The Pleasure of Panic

by JA Huss

“So why would they miss you?”

  “Because… I do actually have another reason for coming to Denver.”

  “And that’s because…?”

  “That’s hidden behind a well-written NDA.”

  “Ah,” she says. “And you’re not willing to break it, even if it does involve a crime.”

  “I can’t. Not yet, anyway. But the way things are going, that could change very fast.”

  “How?” But then she sighs. “Never mind. I understand.”

  She says she does, and maybe she thinks she does, but she doesn’t understand. And she’s not giving me a pass. And this isn’t over.

  She’s just being… agreeable.

  I don’t want her to be agreeable, so I need to tell her something true. Something real. Something more.

  “So the endings, right?” I say, continuing my train of thought. “That next blank page in the book. I know we’ve just met and we don’t really know each other at all. But I have this feeling about you, Issy. Like we’ve known each other for years. Lifetimes, maybe. And I’ve never felt that way with anyone else. I’ve never just bumped into someone by accident and… wanted to be with them. Wanted to share things with them. I guess what I’m trying to say is… before you, I’ve never wanted to keep the story going. I’ve never wanted to fill up that blank page. And I know that’s not enough and makes no sense, but it’s what I feel.”

  “It’s the panic,” she says, smiling again.

  “What?”

  “You’re thinking, Why the fuck am I telling this girl this shit? Why am I trying so hard? Why do I care? And it’s the panic. The rush of being on the same team with someone for once.”

  “And yet here I am, spilling my guts, but at the same time not telling you what you need to know.”

  “Why?”

  I shrug. “None of that shit is who I am, Issy.”

  “OK. Then who are you?”

  “Just a guy doing his best to make the right decisions. And not repeat the mistakes of my father. Not end up buried in concrete on a construction site.”

  She nods her head at me thoughtfully. “Will you ever tell me why you’re here?”

  “Here?” I say, touching her chest.

  “No,” she says, sitting up and pointing to the wall of windows. “Here.”

  “Yeah, I will. When the time is right.”

  “You do realize that’s the wrong answer.” But she’s smiling when she says it.

  “Yeah,” I say, smiling back. “I do realize that. But it’s the only one I’ve got right now.”

  She eases herself back down, resting her head on my chest. “Where would we go?”

  I place my hand on her head, enjoying the fact that she accepted that answer as truth. “Did you have somewhere in mind? Because I don’t care about the place. Only the person I go with.”

  “I was thinking Kansas.”

  “What the fuck is in Kansas?”

  “Nothing,” she says, sighing. I look down at her just in time to see her eyes close. “That’s the whole point. There’s nothing there but farms, and fields, and tractors. I’d buy a big old piece of land and just forget about the rest of the world. Live alone.” She lifts her head up to see me now. “Unless you come. I’d make an exception for you.”

  “Would ya?”

  “Mmmhmmm. I would. I’d get a horse and a chicken coop. And maybe start a garden, even though I can’t grow shit. I’d try anyway.”

  “Well, Kansas it is. Maybe we better get the fuck out of this hotel and go pack.”

  “I’m not taking anything.”

  “Nothing?”

  She shakes her head. “There’s nothing there for me. I mean, I love the house, but obviously I can’t take that with me.”

  “The trophy?” I ask. “The framed magazine cover? The family photos?”

  “Wow,” she breathes out.

  “What?”

  “You were in my house for like ten minutes and you just picked out the only three possessions that mean anything to me. That’s some trick you’ve got there, Agent.”

  I shrug. “I guess that’s what I do, right? I’m a fucking FBI agent.”

  “For better or worse.”

  “Yeah,” I say. There’s something nagging me. Telling me to pay attention. But I don’t want to pay attention. Because I think that nagging feeling is guilt.

  Guilt for wasting my twenties being a carbon copy of my father.

  Guilt for killing him.

  Guilt for accepting the deal they gave me to stay out of prison.

