Man Card

by Sarina Bowen

  Stalking. The word lodges itself in my throat, and then burns. I’m being stalked. I have a stalker. My eyes get hot.

  “Aw.” Braht makes a clicking sound. He takes two steps closer and pulls me against his chest. He smells like fresh air and fall leaves.

  I burrow into his neck and take a deep, steadying breath. I’m not a crier, damn it. And I won’t let Dwight turn me into one.

  15 How To Respond To A Threat: With Pizza & Facials

  Braht

  Ash is hugging me like I’m her long-lost teddy bear, and I like it. A lot. But I have to interrupt this hug for an important question. “Will you let me call the police?”

  “Fuck no.”

  “Why not?”

  She removes her head from my shoulder. “Because I’ll sound like an insane person? Hey, I saw a camera. And then it vanished into the mist. Do something. We’re not calling them. It will take hours, and they’ll just nod and treat me like a paranoid chick.”

  I wince because she’s probably right. So I fold like an underdone soufflé. “Okay, hon. We can skip that step for now on one condition. If you see your ex at all, you’ll tell me. Or anything weird.”

  “Okay.”

  “And you’re staying at Casa Braht until this fucker learns a lesson.”

  “Okay,” she says again.

  “And you’ll wear nothing but lingerie when I’m home. Preferably edible.” I give her a cheesy wink so she’ll know I’m only kidding.

  I get an eye roll, which is actually helpful. On most people, you should check their pulse. But with Ash, I check for sass. If she can’t tell me to fuck off, then it’s time to dial the paramedics.

  “Then pack a bag so we can move on to the dinner-eating portion of this evening.”

  I watch Ash stalk into her bedroom on those long legs of hers. She takes out a duffel bag and throws a bunch of clothes into it. She zips it shut.

  “Well done! Let’s go eat.”

  “Patience, I’m not done,” she says. “It’s a lot of work to look this fashionable all the time.”

  I’m too nice to point out that she’s wearing a terry cloth robe that says HILTON on the front, and not much else.

  A second suitcase emerges from beneath the bed. She opens a drawer and begins tossing some underwear into it.

  “Can I choose the lingerie?” I ask, just to uphold my reputation.

  “Not a chance.”

  “Can I choose the pizza toppings?”

  She looks at me and I think she’s actually considering it. Then she says: “You can have veto power.”

  Oh, Ash. You’re such a badass and I love it.

  When I’ve tossed her bag into the back seat of the car, and tucked Ash into the passenger’s seat, I slide in behind the wheel and start the car.

  Then I make a call while I wait for my baby to warm up. (The car, not Ash. I’ll warm her up later.)

  “Yo! How’s the Brahtwurst?” Tom’s voice booms through the sound system when he answers the phone. It’s like he’s all around us, like Zeus or something.

  “You’re on speaker, and there’s a lady present,” I tell him.

  “I meant you, not your dick. But feel free to catch me up on either one,” he says. And then there’s a deafening guffaw.

  Guffaws are real. I never believed it until I met Tom.

  “Listen,” I say. “Ash has had a shitty day. I’m going to take her to Casa Braht and ply her with beer and pizza. But I think she’d like to have her girls around her.” I do a quick look to Ash and she nods, a slight smile lifting the corners of her mouth. “Can you send Brynn and Sadie over to cheer her up? I didn’t have Brynn’s number, but since you two are attached at the hip these days I knew I could just call you.” I pull away from the curb and head down the street.

  There’s a silence on the line. “Ash is with you? Like, willingly?”

  “Well, I haven’t restrained her, if that’s what you’re asking. But we are in a moving vehicle.”

  “Wow,” Tom says.

  “Hi, Tom,” Ash says, trying to sound upbeat, but I can hear the tension underneath.

  “Hey, Ash. Sorry you’re having a shitty day,” he says.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll send Brynn over to Braht’s. She isn’t feeling very pukey tonight, so she’ll probably be pretty happy to see you, honey.”

  “I’ll be happy to see her, too.”

  “How come he’s allowed to call you honey and I’m not?” I wonder aloud.

  “Because I’m not a super sleaze who’s always trying to get in her pants?” Tom booms.

