by Lulu Wright
Oh, fuck yes. That’s the ticket. Applying those kegel moves again, I do the same and feel a rush of sensation throughout my body. The cold air. The hot, bubbling water. The pulsing of his dick. He rocks me back and forth, and his dick grinds against the front wall of my tight pussy, digging into my G-spot with every slide of our bodies against one another.
Pretty soon I’m gasping, my vision tunneling, no thought for being seen. I don’t care if someone notices. This feels fucking amazing.
Frictionless sex rules. Who knew?
His breath is red hot in my ear and his skin against mine is rough and hot. As if he can read my mind, as if he can read my body, he kneads and massages my breasts and kisses my neck at just the right moment. God, this is good.
“I can’t wait to bury myself in your tits.”
I feel the mounting pressure. This orgasm is different. Totally internal, all G-spot. It feels tantric, but I cum just as hard.
After he slides his cock out of me I stay on his lap, completely melded to his body, my cheek resting against his. “When we get to Miami,” he murmurs, “I am going to do so many filthy things to you, you won’t be able to walk for a week.”
When Saturday rolls around, I’m grateful for the break and plan to sleep in until I smell bacon. Mark and I are leaving for Miami tomorrow, so I have to do some last minute shopping and then I have to pack. At some point, I have to drop off rent checks—plural—for Geo to cover rent and bills while I’m gone.
But I don’t smell bacon. In fact, I don’t hear Mark’s usual morning routine at all. The house is eerily silent.
I open my eyes and see him sitting on the bedroom sofa, facing away from me. Odd. It hits me that there was no dick experimentally prodding my ass this morning, or kisses on my neck. None of his typical sex come-ons. Maybe he’s not in the mood?
“Good morning,” I say, but he doesn’t respond or turn his head. Maybe he’s meditating or something?
The fire must have died in the night because it’s chilly in the house. I wrap a sheet around my naked body and walk to the sofa. “Mark?”
I stand in front of him. He’s awake, but his face holds no expression. His eyes are cast to the side and bloodshot, and it almost looks like he may have been crying. A wave of sympathy and dread washes over me. “Is it Stanley?” I reach out to touch his arm, but his body recoils from my hand. I draw back in shock. “Talk to me, Mark. What’s wrong?”
He turns his gaze to me. His eyes are cold and his jaw is clenched so tight his temple is popping. He takes a ragged breath and turns his head away.
“You need to get the fuck out.”
“What? Why?” I clutch the sheet around me tighter because suddenly I feel so cold. This can’t be happening.
He glares at me for a few strange moments and then slowly rises from the sofa. “The car service is outside. Go.”
“Mark, tell me what’s going on, please.”
Wordlessly, he walks to the dining room table and picks up a box. As he presses it to my naked chest, he glares at me. “Get dressed and get out,” he says, barely moving his mouth. “I never want to see you again.”
The wind is knocked out of me as I watch him walk to the bathroom and slam the door.
Numb. That’s the only thing I feel. Last night was bubbles and hot tub sex. After we dried off, we talked of the future as we fell asleep in each other’s arms. The last thing he said to me was “I am so happy.” I can still feel his whisker burns on my skin and smell the jacuzzi chlorine in my hair.
Why the sudden change? It makes no sense. What could have happened during the night?
Paranoia dances in. Maybe, I think, maybe this romance was all some long con, some ruse he’s been planning for years. He’s hated me since high school and when he saw me again he came up with a revenge plan. He did say I hurt him in high school. Was this all payback? He planned to make me fall in love with him, so he could break my heart. It that it? Could he possibly be that conniving?
No. Impossible. Not Mark.
Images flash in my brain in quick succession, of Mark kissing me. Making love to me. Cooking breakfast for me. Baring his soul to me. Telling me he loves me.
No. There is no way that could have been fake. I know it in my heart. It’s something else, but what? I have no clue.
I stood outside the closed bathroom door and begged him to talk to me for almost an hour, but he wouldn’t come out of the bathroom and he wouldn’t say a word.
