And then I waited.
Her lips covered the top of him. Nadia sucked him like a lollipop and his eyes fluttered shut briefly. Matt threaded his fingers in her dark, dark hair and held her head just so. So that I could see her mouth on him.
They were angled just enough so that I could see the plump pout of her pussy and the taut insides of her thighs. I could see how his strong hand gripped her silky hair. I could see her full lips on the soft skin of his glans. I could see it all and it shook the air out of me in tiny nervous waves.
His breathing changed as he watched. Then his eyes moved to the window. I felt like he could see me, really see me, but I knew it was an illusion. Matt laced his fingers in Nadia’s hair when it fell forward into her eyes. He guided her without forcing her and I saw Nadia push her lips down farther on his shaft. Between her legs, her fingers moved. Her fingertips sliding over her nether lips, her clitoris. I watched her shove her fingers deep inside her cunt as he pushed her head down on his cock again.
I envied her.
I licked my lips.
My fingers went to my pussy lips and I stroked, teasing myself by tracing my labia with a trembling fingertip. I sighed and Matt glanced up. “How you doing, Clara?”
“Jealous,” I mumbled before I could think better of it. My face burned with heat.
Nadia stopped sucking him, but her small fist continued to travel the curve of his cock as she jacked him. “Of me or of him?”
“Yes,” I said.
She laughed. The pink curve of her lips made me want to kiss her. The sight of her hand on Matt’s hard-on made me want to kiss him. I just wanted someone to kiss me.
I wanted to be kissed.
“That’s huge,” I whispered. The realization was startling.
“What’s that?” Matt asked. He pushed the back of Nadia’s head so that she lowered her face close to him again. Her lips parted to accept the thrust of his cock. Her tongue, a color that reminded me of pale-pink cotton candy, traveled the length of him so his eyelids fluttered and he had to fight to keep them open.
“Nothing. I was talking to myself.”
“About what?”
I slipped a finger inside of myself and bit my bottom lip to keep my sigh inside. With my wet fingertip I toyed with my clit until it felt hard and ripe. Then I thrust my fingers back inside and pressed my G-spot so a warmth spread through me.
“Myself,” I admitted.
“Good topic.” He smiled and I smiled back. Wondering if he could see my face as well as I hoped.
Matt went silent then, pushing Nadia’s head with more and more aggressive strokes until his hips arched up and he was meeting her downward stroke with his upward thrusts. “Clara,” he said by way of warning. Nadia drove her hand against her pussy and I watched the muscles in her firm ass clench.
She was gorgeous in her own right.
He made another sound that made my skin tickle. I gave up on the self-foreplay then, pushing three fingers into my cunt with ease. My other hand furiously worked my clitoris as I watched her sucking him off. I let the emotions run through me as I watched, my body moving closer to a release. Jealousy, anticipation, lust, happiness, frustration, sadness, affection, attraction and rage. A toxic soup of feelings that coursed through my veins and burned under my skin.
Matt moved up in rapid bursts with his hips, the small muscles danced at the tops of his thighs. His belly muscles flexed and he was saying something.
My name.
Over and over he whispered it as he moved up to fuck her pretty mouth. But his eyes never strayed from the window. Where he might or might not have a clear view of me getting off. Of me touching myself.
Just…of me.
He came with a harsh cry that made my throat tight. I heard Nadia give her own utterance of release. I followed right behind them—hearing him come undone had pushed me over the edge. I wished I had done that, triggered that noise from him. I sat there, wishing I was touching him. Touching her. Wishing I was touching them.
Wishing I was being touched.
Chapter Nineteen
I don’t know if she stayed. I left the window abruptly. Not certain if I was simply confused or jealous or what was going on with me. It had been a blowjob. It wasn’t as if he’d fucked her. And yet, Matt had every right to fuck her if he wanted to. He had every right to fuck anyone he wanted to.
