by Diane Munier
I want to remind him…no pity. I want to say that, but of course I don’t.
“I know it’s yours…but it’s not cancer?” he says finally.
“No,” I say. Not breast cancer. He knows this. He’s just circling. He’s waiting for more.
“Are you going to say?” he asks.
I look at him briefly, shake my head.
“It’s a wound. It’s a bullet,” he says, “or a knife.”
People get mad at other people’s wounds when they love them…or think they do. I want to remind him again…no pity. Pity is the cheapest form of love. And I’d welcome his indifference over that.
So we drive quiet, his hand on my shoulder…there’s nothing else but the way he touches me now. He holds on to me. What I know, he understands. I think he does.
When we get home, wet and tired, he comes around to my side. I am stepping into my shorts. He watches. “You’re twenty-seven, right?”
I pull my shirt over my shorts, leaving them undone.
“Come home with me. I want to hold you. Like in the water.”
“Why?” But I know why…some of it. It’s not right. And it’s not wrong. It’s me…it’s him. He’s telling the truth. I felt it back there, his arms, his hands…I felt it. I slam the truck’s door.
“I haven’t held anyone for a long time…kept someone afloat,” he says.
“You mean me?” He’s keeping me afloat?
“Come on.”
“To have sex?”
He laughs a little.
“I have to know,” I say because logic is surfacing. But logic doesn’t work here. There is no logic for swimming at night, letting him see…when I hardly know him…when he lives next door, when I have so much to do. There is no logic I recognize here.
“To hold you,” he repeats. He goes back to his side and lets Ned out. He slams the door. “Come on,” he says.
I can’t see it, but I know Ned’s leash is wrapped around his hand.
I put on my shoes. I look at the house. She isn’t home yet. It’s getting late…for a teacher’s…aid. Spencer stood them up…Mom…the others…and she stayed and tied one on. She showed him…maybe me. Mom.
“I’m twenty-seven,” I say.
He’s just waiting, maybe too wise to say anything more.
I move toward him and Ned.
“Hold my hand?” he asks.
I reach for him and his fingers close over mine.
His house is dark except for a light in the living room.
“Bedroom’s in there,” he says.
I nod. “I know.”
“Or the couch…if you’d rather.”
“Bed’s fine.”
“You can take a shower,” he says.
“If I went home I could get some things,” I say.
“What do you need?” he asks.
I look at my legs, grungy from the lake. I need everything. Or nothing. I don’t know what I need.
He is nervous I think. I’m not. I know I should be. I am worried about my work. “I need my laptop.”
“If you go over there and she comes….”
“I need it. I have to work some before I sleep.”
“I’ll get it while you shower. I’ll get everything.”
“Spencer…what is this? I’m going home.”
“Well yeah. Whatever….”
“I’ll be back, I promise.”
“Shit,” he rubs over his face, “I got no game.” He laughs a little, but it’s lame.
I start to leave.
“Just come in,” he calls. “I’ll shower then. Just come in…when you’re done…over there. Sarah.”
I don’t answer. When I’m outside, walking away, I don’t want to be. I look over at Cyro’s. Behind the new drapes…nothing has changed.
Once in my house, I run upstairs. First thing, I shower and shampoo my hair. I throw on a tee-shirt, underwear and sleep shorts. I brush my teeth and put lotion on my face. It’s my one effort at beauty. In my room I brush out my hair, braid it tight and tie it off on the end. I stick my feet in some soft shoes and pack up my laptop.
I’m going down the stairs when she gets in, drunk. I knew I would run in to her.
“Where are you going?” she slurs.
“I’ll be down the street,” I say. I’ve slept at Leeanne’s a couple of times when Merle was recovering from open heart. I needed to be where Pearlie could get me quickly.
“Where?”
“Leeanne’s,” I lie because she’s too drunk to argue with.
That’s all I say. I am out the door and down the stairs and I hear her open the front door, but I’m already out of her line of sight. I hurry to Spencer’s, and I’m in there quick, the door left open for me just like he said.
