Background Music

by J. R. Rogue

  “Nothing,” she said, blushing.

  “Tell me,” I groaned, pulling her close again.

  She lifted her mouth to my ear and pulled on my arm, urging me to dance again, “I don’t think I would be able to tell you to stop if you kept touching me like that.”

  Game on.

  Purgatory is this: when your body feels more like a prison than a home, when the sound of your alarm going off in the morning brings you to tears, when the shower is the only place you feel safe enough to let those tears fall fully, when those closest to you have no idea that just under your surface a tunnel of rage and despair is raging. That was my life, my reality. I was scary good at hiding it. I could let a little bit of the black inside of me out—it was expected of a woman going through a divorce—but it was just a taste of the bitterness coursing through my veins. No one knew the whole truth, and I had been unable to escape it until tonight.

  Now, now there is an imposter living in my skin. I am not the kind of woman who hops in the backseat of a truck and lets her best friend’s little brother put his hand up her skirt. That’s not the kind of woman I am but I am perfectly happy being her right now. After I encouraged Andrew’s behavior on the dance floor, he kicked it up a notch.

  When we made it to the truck, he pulled me into the backseat with a laugh and a look that would make most women weak. Sera and Chace were so involved in some sort of silent conversation that they didn’t seem to notice. Andrew leaned up front and turned the music up louder before we pulled away from the bar, and when he came back his hand settled on my knee, sending goose bumps trailing all over my skin.

  He talked loudly, asking me boring questions about work and how I had been since he had last seen me when he was a young boy, all while using his fingers and his mouth close to my ear to make me blush and push off the seat. He didn’t need to put on a show, the two in the front seat probably wouldn’t have noticed if I had thrown caution to the wind and just straddled him like I wanted to.

  The trance I was in finally broke when I thought I saw Sera turning toward us. I started fake coughing loudly and pulled Andrew’s hand from just outside my panties then shook my head at him furiously. The liquor had made me a reckless idiot but it had also helped my anxiety ease a bit. I felt like I had been coiled up for months, and tonight I breathed easy for the first time. I needed tonight but I couldn’t go through with anything until I talked to my friend. It was the fair thing to do. Right?

  Next to me, Andrew just stared back with his bottom lip pulled between his teeth and eyes that were not one bit sorry. I pulled my phone from my purse and mouthed the words “text me” but he just shook his head. I scrunched up my face so he leaned in closer, brushing his lips against my earring.

  “I don’t have a phone,” he said, sheepishly. “It’s broken.”

  What? No. I could have sworn I saw him with it earlier, but I didn’t see why he would lie about it.

  He leaned back again when I said nothing in reply. “Whatcha wanna tell me?” he asked, a smile in his voice and eyes.

  His eyes were so blue it was unreal. The skin around them crinkled up when he grinned, and he grinned with his whole face. It lit up and electricity shot through anyone who was on the receiving end of it. I rolled my eyes and stared out of the window in reply.

  The song that had been stuck in my head all day found its way back in, drowning out the radio in the front seat. My phone burned in my hand, begging me to pull it to my face, to let the screen light up. I wanted to look through my texts again. To examine and dissect everything said back and forth between my mystery guy and I. But now was certainly not the time. I threw the device back into my open bag on the floor and turned to the window. I heard movement beside me but didn’t turn at the sound. I stayed even stiller when Andrew placed his hand on my thigh again.

  I knew instinctively that he would become more persistent, and he didn’t need to put in much effort to send me over the edge.

  I felt his mouth near my ear before I heard his words. “Kat,” he breathed.

  “What?” I asked, turning to him, drawing back when my mouth made its way too close to his.

  “What’s so interesting out that window, doll face?”

  “Doll face? Knock it off,” I commanded, reaching out, pinching his ribs.

  He jumped away from me and giggled like a little girl in response. He immediately scooted back and pressed his body against mine. Thighs to thighs, ribs to ribs. He snaked his arm around my shoulders and started singing in my ear, grinning wildly.

