Melt With You

by Alison Tyler

  ‘My mom moved back to Florida,’ he said, ‘and my dad’s with whichever floozy will have him.’ There was a bitter tone in his voice that he did nothing to hide.

  Luke’s father had been a player back in school, Dori remembered. The one time she had gone to Luke’s house, bringing him some newspaper business, his father had hit on her. Luke, coming inside from the garage to greet his guest, had gotten a murderous look in his dark-hazel eyes when he’d seen the way his dad was talking to her, and his fist tightened on the silver wrench he held in his hand. They’d never spoken about the incident but, watching Luke now, she saw the same look in his eyes when he talked about his father. Time might be on their side, but it apparently hadn’t healed all wounds.

  ‘And you?’ she said, glancing once more at his left hand. Nope. No ring. Her hand felt naked from where Bryce’s engagement ring had once been. She’d worn the ring long enough for a mark to have formed on her skin – a white line against the more tanned skin of her hand.

  Luke had his palm on her knee. Dori looked down at the dancers once more. She saw Chelsea gazing up at her, and she wondered what her friend was thinking. Chelsea had always had a crush on Luke. They’d both worked with him on the paper, Dori as a writer and Chelsea writing the gossip column. Would it be fair to do what she was thinking of doing? Had she slipped back into high school ways that quickly? Someone was always flirting with another girl’s boyfriend.

  But this was different, wasn’t it? Chelsea didn’t have any claim to Luke now. They were all free agents, weren’t they?

  She watched as Chelsea suddenly reached into her tiny beaded handbag and pulled out the red phone inside. She moved off to a corner of the room to try and carry on a conversation over the noise, but her eyes remained on Dori.

  And was the problem that Chelsea crushed on Luke? Or had Chelsea simply always seemed to want what Dori had? The same clothes. The same haircut. The same boyfriend. The same phone. Dori had always thought it odd. On the surface, Chelsea had everything. She was beautiful and intelligent, but lacked the sweetness her sister possessed. It was as if the two had split the gene pool down the middle. Not that Violet wasn’t attractive, but she didn’t have the Barbie good looks bestowed upon her twin.

  The deejay slid on ‘Goody Two Shoes.’ Dori started to smile. Her favorite songs had all become oldies, hadn’t they? How had that happened so quickly? Adam Ant was no longer the sleek pretty boy with the battered military jacket and the face full of war-paint. He was now a post-middle-aged has-been given to starting bar brawls and winding up in the tabloid news looking puffy and dejected. What wrong turn had his life taken? If he could have gone back to change the past, would he? Or were his glory years enough to let him sleep well at night?

  She turned toward Luke, ready to make some witty remark on the subject, and he kissed her again, longer and deeper than he had on the dance floor.

  Dori closed her eyes, savoring the kiss, and the way the slight stubble of his evening beard scraped her cheek. That wasn’t high school. That was all man. She felt herself becoming aroused, and she squirmed slightly on the bleachers. There was something darkly sexy about making out here as a grown-up. The old wooden boards beneath them. The too-loud music. The dim lights.

  Had they still been in high school, gossip would have begun circulating right about now. ‘Did you see? Dori and Luke up in the bleachers?’ Chelsea whispering to Violet, who would whisper to Janie … but there was no telephone tree of chatter to be had. Dori wasn’t linked to anyone. Rowan hadn’t shown.

  Luke slid one hand up her thigh, his fingers inching underneath the hem of her turquoise-and-black polka dot dress, and she let him. She loved this dress. The material rustled when she touched it. Or when Luke touched it, his fingers still roaming, higher now, finding out to his obvious delight that she had on thigh-high stockings under the poufy skirt. His hand on her bare skin sent a shock of pleasure through her, and she closed her eyes and leant back against the bleacher seat behind her. This would have been a bold move when they were back in high school.

  Now, she had no desire to go down with the crowd, to try to be young again. Now, she only wanted to sit up here with Luke, kissing him, feeling his hand slide even further up her dress, his palm warm on her naked skin.

