by M. Mabie
Check the bar again. He’s really gone.
Dismiss the hint of disappointment.
Try not to think about how his Adam’s apple bobbed when I knew he was thinking about me with them.
Daydream of him joining us.
Stop. That’s not even possible.
Collect my purse from the office. Log my hours.
“Goodnight, guys.” I liked working with them.
I hope the meeting with Michael goes well on Monday.
I want this job.
I want to take these shoes off.
I want to sink into a hot bath and forget the last three weeks.
On my way out, thoughts of Reagan stomped through my mind again, and like my thoughts were words and I’d spoken of the Devil himself, I heard his voice.
“Want to share a cab?”
I stopped short of the front doors, shut my eyes and took a breath, then turned to a small seating area off to the side.
I backed up a few steps and looked around the fig tree and saw him. Sitting there like he didn’t have a care in the world, one leg crossed over the other. An arm stretched across the back of the sofa. His jacket unbuttoned.
I needed a cab, but I was sure I didn’t need to share one with him. I thought about walking out, but there was a part of me that must have been out of her mind, because I asked, “Where are you headed?”
He gave me a hellish grin and rose to his feet. “Near North and Clybourn,” he answered.
“Well, I don’t know my way around here very well. I’m going to North Racine Avenue. Is it even practical to share?”
Say no.
“Probably not,” he said and walked closer. It didn’t seem to bother him.
“I’m not going home with you,” I blurted as he came to my side. I was tired, and my defenses were low, but I couldn’t avoid the whoosh I felt in my belly from his nearness. He was so damn handsome.
“I didn’t ask you to. I asked you to share a cab.”
Technicality.
“Are you sure that’s what you meant?”
He tipped his head to the side as if to beg me for a little more credit than what I gave him. “I always say what I mean.”
“Then I’ll share a cab with you, but it’s dropping you off first.”
I regretted the decision, but it was made before I’d given it enough thought. I needed a cab, and he was so nice to look at.
“Good, I’ll get one for us. It’s cold. Stay right here.”
He was so bossy, but I didn’t have it in me to argue just for the sake of hearing my voice. “Fine. I’ll wait by the door.” With him outside, I wouldn’t have to be so. The more distance, the better.
I was already half turned on by the thoughts I’d had of him, and of Janel and Ives, and the four of us.
He walked out, and I watched as he sauntered to the curb, lifting his large hand in the air.
What a shame.
The more I watched, the more I rounded off his edges. He wasn’t that bad; he was just intense.
I was new in the city, and I needed to chill-out. Not everyone was going to be like me. I could always use a friend, or at the very least a new business acquaintance. If I got the job, I’d need to know people. I reminded myself to have some patience and to think about meeting new people as an opportunity—not the burden I’d treated him like.
Who knew? Maybe Reagan and I could be friends in some capacity.
Maybe under that ego was a good guy.
I watched as a yellow car pulled up, and he turned back to the door to get my attention, smiling as he waved me out to the taxi he’d hailed for us to share.
Despite myself, I gave him a little smile in return. It was a nice thing to do, and when I stepped out into the perfectly brisk night air, I really appreciated the gesture.
Reagan held the door open for me, and I climbed in. When he was inside, he clapped and rubbed his hands together to warm them up.
It was February, and despite the deceptive sun that day, it was frigid outside of the warm taxi.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” he said politely. I liked the way his voice sounded when he was being kind.
The car took off slowly into traffic.
“Don’t you need to tell him where you’re going?” I finally asked, lost in my thoughts.
He sat back and got more comfortable, then replied, “I already did.”
“Oh. Well, you were right, it’s colder out than I thought.”
As the street lights blinked across his face, I saw again something rise to the surface in his eyes.
“I like it when you agree with me.”
I quietly laughed. He was something else.
“I’m sure you do,” I attempted to joke back.
“So you’re not from the city?”
“No. Just in town for a few days, helping with the event. Visiting friends.”
“I see. Where are you from?”
Where was I from?
“I live in Los Angeles, but hopefully I’m moving soon.”
At times, I’d look over at him, but mostly I looked forward at where we were going and tried to commit the landmarks to memory.
“Relocating here?” He shifted in the seat to get a better look at me.
“Possibly,” I answered.
“What does it depend on?”
“Well, you know how I was working the party tonight for the hotel?” I tipped my head to sneak a look at him.
He nodded.
“Well, I’m hoping that it turns into a permanent position.”
“I’m sure it will. Everyone had a great time.”
That was nice of him to say.
“Thanks.” I shifted, crossing and uncrossing my legs in the seat while I tried my best not to think naughty thoughts of him joining us in the tub. Nothing helped because I still thought of it.
He enquired, “Wouldn’t it have been more convenient to stay at the hotel?”
“I am. I’m just not staying there tonight.”
He sat back and tipped his chin up. “That’s right. Your friends.”
The way he said friends was telling.
“Yes, I’m staying the night with them.”
