Shameless

by Nina Lemay

  This sets off a chain reaction of other questions that tumble like dominos. What time is it? How long was I out for?

  Did he stay up this whole time?

  For me.

  “It’s not my place to do that anyway. And I know too well that you probably won’t listen, so…” he trails off. He never stops rubbing my back. His hands, God, they’re so warm. The air chills the sweat along the groove of my spine and I start to shiver, but his hands keep me grounded. Their warmth radiates into my bones and muscles, into the pit of my clenched, sour stomach. In spite of myself, I feel my body start to calm down, to yield.

  “But at least try to buy your stuff from reliable contacts. Can you do that?”

  “I…” I gulp, which is about as effective as trying to drink beach sand. “I don’t do drugs.”

  I expect him to chuckle, to shake his head. But if he does, I don’t notice.

  “I just—I needed…” this is where I fizzle out. I can’t get another word out. Frustration and anger fill me, hot and useless.

  I shouldn’t have to explain myself to him. This whole thing happened because of him. Because of him I broke my rules. When I went to desperate lengths to get trashed, it was him I was escaping.

  And he—he showed up at the club, like he was following me. He cornered me. He made me run out in the street alone.

  And then he saved my life.

  None of it fits together into the proper archetype I’ve been taught since middle school, of the guy dropping roofies in your drink and raping your unconscious body. Of the stalker-creep. Of the evil teacher taking advantage of the naïve student.

  Well, the naïve student was a dumb stripper and the teacher dragged her stoned ass home and kept her out of harm’s way. That’s all, Your Honor.

  It makes me even angrier. My eyes start to burn—it takes me a moment to realize I’m crying, surprised that I still have enough water in my body to make tears.

  Emmanuel reaches aside, and his touch, his warm, grounding touch, vanishes. He comes back with a glass of water. He puts his hand behind my head like I’m a baby, delicately but firmly, and puts the glass to my lips.

  “I mixed in some electrolytes,” he says. “I know it tastes kind of awful, but I didn’t want to leave you alone to go out and get a Gatorade or something more palatable.”

  I look up at him, with only my eyes. Dunking my lips into the water is enough: it’s weird and salty and tingly like Perrier but worse. Tiny knives stab the raw membranes inside my nose. I make a motion to turn my head away, but his hand on the back of my neck is firm.

  “You’re really dehydrated. Drink up.”

  I force a couple of gulps. My taste buds scream and writhe. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.

  “Drink.” He tips the glass and some of that awful stuff trickles down from the corners of my mouth, drips from my chin onto my chest and the sheet I’ve pulled over myself.

  It goes the wrong way. I choke, sputter, double over and start to cough until I think my lungs are about to turn themselves inside out. My ears are ringing, the inside of my nose is on fire.

  He pats my back, murmurs something that’s supposed to be calming. Tears run down my cheeks.

  “Dammit. Hannah, I’m sorry. Easy now. Breathe.”

  I hate that it makes me feel better. I hate that his touch makes the coughing ease, just like that. I look up at him with bloodshot eyes.

  “I know it tastes awful, but you really need to drink up. It’ll replace all the minerals you’ve lost. So just hold your breath and gulp it, okay?”

  He takes my hand and wraps it around the glass. I grip with all my might until I think the glass might burst into a million shards—except I have about as much strength as a moth. I can barely hold up the damn thing. My hands are shaking and some more liquid splashes out over the sides.

  I close my eyes and bring the glass to my lips, where it clinks against my teeth. I tip it over and gulp, gulp, gulp until I need to stop for a breath.

  I’m panting, my mouth twists into a grimace, but more than half of it is gone.

  And I hate to admit it, but as soon as my breathing settles and the black motes clear out of my vision, I feel a little better. I finish the glass in a few more agonizing gulps and hand it back to him. My hands are a bit steadier already, and I pull the sheet higher up on my chest, self-conscious. Deep down I realize how stupid this is. He’s already seen that and then some.

