The Love Coupon

by Ainslie Paton

  Except they didn’t have a coupon for that and no time to add one.

  They didn’t have a coupon for what happened the next day either. Tom called her in the office, a break from cleaning out her desk drawers. It was a little thrill to hear his voice, but survival to cut him off.

  “I’ve got another farewell lunch. I can’t eat with you today.”

  “That’s not why I called.”

  He’d only called her one other time during the workday, when his father was visiting. “Is something wrong?”

  He groaned. “I thought I’d start out by asking what you were wearing—it’s a classic line, right?—but that’s ridiculous because I know you’re wearing a blue dress that ties up at the side.”

  “You tied it up for me.” His big hands having no trouble making a tidy bow.

  “Because you were wearing the new lingerie.”

  And because the closer it got to the end of her stay, the harder it was for them to keep any distance. “You called to talk about my dress and underwear?”

  “No. Yes.” A grunt of frustration. “I’m locked in a conference room. I booked it so I’d have privacy. I mentally prepared for this and now I can’t remember a word of what I was going to say. I don’t know why this is so difficult.”

  For a moment all she felt was a wild swoop of hope. She had to sit, the force of it was so strong, and then her head cleared. He wasn’t calling to tell her he’d come with her. “Tom O’Connell, are you trying to dirty-talk me?”

  “I’m doing an appalling job of it.”

  “That’s not an alternative truth.”

  “I need to be close to you. I can’t do it in a room that last hosted a discussion about irritable bowel syndrome.” She almost laughed aloud, but he went on. “I need to see you, see the way your eyelids go heavy, smell the perfume in you, the hair stuff and lotions and under that, the wild scent of you. I can’t name it, it’s like fresh air and trees in the forest, but it gets to me, makes me want you. Not that it takes much for me to want you. I even want you when you’re doing something to irritate me.”

  He was doing okay before that last line. “Damn me with faint praise, why don’t you?”

  “Don’t interrupt. I’m on a roll.”

  Oh, grumpy. Barb to the heart. He was trying so hard. And it was all too late to bother.

  “I like tying bows on you. I don’t know why. Never tied a bow on a woman before I tied you to the bed last night and I only did that for you. Felt wrong, as if I was taking advantage. As if I was being a jerk. But it turned out differently. If there was more—” He faltered and her pulse stalled. “I’d want to do it again. Tie you up, tie you to me. Untie you, undress you and know you’re still mine.”

  Oh hell.

  “There’s a way you look at me. I have no clue what you’re thinking. You have this cocky smirk, it’s in your cheekbones and at the corners of your eyes. It’s like an early warning sign that you’re up to something. You give me that look and, Jesus Christ, Flick, it makes me hard. You’re not even trying. And that’s not the strangest thing.

  “The freak of it is how I can want you when you’re ranting about inequality. You have no idea how hot it is to hear you go off about universal healthcare and the decline of the middle class, about education reform, Black Lives Matter and entrenched workplace sexism. It’s better than when you go to your knees. And that, that—your eyes on me, wicked, scheming eyes—you know you have total control over me with your hand and your mouth—that is spectacular. But you start up on that stuff you care about and I want to jump you. Like that night in the hallway, I want to make you come so hard your teeth rattle and you’ve got to bite me to stay anchored to the earth.”

  “That false start—” she had to clear her throat to go on “—you’re over it.”

  “I’m making a fool of myself.”

  “Oh no, Tom, you’re not.” He was telling her things that held her over a low heat and made her simmer, cooked her logic, made her set aside the fact this thing they had wasn’t strong enough to stick.

  “You in my arms in bed. You snore, did you know that? When you’re in that deep REM sleep, you purr like a little cat. It’s fucking adorable. First few times it woke me, and God help me, it turned me on. I’m lying there trying not to move, not to touch myself, hoping you wake so I can do something about how bothered I am. I think about what I’d do to you, sleepy and sexy. I’d treat you so sweet, until that purr is a roar and we’re both animals for each other. The shame, Flick, isn’t that you don’t need to be awake to make me want you, it’s that I learned to sleep through your damn heavy breathing.” He made a growl of annoyance. “Oh fuck, there’s nothing hot about this.”

