Trigger

by Julia Derek

  What had I been thinking? I wasn’t that bad at reading people. So she might not have been the type of girl I should be with, but that didn’t make her a lowlife either. I would have known, sensed it, and certainly not brought her home in that case. Maybe she had faked that orgasm after all… Maybe she had not enjoyed being with me at all, but had been too embarrassed to tell me so once we got going. Maybe I was fooling myself into thinking I was so great in bed, knew women so well I could tell whether they were coming or not. Or maybe she was just crazy. I shook my head. Whatever it was, it didn’t really matter.

  I walked over to my living room and gazed out the window. I spotted a figure by the road. That must be her. For a brief moment I considered throwing on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and running out to her, asking her what was wrong, but then I gave up on that idea. If she didn’t want to have anything more to do with me, I should respect that. She must have had her reasons for leaving, even if I couldn’t figure them out. Since I didn’t think it was a good idea to see her again anyway, I should really be glad, grateful I hadn’t needed to pretend I’d call her again when we parted.

  But I wasn’t glad. A feeling of loneliness surged through me. If only it had been Emma walking into my apartment instead of that strange girl leaving. Emma begging me to take her back. I sank down on the edge of my coffee table and buried my face in my hands. God, how I missed her.

  Unfortunately, it was very unlikely Emma would be walking into my apartment late at night, wanting me back. Her… situation—I couldn’t bear thinking about whatever was between Reiss and Emma as anything but something neutral, sterile, like a situation—was going very well, because she had moved in with Reiss. Months ago, apparently. A friend of a friend had found out and told Jack, my buddy, who’d mistakenly let it slip when we met up recently. I had offered Emma to move in with me after a few months, but she had claimed it was too soon. At the time, I had thought she was such a classy, independent woman, someone a man had to woo, work hard to win over. Now I knew it was only because living with me would make it that much harder to break things off when she’d gotten Hugo in her claws.

  I still had no idea where the two had actually met. It hadn’t been via me. Then again, Emma had definitely been aware of Hugo’s existence. Not only had I spoken of him several times, but Hugo Reiss was generally a well-known man. A good-looking, successful man. Many women in L.A. seemed to have a thing for him.

  I pushed the thoughts of Emma and Hugo away and went over to my laptop. I might as well start looking for my fifth date on eCupid. It was Saturday tomorrow, so I didn’t have to get up early. Even if this date had ended on a low note, all in all it had been pretty good. At the thought of Nina standing in my living room, gazing out over a glittering Los Angeles, her curvy silhouette and flowing hair making a most exciting picture in my head, I felt myself harden. I remembered how she had tasted, how she had smelled. How she had felt in my hands. How she had felt when I was inside her. She might have been weird, but, goddammit, had she been sexy… So damn sexy. And far better in the sack than Emma. This girl knew how to please a man with her mouth that much had been clear… I shook my head again. It really was a shame we’d never gotten to round two.

  Oh, well. At least she had opened my eyes to the fact that there were other women out there that turned me on post-Emma. Who would have thought I would find the first one on an online dating site? Maybe my uncle was on to something after all. Maybe the fifth date I’d go on would turn out to be someone I’d find hot and datable.

  Feeling a little bit better, I clicked on the eCupid site and began scrolling through the many profiles of girls looking for love.

  Nina

  True to her words, Ricki arrived within twenty minutes to get me from the quiet coffee shop I had entered.

  I climbed into her red Honda. That oppressive sensation had dissipated by now, and I was almost feeling back to normal. Almost.

  Ricki was wearing sweats and her mane of strawberry blond hair in a messy pile on top of her head. I gave her a grateful smile.

  “Thank you so much for coming… You’re the best. Drinks and dinner on me next time we go out.”

  “I expect no less, honey,” Ricki said, giving me a stern look. “You do realize I’ll be totally destroyed tomorrow at work, right? I need my eight hours of sleep to function properly.”

