by Alisa Mullen
My cold feet immediately went to his. He jumped a little and swore. I giggled as I kept on chattering and shaking.
“Wow, you’re an ice cube. What happened?” he asked, his mouth right on my cheek as every part of his body was touching mine. I was so thankful he didn’t have a morning erection like Michael sometimes did. That would have been a bit awkward.
“My host didn’t give me a blanket last night and I guess we left the window open,” I said. I actually had nothing to do with the window but I had learned a while ago that when I blamed Michael for anything, I always said we forgot. ‘Honey, we forgot to mow the lawn.’ Or ‘Michael, it looks like we forgot to change the light bulb in the garage.’ I wouldn’t dare say that he forgot to do those things because he would be upset with me all day long. He would tell me that I wasn’t thankful enough for what he gave to me. I didn’t appreciate our fine home. Blah, blah, blah, blah, and blah.
“What do you mean ‘we’?” Johnny chuckled and blew hot air on the back of my neck. “You didn’t open the window.”
“I know but I didn’t want to blame you for all of the reasons why I’m dying of hypothermia right now,” I said dryly. Johnny erupted in laughter. He held on tight to me as he shook. I relished in it because it was nice to hear him laugh and when he moved, it caused the friction needed to get me warmer. Soon, his laughs died down and I stopped convulsing. I felt his hands rub up and down my thighs and it felt so good to have someone, anyone touch me. I mimicked Johnny’s breathing and soon we were back to sleep, totally entangled in one another’s body. It was glorious.
Chapter Nine
Johnny
I heard a whimper from the other side of the bed. Female. I turned my face to see long, silky beautiful hair totally messed up in snarls and dread looking knots surrounding a beautiful face. A beautiful sweet girl named Emily. I watched her whimper again. She was still sleeping and was totally screwed up in all of the blankets, leaving me with none. I looked down at the little piece of top sheet that covered half of my left shin and foot. Well, that foot was semi- warm.
I looked back over at Emily. Ah. Sweet and nice fucked up Emily who left her cheating husband and doesn’t know what she’s going to do. Shit, I wasn’t any different. Cheating wife or not, I had no fucking idea what I was doing with my life either. Dr. Fuck Noodle reminded me at every session that I needed to come up with a plan.
What was it?
Take a dump, take a shower, drink coffee, wake up sleeping beauty, and head to Dex’s place to head off on the road.
Luckily, we were just going to Hartford for our first stop so we wouldn’t be in a big rush to get there. There you go, Dr. Nut Sack that was my plan. Thank you fucking much.
I eased out of the bed and when my feet hit the hard and cold floor, I winced. Yes, Emily had come to bed with me because she was so damn cold. I held her. I blew on her. She made me laugh in the middle of the night. I hadn’t laughed…in years. She said something funny about dying from the cold and I fucking laughed. I looked back at her with a shocked expression. Her serene sleeping face instantly made me feel something. I was grateful for her. Then I was hard. Dammit. I closed my eyes. Not every girl was a sexual prize. Emily probably didn’t even notice that I was half naked when she came to bed. If she had, she didn’t use me for sex. She used me for protection. That made me felt important, even if it was for only a few moments. She was innocent, sweet, and she needed me. She came to me as another human being because I could help her. I could save her. That had to be progress. I made a mental note to tell the good doctor when I returned in a week.
I walked into the bathroom and started the hot water. I went to the drawer to take out the picture of Julia topless. We had taken a bunch when we were on the road a couple years ago… when we were still together. It was the only way I could get off in the shower. I propped it up on the sink and undressed while I stared at her flawless skin and penetrating eyes.
“You got married, Jules,” I said aloud. “Are you happy now?”
I winced. That line of foreplay talk was not going to help me along. I shook my head, got in the shower, and looked at her again.
“Hey baby,” I cooed. I watched the picture and started to take myself in my hand. Nothing.
“I love your tits,” I said and gave a groan as I mentally took in each familiar nipple. I bit my bottom lip and started a stroke. Nothing. I was totally limp. A knock came at the door and before I could move the photo or even say ‘Don’t come in’ - Emily was already coming through the door.
