Ruin Me

by Cara McKenna

  “You’re awful squishy,” he says. “Have a good time?”

  I talk into his shirt, muffled. “I did. Thank you.” I realize with a strange start that I’ve just cheated on someone, properly and thoroughly, for the first time in my life. I’m not sure having permission excuses it all that much. The feeling reminds me of the first time I was in a fender-bender, one that I caused. Before then I’d never expected I’d be at fault for such a thing and I remember grieving that day as a hunk of my potential for being a perfect person crumbled away. If I’d known about all this back then, I’d have been a lot easier on myself about denting somebody’s stupid bumper.

  The microwave beeps and Jay dumps the popcorn in a mixing bowl. I follow him back to the couch where he clicks on the television but keeps the volume down. It’s what we do sometimes if we need to have a fight, or what constitutes a fight in our hyper-functional relationship. Neither of us actively watches the TV but it gives us something to focus on while we attempt to articulate whatever emotional gristle we’re gnawing through.

  Jay stares at the images flashing by on the screen. “So. Tell me what happened.”

  “You still want to hear about it?”

  “Yeah. Tell me all the horny details,” he says, and tucks into the popcorn.

  “Okay…but don’t ask me to compare you guys or anything, all right?”

  “I won’t.”

  “Good. Well…” I sputter a breath out. “I picked up some food at the deli and went over there. And we had some wine… I watched Jeopardy! with him,” I say, cringing. “I’m sorry. I wish I hadn’t.”

  Jay meets my eyes. “Why not?”

  “Isn’t that, like, our thing?”

  “Jeopardy!’s as ubiquitous as saying you guys drank wine. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Oh good.”

  His gaze returns to the TV. “What else happened?”

  “Well, he made a fire, and we ate dinner and drank wine and kissed and messed around on his couch.”

  “Was it romantic?” he asks.

  “No, it was more like friends, actually. Even though there was a fire and wine, it didn’t feel like he was seducing me or anything. We just ate dinner and screwed around.” I leave out the part where Patrick kissed me goodnight.

  Jay sets the bowl down and grabs a paper towel, wiping his fingers. He turns to face me. His salty lips sting my own, still savaged from Patrick. We make out for a couple minutes and it’s as much a relief as it is a turn-on. His mouth slides to my neck.

  “Tell me exactly what you did.” He sounds horny as all get-out. Awesome.

  “We kissed, first, and then he got on top of me.”

  I feel Jay’s breath flare hot and moist on my throat. “What else?”

  “We kind of dry-humped for a while, and he took his shirt off and I touched him. Above the belt.”

  Jay’s hand cups my breast as his teeth graze my skin.

  “And my dress was up around my waist and he rubbed against me, through his pants.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “Yeah. It was pretty fucking hot.”

  Jay sits back and yanks me into his lap just like the other night. “Then what?” He pulls me close so I can feel how excited he is. Dear God, who is this man?

  “I told him I wanted to see it, so he let me. And I touched him.”

  Jay pulls the V of my dress down and kisses the tops of my breasts. “Is he big?”

  “Yeah, he’s real big.” I hold my breath.

  “What did you want to do to him?”

  “Everything. I wanted to suck him, really bad. But we didn’t do any of that. I just stroked him.”

  “What else?” he asks.

  “We went to his bedroom and got our clothes off. Except my bra.”

  “Did you want him?”

  “Yeah,” I breathe. Jay’s lips take my ear in a way that always makes me go feral. “I told him I wanted to watch him. You know, touch himself. So I lay down and he got between my legs—”

  I’m distracted as Jay scoots me back a few inches, undoes his pants and takes his cock out. I study his face, the familiar, glazed look I know and love so well.

  “Keep going,” he says.

  “I touched him, and he touched me. And he asked me what I used to think about, back when I visited him. Before you,” I add, probably too quickly.

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him I used to think about sucking him off in the parking lot, that night he saved me.” I blush, still not entirely comfortable with that fantasy.

  “Yeah?”

