by L. D. Davis
“You want your cup?” she asked.
“Ya,” he said and started patting the whale’s head. “Cup.”
I got Lucas some juice in a sippy cup, but he didn’t waste any time hanging about. He wandered back into the living room and seconds later shouted, “Emmo!”
“Elmo,” Emmy and I said together.
“You want some breakfast?” Emmy asked me as she leaned against the stove. She was so cute in her Penn State shorts and t-shirt, and her hair mussed from sleep.
“Sure. I could use some food,” I answered. “I tried Lucas's cereal, but it wasn't for me.” I made the same face I think I made when I first tasted the cereal. To my delight, Emmy laughed.
“Oh my god it’s that sound again,” I teased.
She rolled her eyes and tried to make a straight face as she turned away from me. She opened a cabinet door and stood on her toes in an attempt to reach a box of baking mix.
“What sound?” she asked as she stretched to reach. “Why do you put things way up on the third shelf where I can't reach?”
“Because it's funny watching you reach for it.” I stepped up behind her, close enough to feel the heat of her body on mine. I felt her freeze, but she didn’t say anything or try to move away. I reached for the box and slowly brought it down before her.
“Thanks,” she said and snatched it from me. She turned her face away from me, but not before I saw the redness that had settled in her cheeks.
That made me happy, to see that I had made her blush, but then I remembered that I didn’t want to fuck this up. Bending her over the counter wasn’t going to help anything. I stepped away from her as she began to gather her ingredients.
“I'm going into the office after breakfast,” I said. “I have to be in court first thing tomorrow morning and I want to make sure I am well prepared.”
“Okay.” She smiled, but hardly realized she was doing it. I don’t know what exactly changed within her yesterday, but I rather liked it.
“You had a good day yesterday,” I said.
“Yes, I did,” she said. “My mom only irritated me a little bit.”
“About what?”
“What do you think?” she asked me with a knowing look.
I knew, but I wanted to hear her say it. I overheard Sam questioning Emmy about her sex life and Emmy’s irritation. She was very vague to her mother, but Sam knew her daughter well enough to answer her own questions. Though I was pretty sure she wasn’t having sex with anyone, I found myself curious to know.
“I don't know,” I lied. “It can't be your hair or your clothes. You looked amazing yesterday.”
Her face turned a brighter shade of red. Flashes of her face turning this very shade at the height of her orgasm invaded my mind. With that floating around in my brain, I shouldn’t have pressed on with the conversation, but now the need to know if anyone else was making her come overtook any common sense.
She thanked me for the compliment.
“Hmm,” I said, pretending to think hard on the matter. “Oh. Your sex life.”
“Bingo,” she said, rolling her eyes. “She really feels that it's one of those use it or lose it things, which made me wonder about her and my dad and that's when I decided to have a drink.”
“Yeah, no one wants to think of their parents getting it on,” I grinned. “No one wants to know that their parents are having a quickie. Stuffing the old wrinkled salami. Having afternoon delight.” I continued with every sexual innuendo I could think of while Emmy covered her ears and begged me to stop.
“Okay, okay, I'm done,” I chuckled.
“My god, that was horrible,” she said, shaking her head.
I still had a chance to abandon the path I was about to follow, but I didn’t.
“Now I'm curious,” I said, tilting my head to study her.
“About what?” Her eyes widened. “My parents? Gross!”
“No, dummy. About you.”
“What about me?” she asked, failing at playing dumb.
“Are you, you know, on the verge of 'losing it' from not using it?”
She tried to look insulted by such a question, but she looked terrified at answering it, which was an answer in of itself.
“I don't have time!” she shouted after some sputtering.
“There's always time,” I said, trying not to grin. She wasn’t having sex with anyone, or if she was, not often. I pretty much knew where she was at all times, but there were a few late trips to the grocery store, and a few days where Lucas was with Lena and Em wasn’t at work. It was possible she was squeezing it in somewhere, no innuendo intended.
“I am either with Lucas or at the office,” she argued. “Like you have so much time on your hands for sex.”
I poked my head out to check on Lucas. When I turned back, I saw Emmy’s eyes on my chest and arms. I almost flexed just to be a showoff.
“I have made time,” I said without thinking.
“When?” she asked, holding a spatula in her hand, and cocking her pretty little head to one side.
Telling her when I made time for sex was going to make me look like such a dickweed. I felt so guilty now for leaving her and Lucas in the night to go be with Claire.
“It doesn't matter when,” I said, looking away from her.
“Why not?”
“We don't need to discuss it anymore.” I turned away from her in an attempt to cut off the conversation, but Emmy wasn’t finished. She threw a big wooden spoon, nailing me in the back of the head.
“Luke, that's not fair! You started this conversation!”
“I know, but now I don't want to talk about it,” I said, picking the spoon up off of the floor.
“Why not?”
“Because…” I sighed. “My answers will make me look…dishonest.” I rubbed the back of my head where she had nailed me—no innuendo intended.
She looked at me for a long moment as if she was trying to figure me out. Suddenly, she pointed a spatula at me. For a second I thought she was going to slap me with it.
“Some of your late nights at the office were booty calls!”
