by Kellie Hart
“You could have left me a taste, you know,” I tease, still trying to gather myself. “And, just to help you build a working vocabulary of words to be avoided while in America, moist is at the top of the list.”
“Pardon my previous outburst, Carey, but nothing, and I truly mean nothing I’ve ever eaten, compares to what just passed between my lips. Besides, moist is a fantastic word.”
I hiccup again and wave a dismissive hand at him. “It’s fine, really, and no, moist is not a fantastic word. It’s disgusting. Heretofore, you cannot say it in my presence because, as with anyone who has a soul, it gives me the heebiejeebies.”
Atticus gives me a skeptical glance, but he relents. “Agreed. Are there any more enchanting American English terms I should master before I speak again?”
“Food baby,” I snicker and point to his stomach. “You carry a food baby well, Atticus, and if I’m the one to impregnate you with the greatest food stuffs on the planet, I should be so lucky.”
Atticus looks down to where his shirt bulges, as if to quietly show the world he is a proud father-to-be of a bouncing brown-eyed dragon. “My God, I’ve gone and grown my father’s pot belly in the time I’ve been with you, Carolina! Are you fattening me for the slaughter?”
“Hardly,” I say as another sip of Bat burns its way down, emboldening me. “I like you just the way you are.”
“And how is that?” Atticus says. He drags me to him and wedges a leg between my knees. “What is just the way I am?”
“You are you,” I whisper as our mouths drift closer together. “Hot. British. Edible.”
“I am edible, am I?” Atticus whispers back, a light chuckle tickling the end of his words.
“You have no idea,” I pant.
Atticus runs his nose down the length of mine before his lips touch me for the briefest of seconds. “What if I want to devour you, Carolina?”
When I think he is going to kiss me, Atticus snaps back and brings a camera to his eye. The click of a shutter and a blinding burst of light shock the shit out of me, and I’m thrown off my stool to the cold floor below. I scramble to my feet and brace myself against the bar. While the room spins, I wait for the red bubbles of glare from a fucking archaic flash to dissipate from my vision. Perhaps my thought process is fueled by alcohol, but my brain immediately concludes that Atticus deliberately tried to ruin the good thing we had going. I grab my Bat, suck down what is left, and slam the glass against the bar.
“What the fuck, Atticus? We were having a fucking moment!”
Atticus shrugs, but a swath of pink spreads across his cheeks. “By profession, I’m a photographer, Carolina, and my camera is never far from my side. Forgive me if I frightened you, but I simply felt inspired in the moment.”
I rub at my eyes and carefully return to my stool. “Where the fuck did you have it hidden? In your goddamn jeans?”
With a smirk, Atticus pats his crotch. “There is hardly room to spare in here, love.”
As I take in the very present bulge in his pants, I gulp, and Atticus tosses his head back in full throttle laughter. As he does, a wayward black wave slips from his hair and lands on his forehead. I reach out to tuck it back into place, but my hand stops in midair. Atticus’s cerulean eyes glide between my fingers and my face, and he seems to read my trepidation before even I can process that I am frozen in place.
“It’s fine, Carolina. Go on,” he says gently. “Touch me, if you’d like. You’ve no need to hold back around me.”
Nervously, I nibble my bottom lip as I return that gorgeous raven lock to its rightful place in the little swooshy thing Atticus’s hair does beside his part. Between my fingers, his hair is delicate and soft, and I take the chance to run my hand through it before I lean away to find his lens pointed at me yet again. When everything in me screams to turn away, to not let him see what he does to me, I smile for Atticus, and the shutter clicks again.
When the camera falls away from his face, Atticus returns my smile. “To answer your previous question, I grabbed my bag on the way out of Hot Rod. I suppose you were still too consumed by a post-orgasmic high to see I was carrying a small piece of luggage.”
“I—I was not,” I stammer, and Atticus cracks a knowing grin at me. “Okay, maybe I was, but taking someone’s picture without permission seems highly uncalled for, doesn’t it?”
Atticus places the shiny vintage camera on the bar and touches my cheek. “I don’t take pictures of merely anything, Carey. I take pictures of those things and people whom I find inspirational, and you are very inspiring to me.”
“I am?”
“Yes, so much so, as I stated before, I flew here to see you.”
“About that,” I say. “It doesn’t make much sense to fly half-way across the world for a potential fuck. Tell me again why are you really here, Atticus.”
“I failed to mention it before,” he says quietly, “but there is little remaining for me in England after what I’ve endured recently, so I considered a place I would rather be than there. The one city that’s been at the forefront of my mind for months is New Orleans. So, voila, here I am.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
“Why must you insist on ruining a good thing, Carey? As I said before, you drew me here, or, better yet, I am here because I am simply meant to be.”
The weight of his words rings true again, even as it did back in my dressing room. As my eyes wander his face, I let myself rest in the idea that this fucking beautiful man could be anywhere but here, and yet, he is with me. Again.
