by Bec Linder
“I’m not—what should I do?” I asked. We both knew that I wasn’t really in charge, and I needed him to tell me what he expected, what I was supposed to do next.
“You need help, hmm? That’s fine.” He opened the drawer in the bedside table and removed a condom and a small bottle. As I watched, he rolled on the condom, and then uncapped the bottle and coated his fingers with the clear liquid inside. It was lube, I realized, and as he reached down and slicked his cock, I realized where he expected it to go.
Well, of course, I told myself—obviously that was what was happening, but somehow it hadn’t sunk in until that moment. I chewed on my lower lip, both terrified and aroused. It wasn’t going to fit, was it? Wouldn’t it hurt? But even so, I wanted to try. The sensations his fingers created had been so intense that I needed to know how his cock would feel.
“Lift up,” he said, and I did, pushing up onto my knees. He positioned the head of his cock at my entrance, rubbing lightly, teasing, and I was on fire, I was burning.
I sank down on his cock, breathing through my mouth as my body adjusted to the intrusion. He was big and hard and I opened slowly around him, my body surrendering, millimeter by millimeter, as I took him into me. It burned, and I breathed through it, waiting for the pain to subside, and then it did, all at once, and I pushed down until my ass rested against his upper thighs, fully seated on his hard cock.
He filled me so completely that there was no room left for oxygen or thought, not in the entire universe, or for the rest of time.
“That’s good,” he said, rubbing his hands up and down my thighs in long strokes. “You’re doing so well, Regan.”
I tossed my hair back over my shoulder. I liked being on top, feeling like I had him at my mercy. In this position, I wasn’t sure how to move. I rolled my hips experimentally, and moaned aloud at the way his erection dragged against my sensitive flesh. It was pleasure and pain mixed together, and so good that I never wanted it to end.
Carter curled his hands around my hips but didn’t try to control my movements, just held me lightly and looked up at me. His eyes were so blue and full of dark light that gazing into them was like falling down a well. His eyes were trying to tell me something, trying to share with me some powerful emotion that I couldn’t name, or was afraid to. I had to look away, overwhelmed.
I rode him, slowly at first, learning how I should move and at what speed, learning how he felt inside me, and how my body opened to accept him. More than ever, I felt like we were made to fit each other, two puzzle pieces clicking together, and the space between us where we joined turned everything into light.
It frightened me. There were plenty of men in the world other than Carter, and I told myself that many of them could probably make me feel this way. But what if that wasn’t true? What if it was something particular about Carter, the way he looked at me, the way he touched me like my body belonged to him? It was too intense, like we had tapped into something bigger than ourselves.
“You feel incredible,” he said to me, and I looked down at him, my hands planted on his shoulders to give me leverage. He smiled at the look on my face, whatever it was, and said, “You’ve never done this before.”
It wasn’t a question. “No,” I admitted, and told myself I didn’t need to be embarrassed. There were probably plenty of women who hadn’t tried this. It wasn’t like he was accusing me of being totally inexperienced and helpless.
“Good,” he said, hands tightening on my hips. “I wouldn’t want anyone else to have seen you like this.”
I swallowed. “Like what?”
“You look like someone’s told you a wonderful secret,” he said, and when I pushed down against him, he pushed up, driving himself deep into my body, and I cried out with the pleasure of it.
I had to speed up after that. I couldn’t wait any longer. Everything felt too good, and I’d been waiting so long already. I worked my hips against Carter, growing more confident, and he slid one hand between my legs and began stroking my clit, driving me closer and closer to the edge. I arched my back, taking him even deeper, feeling a heat and pressure in my lower belly that made my eyes roll back in my head.
Carter pinched my clit between two fingers and squeezed, and I came hard and without warning. Usually I could tell when I was close, but this time it took me unawares, and I bent over Carter, gripping his shoulders and feeling my whole body shake.
He stroked me through it, relentless, until I was too sensitive to bear his touch anymore and tried to squirm away.
Then he flipped me over, a wild look in his eyes, and drove into me, fast and hard, until he shuddered and gasped in my arms.
After, he spent a long time kissing me and stroking my hair, telling me how good I had been, how well I did, how he was proud of me. I felt so warm and safe and wanted, cared for, lying there as he softened inside me and told me how perfect I was.
To my horror, I started crying.
Carter instantly pushed up onto his elbows, gazing down at me with concern. “What’s wrong? Oh, Regan—”
“Nothing, nothing,” I said, sniffling, trying to get myself under control. “I’m just—I feel so...” I trailed off. I didn’t know how to describe what I was feeling.
“Hey,” he said. He leaned down and kissed me on the forehead. “It’s okay. I know.”
Chapter 9
I woke up early the next morning, so early that the sun hadn’t yet risen over the buildings to the east. Carter was asleep beside me, lying on his back with his mouth open and snoring slightly. It was sweet. I smiled and slid out of bed very carefully so that I didn’t wake him up.