Ned tries to jump on me, but Spencer is in the doorway wearing a towel. “Ned down.”
I stand there, clutching my bag.
“Come on back,” he says to me, walking ahead.
I make sure the door is locked, then I turn off the living room lamp and I follow Spencer back to Frieda’s old room.
He is wearing these knitted black underwear, and he is stepping in to some sleep pants that he quickly snaps into place. They sit low on his hips. He switches on a sound machine. Crickets.
“Make yourself at home,” he says.
I have slept in here many times, but I don’t say. I just hope I don’t suffocate in here…get weird and wake up not being able to breathe. It happens sometimes and for about ten minutes there’s just no joy in the world.
But he switches on a small fan sitting on the dresser. “Sorry, I have to have the noise. Make yourself comfortable. I’m gonna lock up.”
“This is….”
“What?” he says.
“It’s….” I’m laughing a little. What am I doing?
“We can do what we want,” he says. He’s smiling because it is almost funny.
“We’re having a sleep-over.”
“Yeah. Whatever you want to call it. I think I’ve been going to great lengths….”
“Why? I…I can’t own this. I live here.”
“So do I.”
“It’s not the same Spencer. I’ve lived here all of my life.”
“It’s not the stone ages, Sarah. Your life belongs to you.”
“Really? I’ve…never thought of it that way. My life…is theirs. It belongs to all of them.”
“What about me?”
“I’ve…you’re my friend. You said that.”
“Do you agree?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want more? You and I can have something…different. We do have something different. I feel different about you. Do you feel different about me?”
“Different than…?”
“…how you feel about Merle and Pearlie?”
He lifts his brows. He’s trying to be comical, but he’s choosing his words very carefully.
“I like you…differently,” I practically whisper.
“And I like you. Very much.”
I purse my lips so I don’t smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What do you expect?” I say.
“This? You here right now? More than I could have hoped for. Actually, are you real? Am I hallucinating?” He takes a couple of steps toward me.
“Do you really feel that way?” I ask sincerely. I can’t tell. What if he’s still joking? He is. He’s smiling.
“Yes,” he laughs. “I…I’ve written songs about you.”
I nod and I have to look down. “I know.”
“You haven’t heard all of them.”
“I haven’t?”
“No. I haven’t either. There are new ones….”
“The universe hasn’t yet written,” I say.
He laughs, and flushes red.
I kick off my shoes and put my bag on the floor by the bed and dig out my laptop, plug in my cord in case I need it and I probably will. I am on top of the covers, back agai
nst the pillow propped on the headboard, knees bent and my laptop resting on my stomach and thighs. I spend hours in this position. He is still living out of a suitcase. It’s there, open, rifled through.
“I’ll,” his hand flops, “lock up.”
I forget to move. I am still in the same position when he comes back.
He closes the bedroom door, clicks the lock on the knob. Ned trips along, coming over to lick my arm and see if he can get in bed too.
“Ned, no,” Spencer says and Ned slinks off and circles a pile of Spencer’s dirty clothes a couple of times and thuds down.
Spencer gets in beside me, stretches on his back, hands under his head. “Hey,” he says to me.
I smile at him, and I’m pulling up the file now.
He turns on his side toward me, arm under his pillow, the other hand lies very near me. I try to pay attention to what Aaron has written. He’s thanking me for introducing him to Christine. Is he crazy?
“You’re in my bed, Sullivan,” Spencer says, his green eyes very clear in the soft light.
“I…can’t read if you talk to me.”
Then I go back to reading the same thing three times and I still can’t figure out what Aaron’s talking about.
The hand that had been lying near me moves and rests on my foot. Spencer takes hold of my ankle. “Tiny ankles,” he sings softly instead of, “Tiny bubbles.”
When I ignore that he says “Your ankles are skinny. Delicate.”
