Complicated Girl

by Mimi Strong

  I’ve got a terrible feeling he wants to make love to me. Like, the whole deal, with looking into my eyes and saying sweet things. Saying my name. Loving me. And then later finding out I’m not worth all those things he thought he felt.

  I give him an eyebrow waggle, and then get into position on my hands and knees. “How do you feel about doggie style?”

  He licks his lips and looks over my body. I shake my hips, and watch as his desire to make love morphs into something I can handle.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve never had the chance. I told you, my history hasn’t been that adventurous.”

  “Well, saddle up. What are you waiting for?”

  He pushes down his boxers and rolls the condom on. My body tingles with anticipation. He gets in place behind me and pauses.

  “Um… did you mean…”

  I look over my shoulder. “Not the back door. Not unless you…?”

  “Ah. Sorry. Just the regular one, then. Of course, of course.”

  He slides the tip in hesitantly. I push back impatiently.

  “Oh, that’s nice,” he says.

  I whip my head around to give him a dirty look. “Nice? Don’t make me kick you out of this bed.”

  He gives me a frustrated look. “What do you want?”

  “Reach your hand up to the base of my head, grab my hair, and then give it to me like you mean it.”

  He reaches for my hair and growls. “Like I mean what?”

  “It’s just something people say. Hey, didn’t you promise to spank me? You did. Right in front of everyone at the group.”

  He lets go of my hair and slaps my ass. “Like this?”

  My inner walls clench at him, answering his question. He thickens inside me and thrusts pleasurably. We both groan.

  He laps my butt again, making me cry out in surprise, but not pain. I clench again, and he keeps moving, driving himself into me.

  “Again,” I beg, and he does it. He smacks me with a flat hand, first hard and then soft, massaging me in between.

  I grab both of the pillows from the bed and hold on to them for support while he drives himself into me, rocking me so hard I can feel my face shake.

  Just as he’s coming, he gets a flash of inspiration and reaches around to glide his fingers around in front of where he’s filling me. He finds the spot and takes me with him, over the edge.

  “Oh, Megan,” he groans, and I come with him.

  I feel so dirty, with my name washing over me.

  “Megan,” he says softly.

  I shake and shudder like the last leaf on a tree, caught in a howling windstorm.

  “Megan.”

  I let go.

  Clutching the pillows tight to my chest, I moan, “Drew.”

  Chapter 20

  Drew takes a shower in the main bathroom, and I use my mother’s bathroom. The room smells a little funky, which makes me think the water in the P-trap under the shower has dried up, so it’s probably a good thing I’m using her shower.

  With the fan on and the window open, the room is perfectly fresh within minutes. I shower quickly, because I don’t want Drew snooping around the house without me. There are certain things I might have in certain drawers, and I don’t want to have to explain them. Some of those things have batteries. Those things, and my relationship with them, is between me and the company that sends them to the house in plain brown boxes.

  Once I’m all showered, I grab Drew’s clothes from my bedroom floor. There are grass stains on his trousers.

  In the laundry room, I put some pre-wash stain treatment on the grass stains before tossing everything into the washing machine.

  I’m in the kitchen when he comes out of the bathroom wearing the gray unisex sweatpants and white T-shirt I sent him in with.

  “Sexy,” I say, whistling.

  “This is very casual for me.”

  “I won’t tell anyone, Mr. GQ.”

  He frowns. “Why do people call me that? Some of the hygienists at the practice call me that if I’m wearing a new suit. It’s emasculating to call a guy that, just because he likes to look stylish. I don’t go around calling them Miss Vogue if they buy a new skirt.”

  “They’d probably like it if you did.” I nod toward the table by the window. “You can sit. I’ll make you breakfast.”

  I’m at the sink, and he comes up behind me and puts his arms around me. He nuzzles my neck. “Let’s make breakfast together.”

  I scrunch my neck and shoulder together to push him away gently. His touch is way too intimate, and we’ll never get breakfast if he keeps this up.