He propped his arm up on the ledge of the window. “They didn’t wait for you?” His tone suggested they’d wronged me.
He was only going to see it the way he wanted to, but I tried to defend them anyway. “No. It was getting late. They were ready to go home.”
“In that case, we should go get coffee or something.”
I looked at my watch. He looked at his.
“At one in the morning? No. They’re waiting up for me.”
He asked under his breath, “Like parents?”
I needed to set him straight. I knew how he was trying to turn it, trying to spin it into something it wasn’t.
I didn’t raise my voice, but I was firm. “No. Like my lovers.”
He caught and held my gaze.
“You really sleep with both of them?” He was more inquisitive than accusing like before.
“I do,” I admitted, hoping to come across as honest. I think he took it that way because his next question surprised me.
“What’s that like?”
Was he talking about positions? The mechanics of plural partners? Who does what when? What goes where? Because that wasn’t a straight forward answer. Sometimes it meant one thing, sometimes it was something else altogether, and being with a man and a woman was worlds apart from being with two men.
“What do you mean?” We were stopped in front of a red light, and I looked out the window, noticing it felt like we’d already passed some of the buildings. The digital machine tallying the fare read thirty-one dollars.
“I mean, what is your relationship like with them?”
That was much simpler.
“Oh, well Janel is my best friend, and I’ve known Ives since I was in high school. They have a relationship. I’m only visiting them tonight.”
“Visiting?” He lightly tapped his hand against his thigh.
“Yes, I’m going over there to be with them.”
He shook his head like he still couldn’t grasp it. I’m sure he hadn’t ever encountered someone who wasn’t interested in him. And just him.
“Are they married?”
“They are now.” As we drove on, I was surer that we had been down the same street. “Where are we going? I think we’re driving in circles.”
He dismissively answered, “I gave him my address and told him to drive around until it hit one hundred first.”
“Why would you do that?” My voice was shrill even to my ear, but his audacity set me off.
“I wanted to talk to you.” He waved his hand like it was not a big deal, then he asked in much the same way, “So, you introduced them, they got married, and you fuck them?”
I eyed him with warning as my temper flared. His dark eyebrows rose, but he didn’t appear too worried. I wasn’t answering anything else.
“You tricked me. They’re waiting on me.” I could feel my pulse pound in my fingers as I sat there with my hands tightly clutching the strap of my purse across my chest.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Well, you do now,” I huffed. Leaning forward, I spoke to the driver. “Can you please take him home now, or let me out?”
We pulled up to another light, and the man at the wheel turned to see what Reagan wanted to do. That only stoked my anger. Of course he would, we weren’t quite to the fucking hundred-dollar mark.
I gave Reagan the side eye. What a weasel.
Mercifully, my con-artist cab companion told the driver, “You can drop me off. The money is yours.”
I sat back and crossed my arms, praying we were close to his building.
Heaven smiled, and not even a block later we were pulling over in front of a high rise we’d already passed three damn times.
The clock still ran, and he didn’t move.
“Get out, Reagan. I’m tired.” I refused to look at him. New city or not, I didn’t need to be friends with an asshole who manipulated me into talking to him.
He faced me once again, and in my periphery, I saw his hand on the door handle. I groaned when he didn’t get out.
“Please, look at me,” he said, gentle and apologetic. It was a little too coaxing, too familiar, for my liking. As if he’d known me for years.
He doesn’t know shit about me.
Still, I wanted him out of the car so I could get on with my night. The sooner, the better. I didn’t want to do what he said, but I did it anyway with a mocking leer.
“You’re interesting. Here’s my card. If you happen to get the job, or if there’s anything I can do to help with that, give me a call or shoot me an email. I haven’t been myself tonight, and I apologize.”
He placed the card on the seat between us, and my hand reached out to pick it up. As soon as my fingers touched the paper, he had my hand in his, lifting it to his mouth. I should have yanked it away, but I was on a mistake streak and evidently couldn’t break it.
“It was a pleasure meeting you.” His lips kissed the top of my hand. “I hope you get the job.”
He calls this pleasure?
Then, he got out of the car.
The driver pulled away before he was even through the doors.
“I’m going to 2923 North Racine Avenue,” I instructed so he would reset the time clock for my trip.
“He already told me the street and paid me an extra hundred to get you there. And I’m supposed to make sure you’re inside before I leave.”
I sat back.
Some men really were control freaks. I laughed to myself at the lunacy of it all.
A handsome, infuriating control freak he was. Who’d made sure I was warm and paid for my cab ride. The sexy prick.
JANEL AND IVES WERE still up. I knew they would be. He had his head between her legs when I walked into their bedroom, something I was no stranger to seeing.
It had been a long time since I’d been with a man and a woman. In Los Angeles, I usually found myself in the arms of two men, David and Clint, another couple I knew, but even that had been a while ago.
