by Kyra Davis
So I get up and tiptoe down to the clean and sparse kitchen, sort through the cabinets until I find a half-empty bottle of gin. I pour some into a large water goblet, hoping that if I drink enough it’ll help me fall asleep, or if not, perhaps it will at least bring me unconsciousness.
The little death . . . it can mean so many things.
CHAPTER 6
THE LIGHT OF the morning wasn’t nearly enough to jar me from my induced sleep. In a state that was just short of wakefulness, I think I heard Ash rise. Perhaps I mumbled something about nausea and he hushed me, a finger against my lips. Then the sound of a match, a different scent in the air, and finally his mouth against mine, opening my lips with the gentlest of pressure, the sensation of smoke pouring into me, burning my throat, filling my lungs as the taste of burnt grass lingered on my tongue, the quieting of my stomach, and then sleep and sleep and sleep. Yes, I believe that was real, that it happened . . . then again, maybe it was all a delusion.
And now the room is thoroughly warmed by the afternoon sun and I’m still curled up against Ash. But I hear something disturbing the stillness. The distant slamming of a door, the shuffling of objects, the soft sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. All an illusion, all woven into the pattern of a dream.
And then the door to the bedroom flies open, crashing against the wall, there’s a sharp cry of protest, and immediately I’m awake, shrinking under the gaze of a woman with dark eyebrows and platinum blond hair wearing pink velour pants and a hoodie. She’s like an apparition from a fluorescent Juicy Couture nightmare. Perhaps that’s why I match her scream with one of my own, or maybe it’s that I suddenly realize I am lying on top of the covers completely naked.
Or maybe it’s that I know we’re caught.
I jump up and try to grab the comforter to cover myself, but my efforts are undermined by Ash, who is lying on top of it as well. He’s also awake, but his reaction is less of alarm and more of annoyance. Leisurely, he gets off the comforter and covers himself under the sheets, his eyes slightly red under his half-mast lids. “Everybody chill.”
We’re about to be hauled off to prison and he wants everybody to chill. I pull the comforter around me tightly as the woman in pink carries on. “What the fuck are you doing here? This is my bedroom. Oh my God you’re in my bed! What are you doing?”
“We were sleeping,” mumbles Ash.
“In what universe is this anything but completely fucked-up?” pink lady demands.
“I . . . I’m really sorry—” I begin, but she stops me with a talk-to-the-hand gesture.
“Whoever you are,” she seethes, “you need to shut up.”
“There’s no need to be rude,” Ash says, yawning. He’s casually propped himself up on several pillows and is looking for all the world like a dissolute seducer from the cover of a Harlequin romance.
“No need to be . . .” she repeats, her voice fading off as she tries to harness her rage. “This is my bedroom. You could have slept in any of the guest rooms. You did not have to sleep here! We’ve been over this!”
“Wait—” I say, raising my hand like a timid schoolgirl. My head is pounding but even in my punished state, I’m beginning to put the pieces together. “You guys know each other? Is Ash a guest here?”
“Oh no, you’re not guests, you are trespassing in my bedroom!” the woman snaps before turning back to Ash. “My cousin is sleeping naked in my bed! It’s like we’re in some kind of redneck, hillbilly hell!”
Ash looks at me impassively. “Did I tell you that my cousin Eva Castillo is the owner of this place?”
I shake my head, unable to find my voice.
“Hmm.” He sighs and relaxes more of his weight against the pillows. “Oh what a tangled web we weave.”
LESS THAN FIVE minutes later I’m scurrying into a guest room, once again clutching my clothes to my chest, but this time wrapped up in a towel his cousin reluctantly let me borrow after Ash promised we’d wash it. Ash is in Eva’s bathroom changing. Eva is ripping the sheets off her bed in a frenzied state of disgust and rage as she waits to continue her argument with my lover. The guest room has sky-blue walls and white wicker furniture. The bedding is covered in illustrations of blue seashells, and the prints on the walls are of fuzzy otters and leaping dolphins. And here I am, naked, shamed, completely violating the aesthetic.
We hadn’t broken in. He had a standing invitation to stay here whenever he needed a place to crash. I am not an outlaw. It was all a fantasy.