  “What are you singing?” I hissed, trying to place the lyrics. There was a song humming on the radio in the front of the vehicle, but it wasn’t what he was singing.

  “I dunno, I think it’s a One Direction song?” He chuckled.

  I laughed in tune but felt it die in my throat when his hand, the one that was not rested firmly on my shoulder, landed on my knee. His voice sang louder when I flinched at the contact.

  There was no hiding the fact that something was happening here. If Chace or Sera turned around, it would be obvious. I was seated on one side of the truck and Andrew was right in the middle, where he had no business being, pressed up against me. Tonight was some alternate universe for all of us. Was a guest star writer penning this episode of our lives?

  Andrew pulled himself from his dramatic, closed eyed solo One Direction concert and scanned my face. My eyes were bouncing between the front of the truck and the ridiculousness I was entangled in.

  He pulled his hand from my knee and placed a finger on my chin, turning my eyes to his. “Calm down,” he spoke into my hair. “They are so absorbed in each other they probably have no idea we are back here.” His hand dropped from my chin, down to my lap. He dipped his hand under my skirt, and everything suddenly became way too real.

  My body reacted in a way that I worried had been lost to me. I pressed my ass down into the seat, arched my center, pressed my shoulders back. My mouth dropped open just a bit, and my eyelids dropped.

  “Did you go to your five-year high school reunion?” Andrew said, casually.

  My eyes popped open and I turned to him, shivering a bit when his hand moved up. “What?”

  “My five-year reunion is coming up soon, and I’m just not sure if I want to go yet. I was wondering if you went. Because if you did, you could tell me if it was worth it and if you didn’t, you could tell me if you regret skipping out.” His mouth was going ninety miles an hour but that hand of his was moving deliberately slowly.

  I reached out and clamped my hand on his forearm, running my thumb across a vein on the underside without hesitation. I grabbed his arm but I did not stop his movement.

  “Yes, I went,” I said, matching his casual tone, controlling my breathing the best that I could. “I’m glad I did.” Did he pick this topic to remind me of my age? My ten-year reunion had passed, too.

  “Okay, cool. I think I’ll go then.” He smiled.

  His hand made it to my panties for the second time that night, and this time I pulled on his arm, encouraging him. What are you doing?

  “We are meeting at a park in town though, which seems kind of lame. I am going to see how many of the guys want to head to the bar after that. We aren’t old and gray yet, although a lot of my classmates have kids already, which is ridiculous. I’ll throw a kite into the air and run it around with anyone who wants to, sure, but please give me a beer, too. I made plenty of suggestions for other places we could go, but of course, no one listened to me. Let me tell you, Kat, just let me tell you what they suggested and what I suggested and you tell me what you would have wanted.”

  “Okay,” I mumbled. His chatter was hard to keep up with. I was listening to his body more than his mouth, and when two fingers slipped inside of me I tried not to make a sound. I was chewing on the inside of my mouth nervously, and if he kept going I might just draw blood.

  “Would you have wanted this?” he asked with a grin, then rambled on with a number of suggestions he had made to hi
s high school reunion committee, asking “Would you have wanted this?” After each choice, manipulating my desire for him with two fingers, playing a game I could not keep up with.

  After the longest few minutes of my life, we reached our small town and I desperately reached for the controls for the window next to me, glad we had made it off the interstate so that I could roll the window down and not draw attention. I could not have the back of this truck smelling like my sex.

  We had fifteen miles left to go and Andrew got me off twice before we pulled into the driveway of Sera and Chace’s place. I didn’t make a sound.

  Two weeks had passed since I made a fool of myself at Kat’s house, two excruciating weeks. I told her that I wasn't trying to play games but sometimes I wondered if deep down I was. I knew exactly what kind of games it would take to get a woman. I had used them in my past. And I always won. If you told a woman to stay away from you, that was exactly what she did not want to do. A woman doesn't like to be told what to do. I like women who don't like to be told what to do. I don't own you, and you shouldn't accept it. In my younger years, I used exactly what I admired about strong women to my advantage. Reverse psychology.

