“Holy fuck, Eliza,” he said when he walked up to me. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know. I just needed to talk to you.”
“Now?!”
“Yes. This was probably stupid, though.”
“You think?” he said and pulled me into a VIP room. I’d never been in one, and was a bit fascinated when he lit a light outside that said ‘occupied,’ and then I looked around inside. It looked about as seedy as I’d imagined. “What the hell made you think this was a good idea?”
“Nothing really. It just felt like a better idea than waiting.” I eyed him carefully. “Are you pissed?”
“No,” he smiled, “because this is just weird, and as you know weird doesn’t make me pissed. But seriously, what was so important you had to come here?”
A banging on the door interrupted us before I could answer, and Ahab yelled,
“Roach, you better not be in there for a blowjob. We have a situation on the floor!”
He muttered something and dug out a key from his pocket. “I have two hours left of my shift. I’ll try to come sooner, but wait at my place until then. Is that okay? This is not a good place for you.”
“Okay,” I said.
I didn’t have much of a chance to agree, because the next second he was out the door, pulling me behind him until we were at the back door.
“I’ll see you soon,” he said. “Make yourself at home, just poke around until you find something to eat.”
I could hear the brawl from inside the strip club, so I just nodded and left.
It was strange being in someone else’s home when they weren’t there. I’d only been to Roach’s place twice before, three if you counted the short visit to show my tattoo. It wasn’t a big place, and he actually didn’t have much food. I found some yogurt and ate it while watching some strange show about people confronting their cheating partners. It was depressing, and the main point seemed to be to yell as loudly as possible, so I tried to find a movie of his to watch instead. He didn’t have that many of them, and no matter how much I flipped and searched through his channels, I couldn’t find any streaming service, either. It made me wonder what the hell he was watching when he was home alone. I was completely addicted to watching TV series from beginning to end. There weren’t even any books to read. I ended up reading Transmetropolitan again, but fell asleep.
Roach woke me up the same way he had last time, but poking my cheek, and when I opened my eyes he was smiling down at me.
“Hey, Princess.”
“Hi. Sorry,” I said and sat up. “Your entertainment system is as crappy as your AC.”
“Temporary apartment, you know. Got more at home in New York.”
“Oh, yeah. Didn’t think about that.” And I would’ve preferred to not think about it, either. “I need water.”
I went to the kitchen to get a bottle of water and drank a few deep, cold sips to wake up. When I turned around, he was standing behind me.
“So, wanna tell me what was so important you came barging into a goddamn strip club on a Friday night?”
I hadn’t really planned until that particular point. As in, I had no idea what to really say once I had his attention. I’d just been so focused on getting ahold of him, and I had to admit to myself that instead of sleeping, it might’ve been a good idea to try to think of something to say.
So, instead of talking, I put my hands on his cheeks, pulled him closer while I had him off guard, and I kissed him. It was nice to feel him again, and he was totally into it—for a while.
“Whoa, okay, Princess… what’s—” he tried to say while he was still kissing me, which I found pretty encouraging. Not that he was trying to talk, but that he at least attempted to keep kissing me while he did. “Hang on,” he finally said and took a step back. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure… how to… I think I’m scared of losing you.”
“You won’t, and that’s not a good enough reason to do this. I’ll be here. You don’t have to do this.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me, Eliza,” he said in a tired sigh while rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fingertips. “Make me understand, ‘cause I’m pretty fucking confused right now.”
“When you tried to kiss me outside my house, I didn’t back off because I didn’t want it. I just hadn’t thought that you saw me like that, and it had been safe to think of you in that way, somehow. I’m not sure I’m making sense.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“And now I’m scared that I’ll lose you, because I want those things with you, but I don’t know when, and if I don’t do something about it, you might just leave and go back to New York without ever knowing how I feel.”
“It’s not gonna happen anytime soon, and you can’t push yourself to do this just because you think—”
“But that’s what you don’t understand!” I interrupted him. “I need to push, I need to keep pushing to keep getting further.”
“You realize that this might just end up like with the date with… what’s his name?”
“No. It won’t because… Because…”
“Because?” he asked, and he looked really tired, and kind of hurt.
“Because I wasn’t in love with him. And I’m in love with you. Like, a boy-girl in love. And a lot,” I whispered, and I was scared, but I wanted to get everything said in case he was about to kick me out. “You’re the best person I’ve ever met, and it’s not just because you’ve been nice to me, or that you’re seriously the strongest person I’ve met. It’s because you’ve seen me in a way no one ever has, and at a time when I was really at my worst, but it didn’t matter to you. You still made me feel like I was strong. Like I could do anything. And that it was okay that I’m not perfect. That the bad parts are mine, too, and… maybe even a little good. You taught me that being perfect isn’t the goal, but rather to… just go further, keep evolving, and use both the good and the bad sides to your advantage.”
I hadn’t been looking at him, but when I finally dared, he was staring at me with wide eyes and his mouth was almost hanging open, like he couldn’t believe what I was saying. He just stood there. So I sighed.
