by A. R. Hadley
five
JONATHAN
I wondered if you could see the stars at night. In L.A., we usually couldn't see anything through the light pollution. Maybe that was why people lived life there as if nothing could touch them. As far as people in L.A. were concerned, the fucking universe didn't exist.
I had proof. Right here.
We had arrived late and tired the first night. I had avoided the balcony. Tonight, I embraced it. Alone. Even though it was only a little past ten, Jessica was already asleep. I looked out over the dark landscape below. I didn't know what to make of this place yet. Not the condo. Jesus. I had already sized up the room and the building and chopped it into tiny little pieces. It was what I did. What I was good at. I built hotels. I refined them. Made the simple exquisite. I was referring to the town itself. New Smyrna. People think Los Angeles is a glamorous city, a big city, and it is glamorous, and it is big, geographically, but really, underneath all the glitz, it was a town. Everything is over there. Right there. Six degrees of fucking separation. The glitz here though, was up there. In the sky. Real stars. Stars that shined without Botox or plastic surgery. Luminaries. Men wrote poems and songs about the stars. Men powered rocket ships to get closer to them.
I sat back in the chair, legs stretched out and toes touching the guard rail, and looked up. I fixed my eyes on the blanket of twinkly lights. The canopy. I was lucky. No clouds. A full moon. Quiet. A man could hear his thoughts in a place like this if he wanted to. If he listened. He could discover intention.
I raised my hand and blocked out the moon with my palm. I splayed my fingers and squinted at the stars through the spaces in the web my five digits made. It was amazing what a little distance and perception could accomplish. My entire hand overshadowed the moon. Erased it from existence. If I moved my hand a little to the left or to the right, shifted it, tilted it, the moon would come right back into my view. Magic.
My world.
My universe.
In the palm of my hand.
Actually, my world and my universe, she was in the room, only a few feet away, fast asleep in the bed.
six
JESSICA
He thought I didn't know he was working last night or this morning. Early. When he couldn't sleep. For someone who thrived on having a full schedule, every day, I'm surprised he had agreed to come here at all. He thought I didn't care. I knew he wanted to come to Florida for work. He pretended he wanted to take me on vacation, but he wanted to work. He wanted to construct a new hotel near the House of the Mouse or renovate an older one. Make it beautiful again. He thought he could reinvent anything. Timing wasn't everything. Jonathan thought it was. He thought he could do anything with enough time and enough money and know-how.
He believed in lies.
I thought things were right because they were. There was no order in wrong. There was nothing to be gained from chaos.
If I slept now, I would be ready for tomorrow, and if I slept now he wouldn't ask for sex. Or subtly demand it. Right now I pretended to sleep. He wanted my body so much lately that I felt listless at times in response to his virility. Useless to him. My drive paled in comparison, and I had always thought we were evenly matched. In every way. Both tall and full of grace. We could out maneuver the best of them. Now, Jonathan had won. I couldn't keep up with the man he had become, or with the woman who had failed him. I failed him. The night we had left the hospital. I had failed him. I ceased to do my job properly. Manufacture and house a baby. I couldn't even be a woman.
My urges had returned. Slowly. After the bleeding and the pain. I had hormones. My uterus had malfunctioned, but caterpillars still morphed into butterflies and swarmed inside my stomach whenever Jonathan smiled at me in that way, the way he didn't want anyone else to see.
Our secret.
A little boy inside a man.
Lost.
Open.
Brave.
Forward.
He had always turned me on, sexually and emotionally. He did plenty of little things that were really big things. The way I'd catch him staring at me after I stepped out of the shower. The way he would surprise me with a single yellow tulip on my pillow. "The color of your hair," he would say.
The way he would kiss me after a particularly hard day. He made it better. His lips made it better. They didn't just make my knees go weak; he kissed like he meant it and owned it. He took out a patent on it. He transferred his trust and his honor and his soul with an indelible kiss.
It was not simple.
Nothing about him was simple.
The way he carried me out of the house during the fundraiser.
Complicated.
I will never forget it.
He picked me up like a child, scooped me into his arms and took charge. I had never needed him to take charge of my needs. I was competent, but I had never wanted or needed to lean on another human being, not since I was a little girl, until that moment, and at the same time I had never wished so much, on the drive home in the rain, after we left the hospital, that he would walk away from me. Leave me. Go. I didn't want to need anyone that way ever again.
I loved him.
The man out there on that balcony, probably commanding the stars or making a wish on the brightest one he could find for what could never be, what was taken from us, or maybe he was making a wish for another.
Timing wasn't everything, Jonathan.
Stars died and exploded. They shrunk into a void. I was the void. He couldn't see any part of me anymore. My choice. I had to cut off my right arm to save the body. He wouldn't see or know. No one really saw inside of me. I was hollow. Nothing about me could grow.
I stepped out of the bed and stood under the frame of the sliding glass door, my arms stretched out, my baby doll gown blowing in the wind. He was there, a little to my left and closer to the rail, scruff on his jaw, a machine on his lap, long legs covered with only the faint light of the moon and dark copper hair. Was he still making a wish for my uterus or was he only working?
