“I do.” His voice became almost angry. “I was so happy. I thought that everything would work out. You were upbeat. I was inspired. I could’ve kept doing my job happily, if it had been for something.” He touched her hand again, softly. “I mean, for something more than us.”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” Sam said. “That’s the problem. You’re still you, and I’m still me. It would’ve only made things more complicated, still broken.”
“Maybe we wouldn’t have known,” he said.
“And carried on in blissful ignorance?”
Zach nodded, almost fiercely. Sam softened her gaze and cupped his cheek in her palm.
“Now, where is the man I fell in love with, who taught me to keep my eyes open, and never settle for anything less than stars?”
With her hand on his cheek, his composure broke.
“I can’t, Sam. It’s too hard.”
“I know.”
“I can’t be without you.”
“I can’t be without you either,” she said. “But anything else is impossible.
“I wish I hated you.”
Sam returned his gaze with her bittersweet smile. She almost wished the same. This wasn’t like something dying in trauma. It was like holding that beloved something close and ending its life to spare the pain.
She leaned in, their faces very close, and inhaled his scent, knowing how powerful smells were to memory, how much would be gone to her forever with the departure of his constant reminder. It was like losing a part of herself.
He kissed her, tentatively. Then their lips parted, and Zach pulled back, looking into her. She closed her eyes, moving forward, meeting his kiss like a memory. This was going away forever. She’d never have it again. She had to memorize it, to dive into him as if into a pool. She wanted to drown in him, sink to the bottom and wallow.
“I miss you, Zach.” Sam felt tears between them. Whether they were hers or his, she couldn’t say.
“I’m right here.”
“I miss you already.”
“I’ll always be here for you, Sam. Always.”
“Promise?” Her hands were in his hair, on his face, exploring him as if for the first time. She was dangling from a cliff, waiting for a rope.
“I promise.”
“I don’t know how I’ll get through the days.”
“Don’t think of those days. Think of now. Feel now.” His hand found her breast, rubbed it through the fabric. It was wrong. So wrong, to do this now. But under his touch, everything lit. Sam was past helpless.
His mouth left her lips, and the length of her neck. She tipped her head back, exhaling, eyes closed, weightless. There was no bed beneath her. Rolling ocean and nothing else. His lips were hunters, moving from the spot under her upturned chin to her collarbone. His hands moved slowly on her breast, nipples standing erect to his touch.
Their hands met. Clasped. He raised them to his lips and kissed hers. It should have seemed contrived. It did not. Sam felt her heart rise in her chest, ran her other hand around his waist, up and down. Their hands parted. Both hands began to explore. His moved down, under the hem of her red dress. Her inner thigh felt coal-hot under his palm. She pushed her hand under his shirt, exploring his chest. Then she moved it down, across the tight bulge in his slacks. His cock, already hard, rose to meet her. She rubbed its length, then reached down with both hands and began to fumble open his belt and pants as they kissed. Their mouths were desperate, as if hanging on.
Sam realized, quite suddenly, how wet she was and how much she needed Zach’s touch, needed him inside her. A palpable need. Sam had wanted him many times before, had been driven mad plenty. But the present sensation was fully unique. She needed his cock inside her like she needed air. Sam felt herself suffocating, longing for fulfillment more than satisfaction.
Zach pushed his pants off, then got between Sam’s legs and pushed her red dress up over her hips. She wore a matching set of red panties. Seeing them, Sam remembered buying to please him. Even in need, she wanted to weep. She would never be able to wear them again. Ever. She’d never be with another man again, either. It was all too precious. Too close to the bone. He was hers. She was his. Together forever, amen.
Sam’s panties came off. Her sadness evaporated as the room’s cool air whispered against her pussy’s wetness. His hand parted her lips, almost fascinated. He inverted his hand, fingers down, and ran them up her length. He came away with a palmful of juice, and wiped it on her thigh without comment. He bent to put his mouth on her, but she took him by the face to stop him.
He looked up. Her eyes begged into his. “I need you inside me. Please. Please make love to me. Now.”
His hand kept moving. “I want to taste you one last time.” He swallowed as he said “last time,” but his cock looked rock-hard and almost purple, keeping his focus where it needed to be. His glorious dick moved away, and Sam yearned, but his mouth was on her clit, harder than usual, and it ceased to matter. She closed her eyes, head tipping back. He never ate her like this. It was usually all tongue, delicate and respectful. This was aggressive. His pressure on her was hard. She felt her clit’s full length, stiff below the surface like an iceberg hiding.
Sam was so, so wet. She responded to his pressure. Felt the wave build fast as her hips lifted from the bed. Then she came, hard. As she came he slipped two fingers inside her. She tried to bear down, but direction surrendered to an endless cyclone of sensation. Sam felt her pussy coat his face from cheek to cheek, gushing and gushing as she fought for breath, feeling contractions continue to pulse. She was too sensitive. She flinched from his touch. It moved, but then his mouth was back and sucking her clit, fingers working inside her, juices like a faucet. She felt her breath hitch, mind seeming to leave her body. She came again, less than a minute later. Harder, more needful.
