Quirks & Kinks

by Laurel Ulen Curtis

  Easie smiled her prettiest, most natural smile at me.

  “He seems pretty worthwhile so far.”

  Fuck if that didn’t make me feel good.

  “Good, good,” Jimmy tutted, still holding her hand. “I’ve never had a problem with him, but I’ve also never seen him with a woman before. You can never be too careful.”

  Easie looked me over as though she was considering the fact that I wasn’t a liar.

  And I wasn’t.

  Except by omission.

  “In fact, I’ve never seen him with anyone. Kind of a loner, this one,” Jimmy continued, spilling everything he knew about me as quickly as possible all in the name of wooing my woman.

  “I think that’s enough about me,” I cut in. “Easie needs a wetsuit.”

  “Oh, excellent!” he cheered, the informational dumping a memory now that we were talking about his favorite thing.

  Surfing.

  Jimmy was a surfer of old, a real lifer. He’d been on a board since he was young and reckless, and then he’d never grown out of it, opening up Rip Curl when a life spent constantly in the ocean became too much for his aging body.

  He had a singleminded kind of passion and focus, dumping all of his attention into being a surfer and helping other people become one too. I’d spent my time carefully honing myself into the complete opposite.

  Often worn thin and spread just past the point of comfortable, I pushed myself, constantly expecting more and never feeling like it was enough.

  I honestly didn’t know if I ever would.

  “What are we thinking? Full suit? Spring suit?”

  “She’s going to use it today.”

  “You spend a lot of time in the Pacific Ocean, pretty lady?” he asked, turning to Easie to survey her face.

  Her eyebrows shot up just before her whole face scrunched into a comical showing of shame. “None.”

  Tilting my chin down toward the ground, I bit into my lower lip to smother a laugh.

  “None?” Jimmy questioned, the foreign concept making him reach out to the nearby counter for support.

  “None,” Easie confirmed and looked to me for help.

  “Don’t give her a hard time, old man. She’s going in today.” I lifted my eyebrows in Easie’s direction, hoping I’d passed her test. And that’s what it was. She’d taught me enough times for me to get it. “Which is why—”

  “She needs a wetsuit. Got it, got it,” Jimmy muttered. “Full suit it is,” he decided, turning to her. “You’re gonna freeze your ass off. Pardon my french.”

  “I get it, I get it,” she huffed dramatically. “I’m going to freeze all of my valuable parts off. Consider it noted.”

  Jimmy looked to me in question, but he did it with a goofy smile on his face.

  “You’re going to be fine in a full suit,” I assured her, realizing for the first time that we were doing a good job of talking her out of something we didn’t want to talk her out of.

  Pretty fucking brilliant of us.

  Jimmy looked at me like I was crazy, so I pulled Easie to my chest and wrapped my arms around her as a distraction.

  Over her shoulder I made the universal motion for ‘shut the hell up,’ slicing a single finger across the line of my throat.

  He finally got the hint, making his way to the women’s end of the store and pulling a low-temperature-rated suit from the rack.

  “Here, Easie,” he called, forcing me to slowly let her go. “Why don’t you try this one on.”

  I watched as she swayed her way to the back and slipped into the dressing room and closed the curtain. Jimmy didn’t bother walking back to the front of the store, opting instead to lean on the rack from which he’d pulled her suit.

  “First timer?” he asked, making small talk for the sake of getting to the bottom of the deeper issue. He’d been trying to get me to spill my beans for years, but I had a lot of practice making sure my nut was tough to crack.

  I guess he thought lulling me into his trap with innocent topics first would end in a different result.

  It wouldn’t.

  “How’s it going in there?” I asked Easie instead of answering him. He just looked to the ground and shook his head, bemused.

  “Fuck me, this thing is like a fucking medieval torture device.”

  Both Jimmy and I chuckled. “The neoprene can be tricky the first few times.”

  “Tricky?!” she shrieked. “Spanx aren’t even this bad. And the last time I tried to get into those I swore to myself I’d rather jump into a life of prostitution than wear them again!”

