Total Exposure

by Huss, JA

  I close my eyes and lick her. Tongue sweeping back and forth, stopping at the nub of her clit to flick it until she arches her back so far, the tips of her long, dark hair brush against my hands holding onto her ass.

  She lifts up just a little, giving me more access, and then begins to rub her pussy against my unshaven jaw.

  She will have a rash in the morning. And I’m gonna make sure she thinks about what I’m doing to her all day long.

  She’s inhaling, exhaling. Long, breathy pants that get louder and louder as she slides her pussy against my chin. My tongue tickles her clit, making her squeal, and then her hands slap down on the bed above my head and she really begins to fuck my face.

  I push a finger into her asshole, remembering how much she liked that last time, and decide I will fuck her in the ass before she leaves this house for good. I will take her every way I can think of before I let her go.

  She comes in my mouth, my tongue lapping up the gushing wetness of her climax. Her legs straighten, flatten against the outside of my thighs as she slides down my body.

  For a second her blindfold slips and I think, Shit.

  But she adjusts it. Puts it back into place, still sucking in air like she will never get enough. Her body trembling slightly, her muscles fatigued from suspending herself over my face.

  I flip her off me, pin her to the bed, and then allow myself one more transgression…

  I say, “Now it’s my turn,” in a whisper so low, it barely counts as words.

  Chapter Thirty-Five - Evangeline

  “Yes,” is the only answer I have for him tonight. I will do anything to keep this man with me right now. I know he’s going to walk out. He always walks out. Leaves me here in this strange bedroom that I now think of as our room alone. And he’s gonna do that again tonight. Maybe forever. Maybe I’ll never truly know him beyond the sex and the words on the page that come after. But right now, it’s enough. More than enough.

  He flips me over in such a rough, quick manner, I gasp, fear shooting through my body, but then…

  Oh. Jesus.

  He’s on top of me. His mouth kissing my back. His leg kicking mine open, spreading me wide to give him access. His hard cock pushes against the curve of my ass, then his hand is there, guiding it between my legs, rubbing the wetness I made for him.

  He slips inside me, stretching my pussy open with his wide girth, lowering himself, pushing himself deeper and deeper until he touches something inside me that makes me bite my lip and stifle a scream.

  He stops. Waits. Leans his face down into my neck, and whispers, “You OK?” in my ear, his soft breath just a tickle against my skin.

  I don’t know why two stupid words in the middle of sex with a stranger mean so much to me. But they are everything.

  I swallow down tears and nod my head. “Yes. Don’t stop.”

  He goes slow after that. Still pushing himself deep inside me. His hips rocking on my ass cheeks. His arms balancing himself, pushing into the mattress on either side of my head. I can smell him. It’s the smell of snow, and the city, and all the things I’ve been missing these past twelve years.

  And even though we’ve been rough with each other all the other nights we’ve been together, we are calm tonight. Like this is more than sex.

  I know it’s not true. I know why he’s here. I know what he’s doing. But for some reason it doesn’t matter. He’s still here.

  Which is more than I can say for anyone else.

  “I want to see you,” I say.

  He leans down into me again, his mouth on my neck, kissing and nipping at my earlobe. And maybe that’s all I really want. His consideration as he struggles to deny me so he can keep his secrets.

  “I do see you,” I say, coming to a conclusion. “And I don’t need eyes to do it. Because I have your words. And they don’t lie.”

  He huffs a breath into the long strands of my hair. A laugh, I realize. But he’s not laughing at me. What I said makes him happy. It’s a happy laugh.

  “Come,” he whispers. “Come for me again, Evangeline.”

  And when he says my name, I know him.

  It excites me. And he begins to move faster now. His grinding more pronounced. His movements more exaggerated. His cock slipping in and out of my slick pussy so easily, he has to thrust it further and further inside me to get the friction he needs.

  He fucks me hard enough to push me up the bed, until my head is bumping into the soft upholstered headboard. My palms flatten on the fabric to give him the resistance he needs.

  I arch my back, pushing my ass up and into his fast-rocking hips, and when his fingers slide under my body and find the little nub of my clit, electricity shoots up my stomach. He strums me the way you strum an instrument. He plays me. It makes me think of music, and applause, and all the good things that came with being child Evangeline.

  His other hand grabs my breast, squeezing so hard I cry out. This time he knows it’s not pain, but pleasure, and he doesn’t stop to ask me if I’m OK.

  He just knows.

  “I want to come inside you,” he says. “And I don’t care what happens.”

  I whine so loud, my yes echoes off the ceiling.

  No one in this room gives a good goddamn about consequences.

  We come together. For the first time in my life, I come at the same time as the man on top of me. He bites my neck, sticks his fingers in my mouth, pushing them towards the back of my throat. I suck on them, imagining the way I will suck his cock tomorrow night before I let him fuck me. And enjoy wave after wave of climax rushing through my body.

  He falls off to the side, breathing hard. Like a man after sex. Something I knew once, but lost. Something I want again, with him.

  “X,” I whisper, turning my blind face towards his spent body.

  “Come here,” he says, pulling me in close to him, wrapping his arms around my body. “Come here and be still. No talking,” he whispers. “Just be still with me.”

