by Sorbe, Lisa
And then, still laughing, he crushes his lips to mine.
“That’s the Becca I know,” he says after he pulls away. “My little muse.” He starts moving his hand again, slow and deep. I’m coming apart around his fingers, unraveling entirely. My body is all liquid heat and exploding sensation.
And…I can’t take it anymore.
“Please,” I beg, just as I used to beg him all those years ago. “Hollis, please.”
He brushes his mouth over my cheek, the tip of my nose. “Almost, baby. Almost. Just a few more things, okay?”
I’m beyond the point of responding, and he doesn’t need my permission to continue.
Like I said before – powerless.
“My wife mentioned something about a boyfriend?”
My hips still, my entire body stills.
“Where does he fit in to this?”
Ford.
Hollis senses the change and presses into me deeper, harder, and though I grimace from the intrusion, the only pain I feel is…shame.
Shame.
I’ve been unfaithful all summer, sleeping with Ford while married to Nicholas. Yet, for the first time, the very first time, I feel like a cheater.
A dirty, dirty cheater.
I don’t want to bring Ford into this. Perfect Ford, with his dark eyes and sunshine smile and apple-pie family. He’s too good for me, better than Hollis, and too pure for this seedy version of Heaven.
“Did you spread your legs for him, too? Let him touch you the way I am now?”
Hollis’s fingers suddenly feel cold, artificial, plastic. And the swoony sensation I felt moments ago gives way to an unease, like a thousand slithering worms.
I think of Ford, even though I don’t want to think of Ford. I close my eyes and picture him in the water – picture us in the water – the way we were the day he taught me how to kayak. I remember his patience, the absolute faith he already had in me, in my ability. But it was faith I didn’t deserve, could never deserve.
My soul is dirty, tarnished; I’m a bad seed.
This room, with the sour lighting and the moldy drapes, is exactly what I deserve. It’s almost as if Hollis picked this very hotel, requested this very room, because he knows what I am, who I am, and he knows it all better than anyone else.
I won’t talk about Ford.
“He’s nothing. No one,” I lie. Distraction is my only play, so I reach down and wrap my hand around him, relieved to see that he’s hard again. “Fuck me again,” I say. “I need you again.”
It works, and when he climbs on top of me, grinds into me, I push back just as hard, just as frantic, the taboo act having an almost meditative effect, wiping from my mind everything, everything, everything.
Ford slips away, the guilt slips away, and with my lips pressed against Hollis’s cheek, I breathe a sigh of relief.
I wake twice during the night.
The first time is because of Hollis. His hands slip into my dreams, skating along my skin and pulling me from sleep. At first, I think I’m with Ford and immediately relax back into his chest, savoring the feel of his body against mine. “Again?” I murmur, and then laugh softly, because I love the way this beautiful man can’t get enough of me, can never get enough of me. But disorientation hits as my eyes adjust to the dark, and by the time my senses align with my surroundings, by the time the man that I thought was Ford catches my leg in the crook of his arm and lifts, shifting into me, I remember.
I remember where I am, and who I’m with.
Though, try as I might, I can’t remember why.
The second time, I jolt awake with a swarm of bees in my head. Again, disorientation hits, and by the time I realize it’s merely my phone, buzzing with incoming texts, Hollis has already reached across me and plucked it from the nightstand next to my side of the bed. He mumbles something, and I hear the tell-tale jingle of my phone being turned off. I try to move, but my body is heavy and my head thick with sleep, and before I can argue, darkness pulls me back under.
• • •
I wake the third and final time fresh from a dream and slick with sweat. In it, I was bound to a rack, naked and exposed, while Hollis meticulously cut off bits of my skin to use as pages in his next book. We were in my old house, the house where I grew up, and Hollis was so excited, positively manic, telling me over and over that I was in it, in life, and that I was his goddamn fucking hero. His words were hollow, though, because it hurt, the way he carved, and every time I begged him to stop, he promised, Just one more, Becca. Just one more piece. But he never stopped, just kept cutting, cutting, cutting…until I was nothing more than a bloody pile of torn up tissue. It was only when I rose up from the scene and confronted this grotesque version of myself – ripped muscle, exposed bone, gaping skull – that I realized I was never really bound at all. And the only thing keeping me tethered to that table…was me.
