by Kris Ripper
Chafing. She hadn’t yet considered worrying about chafing.
Lisa slid her legs just a little apart. “Okay.”
“Tell me if it’s too uncomfortable.”
“I will.”
It wasn’t uncomfortable. In fact, even through thin cotton, it was arousing and grounding all at once. The background noises receded, and she could feel the ropes now. Emery did something behind her and pulled them around, stringing each side through the top knot he’d made above her breasts. Then around back, forcing him to move in close, and through the front ropes, pulling the lengths between knots into diamonds.
Lisa lost herself to the feeling of tug and tautness as the ropes seemed to find their own perfectly balanced tension against her skin.
She realized she’d closed her eyes, that the only sensations she could still feel were his hands, his ropes, and occasionally his breath on her skin. He was on his knees again, tying the last of the knots with the last of the rope. She waited for him to speak, but he didn’t, so she kept her eyes closed and swayed slightly as if there were a draft. She was upright, but her body was fluid; standing with the floor against her feet, but also floating in space, in ropes that both buoyed her up and tethered her down.
She was naked, and somehow the ropes held her securely and at the same time set her free.
When Lisa at last opened her eyes, he was gazing up at her as if he could never get tired of the sight.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “Do your knees hurt?”
“Who cares about my knees?” he whispered back. “How do you feel?”
Birds soaring, waves crashing, dolphins shooting through water, cheetahs speeding over the savannah.
“Powerful. I feel powerful.”
He grabbed her hands again and held them to his lips, just breathing for a long moment, eyes still raised to hers. Then he stood up and stepped in.
“May I kiss you?”
“You better.”
Kissing a man who’d tied ropes around her body should have felt like giving something away, but instead it felt like creation, like between them they made something new—a fire, or at least a spark.
He leaned forward to speak directly into her ear. “You look hot in neon purple, by the way.”
“It goes so well with black matching bra and panties.”
He laughed. “It really does.”
What had started out steamy and just a little bit kinky wound up as a brief wrestling match, after which both of them collapsed on the futon.
“This rope rubs in interesting places,” Lisa panted.
“Tell me more. You want it off yet?”
She slid more completely under his body. “Not yet. Can I spend the night?”
“Definitely. And I meant it, earlier. We’ve done this now. We can do it again. It’s not a step on the way to something else.”
She nodded, feeling generous. “Unless we want it to be.”
“Unless we want it to be, yeah.”
Sex would be good. God, could they have sex with the ropes? No, right? That would rub both of them wrong. Though Emery probably knew some way to do it so they could.
As much as Lisa wanted the outcome of that—of knowing she could have sex with a good man, of knowing she wasn’t so broken she couldn’t bear his touch—what she wanted more was to rub against his glorious muscles with ropes between them and kiss.
She reached up to kiss the fox on his skin. “Eventually, yes. To everything. Tonight I want to stay in this space in my head where all I can feel is strength.”
“Hell yes,” he said. “Let’s do that.”
So they did. Not as a consolation prize. Not as something she was willing to offer in the face of what he really wanted. They kissed and rolled around and took it up to the loft when they nearly rolled off the futon for the fourth time, and when Emery untied her, much later, she felt as if she were being stroked and petted and soothed, that every touch sank into her skin, leaving behind an invisible layer of protection to guard that precious sense of power she’d only just discovered, a tiny fire burning that she could still feel even without the ropes.
57
Singer
117 days with Miles
Moving was a nightmare. Singer was thankful for the army of Derries who’d volunteered to help, but between the twins picking up lunch—then getting lost on their way to the new house where everyone was gathered to eat—Cathy and Carey arguing over the organization of furniture in the moving truck, and Frankie’s general derision, he was pretty close to over the entire thing.
And it was only just beginning; once they got everything to the new place, they’d have to unpack.
He stood beside Jake in the center of the kitchen. “Moving is endless.”
Miles called, “Ake!” Both of them looked over.
“You agree, Miles?” Jake asked.
“Ake.”
“Yeah, us, too, buddy. I think this calls for a nap. Or something.”
“How can we nap? They’ll all be back any minute now for more stuff—”
“It takes fifteen, twenty minutes to get over there, then they have to unload, then they have to drive back. We have a little bit of time.” Jake nudged him. “Grab the kid.”
It had initially felt stilted, Jake handing off parenting duties like he was making a point. But this was Jake, and he wasn’t really making a point. He was trying to help in the most bludgeoning way possible.
Singer scooped Miles out of his high chair and made a mental note to hose it down before they brought it into the new house. “Maybe I should take this outside and clean it so it’ll be dry before—”
Jake laughed. “You think our landlords won’t give us an extra day or two to move out if we need it? Seriously, everything’s under control. Plus, let’s give Mom the food safety jobs. She’ll whip up some kind of white vinegar miracle thing and she’ll like doing it.”
“I just don’t feel like we should—”
“Hey.” Jake stepped right in front of him so he couldn’t go anywhere but back. And he didn’t want to. “Miles is pooped.”