  I fall asleep, I guess. Safe in the arms of my stranger. My watcher. My protector. Because that’s what he feels like.

  When I wake it’s still dark. The middle of the night, I think. But the little moon nightlight is on and there’s a note on the bedside table.

  It says… My name is Ix, not X. Call me Ix from now on.

  I smile as I clutch the note in my hand. I have his real name. It’s a weird name, for sure. But it’s not X, and it’s not Stranger, and it’s not Watcher. I look up at the camera. I don’t know if he can see me in the dark, but I can see him. In my mind. In my dreams. In my future.

  “Ix,” I say to the camera. “Very nice to meet you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six - Ixion

  God, this woman. Where has she been all my life?

  My phone rings. I know who it is. Jordan has been calling all night. When I got back to my little room there were already several messages and texts. All saying the same thing. “Call. Me. Now.” In that commanding tone of voice (even in the texts).

  I answer, because why not? “Yup,” I say into the phone. I’m sort of impressed at the amount of indifference I can conjure up in a single syllable. I almost feel like I’m channeling Jordan. Because right now, I do not give one flying fuck about him.

  And that’s a first. In a long-ass time. Fucking Jordan has consumed my life, I realize. Ever since shit went wrong with Augustine I’ve been… dwelling.

  “What the fuck is happening over there?”

  “What’d ya mean?” I ask. Evangeline just found the note. And I’m obsessed with zooming in on her face, trying to reach her expression as she reads it. Jordan is blabbing on about something, but I tune him out.

  She smiles. Then she looks up at me. Says, “Ix. Very nice to meet you.”

  “What the fuck was that?”

  “What was what?” I say automatically.

  “Was that her? Talking to you?”

  “What do you want? I’m fucking doing my job, man. I’m watching her right now.”


  “Did she call you Ix?”

  “Dude, you’re hallucinating. Why are you calling me?”

  “What’s happening over there?”

  “Nothin’. Why?”

  “She called her therapist today. On like… a pay phone.”

  “Did she?” I ask, sorta laughing about that. “Well, she broke her phone the first day she was here. Smashed the screen to bits. And even though she asked me for a new one, I didn’t get her one. What’d she say to her doctor?”

  “She thanked her. And said she was meeting someone for lunch. Who the fuck was she meeting for lunch?”

  “Well,” I say, turning away from the monitor. Fuckin’ woman is way too distracting. And I’m getting the impression that Jordan is feeling me out about something. Something I don’t want him to feel me out about. “That’s nice, I guess. This weird-ass treatment plan is working then, right? She left the house.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “Dude,” I say. “I’m not sure that’s any of your business. You’re not her doctor.”

  “I’m your employer.”

  I laugh. Kinda loud. “Fuck. You.”

  “I know what you’re doing,” he says.

  “No, I really don’t think you do. Because if you did you wouldn’t be on the phone with me right now. You’d be here, in my face, asking what the actual fuck.”

  “Stay the fuck away from this woman, do you hear me?”

  “Or what?”

  “You’re fired. Pack your shit—“

  “No,” I say. So calm. So steady. “No. She needs this, Jordan. So put your petty bullshit with me aside and do something for someone else for once.”

  I hear his incredulous laugh just before I end the call and turn my ringer off.

  Let him come over. I’d love to have another face-to-face with Jordan Wells.

  When I look back at the monitors Evangeline is lying back down and if I look very hard I think I can still see a smile on her face.

  I take out our book and read her last entry again.

  I’m tired of the poems.

  I’m tired of the pretty words

  all dressed up to make it shine and take the trophy of first prize.

  I’m tired of the dream I never dreamed,

  for it wasn’t mine and no one cared if they stole

  my youth, or my talent, or my soul.

  I was just a number.

  A diamond ring made to sing

  then forsaken and left shaken.

  My father sold me. Like a thing that can be sold.

  I am not a thing.

  He is not a king.

  And I’d rather die in the dark than be told

  this is my purpose in life.

  Jesus. Sold? I shake my head and hope that was a metaphor for how her parents used her. Because clearly they did use her. But I can’t shake the bad feeling creeping up on me. Like something just happened but I missed it. Or something’s coming and I can’t see it.

  Stop being stupid, Ixion. It’s a fucking game. And you’re both winning, so who cares? Just write your next entry and leave her the book. What she does with it after that is up to her.

  I pick up the pen but just hold it over the page, unsure of what to say next.

  A text dings on my phone and I almost ignore it, because all I want to do is think about the girl upstairs and what I need to tell her next.

  And after I read that text, I wish I had ignored it.

  Because this changes everything.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven - Evangeline

  In the morning I can’t get down to the kitchen fast enough. My feet trip over themselves trying to skip down steps. I bounce into the hallway, sliding around the corner, eager to get back to our story.

  Our book isn’t there.

  “Ix?” I ask the ceiling. “Where’s your story? This is the end. You can’t deny me the end.”

  It’s a joke, said jokingly. Because of course it is. Because there’s no way he’d do that to me. Because I know him so well now. I know almost all his secrets and this was the last secret. The final piece of information that will open him up to me completely.