I padded into the living room, lit with pale gray light. I had to work that evening, and I really needed a few more hours of sleep, but I didn’t think I would be able to fall back to sleep. I had that wide-awake bushy-tailed feeling. We had gone to bed pretty early last night—we’d tried to watch some television, but I kept drifting off.
I went into the kitchen and poked at Carter’s coffee pot. It was huge and shiny and covered in buttons, and I wasn’t sure what any of them did. Maybe I would have to wake him up after all. Coffee was definitely an emergency.
I heard a noise, and turned to see Carter leaning in the doorway of the kitchen. “Someone’s up early,” he said, smiling at me. He was wearing low-slung sleep pants and nothing else, and he looked so rumpled and sleepy that I wanted to crawl back into bed with him and never leave.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said sheepishly. “Did I wake you?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I just woke up. I thought maybe you had left.”
“I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye,” I said. “You thought I snuck out?”
“Last night was... kind of intense,” he said. “I didn’t know how you would feel this morning.”
“I don’t regret anything,” I said, and it was true. I was a little sore, but it was like a memento, a reminder of what had passed between us.
He came forward then, and slid one hand into my hair and kissed me. “I’m glad.”
We sat at the dining table and drank coffee. Carter made toast for himself, but I didn’t feel like eating anything. “But breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” he teased.
“Actually, I read something about how that isn’t true, and it’s a false correlation because people who eat breakfast are more invested in their health in other ways,” I said. God, I sounded like such a know-it-all.
But Carter didn’t look annoyed. He cocked his head at me and said, “You know so many random things.”
I hunched my shoulders, feeling uncomfortable. “I just read stuff.”
He leaned across the table, fixing me with his piercing gaze. “What’s your dream in life?” he asked. “I know you don’t want to work at the club forever. What do you really want to do?”
I swallowed. “I don’t know.”
“Pretend that money is no object,” he said. “If you didn’t have to worry about that. If you could do any
thing you wanted to. What would it be?”
Dreams were dangerous. They gave you big ideas; they made you think that your life could be bigger, more meaningful, than was actually possible. I had spent my entire life deliberately tamping down my dreams, like useless soil underfoot.
Carter was someone who dreamed big. For him, anything was possible. He didn’t understand that most people’s lives had limits, borders: this far, and no further. Saying it aloud would make it real, would make me hope. Hope was dangerous.
But how could I explain that to him? The way he was looking at me, so steady and open, made me want to give him what he was asking for, no matter the risks.
“I’d like to be a lawyer,” I said, the words dragging out of me. “Maybe a public defender. Help people who need it. I worked at a law office for a while and I—liked it. The work. It was interesting.” I shrugged, painfully. “But I’d have to finish college, and then law school, so. It’s never going to happen?”
“Why not?” Carter said. “Why can’t it? I would pay your tuition myself if I thought you would accept it. I know you never would, so I won’t offer. But there are financial aid programs, loans—”
“I know,” I said. The thought of going into debt made me feel physically ill. I had seen what debt did to my parents. The payday loans, the endless calls from collection agencies... I never wanted to owe anyone money. I’d racked up a few thousand dollars on my credit cards right before I started working at the club, when I had no money and was desperate, and that had been a burden on my shoulders that didn’t lift until I paid off every last cent. Law school would require hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans—more money than I could fathom.
It was an impossible dream.
“I know some people at CUNY,” Carter said. “That’s where you were before, right? I can make a few phone calls—”
“No,” I said sharply. “I don’t want you arranging things for me. I can take care of myself.”
He held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Okay. I’m sorry. I know you can.”
I sighed. “I’m sorry. I know you’re just trying to be nice. But I can’t just—let you fix everything about my life. I don’t want anyone to ever be able to imply that I’m just using you for your money.”
“So conscientious,” he said, and squeezed my hand. “Okay. I won’t bring it up again. But think about it, okay? You shouldn’t have to settle for anything less than what you really want.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
That seemed to placate him. He smiled at me, and finished his toast.
“What’s your dream, then?” I asked him. Turnabout was fair play.
He leaned back in his chair and looked at me, considering. “I want a family,” he said. “Kids. I always knew I would end up running the company. I’m glad to do it; it’s interesting work, and I’m good at it. But I don’t want it to be the only thing in my life.”
“Kids,” I said. “Really?” It surprised me. It wasn’t that I thought he would be a bad father, just that I’d assumed his dreams would be—larger. More ambitious. The governor’s mansion, the White House.
“Really,” he said. “Maybe a few dogs.” He shrugged. “I want a happy life. Isn’t that what everyone wants?”
“Sure,” I said. I had never thought about it much. Happiness was just a word, and I wasn’t sure I believed in it—at least not the way that Carter meant, the kind of happiness that meant you lay on your deathbed and thought, Gosh, it’s sure been a good life.
“Cocker spaniels,” Carter said.
I squinted at him. “What?”
“I’d like some cocker spaniels. That’s the kind of dog I had, growing up. They’re good dogs. Calm and affectionate. Good for apartment living.”
“Cocker spaniels are cute,” I said.
He grinned at me. “Don’t worry, I won’t make you start picking out baby names just yet.” Then he laughed and said, “Look at your face! I’m just kidding. Or am I? You’ll never really know.”