My face must be a mess, because my Uber driver asks me if I am OK three times before we hit the 17. “Yeah,” I mutter. “Fine.”
Not fine. Heartbroken. Freaked out. Lost.
To have something to do with my hands, I pull out my phone. I need something else to think of. Like current events. Or the weather or something.
Taylor Swift has a new boyfriend.
We are bombing some place I have never heard of
And, on the tab where I have saved a search of my name and Mark’s together, because I always liked seeing the pics the diehards snap of us…
Oh. My. God.
No.
By the time I get home, I have played the audio clip a thousand times. After I let myself into my apartment, it’s pitch-dark. “Geo?” I call, but there is no answer.
I sit on the couch and play the audio clip again, this time patching it into the wifi speaker system. Why not torture myself further by hearing it in Bose’s optimum quality rich sound?
My voice, my drunken slur, fills every corner of the apartment and fucks with the beats of my heart.
“Mark Carrington.” I croak his name like I’m some ancient hag. “Mark Carrington is from the sticks in west New Jersey. You have no idea. We are talking gnarly neighborhood, gross as hell level sticks. So much worse than Jersey Shore.”
“But his family was okay, right?” a male voice prompts. The voice is kind, the tone sugary.
“God no.” I laugh. I fucking laugh. “His father committed suicide in Rahway prison when Mark was like five. He was in for armed robbery. And his mother is even worse.”
“In what way?” Who the fuck is that? Who am I talking to?
“Ugh. His fucking mother. Drug addict. Thief and, get this, a hooker to boot. Real fucking winner. Mom of the year.”
“Wow,” the man says.
Yep. That’s me. The memory is foggy, but it starts to come back to me now. This clip is from the event that announced Mark’s debut on W-ALT. I drank like a fish.
Tommy. Shit. Tommy Pizza, that’s his voice, I recognize it now. He asked me those questions and I answered them like an idiot.
That night I felt the sting of high school humiliation and Mark’s apparent dismissive attitude—he pretended to not know me and I lashed out in drunken butt-hurtness. But I am not stupid. I should have known better than to tell Tommy all that shit.
I done fucked up and I fucked up royally.
My stomach feels like it’s turning inside out.
Then there’s the picture. The fucking picture that I find a few minutes later, searching the fallout results online. Somehow Tommy Pizza snapped a selfie when he forced that gross kiss on me. A frozen second of an attack, but that’s not what it looks like. It looks like we are fully, consensually making out.
Fuck. It looks like I planned this whole thing with Tommy on purpose. Some kind of twisted revenge.
And the commentary on the internet is awful. Basically, the general consensus is that I fucked over Mark, and not just that, but I planned to fuck over Mark with Tommy. I am a backstabber. I screwed him over.
No article I find dates the clip or names Tommy Pizza as the ‘mysterious good friend of Mark Carrington,’ but I am sure Mark at least will recognize him from the picture. Even if Tommy’s face is mostly blocked by mine in that stupid kiss shot.
As far as anyone knows, the recording and that picture were taken yesterday. Tommy gets out of this scot free. My crucifixion is being called for from the Bronx to East LA. DListed says I faked an affair with Mark
to further my career and started the one with “this new guy” to further it still. Someone else speculates that I was dating this guy all along, and used Mark as a leg-up.
Wow.
And from what I can see online, the Bad Boy at Bat is now the subject of sympathy and support. The hunk with the broken heart, whereas I am evil personified.
Oh, god.
Someone has started a website called RoseTaylorisaBitch.com. And wow, the hashtags.
#Backstabbing
#donttrustnowoman
#hoisho
Awesome.
Well, I guess I’ve found one way out of my contract with Halcyon. There is no way I won’t get fired over this. No way whatsoever. At this point I feel like they would fire me, then rehire me immediately just to fire me again. I am that fired.
And I don’t even care, because that’s the least of my problems right now.
