by Susan Ward
“It was OK.” I struggle for something funny to say to break the tension suffocating me. Then, “For proletarian travel.”
Alan laughs, downshifting the car for the slowing traffic ahead. “I should have sent the plane,” he jokes quietly, “I know how you hate proletarian travel, Chrissie.”
A small measure of nervousness leaves me and I smile. “Nope. I’m a commercial travel kind of girl these days.”
“Probably all the traveling between Berkeley and Seattle,” he says matter-of-factly.
I can feel his eyes studying me even though his gaze looks locked on the road, and I tense. He just brought Neil into the car with us, and I’m not sure why he did that.
“How long are you on the West Coast?” I ask, changing the subject.
“Four weeks. Then on the road again for another year.”
“You said on the phone you were here working. What are you working on?”
“A new album.” Alan gives me a small smile. “What did you think I was working on?”
I shake my head. “OK, stupid question.”
I stare out the window, focusing on the ocean, as we whiz down the Pacific Coast Highway, away from the town and the hotels.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask.
“I have a house here.”
“Since when? I thought you hated California.”
“I used to,” he says. “I’ve spent quite a bit of time here in the last two years. Now it’s where I prefer to be.”
I chance another look at him and I wonder what he’s thinking and what he thinks about me being here. No part of this has flowed in a predictable way, but then nothing with Alan ever flows in a predictable way.
“I thought you would never live anywhere but New York,” I say.
“And I thought you would call me sooner after Berkeley. I never expected to wait seven months to hear from you.”
The sharpness of his tone makes anxiety flood my stomach, and then Alan’s eyes fix on me. He looks a touch irritated and a touch angry, and I don’t know why he should be either since I’m the one who called him.
I turn my head and stare out the window.
We pull into a narrow driveway hugging a stunning multi-level concrete and glass structure rising above the beach in Malibu. I climb from the car before he reaches my door and wait as he walks to me. He doesn’t look at me, and I realize that he hasn’t touched me, not even in a casual way, since I got here and he’s deliberately maintaining space between us.
“Let’s go inside,” Alan says, as he reaches in for my bag. “The press doesn’t seem to know about this place yet, but we shouldn’t stand out here all afternoon.”
He gives me a benign sort of nothing smile. My scalp prickles as every nerve in my body is suddenly blasted by a chill. The press. I don’t know how I failed to put that worry on my mental list of reasons not to do this. As awful as it was after New York, it is going to be doubly so if anyone finds out we’ve been together again.
I step back from him quickly and hurry ahead down the walk to the house. I wait as he unlocks the door, and rush into the house before him.
It’s warm inside, dimly lit, with a giant wall of glass overlooking the Pacific Ocean. There’s a wide patio, one flight of stairs below, just beyond the living room, surrounded by a tiled, concrete privacy wall. The area is artfully decorated with enormous greenery, potted trees and ferns, tables positioned near fire pits, and chaise lounges encircling a blue-bottomed pool.
I drag my gaze from the exterior and take in the interior of the house. It’s stunningly turned out in white and black shabby-chic furnishings with natural wood tables and giant canvases encased in glass, of boldly colored European Impressionist art, floor to ceiling. The walls are white. The floors a darkly painted surface that looks almost like the concrete of the foundation. There are instruments everywhere, personal possessions only lightly sprinkled here and there. The house does not have the feel of having ever been lived in.
I turn to find Alan standing just inside the entry hall. I watch as he moves to the bar to pour himself a tall scotch, and my nervousness prompts me to wander around the room. I pretend to examine a Native American bowl of some kind resting on the coffee table as Alan sits on the arm of an overstuffed chair. I can feel the heavy pressure of his eyes on me. Why is he just sitting there, staring at me and saying nothing?
I search for something to say. “How often do you come here?”
“I spend most of my time here when I’m in the states. This is where I come when I want to be alone.”
“Inviting me sort of ruins that, doesn’t it?”
