by Sarina Bowen
Feeling almost lightheaded, I stumbled over to the wastepaper basket. When I looked down to unroll the condom, my heart practically stopped.
The bottom of it was split open.
For a long moment I stared, just hoping I was wrong. But that flap of latex and my exposed skin stared right back up at me.
I put a hand onto the wall to steady myself. “Bella,” I ground out. Jesus Dios, I didn’t want to say this.
“Yeah,” came her breathy murmur.
I’m going to ruin everything now. “The condom broke.”
Saying it aloud shook me up even more. I shucked off the useless thing and threw it away.
“Ahem,” came another female voice. I whipped my head around. “The whole neighborhood can hear you.”
The other voice had come from behind a little wooden door on the opposite wall of the bathroom.
Madre de Dios. I stumbled out of the bathroom and closed the door behind me.
Bella had gotten under the covers, where she now lazed, her head on one curled arm. The lazy expression on her face did not match mine. Why was she not freaking out? “Rafe, relax. It’s okay.”
“How is it okay?” There was nothing about this that was okay.
“Come here.” Bella pulled the covers back and beckoned to me. Reluctantly I got into bed beside her. She put a hand on my nervous chest. “I have an IUD. That’s a device that protects against pregnancy, and it’s more effective than any condom or any pill. So as long as you’re clean…”
“Of course I’m clean,” I sputtered.
“Of course you are,” Bella said softly, patting my chest. “I’m just saying. You don’t have to worry. I’m as careful as they come.”
I put a hand over my eyes, still mortified. A few hours ago, I was an upstanding guy who was taking his girlfriend out for her birthday. And now? I was some asshole who’d had a one-night stand.
And the condom broke. I thought I might throw up.
“Please don’t freak out.” Gently, Bella removed the hand from my eyes. “Because what we just did? That was ten different kinds of hot.”
She smiled at me then, and it was hard not to feel just a little calmer. A guy could get pretty lost in that smile if he wasn’t careful. “Yeah,” I whispered back to her. “Okay.” I still felt a little lightheaded. The fact that I’d had no dinner and more than half a bottle of wine probably explained it.
Bella propped herself up on one elbow to reach the lamp. She clicked it off and her room dropped into darkness. “Don’t go anywhere,” she said, getting comfortable on her pillow. “Because we might have to do that again in the morning. I need to know whether that much hot can be duplicated. For science.”
“For science,” I repeated in the dark, my head woozy.
I felt her lean in close, and she kissed me on the shoulder. Then she lifted one smooth knee up, dropping it down over my outstretched leg. A few minutes after that, I heard her breathing lengthen into sleep.
That’s when I really began to feel alone.
In the pitch dark of Bella’s room, I no longer had her smiling eyes to tell me everything was all right. The sleeping girl beside me became a stranger again.
The stillness pressed in on me, and tonight’s events began to play back in my mind. And what I saw there made me feel pretty damned loco. My plan had been to make love to my girlfriend of many months — a girl I thought I knew.
I’d thought wrong. So wrong.
And before the day was even over, I’d stripped off my clothes for sex with Bella, who I barely knew. It had been amazing, of course. I enjoyed every minute of it.
But what if the night had happened differently? If I’d gotten naked with Alison instead, and the condom broke? What then? A hasty trip to the health center, to get that pill you can take if you’re quick enough. The one that doesn’t always work.
Jesucristo.
There was a reason I hadn’t slept around like a lot of other guys. There were several reasons, but guilt was the main one. If my mother had any idea what I’d done tonight, she would lose her mind. Pregnant at nineteen, Ma’s life had never been the same.
After my father disappeared, Ma waited two years to find out what happened to him, saving up to hire a private investigator. The P.I. found my father within the month. He lives in Mexico City now, where he has another family.
We never even got a note.
“Not everyone is as selfish as your father,” Ma always said. “But I don’t want you putting yourself in the position of having to do the right thing. And you can’t put a teenage girl in the position of having to figure out what the right thing is. Don’t do it at all until you’re ready to become somebody’s father.”
My mother doesn’t mince words.
I never planned to take her advice literally. But her story weighed on me. It made me respectful of my high school girlfriends, who liked to make out but rarely let me touch them. And it made me feel guilty for wanting sex from Alison, who did not want to have sex. (With me.)
And now? It made me feel like a tool for sleeping with Bella.
Beside me, Bella breathed deeply, sleeping the sleep of the shameless. I envied her that. My churning thoughts kept me awake until, eventually, even those wore me out.
And I slept.
Six
Rafe
At eight in the morning, I rolled over. Or rather, I tried to. My eyes snapped open at the shock of finding another body in the bed. I came to wakefulness against Bella, her bare ass snugged against my thighs. And since it was morning — and I was a guy — my morning wood was basically stabbing her in the back.
Holy…
Holding my breath, I eased away from her body. Bella sighed, but did not wake up. Inch by quiet inch, I extracted myself from the bed, carefully drawing the covers up over her as far as I dared. Her creamy breast lay there exposed, the nipple rosy in the morning light. I averted my eyes, feeling like a creeper for admiring her body.