“Sorry, Johnny,” she said on a yawn. “I have to pee so badly. I promise I won’t flush.”
I was instantly hard. I looked down in amazement.
“Uh…yeah. Hey. So, did you sleep okay?” I asked as I started to work myself again.
“Oh, it was so much better after I came to lay with you. You were wonderful, Johnny. Thank you so much,” she announced in a morning voice that was so fucking hot.
“Yeah,” I said, just about to explode, my breaths heaving. “You were an icicle.”
She laughed. It was a low raspy morning laugh as she hummed in agreement.
“Can I make you some breakfast?” she asked. I could hear what she was doing, too. My ears were only meant for her. She was pulling out the toilet paper and I lost it. It felt like it took forever to pulse to a satiated state. I hadn’t experienced an orgasm that intense in years.
Did I just get off on a conversation about Emmy being cold? I thought about the photo of Jules and while the pang of hurt was still there in the right side of my chest, she wasn’t the most attractive person in the world. Certainly, not after that.
“Johnny?” Emily asked again.
“What, oh. Emmy you don’t have to,” I said. “Plus I don’t have much in the way of food. I’m going on tour today, remember?”
“Alright, let me check anyway.” I heard the door shut softly and I let out the biggest breath. But I felt alone. I didn’t want to be alone. I quickly cleaned myself so I could get back to Emily. She was starting to have a pull on me. It wasn’t sexual. I just wanted to talk to her about what she wanted and get to know who she was. It was a different feeling.
I suppose it was like when I met Dex. He and I hung out for two weeks straight, playing Madden. I learned a lot about his life and I answered questions about mine, too. With Jules, it was always about her. And probably if you asked her, it was all about me. I think we competed for something but I wasn’t sure what it was.
I walked out of my room to the smell of cinnamon and apples, coffee, and home. Emily had one of my big Love Sick Ponies shirts on and nothing else. So unlike her normal etiquette, she normally asked me to breathe every time she needed something.
She was freaking adorable and I knew I was sporting a cheeky grin. I wanted to wrap my arms around her but I couldn’t. That one kiss, that one cuddle was just to make her feel better. There was nothing between us. She was married and I was in love with another married woman. What was it with the fucking institution of marriage? It was atrocious. It was out of control and last but not least, it was a definite cock blocker.
Emily smiled to me. “You had the ingredients for pancakes. Flour, sugar, and a couple of eggs. There were only frozen apples in the freezer and they were really freezer burned but I think I got them back to fresh with the cinnamon,” she explained.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. My kitchen table was covered in food; French toast, pancakes, an apple sauce on the side, a few eggs in a dish, and coffee. Emily had just made a twenty dollar breakfast at the local bistro in less than fifteen minutes.
“Well, fuck me,” I said as I ran my fingers through my hair. Emily stopped frozen and looked up to me with a fearful look.
“What?” I asked.
“You want me to fuck you?” she whispered, still looking afraid, maybe even like she was going to run far away.
I laughed so hard my stomach hurt and I saw when she started to smile at my laughter.
“No, Em. It�
��s an expression. It means wow or holy shit, I guess,” I shrugged as I sat down and went for the coffee.
“Fuck me means wow?” she asked incredulously. “That makes no sense.”
I thought about it. No, it really didn’t but it still was the only way I was describing this beautiful arrangement of breakfast made in my kitchen. My kitchen had never even seen a handmade breakfast before and all those ingredients Emily found? Yeah, not my doing. My mother came over a year ago and bought me the staples. She said I should get out of my funk with loving Jules and learn to cook. I remember when she left, I called the pizza place and ordered two large Supremes, sort of as a ‘fuck you’ to that idea.
I ate so much I was stuffed. Emily sat and watched me until she started in on her plate. We didn’t say much and there was a lot that needed to be said. The closer it got to the end of breakfast, the more anxious I got that I would never see her again. She started to grab the plates to clean and I put my hand on hers to stop her.
