by M. R. Joseph
Am I even supposed to?
I can’t come. The faster she rides me, the more I think about tonight. I should just fake it, but how am I going to fake it with a condom on? It’s dark in here so maybe I should at least try.
“Oh, Cruz, you are so fucking big. That’s it baby. Give me what I want.” Breathlessly she tells me to fuck her harder.
It does nothing to change my thoughts. All that dirty talk coming from her mouth actually takes away from my hard-on, plus I’m not even doing anything. She’s the one fucking me for Christ’s sake.
“Are you close, Cruz? I’m gonna come baby. Here I go. Oh God, yes! Yes! Yes!”
Now I’ve heard that somewhere before. A lot, but I’m going to put on my acting skills.
Ready.
Here goes.
“Oh yea, baby. Here I go, yea. Oh God, yea!”
I buck up and down, once, twice, and that’s all she wrote folks.
Faked it.
Never in a million years would I have thought I’d have to fake it with someone who looks like her. Perfect tits and ass. I deserve a round of applause for that performance. An Academy Award even. She needs to get off me, not nuzzle her face in my neck. I need to pull out and run to the bathroom and flush this empty rubber down the toilet.
I somehow manage to wiggle my body from underneath her, practically rolling off the bed onto the floor. I almost feel the need to run to the bathroom.
“Where you going, baby?” She says to me in a sultry voice.
She called me baby. It makes me sick.
Irony.
“Bathroom. I’m not feeling so good, so… Um… this was fun. You know where the door is, right?” I don’t even give her a chance to say anything, and I don’t take a glance back at her after I basically tell her to get lost. My head is not where it should be. Where it should be is in between that chick’s legs, but I’m not feeling it.
I lean against the bathroom door for support, flick on the light, and rip the rubber off my dick so fast, like a Band-Aid. I can’t catch my breath from the smart of it.
Sorry, Morty.
I wait until I hear the door close and exhaling never felt so good. The water I splash on my face both shocks me and suffocates me, and I know I need air. I have no idea what time it is, or if anyone is home. Didn’t notice any sounds coming from the living room or any doors slamming. I didn’t hear any bodies slamming, for that matter, either. Not that what was going on in my room a little bit ago stopped me from paying attention. That little tryst didn’t even hold my interest long enough even to realize what was, if at all, anything was going on in my house. The thoughts of Harlow took the place of it. There could be a hundred people in that living room right now for all I know. Not that I even care. I bust open the bathroom door, and go to my room and put on a pair of gym shorts. I’m too hot right now to stick anything else on.
The house is dark and quiet. I really don’t think anyone is here. If they are, they’re all passed out. I step out onto the deck, the salt air hitting my nostrils. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, running my hands through this unruly hair of mine. I lean on the railing of the deck, scratch at my chin, feeling the stubble, and wondering why Harlow reacted that way to that guy.
Chad Knox.
The name Harlow whispered in her sleep a few nights ago.
Why did she say she was sorry that night to him while she was sleeping?
“So I saw that your company left you.” Startled, I jump when I hear her voice. I turn to see Harlow sitting in a chair next to the door leading to her house. Her face is shadowed by the overhang of the tiny awning that covers the sliding door. She’s wrapped up in a blanket, mimicking a cocoon, and all I can see are her toes peeking out from underneath it.
“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.”
I clench my chest with my hand, right over my heart. The beat of it is fast, and it takes me a moment to catch my breath.
“What the hell are you doing out here this late? Where is everybody?” I ignore her previous question. Maybe she’ll forget she asked me, and I can pretend like it never happened.
I slowly make my way over to where she is, but I stop, turn and lean my back against the railing.
“Bed,” she plainly replies.
An awkward moment of silence comes between us, and I really don’t know what to say. Wait, scratch that… I have plenty to say. A million questions fill my head, but I am deciding not to ask them now. I’m trying to avoid looking in her direction, although I’m curious to know what time it is, and why while everyone else is sleeping, she’s awake and out here.
“So why are you out here?” I ask.
She sighs and rises from her chair. The light of the moon and one streetlight brings her face into view. Her hair is twisted upwards on top of her head, tendrils touching the sides of her face. She’s wearing her glasses, her hot-for-teacher glasses.
Sexy as shit glasses.
When she steps closer, more into the light, I see her eyes. They’re red. Her cheeks are tear streaked, and I want to grab her and ask what the fuck is wrong with her. What went down tonight? Why did she kiss me? I’m playing a role, the role of the uncaring person who doesn’t give a fuck. I need to keep my questions to a minimum.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she says as she ironically yawns.
“Oh, yea, why’s that?”
She wraps the blanket around her a bit more and comes to lean herself next to me.
“It was too noisy to sleep.”
I’m not following her. It’s as quiet as a church mouse out here. The streets are empty and everyone else is asleep. Do I ask what was so noisy that it kept her awake? Another moment of silence blankets us until I realize what may have kept her awake.
Aw, shit.
“The noises coming from the other side of my wall in my bedroom kept me up. A picture fell off my wall actually. Hit me right here.”