Or was it all a lie? Is there a difference?
I sit down on the edge of the bed and pull on my clothes. My undergarments are in a state of ruin, so I toss them aside and opt for a commando approach. The denim of my jeans chafes, and the way my shirt clings to my bare breasts makes me vaguely self-conscious. It should probably make me severely self-conscious, but everyone in this house has already seen me wearing less. I try to run my fingers through my hair, but they get caught in the tangles. That’s what happens when you have sex with wet hair.
But was it worth it?
Visions of Ash bathing me, touching me, the way he felt when he was inside of me . . . Yes, yes I suppose it was. Down the hall I can hear Eva berating him again.
In another minute Ash is here, opening the door, looking rumpled, tired, and absolutely beautiful.
“You lied to me,” I say as the door closes softly behind him.
“I misled you,” he corrects. Each step he takes in my direction is predatory and beautiful. “I never actually lied . . . at least not that I can recall . . .”
“Why?”
And now he’s standing over me, pushing my tangled hair behind my ears, letting his fingers dance along the line of my jaw. “You wanted danger and risk. You craved adrenaline. So I gave it to you. Without ever putting you in harm’s way I created a scenario that provided you with the thrill you required.” He’s touching my shoulder, his legs on either side of mine. “It was my gift to you.” And then his hand moves under my hair, sliding against the back of my neck. “I wanted you happy.”
“You think you made me happy?” I ask, almost challenging him.
“I know it.”
Neither of us moves, each hoping to extract something different from this moment. How do I balance the romance of his charade with the dishonesty of the setup? “Ash,” I begin, but I’m interrupted by a shriek coming from the master bedroom.
“Dear lord, there’s a used condom in here! Ew, ew, ew, ewwww!”
I bite down on my lower lip. “That’s pretty bad.”
“In my defense, I did put it in the wastebasket . . . but yeah, I probably should have wrapped it in tissue.”
I start giggling. I don’t know why, but suddenly the whole thing seems hilariously absurd. Ash just smiles, the tips of his fingers moving up and down the back of my neck now as he waits for me to catch my breath.
“I have to smooth things over,” he says. “Eva’s a little tightly wound. But she’s family, and I don’t want her to be angry with me for long. You get that, don’t you?”
No. I don’t get it. I have no idea what the word family is supposed to mean.
But I like that it means something to Ash, and it would be nice if he could help me understand. “Can I help?” I ask. “Maybe if I apologize, or say it was all my idea . . .”
I see the glint of approval in his eyes and it immediately soothes me. “Couldn’t hurt,” he admits. “In about ten minutes she’ll be at her kitchen table, drinking her tea. You can tell her all that then, before I get you a car.”
“A . . . a car? You’re not driving me back?”
“I really have to stay and talk things out with Eva. It’ll take a little time.”
“Oh.” Outside I can hear the rumblings of a truck pass, then nothing but the whispered roar of the Pacific. “This isn’t New York. I won’t just be able to hail a cab.”
The edge in my voice has scraped the approval away from his expression and there’s a big part of me that wants it back. But there’s another pa
rt of me that wants to scratch those dark, unsympathetic eyes right out of his head.
“There’s a hotel just down the beach. I’ll walk you there and . . . you know what? Fuck the cab. You’re too good for that. I’ll call and get you a town car to meet you there, my treat. One with little bottles of water and leg room.”
“A town car,” I say slowly. He is still standing over me, straddling my legs. Slowly I lower my back against the mattress as he watches, everything about him anticipatory. And then I curl my knees to my chest and kick them out to the right of him and get up without so much as grazing his jeans. “Fine, I’ll take a town car and you can take a shower,” I say coolly. “You need it.”
CHAPTER 7
THE SUN’S ALREADY preparing to set by the time I get to talk to Eva. Just as Ash predicted, I find her sitting at her breakfast table, glaring into a big yellow cup with a smiley face on it as if the contents are some kind of grim prophecy rather than herbal tea. I’m hit with a pretty powerful sense of guilt. Somehow having sex in a stranger’s bed seemed less offensive than having sex in the bed of a family member. If my parents had ever had sex in my bed, I would have slept on the floor until they bought me a new one.
