In the Unlikely Event

by L.J. Shen

  “You’ll wake England, darlin’.” He dips a finger into me, flicking my nub with his tongue at the same time.

  “What do you care? You have a beef with them.”

  He laughs as he French kisses my clit, his fingers curling to find my G-spot as my toes coil deliciously.

  I come again, his name on my lips.

  3:00 am

  “It’s more about enthusiasm than technique,” Mal explains, his penis staring back at me.

  It’s thicker and longer than Taylor’s. Angry-looking and purplish. I finally found something about him that’s less than perfect, even though it does feel good inside me.

  “Just give it your best go. Honestly, I’ll probably come after twenty seconds, anyway. You’re a ride, Rory.”

  I wrap my lips around his shaft, then realize he was right when he pushes me back not fifteen seconds later, coming on my chest. We fall from the bed to the floor, limbs tangled, laughing hysterically.

  “Rory!” he thunders. “I pre-ejaculated. Now I must kill you to keep my secret safe.”

  “Relax. I’m not going to tell on you.” I roll on the floor, mid-yawn, hitting the door. I can still taste his salty flesh. My mouth feels full of him. “Besides, we’ll have an ocean separating us, remember? Who will I tell? My pet fish?”

  “You have fish?” He looks startled, like it hurts that he doesn’t know everything about me.

  “I’ll get some to make you feel good about yourself.”

  “Just admit that I can kill you, too,” he says from across the room now, both of us lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re stealing my breath, so you’re already halfway there with the killing part.”

  I shake my head, zipping my mouth with my fingers.

  He grabs a guitar pick from the floor and throws it at me. “I’ll let you hold on to your heart for a little longer. Just don’t get attached.”

  I laugh, but then he stops and looks at me, and I swear there’s regret etched on his face.

  “Forgive me?” he asks.

  “For what?” I scrunch my nose.

  He looks away, swallowing. “Good question. For not giving you what you came here for, I suppose.”

  4:00 am

  “Sometimes you make music. Sometimes the music makes you,” Mal explains. We sit on his bed, sharing a pack of something he calls candy rolls, drinking milk from the carton. “And when it makes you, it changes you, and when it changes you, you never know how you’re going to come out of it.”

  “Same with photography.” I nod. “I feel like a director, showing you what I want you to see. I can make the field behind your house gorgeous or creepy, sad or happy. It’s all in the angles, and filters, and composition.”

  “I don’t want to sing. Attention doesn’t get my dick hard.”

  “I know.” I smile. “That’s why I hide behind a camera, too. It doesn’t…make me wet, I suppose, either.” I blush.

  “So you understand.” He smiles, relieved. “I won’t sell my songs. They’re mine.”

  “Do what makes you happy. The world will understand. If it doesn’t, it’s the world’s problem, not yours.”

  Silence.

  “Marry me, Rory.” He turns to me. “Let’s just stay here and feck and make music and take pictures.”

  I laugh and pop another candy into my mouth. But he seems serious, waiting for an answer.

  “Mal…” I say.

  Jesus. He’s still looking at me, waiting for an answer.

  “I have school. I’m going to college in a few weeks.”

  “We have colleges here.”

  “I’ve already enrolled. Paid. I have a dorm room. My best friend, Summer, is coming with me.”

  “I have some savings,” he insists. “I’m good at what I do. I can provide for us.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “I never claimed not to be.” He scowls, and by the edge in his voice, I can tell he’s finding it hard to keep himself calm. Then he shakes his head, smiles, rolls on top of me, and covers my face with hot, wet kisses.

  He taps the nightstand, trying to find another condom. There aren’t any. We ran out. He lifts his face from mine, wordlessly asking for permission. I can feel the weight of this decision pressing against every bone in my body. Especially considering how I came into this world. This is where I become my mother. Where I let my need and lust override my logic.

  I give him a little nod. “Pull out, please. It’d be hard to take care of a baby during finals.”

  “Feck you, Rory.”