Oh shit. Why did she have to be so damn smart?
“Some, but not all,” I answered, unable to meet her eyes.
“Oh my god!” She laughed, but it sounded off. It was as if she was laughing and smiling with the barrel of a pistol leveled at her head. “And when was the last time you got some?”
“If I answer, you have to answer the same question,” I said when I should have just answered her question and walked away.
Emmy looked away from me and concentrated on flipping pancakes. Her mouth had formed into a straight, tight line and her body had stiffened some. Did she really want to know about the last time I had sex? I felt trapped now. If I didn’t answer, she would be distrusting. If I did answer, she would be distrusting. But I guess it was always better to go with the truth…
“Two weeks,” I said at the exact same time Emmy said, “Don’t answer.”
I don’t even think she realized it, but as my words slipped past hers and into her ears, she froze. Her hand froze in midair, with a pancake still on the spatula, waiting to be put back on the griddle. Her mouth was slightly ajar and her eyes were unmoving. It went without saying that my admission had hurt Emmy. Well, she could hurt me right back, because I needed to know when she was last with someone. If it was as recent as my own experience, it would definitely hurt me, and I would definitely deserve it.
“Now, your turn,” I said as if I had not known I had hurt her.
I watched with patience as she stacked a plate high with pancakes and bit her lip as she considered my question. I doubt she really had to think that hard about it, but she was just as reluctant as I was to speak about it. In my mind that meant that she felt just as guilty as I felt and she didn’t want to admit out loud that she had lied about a destination so some asshole could put his hands all over her.
I felt my hands ball into fists. I hope she wouldn’t tell m
e who it was, because I felt ready to knock his teeth in.
“Almost a year and a half,” she said quietly as color rose in her cheeks once again.
I gaped at her. It’s not at all what I expected to hear, and admittedly, I was glad that it wasn’t what I expected to hear, but I had a hard time believing someone as sexually carnal as Emmy went a full year and a half without sex.
“You're kidding me,” I said.
“Nope.”
She wouldn’t look at me. I wanted her to look at me. I was going to make her look at me, but Lucas yelled for me. Emmy turned her back on me, busy with some task at the counter. Reluctantly, I left her and went into the living room with Lucas. Five minutes later Em walked out of the kitchen carrying one plate loaded with pancakes and scrambled eggs and a tall glass of OJ. She still didn’t look at me before heading towards the bedroom.
“Aren’t you eating?” I asked her.
She spoke to me over her shoulder but kept moving. “I want to take a shower before you leave.”
The bedroom door closed and I stood there staring at it for several moments before finally walking away.
Lucas sat on my lap as I ate my breakfast, taking it upon himself to put his little hands in my eggs or to take a piece of pancake. We conversed as much as a father could converse with his one-year-old son, taking very little effort on my part and freeing up space in my mind to think about the conversation that just transpired.
Emmy had not had sex for over a year and half—since she was pregnant with Lucas. Thinking about whom she had sex with while pregnant with my son made my stomach churn, but I quickly pushed that thought out of my head. It had been so long for her, and I doubted she was holding back just because she was someone’s mother now. The Emmy I used to know was a sexual live wire. She emanated intense, tangible sensuality that not only wrapped sturdily around my manhood, but it boldly invaded my brain and spread like stimulated tendrils down my spine, into my chest and spread throughout my body, limb to limb, from the hair follicles on my head down to the very tips of my toes. A current seemed to ripple through her whole body under my caresses, kisses, and when I invaded her body with my erection. No matter my current state of mind, she shared that energy with me, made it grow with in me until lights exploded in my eyes like a transformer blowing from a power surge against the dark night. Regardless of where she was in her life, the one thing Emmy was always sure of was her sexuality and how to use it. Her confidence in herself as an overall person at times wavered during those hard times, but her confidence in her sexuality remained ever present and always positively charged. Any man who met that Emmy would be helpless if she wanted him.
But there hasn’t been a man.
And this wasn’t the same Emmy.
This Emmy tucked away her sexuality, closed it up in some vault, locked it tight, and misplaced the key. She was still sexy, but not through any fault of her own. This Emmy was wilted, all of the zap gone out of her. She had no faith in her ability to satisfy a man and blocked herself off from enjoying anything even remotely satisfying for herself. Her well had run dry and she was in no hurry to replenish it. Her confidence was gone. Her desire was gone. Anyone looking at her could see that she was gorgeous, but was I the only one who looked past that and saw that the hollowness inside of her that used to be bursting with sensuality? If she was already damaged before she came to Chicago, I had to hold myself accountable for adding the ice that finally snuffed out the flame she once had.
Emmy wasn’t getting laid (thankfully) because she didn’t feel good enough. She didn’t feel desired. It was obvious in the way she dressed in modest clothing—not that she ever dressed like a slut before, but she used to dress with precise care, knowing how to look like a sexual being without looking like a floozy. She used to always be aware of that sexual energy, but now it was gone.
Lucas began to doze off in my lap even while his fingers were still sticky with maple syrup. I carried him into the powder room and rinsed off his face and hands before taking him into the bedroom and tucking him in his crib. He sat up and grinned at me as he tried to fight off his sleepiness. He very much looked like me, but that smile that sprinkled fairy dust on my heart and made me feel like I was flying was all his mother’s.
