Mary Ann Rivers

by The Story Guy

  GearTattoo: No, you’re not. But, you asked me who was first?

  lieberries: Yes.

  GearTattoo: She’s how I know there isn’t room right now, not at all, maybe not ever, for a relationship. There is this something else in my life I have to be 100 percent available for. I have this friend at work … she was complaining one day that she was thinking of getting a date, any date, just for the end-of-date kiss. She didn’t want to date just then, but missed kissing. I found myself, all of a sudden, offering her just the kiss, not the date. I didn’t want to date, either. So we started eating lunch together, once or twice a week, except we didn’t eat, we—you know.

  Oh, I know. I catch myself touching my mouth again. I catch myself jealous over this work friend.

  lieberries: You’re still a long way from asking for it on MetroLink in this story.

  GearTattoo: I hurt her. Because after a few weeks of those not-eating lunches, she wanted more. Because there were those moments, like what I just told you about, that I could convince myself that I could have more.

  I am still waiting after another handful of long minutes, and then I can’t stand it.

  lieberries: But you couldn’t?

  GearTattoo: No.

  lieberries: I’m sorry.

  GearTattoo: I was, too. And I missed those lunches … I can’t at all blame her for wanting what should have been a natural development. But I still needed the escape (?) I guess.

  lieberries: Anticipation, too, maybe? Because I can tell you that has been …

  GearTattoo: Yes. That.

  lieberries: So you …

  GearTattoo: Several months later, that same friend, I was lucky we were able to put some of our friendship back together, emailed me a MetroLink ad similar to the one I posted, except it was a little more … more, I guess. A thinly veiled request for a hookup or affair or something. She meant it as a joke, but I couldn’t leave it alone. I posted my first ad impulsively, tried to make it safe-seeming, and within an hour got a response.

  I know exactly how irresistible his ad was. How answering it satisfies some ache of restlessness yet makes room for a smug sense of safety. How his picture is more a portrait, interpretable.

  lieberries: Who was she?

  GearTattoo: Nine months pregnant, but single through her pregnancy, or so she said.

  I laugh. My God, people are crazy!

  lieberries: Wow.

  GearTattoo: Yeah. She missed kissing, was lonely. Of course, lonely. And it’s not easy to date when you’re pregnant. She cried at the end, both times we met. One time, her baby kicked against me while we kissed.

  lieberries: But you only met twice?

  GearTattoo: Yeah. She had her baby, though I didn’t know that until she emailed me a few weeks later, after she didn’t show up for our third meeting. But I kind of figured. I was glad she answered my ad, and she was the one who ended the arrangement by not showing up, but I liked that I could serve some purpose in that part of her life. She was right on the edge of needing to be everything to another person, losing a part of herself to motherhood and taking care of a baby, meeting all of its needs, and I got to be this one person to meet one of hers. It felt … mortal. I don’t know. It was the first time in trying to do this thing I felt kind of noble, I guess. If not selfless, at least like I was meeting someone halfway who might comprehend the full scope of an escape longed for.

  lieberries: Wow. I think it’s … rare, to get exactly what it is you ask for. I haven’t dated, seriously dated, in a long time because I felt like without even meaning to, I was making some kind of request for some specific kind of love, and instead of that love, the love I needed, I would get another kind. Like, I would need … daisy love, you know, pretty love, sweet love that nonetheless was ubiquitous in roadside ditches in the summertime, and instead I would get orchid love. Love that needed misting and replanting and pruning and fertilizing and died anyway. So I stopped asking, and it was okay, except I’ve been feeling like I don’t have enough … of something. I don’t know. And I found your ad. And you put it right there in black and white what you were asking for. But it occurs to me, I don’t know if I am what you were asking for. And I haven’t been asking for anything.

  The problem with the wee hours is that there is just no way your brain can be operating normally.

  GearTattoo: One other, before you.

  I let out the breath I had been holding. It’s been so hard to remember not to hold it.

  lieberries: Tell me about her.

  GearTattoo: Ahem … him.