  Oh yes there was. It was sizzling and heartfelt, sugar to the torch, dissolving slowly, caramelizing through her.

  “When you dirty-talked, you had me rigid. I couldn’t walk out into the office. If you’re wet right now, it’s because you’re crying with laughter.”

  “Tom.”

  He answered with a sigh.

  “The thing about dirty talk is it’s play. It’s made up, it’s fantasy.”

  “I should’ve just said I want to come on your tits.”

  “Tom.”

  “Fuck.”

  “I loved it.”

  “I could do—”

  He was going to say better and that made all the sugar bittersweet. There was no time left for better, so she talked over him. “I have to go. I’ll see you tonight.”

  By the time she left the office for the last time, Flick’s emotions were strung out like soft toffee. So many goodbyes and well wishes, and promises to stay in touch. Tom’s empty apartment felt like a sanctuary after all the fuss and then it felt like something she still had to pack in one of her stuffed suitcases, excess baggage.

  What he’d done last night, today, there was cruelty in it. He should’ve left it alone. Not made it so difficult. They were over and there was no reason to try to make them into something they were never going to be. It was thirty coupons in thirty days. It was “Happy Birthday and now it’s time to go.” It was Flick’s mostly packed life and being homeless for real and Tom’s apartment ready to be restored to its designer glory without her clutter.

  There were only three coupons left, lined up on the coffee table, and he hadn’t chosen one this morning: the activity of his choice, afternoon delight and the one he was avoiding—tearing her clothes off before sex.

  And there was nothing like a little confrontation to remind them both they were finished here but for blowing out the candles, let me help you with your bags, and a final kiss goodbye.

  With his new playlist on, she pulled a suitcase apart to find what she needed. A slip that already had a tear where the lace had broken away from the front. She’d never gotten around to the few stitches it would take to repair it.

  A snip with a pair of scissors down the centerline seam made the tear more obvious, more helpful. Tom had come home to her puttering around the apartment in a slip before, so this wouldn’t look like a setup to him. She wore it without underwear.

  He came in when Sia was singing “We Can Hurt Together.” He knew these songs now, could sing the refrain and hum the melodies. He put his satchel, suit coat and a shopping bag down and came straight for her. “How was it?”

  He meant her last day. He meant for her to come into his arms, but she put the kitchen counter between them, deliberately and obviously. “It was fine. I’m glad it’s done. Time to move on.”

  He frowned, caught short with his arms open for that welcome-home hug she’d come to crave. Caught out by the sharpness of her tone and the curt response.

  “You must be hungry.”

  “Not especially. Big lunch.”

  He pulled the knot of his tie undone, yanking at it. “I fucked up with the dirty talk, didn’t I? I knew I shouldn’t have cal
led your office line. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  He made it hard to stay irritated with him. “You didn’t fuck that up.”

  “But I don’t get a hug.”

  “I leave in two days.”

  “You don’t think I know that?” He balled the tie in his fist and shoved it in his pants pocket.

  “I don’t know, do you? You act as if we’re not about to drive off a cliff.”

  “Flick, it’s...” He undid more buttons and pulled his shirt from his pants. He was tamping his temper down. “You made the coupons. You set the agenda. You don’t want to talk about seeing each other after you leave. I’m sticking to the plan.”

  “Those things you said today, they weren’t part of a coupon. That’s not the plan. The plan for you was not to fall in love. And today, that didn’t sound like goodbye.”

  His shirt was undone all the way now. He always went to the bedroom to change unless they were fooling around, and there was no fooling in this. “You want me to spend the weekend saying goodbye?”

  “That’s where we’re at.”

