by S. L. Naeole
And then it was my turn to stare as he whispered two words, the shape of them forming on his mouth a dance to hypnotize, bewitch. He could have said “dog walker” and my body would have still reacted with the same heated pulse, but he didn’t. Instead, he’d said, “I’m sorry”. The words alone were heavy with meaning, heavy with so many things, but nothing as heavy as the weight that suddenly pulled at my breasts and caused my nipples to bead within the cotton confines of my bra.
All he’d done was apologize, two words that were so innocuous in most situations, meaningless when spoken by strangers—which is what he was, really—and yet they’d acted like a catalyst within me, triggering a chemical reaction within my blood that made no sense. These were words.
Just words.
“Forgive me.”
Two more words and I was breathless as the curve of his mouth danced into my brain, the imprint of them so unnaturally permanent I could feel them undulating against my skin as they repeated “forgive me” and “I’m sorry” over and over again. I didn’t know where to look anymore. His mouth? His eyes?
My breaths were coming out in quick sweeps, taking the air he pushed out, giving him all that he wanted to take in. And there was no denying it this time. The way his eyes deepened in color, the pace of his own hot exhalations both told me that he was aware of what was happening, this intercourse of breaths, of scents.
Without warning, he brought his thumb to his mouth, a shudder escaping me as he licked the broad pad of it. Then, slowly, gently, he pressed that wet thumb against the plush swell of my bottom lip. I felt the dew on my skin and instinct moved my tongue forward to lick at it, the tip of my tongue just grazing the textured end of his finger before he drew it away and returned his thumb to his mouth. He sucked the tip where I’d licked him, taking into his mouth a taste of me.
I groaned.
His eyes grew nearly black.
A horn blasted and headlights nearly blinded me.
Hissing, I turned to see Holly’s car nearly skip over the curb as it stopped in front of me. She was shouting through the glass and as I turned to say goodbye to Michael, I felt the cold hit me before I’d even realized he was already gone.
Thursday rolled into Friday without a hint of my being fired or a text from Michael. Deciding that I’d relax over the weekend and worry about impending unemployment and Michael’s…whatever later, I went back to looking at used cars. It was just Holly and me this time as we stopped at three separate used car lots. When the one car I was semi-interested in refused to start, I gave up and the two of us went out to eat dinner. It was over a slice of pizza and diet sodas that Holly finally poked the bear.
“So he was standing right in front of you and you didn’t even ask him if he was going to get you fired?”
The veggie pizza turned to lead in my mouth as I swallowed, realizing that I hadn’t even thought about it. When I said as much, Holly blew up.
“Ria! He’s got you by the balls! You never let an asshole get you by the balls! You should’ve asked him flat out if he was going to have you fired, that way when he said yes, you could have called him a putrid dickbag for kicking us out of Missing Link and not have to worry about losing your job.”
I took a sip of my soda as I stared out of the window onto the crowded street outside. More than once I’d replayed those moments in my head, both as they’d happened and with changes. Changes where I’d found my voice again and demanded his explanation after all, demanded that he grovel at my feet for my forgiveness, demanded that he do more than touch my lip with his thumb.
“God, Holly, can we drop it right now?”
A man walked by in a dark suit and my breath held in my chest until I was certain that it wasn’t Michael. Exhaling slowly, I picked up my slice of pizza. “He caught me off guard.”
Picking at the pepperoni on her own slice, Holly stared at me, her dark brown eyes missing nothing. “You like him. That’s what this is really all about. You like him.”
Gaping, I shook my head. “I do not like him!”
“You know what they call him on the internet, right? The Pussy Collector. Those two women he was with on Monday? There are pictures of the three of them all over the web, Ria, partying it up after we were kicked out. Both women said he took them back to his place and fucked them stupid. That’s the guy you’re going all gaga over, the guy you like.”
My slice of pizza slapped down onto the thin paper plate as I turned to face her, glare for glare. “I don’t like him, Holly. And I don’t care who he’s fucking.”
Liar.
“Maybe I feel some sort of, I don’t know, gratitude for him saving my life and so I’m trying to not be so damn judgmental about the shit he does that doesn’t concern me. Because it doesn’t concern me. Okay? Who he’s fucking doesn’t concern me.”
Liar liar, panties on fire.
Holly’s eyes narrowed, suspicion plain in those sapphire rings before pain flooded them, turning them into glossy pools of murky water. “Ria, I didn’t want to tell you earlier…”
Cold fingers of ice crept up around my throat.
“I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to hurt you, because I still wasn’t sure about your feelings for him since, well...I mean, you haven’t, like, liked a guy since…since high school, but...” She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly before her eyes drifted away, her voice growing quiet, smaller as she continued, “Two years ago…two years ago I met him at one of the galas and, well, I slept with him.”
The scene in front of the museum’s entrance replayed in my head again, only this time instead of pressing his thumb against my lips, he whispers to me that he can’t wait to get Holly back in his bed and, as she shows up, it’s him getting into her car, him kissing her, him driving off with her instead of me.
My body turned cold, my chest filling with a foreign ache that causes my face to tighten and my hands to clench against my lap.
