Mary Ann Rivers

by The Story Guy

  This is an understatement. I like phone sex, always thought it was a fun part of the repertoire with a boyfriend, but there is something about doing this with Brian, not knowing where he’ll go with it, not really knowing him, actually.

  And Jesus, he’s so good at it. This whole picture he’s painted where I’m half clothed with just my good parts exposed, being touched and petted by a completely naked man. Yes, I’m close.

  “Yeah, take them off, slide your whole hand over yourself, because that’s what I would do, opening you up so I can see you—” His voice breaks, and ohmyGod, I can hear his slick cock rubbing through his hand. I spread myself open and groan, dipping around my opening and dragging my wetness over a clit as tight as my nipples, sharp and buzzing.

  “I’m so wet, Brian, I can’t stop, I want you to—”

  “If I were there, I’d be holding your knees over my shoulders, Carrie. My mouth would be over you and I’d lick you and taste you and suck you until you were so wet and swollen. And I’d move up to kiss you, so you would taste yourself, but I wouldn’t leave you, my fingers high inside you, rubbing up and out until—”

  I am two fingers deep, bucking against my hand. “Fuck me, Brian, oh please, fuck me and touch me, help me.” I can’t breathe. I can smell his phantom—sun and toothpaste and the cotton of his shirt.

  “I’m fucking you. I’m inside you, so deep inside you—God, Carrie, I’m fucking you, fucking you.”

  And we say something like each other’s names. The orgasm closes my walls over my fingers, but I push back deep, needing to pulse around something inside me. It catches me from around my sharp-feeling clit to the small of my back, which is dripping sweat.

  As I hitch back down, breathing hard, smelling like sex, I can hear him again, breathing harder. “Are you okay?” The phone is burning hot against my cheek.

  His laugh is choked. “I’m so okay. That—well. I’m glad I called.”

  It’s easy to laugh now. Everything feels easy. We breathe, fast, in tandem, until the shared rhythm of our breaths slowly moves apart and we settle into mutual quiet, our own cadence.

  “Your call made my evening.” I laugh a little at the understatement. My voice feels strange in my throat. “Question, though.”

  “What’s that?” His voice is all rumbly and soft—imagining him replete and glowing and naked makes me feel very smug. And cuddly, despite still being alone, my blouse a wreck around my shoulders, my bra stretched around my waist, and my skirt sticking to my thighs.

  “Where is this mythical bike-riding federal contracts attorney tonight? Ride your bike here, de-lonely my apartment.” Get in my bed. My tone is unmistakable. There’s that beat, no, two beats of silence again.

  “Oh, no, no, no,” I say. I sit up and pull down my shirt, needing armor. “Don’t do that. Not now. I am by no means an expert in meeting strangers for noontime necking, but I do know something about chemistry, or a connection. If there is some impediment …” I take a breath, my cheeks suddenly hot thinking about how easy it would be to substitute “wife” for “sister,” if he were that kind of guy. “If you are the kind of guy that has an impediment,” I lace the word with censure in case he deserves it, “then tell me now. We’ve met twice. We were together tonight, no matter that cell towers were between us. We’re not strangers now; we can’t part as such. You have to give me a reason.” I blow out hard, gripping the phone.

  He doesn’t answer, but I can almost hear his thoughts, racing toward something to tell me. “I—no, you’re right. It’s—”

  “Complicated. Yeah, so you say.” I know I sound hard.

  “Yeah, it is, but what I mean is, there is no impediment, not the kind you mean. There isn’t anyone, and if there was the space to start something in my life right now, Carrie—you, it would be with you. It would so be you. I mean, you’re a librarian, for fuck’s sake.” His half-laugh from his half-joke is strained. “You’re smart, adorable, funny, sexy—God. If anyone …” He stops, makes a sound of frustration. “I mean, I can’t stop thinking about your daisies. About why I’d be so lucky to have you answer my ad, but I just can’t be lucky. I can’t ask for anything. For any kind of flower. I don’t know why this was so much more than Wednesday even after the first Wednesday.”