  I choke on a mouthful of wine.

  lieberries: Are you? Not that … you know.

  GearTattoo: I’m not, you know, but he’s who answered, and right before I was getting ready to tell him no, because I’m not, I thought … well … I just found myself telling him where and when.

  lieberries: AND?

  GearTattoo: He didn’t speak a lot of English, but I got the sense he was in some kind of big corporate business. I’d have to sell a vital organ to afford the suit he was wearing. It wasn’t … unpleasant. But all my thoughts were still right there, bothering me, keeping me from flying away, and it was awkward enough that he kept having to … reinitiate, I guess you’d say. It was basically not clinical, but something like that. We stopped before the end of the lunch hour because I jumped when he moaned.

  I kind of cough-giggle at that.

  lieberries: Did he show up the next Wednesday?

  GearTattoo: I don’t know. I didn’t.

  Oh. It hits me. I could walk into the park any Wednesday, and he’d just be gone. And I’d never see him again. And maybe if I checked MetroLink after finding an empty pergola, his new ad would be posted, but not for me.

  lieberries: I told a friend about you tonight. I thought he was going to tell me not to meet you again.

  GearTattoo: But he didn’t … he didn’t, right?

  lieberries: No. He, in fact, was the one who told me to message you tonight. He thinks you may have a story and that you will contribute some kind of glitter to my life that I won’t be able to forget.

  GearTattoo: If I have a story it’s a sad and boring one. And if there is glitter, you’re supplying it. I’m not sorry you messaged me tonight, and I’m glad to answer your questions about why I do this, but with little exception, I’d rather talk about you. I’d rather hear about your daisies and orchids and your library. I hope Wednesdays only will be what you’re asking for. I hope on Wednesday, you’ll come. I hope you’ll message me again, but that next time, you’ll answer my questions about you. Carrie, I have to go now.

  Sigh.

  lieberries: Good night. But wait. Can I ask why the “above the shoulders” thing? I mean, it probably did let me know that you were thinking about safety, but you know, after the first Wednesday when everything’s copacetic …

  GearTattoo: It’s part of my problem with one-night stands. And why I hurt my friend at work. If kissing is the beginning and not the entire point …

  lieberries: Then you end up with all those complications you don’t want.

  GearTattoo: Good night, Carrie. I’ll wait for you Wednesday.

  He didn’t write that he’d see me Wednesday. Gently keeping the scepter in my hands, as ever. His name just went dark. I somehow doubt that whatever story he’s a part of includes rest or sleep. For at least a while, I think I’ll stay awake and keep vigil with him.

  Wednesday, 12:07 p.m.

  His mouth is so hot and seems determined to investigate every square centimeter from behind my left ear to my nape. My hands are gripping the front of his soft V-neck sweater, my face is against his neck, his pulse is fluttering against my lips, and sometimes my tongue. His hands are gripping his own knees, tight, even as we lean in to each other. Every second, I am hating his “above the shoulders” rule more. It hurts. It hurts so bad.

  He moves to look in my eyes and everything below the belt swoops, then his big hands are around my face and he’s angled to brush his mou
th against my lips. I reach up to put my hands over his.

  I hook my fingers between his and when I feel his tongue just touch mine, I drag his hands down, and they rake over the sides of my neck, and his kiss gets deep, and when it’s deeper and I feel squirmy, I pull his hands down until his fingerprints are grazing my collarbone and the heels of his hands are tucked deep in the fabric of my neckline. God. He freezes as I arch into his hands.

  “Don’t,” I tell him, in case he starts to move away. “Please touch me.”

  His breath is so fast against my chin. My blood is thudding to the surface of my skin in round waves. He groans, the sound of it so loud inside the pergola, and I’ve got to press against something to hold me together.

  Our tongues and teeth meet before our lips do, and thank you, I feel his hands press against me, just a little, but he drags them back up again and it makes me almost angry and I bite his lower lip.

  He drags his mouth to the corner of mine and whispers, “Touch me anywhere, please, but I can’t—” He’s begging me, and his fingers are completely woven in my hair, restless against my scalp.