Is it possible I am so lucky to have this happen twice in one goddamn lifetime?
Before Atticus can protest, I hop to my feet, pull two hundred dollar bills from my bra, and throw them down on the bar. Hearing my shuffle, Montague swoops in, snaps the money up, and begins clearing away all of our dirty dishes.
“It’s nearly seven in the morning, Carey,” Montague grumbles. “Be glad I consider you my friend; otherwise, you and Mr. Union Jack there would’ve been out on your asses hours ago.”
“You know you love me, Monty Cottontail,” I tease.
Monty’s gruff exterior slips for a second, and the handsome, hazel-eyed young man beneath surfaces. “Go on, get out of here, and Carey?”
“Yeah?”
“Before you take this fella back to your place and fuck his brains out, why don’t you tell him about your dancing days back when we were kids? I mean, he’s a got a camera, and that could be inspiring to him, after all.”
“Mooonnnttttyyyyyyy,” I whine. “Just because you’ve known me since elementary school doesn’t mean you can spread my shit around like you own it.”
Monty hops up, reaches across the bar, and bops me on the fucking wig with a wet towel. “That’s what you get for calling me Cottontail. I may fuck like a rabbit, but there’s nothing soft about it.” Monty winks then disappears into the bowels of Tujague’s kitchen.
Atticus’s eyes grow wide with excitement. “Was my photographer sense correct? You are comfortable in front of the camera?”
“I was a dancer, and I did some modeling, too. Once,” I mutter, “but that was a fucking long time ago.”
“What? What did you say?” Atticus asks as I turn away.
Suddenly very sobered by this intrusion into my past, I tug Atticus towards the double, swinging doors of Tujague’s and out onto the cobblestone walk. The beautiful chaos of the early morning surrounds us. I turn towards the street, keeping Atticus’s hand locked within mine, and take it all in—the yellow sunshine cutting through the lingering purple dusk of night, the sticky dew coating the ancient wrought iron, the sweet scent of beignets wafting across the way from Cafe du Monde. New Orleans is my home, my fucking city on a hill. I love this time of day most—when the promise of goddamn good on the horizon reminds me why I stayed after all the shit I went through with Mike left my vision of these beloved streets torn and tainted.
I take another deep breath in and hold it for a
few seconds before quietly letting it escape. “Do you feel that?”
“Yes, I think so,” Atticus whispers. “A new day, a chance for something great to be born.”
When I open my eyes, I find him staring down at me, and there’s something new in his gaze I cannot name.
“Exactly,” I agree, a little breathless.
“So, let us go then, you and I…,” Atticus says gently. “Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets… And into sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells… Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’ Let us go and make our visit.”
Gasping, I drop Atticus’s hand and bring my own to my mouth. “You know The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?”
Mocking me, Atticus replies, “‘You know The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?’ Of course, I know the poem! It’s simply my favorite of T.S. Eliot’s works. Before I mastered in photography at Oxford, I was an undergraduate in the national literature program at Cambridge. How do you know it?”
“I majored in British lit myself at Tulane,” I say. “I also minored in the visual arts. That’s how I know Jacque and Char—I worked with Jacque at Bippity Bobbity Brew, our school’s coffee shop. Char would come in and share recipes with me, so that’s why I quit and eventually moved with her to Genevieve’s Cupcakes and Shit.”
“Ah,” Atticus says with an understanding smile, “it’s much the same with Fox, Chad, and myself. I know them from my attendance at Oxford. We would go to poetry slams, and I would often recite Prufrock’s tragedy aloud for others. I relate to his story more than most, I believe.”
“What a small fucking world! I’ve never met anyone who knows, let alone, loves the poem like I do,” I explain, tugging excitedly at the ends of my wig. “Can I ask you something else?”
“Anything,” Atticus chuckles at my enthusiasm.
“Can you finish these lyrics: And if you threw a party, and invited…?”
Atticus taps the side of his temple, and a brilliant smile blossoms on his face. “Everyone you knew?”
“Oh my God!” I squeal. “You did not quote The Golden Girls theme song!”
“I believe that I did,” Atticus says with a wink. “Tis one of my guilty pleasures of American television. Who knew four elderly ladies could carry on such hilarious hijinks?”
“Okay, I’m done for,” I giggle and take up his hand once more. “The Golden Girls is the shit, so you must truly be the perfect man. I am marrying you now because I have a real desire to have a giant helping of your banger up in my mash. So, what say you, Atticus? Will you marry me?”
“Perhaps later, when you are still horny yet far less hammered,” Atticus says with a loud laugh as I tug him along again.
“Aren’t you horny?” I turn the corner onto Rue Des Chartres. “If you are, I can help you out with that. My apartment is three blocks from here. I can have you naked and nibbling on my clotted cream in less than five minutes if you would fucking walk faster.”