  Well, that will have been the first time and the last. Realization hits me, making me grit my teeth as a new wave of nausea wells up in the back of my throat.

  “Did you take my clothes off?”

  He chuckles. God, I want to strangle him with my bare hands.

  “You, uh—you were sick on the way over. So I put them in the washer.”

  Heat rises into my face. Now I just want to curl up and die of humiliation.

  “And I was going to call an ambulance, Hannah. Or take you to the ER. At the sign of the slightest thing going wrong, I swear.”

  I think throwing up all over myself and passing out was more than enough to qualify as “something going wrong.” I glower at him, and he lowers his gaze.

  “Well, at the ER they’d just stick us in the waiting room till dawn. And I didn’t want to risk getting you into legal trouble. I think you wouldn’t have liked me for that.”

  “I only took one stupid pill,” I groan. “I thought—the girl told me it was X.”

  Although now that I think of it, of course, she didn’t tell me any such thing. We barely exchanged two words of broken French. God, I am such a moron. Why am I even still alive? I didn’t deserve to wake up.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” he says, but even he doesn’t sound very convincing.

  “I never do this. Not normally.”

  He nods, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me.

  “Luckily, I know how to deal with this sort of thing,” he adds.

  I don’t even want to know what that’s supposed to mean.

  “Why were you there?” my thoughts are finally clear enough to ask a coherent question.

  “I already told you. You don’t remember?”

  “Oh, I remember. What I mean is, tell me the truth.”

  “It was the truth. I’m a normal human being. I don’t live in a box and only come out for two hours a day to teach a class, you know.”

  I know that all right.

  “And let’s say I needed to take my mind off some stuff.” He lowers his gaze again. His eyelashes cast long shadows down his cheeks.

  “I had all night to think about what I wanted to say to you, and—”

  “All night? You were up all night?”

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay.” He reaches out and tentatively puts his hand on top of mine. I want to pull away, but at the same time I don’t want to move. His touch is hot and dry. “But I don’t mind. Either way I couldn’t sleep, hence the after-hours.” He grimaces. “But what I wanted to say is, I’m so sorry I was such a dick to you last class. It was petty and childish and vindictive. That’s not me. I just wanted you to know that.”

  I have no idea what to say. A lump forms in my throat, which is just as well because at least it might keep me from blurting out something stupid.

  “You realize how ridiculous this is,” I say hoarsely. “After what happened. I’m naked in your bed.”

  He gives a soft, bitter laugh. “Look, I’m just glad I was at the right place at the right time.”

  I gulp. I should be too. Who the fuck knows what could have happened if I started bad-tripping at that club with no one to help me. Sure, Maryse and others might have taken care of me, but I’m not one to nurture wishful thinking.

  “How are you feeling? You want some water? Normal water. No electrolytes,” he amends when he sees me shudder. “Maybe some orange juice. Or something to eat?”

  At the thought of food my stomach ties into a knot. I clutch my hands below my ribcage and double over.

  “Okay, okay, no
food then.”

  “A shower,” I croak. I swing my feet off the bed, wrapping the sheet around me, and close my eyes while the rush of dizziness passes.

  “Are you okay by yourself?”

  Am I? Well, that doesn’t matter. He already mopped up my puke and stripped me down to my panties, all while I was unconscious. I’m not about to let him get in the shower with me too.

  “I’ll manage.”

  Still, I have no choice but to let him help me get up. He holds me when I sway on my feet; it takes me five minutes just to make it to the threshold.

  The apartment is a big, bright condo. I can see blinding sunlight through the gaps in the thick, drawn curtains. He has one of those huge TVs, with the surround-sound speakers. There’s artwork on the walls, enormous, minimalistic glass frames holding black-and-white photos, but I can only distinguish shapes and silhouettes: something that might be a woman’s curved back, a blurry close-up on a face. A skyline.

