When I set my sights back on Julia, I see she is looking at me, squinting with suspicion.
“Who’s Leo?”
I try to keep my face neutral, but I speak too quickly. “No one, never mind.”
Her eyes dart across my features and I get the irrational sensation she can read my thoughts. That she knows exactly who Leo is. She knows I want to touch faces with him. I want to touch everything with him.
“Spill,” she says, keeping her line of sight glued on me as she sips her water.
I don’t want to talk about Leo, but the more I try to insist he is nothing to talk about, the more relentless Julia’s questioning will become. Maybe it’s a mothering thing, but she has the intuition of a hawk out on a hunt.
“He’s this guy that started working for me a few weeks ago.”
She pouts her lips and wiggles her eyebrows. “You want him don’t you?”
“Shut up,” I say. “It was a mistake. That man looked like him from behind.”
“Acquainted with his behind, are we? Aren’t there rules against that sort of thing? Let me see that employment guidebook.” She stretches out a hand, like I carry the binder in my purse. “I need to see how naughty you are.”
I laugh and press my lips together. There’s nothing in the employment guidebook about interoffice relationships. Apart from sexual harassment issues, we thought it best to steer clear of personal involvements.
“Why are you smiling?” Julia asks.
“Okay, maybe I like him.” I shrug. “Maybe a little. I’m allowed to have a crush. It’s no big deal.”
“Wow.” She sits up and her face brightens up with interest. “You want to jump his bones.”
“No!” I gasp. No one can make me blush the way Julia can. Her laser-sharp gaze peels away all my bullshit and leaves the parts of me I wouldn’t show to anyone else. I let out an impatient breath. “Okay, maybe I’ve considered it a little.” I shake my head. “A lot. Nonstop.”
“Look at you—you little horny thing. Do you know what your problem is?"
I lean toward her despite myself.
“You need to get laid,” she says.
“Of course you’d say that. That’s your answer to everything.” I laugh and imitate her voice down to her slight Hispanic accent. “Rub some penis on it, it should clear right up.”
She throws a piece of bread at me but I duck out of the way.
“How long has it been?” she asks.
“Um…” I gaze up at the ceiling to avoid her eyes. I can’t believe she’s asking me this. “I haven’t been with anyone since...Jeremy.”
“Lex, that was years ago!”
I shut my eyes, nodding. I’m mortified at what I’ve revealed.
“I’ve re-virginized. I’m sure I have.”
Julia laughs loudly and has to clasp her hands over her mouth to not disrupt the people at nearby tables. I chance a look around, but no one seems to notice us.
“I thought for sure you jumped that guy you were seeing last year. The tall guy, with the lips. What was his name?”
“Jason.” I know exactly who she refers to. He was the only person I went on more than two dates with since Jeremy and I split up. I shrug. “No, I wasn’t really into him.”
“He was hot.”
“Yeah, but he had the emotional depth of a chair.”
Julia glares at me. “You? Calling someone else emotionally challenged? Seriously?”
I know what she implies. If it weren’t for her open and persuasive personality, she and I may have never gotten as close as we have. I’m not exactly keen on opening up to people, even friends. But I’m grateful that I did with Julia. She’s an extension of me now, part of my consciousness living in another person.
I wave away her words because I don’t want the conversation rerouted to me.
“Trust me. That guy was a shallow pool.”
Julia sets her napkin down and scrutinizes me, unsmiling, as if I need an intervention.
“Lex, you’ve been dismissing men left and right for years now. It’s got to stop. You better not dismiss Jacob. I swear I’ll have to stab you if you do.”
“I’m sorry I have standards.”
“What you have is judgey-judgmental eyes.”
“That’s not even a word!”
“It’s like Emily was saying…”
“Whoa, whoa.” I hold up a hand. “Hang on, since when do you and Emily talk?”
Julia squints, failing to understand my surprise. “Uh, since forever. Emily is funny as hell.”