I kicked him beneath the table, and he grinned again, unrepentant.
But he had already put the thought in my mind, like a seed he planted there, and it grew, while I finished my coffee, into a dangerously appealing fantasy of what our children would look like, with my brown skin and his blue eyes...
I couldn’t think about it. “I should probably go,” I said.
“Of course,” he said. He leaned across the table and kissed me. “I’ll miss you. When do I get to see you again?”
We made tentative plans to have dinner in a few days, and then Carter had his driver take me home. It was still early enough that I had a couple of hours before the time I would usually even get out of bed, and I decided to make some more coffee and scrub my bathroom; and so it wasn’t until past noon that I finally sat down and checked my email.
I had to refresh my inbox three times before I understood what I was seeing.
It was an email from my mom, in her familiar broken English. For some reason I had never understood, she refused to write in Tagalog.
It was the first time she’d attempted to communicate with me since I left California six years earlier.
My grandmother had died, she said. She was asking me to come home.
* * *
“Take my jet,” Carter said.
I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see me over the phone. “No,” I said firmly. “I’m going to fly coach, like a regular person.”
“I can come with you,” he said. “If you want.”
I cringed. I’d been afraid he would say that. I could imagine it all too well: Carter standing in my mother’s dingy living room, the walls stained yellow from nicotine; Carter in the church, meeting my suspicious relatives; Carter eating pancit in someone’s back yard. It would be like setting a fox among the chickens, and Carter wouldn’t be the fox. He would do everything wrong, and nobody would cut him any slack. He probably hadn’t even been to a wake before.
So I said, “I can’t ask you to do that. I know you’re busy.”
“If you want me there, I can put everything on hold,” he said. “There are things in life more important than running my business.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. I said nothing, and the moment dragged on too long, awkwardly. Finally I said, “Maybe not this time. My mom, you know. There are some family issues.”
“Sure,” he said, too lightly. I knew I had hurt him. I didn’t know how to apologize for it.
“I’ll be gone for a while,” I said. “Maybe a week. I have to—there’s the wake, and then the funeral, and—family stuff. And I’ll probably be pretty busy, so...”
“So don’t expect to hear much from you,” he said. “Right. Well.” A pause. “Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do?”
“No,” I said. “But—thanks.”
I had already called Sadie, who didn’t answer—she was at work—and Germaine, who did, and told me to take as much time as I needed. Now I checked Carter off my list. I still needed to buy plane tickets, pack, and email my mother to let her know I was coming.
I didn’t know why I was dropping everything to fly across the country and attend the funeral of a woman I hadn’t seen or spoken to since I was eighteen.
That wasn’t true. I knew exactly why.
Blood, after all, was thicker than water.
I flew out to California the next afternoon, Newark to Ontario with a stop in Phoenix. There was no fast or convenient way to get to San Bernardino; it was a dead end, somewhere people left and didn’t return to. The ticket cost enough to make me feel a little nauseated, but I reminded myself that this was the reason I had taken the job at the club: so that I could handle emergencies like last-minute plane tickets without having to worry.
It was only a few days before Christmas, and the airport was a madhouse. It took me more than an hour just to get through security. For a few dark minutes, trapped behind a woman arguing with the TSA agent about why she shouldn’t have to remove h
er shoes, I wished I had taken Carter up on his offer.
I had a window seat, at least. I had only flown a couple of times, and it was still sort of a novelty, watching the ground recede as we took off, and the huge, fluffy clouds. The woman sitting beside me cracked open a book as soon as we started taxiing. Fine with me; I didn’t want to talk. I balled up my coat into a makeshift pillow and did my best to sleep.
I was planning to rent a car in Ontario and drive out to San Bernardino, but when I rolled my suitcase out of the security area, one of my cousins was waiting for me.
I stopped dead, dumbfounded. I’d told my mother what time I would be arriving, but I hadn’t expected her to send someone to pick me up—much less JP, who had never liked me, and who had told me, when he found out I was moving to New York, that I had betrayed the family. Like we were the Mafia or something.
“Regan,” he said stiffly, and tried to take my suitcase from me. I backed up a step without meaning to, and his frown deepened. “Fine, carry it yourself.”
“Um, thanks for coming to get me,” I said.
He snorted. “Don’t thank me. It’s not like I had a choice. Your mom called my mom. You know how it goes.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. Some things never changed.
We went out to where JP had parked his car, a beat-up Cadillac with shiny new rims. I shrugged out of my coat. I’d forgotten how warm it could be in December. JP threw my suitcase in the trunk, and we peeled out of the parking lot.
We headed east on the 10. It was a little after 6, California time, and the sun had set already, turning the desert landscape into a blur of headlights.
I wished it was still light, so that I could see the mountains. One thing I missed about California was being able to see the mountains.
Maybe the only thing.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, I said, “So, what are you up to these days?”
JP’s face settled deeper into its scowl. “The fuck do you think I’m doing? I’m still working at the warehouse, and I’ll probably be working there until I die.”