As I pace my apartment, I leave Mark the world’s longest voice mail that mostly has the phrase I’m sorry a million times. I try to explain. I was drunk. Upset. It was before we started talking again. Before we said a word to each other. The night you pretended not to know me and I was hurt and a fucking idiot and hey, remember that conversation we had about self-esteem?
That was from before I got to know you. The real you.
The voicemail cuts off before I can tell him I love him, though. Because I do, I realize. That’s why I’m panicking so hard right now, that’s why I feel torn in two over losing him. But I realize it’s too late.
Too little, too late.
24
Mark
Rose left two hours ago, or rather I threw her ass out two hours ago. She begged and pleaded and bargained outside my bathroom door for an hour after I shut myself in there to get away from her. I only listened to about five minutes of her whining. Then I put my earphones on and I blasted speed metal to drown her out and did crunches on my bathroom floor. By the time I finally finished counting from 100 to 0 four times over, she was gone.
I can’t believe what an idiot I am. But Rose, she must really think I am dumb. I don’t buy for a second that she changed her mind about me since high school. She still thinks she can talk her way out of this. She and her giant brain and even bigger ego.
She keeps ringing my landline over and over and filling up my voicemail with enough messages to knock Verizon offline. I have zero interest in listening to them. I delete them all without listening. I don’t want to hear her voice ever again.
At least I know how she really feels about me now.
And she banged Tommy Pizza, too. That picture of them sucking face is all over the place. Of all the fucking people to fuck me over with, she had to pick him?
I should have known. In high school she really did think I was beneath her in class and smarts. And then, years later, I run into her again when I’m rich and famous and suddenly she thinks I’m awesome. She spread her legs on demand and sucked my dick when asked. It felt too good to be true because duh, of course it fucking was.
Who would have thought Miss Above It All Rose Taylor was no better than a Baseball Annie?
It was one thing for her to talk shit about me, but did she have to drag my mother into it? She blew up my whole past in one drunken instant. Stanley worked his ass off to keep my mom’s past out of the press for years, and her numerous mug shots off the internet. Not sure what he did exactly, but he always hinted that was a herculean task, no walk in the park. He called in tons of favors on my behalf. And Rose’s mouth goes and blows it in a snap. Mom’s arrest records are all over the internet.
How the fuck is that going to help her recovery?
Chump. Fool. Sap.
My chest hurts, right around the heart. For a while, I worry I’m going to have a heart attack like Stanley, but then the pain turns to heat and gushes through every inch of my body. It’s like my skin is on fire. The anger feels like it’s stuck in my throat, strangling me, not letting me breathe.
The phone, still in my hand, must die.
I smash the phone on the floor and feel instant gratification, followed by an immediate stab of regret.
No. Those days are over. No more breaking shit.
100, 99, 98… Grab control of the breath.
90, 89… Steady your hands
I go to my pantry and pull out a new phone. I keep several in there because during my temper tantrums, my phone is usually the first thing to get destroyed. But I need my phone. What if Bev calls about Stan? What if my mom calls?
What if I need a pizza?
I plug the new phone in and call the number I need to call right now.
“Hello, Mark. How is that delicious cock of yours?”
“Hi, Deborah.”
“So, I heard the news and…”
“Who hasn’t….”
“Want me to come over and comfort you?”
I think of Deborah. She’s a little older, about 30. She’s been a reliable fuck buddy for a couple of years, and a diehard for the last one. She will do anything and I mean anything in the sack. She would get her sweet ass over here and offer me any hole, no questions asked. All I have to do is open the door and remember to pronounce her name Deborah and not Deb-rah. I wouldn’t even need to talk to her outside of that. All I have to do is point at my dick.
But…I just don’t want to fuck her. I’m not sure why. The thought of it makes my stomachache even worse.
Why did I even bother to call?
“I’m sorry, this was a mistake. Goodbye, Deb.”
I hang up. OK. Two strikes out. I am back at bat and I gotta hit this one out of the park. I know what I have to do, precisely because I don’t know what to do.
Todd answers in three rings. I don’t give him time to say hello.
