by Bex, Alice
He’d stretch it out. That was OK. I didn’t like my old suit much anyway.
“Shake on it,” I said.
“Parameters?”
“You must accurately identify at least four attributes of the old suit correctly.”
“Deal!”
“Alright, let’s hear it.”
“It’s black.”
That wasn’t much of a challenge. 85% of women’s bathing suits are black.
“It has straps.”
“That’s a copout.”
“It is not a copout. I’ve seen strapless suits. They’re a real thing.”
Strapless suits are a real thing. I let it go.
“It has that gathery stuff on the front. You know, like there was a lot of extra material and then they ran a seam across it.”
“It’s called ruching—“ I couldn’t believe I knew that. “And yes. That is also correct.”
“One more—“
I was getting worried. I was certain that I had not attained the high level of personal maintenance necessary to appear in a bikini on short notice. Shasta had given me long and detailed instructions on waxing, but I hadn’t worked up the nerve to try it. I had been saving the dreaded procedure for later in the evening. If I couldn’t work up the nerve, plan B was to wear shorts over my suit the whole week.
“Your old suit has a skirt on it.”
Thank Mother of Pearl! That was wrong.
“What do you think I am? An eighty-year-old?”
“No skirt, then?”
“Certainly not.”
I retrieved the old suit from my bedroom. I hadn’t yet decided whether I was going to hold him to his end of the bet, but Adam took it right out of my hand.
“This’ll look sensational on me—“ Adam said. “Black is definitely my color.”
Then he started stripping down, right there in my living room.
“Don’t you want to go in the bathroom or something?”
“No. What I will be wearing is going a lot more embarrassing then what I won’t be wearing.”
I’ve always known Adam is pretty casual about nudity, but I’ve never seen him completely naked. Surely, I wasn’t about to.
“Please, tell me you’re planning on leaving your underwear on. I might want to wear that suit again, someday.”
Adam looked slightly miffed. I don’t think he ever intended to strip down to his bare bones, but I think me acting like I didn’t want him to bruised his ego a little. I tried not to look at him until he had my old suit on. I was hoping the ridiculousness of his costume would make up for the beautifulness of his body and the two would cancel each other out. Besides, once he got it on, I was supposed to stare.
He did look pretty funny. It wasn’t hard to laugh, which is what he expected. Adam started dancing around in a comically suggestive manner, and once I got started laughing, I couldn’t stop. That got him going, and pretty soon we were both reduced to tears, and my side hurt.
“Stop!” I said. I was sitting on the floor now, rocking back and forth. Adam stopped dancing around and sat down beside me.
He wiped his eyes.
“I’m going to miss you,” he said.
“I’m only going to be gone a week. We go for weeks, sometimes, without seeing each other.”
Not very often, though.
“I know. But even when I don’t see you, I know you’re right here and I can see you whenever I want to.”
That’s true. He does get to see me whenever he wants, wherever he wants, why ever he wants. Maybe, that isn’t the healthiest thing in the world. Things are fine when he has a girlfriend. I don’t expect him to be constantly available to me. But if I had a boyfriend, things would have to change.
Adam took off my old swimsuit and put his clothes back on. He flopped on my couch and turned on the TV.
“I have to finish packing,” I said. Hint. Hint.
“I know. I thought I’d keep you company. I’m not bothering you, am I?”
He was bothering me. But not the way he meant. I loved seeing him stretched out on my couch like he belonged there. That’s the thing about Adam. Being with him is even better than being alone. I like being alone. I need to be alone, sometimes. The fact that he can replace being alone, that being with him is even better than being alone; that scares me a little. My head said, “send him home,” but my heart was doing the talking.
“Sure. You can stay.”
He stayed all night. That wasn’t the plan. At least it wasn’t my plan.
While I finished packing, Adam watched some stupid movie with a lot of yelling and explosions and finished off a six pack of the beer he keeps in my refrigerator. I hate beer.
“You counting on me driving you home?” I asked. It wouldn’t be the first time.
By the time I’d finished packing, Adam had fallen asleep on the couch. At least he looked asleep. I prodded him in the side with my foot.
“Wake up!”
He opened one eye.
“I’ll drive you home.”
“What about my car?”
“What about your car?”
“You’re leaving early in the morning, right?”
I was.
“So who’s going to come get me to pick up my car, if I leave it here?”
“You have other friends.”
He does have other friends, but when it comes to asking for favors I’m usually the one who gets picked on.
“I’ll just stay. I can sleep on the couch. I’ll even take you to the airport in the morning.”
That was tempting. Then I wouldn’t have to pay for parking.
“And pick me up?”
“Sure.”
“You don’t even know when I’m coming back.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll make it work.”
“It would be a lot simpler if you’d just make retrieving your car in the morning work.”
“How complicated is it just to let me sleep on your couch?”
When he put it that way, driving him all the way across town at midnight did seem silly.
I got him a blanket.
“I could just sleep in your bed,” said Adam. He was still stretched out on my couch, looking adorably rumpled.