  He stops, but the quiet is not silence, not like before. He’s inviting me to respond. And he sounds so—frustrated, but resigned in that frustration. But I’m frustrated, too. I still don’t know why it’s all so hard for him, why he’s doing this to himself. All of us are complicated—debt, underemployment, crazy family, addiction—but even drunk, jobless debtors still date, damn it. He’s not telling me anything. And I should just gently tell him goodbye. And maybe I could if I had just brought home a plant or a goldfish at some point.

  “Just a date, Brian. Meet me somewhere, not on a Wednesday, and without any rules. And like any date, we can see what it feels like. We can talk, actually eat something during a mealtime instead of trying to fit the whole breadth of human feeling into an hour.”

  “Carrie.” His voice is quiet, but his inhale is not. “Okay. You’re right. It’s not fair not to give this a chance, and there are things,” he clears his throat, “that we should talk about if this whole not-Wednesday dating is as good as I probably think it will be.” He stops, but his quiet still hasn’t gotten all silent. “Could we do this, soon? Like, tomorrow soon?”

  I laugh, and this laugh is noticeably untethered. “Brian, in case you didn’t notice, I just invited you to come over tonight.”

  I can hear his grin. “Yeah, but I think that was just using me for booty. I want to do this right, given our less-than-auspicious beginning.”

  “Ha! Yeah, I’m free tomorrow. Normally I work Saturdays, but as it happens it’s a library holiday. They always give us the bad news right before a library holiday.”

  “Oh Christ, that’s right—you just got bad work news, I’m sorry. If you’d rather—”

  “Hell, no. Don’t let me bully you into a date and then back off, Counselor. We’re doing this.”

  “Okay. It’s supposed to be nice. Could I take you to brunch, maybe? Around elevenish?”

  “Wow. That sounds extremely sweet. Brunch. Very date-y. Also, you really like the middle of the day, huh?”

  “Well, if it’s awful, there’s still enough time in the day to enjoy your library holiday.” He sounds as though it not going well might be an actual possibility.

  “Oo-kay. Well, do I meet you somewhere, or …?”

  “For old time’s sake, let’s meet. You know that Dutch pancake place? Near Lakeside Hospital?”

  “Definitely. I haven’t been there in ages—love that place.”

  “I’ll meet you out front by those big flower things. Then maybe we can walk around, or something, after.” He’s definitely nervous. I try to feel bad for pushing him to this point, but then I remember his voice telling me he’s fucking me, and any try for remorse floats away.

  “Pancakes, flowers, got it.”

  “How will I recognize you, Carrie?”

  I smile, back to cord twirling. “I don’t know. After tonight, you may recognize my phone better.”

  He laughs, and it’s finally easy. “After tonight, I may not be able to get up out of this chair. You’re amazing.”

  “Good night, BRFCA.”

  “Good night, Carrie the Lieberrien.”

  Good night, moon. Tonight, I sleep.

  Saturday, 2:48 p.m.

  I am filled with ebelskivers and loganberry jam and espressos with sambuca, which greatly enhances the feeling of Brian tracing idle patterns with his fingers over my shoulders and arms as I lean against him on a park bench, watching sailboats on the lake.

  We had finally embraced in front of the restaurant before we ate, and he was as warm and solid and perfect-fit as I might have imagined. But The Windmill is a family place where even footsie is a little much, so the three hours we flirted over carbs was limited to eye-fucking and his blushy dimples. Perfe
ct foreplay, in other words, for some extended open-air cuddling. Which I am hopeful will lead to some indoor and ardent clutching and fondling. And so on, until the moonlight is draping over our satiated and breathless bodies.

  “What are you thinking about?” His voice vibrates in his chest against my back, and it’s heaven. I can’t help my grin, but he can’t see it with his chin tucked over my head like that.

  “Moonlight.”

  “Huh. And yet here we are, soaking in the lovely sunlight.”

  “I like the sunlight. I like soaking in the sunlight with you.” I tilt my head up to him and he kisses my forehead. Sigh. “But moonlight has some compelling recommendations.”

  “Oh yeah? Like no UV damage?”