  “Huh. I suppose that could be it,” I concede.

  “Later, Tom!” Ash calls.

  “Later, baby.” He clicks off.

  Baby. I kind of want to punch my best friend for calling Ash baby. And he called her honey. You put that together and you’ve got honey-baby and something weird happens in my gut. I’m the only one that should call her honey baby.

  “Honey baby,” I mumble.

  “Huh?” I’m not sure if she’s answering me or if she didn’t hear me.

  So yeah.

  I’ve got it bad.

  Brynn doesn’t just show up, she mobilizes the forces. We’ve barely arrived at my manse and ordered the pizzas when she and Sadie walk through the door. Brynn is carrying a grocery bag. She’s also wearing these weird terrycloth wristbands. “Are you training for something?” I ask.

  “Yep. Pregnancy,” she says.

  I don’t understand, but I nod anyway. I take the grocery bag from her. “I ordered dinner,” I say. “Dare I hope that bag is full of alcoholic beverages?”

  “There’s beer. But mostly I come bearing supplies for a killer organic facial.”

  “Facial?” Ash perks right up.

  “You betcha,” Brynn says, marching past her. “Sadie! Cut up the pineapple.”

  “We bought pineapple chunks,” Sadie argues. “It’s already cut.”

  “Oh, perfect,” Brynn says.

  “Oh yummy,” I add.

  “It’s for our faces,” Sadie snaps.

  Where have these women been all my life? “My skin loves pineapple just as much as the next guy.”

  Brynn halts in her tracks and looks me up and down. “Tom is over at Sadie’s right now, watching sportsball on the couch. You could join him if you want.”

  “And miss the facials?”

  There is an awkward silence while Brynn and Sadie stare at me through slitted eyes, and I’m pretty sure I’m about to be booted out of my own home.

  “He’s not making fun of you,” Ash puts in. “The dude will totally do facials with us. I’m pretty sure his manicure is fresher than mine.”

  “See?” I offer my hands as proof. They’re short, buffed, and clean, in spite of the yard work I did today.

  “Well then,” Brynn says, sounding a little impressed. “Braht, open the beer and find four towels.”

  I do what I’m told, because I know a good thing when I see it.

  An hour later I’m lying on the floor of the den, my feet propped up onto the Italian leather couch. I’m slightly drunk and full of pizza. My pores have been steamed open with pineapple water and are now slathered with some sort of fresh-smelling avocado goo. There are cucumber slices covering my eyes.

  Brynn called it a masque treatment. Masque with a Q, not a K. Because mask with a K is too downmarket for this extravagance I’m experiencing. Various things were rubbed onto my face and now everything is cool and pleasantly tingly.

  “This is the besht,” Sadie slurs next to me. She’s had three beers already. And since she’s about 5’2 and a hundred pounds, that seems like plenty.

  “It is,” I agree. Although mashing avocados and then not eating them seems a bit like a sacrilege. A little lime and garlic with some chips… “Do you feel less stressed?” I ask Sadie, to keep up my end of the conversation.

  “Sorta. Did you know my husband is cheating on me with the nanny?”

  “I didn’t,” I
admit. What do you say to that? I opt for the truth. “I’m sorry. In fact, I apologize for all stupid men. I can’t imagine why that seemed like a good idea.”

  “Because I didn’t lose the baby weight.”

  I remove a cucumber slice from one eye and look her up and down. “Where are you keeping it?”

  “My stomach jiggles now. I had twins. I gained forty pounds. Now I’m squishy in the middle.”

  “Might as well take you out back and shoot you.”

  Sadie giggles drunkenly.

  I hear my kitchen door open. “Sebastian?” My little brother has arrived to raid the fridge and drink my liquor.

  “In here!” I call. I hear his footsteps and I’m tempted to count to three, but I don’t need to. He responds immediately with, “What the actual fuck?”

  I can’t see what he’s seeing, because of the cucumbers on my eyes. But I can picture four people scattered around the rug with green goo on their faces. There’s a mostly eaten pizza on the coffee table and beer cans lying about. Also, I’m pretty sure someone is playing an ocarina on Spotify.

  “We’re doing facials,” Ash says from somewhere nearby. “But it might be time to rinse?”