I realized I was still holding my breath. Because it’s not every day you wake up naked with your neighbor after losing your virginity in a one-night stand. I exhaled as quietly as possible.
It was time to get the hell out of there.
I put my clothes on as fast as near silence would allow. Picking up my shoes and the stupid gift bag with Alison’s earrings inside, I tiptoed to the door, opening it like a thief in the night.
I didn’t breathe until the door was closed behind me. Setting my shoes down, I jammed my feet inside.
It was almost a clean getaway.
Abruptly, the neighboring door swung open to reveal a young woman in gym clothes. We were both caught off guard, startling each other right there on the tiny landing.
My surprise only grew when I realized who I was looking at. Lianne Chalice was only the most famous member of the freshman class — and an actual movie star. She’d played Princess Vindi in the film adaptations of all the Sorceress books. (My high school girlfriends had dragged me to every one of them. So I’d watched Lianne Chalice duel many a Hollywood actor.) I’d read in the New York Times that she was a freshman here this year, but I’d never run into her before. And certainly not in my own stairwell.
“You’re staring,” she hissed.
“Sorry,” I whispered automatically.
She gave me the most dismissive look I have ever seen on a girl in my life, and then stepped around me, heading down the stairs.
My heart thumping with embarrassment, I finished shoving my shoes onto my feet, and then quietly followed her down the stairs. I was only on the third step or so when I realized that the star of several major motion pictures had been the one to hear me announce that the condom broke.
Shoot me.
At least the walk of shame was only two flights of stairs. I took a moment in our hallway bathroom. When I washed my hands, I caught my reflection in the mirror. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the face I saw there was the same one I’d seen yesterday. The non-virgin Rafe looked the same as the oth
er one. Only slightly less happy.
Looking myself square in the eyes, I mouthed the word I was thinking. “Idiota.”
It was one thing to get taken in by Alison’s deception. That had been dumb enough. But then I’d gone and compounded it by sleeping with Bella. I’d practically inflicted myself on that girl. It didn’t excuse a thing that she’d wanted me, too. I knew better than to take that risk.
Yesterday morning? I was a stand-up guy, trying to do right by his girlfriend. Twenty-four hours later I was just some jerk who’d taken off his clothes for the first person who smiled at him. I let out a long, shaky sigh and tried to compose myself.
Leaving the bathroom, I braced myself for questions from Bickley. He was probably sitting around in the common room, wondering whether or not to go running without me.
When I opened the door to our suite I found Mat instead of Bickley. He was perched on our window seat, smoking a cigarette. At eight in the morning. His eyes flicked toward mine before dropping again. I shut the door, waving my hand in front of my face. The room already smelled of smoke. Dios. “Could you at least open the window?”
“Don’t ride me, bitch.”
“Nice,” I grunted, taking two steps forward and face-planting onto the sofa. Everything was just so wrong. My head was pounding, and my mouth was dry. I had an empty feeling in my gut. Lying there, I sucked down a lung full of cigarette smoke along with my own shame.
At least I didn’t have to explain myself. Mat was too prickly to bother asking personal questions. Bickley and I hadn’t met him until move-in day. With his big frame and excessive tattoos, Mat resembled a TV commando. The first day we’d walked into our assigned room, Bickley and I had found Mat sitting on a camo duffel bag that looked far too authentic to come from a store. When we greeted him, he’d barely looked up from the course schedule in his hands. And were those dog tags around his neck?
Yes, they were. Mat was a naval vet, and although he was a sophomore like Bickley and I, he was three years older.
We’d gotten off on the wrong foot because Bickley started in right away, trying to gain advantage. “So, we’ve got a single and a double,” my roommate had begun.
“The single is mine,” Mat said without a glance. “Says so right on the room assignment.”
He wasn’t wrong. The sheet we’d gotten in the mail had read: Room A: Mat Douglas. Room B: Rafael Santiago, William Gilchrist Bickley.
“We should trade off,” Bickley had argued. “Everyone will receive one third of the year in the single. That’s how my brother and his mates did it when they were here.”
“That’s not going to work,” Mat had said.
“Why not?” Bickley had pressed. “You’d have the single for three months. Then I’d have a turn. And then Rafe.”
Mat shook his head. “In the first place, I just spent three years on a submarine sharing a room that size with five other guys. So I’m due for some space. But trust me. You don’t want me as a roommate during those three months when it would have been your man Rafe’s turn.”
“Says who?”
A smirk crept across Mat’s angular face. “My boyfriend is stationed in Groton, about an hour away. He visits. We get naked. I’m just assuming you don’t want to watch.”
Bickley maintained a half-decent poker face, but he paled beneath his freckles. “So you’re…”
“I’m what?” Mat grinned, enjoying the discomfort he’d created. “Never mind. I’ll say it for you. I like dick. I’m a butt pirate. In the navy, they called me the Rear Admiral.”
At that, I’d thrown back my head and laughed.
“You think I’m kidding?”
“Not at all. I just never heard that nickname before.”
“You got a problem with it?”
“Dios.” I shook my head. “I’m from New York City. We don’t have a problem with much. Except rats and tourists.”
Mat’s eyes crinkled for a second, the first sliver of actual humor he’d shown.