  “Please do, Mal.”

  In the morning, I insist on treating him to breakfast before we head to the airport. He paid for my hotel and my meals since I got here. It’s the least I can do.

  We end up at The Boar’s Head, which is apparently the only place locals eat. Tourists from all over the world come to Tolka for the small town, Irish experience, to work the land and tour the local brewery. I’ve learned this place is also known for its butter. The pub is jam-packed when we walk in, but a beautiful, blonde bartender finds us a table when she spots Mal.

  “Missed you, rascal.” She winks at him.

  It’s pretty easy to see they share a history.

  Mal flicks the back of her ear. “Been a minute.”

  “Call me this weekend?”

  “Depends on a certain bell,” he says. Bell means a ring, a booty call, a one-night stand. But Belle is my name, too. Not that he knows that.

  My whole body is sore from having sex with Mal five times last night, not to mention the extracurricular activities we did in addition. We don’t discuss the one time without the condom, because he did pull out. I tell myself nothing bad will happen, but just to make sure, I’ll buy a morning-after pill at the airport’s Boots pharmacy.

  After placing our order at the bar, I wince as I sit down. Mal grabs my hand and presses it against his lips.

  “Let’s try this again in broad daylight.” He clears his throat. “Stay.”

  I tear open a pack of chips and throw one into my mouth, chewing to buy some time.

  “As I said, I’m starting college in two weeks.”

  “Feck college.”

  “What about my mom?”

  “Don’t feck her. That’s the kind of kinky I’m not quite into. But you hate her, Rory. Besides, we’ll send her hairspray every month. And plane tickets every Christmas. Easter, too, if you insist.” He reaches for his Guinness—yes, in the morning—taking a generous sip. “Stay, Rory. It’s kismet. Tell me you didn’t notice the rain stopped when we kissed yesterday.”

  I open my mouth to say it means nothing, but then the power goes out. It’s daylight, but it still freaks me out when the hanging TVs go dead, the Lord of the Dance music stops, and the humming of industrial fridges ceases.

  The silence stretches between us. Everyone seems to have gone quiet. I’m not sure, but I think some people are staring at us. They must’ve heard the last part of the conversation when the music died, and are waiting for my answer.

  Do they know Mal proposed? I swallow, staring at my hands on the table.

  “Rory?” he asks.

  “I don’t believe in kismet,” I say quietly, keeping my eyes trained on the open bag of chips. “You’re twenty-two, and I’m eighteen. We both know it won’t last.”

  Am I working against my own fate?

  The electricity comes back on. This serendipity crap is borderline paranormal. Annoyed, I take comfort in the fact that the football playing on the TVs and the music will drown our conversation, and the rest of the locals go back to their chitchat.

  Mal says nothing. His face falls, like he just realized I’m right. I pinch the hoop in my nose and slide it back and forth.

  “Hey, what about doing a long-distance thing? I’m planning on getting a job while I study, so I can probably visit you next summer. Maybe even Christmas, depending on the ticket prices.”

  As I say this, I try t
o convince myself it really can work. I’ll only need to pay for the tickets. Mal has a car and a house.

  But he shakes his head, sitting back and balancing his chair on its two back legs. “I’m an all-or-nothing type of lad, Rory. There’s no way in hell I can manage long distance.”

  His answer angers me a little. So he wants me, but only on his conditions? That’s shitty. If someone isn’t willing to wait for you, they don’t really deserve you.

  I can’t tell him to uproot himself and come to the States, to leave six siblings, his nephews and nieces, a mother, an elderly adoptive grandfather, and a mourning childhood friend who is pining for him and probably wants to wear my skin.

  And after the offhand way he treated me when I brought up long distance, I won’t even try.

  “We could stay friends on Facebook or MySpace—” I start, but he cuts me off.

  “And watch as you move on with other guys? Nah, thank you. I try to keep my self-hatred below suicidal level. And we both know watching each other fecking other people would be dazzlingly stupid.”

