by Megan Hart
I’d never seen James blush. He might be a butterfly, flitting back and forth or spinning in place, but he was never put out of sorts. Now I watched his chest turn blotchy and a column of red spread up his throat to turn his cheeks pink.
Alex, interestingly, looked unconcerned. He stretched a hand up behind his head, emphasizing his lean torso, and gave me a steady look. Also, an enigmatic smile, like the Mona Lisa’s but dirtier.
James cut Alex a glance. The way he moved away was subtle, but spoke volumes. Alex must have noticed, as I did, but he kept his eyes on me.
“Well?” I lifted my chin toward them.
“I’m not queer,” James said, adding hastily with a look at his friend, “not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
Alex didn’t look offended. “He’s not queer, Anne.”
The response deflated me a little. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected—or wanted—to hear. What I wanted to know. James was self-confident enough not to wonder, but maybe I needed to hear something like this to prove he loved me best.
“And I’m not polyamorous,” I said. “But I’m fucking two men.”
“Poly-whosee-whatsis?” James was still blushing.
“Polyamorous. It means have more than one lover, not just sexually but, like, in a relationship.” Alex spoke coolly, like we were discussing the weather.
James’s brow furrowed. He looked from me to Alex, then back to me. “That’s not what this is.”
I crossed my arms, the bulky fabric of my robe making it difficult. “Isn’t it?”
James shook his head. “This is just…”
Alex and I both looked at him. We waited. James gave a small, assured grin. “It’s just fun. A fling. Something fun for the summer.” His brow furrowed again. “Right?”
Alex and I didn’t look at each other. “Right, man,” he said.
I didn’t answer.
“Anne?”
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. “Sure. Of course.”
James got up and came around the bed to take me in his arms. “What’s wrong, baby? I thought you liked this.”
I shook my head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
James kissed me, a caress I allowed but didn’t return. “C’mon. Tell me. Why are you so grouchy? Do you want us to stop watching TV in here so you can go to bed?”
A month ago he wouldn’t have been so perceptive. We had Alex to thank for that. And that, somehow, annoyed me twice as much as if he’d been oblivious.
“No,” I snapped.
“Then what?” He was still trying to soothe, but I wasn’t having any of it.
“Then nothing!” I cried, stiff and unwilling to yield in his arms. “Just…nothing!”
Alex got up from the bed and made to move out the door. I turned on him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
He shrugged. “Giving you some privacy.”
I laughed, mocking. “Privacy? You can stick around when it’s time for me to put your prick in my mouth, but when I’m in a bad mood you’re out the door, is that it?”
“Jesus, Anne,” said James, shocked maybe by my vehemence. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m going to go out for a while. Give you two some time alone.” Alex made for the door.
I knew it was stupid, that I was getting myself worked up over nothing. Blaming hormones doesn’t excuse my behavior. I knew it, and I did it anyway.
“What are you going to do? Go out clubbing? Pick up some guy and give him a blow job in the back alley?”
“God, Anne. What the hell?” James looked sick.
Alex’s face had gone cold and distant. Far away. He was dismissing me, and I hated it. “Is that any of your business?”
“I think it is, yes, when you’re coming back here to my house, and my bed, and my…and my husband!” I hurt my throat from shouting. James recoiled.
Alex didn’t look affected, not even a flicker in a gaze that had gone more brown than gray. “Anne, if you want me to leave, all you have to do is say so. You don’t have to turn into a raging bitch.”
I gasped, I know I did. I waited for James to defend me. I looked at him. He was staring at the floor. I looked back at Alex, whose smirk held a hint of triumph I wanted to smack.
Without another word I turned on my heel and threw myself back into the bathroom where I ripped off the robe and threw it on the floor. Looking down, I let out a string of curses at the sight of blood trickling down my leg.
“Pissdamnshitfucktits!”
If the kittens hadn’t already met their doom, I’d have smashed them. Instead, I contented myself with slamming the cupboard open and shut as I got out a tampon. I cleaned myself up, fighting tears. Feeling stupid.
And jealous.
And insane.
I was washing my hands when someone tapped on the door. James came in a moment later. I sniffled, wiping my face and expecting a well-deserved lecture.
James looked sad. “If you want him to go, Anne—”
“No. It’s not that.” I heaved a sigh and splashed cold water on my face. “It’s a lot of stuff. My parents’ party. The stuff going on with Patricia.”
“What stuff going on with her?”
I hadn’t told him, a glaringly obvious omission I hid with a quick explanation. “So she doesn’t know what she’s going to do.”
“What can we do?” James looked concerned, and my love for him rushed up inside me so fast and fierce it was like a tidal wave. “She knows we’ll help out, right?”
I held out my arms to him and he let me mold myself against him, though I didn’t deserve it. “And I have cramps and a headache, and I got my period.”
His face said “ah, that explains it all,” but his mouth wisely stayed shut. He rubbed my back and I put my face back against him so I wouldn’t have to look at his. He massaged the kinks and knots I hadn’t even known were there until he started kneading them.
“And it’s your mother.”
His fingers prodded and pushed tight muscles. “What did she do?”