The dream is a reminder of my past and a prelude to my future; I know this. But does knowing matter? It never has before. Knowledge, they say, is power. I, however, have rarely found this to be true. No matter what I learn or how much I know, it seems I’m always and forever stuck in my circumstances.
I hear a soft click-clack-clatter then and, nudging one eye open, see Hollis typing away on his laptop, back propped against the headboard and brows drawn in concentration. Aside from the glow of his computer screen, the room is dim, covered in the same oily shadows that bared witness to last night’s sins. But it’s morning, finally morning, and a blade of golden light cuts through the drapes. It’s so bright it’s blinding, and when I close my eyes, the annoying ray needles my lids.
The sun has no business in this room.
I tug at the covers, pulling them over my head, and grumble, “What time is it?”
Hollis snorts as he types. “Still not a morning person, I take it?”
The irritation in my response is thick. “What do you mean, not a morning person? I was always up way before your sorry ass.”
Which is true. Back when we were together, I woke to a shrill old school alarm clock. And Hollis? Well, he rose whenever inspiration struck (which was rarely before noon).
Hollis doesn’t answer, and I grow more annoyed, because this is the morning after our reunion, and we should be celebrating with breakfast in bed, feeding each other fresh fruit while discussing how the rest of our life is going to play out.
But nothing about this reunion is how I imagined it. Instead, everything feels grungy and wrong, like putting sweaty workout clothes back on after a relaxing bubble bath.
Throwing back the covers, I crane my neck and try to catch a glimpse of his screen. “What are you writing?”
Hollis’s fingers are nothing but pale, scurrying spiders, and they skate, skate, skate across the keyboard in a fitful dance. Leaning closer to the display, his face takes on an eerie glow, and he starts mouthing the words as he types them, like he’s conducting a silent homily or murmuring soundless vows to an invisible god. His lips are a blur, and only when he hits the last key with a flourish, does he reply. “My next book.”
And with that, he slaps the laptop shut before my peeping eyes can make out one measly word.
Hollis used to read me his words.
Hollis used to ask for my opinion.
Hollis used to…
My stomach grumbles, turning the unease in my gut into a cavernous hunger. “So…Do you want to go out for breakfast? I’m starving.”
Hollis leans over and sets his laptop on the nightstand. Then, turning back to me, he slides under the covers and slips an arm around my waist. “Sounds like someone worked up an appetite last night.”
“You have no idea. I could eat a horse. Does this place offer room service?”
Hollis chuckles. “I doubt it.” Pulling me against him, he slides his hands along my body, kneading and groping, stroking and squeezing.
I press my head back into the pillow, stare at the shitty popcorn ceiling. “Why are you here, anyway? I mean, I know the reas
on you’re staying in a hotel. But why this one? It’s kind of a dump.”
“Becca Cabot,” Hollis teases. “My how your tastes have changed. I suppose your rich husband doesn’t settle for anything less than five-star?”
I humph. “Actually, yes. And I would think you would to, after your book and all.” Reaching out, I run my fingers along the bedspread, note the obnoxious pattern and rough texture, and cringe. “Or, at the very least, something better than this.”
Hollis runs his nose along my cheek and chuckles. “Yeah, well. This place has character. It’s inspiring. The perfect fucking setting.”
The perfect setting? For what?
But before I can ask what he means, his prodding fingers find their way between my legs, and when I squeeze them together, he hooks his ankle around my calf and pries them apart.
And I just go with it, because this is Hollis, and isn’t this exactly what I wanted?
Him to want me?
My body responds even though my mind doesn’t, and Hollis growls in triumph when I reach down and grab him. Before we get very far, my stomach grumbles again, and this time a hint of nausea rises with it. The back of my throat tightens, and I swallow down bile. But Hollis is behind me now, bent over and panting in my ear, and the way he’s pushing into me tells me he’s past the point of return. So I do what I can to spur him on, using every filthy phrase I have in my repertoire to bring him over the edge.