  “Spanx?” Jimmy muttered, just as clueless as I was.

  “Um, what are Spanx?” I ventured, walking over to the dressing room and standing just on the other side of the curtain.

  “An invention intended to make fat women feel skinny and skinny women feel even skinnier. Or, one of Satan’s best jokes. Depends on how you look at it really.”

  “And I suppose that means that the fit is too tight?”

  “How the hell should I know? I’ve never worn a wetsuit before.”

  Sliding the curtain open, I stepped in to find her hair disheveled and her face beet red. She looked like she was about five seconds away from stabbing herself, just to escape having to spend one more minute in that suit. “If it has you contemplating death, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s too tight.”

  “Death has definitely been contemplated. Not only that, I’ve planned it out thoroughly, decided on the method, and found the perfect way to blame it completely on you.”

  “That’s bad.” Teeth clenched and eyebrows raised, my lips stretched and pulled back into a grimace.

  “I get that you’re cute and everything, but if you don’t get me out of this thing in the next two seconds, I won’t be the only death reported on the news.”

  I laughed, stepping forward and rubbing my hands down the line of her tightly packaged body. “It should fit snuggly at the wrists and ankles, and just a touch snug at the neck, but you shouldn’t feel like an over-swollen tick.”

  “Then this is definitely too small. Or I’m too big, but I prefer the first option.”

  I bit into my bottom lip and rubbed my hands up and down her perfect body some more. “It’s definitely too small.”

  “Great,” she fake cheered, making fists and shaking them upward quickly. “Now get me out of it. I already made like Gumby to zip the damn thing up, but now my bendy bone is broken.”

  “We wouldn’t want that,” I whispered, sliding the zipper at the back of her suit down slowly and letting the knobs of my knuckles drag against her skin. “I have a really strong feeling that I’m going to like your bendy bone.”

  “Good God,” she moaned—and not in the way that I’d hoped. “You’re like a whole different breed of human. No wonder that person wrote that book about us being from different planets.”

  “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus?”

  “More like Women Are From Earth, Men Are From Oh Look, A Vagina!”

  Rough chuckles hopped their way up my throat, rattling slightly with the shake of my head. “What? And women aren’t into innuendos? Good try, sweetheart, but I don’t think so.”

  “No,” she agreed. “Women love the innuendo. We love your big, thick cocks and thinking about you using them.”

  Andddd I was starting to get hard.

  Fuck.

  “But we think about dicks when we want to think about dicks. We eat ice cream, we’re thinking about the taste, the calories, and how many more servings we can have without wanting to slit our wrists when we pick up a women’s magazine. You watch us eat it, and you’ve got us pictured in a knob gobbler film reel.”

  “Knob gobbler?”

  “Don’t even pretend you don’t know what I mean.”

  Busted. I was picturing myself picturing knob gobbling. The male mind was a vicious circle of sex. How we’ve done it, how we want to do it, and the way she would contribute. Ways to make her want it,
what we need to do to make it happen, and after we’ve had it, how to make it happen again.

  Biology at its finest.

  I angled my head in concession.

  “Now get out.” She shoved me playfully to the other side of the curtain. “Thanks for unzipping me, but I need another option and you must be my errand boy. I didn’t sign on for wetsuit shopping all day.”

  Turning to pick out another suit and smiling as I did, I found Jimmy leaning on the rack closest to the room. His elbow was supporting some of his weight by leaning on top, and the fingers of his other hand were laced carelessly with their dangling counterparts.

  And his tired blue eyes were positively dancing. “You hooked yourself a feisty one, huh?”

  “You have no idea, Jimmy.” I shook my head once again and pulled a bigger size off the rack. “You have no idea.”

  “Hold tight and don’t fuck it up.”

  My eyes shot back to his.

  “I won’t,” I promised even though I wasn’t so sure it was true.

  “You will,” he disagreed, rocking his head back and forth like a man who knew. “We always do.”

