Not Tina.
No one has said that name in years. Why would he? How would he even know?
He doesn’t. And he couldn’t.
I feel the laptop and the pictures I’ve hidden like a dark ominous throb from the banquette. But I ignore it. I have all my life to deal with that. And only tonight to deal with Simon.
I pull his jeans down until they’re past his hips, the black cotton of his briefs, follow. I put my hand around his cock, the wide girth of it, the heat of it excites me all over again.
This is going to be a long night I think. I hope.
And then I lick the tip of him. My tongue is coated in salty, thick pre-come. He hisses and groans, his fingers tangle in my hair. I trace thick veins. I roll my lips over the head of his cock. I suck him down.
He’s groaning and muttering nonsense words like he can’t stop himself. Like he couldn’t make sense if he tried. And I love all of it.
I grip him harder, suck him harder. I’m slow and then fast, the rhythm always changing until I feel him get frustrated. Until he says, “Please.”
The pleasure center of my brain lights up like the Fourth of July and I find the rhythm he likes best. The suction and the friction that makes him pull my head into his body. That makes him swear and call me beautiful.
“So fucking beautiful.”
It’s a lie, but it’s such a nice one.
And then he’s coming in my mouth and I close my eyes, swallowing him. It’s so honest, this moment. Like my kitchen during dinner rush. It’s only the act and nothing else. It’s one of the realest things in my life.
And that says terrible things about my life.
“Penny,” he breathes and I lean back, the moment over. His cock slips out of my mouth and lays half-erect, slick and pink against his legs.
“Thank you,” he says and I laugh. I lift my hand and he helps me to my feet then kisses me.
His hands cupping my face, he kisses me with something unfamiliar.
Gratitude maybe.
I hope it’s not regret.
He puts his forehead against mine, panting for breath and I wrap my arms around him. Tenderness fills me.
It’s dangerous, this tenderness, but I can’t stop it.
And I want it. God, how I want it. To feel soft towards something. To feel unguarded. To feel honest?
It is so rare in my life and I decide, in this moment, to take it. To embrace it. To soak up as much of the tender honesty as I can.
Because he’s leaving in the morning.
He blows out a hard breath then bends to pick up his pants.
“Take them off,” I say and he looks up at me with an eyebrow quirked. “I’m not kicking you out,” I say, in a thick voice, slurred and pleasure drunk.
“You’re hoping for more?”
“I’m planning on more,” I say with a laugh, pushing the remains of my tank top off my body. “I’ve got a good bottle of pinot and some cheese and bread.”
“Provisions,” he says with a smile.
A trickle of doubt runs through me, because I am incapable of pure happiness. Total confidence. My mother, after all, did such a good job.
“Unless,” I say, “you need to head back. Or don’t want to stay —”
He kisses me again. Hard and close-mouthed. “I couldn’t walk home right now if I had to. I’m ruined. And wine and cheese sounds like heaven.”
Heaven, I think, and I go get the glasses.
SEVENTEEN
Simon
“MORE WINE?” she asks, reaching beside her bed for the bottle and I should say no. I should have said no to everything. But I’m in it now and my own lies are choking me.
“Please,” I say, and she tops up my glass then her own before reclining back on her bed. We’ve pulled on underwear and she found another tank top and all I can think is I want to tear that off of her.
And I’m a despicable human.
Those two things are also true at the same time.
“Do chefs just always have the stuff around for an impromptu picnic,” I ask, looking down at the cherries, cheese and bread that appeared with the wine.
“Not much of a picnic.”
“It is in my book.”
“When’s the last time you had a picnic?” she asks.
I don’t want to remember. I don’t. But it’s there. The memory in Technicolor. And this is the danger of Penny. This is what she does to me. She pulls out all the memories I want forgotten.
“My mom,” I say. “When I was a kid. Sundays if the weather was nice me, my mom and dad, we’d take the cricket bat down to the park and eat lunch.”
“Sounds nice.”
Nice doesn’t describe it. Doesn’t come close and I hate her for reminding me. And I hate myself for having forgotten.
“My mom would try to play and my dad and I would humor her, but she was awful. And I think about it now, that she might have tried to be awful so she could sit back in the shade and read and we wouldn’t give her a hard time.”
“That old trick,” she says with a laugh.
“It wasn’t mean or anything. She wanted to be there. And she wanted to watch us. But she really just wanted to read.”
“It’s a foolproof plan. One I’ve used myself.”
“Yeah?” I ask.
“My dad had this thing for golf. He…loved it. I think he really just wanted to be a golfer, but you know, couldn’t. And he’d take me golfing, but he’d be so terrible. So corrective all the time. So disappointed when I didn’t do well. I got to be paralyzed by it and then I realized if I played terrible, I didn’t have to play at all. So I didn’t ever try to get better. And then he stopped taking me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing I couldn’t imagine her so clearly.
“That’s…sad,” I say lamely. I don’t say anything about her father the farmer, I don’t point out the inconsistencies.
Because she’s not talking about him. She’s telling the truth.
Dale Simpson was a shit dad.
“It wasn’t, trust me. Not golfing was a total relief.”