  When the overhead lights suddenly flickered on, they parted and she blinked like crazy, trying to focus. She remembered this sensation from high school as well. Being unable to see at first, momentarily blinded by the brightness of the gilded fluorescent lights after being lulled for more than two hours by the saffron-colored darkness.

  ‘You ready?’ he asked.

  She knew what he meant, and she gripped his hand and nodded.

  Head pounding, Rowan sprinted to the gymnasium, but the door was already locked. He glanced up to see inside the windows of the big building, watching as the very last of the lights clicked out.

  How late was he? He’d thought he had the timing down by now.

  Feeling desperate, he ran back to the parking lot, saw the last few stragglers pulling out. People calling out to each other, making plans to hook up in hotel bars, or at The Old Pro, one of the local pool halls that had been a hangout in high school and was still around. He thought he recognized one of Dori’s friends climbing into a long silver Lincoln, and hopped in his car to follow her.

  Maybe she’d lead him to Dori.

  God, he hoped so.

  Chapter Three

  If she and Bryce hadn’t broken up, would Dori be going back to Luke’s high-end suite at the fanciest hotel in town?

  Not on your life. Dori wasn’t the type of girl to have a final fling right before the wedding, something to give her a few moments of pleasure and yet make her feel guilty for the rest of her life. She knew that some of her friends had done exactly this, had fucked an old flame or a stripper at their own bachelorette party, considering any moment before the ‘I do’ to be fair game. But Dori wasn’t like that.

  She wondered if part of the appeal of going with Luke was the crush she’d had on him in school. And then she stopped wondering as Luke walked into the room after her and headed directly for the mini bar. He mixed each of them a drink, using two of the small bottles per glass, and then he clinked the two together before handing one over, saying ‘Salut’ as he sipped his drink.

  In the light, he was different. Back in the gym, he’d still possessed some of the charming boy inside him, the boy she remembered from all those years before. But now that she really saw him, she realized he was startlingly grown-up. And Dori wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

  In many ways, he was far more attractive as an adult than he’d been as a teenager. He had that beat-in sexy look of someone who’s had more than his fair share of erotic encounters, a knowledgeable gleam in his hazel eyes when he gazed at her, as if he could read every last one of her thoughts. But he was someone her mother would have said hadn’t lived up to his true potential. Here he was, with forty breathing fire right over his shoulder, and what did he have to show for it? He’d become an exec for some high-end fixtures company, which he’d told her all about in mind-numbing detail during the car ride over. Faucets and handles and specialized shower sprays. He’d tried to describe the images as if he were talking about art – the polished chrome of the hardware, the basin-style sinks that filled up to look like fountains in Italy – but he’d failed to show any real enthusiasm. All she could think to herself was: how fucking boring was that? He hadn’t followed his dreams, which had once been to run a newspaper, or to be a writer, an ace reporter. Instead, he’d gone for the money. Now he had two marriages behind him. An expensive leather suitcase on the spare bed looked as if it had seen a lot of use.

  She shut her eyes for a moment as she sipped her drink, seeing two visions: the Luke she’d known so long ago and the one with her now.

  ‘I always wanted you in school,’ he said.

  She opened her eyes and smiled. She still hadn’t decided whether or not she was going to fuck him.
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  ‘But you were so sweet,’ he continued. ‘You would have thought it meant love.’

  Dori’s stomach tightened. He was right. She would have. Love was the key when she was in school. True Love Always was what everyone was after, a goal that she’d traced over and over on the outside of her battered blue binder. TLA. Three little letters that she’d spray-painted one evening with Violet on the back wall of The Majestic, her friend urging her on as she added her initials with Rowan’s, entwined for eternity.

