this is your best option.”

  “So they can just violate my girl’s privacy and it’s not even against the law?” I hate the whole world and everyone in it. I hate parallel universes too. That’s how angry I am.

  “Look on the bright side, Tom. This is going to be killer for your ratings. I’ll bet the network is raising the prices on your summer rerun advertising as we speak!”

  My growl is so loud the neighbors probably suspect a bear.

  “Now, now. Chin up. Step back and let me do my job, hon.”

  That’s twice in two minutes that women have asked me to step back. And both of them had their reasons. “Okay,” I say, weariness in my voice. “What else?”

  “Emergency PR meeting tomorrow, first thing. We have to figure out how you want to spin this.”

  “Spin it? I want it gone.”

  “And I want a blue pony and a personal sex god named Sven! Conference call at nine. Be there, big guy.”

  She hangs up, and I just stand there with my phone pressed against my head for another couple of minutes. I’m trying to get the image out of my mind of Patricia riding Sven like a blue pony, and it’s a really hard image to shake off. I’m also seething mad. I need a minute to focus. To breathe. To recalibrate. So I contemplate my big, empty living room. I hate this house. I really do. I renovated it during season nine for a woman who did not want me. And now every day I wander around these rooms, looking at her decor choices, wondering how I could have been so dumb.

  I have to do a whole lot of deep breathing before I go back into the kitchen to check on Brynn. She’s using a big KitchenAid mixer that I am positive has never even been plugged in before. It’s here because of the color—green apple—which looks smashing against the glass tiles.

  “Hi,” I shout over the noise. “Everything okay?”

  It’s totally not, though, and I already know this.

  “It will be!” Brynn shouts back. “In about one and a half minutes.”

  There’s something white and fluffy in the bowl, but I don’t care what it is. I’m too busy being baffled by the sight of the pretty lady in my kitchen. Her spine is straight and her sweet face is calm. She’s operating the giant mixer with the orderly grace of a NASA commander preparing a rocket launch.

  No woman has ever cooked anything in my kitchen before this moment. And I don’t mean just this kitchen. Any kitchen.

  I take a seat on a stool (paint color: distressed nickel) and just watch.

  The view soothes me. Brynn takes a small saucepan of what looks like chocolate syrup off the stove and stirs it lovingly. I don’t recognize any of the utensils or even the pan, even though they’re mine. I don’t really cook.

  My ex didn’t, either, now that I think about it. And yet I’d bought all these things feeling absolutely certain that I could create a happy life on this property with a little wishful thinking and my Amex black card.

  Brynn pours the chocolatey stuff into the white fluffy stuff. Then she uses a paddle-shaped thing to combine them. She’s sort of lifting the fluff over the chocolate in slow, certain strokes.

  I’m getting a little turned on, my dick whispers.

  Huh. I’d actually forgotten about him for a while.

  “What is that you’re making?” I ask quietly, hoping she won’t remember that I’ve probably ruined her peace for the foreseeable future.

  “Chocolate mousse. Do you have parfait cups?”

  “What are those?”

  Without a glance in my direction she turns around and begins opening and shutting cabinets again. It’s a huge kitchen, so this takes a while. “Aha!” she finally says, grabbing two glass dishes that look like extra-sturdy wine glasses. She tips the bowl and sort of encourages the mousse to fill first one cup and then the other. She opens the fridge again and puts the cups inside.

  And then? She licks the paddle. Her tongue comes out and sweeps the chocolate off one edge. Slowly.

  Ungh, my dick says. What about my needs?

  Seriously.

  Her gaze lifts to mine. “Want a lick?”

  “Do I ever,” I rumble. Then I realize she means the chocolate.

  But, hey, when I get a taste, that’s pretty good too. “Wow. You’re amazing.”

  For a split second her face lights up. Then it shuts down again.

  “What did I say?”

  “Men always love the cooking.” She sighs. “Anyway. I feel a little calmer now. Sometimes when I’m really emotional, I cook something and things go back to being balanced. I don’t know why. So. What did your agent say?”

  “She’s working on buying the video back. I’
ll know a lot more tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” she whispers. “I’m trying not to panic prematurely.”

  I rise from the stool and walk around the counter. Then I pull her to my chest. “You’re a trooper, Brynn. I’m going to do my best to clear up this mess as fast as I can.”