I can’t take it. I can’t take any of it. So I kiss her. It’s not sweet. It’s not careful. And I try to slow myself down. But she doesn’t let me.
We both have gone too far from the lies we were supposed to be telling.
I came here for one reason: get the fucking laptop.
“Hey,” she says. “You all right?”
“Perfect,” I lie. Just one more thrown onto the pile we’ve got between us. And suddenly, I crave what’s true. Like salt after too much sweet.
And our bodies know what’s true. I take her wineglass from her hand and set it with mine on the small table beside her bed. When I turn back to her, she’s put the cheese and cherries down on her side of the bed.
She’s ready for me. Her hands in my hair, her mouth over mine. I put my arms around her back and pull her into me with a ferocity that makes both of us gasp.
If everything else around us is a lie, I will make this the truth. I will wring and squeeze it out of us until we’re wrecked.
Her fingers pull at my hair and I push and shove that tank top off her until she’s in my lap wearing nothing but a pair of black underwear. I can feel her through the cotton. The damp and the heat. And I rise up between her legs, my cock pounding already. She’s barely touched me and it doesn’t matter.
One of her hands drops from my hair to my cock and I hiss and push into her fingers, even as I devour her mouth. And I need to be inside her. I need to have her all around me. Like a kid who is scared of the dark, I need her light bathing me.
“Get my wallet out of my pants,” I tell her then realize how stupid that is. All the truth I have in my wallet. My Los Angeles Times ID card. My real name. My address with the apartment number.
She stops kissing me and leans sideways to get it and I stop her. Twisting sideways to grab my pants before she does. She kisses my neck and my brain is fuzzy. My body nothing but sensation.
“Hurry,” she breathes and I pull the condom out of my wallet, keeping it together enough to shove my wallet back in my pants.
She plucks the condom from my hands and tears the package open with her teeth and it’s the hottest thing I’ve seen. Maybe ever. Before I can pull my underwear completely out of the way, she’s rolling the condom down my shaft and I’m groaning, eyes shut, underwear forgotten.
“Are you —”
“Yes.”
“Hurry.”
She says the word but it’s her hand on my cock, her hand pushing her underwear out of the way. Her hand notching me to her body, holding me steady while she slowly lowers herself onto me.
I am engulfed in her. Awash in her. I feel nothing but her heat. And her strength. She winces just slightly and I stop, my hands at her waist, holding her up.
“Are you okay?” I ask, aware I haven’t touched her. Aware that after two kisses she might not be ready.
“Good,” she whispers.
“You winced.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not if it hurts you,” I breathe and she looks up at me. Her eyes so dilated I can’t tell her pupil from her iris. Her cheeks are pink; her neck is, too.
My breath catches as I’m sucker-punched by her beauty.
“I am the judge of this,” she says. And she pushes my hand away, taking me deeper into her body. And she’s tight. She’s so tight I can’t move. Or think. Or breathe.
It’s like being held in a soft fist and it’s more perfect than I’m able to grasp. All I can do is put my arms around her, rest my head against her chest. The kaleidoscope of art and color she had inked onto her skin. I close my eyes and she smells like wine and sweat and, beneath that, something earthy.
She wraps her arms around my head and slowly…slowly starts to move. A deep and twisting grind. A shift back and forth and I’m lost in her. Lost in this.
I bend my head, find her nipple and pull it into my mouth, giving her the lick of pain she likes with her pleasure and it occurs to me in a thunderbolt that all of our lies don’t matter. Because of this.
Because this is the unbearable truth.
The thought pulls me from my guilt. It makes me curl my hand over her shoulder and pull her down onto me. I pull until I am so deep inside of her she gasps, leaning back.
I catch her eye and the balance shifts. She’s on top, but I’m fucking her. I lift my knees finding leverage, grinding her down onto me.
She gasps. Breathes. Pants. She’s boneless with surrender in my arms.
Filth rises to my lips. And I want to say it all, denigrate the both of us because we’re such disgusting liars. But she gets there first.
“I like the way you use me,” she pants.
I sit up, shove the brie and the bread onto the floor, the plate clattering as it lands and I roll her to her back.
“Tell me,” I say asking for permission, maybe.
“Fuck me,” she says, her cheeks bright and hot. “Hard.”
And I do. Over and over again I drive into her. And over and over again she takes me, her legs around my hips. Her arms around my back. Her cries in my ear.
And I keep driving towards that edge, pushing us as hard as I can past what we want, past what we can take, but it’s infinite.
The pleasure between us goes on and on until she breaks first. Her body clenches hard. Her nails in my back. Her cries in my ear. And it’s a chain reaction. Her orgasm sets off mine and I push into her and stay there, my brain in spasm. My body in ruins.
It shouldn’t feel so good, betraying someone.
But sex with her is the best thing I have ever experienced. There’s nothing careful about it. Nothing tentative. It’s like we’re throwing ourselves at each other as hard as we can, expecting the other person to balk, or resist. Or refuse.
But we don’t.
I go to the bathroom. Get rid of the condom and wash my hands, all without looking myself in the eye.