And when he finally, finally finishes, and when the howling in my stomach reaches a crescendo, I skitter from the bed and into the bathroom, barley reaching the toilet before the bile that’s been burning the back of my throat surfaces. It’s not much, because my stomach is completely empty, and afterwards, as I’m bending over the sink to rinse my mouth, I find that I can’t stop shaking. Pressing a wet hand to my forehead, I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths.
It’s just all so much, too much, and it happened so quickly, so…effortlessly. I wasn’t expecting to win Hollis back like this, with barely a grovel and not any sort of a fight. He fell into my lap so easily, almost too easily: him reaching out to me, needing me, and not caring much if anything about the disengaged way I left him all those years ago.
If the situation was reversed, and the shoe was on the other foot, I don’t think I would have been so quick to forgive. As ready to open my arms as Hollis was when I saw him yesterday, face to face for the first time since our bitter, bitter breakup. But he didn’t care, not one bit, and even looked at all the crazy things (because yes, they were crazy) that I did this summer as signs of devotion. I mean, I stalked the guy, dressed up so he wouldn’t recognize me, snatched his daughter’s stuffed animal, and even befriended his wife under false pretenses just so I could poke holes in his marriage. And hell, he doesn’t even know about the damn dog I stole from some poor shmucks’ backyard just so I could have a prop to support my web of lies.
All of that just to get to him.
And he doesn’t find it…weird?
Possibly, he views my actions as a twisted form of approved penance rather than devotion. But even so, it’s…odd. Strange, but now that I think about it, I would have rather he put up a fight, even if only a little one.
Is it possible he wasn’t as hurt by my leaving as I thought he was? Have I been laboring under false pretenses all this time, melodramatic in my assumption that I had to prove myself, tear a hole in his life in order to worm my way back in?
Or is this just me being paranoid…looking a gift horse in the mouth?
By the time I leave the bathroom, Hollis is sitting up in bed, still naked, but writing madly. Another flicker of annoyance rises when I see this, but I push it away, instead weaving through the discarded clothes on the floor, searching for my shirt. I spot Hollis’s before mine, though I fling it aside without thought. Which is weird, considering how much I love slipping into one of Ford’s black tees after sex, oftentimes even wearing it home so I can hang onto the feeling of him for as long as I can.
Hollis still hasn’t said anything, hasn’t even asked if I’m okay, which is pretty infuriating considering he had to have heard the retching sounds coming from the bathroom just moments ago. So, in retaliation to his blatant obliviousness, I’m louder than I need to be as I tromp around the room, finding and dressing and rummaging in my purse for a brush. I sigh as I drag the bristles through my hair, and sigh again when I chuck it back in my bag.
“You okay?” he asks, not bothering to lift his attention from the computer screen.
I frown, because something tells me he’s not asking about what happened in the bathroom. He senses a moody woman, and the weariness in his tone bolsters my annoyance. Already we’re ping-ponging off each other, unpleasant responses to unsavory actions. Foreboding creeps through my stomach, a slithering resentment that stirs the acid already churning in my gut.
“My stomach is upset.” I muster fortitude gained from years of living with Nicholas, where I swallowed my feelings as easily as a glass of gin, and clamp my tongue between my teeth to keep from saying anything else. Inside, though, I’m seething.
I’m far angrier than I should be about this. I know it. I know it, but I can’t help it.
Hollis doesn’t stop typing. “There’s some leftover pizza in the fridge.”
I bite down harder, if only to keep my jaw from dropping. “Leftover pizza.” It’s not a question, merely parroted disbelief.
“Pepperoni. Extra cheese.” Hollis pauses, scrunches his brow, gnaws on his lip. Then, a corner of his mouth kicks up, and the typing resumes.
I watch him. I watch him and can’t believe it. Can’t believe what I’m seeing.