Emily looked down at my hand with interest and slid back down into her seat. When her eyes found mine, there had to be at least fifty questions in them. She smiled at me.
“Are you goin’ back to him?” I asked in a gentle tone.
“It depends,” she answered.
“On what?” I asked
“If you were serious about me staying here for a week so I can find a job and my own place,” she answered and her eyes fell to the table. I took my fingers and lifted her face up so she could not only hear but see that I wanted her to stay.
“Look for a job first. You have a place to stay as long as you need one,” I said. “By that, I mean, please stay, Emily.”
She nodded her head with the biggest smile. I smiled back to her.
“Is it weird that I will kind of miss you?” she asked. Her face turned a shade of pink. Was she interested in me? Just after one kiss and one cuddle? Did she want more? An uncomfortable pain shot to my stomach and Julia was right there, smiling at me, too.
“Not weird. I’m sure you will get lonely. I will leave my cell phone number so if you have any issues, just call me, okay?” My answer was monotone, almost robotic. Now, I wanted to run.
“Okay, Johnny. Thank you,” she answered, mimicking my tone. She caught on to people’s moods, their reactions fast. She probably had to with her dickhead of a husband. I was growing to dislike him by the minute.
“I will leave the key and please, there’s only one rule. No husbands allowed in my place,” I demanded, which was weird because I hadn’t known I would even make that a stipulation when I opened my mouth. But fuck that noise, that douche was not allowed here.
“Done,” she answered and got up to clean. When I followed her to help, she shooed me off with a kiss on the cheek. “Get out of here, rock star. You have a tour to get on.”
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. She would be lonely and I felt bad. I felt bad for her in a lot of ways. At least she would sleep in a bed, warm and safe, tonight. I reminded myself to change the sheets before I bid her a goodbye and made my way to Dex’s place. I was on time and that, plus my smiling face made everyone do a double take. Yes, something most definitely had changed because of Emily.
Chapter Ten
Emily
Complete losers had nothing on me. I had basically begged Johnny to let me stay in his place but I really did not want to go back to Michael. Not yet. After cuddling with Johnny, I realized that maybe I deserved more than Michael could give to me. All the cheating aside, I didn’t feel as cared for by Michael as I did by Johnny Lennox, a man I had only known for twelve hours. It was weird, surprising, and fuck me. I giggled to myself. That saying still didn’t make sense at all.
I decided when I woke up that if Johnny would let me stay, I needed to get the newspaper straight away. Although I was kicked out of college, I still had some experience in secretarial work…and it wasn’t the fuck the boss for a raise kind. I quickly dressed without a shower, feeling uncomfortable using his water when it wasn’t necessary. It was one thing to let me stay but I wouldn’t want his utilities to cost him because of me this week. No one was supposed to be in the apartment. I ran down to the local drugstore and with the newspaper already in hand, I grabbed some razors and a couple of magazines while I waited for employers to call back. I was sure I wouldn’t get a job immediately.
As I walked up to the counter with my things, I saw a Help Wanted sign and I point to it with a smile.
“Are you hiring?” I inquired as I looked to the older, heavy framed woman. She couldn’t look more uninterested if she tried.
“That is what the sign is for,” she countered in a thick New Yorker accent.
“Well, may I please have an application?” I tested with a smile.
She looked me up and down, while she started to ring up my purchases with one hand. With the other hand, she reached for a white paper pad to the side and ripped the top sheet off. After I paid, she handed me the plastic bag with the piece of paper in it.
It wasn’t until I made it back to Johnny’s apartment that I noticed the paper was a one side application. Quickly, I found a pen and started to fill out the form. After signing my name to allow them to run a background check, I suddenly wondered how many sheets of paper that woman pulled off a day. I was probably part of the masses that were unemployed and I drew in a deep breath.
I had to cut myself some slack. I had just walked in on my husband thrusting into his secretary, I left the only home I ever cared about, and I drove five hours to live in the apartment of a rock star who wasn’t even here. That sequence of events had to require alcohol. I eyed the bottle that Johnny had brought out the night before and twisted my lips at it. It could wait. I kicked off my shoes and started in on the help wanted ads.