I’m not sure how to describe the level of discomfort I feel that my best friend and younger sister call each other to talk about me. I can almost hear their incessant gossiping, discussing my ‘problems’ and trying to come up with solutions.
Julia continues, undeterred, “You pick men apart. He’s too pretty, he’s not pretty enough, he knows he’s pretty, he’s not smart enough, he thinks he’s so smart. He’s arrogant, he’s a pushover, he’s too pushy.”
“How often do you and Emily even talk? She tells me she’s too busy with her new job.”
Julia extends her whole hand at me and it chops through the air with each word she speaks. “Focus—Lex, you are deflecting!”
“Okay—I get it. I know you’re right.”
She throws both of her hands up in triumph. “We have a breakthrough.”
I shake my head, but a small laugh escapes me.
“It’s funny because I wish Leo was a bit more forward, but if he were, I would dismiss him as a womanizer.”
“Listen to yourself!”
I rub the space between my eyebrows. “I know, I’m impossible.”
The waiter sets down our plates of food.
“Oh. Did I tell you? I got an invitation to Jeremy’s wedding.”
Her expression falls. “You’ve got to be shitting me…”
Seeing her reaction only reaffirms how upset I should be. The whole thing has been hovering over my skin and just now remembers to plunge into my core.
“This isn’t fair,” I say, feeling a bowling ball in the pit of my stomach. “He gets to move on and start over. And what am I left with? I’m all mean and jaded.”
“In Jeremy’s defense—you were like that before.”
I glare at her. “Whatever. I tried with him, I really did. And look where it got me. It’s like I’m ruined or something. I’m still smoking in parts and...the dust just won’t settle. I can’t get married again. I know it sounds crazy but, to me, that was it. When I said those vows, I meant them.”
Staring ahead at nothing, I busy myself chewing my food. I feel my mind pull at memories long tucked away.
I dreamt up an entire life with Jeremy. He was going to be my happily ever after. And, dammit, I deserved to be happy after all the bullshit I’ve been through. I had our future all planned out. But how was I supposed to plan for him just changing his mind?
He left me. I was too proud to run after him, so I fell apart behind him.
When he tore away from me, he took the parts of me I tethered to him and left me riddled with holes. To this day, I hate that I allowed myself to depend on him being in my life. Attaching myself to a man, just like the person I despise the most. My mother. All of my life, I thought I was smarter than her. I thought I was stronger. As it turns out, I was neither.
I let out a long breath I didn’t realize I was holding in. Julia is watching me, biting her lower lip, which is turned downward.
I keep talking. I can’t stop.
“I think I can’t tear myself out of that head-space. I’m over here fading away from desuetude and he’s enjoying the next chapter of his life.”
Julia tries to keep her voice light when she speaks again, but it’s weighed down by the sudden iron-thick air.
“Seriously, Lex? Fading away from desuetude? You’re so poetic. And dramatic. But you know what? It’s sort of true. Do you want Jeremy to be the last man you ever sleep with?”
She takes a large bite
of her food and maintains eye contact as she chews.
“At one point that was exactly what I wanted. Obviously, things have changed. He got cold feet—”
“Sounds like they warmed up again.”
I want to throw my fork at her for pointing that out.
Julia’s reaction softens. “Sweetie, I hate to spoil the ending for you, but I promise you don’t ever hurt that way again. You never mourn heartbreak the way you do a first love. But think on the bright side, you don’t have to be afraid of that. It’s a Band-Aid you’ve already ripped off.”
This is the reason I call her my best friend. She knows me better than I know myself and tells me the things I don't want to hear, precisely when I need to hear them.
When it comes to my career, I never hesitate to take the reins. A shark would never worry about the depth of a pool it plunges into. That’s me, learning to swim after I break the surface. Do now, analyze as I go. Take risks, sniff out advantages. Maintain the upper hand. It’s all paid off for me. It’s gotten me to where I am today.