“No, not now,” Atticus says gently. He catches up beside me, and his long strides keep him there with ease. He raises my hand to his lips, making me skip a step with a sweet kiss he places on my palm. “Perhaps, what I’ve said is a partial lie, Carolina, because I do intend to fuck you…soon, very soon, but until then, I want you to pose for me.”
“Pardon?” I croak, stopping us in the middle of the sidewalk.
“I want you to pose for me,” Atticus repeats. “Your friend Monty confirmed my suspicions. You carry yourself like a woman who feels the weight of the world’s eyes upon her, and because you strip, I know you like being watched when you deem it appropriate, so let me watch you dance. Through my lens, of course.”
I kick at the cobblestone with my Converse. “I don’t know, Atticus. Dancing and stripping are two very different things, and I’m horny as fuck. Can’t we just go back to my flat, and you buff my knob until the neighbors call Scotland Yard?”
Ignoring me, Atticus lifts my chin with a long finger. “Perhaps a compromise then? We’ve already met the first of my requirements before bedding a woman—sustenance. My second requirement is getting to know more about you, above and beyond the simple facts I’ve gathered—your professions, your love of fruity cocktails named for flying vermin, and your refusal to free yourself from the costume which makes you Lola Golden.” He tugs on a yellow curl, and it bounces back, brushing my cheek. Atticus leans in and presses his lips to that very spot. “If the wig makes you more comfortable with me, so be it, but if you give me a few hours of your time, of Carolina’s time, to talk, to wander with my camera in one hand and yours in the other, we will fuck when the moment is right, but not a minute sooner. Do we have a deal?”
I shuffle on my feet. “I was a tour guide on one of the ghost tours here in the Quarter, back when I was like sixteen, so I am kind of an expert on wandering the city.”
“Then, by all means,” Atticus says when our eyes meet again, “educate me as to the ghouls and goblins residing in this fair city.”
With a generous swallow, I look up and down Rue Des Chartres, wondering which way to go; then, I make the mistake of taking a quick glance at Atticus’s crotch as if the answer I seek lies behind his bulging zipper.
Holy moly ravioli, it is so fucking hard!
No matter the size of the third arm stowed for safekeeping between his legs, my broken brain continues to question whether or not Atticus has been entirely truthful about anything. What if he is only fucking with my head, making promises he never intends to keep? If I find out he is, I’ll hate him. I will hate myself even more for falling for this stupid fucking game twice.
“You’re making that awful face again,” Atticus eerily comments, “the one which asks Why is Atticus here?, but it seems to have morphed into Is Atticus lying to me? Is Atticus using me?”
“I am not!” I protest weakly before I scrub away whatever it is he thinks he sees in my expression. Exhausted, my hands drop to my side.
“Your suspicion of my intentions is completely justified,” Atticus says before cupping my cheek. “And I can, in no way, undo some harm in your past that makes you question my every motive, but I—”
“I’m only wondering, again, why you would want to—”
“All right, all right, you have a fair point. I apologize if I have assumed something incorrectly about you, but either way, my intentions are honorable, even if they include a desire to fuck the woman before me.” Atticus looks down at me from beneath a halo of black lashes before continuing. “Allow me to say everything another way then: I want to spend time with you, Carey. I want to get to you know you on your own territory, and I am entirely forthright when I say that you deserve better than for me to land in New Orleans, take advantage of you, and fly away again. You seem to have assumed that’s the path things between us would take, but you deserve more than a one night stand. I also like to think I’m far too pretty for one to simply fuck and forget. Don’t you agree?”
At this, Atticus bats his long fucking lashes at me, and I double over in sick laughter at the understanding that he was onto my plan without realizing it. All of this began with the intent of getting myself off by using Atticus. Clearly, this man is made for breaking beds, but if I don’t see him as more than a convenient objectification—someone to be used then cast aside when no longer of value—I will do to Atticus exactly what Mike did to me. I shudder at the thought of being compared to that bastard.
“You’re thinking of that person, aren’t you?” Atticus asks quietly, as his thumb strokes my cheek. “The one who hurt you?”
“That person was a he,” I tell him. I lean into his touch, and his coaxing fingers draw the words out. “His name was Mike, and he killed me, Atticus. Hurt doesn’t even begin to describe how he robbed me of myself.”
Atticus’s eyes crinkle at the corners with gentle concern. “Perhaps, when you’re ready, you’ll me the story?”
Ignoring his question, I ask, “You aren’t bothered by the fact I’m damaged goods?”
Atticus shakes
his head. “Of course not, Carey. We all have our pasts; some are more colorful than others, but pain is pain and love is love. They both lead to lessons learned, and we all carry the weight of those lessons differently. Who am I to judge you for having a heart that is still healing?”
“Each and every day is a fucking battle,” I whisper, “to feel like Carolina again.”
“Then, I owe you a great deal of gratitude for trusting enough to be with me now, and allowing me to witness the beauty you still so clearly possess. Try as he may, that man could not have rid you of it even if he had tried.”
