River

by Shayne Ford

Shit has happened in the past few weeks. Good and bad. We’ve had a good year overall, and I should be happy and relaxed, even joyful, considering the time of year. Instead, something nags me badly, and I can’t even put my finger on it.

  I clasp my hands behind my head and watch the floating stars. They remind me of the summer nights and the starry sky we used to stare at when we were kids. Thalia was one of us. A quiet, skinny girl with scrawny legs, big blue-green eyes, and blonde hair. Besides the hair and the sparkling eyes, she looks nothing like that girl.

  What happened between us this evening came from nowhere, and as much as I’d like to think it’s only an accident, something tells me that it’s not.

  Shifting her position, she mumbles something that gets lost in the thickness of her pillow. Her arm slides down, pulling the cover off me and partly off her, giving me a clear view of her body. There’s not a piece of fabric on her, not even the size of a stamp.

  Hovering over her, I try to pull the cover back. I manage to grab it, but as I slowly move back, my dog tags clink against my necklace.

  A soft whisper escapes my lips.

  “Shit.”

  Half asleep, she rolls again, this time from her side to mine, and then straight onto my body. She hitches a leg over my groin, her hand slipping to the back of my neck.

  Slowly, she crawls up my chest, her breasts brushing my pecs. The other hand roams down on me, slips inside my shorts, and wraps around my cock.

  Her eyes are still closed.

  Wet and warm against my thigh, she rolls her hips, unintelligible words escaping her lips. Hoping it’s a fleeting moment, I let her nibble on my lips, and then she slips her tongue into my mouth, and all bets are off.

  This is getting serious.

  I might not be the star of her dream, but it’s my body she’s rocking against. As much control I exert over my voice, I can’t claim the same craftsmanship when it comes to other body parts. I slip my hand inside her hair just as she calls my name.

  “River?”

  Moaning softly, she runs her hands over my body and speaks slowly against my lips.

  “I want you inside me.”

  I’m torn, but that doesn’t last, and as I get ready to fulfill her request, her eyes open and melancholy spills into her gaze.

  “I always did,” she says.

  My heart stops before starts racing.

  I glean there’s more to the story, and I’m dying to hear it, but I need to take care of her first. I grab a condom from the drawer as she pulls my shorts off.

  She gives me a ravenous stare, eyeing my erection. I really should fear that glint in her eyes, but I’m too hard to care and too busy to grant her wish.

  She hitches her leg high on my hip as I roll to my side. A satisfied gasp rolls off her lips as I ease myself in.

  I pull her closer. Her arms curl around my neck, and her lips lock mine. I don’t wait, and she doesn’t either.

  Different emotions flit across her face as she swiftly goes from tension to getting caught in the throngs of pleasure to being flushed with glowing satisfaction.

  Perfectly synchronized, we both come undone.

  It’s two a clock in the morning.

  I call the room service, and we get some food, and then we go back to bed. She snacks on fruit while my eyes hover over her panties, hardly the size of a dollar bill.

  Laid on my back, I look at the floating stars.

  “So, what’s the story with you and women?” I ask and glance at her.

  Her lips purse, her gaze slipping to the side. She’s about to lie, and I don’t like that.

  “I love women.”

  “You love Cassie, sort of,” I toss at her.

  She pouts and I relent, regretful. I don’t want to make her cry. Plus, that was unwarranted.

  “I take that back. I’m sorry,” I say, serious.

  Judging by the sadness in her eyes she probably does.

  “What about men?” I inquire, careful this time, keen to prevent a pillow talk crisis. “You said there were no men...”

  She shakes her head so fast I can’t contain my laughter.

  “You’re such a bad liar,” I say.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You mean you’re a liar, just not that bad?”

  She smirks.

  “Okay... The truth is...” she says.

  “Here you go again. ”

  “Seriously. I’ll tell you if you let me...”

  She props herself up on her elbow and looks at me. I let my eyes float over the dip of her waist and the curves of her hips before I pull my gaze away.