When it comes to matters of love, I’ve always played it safe. I found the perfect guy and had the perfect wedding. I made the perfect scrapbooks and planned the perfect life. Then it all went to shit.
What now?
Half of my life is secure. My company is thriving. Prospects are looking good. That’s all settled and I’m left to mull over the other pieces of the pie of life.
A relationship is out of the question. Relationships are trial runs for marriage and I won’t re-marry. But does that mean I have to be celibate for the rest of my life?
Why am I just now thinking like this? Is it my attraction to Leo? Or it is the wedding invitation? A combination of both? I’m not sure. I think if I dig further I could figure it out. But I’m afraid of what else I might dig up with it.
The only thing that matters is this: Jeremy doesn’t get to be the last man I give myself to. He may have damaged me in ways I still can’t fathom, but he doesn’t get to claim that hold on me. It’s time I dive into a different type of pool and I have a specific blue-eyed someone in mind. This time, though, my heart won’t be along for the plunge.
IV
Leo
That night, I dream of my boss. I dream that she has my hard cock in her mouth, under my desk. All the while, I try to keep myself together as one of my interns reviews reports with me. My intern sits on the other side of the desk, frowning, confused on why I keep pausing to take sudden sharp breaths.
Without warning, I snap at the intern and order her to leave my office and to close the door behind her.
When we are alone, Alexis climbs out from under the desk, with a wicked grin. She is naked, her skin glowing under the florescent lighting above us. I can’t believe the way she crawls onto me, straddling me in my office chair. She begins to kiss me as she holds my cock under her in one of her hands. She slaps the other hand over my mouth to keep me from making any more noise. She lowers her lips to my ear and in a breathless whisper she says, “Take me.”
I wake suddenly, feeling the prickle of enjoyment still running through me. I look down and see that Katy has my erection in her mouth.
“What the—”
I jolt to a sitting position and push her off of me. She stumbles onto the other side of the couch and looks at me, hurt etched across her face. My heart is pounding in my ears the way it would if I sprinted a hundred yards.
I pull my underwear back up around me and almost ask her what the hell she’s doing in my condo. Then the memories of the previous night start creeping in. Fuck. I should’ve driven her home. Instead, I opted to let her sleep it off in my bed while I took the couch. Stupid. Now I have to deal with her all over again. Sober. I’m not sure which version of Katy is harder to deal with.
Katy is a wolf in a cloak of innocence. She seems harmless but knows all my buttons and doesn’t hesitate to press them. I’m glad that, at least, I had half the brain not to fuck her last night. I’ll admit it wasn’t easy, but it helped her sloppy drunken state is a turn off for me.
She crawls toward me again and sits up on me, cuddling against my chest. I don’t know why I resist the urge to push her away or why it matters that her feelings will be hurt. She obviously knows I don’t want to be with her. I made myself clear on numerous occasions. Yet here she is, trapping me between her arms and making me wonder how I will ever get her to leave. This is how she ended up living with me in the first place—she came over one day and never left.
I fooled myself into thinking that she was spending the night often. I was sure that she understood it was just about the sex. She didn’t seem to mind if I fucked other women. Not that I went around fucking a ton of women. But, as far as I knew, I was a single guy. When I found myself fooling around with a hot blonde from the gym, I didn’t think twice about it. The blonde left a hair tie on the bathroom sink. I saw Katy looking at it one day. She knew it didn’t belong to her and she didn’t even beat an eyelash. She never once asked me about it. I thought I had the perfect arrangement. I was fucking wrong.
Before I knew it, Katy had a drawer full of clothes in my dresser. At first, I didn’t mind it. I guess, in a way, I slowly became accustomed to her company.
When my mother surprised me with a visit, I could no longer ignore the obvious. Katy was, in fact, my live-in girlfriend. By that point, we were ‘together’ for seven months and, as ridiculous as it sounds now, I felt tricked and manipulated. I wanted desperately to get out of it. The memory of that trapped feeling settles over me now.