  So here I was, Friday evening, sitting at my desk, drumming my pen on a stack of papers, wondering why I hadn't heard from her. Wondering why I was hoping I had heard from her. Wondering why I had said those stupid ass things to her. Wondering why I couldn't stop wanting her.

  It was one kind of beast to wrestle, knowing that she was next door for the past four months and an entirely new kind of beast now over these past two weeks. Knowing she was next door and knowing that she knew I was next door.

  I felt like a petulant child who had been ignored by his busy mother all day long. I was on edge. And for more reason than one. Every time the door opened to our office, I wondered if her ex-husband would be back in again. The thought of that man being next door to Kat, as close to her as I was to her, it made me sick. I wasn't some anointed protector of her. But now that I was back and I knew that he was nearby, I just wanted to be exactly that. I wanted to tell her to stay away from me to protect her from me. But I also wanted to be here, close by, to protect her from him.

  I had warned him away once, and then selfishly, I left. I convinced myself the damage I had done to him would have been enough to let my words sink into his bones while I was away. To let the threat of my hands being on him again do the work for me.

  And now I was back and he knew I was back. I wasn't sure what he would do with that knowledge. I tried again to get information from my boss about his presence in our office but as usual, he was locked down tight and told me nothing. Sometimes I just wanted to walk right out the front door and never come back. But that was the old me talking. The new me was balancing this day job and my art. I had to figure out how to do this.

  I spun in my chair and looked out the window in front of me, diagonally across the street to the comic book shop where Alec worked. I had to endure just an hour and a half more work before I could lock up and walk across the street to begin band practice.

  I was lost in my head, going over lyrics from our last practice, when a car pulled into my view and distracted my thoughts. Speak of the motherfucking devil. It was Chuck.

  He pulled his piece of shit self from his vehicle with the movement of a snake. I didn't know if that was just the way he moved or if that was just the way I imagined it. If my hatred made me see it that way.

  I noticed he had a bundle of roses in his hands when he shut his door. I saw red when I saw the red of those flowers. He laid them on his windshield, adjusted his tie, and walked toward the door of our office. I stood and walked to it, planting my feet just six feet from the glass opening. Time for a reality check, Chuckles. The motherfucker nearly ran into me when he walked in.

  The surprised sound that emerged from his throat was so alarmingly human that it startled me. I had written him off as inhuman a long time ago. He only took a second to recover. Then the surprised look in his eyes quickly gave way to disdain.

  Listen, I’m a likable guy. I like that people like me. I don’t need that validation to survive, but I enjoy it. With this cretin, I got satisfaction out of knowing that he loathed me. It fueled me. It confirmed that I had made a point and he had heard it loud and clear.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, my teeth cracking with each word. I wondered if he could hear it or if it was only echoing in my head as I spoke. The entire room had transformed around me into hard lines and red hues.

  He straightened his tie, again, and looked me in the eye. “Business,” he said, tersely.

  “I was hoping your last visit was exactly that.” My jaw ached as my words clawed their way out. “Your last.”

  “Ah, yes, wouldn’t that be nice for you?”

  He was getting bolder. He squared his shoulders and looked me in the eye. Okay, no, this was not going to happen. “I’m not worried about me,” I countered, my voice rising just enough to make him shrink a little, but not enough to make it down the hall to my boss.

  “Yes, my dear ex-wife. The woman you left behind, and the woman you lied to.”

  What the fuck? He smirked, and my hand twitched at my side. God, I wanted to wipe that look right off his smug face. “Pardon?” I asked, my heart thumping in my ears.

  “I’m a lawyer, kid. I have ways of knowing things. Quite a little game you all were playing, huh? Pretty fun until Kat became the victim.”

  The anger that was breeding in my belly kicked up a notch at “kid” and bubbled over when he had the audacity to use the word “victim.”

