Sin With Me (Bad Habit)

by J. T. Geissinger

  I purse my lips. “Is that what you call it when you feel like you have been electrocuted and injected with mind-altering chemicals, are deliriously happy but also constantly on the verge of panic, and are so horny you could be a case study for a book on nymphomania?”

  Chloe says, “Yes.”

  “Shit. I was hoping it was the stomach flu.”

  With an expression you’d wear to a funeral, she says, “Congratulations.”

  I raise my brows. “I’m sorry, what have you done with my friend Chloe? The bright and shiny one with the Day-Glo smile and the My Little Pony obsession who still believes in Santa Claus?”

  She ignores that. “Have you had your first fight yet?”

  “We just had sex for the first time last night. If we’re fighting already, there’s trouble in paradise.”

  Her smile is knowing, and a little sad. “Oh, there’s always trouble in paradise, girlfriend. And it’ll catch up to you when you least expect it. So I’m going to give you a piece of advice I learned the hard way to save you some pain when trouble finally shows up: Don’t. Run. Away.”

  I look around for help from some other, more sane person. I call out, “Are there any normal people at home today?”

  Chloe gives my shoulders a shake. “I’m not kidding, Grace.”

  I look more closely at her. “Chloe, is everything all right?”

  She inhales a long breath through her nose, and then drops her hands to her sides. “Actually,” she says, her lower lip trembling, “I think A.J. is dying.”

  She might as well have just reached into my chest, grabbed my heart, and ripped it out. I gasp, horrified. “No! Chloe, tell me you’re not serious!”

  “You know I would never joke about that.”

  I throw my arms around her and hug her as hard as I can. Into my hair, she whispers, “I don’t think I can live without him, Grace. I don’t think I’m strong enough to go on if he—”

  “Don’t you dare say that!” I pull back and grip her by her upper arms. “You have Abby to think about now! You can’t indulge in that kind of nonsense, not even for a second!”

  Her face crumples. “I know,” she whispers, shaking. “I know. But the thought of being without him . . .”

  She can’t say anything more, because she dissolves into tears.

  I hug her again, more gently this time. My heart feels like it might explode with all the pain inside it. I can’t even imagine what Chloe must be feeling right now. “What does his doctor say?”

  She sniffles. “I finally got him to make an appointment. It’s in a few weeks. That’s the soonest they could fit him in.”

  “Wait.” I pull away again, searching her face. “So this is just a feeling of yours? You don’t have any evidence?”

  “He’s getting these terrible headaches! And he’s tired all the time!”

  That’s all she offers as proof of A.J.’s impending demise. I’m so relieved I could faint. “Sweetie, you’re doing this thing called ‘awfulizing.’ It’s when you overestimate the potential consequences of a perceived threat—”

  “He’s not himself,” she protests. “He’s sick, I can tell!”

  “Okay,” I say, keeping my voice soothing. “I believe you. But until he sees the doctor, let’s keep our thoughts positive, all right? It could be something serious, but it also could be something simple. For both A.J. and Abby’s sake, you need to try to focus on good thoughts. For your sake, too. You’re the glue holding your family together, Chloe. You have to be Super Glue. And Kat and I are here to be your Super Glue, okay?”

  I cup her wet face in my hands. “No matter what happens, we’ve got your back. Always. In all ways. You will never, ever have to go through anything alone. Nod if you believe me.”

  She nods, sniffling, her eyes red and her face blotchy. I blow out a breath, straighten my spine, and say, “Good. Now let’s have a drink.”

  “It’s eleven o’clock in the morning.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s 10:00 p.m. in Tanzania.”

  Chloe looks confused. “What the hell is in Tanzania?”

  “Mount Kilimanjaro.”

  Her face brightens. “Oh yeah, I remember when you went there. Do you ever hear from that guide—what was his name? The one who was so in love with you and kept emailing all that terrible poetry? Chicken?”

  “Rooster. And no, the last I heard he moved to Indonesia and became a Trappist monk.”

  “Wow, Grace. Way to ruin a guy’s life.”

  “It’s not my fault he decided to retreat from society and live with a bunch of guys in robes on the side of some desolate mountain!”

