by Zelda Reed
I don’t want to think about Neal or Carl but the image of the two of them, packed in a single stall, Carl’s knees pushed to his chest as Neal towers over him, buries itself beneath my skin. I can feel Carl’s bottom lip splitting open, a trail of blood skating down his chin, staining his faded white button-down. All because of me.
I know the drill. I took self-defense classes in college and sat in on feminist meetings where the moderator chanted it’s not your fault, it’s never your fault, over and over like a mantra. I believed her – believe her – but the weight of my guilt won’t let up.
What if…
What if Nate and Chris killed him?
My chest tightens and I draw my bottom lip between my teeth.
A black car pulls in front of the building. I know it’s them before the backdoor opens and Neal and Chris step out. They spot me immediately, standing in the middle of the sidewalk, my arms wrapped around myself. Neal shuts the door and the car drives off, down the road and around the corner, taking the disruptive sound of the engine with him.
Chris casts a glance up the street and down. “Where’s Ashleigh?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
Neal smirks. “She’s upstairs, isn’t she?”
Chris doesn’t need my permission to enter the building. Like Neal, he walks with an air of authority, like he belongs everywhere. With one glance, the man at the front desk will assume Chris lives in the building and he’ll leave him to travel up to my father’s condo without warning.
“You shouldn’t be out here by yourself,” Neal says.
My arms tighten around me. “That’s true.”
He’s staring at me, mouth and eyes soft at the corners, his arms hanging cautiously at his sides. “Did I do something wrong?”
I almost laugh. “Where do I start?”
Neal watches me walk from one end of the building to the other, my heels scratching at the concrete as I move towards him.
He stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I’m listening.”
“What did you do to him?”
“To who?”
“Please don’t treat me like I’m stupid.”
Neal straightens his shoulders. “You saw what I did.”
“After. What did you do after I left and Chris joined you?”
“Is that really important?”
“Yes,” I say. “What you choose to do to another human being is very important.”
Neal ducks his head. With his black hair, black suit, black shirt and black tie, he blends into the city, sharp and chiseled like a daunting skyscraper. He looks nothing like my father but I see shades of him inside of Neal. The way he looks at me, slightly impatient, waiting for the questions to stop rolling off my tongue.
“Are you alright?” he says. “I thought…I thought you’d be happy that I saved you.”
‘Happy’ is the wrong word to describe what I’m feeling. ‘Content’ doesn’t seem to fit either. I’m guilt-ridden, confused, and anxious.
I’m always some degree of anxious. Anxious that what Gilda told me was right, that this is just the beginning, That Neal is carefully spinning a web, like my father did with all of his wives, and I’m willfully entangling myself with his deceptions.
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” I say, my fingers digging into my arms.
Neal steps closer. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Don’t kiss him! The warning lights up in my brain, large and blinding but Neal’s too close. He pushes my hair behind my ear, exposing the small diamond stud, his thumb caressing my cheek as he tilts his head and kisses me.
His lips are soft against mine, his fingers threading in my hair as my hands find his shoulders. Our toes press together as he deepens the kiss, one arm thrown around my waist as I give into him. Wholly and completely.
Across the street someone whistles. We break apart and spot a small group of drunken college students, cheering us on with whoops and hollers, arms fist-pumping the air.
I bury my face in his neck, biting back a smile.
Neal says, “Come on.” He laces his fingers with mine. “Let’s head upstairs.”
The door’s locked. Neal knocks and I stand a little taller, my back pressed against the opposite wall, standing as far away without looking too off. I’m not quite ready to enter my father’s condo, not without the crowds of sympathetic mourners or the thick smell of alcohol wafting through the air. I need the bartenders with their pop-up bar and the caterers with their mountain of food. I need the waiters and waitresses and cigarette buds littering the patio. I need something to detach me from my memories of it.
Ashleigh opens the door and Neal steps inside. His hand lingers on the knob as he throws a look over his shoulder.