She points to her forehead, and I see a tiny red bump that has formed on it. My face heats red.
“I met your friend… Leilani is it? I ran into her as she was leaving your house.”
I knew it. The girl was insatiable and fucking loud. Harlow’s room and my room are right next to each other. Her bed and my bed on the same walls in two different houses, and I made that picture fall and hit her. Well, not me, but the chick.
Now play it cool, man. Don’t give her any other information. Not any more than she needs to know. Don’t fuck it up.
Do not fuck this up.
“Oh, yea. She’s a fucking mad woman in the sack.”
Too late.
She’s laughs in a cynical way. “Oh, I bet. You should be exhausted right now after the sex Olympics you just performed.”
Damn it, she heard us. That just solidified that. It wasn’t even me making all that noise. I just kept my eyes closed the whole time, thinking about Harlow.
I mean… I… I was thinking about what happened tonight and how upset she looked. That’s all it was. I was distracted by that. Harlow’s becoming a friend to me, like Porter and Max. I’d be concerned about them too if I noticed something odd.
Concern. That’s a new feeling for me. Nonetheless, I start to feel it.
I’m not going to apologize for keeping her awake, so I’m just going to ignore her statement.
“Well since we are both wide awake at… I don’t know what time it is, but want to go down to the dock?”
She pushes her glasses up on her nose a bit more, and shuffles her slippered feet towards the deck steps. She stands there.
“What are you waiting for, come on. It’s almost four, so the sun should be up in a little while.”
See how this girl confuses me? I can’t figure her out.
I follow her down to the dock where we take our usual seats. The air is cool, feeling good on my face. It’s so quiet here. Almost eerie. She pulls her blanket closer to her and snuggles down into the chair. No words are spoken, and I get the feeling she wants me to say the first word… but I
won’t. We just sit and stare at the calm waters of the bay, the outside light from another house reflecting on it.
This silence is killing me, I mean killing me. If she doesn’t say something soon, I’m going to jump in that water and drown myself.
This is agonizing. I should have just gone to bed.
Another minute, another second, another millisecond and I’m going to fucking scream.
Fuck it.
“Ok, fine. You want me to ask? I’m going to ask. What the fuck was that tonight, Harlow? That guy, Chad, the ex. Why in all things sacred and holy did you look like he just stole your favorite toy or killed your dog? Get on with it.”
She turns, surprised by my sudden outburst, and her mouth opens to speak, but her expression tells me she doesn’t want to. Her head turns back towards the water.
Another awkward display of silence.
“Jesus, Turnip. What the hell? I can’t figure you out to save my life.”
I don’t do this. I don’t spend time trying to figure chicks out, what eats at them, what crawls under their skin to make them act the way she did tonight. This is not me. That’s why I have no girls who are friends, except for my sister in law, Bella. Too much drama, too much to try to decipher. I just fuck them and leave them. That’s what I know. Not this senseless bullshit. I’m about to get my ass up, and call it a night. Whether sleep invades or not.
“Fine, you don’t want to talk. I’ll go sit in silence by myself. I’m not here to piece you, the puzzle, together.”
I get up and push back my chair a little too aggressively in the process. I decide to pause and give her one last chance to spill her guts. This woman is a tough nut to crack.
Her and those God damn glasses and… And lips and fingers in my God damn hair.
God damn it.
I realize I curse way too much, even if it’s not out loud.
“Chad and I dated from sophomore year in high school till about two years ago, give or take a month or two. He was my first boyfriend, my first… Well you know, before, well…”
Let me make this easy for her.
“Before me?”
She turns her head finally and flashes me a smile.
“Yes, before you.” She buries her face in her hands, embarrassed. I figure from the memory of us being together. She lets out a soft laugh.
“My first heartache.”
I swallow hard because her tone is mournful. Her voice small when she says the words.
“Ok, so I get you guys dated for a long time, probably compared trust funds and ate caviar and shit like that, but what I don’t get is, why did you have the reaction you did when he walked into the room? It’s like you were there one minute and then gone the next, without even moving out of your chair.”
She begins to rock a little in her chair, swaying in a way that makes her look like she’s trying to get comfortable. It’s almost as though she’s thinking of a way to escape this, but the more she does it, the more it entices me to know what happened between them and for fucks sake, I have no idea why I care to know.
“It’s complicated, Cruz. You’ve never been in a relationship. You’ve never been in love, so you don’t know what it’s like to have a broken heart.”
She’s right. Ab-so-fucking-lutely right.
“No, you’re right. I don’t know what that’s like, but I’d figure after two years, you’d let it go, move on.”
She turns completely around in her chair, a full view of her in front of my face, and she points to me with attitude. “Ah, see there’s where you’re wrong, Officer. I’ve tried, almost succeeding a few times. I am over him, believe me, but you see, we grew up in the same town, and we were raised in the same crowd. Our grandparents are old country club friends. Our dads, golf buddies. So it’s hard to shut the memories of a relationship completely out of your mind when they are constantly around.”