I take a quick glance at him but his attention is on my ankle or leg, I can’t tell. I stare at the screen and reread my instructions. At least the first sentence. I reread that again. God, he’s holding my leg.
“Are we going to look me over…my body parts?” I say.
He laughs. “If you want me to…I’m willing.”
The look on his face, it makes me laugh. I pretend to get back to work.
“I have you…and Ned in here,” he says. “It’s practically a crowd.”
He traces my calve muscle with his pointer finger. Just to my knee and back down. My mouth is open.
“I like your legs,” he says.
“Spencer….”
He pulls his hand back. “Did you like it in the water…when I held you?”
I can’t answer that. I can’t possibly.
“I did,” he goes on. He gets up on his elbow, “Kiss me. A goodnight kiss.”
“Spencer…I’m not….”
“I know. Just a kiss.”
“I don’t…kiss…people.”
“One little kiss goodnight and I’ll leave you alone.”
“On the lips?”
“That’s one of my choices.”
I don’t even know what that means. “Alright. One kiss and….”
And there it is, a three inch gully above my breast, my heart.
“Sarah,” he whispers. He’s looking there, and at me. Back and forth for a minute while he takes it in.
“It’s me. It’s…mine.”
He looks at my chest, the whole naked thing.
He gets up, on his knees, and puts his hand on the back of my head and he moves in slow, and licks his lips and I lick mine, and he presses his warm mouth on mine, and I grip the sides of my laptop, and I lift my face so he can get in there and get out, but once I feel his tongue move over my lips, my hands spring up on their own and cup his face.
He moans, and I hear the lid of my laptop shut when he moves up over me, and I can barely think, but he pulls me down some, then gathers me in to him, his hand all the way to my ass and a hard squeeze there and his face above me as he breathes in and kisses me with such all-out feeling behind it, I let out a long low sound and my leg wraps around one of his, and my hand moves over his back, against the smooth muscles that have made me want him…want him. I can’t get enough, get close enough, move enough, moan enough. I have both arms around him now, and my leg, and with the other, raising myself, grinding into him, and he has his hand shoved down my pants and I hear a rip even as he pushes at them and my underwear, and he pulls at my shirt and I move anyway I can to help him free my skin to his eyes and his touch and God his mouth, and he kisses my scar, runs his tongue over the puckered gully, then over my nipples, and my stomach, and he kisses me between my legs, right there, and I lift my ass and dig my hands in his hair and dare to look at his head working over me there, his closed eyes and his attention, he is lost as he licks me, as he devours me like he needs me, like I am all there is, and I pant and respond to his soft relentless mouth, I come hard and I convulse, screaming his name, I am wild, and he holds me to his face, and the wet shatter stretches out long and powerful and he keeps going, gently endlessly moving his tongue and I come again, on top of the first one, deeper in my body this time, and I say his name on a whimper, a hot melt against his mouth, his tongue pressed there and I make sounds, new sounds, broken in a new way, an old way, God…God…oh God I am giving it to him…me. I am giving him…me.
He lowers his head, runs his lips along the puckered skin, the old wound, my badge of courage.
It’s a few seconds into the after. It’s the softest time I’ve ever consciously experienced. He is close and I cry. Old tears under new tears. He situates himself next to me. He gathers me, and pulls the sheet over me, and his hands, like on the water, he holds me and the tears, and his arms, and his chest, and he keeps me…he keeps me…afloat.
Me and Mom Fall for Spencer
Chapter Twenty-One
I have never slept with someone, besides Freida…Mom, on occasion growing up and scared of the dark, or Leeanne, and then we stayed as far from one another as possible.
But this morning I wake up and I am caged by limbs, long, masculine, heavy, well-shaped, breathing, pulsing limbs. I am Hermione encased in Devil’s Snare.
I do not want to move, because I can’t compute.
Now the shortness of breath comes, the suffocation. I’m trapped. I bolt out of there, and I’m standing, and I’m in my tee-shirt and that’s all.