I take a seat cautiously across from her. “Mercy,” I say, pointing to myself by way of introduction. It’s an awkward start, but what do you say to the woman whose house you sort of, kind of broke into?
She glances up from her cup and for the first time I note the dark circles and the red blood vessels shooting across her eyes like spider webs. “Mercy,” she repeats, and then lets out a low laugh. “Mercy me. Tell me, did you meet Ash last night? Did he impress you by telling you this was his house?”
I sense the underlying accusation in the question: Did you spread your legs for him because you thought he had money? I let it slide for no other reason than it’s the least offensive thing anyone’s accused me of in a long time. “No, he didn’t tell me that,” I say truthfully. “But he didn’t tell me it was your house, either.” I shrug, tap the toe of my shoe against her floor. I’m too pissed to cover for Ash. I always have to live with the consequences of my actions, and this last year I had to live with the consequences of his, too! My soul, my heart, they’re both riddled with all the bullets I was unable to dodge. That Ash should have it easier again . . . it’s not fair, it’s not right, and I’m tired of it.
Still, I’m hardly blameless. “I’m sorry we were in your bed,” I say quietly.
“I have a thing about germs,” she said through gritted teeth.
“If you like, Ash and I can wash the sheets.” When she doesn’t seem appeased, I add, “In bleach . . . after we sterilize them by putting them in boiling water. And you can toss that wastebasket you found the condom in. I’ll get you a brand-new one with, like, twenty seashells on it. And then I’ll scrub the bathroom down with more bleach. I’ll clean until the disinfectant fumes are strong enough to burn membranes right off your nostrils.”
She shakes her head. “Thank you, but sheet boiling might be a step too far.”
I suppress a smile and offer her my hand. “Peace?”
She stares at me for a moment before reaching forward, turning my hand upward, and then, before I have a chance to ask what she’s up to, she pulls a small bottle of Purell out of her pocket and squeezes a dollop of it into my palm. I immediately burst out laughing, and after a moment’s pause she joins in, lifting her smiley cup and shaking her head. “Leave it to Ash to start my year off with a curveball.”
“Are you two close?” I ask, beginning to feel relaxed.
“We’re family,” she says with a shrug.
I shift uncomfortably in my chair.
“So you did just meet last night, right?” Eva prods.
“No, we’ve met before . . . once,” I hedge. “A long time ago.”
Eva’s dark, meticulously waxed brows drop into a furrow. “You two dated?”
“We were never dating.” Outside the kitchen window I can see colors slowly materialize across the sky in preparation for the night.
“I figured,” she says triumphantly. “Ash doesn’t reunite with exes . . . or to be more accurate, none of his exes are willing to reunite with him.”
“Why not?”
“He’s a fuckup, that’s why not.”
My shoulders stiffen involuntarily. I had been thinking something similar just seconds ago, but hearing it from her . . . hearing it phrased like that . . . it doesn’t sit well. “He seems to be doing alright.”
“Please.” She laughs. “His grandmother died and left him some money. And what does he do? Party, buy a Ninja, spend it on loose women . . . oh, I didn’t mean . . .”
I wave the insult off with the flick of my hand, my eyes still on the window.
“I just mean he’s irresponsible,” she continues, “and selfish . . . a bit of a womanizer . . . and honesty’s not his strong suit.” She laughs again and sips her tea, never noticing that my breathing has become shallower. “He’d kill me if he heard me saying all this, but be warned. Ash is fun to party with and he can be a fairly good friend, but when it comes to relationships? Do not tie yourself down to this one.”
“Do you want him to end up alone?” I whisper.
“Excuse me?”
I turn my gaze back to her and grace her with a slow, cold smile. “Ash, your cousin, your family. If you don’t think he’s worthy of being in a relationship, would you prefer for him to spend his life alone? That is the alternative, isn’t it?”
“Well I . . .” Eva puts her cup down and crosses and uncrosses her legs. “At least until he grows up a little bit more . . .”
