Hudson

by Laurelin Paige

  She can’t possibly understand everything I mean by the stating of her name. In that post-orgasmic state, while the whooshing is still in my ears and my legs are still numb, I hope that one day she will understand. That she’ll know how much she means to me, how much she’s changing me. How much more I’m willing to change for her.

  We’re both still panting when she says, “Can we do that again?”

  Does she even have to ask? Of course we can do it again. I make a show of telling her, though, looking at my watch before I respond. “You have to be at work at one? I think we can manage to do that again twice.”

  I take her mouth again, not trying to start things up, but rather to cool me down. Her lips are swollen, and my kiss is tender. When my heart rate resumes a normal speed, I break away.

  After leading her to the couch, I start toward the kitchen. “Water or iced tea?” I call over my shoulder.

  “Water, please.”

  I grab a bottle and take a long swallow before returning to her. She’s curled up in the corner of the sofa, hugging her knees. I hate that she still hides her nakedness from me, but it’s adorable at the same time. As if she can actually hide anything from me.

  I hand her the bottle. She nods a thank you as she takes it, her forehead wrinkled as if she’s thinking. She has a sip then asks. “Could you really do that? Go again twice?”

  “What do you think?” I could go all night with her. She’s the first woman that I can say that about. I can never get enough of Alayna.

  Her brown eyes flash with sass. “I think you’d like to think you can.”

  My eyes narrow. “You don’t have to challenge me to get me to prove it, precious.” I’m semi-hard already.

  “Oh, really?” Her eyes dart to my cock and it grows harder under her gaze.

  I take the bottle from her hand and set it on the coffee table before I pounce on top of her. She squeals but easily obeys when I urge her to stretch out her body beneath mine.

  “Be careful who you’re playing with, Alayna.” I nip at her jawline. “I assure you, I’m the one who will come out of this on top.”

  I prove it by pinning her hands above her head while I kiss her senseless. Her hips wriggle to meet mine, but I keep my pelvis slightly off of hers, taunting her. Just as I’m about to get swept away with my teasing, I back off. There’s something I need to ask her, and I can’t wait any longer for the answer. “Why did you decide to resume this?”

  It takes her a minute to understand my question. “The sex?” She blushes, moving her eyes from mine. “Well, besides the obvious reason—”

  “Which is?”

  “It’s fun.” Her blush deepens.

  “Yes, you’re right. Quite obvious.” And quite fun. It’s her other answer I’m interested in, though. “And…?”

  Now she meets my gaze, her dark browns penetrating me with their transparency, with their honesty. “And I trust you,” she says.

  My throat goes dry and my heart feels like it’s dropped to my stomach. It’s not what I expected her to say in a million years, though what had I expected her to say? That she’d jumped back into bed with me because I’d bullied her? Because she couldn’t resist me? Because she was in love with me?

  Most anything she could have said would have had its own repercussions to face, but any other answer would have been easier to take than this one.

  It suddenly seems like there isn’t enough air, and I have to sit up. I gently maneuver her legs so I have a place to sit. And then, because I’m a masochist and I have to hear it all, I say, “Go on.”

  “Well…” She curls her knees again as she thinks, but doesn’t use them to hide her breasts like she did before. She’s more comfortable—quite ironic considering how uncomfortable I feel at the moment. Thankfully, she doesn’t seem to notice.

  “You said you were different now,” she says finally. “Different with me. And I realized that it doesn’t matter if it’s crazy or stupid to believe it. Because I believe it anyway. I believe you. I trust you. About this, I trust you.”

  Again, she hits me with those piercing browns, and I feel like someone who’s standing before a judge waiting for his sentencing. It will either be freedom or execution, but the strange thing is that the verdict will be decided by me. By how I choose to respond to her frankness.

  I already know what decision I’ll make, even before weighing my options.

  There are so many reasons she shouldn’t trust me, of course, and not the least of which is that I’m currently lying and scamming her. This is a perfect opportunity to confess, and if I were decent at all, I would, even though it would certainly be the death of me.

  But it’s not what I choose. Because in a very real way, I’ve been more honest with her than anyone in my entire life. Even with Celia, I smothered any emotion that ever began to creep into being. With Alayna, I’m letting that go, letting feelings slip into my existence. It’s changing me into someone who can be trusted. She’s changing me into someone who deserves those words—I trust you.

  It moves me—her words, her presence, my transformation. It robs me of speech.

  So I pull her into my lap and take up telling her in the way I know best—with my body. With our physical connection that transcends any connection I’ve had with another human being. I kiss her face, her eyelids, her cheeks, the curve of her jaw. Then, as my mouth travels along her neckline, I trail my hands down her sides, memorizing the lines of her ribs with my fingertips, gliding the slope of her hips with my palms.

  I speak to her like this. My gestures in place of words. I’m learning for you, I say when I lick the rise of her shoulder. Your trust gives me a reason, I say as I tug her nipple to a peak. Don’t give up on me, I say as I slide my hand between her thighs to rub at her clit. I feel for you, as I lift her up and settle her on my cock.

  Though I know nothing of love, I make love to her. Wholly. Completely. Undeniably.