Zach kissed her pussy, lingering on her lips, running his affection to Sam’s inner thighs, then kissing her belly. She gasped, eyes closed, still in aftershocks. His hand was on her, gliding her down, but she kept twitching as his fingers rounded her edges, staying away from her clit until they plunged in again.
It wasn’t his fingers at all this time.
Sam felt Zach’s cock swell inside her, his wet mouth and their co-mingled juices on her lips. His entry had drawn another gasp from inside her. Her tunnel gripped and twitched onto him, somewhere between orgasm and readiness. He was all the way in, filling her, not thrusting.
She reached up, pulled off his tie and shirt. Then, opening her eyes, ran both hands up his chest, memorizing its look and feel. Sam would miss all of it, but couldn’t think about that now.
“Stay inside me forever, Zach,” she whispered, lips on his ear.
He started to move, slowly. He tumbled them over as one, so Sam was on top. She sat astride him as he pushed up her dress. She crossed her arms, grabbed its bottom, and pulled up to a strapless, sheer bra. Zach had his hands under it before she could get it off, then it was only them on the bed, both naked, his cock inside her. Sam sat tall, hands rolling over his chest. His were on her tits, and across her every inch. They moved down, rubbing the mound above her pussy, his head up on the bed so he could see.
“I can’t … ” he started, eyes taking on a desperate pleading. Sam stopped him with a finger across his lips, pressing gently.
“Don’t think about the future,” she said, moving against him.
She rode him upright, sliding up and down on his shaft. Then, when he seemed near to finish, she lowered her face to his, grinding against him, kissing his neck.
“Sam,” he said.
“What is it?”
“I don’t want it to end.” He sniffed. Sam saw tears in his eyes, saw how he was fighting to stay in control.
She kissed him. “Let go, baby. I want you to feel good. I want you to be satisfied.”
“I don’t want to feel good if that means it has to end.”
She kissed him again, more gently, still moving. She was getting
close herself. Her body knew it was the last time and was hanging on as he was. But there was no answer to give, no answer for herself.
So she said what came to her: “I love you.”
“Then stay with me.” Softer: “I’m afraid.”
“I am, too.”
“I love you too, Sam.”
He didn’t close his eyes. She didn’t either, as sensations started to rise and overwhelm her. They met one another’s eyes, both of them moving, their rhythms falling perfectly into sync. He throbbed and pulsed up into her, she bore down on him, him giving and her receiving, him needing and her holding tight, his head rising into her bare chest and her arms wrapped around it, cradling him as they came together, savoring seconds as they leaked away anyway.
When it was over, she lay on top of him, his cock inside her, still hard. She didn’t want to roll away. The second he came out of her, it would be the end. He’d never be back inside. She wanted him forever, hers to have and hold.
“I don’t want it to end,” she said, brushing hair from his face.
“Then let’s stay this way,” he said, tracing her cheeks with a quivering finger.
She could feel his seed leaking, could feel him softening inside her.
“For how long?”
He met her eyes. “For as long as we can.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Three Years Later
Sam arrived at the small outdoor café and sat in the uncomfortable wrought iron chair across the table from Zach. He smiled, and reached into the satchel at his feet.
Sam saw him do it and rolled her eyes.
“You weren’t serious,” she said.
“Don’t give me any shit, Hollander!” he barked. He pushed the book from his satchel across the table. “This was the deal.”
“Alexander,” she corrected.
“You kept the name?”
She flopped a hand on the book. “Getting a new license is such a pain in the ass.”
But he was touched. An annoying name change wouldn’t stop Sam. She had barely taken his name when they married, and he’d heard her praise a girlfriend for taking her maiden name back after a divorce, thus “reclaiming her identity as an individual.” Zach had understood but found the implication annoying.
She took the paperback from the table. The cover showed a close up of an angel statue. Across the bridge of the statue’s nose was an understated word in all lower-case letters: relegated. Lower down was Sam’s pen name: V.F. Chase. She took a moment to look at the image, then rolled her eyes up to meet Zach’s. Finally she opened the book and said, “So how should I sign this? With my real name, or as V.F?”
“I knew Samantha Alexander,” he said.
She flipped a few pages, past the title and copyright, and signed on the wide open plain of the dedication page. Zach knew exactly what the dedication said, because even after all this time, it had still cut him like a knife when he opened it in the mail. It read, To the father of my only child. As Sam held the book open with her left hand so she could sign with her right, the diamond ring’s gleam on her third finger was too much, and he had to look away.
When she finished signing her name, Sam looked at him with a sly eye, then curled her arm around the book so he couldn’t see what she was writing. Clearly she was adding an inscription. She closed the cover and extended the book, but when he reached for it Sam pulled it back and eyed him.
“You can’t look at this until later.”
“Why?”
“I’m being mysterious,” she said. “Promise?”
He shrugged. She handed him the book, apparently taking the shrug for consent, and he slid it back into the satchel under the table.
“So how does it feel?” he said. “Being published?”
“I’ve been published for years,” she said. “In like fifty languages. That’s like … a normal day’s work.”
“I meant your book. Holding your novel in hand.”