  “Yes.” I had barely fastened my seat belt before we were speeding down the road, in the direction of West L.A. where we both lived.

  “So spill,” Ricki said. “What were you doing up there? Didn’t you have a date tonight?”

  “I did.”

  “Okay. So what happened? It didn’t work out?”

  “Um, yeah. I think you could say that.”

  Ricki threw me a quick glance. “Could you please be more specific? I think you owe me that much for dragging me out of bed like this.”

  I definitely owed Ricki that much. Even if the mere thought of how I’d felt at the end of my date caused my skin to break out in goose bumps. I steeled myself. “At first it went okay. He was kind of an idiot but superhot, so I went home with him. The sex was amazing. Except for the ending.”

  “No happy ending?”

  We both cracked up. Ricki’s joke made me feel slightly better. “Definitely not. It was so bad I ran out of his house. Literally.”

  “Literally? Are you kidding?”

  “No. I’m being totally serious. Something about the way he looked right as he came totally freaked me out… It made me panic and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. It was super weird.”

  “Sounds like it. How exactly did he look?”

  I took a deep breath, trying to quickly picture the moment in my head again. But I couldn’t. “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Maybe I’m just going nuts.”

  “Let’s hope not. Don’t know if I can handle you being any nuttier than you already are…” Ricki gave me a wink.

  “Ha, ha, ha. Very funny.”

  “In all seriousness, after he came, you just ran out of his place?”

  “Not right after. A few minutes after. When he went to the kitchen to get us something to eat.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, it was so weird.”

  “Right. Huh… Well, at least you got some more material for your one-woman show. The guy you slept with sucked so bad you took off running. Literally.” Ricki cracked up. “Oh, my God, it’d be hilarious. You need to do some kind of a bit about that.”

  Ricki’s hearty laughter further soothed my frazzled nerves. Soon, I could barely remember why I’d felt so incredibly anxious in Dylan’s company toward the end, so anxious I couldn’t breathe and had to leave. I shook my head. Why had I felt so weird? Maybe I was coming down with something, like a bad cold. My lungs had suddenly constricted, which was why I had panicked. Yes, that must have been it. I was coming down with something. Tomorrow I’d laugh about this just as much as Ricki was doing right now and be sick.

  Dylan

  My fifth date had been utterly forgettable, neither bad nor good. The girl, a twenty-four-year-old hairdresser and part-time model, had been nice and pretty, but so dull I’d found myself beginning to think about all kinds of other stuff as she had gone on and on about what it was like to work with celebrities, who had the best hair, who had the worst, who was the most generous with tips and who was the cheapest. Who was the nicest, who was the meanest. I couldn’t care less, but didn’t want to be rude, blatantly telling her how insipid she and her conversation were.

  When an hour had passed, I used my standard excuse “early meeting tomorrow” and paid for our drinks. I waited for the girl’s friend to pick her up and then I walked over to my own car and drove off.

  Sailing down Santa Monica Boulevard, I called my uncle, hoping I’d catch him between patients. He was a very popular plastic surgeon.

  “Hey, man,” Victor said right before the call could go to voicemail. “How’s it going?”

  “Not bad. On my way home to do some work.
Just calling to tell you to get ready to go to Vegas with me. Prepare Jen and the kids. I just finished my fifth online date. And I’m still right.”

  “Really?” Victor sounded surprised. “Weren’t you only on date three a couple days ago?”

  “Yeah, but after that date, I decided to get this bet over with. So I sped up things.”

  “So, how was the last two?”

  “As bad as the others. Online dating’s not for me, just like I tried to tell you.”

  “You’re actually trying to make me believe they were all crazy or liars?”

  “Yeah, pretty much all of them were weird. Maybe not crazy, but definitely not quite normal. Okay, maybe that third chick was normal, but since she’d posted those old photos of herself, it puts her straight into the liars’ category. The one I just went out with was a big-time liar, too. She told me she’s been Jennifer Aniston’s hairdresser for years. I happen to know Jennifer’s hairdresser. She’s one of Emma’s best friends.”