  She watched as Luke reached for his X-pod. He set the slim device into the stand on the night table between the two beds, effortlessly rotating through the music selections with the ball of his thumb in a way that made Dori press her thighs tighter together. She could imagine his thumb on her clit, rolling in a similar circle, and she wondered if he was touching the X-pod in that manner on purpose. Foreplay by a Cherry Computer X-pod: there was something she’d never seen in one of their ads. But then she recalled that Violet had recently told her about a Wifi device, one that would plug into your MP4 player and vibrate to the rhythm of the songs of your choice. The future was much more complicated than even Woody Allen had imagined in his classic movie Sleeper.

  Luke didn’t stop until he landed on Macy Gray’s ‘Sex-o-Matic’. Did that dissolve the magic spell for Dori? Did she wish he’d kept up with their retro trip down memory lane? No. She felt thankful for the break from the past.

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’ he asked, stepping closer and nuzzling against her. He moved his body with hers and, as before, she could feel that he was hard. Everything was different from high school, wasn’t it? She could just fuck him now, if she wanted. She didn’t have to push him away. Didn’t have to worry about her reputation, or tell him that she wasn’t that kind of a girl. Because they were all that kind of girl now, weren’t they? She and her single girlfriends. Not one of them held out for love any more. There was no point, was there? No point in pretending.

  When Luke moved back slightly and looked at her again, she knew she was going to sleep with him. But the words still stung. Then it would have been for love. So what was it for now? Pleasure, she supposed.

  Was that enough?

  Luke’s lips erased thoughts. Kissing him soothed her: the way he held her face firmly in one hand while he brought his lips to hers, the way he made her feel as if he were enveloping her with his sturdy body, keeping her safe. But that sensation was simply an illusion. That’s all it was, she had to keep reminding herself. She’d been with enough men by now to know that the safe feeling evaporated when the climax faded. Sometimes even before. It was why she’d been so grateful when Bryce proposed. The thought that she would be able to roll over in the morning and find a warm figure next to hers, not an empty pillow. She’d never have admitted this to her girlfriends. She knew exactly what Violet would say: ‘Men don’t keep you safe. You keep yourself safe.’

  But sometimes the loneliness was overwhelming. Was that why she was with Luke tonight?

  ‘Do you remember going to Rocky Horror?’ he asked her suddenly, pulling back from the kiss and looking into her eyes.

  ‘Yeah, of course.’

  ‘I always thought you were so sexy when you were all dressed up as Frank-N-Furter,’ Luke confessed, and Dori felt a shiver rush through her. She’d felt sexy back then, and powerful, because of the clothing – the costume – and the make-up. Because nobody could see her real emotions beneath the attire.

  ‘You always looked as if you could take charge,’ Luke continued, and she sensed that he was nervous.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘You know,’ he said again. ‘In bed. You looked so fierce stomping across the stage. Belting out the songs.’

  ‘I was lip-synching,’ she reminded him. ‘It was make-believe.’

  ‘But it seemed real,’ he protested, and then, apparently getting up his nerve finally, he said, ‘Are you into anything kinky now?’ The question caught her off guard. ‘You know, has New York rubbed off on you?’ And when she still didn’t respond, he continued in a rush, ‘You’re so gorgeous, Dori. I’ll bet when you get all dolled up, you have to beat men off with a whip.’

  ‘A whip.’ She repeated the words, and she heard the steel-like edge in her voice, realizing that she’d echoed the word without turning it into a question. A whip.

  He raised his gingery eyebrows at her, then refilled their drinks, choosing four bottles of a different liquor now. At this rate, they would drain the well-stocked mini bar in no time, but maybe that was necessary. Maybe in order for Luke to explain what he wanted, he had to be tipsy. Because he was going somewhere with this line of discussion, she was sure of that. But where?

  ‘What do you like, Dori? Come on, we’re not in school any more. You don’t have to play the good girl. You can be as bad you want.’

  Now, she grinned. The liquor was definitely affecting her. But she found herself enjoying the watery sensation rushing through her body, and she drank a large sip of her second drink to keep the feeling close. ‘You like bad girls, Luke? I remember that. I remember exactly the type that you went after.’ The Cabriolet Cuties. That’s what Violet had called them. The ones who went on birth control as soon as they hit sixteen.