“That depends on why you are here, Chrissie.”
Startled, I turn to look at him, and instinctive fear rises through my center. Oh no, I’ve seen that expression before, and how I’ve imagined this night might play out just radically changed.
It seems like Alan doesn’t talk or move, forever.
Then, he sets down his drink. “I’m not sure I should want you here. I haven’t decided yet. I’m trying to figure out why you called me.”
I fight to maintain my composure, but it is not easy with the way he is looking at me. His stare warns that this could go any direction depending on how I answer him. His mouth is slightly open, his breathing is harsh, and I can tell he is struggling to stay calm.
“I don’t know why I called. Does it matter?”
His eyes flash, and then he’s across the room. He keeps his eyes on me, unblinking, and while nothing is showing on the surface, the anger is jolting through him.
“What the fuck do you want from me, Chrissie?”
I take a step back from him and his features tighten with unconcealed anger.
“I don’t want anything,” I whisper anxiously.
Alan grabs my chin, forcing me to meet his smoldering eyes. His expression is disconcerted, angry, and even sad. “Then I will take you back to the airport and dump you there. Why are you here?”
Panicked and terrified, I manage to hold it together, even as a weird feeling of déjà vu surrounds me. Then, my mind fills with disjointed scenes of the night in New York when I was afraid he would dump me in the hallway wrapped in a sheet.
His gaze, burning and angry, never lifts from me, and I am quaking like a leaf. There is something on his face that warns me I could blow this very easily, that this is not a dose of Alan theatrics, but a dangerously serious moment for me and if I answer it wrong we will be over forever this time.
I stare up at him. “I’m here because I love you.”
We stand together, staring at each other, and very gradually he relaxes, and now, on top of everything, I feel like I’m going to cry. Alan closes his eyes and exhales and then he is lifting me from the floor.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A sound from the beach jolts me from deep sleep, and I open my eyes. The moonlit room is warm and Alan is warm against my back, still holding on to me.
I turn on my other side to look at him. As badly as we started this, the week has been wonderful. I recall his weird manner when we arrived first at the house, his anger and how he stared at me. It didn’t occur to me until that moment that I hadn’t said I love you to Alan. Not in Berkeley. Not on the phone. And not in my first minutes here. It was in my heart. It was in my head. Somehow I never said it.
Slipping from the bed, I spot the shirt Alan was wearing yesterday laying on the floor and I shrug into it. I go into the bathroom, quietly close the door, and I sink onto the icy travertine floor, staring at myself in the full wall mirror. I leave tomorrow for Berkeley. It hurts so much every time I think of returning to my life there.
A light trickle of tears spill down my cheeks since I don’t know what happens after tomorrow. I’m still not sure what we are and what this is. Logic tells me when I walk out that door we are over, but my heart doesn’t want to believe it.
I hear the door open and I lift my face to find Alan staring down at me. He crosses the space between us and sinks beside me on the tr
avertine. “Chrissie, why are you crying?”
“I don’t know.”
He leans his back against the tub, copying my posture, legs bent in front of him, and lets out a slow, even breath. His eyes lock with mine in the reflection. “If you’re crying in here over us being together, then you should stop it now,” he murmurs, a trace of irritation in his voice. “It’s probably the first sane thing either of us have done in over two years. It’s definitely the first sane thing I’ve done since you left New York.”
A soggy laugh pushes its way out of my emotion-tight throat. I lay my cheek on my knees and stare at the scar on my wrist. How ugly the scar looks in all moments of my life except the moments I’m with Alan.
“I don’t think I would qualify as a sane thing for anyone to do, not even you,” I mutter, deliberately silly to hide that I feel completely overwhelmed.
He doesn’t smile, he shakes his head and eases back from me. He reaches into the tub and turns on the knobs. “Why is it you still can’t talk to me?”
“It’s not just you, Alan.”
