Pulse

  “Slowly,” I said.

  Mia stepped back, shocked at first. Then, pressing her lips together, she spoke softly.

  “Okay, Dr. Greene.”

  I felt starved and impatient as she let her denim shorts fall, kicking them off. She slid her tiny tank-top up, and it caught her hair, sending it spilling messily over her pale shoulders. Her breasts were full, plush against the gray push-up that she wore.

  She looked at me, her eyes full of question. She had never seen me like this before.

  “Finish,” I told her. “Take off everything.”

  Glancing down, she rolled her underwear down her thighs, then unclasped her bra. It fell at a snail’s pace down her shoulders, revealing hardened nipples that she covered with her hands, shy.

  I took a step forward, taking her chin in my hand, and kissed her, hard. Her gasp was immediate. One hand reached up to cup my face, the other curled around my tie. She was naked, and I was still dressed, and when she started to tug against the tie, to loosen it, I let her remove the silk noose, unbutton my shirt, un-tuck it from my pants.

  “You’re more…” she paused, her breath clipped. “You’re less gentle than you usually are.”

  “Is that what you want?” I asked. “Do you want me to be gentle right now, Mia?”

  Her eyes, all dark wading water, grew large.

  “I want you…” she said, then paused. “I want you to do whatever you want with me. I want you to have whatever it is that you’re craving.”

  I was already throbbing. I didn’t bother taking off my pants. Grabbing her, pressing her stomach against the bed, I unzipped my fly, took my cock in my hands, and slid inside of her. She was the only thing that felt like home.

  She gripped the bed-sheets, her eyes shutting tightly. I thrust into her again, sharply, and she moaned. It was guttural, loud.

  “Am I hurting you?” I asked. She shook her head.

  “Harder,” she said. “Don’t hold back. I don’t want you to hold back.”

  I was hesitant at first. She was so fucking small. I could break her shoulders with my bare hands if I squeezed hard enough.

  I lowered myself so that I was hovering inches over her back, kissed her neck, and felt her move. Her eyes were still closed, her groan was soft. I kept kissing the back of her neck, her shoulder blades, as I started moving again – each thrust harder than the last.

  I caught her hands in mine, and her grip was like a vice.

  “I’m…” she said, soft as an exhale. “Oh, Alex…”

  I loved it when she said my name. It felt like we were real lovers. It felt like she was mine.

  I felt her tighten as every wheel inside of my brain began to slow and stop. In my morbid state, her body was like a coffin I would happily sink into.

  I was losing it. I was losing everything. And as I fucked her, I tried my hardest to push away the salient fact that I’d soon lose her, too.

  With one final thrust, I shot straight into her, the orgasm steeping my rigid bones in morphine.

  I rolled over, and we were both on our backs, trying to catch our breath.

  “Fuck,” I said. Her hand was still in mine, but the grip had softened. “Mia. Oh, Mia. What have you done?”

  She laughed gently, closing her eyes. When she nuzzled against my chest, I was suddenly consumed in a fit of warm fuzzies.

  For a minute or two, I watched the ceiling fan whir. It made the chandelier crystals, all fake plastic, send the star-like reflections of light scattering. Like the night sky and stars were nothing but grains of sand, kicked up in the wind.

  “Back at the hotel,” I said. “Why wouldn’t you tell me what you wanted to say?”

  Mia grew quiet. I had hit a nerve.

  “I’ve been saying it all the time,” she answered. “In actions, not words.”

  She kissed me. I touched her cheek with my free hand, tracing down the jawline.

  “Please tell me,” I said. “Mia. You can tell me.”

  A part of me knew, of course. But I wanted to hear it. At least, I thought I did. I wanted her feelings to transcend what had now spent hours tirelessly doing: fucking, kissing, clinging to each other with a pathetic desperation.

  Or maybe I didn’t actually want to hear it. But we never know until the words roll out. Until we can’t take them back.

