And One Last Thing...

by Молли Харпер

  I didn’t feel weird around Monroe. I felt great. Energized, relaxed, confident. I even danced around the cabin in my underwear. And even better, Monroe did not seem weird. It felt perfectly fine to get up in the dark cabin, slip back into my clothes, give him a peck on the lips, and go home at the end of the night.

  He usually found me sitting on my porch in the mornings,

  working on a manuscript I was thinking of calling Divided Property. We talked about what we were planning on writing that morning. And then he kissed me on the top of the head and told me to behave myself. I would say that was unfair, but my last writing project did end up being re-enacted on YouTube, so draw your own conclusions.

  We were still friends. Friends with benefits. Yay.

  I didn’t need him. I didn’t depend on him for money or social standing. I just liked having him around. Monroe didn’t care who my daddy was, or who I was married to, or how I could help him. He just liked me and he really enjoyed having sex with me, which considering how my last relationship went, was reassuring.

  And when we did have sex… Wow. That’s all I’m saying. No, that’s not all I’m saying. When I was married, sex was just something we did on Wednesdays and Saturdays. It wasn’t something I looked forward to, and afterward I didn’t feel much better. I finally understood that my sex problems were not the result of me being frigid or inadequate or not knowing what the hell I was doing. And maybe it wasn’t even Mike’s fault. I was going to go ahead and blame Mike anyway, but it was much more likely that the two of us were just sexually incompatible. We didn’t listen to each other. Neither of us knew what the other wanted. We were like two magnets with negative charges, whenever we tried to get together - well, the bottom line was repulsion.

  Monroe didn’t care whether I’d showered. He didn’t care what time it was or whether he had something else he should be doing. He made me laugh before, during, and after. And it felt good. It made me feel good.

  Nothing was expected. If we ate dinner together, great. If we didn’t, okay. If we hung out together, but didn’t have sex, it wasn’t the end of the world. There was no pouting, no hurt looks.

  One afternoon I was curled up on the sofa, reading Drunk

  Tank Duets. It was the kind of blustery afternoon you wanted to wallow in, to drink hot cocoa and wear fuzzy socks and do nothing but nap. I’d turned off anything that would make noise because I wanted to hear the patter of the rain on the roof.

  There was a knock on my screen door. Monroe was standing outside, rain dripping from his hair and a smile stretched across his face. The afternoons were his usual writing time, so it was strange to see him out this early.

  “You okay?” I asked, opening the door for him. “You’re going to freeze wandering around in the rain like that.”

  He dug his fingers into my hair and dragged me against his cool, wet mouth. He tasted clean and spicy.

  I dropped the book as he hitched my legs up over his hips and carried me, albeit slowly, into my room. I pushed his sodden jacket back over his shoulders and dropped it to the floor. His shirt followed just before he dropped me on the bed with a playful little bounce. It was at that moment I realized I was wearing my pajama pants with the little candy corns on them. And I just didn’t care.

  I reached for his belt buckle, but he pushed me back on the bed and stretched over me, pressing me into the old mattress. “Slow down. We’re not in a hurry. We have all day.”

  This was different. This was slow, no urgency, no rush. Just the slip of skin against skin. Fingers brushing over my ankles. The curve of his smile against my belly as he peeled my shirt over my head. The good solid weight of him lying between my knees as he kissed my thighs and slipped on a condom.

  I was warm and ready and when he was inside me, it felt so good I wanted to cry. He rolled over so that I straddled him, letting me ride him as my fingers intertwined with his. It was so odd to see this huge, “manly man” lying in the midst of my hot pink pillows. He released my hands to grip my hips and steady me.

  I ground down, circling my hips in time with his thrusts. His breath quickened in his chest. He was close, holding on for me. He sat up, curving his hands up my waist and around my breasts. The clench of his teeth around my nipple sent me flying, a rainbow of colors exploding in my head as I quaked over him.

  At the first shudder, he groaned into my mouth and toppled over the edge after me. I collapsed in a sweaty heap on his chest.