  “I know,” she says, sighing against me. Her hair smells like flowers. I want to do that thing I described where I sweep everything off the counter and ravage her. But there are a few little blobs of chocolate goo there now. So if I did, it would ruin her dress.

  Even worse, I don’t think you can ravage someone whose privacy your fans have just invaded. So I give her a tight hug instead.

  “LtsrtChocMss,” she says against my shirt.

  “Hmm?” I lean back so she can breathe and she looks up at me with her wide eyes.

  “Let’s eat chocolate mousse.”

  “Okay.”

  The chocolate mousse is almost as good as an orgasm.

  Not true, my dick argues. But I ignore him.

  Meanwhile, Brynn’s friends are worried about her. They keep texting. “Can you take me home?” she asks with big, scared eyes. “I need to regroup.”

  “Of course,” I say, wishing she’d just come upstairs to bed with me. “There are, uh, photographers at the gate, though.”

  “You don’t think they gave up?” She actually looks scared.

  “Most of them probably did. But there’s always one asshole who hides in the bushes all night.”

  Her eyes narrow. “I thought you said this didn’t usually happen to you.”

  “It doesn’t.” Except for last spring, of course. Ugh. “I have a plan, though. Can you text your friends and ask them to pick you up at Rosie’s Boat Launch across the lake? I can get you there in private.”

  “Yeah?” She looks so relieved that my heart breaks a little. “Sure. At least it’s a plan.”

  18 Kiss De Girl

  Brynn

  After I send my RESCUE ME text to Sadie and Ash, Tom grabs my hand and motions for me to follow him across his shiny marble floors and into the basement. It occurs to me to wonder whether there’s some kind of Fifty Shades of Dungeon down there, but thankfully, there’s not.

  Although I wouldn’t mind having Tom as a slave, rubbing my feet. While wearing nothing but a tie. That. Would. Be. Hot.

  We whip by some unfinished rooms. This house may be a mansion, but it’s all cold. Not just the floors, but the walls and the ceiling and the perfect accessories and the perfectly placed splashes of color. It’s like walking quietly through the pages of a magazine. It’s a little bit eerie, to tell the truth.

  After an hour, and maybe that’s an exaggeration, he takes me into this tunnel. I shit you not. And we end up in the boathouse. Yes. The Boathouse.

  I start to hyperventilate.

  “Are you hyperventilating?” he asks.

  Fuck.

  He digs around and hands me a paper bag. Tom is an absolute boy scout. I control my breathing while remembering that night when we fucked at first sight. It’d be a purely amazing memory if I couldn’t now envision the creeper outside the window with their phone. To make sure there isn’t an actual creeper there now, I peek out, but we’re safe. And while I did all of that, Tom has rattled around a bit and tosses something slightly damp and bulky over my shoulders. Then he starts zipping me up and tying me into it. See? Fifty Shades!

  Or a life jacket.

  “After the night we’ve had, I just want to be extra safe,” he says. I agree. If ever there was a night when I’d be struck by lightning in a watercraft, it would be tonight.

  I look at the sleek wooden boat or yacht or what have you, and my eyes get a little misty.

  “Is that—?” I can’t finish the sentence. He’s going to whisk me away in that? Hell yes! It’s all my wildest BBC fantasies come true, but first I need to toss water over him so his shirt is sticking to him and I can see his Man Chest through the wonderfully transparent shirt…

  “Ah, no,” he whispers. “That.” He points. To an actual blow-up dinghy.

  And naturally I giggle at the phrase “blow-up dinghy.”

  “It’s not very romantic,” he says, “but honestly, I’m a pretty practical guy.”

  He’s practical, gorgeous, and he can lift a dinghy with his bare hands!

  I giggle again.

  We tiptoe to the beach and he gently slides the dinghy into the water. He offers me his hand and I gingerly step in, then almost fall over because me and coordination do not mix. “Whoa!” he says and steadies me with those Man Hands of his. Then he says, “Shhhhh,” and we both go still and quiet, listening for any prowling paparazzi, but there aren’t any. Or if they’re prowling, they’re upstairs peeking into windows. There are a lot of windows at his mansion, so we should be good for a while. I sit down, and he gives the boat a shove and nimbly jumps in.