  “I’m listening.”

  “There were some boys in the beginning after you left.”

  My ears perk up.

  Why am I a point of reference?

  “I was clueless, and they didn’t know much either, but it wasn’t only about sex. It just didn’t work out with them. And then, I started college.”

  She goes mum, and I glance at her. This can’t be the whole story.

  “And?”

  “I don’t think it was meant to happen. With men, I mean... It always ended badly. Then I met Cassie, and you know the rest.”

  Yeah, I know she was already hooked up with Cassie when I met her in LA, four years ago.

  “You said there were other women, but you’ve only been with her...”

  “We’ve been on a few breaks before, so there were other people,” she mutters.

  Hmm. Their story is far from perfect.

  “And I thought I was special...” I murmur, poking fun at myself.

  Her eyes fill with tears, and I freeze.

  What did I just say? What the fuck? Since when I’m so off?

  “Hey. It was a joke,” I say, trying to fix my blunder.

  I roll to my side and pull her to me. She avoids my eyes. I bring my fingers to her face and brush off her tears, and then she takes my hand, lowers it to her lips and kisses my palm.

  She gives me a long, soul-stirring gaze, and I’m about to have a heart attack.

  The message sinks into me at light speed, and as it does, the pieces of a puzzle fall into place. It can’t be. I couldn’t be so fucking blind. And stupid. How did I miss that?

  “You’ve never really tried to be with men…” I murmur.

  She shakes her head, and more tears fall from her eyes.

  “I was always the only man,” I mutter, numbed. “You lied to me all these years, Thalia.”

  “No, I didn’t... For the longest time, I thought it’s only my imagination. I had a crush on you when we were kids, and then you moved away and broke my heart. I thought you’d come back, but you never did. That’s how I learned that paths cross and split, and ours did. I made peace with that, but I never got over you. I do love Cassie, but I’ve always wondered... what I have missed. ”

  My heart twists in pain.

  “I never thought it could be like this...” she says and breaks into tears.

  I pull her into my arms and try to comfort her. A half hour later, she falls asleep. The night passes by without a wink of sleep for me, a small penance for being the idiot of the year.

  It turns out Thalia was not always a wild cat. She was a soul woman, after all, one I was too young and ignorant to see.

  Deep down in my heart, I know she’s already slipped through my fingers. I also know she’ll always hold a special place in my heart. Somehow, I have to reconcile these two realities, but for now, all I have is this moment.

  The light of a cold, gloomy morning brushes the window. She’s still asleep, her soft breath tickling my arm. I roll her off my chest and slip into the bathroom.

  Fifteen minutes in, the temperature of the water shifts from cold to warm, and a hand coming from behind slips to my chest and slides down my abs.

  I flick the shower off, brace my hands against the wall and stand still as she runs her hands over my body. She pivots in front of me and looks up, her eyes, sparkling blue-grey in the morning light.


  “Hey...What’s wrong?” she asks.

  I smile, bittersweet.

  “Nothing is wrong,” I say.

  Well, everything is fucking wrong.

  “Can you go back tomorrow? Change your flight?” I mutter.

  “I already did,” she says, her eyes glinting with mischief.

  “Good... Then I can show you Manhattan...”

  As I finish voicing my thought, she kisses her way down my body, softly agreeing with every word I say, and then she stops at my groin, and fills her mouth.

  “Or not,” I say, grinning.

  Half a day flies by, every minute lodging in my memory, the time vanishing in a blink of an eye. I make love to her, and that’s… a first. I haven’t made love to a woman in a long time.

  Sure, I fucked, but that’s different. Physically, I was glued. Emotionally, I couldn't be further away from that woman.

  The more I make love to her, the more I crave, and it all comes back to that closeness I’ve been longing for, lately.

  I know this will turn into one of the most atrocious hangovers of my life, but I’m willing to pay the price. There’s nothing like hanging desperately onto something you know you’re about to lose.

