My Guys

by Tanya Chris

  “And what happened?” I led the way up the stairs to my bedroom.

  He shrugged. “Was I supposed to keep chasing after her if she didn’t want me to?”

  “No, I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s that while you were pursuing her, you were pursuing other people too.”

  Nate sat down on my bed to take his shoes off. He looked tired. I went over to him and rubbed his forehead, brushing his hair back. He spread his legs and pulled me between his knees.

  “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “That women like to feel special. People like to feel special.”

  “You’re special to me.”

  “This isn’t about me.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  I sat down on the bed next to him, feeling as tired as he looked. It was past one a.m. Fatigue lured me into the argument as though I hadn’t the strength to resist it.

  “Do you have to do it in front of me?”

  “You see the hypocrisy, right?”

  “I didn’t choose for things to be this way. I would—”

  “Would you?”

  Would I? Would I go back to being a one-man woman if that one man were Nate? If I wanted only one man, Derek was willing to fill the role. Did that mean I wanted more than one man or did it mean I wanted a different man?

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  “Come here.” Nate put his arm around me. He kissed the top of my head. “I love you, Lissie.”

  I pulled away to look at his face.

  “No, don’t,” he said. “Don’t make anything of it. I just love you, that’s all.” He pulled me back into him, tucking me safely into his arms. “I just love you, just like this. Can that be OK?”

  I wanted it to be OK, but it wasn’t.

  Chapter 21

  “Happy Anniversary.”

  I lifted my glass towards the empty seat across from me. Knowing this date—Alex’s and my fifteenth anniversary—was coming, I’d planned a romantic candlelight dinner. For me and Nate.

  It was Friday and Friday was Nate’s night, but earlier in the week he’d shrugged the night off in favor of some other plans he’d given me to understand I probably didn’t want to know more about.

  My mother had invited me over, but my fear that she’d invite Alex as well was too realistic to ignore. Donna had a date with Wayne. Morgan had suggested that I come over and watch the kids while she and John went out since they were still married. In retrospect, it was the best offer I’d gotten and the one I should have taken.

  Instead of playing Candy Land on the floor with Lyla and Tyler, I was alone with a bottle of wine and the first real meal I’d cooked since the day Alex moved out. Determined not to be a sad Sally, I’d gone ahead and made the menu I’d planned: sautéed shrimp and garlic, filet mignon, roasted fingerling potatoes, and asparagus. I’d carried my plate into the dining room, turned the pendant light down to its lowest setting, and completely failed to have a romantic evening with myself.

  I cleared the dishes into the kitchen. Deciding to do something about the rest of the mess later, I refilled my wine glass, grabbed one of the éclairs I’d bought for dessert with my fingers, and carried them both into the living room. I snuggled into my corner of the couch and licked custard from my fingers as it oozed from the éclair with every bite—probably why people usually used a fork.

  The sky outside was still bright with August evening sun. It wouldn’t be bedtime for hours. I toyed with the idea of calling Derek. He’d have been willing to sub in for Nate. Only the monstrous injustice of asking him to do that—fill in Nate gaps—had prevented me from asking.

  Now, with the specter of long empty hours stretching before me, my resolve wavered. My finger hovered over the picture of his face on my favorites screen, then dove.

  Sweet baby favorite, I thought, listening to the phone ring, then hmph, when I got his voice mail instead of his voice. No doubt Derek had ways to keep himself occupied on the weekend, not that I’d ever worried about it before.

  I tried to remember what I used to do in the evening when Alex and I were married. We’d come home from work. One of us would cook; the other would clean up. And then what did we do with all those hours until bedtime? Not have sex, obviously.

  Sometimes Alex had gone to the gym—or to get laid, as it turned out—but most nights we were on this couch. A little television, a little surfing, a lot of reading, and the occasional conversation about what I’d read or he’d seen, about who was doing what on Facebook or in the world, sharing opinions that were never far off from each other’s, sharing experiences that were never far off from the experiences we’d shared the night before. In retrospect, there might as well have been a neon sign flashing the word rut over our couch.

