The Pull of Yesterday

by Gabriella West

  Life’s not simple (yet), obviously, but I would love to see you. I got the impression that when we last met up, it made things messy for you. I don’t want that. If you can swing it, I’d love you to drive up here some evening after work and we can hang out. (Alas, it’s too cold for the pool.) It won’t be exactly like old times, but it might appeal to you. I know that it does to me. What do you think?

  M.

  Jesus Christ, I thought. I had been sending the equivalent of smoke signals out to the universe, and something had come back.

  I wanted to see him, powerfully. But I was due to see Janine at Lake Street next week, and somehow it seemed right to visit her first, not to break that date. My gut told me that after I spent time with Matt, all bets would be off. The world would change again and my simple life here in Bernal Heights with Aaron, the one I’d thought I wanted, would be shattered.

  I lay back and thought about Aaron lying in the next room. He was probably sleeping. I couldn’t hear a thing. I was tempted to go in there now and wake him and plead, “Aaron, help me, what should I do?” Beg him for clarity. But of course I couldn’t, not really. This was my call.

  My heart was bursting. They were so different. I couldn’t shuttle between them, not for long. Not forever. Perhaps Taylor and Matt would reconcile, and then my decision would be made for me. But if I didn’t see him now, I knew I’d regret it desperately and for the rest of my life. It might already be too late. I looked at the date on the message. He’d sent it the day after I’d clicked on his photo. I hated to think of him checking anxiously for my reply, waiting in frustration the same way I had been. In Internet time, at the crazy speed we all lived in now, forty-eight hours was an eternity.

  Grabbing the laptop, I typed rapidly:

  Matt—Wow! Really?? Hard to believe. Life’s full of weird shit, isn’t it? Listen, I have some time later next week, maybe Wednesday or Thursday? I was just thinking of your mom’s house tonight, wondering if I would ever go back. I still remember the address. What day/time? Just let me know and I’ll be there. Text me at 415-XXX-XXXX if you want. Would be quicker.

  I paused and then added:

  I’ve missed you and thought about you all these months, clichéd as it sounds.

  D.

  I hit send.

  It seemed unnecessary to say it, though. I felt like he knew.

  6.

  When I woke up the next morning, Saturday, the first thing I did was grab my phone.

  He had already texted me.

  Hey there. Thursday around 7 is good. We’ll feed you. My mom will be out for a few hours, so we’ll have lots of time and space to catch up!--M.

  I kept looking at it and smiling. Ridiculous, I thought. You’re being ridiculous.

  With a spring in my step, I dressed for work. I walked into the kitchen, watching Aaron at the sink, his back to me, the sunlight streaming in and lighting up his hair. He moved quietly, slowly, as if his mind was on other things.

  “Breakfast’s on the table,” he said very softly. I glanced at the table. He’d laid out a plate for me and covered it, to keep it warm.

  I waited for him to turn, which he did slowly. His eyes looked slightly puffy and dark-circled and I wondered for a moment if he’d been crying.

  I swallowed nervously, not sure what to do. Should I tell him now?

  “What is it?” Aaron asked. His voice was practically a whisper.

  “I’m seeing Matt on Thursday.” My voice sounded too firm, too jarring compared to his. I took another breath. “For dinner after work.”

  Aaron gave a deep sigh. He just looked at me.

  “Okay,” he said.

  It was clearly as neutral as he could make it.

  I crossed the room suddenly and hugged him, just knowing that I shouldn’t hang back now. He accepted my hug and leaned against me for a moment.

  “I didn’t sleep well,” he confessed.

  “Oh. Well, it’s good you get the day to rest.”

  “I missed you in bed.”

  “Sorry,” I answered.

  Thing is, I was sorry. I regretted what I was putting him through. And yet I couldn’t stop.

  “I’ll be fine,” Aaron said in a more detached tone. He sat down at the table and sipped some coffee. “You should eat.”