  He pulls away with a chuckle. “Tell me where the coffee stuff is.”

  While I start getting some English muffins ready, I give him instructions on where to find the coffee supplies. He measures out the coffee grounds and water like he’s a high school chemistry teacher making crystal meth.

  Once we have breakfast made, and Muffin has been served his soft canned food, we sit together at the breakfast nook. The large window faces the back yard.

  “My sister lives there,” I say flicking my chin at the converted garage that’s now a cottage. “She’s one year older than me, but she’s got a boyfriend now, so we can’t set her up with your brother, as cute as that would be for us and double dating.”

  He chuckles. “I’d never set a girl up with my brother.”

  “Does he prefer dudes? I only have the one sister, but I do have a gay cousin.”

  Drew gives me a sideways look. “No, he likes girls. He likes a lot of girls.”

  “He’s the opposite of you.” I grab the jam and spoon some onto my toasted English muffin, and then onto his.

  “You sure make a lot of assumptions.” He leans back in his chair and takes a sip of his coffee. “Like you assume I want jam on that, and that I can’t spoon it on myself.”

  I stop what I’m doing and stare up at him. Is he serious? I’m being nice here, making him breakfast, and he’s going to grind my gears over some jam?

  I bring his English muffin to my mouth and start licking it. He watches, his expression a complicated mix of amusement and horror. Once I’m finished licking off every bit of jam, I set the English muffins back in front of him. He keeps sipping his coffee.

  I pull out my phone and chew away contentedly on my own breakfast while I check my text messages and stuff. My sister is working at the flower shop today, so I have the whole day off. What am I going to do? I could bake something. I send Rory a message asking if she wants to hang out. Her schedule is usually relaxed during the week.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as Drew opens the peanut butter and coats his English muffin, then takes a bite.

  “How’s that taste?” I ask.

  “Perfect,” he says. “The saliva blends nicely with the peanut butter.”

  “You’re kind of a dick sometimes, aren’t you?”

  “I can’t say the thing you are sometimes, because I’m a gentleman.”

  “Stop being such a dick. You’re making my nipples hard right now, and I don’t need you wearing out my you-know-what. You’re probably stretching it out with your big thing.”

  “I didn’t hear any complaints this morning. Or last night, when I was begging to go to sleep, and you wouldn’t let me.”

  I snort. “Right. Funny, that’s not how I remember it.”

  We go back to eating our breakfast, the sexual tension and animosity hanging in the air.

  After a few minutes, I casually stretch my arms over my head, and then pull off the sweater I had on over my T-shirt. I smooth down the shirt and cough to get his attention.

  Drew looks at my shirt, and his jaw stops moving, mid-chew.

  I’m wearing the I ♥ BJ shirt.

  Drew watches me as I grab the jam jar, dip my finger into the jam and then slowly suck it off my finger.

  His gray sweatpants give him no privacy at all. I can see him rising to my challenge.

  I lick some more jam as he watches, th
en I get up from my chair and kneel down in front of him. I give him an innocent look as I nuzzle my face along his thighs, moving up.

  After teasing him with gentle nudges for a few minutes, I reach up and pull down the sweatpants. He closes his eyes as I lean forward and pretend he’s got jam all over him.

  His body is all tension and urgency, and I enjoy having the control. I take it slow, easing him into relaxation and drawing it out. I take a short break and look up at him. The words come from my mouth without any pre-thought: “Say my name. Tell me what I am. Angel or devil?”

  “Megan,” he says softly. “You’re a devil and an angel all wrapped up in one, Megan.”

  Smiling, I take him back into my mouth and drive him to completion.

  Even though I’m not technically the one being satisfied, I feel very satisfied by the time I help him pull his sweatpants back up.

  “That was great,” he says. “You’re too good to me.”

  “I know. What can I say? I can be a really nice girl.” I take my seat again, the heat of my arousal comfortably contained, like fireflies in a jar.

  He finishes his coffee and pours another cup from the carafe.