  Bree’s Surrender lay on the end table where I’d left it the last time I’d dropped it. She and Alec had been on the verge of consummating their budding relationship, her clothes in disarray, the state of his clothes left to the reader’s imagination. I wondered why, if these books were written for women, there weren’t more descriptions of Alec’s chest than Bree’s. If Alec looked anything like the shirtless guy on the cover, his chest was worth a mention.

  I picked up the book, finding the page I’d turned down to mark my place, more from habit than from any intention to return to it. I read a few lines, trying to immerse myself in the world of fantasy that had been my sex life since before I’d had sex—her panting breath, his masculine determination, their mutual, easily-attained and frequently-repeated bliss. With no experience or discussion, with no effort and the most minimal participation, Bree wallowed in Alec-induced ecstasy.

  Long before meeting Alex, as an idealistic teenager, I’d drawn up the list of criteria my someday-husband would have to meet. I’d sealed the list and written “to my future self” on the envelope and stashed it in the box I referred to as my hope chest which included the napkins I’d embroidered in middle school and a set of Tupperware one of my aunts had inexplicably given me for a thirteenth birthday present.

  The night before my wedding, I’d opened it. Expecting what, I wasn’t sure. Confirmation? A good laugh? The list had included a few of each. In addition to a bunch of cringe-worthy criteria like “good hair” and “drives a nice car,” there were a few that my adult self could support: funny, smart, nice to me. That was a good one—nice to me.

  And then my shy teenage self, who’d yet to do more than kiss a boy (no tongue) but who for sure knew how to get herself off, had added this: can make me come. It was the last line on the list, written in all caps and embellished with an exclamation point.

  On the eve of my marriage I’d sat there, running my thumb over the paper, feeling the indentation my pen had pressed into it with the forcefulness of that exclamation point, and told myself it wasn’t important. Like the car a guy drove, it was the requirement of a naïve, romantic child.

  I could make myself come, if it were so important, although as the years went on I did it less and less often. My sex drive wilted through lack of use. Only the occasional romance novel exercised it. Bree and Alec, like hundreds before them, had sex on my behalf while I watched.

  The day I married Alex, I relinquished the dream of the man who’d make me come the way that Alec made Bree come: instinctively, reliably, overwhelmingly, assuredly. I’d relinquished it because it seemed a child’s dream, but I hadn’t changed my goal to something more adult, like perhaps that my husband and I could write our own story.

  My phone rang. I left Alec and Bree in a post-coital cocoon of happiness, from which they’d shortly emerge onto some new battlefield, and checked the screen. Seeing Alex’s name, I hesitated over it, then took a deep breath of courage and answered.

  “I decided it was sadder to ignore it than to acknowledge it,” Alex said. “Happy Anniversary?”

  “Our last one.”

  “OK, maybe it’s sadder to acknowledge it.”

  “Either way.”

  We made some small talk—t
he divorce paperwork, his family, mine. I asked him how the running was going and he said he’d signed up for a marathon in late September. He asked me how the climbing was going and I told him I was taking a road trip for Labor Day, although I didn’t mention with whom.

  “Well,” he said when we ran out of safe topics. “It was good to talk to you.”

  “You too.” I pressed the end button, silence settling back around me. I picked up my book and rubbernecked as Alec and Bree made a mess out of the happiness they’d just found. At least Alex and I had done better than that. In the time we’d been together, we’d been nice to each other.

  My phone rang again. Derek calling me back. He’d been at a movie with Leon.

  “Where was Conrad?”

  “He thinks comic book heroes are stupid. How come you’re not with Nate?”

  “He had other plans.”

  “You want me to come over? You sound sad.”

  I looked at the clock. By the time Derek drove over here and we fooled around, probably twice, and I managed to push him out of the house because it was impossible to get a good night’s sleep in the same bed as him, it would end up being a very late night.