  I sat down and began eating what turned out to be an omelet, glancing up at him every now and then. His eyes didn’t give much away.

  “I might go see someone myself,” he said finally.

  My fork froze on the way to my mouth. “What?”

  “A shrink, I mean,” Aaron said. “It’s about time to go back to therapy.”

  His usual humor wasn’t there, I noted.

  “Aaron, it’s just dinner,” I babbled.

  He shook his head slightly. “It seems more than that to me. I’m going to need someone to talk to about it, if it goes on.”

  Now I felt awful. I ate steadily, my eyes on my plate.

  “You’re not telling me everything, are you,” Aaron said. There was such dispassion in his tone.

  So this was how it would be, I thought. It was his version of a jealous rage.

  Eyes on plate, I answered, “Matt’s marriage is in trouble. He’s living back with his mom.”

  I forced myself to look up and meet his eyes.

  “Well...” Aaron gave a gesture I could only interpret as resigned, hopeless. “I shouldn’t have told you about yoga-class guy.”

  “It’s not about the guy you fucked from your yoga class, Aaron! This has been brewing for some time.”

  He nodded. “I should have known. The way you split from Janine was way too easy. You were never really with her, were you?”

  I didn’t answer, shaking my head slightly.

  “It’s always been Matt,” Aaron said. The words hung in the air.

  I got up and walked over to the sink. I didn’t want to hear any more.

  “It’s a shock to me as well,” I said from the safety of the sink as I scrubbed my dish, looking out into the charming little garden that we spent so little time in. With us, it was always work, eating together, sex, and sleep. A few idle conversations with the neighbors were our only link to community. We shopped together sometimes, but barely went out otherwise. It was just so easy to stay in. I’d never met any of his co-workers. He hadn’t met mine. I’d only seen Tessa, his sister, that one time. She’d stayed in LA for Christmas.

  “Dave,” Aaron said.

  I turned around, bracing for whatever it was.

  “You’re free to do whatever you want, but it’s going to take a toll on us.” He stood up restlessly, his face tense. “Actually, I think it’s going to break us.”

  I had no answer. I just stared. While I felt an urge to comfort him, I felt an equal urge to draw back.

  “It could,” I murmured. “I just have to go. I have to see him again.”

  “Make it quick, then,” Aaron said. “If you decide to leave, don’t drag it out. That’s not Matt’s style anyway, is it?”

  “I don’t really know what his style is,” I answered.

  Then I added, forcing out the words with difficulty, “Aaron, I don’t want to leave you.”

  He nodded and, as if making a decision, walked up to me and kissed me gently on the lips.

  “Have a good day at work, then,” he said. “I’m going back to bed.”

  ***

  The weekend had me in a daze. I tried to stay in the present, and the Museum was busy-ish, but I was feeling this odd mixture of scared and exhilarated, and I knew I wasn’t taking as much in as usual.

  Aaron and I slept apart again that night, and the next, and I began to realize that it had become a habit.

  Since I had Monday off, I’d asked Janine if she wanted to meet then, and she said sure.

  That particular stretch of Lake Street looked the same under cloudy skies, drab and joyless, but I liked the private feeling I had as I stood on her steps to ring the buzzer. No one would see me here; no one cared what
I did. Upstairs, in what used to be our apartment, Janine and I hugged for a long time.

  She was wearing the red fuzzy sweater that she’d said goodbye to me in last summer. And a pair of black pants that I thought were called jeggings, I wasn’t sure.

  “Are these jeggings?” I asked curiously.

  “Yup.” She giggled. “I see you’re as detached from women’s fashion as ever.”

  She led me to the couch where Tom was perched comfortably. He lifted his head wearily, as if to say, “Oh. You’re back.”

  “I worried he’d be unfriendly,” I said, petting him.

  “He doesn’t like Guillermo,” Janine answered. We sat on either side of Tom, making light conversation, smiling at each other. She offered me a drink in a shot glass and I accepted. I barely tasted it, though, as I gulped it down. The warmth as it hit me felt good.