When I get back to her bedroom, she’s asleep. Curled up on her side, her short hair feathered over her face. I pull on my underwear and find the edge of the blanket and pull it over her naked body.
Taking care of her before I ransack her house.
I watch her, telling myself I’m just making sure she’s asleep.
Everything is muddy and I need things to be crystal clear.
The computer, I remind myself. Whatever you find on her computer will clear things up.
So I leave her sleeping in her bed and go into her living area. She has a small bookshelf, filled with cookbooks.
I find an old Greek one, the binding falling off and I know if I open it, I’ll see the artwork for her tattoos. So I don’t touch it. I pretend it’s not there.
There are spots on the shelves where there is an absence of dust, like something had been moved recently. Pictures, maybe.
I look through, behind and under shelves and cupboards. I open everything in her small kitchen area but don’t find anything interesting.
Well, it’s all kind of interesting because it’s hers. Because everything from the chipped, smiley face mug to the freezer full of mint, chocolate-chip ice cream is fascinating to me.
At the table I kick our clothes away and put my knee on the cushion of the banquet. We must have knocked it off its spot because it slips and I catch myself against the table.
Under the cushion is the wooden bench seat, with a handle.
Storage.
My gut tells me this is it.
I open the first hidden storage box and find nothing but winter boots. The second one is empty, too, and I start to feel incredulous, like I can’t be wrong. I can’t have sunk this far to not have it pan out.
“Come on,” I breathe and open the third storage space.
Jackpot.
There are three framed pictures and I refuse to see them. Refuse to feel anything about the grinning girl standing next to an old man I catch a glimpse of in one. I set them facedown on the table.
Beneath the pictures is a beat-up laptop case. Black with the edges gray from wear. I unzip the case and inside is an old laptop that looks to be the right age.
I zip it up and put the pictures in the storage container. I’ll take the laptop with me. Open it in my room. Take whatever files I need and this will all be over.
The lies can stop.
And Simpson will go down.
And Penny? Penny might go down, too.
“Simon?” Penny calls from the bedroom and my body breaks out in a cold sweat.
I hear the springs of the bed creak as she moves.
EIGHTEEN
Penny
I’M NOT sure what wakes me, but between one heartbeat and the next, I’m up. The moon washes over my bed and for a moment, I don’t know where I am.
No, that’s not quite right. I’m not sure who I am.
That’s how different I feel in my skin. My body. I have never felt the way I do right now.
The bed is empty.
“Simon?” I call out, thinking he might be in the bathroom. But there’s no answer. My whole trailer is quiet.
He’s gone, I think and I try not to feel anything about that. I try to remember there were no discussions. Absolutely no promises. He had every right to leave.
But it doesn’t stop me from aching, just a little.
I roll over and find him standing in the doorway, his arms are braced on the door jamb. He’d pulled his underwear on and they are low on his hips and the way he’s standing, the muscles of his arms and chest are popped out in relief. His skin looks like velvet and my fingers twitch to touch it.
I’m lying to him, I think, in the predawn silence. And I wish I wasn’t.
“You’re awake,” he says, his voice a low bass murmur that I feel more than hear. All the hair on my arms rises up.
“What are you doing?” I ask. I’m naked under the sheet and I stretch like a cat. He notices and leans forward a little, but his hands are still on the door frame and I like that. T
hat he’s holding himself back from me. That perhaps I am a temptation he finds hard to resist.
I kick my leg out from under the sheet. Just to see if I can help him not resist me.
His face doesn’t change. He doesn’t smile or say anything. He seems…cold. And suddenly I’m cold.
I pull the blanket over my leg.
“Are you — Is everything okay?” I ask.
“What could be wrong?”
His tone is weird and I sit up. The old lessons learned from my mother return and I’m highly aware that I’ve done something wrong. And I have this instinct to try to make it right. But I’ve lost too much skin and worth to do that for a man I don’t really know.
“You…you should leave?” I’m embarrassed that it comes out as a question.
“I should,” he says, still cold. “I should go.”
He walks across the room to me and I sit up in my bed, suddenly nervous. Suddenly unsure.
“You’re…you’re kind of freaking me out, Simon.”
His jaw clenches and his body is hard like he is fighting something with every muscle he has. My brain is cloudy and I’m confused, but my body…my body likes the uncertainty.
Then he smiles at me like he knows it. His fingers reach out and stroke my leg under the blanket and my skin rises up in goose bumps and I gasp at the sensation. Hot and cold at once.
His hand circles my ankle and he pulls it, straightening my leg. Another pull and I’m flat on my back, panting up at my ceiling with fear and desire.
He pushes my leg wide and shoves the sheet out of the way. I flinch. So painfully aware that I am completely bare to him. He can see all of me. And I lie there and let him.
With his other hand he pushes my other leg out and I make some strangled moan sound.
“Tell me no,” he says.
I shake my head. I don’t know what’s happened and part of me doesn’t care. I expect him to rise up on his knees. To find another condom, to push himself inside me.
I expect it and I want it.
But instead he lies down, his shoulder between my thighs.
The flat of his tongue licks me and I cry out. All the things we’ve done tonight, there hasn’t been this.
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