Nadia had been his idea set out for my approval. A stand-in for him to help us somehow form a trust and get me past my knee-jerk reaction of fear. She represented a way to create a bond I could believe in. Allowing me to see that Matt wasn’t bulldozing me or claiming me—any of the stuff that still scared me. This was his idea, to share this woman with me. The theory being, I assumed, that I’d be more receptive to accepting myself in a woman’s presence.
So far it was accurate. Nadia had confessed one thing to me and a very old perception of myself and food had shifted enough to eat despite fear. It had been like getting a great big breath after a dive into deep water.
I had eaten food that terrified me. I had watched a man I felt things for with another woman. And yet I had heard him say my name when he let himself go.
It was wonderful and terrible and surreal. None of it should have made sense and yet…it did.
I curled up in the big chair again, finding a cooking show. In the past, I had avoided this channel due to its content. Watching the shows they offered, despite my appreciation of some of their stars, made me uneasy. It was like watching the poison channel or a channel devoted to torture.
I watched a man with spiky blond hair make a rack of ribs. I wondered if I could make a rack of ribs. If I could make them for Matt and for Nadia.
“I could make them the night we tell her we don’t need her anymore,” I told my fluffy bunny slippers. And then I chewed my lip.
That was interesting. I had an agenda. I had future plans for this man. It made me feel tight and clenchy. But I ate my lo mein noodles one by one and forced myself to pay attention to the instructions. I could do this. The food, the man, the whole shebang.
* * * * *
Cold noodles for breakfast. It had been a million years. Probably since before I met Richard. I hadn’t indulged in something so fattening and normal since them.
I checked my email account with my tutoring site and answered a few panicky study questions regarding the periodic table from my AP student who couldn’t quite get it down.
Then I watched it snow and drank my coffee and waited to see what my day would bring. The phone rang and I watched it vibrate across the counter but didn’t answer it.
Did I want to?
It could be my sister, a client or one of my new lovers. Lovers… Or it could be someone collecting for charity or trying to sell me siding for a brick home.
It stopped and I grabbed an envelope and a pencil and tried to sketch the way I’d seen Matt do it. It looked like a monkey on crack had given art a go. I snorted, wondering if maybe I should dig out my quilting supplies. I only sewed by hand. Sewing machines made me twitchy.
But sewing was too placid an activity for now. Again my eyes went to the window and I watched snow sift down. The phone rang again and despite a stab of uncalled-for guilt, I didn’t answer it. I heeded the impulse that pounded through me.
Go.
I got up, I got dressed, I went. I went out into the street and the weather for the second day in a row. I took a deep breath on my front steps the same way I had as a child when, getting over a long illness like the flu, I’d tend to stop and taste the air on my first day out and about. The air tasted fine. It tasted cold and a bit metallic from the city life. But good.
I walked through pure fresh snow and gray silken slush. I stomped my boots—no galoshes for me, it was work boots that reminded me of construction workers all the way. I’d tucked my faded jeans into the tops and over the jeans I’d pulled on striped legwarmers. I might look silly but I was warm and I realized…smiling.
I wouldn’t go far. I’d
just test my wings. The street noise was a sibilant lullaby as I walked, swinging my bag like a child would a basket. I was Red Riding Hood on her way to her grandmother’s house. Cinderella rushing off to the ball. I was out in the big world after being tucked in a corner like Little Jack Horner.
It felt good but under it was the sharp musky taste of fear. But I’d live.
At the corner newsstand, I bought a bottle of lime seltzer water, a pack of striped gum that reminded me of my childhood and a magazine about gardening. I refused to buy fashion magazines now—they only showed me things to want that I did not need and women whose bodies implied that I was not nearly as perfect as I could be. I had no interest in those things anymore. Food magazines still made my upper lip break out in a sweat but gardening was safe. Gardening could be my new passion. Maybe—like the cover said—I too could grow a Victory garden. Just like my grandmother’s. They were retro. All the rage.