“Dad-ee,” he said.
“Lu-cas,” I countered.
He snickered, grabbed the edge of his favorite blanket and lay his head down next to the stuffed whale. His eyes closed only moments later and I was thankful he went down so easily this time. Usually he is a handful to get to sleep. Lucas is always afraid he’ll miss something and fights sleep hard.
I went into the closet to get some clothes and a pair of my sneakers that were mixed in with Emmy’s shoes. Some of my clothes were hanging in the closet by the front door, but some of my things remained in the bedroom closet, pressed tightly to Emmy’s. Occasionally when I wore some of the clothes out of this closet, Emmy’s scent lingered faintly on the fabric. It used to make me mad and I would change into something that wouldn’t remind me of her. Now as I slipped the shirt over my head, I pulled it up to my nose and deeply inhaled her.
I sat down on the edge of the bed to pull my sneakers on and Emmy walked out in a towel just then. She wasn’t embarrassed as she was in the beginning when we first started cohabitating, nor was she giving any indication that maybe she may look sexually inviting in that towel with her wet hair falling down her back. She just looked…shut down. I had a feeling during her long shower that she regressed some, pulled back into herself a little, to escape our earlier conversation. As uncomfortable and maybe hurt as she may have been, I wasn’t going to let her crawl back under her dying rock.
“Lucas crashed,” I told her. “Hopefully he'll sleep this afternoon, too.”
“Okay,” she said, turning her back on me to look through her drawers.
I got up and started out of the room, but paused.
“I'm sorry,” I said to her back.
“For what?” she glanced over her shoulder at me.
“I was really insensitive a little while ago,” I admitted.
“It's fine,” she shrugged it off, but it wasn’t fine and we both knew it.
“No, it's not fine, Emmy,” I said firmly. “I was an ass, and I'm sorry.”
“Okay. Forgiven.” She turned around now, holding clothing in her hands.
“Okay,” I said, reluctant to leave it at that. “I'll be back in a few hours, maybe around three.”
“Take your time.”
I walked out of the room, but realized I should have clarified something first. I stepped back in the room with a rush of words.
“I'm really going to the office to work,” I promised. “Nothing shady will be going on. I promise.”
“Luke, you don't owe me any explanations.”
“I do, and I'll just be honest about it next time. So, there will be no question about it in your head.”
Even as those words fell out of my mouth I realized my mistake. I insinuated that I’d tell her the next time I was going to have sex with someone. I wanted to take the words back, because that isn’t really what I meant at all.
“I don't want to know,” she said quickly in a panicked voice. Her eyes were wide and her one hand holding up her towel was bone white because she was clutching it so fiercely.
“I'm sorry,” I managed to say and tried to close my surprised mouth.
She tried to smile. Failed. It just looked deranged. She took a deep breath and I saw her shoulders relax some.
“Dude, stop apologizing and go to work already,” she forced a laugh and tried to appear normal. “It's fine—I'm fine. Really.”
“Okay,” I said, still reluctant to go. “I'll be home as soon as I'm done.”
“Okay, okay.”
She tried to wave me away, to dismiss me. I felt like she was dismissing more than my presence. I needed her to know that I didn’t dismiss her so easily.
“What now?” she asked when I didn’t move.
“I don't want you to think that you're not…attractive or desirable,” I said.
“Oh my god, Luke! Can you just go!” Her face had turned a shade of pink and she had the most uncomfortable smile on her face.
“Because you are,” I pushed. “You're probably hotter than ever before, but we just have so much…shit between us and we're not really on the same page and…”
My stupid words again. No one would believe I was a successful attorney, what with my recent propensity to say the dumbest things to Emmy. I just told her I’d have sex with her if things were different, and I suggested that even though we had come a long way since she began working for me in the firm, that it was not far enough. My words could have very well shoved her back into her shell.
“You know what?” she said, throwing her towel hand up in the air and quickly grabbing it again when it began to slip. “If it will make you feel better, I will go get laid tonight. I'm sure I can find a date. Then you won't feel so…weird, and you are being really, really weird.”
If she could have taken a sledgehammer and hit me in the chest right then, it wouldn’t have compared to the pressure I felt there after she said that. No matter what lines I try to draw between us, the truth was that I didn’t want anyone else to have her. That truth hit me rather hard. I thought about it leisurely before, but now it was a thought that made my skin crawl and made me want to punch something or someone.
“Sorry. I'm leaving.”
I left before I could say another stupid word.
Before I pulled out of the parking garage, I dialed Vivian Deluca.
“If this is about the offer you sent on Wednesday, the answer is still no,” she said instead of hello.
“I called on a personal level, Vivian,” I said with a grin. “But since you brought it up, you already know you’re going to lose. It would cost your client far less money to just settle.”
“You know me, Mr. Kessler,” she purred. “I don’t like to settle. What is it that you desire?”
“Well,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck with discomfort. “I can’t deny that I had a very fulfilling evening with you a few weeks ago.”