Like You (Perfectly Flawed #1)

by Dunning, Rachel

  I was sweating like a pig so I took a shower and changed into a dress and extra-triple-thick leggings while I waited for it to sync.

  I confess I was hoping to see Axle later. So maybe the shower and the dress weren't only because I was feeling a little sweaty.

  When I was done, I went over to the main Frankfurt bridge with my tripod to shoot the skyline. At twilight it was yellow and blue and red with the lights from the buildings and the clear night sky behind them. I caught the river, and a well-lit ship on it. I got shots of random people walking by. An elderly man hugging a woman about the same age, resting his chin on her shoulder. I caught kids on their bicycles, headphones in their ears. I got a profile shot of a girl in a woolen beanie looking at her phone, finger in her mouth, earphones in her ears, walking slowly and thinking. About a guy? Her homework?

  Now that it's too dark, I do long exposure shots of the city again.

  I'm freezing and hungry, but I think I've got everything I need.

  "And if I don't, I still have tomorrow and the next day," I say to myself. "Great, Gen. Now you're talking to yourself. You really need to eat."

  I start walking home and I think about Axle. I wonder what he's doing. I think of his finger inside me and I smile. It was fun. It was more than fun. Sure, there's nothing there between us. But there also isn't nothing. He isn't just some random guy I met. He actually means something to me.

  The thought makes me hotter. Because I realize again that he isn't nobody...

  I realize I let him sneak in. Subconsciously, perhaps. I realize that, as much as I was fooling myself about not wanting to have anything romantic to do with him, it happened. It wasn't just an orgasm yesterday. How many men have I let touch me that way? Four, precisely. Two of which I slept with.

  I don't let guys touch me that I don't feel something for.

  I feel the skin on my cheeks crack from the cold as I smile.

  I text him.

  Gen: I'm ahead of schedule on the shoot. You eaten?

  He calls. "I hate texting. Makes me feel like a high school student."

  "You've mentioned that before." There's a crazy dinging sound around him. "What is that noise?" The sound fades.

  "Tram. Almost hit me."

  "Where are you?"

  "Near Meatpackers."

  "I see. So, what's wrong with being in high school?"

  "I wouldn't know, when you run away you don't really finish school, now do you?"

  "Oh, right."

  "So, American Sports Bar?"

  "I guess, unless you have somewhere else cool that you know?"

  "Sure, there's that highbrow place by the English Theater. We'd pay about a hundred Euros for a glass of wine. And who drinks wine anyway?"

  "Burger it is, then."

  "When do you wanna go?"

  "Now?"

  "I was hoping you'd say that."

  I click the phone off and feel a warm something-something in my stomach.

  I like the feeling. So I don't fight it.

  -2-

  A.

  She's put on a brown dress that looks like cashmere or something. Like I said, I'm no good at knowing these materials. All I know is it shows off her breasts and hugs her stomach so that my hand almost stretches out to touch her smoothness. Her legs are covered by thick, black leggings. I feel like I've never seen something so attractive in my life.

  She's standing outside the Sports Bar, but the leggings don't seem to be doing shit because she's clearly freezing her ass off. I can tell because her nipples are showing through. I do my best to not look at them. It's not as easy to avoid eye-contact with Gen's clothed breasts as it was avoiding Natalia's free-for-all ones. No contest.

  "Why didn't you wait inside?" I ask.

  She can't answer she's so cold. Her lips are almost blue. She's hugging herself. I take my jacket off and wrap it around her. I open the glass door.

  "Were you waiting long?" I ask.

  She shakes her head. "I got here five minutes ago. But the walk here froze me up. I was about to go in but I saw you in the distance, so I waited."

  We sit. I stop one of the bimbo-looking waitresses. She's wearing just enough clothes to not be working at the hooters five restaurants down. I order us two burgers. "That is what you want, right?" I confirm with Gen.

  "With extra fries. Oh, and extra cheese."

  "Actually," I say to the barely-legal waitress, "I'll take the same, plus jalapenos."

