Of course, if anyone knows how to stand for eight hours a day without breaking a sweat, it’s Red. But it wasn’t the physical hardship that would have gotten to him, but the dreariness. I scoured each page, attempting to place Red in the facility, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Red was nourished by color. I was pondering how he’d managed to survive two years without it when he showed up yet again.
In light of what I’d seen on the website, the changes in Red were undeniable. His cheekbones were more prominent not because I’d misremembered them, but because he’d been living off tepid water and self-abnegation.
His changes weren’t just physical. While his body was now harder, he felt softer inside. And maybe I was too.
I turned toward the cash drawer and started battening down the hatches with much more attention than I needed to, mostly so he couldn’t see how hard I was struggling with the thought of his transformation costing him two solid years of hard penance. “You look like you could use something to eat.”
“That sounds like an invitation,” he said with cautious playfulness.
“You can’t walk ten steps around here without tripping over a restaurant.” I dimmed the overhead lights and grabbed my coat. “Let’s go.”
I followed him down the stairs, and as I passed by Lydia’s door, it opened. Just a crack, but enough for me to see one of her eyes, and part of the other. She smiled and waggled her eyebrows as if to say, I caught you with the hot guy you claim you’re not screwing.
I gave her a single “yeah, right” headshake in return, but it was great to see her smile again. As we passed the board-up on our way out, I recast the front window in my mind’s eye a half-dozen times, with various shades of boho and paisley, red velvet and beads. And for the first time since the break-in, I really could imagine Lydia’s shop rising from the ashes even more awesome than it was before.
Businesses reinvented themselves all the time. Take the restaurant on the corner. Since I’d opened Sticks and Stones, it had evolved from a tapas joint to an upscale cafe, and more recently, a pretentious locavore eatery. A quick glance showed the vestibule jam-packed with hipsters waiting to be seated, so the food must’ve been okay. But when I peered through the window, I saw meat on every plate. “Let’s keep going,” I said. “I’m guessing the local vegetarian option in November leaves something to be desired.
“Don’t worry about me,” Red said. “Pick anyplace. I’ll find something to eat.”
“About that. I’m on the bandwagon these days too—and I need something way more substantial than a salad.” Hell, both of us did.
We paused beneath a streetlight where stray snowflakes meandered above our heads. Red turned to me and gave me his full consideration. Looking at me, or looking into me? I wanted so badly to play it cool, to hide the fact that my heart felt half-broken, but shored up with a tenuous and dangerous hope. Since he picked up different signals than I did, maybe I could even get away with it.
Chapter 51
When none of the half-dozen restaurants panned out, Red casually offered to cook. I casually accepted. And both of us knew damn well the invitation had nothing to do with food.
He drove an aging Camry a lot like the one he’d owned when we worked at Luscious. The inside of this car smelled of sandalwood too. How incongruous, that anything about him should be the same after all this time. Especially when I’d shed skin after skin after skin.
He threaded his way through the side streets and back to his same old neighborhood, but a different street. On the north side, there’s a brick courtyard building within spitting distance of basically anywhere, and I’d wager his new apartment wouldn’t be much different from the old one.
Good thing I’m not the betting type. His old apartment had been minimal and uncluttered. This one? It took austerity to an entirely new level. It was a plain studio, maybe twelve by twenty, with brown woodwork, white walls, and a pale oak hardwood floor. Not a stick of real furniture to be seen, just a futon on the floor. No color to be seen, either, aside from a purple meditation cushion in the corner and a crimson duvet on the futon. Hard to say if it was restful, or just empty. Either way, it felt different from the way Sticks and Stones had after I’d sold off all my furniture. My empty room smacked of poverty. His, deliberate asceticism.
Since leaning against the wall would look ridiculous—and I wasn’t willing to go sit on his bed—I took off my coat, an itchy woolen army surplus deal, then dropped it to the floor and sat on it. I couldn’t tell if he felt awkward about having no place for a guest to sit. His energy was so tied up in knots, who’s to say where his discomfort began or ended?