  “That sounds like a lot of work,” Brynn mumbles from a corner. I agree. We all sigh in unison.

  There’s a pause, some ruffling, and then Bramly lies down on the floor and I hear him say, “I’m in.”

  Ash

  This has been one of the strangest days in my life. I should probably turn in and just go to sleep, but I’m a little drunk, a lot relaxed, and the night has turned into a regular slumber party, with Bramly capturing everything in photos.

  I don’t know how that part got started, but sometime after our facials Bramly gets out his giant camera and starts snapping away. We’re laughing at first, and then Sadie bursts into tears.

  Too many beers, I think at first, but then she says in one long, impressive, operatic breath, “I don’t like the way I look in pictures. Decker is right! I’m fat and squishy and I have cow boobs and lines where there shouldn’t be lines and I found a gray pubic hair…a gray one! And once you go gray there’s no hope and I need to leave my husband, but I don’t want to die with my girls probably off to Europe or somewhere exotic like Cincinnati and I’ll be all alone, dying, in a studio apartment with nothing but canned peaches and gray pubic hair.”

  We all just process that for a minute, then Bramly says, “Sadie, you are one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met and if I didn’t prefer dick I would totally try to get you in bed.”

  “Really?” she asks, her voice tiny and hopeful.

  He nods. “I would be all over you. In fact, come here.” He takes her by the hand and leads her away.

  They’ve been gone for at least fifteen minutes and I’m starting to wonder if Sadie might’ve convinced him to take her for a test ride, so Brynn, Braht and me sneak down the hallway to investigate.

  I say sneak, but that’s relative. Braht and I are quiet the only way drunks can be, which is really loud, but whispering. And Brynn, though perfectly sober, keeps talking about how her sea bands aren’t fucking working and so she peels off to go puke.

  Braht and I slink around the corner and see Sadie on that velvet couch, that same velvet couch where Braht took those amazing pictures. She’s wearing only her bra and panties, and the look she’s giving the camera, or maybe Bramly, is so sensual that I think I get pregnant just by looking at her.

  She is gorgeous. I mean, she’s beyond Earth Mother. She’s a fucking goddess. And I get a little teary because this is the first time in a long while I’ve seen her smile and really own it that.

  “Holy…” Braht says, and I feel a little twinge because I want him to have that reaction when he’s looking at me. Against my better judgment I hear myself call out, “Me next!”

  And Braht adds, “Then I get to be in the pictures with you.”

  I shush him to be quiet, but it’s too late. Everyone has heard us. Even Brynn. And she’s still in the bathroom making coughing noises.

  “Isssookay. I’m a done here,” Sadie says. “I think I should get dressed and drive home.”

  Before I can object, we hear Brynn call from the bathroom, “I’m driving you home!”

  And just like that, they’re packing up. Well, Brynn is. Sadie can only stare at herself in the mirror, going “blub blub” with her lips.

  Bramly herds Braht and me toward the settee to take some photos. “This will be the first boudoir photo session for your eventual boudoir!”

  I’m just about to ask what why he’d say that when I feel Braht behind me. His arms wrap around my hips and he pulls me close to his body. My ass is tucked in tightly against all that sleek skin and muscle. I can feel him hardening, so I smile a huge smile for the camera and make jazz hands. It’s the drinks. And the stress.

  “That’s good,” Bramly says, “but a little too Broadway. Smaller smile, Ash, and Braht, why don’t you pull her hair off one shoulder. Yes! Like that. And now put your lips on her neck.”

  Warm, moist lips find my sensitive skin, and suddenly I have goosebumps. Everywhere.

  “Yeah, that’s hot.” Bramly’s voice sounds distant now. All my senses are focused on Braht’s mouth, and Braht’s hands, which are now slowly unbuttoning my shirt. I tip my head back, finding Braht’s shoulder as his fingers glance past my tummy on their journey. It should feel weird that he’s undressing me in front of a clicking camera. But my senses are too greedy for more touching to care.

  He flicks my shirt away, and then his long fingers are on my skin. They tease the span between my hip bones, just over the waistline of my pants. A whimper escapes from my lips as Braht kisses my neck hungrily again.