“Ria?”
Blinking, I shook my head and offered her a smile that I prayed was convincing enough. “Like I said, Holly. I don’t like him so it doesn’t matter if you slept him.”
Unconvinced, Holly continued to speak, each word knifing me in the gut even as they came out of her in strained sentences. “It was just once. He only ever sleeps with a woman once, and I knew that when he took me to this amazing hotel in the city. He said things to me, made me feel so many things that I thought…I thought I was different. It wasn’t just sex, I told myself. I mean, it was sex—really good sex—but the way he acted, the way he made me feel just felt different.
“I’d never been with a man who was so attentive to my needs, who understood what would make me feel good. I was well fucked, Ria. Well. Fucked. I’d heard so many stories that when it was finally my turn to experience it I knew it would be more than one night with me. But then he was done and he said he had to go. He told me the hotel was paid for and then he left. I was so angry. I was so angry and hurt. And it’s stupid because, like I said, I knew what to expect. I didn’t go into it blind. But still, I’d let myself fall for the fantasy, for the stupid dream of being the one to change the bad boy.
“So when you said his name that night, I immediately felt all that anger come back and slap me in the face. I don’t want you to feel like that, Ria. Not after everything you’ve been through. That’s why I was so angry at the club, why I was such a mouthy bitch. That’s probably why we were kicked out, too. He heard me, recognized me, and wanted me out.”
Despite the heaviness that pressed down on the contents of my chest, I lifted my head and smiled at her. “So when you were talking about his crazy ex-girlfriends, you were talking about yourself?”
Her jaw fell in mock offense, her hand flashing out to hit my arm. “Bitch!”
We laughed, the tension slowly melting away even as the cheese and grease on our pizzas congealed. I took another sip of my soda as she shook her cup, resettling the ice inside it.
“Ria. We good?”
I l
ooked at my friend and nodded. “We’re good, Holly. Like I said, I’m not interested in him.”
She nodded and slurped up what liquid was left in her cup. “Good.”
Sunday afternoon the girls and I went grocery shopping and as we stood in line at the checkout, my eyes drifted to the cover of one of the magazines that sat beside racks of candies, gum, and mints. There, on the arm of a gorgeous woman with incredible coffee-colored skin, was Michael, a satisfied expression on his face. The woman’s expression also beamed with satisfaction.
Well fucked, Holly had called it.
I grabbed a pack of mints.
Monday morning Vonne dropped me off early as she had a symposium in the city. I received a mock-up of the AITTIA exhibit’s program and layout of each piece and send some corrections to Abigail. I then had a quick staff meeting with my restorers to get an update on their progress and see if there were any issues that needed addressing. We were two weeks out from the gala and since it was also my first as assistant director, and I didn’t know how long that would last, everything had to be perfect.
“Don’t worry about it, Ria. You could do this in your sleep,” my team reassured me before leaving to head off to lunch.
As soon as my office was empty and quiet I reached into my purse and pulled out my bagged lunch. The simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich weren’t much, but it was comfort food and as I faced another week of possible termination, I realized that I needed as much comfort as I could get.
I also removed a small plastic baggie filled with dried cranberries, another one with two chocolate cream cookies with the cream centers removed, and a bottle of sweet tea, laying out my meal on the desk with a satisfied smile.
“You’ve got a sweet tooth.”
The sandwich was poised at my mouth as I looked up, my eyes looking their fill as Michael stood in the doorway of my office. In his hands he had a bag with the logo of the museum’s café emblazoned on it and two take-out cups.
“Since I ruined lunch and didn’t get a chance to take you out to dinner, I thought we’d try again.”
He didn’t wait for me to say anything before he stepped into my office and kicked the door shut, his presence sucking out all the air in the room and locking us in this vacuum of his doing. He walked to the desk and placed the bag and cups on its wide surface before methodically emptying the bag, removing two take-out containers containing ham and spinach quiches with home fries, two napkin-wrapped forks, and two sealed containers filled with garlic cucumber sauce. He quietly repacked my lunch, pulling the sandwich from my fingers and rewrapping it before placing everything back into the brown paper bag and rolling down the top. He slipped the bag into my purse, his body moving smoothly, efficiently around me without once brushing up against me or my chair.
And all I could do was watch, unable to even take in a breath, as Holly’s voice whispered in my ear, “I slept with him.”
He settled in one of the chairs in front of my desk and produced a straw which he stabbed into the top of one of the cups. He placed the cup on one of the maple leaf coasters Del had sent me and then pushed it in front of me before placing his own cup on a small cocktail napkin.
When I still hadn’t made a move to start eating, he frowned. “You can’t tell me you’re not hungry. You were just about to eat when I showed up.”
That’s when my tongue finally figured out what it was for and started moving. “How did you get down here?”
“I will concede to you that the café upstairs does, indeed, make the best spinach quiche I have ever eaten. Especially when eaten with this sauce of theirs,” he said in reply as he popped off the lids of the two containers, placing one in the take-out container he’d opened in front of me. He picked up his fork and speared one of the potatoes.