From my vantage point on the floor, his cupboards looked as bare as the rest of the place. There was a bag from Still Goods on the counter. He pulled out a saucepan and two dishes. Once he gave the pot a quick scrub, he filled it with water and put it on to boil, then began soaping up the plates. “What I told you at Rainbow Dharma was only half the truth,” he said. “I did need some things. But I was hoping to run into someone I knew and trusted, someone who shopped at your store, who knew you…the way you are now. Who could tell me why, of all the businesses you could have gone into, you chose what you did.”
“I’ve been known to wonder that myself,” I admitted. “I suppose I was reacting to the stuff on the surface—the so-called Psychs churning up melodrama for their own personal gain, the dicks who use spirituality to take advantage of the vulnerable. But the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. And I’ve never been indifferent to matters of the soul.”
Red grabbed a box of spaghetti and a jar of sauce from the cupboard. The last man to make dinner for me had been Jacob—with a raft of fancy kitchen appliances, fresh pasta, and sauce from scratch. I’d never fully appreciated how two willful, intelligent, complicated men could be so very different.
He broke the noodles into the boiling water, then turned the gravity of his attention to me. “Do you know what it takes to become a monk? To embrace the spiritual and release the material? I’ve seen what greed and attachment can do. I’ve lived it. And I was sure that was what I wanted, to put all my focus on my practice. To be ordained.”
My heart began to pound.
“For day-to-day living, all the men at the sangha shaved their own heads, even the laity. But there was more ceremony around the ordination, where an elder would do the trimming. Having someone else put those clippers to my head…it jogged loose a memory. A memory of you.”
Water hissed as the pasta boiled over, and Red moved it to another burner.
“I stopped him and didn’t go through with the ceremony. I had to figure out if I was taking vows because I had a calling, or because I was hiding behind them so I didn’t have to face you again.”
On Clairvoyage, whenever they show a tidal wave big enough to capsize the ship, they do it in slow motion, in CGI, with lots of dramatic lighting. That’s exactly how it was, looking into Red’s eyes. Just like the captain on that idiotic show, I knew how dangerous navigating these waters would be. And just like that bullheaded character, I was going to go on ahead and make the decision to drown myself.
I’d been angry with Red, when he walked away from me that fateful day, for not choosing me. I saw now that he hadn’t only given up our relationship. He’d sacrificed every other thing in his life.
I’d wanted him to suffer. And he had.
He handed me a plate of spaghetti, then sat down on the floor beside me and ate. I snuck looks at his chiseled cheekbones while he sucked up the noodles, and pondered how long he’d been overworked and underfed. How long he’d been marched around barefoot and shorn.
How long he’d gone without sex.
Not all Buddhists are celibate, just like we don’t all give up Big Macs and leather belts. Between the different paths and schools of thought, the specifics can really vary. But after seeing those photos, I had no doubt that all this time, Red had denied himself such basic companionship and comfort. No
t just because the sangha had demanded it, but because it fed the part of his soul that kept insisting he hold himself to some unattainable standard.
I put down my half-eaten dinner and took his hand, cradled it in mine as if it was fragile—or maybe, like shards of a broken prayer candle, the gesture could cut us both if we didn’t treat it gingerly.
“Let me tell you a story,” I said. “Once upon a time I had a chip on my shoulder and a level of entitlement that was positively sickening. I didn’t realize how good I had it. I was a decent enough person—I’d swerve to avoid running over a squirrel, and I’d chip in when folks collected for some random charity—but I felt pissed off and abandoned by some folks, and smothered by everyone else. Basically, I was a spoiled brat who was used to having everything I wanted…but I couldn’t have you.”
“Curtis….”
“Don’t you dare apologize. I’m not done.” I contorted so we were face to face and forced him to meet my eyes. He needed to see himself the way I saw him. His own worst enemy. Beautiful and tragic, poignant and perfect. I had no idea how his telepathy worked, but I drummed up the best visual of him that I could and I tried to push it through his thick skull. “You drove me insane with jealousy. Not because I couldn’t get you naked, but because you had some kind of moral compass guiding you, while I was just floundering around in the dark.”