  "Oh, jalapenos here as well!"

  The waitress leaves. "You drink beer like an Irishman, and you like jalapenos. I can't believe you're still single."

  She looks down. Woops, loaded question.

  "Yeah," she says.

  I change the subject. "Had a good day?"

  She tells me about it. She tells me how she increased the focal length to make Karolin's face blurry and her butt sharp and then how she did the same to make her butt blurry but her face sharp. She tells me how she softened the light or hardened the light or maybe diffused the light. She tells me about a food fight and pizza and eating mushrooms off tits and how she used longer exposure on the bridge when the light went down and then she decreased the aperture for higher contrast—

  I don't understand shit of what she's saying. But I'm hanging on every word.

  Naked food fights and narrow apertures do not sound like she's talking about photography, though. But I'm smart enough to keep my dumb mouth shut about it.

  I lose count of the genuine smiles that have crossed her face tonight. This is her element. This is when she's at peace. The ghosts she had in her eyes on Sunday morning are gone.

  By the time she's done speaking, our burgers have long since arrived and we're both halfway done with them. She was clearly starving because she gulped her half down a lot faster than I did mine. Then she washes it down with some soda and, at the end of it, burps so loudly that my eyes go wide.

  She instantly covers her mouth. Her face goes as red as the ketchup on her plate and she stares at me, shocked. "Shit," she says. I can tell by how mortified she is that this is probably the first time she's ever burped out loud in front of anyone. Ever. Like, probably not even in front of her husband. Or even her best friend.

  I stay cool. I'm having too much fun watching her to let this one go.

  She bows her head and shakes it in shame. "Shit," she says again, mumbling this time.

  I feel a laugh forming deep down inside me. Not because it was funny, but because I really don't give a shit that she burped.

  She's not taking it well. She still hasn't made eye contact with me and just keeps saying stuff like "shit" and "how embarrassing" and "I can't believe I just did that."

  I do the only thing that makes sense. I down three gulps of Pepsi followed by equal amounts of air and I—

  Buuuuuurp!

  It's so loud that the well-dressed German boy next to us, in a designer woolen scarf, and his girlfriend, look at me like I'm one of the bohemians that hangs around at the Frankfurt train station shooting up or begging for money.

  I look back at him until he's too uncomfortable to keep staring at me. He says something quietly to his girlfriend. I can just imagine what it is, Don't worry, schatz. They're just stupid Americans.

  Meanwhile, Gen has broken into hysterics. She shouldn't be embarrassed about her burping because her laugh is so high-pitched I think the windows are gonna break. She's gasping for air and cracking up like mad.

  It's a beautiful laugh.

  She sucks in a breath, swallows it, looks at me—

  I say, "No, don't you dare—"

  BUUUUURP!

  "I sense a challenge." I down another gulp of Pepsi.

  Wait for it. Wait for it....

  Buurp. Buuurp!

  "Oh, that was a sissy burp," she says.

  She swallows air. Looks mischievously at the prissy couple next to us. BOOM!

  I down some Pepsi. Boom!

  Her head's on the table with squeaking laughter. The waitress f
rom before seems to find it funny as well. She's smiling at me and... Oh, brother. She thinks it's cute and is flirting from the back, showing some leg.

  Whatever.

  I look back at Gen.

  No contest.

  So far, it's Gen, two, all other girls, zero.

  We form a chorus that soon sounds like Paul McCartney's croaking song of We All Stand Together.

  Finally, we settle, all burped out, the remains of our burgers getting cold.

  She digs a French fry into some ketchup on her plate and then twirls it around. Her hair is messy from all the laughter. Then she eases her other hand quietly over to mine on the table and holds it, not realizing what she's done.

  I freeze.

  "Oh, sorry!" she says. She starts moving it away. "Sorry—"

  I snatch it back, and hold it in return.

  "And how was your day?" she asks.

  I let go of her hand. "It was good," I lie.

  She doesn't comment on it, even though I can see in her face she knows damn well I'm lying.