“Are you coming?” he asks.
“In a minute.”
His eyebrows knit in the middle but he doesn’t say anything. He kicks off his shoes in the foyer, right foot, then the left, his socks as black as his suit. My father used to do the same, his toes expertly peeling his shoes from his feet before he checked the bottom for dirt and grime. “I gotta get these cleaned,” he would mutter to himself.
He was a freak about keeping the cream carpet spotless. No food was allowed anywhere but the kitchen and his bedroom. I ate many meals propped up at the counter, watching him in the living room with Gina or Darlene, explaining the current financial market the way one would explain physics to a child. I was always waiting for him to pat them on the head, an overt display of patronization, but they did it to themselves. The pair of them unknowingly spitting out the same line years apart: “I’m too pretty to worry about things like this.”
I take off my heels in the hall and place them next to Neal’s shoes. There’s no carpet to worry about now, it’s all wood floor, but it’s an instinctual act.
Chris and Ashleigh are in the living room, Chris laying across the couch with his shoes pressing into the cushion.
“Can you not?” I say, leaning against the kitchen counter.
Chris raises an eyebrow.
“Your feet. Get them off the couch.”
A streak of defiance rushes through him, the same that occasionally runs through me. Our eyes meet and he digs his heels deeper into the cushion, a mischievous smirk spreading across his mouth.
“Get them off,” Neal barks from the short bookcase in the corner. Chris immediately complies. Good boy.
Ashleigh’s near the record player, barefoot and bouncing on her heels. “David Bowie or Nancy Sinatra?” she says, throwing me a glance.
“My dad doesn’t own any David Bowie,” I say.
“He does,” Ashleigh says with a grin. “I got him into him.”
She flips the record between two fingers before putting on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, a record my roommate in college blared every Saturday night. I can’t imagine my father, the uptight, cigar smoking, jazz fan, dancing along to Moonage Daydream but Ashleigh insists it was one of his favorite songs.
She dances alone, her eyes close as she moves to the moderate tempo. She spins in a slow circle, sways her hips from side to side. As the song approaches the bridge, she reaches for an invisible man, fingers curling around his shoulders before they slip through the air.
She stops dancing and her eyes pop open, the realization growing in her mind. That’s right, Julian’s dead.
Ashleigh hangs her head, her chin inches away from her chest as Chris pops up from the couch. “That’s enough of this,” he says, changing the song.
Starman plays and Neal’s at my side, handing me a glass of bourbon. We sip our drinks as Chris dances circles around Ashleigh, flailing his arms, kicking out his legs, dangerously off-beat. He moves to make her laugh, the faint tears pricking the corners of her eyes disappearing as a bubble of laughter grows in her throat. She moves with him, her shoulder shimmying before they’re dancing together. One step to the left, the other to the right, Chris’s hand on her back as they move in-tandem.
Neal clinks his glass against mine. “Why don’t you show me the rest of the place?”
My lips spread across the mouth of my glass. “Don’t act like you haven’t been here before the repass.”
Neal smiles. “I have. But I’ve never been past the living room.”
“Are you lying to me?”
He takes a drink. “Not at this moment. No.”
My father’s bedroom is on the right side of the condo. Neal walks beside me as we wander down the hall, sloshing ice cubes in our glass as we pass pieces of art that weren’t here the last time I stayed with my father. Large canvas prints with random splashes of paint – neon green, bright pink, the blackest of black – young and modern pieces that must be Ashleigh’s doing.
His bedroom door is closed, a thick black line hovering beneath it.
“That’s my father’s room,” I say, taking a drink.
Neal’s fingers curl around the knob.
“What are you doing?”
“Going in your father’s room.”
“Don’t,” I pull his hand away. “I’m not…” I’m not allowed in there, but is it still true when there’s no one to stop me?
It takes a moment for me to step away from the door, my fingers pressing into my sweating glass, almost trembling at the thought of going inside. I’m not ready for that. Not now.