  “IS LEARNING TO BREATHE saltwater one of the skills of surfing I’ll acquire over time?” Easie asked as we drove back toward downtown Los Angeles and my apartment.

  Her golden hair reflected a sparkle of dwindling sunlight, and her blue eyes rolled back into the comfort of her resting head.

  Splaying my hand on the warm skin of her sun-kissed thigh, I answered truthfully. “I don’t think so.”

  Her eyes popped open and pointed their power directly at me. “I don’t think I’m ever going to be good at it then.”

  “Ah, but see. You will acquire the skill to not be in a situation where you need to breathe water. That’s the key.”

  She’d done well, finally getting up and staying up for a solid ten seconds on a baby wave about halfway through our day. After that, she’d gotten tired, wiping out time after time until her resolve wore thin, scoured away by the sand of the unforgiving sea floor. Settling onto a towel, and sprawling out into one of the most attractive beach bunnies I’d ever seen, she watched me ride wave after wave for the rest of the day.

  I’d felt bad keeping her there so long, and yet, I literally couldn’t find the strength within me to give in to the temptation to leave.

  It might be fucked up, but my sense of loyalty was rooted in Evan so deep I didn’t know if I could change it no matter how bad I wanted to. And that scared me more about my relationship with Easie than anything else.

  Maybe I wouldn’t be able to give her the time and priority she so desperately deserved.

  “I’m not sure I believe you,” she disagreed. “I’m thinking a few more waves will work me over before I get to that point, and I’m not sure how much more of that I can take.”

  “You don’t like the motion of the ocean?”

  “Fuck your cuteness. I hurt.”

  “Aww,” I cooed. “Poor baby. I’ll rub you and make it feel better.”

  “You’re going to have to rub it for a long time.”

  I winked and squeezed her flesh into the palm of my hand. “I’ll rub it as long as you want, baby.”

  Muttering under her breath, she blustered with false disdain. “Sex fiend.”

  “Sex? Whatever do you mean, sweet Easie?” I asked, obviously faking my innocence. “Who’s the dirty minded one now?”

  “You’re telling me you were referring strictly to a back rub?”

  “Of course,” I lied. “You mucked that one up all on your own.”

  “Hah,” she scoffed. “Not likely.”

  I pulled into the first open spot I saw on my block, shifted into neutral and put on the parking brake.

  Easie attempted to make a move to climb out, but all that happened was a long-suffering moan.

  “Sore, huh?” I asked with a chuckle, kicking open my door, climbing out, slamming it shut, and rounding my hood to help her with the difficult journey from the seat to the sidewalk.

  Easing her way by opening her door and lifting most of her weight, I was taken off guard when she looked up at me with unhappy eyes.

  “I’ll meet you up there.”

  “Why?” I asked, pretty well aware that she didn’t want to tell me. Like most people, I was a glutton for punishment, demanding to know anyway.

  But she wasn’t one to bury the lead once the ball was in motion. “I need to smoke a cigarette.”

  God.

  Turns out we’d both accomplished something today. She’d gone this long without smoking, and I’d managed the same amount of time without thinking about it.

  Of course, all good things must come to an end.

  “Right.”

  I truly didn’t mean to, but even I could hear the colder turn of my voice.

  “Fuck,” she muttered, reaching into her bag and pulling out a cigarette. The issue of her smoking was stressing her out enough to make her need to smoke that much more. Even I couldn’t miss the comedic irony in that.

  Pushing her cigarette to the side gently before she could light it, I pulled her body to mine and pressed my lips to the warm, soft skin behind her ear. “I’ll meet you upstairs. I know I’m struggling with it now, but I promise I’ll find a way to deal with it.”

  “Why is it so important to you?” she asked, wrapping her tiny arms around me and holding me back.

  Panicked melancholy leeched instantly into my veins, clenching my teeth and eyes tight out of reflex. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her—to open up the ugly box that had shaped me—when my phone rang obnoxiously from the pocket of my shorts.