  Guilt for being here with her. Because somehow, some way, I’m gonna fuck this up just like I fucked all the rest up.

  “OK,” she says. Like she’s been thinking about my questions. “I guess you’re right. I really don’t want to leave those things behind. I know the frame is smashed and the picture was just a digital printout, but I’d rather glue and tape it all back together if it means I can keep something that my grandfather held in his own hands when he was alive. And I know I have that family photo on my phone. But that photo was taken the day before my mom showed up with her new husband and upended my world. To me… it was the last day I was ever truly happy.”

  “And the trophy?” I ask. I just want her to keep talking. I want to listen to her for days. Years. Lifetimes.

  “I was presented that award the first year I started public speaking. I was brand-new to the speaking circuit, but my seminars always sold out. People were talking about me. They wanted to interview me. The wanted my opinion. And I remember thinking—who the fuck would want my opinion on anything? And if they only knew who I really was…” She sighs. “Well, when I got that award I decided… that very day, I decided that I didn’t think they’d care who I was. I really didn’t. These people—these strangers—knew the real me. They heard me talk once, maybe twice, and they knew me. And the people in my past never had any idea.”

  I just want to look at this woman. I never want to take my eyes off her. “That’s how I feel about you,” I say. “Like I know you. And I realize I don’t, but I feel like I do. And sometimes, you just gotta go with the feeling.”

  She smiles, pats my arm, then leans up to kiss me. First on the lips, then on the cheek, then on the neck. “You know what the silliest thing about that trophy is?”

  I can’t imagine anything about that trophy is silly. But I really want to hear her talk some more. So I say, “What?”

  “It’s so stupid.” She laughs. “It’s like six inches tall, made of gold-colored plastic, and the base isn’t even wood, it’s resin.” She stops to look up at me and smile. Then she shrugs. “But I don’t care. It’s solid gold to me. It’s worth a fortune to me. Because that day I got that, that’s the day I thought to myself, ‘Well, that settles it. You really are Issy Grey now. Because that stupid award says so.’”

  “Maybe you’ve always been Issy Grey?”

  “Maybe.” And then she thinks about this for a few seconds and amends. “Yeah. I have. I’ve always been her. It just took a while to figure that out.”

  “Well, I’m envious,” I say. “Because I’ve always just been me. And I wish I was someone else.”

  She tilts her head up at me and says, “Well, I think you’re pretty perfect just the way you are. And yeah, maybe you’ve made some mistakes.”

  That’s an understatement.

  “But were they honest mistakes? That’s what I ask the women in my classes. Like… did you set out to fuck people over? Or was it more about circumstance?”

  “Does it matter? I mean, if you kill your father, does it matter that it was the only choice at the time?”

  “Well, let me ask you this, Agent Murphy. Suppose you were a woman. Now suppose you were young, and naive, and a man came into your life and told you everything you wanted to hear. And he made you feel good. And special. And perfect. Now let’s suppose he was lying.” She swallows hard. Takes in a deep breath. “Let’s suppose he hurt you. Badly. And let’s suppose you did something you didn’t
want to do, but he was holding a gun on you, and you were holding one on him, and you just happened to shoot true first. Do you think it matters now?”

  “Legally?” I ask.

  “No,” she says, poking me in the chest, the tip of her finger right over the center of my heart. “Emotionally.”

  “No, it doesn’t. But she still did it.”

  Issy shrugs. “I guess my point is, do you live with it and vow to never let yourself get in that kind of situation again? Or do you beat yourself up until you can’t take it anymore and give up?”

  “I don’t know, Issy. I just know what I did was wrong. And I wish I could take it back.”

  “You don’t get a rewind.”

  “I know that.”

  “So you just come to terms with it. You make that incident your own personal catharsis and try to be a better person.”

  I know what she’s saying is true. I get that. It all makes perfect logical sense. But my problem is—and this I can’t tell her, so she can’t help with it—my problem is… I never became that better person.