  Wiping away her tears, Chloe smiles at me. “Sure it’s not.”

  I return her smile. “You’re a terrible friend.”

  “Yet you love me. Now let’s go get that drink.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  We link arms and walk toward the kitchen, where we can hear Kat and Abby having a spirited back-and-forth about the ideal temperature for reheated breast milk in a bottle.

  Kat’s doing Abby’s voice as Darth Vader.

  I love my friends.

  I end up spending the rest of the day at Kat’s. We eat, and swim, and play with Abby, who is the world’s most adorable infant. She has her mother’s innate happiness, smiling at everything, cooing and gurgling like an advertisement for the joys of motherhood.

  “I love this kid,” I say more than once, staring at her. “How awesome is this kid?”

  Kat and Chloe share one too many secret smiles when I say that, and I have to tell them to shut up.

  After we make plans to go with Kat to the fertility clinic on Friday, I drive back to Malibu in the late afternoon, into the setting sun, listening to Frank Sinatra at full blast, feeling like a million bucks. A Jeep full of teenage boys pulls up alongside me at a light on PCH. They start to catcall and yell sexually aggressive things, rambunctious as a bunch of dumb puppies. I smile, blow them a kiss, and leave them in the dust when the light changes.

  Brody isn’t home yet when I get back to the house, so I pour myself a glass of wine and take a bubble bath. I must doze off because the next thing I know I’m hearing the mechanical pop and whirr of a Polaroid camera.

  I open my eyes and find Brody standing at the edge of the bathtub, grinning at me.

  “Is it wrong that I keep taking pictures of you when you’re unconscious?”

  I smile up at him. He’s sexy as hell in what I think of as his rich-bad-boy-musician attire, lots of tight denim and black leather, motorcycle boots, and bohemian silver jewelry, with incongruously perfect hair and a chunky platinum diamond-encrusted watch.

  He’s so L.A., and I love it.

  “Technically I think it’s illegal, but I hereby give you permission to photograph me in any state of consciousness. Or undress.” I bat my eyelashes at him and float up a few inches, so my boobs, rimmed in bubbles, poke out above the water. “After all, it’s for posterity.”

  Brody stares at my wet, bubble-slicked breasts. His voice husky, he says, “Posterity. I forgot what that word means.”

  I giggle. “Just take a picture, Kong.”

  He does. Then he sets the camera and the undeveloped print on the sink counter, kneels, and plunges his arms into the bathwater. I squeal as he grabs me and lifts me out of the tub, dripping wet.

  “Brody!”

  “Grace,” he answers calmly, standing. He turns and heads into the bedroom. We leave a trail of bubbles behind us, floating to the floor.

  I cling to him, laughing in disbelief. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Taking my woman to bed.”

  We reach the bed in just a few strides of his long legs. He drops me on the mattress so I bounce, still laughing, and before I can do or say anything else he’s on his elbows and knees with his fingers digging into my hips and his mouth, hot and greedy, between my legs.

  I arch instinctively, my laughter swallowed by a groan.

  “Thought about thi
s beautiful fucking pussy all goddamn day,” he mutters, sliding a finger inside me. “I can’t get enough of you, Grace. I’ll never have enough.”

  He goes right back to sucking, his tongue lashing my clit, his finger pressing deep. I cup my breasts and pinch my hard nipples, feeling his approving groan right in the center of my body, vibrating through me.

  I whisper breathlessly, “I missed you, too.”

  He straightens, rips down the zipper of his jeans, frees his hard cock, and, without removing any of his clothes, shoves it inside me.

  I cry out. He starts to fuck me, hard, with no preliminaries.

  “Look at you,” he whispers, his eyes devouring me, thrusting into me so my breasts are bouncing and the whole bed is shaking. He lifts my legs, hooks my ankles over his shoulders, and grips my ass, lifting my pelvis off the bed so when he thrusts into me again the angle has changed. Deepened. I cry out once more, this time louder.

  Bubbles are flying everywhere. I’m completely wet, he’s mostly wet from the plunge into the bathtub and carrying me, and we’re both frantic.