  -3-

  "So what's your story?" I ask.

  She swallows hard on a French fry. She moves the burger aside like she's suddenly not hungry.

  "Sorry," I say, "that just slipped out." I realize I've put my foot in it.

  "No, I—I want to tell you. I just... It's hard for me to remember it. I mean, I can remember it. I just don't like to."

  Her eyes start flicking around wildly, as if the memories of whatever it is are suddenly slamming into her like a tsunami. As if the fuse has been lit, and it's burning, burning. Soon it will explode.

  "I see," I say.

  "Is it important for you to know?"

  "Not at all. I understand the need to keep secrets."

  "It's not that it's a secret..." Her chin trembles. She wipes her eye.

  I grab her hand on the table. "Gen, it's fine."

  She sits up, sucks in a deep breath.

  Then she tells me:

  "I'll give you the short version. Then I want you to burp at the end of it because when I talk about it I get lost in it and I need something happy to bring me back."

  "Deal."

  "A big burp, OK? Say nothing else about it. Just belch."

  "I can do that."

  "Folks died when I was fifteen. Gran took care of me for three years. Then she also died. Died of sadness, I suppose. I went to New York with what little money she and my folks left me. I started community college. It was all I could afford. After, I met a man. A charming—" She chokes briefly, sucks in another deep breath. "A charming man. A man who lied well. He fucked around. He did drugs. I found out only later. Soon after we married he got me pregnant. He was upset. He didn't want a child. Three months into the pregnancy, he disappeared. Just left. I had no idea where he was. I got a waitressing job to keep up the rent. Not a lot of people want to hire a pregnant photographer. And I'd given up photography by that time anyway. I didn't know how I was going to raise...Emily...if he didn't come back. But she was..." She wipes her eye. "She was my child, so I would raise her somehow.

  "Just before my third trimester, he came back. He was a different man.

  "On the night he...died, he was high as a rocket. Eyes frenzied like a caged tiger who's hungry and looking at a bleeding squirrel that it just can't reach. He...beat me. That was the first time..." She stops. The tears almost break loose but she's holding back. Real trooper.

  "Gen, it's OK. I don't need to know the rest."

  "No, I need to finish it. Then you burp. He brought...a baseball...bat." She pauses. She points to the scar above her eye. "That's how I got that. He just nicked me, but it was enough to slash the side of my face so much that the blood looked like from a gunshot wound. Then— I can't detail it—"

  "It's fine—"

  "He killed her."

  I think for a moment she's gonna crack up and sob like there's no tomorrow.

  I would.

  But she doesn't. She fights it down. She sucks in a breath and stops her chin from trembling.

  Tough girl. Tough girl...

  "Despite the blood and pain, I was still half awake when he pulled out the gun. He aimed it at me. And I said to him: 'Go ahead you motherfucker. You murderer! Only a devil would kill his own child!'

  "The faintest sense of recognition lit upon his face. It was as if the drugs he was on had made him an unthinking monster, feeling nothing. But that last statement of mine went through the rhino skin. And then, in that moment, he knew. He knew what he'd just done.

  "He looked at my stomach.

  "And then he shot himself in the head."

  Nothing moves.

  There's no sound.

  I feel my hands tremble on the table so I pull them under to my lap.

  She's staring at me.

  She's finished talking.

  I'm supposed to burp now.

  I feel like hurling. Some of the burger comes up into my mouth.

  My skin goes cold.

  I shiver.

  I feel afraid. For the first time in years, I feel actual fear and I don't know why.

  "Axle, you promised," she says.

  I feel my own chin tremble.

  "Axle, please."

  I steady my chin.

  I suck in some air.

  I stare her deep in the eyes. She is so much stronger than I am.

  So much.

  And then I burp.

  "Thank you." She breaks down crying. She takes a napkin and wipes her eyes. She blows her nose. I give her another napkin. And another. She cries some more, all the while trying to hold it back but the dam is loose. Of course it is. No one should be expected to keep that shit in. She rests her head in her hand, wipes her nose with the napkin in the other. "This is why I hate talking about it."