  I’m still the same guy.

  “Ready to go again?” she says, winking at me. Trying to lighten the mood.

  And I appreciate it too. More than she knows. I just want to enjoy her right now. Just accept that this good thing came into my life and enjoy her before she figures out I don’t deserve her.

  So I say, “So fucking ready,” and dive under the covers, scooting my way down her body, my hands reaching up to squeeze her tits, and the moment she opens her legs, I start eating her out.

  I make her come all over my face. I sit on top of her, pinning her to the bed as I fuck her tits with my cock. And then I ease it into her mouth and watch her suck me off until I can’t take it anymore and make her stop.

  And then I fuck her slow again.

  I want her to think of me as a slow, careful lover. Even when I’m not.

  We sleep, wake, order room service, fuck, and sleep some more.

  And pretty soon the dawn is breaking and she’s groaning about sleeping longer, and I’m thinking, I wish I could keep you in this hotel room forever. I wish I could stop time. So you never learn the lies I’m telling. So you never see me as the man I really am.

  But I want to pretend a little longer. So we do sleep some more. And we order room service for breakfast so we can stay in the fantasy a little longer. Live the dream to its fullest.

  The problem with dreams is… you always wake up eventually.

  So I’m gonna take her to Kansas. Today. We’re gonna buy a fuckin’ farm. Some beat-up old house with a falling-down front porch. The roof will leak, the floors will squeak, and the hot water will never really get hot.

  But we won’t care.

  We’re gonna raise chickens, and get a horse, and grow a garden.

  Hell… maybe we’ll even grow a family.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - ISSY

  I’m checking my email on Finn’s phone because the battery is dead on mine, and even though there’s a million messages about the seminar yesterday, I don’t even pretend to read them. I just hold the phone in my hand, stare down at it, and think. I need to make sense of this. Because it makes no sense.

  I’ve known this man a day and a half and I’m rearranging my life for him.

  Well, no. That’s not really true. I’m accepting his offer to navigate this Caleb bullshit alongside me.

  And the only thing I can come up with that makes any sense at all is that… everyone wants to belong. That’s my feeling, anyway. That’s one of the major takeaways I’ve gotten out of this whole life-coach thing over the past several years. People are unhappy when they don’t feel supported and it’s hard to feel supported when you’re fighting for your life.

  That doesn’t have to mean literally. Not everyone has had to fight like I did. The fight could be as simple—and overwhelming—as trying to pay rent, or heat your house, or feed your kids.

  And if the sense of belonging isn’t there, then hopelessness takes over. There’s a big difference between being solitary and being alone.

  I look over at Finn as we navigate our way back into downtown Denver and use him as an example. He comes from a family where blood means everything. Where loyalty is counted in the secrets you keep and success is earned by doing what you’re told. Even if that involves putting your life on hold.

  This has to be the reason he wants to come with me today.

  He’s given them enough and now he wants to take something for himself.

  I see women come into my classes and seminars like this all the time. They got married, had kids, devoted years and years to taking care of other people and now… the husband left. Maybe cheated, maybe not. Maybe she cheated. The kids are older, no longer attached to her every second of the day. Or maybe she had no children. Maybe she had no husband. They are all different in that respect.

  But the one thing they have in common is they feel lonely. They feel adrift. They feel lost.

  But I don’t really care why the women come to me. I just want to help them find peace, whatever that means to them. The way I found peace in helping them. It just feels good to do that and I’m sad that there will be no more masterclasses in my future. The online stuff is nice, for sure. But it won’t ever replace the sense of pride I felt walking into that office on the first day, bearing witness to their broken dreams. Or the sense of joy it brings me when I watch them grow, and change, and blossom as the weeks and months go by. And there’s no man, no amount of money, no amount of personal success that can replace how I feel about them the day they graduate.