  “So, this weekend,” he says, picking up on the conversation from two sex acts ago. “Dinner on Saturday night at six?”

  “Only if you tell me where you live.”

  He chuckles. “I think I’m willing to take the security risk.”

  The washing machine interrupts us with its load-finished chime.

  Drew follows me down toward the laundry room, and I give him a tour of the rest of the house along the way.

  “Great house,” he says with admiration. “When did you say your mother was coming back?”

  I open the washing machine and start pulling out the clothes we were wearing last night.

  “She might never come back. The woman just loves Europe, apparently.”

  “Do you miss her? My parents live ten blocks away from me. I can’t imagine them being gone for so long.”

  I keep moving, putting the clothes into the dryer. I stop on Drew’s trousers. “Uh-oh. The grass stains on the knees didn’t wash out.”

  “Did you pre-treat them?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Did you let the stuff sit for twenty minutes before you put them in the wash?”

  “Sort of,” I say, which is a lie. I threw them straight in. “Don’t worry, I’ll run them through again.”

  Drew pulls the other wet clothes back out of the dryer. “What’s going on here? These are all different colors. Don’t you sort by colors?”

  I squirt the pre-wash on Mr. Fussbucket’s grass stains. “Calm down, dude. There’s nothing bright red in there. I’m not a complete idiot.”

  He pulls out his dress shirt and scowls at it. “There’s a grass stain on the elbow of this shirt.”

  I snatch it from his hand. “Fine. I’ll pre-treat that one too, even though it’s barely visible.”

  “Don’t get huffy. I’m not mad at you. I just don’t want to go into work late, doing the walk of shame with grass stains on my clothes. People will talk.”

  I empty the rest of the bottle of stain remover on Drew’s grass stains, then keep squeezing, making the plastic bottle fart noisily.

  “Let them talk.”

  He lets out an exasperated sigh. “I’m actually running out of time. Do you mind if I borrow these sweats? I’ll just swing by my house on the way to work.”

  “Come with me. My mother’s got some guy clothes in her room.”

  Drew seems reluctant, but I grab his hand and haul him along behind me.

  We go into my mother’s room, where Drew sits on the edge of the bed while I open up the second closet—the one my mother doesn’t actually use.

  Drew looks surprised by what’s in the second closet. “There’s a whole wardrobe in there, and it’s not bad.”

  I shrug. “I guess the guy had good taste.” I start laying some dress shirts and trousers on the bed.

  “I almost hate to ask, but… why would someone leave so many clothes behind? These aren’t brand new, but they’re nice. Did your mother’s boyfriend… pass away?”

  “My mother’s never had a boyfriend. Not until now, in Europe. With the Italian or the Jamaican or whoever it is.”

  I hold one of the light brown shirts up to Drew’s neck. This khaki shade is a good color on him, but he’s so cute, I can’t imagine any color looking bad.

  He takes the shirt from my hands, and then takes both my hands in his. He’s still sitting on the edge of the bed, and I’m standing in front of him. Does he want to fool around again, already? Grinning, I move forward and sit on his lap. I lean down for a kiss, but he pulls his face away.

  “Whose clothes are these?” he asks.

  “Does it matter?”

  “You tell me.”

  I push back and get off his lap. It was stupid of me to bring him in here. I should have let the pre-wash soak on the grass stains. I’m always so stupid and impulsive and impatient.

  “Talk to me,” he says.

  I take the khaki shirt off the hanger and toss it on the bed next to him, along with a pair of dark brown slacks. The other clothes, I put back in the closet, back to where they came from.

  “I don’t like to talk about it,” I say.

  He crosses his arms. “I’m not leaving this room until you do.”

  “Just go. You can’t be late for work. You have an important job. People are waiting for you. Patients. You don’t have time for my dumb stuff.”

  “You’re wrong. My job isn’t that important. Not today, anyway. They can reschedule my appointments, or my partners can take over for me today. Meenie, I think there’s a reason I got grass stains on my clothes.”