  She steadies herself with her hands on my shoulders as I buck into her and glide out. She’s warm and tight, and my crown knocks against her in a place that makes her writhe and makes my cock grow harder. She’s on top, but I control all the movement—the tempo, the force of my thrusts, the depth of my drive. It’s a love song that I sing to her, the way I hold her and kiss her and send her to a state of ecstasy, her breathy gasps the underscore. I make sure she comes—twice, even—before I grip my fingers into her hips and chase my own orgasm, reaching it when I least expect it with a sudden burst of euphoria.

  It’s the sweetest sex has ever been for me. The most poetic. The most transformative.

  As we settle together, spiraling down from bliss, I land in a space of clarity. I stop worrying if it’s going to be Alayna that falls apart from this affair and start accepting that it’s going to be me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Before

  Trying to ignore the Christmas music my mother had playing, I concentrated on entering some figures into a spreadsheet from one of the companies my father was letting me work on over the break. Plexis, a Pierce Industry subsidiary with a great outlook. If my modifications to the business plan were successful, the earnings for the coming year would far exceed what had been predicted. It was exciting enough to make spending time with my family over the holidays bearable.

  “I don’t see any diamond ring size boxes under here,” my mother said behind me.

  I glanced back to see her arranging the presents under the tree in the living room for the fifth time in an hour. There were more gifts than I’d ever seen growing up, and I bet that at least half of them were for the baby.

  “There’s not going to be a ring, Mother. I’m not marrying Celia. I’ve told you that.”

  “I keep hoping you’re trying to surprise me with a Christmas engagement.” She’d talked nonstop of marriage plans since Thanksgiving. I’d thought it would have been Celia’s parents driving a union. Turned out Sophia was even worse.

  “I really wish I’d known what color to buy.” She ad
ded another gift to the heap. “I saved all the receipts though. In case you and Celia get sick of green and yellow.”

  When I’d arranged for limited fathering of Celia’s child, I’d neglected to factor in my mother. Since we’d announced our news, Sophia had been a buzz of excitement. Every conversation stemmed around our child. Every day was another chance for her to dote on her unborn grandchild. It seemed she might not be drinking as much too, though that was hard to prove, especially when I’d been away at school for much of the last few weeks.

  She moved a present from the back so that it was more visible. It was one I hadn’t seen before, the package shaped very much like a rocking horse. How long would it be before a kid could even use that? With a sigh, I turned back to my computer.

  “I’m so glad Celia’s not going back to school next semester. I wish you were staying here.”

  This was another conversation we’d had repeatedly. By phone and then at least twice a day since I’d come home for break. “Boston isn’t far. I’ll come up for every prenatal exam. I’ll make sure I’m here for the birth.”

  “That’s what you keep saying. But labor can come on quickly. What if you missed it?”

  I didn’t answer. Honestly, I’d be glad to miss it. Seeing Celia in a delivery room did not rank high on my-fun-things-to-do list. The rest, though—the exams, the ultrasounds, even the damn yellow and green layette—that I’d begun to look forward to with surprising enthusiasm. I was going to be a father. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t biologically mine. Because I’d claimed it, it was mine in every way that would ever matter.

  Sophia didn’t seem to care that I hadn’t responded. “You know, we don’t have to wait until after Christmas for the gender reveal ultrasound. We could probably get in with one of those 3D ultrasound places. Should I call Celia and arrange it? My treat.”

  “No.” I paused while I finished entering the formula I was working on. “Madge doesn’t trust those things. She wants to wait for her scheduled exam.”

  “We don’t have to tell Madge.”

  “Even if you are capable of keeping a secret from Madge, I don’t think Celia would want to go without her mother.”

  “What I don’t understand is why you’re not more excited about it?” My mother’s voice came nearer as she spoke. Then she sat at the table next to me. “It’s your first child, Hudson. Take some more pride.”

  Perhaps I needed to do a better job at mustering enthusiasm. My father, though, hadn’t shown much more excitement than me. No wondering why there. We’d never talked about it, but if he didn’t assume the baby could be his, then he was an idiot. Even if he believed I actually was responsible for Celia’s pregnancy, he had to be at least a little uncomfortable with the idea that he’d shared a woman with his son. It would bother me, anyway. But my father and I had obvious differences in what was socially acceptable and what wasn’t.

  “I’m not very expressive,” I said, not looking up from my work. “It doesn’t mean I don’t feel things.” It was a line I’d stolen from some movie. Wouldn’t it have been something if it were actually true?

  She put a hand on my arm. “I’m glad to hear that, Hudson. I used to worry you didn’t.”

  My mother had never given any indication that she noticed my lack of emotional response. I typed in one more figure and shut my laptop. “What exactly worried you, Mother?”

  “You, Hudson. You worried me.” She dropped her hand from my arm to the table. “Do you remember when you were twelve and you had those entrance exams for Choice Hill?”

  I nodded. Choice Hill had been the elite middle school I’d gone to. The admissions process was a rigorous six-hour session of various IQ and personality tests. The children accepted were not only the wealthiest in Manhattan but also intellectually gifted.