There’s a linen closet full of towels and toiletries, a guest bathroom that smells of bleach and a tiny room that was once used for an office. We walk through the living room, glancing at Ashleigh and Chris who remain dancing, to the other side of the condo where my bedroom sits at the end of the hall.
I haven’t been in this room for years. As far as I know, it’s no longer my bedroom but a workout room for Ashleigh, or the place my father stored all his files. A new office. A bigger one with a view and the stench of his daughter.
“This was my bedroom,” I say, pushing open the door.
Neal follows close behind, the tips of his shoes slamming against my heels when I abruptly stop. A light burn brews in my chest – a dangerous, tightening feeling – the bristling feeling of shock, crackling in my chest like fireworks.
My father’s kept my bedroom exactly the same as I left it. My lime green sheets are still a mess atop my bed, a ball of linens I never bothered to fold. My desk in the corner carries the weight of my high school reading assignments – The Great Gatsby, Frankenstein, Hamlet – and my mug full of pencils and pens, an old stick of gum Suzanne stole from the Walgreens, a grinning picture of the two of us in Millennium Park.
My stomach clenches when I open the drawer and find all the poems and letters Justin wrote for me, folded neatly atop cheap but romantic gifts: A teddy bear cradling a heart, plastic red roses, a bag of stale candy held together by cellophane and a pale pink ribbon.
My father never allowed posters on the wall, but that didn’t stop me from sticking one on the back of my door. A vintage pink and black poster of Funny Face. Not too cliché, though Audrey Hepburn, every teenage girl’s idol, stares wide-eyed back at me.
Neal stands near the door, watching me move from one corner of the room to the next. My beside table holds my bright red alarm clock, bought for fifty dollars and never used. A disposable camera (remember those?) lays face down on the second shelf, from the weekend Suzanne and I spent at Six Flags. Beneath my bed there’s a thin pile of dust, an old gum wrapper, and a fuzzy red sock I lost around Christmas. I pull it out, shake the dust loose and wallow in the release of my sneeze.
For the first time since stepping off the plane I’m filled with an impenetrable joy. Maybe my father didn’t love me, but he thought of me enough to keep my memory lingering behind a door in his house.
Neal and I sit on the edge of my bed. The mattress sinks beneath our weight, always too soft, like sleeping on a cloud, but I never outwardly complained. We silently sip our drinks, David Bowie floating through the bottom crack of the door. Our ice cubes clack against our glasses, liquid slurping on our tongues. The soundtrack of our evening.
“I should apologize,” Neal says.
“I agree.”
A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
“But what are you apologizing for?”
His tongue curls against the back of his teeth. “Lying. About who I was to your father.”
I down the rest of my drink. “I accept your apology.”
Neal raises a sharp eyebrow. “You do?”
I nod and stand, setting my glass on my bed side table. I remember the rings of liquid I used to leave behind, the sweat from soda cans forming a perfect circle on the wood.
Neal leans back on my bed, his elbows pressing into the mattress, his empty glass balanced between two fingers. When I was a teenager I would’ve killed to have someone who looked like him in my bed. Someone to comfort me after Justin. Someone who sent a shiver down my spine with a single glance. Someone who commanded my attention with a single swipe of their tongue across their bottom lip.
“Come here,” he says.
I pull my hands behind my back. “I don’t think so.”
“I thought you forgave me?”
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to open my legs and let you in.”
Neal lowers his glass onto the floor. “Am I not making myself clear?”
“I don’t think you are.”
“Then let me reiterate: I want you to come over here.”
“And I think I told you, ‘no’.”
A fire ignites behind Neal’s eyes, a flicker of red that flashes amongst a clear blue. I plant my feet where I stand, my head slightly cocked to the side, a single eyebrow raised in defiance. If you want me, you better come and get me.