Singer ran his hand down Miles’s back and Miles sighed, putting his head down. “I don’t think he likes moving, either.”
“Nope. Why don’t we go lie down with him for a few minutes? I bet he falls asleep.”
“You think we’ll get another nap out of him today?”
“Maybe. I know I could use one.”
Miles’s room had been completely dismantled, and Alice was in charge of recreating it in the new house. The committee had decided it was the most important room to have settled by the end of the day.
Their bedroom was all boxes and half-open drawers, but the bed was still there, and made. No side tables, and one of the dressers had been moved out already (Singer’s; Jake’s still had clothes hanging out of it and junk on top).
“Here,” Jake murmured, flipping back the comforter and blanket and sheet, moving the pillows to the sides so Singer could lay Miles down in the center of the mattress.
It seemed perfectly natural to follow, stretching out, with both of them bracketing Miles. Miles kicked his legs and put up a token protest, then curled to his side facing Jake and closed his eyes.
They watched. Singer reached out, lightly resting his hand against Miles’s back, feeling his breaths. He wouldn’t have done it at night, or if this was the only nap, but if it didn’t work out, they’d just get back up. They didn’t need this nap, and it made him bold.
“We, uh, forgot to change his diaper,” Jake breathed.
Singer winced. “He’s going to leak everywhere.”
“And all the rest of our sheets are in a box somewhere in Pleasant Hill.”
They looked at each other. Jake grinned, slowly, the expression stealing over his face as if the more he thought about it, the more
amused he was.
Singer couldn’t help but smile back, his muscles mirroring Jake’s involuntarily. “There isn’t anything funny about this.”
“It’s a little funny. And I think that means we should bite the bullet and move the bed next.”
“I’m not the reason our bedroom is last on the list, Jacob.”
“Hey, your whole side of the vanity is a mess.”
Singer looked over, ready to defend himself, but Jake’s muffled giggle pulled his attention back. “You’re such a liar.”
“Made you look.”
Miles heaved a huge breath and flipped to his back, eyelids fluttering. For a second neither of them moved. Then he settled again, deep breaths resuming.
“If you wake him up, you have to clean the bathroom,” Singer whispered.
“If you wake him up, you have to let me clean the bathroom. Without supervision.”
Singer narrowed his eyes at Jake’s triumph. “You wouldn’t.”
“Oh yeah. I’d leave hairs in the drain. And I wouldn’t get the mirror streak-free.”
“It’s not clean if— Never mind.” Singer turned back to watching Miles sleep. He was walking all the time now, but he was still stocky; he seemed to defy gravity as he trundled through the living room.
“Can you see his heartbeat?”
He tilted his head down, and yes, there, faster than Singer expected. “That’s amazing.”
“I know. Like, I get how the human body works, and it’s objectively miraculous, but then I look at him and it’s even cooler.”
Singer glanced up. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”
“I tried to, but it didn’t stick. You’re pretty hard to give up on, Singer Thurman. Oh my god, wait, speaking of not giving up on people, I haven’t told you my evil genius plan yet! What if Lisa and Frankie moved in together?”
“What? That’s crazy.”
“I know. It can’t possibly work, except it might. And it would be epic.”
“It really would be.”
“And anyway, I love Lisa, but none of us are going to be comfortable with her on the sofa bed in the living room for long. And I’m not so sure moving in with Emery is a great call, though he’d probably let her.”
Singer wasn’t so sure that either one of them would go for that. Taking things slow seemed to be working exceptionally well at the moment, and Lisa was in no hurry to repeat past mistakes. “But she and Frankie? That would be…”
“Epic, I know. I’m telling you.”
He hesitated before offering, “I’ll miss being at the epicenter of the Irregulars. I’ll miss the circus, I think. You know. With the new house and everything.”
“Singer. How long have you known my family?”
It sounded like a rhetorical question, but out of curiosity, Singer did the math. “I met the Derries freshman year of high school. So … eighteen years?”
“You think there’s, like, any chance we won’t always be in the middle of a circus?”
“Hm. Good point.”
Down the hall they could hear the front door slam open.
“Boys, we’re back!”
Both of them winced. Miles’s eyes opened wide, and his hands clenched into tiny fists.
“Miles, it’s okay,” Singer began, while Jake said, “Shh, shh, it’s all right.”
It was no use. Miles started to cry. He reached for Jake, who pulled him to one shoulder and shot a See what I’m saying? There’s no escaping the circus look at Singer.
In some other part of the house, Cathy was scolding Frankie for yelling in a house where babies were present—apparently unaware that her voice was just as loud—and Singer could only smile. He reached out to pat Miles’s back as he whimpered tiredly.
“Fucking Derries,” Jake muttered.
Singer leaned awkwardly over to kiss him. “I wouldn’t have them any other way. I think it’s time Frankie learned how to change a diaper, don’t you?”
Jake laughed.
58
Viv
Starting over
Viv Thurman stood, tall and dry-eyed, in the house where she’d raised her children.