At some point, I get up to take a shower and dress in a hurry. I’m hoping she gathered her wits and left. When I come out to the kitchen, she’s making breakfast and wearing one of my T-shirts, the way she used to do back when we lived together. I feel myself cringe inside.
She looks up and notices me standing by the doorway.
“What’s up?” she asks, her expression distant.
She doesn’t appear to be as hungover as she should be. I walk over to her and turn off the stove before she can put on the scrambled eggs.
“Katy, you've got to go.”
“Wow.” She glances down before turning back to the stove to remove the skillet from the heat. Straightening up her posture, she adds, “O-kay, then.”
I know she's embarrassed. A bizarre sensation trickles inside the walls of my chest. I don’t understand it. I don’t know how I can feel something for her that falls short of anything real. It’s not fair to her. But I can’t fake the rest of it. I can’t fake what I don’t feel.
“You know that I don’t want to hurt you—that is the last thing I want.” I hear the words leave me before I decide to speak them.
She doesn't look at me and busies herself by putting away the things she laid out on the counter. After a few seconds she says, “I get it.”
Does she?
“What do you get?” I ask her.
“You need space.”
My lips part. I want to tell her that space isn’t going to make me want to be with her. Nothing will. Katy wants commitment. Though she isn’t even emotionally strong enough to handle it. But it’s more than that. She needs everything from me and resents me for not wanting it first. It hits me like a ton of bricks. This is the exact reason she suffocates me. I can’t be with her because she needs me too desperately. It’s twisted and sick of me, in a way that I don’t understand. I want what I want and not what I don’t. The reasons behind it all are too deep for me to reach and I don’t even try.
I don’t know how to tell her all this without making her think something is wrong with her. Katy isn’t perfect, but she’s not a bad person. I know her behavior isn’t meant to be manipulative. Her actions are the only way she knows how to deal with men. She is smarter than she pretends to be, kinder than she lets on.
After spending months with her, I know the version she projects to the world isn’t the real her. She acts like she doesn’t care because she cares deeply enough that the wrong combination of words c
an wreck her. Part of her problem, I think, is that she attaches her self-worth to her ability to please a man sexually. And underneath her promiscuity, she is an innocent. She doesn’t understand that a man doesn’t have to even like her to get off with her. And that makes me sad, the fact that she could give herself to someone in hopes it would make them like her. The truth is, she gave herself to me with the pretense of not wanting commitment and in doing so ensured she would never get it. If Katy had been honest from the beginning about what she wanted from me, maybe I could’ve let my guard down somehow. I don’t know. Maybe it was possible at some point, but now it’s too late for that.
I tell her, “I need you to understand that you can’t do this again; you can’t show up here the way you did.”
She nods. I can see in her eyes that she doesn’t quite believe me. It’s frustrating. How else can I put it for her to understand?
“I’m serious, Katy. I’m not letting you in again.”
I wait for her to speak.
“Point taken,” she says. “I guess I’ll get going, then.”
Katy walks into my room to grab the rest of her stuff, opting to wear my T-shirt over that ridiculous costume and I don’t blame her. She turns to me at the front door.
“I love you, you know,” she says slowly, considering my reaction for a few seconds before adding, “I think, in time, you’ll realize that you love me too.”
She doesn’t wait for my response before turning and walking out.
V
Alexis
I should never have answered the call. I’m distracted, doing too many things at once, and don't even see the name on the screen. The voice on the other end jars me to the point that I knock over the cup of coffee on my desk.
“Lex?”
My ex-mother-in-law’s voice is in my ear. I rush to pull tissues out of their box to contain the pooling liquid.
“Dolores, yes. Hello.”
My tone is short and coaxed in aggravation. I can’t help it. Her voice is the last thing I need to hear at the moment; it grates my nerves in an instant.
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