  He’s going to follow his own rules, and I had been trying to meet him there, stay on some kind of equal terms, hoping trust might move this out of our pergola and into his complications, but fuck that. If he’s only going to give me an hour once a week, and I’m never going to feel his beautiful, white-knuckled hands on my body, I am going to make him so very, very sorry.

  “Shhh,” I say, as if I am going to soothe him. He goes back to my neck, shuddering, kissing softly under my chin. I stretch into the kiss, sigh, and then I tug the hem of the dress shirt under his sweater and drag it out of his waistband, the cotton shushing, the buttons clicking, one by one, past his belt buckle.

  “Carrie,” he growls. It is a warning and a plea. My name in his desperate mouth. I feel bad. So gorgeously bad. I want this to hurt.

  Our breaths are mixing, his forehead against mine, our lips just touching. His hands are still wrapped around my skull. Right before I slide my hands up over his belly, I reach my tongue into his mouth and it’s so wet and hot and the sound he makes so delicious and helpless that my brain lightens and spins, until I come back to myself again when I feel the skin of his belly, his chest. He’s sweating, the hair damp, the muscles bunched tight. Oh. It’s me doing this to him.

  We’re still in a park. A family park. Outside. My torture is limited to what I can hide between our bodies. I circle his rough and pointed nipples with the tips of my middle fingers. He gasps and his hips jerk toward mine, just a little.

  He tips my head up and takes my mouth, slowly. Softly. He wants to find the eye in this storm. But I won’t let him.

  I slick one hand down, down his middle, his skin and muscles shivering under my touch, until I can trace his navel with my thumbnail. Dip inside. With my other hand, I explore the smooth skin of his side, how his pecs give way to the warm hollow under his arm. I let two fingers dip under his waistband, and there is the thinnest slice of a second where I think, but can’t be sure, that my fingertip grazes something blazing hot.

  I won’t know, because he’s holding me away from him, and I don’t protest because I have a contact high and need the rosy haze in front of my vision to clear.

  I’m arm’s length now, but the way our gazes are locked, I feel like we’re still pressed together. His cheeks are red, the deep divot of his cupid’s bow is puffy. His glasses are seriously crooked.

  The impulse to torment him has given way to a craving to spoil him, coddle him, get on my knees for him, and let him use my mouth to completely let go. I slide toward him, but the squeeze he gives my shoulders stops me.

  “Hold on.” He rubs up and down my upper arms, a little outside his territory, and it further tenderizes me. I reach up to touch his bristly face and he tips into my hand, just a nudge.

  “It’s okay. I really want you to touch me.” I can only manage a whisper.

  He sighs. And drops his hands. Immediately, I wrap my arms around myself.

  “Look, Carrie, I want to touch you, too, hold you—I just—”

  I should take his kisses with me and go. But with a seeping, resolute calm, I decide to keep him. I am not losing these Wednesdays, even if I can’t have anything else. “Stop. It’s okay. Don’t explain—I swear it’s fine.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.” His flush is draining, his eyes clearing. The tendrils of heat between us lose their moorings in the breeze. I shiver.

  “But it is.” I straighten up. Fix my own glasses. He is looking at me with doubt. “It is.” And as soon as I say it, it’s true. I go back to feeling tender, but the feeling is overlaid with a new trust, which when I examine that trust later may feel misplaced, but I am fine to act on that trust now.

  I have never been gladder for my own uncomplicated life, the simple love I’ve had from my family and friends, for my interesting daily work and the unencumbered lifestyle I created for myself. I have room for this.

  Room to be left in the dark a little, confused. Room for a tall and passionate enigma that obviously doesn’t know what he’s doing.

  If I’m broken, the break will be clean and easily mended. If he breaks, I’m not sure if there will be enough pieces to approximate. I can afford to go along with what he thinks will protect him. I can have this, and I can give him what he thinks he needs, even if he may deserve better. Even if I don’t know if he actually does.

  “Are you okay?” I know he’s certain that I should be pleading or angry or frustrated, and maybe I will get there some Wednesday, but not today.