  When I’m gasping, on the verge of orgasm, Brody abruptly pulls out of my body, flips me over, puts an arm under my waist, and hikes my ass in the air so my face is buried in the pillow. Then he starts to spank me.

  I close my eyes and grip the bedcovers in my fists, biting back my moans of pleasure.

  “All day I dreamed of this,” he growls through a clenched jaw. “This gorgeous ass pink from my hand and your little sounds as I fucked you and you tried so hard not to come. You fucking own me, Grace. You own me.”

  The spanking ends, replaced by the hot, hard slide of his cock deep inside me.

  He bends over my body so his chest is pressed to my bare back, fists a hand in my hair, and flexes his pelvis, pumping into me again and again.

  My bottom stings. My nipples ache. I’m dripping between my legs, throbbing there, every shove of his thick cock inside me pushing moisture down my thighs. It’s somehow hotter because I’m nude and he’s fully clothed, hotter still because he couldn’t wait to have me long enough to get undressed, or let me dry off, or even take off his boots.

  He reaches around and pinches my clit between his fingers, and I come.

  “Oh fuck yes let me hear you scream, love,” he breathes as I wail through my orgasm. He rubs his fingers back and forth over my engorged clit, faster and faster, until I’m convulsing, mindless, lost to the enormity of the pleasure he’s giving me.

  I sob his name.

  He grunts, thrusting into me with forceful jerks of his pelvis. “God,” he gasps. “Fuck oh God Grace Grace—”

  He stills, and then shudders. A long, low moan breaks from his chest. Then he spills inside me, his hand wrapped around the place our bodies are joined, stroking both of us as he gasps through his orgasm, my own orgasm still rocking me so I’m clenching around him as he’s pulsing into me.

  Forever, I think, riding a wave of pure bliss.

  I want this to last forever and ever amen.

  Stupid.

  I knew, even at that moment some part of me knew, but, overwhelmed by my feelings of euphoria, of being like the lyric from that song—a bird set free—I ignored the one truth I’d seen over and over again in my years of counseling couples.

  Love can set you free, but it can also kill you.

  And what a cold death mine would turn out to be.

  The next few days pass in a blur. Bad Habit is recording their next album, so Brody spends the mornings with me, making love at dawn followed by an hour or two of surfing, and his days in the studio. I hire a realtor and begin the hunt for new digs, which is more challenging than I thought it would be, partly because I have more money to spend than I did last time I was in the market.

  “Boo hoo,” says Kat without the slightest hint of sympathy when I tell her my plight. “You poor, sad rich person. Talk about first-world problems. You’re like the poster child for the one percent!”

  It’s Friday. We’re driving with Chloe to Kat’s appointment at the fertility clinic. Her mood is Terminator meets Predator, with a healthy dash of hangry Godzilla thrown in.

  “And why are you even looking for a new place to live anyway, when you’ve got the absolute most perfect situation right now?”

  Ignoring that obvious lure, I chastise her instead. “One percent? If I may correct you, Katherine, I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I worked my ass off to get where I am now, I saved every penny I made, and I made a few smart investments along the way. And I’m comfortable, not rich.” I send her a pointed stare.

  “I’m not rich, either!” she protests.

  “Excuse me,” pipes in Chloe from the backseat, “but California is a community property state. Nico’s rich, and you’re married to him, which means you’re rich.”

  I glance at Chloe in the rearview mirror. “Same goes for you, Goldilocks. When you and A.J. get married, that is.”

  They’d planned on getting married after the baby was born because Chloe didn’t want to do an aisle march with a baby bump, but I haven’t heard any news of late. I’m hoping she’ll spontaneously provide some information, but she just shrugs, looking out the window.

  “The money doesn’t matter to me.”

  Kat swivels around in her seat to glare at her. “It doesn’t matter to me, either!”

  “Honey, I wasn’t saying it does—”

  “And how do you know I didn’t sign a prenup that prevents me from getting anything if we divorce?”

  I’m so surprised I almost drive off the road. “Nico made you sign a prenup?”

