by Piper Lennox
“Lila?” I whisper. She doesn’t answer. I can only see her silhouette, but the easy rise and fall of it lets me know she’s out.
I touch myself again, letting the memory of last night take over.
“I forgot how good this feels.”
“Maybe it’s me.”
“Actually...I think you’re right.”
I’ve never had sex that good. Even Jess, once the undisputed best of my life and wild as hell, couldn’t offer me the combination Lila had: a perfect physical match, but with the emotional connection behind it that took everything from amazing, to downright incredible.
I sigh. It’s low, but in the silence of the room, seems much louder. My hand freezes; I glance at her again. She doesn’t stir.
Have some control, I scold myself, and pull my hand out of my pants. If I focus on her breathing, that easy in and out like the tide, I can match mine. I’ll fall asleep, eventually.
I listen.
Instead of her breathing, something else comes at me through the darkness: her voice.
“Don’t stop,” she whispers.
Twelve
Lila
“You were watching me?”
I get up and walk to him, peeling off my T-shirt as I go. When I stand at the edge of his bed, he scoots over and lifts the blanket, inviting me in.
“Not intentionally.”
In the faint moonlight from the window, he smiles, half-hearted: I’m breaking his friends-only rule, but so is he. “Kind of creepy, don’t you think?”
“Oh, sure. Says the guy masturbating with someone else less than ten feet away.”
“I thought you were asleep.” I can’t see his blush, but I hear the embarrassment in his voice. “It wasn’t like.... I mean, I’ve never—”
I kiss him, shutting him up. “Maybe you wanted to get caught.”
I reach into his sweatpants and wrap my hand around him. He takes a breath, hardening again almost instantly. “Maybe I did.”
As Shepherd’s hands roam my thighs, I play a game: the closer he gets to my panties, the faster I move my hand for him. When he finally rubs me through the fabric, I steady my pace.
“Lila,” he sighs, swallowing hard. His hand pauses as he gets lost in it, just for a moment, before he finds the waist and pulls it down. I feel his fingers run along my sex, testing.
“I’m ready,” I whisper, almost desperate. The hell with it: I am desperate. I’ve been dying for him to touch me ever since the fight. It could just be some damsel-in-distress thing, the thrill of him protecting me. I’m sure that’s at least part of why he’s going along with this, too, his speech this morning long forgotten.
Shepherd pushes his fingers inside, setting a rhythm that melts me, pressing his mouth against mine as I moan. I feel myself getting wetter every time he moves; when I buck my hips towards him, asking for more, he flinches in my hand.
An empty ache takes over after he removes his fingers. Within seconds, I feel his tip there, but he barely pushes it into me before stopping.
“I, uh....” He tongues his cheek. “I’m out of condoms.”
“It’s okay, I’m on birth control. I mean...unless there’s another reason?”
“Oh, no, I don’t have any STDs or whatever.” He stops, like he’s waiting.
“Me, neither.”
“Right,” he says quickly. “I mean, I figured you didn’t.” Both of our hands stop, everything still pulsing, blood still rushing, but with the pleasure on pause. Talk about awkward. Responsible, sure, but not exactly dirty talk.
“There’s always abstinence,” I deadpan, until he laughs again.
“We both know,” he says, “that isn’t gonna happen.” Shepherd thrusts and fills me, all at once. My eyes flutter shut. I lift my hands to his face and hold it, like in the parking lot.
“I’ll pull out.” He kisses me, the sounds I make muffled into his mouth. “I was just letting you know in case you wanted me to go buy some.”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. Just...don’t stop doing this.”
He smiles. “So,” he says, “you have now seen me touch myself. I’ve got to say, I’m a little horrified.”
I bite my lip and confess, “I was doing it too.”
“You were?”