  “One of the psychologists that worked with you—” She furrowed her brow as if trying to remember something. After a few seconds, she waved her hand dismissively. “His name escapes me, but anyway, he suggested that you struggled with emotions. He recommended we had you tested further to rule out sociopathic tendencies or schizoid personality disorder or Asperger’s Syndrome. Because you had a blunted affect. Or experience avoidance. Or something like that. I don’t remember the terms.”

  My heart thudded in my chest. This was the first time I’d heard any of this. “But I don’t remember being tested for anything.”

  “Oh, no. You made it into the school, so we didn’t see any reason to pursue the issue further.”

  I sat back in my chair, incredulous. “I made it into the school,” I repeated, “and so you didn’t see any reason to find out if your child might be suffering from a major psychological disorder?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t act like it’s such a big deal. You’re obviously fine.”

  How on earth did she think I was fine? I’d never been anything but fine. While I wasn’t particularly eager to experience the volatile, irrational emotions of my peers, I at least wanted to know what the fuck was wrong with me. What the hell made me so different?

  My parents’ casual dismissal of a potential problem disturbed me most of all. Whatever my issues were, I at least knew how to feel anger. And I was exceptionally angry at the moment.

  I hadn’t finished deciding whether or not to express my rage when the phone rang, making the decision for me. The housekeeper had the day off, so Mother got up to get it. By the tone of her “hello,” I knew it must be one of her friends.

  I tuned her out, opening my laptop instead to do some internet searching. I’d just typed in “blunted affect” when my mother gasped. I looked across the room to her. She was shaking her head, her hand raised to clutch her chest. For a good second, I wondered if she was having a heart attack.

  Then her eyes met mine. “Okay. Okay,” she kept saying into the receiver. “We’ll be there. We’re coming. See you soon.”

  She hung up, and I saw that all the color had left her face. “Hudson. Hudson. Oh, no.”

  My forehead creased. Was it Dad? He’d taken my siblings ice-skating at Rockefeller Center earlier. Or Mirabelle? Or Chandler?

  Mother rushed toward me, and I stood to catch her. She was crying already as she buried her face in my shoulder. “It’s the baby,” she said into my sweatshirt. “Celia’s losing the baby. She’s at the hospital. We have to go.”

  I never pushed return in the search field. The results for blunted affect never made it to my script. I didn’t need the internet to tell me whether or not I could feel. At that moment, all I felt was numb.

  ***

  I watched the drip of the IV in a daze, the measured beeps of the heart monitor the only sound in the quiet, darkened room. Celia was sleeping. She had been for several hours. I hadn’t spoken to her or seen her awake since I’d arrived.

  When my mother and I had gotten to the hospital, Celia had been in labor. The baby, we were told, was dead already.

  After, she hadn’t wanted to see anyone. Madge and Warren gave us what little information they’d had. They’d gone to the ER when Celia’s water had broken. There, an ultrasound had failed to find the fetus’s heartbeat. The doctors guessed it had passed sometime two weeks before. Celia was admitted to the obstetrics ward. Labor continued naturally, and a few hours later, she’d delivered. It had been a boy.

  I spent the evening comforting my mother in the waiting room. Eventually, my father arrived and took her home, where I guessed she’d mourn in the way she knew best—with a bottle of vodka. Though Celia still refused to see me, I stayed. Around midnight, the Werners said goodbye, promising they’d return first thing in the morning. That’s when I snuck in her room. I spent the night awake in an armchair by her bed. I had no reason to be there. I had no reason to go.

  “Why are you here?” Celia’s voice drew me from my stupor.

  I wiped my mouth and cleared my throat before trying to speak. “You’re awake.”

  “I am.” She pushed a button, and the bed tilted her into a sitting position.
“And you don’t need to be here. The façade is over. You can go.” Her tone was straight, empty of expression.

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “Why?”

  I answered honestly. “I don’t know.”

  She leaned her head back into the pillow, accepting my answer. She didn’t ask me to leave again, and something told me it was because she really didn’t want me to go.

  Though I knew that conversation wasn’t necessary, I asked all the same, “How do you feel?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Numb.”

  That was an emotion I knew well. “That’s natural.”

  “Is it?”

  Who the fuck knew what natural was? Certainly not me. “I don’t really know, Celia. I assume it is.” She stared at me with blank eyes. So I said more. “I imagine it’s some sort of defense mechanism to the trauma. Do they know what happened?”

  She started to shake her head and stopped. “One of the doctors told me—in private, when my parents weren’t in the room—that there appeared to be developmental issues. I asked if it could have been because….because I’d partied early on. I, uh, drank a lot. And there was drug use. Before I knew I was pregnant, of course. He said that he couldn’t be sure, but it was probably a contributing factor.”

  Her voice was raw with the honesty—or perhaps it was the fact that she’d just awoken and the day before had been more than rough. Either way, I sensed I was the only person who would hear this truth.

  And I had nothing to offer her in terms of comfort. I didn’t even try. I wondered, though, in the quiet that followed, if she blamed me. It seemed a reasonable reaction from what I’d learned about human behavior. She’d lost her child because of drug and alcohol use. She’d used because she’d been broken. She’d been broken by me. It was fair to say, then, that she’d lost her child because of me.