The Girl in the Comfortable Quiet

by Susan Ward

  His voice brings me up sharply. It takes a few moments to believe he actually said that. Humiliation rips through me.

  Rejection. Alan is saying no to me. Clear. Absolute. And brutally him.

  My body covers in a tell-tale blush. “That isn’t what I’m doing and that isn’t what I’m thinking, and fuck you for thinking that it is.”

  I start to scramble from the bed, wanting to get out of here before the tears give way. I put my legs over the side, sitting beside him, but I am shaking too hard to stand. I can hear Alan breathing, but he’s not moving and I can’t look at him.

  “I get it,” I force myself to say, hating how weak and pathetic I sound. I lift my chin, struggling for my pride. “I’m sorry, Alan. I am sorry about everything. My mistake. I’ve read the signals wrong and I won’t make that mistake again. But you don’t have to be so mean, Alan. I’ll go—”

  My hand is jerked toward him and my palm is pressed into his cock before I realize what he’s doing. In a voice rough and grinding, he says, “I’ve had a fucking erection since yesterday afternoon when I heard you and Neil might be splitting. I don’t even know what you want, but I am hard from the possibility of you. Don’t play games with me, Chrissie. Don’t fuck with me, unless you are interested this time in something other than fucking.”

  He tosses my hand back at me. His words lie heavily in the room. It takes me a moment to absorb what just happened here. Something other than fucking? Weird, angry, Alan honesty.

  My heart turns over in my chest and begins to race. I stare up at him, breathy and excited. Things are moving too fast. My life is careening out of control. This is not the way I imagined this, going to bed again with Alan. But I can’t turn away, not from him, not from myself, and not this, no not ever, not after those words.

  How could he think all I could want from him is meaningless, angry fucking? Doesn’t he know that I love him?

  Instead of trying to sputter out a response to his crass speech, I surround him with my arms. I kiss him hard, spreading his mouth wide and claiming his tongue. The taste of him runs wildly through my veins as my blood pulses in my ears, drowning out all sound around me. My fingers find the buttons on his shirt as my pelvis moves into him.

  Against his mouth, I whisper, “I love you, Alan.”