I loved having sex with two men. I enjoyed being something they shared. Although, when I’d first waded into the poly lifestyle it had been with Janel. We’d find a man and share him. Something about it clicked for me, and the more I learned about it, the more I finally fit somewhere.
I made eye contact with Ives as he pleasured his wife. The visual was so erotic. Half the reason I loved having multiple sexual partners at a time was that I loved observing so much.
It was different than porn. It was real sex—right in front of you.
Janel, naked and bared to him, in her own world with a man who knew his way around with his fingers and tongue. She didn’t even know I’d come in.
I stripped bare in their bathroom with the door open and slipped into the warm bath they’d drawn for me, no doubt before they got started in my absence.
I watched them make love as I touched myself, and although it wasn’t uncommon for me to fantasize about other lovers even while I was with two, I thought about someone new.
Someone who pretended to have the world wrapped around his little finger.
As Janel rolled on top of her husband, she finally noticed I was there and gave me a delighted smile from the bed as she rode him.
I didn’t end up joining them that night, I was content with my fingers under the warm water and my fantasies. Pretending as I watched them, that I was Janel and Ives was Reagan Warren as I listened to their ecstasy, I found my own. Dreaming about what could never be.
SEVEN
PRESENT
REAGAN—Saturday, September 18, 2010
It could never work. Why did it always feel like we’d been doomed from the start?
How could I tell her I’d like to go back to the very moment we met?
I would have kissed her there in front of the whole fucking party. I would have palmed her ass so everyone saw, but mostly because she liked it.
I would have never given in.
“I’d go back to the beginning and do everything I second guessed.” So many times, I avoided my instincts so not to scare her away, but there we were anyway. Both losing. Regardless, there was no time machine, no magic pill to let me rewrite history. All I had was that moment. Possibly that night.
And this time, it was my way.
I looked at her pink skin, trembling before me. I considered telling her to move, to get into a more comfortable position. Covering her up. Coddling her.
I resisted because that’s how she made me feel. Bent over and fucked by the mess we’d created.
“You would have had me like this?” she asked. Her voice didn’t sound as far away as it had when I came in, but there was still that layer of protection coating it.
“Many times.” I sat back and adjusted myself. I’d barely even touched her, yet I was ready to burst from the sight of her alone.
Hold your shit together.
“Do it now. I’ll do whatever you want.” The crack in her voice matched the ones in my heart.
What was it worth now? After everything. After all this time. Now she wanted to submit? When it was already over.
Still, I was just a man. Pure and simple. One who craved control and prayed to a god who never listened when I needed him most.
Yet, there she was before me. My wildest dream.
“Do you know how many times I’ve fantasized about hearing you say that?” I asked as I mused over those illusions. They were better. Because in them, she said it when it counted. When we still had a chance.
“It’s only for tonight, Reagan.”
There it was.
One night.
It would be over before I knew it. I’d still make her wait, but my patience wasn’t prepared. If I only had those few hours, I’d show her how good it could be and hopefully remind myself in the process. There was a chance that
I’d get my gall back and be happy we were through so I could get back to women who liked sex the way I did.
A voice in the back of my mind reminded me Nora didn’t like it, and it almost spoiled my mood. There was no pleasure in forcing anyone to do what they didn’t want to.
I needed to hear it. “Why?”
“Because I want you to.”
I closed my eyes and let those precious words sink in, and I swallowed them. It might have been a lie, and if she would’ve stopped there I would have been satisfied, but she continued, “I want to please you. I want you to have what you want for once. Show me.”
I was at a precipice. Have her like I wanted—how I’d always dreamed. Or live blissfully unaware for the rest of my life how good it could be. She’d said only one night.
And goddammit I’d never wanted anything so badly. I would have taken the rest of her nights in trade for that one, but she didn’t fucking offer.
What choice was I left with? Nothing or this.
Her body called to mine. Even if our insides never lined up, the outsides had perfected the act. We fit like mates.
I reached behind me, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out the bucket of ice I’d filled earlier. It was mostly melted, but that was almost better. When she heard the door, she shifted her hips, so I’d make her wait, let her anticipate my plans.
I’d play with her first.
On the edge of the chair, I leaned into her, then blew out a stream of air. Her muscles moved feeling my breath on her wet lips. I was close enough to reach out and kiss her sex, but I held back.
Her ass swayed, agitated and already wanting more, but I was only getting started. She reacted exactly how I wanted her to. I wanted evidence that what I was doing was beautifully torturing her. I wanted her to stay, desperate to move, but restraining herself because I wanted her to be still.
Her back arched, a reflex.
I blew again, and she moaned.
“Still think you want to do this?”
It took her a minute, and I watched her ribs expand and contract quicker with each breath. “Yes,” she whispered. I looked around her ass to get a glimpse of her face. It would tell me everything I needed to know. Her eyelids were tightly shut, and she didn’t know I was looking. “Do it again,” she whispered. Her eyebrows raised, and her cheek rubbed over the fabric of the top cover. Then, almost like an afterthought, she added, “Please.”