Words alone can be such empty things, but I wasn’t just spinning out a stream of bullshit. I backed up what I said with all the emotion I could muster. Longing, sure. But gratitude. And sympathy. And behind it all, a deep and unshakable love. I didn’t just feel these emotions, I projected them in an image for him to see for himself. Was his brain flooded with pictures, or was it something more subtle—a fleeting impression, a momentary sense of deja vu. A Vibe…like the one that was now green-lighting my approach. If I pressed my lips to Red’s in that stellar moment of vulnerability where we were both laid bare to each other in soul, it would be the perfect time to mesh our bodies.
It might seem unfair to press my psychic advantage at a time when he was already so exposed, and I did consider holding back.
Then I decided fairness was totally overrated.
There were a dozen ways for Red to duck out of the kiss if he chose to, unhindered by things that would be in normal apartments, like furniture. But the Vibe hadn’t steered me wrong. When I closed the gap between us—when I eased my mouth up against his—Red stayed right where he was. His lips softened, and parted. And while his kiss was cautious, only slightly wet, a hint of tongue, the emotional outpouring behind that kiss washed over me like a tidal wave.
His love wasn’t anxious like my mother’s, or shielded like Jacob’s, but I could hardly call it pure. Red was a bundle of contrasts inside, pride warring with humility, desire awash with guilt. There was nothing to feel guilty for, though, not anymore, with both of us free. Not just from Luscious, but from whatever hurt we’d inflicted as we both detangled the situation as best we could.
I slid my mouth from his and brushed my lips along his smooth cheek, speaking against him like a caress. “We have a second chance. Let’s not waste it.”
Red stilled and his emotions spiked high, and for a moment I was worried that voicing the potential for forgiveness aloud had been a serious misstep. But he took a deep breath, and deliberately centered himself, and the apprehension ebbed…replaced by the warmth of hope. This time, when our lips met, it was him kissing me. And if every guy I’d shared my body with before had been a different shade of lust, Red was a stunning spectrum. Affection and love, desire and joy, his emotions simmered to the surface and played across my lips. Even the thread of his apprehension added to the overall experience when he pulled back to say, “I’m not looking for a one-night stand,” against the wetness of my mouth.
“Then that makes both of us.”
On the surface, Red answered with a gentle sigh. But snarled together in that subtle reaction were angst and relief and a tentative, painful longing. Probably not the best time for me to go announcing that I distinctly felt his feels, especially not faced with something he might not care to share.
He said, “You never struck me as the type of man to settle down.”
“Variety might be the spice of life, but you see one dick, you’ve seen ’em all.”
“That’s not what I mean. In here,” he pressed his palm to my chest, just over my heart, “it’s like you were above it all—you didn’t need anybody or anything. And by the time I realized you might be willing to let someone in to your heart, it was too late.”
“You’re the one who always encouraged me to be present.” I bent my head to his, put my mouth to his ear, and whispered, “We’re here now. This is what matters.”
If our kiss was cautious, our initial grappling, crouched together at the foot of the futon, was even more hesitant. Red skimmed his fingers along my shoulders, trailed them down my arms in the ghost of a caress that made me squirm. And me, I held back. Because I needed him to be the one calling the shots, to keep reassuring myself that he burned for me just as much as I did for him.
Being the instigator would be so much easier, but I didn’t allow myself to slip into that familiar role. I wanted to do all kinds of things to him, but I reined myself in, and focused instead on what he was doing to me.
He learned my body slowly, sides, back and waist, settling his thumbs over the crest of my pelvis where my low-slung jeans sagged and exposed some skin. With each caress, his touch became bolder. Hips and thighs now, while my dick started to ready itself and shift my body’s topography. He skirted that swelling hardness and felt his way around to my ass instead, cupped a cheek in each hand and treated me to a good, solid grope. A shock of desire surged through me, maybe from my standard five senses, maybe from something deeper. Red wasn’t just emotionally malnourished from his time in the sangha, he was starving for me. I knew it. I felt it. And that hunger awakened the same yearning inside me.