But Bickley had been stony. “If you wanted to keep the single without a fuss, that would be a pretty good way to play us.”
Mat’s jaw hardened. “I don’t have to play you, asshole. The single is mine already. I figure they gave it to me because I’m three years older than y’all. Nice try, though.” He picked up his duffel and disappeared into the single.
“Do you believe that guy?” Bickley had muttered.
And so it began. He and Mat had been at each other’s throats ever since. I tried to stay out of it, but the jousting never stopped.
“You can tell Bickley it’s safe to come home now,” Mat said eventually. “He won’t walk in on any queer action.”
“You flatter yourself,” I replied from the couch cushions. “When I came home last night, you were both here. And both getting action.”
From the window seat Mat gave a bitter laugh. “Seriously? I didn’t hear him.”
“I heard the both of you.”
Mat snorted. “Bickley was out on the prowl last night, too? That’s something I don’t need to see. ‘Hey baby, come for a ride in my Mercedes.’”
“For once would you just shut it?” I snapped. “And open the fucking window.”
I rarely told Mat where to get off, so apparently it made an impression. The next sound I heard was the creak of the window opening. “What crawled up your ass and died?” he asked.
I sighed into the leather of the sofa. “I got dumped last night.”
Mat actually laughed.
Pissed now, my head shot up off the couch, which unfortunately made the room spin. Ouch. “That’s funny to you?”
His lip curled. “It is, actually. Because I got dumped last night, too.”
I gave my head a shake. “No lie?”
He shook his head slowly. “I only wish I was lying.”
That explained the bags under his eyes and the early morning cigarette. “Sorry.”
“Yeah. So am I.”
Who knew I’d have something in common with my orneriest roommate? “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see it coming.”
Mat flicked the ash from his cigarette out the window. “Can’t say that I did, either.”
“I thought we were doing pretty good. But she cheated on me with some rich guy she met in Ecuador.”
“Yeah? Well he cheated on me with a woman.” He pronounced the word the way some people would say “cockroach.”
I pushed my face into Bickley’s designer throw pillow. It was a relief to think about someone else’s problems for a minute. “I’ll bet it won’t last, though,” I said, my words muffled by cashmere and down feathers.
“Why do you say that?”
“I dunno. Being a gay dude in the military sounds like a whole lot of trouble, no? Why do that if you’re not sure?” I was talking out of my ass. “But what the hell do I know?”
Mat heaved a sigh. “Good point. Twenty-four hours ago, I would have agreed with you. But he said he wants kids and all that shit. The picket fence. The dog.”
Dios. “I want that stuff, too. And so does Alison. It’s just that she wants it with some dick who wears a Rolex.”
Mat gave me another grunt. I’m pretty sure it was supposed to sound empathetic.
“At least I didn’t spend two hundred bucks on dinner,” I added. “The night blew up about two minutes after I walked out of here.”
Mat said nothing. With him, that counted as a reply.
“Are you pissed at Devon?” I asked.
“I wish I was angry,” Mat admitted. “I’m only depressed.”
“Yeah? Well I’m both depressed and pissed.” I was so tweaked by the whole thing that I’d gone and done something colossally stupid. Ugh. I felt ill again just thinking about it.
And then the freaking condom broke — a memory that beat like a drum beat in my aching brain. But that’s what you get when you think with your pito.
“I should be pissed,” Mat said. “Pissed would feel better than this. I thought we were
happy.” He put his head in his hands, and for the first time all year I felt sorry for the guy.
“I thought we were happy, too,” I commiserated. But even as I said it, I thought about all the times Alison had pushed me away. I should have been paying better attention.
“Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.” Mat chuckled darkly. “Christ. Listen to me. I’m a fucking greeting card. At least I got laid before I got dumped.”
That wasn’t a subject I wished to talk about, so I was quiet.
A knock at the door interrupted our silence.
As if by some prior arrangement, Mat and I were both stealthily silent, meeting each other’s eyes.
The knock repeated, but neither of us spoke up. There was nobody I wanted to see right now. No one at all.
“Rafe? You must be in there. Open up.” It was Alison’s voice.
Mat’s eyebrows lifted, and I shook my head. Mat lifted a thumb toward his bedroom. Silently, I tiptoed past him and into the little single. Once I’d cleared the doorway, I was hidden from view.
I heard Mat go to the door and answer it. “He’s not home,” he said.
“Oh,” Alison said softly. “Can you give this to him? I want him to have it. In fact, even if he tries to give it back, I won’t take it.”
“Uh, okay. I’ll tell him.”
“Thank you,” she said, her voice dropping.
I started back into the common room after the outer door closed, only to leap back again when it reopened. This time, it was Bickley at the door. I heard him utter a cheerful greeting to the departing Alison before the door finally closed once again.
“It’s safe now,” Mat said. “Come and open your present.”
“Why is Rafe hiding in your bedroom?” Bickley asked as I emerged.
Mat held up a little gift bag. “The birthday boy does not want to see the girl who dumped him last night.”
“Come again?” There was shock on Bickley’s face. “Alison cut you loose?”
“Pretty much,” I said, not wanting to go into details.