  “I’m fine,” I told him. “Today’s my anniversary, that’s all.”

  “Do you wish you were still together?”

  Funny, Nate had never asked me that. Donna had never asked me that. Morgan had never asked me that. Even my mother hadn’t asked me that. And Alex hadn’t asked me that.

  “Sometimes,” I admitted. “Sometimes I wish it was different than it is. But it isn’t.”

  “Just because something’s broken doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed, not if you try to fix it instead of trying to undo it. Life only goes forward, but wherever you are, there are different paths forward—if you’re willing to see them, if you’re willing to follow them.”

  I didn’t know if I was willing. I knew I wasn’t willing now.

  “Tell me more about the trip,” I said to change the subject. We were going somewhere new for me, where Derek said the rock was completely different than anything I’d climbed before. Derek talked to me about the rock and the routes, enthusiasm charging his voice, while I grew sleepy from sorrow and two glasses of wine.

  “Night baby,” I told him when I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. I folded the corner of the page down on Bree’s Surrender and carried my wine glass to the dishwasher, then stumbled my way up the stairs to bed, grateful that Derek had landed on one of my paths forward.

  Chapter 22

  Watching Derek lead climb made me nervous. On the last trip, I’d belayed him on only very easy routes, routes he and I both knew he wouldn’t fall off of. We’d had Jenny with us then and she’d belayed him on the hard routes, the routes he climbed for his own challenge and not just to hang a rope up for me. There were fewer of us on this trip, so Derek and I were a definite partnership. If he climbed, I belayed.

  But watching him made me nervous. His life was in my hands. I’d never caught a big fall and my hands fumbled at the quick movements needed to give him armfuls of slack when he was clipping the next bolt. I wished that I could stand back and watch his graceful flow up the rock, admire the bulging muscles and glistening skin, and have nothing to do with whether or not he was safe.

  He was looking up at the next move. I could tell from the way he paused that he wasn’t confident he could make it. I checked on the loop of slack drooping between me and the rock. Nervously, I took some of it in.

  He made a sudden lunging movement. I saw the slack disappear, fumbled to try to give him more, and then he was falling. His weight yanked against the belay device, pulling me up and off the ground. His feet tapped against the wall. He screamed.

  “Are you OK?” I asked, panicked by the scream although it had sounded more like frustration than pain. I was swaying a few feet off the ground. My brake hand clenched tightly around the rope was the only thing keeping both of us in the air.

  Derek glared down at me.

  “Are you OK?” I repeated.

  “Just lower me.”

  “Are you sure? You don’t want to try again?”

  He lifted his arms out to the side and gave me a disgusted look. I saw that he couldn’t touch the rock anywhere. The route he’d been on was so steep that he was dangling in space now, just as I was. I lowered us both to the ground.

  “You short-roped me.” He untied his knot, his hands jerking at the rope.

  I winced. Leaving him without enough slack was the one thing he’d told me not to do and I’d done it.

  “I wasn’t sure you could make that move.”

  “Maybe I could have, if you’d given me enough rope to do it.”

  “I just wanted you to be safe.”

  “If you hadn’t short-roped me, I might have made the move and then I’d have been safely on the wall.” He yanked his rock shoes off his feet, throwing them one at a time so they ricocheted off the rock.

  “But what if you hadn’t?”

  “Then I’d be exactly where I am now, only it wouldn’t be your fault.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Just stay here.” He grabbed his shirt and stalked away, still in bare feet.

  I sat down against the rock with my knees up. I leaned back and tried to look at the sky through the trees and my tears. This trip wasn’t going as planned. We’d taken a four day weekend for Labor Day, which I’d expected to be filled with fun, sun, and sex. So far I’d only gotten sun.

  The night before in the tent, I’d run into a roadblock on the sex front. When we had sex, it tended to be loud. Derek didn’t want anyone knowing we had sex. Sleeping together: fine. Sleeping together: not fine.

