by Sunniva Dee
“No, no, no. There’s no way he loves her like that. Haven’t you seen him with you? Ciro is a one-woman man. I know him, and I’m telling you: he loves you.” The determination in her gaze causes my little dead heart to cough. My brain remains cold. There’s always a fight between the two of them lately, and it’s exhausting.
“I don’t know, Ana. I feel empty. Super-alone,” I add, which doesn’t even make any sense.
“You’re not alone.” She pulls me into her little body and big bosom, hugging me tight. “You’ve got me and Aaron. I’m one hundred and ten percent sure that if we— Wait, you guys are still speaking, right?”
I shake my head. “I can’t.” A few tears trickle along the bridge of my nose.
“Well, then I’m one hundred and ten percent sure that he’s suffering as much as you are. You know what’s interesting?”
I emit a half-groan, half-grunt in response.
“I always thought you were so strong. Typically, girlfriends from outside are insecure of their guys, but you weren’t like that. I told Aaron how impressed I was. Don’t go and wimp out on me just because you’re in rough waters for a little bit.”
“Ana.” I sniffle.
“Hmm?”
“I have to admit something to you. If they had awards for insecure porn-star girlfriends, I would win the big gold one with all the bling on it. I’m so insecure that I stopped being his girlfriend the minute I found out what he did for a living.”
“What are you talking about? You guys...?”
“We were ‘friends plus-plus.’” I laugh at my own use of Ciro’s expression. “That was it. He did everything he could to change my mind. He even proposed to me once. And you know what the most ironic thing is?”
“What?”
“I surprised him at his house. I was dolled up like an idiot to tell him I was finally ready to cave in and be in a serious relationship with him. That’s when I found him holding Silk in his arms.”
Frieda is my best friend again, not Charlotte. Charlotte thinks I should talk things over with Ciro, because it wasn’t his fault that his ex landed on his door with all of her problems. She still lives there, I’ve heard.
Charlotte hands me the phone whenever he calls hers because I don’t pick up. Charlotte opens the door when he reverts back to his old ways of buying me phallic flowers, only now he hand-delivers them.
I don’t accept his flowers. He leaves them on the front porch. I’m a sucker who keeps reading his quirky love poems.
Please forgive
My fuckups
My ragged-up past, my now
My lameness, my stupidity
I need you, need you, need you
Then:
I love you
So hard
The moon doesn’t stand a chance
You, I love
You, just you
Then:
I want to haul the moon down for you
Then:
I’m working on the moon for you
Then:
Now, marry me?
The sorority girls across the street have standing orders to pick the bouquets off the porch. After the fifth one, I send him a single cactus with the inscription: Stop.
I get what I want. It’s quiet for two weeks. I hate how quiet it is. No phone calls, no flowers. I go to the dog park every morning. On the third day, Ana is there too.
“He’s in Istanbul,” she says. “He asked about you.”
“What did you tell him?” The hole in my heart won’t change size. “Is he there with Silk?”
“No, she’s in San Francisco. He got her an in with Harmony Femme. He says she has an audition this week. She’s a great performer, so I bet they’ll take her.”
“I bet,” I say drily.
“What kind of company is Harmony Femme? Hopefully not BDSM,” I find myself saying.
“They specialize in erotica geared toward women. They’re awesome to work for. Ha, I’ve worked for them twice, and those movies are the worst for Aaron. He says the guys always look like they love me, and he’s not into that. Doesn’t like my look in them either.” She winks.
“Oh geez, I can imagine.”
Ana smiles brightly. “I don’t take jobs with them anymore. He’s got me whipped.”
“Ciro better never work for them anymore either.
“No, I mean. That’s none of my business.”
Ana bursts out laughing. “Yay! Oh I’m so telling him this.”
“Don’t. Shit, I messed up.” And then I’m laughing too, and I feel freer than I have in a while.
“So... San Francisco, huh? Is she moving for good?”
Ana crosses her fingers and holds them up for me. “Here’s to hoping she gets a contract.”
He’s just back from Istanbul when I ghost-dial him and he doesn’t pick up. Maybe my nightmare came true. He’s hooked up with the perfect woman from his own ranks, Silk or not.
He calls me half an hour later, and I don’t dawdle. I pick up. Out of curiosity.
“Savannah, are you okay?”
I try to interpret his tone, wait for it to come off cold, but he only sounds concerned to my ears. “My cell was in the break room, and I didn’t get off until now.”
Get off?
I don’t tell him my call was an accident. I need to apologize anyway. This is as good a time as any. “I’m good. Sorry for the cactus. I didn’t mean to be acidic.”
“You were prickly more than acidic.” There’s humor in his voice.
I want to ask if the cactus was what stopped the barrage of flowers.
“True. How are you?”
“I’m all right. I got back from Istanbul last night, so I’m a little jetlagged. Was hoping for a few days off, but Sharon has me booked solid this week. Guess I’ll be relaxing in the weekend. Are you working at Mintrer’s tonight?”