  I give him a hard stare, folding my arms. “Fine. Then we go cold turkey.”

  “I can’t go cold turkey,” he says.

  God, he is difficult. “You leave no room for much else,” I grit out.

  “False,” he retorts.

  “What do you suggest?”

  “A contract.” He lets his chair slam on the floor as he leans forward. “You Yanks love legally binding shite, yeah?” He reaches for my bag next to me, flipping it open. He takes out my camera and a pen, sprinkles the utensils out of a folded napkin, and straightens it on the table.

  “It’s not the right time to be together, I agree. But if we meet again, under any circumstances, any time in the future, we’re making this work, Rory. Feck spouses. Feck boyfriends and girlfriends. Feck the world. If kismet happens, we are letting it happen, no matter what, you hear?”

  I stare at him like he just fell from the sky. What is he smoking and how do we make sure it never falls into the hands of our youth?

  “The chances of us meeting again are less than zero.”

  “Bzzz. Wrong again. They are slightly more than zero. I would put it at zero point fifteen percent,” he says cheerfully.

  I don’t know how he can be so nonchalant about it, but I guess I can’t complain. He proposed to me, and I’m almost sure he was serious. I turned him down. Publicly, too.

  “What if one of us seeks the other person out?” I ask.

  “That’s cheating.” Mal shakes his head. “It needs to happen organically. We can’t look for each other.”

  “But what if someone does?” I have a feeling this someone is going to be me.

  “Then the contract is terminated, and you don’t have to marry me.”

  “I have to marry you if we meet again?” My eyes flare, but I’m smiling.

  He shrugs. “High stakes make good stories, Princess Aurora of New Jersey.”

  “So much for me having the power to kill you. You won’t even give me your phone number,” I mumble, sipping my Diet Coke.

  “I’m not giving you my number because I don’t want this to kill me,” he grinds out, his eyes darkening.

  I’m trying not to hate him right now, because I know everything he says is right and true. We can’t be together, and keeping in touch would leave both of us craving more. Mal jots the terms of the contract on the napkin. Then he signs it and slides it toward me.

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  I read it first.

  In the unlikely event.

  He knows it. I know it. Still, you can’t make someone be with you. You can’t force them to commit to something doomed. I have no plans of moving to Ireland after I graduate, and Mal’s entire life is here.

  I amend my name to Aurora Belle Jenkins, so he’ll know it—I already want him to cheat—and sign. I consider only briefly the fact that I never told him my middle name, and he’s referred to it. He takes a picture of the napkin and passes me my camera. “Your copy of the agreement, for safekeeping.”

  Mal tucks the napkin into his back pocket and takes a sip of his Guinness.

  “I mean it.” He shrugs. “I’m getting this notarized and apostilled.”

  “I know.” I throw another chip into my mouth, trying to act nonchalant.

  “Let’s just hope I don’t die from heartbreak first.” He downs the rest of his Guinness.

  I think about Kathleen’s open arms and the herd of girls who follow him everywhere.

  “Oh, I think you’ll survive.”

  A NOTE FROM THE NAPKIN

  Look, I don’t have high hopes for this spur-of-the-moment contract. You think it’s my first rodeo? I’m recycled, bitch. I’ve been around the block—long enough to know how this works. They will keep their promise for a few weeks. Maybe a month, if they’re really into each other. Then I’ll start to wrinkle, stink, and fall apart, or his mother will find me and throw me away, muttering profanity at her untidy son, who, of course, by that time will be balls deep in someone else and not actually present.

  I’m just the victim of their knee-jerk decision. I should have died gracefully, in a recycling bin, tucked comfortably among other napkins, plastic bottles, and stray leftovers the workers here are too lazy to scrape off to the other bin.

  Also, and not on a completely unrelated note, I have a ketchup stain the size of a pea on the word casualties, and it itches like hell.

  This has mess written all over it.

  When we reach Dublin Airport, I fling my backpack over one shoulder, grab my suitcase from Mal’s trunk, and insist he doesn’t come in with me. He double parks, rounding the car on a jog.