“Okay. I think that was what was so important,” I mumbled, because I assumed that was it. I tried to not think of it as a failure, because I had at least tried. That was something, wasn’t it? That was to evolve, too. “I hope we can still hang out, even if I kind of raped your face. I won’t do it again.”
When I tried to get to the hallway, he stopped me and pulled me towards him, and then his lips were on mine again. They felt pretty fantastic even without my hands on his face.
“This is the most stupid thing I’ve ever done,” he groaned into my mouth.
“Okay,” I nodded and finally got my hands on his cheeks again. “Can we still keep doing it? Just for a little while.”
“Killed dead,” he muttered, but he kept kissing me. “I’ll get my face ripped off and then I’ll be killed really fucking dead.”
I laughed. “I don’t think so.”
“Totally,” he chuckled. “Think it might be worth it.”
“Even if we stick to kissing for a while?” I asked, just to make sure. I didn’t want him to think that I’d be ready for much more right then.
“Just keep doing that thing with your hands.”
“Yeah? Because I understand that you have, like, needs, and if you want to do that with someone else—”
He interrupted me by lifting me up and putting me on the counter, and he held my face.
“Give me those baby blues,” he mumbled, and I looked at him. “Don’t ever fucking do that again. You hear me? Don’t sell yourself short.”
“Okay.”
“That’s not going to happen, I’m not gonna mess around. We do this, or we don’t. How do you want it?”
“We do this,” I whispered, and I was glad he’d said it. I had no idea where that offer had come from, and I’m not
sure how I’d have reacted if he’d taken me up on it. Badly, probably. I nodded. “We do this. Definitely.”
“Definitely,” he agreed, and then he kissed me again. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“What?” I asked while trying to get him closer.
“You joked about raping my face.”
“I did?” I said and halted for a second. “Yeah, I did. Sorry about that, by the way. Just attacking you.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” he said and his lips were back at mine. “I liked it.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Please
oOo
IT WAS MEL WHO’D taught Eliza where babies came from. Or… that was what she’d thought she was about to do. Eliza’d had a pretty good idea even before, but her mom explained it so strangely. About how the man planted a seed in the woman (and, again, by then Eliza already knew) making a baby grow inside her. Mel hadn’t seemed that embarrassed about the conversation until Eliza started laughing.
“That’s the funniest explanation ever,” Eliza yelled. “Tell it again.”
Around that time, Mel understood someone had already told Eliza all the details, probably more details than Mel had planned on letting her know, and later that night Eliza had heard them have a go at Mitch when he came home.
“Sorry,” she whispered when Mitch came to her room to say goodnight. “I didn’t say anything. They knew anyway.”
“I know, Buttercup,” he said and kissed her forehead.
“She just said it so funny, like they were farmers or something. It made me laugh.”
“Farmers?”
“Something about planting seeds in eggs.”
“Okay,” he laughed. “Got any questions?”
“No. Not now.”
“Let me know if you ever do.”
oOo
Eliza
It was so frustrating, and the most frustrating was that it sometimes felt like it was Roach who was holding me back more than anything. He just refused to… push. Sometimes that made me feel really safe, and other times it just drove me absolutely nuts.
Like when I felt his hands on me, and it felt really, really great, and then he did just a little thing, and I froze for a second—and he stopped. It felt weird because even if I froze a little, my body was still all buzzy, and him just stopping was more frustrating than anything else.
“Why?” I groaned when he’d done it for, like, the hundredth time.
“I can’t. I can’t just fucking keep going when you’re stiff as a fucking Popsicle in my arms. That weirds me out.” He pulled me closer, though. “How about you touching me instead? Just whatever you want to do. I like your hands on me.”
That worked pretty well, until I felt his dick against my crotch and froze up again, and he decided it was time to watch another fucking movie with explosions. I felt so frustrated I could scream, and I did. Then I laughed a little, too. As frustrated as I was most of the time, we had a lot of fun, too. It was kind of like it always had been, just with the addition of a lot of kissing. Finally I had to ask him.
“Isn’t this horrible for you, too?”
“I jerk off all the fucking time,” he admitted. “As soon as I’m alone, it’s in my hand, but I don’t mind. I bought some great lube.”
I almost suggested he could let me watch, but then I realized that jerking off included semen, and I wasn’t ready for semen, yet. Asking him to jerk off and then stop before he came seemed a bit too much like sex torture.
We, or I, or whoever was supposed to do it, hadn’t told Dad, yet. That was my decision, though. I refused to let Roach tell him because if it all ended up in yet another failed attempt, I didn’t want Dad to know. I figured there wasn’t any point in letting him know until I thought it could work. Roach didn’t agree with that, but he had a lot more faith in me than I did, and also, in all honesty, a lot more to lose. On the other hand, there wasn’t much to tell.
Roach had, very gently, tried to unbutton my blouse, and I completely fucking freaked out. He immediately held up his hand and backed off.