  “They don’t like new people, do they.”

  “Not much. Guillermo’s more of a dog person. Tom can tell, I guess.”

  “Did you have a good weekend?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Busy. You know. It’s cool you have today off. I can stay until 1.30.” She checked her watch. “It’s nice. We have some time.”

  I nodded. I felt self-conscious, tongue-tied, and yet it wasn’t bad because so little seemed to be riding on it. It was what it was, and I wasn’t sure what that meant yet, but I didn’t feel that anything we could do would alter Aaron’s and my relationship. It seemed so completely external to it.

  “How are you?” Janine asked abruptly.

  I paused for a moment. Her blue eyes were gentle, her hands careful as she stroked Tom, who had been known to bite sharply suddenly if he got annoyed.

  It all came out in a rush. My hands clenched on my thighs, I blurted out, “I don’t know. The more I know about myself, the more difficult it seems to be. I thought Aaron was it, but the feelings I have for Matt are greater—they’re more overpowering. I get turned on by the thought of seeing him, and I know I used to feel that way about Aaron, and it’s gone. I care about him. I love him, maybe. But I don’t feel in love with him now. He thinks it’s because he confessed an infidelity to me, but it’s not that. But he’s given me so much and he wants me in his world. I can’t imagine being in Matt’s world.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t have a world, as much as you think?” Janine suggested.

  “Well, it’s true he’s living back with his mother. His marriage sounds like it’s over.”

  She gasped. “No way! They just got married, right?”

  I nodded. “Less than six months ago. When I met him again, the date was already set and everything. I shouldn’t have slept with him—I’m sure it messed things up on some level.”

  “Just the fact that he wanted to sleep with you...” Janine pointed out with some humor.

  “Yes, all right, but I didn’t have to go for it! I thought it was my last chance to ever do it.”

  “Is he a top?” Her eyes were still smiling and I nodded ruefully.

  “Yep, he sure is.”

  She shrugged. “Well, that’s a big clue.”

  “It shouldn’t come down to the roles, should it? I thought Aaron and I had great sex, and we still sometimes do, but it’s not the same.”

  “Aaron’s more like your girlfriend, I suppose,” Janine mused. “And you have a track record of not being happy with that.”

  She put her hand gently on mine. “Just breathe, Dave. You look so anxious.”

  I breathed in and out, squeezing her hand. “You should have been a nurse, Janine.”

  “Ooh, sexy,” she said, crossing her legs, which had been tucked under her. “Fair enough, though, I don’t mind a bit of physical contact.”

  She was gathering data, I thought. The data would probably tell her that it wasn’t a good time to come on to me. But I wasn’t sure.

  “I’m not trying to flirt,” she said gently, “and it’s weird you being back here, but it’s sort of nice all the same.”

  “It’s really peaceful,” I said, looking around at what I had once dismissed as a shabby dump, the place where I’d spent almost five years of my life. Little touches softened and brightened it now, like a glossy new coffee maker in the corner of the kitchen, a small wooden table with colorful chairs that hadn’t been there, new vinyl records on a shelf, some tapestry-like cloth hung on the wall. I took it all in while remaining mostly focused on the warmth of Janine’s hand, the purring cat nearby, the clock ticking in the kitchen.

  “You’re happy with Guillermo,” I mused. The living room seemed to radiate their happiness, which was quite strange because when I’d been living there, it had radiated the opposite.

  “Happy, yeah. But I’m not straight. I identify as omnisexual now... It’s a new label. I feel comfortable with it. It’s not really about either men or women, it’s the sexual exchange. So I do love him, but I’d be quite open to going to bed with another person, or people. But it doesn’t have to be in the same desperate way I did it when I was with you. And I’m sorry for that. Sorry for acting out. With Mike, particularly.”

  “Did that end badly?” I asked after a moment.