  Not all of them have their shit together that day. Not all of them have achieved whatever it was they thought they wanted when they started the class. And not all of them have found their peace. But all of them are on their way.

  And I helped them do that. With words.

  It amazes me every time I think about it. That something so simple, something free, something we all have access to—put together in the right order and said with conviction—can change lives.

  I am not the world’s most tragic girl, by any stretch of the imagination. But I’ve paid my dues. So maybe… maybe today is my graduation day? Maybe I put in the time, did all the homework, and now it’s time for me to move on too?

  Maybe I’ve been using them to fix me, instead of the other way around?

  “What are you thinking about?” Finn asks as we sit at a red light on Champa Street.

  “Everything,” I say, looking over at him to smile. “Do you think this is like, meant to be or something?”

  “What is?” he asks. “Us?”

  I nod. “Yeah. Because, well… we met the day before yesterday, Finn. That’s kinda crazy, right?”

  He exhales, but it’s kind of a laugh. “Totally,” he says, easing the car forward when the light turns green. “But you know what?”

  “What?” I ask.

  He looks at me for a moment, then takes his eyes back to the road and the morning traffic. “I’ve been in a cage for so long I barely know what it means to be free. And this, what we’re doing today, feels a whole lot like freedom to me.”

  “What if we hate each other tomorrow?”

  “Do you think we will?” he asks. And it’s not a joke. It’s not mean, either. In fact, it feels like the most honest question I’ve ever been asked.

  So I say, “No. I don’t.”

  “Me either.”

  “I think… I think I see some frustration in the future. I see some challenges. Like what if you snore like a fuckin’ bear?”

  He laughs.

  “You didn’t last night, but that doesn’t really count. I wouldn’t call anything we did last night typical.”

  “Maybe it is? Maybe that’s our new normal? Fucking, and laughing, and talking, and room service. Maybe that’s the rest of our lives? Maybe I never sleep deep enough again for you to find out the answer to the do-you-snore question?”

  “What if we get caught?” I ask.
<
br />   “Who’s gonna catch us?”

  “The Bureau? Caleb?”

  “And then what?”

  “I dunno, maybe they kill us?” I say.

  “What if we stay and toe the line? What will they do to us then?”

  “Same, I suppose. Eventually.”

  “Do you want to stay and fight?” He looks right at me when he asks that question.

  I shake my head. “No, that for sure leads to death.”

  “Are you having second thoughts? Because if so, I get it. You barely know me and—”

  “I’m not,” I say quickly. “I’m not.”

  “Then what’s this about?”

  “I just… it feels a little like quitting to leave all those women behind. I mean, I know the online course is good. I’ve been building it for a while now, preparing for this day. I have a shell company to keep it anonymous, I have the website all ready, I have like almost a hundred videos for them to watch. And it’s all free, so…”

  “Are you worried about money?”

  “No,” I say, frustrated that when I need the right words, I can’t find them. I’m a goddamned award-winning speaker who gets paid to find the right words and now they’re failing me. “I actually made a ton of money off the book. So I have that in savings overseas. And that last masterclass got me into a solid six figures for this year already and it’s only February. So it’s not the money.”

  “Then…?”

  “I just feel kinda like a quitter.”

  “Well, we can always tell the world what kind of man Caleb Kelly really is. You have a lot of information, Issy. And so do I. We could bring him down. Maybe alone it would’ve been a tough sell, but together?”

  “But you’re one of them, Finn. How could the world trust you? Caleb and his people will drag your name through the mud. Turn you into a joke. And the FBI won’t help, not when they find out why you really joined.”

  “I think they’ll come around once they find out what we know.”

  “Will they?” I ask. “Knowledge is a strange thing. You can know something. Something wonderful. Something meaningful. Something true. And even then, oftentimes it changes nothing. You could know the secrets of the universe, but what do you do with that knowledge? And what good is knowledge anyway? What good is truth that isn’t accepted? What good is a secret you can do nothing with?”