"Jesus, Jessica, you scared me."
I glanced at the table where he had just set his tablet aside. Right. Working.
"I thought you were sleeping," he said.
"Do you want to get struck by lightning?" I asked, indicating the sky with the flicker of my eyes.
"It's far," he said.
The man's confidence knew no bounds. The moment he spoke thunder cracked. Did he command it?
The lightning over the ocean, in the far distance at the horizon, was spectacular. A feast for the eyes. I could see why he didn't want to leave the balcony to come inside or why he wanted to work to avoid the conversation I denied him.
"I have the heart of a lion," he said with a smile that stretched across his face like a million grains of sand.
"Or a fool."
He patted his knee. "Sit with me."
I planted my bottom on his lap.
"We shall die together."
I took his hands. I had spoken without melancholy or indifference. I was a candle burning without melting. He wrapped his arms around my front and rested his chin on my shoulder. I weaved my fingers into his. I leaned my back against his chest and stared ahead at the light show. Multiple streaks crisscrossed and illuminated the black, cloudy canvas, creating white, yellow and dark purple bolts.
How would we die?
In a storm? In a cloudless configuration? Out to sea?
"It's beautiful." His lips moved against my skin.
His tie, undone but loose around his neck, was in his hand, and he took the silk tip of it and stroked my cheek.
"How far away do you think it is?" he asked, tipping his head forward. His warm breath entered my skin and pooled at my pores.
"Miles and miles," I said, leaning into his touch. I had a smile on my face and a strange feeling in my chest. "Close enough to do harm."
I grabbed the fat end of the tie and turned myself around. We faced each other. I straddled him. I hadn't let go of the neck tie
. I held both ends of it and slid it back and forth across the nape of his neck. His hand moved up my back like a snake and into my hair. As he leaned forward to kiss me, I resisted. I arched my back.
We would die together, but would we be separated when it happened?
"Kiss me, Jessica."
What was in his eyes? Questions. Resolution. Needs. A reliance on me I never granted but gave him freely.
"Don't you have work to do?" I fingered the tie.
My thumb circled the texture of the silk. I pulled it away from his collar and stood. I gave him my back, went to the edge, put my elbows on the railing and leaned forward. I wrapped the useless tie around my knuckles and watched the gods war with the sea.
seven
JONATHAN
I stood and met her at the railing. I looked at the side of her face. Not a stitch of make-up. She was two years older than me, but she had no fault lines, and she had youth in abundance. I leaned closer to her body and tried to catch her eye.
"I'm trying," I said with the weight of our grievances on my shoulders.
I didn't know what I was trying for anymore. I took hold of the rusty white railing, turning my hands over the bar as if I was revving a motorcycle. After a moment of deafening silence, I adopted her stance and stared ahead at the bolts of lightning.
"Jess."
I tilted my chin toward the concrete and shook my head at the whisper of her name. The question.
She had created a monster.
Me.
I was a different man because of her and I acted differently around her. She pushed me to my limits, and she had helped me understand them. And now she punished me because I chose to comfort and take care of her in a way that she refused. She disregarded my sincere statement without as much as a flick of her wrist.
She had gotten used to avoiding my questions and statements with lies. Brushing away truth with a sweep of her eyelashes. What did it matter? I would continue to comfort and support her the only way I knew how. I would always love her. Who was I without her approval? She was the Michelangelo on the ceiling. I was the worn out paint. The cracks. She was what the tourists came to look at.
She entered a room, the way she always did, filling it without lifting a finger. She filled the balcony, and she took over the light show in the distance, and she held her own with ease in the middle of the motherfucking universe.
What was I trying to do? Pretend. I couldn't pretend I didn't want a child. How could I pretend I didn't want to even have a conversation about it? Everything was about the baby even when she buried her head in the shit-rich sands of denial.
It didn't matter. We were good together. The perfect couple. Always. The epitome of right and power and strength. We didn't crumble. This was a blip of a dent on the road to forever. Mistakes and losses didn't define us. We would be good parents. I knew that. I wasn't afraid. The Drazen name would survive. The two of us would go on. Somehow. Fucking with accountability was in my blood. I was a man. I was the only son. I had a responsibility.
We would have a child.
The doctor had said she had some type of abnormality. Fuck the faulty uterus. Fuck the unimaginable. We would do what we had to do. We did. We just didn't talk about it, or the problem or the possibilities. We were the happiest we had ever been, or we were on the other side of loss. Functioning. Trapped inside a kaleidoscope without color. I couldn't dwell on the changing forecast in front of us, or on a woman's feelings. I couldn't control any of that, and if I couldn't control...
No. I wouldn't complete that thought.
I. Had. Control.
I would predict the forecast. Make my future.
I planned. I directed. I didn't fail.
I would keep myself in check another way. Any way. I had focus. Skill. Pause. Purpose.
I had hope.
My parents had made eight of us for Christ's sakes. I could certainly make a single fucking one.
The tie wrapped around her fist made her knuckles turn white in the dark of the night. My mind and its shameful ideas presented control to me on a silver platter, luring me with a bribe.
Do this for that. Trade one for the other. Love or desire.