“Just for a few seconds.” I feel a blush rise. “I know you said you don’t want to get involved, but when I saw you.... And the fight—”
“I know.” His muscles tighten, like he’s refraining from driving into me with all his strength. “I meant what I said: I’ve never done that with somebody else around. And I never would—I stopped. It’s just, with you....” He sinks in again, his forehead touching mine. “...it’s like I can’t help myself.”
“Me, too.” I cup his ear and draw his mouth to mine. “I don’t want you to hold back, though.”
I realize, after I say it, that I mean it in more ways than one: not just sexually, but emotionally, romantically, whatever describes this link between us that neither of us can shake.
His muscles unwind as, finally, he lets his hips drive at the rhythm they want, the force they need. “I don’t want to, either.”
Shepherd
“My favorite position?”
“Yeah.” I kiss her neck, one spot warm to the touch; I’m positive I’ve given her a hickey without meaning to. “We did mine last night, with you on top, so it’s only fair we do yours now.”
Lila smiles, looking self-conscious. “Okay. It’s doggy-style, kind of. Like this.” I pull out of her and watch as she rearranges the pillows, lying on her stomach with her hips propped in the air.
I position myself behind her and slip back inside. “So I take you from behind,” I say, intentionally lowering my pitch, “while the pillows rub you. Right?”
Lila whimpers as I thrust in and out, already back to business. “Right,” she breathes, helpless.
Even in the midst of all this, with my brain focused almost exclusively on her, I remember this morning. I know I should stop—but how can I? By going this far, I’ve basically decided my friends-only rule is shit. And maybe it is. Maybe I was wrong.
I let the thoughts go. Right now, I want to focus only on this feeling.
“Shepherd,” she says, over her shoulder. Her face is pressed against the mattress, eyes shut, hands balled into fists near her head. “Please…please, go faster. Deeper.”
“Like this?” My hands cup her hips; I rock mine forward, hard, before withdrawing and doing it again. Her eyes open a bit, and then roll back as they close. The mere sight makes me dizzy.
“Yes.” She pushes back to meet me. “Yes, Shepherd, God, yes!” Her voice dissolves into a moan. I realize mine is just a weird, grating sound, my breath ragged and trapped inside my chest. I get another head spin when her lower lip starts trembling; she bites it, just to hold it still.
Then, after she shudders and I know she’s as close as I am, I see her mouth my name. Over and over, her lips draft the syllables, even if her lungs can’t find the air to push them out.
It’s too much to handle. I pull out at the last possible millisecond and fall against her.
It takes me a minute to get my bearings, to even remember where I am. I realize I’m putting a ton of my weight on her. “Sorry,” I pant. “Did you...?”
She shakes her head, still speechless and catching her breath. Immediately, I slide my fingers into her, first two, then three.
I think about her mouthing my name again, and decide to try my luck with a fourth.
God, the noise she makes—I’ve never heard anything like it.
Lila
When Shepherd puts the fourth finger inside me, my brain implodes.
“Oh, God,” I tell him, only it doesn’t sound like that. It doesn’t sound like anything but noise, the words as blurred as the colors behind my eyelids. “I’m…I’m so….”
“I know, baby.” Shepherd’s breathy voice saying that word, baby, gets me impossibly close. “Don’t worry. I won’t stop.”
> He kisses my shoulder. I grind my hips against the pillow and feel it begin, that slow bloom and burn of my orgasm.
The spike throws me into oblivion. True to his word, Shepherd doesn’t stop or even slow down. I grip the bed sheet on either side of me and whimper his name, trying so hard to tell him what I’m feeling. I can’t.
When it ends, he helps me roll off the pillows and kisses his way up my body. I’m gasping. Both of us smile, his stronger than mine.
“Guess I’m glad you caught me,” he says.
An aftershock engulfs me as he pulls the blanket across us. I take a breath and force my vocal chords to operate. “I’ve never had anyone put four fingers inside me at once.”
“I’ve never put four in someone.” We laugh softly, the sound like mist between us.
Shepherd loops his arms around me and pulls my body against his. I feel his heartbeat on my hands, tucked between our chests.