Circling only two ads for office assistant work after scouring the newspaper was not what I had expected. Two jobs. I called one number and spoke to someone who couldn’t care less I had called by the monotone and robotic answers to my questions. By the end of the second phone call, I felt a little bubble of frustration in my chest. At one point, I snapped at someone who insisted I shouldn’t have called without taking the secretarial test. The fact that I had to take a test to see if I even qualified for the job was not good. I had to type seventy words per minute. Honestly, besides Facebook and the occasional email to my family with updates on Michael, his job, and our house, I hadn’t typed since my short lived college days.
I remember that last English term paper I wrote like it was yesterday. I had to take a poem by Virginia Woolf and a poem from a contemporary writer, Wally Lamb and find passages that questioned if literature was evolving in a positive direction. I took the stance that it was. It was a difficult paper to write, using critical essays and the huge library at University of New Hampshire for three long nights.
The third night, which happened to be the night before the paper was due, Taylor walked into my room at the sorority house and asked if I had finished. I remember being so dead on my feet, I tossed it to her. I thought that she had finished and was just trying to rub it in my face that her GPA was higher than mine. She was always a bitch about numbers. Who had the “best ass” on the favorite frat’s website? Who was the top of their class within the house? It was ridiculous and I only wanted her to leave me alone. The last thing I saw was her reading my initial paragraph and shaking her head with disappointment, as I closed my eyes.
It only took one full day for both Taylor and me to be called into Dean Accord’s office. A group of the English department was there and I smiled politely at them while Taylor snuffed her way through the throngs of people. What happened next was mostly a blur. I remember the words plagiarism and lawsuit and expelled. Taylor adjusted herself for the argument as I later realized she had anticipated. I sat there probably looking like the kid who got caught. I was terrified.
After they offered for us to admit who had actually copied the other’s paper, I shook my head and said three words, “It wasn’t me.”
Taylor snorted in amusement which set her off in a tangent claiming her innocence while I watched the girl fib her ass off. She did it well, too. She talked about her references and the long hours in the library. She produced the time in and out of the library, according to the books I had actually used while I was there.
We were given until that night to sort it out amongst ourselves and yes, she brought it to a vote within the sorority. I received a phone call right before the vote went to the table. Michael asked if it was me. I was so happy I had his support. He told me to take the blame and since he was a year ahead of me, he would take care of me if I was expelled.
That’s how it went down. Within twenty four hours, I was expelled from school and moving into an apartment with Michael. Six months later, we were married. We never spoke about the incident again except one time when an old sorority sister emailed me and said that Michael slept with Taylor and they conjured the whole thing up. They both won. He wanted me under his hand and she wanted the higher marks. I didn’t believe the email, of course. Who would? I had the perfect husband.
But as I checked off no experience on every website and only typed twenty words per minute, I realized that Taylor and Michael ruined my life. They had me expelled from college. And I let them. How nice was I about it? I actually sent an apology card to Taylor for putting her through the ordeal.
The angry tears came then. I wouldn’t get a job anywhere. Not in New York City. Not in Boston. Nowhere. I was disqualified from working due to my lack of experience. So I drank. By the time ten o’clock rolled around and I had yelled at every window, door, and mirror in Johnny’s apartment, I took scissors to my hair and cut it all off. I thought I needed bangs. Then I thought a bob would look cool. When I was done, I looked like a woman who had just gone through a paper shredding machine. It was official. I had gone completely bonkers.
I woke up the next morning on the bathroom floor, covered in strands of cut off blond hair. I heard people talking loud outside and as I took my pounding headache to the window, I saw people rummaging through my things I had dumped out the window the night before. If it came from Michael, I didn’t want it. I smiled as two women fought over a Gucci handbag. It was hysterical. I made some coffee and in one of Johnny’s tee shirts, I watched as piece by piece my clothing got removed from the rather large pile of designer clothes strewn across the front of Johnny’s apartment lawn. Best damn coffee ever.