  The tears keep coming, partially suppressed.

  "Do it again," she says.

  "Huh?"

  "Do it again, please."

  I burp.

  "Louder."

  I down two gulps of Pepsi.

  Buuurp.

  In between a sob, she makes a small laugh. Sniff. "Louder!"

  I suck in air, Pepsi, more air—this one's gonna be good—here it comes...

  BUUUUURP!

  She laughs. With another napkin—number three hundred—she wipes her eyes clean.

  She looks up at me. Her eyes blood red. "You're funny," she says.

  And you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life.

  I think, that motherfucker's lucky he's dead.

  Damn lucky.

  Because I'd go find that fucker right now and kill him myself if I could.

  Right. The fuck. Now.

  CHAPTER 27

  -1-

  G.

  Nov. 14, 2013 — Thursday Night, after the burger. And the burps.

  "So, you know a lot about these"—he gestures vaguely in the direction of his crotch—"um, diseases, right?"

  I mock him. "These"—I gesture vaguely in the direction of my own crotch—"um, diseases?"

  "I heard once that HIV has this window..." He struggles to remember the exact term.

  "Window period," I say. "Where you're infected and don't come up positive."

  "Right."

  "And it's a few weeks?"

  "One to three."

  "So, what does that mean exactly?"

  "You can have the virus and not come up positive for up to three weeks after getting it."

  "I see." He wipes his brow.

  "Why do you ask?"

  "I think I need to get tested again. In three weeks. Just to be safe."

  "Why?"

  "While you were taking naked photos of people eating pizza, I had the joy and pleasure of finding all the girls I slept with and telling them I have Xins."

  "Fun."

  "Well, one of the babes I met up with decided to sleep with me because she thought I was married. She has Xins. She gets tested regularly. She wanted to take revenge or something—"
/>   "My God, what a bitch!"

  He shrugs nonchalantly.

  "Axle, she should be—"

  He puts his hands up. Makes a face that says, Whatever. "I'm no saint here," he says. "I— Never mind."

  "Tell me."

  "I can't."

  "I just told you the heaviest thing anyone could tell another. You can tell me anything."

  He squirms a bit.

  The waitress comes by and asks if we want anything to drink. Axle holds his empty glass up. "Pepsi."

  I still have some Coca-Cola left.

  "It's embarrassing," he says.

  "More embarrassing than me burping in front of you?"

  "Yes."

  I whisper and lean forward so I'm close enough to smell him. His cologne makes me almost forget what I want to say. "More embarrassing than telling you I had two venereal infections which were given to me by my own husband?"

  "Much more. Because that wasn't your fault. This is my fault."

  "Bullshit."

  "Of course it is."

  I sit back and cross my arms. "Tell me!"

  He does the same. "No!"

  "You're impossible. Then I'll guess. You, um, had sex with a guy."

  Axle makes a totally disgusted face typical of a hetero male when he hears about a little guy-on-guy action.

  "You slept with an underage girl?"

  "Only when I myself was underage! And that depends on the state! And it was covered by Romeo and Juliet clauses!"

  "Damn, chill, brother. And Romeo and what?"

  "If the person you're sleeping with is underage but there's not much difference in both your ages—you know, two or three years—there's a clause called the Romeo and Juliet clause that many states have which makes the act not illegal."

  I laugh. "Done your research, huh? Anyway, whatever. So, I give up. Tell!"

  The waitress brings his Pepsi.

  "Oh, and FYI, she was actually older than me."

  "Stop changing the subject! Tell!"

  "Gen, it's just that...around November I go a little...wild."

  "Define wild."

  "Look, I don't want to tell you, OK?"

  "Why? We're friends. Friends tell each other things."

  He looks up at me without a smile, intently. I know what he's thinking. I'm thinking the same thing. Either we've crossed the friend border a long time ago, or we want to cross it.