  Early afternoon, we manage to pull ourselves together and walk out of the hotel.

  It’s a cloudy, November day, with snow swirling in the air and wind sweeping the sidewalks.

  The gusts slash my face, but to me, it feels like spring. I haven’t felt so good in a while, not outside the stage, anyway.

  She staggers and leans onto me, and we grin like idiots as we hop in the car and pull out of the underground parking.

  We eat lunch at a small restaurant near the Central Park. Seated by the window, I watch her. Her eyes twinkle, filled with joy.

  She tells me stories about people from back home, and tales from when we were kids. She laughs, enchanted, yet I can’t make out a word she’s saying, I’m so whipped.

  “Have you ever thought about going back?” she asks.

  “Where?” I mutter, deepened into my thoughts.

  “Home?”

  “No.”

  “I did.”

  “Really?”

  I search her eyes. I hope she’s not serious. It’s one thing to let her go back to her life, quite the other to lose her completely.

  “Not now... Maybe later...” she says.

  “I can’t imagine you living in Idaho,” I say.

  “You can’t imagine me doing a lot of things.”

  “That’s true.”

  We share a lustful smile, and her face turns crimson. Her eyes lower for a moment before she looks back at me, and something doesn’t feel right.

  My heart thuds inside my chest.

  “I spoke with Cassie,” she finally says.

  I’m listening intently.

  “Yes?”

  Sadness flutters through her gaze, and I expect bad news, and they sure are.

  For me.

  “She says she wants to move in with me.”

  She pauses, waiting for my reaction.

  “Wait, but that’s good... Isn’t it?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

  I study her eyes.

  “Yes, it is,” she murmurs, smiling bitterly.

  It’s not one hundred percent good news for her either. Yesterday, it would have been great. Today? Not so much. We rolled the fucking dice, and nothing is the same.

  She stares at me, her eyes swimming with tears. I feel her torn, and regretful, her turmoil mirroring mine.

  “I’m sorry, I was so blind,” I finally say, and I stop before I say too much.

  It wouldn’t do us any good to say more than that. I motion to the waiter, ask for the check, and leave cash on the table before we rush outside.

  It snows heavenly.

  I want to make the best of this day, so I grab her hand and pull her to the Central Park.

  An hour later she’s skating, and I’m watching her twirling, flailing her arms up in the air and landing on her ass a few times. I take her in, smiling.

  The rest of our time together goes by in a blur. Night becomes day, and day becomes night as we slip through the next twenty-four hours, our bodies entangled, our phones turned off, the door locked.

  Vaguely I remember someone knocking on my door. It was Sunday evening. The sound faded away fast. That was Steve, most likely.

  Early Monday morning, someone else tries the door and raps insistently. Ron, no doubt.

  I hope I didn’t have anywhere important to go. But even if I did, I don’t give a fuck. For so many years I spun with this life, and it was a perfect life. A life I tasted down to the last drop without knowing or sensing that I'm losing track of who I am.

  Everything that has happened lately finally begins to add up. Little by little a veil lifts off my eyes, and now that I finally see, I’m so mad I’m still twirling without having the slightest idea how to get off the darn thing.

  7

  She’s gone. Back to her own life, and our old official life.

  Hopefully, things won’t get weird between us. The last thing I want is her to quit or move somewhere else. For this not to happen, I need to butt out, and not mess with her head.

  It’s Monday evening, and I’m driving back to Manhattan. I insisted on taking her to the airport, without having the slightest idea how much worse it would make me feel seeing her leaving.

  The window is rolled down, and I’m freezing my ass off, yet I don’t feel a fucking thing–– I’m so numb. Fumbling through Steve’s things, I find a pack of cigarettes.

  I snatch one out, light it up and take a long drag. I inhale deeply, so deep it dizzies me. I haven’t touched one since I was a teenager. I’m hoping to clear my head, but I don’t even know where to start.