“How can you feel this way about someone you just met?” he whispers.
I shake my head. It isn’t clear if he’s talking about my feelings, his, or both, but the answer to all of those is the same: I have no idea.
Thirteen
Shepherd
Yet again, I can’t sleep.
It’s almost daybreak before I even bother pulling my arm out from underneath her, numb and tingling. I sit up and rub my face, sighing to myself. At the way I’ve so completely fucked up my own rules.
This was a huge mistake.
The only thing worse than letting myself get involved with Lila to begin with, knowing how easily I could slip up and ruin her life, is doing it again. Everything I told her at the motel is still true—but how can I possibly ask her to respect my decision now, when I didn’t?
I’m not sure why I even came here with her. We both knew I wouldn’t be much help in finding her mom: there was nothing I could find out that Lila couldn’t on her own. Even protecting her was just a fluke. If I weren’t here, maybe she wouldn’t have gone to get food in the first place.
I ease out of bed, making sure she’s still asleep, and find my bag. I cram my feet into my shoes, no socks, and write her a note on the hotel stationary. It’s the least I can do.
And, finally, one last scumbag move to remember me by: I take five twenties from her wallet, sticking out of her purse on the floor. I feel like complete and utter shit as I pocket it, but I know I won’t get far on what I’ve got left.
Then again, $100: it’s a small price to pay for getting me out of her life, nice and early. A good deal, even if she’ll never know that.
I kiss her forehead. She sighs in her sleep, just a reflex, but it kills me. Like even now, she realizes I was going to disappoint her all along.
The front desk calls a cab for me. I sit on the curb to wait.
Two businessmen step out, smoking and talking about airlines. I study the clean fit of their suits, how their hair is combed back, their stances relaxed but sure. It reminds me of sitting by the chapel as a kid, while the congregation poured out onto the sidewalk in their Sunday best.
I used to want to be a businessman. I never knew what business, exactly: I didn’t think that far ahead. All I knew was that I wanted a suit and people calling me “Mr. Jones,” like they did my Uncle Killian. Dad, of course, chastised me for it.
“You remember Luke 18:25, right?” he’d asked, on more than one occasion.
“Yes, Dad,” I grumbled, and said it with him, every time: “‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’” He’d always stop halfway through, smiling with surprise as I finished the rest of the verse without him.
“Good job, son.”
He didn’t get it. It wasn’t about the money. It was about respect, being a big shot. When you were important enough, you didn’t have to turn the other cheek, because people didn’t dare screw you over in the first place. You didn’t have to be meek: your confidence was what people wanted to see.
“Uh, hey,” I call out now. One of the guys looks over, while the other stares at his phone. I get to my feet. “Can I bum one of those?”
“Sure, man.” The guy shakes another cigarette out of his pack and lets me take it. I thank him and dig my matches out of my jeans, edging back to my seat.
An entire year without smoking, gone. It should bother me more than it does. I feel my nerves settle a little, until the smell reminds me of Lila and twists my stomach all over again.
My cab arrives. I put my luggage in first, sliding in after it, and flick my cigarette onto the pavement.
“Bus station,” I tell the driver.
The hotel fades behind us. I slump in the seat and remind myself that this is best. Not for me, of course—but then again, it’s about time I did something good for somebody else, without getting anything good in return.
Once upon a time, I knew a verse for that, too.
Lila
I stare at the note for so long, the sweat on my fingers makes the paper wrinkle.
Lila:
I’m sorry. I still have too much of myself to fix.
-Shepherd
He did it again, the classic cop-out. It’s not you, it’s me. Only this time, he isn’t going back on his word, breaking his own rules. He’s really gone.
I take a breath as the tears hit. “He’s gone,” I whisper, barely making a sound at all. “Accept it.”
It doesn’t work. I don’t want to believe he isn’t here, or that he was right all along: he isn’t a good guy. If abandoning me right when I need him most isn’t proof enough, the money missing from my purse has to drive the point home.