He is looking at me. He has seen me, my state, oh it’s in his eyes the serious, intense gaze at my naked lower half and I pull the shirt down in front but it not quite long enough, so I stretch it to a point over my beave and with one hand beneath that I graze the hair there like I think it might have slipped off, and I’m looking at him, and I’m not moving. I don’t know….
He laughs a little, well smiles…beams, and raises his head, not his eyes—he doesn’t raise those I mean, but he supports himself with a hand, elbow on the pillow. “Look at you, Miss Sarah,” he says, looking…there…still.
It’s not funny. He is so swollen with sleep, like he’d been so far under, and me…I am groggy as hell but this whole situation is like a caffeine injection, I am waking up. I am awake. I’m screaming inside.
I take a step to his bed and pull at the covers. My underwear, please God, please. I see them balled on the floor at the foot of the bed, and my sleep shorts, and I take a couple of awkward steps and I pull on the shorts, jump a little to get them pulled up and feel everything jiggles and he’s not missing a thing I can tell you. So I just keep moving, I go to my computer bag, stuff my underwear in there first thing.
“No, no,” he’s saying, exploding out of the sheets toward me. “No, Sarah, stay, stay with me.”
He’s got clothes on. All night he wore clothes and I…I….
His arms are around me, and I am soon against his chest, and he’s warm, so warm and he’s tall and he smells good and earthy, maybe like me, and he isn’t taking my breath like before, now that I know what’s going on. It’s okay. It’s good. Holding me, hands on me, smoothing over me…him.
“Come lie down with me…Sarah?” He has some gravel in this morning voice, so deep, so filled with sleep, this lazy, voice that seems to know what we should do.
It has started in me, the spinning wheel of ‘I gotta’s.’ I gotta get home. I gotta work. I gotta get over to Billy’s. I gotta make sure he eats. I gotta finish cleaning. I gotta talk to Mom. I g
otta make sure…I gotta make sure….
I am looking at him…maybe I could be lost with him, on that bed, floating there….
“Where’s Ned?” I say, cause it’s always this way, the words coming from the side of everything.
“I put him out early this morning.” He’s kissing me, under my ear, oh God…oh God. “You’re tired. Let me hold you…one more hour. While you sleep. Let me hold you baby.”
I remember the lick…the suck…the wild euphoric writhing the last time he ‘held me, just held me.’
“I can’t…I don’t trust…you.” I speak softly, as if I’m afraid of my own voice.
“Don’t trust me?” I don’t mean it like that. But I do. “Trust me,” he says kissing down my neck, his lips so, so warm, so…so.
We’re tumbling on to the bed and he is soon nestled between my legs and we are kissing, kissing, how have I lived without kissing…him? His thumb on my cheek as his lips pull at mine, as he does to my mouth what he did down below, he has this consuming way of becoming my world, of becoming the room, of becoming all there is…for me. He is so focused and I feel like there is nothing else for him…as well.
My shirt is up and he sucks on my breast, he eases off, the sound of his breathing as he looks at the nipple huge and red from the pressure, he looks at me and I love his face, his unguarded eyes and mouth and then he’s back to sucking the other breast, he awakens pleasure from every dormant hiding place in me. I think I’ll explode from the pressure of his mouth, sucking, and now the lower half grinding, him into me and me lifting and writhing side to side, we roll finally and I am on top and I go to town then and I come again, and he pushes up against me as I do, and he’s letting himself go with a sound, a deep sound, and I know he comes too, my hands on his face as he soars, and I watch him even as I pant my way down from where he’s taken me again, he’s closed his eyes, to come, but now they are open, looking at me, languid and sated, I see that. I don’t know what all this is, this look.
What will we do now? What can we do? It’s so fierce between us. It’s takes hold…it takes over.
“Sarah,” he says. “Sarah.”
I swallow convulsively. I need to look away. He is looking in to me. I am not strong enough to keep looking back. I…I feel so much. Too much. Always.