Her sarcastic expression crumbled. “It feels great,” she admitted. “I thought I would be immune to being impressed with it all, and with the e-book I kind of was. But when I finally got the paperback finished? Well, it was a hell of a thing to open a box and see it in front of me.”
“Selling well?”
“Oh yes. I’ve sold almost six copies in the past three months.”
He laughed, then crossed one leg over the other. He looked back for the waitress, but didn’t see her. Zach didn’t really remember what she looked like. He’d been too nervous waiting to pay attention. He looked Sam over, shamelessly but jokingly, from her high-heeled shoes, up her fantastic legs, to her short skirt, to her white blouse. When he finally met the Are you done? look in her blue eyes, he nodded and said, “You look good, Sam.”
“That’s what we say, isn’t it? ‘You look good.’ That’s like the standard reunion line. I could look like hell, and you’d have to say I look good.”
“You really look good. Want to go to a hotel so I can prove it.”
Instead of answering, Sam smiled and said, “You look good, Zach.”
He straightened his shirt collar. “I know.”
She smiled. He smiled. Neither really seemed to know what to say. Then, suddenly, Sam said something as disarming as it was surprising.
“I miss you.”
He nodded. “I miss you, too.”
“I’ve thought about you a lot. A lot.”
“Did you wonder if we’d made a mistake?” His thumb stole to the place where his wedding ring had been. Only recently had he stopped wearing it. He’d taken it off for a while after she’d moved out, but it broke his heart to see it gone. As strange as it seemed, he felt sorry for the ring. It was as if, by taking it off, he was negating all it had stood for, all it had ever meant to him. But eventually, you had to move forward.
“Yes.”
“Did we?”
She shook her head. He wasn’t sure if her shake was sad or satisfied — whether she was feeling regret for their parting or pleasure that at least, in doing so, they had done the right thing.
“No. It was the right choice. But I hated it. It took me months to feel right enough to even get back into my work. That was hard, because I started to wonder, during that time, if I should go back to you. Maybe we’d been wrong.”
Zach nodded. He knew the feeling. All but the failing to get back into work. In contrast with what Sam described, the months following their separation and divorce were the most productive and artistically rewarding (and yet most painful) of his life. It was ironic that their union had inspired Sam to finally publish her book, whereas their breakup had inspired the art that had changed Zach’s trajectory forever.
“So, where are you living?” she asked. “Still in Memphis?”
“I moved back to Portland. It’s how Walter found out about … well, you know. I sure as hell wasn’t sending him photos. He came over to talk me out of a suicidal episode and saw the canvases, and the rest is history.”
“Not literally,” she said, concern on her face.
“Not literally,” he confirmed. Then, because he was Zach, he added, “He actually saw the sculptures, not the canvases.”
“I like it here in New York,” she said. “There’s always something going on.”
“Just for the record, I could have done New York. Rumor has it that there’s a small artistic community somewhere around here.”
That must have been too close to the bone, so Sam sat back and said, “I don’t want to talk about us.”
“Ouch.”
“I meant the end of us.” Again, he wanted to say Ouch. “Tell me about your movie poster deal.”
He laughed. “Ironically, you know what made that happen? Dave did. From my old office.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Hey, apparently graphic designers are artists after all. Who knew? And what’s more, they understand this marketing or merchandising thing.”
“Which was it? Marketing or merchandising?”
> He rolled his hand in circles on his wrist. “I hear they’re both in there.”
The waitress came. Zach ordered a grilled chicken salad, and Sam mocked him for it. She ordered a cheeseburger, and Zach mocked her. It was nice. They passed the meal talking about nothing in particular and everything in general, steering clear of rehashing the past now that they’d cleared it from their way. Sam asked if Zach was seeing anyone, which he wasn’t. Zach pointedly didn’t ask her the same, but she started to tell him anyway. He waved her off, pretending he didn’t see her new ring, saying that he wasn’t ready to hear it.
When the check came, Sam tried to pay, but Zach snatched it away.
“Hey,” she said. “You’re a guest in my city.”
“You were my wife.”
He wasn’t sure why he said it. It was meant as a joke, but it came out too serious. Even during their time together, they’d never been traditional, and he’d never been the breadwinner, so the idea of providing for her was laughable. She looked at him funny, then let it go, and Zach averted his eyes to search for his credit card, wondering if he’d said it to plant a flag — if he’d said it because he’d wanted to say it.
He set the card and check on the table, looking out across the city, watching the sun dip between skyscrapers. The waitress took the check, and Zach watched it go, feeling a familiar sensation of not wanting the moment to end.
“How long are you in town for?” she asked.
“Whatever I said when I messaged you on Facebook,” Zach said. “I’m far too important these days to remember such details.”
“Mmm. Because you’re an artiste.”
“‘Sometimes I wake up and I think I should start wearing a beret, but I don’t do it. One day I’m gonna, though. You bet your ass; I will have a beret on.’” Zach stopped speaking and stared at her, feeling a big grin on his face.
“You’re quoting someone, aren’t you? Is that that Mitch Hedberg guy?”
“Yep.”
“It’s not that hilarious.”
“Did I tell you the one about the 2-in-1 shampoo?”
“I’m sure it’s amazing.”
Together Apart: Change is Never Easy Page 15