  Date Brian is very funny. “Hmm. I was thinking more of the clothing-optional benefit, but a lack of skin cancer works, too.” His arms tighten around me, and he turns me around to face him. His expression is very serious even as he reaches up to slide my glasses up my nose. His fingers trailing over my cheek and down my neck make me shiver as I try to guess what he’s thinking.

  It’s hard to guess what he’s thinking unless he’s thinking about me. When he’s thinking about me, it’s easy to tell. He looks right into me, for one thing, the eye contact unwavering and more than a little vulnerable. And his face lightens and it’s as if he turns into one of those children’s slide viewers, the kind you hold up to the light and push the lever to change the slide embedded in the cardboard disc. Except, I’m the light. Every new picture he shows me in that open gaze is beautiful. I feel myself look back into him and let him see more of me.

  When he’s not thinking of me, like right now, his gaze travels far, far away. His face becomes serious or closed, and it’s impossible to catch his eye. And so far, he’s either with me, really with me, or he’s away at this place where he travels without friends. But I haven’t seen Brian be with us, to exist in a space made by the two of us together, except maybe during the two lunch hours we spent kissing. I really don’t want that to be the only way we might connect. And that scares me.

  What am I doing with this man who can’t make himself available to me? I’m not so young that I don’t have the benefit of experiences with such men. I trace the threads in the placket of his shirt, looking at the dense, almost blue-black bristles roughening his neck and jaw. There are more than a few gray whiskers, too. He’s not so young, either. What if all I’ll have of this man is the way he kisses?

  When I lean in to kiss his jaw, I realize that most of what I’ve really wanted, I have earned or asked for without fuss. This man, who tastes like the elderberry booze we brunched over and who touches me as though we’ve loved each other for years but it could be the last time, makes it seem that wanting something should make us afraid, or at least cautious. I can’t work out if it’s that I’ve never wanted anything I should be afraid of, or if he’s afraid of the wrong things.

  I’ve asked for him and he hasn’t answered.

  His mouth sinks into mine, so hot and slow, and here it is, what makes me want us, this ineffable rightness and bigness that turn the contentment and safety I’m so used to into loneliness.

  Our bench is removed from the main trail around the lakefront, so I don’t hesitate to hook my leg around his hip, and he gratifyingly, decisively, grabs my hips with his big hands and shoves me into his lap. His hands on my body still seem almost taboo and he must think so, too, because he instantly glides his hands up to my shoulders, but his fingers furtively skim my spine.

  “No,” I whisper into his lips moving over mine, “touch me.” I can feel his smile against my mouth.

  “Like this?” he whispers back, squeezing the caps of my shoulders.

  “No.” I arch my breasts into him, letting him feel my aching nipples that poke through my blouse. His breath hitches.

  “Like this?” He circles his finger over the bare skin on the bump at the top of my spine.

  “No.” And I catch that hand just under my collar and drag it between us, opening his palm over my breast. “Like this.”

  His tongue rubs over mine as he rakes his hand over my breast, catching the nipple firmly against the end of his middle finger, making me gasp and lurch harder into his touch. An icy hot rush is starting from that exquisite point and moving outward fast.

  “Is this what you want?” he whispers, his thumb and long middle finger rolling against me, through my shirt and bra, starting up restless throbs deep in my belly.

  “Is this what you want?” he asks me again, the same question I keep asking myself, and brings his other hand down to apply the awesome torture to my other nipple.

  “Yes.” And it is. This. Everything else. Anything else. I push against him, and he presses his big, warm hands down, down over my sides, over my hips, to settle into the curve of my lower back and bring me close. So close, I’m cradling him, the hot heartbeat thrumming over the wet silk of my underwear, his jeans snagging and frustrating.

  “Yes,” I say again. It’s what I want. This man and his faraway gaze and rare dimples and gripping hands and voice so sad it called out over all the other sad men’s voices in the city’s most desperate corner. I think I’m wrong to want him, as if I am taking him away from where he knows he should be. I feel as though I’ve picked him out for myself, and with the tenacity and willfulness of a child, I’ve decided nothing else will do.

  We rock against each other, as discreetly as we can given our semipublic spot. I feel lazy, like I could do this all day, even while we both start to unravel a little. Even while his thrusts against me have become more explicit and lingering. Even while we have to stop to breathe between every open kiss.