She needed to call a cleaning service and double check with the local agent she’d engaged to make sure there was nothing else to do before she drove home.
Home was such a tricky word. This had been her home, for thirty-six years. Now that the pain had passed, she found herself strangely at peace with selling the house. It was empty of everything except a few pieces of furniture the real estate agent thought properly staged it, just enough to let new people, potential buyers, imagine themselves here in the future.
Like they had, she and Drew. It had been only the third house they’d looked at, but they’d been able to see their future in it immediately. They’d stood right here in the living room and pictured evenings spent drinking wine and reading books. They’d stood in the empty bedrooms and tried to imagine their children.
Always two. They had always pictured themselves with two children, one for each bedroom.
Never divorce, though that, too, was becoming more familiar, a word that with repeated use became less vivid, though not quite bloodless. Viv had imagined they’d sell this house when they were ready for assisted living, though at twenty-three she’d thought sixty was at least a decade beyond old.
She inhaled, probing the softest parts of herself for grief. They wouldn’t grow old in this house.
One more once-over was all it really needed. A final vacuuming, a final wipe of the counters, a final sweep and mop of the floors. Viv again contemplated calling a service. It made no sense to be sentimental about this last step before locking up and leaving, but she found herself reluctant to turn the job over to strangers.
She dialed Lisa’s number instead, not at all certain she would answer.
“Mother? Are you all right?”
Strange how a woman could stand in her old house and bid it good-bye without shedding a tear, but the sound of her daughter’s voice made her suddenly want to weep.
“Mother?”
“I’m here.” She cleared her throat. “I’m at the house. I don’t— I’m not sure—”
“Are you crying?”
“No. Certainly not.” Viv dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. “I need to clean the house before I head back down south. Would you— Are you busy?”
Lisa’s voice was tentative. “You … want me to come over and help you clean? We would have done a better job, but we thought you would probably hire people.”
“Yes, of course that’s what I should do.” And it would probably be a relief. What on earth had she been thinking, to consider doing it herself?
“Unless … Mother, do you want me to come over and help?”
“I’m sure you’re busy,” Viv began.
“Uh, yeah, not really. You mean, busy being a shut-in with serious paranoia issues? Anyway, give me like half an hour and we’ll be over. Bye, Mother.”
She’d hung up before Viv could say anything. Like Thank you or You aren’t a shut-in or Who’s ‘we’?
She stowed her sweater and purse on the sofa and went in search of a broom.
*
The first words out of Lisa’s mouth were: “Derries to the rescue, Mother.”
Viv frowned, then was gently—but firmly—pushed out of the way.
She’d feared that the “we” in question was that boy, Emery. But it wasn’t. By the time they all trooped inside, she almost wished it had been.
“Mother.” Singer kissed her cheek and put down a mop bucket full of spray bottles, cloths, brushes, and sponges. “Have you started? If you’d told us you planned to do everything yourself, we would have done a much better job.”
Jake, with Miles in one arm and a bag of toys in the other, passed them. “Hey, Mrs. Thurman.
Do you have any requests for food? Derries only work if you provide a meal for them. Fair warning, it’ll probably be pizza if you don’t tell me something else.”
Raucous laughter cut off any chance Viv had to reply.
“And beer! We work for food and beer!” Frankie waved. “Hi, Mrs. Thurman. Nice to see you. I’ll volunteer to do my former abode, since I can basically clean the whole thing in like twenty minutes.” She picked out a spray bottle and a roll of paper towels. “Text me when the food gets here!”
Singer made a grab for her supplies and missed. “Frances, other people may need paper towels.”
“Other people can walk their butts out to the guesthouse, then. Ta!”
The baby made a noise that mimicked her, and Jake grinned. “Do us a favor and do not start copying Frankie, Miles. I’ll do something nontoxic while he plays.”
“The vacuum is in the car.” Singer held out his arms, and the baby went to him. “You and I will assess the jobs that need to be done while Jake gets that, okay? Let’s start in our bedroom. Or I guess it’s just the master bedroom now.” They walked down the hall.
Viv took a shaky breath. “They are so … loud.”
“I know, Mother.” Lisa patted her arm. “Should we get Chinese? Would that be good? Or Indian?”
“I couldn’t possibly eat right now.”
Lisa pulled out her phone. “I’ll tell Carey to pick up Chinese.”
“All right.”
Jake bustled back in with the vacuum, Singer returned with what he was calling a “plan of attack,” and Lisa took the baby while Singer wrote out a list, assigning tasks to all of them.
Viv realized she was largely redundant right around the time Jake’s brother and his girlfriend arrived. She could have called Lisa from Valencia and asked her to arrange for the house to be cleaned, and the entire group of them would have converged just like this, loudly, irreverently. Competently, for all their noise and bluster. The house was nearly clean by the time they descended upon the food.
A pizza as well as Chinese. And an assortment of paper plates and plastic utensils. The girlfriend, Alice, offered Viv first pick of Chinese food, and she found herself eating even though she hadn’t felt hungry.