  “I didn’t want it that night, of course. But I used to think about it.”

  “What did he say?” Jay asks.

  “Well, he told me about how he used to fantasize about getting home after he was released and finding me there, waiting for him.”

  “Did he want you, tonight?”

  I nod. “But he never asked me to. He knows you’re calling the shots.”

  “Fucking right,” Jay says and his hand speeds up.

  “Then I played with my clit and he fingered me, and I came.”

  “Did you jerk him off?” he asks.

  “He touched himself, first. Then after I came he made me hold my hands like this.” I wrap both my hands around Jay, thumbs on top. “And he sort of fucked my fists, with his eyes closed, like he was imagining we were doing it.” I run my hands up and down Jay’s shaft.

  “Did he come?”

  “Yeah, he did.”

  “Did you wish you were allowed to screw him?” Jay asks.

  “Yeah. But I wouldn’t have.” I think I hide my lack of confidence in this statement pretty well.

  “I bet he wanted to fuck you,” he says. “I bet he was dying to, after he felt how tight and wet you are.”

  “Only you get to do that, Jay.”

  He takes my bait. He pushes me back on the couch and shoves my dress up my legs and yanks the crotch of my panties aside. He sinks in deep, my pussy wet from thoughts of both men.

  “God, yeah. This is what he wants.” Jay pumps me fast and greedy. I bet he’d pay for Patrick to have to watch this.

  “Take your shirt off,” I say.

  He pauses to lean back and indulge me and I grin at him. Jay’s got such a nice body. He’s got hardly any chest hair and he’s pretty muscular, though far smaller than Patrick. He looks different than you’d expect with his clothes off. He used to swim competitively when we started dating. He never won but I always loved going to his meets because he looks damn fine in a Speedo and I wanted all the women in the stands to see who he kissed when the competition was over.

  Patrick Whelan, on the other hand, looks exactly how you’d guess, if you have a greedy, idealistic imagination.

  I watch Jay’s chest and abdomen as he fucks me. He’s sleek and smooth and commanding. A zillion women would prefer him to Patrick and probably want me stoned for thinking I need more than this.

  I watch Jay, but I imagine Patrick. He had that same mean look in his eye as Jay does now. When he fucked my hands he’d been out of his mind, wild and frantic. I liked that. I like that I have the power to make a man that big and self-possessed into a desperate animal. I like that Jay should be the desperate, insecure one, but here he is, banging my brains out as if he hasn’t got a doubt in the world.

  I think any woman who says men are predictable should try fucking an ex-con lumberjack and a cuckolded technology journalist in the same day and see if they don’t just have a change of heart on the matter.

  * * * * *

  “Hey. Robin.”

  Carrie gets my attention from the counter and I look up from pricing sealing wax.

  “What’s up? Is it time for your break?”

  “Nearly. But that guy is across the road. That Patrick guy?” she elaborates, brows raised.

  “Oh.” I walk over, casual, and look past the window display to where Patrick is indeed locking up his truck on the other side of Main Street. My pulse hums.
r />   “My dad said he saved your life,” Carrie says, watching him. “Is that true?”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far…but yeah, he did help me when a guy had a knife to my throat in the Tap’s parking lot. A long time ago.”

  Carrie’s blue eyes go big and round. “Oh my God, that’s scary.”

  “So yeah, that’s my hero, right there.” I point to where Patrick’s waiting for a break in traffic to cross the street. I wonder if Carrie can hear my heart pounding.

  “God, I’d be afraid he’d be the one lurking in a parking lot,” she says.

  “Don’t say that. Patrick Whelan’s a very nice man.”

  “Yeah, but he looks like a psychopath. And I heard he was in prison.”

  “Only because he beat the tar out of the guy with the knife,” I say, sounding defensive.

  “Wow, really?”

  “Yeah. He’s as nice as they come.”

  “Well, he looks super-scary.”

  “You’re twenty.” God, twenty. That’s probably how old the kid with the knife was. I make my voice breathy and patronizing. “When you hit your sexual peak you’ll be all over guys who look like Patrick Whelan.”