“But what if he doesn’t? I mean, once a bad apple, always a bad apple, right?” I ask. Eva recoils, her eyes confused, maybe a little scared. “I’m surprised you bother with him at all,” I continue. “But maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll drive that Ninja off a cliff.”
“Now just hold on a minute—”
“Hey.” Ash enters the room, clean and fresh from the shower, wearing different clothes that I assume he must have left here last time he stayed. He stops suddenly as he notes the tension spread out across the table. “Everything cool?”
“Absolutely, baby.” I rise and kiss him deeply while lowering my hand to his ass, a show for Eva’s benefit. “I was just thinking about how fun it was to get it on in Eva’s bed . . . oh, and in her bathtub. But I think it’s time we change it up a bit, find someplace nicer to hang.” I pull away, walk back to the breakfast table, pull Eva’s tea bag out of her cup, plop it into my open mouth, and literally suck out the rest of the flavor before dropping it back into her half-empty cup. “You can bleach your own damn sheets.”
BY THE TIME Ash catches up with me I’m already out the door. “Wait, Melo—Mercy, wait!” he calls as I storm out the gate.
I slow my steps, allowing him to catch up. “What was that all about?”
“She’s an unholy bitch!” I snap.
“Ah, she’s just a little crazy. A germaphobe.”
“Yeah, I don’t really give a shit about her phobias.” Our feet hit the sand, softening our steps, relaxing our pace. “The things she was saying—”
He stops, forcing me to stop with him. “What was she saying?”
I look up into his face and see genuine bewilderment and . . . and innocence. “She . . .” I falter as a seagull lands a few feet from us before lifting up in the air again.
“She,” Ash repeats, dragging the word out, encouraging me to continue.
I should still be angry with him. I should be. But . . . but not so angry that I want to see him hurt by the disapproval and judgments of those who are supposed to love him. I can’t be party to that. “She was just kind of judgmental,” I offer lamely.
He hesitates, tilting his head to the side. “That’s it? She was judgmental?”
I shrug, not wanting to go into detail.
“Well, we made love in her bed,” he says with a smile, putting his hands on my waist. “It migh
t not be unreasonable to allow her to be a little judgmental, right?”
“Yeah, I guess, I mean of course, of course you’re right.” I stare down at my hands, pretending to examine my fingernails. “Look, I’m just hungover, that’s all.”
He smiles, his hand slipping just under the hem of my shirt. “Tell you what, the town car won’t be here for another hour and a half, so let’s walk to that restaurant together, get a little breakfast before you go. Okay?”
“ ’Kay.” I swallow, sticking my hands into my pockets.
“Hey.” He leans into me a little more. “I’m going to see you again, soon.”
“Really?” I ask. My voice sounds so small, so pathetically hopeful.
“Wednesday night?” he suggests. “Are you free?”
“The band’s rehearsing in the late afternoon, but I should be home by seven.”
“Perfect. I’ll take you to this awesome steak place. You like steak?”
Not particularly, but I just smile and let him take that as a yes.
“Come on, let’s walk,” he says, gesturing toward the restaurant.
And so we do. I think I did the right thing by not sharing my conversation with Eva, but . . . but now I’m weighed down with another damned secret. If I collect too many more of these they’ll crush me.
I glance out at the ocean one more time. What I wouldn’t do to be enveloped in its cloak of invisibility now.
CHAPTER 8
I CAN’T STOP THINKING about him.
On the second I went hiking in Griffith Park, all the way up to Amir’s Garden, where the sycamores’ arced branches shaded the green metal benches, and I thought of him. On the third when I pulled on my wetsuit and paddled out into the waves of Hermosa Beach, the power of the ocean lifting me instead of defeating me, I thought of Ash. On the fourth I rented a bunch of DVDs and waited by the phone. I waited by the phone! I am a cliché! And the son of a bitch didn’t call.
And now it’s Wednesday and I’m driving up the 101 to Calabasas to rehearse with the band and still not so much as an e-mail. After the way he seduced me in the alley, after I made myself vulnerable to him on the beach, after the way he touched me, kissed me, the way his hands dipped into the water of that bath, gently pushing away the bubbles that clung to my skin, after all of that he didn’t call.