  She nodded. “Kind of sourly. He asked me to meet him in his office at the Museum last fall, so I went up the stairs to that private area, walked down the hall, and peeked in the door, which was half open. And then to my astonishment, I saw him with another woman. Screwing, I mean. I just...” She shook her head. “I bolted out of there. “It was so graphic. I can still see her skirt hiked up, her brown thighs.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  “He introduced me to her once.” She thought. “Not his wife, obviously. This chick was called Irena, something like that.”

  “Elena?” I said at once with a sinking feeling.

  She nodded. “Yeah, that’s it. Elena. She was prissy when I met her. Not so much in Mike’s office. I think he did it to show me that I wasn’t the only one, his only fling, I mean. So I wasn’t meant to take myself too seriously. But I didn’t see him after that. I just blew him off, which wasn’t too hard because he wasn’t particularly eager.”

  She picked at some lint on her pants.

  “I think he’s a player and doesn’t like women much. But a lot of men are like that.”

  “I’m friends with Elena’s boyfriend,” I said with a sigh. “I think Mike must get a kick out of doing women who are taken.”

  She nodded. “Once you’d left me, he cooled down noticeably. It wasn’t as fun. But I slept with a bunch of men, Dave, after you left. And one butch woman, which was a kick, whom I met online. I got it all out of my system after about a month and then I met Guillermo. He couldn’t have been more understanding. More lovely.”

  A silence fell.

  “Do you want another drink?” she asked.

  Tom chose that moment to get up with a great show of stretching and preening and hop lightly off the couch. He wandered out the door toward his food bowl.

  Janine nestled closer to me.

  “The Museum’s another thing,” I said, staring into space. “I like it, but it’s a nest of vipers. Latest thing is, I’ve had Wendy getting physical with me.”

  She giggled. “What is it you do to get all this attention, Dave? You look so innocent.”

  “I didn’t do anything to her,” I clarified. “For a while it really felt like a real friendship between us. But I suppose that’s naive.”

  “Choose your friends wisely,” Janine murmured.

  “I’m scared, I suppose,” I admitted with a sigh. “The job could blow up; my relationship could go south.”

  “I think there’s more solidity to these things than you think.”

  It was comforting to hear. I felt her hand bringing my hand to her breast, then pulling her sweater up to reveal a black lacy bra I’d always particularly loved. Her nipples stuck out from the thin fabric enticingly.

  “I thought you’d like to play with them a little.” Her words were so simple, and I took her breasts in my hands, f
eeling the round shapes as if they were mysterious marvels.

  “They used to be so mundane to you,” Janine joked.

  “Not now,” I said.

  “You haven’t been with a woman since me? Besides Wendy, I mean.”

  “Of course not.”

  I unhooked the bra and her bare breasts stood before me in all their glory. They were something I had taken for granted, but I now belatedly saw their beauty. Her beauty. My mouth was dry.

  She was always good at choreographing our scenes together. With Aaron, I hardly noticed the way we moved toward each other. It was so natural. With Janine I was always aware of her movements, her desires, and my own choice as to whether to accommodate her or not. Today, in the quiet apartment, I decided to enjoy her and see how far I could go. Maybe I wouldn’t get hard. But I was already half hard. Maybe one of us would pull back.

  “I don’t want to do this in the bedroom,” Janine said, falling back onto the couch and straightening her legs. I lay on top of her, my heart beating. I felt like a teenager.

  I kissed and sucked reverently on her nipples, and I lost track of time. After a while, we were rubbing naked skin against skin, clad only in underwear. She was so soft and silky: I’d forgotten.

  “We can just make out,” Janine murmured. “It might be better, that way you don’t have to tell Aaron you fucked me.”

  “I’ll finger you,” I said. I slipped my hand in under the elastic of her panties and before long she was writhing underneath me, my fingers moving deep in her hot core.

  I loved hearing the sounds of her throaty moans. It gave me a strange rush when she came. This is right, I thought. I’ve pleasured her; we can stop here...