  “No way, Robin.”

  “Call me in ten years and we’ll see who’s right. And anyhow, don’t let anyone tell you he’s a psycho. He’s my friend.” I watch Patrick jog across Main and head straight for our door. My body tingles, just like always. Like always, I love it and hate it in equal measures. “Why don’t you take your lunch break?”

  Carrie hurries out from behind the counter, presumably so she won’t have to greet the psychopath pushing the door in. Patrick watches Carrie jog through the store and up the half-flight of steps to the stationery section then through the door to the back room.

  He turns to me. “Hey, Robin.”

  “Hey, yourself. What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve never actually been in here before,” he says. “Nice place.” He’s got on a black knit cap and gray Carhartt pants, looking like a working-class wet dream. He approaches the counter and as soon as I look in his eyes I remember everything from three nights ago.

  “Thanks. You saying hello, or can I help you patronize me?”

  “Mostly hello. I just did at job on Brewster Street so I thought I’d stop in. This isn’t weird, is it?”

  I pause, about to speak, and we both straighten up on opposite sides of the counter as Carrie reappears in her coat and heads for the front door. “See you at two,” she says.

  I turn back to Patrick as the door jingles shut. “No, it’s not weird. I’d ask you if you want to go get some lunch, but I’ve got to watch the shop.”

  “Are you hungry?” he asks. “I could grab you something.”

  I think a moment. “Yeah, okay. I was going to get a bowl of soup from next door.”

  Patrick nods and walks away before I can give him any cash. He returns in five minutes with a deli tub and a brown bag. He takes his hat off and tucks it in a pocket.

  “Butternut squash,” he says, and hands me a plastic soup spoon and a napkin.

  I peel the lid off the tub and take a deep whiff. “God, I love fall.”

  Patrick pulls out a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper.

  “Eat over here,” I say, patting the side of the counter away from the register. “In case I actually get a customer.”

  “Business slow?”

  “It’s not bad, considering. It’s just that everyone’s traveling or at the grocery store. The card companies haven’t made Thanksgiving into a stationery holiday yet. People don’t think about me much until December.”

  Patrick nods, looking me over. “You have glitter in your hair.”

  “I’m sure.” I shake my head and a few red flecks float down to the floor. “I was digging through the Christmas window display stuff this morning. I’ll be coming in on Sunday to holiday the hell out of this place.”

  Patrick takes a few bites of his roast beef sandwich, glancing around the store. His eyes look complex in the daylight coming in through the front windows, deep brown, but with that striated iris texture to them. Everything looks complex just now.

  I lean in and eat my soup, elbows on the counter just like how Patrick’s standing on the other side. There’s something familiar and conspiratorial about being close to him, knowing him the way I do now. I get a little nervous thrill, thinking how caught I’d feel if someone did come into the shop and saw me eating lunch with this man who isn’t my live-in boyfriend.

  “So,” I say. “Jay’s still taking it pretty well.”

  He nods.

  “Maybe we can hang out after the weekend?” I want this man now, now, now, but I’m driving to Michigan tomorrow at the ass-crack of dawn with Jay. Jay will drive, and I will spend most of the journey thinking about fucking Patrick Whelan. I always think about sex during long rides, for whatever reason—automotive vibrations maybe or plain old boredom. Jay probably does too because by now I’ve surely programmed him to expect to get laid as soon as socially possible once we reach our destination.

  Patrick clears his throat and makes a project of flattening the waxed paper on top of the brown bag. “I’m glad he’s taking it well.”

  “Yeah, he’s really shockingly okay with it,” I say.

  “I’m glad.” Patrick finally looks up. “But I don’t know if I’m taking it quite so well.”

  “Oh.” I feel the blood drain from my face and chemicals invade my pulse. Fear messes with my physiology, blurring and blunting reality.