He caught the hem of my T-shirt and stripped it off, and I did the same to him. Piece by piece, our clothing landed in a mingled heap—and soon, our bodies did the same. By the time he lay me back on the futon, I was tingling all over. And then he slipped down between my legs and wrapped his lips around me.
Bliss.
When Red turned his eyes up to meet mine, it wasn’t in that show-off way that lots of guys’ll blow you because they know they look hot with a dick in their mouth, and he wasn’t begging for attention, either. It was him wanting to see me, making sure he took in every last detail of our experience. As for me, after all this time convincing myself that any encounter with him would only happen in the realm of fantasy, I could hardly believe what I saw.
Even touching him was surreal. The texture of his hair fading to a short bristle toward the nape, the delicious smoothness of his cheek, the ropy band of muscle at the side of his neck. Each sensation should have reassured me that this thing between us was actually, finally, happening. And yet I’d never felt more like I was floating through a dream.
The heat cranked up between us fast, and I briefly wondered when the last time was I’d gotten laid—but then I decided it didn’t really matter. Red was here with me now. And now was the only thing I cared about. The wetness, the suction, sure, that was all heady, but it was those big, sad eyes that got to me the most.
Before my eager dick got too carried away with itself, I coaxed Red up beside me to fit us together—arms and legs woven through each other—and the citrus and spice scent of our skin mingled deliciously in the heat trapped between our bodies. His mouth was hot when I kissed it again. I tasted myself on his tongue.
As sublime as that kiss might’ve been, momentum was picking up between us, a rush toward the peak that was years in the scaling. Red rolled onto his back and pulled me between his legs, and my leaking dick dropped into position like we were two halves of a whole driven to be reunited. It took all the self-control I could muster to pause long enough to grab a condom out of my coat pocket and roll i
t on. If he was serious about having a repeat performance, there’d be time enough in the future to go skin to skin.
I buy the most slippery condoms I can find, but even so, it was a precarious fit. As skillfully as I tried to finesse myself in, I could tell Red’s pleasure was tinged with pain. He didn’t get off on the hurting, not like a masochist would. And yet, I knew he’d be leery of any pleasure that wasn’t adulterated with a stiff dose of reality.
We were both panting and hazed with sweat by the time I got myself sunk. I planted my hands on either side of his head and gazed down on him, cherishing the moment and reveling in the now—the crux of all that had gone before and everything that was still to be.
Tightness. Heat. That age-old rhythm, cautious at first, then harder as our arousal spiraled and pain made way for pleasure. I wouldn’t last long, not now, faced with the sheer physicality of what we were finally doing, so I put all my weight on one hand and meshed our fingers together with the other, dark and fair, dark and fair. We clasped his dick together and he fucked the sweat-slicked channel we’d created.
I felt his peak a moment before he hit it. Not from any telltale clenches, but the massive surge of raw emotion pouring out. Love? Not that straightforward. Relief and lust and fear and disbelief, and the worry that maybe love wasn’t quite enough—all these hues threaded through the emotional load he let loose.
I supposed love never really was one pure, simple thing, but a kaleidoscopic pattern that was constantly shifting, but always filled with a certain haunting beauty.
I came with my eyes wide open, with Red looking right back at me (for all I knew, looking into me) while I broke. I’ve been with countless men over the years, and sex isn’t necessarily that big a deal, an intimate act, a sacred one.
But sometimes, it is.
Chapter 52
Futons suck. There’s nowhere cushy for shoulders and ribs to settle. But I was way too blissed to let something as insignificant as my body’s discomfort get in the way. We slept together, Red and me, limbs threaded through limbs, skin pressed against skin, breath mingling with breath, dreams swirling through dreams. And we slept soundly.
Skin After Skin - PsyCop 8 Page 38