  I’d promised to stifle myself—it probably wasn’t strictly necessary to scream—but Derek hadn’t believed me. Or maybe he was mad because I’d seen Nate on Tuesday instead of him. Either way, the result was a tense night. Today was Derek’s birthday—the point of the trip—and it was shaping up to be just as sexless and even less fun.

  Fifteen minutes later I was still sitting there, still blinking back tears, and now wondering if I’d been abandoned entirely, except that I had all of our gear, when Derek appeared from the opposite direction he’d left in.

  “I’m sorry I talked to you that way.” He sat down next to me and picked up my hand.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t give you enough slack.”

  “It’s a normal beginner mistake and no big deal.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “You didn’t hurt me, not even a scratch. I’m not even sure you really did short-rope me and even if you did, I’m pretty sure that’s not why I fell. I fell because I couldn’t do the move. I’ve been trying to do that move for two years.”

  “Is it important, to do that move?”

  “It shouldn’t be.” He put his arm around me. I snuggled into his side, finding it more accommodating than the wall of rock.

  “Why do we do that to ourselves?” I asked as I closed my eyes to better enjoy the feel of his strong arm and the masculine smell of exertion drifting up from his skin.

  “For me, I guess it’s a form of self-loathing—feeling like I’m not good enough and if I can just do this or that, it’ll prove I am.”

  “You don’t really loathe yourself, do you?”

  “Not most of the time. In the overall scheme of things, I do all right. Right now, I’m more upset with myself for getting angry at you than for not doing that move.”

  “Where do you go?” I asked. “When you leave me like that when you’re mad.”

  “To meditate.”

  My only experience with meditation was the yoga class I’d taken in my quest to find myself earlier in the year. The class had started with five minutes of silent meditation, during which I’d felt bored, restless, and uncomfortable. My predominant thought—although we weren’t supposed to be thinking at all, according to the teacher—was wondering how much time was left.

  Derek, it seemed, had a re
gular meditation habit. I made him get into the Lotus position, cross-legged with his feet up on his thighs, to show me he could really do it like a genuine yogi. He really could.

  “You look very Zen. Only one thing missing. Or one thing too many.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The shirt.” I pulled his shirt off over his head. “Better. You look like something out of a magazine.” My tongue longed to lick the gleaming, golden, hairless skin above and below the red board shorts. His eyes caught the spark in mine.

  “Stay there,” I said. I put my hands on his knees and leaned into his neck.

  Before I could fasten my mouth on him, I heard the crunch of approaching footsteps. Over his shoulder, I saw Conrad and Leon coming down the path towards us. I sat up, grimacing regret at Derek, and leaned back against the rock. Derek unwound his legs and moved so he was next to me.

  And then he put his arm around me.

  “Hey,” Conrad said. His eyes flickered over Derek’s arm and then shifted to the rope. “You got a rope on Predatory Instinct, huh?”

  “Not to the top,” Derek said. “You want to have a go at it?” He ran his hand up and down my arm, squeezing me into him more closely.

  “You going to try it again?”

  “Yeah, like it or not.”

  “You want a belay?”

  “That’s OK. Lissie’s got me.” He kissed my forehead.

  Conrad and Leon threw their packs down. Apparently, they were going to stick around and watch. Derek sighed and got to his feet, looking like climbing was the last thing he wanted to be doing right then.

  “Don’t do it now, if you don’t want to,” Leon said. “We just need a break. We’ve been up at the Wave Wall getting spanked all morning. Figured it was time to watch someone else get spanked.”

  He lowered himself to the ground and laid with his knees bent and his head propped up on his pack, his eyes closed against the sun. Conrad laid down next to him. Their arms brushed each other and their fingers tangled together.

  Derek sat back down next to me. He drew me close to him and nuzzled his mouth against my neck. The sun caught us smiling at each other.