It seemed perfect for my tiny backyard and my small home that housed just me. I could take the modest garden I had already and make it something more.
“You really need more food? Grow it, even?”
Ice water and thumbtacks trickled down my spine. My teeth clamped together and my heart shuddered. Richard’s voice was the voice of the evil prince. The bad guy. The villain.
I turned, plastering a smile onto my face. “I’m thinking so. Some nice beefsteak tomatoes out back. Nothing beats local tomatoes.”
He regarded me the way a dogcatcher regards a particularly mangy mutt. Recovering quickly to show me I did not have the upper hand, he cocked an eyebrow. “Good for you. Big girls are in right now.”
My heart sank and I felt heat flood my cheeks. I had felt rosy and happy and chilled, now I felt sick. Good news was I refused to show it and kept my smile on although it felt more like a death rictus at the moment.
“I wouldn’t know.”
His eyes skated up and down my body. I had to tamp down the urge to straighten my legs, better my posture and try to make myself appear taller and slimmer. Why did I care what Richard thought? He was a monster who preyed on women’s fears and insecurities. He was atrocious. I didn’t move a muscle. I simply stared back, faking boredom and annoyance.
In my mind Matt told me how I was perfect. Beautiful—inside and out. He told me all the things I had once believed about myself and was determined to believe again.
I breathed as snow kissed my face and my hair.
Richard stepped toward me and I imagined my feet growing roots into the concrete. I would not move. I would not back down. When he was very close, he grinned. A lupine grin. A serial killer grin.
“But I could get past that, sweetheart. I could slum it for a night. What do you say, Clara? I’ll take you to dinner and watch you eat.”
I clenched my fist around the gardening magazine and fought alternating waves of fear and rage. In my mind my feet were hooked in place by lovely green roots that grew down through the sidewalk and gravel. I had learned visualization in yoga class so long ago. Who knew I’d need it to deal with this prick?
“I don’t think so,” I said, standing straight without making it obvious.
“Then I can take you from behind. Smack that fat ass. Watch it jiggle. What did that comedian say that one time?”
I knew where this was going.
“Smack her ass on a Monday and it doesn’t stop shaking until Saturday night?”
I swallowed hard. My throat was a desert, my heart a skittish animal in my chest. I knew logically that I might weigh all of two pounds more than I did when we split. And he’d deemed me ‘nearly there’. But psychological warfare is still warfare. And he was good at it.
“I don’t recall,” I lied.
“I think you do.” He touched my hair and before I could still myself I flinched. I took a step back, tripped on the uneven sidewalk and almost fell.
“I have to go,” I said as calmly as I could manage. Which didn’t feel calm at all.
“Stay. I’ll walk you home.” His eyes roamed the newsstand. I took the time to turn and start off.
He called after me. “Come on, Clara, I’ve always wanted to do a fat chick!” Then he laughed.
A curvy woman walking down Keswick Avenue turned and gave him the evil eye. I was sort of hoping she’d turn around and whack him with her purse. But she turned back and kept walking, muttering, “Asshole.”
“And you probably never will,” I said loud enough for him to hear me. Then I hurried off, trying to look like I wasn’t hurrying. I walked straight and true, my body held tall and proud. When I turned back a minute later to see him gone I ducked into a narrow alley between two homes that had been converted into office buildings. I promptly threw up in a trash bin.
“Well,” I whispered. “That went well.”
Chapter Twenty
“Jesus, did you get hit by a truck?”
“What?” I looked up from the sidewalk. I’d been watching my feet, just like the old days. Look down…walk three steps behind…bow before your master, for you are inferior and disappointing.
I shook it off and tried to smile. There was Nadia—pretty Nadia—waiting on my stoop for me. She shook a bag at me and I flinched like she’d hit me.
Her stories of bulimia must have been true because her face dawned with recognition and she sighed. “Oh no. What not-good-enough worm has burrowed into your gray matter?”