  He cupped his hand around my jaw, pushed my hair out of my face, and kissed me. I rolled on my side, my arm slung over his chest. “So you will pretty much use any excuse not to work, huh?”

  “Well, yes,” he said, scooching down so we were eye-to-eye. “But that’s not why I came over. I came over because when a guy has someone like you in his life and there’s the opportunity to make love to her on a rainy afternoon, he should do it.”

  “If that’s a line from one of your books, I will kick your ass.” I promised him, stretching along the length of his body.

  “No, but I really should write that down,” he said, looking on my nightstand for a pen and paper.

  I slapped lazily at him as I wrapped my arm around his waist. Every muscle in my body was relaxed and well used. My head felt so heavy against his shoulder. I yawned and closed my eyes. And I don’t remember anything much after that.

  When I woke, it was still raining, The quilt was draped across the small of my back as Monroe absently rubbed his hand along my spine. He was reading over my manuscript and making notes in the margins.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, still so heavy with sleep that all I wanted to do was close my eyes again. “How long have I been out?”

  “A couple of hours. Go back to sleep,” he whispered, kissing my temple.

  I laid my head back on the pillow and passed out again. When I came to, Monroe was sleeping beside me, his chin bucked over my shoulder, his hand flexed over my hip. It was very strange, sleeping with another man after so many years, to have some other person’s body sprawled next to mine. For one thing, Monroe snored, a light, buzzing rattle out of his throat that reminded me of a hibernating bear. And I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been touched in my sleep, held as if Monroe was afraid I would slip away while he dreamed.

  I chuckled, rolling over to face him. I stroked a hand over his whiskers and he leaned into it, his eyes fluttering open. He grinned and kissed me.

  “Hey.”

  He pressed a hand to the base of my spine, pulling me close to him. “Hello there.”

  “Sorry I fell asleep.”

  He shrugged, tucking my face into his neck. “You haven’t slept a whole night since you got here. I figure you’re due.”

  “So I wasn’t able to cover up that insomnia nearly as well as I’d hoped, huh?”

  He rubbed his palms along my jaw, running his thumbs along my cheeks. “I used to see in your window sometimes, when I looked up from my computer screen. You’d be all curled up on the couch, trying so hard to sleep. You were brave and strong and … really, really pissed off. Which I like in a gal. You’d pace and you’d prowl until you’d pass out. And for a moment your face would be still and you looked happy. I lived for that. Even when I wanted you to disappear and leave me in peace, I lived for watching you finally find the quiet.”

  “How closely were you watching me?”

  “Pretty closely,” he admitted. “Well, you’re not hard to look at. Some perverse part of me wondered when you were going to break. But you never did. I think that’s when I realized, ‘That’s a person I want to get to know better.”

  “You have strange standards for friendship,” I told him, rolling onto his chest. I sat up; the sheets fell away and puddled around my waist. When he reached up to curl the ends of my hair around his fingers, I smiled down at him.

  “Oh, no.” He groaned.

  “What?”

  “That’s the look of a woman who just realized I am completely in her power,” he said.

  �
��Really?” I arched my eyebrow in a sinister manner.

  “Oh, don’t act like you don’t know you’re a temptress,” he said, rolling me onto my back and wrapping my legs around his waist. “Just look at you with your candy-corn pajama pants. You’re irresistible and you know it.”

  “Yes, novelty pajamas are a key part of my reclaiming my feminine power agenda.”

  “I knew it,” He groaned in false agony as he kissed me and began that long, slow slide back into loving me again. “I’m toast.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  He kissed the back of my neck, stroking his hand up my thigh. “Yes to outfits. No to third parties.”

  I snickered, but didn’t respond to the imagery that conjured. “Do you think this would ever work in the real world? This thing with us? Is this the kind of friendship that could only thrive in isolation? No one to turn to but each other?”

  “I think you should turn off that gigantic, somewhat frightening brain of yours, stop analyzing, and enjoy it,” he said, tapping me gently on the forehead. “I am.”