I nod into the phone. “Yeah.”
“I can pick you up. What time are you off?”
My heart kicks into action, rolling into a shimmy.
“Ten.”
“Oh earlyish. That’s nice. You want to see Princess? I know she’ll want to see you.”
“I’d love to see Princess.”
I press my phone against my chest after we hang up. Then I close my eyes and let the confusion inundate me.
I feel so much for this man. I worked like crazy to overcome his job and got damn close. I’d almost even accepted his version of faithful.
But picture yourself getting there. You’ve surpassed the unsurmountable and you believe your beautiful, perfect boyfriend when he says it’s just flesh. How far would you go? I’m looking at you. If the most stunning creature of an ex-girlfriend with a past to match slips into his house and wants to sleep over, when she nuzzles into his throat the way only you should, do you still trust?
Do I still trust?
I can’t meet him at Mintrer’s again and again and all over again.
I ask to leave early, rush out, and call him on my way to the playground. It’s dark here, but all I care about is finding new territory, a place where we’ve never met before. I don’t want to go home to my house after, and I definitely don’t want us in his.
“Hey, it’s me,” I mumble into the phone.
“Are you off work already?”
“Yeah.” I try not to puff out my nerves. “You know the Seven Eleven a block west of Mintrer’s?”
“I do.”
“I’m behind it. On a swing.”
He’s there five minutes later. You don’t get from Ciro’s house to anywhere near Mintrer’s in less than fifteen, but I won’t ask.
He parks the car. I watch the lights go off. I watch him stride toward me with a purpose, the dark mass of his body contouring against the lamplights. I feel arrhythmic.
When he gets to me, he glances around like we’re breaking some law. It’s hot—I don’t know. His eyes gleam and search me. He leans in. Kisses me without asking.
I kiss him back, my chest swelling and deflating. It expands into his body and levels out, and then he hoists me off the swing, onto his hips and kisses me, kisses, kisses, and I have nothing solid under my feet.
“Why here?” he whispers.
“I just couldn’t again, from Mintrer’s. Things went wrong between us.”
He groans and pushes my face against his neck, holding me tight as if he doesn’t want to let go. The crisp night makes it better. The two of us are the core of everything that’s warm.
“We need to talk,” I say.
He nods, but his face burrows against me like he wants to hide. He inhales through his nostrils. He inhales me. My heart doesn’t hop at that. It wrings with blissed pain.
“Baby girl.” His words are so low they breeze against me. “I’m holding you in my arms right now, and that’s a little bit unbelievable.” He kisses me on an inhale of my perfume—my sweat—I don’t know. “You’re a tough one to keep around. Desert wind.”
“What?” I swallow.
“You know how it blows hard and strong, and it’s scorching in the middle of the day? That’s you to me. And if I’m not careful, you keep going and I’m left behind like another cactus.”
I’m glad he said cactus. It makes me snicker, and if I didn’t snicker, I’d be crying. “Ciro, the cactus man.”
He smiles. Lifts me higher. Breathes hot air against my chest. “I’d be the big kind of cactus, with both girth and length.”
“You.” He’s funny. He drugs me, and suddenly I’m inhaling him the way he inhaled me. “Girth and length mean nothing if it’s covered with needles.”
“Oh did I not mention that? No needles, just girth and length.”
“Eww, shut up.”
“You haven’t complained before. Unless you count statements like, ‘Oh please, baby. Deeper.’” He ends his too realistic moan with a sigh against my mouth.
My stomach floods with heat. “Ciro, I can’t do this. We need to go someplace where we can have a real talk.”
His lips still against my skin before he pulls back. “Princess is waiting for you at the house...”
“No. I just can’t.”
26. EXPECTANCE
I shouldn’t start in the car. I should wait until he’s not driving anymore, but two weeks of silence is enough.
“You understand why I left that night, right?”
“Because of Silk?”
“Because of the two of you.”
“What did you see?”
“What was there to see?” I snap, but then I reel myself in. “I saw you embracing her. I saw her snuggling as tight as she possibly could with no concern for someone else being around, not even someone you had just kissed. And you buried your nose in her hair, and you stroked her back.”
“So you saw me comfort her?”
“Yeah, but...”
He stares.
“It was intimate as hell, Ciro! It was so clear that you were used to holding her like that. She’d snuggled with you so much before—I could tell, and—”
“And it hurt?”
“Yes!”
“I’m so sorry, Savannah.”
He could have said more. He could have reminded me of the horror of Silk’s situation and how broken she was. He’d be right. I do feel bad for her. But above that is a thick layer of thoughts and assumptions and hell-nos. I need to express them now.
“I didn’t know how far you would go. If it were up to Silk, you’d be in bed in seconds. And after that, I heard she stayed at your house. That did it. I never wanted to talk to you again.”
“Why not?”
“Because what stops a porn star from sleeping with another porn star in need?”