  “You have my heart, Dr. Greene,” she whispered.

  I thought about my own, full of puncture wounds, draining slowly.

  “Have you ever seen what a human heart looks like?” I asked her. “It’s a ticking bomb wrapped in flesh and blood. It’s heavy as a brick. You can pass it around from one set of hands to another until they grow too weary of holding it, and their fingers snap. You can break things, break people with it. Until eventually it stops beating.”

  Mia took back her hand, and I regretted the words immediately. But they were true. They were the truest thing I knew.

  “I would never drop yours,” she said softly.

  I held her for a long time, until I needed to leave. Paperwork, patient files, hospital bullshit. And as I lay in the dark of my own bedroom, I tried to shove away what Dr. Weisman had said about how I would soon know just how hard it was to keep the things I cherished alive and breathing.

  But it was all in vain. I spent a sleepless night letting them haunt me. His words hung over me like a ghost.

  Chapter 21

  MIA

  After Dr. Greene had left, I took a long shower, slipping soapy fingers over my skin and in-between my legs. A small pin-prick of anxiety compelled me try and wash away the evidence of another reckless encounter.

  With my hair still wet, wrapped in a towel, I threw myself down on my rumpled mess of linens. I was exhausted and restless all at once.

  Before falling asleep, I pulled out my official replacement phone – a prehistoric Motorola Razr – and texted him. I had my towel fully covering me, and I would never go so far as to send a full nude-shot or anything, but I snapped a photo of me, smiling sleepily, and captured it with: wish you were here.

  He replied a moment later, with a photo of what must have been the view from his desk. The Orlando night-life, all bleeding lights and crystal-speckled rain. It looked like a painting.

  I wished I was there. Standing, hands against the windows, watching the world spin beneath me. I loved the windows of his apartment. I loved everything associated with him.

  I sighed, set the phone down, and glanced out my own bedroom window. Heavy winds crippled the palm trees, and they strained to keep their stance. It made the Oleander bushes yield to the ground. Rain flecked against the glass, making everything harder to see.

  I waited for another text, because his photo had been without a caption. But I never received one.

  It was a whole twenty-four hours before I heard from Dr. Greene again. Which was not much time in the grand scheme of things, but still felt like an eternity. Especially after his shutting me down when I’d confessed – maybe not directly, but still – my feelings for him. Whenever you feel like you’ve said the wrong thing, or made some sort of misstep, you take everything, every bit of silence, as a sign.

  Still, I chose to focus on other things. Like the many hours I was now spending in the empty library, watching the summer rain fall, or thoughts of Cambridge, and the fact that soon, I’d be kissing goodbye to Florida, to the States, in exchange for something new. A new life.

  A new life without Alex. Without my doctor.

  So maybe I shouldn’t blame him for being so dodgy. It wasn’t me he was trying to avoid. It was the bullet that would eventually go sailing straight through him. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to save him, then.

  Not that love alone can ever really sustain. It’s just a beautiful illusion, and we’re all magicians when in love.

  But he showed up, as he always did. This time, 11 o’clock had already slipped around, and I was hidden between bookshelves, poking at a stack of classics that I had yet to put back. The library was quiet as a cemetery
. It was just me, and some other summer employee, who had made herself comfortable at the front desk, watching YouTube videos on her laptop.

  His text burned hot in my pocket. He asked me where I was, and I told him: the library. At work.

  When I asked him what he was doing, he never replied. I rolled my eyes, vaguely irritated, and finally decided to return to the idle work at hand. I put away the rest of the books, then plunked down and settled on finishing a well-worn copy of Lolita. Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.

  The prose always made me shiver.

  When he came around the corner, standing in front of me like some kind of well-dressed phantom, I almost didn’t recognize him. He stood in front of me, soaked from the rain, his dress shirt clinging and his tie hanging limp. His hair was a mess of curls, his jewel-eyes hinting at hunger.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked quietly, more from shock than anything else. “What’s going on?”

