by Piper Lennox
She swallows hard. “Yes.” The tears on her face have smudged her makeup. It drives me crazy, just knowing I did it to her.
I press my mouth against hers. “Sound byte.”
For a second, she gives me another look I recognize: stubborn refusal, and this squint like I’m being an idiot.
“Please,” she says, practically rolling her eyes, “fuck me stupid.”
I kiss her gently this time, before I let my hips do exactly what they’ve wanted all along. In a bit of poetic justice, her eyes do roll, but to the back of her head.
I love what I’m doing to her. It’s a power play and a gift, all at once: I get the thrill of being in charge, overwhelming her to the point of hysteria. But I’m also offering her pleasure because....
Because you love her. I never stopped.
She stares at the ceiling with her mouth open as she comes one final time, speechless. Drowning.
“Hey,” I tell her, and she’s so lost, I have to grab her chin and make her look at me, like yesterday. I’m kinder this time, my anger from then dissolved in the whiskey and fake stars, the real ones and dirt roads and realizing, more than anything, just how much I missed her.
When she catches her breath, she locks her eyes with mine. The headboard creaks until her hands relax again.
“When I said ‘stupid,’” I whisper, “you didn’t have to take it so literally.”
The smile on her face, half hidden in the crook of her arm, is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in years.
Fifteen
Mel
My orgasm unfurls slowly, gloriously drawn-out as I give myself over to it. To him.
The fog in my brain doesn’t clear until a few minutes later, after Blake finishes. I can’t move much or speak yet. It feels like I might never be able to again.
“Good?” he asks, that arrogant smirk back on his lips. I’d swat him if I had any energy.
The truth is, “good” doesn’t even begin to describe whatever he just did to me. There can’t be a word to describe how it felt, how it still feels: this intense, carnal glow inside me, radiating through my bloodstream, all my nerves.
You could have had this all along, I think. It isn’t necessarily true: who knows where things would have gone with us, if I’d stayed that day? Maybe the nasty breakup I envisioned would have happened, after all. Maybe not. But I can’t turn back time. All I can do is enjoy this moment, then let it go and wait for the next.
When his hands roam my body, I can’t take it: every pleasure point is still on fire under his touch, his power. I’m on fire. I’m under his power.
“Look at what I did to you,” he says, his voice so full of awe, I wonder if he’s talking to himself more than me.
Blake
“Okay, untie me.”
I blow out the last candle and set the lights to midway. “Ask me nicely, and maybe I will.”
She gives me the look again, but obliges. “Will you please untie my hands so I can get some water?”
“Better.” The knots are tight; I’ve got to really dig my nails in to undo them. “But I’ll get the water. You stay here and rest.”
She’s already asleep when I come back, my comforter pulled to her chin, all my pillows behind her. I smile when I notice her arms are back above her head, like she got used to the position.
“Things could be so different now,” I told her. How was that just yesterday? Less than forty-eight hours ago, as far as I knew, Mel was gone from my life forever.
Only, she never was gone—not really. She always stayed at the edge of my life, somehow; clearly, I stayed at hers. Circling each other, watching from a distance neither of us was brave enough to cross. Until she did.
Already, things are different. I feel different.
I slip into the living room and watch commercials, jotting down notes for work tomorrow. Technically, I should be on bereavement leave for the rest of this week—my boss is insistent about it, in fact—but I don’t understand how it can help me. More time to think about shit I don’t want to think about? More time to feel guilty, to rehearse all the things I could’ve done for Dad, but didn’t?
Work relaxes me. If I’ve still got grieving to do, I can do it just fine at my desk.
I’m not sure when I fall asleep, but I wake with Mel beside me, snuggling into my chest. She dragged the comforter out of my room and has it tucked in around us. Most of it pools on the floor, which bothers me. It’ll get dust on it, and it’s dry clean-only. But for her, I’ll make the exception.
“Morning,” she smiles. “I wondered where you were.”
“Yeah, fell asleep out here doing some work.”
She picks up the pad of paper beside me, reading my perfect columns of companies and their campaigns, run times, and channels. “Do you like your job?”
“Overall.”
“I never pictured you doing the whole office thing,” she chuckles. “You were so artsy. Now you’re all suits and briefcases.”
“It’s a good blend of business and creativity, actually. I have to follow the trends, but I also get to determine how.”
“Have you come up with any ads I’d know?”
“Probably not. I’m part of a team, so it’s not really me so much as seven guys in a conference room, throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks. Most of our clients are international, anyway.” I get a magazine from the end table, folding it open to the page I’ve bookmarked with a sticky note. “See?”
It’s an ad we just finished for a Japanese company: silicone fitness bracelets, with tiny pedometer trackers built in that send info to smartphones. They’re the slimmest on the market so far, about the width of a hairband. “The focus was how well the tracker blends into your daily life and wardrobe,” I explain, “so that’s why we dressed the model in the fancy clothes and all those diamond bracelets. Like, the tracker doesn’t call attention to itself, even in the ad—but that’s exactly why it grabs your attention.” She takes it from me. “Actually, that one was my concept, so I’m kind of proud.”