“I know. But with me it shouldn’t be that way.”
I watch him as he focuses on filling the tub, feeling my heart clench tighter. He’s right. I should be able, after all we’ve been through, to say anything to Alan. I don’t know why I can’t and I don’t know why I always seem to be my worst me with him.
He turns off the knobs, undresses me and sets me in the tub. He climbs in behind me and eases me back against him. His hands move up and down my arms with the soap. “Tell me what’s going on inside that head of yours, Chrissie.”
“I don’t want to leave tomorrow.”
“Then don’t. Stay.”
“I can’t stay, Alan. My classes start next week. I can’t not show up, especially since I don’t even know what this is.”
“This?” The way he repeats that makes me tense. “I love you. You love me. That’s what this is. It’s that simple.”
I can feel him studying me, trying to assessing my reaction to this, but it’s not simple and I don’t know what to say so I say nothing.
“Are you going back to Santa Barbara or Berkeley tomorrow?” he asks.
“Berkeley.”
“I won’t call you unless you tell me you want me to. Do you want me to call after you leave here, Chrissie?”
I can feel him watching me, waiting. “I want you to call.”
He continues to wash me, and I can feel his body relax and quiet behind me. In spite of my internal distress, I feel my emotions start to calm. His long fingers wash me gently, up and down, very slowly everywhere, changing me from disjointed parts into a single vessel, aroused and wanting him.
My hair is lifted from my shoulders and his lips touch my neck. He turns me in his arms, but he doesn’t lower me to straddle him. Instead, I’m gently lifted and he lays me on the wide tiled surface beneath the window. My damp flesh chills even as I heat with anticipation. He slides my hips to the edge and I lean back on my elbows atop the stacks of towels there. My legs are brought to rest and dangle over his shoulders, and he’s devouring me with his mouth there, the strokes of his tongue, torturously light and slow, potent anyway.
His mouth roams my thighs, my hips, my scars, and my sex. My legs start to quake and his hands clasp my thighs, his mouth never breaking contact with me. I start to move against him, impatient in a feral way. I don’t know how he does this to me, from emotionally messy to sexually urgent from the first second he touches me.
He goes deeper with his tongue and I’m raging. My fingers curl in his hair and my back arches. I begin to shake more violently, and I come against his mouth in shuddering waves; but only now because he wants it so.
Panting and limp, I lie back on the towels, his mouth still there moving lightly against me. He scoops me up in his arms and carries me back to bed. He lies us both atop it, our bodies damp, and he starts kissing and touching me. He sinks his body into me deeply, but stays carefully balanced above me on his arms, surrounding me, my eyes unable to see anything but his face.
I’m breathing hard and I’m pulsing again. He pounds hard into me in a frantic rhythm, faster and faster, less gentle each thrust. He doesn’t hold back. He pumps his body in me and lets go.
His body moves from mine in an uncharacteristic quick departure and a ripple of pain moves along my nerves from his rapid retreat from my flesh. My eyes flutter wide to find Alan sitting on his knees staring down at me.
“This is what I’ll think of when you’re not with me…” he roughly breathes into my chaotic senses. “…how you look at this moment loving me.”
~~~
The next morning, I open my eyes to find Alan sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed. Our last night together was intense and I’m emotionally drained.
I stare at him and say nothing. His posture tells me he’s struggling with something. Perhaps with what he wants to say. Or maybe with what he doesn’t want to say. I can’t tell which. Everything feels strange, off-kilter, between us.
Alan looks at me. “This can be anything you want it to be, Chrissie.”
He eases forward and sets something on the table beside the bed. I can’t look because I’m afraid of what I will see. I watch him walk from the room, and then shift my gaze to the table next to me. Everything inside of me collapses in slow, agonizing waves as I pick up the key. The metal in my hand is cold and jagged of edge. In elegant simplicity, Alan clarified exactly what we are in a brutal, single shot-glass-like dose of reality.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
December 1992…
I curl on the couch, sipping a cup of tea, watching as Neil and Rene battle over video games. Now that Neil is hardly ever here and his music is getting some radio play, Rene seems not willing to break the détente that started when Neil moved to Seattle in 1990.