“Okay, what did I do?”
So then I had to tell him about the scars on my breasts. Bite marks. Very sexy. He dropped it completely that day, but four days later, he brought it up again.
“Can I touch them outside the shirt?” he asked while we were watching another stupid movie—I really had to buy him more movies—and this time I wasn’t giving up, I was totally going to do it. He was lying behind me, because I’d discovered that it was the best way to do it. If I just held a hand on his cheek, so I knew it was him, it didn’t bring back any weird memories.
“Yes,” I answered.
He was so careful, and at first it felt just like tickling, but then it started to feel good. While he was stroking them, he gently gave me small pecks along my neck. Soon I turned around, and he lay down on his back, pulling me up on top of him.
“Higher up,” he said. “Sit almost on my chest.”
This time he didn’t stop me when I eventually just pulled off my goddamn blouse and bra.
“Oh, fuck,” he groaned.
“What?” I asked, and I was a bit worried.
“That’s just… Wow, babe.”
“They’re good?”
“Yeah, good isn’t really the word I was looking for, but we can go with that.”
“Better than good?”
“Definitely.”
I took a deep breath. “Give me your hands.”
“What?” he said and for the first time managed to tear his eyes from my breasts.
I took his hands in mine, and put them on breasts. “Careful,” I whispered.
“I’m just gonna… Fucking hell. I’ll hold still and you move them around.”
“You see tits all the time. You work among tits.”
“Which is why you should trust me when I tell you your tits are awesome. Absolutely fucking amazing,” he smiled.
“The scars…” I mumbled.
He held me against him and sat up.
“Look at me,” he said in that determined ‘I’m gonna tell you a few things’ voice. “When you see my scars, how do they make you feel?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing really.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. They’re just you.” I felt a bit confused. Then it clicked. “Oh!”
“Yeah, oh,” he smiled. “It’s you. You’re a full package with scars, birthmarks, an awesome laugh, and a beautiful face—all in one. Get it?”
“Stubbornness?”
“Yeah, I’m working on liking that one,” he laughed. “Think the stubbornness might be what makes this work eventually, though.”
We got a little further that time. I actually managed to get off my clothes down to my panties. When he stroked the scars on the inside of my thighs, I just shook my head—I wasn’t ready to go there yet. He gave them a kiss, and somewhere after there, I freaked out. That was his choice of words, totally not mine, I just flinched a little, but he said that he needed to use the bathroom anyway. I assumed he needed to jerk off again. I kind of wished I could do something similar.
oOo
Mel
They had decided to have a girls’ lunch, just her and Eliza, and Mel was looking forward to it. It had been a while since they’d done it, and it had been Eliza’s idea. The last few weeks, since the big debacle with the post-date depression, Eliza had seemed calm and almost like herself again. Almost, but Mel was happy with that.
She took Eliza to Phoenix; to a small Japanese restaurant they’d been a number of times because Eliza loved their Teriyaki salmon.
“Mom,” Eliza said when their food had been served. “Is it okay if I ask you about sex?”
“Of course,” Mel answered, but she was still a bit nervous about it. She assumed every parent was.
“I’m just not sure… how to… Fuck,” Eliza muttered. “This is so hard. Both talking about it, and even thinking about it.”
“Hone
y, maybe you should—”
“If you’re about to tell me to not push myself, I’ll just flip out all over this Teriyaki.”
“No,” Mel laughed; it was just such an Eliza comment. The laugh made it a lot less awkward. “No, what I was going to say was that maybe you should approach it like most girls do when they start having sex.”
“Which is?”
“Get to know yourself first.”
Eliza stared at her. “I’m not getting this wrong, am I? You’re telling me to… masturbate?” Then she stared some more. “I can’t believe I said the word ‘masturbate’ in front of my mom.”
“Better than saying ‘rub one off’ or ‘fiddle with the tickler.’”
“Mooom!”
“Sorry, couldn’t help myself, but yes, that’s what I’m saying.” Mel laughed when Eliza turned more and more red, and then it happened, she started laughing, too. When they calmed down, she was able to continue. “I’m sorry, honey, but that’s really the only way. If you don’t like your body, it’s so much harder for someone else to do it. And if you don’t know, you can’t tell someone else what you like.”
Mel had a pretty good idea why Eliza was asking, and whom she had in mind for possible future sex. She truly hoped that it would work out for them, even if she were a bit hesitant about Brick’s reaction. Since she didn’t know for sure, she wouldn’t bring it up with him. If she was wrong, it could only make things worse. There was a good chance that it was just something Eliza was thinking about, and Mel had no idea how Roach felt about Eliza. She’d never seen anything that would imply that he felt the same way.
But she hoped. If for no other reason than that she wanted Eliza to feel something normal when it came to sex—and love. She wanted Eliza to experience the things girls her age were supposed to experience. Mel had been scared that Eliza would never be able to have a normal relationship, and just the fact that she was asking meant that she was thinking about it.
Equilibrium: A Marauders Interlude Page 16