  “Let’s just—” He went to rebutton his shirt and stopped. He paced one way, then the other. “I went to the market. I’ll cook.” He’d hide in his comfort zone.

  “I’m not hungry.” The aching pit in the bottom of her stomach was despair.

  “You’re something.”

  “I’m leaving, that’s what I’m doing.”

  He threw his hands up. “It’s hard to tell, the amount of stuff you still have everywhere.”

  Not fair. She was packed. Mostly. “You’ll get your precious condo back, and in a day or two you won’t even remember I was here.”

  He came around the counter. “What’s going on with you? What did I miss?”

  “You missed everything.” She let him come close. Let him take in her appearance, watched emotions move over his face: annoyance, confusion, impatience. “You missed out on your promotion, you skipped the opportunity in San Francisco for no good reason.” She went to her toes to get in his face. “You don’t have a new roommate. You had this with me, and it wasn’t enough for you.”

  He made a grab for her and she skipped away. “How many chances at happiness do you think you get?”

  “You’re trying to goad me into a fight. You want to end what we have this way because you don’t like goodbyes. That’s not happening. I’m not ending it with us shouting at each other.”

  “You’re not ending it at all. You’re a passenger and I’m a detour and we’re at your stop. Time to get off the Flick Dalgetty ride.”

  “Don’t do this.”

  She went to the big glass door and looked out at the gathering night. She would miss this view, this apartment, this city. Tom’s wasn’t the only private call she’d had today. Mom called to ask Flick to pay a plumbing bill. She forgot to ask about Washington or wish Flick luck. She said Elsie was back with Dan and she and the girls had moved home. Lizzy’s hours had been cut because she ended the affair with her boss, and Dad’s back was worse. Bonus, there’d been a drive-by murder on their street.

  Mom asked for money and she got it in exchange for agreeing to stick to the monthly budget Flick set. Tom had helped her see striking that deal was necessary. It was a straight transaction. Flick’s help to smooth out the cost of utilities and extraordinary expenses instead of milkshake-makers and other whims. There’d be no more guilt or arguments.

  That’s what she needed from Tom now because finally negotiating fixed boundaries with Mom and promising herself she’d stick to them had cost her pride, and she didn’t have anything left inside to go through the heartbreak of two people who loved each other and needed to separate all over again.

  “I can’t play nice anymore, I can’t do it. I can’t pretend we’re okay.” Her voice shook because she didn’t mean this fight to be so crushing. She’d said almost the same words to Mom, no longer willing to be ruled by resentment and ill-defined obligation.

  With Tom, she’d wanted to keep on the edge of playful and mean, to jolt his sense of decency aside long enough to have him buy into the rawness of the sex fantasy, and she’d tipped over into a place of such private desolation the only thing she could do was fight her way back out.

  In the reflection of the glass she could see him standing behind her. “What do you want from me? I tried to give you what I thought you needed. I’d give you anything,” he said.

  “You just gave me the sugar coating, Tom. A cupcake. Hoped I wouldn’t notice it was empty calories or how bad it was for me.”

  He put his hands to his head. “I’m not fighting with you.”

  “You want to play the coupons out then?”

  “Yes. That would be better than this, they kept us on track.”

  She turned and put her back to the glass. “There are three left. I picked the one where you tear my clothes off before you fuck me.”

  “I’m not fucking you in anger.”

  “You’re not doing it any other way.” She would break in half if he was tender.

  He moved in close. She wanted to lean into his touch, but that would only make it worse. “What do I have to do to make this right, Flick?”

  “All you have to do is rip this.” She tugged at the front of the slip. “I made it easy for you, it’s torn already.”

  “You’ve been leading me around by the nose since you got here, what’s one more excursion.” He reached his long arm out and took her shoulder, ran a finger under the strap of her slip.

  She jerked her head up to eyeball him. “Leading you? Dragging you. You never had the guts to ask me for anything for yourself, to question the coin flip. We were a two-headed coin and you never saw the trick in the toss.”