  For a moment we just glide across the water, then he begins to paddle, the oar dipping into the water with a plop. Then there’s a slight whoosh of water and the lapping of the waves. The stars twinkle in the sky above us, and any minute I am certain there’s going to be a crab popping up and singing to us to kiss.

  Too much Disney in my life. No wonder I’m not the practical one in this dinghy.

  I sit there quietly, trying to wrap my head around the night’s adventures.

  I should be feeling all sorts of things right now. And I am, just not the things you’d expect. I should be mad at him for the video and pissed at whoever posted it and terrified that I’m looking for a job while my ass is getting splashed all over the internet.

  But what I really feel? Right now in this moment, in the center of the lake, with Tom rowing me to safety? I feel…content. I feel safe.

  I never felt safe with Steve. With him, I felt like I was a weight clinging to his legs, trying to pull him under.

  I clear my throat because I’m sad again all of a sudden. And this lifejacket is chafing me.

  We make it to the other side of the lake without sinking, and really, without saying a word. When we pull up, an SUV flashes its lights twice. There’s a pause, and then Ash does that whisper-shout thing of “WE’RE HERE!”

  “GOT IT!” I whisper-shout back. Then they flash the lights three more times in case I’ve had a brain injury in the last ten seconds.

  “Okay, then,” I say. I’m not sure what to do. We’d had a fun time, he got me all heated, I was traumatized by that video, and now I’m on the beach of Reed’s Lake making my quick escape. “See ya,” I offer lamely and turn toward Ash, Sadie, and the babies.

  “Hey! Wait!” he says, and my heart does a little jump.

  I turn to him and wait.

  “The lifejacket?”

  “Oh.”

  He reaches for me and unclips the jacket, and it falls off me. It sorta feels like I’m standing here naked now. I guess, symbolically, I am.

  “Listen, I’m really sorry about tonight and I promise you…I promise I’ll fix this.”

  I raise my eyebrow in a question. “But can you Fixit Quick?”

  He smiles. It’s that fuckable smile I’ve caught a glimpse of a couple of times now, and it makes me throb. In my lady bits.

  “Well, that is technically my name. I’ll figure out something by tomorrow, okay?”

  The horn blares and we jump and Ash, apparently fed up with the incognito spy life shouts, “Oh for fuck’s sake, kiss her already!”

  He does.

  It’s soft. Sweet. Slow.

  Then he jumps into his dinghy and escapes.

  My hero! In his dinghy.

  I giggle again because, come on, dinghy is just a ridiculous word.

  19 To Whom It May Concern, Those Are My Panties

  Brynn

  I’m a maelstrom of emotions. Maelstrom. Which is sorta like male storm, and isn’t that appropriate? So my emotions are swirling in my mind like mad, along with the image of me being fucked by the very masculine, and handy, Tom. I’d be turned on if I weren’t
mortified. I am mortified. I’m mortified and a mess, and this is not the state to be in when I’m trying to write an email seeking a tenure-track position in teaching. Or any track position. No one wants professors anymore, least of all professors who specialize in narrative and expository essays.

  And who better to mold young, malleable minds than naked, humping me?

  At any rate, I’ve got to focus and take care of my life, and taking care of my life means pulling up my big-girl panties (they’re sporting chicks today, but fuck it) and get that job.

  TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

  I am seeking a tenure-track position in English Literature and Language.

  My specialty is poetry and being fucked by a stranger in a boathouse,

  Because that’s poetry, man.

  Yeah.

  Probably not the impression I want to make.

  Delete.

  TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

  I am seeking a tenure-track position, but I’ll basically take anything, except an adjunct position, because, come on, you can afford to pay someone a decent wage.

  FYI, I was fired from my last teaching job not just because of downsizing, but because the universe fucking hates me. And if you Google my name to see if I’ll be a good influence on your students, you’ll see how passionate I am about…

  TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

  Please consider me for an adjunct position. I’m real smart. Smartitude. That’s me.

  TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

  There’s no way you’re going to hire me. Not in a million years. Not with me spread-eagle and grunting in a boathouse. Not with that close-up of my panties with the bunnies on them. I’m the worst mistake you could ever make, and no student will take me seriously.