Part of me—a big part—wants to curl up in this bed and go back to sleep. I can’t handle this on my own, not yet.
Then I see the picture from the locket, and the note from the adoption agency, sticking out of my wallet where the money used to be. I can’t remember if I put them there. Maybe Shepherd did it, moving them from my luggage to tell me, yes, I can do this on my own.
Well, screw him.
I will do this. Not because he’s inspired me, but because I’m done letting guys’ decisions determine mine. Shepherd’s gone, it hurts—but I’m not going to sit here and pout like some pathetic mess.
With the listing and set of directions in one hand, and my luggage weighing down the other, I check out and head to the car. At least that’s one good thing I can say about Shepherd: he didn’t leave me stranded.
1922 East Cedar Court is twenty minutes from our hotel, a timeframe I spend chain-smoking and grumbling curse words at every motorist in my path. I refuse to think about Shepherd for more than a few seconds at a time. I don’t need him. I can do this.
The house is a small rancher painted yellow, and the mailbox is twisted sideways on its post. There aren’t any cars, but I park on the street and let my legs, shaky and sore like I have the flu, carry me up the porch, just the same.
My pulse is humming. I lift the brass knocker and tap twice. Then I step back and wait.
This is your mom, I tell myself. You’re about to meet your birth mom.
Ironically, my little forced-acceptance trick works this time. When the door opens, it’s not a woman there at all, much less one that looks like me.
“Who are you?” the man asks. He shuts the door to just a few inches. I hear a television behind him, blasting louder than Uncle Wayne’s game shows.
“Hi. I’m, uh…looking for Tillie?”
The guy, who looks at least a couple decades older, gives me the once-over. “Asked who you were.”
“Kathryn,” I answer. Using my birth name comes more easily than I expected, but I suddenly wish it hadn’t. For some reason, I don’t trust this guy. My stomach knots up just looking at him.
“Got the wrong house,” he says. The gap narrows. “Sorry.”
I start to protest, but he’s already closed the door. I hear a chain lock slide into place, his footsteps heavy as he goes back to his television.
Gr
eat. I check the address on my sheet again, even though I know I haven’t made a mistake: this house is it. It matches the photo. The address is right, even if one house number is missing, just a darkened patch of brick in its place.
I don’t let myself cry until I’m in the car. It still makes me feel ashamed of myself, breaking down after all my talk of not pouting, but at least no one can see.
This was stupid. As much as I hate to admit it, Shepherd was right. Not that I ever believed the idea wasn’t flawed, or even crazy—but I did think, deep down, it wouldn’t be a waste of time. After that first night on the road with Shepherd, I figured I would at least have him, no matter how the rest ended. Now, I’ve got no one.
I light another cigarette and pull the car around to the end of the street, in front of an empty lot that’s been dug up for construction. There’s a crane poised over a ditch.
Logically, I know the only thing left to do is go home. I’m done here. But my energy is sapped, and the longer I stare at that empty lot and all that upturned earth, the more I wish I had a hole to crawl into and disappear.
So I just sit there and keep crying. I cry for Tillie, who had me so young, who tried to keep me and couldn’t. I cry for myself. I cry for Mom and Dad, missing them more than ever in this moment.
I wanted to find Tillie for a lot of reasons: curiosity, some kind of kinship—but the biggest was so that, whenever I finally did accept Dad was gone, I could at least say, But I’ve got this other person, too. I’m not alone.
Maybe that was the real reason I held onto Donnie as long as I did. I knew, even before Dad admitted his kidneys were failing, that he wouldn’t be around forever. And Aunt Betty and Uncle Wayne, while in good health, were even older. One day, I would be completely alone—but if I had Donnie, at least that was something.
Now, I don’t have my parents. I don’t have Tillie. Donnie, Shepherd, every guy I’ve ever dated or liked: they’re all history. Right now, with so many miles between myself and Indiana, I’m on my own.