“Hey, it’s Mark. Think you can fit me in for an emergency session?” I pause and take a breath. “Please.”
A few moments pass and Todd says nothing. I squeeze the phone and notice my hand and face are slick with sweat. “OK,” he finally says. “Give me about an hour to get out there.”
“Thanks, man.”
After I hang up, I realize how long an hour is—forever. I look down at the arm of my sofa and see one solitary hair. Rose’s. Did it shed from her when she shook her hair out last night, dressed in that bikini? Did it get trapped in my fingers as I was running them through her hair? Or land there when I carried her in from the hot tub to lay her down on the couch and kiss her senseless?
Fuck.
I pluck the honey colored strand from the upholstery and wrap it around my finger tight. How much of her is left in this place? What else will I find of her in the next few weeks, few months? A stray bobby pin on the night stand. Flecks of makeup on the vanity. A fingerprint on the sliding glass door.
I flex my finger and the strand snaps. Something inside me snaps too. Anger from deep inside rushes to the surface like a volcano. My bones rattle in rage, my heart pounds and my flesh is cooking.
My eyes dart to the TV and I think how great it will look with the phone thrown through it. I look at the new coffee table before me and wonder if I can split it in half with one kick. That wall ten feet from me could stand some holes punched in it.
No. No. No.
After I take enough deep breaths to make myself damn near lightheaded, I rise from the couch and walk to my piano. I crack my knuckles and bang out my pain and despair.
Todd clicks his pen over his notepad a few times and stares at me. He looks tired. He looks like he just threw on random clothes to get here as fast as he could. I appreciate the effort and to show him how thankful I am, I’m going to do my best in this 911 session. He clears his throat.
“What are you feeling right now?”
“Nauseous,” I blurt out.
He keeps his eyes on me and nods. “That’s a physical response to emotion. I need you to tell me, specifically, the emotions you are experiencing right now.”
I crack my knuckles. I can do this. I can list words.
But then I
find I can’t. I just nod my head and look away, embarrassed I have taken this man away from his newborn kid and wife on a Saturday afternoon just to get nowhere. Fuck.
He sighs. “We need the emotion sheet, don’t we?”
I feel like a kindergartener as he pulls a piece of paper out of his briefcase and hands it to me. On it is a list of endless words. “Which emotions are you feeling?”
“All of them,” I say and thrust the paper back to him.
He waves me off. “No, tell me which.”
I look at the paper again. So many words. All the words in the dictionary. All the words in the world. All the words that ever existed. I try to wrap my tongue around one and find I can’t speak. Some frog has jumped in my throat and there’s something in my eye. Glancing at the paper, I spot a word that strikes and point to it.
“Hurt,” Todd says. “Continue.”
I find another.
“Humiliated.”
I tap the sheet several more times.
“Sad. Angry. Confused. Betrayed.”
Looking over the sheet I take a big breath and slowly let it out. “And,” I say, clearing the frog away. “And screwed over. And stupid. And wondering why I fell for that, why I thought she actually cared…” I take another breath. “And alone.” I lean back on my sofa and let my body go limp. Who would have thought that the simple act of pointing out words on a page would be so exhausting.
“Good,” he says with a nod. “Let’s unpack those feelings.”
25
Rose
When I wake up on the couch, my phone is clenched in my hand and the same Irma Thomas song loops on the Bose, a perfect song to describe my dread. Yes, Irma, it is raining so hard. Shutting my eyes tight, I roll around with the intention of staying on the couch forever in a mind-numbing sleep.
Jarred awake by fingers poking my shoulder, I open my eyes to Geo standing over me with her hands on her hips.
“Where have you been?” I ask. My voice sounds cracked and weak. Saying nothing, she marches to the kitchen with heavy stomps of her boots. She didn’t take off her Doc Martens. The no shoes in the house rules is her thing, not mine. Why? What now?
Aching and sore, I roll off the couch, turn off Irma and hobble to the kitchen. “Where have you…”