  I chortle. “There sure is. The reason is that you’re an insatiable sex beast, and you had to take me on my lawn because you couldn’t wait another minute to get your hands on—” I slap my hips twice for emphasis. “—all of this booty.”

  Drew’s face is still serious, his brown eyes drawing me to him. “Look at me. Look at us. We’re here together because both of us went to a self-help group—a self-help group we didn’t mean to go to. You thought it was a weight loss group, and I thought I was going to a seminar on investing.”

  “Investing? No, that’s at the other end of the community center. And it’s a terrible group. They don’t even have snacks.”

  “Can you be serious for a minute?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Try.”

  I take a deep breath and sit down on the carpet, cross-legged. I put my palms together and calmly say, “Om. Serious.”

  Drew slides off the end of my mother’s bed and sits in front of me, also cross-legged.

  “You’re flexible,” I comment.

  “I really was going there for an investment seminar. As soon as I walked into the room, I knew I was in the wrong place. But there was this cute girl there. So I stayed, even though I didn’t have any emotional or life problems to discuss.”

  My neck is itchy. I rub my neck. This conversation is uncomfortable.

  “You’re going to be late for work,” I say.

  He keeps gazing into my eyes, unwilling to let me go. “The more I spent time with you, the more I realized I did have a problem. I was lonely. And I was afraid of being with a woman, because my last relationship was so exhausting.”

  I let out a big breath, blowing the air up my face to make my hair flutter. “If you don’t like exhausting, you’d better stay far away from me.”

  “I find you invigorating. You’re a little… complicated, I’ll give you that, but you’re the good kind of complicated.”

  Scratching my ear while I look away, I mutter, “I like you too, dude.”

  “Since you’re helping me with my problem, maybe I can help you with yours.”

  “I don’t have a problem.”

  “Whose clothes are these?”

  “They’re your clothes now. You can
throw them out when you get home. They’re from some guy who was passing through.”

  “Some guy passing through?”

  I stare at him with bugged-out eyes. “Yeah, Drew. Just some random guy. I couldn’t even tell you his name. Don’t worry, he didn’t hurt me or do anything bad. It’s not like that.”

  “If you want to talk, I can stay. I should call the office so they don’t worry about me.”

  I nod my head forward, over my knees, and then throw my torso back and roll over my shoulder then spring up to my feet.

  “I’m fine.” I stretch my arms out wide. “Get dressed and get going. We’ve got plenty of time to talk.”

  “You’re sure?”

  I walk over to where Drew’s still sitting cross-legged, and I pull his borrowed white T-shirt off over his head, then grab his hands and help him to his feet.

  “You can talk to me,” he says.

  “I have plenty of people to talk to. I have a whole group full of them.”

  “They seem like decent people.” He holds his arms out and lets me slip the khaki shirt on him. He buttons the shirt.

  “You’d think it was custom made for you,” I murmur, admiring him.

  He pulls on the pants. “You can have the self-help group back to yourself. I’ll stop going, of course. In case you need to talk to them about relationship stuff and the new guy you’re seeing.” He tucks in the shirt and admires himself in the mirrored door on the main closet. “I hear your new guy is quite the catch, a dentist with a good credit rating, and no arrests for public nudity… yet.”

  I wrap my arm around Drew’s lower back and start showing him out of my mothers room, and onward to the front door. “No public nudity. We’ll see what we can do about that.”

  He grins. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  We get to the front door, and I pick up his shoes to sniff them for signs of trouble from Muffin. They smell fine, but when I tip one over, a furry catnip toy falls out.

  “Good news,” I say. “My cat likes you.”

  “I’m so relieved.” He puts on the shoes, then kisses me goodbye. “Should I call you tonight?”

  “About what?”

  He looks mildly exasperated. “To talk? I don’t know. Don’t you girls like to be called?” He opens the door, but stands in the doorway. “What’s up? You can tackle a man to the ground, lick all the jam off his English muffin, and countless other things I can’t say with your door open, but the idea of a phone call makes you uncomfortable?”