The waves crash against the sand in chaotic, never-ending clusters. He pulls his fingers through my hair as I lean back. The last month has been doomsday. I’m deep in, at the center of it, but I feel better with my ear over his heart.
When I shiver, he folds his hands over my stomach and pulls me closer.
“We could go to Moonshadows. It’ll be warmer inside a restaurant.”
“No. This is good.”
“Not too cold?”
“Not against you.”
His stomach sinks with relief, a firm surface sliding with me. Gently, he kisses the top of my head. It’s easier to talk when I don’t see his face.
“I’m afraid, Ciro.”
“Tell me of what.”
“I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, and there’s no relief in sight. I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t we have to be brave to win in life?”
“That depends on what’s at stake. Do you think my mom is brave for wanting to pack up the house and check out of reality in search of a fantasy?”
He squeezes me, and I turn so my nose finds the soft fabric of his shirt. I rub against it, closing my eyes. “No. Your mother should definitely not chase her dreams.”
I let out a huffed laugh. “We’re so fucked up.”
He sits up and turns me toward him, holding my face in his hands. “You’re so unsure of me, Savannah. What we have is not fucked up. It’s a beautiful thing. We just need to sort through this mess until you understand that you can trust me unconditionally.”
He has my attention when he crosses his legs and pulls me down on his lap, straddling him. The moon is so mild above us it’s almost too much.
“Hear me out, because I’m going to tell you a story. Some of it, you know. Other parts are new, and maybe they can help you understand better.”
I’m ready. I bob my head.
“If I ever become a father, I’ll do nothing the way my parents did it. They lived in the dark ages when it came to raising a child and a teenager, and it wasn’t even because they were strict. Their parenting style was like hurling off fistfuls of darts with blindfolds on and never once hitting the target. Obviously, we didn’t understand a lick of each other.
“It wasn’t difficult to find excitement and sexual stimuli. I never had a problem finding takers at school or elsewhere. At the country club, the supermarket, the library, the theater. The only thing I did right during that time was to use a whole lot of condoms.”
He finds my lips with a soft kiss that sends tingles down my spine.
“I even slept with the country club manager’s wife. That got complicated. But what I regret most is the drugs and spending the last two years of high school high, fucking someone, or both at once. When I was about to get expelled from school, I seduced the principal.” He shrugs, a small apology. “If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have had a high school diploma.
“I had food and a bed, everything material I needed. Just, I could gobble pills right under their nose at the dinner table. I could have a “study date” in the sunroom and fuck her against the wall without being caught. Once, my father walked in on me with a girl, and all I had to do was tell him I’d spotted a crane by the pond and that was why we were pressed so tightly together by the window.
“Anyway.” He chuckles, stroking hair away from my face. “A few years later, someone told my parents straight up that I was in porn. That’s when I was cut off, and I’ve been dead to them ever since.”
“Have you tried to get in contact with them since then?”
“No. My parents don’t mess around. They actually took out a restraining order against me. I can’t be within a hundred feet of my mother or father.” He lets out a small snort.
“Jesus Christ. That must have hurt like crazy.”
“Eh, it’s whatever. At least I don’t have to feel guilty for not visiting anymore.”
“No shit.�
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“Fast-forward another a few years, and I’m starting to miss someone in my life. I fall in love a couple of times, start relationships, and that’s when I learn how off-putting it is to women that I’m in the industry.”
“You were surprised by this?”
“To be honest, yes. I guess I hadn’t thought it through. I’d been busy working and staying clean of drugs, and during the first years of paying my own bills, I had people around me night and day. Afterhours, we hung at clubs and bars. I’d go home with young colleagues for a quickie, or I’d have a one-off with some girl from a club. You live so fast it takes a while to notice that you need more. But at a certain point, you notice that it’s there and glaring at you.
“In the beginning, it wasn’t that bad. Mostly, I never got past the dating stage with them, and it was just surprising when they moved on after only a few weeks. I’d get to the fourth base on the first night, but that was the extent of it. A few weeks of taking them on dates and sleeping together, then bam, as soon as emotions other than desire started up, so did the fights and the breakups.
“By the time I met Silk, I’d tried a dozen times, at least. Lots of great girls, but what does that matter?”
I shake my head. “I’ve said it before, but I can’t believe you keep trying. If I were you, I’d have stopped a long time ago. Or I’d find another job.”
“I don’t give up easily.”
“Oh believe me, I know.” I gasp a laugh as he sucks my lower lip into his mouth, swirling over it with a skilled tongue.
“Silk was a big lesson for me. I worked so hard to make our marriage last, but it made her more unhappy than she was when I met her. I wanted to save her. Help her. I didn’t want to make her feel miserable.
“I took a break after Silk. For almost a year, I didn’t date at all. When I got back on the horse again, it was with even more purpose than before. About thirty girlfriends in, I started becoming methodical about it. I found my type—not adult performers but regular, smart girls. I tested out different ways of telling them about my job.
“When I met you, my fifty-second girlfriend—”
“You really have been counting.”