“You could, but I’m not sleeping on the couch,” I said.
“I wasn’t suggesting that you sleep on the couch.”
“What were you suggesting?”
“We could both sleep in your bed.”
“Isn’t that crossing some sort of line?”
“Maybe. Or you could just think of it as aversion therapy.”
I’d been hoping he’d decided to let this aversion therapy obsession drop.
“It’s my bed. I think I’m the one entitled to decide who sleeps in it.”
He was slightly drunk. That probably accounts for what he did next, because I’m pretty sure he never would have had the nerve to do it stone-cold sober. He got up off the couch.
“Come on,” he said and dragged me after him into the bedroom.
“I left the living room light on.”
“If I let you go turn it off, you’re not coming back, are you?” Adam asked.
Probably. Definitely. Not.
“Your silence speaks volumes.”
Adam gets a little pompous when he’s had a few.
I hadn’t gotten undressed and—considering present developments—I wasn’t planning on it, so I climbed into bed with all my clothes on and switched the lamp off. After he fell asleep, I’d roll him off the bed. He could spend the night on the floor. If that didn’t work, I’d retreat to the couch.
In the end, I did neither. As soon as he got into bed, Adam rolled over and wrapped his arms around me.
“Really?” I said, trying to sound prickly and not-at-all rattled. I don’t think I succeeded on either count.
“I just want to cuddle.”
That made him sound like a 6-year-old girl.
“Who calls this cuddling?”
“What do
you call it?”
“Inappropriate.”
He’d already switched the other lamp off. I turned to face him, but I couldn’t see his expression in the dark.
He was using one hand—the one attached to the arm that wasn’t ready to restrain me from bolting—to caress my face.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Doesn’t it feel good?”
It did feel good. Frig’n fantastic was what it felt like.
“Turn over,” Adam said. “I’ll give you a back rub.”
That sounded innocent enough. At least that’s what I told myself. I turned over. It started out all right. He propped himself up on one elbow and used his free hand to rub my back. It felt good, but I could handle it.
Then I felt him tugging at the bottom of my t-shirt and felt his hand on my bare back. It was more stroking than rubbing now and instead of sticking to my back, he was running his hand up and down my sides. Pretty soon I realized that I was letting him stroke the sides of my breasts through my bra.
“Let me touch you,” he said. His voice sounded high and weird.
“You are touching me,” I answered. My voice sounded even higher and weirder.
“You know what I mean.”
I did, but I didn’t answer.
“Just through you clothes. I won’t even kiss you.”
He seemed to think that pleasuring me through my clothes was less intimate than kissing.
“I want to do that for you. I mean how long has it been since you—“
A very long time.
I heard a voice that sounded like mine say, OK. Adam flipped me over. I waited. Nothing happened. Maybe he’d come to his senses or was waiting for me to come to mine. Then I felt his hand.
It was embarrassing, how quickly I came. A little pressure—even through my jeans—and I was done. Adam kept going and it happened all over again. I wanted to reciprocate, but he wouldn’t let me. Instead, he rolled me over on my side, pulled me close and fell asleep, one of his hands cupping my left breast. It took me forever to fall asleep. My whole body was buzzing. Full-on sex had never felt this good. The experience definitely had me rethinking my scorn of friends with benefits.
I woke up when my alarm went off. Adam was already up. I could hear him in the kitchen. When I walked in, he barely acknowledged me.
“How many eggs will you eat?” he asked.
“Two. Three.”
I poured myself a cup of coffee, sat down at the table and tried not to look at him.
He set a plate of eggs down in front of me and then sat down in the other chair.
“I’m really, terribly, truly sorry,” he said, in the same voice he would have used had he just accidently backed over Dickens, Poe or Kipling.
Sorry for what? For making me feel so terrifically spectacularly good?
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“Yes, I do. I should never have put you in a position like that.”
He could put me in any position he wanted to. The more positions the better.
“It’s not a big deal,” I said.
That was a lie.
“It’s just that the more I think about it, the more I realize that if some other man had treated you the way I did last night, I’d be wanting to kill him this morning.”
Why? He had been a little aggressive to start with, I guess, but by the time I’d said, “OK,” I had completely meant it.
“If it bothers you that much, then I suggest you stop thinking about it,” I said.
“It’s the only thing I can think about.”
It was the only thing I could think about, too. I watched his hands as they closed around his coffee cup.
“Well, by the time I get back, I expect the matter will have ceased to cause you distress.”
Adam gets pompous when he’s drunk. I get pompous when I’m nervous.
Seven
I had a good time in Tampa. Or I would have, if I could have stopped thinking about Adam for more than two minutes at a time.
I told my cousin Tabitha everything. Although she was sympathetic, her idea of constructive advice is saying, ”What’s meant to be will be,” and “I’m sure everything will work out for the best,” at regular intervals.
After the first day, I shut up about it. Shutting up was pretty easy, but stopping myself from silently obsessing proved impossible.