  “I hate airport scenes in movies. They’re morbidly tacky. We’re better than that, Mal.” I tuck my hair behind my ears, chuckling at my feet.

  Truth is, I’m already crushed, and if we share any more intimate moments, I might spend the entire trip home crying, which would be beyond embarrassing.

  He rubs his thumb over my lower lip, smiling. “Safe travels.”

  “Thanks.” But I’m still standing here like an idiot. Waiting for…what, exactly?

  I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you.

  I remember something important. I unzip my suitcase, rummaging for my Polaroid camera. When I find it, I jump up and take a picture of us together. I hand it to him.

  “It’s not fair that I’ll have all these pictures of us, and you’ll have nothing.”

  “I won’t have nothing,” he amends, smiling. “I’ll have the memory.”

  “And our contract.” I squeeze his shoulder, but I can already feel our bodies growing apart. Like we’re strangers again. “You’ll have that, too.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Let’s hope I don’t wank on it to death the first week you’re gone.”

  I laugh and glance at the napkin in question, relieved that it’s an inanimate object, but it’s a mirthless kind of laugh.

  He takes my face in his hands and kisses me so deeply I lose balance. His heart is beating so fast and hard, it sounds like it could tear his chest open. Maybe, I think desperately, it should. I want to snatch it and take it with me—somewhere Kathleen won’t be able to get to it.

  We disconnect slowly, like we’re glued together.

  “Don’t be with Kathleen.” I look up at his face, whispering, “She doesn’t kill you.”

  That Bukowski quote pops into my head: “Find what you love and let it kill you.” I think I just did.

  “I won’t. Don’t be with a stupid, shiny guy with boiled balls. You were born for greatness, Princess.”

  “I won’t.” I smile.

  He lifts my chin with his finger so our eyes lock and says, “Ask me again.”

  I don’t need clarification on this. I know. I know because I feel it, too, and it cracks my resolve. I press my palm against his chest, monitoring his heartbeat.

  “Have you ever been in love?” I can’t swallow the emotions lodging in my t
hroat.

  He grins down at me. “Goodbye, Rory.”

  My eyes flare, but I grin. “Bastard!”

  “What?” He laughs.

  I laugh, too. This time it’s a real laugh. We both needed this, I realize. An icebreaker.

  “Why did you tell me to ask you this if the answer is no?”

  “I didn’t say the answer is no.” He runs his hands along my arms. “But if I admitted it to you, I’d admit it to myself. Then I’d have to look for you, and that’d be a breach of contract. You have to understand, Rory, next time I see you, I’ll have you. I won’t care if you have a boyfriend, or a husband, or a harem of men vying for your love. If you have children, I’ll raise them as mine. So, I guess an apology is in order.”

  “For what?” I blink.

  He turns to leave. I’m not ready to say goodbye, but I know I never will be.

  “For no doubt disrupting your life and tearing it apart next time I meet you. All’s fair in love and war, yeah?”

  But he doesn’t wait for me to answer. He gets into his car and drives off, leaving me standing there, with his pulse still beating in my palm.

  Present

  Mal

  Out on the balcony, Aurora stares at me like I took a shite in her soup.

  To be fair, after everything that’s gone down in the last eight years, I would have, if the opportunity had presented itself. As it happens, it didn’t. So who knows exactly why she’s filled with such surprise and terror.

  Nevertheless, the years we’ve spent apart have treated her well, unlike the way they’ve treated me. She still has funky hair that would look lovely wrapped around my fist, a nose hoop I’m sure she still messes with all the time, legs for miles clad in torn fishnet stockings, and the wardrobe of a fifteen year old crushing hard on Yungblud and 5 Seconds of Summer. She has a Marilyn Monroe-like beauty mark above her upper lip, that prominent, crescent scar I bet she still doesn’t know the story of, and lashes so thick, they shadow her cheeks when she looks down.