  But there’s nothing but silence echoing back in my head.

  So I wait. I make coffee. I eat the almost-spoiled raspberries left in the fridge, and I wait.

  But he never says anything. No notes materialize. I even get up and walk around the house, conveniently disappearing from the kitchen to give him a chance to come out of whatever secret room he’s hiding in and leave me the final chapter of our story.

  I even get dressed, go outside, and swing on that stupid family swing for a while, hoping that when I go back inside, our book, the story of us, will be there waiting for me. And next to it a new note. An apology. Sorry for making you wait.

  But it isn’t. He didn’t write that. There is no apology. There is no book.

  It’s like… he’s forsaken me.

  Why?

  I have an urge to write. Every morning I’ve been writing back to him. I have the poem nearly composed in my head. It’s murky, and sad, and reveals secrets that I was, for once, ready to reveal.

  I was going to give him the last piece of my puzzle too.

  But he never shows. And I can’t write the poem anywhere else but in our book. That’s the only place it belongs. The only place it could possibly exist. So it sits up there in my head like a black cloud hanging over me. Like a threat. Like a menace. Like this is an omen of something very, very bad.

  And unlike the last time he made me angry, I have no urge to break things. It’s like I don’t have the energy I once did. Or the… anger. Or whatever it was that was fueling my darkness.

  I am ready to step into the light but the light is gone.

  The stupid clock is gonging off the hours and when it gongs off eleven tones in a row, I make a decision.

  Fuck it.

  I’m going to meet Jordan.

  I get dressed. Put on my scarf, my gloves, my hat, my coat, my sunglasses. I call for the cab and I wait outside for it to come.

  I actually wait outside.

  And when it does come, I get in and find it to be stifling hot because stupid Denver is having one of those sunny days in the dead of winter, like it’s prone to do. Maybe, if I don’t play my show and get over this bullshit, I will move somewhere colder. Somewhere the sun refuses to shine?

  I fantasize about this. Someplace far. Like Alaska. Or Iceland. Someplace where the darkness is welcome.

  But then I recall some lesson from childhood. That the sun never sets in the summer in those places. And then I feel like the whole fucking world is against me for some reason.

  Why?

  I have to take off my gloves and my scarf because I’m sweating underneath all this garb. And even though I really want to take my hat off, I don’t. And not because I want to stay covered up, but because my hair is a mess. I didn’t really pay much attention to it when I was leaving and… and today I will talk to Jordan and I don’t want him to see me as the woman with the fucked-up hair!

  I pay the stupid cab driver using the stupid machine on the back of the headrest, and get out of the cab, slamming the door behind me, and stand there, looking up at the stupid coffee house and the people outside, and I wonder, maybe for the first time, why a guy as beautiful as Jordan comes to this stupid place every goddamned day?

  Are there not better places? Less busy places? I mean, is the goddamned club sandwich so goddamned good here that these people can’t find somewhere else to eat one?

  I push my way inside, probably rudely, but I don’t care. I’ve been coming here all week with a goal in mind and every day I’ve been denied. And this day, of all days, is not a day for denial.

  I can’t take it. I really can’t.

  So I stand there, combing the place, looking for Jordan, and who do I see?

  Fucking Mike.

  But I take a second look at fucking Mike. Because fucking Mike is already sitting with someone. A woman who is not me, ob
viously. And fucking Mike glances at me, then averts his eyes.

  Averts his eyes.

  Like I am someone not worthy of being seen.

  I seethe. What the ever-loving fuck is going on with this day?

  “Just one today?” the hostess asks me.

  “Yes,” I manage to say, somewhat civilly, I might add. “Table for one.” I say it loud. Loud enough that Mike over near the window hears me and once again glances in my direction, but then quickly looks away, pretending I’m not even here as he talks to the woman across from him like they’re together or something. When I know good and goddamned well he’s got no girlfriend because just yesterday he was trying to get me to go out with him.

  Huh. So that’s his game. He’s with someone who will go out with him for drinks after work. Good. Good for him. I’m not here to see him, anyway. I’m here to see Jordan.

  “Right this way,” the hostess says.

  So I follow her, and she takes me all the way to the back, in the shadows, where a goddamned tree in a pot is blocking my view of the door. And I really want to say, Hey, can I have another table? You know, like a good one? But I realize there’s no other tables. This is the last one. And I’m probably lucky I didn’t have to cajole Mike into letting me sit at his table as a third wheel.

  So I shut up, sit down, and order the stupid club with the magic avocado and wait for Jordan to appear.

  But he doesn’t.

  An hour later, I’m still there, my club sandwich reduced to a bit of bread crust, and the lunch crowd has all gone back to work. Alone. As usual.

  “Is there anything else I can get you?” my waitress asks.

  “No,” I say, no longer manic with purpose, but defeated with disappointment. “Just the check.”

  Which she has ready, pulling it out of her apron pocket and setting it on the table, like I’ve been sitting here too long and she’s been waiting for me to disappear so she can seat someone else.

  I pay and go outside, ready to just get in a cab and go the hell home, and… there’s no cabs. Not one in sight.