  The sound of the camera goes silent. All I can focus on is Braht’s lips against my neck, the warmth of his breath, and his erection against my back. And I can’t stand it anymore. I have to turn.

  The moment I rotate in his arms, we’re kissing. This is a kiss to end all kisses. This is a kiss that creates universes, or at least releases eggs in my uterus. This is a kiss that was made for birth control and I am one hundred percent into it.

  He angles me around and leads me to the settee. And just as I’m lying down, feeling the velvet against my legs, because I’m apparently not wearing my pants anymore, he turns to Bramly and says, “Get. Out.”

  Then I forget Bramly and Brynn and Sadie because all I can focus on is Braht, and his very hard cock, and the way his hips move against mine. His kisses are full and deep. Each one is a blend of pressure, need, and power. We hear a door slam and the revving of cars and then everything is blessedly quiet, except for the beating of my heart.

  “Ash,” Braht says. I start to kiss him, but he stops me. I’m lounging on that goddamn wonderful settee, my legs open to him. I still have on underwear and my bra, but we could be done with those in seconds, so I start to unbutton his shirt. He stops me again by holding on to my hands. “Look at me,” he says.

  I do it because his tone commands me to. And then I shiver because I don’t appreciate the fact that my body reacts just because a man orders me to.

  “What?” I gasp. I’m so conflicted. The old Ash wants to let him hold me down right here and fuck me until I forget both our names.

  But the new Ash knows better.

  “Ash,” he whispers, kissing me softly but still holding my wrists. He gives a little nudge with his hips and I can feel him under the fabric, just bursting to get free. I want him. God, how I want him. Inside me. Now. I groan a little because words are too hard to use.

  He shakes his head. “I need to say this. I want you, you understand. All of you. Right now. But you need to know this. Outside of here, I will hold your purse. I’ll get mani-pedis with you. I’ll cry while watching Lifetime movies with you. I will hand over my man card and be your minion everywhere you want, except in the bedroom. In here, I want you to surrender, just a little bit, and let me take the lead.”

  I can’t breathe. I rea
lly can’t. I’m the one in charge. I’m always in charge. I make all the decisions. I plan things. I fucking orchestrate. He’s asking too much.

  “No,” I say, and then take a deep breath. “That’s not me.” In fact, I need to get up. I can’t lie on my back like this and just take it, even if it feels good. It’s not who I am. I give him a shove and sit up.

  He actually chuckles, like he heard every one of the traitorous thoughts I had a moment ago. One of his hands smooths my cheek. “Honey bear? I have to ask you a serious question.”

  “You can only ask it if you’ll stop calling me honey bear.”

  “Did someone hurt you?”

  Yes! Duh. It sounds like a ridiculous question until I realize he means sexually. “Not like that,” I say quickly. “He messed with my head. But he wasn’t violent.”

  “Mmm. Okay.” He looks like he’s deciding something. “Then let’s compromise.”

  I’m immediately suspicious. Braht and I are too much alike for me to think that’s a good idea. “Compromise” to me means I still win. “What did you have in mind?”

  “I won’t touch you. I won’t hold you down like we both want.” He winks. “This time you can still be the only one who moves.”

  “Okay.” I like that plan fine.

  “But…” Of course there’s a but. There always is. “…But I get to tell you exactly what to do to me, and you have to do it.”

  Oh, fuck. On the one hand, I’ll get to hear Braht’s voice ordering me around. That makes me hot.

  On the other hand, I’d have to obey him.

  “Tough call,” I say. “The power will go straight to your head.”

  “Maybe.” He lies down on the settee, in the spot where I was just a second ago. Propping one knee up, he gives his shaft a slow stroke over his boxers. “All this could be yours.”

  My insides give a needy shimmy. “What would you tell me to do, anyway?” If he thinks I’m going to truss myself like a turkey and let him reenact Fifty Shades of Naïve, he’s got another think coming.

  “I’d tell you to fuck me,” he says in a voice so low and husky that I want to rub the sound of it all over my body. “Why don’t you just see how it goes?” He punctuates this idea with another slow stroke, and I notice the outline of his perfect cockhead straining against the cotton. I want that in my mouth. And wanting things makes me cranky. “Stop it.”