  With his big hand, he tugged on the strap of her slip and it tore away from the lace it was sewn into. “Stay.”

  Like an instruction you’d give a dog. She couldn’t move if she had four legs, eight, ten. She was mesmerized by the expression on his face, lust and anger and pain, all the same things she felt.

  He took the scalloped edge of the slip where the strap had torn and peeled it slowly down the slope of her breast until it popped free. He covered it with his hand and held firmly. “Stay. I’m asking. Flip the coin again. Stay. Don’t go. Stay. Give this time. No coupons, no deadlines, a relationship like a normal couple with no agenda.” He put his mouth to her neck and she gasped, trailed it wet and insistent over her collarbone and down to her nipple, where he fastened on and sucked, making her body sway and surge.

  She pushed him away. “You want me to give up my job for you?”

  “We’re worth it. That’s what you’re saying. You’re angry because we’re over, so stay and we won’t be.”

  She backed away, forgetting the glass door was behind her and bumping against it. “I can’t believe you’d ask me to do that.” Bastard. “I hate you for it.”

  “You want a commitment from me. You want me to take the wheel. I love you. I’m in love with you. I’m asking you to stay so we have a chance to make something that lasts out of all this.”

  “I’m going to my dream job.” He was standing too close. She turned her face away so he wouldn’t see the moment her ambition and her heart crashed together and tore an irreparable hole in her life. “You never wanted this enough for me to give anything up for you. I can’t stay. I won’t.”

  He put his hand into her hair and cupped her skull, brought his forehead down to her temple. “I know, I know.” He sounded just as broken. “I don’t know what else to ask.”

  “Come with me.” She broke his hold, put her hands to his chest where his lungs were working overtime. “You have no reason not to.”

  He took her mouth, a crushing, biting kiss, brief and shockingly hard. “I can’t.”

  She tried to push him away, but he was a mountain in her path. She couldn’t get past
him. “You won’t.”

  “I can’t.”

  What did he mean? What was holding him? Just his stubborn inability to see other ways to live, to let himself love her enough.

  “I got the job.”

  She almost missed the words because he sagged forward, one hand smacking on the glass behind her, the other wrapping around her back. “Tom.”

  “Harry is out at the end of the quarter. I’m the new MD of Rendel Chicago. It’s announced Monday.”

  “Oh my God.”

  His head was lowered, his chin almost on his chest. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her forehead to his, and held tight. Now they were over. Now they were done. Now they were occasional humorous text exchanges, late-night Messenger chats, and canceled plans for fly-in weekends full of catch-up sex that would never happen, until other people came between them, other lives. She kissed his jaw, his cheek. She loved him. She hated him. He pulled her hard into him and she sobbed the hurt of that into his chest.

  “Please, Flick, please don’t cry.”

  “I need you.” She’d lost him, and not to any decision she could fault.

  “I’m here. You have me.”

  “Don’t be gentle. You’ll break me.”

  “Ah, my darling. You’ll break me too.”

  That endearment was a dagger. She struggled free of his arms, and wiped her hand over her eyes. “It’s just a coupon, it’s a game and it has an end date. We know how to please each other with coupons. Let’s play.”

  He rubbed his face. “I don’t—”

  She put her palms against his stomach and shoved him. It didn’t move him, but it shut him up. “Come on. We chose. This is where we are. Who we are.” She grabbed his shirt front in both fists and yanked on it. “No refunds. No rain checks. No exchanges. Nontransferable. Fully consensual. Offer expires.”

  He tried to turn away, but she held on.

  “Do it, Tom. Congratulations. Happy Birthday.” She let go and backed up against the glass wall. “Come unwrap your present.”

  She must’ve been a sight. Eyes red, cheeks tear-stained, hair mussed by his hands, one breast exposed. Desperate, desperate to feel anything but the hollowness of this new loss.