  “Man, I’m sorry. Well, at least you gave it a shot.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I’m glad I did it. I needed a kick in the butt to move on from Emma. And I guess one of the dates was good. For a while. She was the best lay I’ve ever had. Too bad she turned out to be psycho.”

  “Come on.”

  “Seriously, she was. After we were done in the sack, she just bailed.”

  “Are you serious? You mean she just left?”

  “Yeah, I’d gone to get us a drink and when I got back, she was gone.”

  “Okay, Dylan. What did you do to her?” There was a teasing note in Victor’s voice.

  I huffed. “What do you mean, what did I do to her? I gave her the best damn sex she’s ever had, that’s what I did! I guess she couldn’t handle it.” Barely had I said those words before that same doubt crept into my mind. That it was because I had actually done something to her that had made her sprint out of my place.

  “Dylan.” My uncle sounded serious. Much too serious for my current mood. “Did you check up on her to make sure everything was all right with her the next day?”

  “No, I didn’t, but why—”

  “What the hell’s wrong with you? You had sex with a woman who left you immediately after. How many women do you know who act that way? Something must have happened. You should at least check in with her to make sure she’s okay. That’s the least you should do.”

  “Fine. When I get back home, I’ll call her up to see how she’s doing. If you find my head blown off tomorrow, remember that you have yourself to blame, okay? She’s just psycho.”

  “That won’t happen and you know it. The worst that’ll happen is that she won’t pick up the phone or return your call. But at least you can say that you’re a man and that you did the right thing.”

  Nina

  Hello Nina,

  Sorry for the delay in this email. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I hope I didn’t do or say anything to upset you the other night. If I did, I apologize. Please let me know if I can make it up to you somehow. I enjoyed our night together very much.

  Dylan.

  When I had recuperated from the shock of seeing who had emailed me, I reread the message, making sure I had understood all the words correctly. More than a week had passed since my date with Dylan and I hadn’t thought about him much since. I’d wanted to put the entire incident behind me as soon as possible, and I was grateful that I didn’t hear from him. Who would have thought he’d contact me now, when I had managed to block him out of my mind completely? What did he want anyway? Was he just horny, wanting to repeat our night of incredible sex? I didn’t think so. There was nothing about this email that even remotely suggested that. If anything, it seemed like he was sincerely sorry our night had ended the way it had and that he was, for some reason, suffering from a bout of guilty conscience.

  I clicked Reply to send him an email back, thanking him for reaching out. But before my fingers could push the keys to form the words I wanted to say, a similar feeling to the one that had made me panic at the end of our date overtook me. It wasn’t nearly as strong; still, the fact that it appeared at all was enough to remind me of the incredible discomfort I’d experienced that night. Which hadn’t turned out to be due to me coming down with a bad cold, it suddenly dawned on me. I canceled the message. It was best if the two of us didn’t have any contact, not to mention saw each other again. Ever. He’d forget about me soon enough if I gave him the silent treatment.

  My cell rang. I grabbed it and the caller ID told me it was my mom.

  “Hi Mom.”

  “Hi. Can you pick up Alex from basketball practice tonight? I have to work extra shift at the restaurant. They’re short-staffed.”

  Mom was also a waitress. Of course, unlike her, I didn’t have any intention of remaining one forever.

  “Sure,” I said. “What time’s he done? At eight?”

  “Yes. Please be there a few minute before eight so he doesn’t go with anyone else. You know how he can be.”

  Oh, yes, I did. My wild little brother needed to be kept firmly in check. My mom and I were both determined to make sure he didn’t end up on the wrong side of the law again. It was barely a year ago since he was let go with six months’ community service and a slap on the wrist from the judge for having stolen a couple of laptops. Neither of us could figure out why he was getting involved with hoodlums when we had tried our best to see to it that he only hung with good kids. It was as if Alex was drawn like a moth to a flame to people who were bad news, people like his alcoholic dad, who’d left both him and our mom, never to reappear. My own dad had done the same to our mom. Being only five the last time I saw him, I couldn’t remember what he was like. It didn’t matter. As far as I was concerned, he was dead to me, not so much because of the way he had treated me, but for leaving my mom in a country where she barely spoke the language and knew no one without any money, with a little kid to boot. I was amazed my mom had managed as well as she had, given her circumstances.

