The Love Experiment

by Paton, Ainslie

  He handed Barney his camera. “A favor. Some shots of us. It’s for the paper.”

  Barney closed his hand around the camera. It was smaller than the orange. “This tiny thing is a camera?” He lifted the pocket-sized digital to his eye.

  “Use the screen.”

  “Aye. Technology.”

  It would be a miracle if Barney could get a single decent shot—he still used an old clamshell phone—but selfies wouldn’t cut it for the paper and Jack couldn’t think of anyone else to ask. He pulled Derelie in to him and they posed, standing side by side. He remembered to smile. The shot wouldn’t do, but it was a start.

  “Candid, Barney. Surprise us.”

  “Got better things to do than to sneak around after you two.” He grumbled, but he took the camera while Jack took Derelie down into the pit. He lost the sense of where Barney was after that as they shared the orange and she tested out the slightly sprung floor, bounced off the sides of the wall, and then shaped up to him.

  “Show me how to throw a punch.”

  He could have the debate about why she didn’t need to learn to throw a punch, that there were better forms of self-defense, but none of that let him cage her in his body to step her though how to make a fist, how to deliver a punch, how to keep her guard up. He was a fraud, but this got him close to her and made her laugh and soon they were shaping up to each other, fake shadow boxing.

  “I like the idea of the women’s fight nights,” she said, bopping around him like something with batteries included. She’d already tried to Karate Kid him, complete with cartoon sound effects that showed off her inner Miss Piggy.

  He spun to keep an eye on her. “No you don’t.”

  “I could punch my frustrations away.”

  Flail was more like it. “Isn’t that what yoga is for?”

  “Doing yoga is something else to cross off my list of done in the city accomplishments. I also thought it might bring me peace.” She stopped moving. “I kind of hate it and I’m not good at it, and don’t think I ever will be. Not that yoga is competitive, just that I am.”

  “You looked very peaceful this morning in my bed.”

  “Hi-yah!” She leaped at him and he caught her in a hug. “I was.”

  “We could just keep doing that to take care of your peace-keeping needs.”

  She wound her arms around his neck. “Do you mean that?”

  “I mean it.”

  “And you’ll teach me how to box properly?”

  “No. Someone who knows how to teach you how to box will. I can show you the basics, but you need to join a gym and get some experience because this is the underground amateur league here and you’re not ready for this.”

  “But I could be.”

  He could see the way the idea engaged her. “You could be.” He wasn’t sure he liked it. He’d find her a good trainer.

  “One, two,” she said, a mini Rocky, giving herself the giggles and no longer afraid of what he did when he came here.

  He found Barney while Derelie waited outside for their Uber. “Thanks for letting me give her the tour.”

  “What’s with the two of you?”

  “We work together, writing a story together, and last night we slept together.”

  “Complicated.”

  “I’d have said so, but that’s not what I’m feeling.”

  “Don’t want to see you back here too soon then unless it’s to train.” Barney handed over the camera. “Got shit on there. Sorry, photography is not my thing.”

  Jack was going to have to remember to make it his. He’d last used this camera when Martha was a kitten, but taking pictures of Derelie, especially when she was unaware she was being watched, wasn’t going to be a hardship.

  She waited on the street, eyes on the road, hands in the pockets of her jacket. A visit to St. Longinus had never made him horny before, but watching Derelie gave him ideas.

  “What’s next?” she said, when he circled his arms around her from behind.

  The ease of it, touching her, having her lean into him, it had a strange effect, like there was some part of him missing and unexpectedly found. What had she said, a hole in his soul. “Afternoon nap.”

  Her head dropped back to his chest. “It’s not afternoon.”

  He didn’t want to share her with the world. “You have a problem with that? We’ll go out to dinner tonight.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “I’d like it if you stayed over again.” Maybe if he could hold on to her she’d patch that hole.

  “Planning ahead, Jack.”

  That made him smile. “I’m an organized kind of guy.” At work at least.

  “I don’t want to wear out my welcome.” She turned to face him, but avoided his eyes.

  “I don’t think that’s possible.”

  She went up on her toes and whispered in his ear. “Do you know how hard that’s going to get you pounded?”

  She said the most wonderful things.

  Between his sheets she was more than wonder. She was the saint, the angel, the sinner. Apple pie meets sex fiend; farm fresh gets filthy. Whatever lesson she was teaching, he was her star student.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, Derelie in his lap, her legs crossed behind his back, hands on his shoulders. His were under her ass, helping her grind against him. He was hyped and she was incredibly wet by the time she lowered herself over him. He almost lost it, had to grit his teeth a moment to pull it back, fingers biting into her, hard enough to bruise.

  “Oh, Jack. Oh.”

  The outline of shyness she’d had in bed, the humor she’d used to deflect attention from being naked was gone, and in its place a determination to chase a high that wracked him like disease. He was fatally afflicted with her.

  She lifted herself and dropped on him, and both of them hissed. Her thigh scraped his bruise but he didn’t feel it. Again, again. She was getting herself off, curling her body into the deep ache of penetration, the hot stab and slide. He gave her his knuckles for extra friction and her body trembled.