“The same thing she always does. Steamrolls me into going shopping and then proceeds to make me feel like a third wheel. And she won’t let up about the kids. She just doesn’t let up!”
“She doesn’t mean it. You can’t let her bother you so much, Anne.”
“She does mean it,” I said with sudden viciousness. “And the next time she asks me when we’re going to start having babies I’m going to slap the question right out of her mouth.”
The words were nasty and tasted bitter. James stopped rubbing for a second, then started again. I pressed my face to his chest, my eyes closed, hating feeling this way but somehow not able to stop.
“I wish you wouldn’t let her upset you like that,” he said finally.
I sighed. We were quiet for another minute, until he pushed me gently away. He looked down into my face, then kissed me so tenderly I wanted to cry again.
“Are you disappointed?”
I had no idea what he meant. “About what?”
“About getting your period. That you’re not pregnant.”
We weren’t always on the same page, and it would have been unrealistic to expect us to be. Still, I’d never felt so far away from him than I did just then. I could only shake my head, speechless.
“It might take a while,” he continued. “A few months. Some people try for a long time.”
We were standing on opposites sides of a very deep abyss. One I’d caused. I hadn’t told him I’d gone off the shots, but I hadn’t mentioned staying on them. How even if I’d wanted to start trying for a baby right now my body was so pumped full of hormones the chances of conceiving were nearly negative. There was more. I hadn’t told him I wasn’t ready to start trying, and he clearly thought I was.
“James.” I stopped, uncertain of the right words. Honesty could wound as much as lies. I didn’t want to hurt him. “I told you, it’s not the best time for us to be trying for a baby. When the summer
’s over and Alex goes…”
He looked relieved and brushed my hair off my face. “That’s better. I was afraid you were upset about it.”
“James, no…” I shook my head, fighting to make myself heard, but his kiss stopped me. I could have fought it, or pushed him away to give myself the chance to say what I should have told him already. I let him kiss me, instead.
It was a long, slow and thorough kiss, just like ones in the movies. It was a kiss perfect in length and pressure and emotion, but unlike in the movies it didn’t make everything all better.
Chapter 14
James and I rarely fought, and our anger never lasted long. He was too convinced he could do no wrong and I was too interested in keeping things smooth for us to clash. The few times we had argued, a kiss and an apology had made it all better.
I didn’t know how to make up to Alex. The boundaries of our relationship had never been set. Fluid, they’d changed every day without our discussing them. Lust and sex had come naturally enough. We’d never negotiated emotion.
There was too much of it. I wasn’t trying to be clever when I told him this had become more than it was supposed to. I’d yearned for his body and burned for his touch, but somewhere along the way I’d come to crave his smile and his laugh just as much. I’d grown accustomed to him beside me in bed, in the way he looked wearing James’s clothes, how he smelled.
I didn’t want to love him, but I didn’t want him not to love me.
In the week after the argument Alex kept to himself. He was still having meetings that kept him out of the house for much of the day, only now it was every day instead of just a few. For all I knew, he was out fucking his way through Cleveland. He came home at night still wearing his suit and tie, looking tired, but he hardly said anything and disappeared into his bedroom before I could ask him about his day.
It hurt.
I made myself scarce so we could all pretend we didn’t know he was avoiding me. I heard them at night, James and Alex, talking. Sometimes their voices got loud. Other times I couldn’t hear them at all, not for hours, and when James came and slid into bed next to me, I strained to catch a whiff of Alex on his skin. I never could.
It was only a week, but the longest I’d ever spent. My period ended, always a relief. James’s company started a new project and his hours changed, bringing him home earlier in the day so we could spend more time doing household things like working in the yard and setting up the new glider swing.
It was like the summer would have been had Alex arrived but we’d never started the affair. He was a perfect houseguest. Polite. Distant. He’d become a stranger, and it was killing me.
I tried not to let on how it was eating me up inside. How his dismissal of me stung like thorns, like a splinter I couldn’t worry free. I couldn’t look at him for fear it would show on my face. The yearning. I couldn’t risk letting James see just how much I wanted things to go back to the way they were.
It was Claire, surprisingly enough, who turned out to be my shoulder. In the past I’d have told Patricia how I felt, but since I hadn’t revealed to her the fact I was sleeping with Alex, I couldn’t admit how torn up I was over what couldn’t even really be called a breakup. I’d never talked very much with Mary about sex, and she’d gone back to Pennsylvania for a week to make arrangements for school. And possibly other reasons, as well, which we didn’t discuss.
So it was Claire I ended up talking with over lunch one day at my house. She’d come by to drop off some more things she’d picked up for the party. The house was quiet. I’d been working on my résumé and getting little accomplished. My fingers tapped the keys but my mind had been far away, and I’d made a lot of mistakes.
I was glad to see her at my door, because it meant I could put aside what had become a useless task. She handed me a bag of tomatoes from our mother’s garden and a couple invitations that had been dropped off at our parents’ house instead of sent in the mail to me.
“Because, you know, the price of that stamp is really gonna put somebody out of dinner or something,” she said as she helped herself to food and drink from the fridge. She piled everything on the counter and began making sandwiches.
“Everyone really is coming. God. I hope we have enough space for all of them.”