  From far, far away, I hear something that I can’t quite identify but don’t want to hear. “Buzzzz.” Brian shifts away from me just a little, but it’s enough that I feel the need to chase after him, to scare away the cool air suddenly between us. There it is again, “bzzzz.”

  “Carrie.” He pulls back again. Breathing hard but disengaging, he reaches for his back pocket, where—

  “Bzzz.” It’s his phone. On vibrate. Recognizing the noise has made me come around enough that he has a chance to untangle his legs from mine. He positions me off his lap and back onto the hard bench without looking at me. He turns away with the phone already to his ear.

  “Yes, hello. This is Brian Newburgh, Stacy Newburgh’s brother.” He is holding his other ear closed, completely turned away from me now. Newburgh. My face is hot with the realization we haven’t exchanged last names. Anonymous still. Without even the tenuous connection that allows those who lose touch the ability to look each other up. And who is calling that he needs to identify himself as his sister’s brother?

  “Right. I understand. I am close. I know, I’m sorry, I was there all yesterday until the evening and I just thought—okay. Of course. Go ahead and tell the doctor that it’s okay, and I’ll be right there. That’s right, Brian Newburgh, and I’m named on the power-of-attorney and durable guardianship and conservatorship papers in her chart, her medical record number is 3324F20 and my social security number is 542-6—”

  I don’t understand. The slats of the bench seep lake damp into my skirt while Brian turns into a stranger. Doctor? Power of attorney? I thought his sister was out last night. Is she ill? Brian had said she had health problems. Surely she’s not sick or hurt somewhere while her brother, her roommate, eats pancakes and makes out with a woman he barely knows, barely wants to know, it seems. I touch my face. It’s raw where Brian’s whiskers have rubbed against it. The sting isn’t pleasant. At all.

  “Carrie?” His voice is far away. Fitting.

  I don’t look at him. “Yeah?”

  “I need to go.” He touches my shoulder, but without enough pressure to get me to turn to look at him. Then his touch drifts away.

  “I don’t understand, Brian.” I look at him now. He’s scrubbing a hand over his short hair, and the look in his eyes is dull, the lines around them tight. But whatever it is he�
��s feeling, it can’t be worse than the sudden realization that the person in your arms, the person who might even have some purchase on your heart, won’t fully put his arms around you. Won’t let you into his heart, not even enough to tell you his whole name.

  “My sister’s in the hospital. That was—the hospital. They need me to go over and make some decisions and be with her.” His voice is low, and he is avoiding eye contact.

  “I still don’t understand. You said—she was out. Just last night. Did she get hurt? When she went out? Why didn’t you call and reschedule us?” My voice is high and wavering in a way I hardly ever hear it, but I am so freaking cold. I am so fucking lost here. There doesn’t seem to be any hope of a map. There is nowhere to go from here that I can hope to see.

  He stands up, tension in every line of his body. “No, it isn’t like that. Last night. Carrie, last night she was already there, in the hospital. It’s why I called you, why I could call you at all. Fuck—I just—” He looks up, pressing his hands against his cheekbones. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about after we ate. Why we’re close to the hospital. I was even thinking we might—” He shakes his head.

  I watch him retreat into that place where he doesn’t even see me. I’m not angry. I can hardly believe it, but I’m not. I’m too empty to have something as hot as anger inside of me. I’m not frustrated, even. But I don’t hold any hope that I’m going to get any answer right now. The sudden loss of anticipation assures this hollow, washed-out, put-away feeling. I step toward him and watch myself put a hand on his waist. I want to see if the laws of this universe still apply, I think. To see if he’s even in my same dimension.

  And as soon as I do, it’s as if I’ve broken a spell. He pulls me into a tight embrace the way he did in front of The Windmill. The feel of his sweater against my cheek, the hard chest underneath it pounding with his heartbeat, his sun-warmed smell—it hardly seems real, when just moments ago it was everything.

  He leans in and buries his face into my neck. I think I might feel something hot and wet, but before I can process that, believe that it’s even possible that he could break open enough to cry, he squeezes me once, hard, and starts to move away, walking backward. I don’t let him say goodbye.