  “So just don’t think about the fact that I’ve been happy for an extended period of time? Just enjoy myself?”

  He nodded.

  “This is not a concept I’m familiar with,” I confessed.

  “Well, become familiar with it,” he told me, rolling me onto his chest. “Now, let’s talk about these outfits.”

  21

  Tree-house Ladders

  It came to my attention that Monroe and I rarely spent time over at my place unless we were having sex. Because Monroe pointed it out.

  It was late one Thursday afternoon. Mr. Borchard had just packed up his tools for the day, leaving my half-finished replacement dock covered with, a tarp by the shoreline. He’d had a brainstorm about using some of the wood salvaged from the old dock to build a couple of benches for the yard, and had spent nearly an hour discussing their construction with Monroe. When he finally left, we collapsed into my hammock, exhausted by a retiree with the energy of a kindergartner on Red Bull.

  “So why don’t we hang out here tonight? You know, with our clothes on,” he suggested.

  I frowned at him. “That’s sort of random.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” he said as we lounged, my feet resting on his chest. “I like having sex at your place just as much as I like having sex at mine. But is there a reason you don’t ask me over for nonsexual reasons?”

  I chewed my lip, considering. The truth was I was afraid of extending too many invitations Monroe’s way because I didn’t want to come across as one of those needy divorceés he was so afraid of. I figured letting him do the inviting kept me from overstepping his precious boundaries. And I liked having my own space. It was sort of like having my own little tree-house, when I wanted to be alone, I could pull up the rope ladder and hide out. Besides, Monroe had better DVDs at his place.

  But letting him know that I’d put that much thought into this probably would have weirded him out. So, instead, I said, “Well, there is the chance you’ll find that voodoo altar in my closet…”

  “Nice,” he snorted, flicking my ankle lightly, just enough to tickle.

  “What happened to ‘You may be my favorite person ever because you don’t attach strings to sex’?” I asked, flailing my feet out of his reach.

  “One, that’s a pretty broad paraphrase. And two, maybe I would like to attach a string or two. Like a meal or a movie or a meal.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You don’t want to cook your own dinner, do you?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not a proud man.”

  ******

  Since Monroe didn’t give me a laundry list of ingredients, food groups, and regional cuisines he refused to consume, I decided to stretch my culinary muscles a bit with a Mexican feast of enchiladas with a three-pepper sauce. Judging by the way Monroe clutched at his throat and ran for my sink after taking his first bite, I may have overdone it a bit.

  “Are you okay?” I cried as he downed his third glass of water.

  A mile-wide grin split Monroe’s sweaty, glistening face. “That was awesome! Hit me again.”

  “I don’t know if I should,” I said hesitantly, scraping the pepper sauce off of my own portion. Darn Mama and her unreliable “dash of this, pinch of that” recipes.

  “I can’t even feel the burn anymore. I think my tongue has gone into shock,” he assured me. “I haven’t had Mexican food like this since the roach coach that parked outside our precinct office got closed down by the health department.”

  “Have you stopped to think maybe comments like that are why I don’t invite you over?” I asked him. “Would you do me a favor and take a preemptive Pepcid or something before you explode? They’re by my laptop.”

  “You keep your antacids by your laptop?”

  “That’s usually where I’m sitting when I need antacids.” I speared a forkful of nonsaucy enchilada and pointed my fork at him. “I’ve seen the bobblehead collection you keep by your laptop for inspiration, buddy. Don’t judge me.”

  I heard Monroe shuffle around papers on my desk, looking for the illogically small medicine bottle. “Hey, Lace, what is this? ‘My hope for this holiday season is for Tony to develop a debilitating case of ringworm.”

  Oh, crap.

  Monroe was holding a stack of the sample newsletters I’d been putting together from Maya’s case studies. He read aloud, “Jordan insisted that we both shower before we had sex, otherwise, he couldn’t ‘rise to the occasion.’ And then, of course, we showered after we had sex. After a while I figured out that sex with Jordan wasn’t worth all that showering. The environmental impact alone was shameful. Lacey, what are these?”