  “More,” she said, open mouth on his neck. “I need more.”

  He cradled her with one arm and leaned back on the other for leverage. He’d use the bed, the floor and his body. He almost took Martha’s head off when she tried to come in the bedroom, kicking the door shut in her face to an outraged yowl, because nothing was going to stop this.

  Derelie grasped him tighter, both of them grunting as his thrusts intensified. Outside, Martha pawed against the door in almost the same thumping rhythm as Jack’s heart. Derelie’s grunts became gasps as she flexed her hips faster, catching him in her slippery heat, drawing everything in him to a pinpoint of purity.

  She came with her teeth in his shoulder. That bite connecting all the shards of sharpness and electric lights of pain and pleasure in his body and shattering them. He fell back to the bed and took Derelie with him, sucking in air, spine gone slack and limbs heavy.

  “What’s that noise?” she said, before licking the shell of his ear.

  He used a hand on her head to keep their faces close. “Martha.” Pawing at the door.

  Derelie laughed. “How long can she keep that up?”

  “She sleeps sixteen hours a day, so about eight at a guess. It’s not like she’s got anything else more pressing to do.”

  Abruptly the racket stopped. They both said, “Ah,” and it started again.

  “Is it me?” Derelie said. “Is she jealous?”

  “It’s doors.”

  She put her teeth to his earlobe. “How to put a lover in her place.”

  He put his lover in the middle of the bed and got up to let his cat in. He had no memory of being so contented. With Martha under the bed and Derelie dozing in it, he checked his messages. Nothin
g urgent, but after two days not on top of them they’d started to pile up. He’d need to start early Monday.

  He also checked the camera. The priest was a dirty rotten scoundrel. Shot after shot of him with Derelie. Each one made him look like a stranger. Barely recognizable. Barney had captured him smiling, laughing, and Derelie looked like a storybook Christmas morning. There were shots of them mock boxing. Shots of him showing her how to make a fist and deliver a punch. One shot of them right before a kiss, faces close, bodies aligned hip to chest. His head was bent to her, her chin tipped up. The smile she wore was filled with all the joy he’d never had and he looked like he’d kill to keep it.

  He sent Barney a text. Lying is a sin.

  He got back, So is lust, but I’m giving you absolution.

  He understood why. They looked like the lesson took; they looked like a couple in love.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Seeing Jack’s Church of the Cocked Fist filled a gap in Derelie’s knowledge the experiment hadn’t. He wasn’t a reckless hothead in his off hours. The gym might have been the most unorthodox church in the world, but it was clean and well organized and Barney had ex-priest stamped all over him even though Jack hadn’t volunteered that information.

  She could see the satisfaction in punching something. It was hard and cold and clean, had a straightforwardness that appealed to her. No doubt that’s what appealed to Jack. It was skilled yet uncomplicated.

  The afternoon nap was anything but hard and cold. They knew each other now. The fear of the unknown gave way to the thrill of being together. They were getting good at pleasing each other. Jack was addicted to her mouth and she was addicted to his hands and how they could make her body alternatively tremble and give way to sheer purring pleasure.

  Move over, Martha, you’ll have to share.

  She purred again when they went out to eat, the moment Jack reached for her hand as they walked to his local steakhouse. “I never thought Jackson Haley would be a holding hands kind of guy.”

  He wrinkled his nose, bumping his glasses higher. “It’s a new one on me.”

  She stopped walking. “Is it too much? Me. Us. All of this too soon?”

  “Not for me.”

  An unembroidered answer. “We’re doing this.” She swung their joined hands like she was five years old and he put up with it. “At work?”

  “That makes you nervous.”

  “I can’t help it. I know people will think I’m trying to get ahead by sleeping with the paper’s biggest dinkus.”

  He failed to retain his air of seriousness and laughed. “One of the reasons I never got involved with people at work. It’s fraught.”

  “So we keep it out of the office.”

  “At least until we see if we stick.”

  “And if we don’t? I don’t own a dart gun, but I do know how to shoot.”

  “Jesus, Derelie.” He stopped walking and yanked on her arm till she turned to faced him.

  “I’m joking. I’m joking.”

  Another yank and their bodies were grazing. The expression on his face was somewhere between “you’re playing with fire” and “burn, baby, burn.” It made her breath catch.

  “Are you going to kiss me?”

  “You just threatened to shoot me if we broke up.”

  She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “It’ll only be a flesh wound.” Never in a million years had she guessed she’d be able to mess with Jackson Haley like this. That he clearly loved being messed with was the biggest thrill.

  He gave her the kind of look that could’ve steamed up his glasses. “A flesh wound.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m good with that.” He didn’t kiss her, and that should’ve been so frustrating, but whatever showed on her face made him laugh again.

  Jack’s local was badly lit and a little shabby, and not in a chic way. It was the kind of place he could go without needing to worry he was going to be hit on, and the food was great. The sudden silence that hit during the meal was uncomfortable. Too soon to make assault jokes?