Rene throws her controller, only just missing the TV. She points at Neil. “Asshole.”
He leans back into the couch cushions, laughing in exasperation. “You’re not only the most shallow girl I’ve ever met, you’re a poor sport and you suck at video games.”
Rene springs to her feet. “I’m going to grab another beer. Do you want one?”
Neil nods. “Yep, bring me one.”
He laughs as he watches her walk away and then turns until he’s facing me on the couch. “Are you OK? You’ve seemed really quiet, kind of off for the last week.”
I force a smile that does nothing to calm my inner distress. “I’m OK. Just worn out from finals and I’m not looking forward to that seven hour drive home tomorrow.”
He pulls my feet onto his lap and starts to rub them. “Then don’t go back to Santa Barbara. Stay with me.”
“I’ve got to go home, Neil. I don’t want to piss off Jack by ditching him for the holidays.”
“I’d go with you, but I need to get back to Seattle.”
I take a sip of my tea. “I know.” I smile. “But it’s nice having you here now, though.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever told you this before,” Neil says quietly. “You’re not just my girlfriend. You’re my best friend.”
There is a sweet kind of smile on his face now, shy and affectionate, and it makes my heart twist.
“You’re my best friend, too,” I say.
He shakes his head and looks up at me. “I wouldn’t be where I am without you.”
I give him a nudge with my leg and I make a face. “Neil, don’t get all sappy on me tonight. I like it better when you’re a conceited jerk.”
He laughs, shaking his head. “I’m not a jerk. I just like to mess with you. And don’t tell Rene I’m your best friend. She’ll start hating me again.”
We’re both laughing when Rene bounces back into the room, drops a beer onto Neil’s lap and then retrieves the controller.
Rene settles on the couch. “Ready for a rematch, jerk?”
Neil sets my feet back on the cushion. “Wasn’t sure you were coming back for a rematch. It took you so long to grab a beer, I tho
ught maybe you had a guy in the kitchen.”
Rene makes a fuck you face and Neil winks at me. I feel a smile that doesn’t rise to my lips. It’s nice they’re friends.
They start to play and I watch and sip my tea. I’m pulled from my troubling thoughts by the sound of my mobile phone ringing in the bedroom and I set down my cup.
Rene rolls her eyes. “Her majesty’s private line.”
I climb over and pause as I pass Rene. “I wouldn’t have a private line if you weren’t on the phone all night every night.”
I go into the bedroom, shut the door, grab my mobile phone from the drawer and flip it open. “Hello?”
“Chrissie.”
I lie down on the bed.
“You sound like you were sleeping,” Alan says. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
“You didn’t wake me. Just feeling lazy today. It’s only four in the afternoon here, Alan. Where are you?”
“I’m not sure where I’m…” Alan says, laughing and I curl around the phone. “… It’s nighttime though. I’m thinking of you. So I called.”
I can hear lots of noise and voices in the background. It sounds like a party, and his voice is raspier, more gravelly like it is when he’s just been on stage.
“So what are you doing?” I ask, rolling over to lie on my side.
“Sitting on a rooftop terrace. Drinking. Thinking of you,” he says in a sweet way.
“Nasty thoughts or nice thoughts?”
“A little of both.”
I start to laugh. “Me too. You have definitely been away too long this time.”
“For me too, Chrissie,” he says. “With the travel from Europe I can only manage two days, but I can be in Malibu in January, the tenth and the eleventh, if you want me there.”
“Stupid question. What do you think?”
“I want to hear you tell me you want me there.”
I feel tears gathering in my throat and eyes, and I don’t want them. Not today. “I told you it was a stupid question, isn’t that good enough?”