  The miles run faster than they should, and before I get the chance to slow down, a police siren blares behind me. I glance at the board. I’m well over a hundred. The cop pulls me over, and I get away with a hefty ticket, and then he notices that something’s off with me.

  “Are you okay, Sir?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  He checks my eyes, and I hold his gaze. He straightens his back.

  “Drive safely. Okay?”

  I nod, and he pulls away.

  Shortly, I steer off the highway and take a secondary road. It takes forever to get back.

  As soon as I get close to the bridge, I turn the phone on.

  I can’t even draw a breath before the damn thing starts buzzing like a fucking swarm of bees. It’s Ron. Mostly. I skim the messages. There are dozens of them. From him and his proxies.

  Well, too bad. I can’t talk to him right now. And then I remember. Shit. Oh, fucking shit. Today is Monday, and I’m supposed to be in Astoria for that photo session. It’s almost ten in the evening, and they’re about to wrap it up. I debate for about five seconds whether I should go or not.

  It’s late, and it’s not like I want to see anyone right now, let alone take pictures with them, but I’m not going to be in a better mood tomorrow.

  A half hour later, I enter the Astoria studio, looking like shit and dragging with me a mood to match. Ron is going to have a stroke. As I stride across the room, hands shoved into my pockets, and fingers curled around my phone, I get hit with another revelation. My cell is about to pulverize in my grip when I realize who the photographer is.

  Layla has a hard time to look at me, and at the same time, she can’t keep her gaze away from me. I make damn sure we don’t lock eyes.

  She’s just another one of my brilliant ideas.

  Since when have I become such a fucking genius? I can’t cross eyes with her right now. I’m sick as it is. I just have to get it over with, and then bury myself somewhere and sleep for the next twenty-four hours.

  Ron gets it. That’s what I like about the man. Smooth like a geisha he twirls around me, making things happen without a hitch. Out of self-preservation, nobody gazes at me, let alone speak to me, and we get the work done.


  Throughout the evening, I avoid the photographer. She knows it’s not happenstance. I’m so fucking obvious anyone could see it. She’s fine at first, but as she packs her stuff up, getting ready to leave, she strikes me as broken.

  Or maybe it’s just me, projecting.

  A half hour later, I finally crash in my bed, hoping that this is a bad dream I can shake off when I wake up.

  By Wednesday life goes back to normal. I work out as much as I can and spend some time scribbling down lyrics for a new song. Buddied up with Steve, I hit the gym twice a day.

  He’s the only company I can stand right now. He’s quiet and grounded. He knows something happened, but he’s not the kind of person who harasses someone out of sick curiosity.

  Everybody’s on a break until Sunday, except me. I need to lay down the vocal tracks before I fly back to LA. I'll have my pictures taken in Ron’s home recording studio, this coming Friday.

  It’s a compromise, since I didn't want to back out of the Layla thing, and at the same time I didn’t want to meet with her only for the pictures.

  In Ron’s studio, I can do my shit, and she can do hers, and we can call it a day.

  Today, I’m back in Astoria studio.

  The closer we get to the Holidays, the better the people’s mood is. I walk into the control room, the air filled with dialogue and laughter, none of the guys raising their heads. The sound engineers drool over their phones.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  One of them hands me his phone and shows me a group picture that was taken Monday evening before I arrived.

  “Hmm. What am I looking at?”

  My eyes skim the photograph. It looks like a high school reunion. They all seem tense and for a good reason. Smack in the middle, Layla smiles awkwardly at the camera.

  Oh, I get it...

  “Ron looks good,” I say mockingly, barely stifling a smile.

  They burst into laughter. I take a better look at Layla, and my smile fades away.

  Squeezed between Ron and Jay, nervous as fuck, she truly stands out. You could pick her out of a line-up of good looking women. She’s quite the looker. Whether she knows it or not, that’s another issue.

  And there’s something else about her, something I haven’t seen in a woman in a while. It’s the same thing that struck me the first time I got a glimpse of her.