  And then his body and mouth take control of me. He deepens the kiss, and before my spinning head can catch up with what we are doing, we are both naked on the bed and neither of us is fighting this.

  ~~~

  I hold my breath as Alan’s fingers run along my flesh. The first time we made love was frenzied and burning. Each time we’ve fucked, inside I think we’ve both quieted a little. And now after two days in Alan’s bed, he is slow, tender and gentle in how he makes love to me as he expertly moves his body in and out of me in unhurried thrusts, bringing me to the edge, and overfilling me with the feel of him.

  The tension in his body ripples beneath his skin. He spreads my mouth wide with his lips, filling me with his tongue as he plunges deep within me. Oh, he is done playing. He is as wild in his body as I am and the movement of his flesh in me comes harder, building tempo. I feel the climb, my senses swirling. My head sways on the pillow and I arch up into him, meeting his thrusts and releasing the air from my lungs into his mouth as I come apart and he lets loose in me.

  We slowly melt onto the bed, both sweaty and sex- damp, breathing heavily, and he turns onto his back with me draped across his chest.

  “I love you,” he whispers between the play of his fingers and kisses in my hair.

  “I love you, too, Alan.” I peek at him and smile. “You do realize we’ve done practically nothing but fuck for the last two days. We barely even talk.”

  He grins. His fingers do a slow trek up my spine. My bliss-numb senses tingle.

  “I think what we’re doing is working remarkably well for us, love. Especially the barely talking part. I may keep us mute and like this forever.”

  He laughs, his muscles shimmying beneath me. I know that voice. The voice of theatrics. I roll my eyes.

  “I need food,” I tease.

  He shakes his head. “No. Kiss me instead. I’ll make you dinner later. Now you are not moving one inch away from me.”

  I kiss him in a loud, wet, purposely silly way. He’s been playful since we woke this morning. But the barely talking comments are only partially a joke. I should probably slow this down. It worries me how little we’ve talked about us, things, what we’re doing. My fucked-up life.

  A measure of the glow of being with Alan dims. The voice inside my head chides that we can’t keep our issues under the carpet forever. That it would be better for us both to pull them out and find out now where they leave us. But I don’t want to ruin this perfect quiet I feel in Alan and in me and in the room.

  I reach out to trace the lines of his face. It’s been too long since I’ve seen happy Alan and to savor what it’s like to be with him when he’s this way. I’ve missed it. The way it makes his eyes look. The way it makes me feel.

  The minutes tick by with us only holding each other. My body moves with the slow rhythm of his breath as my fingers roam across him, relearning each inch of him. I don’t want to think about anything. My world is perfect in this moment. My thoughts carry me back to the past anyway.

  I push up into Alan’s arms against my back, lifting my face above his. “Do you remember Jack’s party?”

  Alan laughs, raking his hair back from his face. “How could I forget? I let your husband punch me. I thought I owed it to him, given the circumstance.”

  I flush, not wanting to be diverted by thoughts of what we did in the pool house, and say, “What do you mean let him?”

  “Me hitting him would have hurt Neil’s career at that point. Him hitting me helped him.” Alan’s dark eyes brighten, amused. “I considered it a wedding gift to you.”

  I make a face at him, but I know he’s only pretending to be joking. “What did you come to the party to tell me? Why were you there that day?”

  The light dies in his eyes. “You already know, love. Why have me say it today?”

  Oh God. Did Alan know about Neil even back then? Did he come to Jack’s party to stop me from marrying Neil?

  My thoughts take off in a dozen different directions. Where would I be today if I had let Alan do what he came to the party to do? If I’d let him tell me the truth about my husband back then? And why, after that day, if he does know, didn’t he ever tell me? I don’t think I want the answer to that. Not yet. Maybe never.

  I stare up into Alan’s face. “I’ve been wrong about everything in my life. How could I not have known? How could I marry Neil and not know? What’s wrong with me, Alan, that I can’t get a single thing right?”

  He folds me into his arms, holding me close to his chest. He lets out a ragged exhale of breath. “There is nothing wrong with you, Chrissie. You loved him. We all sometimes lie to ourselves when we are in love.”

  I start to cry. His emotional generosity and words force upon me the other lies I’ve told myself throughout the years. My own deceptions that kept me from loving Alan.

  I rub the back of my hand up my nose dripping with tears. “I’ve missed you every day since you ended it with me. I have loved you every minute of every day for the past five years.”

  Alan’s eyes turn to shimmers. “I’ve missed you, too. And I have never stopped loving you since the first moment I saw you—” His smile becomes tender and full of memory. “—playing Bach in the dim light in Jack’s studio. You took my breath away. You still do, Chrissie. And it has felt exactly like it did the first time I saw you every day of my life since then. You consumed me then and you consume me now.”

  Oh, Alan. I’m suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling of being with Alan again, as if there had never been anyone before him, as if I had not passed a minute of my life being touched or loved by anyone but him, and a glorious certainty that there will never be anyone but him again.

  I lie back on m
y pillow, covering my closed eyes with my arms, battling back the tidal wave of emotion begging for release. “How did everything get so screwed up?”

  I feel a kiss on my wrist. “I don’t know that it did. You are here. With me. Now.”

  ~~~

  I roll over in Alan’s arms and gaze at his face. It’s emotionless, so beautiful when he sleeps, and I lightly run the tip of my finger across the structure of his cheek. I think of the smile that flashes in his eyes, the only moment, in all moments we have ever been together, where I can read his heart effortlessly.

  He doesn’t stir, and I’m glad that my touch doesn’t wake him. I slip from the bed and quietly go out of the room, softly closing the bedroom door behind me. I grab the cordless phone from the living room and step out onto the patio.

  Damn, it’s still early. The sky is washed with that soft pre-dawn blue. Probably too early to call, and that thought makes my insides start to churn again. Too early? Fuck it if it’s too early for Neil, and fuck whatever he’s doing, and fuck him for where we are today.