  “It’s just a …” I found that I was embarrassed to try to explain it to Monroe, which couldn’t have been a good sign. I took a deep breath. “Maya, the girl with the cranial accessories, she thinks we can make a killing publishing newsletters like the one I wrote about Mike for angry divorceés across the country. People give me their information, I write the newsletters for them, they mail them out. Maya’s already got enough orders to keep us busy for a while. The profit projections -”

  “Have you lost your mind?” Monroe demanded.

  “I’m not in love with your tone right now,” I told him.

  “Why would you want to do this?”

  Monroe’s voice seemed to rise in decibel level with every sentence. The mirth of just a few moments before had completely evaporated. I tried to choose my words carefully, keeping my tone as even as possible. “Because apparently I’m really good at it. And there are all of these women out there who need me. They’re angry and humiliated and hurt and they need a voice. And that’s something I can give them. I can help them and get paid handsomely to do it.”

  “And how much good did your newsletter do for you?” he asked. “Did it make you happier? Make you feel better? Did it do anything but make your situation worse?”

  “It brought me up here. It brought me to you, so it couldn’t have been all bad.”

  “What if some woman sends you information, you send one of these things out, and it turns out she’s wrong? That her husband wasn’t cheating and she’s sent out an announcement calling him a ‘dickless wonder’?”

  “Maya has a legal waiver that would protect us if that happened,” I said, realizing how lame that sounded even as the words left my lips.

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll sleep better at night, knowing that you helped destroy a marriage, but you’re protected.”

  “Why are you so angry with me? Why the hell do you care so much whether I tinker with a stupid writing project? How is this so different from writing a book?”

  “Writing a book doesn’t drag other people down with you. You did your damage with your newsletter. You accepted it and I thought you’d moved on. But now you want to repeat the same mistake over and over again. How could you be happy wallowing in anger and bitterness every day, feeding into people’s need to hurt the ones they
used to love? What kind of person would do that?”

  It was the disdainful look on his face that did it. The mad flutter of my heartbeat and my immediate instinct to make it right, apologize, take it back. The curl of his lip and tone in his voice that said I was “in trouble.” I’d seen that look on my father’s face, heard the tone from Mike. I did not need another man supervising me or protecting me from myself.

  “I’m sorry, am I only supposed to write what you say I should write?” I asked, rising from my chair. “This is none of your business, Monroe. Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “So what I have to say doesn’t count?” h demanded. “It doesn’t matter that I think it is a huge mistake?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just don’t need you telling me what to do, what’s an acceptable way to live my life and what’s not. I’ve already had that. I don’t want another husband. I don’t even want a relationship. That’s not what this is. This is - I don’t know what it is. But what we’re doing doesn’t give you the right to boss me around.”

  “So this isn’t a relationship to you?”

  “No. This is great,” I insisted. “This is exactly what I need right now. Spending time with someone who is funny and nice and really good in bed. No strings. No complications. You’re a guy. I thought you’d be thrilled that I don’t want to get all emotionally involved! I thought we had some sort of unspoken agreement.”

  As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to swallow my tongue. I sounded just like Mike, seeing the relationship the way I wanted to, damn the other person’s feelings. Taking what I wanted and giving little back.

  “How exactly is that not supposed to insult me?” he asked softly. He looked genuinely hurt, which made me want to apologize. But the damage was done. Anything I said now would just sound like I was placating him. Instead, I balled up my fists and concentrated on the pressure of my fingernails digging into my palms. “I haven’t asked anything from you, Lace, because I know you’re not ready to give it. But you can’t just declare that this isn’t real because you don’t want to put a label on it. And you’re only going to be able to use Mike as an excuse for so long. Don’t make me pay for his mistakes.” He shook a handful of the sample newsletters. “Don’t make all of the men in America pay because your husband was a philandering idiot.”