  “Yeah. I’m way okay.” It’s easy to smile at him, and when I do, a dimple explodes in those dark bristles, and a whisper of heat slinks around me again.

  “I’ve got to head back to my office, but I don’t know how to get up and walk away right this second.”

  “You’ll figure it out. But tell me, what will you do when you get to the office? I’m curious.”

  He looks up from tucking his shirt back in. “Like, will I sit around getting nothing accomplished while I daydream about pixie librarians, or what will I do for work?”

  I laugh. “For work. Like, your regular life.” He arrests for a moment. His body still.

  Why? Because he has no regular life? Whatever his “it’s complicated” is, the rest of him has it barely dammed. He has the feel of someone who doesn’t have much room to maneuver. I think again of his arm wrapped around himself, the white knuckles.

  “Um. A division of the metropolitan park system wants to annex a parcel of land that has a federal lease on it. I’ve spent the last week reviewing the lease on behalf of the federal government to see if there are any impediments to the annex. I’ve found a minor one, having to do with a part of the property where some residential oil tanks were buried in the seventies, and so I have to figure out who’s responsible for restoration of that area. I put in a few calls about that issue, and I need to see if they were returned so I can draft what the annex contract would look like by the end of the week.”

  I ignore the way my heart has changed rhythm. It’s not as if he’s given anything away, but this is him. This is his work, the culmination of his life as a student, the blueprint of the walls that contain him in the daytime. The easy way he shares this task colors in his outline in some ineffable way that drags at me.

  More than our obvious chemistry and mutual attraction, this tidbit makes me long to have my arm in his, share a meal, spoon in bed.

  His technical recitation isn’t some true revelation, and it throws into relief everything I don’t know about him, but it came so easily that I can’t help but think I might be able to pick his locks. Come across a latch. Like a thief casing a possible hit, I hope I can hide my reaction.

  I look down and straighten my skirt. “Aren’t you violating some kind of attorney-client privilege there, counselor?”

  “Well, you asked what I was going to do, and that’s exactly it. Unless you have some vested interest in a pie
ce of land you can’t find that has nothing on it but several acres of third-growth forest, I think we’re good.” He swings his leg over the picnic bench, so now we’re side by side.

  He’s already looking over at his bike.

  “What does GearTattoo mean?” It isn’t fair to keep him like this. Just a little more.

  “Wait—first, what are you going to do this afternoon, Carrie the Lieberrian?” He looks over, wary, but there are good crinkles around his eyes.

  I can’t explain it, but I blush at his question. “Well, have you heard of Suki Malahar?” His face is blank, and he shakes his head. “Suki Malahar is like J. K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer and Neil Gaiman all rolled into one—at least in terms of adolescent excitement over her books.”

  “Well, I’ve definitely read Rowling and Gaiman’s books, so maybe I should check out this Malahar.”

  “Maybe you should. Anyway, the latest book in her horror series came out yesterday. Tuesdays are new release days in the book world. We often have special programming on Wednesdays after school for our adolescent and young adult readers, so this afternoon it’s all Suki, all the time. A big pile of the books to check out, bookmarks, quiz games, a chance to win some posters of the cover, and cookies. I bet federal contracts don’t have cookies.”

  “Or cool bookmarks.” He grins. And when he does that, I still can’t get over how it unfastens so much about him. His shoulders get looser; his hands come uncurled. Making him really smile like that feels like I solved a difficult problem, even if I wouldn’t be able to show my work. To explain exactly how I just know I can coax him away from the center of his labyrinth.

  “Well, I’ll save you a bookmark. Besides being a fan myself, I’m excited not to have our regular staff meeting.”

  He balances his right ankle over his left knee and starts rolling up his pant leg. He is getting ready to ride away. But he touches my shoulder and points at his lean, hard calf.

  “Gear tattoo. If you look here, you can see where the chain has worked the dark grease into my leg over time, this gray arch,” he explains, tracing a shadow in his skin. “No matter how much I scrub, it doesn’t really ever come off.”