I wanted to twist her arms behind her back and loop the tie around her elbows. Her lips would part. Her blue eyes would swim with surrender. She would look to me for protection. I wanted her to succumb to me in the space of her vast, Sistine Chapel, universe. She would choose me. I would keep the two of us safe. I would spread her legs. I would promise to take her to a delicate and dangerous brink. I would bring her back from it. Again and again. Reignite her. Inflame her. I would start the fire, and I would extinguish it. Ask her questions with my lips and provide the answers with my cock.
Our eyes would meet.
Lightning would flash and elucidate our intention and our connection.
I would look into her deeply. I would see myself clearly. I would see inside the crystal blue persuasion of her eyes, past all the inexplicable bullshit.
I would see her need for me rise like a Phoenix from the ashes.
eight
JESSICA
I hated that word. Try. It was halfway. Almost. An excuse. If he tried to have a discussion about any of it again, I would vomit. Right over the ledge. Onto the specks of chairs and onto the pool on the ground, and I didn't do that sort of thing. I didn't vomit anything publicly. I could be anything I wanted to be, and right now I was only me. A woman on the ledge, perched below stars, on the outside of war.
I mourned the loss of meaningful discussions as much I loathed having them.
Would he try? Was he? We would try. Would we? I never needed to hear the word try again. The night he first brought up my existential fault, we spoke few words, but as far as I was concerned, they were enough to create a lifetime of hurt.
"We will try again," he had said that night, a beautiful delicacy on his lips.
It hadn't been long. Three weeks. Maybe four. I lost count in a haze of pain and blood and resolute confusion. Doctors' appointments. He had been patient and loving. He took care of me without asking the hard questions. None. I didn't know why he needed answers now. I didn't have any. I was full of numb where there should have been a baby.
"You heard what the experts said, Jon." I stood in the center of our bedroom, lost for a moment, forgetting what I needed.
"Are you scared?" he asked full of the sincerity I despised.
He thought I was helpless. Impassive. Unable to fend for myself.
He wanted to try.
I held my head high. My shoulders aligned with my hips. Nothing moved. Only my lungs. Maybe I blinked. We had met with the fertility specialists. The issue was closed. Not up for discussion. I wasn't afraid of anything.
"We are meeting your sister for dinner." I remembered the present. The room. Who I was. A lady who didn't need to give explanations. "I need to dress."
"I forgot. Which sister?"
"Jon. Really?" He liked to pretend he didn't know things, but he knew everything. Nothing slipped under his radar.
"I laid out a suit. I thought we could coordinate," I said, stepping into the walk-in. "Theresa," I called out.
"Right."
He joined me, sporting a shark of a smile. Big teeth. Ready to eat. He glanced at the suit spread over the ottoman and then at me. His shark teeth turned to a closed-mouth smirk.
"You look beautiful."
"I'm not even dressed yet."
"Precisely why you look beautiful."
He stood behind me with his hands on my hips and his nose in my hair. My fingers skipped across the tops of hangers and seams. I scanned the rows of clothing looking for the perfect shade of blue to match the tie I chose for him.
"What about this?" My hand stopped on a long turquoise maxi dress. "No. I'll look washed out." I looked too pale lately. I should switch out his tie.
"You have perfect nipples, Jess." His hand was inside my bra, his thumb stroking my nipple. "They are always hard." He pushed bot
h lace cups aside. "For me." God. His whisper of a breath sent shivers to my spine, but I stayed neutral. He took ahold of my other breast. He caressed both nipples. My back arched. My eyes may have rolled into the back of my head.
"They are mine," he whispered.
His voice was a breeze across the ocean on a perfect day. I could feel the length of him behind me, rising, against my panties. He was hard. He would need to finish or the whole night would be ruined. I already took away the conversation. I denied him my feelings. I wouldn't deny him this.
He slid his hands to my waist and slipped his fingers inside the elastic of my underwear. He dug his nails into my hips. His fingers danced along my thighs, and when two of his fingers slipped into the front of my panties, I shuddered. He knew he had me. A sure thing.
I tipped my head back, and he kissed me. In the sweet spot. Behind my ear. God. He knew how and where and why. I closed my eyes and gave into a feeling I wasn't comfortable with. Surrender. It didn't last because I moved on. I forced the emotion away. I got on my knees, my thumbs inside his boxers, and pulled them down to his feet. I would give him what he wanted. The moment he sprung free, I took him in my mouth as far as I could bear it. No argument. No surrender. Not for me. He would be the one. He would capitulate. He touched my cheek and groaned. It was a delicious sound.
"Jess," he whispered. He popped from my mouth. I looked up at him, my lips slick with desire. My desire. Or power or regret.
"Put your hands behind your back," he said.
I defied him. I took him again, one hand on his ass, the other at his base. I stroked him and sucked him until all he did was groan and groan and groan. He shifted. I knew his cues. He faced the ceiling and made exquisite sounds of arousal, but he seemed to be hiding or withdrawing. Not his dick. His mind. It was subtle. Lost in pleasure but holding onto something. Was it because I didn't listen to him? The thing with my hands. He had been asking me lately to do things that made me uncomfortable.