  “Sure,” I said. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll be there.”

  We exchanged a few more words before we hung up. I thought about calling my brother to see what he was up to, but soon discarded that idea. It was only two-thirty, which meant he was in school. Well, he should be in school… When I saw him tonight, I’d grill him to see that he was sticking to his schedule the way he was supposed to. I didn’t think our mom could handle any more trouble with him. If she was to survive raising him—and Alex himself—he needed to be kept in a very tight leash.

  Dylan

  I refreshed my email account for what had to be the tenth time that evening. Five days had passed since I’d sent Nina the email—I hadn’t been able to work up the courage to call her. She had yet to respond to my email. By now, I didn’t think that she would. If she had received it, that was. Maybe it had ended up in her spam and she didn’t check that.

  I leaned back into the leather swivel chair where I sat at my desk. Well, now I had at least tried to contact her. Been a man, like Victor had urged me to be. Done the right thing. If this girl didn’t want to have anything else to do with me, that was her problem.

  Except, it wasn’t.

  More and more, it was becoming my problem, too. Ever since I decided I was going to take my uncle’s cue and reach out to Nina, I’d found myself thinking about her. A lot. She popped into my mind during meetings. When I was going over long, boring contracts and other documents. While I was talking to co-workers at the water cooler. Every day it was getting worse and it distracted the hell out of me. Today it had been so bad I realized I was thinking about her while talking to a client. Instead of considering the words from the woman who needed my services, trying to come up with the right legal advice, I had been in the midst of reliving how Nina had felt in my arms. How she had tasted on my tongue. How she had smelled to my nose, sounded to my ears. She especially plagued me when I was driving to and from work with nothing to occupy my mind except the radio. My dreams at nigh
t consisted mostly of her.

  As much as I tried to deny it to myself, every part of me longed to connect with her again. I couldn’t figure out why this was so, only that I felt it strongly. Something about her had stuck with me, resurfaced after I made the decision to contact her, and I needed to explore what it was about. It must be more to her than being sexy as hell, great in the sack, the way she was on my mind.

  I rubbed my chin. What the hell should I do? How would I convince her to see me again, give me another chance? I supposed I had no choice but to call her after all.

  I sighed. It would be so much better if I could talk to her in person. I knew from experience that I was the most convincing face-to-face, not over the phone. Another advantage with this approach was that she couldn’t hang up on me. Yes, I needed to do this in person.

  I briefly considered going to the restaurant where she worked, but soon discarded that idea. It seemed inefficient, not to mention stalker-ish. Since I didn’t know which days she worked, I’d have to either call the restaurant to find out if she was there—which she’d probably find out about—or hang in the bar until she was working. It was better if our meeting seemed more “accidental.” Like if I ran into her somewhere out, at a bar or something.

  But how would I make that happen?

  I thought back to our conversation at Schiller’s. She’d mentioned she practiced parts of her one-woman show at open mikes throughout the city. Open mikes were typically at coffee houses or bars. What if I showed up in conjunction with one of those? It could work—as long as it wasn’t too obvious why I was there.

  But how would I found out where she did her open mikes? I remembered that she had a public Facebook page then. That might give me some clues. I pulled up the website on my laptop. Score. Nina had posted that she was performing at the Bliss Art House Café the coming Thursday, only three days later. I could always say one of my friends was performing that night, too. Yes, a pretty weird coincidence, but not so weird it was unbelievable, especially considering how big and famous a venue Bliss was. Musicians, comedians, poets, actors, writers, all kinds of performers went there to hone their craft. The more I considered the idea of going there, the better I thought it was.