  I don’t linger. He shows me to the bathroom and I close the door behind me, leaning on it for a few seconds while the floor steadies beneath my feet. The bathroom is the size of the entire dorm room where I lived when I first moved to the city. The floor is warm, rustic-looking tiles—probably heated, I think as I make my way to the gleaming shower stall. The huge oval bath in the corner is tempting but I have no intention to spend any more time in here than I have to.

  It takes me a moment to figure out the controls, but finally, a thick, hot mist rushes out of the metal plates above my head, enveloping me in its steaming embrace. He has that grainy natural soap that smells faintly of lavender, not the fake perfumey stuff like the shower gels I have at home but the real thing, clean and astringent.

  Somehow the smell sets off a chain reaction in my mind. It’s his scent, I realize. I’ve come to associate it with him by now.

  It’s strange and should be disturbing, but isn’t. I like it. I soap myself up thoroughly, taking much longer than I need to. There’s shampoo and conditioner, also organic and all-natural, and I feel kind of bad for using it because it’s expensive—but I don’t like the thought of being so clean and still having disgusting sweaty hair.

  I don’t want him to see me with sweaty hair.

  I’m an idiot. He’s already seen me not just at my worst, but at an absolute, ultimate low.

  I wrap myself in his towels from head to toe. One around my hair, another around my torso, and it’s so long it reaches past my knees. Cautiously, I open the door just a crack and peek out.

  My clothes are sitting on the floor right outside, neatly folded. I snatch them up and close the door again. I hold them up to my face; they’re still warm from the dryer—and scented faintly with the same lavender aroma, just a hint of it. I rub my cheek on my shirt like one of those women in a fabric softener commercial, taking solace in the fact that no one can see me.

  Putting on clean clothes makes me feel like a normal human being again. When I wipe the steam from the mirror and look at myself, my skin looks almost transparent and the circles under my eyes are the color of ripe plums. I think of my backpack with my work clothes and makeup bag, back in the locker in the club’s changing room.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. Who am I showing off to? Why do I even care what he thinks?

  But I do. Maybe because I feel utterly humiliated, and dumb as a rock on top of that. I’m ashamed that he’s seen me like this.

  When I exit, there’s a hissing sound coming from the kitchen, and the unmistakable, heavenly aroma wakes me up instantly. Coffee. And the good stuff too, espresso.

  I emerge into the kitchen and have to shield my eyes from the bright sun. The window takes up nearly the entire wall and it’s facing south. I half expect myself to burst into flames like a vampire.

  “Tell me you’ll take some coffee, at least.” Emmanuel looks up from the gleaming espresso machine he’s operating with the flair of an experienced barista. “I only have soy milk though. I hope it’s okay.”

  I take my coffee black, but I don’t say a thing. I just walk over to the counter and perch myself on one of the tall chairs. My bare feet dangle a foot off the floor. I remember I hadn’t gotten my toes done in quite a while.

  Subtly, I tuck my feet under.

  He puts a cup of coffee in front of me. “Americano,” he says.

  “Huh?”

  “Espresso with lots of hot water in it,” he explains. “How Americans take it in Europe, because their taste buds aren’t used to the bitterness of real coffee, only that filter crap they serve at Tim’s.”

  I don’t know if it’s true or he just made it up on the spot. Frankly, with the aroma of coffee filling my head, I couldn’t care less.

  Picking up my cup, I sniff it, then sip. It jolts me awake like a hit of speed and the bitterness of it makes my mouth curl—but a moment later the impact dissipates and from there on it’s just velvety coffee bliss.

  “I’m sorry to bring it up again,” Emmanuel says. His voice becomes somber as he sets his cup down on the counter and takes a seat across from me. This is too much like the awkward aftermath of a one-night-stand that never was. All the awkward, none of the good times. “But can I ask you something? Were you there alone?”

  He means the club. “Yeah… no. Sort of.” I stare at the patterns of fine beige foam swirling on top of my coffee.

  “What do you mean, sort of?”

  “I was with some girls from work,” I blurt. “Okay? We’re not close friends or anything. They were going out and I decided to come with.”