  Pulling back, I apologized with my eyes, but a part of me couldn’t help but feel relieved.

  Ultimately, there’d come a time when she would expect me to make a choice between her and Evan. And, no matter who I chose, I doubted I would make the right one.

  In this hazy, undecided, unacknowledged place, I could hold onto the past and reach for the future at the same time.

  “Hello?” I said, putting the phone to my ear without reading the caller ID.

  “Hi, honey,” my mom said in my ear, her voice the hollow echo of its former self like always.

  “Hi, Mom,” I greeted back, pointing to the phone and then up to the window of my apartment.

  Easie’s eyes shuttered with obvious disappointment.

  I knew the half-hearted apology in mine was shallow at best, but it was all I could manage. And I hated myself for it. This was why I’d tried so hard to resist her.

  She just turned out to be irresistible.

  Leaving her behind to go into the building, I tried to put her disappointment out of my mind and focused on the woman in my ear.

  Pushing open the stairwell door, my steps echoed and bounced in the largely blank space.

  “I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

  “I know.”

  “A long while,” she elaborated, making me stop climbing the stairs to close my eyes with guilt.

  “I know, Mom. I’m sorry. I’ve been busy.” The words felt painfully hollow, no matter how true they were.

  I could almost feel her shrewd eyes through the phone. “I know you’re busy. You’ve been busy for years now.”

  “Mom—”

  “Losing one son was devastating, Anderson. Losing two is nearly unbearable.”

  “You haven’t lost me.” I was still very much breathing—living. I called her every week. She hadn’t lost me.

  “I have.”

  “Mom,” I cut in, bringing the front of my closed fist to my forehead. “This isn’t a good time for this. I’m sorry.”

  “I know you are.” Her words were weighty.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” she conceded, her voice sullen.

  Gahhh. Bringing my fist forward and back a tapped a slow beat into my pulsing forehead.

  “I love you.”

  “I know that too, Anderson.”

  T
he phone clicked in my ear, and I pulled it away to check that the call had fully dropped.

  Turning to the wall, I leaned my head into the cool cinderblocks and splayed my hands out at its side.

  “Frustrating conversation?” Easie’s voice echoed, surprising me enough to make me whip around to face her.

  “Uh,” I stuttered before giving her an honest answer. I rubbed the back of my neck and then ruffled my hair at the top of it. “It’s complicated.”

  She just nodded, her face serious but not hostile.

  For that I was grateful. I didn’t want to argue with her. I didn’t want to get into a deep conversation that was bound to end in tears and heartbreak.

  I just wanted a night with her. Just one night to let my body get to know hers and memorize it for the rest of time without thinking about any of the other stuff.

  At least I’d be able to picture her every feature when my stupidity finally caught up with me.

  “You ready to go upstairs?”

  She looked to me and then back to the door. Indecision contorted the line of her brow and disfigured the normally pleasant line of her pretty face. Maybe living a block away from one another wasn’t such a good thing. It gave her a way to run away.

  “Are you sure you want me to come up?”

  Practically jumping down the five steps that separated us, I grabbed her hips and pulled her body into mine before grabbing her jaw with my palms.

  “Yes. God, Easie, I can’t think of anything else I want more.”

  Soft, golden skin and rich minty lips mesmerized me, and the apple of her skin completely camouflaged any smokey stench. She smelled edible and ripe, and I couldn’t wait to get my mouth all over her.

  “Easie,” I groaned, giving into the temptation and sinking my lips deep into the plump flesh of her skin. It gave way to their touch, molding to the shape of my mouth and reddening under the suction it produced. Her nails scratched at my back, and her body finally relaxed and gave way to the moment. All the tension of our differences, the pressure of my sense of obligation, the dispute about her smoking—all of it vanished and morphed, serving as an ignition point for all of our untapped chemistry.

  I’d never felt this in tune with a person physically, her bobs timed to my weaves and willing flesh offering itself innately to its searching counterpart.