I knew there was more to it. You don’t look or act the way she did over some high school first love, bullshit, douche bag, rich shit head, dumb mother fucker.
See, I curse in my head way too much.
“Ok, but did he break it off with you or you him? Did he cheat on you? Hurt you?”
She pulls off her glasses swiftly, her death glare ready to strike at a moment’s notice.
“What’s this, the Spanish Inquisition? What’s with all the questions? He fucking broke up with me, ok? Got it? It was messy, deceitful, gut wrenching, and I will not go into details, so don’t ask for any more than I’m willing to say to you, ok?”
And she’s right back to being the good old Harlow. I was waiting for her to show up, and here she is. All that’s missing is a knee to my balls.
She shifts in her chair, pinching her fingers at the bridge of her nose, and I feel bad for pushing the issue.
She looks up at me with her big eyes, so full of sadness, and I feel responsible for it, even though I know I’m not the cause of it.
“I’m sorry, Cruz. It’s a very touchy subject with me. Our breakup did some major damage to me, my self-esteem, my… My whole life. I’m getting better at forgetting. Love is complicated.”
Just another reason why I don’t do it. I don’t fall in love. I don’t even think I know the meaning of the word. I never had it in my life, and it’s not like I missed out on it. You don’t miss out on something you never had in the first place. It’s not like when my bike got stolen in 5th grade, the one I rode to school every day. The only present my crack-head mother ever gave me. Granted, it was stolen by her on the way home from scoring a bag. I knew what it was like to lose something, but then after time, you forget about it and move on. I can’t imagine love being like that. I need to understand it more, from Harlow’s point of view. If I ask, will she explain it to me? Do I even dare? I go back and forth in my head, contemplating whether or not to ask her opinion, what her thoughts are on the subject. My mind wanders to what their relationship was like. How he treated her, if he cheated on her, why he broke up with her in the first place.
“Tell me, then,” I say the words and they just literally flew out of my mouth, and I immediately want to take them back. I mean, my God, have I no self-control? What the hell am I getting myself into? I bet she uses her big words, says shit I don’t understand, and I’ll be making mental notes, so I can look it up on the Internet later.
Her face scrunches up in that adorable way she does when we have one of our conversations, and she can’t believe some of the things that come out of my mouth. Like right now, for instance.
“You want to know about love? About being in love?” I nod, yes. “Oh, come on, now Cruz. Are you serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious. Since I’ve never been and will continue not to be, I’ll think of it as a lesson. You have to practice being a teacher anyway, so… Teach. I’m all ears.” I turn my chair a little closer to hers, and she does the same. I bet from where my face is angled to hers, I can count the little freckles on her tiny nose. I tuck my long legs under me and settle in for my lesson on love. Oh, and I prepare myself for the big words. Wish I had a pad of paper and a pen with me. It would make my life so much easier right now.
“Ok, here goes.” Her eyes go all dreamily, if that’s even a word. She sighs. The wind blows her hair a bit, giving me a shot at smelling her shampoo.
Damn, that smells good.
She begins her lesson.
“Love is the only thing that you can’t fake, no matter what. It’s when you look into the eyes of the person meant for you, you can see into their soul. I’m pretty sure you can’t lie when you truly look into the depths of them. There’s a resemblance there, like home, a place where you can put your trust into. Someone you can tell your deepest, darkest fears to, and no matter their opinion of them, it doesn’t matter, they will be beside you. They will watch you succeed, and they will watch you fail, but the love is so strong, they can see past it. They can see past all the bad and take a good, hard look at the good.”
Speech doesn’t exist right now for m
e, because this girl’s definition of love just blew me away. I remember that old movie Mask, about the kid whose face is deformed. He goes to some camp, falls in love with a blind girl, and shows her what color is for a person with sight. He uses a hot rock to describe the color red and a piece of ice to describe the color blue. What Harlow just said, the way she phrased everything, kind of made me see a little. It kind of took my blindness of the subject away. She described to me what love for her is like, what love is like in general. She remains still, just giving me a tight-lipped smile. I feel the sudden urge to know more. But I have to keep up my act of not really caring or being over interested.
I need to know, so my mind overtakes my ability to have a filter, so I ask the question, “Was that what it was like for you and Chad?”
Harlow turns her head to the side, avoiding my question momentarily, and the yearning to touch her face overwhelms my common sense.
I take my index finger, touch her chin and turn it to me. Tears have formed in her eyes.
“Turnip? Look at me.”
That face, full of sadness, and I only met him for a minute, but I hate that mother fucker for hurting her.
“I’m guessing by the look on your face that it didn’t go that route. Am I right?”
She nods. No explanation needs to be given to me. That was her perception of it, of love.
As I still touch her cheek with my finger, the thought of her kissing me tonight comes into play. She hasn’t explained to me why she did it, nor has she even attempted to tell me, so I’ll go with my theory. She wanted to make him jealous. It’s obvious. People play games. I get it. I’m not angry about it. It is what it is.