  I reached out and placed my hand on his shoulder, squeezing enough to let him know he needed to stop his lips from moving. “She isn’t a victim. She never has been.” I kept my voice low, not wanting to pull my boss from his office. “Stay away from her. Don’t go by her place. Don’t leave flowers for her. Don’t call her. Leave her alone.”

  “Afraid I’ll tell her all about you?”

  “The truth about me could never hurt her the way you did. I don’t give a shit what she knows about me.” Lie. “This is not about me at all. You shouldn’t even be walking the streets. You should be in jail or six feet under.” My last words didn’t startle me. I had no desire to go out and murder someone but there were people in this world that I felt brought nothing to the table. They were taking up space, breathing air they had no right to breathe. This motherfucker was one of them. If he didn’t exist, the world would be a better place.

  I expected my casual comment that he’d be better off dead to push our conversation closer to its boiling point, but it didn’t. Chuck stepped back, out from under my hand.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and looked me in the eye before speaking. “Listen, kid.”

  He really needed to stop fucking calling me that.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m not who I was two years ago. I’ve been to therapy. I’ve found God,” he said.

  I didn’t mean to turn my eyes to the ceiling and make the sign of the cross to piss him off then; it just sort of happened. I heard a door opening behind me as I pulled my eyes away from the ceiling, back to Chuck. I stepped closer to him and brought my mouth to his ear. “Maybe your God forgives you, but she doesn’t, and I don’t. Stay away.”

  My boss addressed Chuck from behind me just as I stepped away and walked over to my desk.

  This job was going to push me over the edge if this would be a common occurrence. I wiggled the mouse of my computer around and stared aimlessly at the screen as their voices became smaller and smaller as they made their way down the hall to my boss’s office.

  Once the door down the hall closed and their voices were shut in with them, I shot up from my seat and out the front door. I stomped like an angry child all the way to Chuck’s vehicle, ripping the flowers he had rested there right off the windshield. I resisted the urge to uppercut his fender. I really didn’t need to make a trip to the hospital today.

  I
unloaded a series of curses into the air and whipped to the right and left, unsure of what I was looking for until my eyes rested on it. A shiny new city-issued trashcan was sitting right in front of Kat’s shop. It was the only one close. Fuck.

  It’s a little embarrassing how quickly I ran over to that trashcan and comically shoved those flowers in. When I was safely back inside sitting at my desk, I had to question myself. Were you hoping she wouldn’t see you? Don’t you want her to know who the flowers are from? Don’t you want her to know he is showing up next door? Don’t you want her to be firmly rooted in this reality?

  I didn’t know anymore. I didn’t know anything. What I wanted from her. What I wanted her to want from me. Cue a motherfucking angsty rock song. Soundtrack for my life right there.

  I spent the remaining hour and change of my shift spinning in my chair, shooting daggers with my eyes at my boss’s door, and trying to peek at the trashcan out front every twenty minutes, wondering if it would be empty one of the times I looked. It was full, every time.

  Chuck and my boss didn’t appear again until 4:57. It was my job to lock the front door every night as we closed. As the two men chatted and said goodbye to each other, I busied myself with the coffee machine in our waiting area, clearly avoiding everyone, clearly being a child. When my boss was gone I shot to the door, stepping outside just in time to see Chuck staring at his windshield and finally at the trashcan. He spun around then and came face to face with mine and what could only be a smug expression painted there.

  I wiped the smile from my face and spoke then. “Don’t you dare fucking touch them.”

  He didn’t. He turned around and got behind the wheel. He drove away, and I didn’t lock up until I couldn’t see his taillights anymore.

  Just outside the front door of my shop is a trashcan. The city has them lining Commercial Street so pedestrians can discard trash easily, keeping the streets clean and tidy. It's not something I normally take notice of. My eyes probably idly sweep it every evening as I lock up, but nothing sticks out. It's just…there. Nothing special.