“That’s so cool,” she smiles, sitting up to look at it in the light. “I still can’t picture you doing the business part, but I guess the creative part fits. Do you still paint or sketch, ever?”
“Only for work, really.” I set the magazine back on the table. “So you said something about a clothing place—you work in fashion? Guess all that Cosmo and Vogue reading had to lead somewhere.”
“I wouldn’t call it ‘working in fashion.’ It’s retail. Mall retail. I’m up for a manager position, but I’m not even sure I want it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. But I mean, it’s the next step up, and it pays well, so I feel like I should take it. Plus…what else would I do?”
“Anything you want.” I smooth her hair down, smiling as I realize it’s tangled and matted from last night. “What interests you?”
“I don’t know. Fashion used to, kind of, but not anymore.”
“Okay, try this: if you never had to worry about money again, like, all your bills were paid forever, and you owned a house free and clear—what would you do to fill your days?”
Mel rolls her eyes, but I can see her brain pick my question apart, considering. “Watch movies,” she says, laughing.
“There you go.”
“What? I can’t watch movies for a living.”
“Movie critics do.”
She gets quiet. “Huh,” she says, more internally than to me. “Yeah. I guess I could see that.”
I see it, too, and a lot more: the two of us in a big house, something modern and clean, even if now and then I get annoyed at the way she doesn’t use coasters, or her tendency to put clothes on chairs instead of hangers. Days for our careers, nights for our fantasies.
It sounds crazy to think about all of that so soon, but…is it soon? I’ve thought about these things, wanted them more than I could dare say, for years. Even the ones we spent apart. All that time, a piece of me knew, somehow, she’d
be mine again, and for more than one afternoon. We’d have so much more than a storm and some memories.
We’d have marriage. Kids. A yard with a dog and swing set, or maybe a townhouse in the city with a garden rooftop and hot tub. I can see us building a life together, all of it starting right here, with this morning on my couch.
Of course, I know better than to tell her any of this—not yet. Some fantasies are best left to age.
Mel
“What did your dad think of the ad agency thing?”
Blake shifts uncomfortably underneath my head, so I move off his arm. It’s only then I realize it’s the question that’s bothering him, not me.
“I don’t think he even knew, actually.” His eyes darken, looking at the television with a vacant kind of stare.
“What? How could he not have known what you do for a living? It never came up at dinner, or holidays, or...anything?”
He shakes his head and picks at some skin on his lip. “We stopped talking right after I moved out.”
This surprises me. Granted, it wasn’t like he and his dad were close. Patrick seemed like he forgot Blake even lived there, most of the time.
Still, the thought they would stop speaking altogether…it puts a weight in the pit of my stomach. Then again, I should know better than anyone how easy it is to open a chasm like that, and how much harder it is to close it.
“When was that?” I ask.
“About...six months after you and I stopped talking, I think.”
“But you said— I mean, about the doctors, and the heart specialists.... You made it sound like you were with him through all that.”
“I’m sorry if you misunderstood.” His voice is steeled, the muscles in his neck taut.
“I didn’t misunderstand. You purposely worded it like that.” I lean around him, so he has no choice but to look at me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We weren’t even talking until two days ago, Mel. What, you want me to fill you in on every detail from the last three years?” Running his hand through his hair, he adds, “It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s a huge deal.”
“Can we not get into this, right now?”
“I just don’t get it. Was there an argument, or did it just happen? I know your dad wasn’t exactly involved in your life, but—”
“I don’t want to talk about it. End of story.”
His tone shuts me up…but only for a second.
“Hey, look.” I sit up more and point at him. “This take-what’s-mine, no-more-Mr.-Nice-Guy approach is fine in the bedroom—to tell you the truth, it’s really doing it for me—but when it’s just us, talking normally? You can drop it.”
I pretend I don’t notice (and that I’m not a little alarmed by) his hands, which tense into fists the more I talk.
“If you aren’t ready to tell me,” I add, quieter, “that’s okay. Just don’t be a dick about it.”
While I know Blake would never hit me, I do brace myself for the very real possibility that he’ll make me leave. After all, he’s done it before.
Instead, he just sits there, eyes fixed on the television. His hands and jaw are still rigid as stone.
“Okay,” he says, after a long silence. “You’re right.”
That’s it. A concession, but no apology. I remember that I also haven’t gotten one for his part in our falling out, either.
It bothers me, but I decide now isn’t the time to get into it. My memories of last night are still fresh, literally breathtaking when I linger on them. With my shift starting in just a few hours, I’m not looking to ruin them.
Like I said, it’s easy to open that chasm. The last thing I want to do is get in another stupid fight, once again ending things before they begin.
I can’t take back the last three years. But I can lean against him now and let this tiny scratch pass by, refusing to tear it open more.
Blake
She just wants to help. She cares about you.
Three years of nothing, and now she cares?
Mel settles back against my shoulder. The subject’s dropped, but not the tension.
You told her to leave that day, remember? You’re just as much to blame as she is.