  He didn’t give me an answer. Instead, he lunged at me, pinning me against the wall, his kiss so harsh that it cut my lip and I tasted metal. He smelled like cologne and leather. We were all teeth against teeth, starved mouths, animalistic hands. My heart nearly sprung from my chest like a bird released from its cage.

  When he dipped is hand between my legs, I shoved him away. He looked at me, wild-eyed, breathing heavily.

  “What’s gotten into you?” I whispered. “Are you insane?”

  “Yes,” he said, as if brushing dust from his shoulder.

  He kissed me again, his graze trailing down my neck. Dr. Greene slid a hand up my top, squeezing my breast while his other hand cradled my chin.

  “I need you,” he said. “Now.”

  “I can’t leave.”

  “Then here,” he said.

  He wasn’t just insane. He was completely out of his mind.

  “This isn’t your apartment,” I whispered, pointing to the ceiling. “Cameras.”

  His breath hitched. He stiffened, closing his eyes, finally settling back into reality. He shook his head for a long time before finally saying:

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I just – I needed to see you.”

  He slunk down against the bookshelves, picking up the copy of Lolita and regarding the cover with soft eyes. But he said nothing about it. Just set the book down again, stood, and sighed heavily.

  “Let me take you home,” he said. “When do you get off work?”

  “Fifteen minutes,” I said.

  He opted to wait outside while I finished up, our curled fingers lingering for a moment before he actually let go and walked away. And when I left, crawling into the familiar passenger’s-side seat, we made-out for awhile beneath the apocalypse, in the drowning parking lot, in the dark.

  “I’ve missed you,” he breathed.

  “It’s only been a day,” I told him.

  “I know,” he said.

  Back at his apartment, he threw me against the windows. Palms splayed, naked skin pressed against cold glass. He fucked me slowly, sinuously, our mouths never parting. His kiss was more timid, full of fermenting passion.

  We both came at once, clinging to each other.

  I could never get enough of this. Even though I knew that we needed to slow down. We were just too greedy.

  “I have something for you,” he told me, picking up his pants, sliding them on. He neglected his shirt entirely. “A present for you, little fox.”

  “A present?” My ears perked up. “What for?”

  “Because I can,” he grinned. “Because I wanted to.”

  I dressed quickly while he disappeared into his bedroom. Grabbing a glass from the kitchen, I filled it with water, gulping slowly. My throat was still dry when I set the glass down.

  Dr. Greene returned with a box wrapped in silver paper. Gesturing for me to sit down on the couch, he set the gift down on my lap, and I winced. It was kind of heavy.

  “Open it,” he said excitedly.

  I tore off the shimmery paper quickly, like a little kid would while opening Birthday presents.

  When finished, I stared at the glossy box balanced on my thighs.

  It was a brand new MacBook.

  “I can’t accept this,” I told him. “It’s too much.”

  “It’s not too much. Besides, yours isn’t working,” he insisted. His tone dropped an octave, more serious, pressing. He sat down beside me. “You need something new, and you deserve something nice.”

  “But this is too nice,” I told him. And it was, compared to my ancient Dell. “I feel uncomfortable accepting it.”

  “Don’t feel that way,” he said. “Just please take it. I want you to have it.”

  He was so happy. He looked like a teenager, all brimming with delight and lit up with anticipation. He grabbed my hand, kissing it over and over again.

  He was insane, I realized. But I could see the obvious affection imprinted on his face. And he treated me like a princess, spoiling me with paying for cab fare, whisking me away to beaches, making love to me in expensive hotel rooms overlooking the oceanfront. Buying me expensive electronics.

  I wondered about all the things he would attempt if we could actually go outside, into the open unknown together. If we weren’t forced to live on the sly.

  “What happens when I leave?” I asked him. “For graduate school. In the fall.”

  His expression fell instantly. His hands dropped to his knees, clutching them. I still held onto the laptop, awkwardly placing the box down on his glass coffee table. It seemed like everything in this apartment was sharp or breakable.