“Answer me, Michael.”
At the sound of his name, the corner of his mouth quirked up. “Take a bite of your lunch and then I’ll answer.”
I folded the lid of the take-out container down over the food in response.
Sighing, he put his fork down and lifted his eyes to focus completely on mine. “You get one question, Victoria. That’s it. I’ve brought you lunch because I wanted to spend a nice, quiet hour in your company, not go through a Q and A. So, you get one question, that’s it. If that’s the one you want to ask then that’s fine, but know this: the minute I answer it, I will leave and that’ll be the last time I walk through your door.”
He let me stew on his words as he picked up his fork again and shoved the potato into his mouth. I watched him chew, watched as he swallowed, my eyes following the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, almost tracing the food as it traveled down his chest before landing in his belly. My eyes widened as I realized that his jacket was open and I could see the hard planes of muscle beneath the thin cotton shirt that sat beneath it.
Clearing my throat, I turned my attention to the take-out container in front of me. I reopened it and picked up my fork. Quietly, I cut into the quiche, dipped it into the sauce, and then brought the bite to my mouth, relishing the garlicky saltiness. As we had the last time, we ate in silence, only this time I found that I didn’t enjoy it. I wanted him to talk, to fill the air with his voice so that I could fill my head with it to savor later, but in order to get him to do that I realized I would have to ask him a question.
Instead, I began to talk.
“I’ve worked here at MOAT since I was eighteen. Vonne, one of my roommates, used to be my piano teacher before she moved out here. When I graduated from high school I needed a place to stay and she invited me and my friends to come and live with her. She was working here with the orchestra at the time and got me an intern position with Delmonico here in the restoration department. Since it doesn’t pay anything, and I wasn’t allowed to touch any actual artwork, I guess I was a riskless investment. I didn’t plan on getting into restoration, but the more time I spent with Del and the crew here, the more interesting the job became and before I knew it, I was in love with it.
“I started going to school, taking art classes and chemistry classes at the community college at night while interning here during the day. I worked with Marta in the café for actual cash on the weekends and she fed me during the week. After a year, my boss gave me a salaried position. I shared a sofa bed with my two best friends, Kara and Lara, for almost three years before we’d all saved enough money to buy our own apartment—a foreclosure we got at a steal. We had practically nothing when we moved in so Lara—she builds furniture using scrap pieces of wood and glass—”
“I saw one of her pieces,” he said, the first thing he’d said since I’d started talking. “The coffee table.”
“Yeah, she made that. She builds furniture and rehabs upholstery so we didn’t really spend any money there, which was great since we didn’t have any money to spare for a while but we had furniture. And when things got tight or the electric bill was due, we could always sell an upcycled couch.”
He was drinking his tea as I said this and began to choke. It was reflex that caused me to rush around my desk and begin to pound him on his back until his coughing began to subside. As I leaned away from him, moving my hand away from his back, my bottom bumped up against my desk. His hands moved to bracket me in and he lifted his head.
All the air I’d somehow managed to suck in left me at the deep mossy green of his stare as he looked up at me. He was so tall that even seated his mouth was on level with the slight curve of my chest. Could he hear my heart skittering about beneath cotton, skin, and bones? Could he feel my heat the way I felt his? Did he feel as breathless?
“So you sold couches for money,” he said in a voice so husky and warm I felt each syllable move up my spine in a shiver.
Nodding because I still couldn’t breathe, I inched my way back against the desk, trying to put as much distance between us as possible. The take-out boxes and cups easily gave way to my butt as I slid onto the desk’s surface.
He stood up, every inch calculated, eve
ry motion one of studied precision. His knees brushed against my shins, the gentle pressure forcing my legs apart. I gasped as he slipped between them, my knees now bracketing his thighs. He moved his hands away and held them behind his back, and I blinked in surprise at what he’d done with that simple act.
His eyes were filled with understanding, his expression soft and reassuring. Slowly he began to step away, and despite reason and logic, and more importantly history, I pressed my knees against his thighs, pinning him in place. The act filled me with nervousness, and self-preservation kicked in, causing me to release my grip on his legs. Then he did something, something that had dazzled me from a distance but up close was absolutely breathtaking.
He smiled.
“Victoria, your embrace is so sweet,” he breathed across my lips, his smile widening as he saw me open my mouth and inhale. “I like it when you do that. Did you know that?” My head tossed from side to side in small twists, even as I almost gulped his words down.
“Did you know that I love watching you eat, too? That I love watching you put your fork into your mouth and lick the tines like a man would lick into his lover’s mouth?”
I swallowed, my voice impossibly deep as I said, “So you think I lick like a man.”
He laughed, the sound catching me by surprise and pushing me further back onto the desk. “Damn, Victoria. You’re something else, you know that?” Suddenly his face ironed out, the curls and curves of his amused face disappearing behind that mask of seriousness as he pulled himself out from the cradle of my legs and checked the gleaming watch on his wrist.
“I’ve got to go, but I want you to know that I enjoyed today. I enjoyed last week, too. I didn’t get to say that to you.”