  He doesn’t say anything, taking a thoughtful sip of his coffee. He doesn’t even flinch, even though his is a straight-up double espresso.

  “So you go out with people you don’t really know, who won’t look out for you. And you take a pill from a random stranger?”

  “I know how it sounds,” I snarl. My mouth twists, and it has nothing to do with the bitter taste of coffee. “Like I’m a fucking moron with a death wish and I’m too dumb to be alive.”

  “That’s not true,” he says gently.

  “Oh yeah? What do you know?”

  “No one deserves to have bad things happen to them.”

  That’s generic enough. Who’d he steal it from, Gandhi? “You don’t know. Maybe I do.”

  “I seriously doubt it. And before you ask, I don’t think you deserve bad things to happen to you because of your job or how you dress or because you decide to go out.”

  “Well, that’s big of you. But for all you know, I’m a terrible person and I did deserve it.”

  He shakes his head. “‘Annah,” he says softly. He forgot and dropped the H again.

  I scoff. “I told you. I don’t normally do drugs, but you don’t believe me because of course I’d say that. Every pathetic junkie in the world and every petty criminal says that, the same fucking thing over and over: I’m not like that, it was an accident, I was just holding it for a friend. You have no reason not to think the worst of me, and I understand that.” I blurt it all out in one breath and have to pause to draw some air into my lungs.

  “I don’t think the worst of you,” he says simply. “And I have no reason not to believe you either.”

  “But I’m a stripper,” I say with a scowl. “We’re all pathetic junkies. We snort coke all the time, and we have daddy issues, don’t you know.”

  He only shrugs. “If that’s what you believe.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re the one who said it. Not me.”

  I eye my cooling coffee with sudden loathing. I wish he didn’t put on airs. It’s almost worse than if he’d actually gone out and said it himself. The hypocrisy is the worst.

  I let the silence linger; the sunshine fades a little, then returns in full force. Dust motes dance in the hot rays.

  “What time is it?” I ask.

  “Quarter to two.” He starts to put away the coffee cups. “Do you have to be somewhere? Do you need me to drive you?”

  I bristle. “I
have no class on Friday. And I doubt I’ll be going to work.”

  “Then I can drive you home.”

  “I can take the subway home just fine.”

  He half-turns so I can see the corner of his lips inch up. “Do you know where you are?”

  “Where am I?” I sound pathetic.

  “Ville St-Laurent. You need to take the bus to the nearest metro stop. Do you know which bus?”

  I tense. What is he playing at? Is he enjoying this, having me here at his whim and mercy?

  “I’ll drive you home. Or, if you don’t want me to know where home is, I’ll drive you to the Metro stop.”

  “I—I’m sorry, Emmanuel.” The words escape from me before I even realize what I’m saying.

  “What for?”

  “For all this. I’m sorry you saw me like that. And I keep thinking the worst of you and you keep proving me wrong.”

  He doesn’t answer for a while.

  “I wonder what happened,” he says softly.

  I’m not even sure if he’s talking to me or at me or what.

  “Huh?”

  “What happened to make you like this. To make you think everyone you meet is an asshole.”

  I draw in a breath to answer, but he grabs a jacket from the back of a nearby chair. “Okay. Enough talking, I bet you’re dying to get out of here, so how about we just go.”

  I get up in a rush as he shrugs on the jacket. “Wait.”

  What the hell am I doing.

  “Wait. One more thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “About… about the class. Today was the deadline. At noon.”

  “Deadline?” he sounds tired.

  “Yeah. The deadline to drop it. And like you said, it’s two in the afternoon, and I missed it.”

  “You can still do academic withdrawal.”

  I bite back whatever I was about to say. He seems so indifferent about it. He’s not even looking at me, and I start to suspect that it’s exactly what he wants me to do. It’s impossible to go on like nothing happened, not after this. He probably wants me out of his class at least as much as I want out.

  “I can’t do that. I need the credits for full-time status.”

  He gives me a look as if to say, well, what do you want me to do about it.