  “Mia…” he paused. “Maybe we shouldn’t take too much time thinking about the future. Maybe we should just enjoy what we have now.”

  “Which is what, exactly?” I asked. “Aside from you trying every damned minute that you can to get your hands underneath my clothes.”

  “You know I care about you,” he said carefully. “You know this means something to me.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” My throat started to tighten. “Talking about what this means. I’m not your patient anymore. I know…I know it’s impossible to take back how we met. But when I’m across the ocean, will any of it matter anymore?”

  Alex grew deathly quiet, folding his hands together. I could see the bones beneath the skin. He looked ill, anxious, distraught. There was a vague coldness that glinted across his expression, and I hated to think it was directed towards me.

  I stood, crossing my arms.

  “I don’t want your gifts, then,” I said. “You’re too much of a coward to even tell me that you care about me. Or that you don’t.”

  “I do care about you,” he spat. “How could you say I don’t?”

  “Because all we’ve done is fuck like rabbits and make moon-eyes at each other,” I said. “That’s not something real. That’s not something substantial. It’s lust. And when you’re sick of me, and you find another pretty patient that stumbles into your hospital or office, you’ll probably toss me aside and I’ll have been nothing but a cheap victory.”

  His eyes grew wide, as if I’d thrust a blade into his stomach.

  “How could you say that?” he asked.

  “Because it’s all I’ve been shown,” I answered. “And if you care about me, you’d tell me that we could at least attempt some kind of future. Even if it was pointless. Even if the road led to a dead-end. But you’re just sitting there, staring blankly, telling me that you don’t even want to see what could happen.”

  Dr. Greene nodded weakly. He didn’t stand, or try to fight. His eyes, staring towards the floor, were only full of unspoken disappointment.

  “At least take the gift,” he said. “It’s yours.”

  “So this is really it, then?” I asked. And I was enraged, right then, because it all felt so typical. I should have expected it. This is exactly what I should have seen coming. “You fuck me, then you let me leave?”

  He stood, picked up th
e gift, and placed it in my arms.

  “Let me drive you home,” he said. “It’s raining. I don’t want you standing around, waiting for a cab. You’ll get soaked.”

  He touched my cheek, and I jerked away. I felt like a cornered animal. Frightened, ready to strike. Caught between an obsession and logic. My heart and mind.

  I let him drive me home. There was no music or things spoken. An invisible wedge was cut between us.

  Outside my apartment, we sat with the engine running.

  “I feel vulnerable,” he said after awhile. “Surely you can understand why.”

  I turned to him, barely. My eyes darted back and forth between he and the door. Something in me softened, but damn my fleeting moments of immaturity, I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of saying that I understood. Not right then.

  I’m not perfect.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know. Everything in your illustrious, clean, perfect life would be completely stained if someone were to find out about us.”

  “My life isn’t pretty,” he said, somewhat harshly. “You know first-hand that my life isn’t something placed like a prize on my mantle. It’s hard.”

  He paused, taking in a deep breath.

  “It’s fucking exhausting,” he added. “I barely sleep, and when I do, I’m thinking about you. When I’m with my patients, I’m thinking about you. When I’m forced to have one of my failures rolled down to the mortuary, I’m thinking about you. Or when I’m sitting, staring at the bland cafeteria walls, trying to contemplate my next move, I’m thinking about you. It’s not just flesh and blood, or wanting to fuck you,” he said. “You’ve consumed my entire fucking life, Mia. You’re everywhere I turn. And I’m drowning.”

  I felt the first trickle of a tear start to fall. My insides felt strangled.

  “What do we do?” I asked. “How can we make it stop?”

  Outside, somewhere beyond the clouds, the moon was swollen. I could see it, full and brimming, even through the haze.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “I became a doctor so I could fix people, so I could help the sick. But I can’t help people like us. I can’t fix this, Mia. I just don’t know how.”