  I’ve already spent too much time thinking and bracing myself for this. I’ve got the phone. I’m willing to call and talk to him now. Who cares if the time isn’t perfect for either of us? Too much has already happened. Everything is moving too fast. It’s time to slow it down and I can’t do that without talking to Neil.

  I sink onto a chaise and curl into a tight ball, hugging my knees. I punch in the numbers for the house line instead of Neil’s mobile since he’s damn poor at answering it. Every phone in the house will ring in out-of-sync loudness, echoing within the tile and high-ceilinged rooms and he won’t miss.

  Ring. Ring. Answered.

  “Chrissie?”

  Neil’s voice. My body tenses. I search for something to say. “How did you know it was me?”

  A pause. “I didn’t. I hoped it was.”

  His voice, husky and gentle and oh so Neil does my only loosely contained emotions no good. I don’t know what to say. I know what’s in my head. What I need to do. I just don’t know how to get from where I am to there.

  “Are you OK?” he asks. “I haven’t heard from you in over a week. Where are you?”

  I sink my teeth into my lower lips, hating the rising tears in my eyes. “I’m fine. And we both know where I am. There is no point in saying it. Don’t ask me to.”

  I hear a ragged, rattling type breath. Soggy. Is he crying? Why would Neil cry? He should be happy. Me back with Alan leaves him free to do what he wants with Andy. Neil is the one who brought us to this point.

  I run the back of my hand up my dripping nose. “I’ll be back sometime today. Be at the house. We need to talk.”

  “Chrissie—”

  I cut him off. “Not now. Not on the phone. And I don’t want to discuss anything except what we’re going to do about our marriage and Kaley. Consider all other topics off-limits.”

  “Whatever you want, Chrissie. Just promise me you’re fine. You don’t know how worried I’ve been about you since—”

  He catches himself before he says it and his fear intensifies my emotional chaos. He hasn’t mentioned it, but I can feel it between us. It’s in the press. It’s everywhere. He knows what happened at the concert. I debate with myself whether I should say something.

  I rally my nerves. “I know you’ve seen the papers, Neil. I’m so sorry about what I did at the concert. I really did plan not to comment on anything like you asked me to. But that night was so crazy. And I hadn’t been sleeping and I drank quite a bit that day and I was out of it on stage. But that’s not an excuse. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

  There are a few seconds of silence, then a tired laugh that somehow still manages to sound kind and gentle in an oh so Neil way, reminding me of why I loved him. Or rather, wanted to love him. My heart clenches.

  “Don’t worry, Chrissie. I deserved that. I probably deserve worse than that. I never wanted to hurt you. Not this way. Not like this.”

  It feels as if we’re drifting too close to dangerous territory—our marriage and Andy.

  I change course. “I’ll be in Santa Barbara later today. We’ll talk then, Neil. I promise. I’m ready to come to the house and talk through the things we need to talk through.”

  It sounds like he sucks in a full chest of oxygen. “I’ll see you when you get here, baby.”

  I don’t answer. I click off the phone. After tossing it down on the chaise, I drop my head into my hands, my fingers tightly clenched in my hair. My thoughts bounce inside my head with the same frenetic pace of my pulse.

  I’ve started the process of the ending of us. I’m going to Santa Barbara. I’m going to see Neil again, talk to him. Talk. Say goodbye. Then leave. I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I don’t know where I’m going, and as internally messy as I have been, it doesn’t compare with what’s shooting through me now that I’ve let Neil know I’m ready to discuss ending our marriage.

  I hear the patio door open.

  “Chrissie, come inside. You shouldn’t sit out here.”

  A ragged laugh pushes its way out of me. I lift my face from my hands. “Fuck, Alan. Who cares if the tabloids get a picture of me? Or us. I don’t care. Not what people think. Not what they know. Not now.”

  He studies my face. His lips soften into a sympathetic curl. “Come inside, love. You might feel differently tomorrow.”