  He shrugged off the comment. ‘There are certain girls who will do it and certain ones who won’t. You fell into the won’t category. But it all evens out in the wash, doesn’t it? At the end of the day, we’re all animals.’

  She understood that he wanted something from her, and she was surprised that she thought she might be able to give it to him. And then she was surprised again when he unbuckled his belt. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t say a word. He wasn’t merely taking off his pants, which would have been presumptuous at this point, anyway. But he was pulling the belt out through the loops of his slacks, slowly removing that expensive width of dark brown leather.

  She watched as he toyed with the belt between both hands, and she realized she’d misjudged him. It wasn’t that he desired a bad girl. He wanted to be a bad boy. The smile returned to her lips. She felt as if she’d entered The Twilight Zone. Luke Robertson wanted her to be a Dom. Who would ever have thought?

  If they’d been back in high school, she would already have been rehearsing how she would describe the experience to her friends the following day:

  ‘And then he took off his belt and handed it to me.’

  She could even hear Violet’s response: ‘The sick puppy. What’d you do, Dori?’

  Was her life that different now? She’d still undoubtedly tell Violet in the morning, but the response would be different. Violet would be interested rather than repelled, yet she’d still want to know every single luscious detail.

  Luke seemed to notice that his hands were nervously stroking the belt, and he tossed the thing onto the mattress, as if the leather had become hot.

  ‘What do you like?’ he asked again, softer this time, and she saw the potential in his eyes. Saw the desires. She knew what it was like to have desires, and to have those desires go unfulfilled. Could she fulfill his?

  Why not? She strode to the bed and reached for the belt, and when she looked at him again, she saw the relief on his face. He was going to get what he wanted and that made him relax. She doubled the belt and let the leather snap, and then she smiled when he flinched.

  She’d never have to see him again. At least, not until the next reunion. And by then they’d be nearly fifty. The feeling was freeing. She could do whatever she wanted.

  ‘You keep asking me,’ she said, echoing the low tone of his voice, but pleased at the husky quality of her own. ‘Let’s flip it around, Luke. What do you like? What do you think about when you’re traveling? You’re all alone in your room, right? Unless you’ve gotten lucky and hooked up with some floozy from the hotel bar. I can see you, dialing up porn on the TV, but not finding what you want. Or maybe you download dirty videos directly to your X-pod. Do you do that? And then watch on the tiny little screen, clutching your pod in one hand and you
r pud in the other?’

  He took a hurried sip of his drink, leaving less than an inch of the amber-colored liquid inside. They were going to have to order up a bottle if they kept drinking at this rate. Luke’s hand was trembling and, when he went to set down his drink, the glass chattered on the table edge and nearly tipped, but he caught the tumbler in mid-fall. ‘When I ask you a question, I expect an answer.’

  Was that how this was done? She was learning on the fly, but she’d read enough of those letters in Variations to have an idea. More than that, she’d fantasized often enough about this sort of situation. Controlling a scene from start to finish. Taking charge. This wasn’t a fantasy she’d had when she was young, but one she’d grown into over the years, and one she’d never actually lived out. She liked the way Luke was looking at her now, liked the way his belt felt in her hands, but she set the leather down on the bed, coiling the strip carefully, so that it looked like a snake, waiting.

  She moved across the room and turned off the overhead light. Now, there was only one lamp lit in the room. Feeling Luke’s eyes following her, she pulled her teal-green silk scarf from her purse and draped it over the shade. The room instantly took on a dreamy glow, the light shining through the thin material. They were inside an emerald now. A polished jewel.

  Macy Gray had morphed into Annie Lennox’s ‘Why,’ and Dori took a step closer to Luke. When they kissed again, this time she was kissing him. She was gripping into his hair and kissing him so hard that when they parted, he sighed.