  Kat turns back to look out the windshield, slouches down in her seat, and crosses her arms over her chest. “No,” she admits churlishly. “But he could have. I would’ve signed one, too. It’s his money, not mine.”

  Chloe sits forward and squeezes Kat’s shoulder. “Kat. Cut it out.”

  Kat turns her head a quarter of an inch. “Cut what out?”

  “You know what.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Chloe looks at me. “Grace will tell you. It’s called awfulizing.”

  Kat blows out a noisy breath through her lips and slouches down farther in her seat.

  I reach over and squeeze her arm. “He’s not going to divorce you if—and this is a big if—you can’t have kids.”

  Kat grumbles, “I never said he would.”

  Chloe winds her arms around Kat’s shoulders from behind and gives her a hug. They sit in silence like that for the rest of the trip to the doctor’s office. Every once in a while I look over and see Kat swallowing hard, blinking back tears.

  She really wants to have Nico’s baby.

  I wonder if Brody wants kids. He said his mother wanted more grandchildren, and he’s always joking about getting me pregnant . . .

  As I’m pulling into a parking space in the medical building’s lot, Kat asks, “You okay, Gracie?”

  “Sure. Why do you ask?”

  “You’re looking a little pale over there.”

  I put the car in park, turn it off, and sit staring blankly at the steering wheel. My mind has started to spin.

  Chloe says, “Earth to Grace. Come in, Grace.”

  Gathering my thoughts, I listen to the engine tick as it cools. I look up to find Chloe and Kat staring at me with identical looks of worry. I open my mouth, close it, open it again, and say, “I’ve never, not once in my entire adult life, thought about having children. Until right now.”

  They watch me, eyes wide, waiting.

  “Motherhood is something I never contemplated, because why torture myself with thoughts of the impossible? It was something I couldn’t have and didn’t want. Period. But . . .” I draw a breath. “What if the real reason I never wanted children is because I never met a man whose children I wanted to have?”

  Stunned silence.

  I understand why they’re so shocked. I’m shocking myself, too.

  “And following that thought to its logical conc
lusion,” I continue, “what if I met a man whose children I wanted to have? What if he wanted to have children? What the hell would I do then? Because I can’t . . . I couldn’t . . .”

  I look back and forth between them. “What kind of a monster would want a child she might forget she ever had?”

  Kat’s eyes well with water. She whispers, “Oh, sweetie. Oh fuck.”

  I turn my gaze to the view outside the windshield to avoid the look of pity in their eyes.

  Chloe’s hand on my shoulder is warm. She leaves it there a moment, reassuring, and then says quietly, “For what it’s worth, I think you’d be an incredible mother.”

  I close my eyes against the anguish that explodes like a bomb in my chest.

  At that moment, a text comes through from Brody. I dig my phone out of my handbag and read it, biting my lip.

  Date nite 2nite!! Pick you up at 8 for an evening of wining and dining. Wear something you won’t mind being ripped off your body. PS – I miss your smiling face. Even tho it’s hideous.

  “Let’s go in,” I say, and open the door to escape the sudden claustrophobia of the car.

  Kat is in with the doctor for two hours. Chloe and I sit in the waiting room and read women’s magazines, which are completely depressing. Every article seems to be about what to do if your man is cheating, how to lose weight, or how to make a killer dinner to impress the in-laws or your husband’s new boss. I suppose the clinic couldn’t put out New Parent magazine for risk of traumatizing their patients, but every one of those women’s magazines is like an episode of Mad Men, like the women’s movement never happened and the best we can hope for in life is to get married and learn how to make a perfect Bundt cake.

  If I’d known, I’d have snuck in a few copies of BDSM for Beginners to scatter around.

  When Kat comes out, she looks tired but she’s smiling, which immediately makes Chloe and me feel better.

  “You okay, superstar?” I murmur, giving her a hug.

  “Yeah,” she says, nodding. She sounds relieved. “The test where they injected radioactive iodine into my uterus wasn’t a walk in the park, but the doctor said she didn’t see anything abnormal from the physical exam, the X-rays, or the ultrasound, so that’s good. The blood work will take a while to process, and there’s a few other tests she might order based on the results of those, but for now all I can do is wait.”