Taking a deep breath, I think of the water. Of Lake Superior’s deep waves and rocking surface and wild pulse. There’s tranquility in its aggression; there’s an order in its chaos. In its most primal state, it’s beautifully savage.
Like me.
So I stroll over to the fridge, open it, and eat the goddamn pizza.
The goddamn pizza.
Oily and greasy and with the consistency of damp cardboard, it now sits in my stomach like a foul lump of yuck, heavy and threatening to come right back up.
I lean against the headboard, press my lips together, and try to think of something, anything, to keep my mind off the queasiness. Hollis is in the shower, so running in and puking is the absolute last thing I want to do.
It’s barely ten in the morning, yet I feel like I’ve been up for hours and hours. My lids keep drooping, my body feels heavy, and all my movements seem thick and sluggish. And as much as I detest this used-and-abused bed, all I want to do is crawl under its covers and sleep for eternity. And then sleep some more.
So I do, sliding down and tucking the rank blankets under my chin. I figure I’ll rest for a minute, only a minute, and keep my ears trained on the sound of the water in the other room, promising myself I’ll get up when Hollis finishes his shower.
But when I peel my eyes open, the light seeping through the drapes has dimmed, and the shadows have shifted-wriggled from one spot in the room to another. There’s an empty air to the place, a dead weight to the silence sitting in my ears.
No longer do I hear water rushing in the bathroom, and no tell-tale signs of rustling indicate the presence of another person anywhere in the room.
It doesn’t take long to know I’m alone. Years of marriage have instilled in me the ability to feel into the emptiness of a room, to suss out the lack of another’s heartbeat, another’s breath. It’s the sort of hollow that rings loudly, so loudly that, sometimes, it feels as if the very absence of sound might rupture my eardrums, leaving me deaf.
But something tells me I’d still hear it, even then, that fucking void.
Senses beyond senses, the crux and curse of humanity.
I rise up on my elbow, rub the sleep from my eyes, and immediately see that, while not here now, Hollis hasn’t left permanently. His suitcase still sits in a corner, and a mess of clothes are piled haphazardly atop a ratty
armchair. There’s no note, not that I can see, so I assume he won’t be gone long. Probably stepped out to get us coffee, or maybe (hopefully) some real food, some decent food, something that my stomach won’t attempt to immediately discard.
I kind of want to be annoyed that he didn’t wake me to go with him, and that he didn’t leave a note (because, let’s face it, no note is just plain rude). But because I finally feel rested and refreshed, am happy that he didn’t. I sit up and stretch, yawn, work my shoulders and am relieved to find that all traces of nausea are gone. Maybe my sickness this morning wasn’t merely from lack of food. Maybe I still have a bit of the bug from the other day, the stomach flu that kept me down for most of the afternoon after Marla’s near-drowning, and that I thought had been cured by the broth that Ford—
Shit.
Ford.
I’m going to have to break up with him. The time has finally come. Now that I’m back with Hollis, it’s unavoidable. Because cheating on Nicholas was one thing, but fucking someone else behind Ford’s back makes me feel like a complete shit.
And I don’t want to feel like a complete shit.
I’ve felt that way for too long; it was the reason I came to Duluth at the beginning of June, to search out Hollis and try to find my happily ever after.
It’s what I fucking deserve.
And Ford…is not.
Though breaking up with him might not be as hard as I think, considering he arrived back in town from his shoot last night and we were supposed to spend it together. He’s probably pissed—
Oh.
Now I remember. Remember waking up last night to the buzz of incoming texts – was it two or three, maybe four? – and vaguely recall Hollis reaching over and confiscating my phone, shutting it off. Oddly enough, I haven’t even thought to check my phone at all today, something that wouldn’t have been all that unusual months ago. But this summer, after meeting Ford, my eyes have been practically glued to the screen all day, every day, waiting in eager anticipation of his sweet messages.
As I realize this, I get a sinking feeling in my gut that has nothing to do with nausea and everything to do with the fact that I won’t be receiving any of those sweet texts from Ford ever again. At least, not after today.