Neal stands and shrugs off his jacket, black fabric rolling past his shoulders and arms until it’s neatly folded across the back of my desk chair. “Last chance,” he says, fiddling with his gold cufflinks. A pop of color in his black ensemble.
“You don’t listen very well do you?” I say. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Neal moves across the room with a quickness found only in the most majestic of animals. His legs stretching across the floor, arms and hands reaching for my waist. His fingers curl into the fabric of my dress, tugging me forward until our hips slap against one another.
“You moved,” he says, the corner of his mouth raised into a smirk.
“Have I?”
His mouth devours mine, his hand flat against my lower back as his tongue snakes between his lips. I can taste the bourbon on his tongue, his own lapping up the dessert and champagne notes that paint the inside of my mouth.
My legs knock into the mattress, fingers twisting in his shirt as I lay back on the bed. I try to bring Neal with me, our chests pressed together, but Neal remains on his feet.
His tie comes undone, thick fingers twisting the expensive fabric up and through the loop, before he discards it on my floor. He pops open the first two buttons of his shirt, a sliver of tanned skin peeking through. I need to taste him, to lick from the line of his jaw to his collarbone.
I reach for his shirt but Neal slaps my hand away with a grin.
“Relax,” he says, lowering to his knees.
Pushed to my elbows, I watch him kneel between my legs, his hands sliding up my calves, a pleasant tingling spreading from his fingertips, to my thighs, to the space between my legs. His eyes grow dark as his fingers push beneath my dress. The fabric catches on his watch as he pushes it to my waist, revealing my pair of panties. Red and lacy, the sort you wear when you’re hoping to get fucked.
Neal lifts his head and smirks. “Lay back,” he says.
My head sinks into the mattress as his hands find my thighs. Palms spreading across pale skin. His knees shift against the floor, fingertips digging into my flesh as his nose presses against me. A small moan builds in the pit of my stomach, flowing out of me like a breath.
He tilts his head, lips brushing across the fabric, the friction creating a warm pulsating heat that spreads down to my toe
s.
My hips squirm against the mattress as his mouth increases the pressure, lips opening and closing, massaging my growing clit. My back arches off the mattress, one hand twisting in my sheets, the other grabbing his hair.
A thin layer of gel coats my fingers as they tangle in the dark strands. His tongue slides between his lips, the wet muscle lapping at the fabric of my underwear. I push my hips down, silently begging for more friction, more pressure, but Neal’s intent on soaking my panties.
My hips push up from the mattress, pressing against his mouth. If he won’t give me the pressure I want, I’ll give it to myself.
His tongue hooks upward and flicks against my clit. A string of moans pass through my lips as I rock my hips against him, a rhythm building up to get me off.
Neal pins my hips against the mattress, stopping me from rutting against him. A small but embarrassing whine passes my lips and I have the decency to blush, from the tips of my ears to the back of my knees.
Neal chuckles, his lidded eyes focused between my legs, one hand lifting from my hip, hooking into the band of my underwear, pushing them past my thighs and to my knees.
My signature scent fills the room as he stands and undoes his belt and pants, pushing them past his hips. My legs spread open as he presses himself against my body, our chests brushing against one another, his hand pulling his cock from his boxers. With one arm on the mattress, steadying him, he implants his lips against mine as he lines himself up and pushes inside.
Oh. The sound flies past my lips. Neal swallows it, the single syllable sliding down his throat as his cock fills me up.
My legs wrap around his waist, locking at the ankles. My hands claw at his shoulders, curling inward as he fucks me.
“Harder,” I say barely above a whisper, a ghost that slides across his lips.
His fingers entangle in my hair as he pistons his hips harder. “Like this?” he says, slamming into me.
“Yeah, just like that.”
He fucks me until our bodies rock the mattress, the headboard beating against the wall, the springs creaking beneath us. Chris and Ashleigh can probably hear us but I don’t care, not with the orgasm building in the pit of my stomach like a volcano. An eruption waiting to happen, every thrust sending me closer to the edge.