“Don’t worry about it. Dad’s friends will all be so plastered they won’t notice, and the Kinneys have sticks so far up their asses they’ll probably leave right away.”
Thinking of the Kinneys mingling with my parents and their friends made my stomach tighten unpleasantly. “Don’t remind me.”
“How is the gruesome twosome, by the way? Evy and Frank.” Claire laughed as she made a face that looked quite a bit like James’s dad. “Can’t wait to see them. I think I’ll wear my belly shirt, just to get them all riled up. See how long it takes her to ask me if I’ve put on weight.”
“God, Claire, you wouldn’t. At Mom and Dad’s party?”
She carried her plate to the table, and I followed. “I might.”
I watched her take a big bite. “Have you decided to keep it?”
It took her a minute to finish the food in her mouth. She nodded. “Yeah.”
“And what about school? Money?”
“I’m only three credits away from finishing. I can earn those with a final internship. I’ve already started looking at unpaid positions here in town. I’ll get a job, too. It will all work out.”
She sounded far more confident than I would have been. “And you’ll be able to do all that? Afford it?”
She chewed a few more bites before answering. “I’m getting some money from the fucktard wanking bastard piece of shit who didn’t tell me he was married and knocked me up, anyway.”
The curses tumbled out of her mouth as sweetly as sugar kisses. She smiled. It was sunny and bright. It was shiny.
“He’s giving you money?”
“Fifteen grand.”
I coughed. “What? Claire, God, how the hell did you get him to agree to give you fifteen thousand dollars?”
“I told him I could prove the kid was his with DNA testing. Which I can,” she told me. “And I said that not only would I tell his wife, his wife’s parents and the school board about it, but about how he liked me to dress up in a schoolgirl outfit and bend me over his knee to get spanked.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “And that’s worth fifteen grand to him, to keep his secret?”
Her smile got harder. “I have pictures. I also have proof he’s a pothead who’s not afraid to take a cut of the deals made at his school.”
“His school?”
“He’s a principal,” she told me. “He fucked the wrong psycho bitch, Anne.”
“Wow.” I wasn’t sure if I should be impressed or scared of her. “Sounds like quite a scandal.”
“He shouldn’t have lied to me.” She sounded cold. “It could have just been fun, no big deal. But he told me he loved me, and the motherfucker lied. So as far as I’m concerned, he can pay for this kid.”
“And you want to keep it?” I watched her finish her sandwich.
She looked up at me. “Yeah. I want to keep it. Because its father might be a fucktard, but…it’s mine.”
“Have you told Mom and Dad?”
“Mom knows. She guessed. Dad’s clueless, of course. I’ll wait until after the party. No sense in ruining all of that.” She shrugged.
“Sounds like you’ve got it all planned out.”
My sister chuckled. “We’ll see, won’t we? You want another sandwich?”
I hadn’t even started my first one. “No, thanks.”
“So what happened?” she asked as she piled on the thick slices of bacon, tomatoes from our mother’s garden and lettuce onto white bread. Mayonnaise squished out the sides in a gloppy mess. She licked her fingers, one by one.
“With what?” My own sandwich had the same ingredients, just fewer of them.
“Not with what. With who. With him.” She made the word sound om
inous. “Alex.”
“Nothing happened with him.” I took a bite and chewed, waiting to enjoy it. I didn’t.
She made a derisive noise. “Oh, please. You’re such a bad liar, Anne.”
“On the contrary, Claire, I’m a very good liar.” I grabbed some cheese curls. I didn’t enjoy them, either.
“Says you. So spill it, sissy. What happened? James get mad?”
“No.”
She waited, expectant, her mouth full of food. I sipped some cola. I played with my napkin. She chewed, swallowed, took another bite. Waiting me out. “It just fell apart, that’s all. Don’t things like that usually do?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never done it.” She guzzled half a glass of milk and wiped her mouth daintily. “Well. I mean, sure I’ve fucked more than one guy at a time, but, like, they never knew each other.”
“That’s not helpful, Claire.”
She grinned. “Sorry. So if James didn’t get mad, what happened? Don’t make me torture you with the belch of doom, Anne. I’ll do it.”
She might be exasperating, but she did know how to get me to smile. “I told you. It fell apart. I don’t know. When it’s just Alex and me, he’s fine. But when he’s with James they act like a pair of schoolboys.”
“Huh. Not sexy.”
“Not really. And they have all this history that I’m not a part of,” I said. “But it’s not just that. I mean…it’s just a lot of stuff.”
We ate in silence for a few minutes while I tried to think of what to say, how to say it that wouldn’t paint me in a bad light. How I could admit to jealousy and lies and still look shiny to my sister.
I shouldn’t have bothered to try. Claire cut right to the heart of it, surprising me with her perception. “You want them both to yourself, but they have each other, too.”
“Yes.” I pushed the sandwich away. “Does that make me a possessive bitch?”
“Probably.” She flashed me another grin. “But a normal one, I guess.”
“We had a fight. I had a fight. He didn’t fight. He just walked away from it. From me,” I said and had to stop to swallow against the lump in my throat. “Now he’s acting like we barely know each other.”