  “What if this is some kind of accelerated learning process and we’re actually done?” she said, toying with her salad.

  “Meaning?”

  “It might’ve taken weeks, months to get through all the questions. We did it in a couple of hours all put together.” And then they had each other forty-two different ways to the moon and back. “What if we’re already over each other?”

  “Because we’ve been quiet for the length of time it takes to eat a steak?” he said, putting his knife and fork down in the proper order on his empty plate. She hadn’t been able to finish everything on hers. Typical taking on more than she could chew. “I don’t think we’re done.”

  “When was your last actual long-term relationship?”

  “That’s a question I’m glad you didn’t ask before I introduced you to my clean sheets.”

  Uh-oh.

  “College.”

  “That’s—”

  “A long time ago. Casual is the new black, but I don’t want to be casual with you. I’m not saying that’s going to be easy. My experience with devotion is woefully limited.”

  Never be the first to break a barrier. Those that come second get it easier. She was sure she’d read that somewhere. “But Martha loves you.”

  “Martha loves anyone who feeds her.”

  “Some people have no respect.”

  He leaned toward her, his hand on her knee under the table. “Come home and let me disrespect you some more.”

  It was a date, but she had a call to make first. She sat on Jack’s sofa with FaceTime open while he worked at his desk, sorting through email and clicking through the key headlines of rival media.

  “Mom, hi.”

  “Hi, baby. You look pretty tonight.” Must be the post-orgasmic glow, because she was windblown and a little chafed. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at a friend’s place. How is everyone?”

  Mom made a silly face on the word friend and then updated her on the drama with the Denvers’s haunted barn and Eli Varga’s twins, but Derelie’s attention was on Jack. She wanted to swing her handset around so Mom could see him, barefoot with Martha asleep on his lap, his attention on the messages flying at him on his screen. She wanted to say, I met this guy at work and we didn’t like each other at first, but oh, Mom, he’s the greatest and he doesn’t even know how great he is and I’m so happy we found each other and I’m so scared it’s not real, and if it’s not real it’s going to break my heart and I don’t know what to do about that.

  But she didn’t say any of that. She didn’t mention Jack at all.

  On her tiny screen Mom was walking. “You want to see Ernie? Here he is.” And there was Ernest, head on his paws, sprawled on the kitchen floor waiting for his bowl to be filled.

  “Ernie! Hello, my boy. How’s my big boy? Have you been a good dog?”

  Mom’s face reappeared. “He’s been digging holes in the strawberry patch again.”

  “Ernest.” The screen showed Ernest now had his eyes closed.

  Mom said, “He knows it’s you, honey. He’s just distracted. He was wagging his tail a moment ago.”

  He was definitely forgetting her and that hurt a surprising amount. “I gotta go. Love you, Mom. Tell Dad I love him. Talk later.” She disconnected and went to Jack, slid her arms around his neck. She felt his laugher before she heard it. “What? You’ve never talked to Martha on the phone?”

  “Marah,” Martha said, and jumped from Jack’s lap.

  He tipped his chin up and looked at her. “I like you, Derelie Honeywell.”

  “I know, you changed the sheets for me twice.” Plus, he’d shown her who he was outside the parameters of his dinkus, when he wasn’t being his thoroughly professional self.

  H
e pulled her into his lap. “I’m going to be behind tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry.” He was warm and solid and hers for at least another night.

  He took his glasses off and brushed his nose over her cheek—”I’m not”—and then along her jaw. “You know you can wear your aligner in front of me.”

  “Nope, you’re good underwear and best behavior.”

  “I’m not interested in you for your underwear, and if your best behavior is the threat of a flesh wound, what else have you got hidden I haven’t experimented on or kissed out of you?”

  What she kept a lid on was the audacious hope that she’d found a home in the city with Jack. It was too soon to think that way. “You can’t have all my secrets.”

  But he could if he tried hard enough. Jack took her to bed, and because she was sore, it was his tongue and mouth that agitated then soothed her. She almost told him what was in her heart; birdsong and sweet air, fresh air and stars, but the real world came rushing back in the morning. She had to hustle to get home and changed and into the office, and though she made it on time she was already late.

  “Drama,” said Eunice in greeting.

  “What happened?”

  Eunice peered over the cube walls. “Shouting match between Phil and Shona.”

  Oh no.

  “Didn’t sound good. She’s a smart girl, did a dumb thing. Sleeping with the boss. How is that ever going to work out well?”

  Derelie chewed her lip. “Some people must meet their partners at work.”

  “Sure, sure, but it’s the power dynamic that’s the problem, and the nepotism, and the gossip, and it’s just painful for everyone else. That’s why it’s against office policy.”

  Derelie started. “I didn’t know there was an actual policy against it.”

  “Microscopic print. Not that anyone pays any attention to it. Why, you got your eye on someone?”

  “Ah, no, not at all.” The first lie. She had an urge to run to the bathroom and see what her lying face looked like.

  “Oh hey, how is that love experiment story with Haley going?” Eunice snickered. “Tell me he’s got no conversation other than work and I’ll bring you coffee, the good stuff.”