By day three, I had a spectacular sunburn and a foolproof plan. My foolproof plan was simple: I’d find myself a boyfriend. That would solve everything. There was only one flaw in my foolproof plan, it meant I had to find a man who wanted to date me.
On day four, fate intervened. Bar Guy called again. Would I like to go out to dinner? I told him I’d love to. I might not like Bar Guy, but apparently he liked me, and that was the only essential part of the equation. We made a date for the evening I was getting back. Things were falling into place.
I’d left on a Sunday, and I got back on a Sunday. Adam was picking me up. I’d have found another way to get home, but I didn’t want him to think I was uncomfortable seeing him. I was, of course, but there didn’t seem to be any point in making it painfully obvious.
Adam was waiting for me at baggage claim. He gave me a side-arm hug. I half expected him to slap me on the back and say, “How ya doin’ buddy?”
“Good time?” he asked.
I said I had had a good time.
We got out to the car, and he put my suitcase in the trunk.
“I have a date tonight,” I blurted out. I had intended to be more subtle.
He unlocked the car, and I opened the door and got in.
“Me, too,” he said.
That was quick.
I was having trouble with my seatbelt. It seemed to be jammed. Adam reached across and gave it a yank. Our bare arms brushed.
“You may have to sit in the back,” he said.
It wasn’t like him to give up so easily.
“I’ll be fine without a seat belt.”
Adam shrugged and started the engine.
“Who’s your date?” he asked.
“Bar Guy.”
“I thought you didn’t like him.”
“He’s growing on me.”
“When did he start growing on you?”
“Just—you know.”
“Don’t do anything you’re going to regret, just because—“
I didn’t expect him to finish that statement, but he didn’t really need to.
“I’m not.”
“My date tonight—“ Adam said. “Sydney. Very nice girl. Met her a couple of weeks ago. You’ll like her.”
“I’m sure I will.”
“Please, don’t go out with Bar Guy.”
“We’re just having dinner.”
“Yes, and the other night I was just going to sleep on the couch.”
“I’d rather we never mentioned that again.”
“I think we should talk about it.”
“Well, I think we shouldn’t.”
“I’ll promise to pretend it never happened, if you promise not to go out with Bar Guy.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
I tried to disengage by pointing out that Adam’s check-engine light had been on for the last six months. I point out that light every time we go anywhere in his car, and he always insists that it’s nothing to worry about. Today, he didn’t even bother acknowledging my concern about the roadworthiness of his vehicle.
“Since you are obviously dying to talk about the events of the other evening—“ Adam said, “—I’ll open the discussion with a critique of your—vocalizations.”
Oh, sweet fuckleberry Hinn!
“You have a very unique mode of expressing your pleasure.”
Frig’n Treakfast at Biffany’s!
“Fine,” I said. I retrieved my phone from my bag. “See, I’m calling him right now.”
Sydney is nice. Adam had a little party at his place and he invited me. I half ex
pected that he would have invited a single friend or two in the hopes that I would hit it off with one of them—that’s what he usually does when he throws a party, but he didn’t. Maybe he’s too distracted by his new relationship with Sydney to think about me.
Sydney, unlike most of Adam’s girlfriends over the years, is neither an academic nor an aspiring academic. She’s a real estate agent. I’ve never thought of real estate agents as particularly glamorous, but Sydney is.
She seemed terribly interested in me. She wanted to know all about how Adam and I met and how long we’ve been friends. Usually, Adam tells his girlfriends so much about me that by the time I meet them, I having nothing to say about myself that they don’t already know. This was not the case with Sydney. I didn’t know what to think, but finally I decided it was probably just because they’d been so busy having enormous amounts of sex that they hadn’t talked about much of anything.
Sydney invited me to have lunch with her the next day. Just the two of us. I didn’t think much about it. I’ve always been friends with Adam’s lady-loves.
She was nice enough, but it soon became obvious that this little get-together was not simply a friendly gesture on Sydney’s part. She had invited me out to assess how much of a threat I was to her relationship with Adam. This was new. It was disorienting to have someone like Sydney—who could probably pick and choose any man she wanted—view me as competition. I tried to set her mind at ease.
“Let’s have a girls’ night in. Movies, manicures, whatever,” I suggested. “That way you can meet more of Adam’s exes.”
I was so shocked at what had just come out of my mouth that I clamped both hands over it. It was going to be hard to back-pedal on this one. Might as well come clean.
“I’m not one of Adam’s exes,” I said.
Sydney just looked at me. She didn’t believe me. I could tell.
“The only reason that slipped out is that a couple of weeks ago, he—“
I didn’t know quite how to put it without making it sound like a bigger deal than it actually was.
“He sort of stayed the night.”
“Sort of?” Sydney had her eyebrows raised so high they were practically brushing her hairline.
“I mean he did stay the night, but nothing happened.”
“Then why bring it up?”
I wasn’t making a good impression on this woman. If there’s one thing I can usually count on when I meet new people, it’s the confidence that they will go away thinking I’m at least intelligent. I wasn’t sounding very intelligent, at the moment.