  Feel differently tomorrow? My inner composure is shifting rapidly enough as it is. Too many changes. Too quickly. I don’t want to feel differently tomorrow or any other way than I do being here with Alan. Not ever again.

  I make a silly face. “I hope not.”

  He doesn’t smile and I sigh heavily. I stand up from the lounger and follow Alan into the great room. I sink down on the sofa and see that he made me coffee and it’s sitting on the table in front of me.

  I wonder if Alan saw me out there talking on the phone. If he knows I called Neil. What he thinks of that.

  I reach for my cup and take a sip. I feel the sudden heavy pressure of his eyes upon me.

  “You’re going to see Neil,” he says quietly. It’s not a question.

  I look at him, finding those black eyes watching me, assessing every change of my expression.

  I exhale a long, ragged breath. “I have to. I can’t leave things how they are. Everything will continue to get more ugly if I don’t sit down with Neil and try to work things out.”

  His lips quirk up in a half smile. “You don’t have to go. You don’t owe Neil anything. Don’t leave.”

  I’m not exactly sure what he is suggesting with those words. So I don’t answer him.

  “Stay here. With me. Take some time. Let things cool off. Things will go better with Neil if what you’re feeling isn’t quite so fresh.”

  Alan’s calm, inflectionless voice, and definitely his words, are not what I was expecting. Hurt moves through me. “I can’t hide here with you forever.”

  Something flashes in his eyes. “I’m not suggesting you do. And whatever it is you think we’re doing, for me it’s not helping you hide. What do you think we’re doing here, Chrissie?”

  He keeps his gaze on me, unblinking. “I’m not sure what we’re doing. I haven’t let myself think that far ahead. And I didn’t mean the hide comment the way it sounded. I’m here because it’s where I want to be. I’m here because I love you.”

  His gaze never lifts from me and seems to grow only more intense. Finally, he says, “Why is it I always sense a ‘but’ when you tell me you love me and I feel like there’s a shoe about to drop?”

  I fight to maintain my composure, but it is not easy with the way he’s looking at me. “Don’t be angry.”

  “I’m not angry. I’m just trying to understand you.”

  “And I’m just trying to get through each day. It’s not an easy thing. Ending a marriage is not an easy thing when you have a child. I need to make decisions that are right for Kaley, too. And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
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  We stare at each other, and I realize that the emotion warring in the room isn’t only my own.

  He closes his eyes and exhales. Very gradually he relaxes. “You’ll do whatever you decided to do. Whether it’s what I want or not. Whether it’s the right thing for us or not. You will do what you decide to do.”

  My insides turn. Alan sounds tired and sad. And I don’t know why he should feel that way. Not now after so many days of wonderful together.

  Alan crosses the room. He sinks down on his knees between my thighs. He runs his hand slowly up and down the tops of my legs, and places a light kiss near my knee.

  “Let’s not talk,” he whispers. His lips move along the side of my neck. My head starts to roll. “We do better when we don’t talk, Chrissie.”

  For a long time he does nothing but kiss and touch me as he slowly removes my clothes. I can feel my body relax into him, my emotions changing course until I am aware only of my arousal and wanting him.

  My legs are brought over his shoulders as his mouth roams lower from my breasts. My navel. A swirl of his tongue. My pelvis, and his fingertips lightly brushing close around my legs, pulling me onto the edge of the sofa.

  I sink back into the cushions and his mouth closes over me. He devours me there with his tongue, torturously light and then deep with burning contact. He teases me inside, along my lower lips, and I feel a push of air followed by a finger and then his mouth fucking me there.

  He goes deeper and I am raging, arching into him as my fingers lock in his hair. I begin to shake violently. I am panting and limp and on fire. I feel the waves ripple as I move with the motion of his mouth.

  I’m on the edge when he pulls back, taking me with him as he lies on the floor. He frees his erection and plunges it in me. I am hot, desperately so. He doesn’t move and I begin to rock my hips, taking him, my body surrounding his, my eyes unable to see anything but how his face changes with the heated moves of my flesh.