My thoughts battle until I have to get up and pace, busying myself with fake tasks: sorting the mail I’ve already been through twice since Friday, running the dishwasher that’s only half-full, and sweeping up the glitter her dress left behind last night, from the door to my bedroom. No luck: it’s embedded in the carpet.
Mel watches from the sofa, her face hinting at amusement. She knows I’m just avoiding the conversation. Avoiding her.
“Hey.” She throws off the comforter. “Want some help?”
The sight of her in just her bra and panties, leaning on my kitchen island, calms me down. This is how I expected things to be.
“Um...yeah. I guess I could use help with breakfast.”
She makes waffles. I make the coffee, when she can’t figure out my French press to save her life. We eat at the island, mostly silent.
“So,” she says, stealing the last bit of waffle off my plate, “I have to work at nine.”
“Same. Wait, what time is it?” I check the stove, amazed to find it’s only seven. She always woke up early after nights we got drunk. Guess that’s one thing I forgot about her.
Mel drags her fork through the excess syrup on her plate. “Can I shower here?”
“Yeah, sure. Towels are in the hall closet.” I push off from the island to pour myself another cup of coffee.
I sense something: her stare, pointedly on my back. When I turn around, she’s smiling behind her cup. Waiting for me, in a rare, circa-three-years-ago moment of cluelessness, to catch on.
We shower together. “This is one of my fantasies about you,” I confess, pushing my mouth against a rivulet of water on her neck, as the steam rises around us.
“What happens, exactly, in these shower fantasies of yours?”
“A whole lot of this. ” I pour my body wash on her breasts and stomach, lathering it up until the bubbles cover her like a sheet. My hands slip their way across her body, every inch. Mel can’t stop laughing.
“I’m gonna smell like you all day.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
She’s breathing hard, eyes flashing with excitement, when I grab her arms and press her against the tiled wall for a kiss.
There’s so much I want to do to her. Years’ worth of fantasies, of missed chances.
As I run my hand between her legs, my heartbeat stutters. It’s not surprising: lots of liquor, extra caffeine, and sleep deprivation never end well for me.
“Are you okay?” She puts her hand on my chest, but I’m quick to grab it: she doesn’t get the chance to feel my pulse quicken and hum.
I get the shower head and run it across her body. The bubbles spill down her legs, circling the drain between us.
When I pause at her sex, her knees buckle.
With my free arm, I catch her. “It’s okay,” I whisper, my heartbeat steadying as fast as it derailed—just in time for her to fold herself against my chest. “I got you.”
Sixteen
Blake
“Oh, yeah. I forgot how anal-retentive you are about stuff like that.”
I look at her reflection as she flips her head over, shaking out her hair under the blast of my hairdryer. “Stuff like what?”
“That.” She peeks at me, staring at the after-shower spray in one hand and the squeegee in the other.
“It prevents mildew and soap scum,” I protest.
“Nobody cleans their shower every single day.”
“Well, I do.” I turn my attention back to the tile. “Remind me to buy a house with two bathrooms. No way I’m sharing with you.”
She stops doing her hair, slowly standing upright. The silence when she cuts off the dryer is deafening.
“Little soon to be talking about stuff like that,” she says.
The squeege
e sounds like diamonds on glass as I drag it down the wall. “It was a joke.”
“Oh.” Her feet shuffle.
She turns the dryer back on. I finish cleaning my shower, the way I do every day, and ignore the heat crawling into my face.
A few minutes later, while she does her makeup and I shave, the awkwardness just barely tolerable, she says, “I’d pay half the mortgage and bills.” She looks at my reflection. “Whenever we do move in together.”
I hesitate. “I didn’t say otherwise.”
“Yeah, but the way you said ‘remind me to buy a house’ implied it.”
Reluctantly, I smile. She’s got me. “Is that not okay? Me wanting to take care of you, spoil you? Be in charge?”
“Yes. You know I’m not into that. I mean...not completely.”
Of course I know that. It’s part of why I love her, why I’ve always loved her, and why I drove away every girlfriend I’ve had the last three years, all of whom went along with my wishes and desires willingly: Mel is fiercely independent. When she gives up her control, it’s a gift—and a temporary one, at that.
“So,” she says, capping her mascara, “since you’re saying stuff like that, are we...together?” In the mirror, our eyes meet. “Officially?”
I take longer to dry my face than I need to. “Do you want to be official?”
“Yeah,” she says, so fast that she blushes, and I smile.
“Then yes,” I say, “we’re official.”
The awkwardness fades. We go back to our routines, independent, but side-by-side.
My life follows a twisted kind of pattern. I wait and daydream and wait some more for something good to happen, until one day, I finally get it. Then comes delirium, where I’m so happy I can’t think straight. My optimism shoots through the roof. All I can think is, Finally. Shit’s about to turn around.
Then, without fail, a wrench gets thrown in, and it all goes to hell.
Mel leaving three years ago, Dad’s last heart attack—I never see it coming. And afterwards, when I’m sitting in the wreckage, I feel stupid. Because I should have seen it coming. Shit never turns around. Not for me.