“None,” I lied, moving past her to unlock my door. My boot slipped on the slick step and I felt her hand settle on my hip to keep me from falling. I was thankful she was here, despite the embarrassment that weighed on me, for moral support and comfort.
“Tell me, lady,” she said. We were inside the foyer kicking off our boots.
I turned to hang up my scarf and Nadia grabbed my arm. For someone so small she sure was strong. “Please, Clara. Tell me. Let me help.”
I yanked my arm away and felt my jaw go tight with the rage I should have unleashed on Richard. “It’s nothing. I told you. Now let it go or leave.”
I hurried upstairs leaving her in the foyer. I brushed my teeth twice and pulled on dry warm socks. I had no interest in looking sexy. Fuck sexy. The worm of discontent and anxiety planted by Richard was squirming in my brain.
I stared at myself in the mirror. Pulled my dark-blonde hair back in a ponytail and wondered if I should put on makeup.
Why bother…
“Be nice to her,” I told myself. “She didn’t do anything.”
“Didn’t she?” Nadia said from the doorway.
I jumped, steeling myself against the cool porcelain of the sink. “Jesus, you scared the fuck out of me.”
“So now that you’ve admitted to your reflection that something is up. Why don’t you admit it to me? Maybe I can help. Or at least be a wailing wall.”
I pushed past her. I had yet to talk to Matt today. I wondered if he cared. If he sent her. If he too thought I was fat.
“God damn it.”
“What?” she asked, following me down the hall.
Bad thoughts never died—they just got harder to hear. Unless you gave them room and a megaphone. Then they shouted their toxic message through your head until you cracked.
“Nothing,” I said.
In my room, I paced. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Lie down, burrow under the covers, cry?
Break something?
She caught me by the wrist. I had a bright and fleeting urge to hit her. It made me shake how fast it settled in my bones. But the urge wasn’t because of her. It was because of Richard.
“Tell me.”
“I ran into Richard is all. No big deal.”
She laughed, her generous mouth spreading into an infectious grin. Nadia sat at the foot of my bed and tugged me down next to her. “No big deal? That’s like Superman running into Lex Luthor. Like Spiderman running into the Green Goblin. Like Batman running into the Penguin.” Her fingers threaded through mine and she squeezed.
“Are you a comic-book junkie?�
�� I asked.
“I’m an artist. So is Matt. Most of us dig comics. The art is fierce.”
“Oh.”
They had things in common. Matt and I did not have much in common. She was prettier than me, had a better figure than me, had more in common with him than me.
“Stop,” she said and squeezed my hand harder.
“What?”
“Beating yourself up. Comparing us.”
“How do you know I’m comparing us?”
Nadia turned to face me fully. Her dark-brown eyes were kind and so, so pretty. “It’s all over your face. And if it wasn’t me it would be someone else. Someone on TV or a magazine…”
She was right. “I bought a gardening magazine for that specific reason,” I said, giggling a bit maniacally.
She kissed me. “Trust me. I know you’ll find someone in that magazine. Even if it was the lady peddling tomatoes on page 123.”
I snorted. She kissed me again. Her fingers pushed into my hair and she pulled me a little closer.
“Why are you here?” The question burst out of me as she slid her lips slowly down the length of my throat. Inside my sweater, my nipples pebbled hard enough to coax a rush of fluid from my pussy. Now that I was calm, I could smell her. The rich but delicate scent of lilacs. And the smell of snow clung to her as well.
“Matt called and said you weren’t answering.”
I stiffened and Nadia quickly soothed me by stroking my hair as if I were a skittish horse. It would have been laughable if it hadn’t felt so damn good.
“So you did his bidding?”
She chuckled, nuzzling my collarbone with her soft lips. My nipples grew harder and my belly fluttered. She cupped my breasts through my sweater, just holding me with warm hands. “No. I was worried so I came over. I am not an errand girl for Matthew.”
“Good,” I said. There was no heat in it. I was lost in the feel of her hands pressed to me. How close she was. How good she smelled.
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