  I calmly grab a piece of paper from the printer and calmly write Back in 15 minutes on it in marker. I tape it to the door and twist the deadbolt. I touch Patrick’s arm as I pass him and he follows me up the steps to the back room. I close the door behind us and sit on the edge of the break table.

  “What aren’t you taking well?” I ask.

  He holds my eyes with his then looks away as he speaks. “What we’re doing.”

  “The cheating?”

  “No. The being with you but not actually being with you.”

  “The no-sex rule?” I ask.

  He pushes a frustrated noise through his nose. “No. The you belonging to someone else thing.”

  I look down at his boots. “Do you have feelings for me?” The store phone rings, making us both jump. “I’m sorry. I have to get that.”

  He nods as I reach for the cordless. “Roche’s Paper.”

  “Hey, lady.” Jay.

  “Hey. Can I call you back? I’m right in the middle of something.”

  “Just wanted to see if you could pick up some olive oil on the way home.”

  “Consider it done,” I say. “See you tonight.” I wait for his goodbye and hang up the phone. “Sorry.”

  “That was him?” Patrick asks.

  I nod. I watch him take a deep breath.

  “So, you have feelings for me?” I prompt. “Because of what we did?”

  “I’ve always had feelings for you.”

  “Oh. Since that night?”

  “Since before that,” he says.

  “I didn’t think we’d even talked before then.”

  “We hadn’t.”

  I frown. I don’t feel exactly creeped out, just disconcerted. “For how long, then?”

  “Since maybe two years before that night. It was after your store opened but probably that same year.”

  I would have been about twenty-five. That was when my grandmother died and I inherited the money that helped me move to Dereham from Montpelier and open this store and put a down payment on the little condo I owned before Jay and I moved in together.

  Patrick licks his lips, looking nervous. “I don’t know if I’m in love with you or anything,” he says. “But I’ve liked you for a long time.”

  “Why?” I’m cute enough, I guess, but I’m not infatuation-worthy gorgeous or crazy-charismatic or intriguing. Just a short brunette with a paper shop and a rusty hatchback.

  “I was across the street one day,
” Patrick says. “At the hardware store. You came running out of your store with a broom and started whaling on these two kids for throwing rocks at birds.”

  I haven’t thought about that in years, but as soon as Patrick says it my blood starts pumping, hot with the adrenaline I felt that afternoon. These two teenage boys had tried to rush at the pigeons on the sidewalk and stomp on them and, failing that, they decided to whip rocks at the awning that runs above my store, and the ones to either side of it, where the birds roost. It was right around the time the shop opened, when my grandma’s death was still an open wound. My grandma had loved birds and I completely flipped out. I was young and easily wound up then, plus the store was new and stressful and I felt vulnerable when I was there.

  “It was a mop,” I say. I remember seeing red and grabbing it from beside the door and stalking outside and screaming at them. I hit one of the boys hard in the ear and left a big wet sponge print on the other’s tee shirt. I probably looked totally insane, swinging a mop at those idiot kids and shrieking about animal cruelty.

  “That’s when you decided you liked me?” I ask. “When I was assaulting junior high schoolers? I’ve probably never been such a spaz in my entire life.”

  “I always thought that was really cool, that you did that.”

  I shrug. “I think they only took off because they thought I’d call the cops. Not because of my bad-ass samurai-janitor skills.”

  “They called you a crazy bitch.” Patrick smiles deeply and it gives him little squinchy rolls beneath his eyes.

  “Well, that was pretty accurate. I’m lucky their parents didn’t sue me.”

  “You know that night, in the parking lot,” he says. “That wasn’t just luck. That I found you.”

  I feel another buzz in my pulse, another sip of a stiff brain-chemical cocktail. “No?”

  He shakes his head. “I’d been wanting to talk you all night. Well, I’d been wanting to talk to you for two years, but that night I told myself I finally would. I was going to offer to buy you a drink the next time you dropped your glass off at the bar but then you left. And I was drunk enough to follow you and drunk enough to not think trying to talk to you for the first time in a dark parking lot wasn’t totally sketchy. So I went after you, and you know how all that turned out.”