“Hi,” he says, smiling.
“Hi.” My body is still tingly, and I wonder if it will always be this way. Wouldn’t that be something.
I carefully detach myself from him. He is neither limp nor erect, his cock is just firm. It’s the darndest thing. He’s the opposite of spent—he has been recharged.
He sits up, just as I lie down. “That was incredible. Right?”
“Yeah. It was.”
He kisses me on the mouth. “I feel great. Do you?”
“I do.”
He gets up off the bed. “Can I get you anything? You need water.”
“Sure.”
He brings me a bottle of water, retrieves his cell phone from under the sofa seat, and disappears into the bathroom.
I stare up at the ceiling and feel more sparks of electricity shoot through me. I still feel too good to start worrying about what it means that I’m having the most mind-blowing, world-rocking sex imaginable with a man whose world seems unrockable, whose mind can’t be blown, at least by me. Maybe if I were an elegant math equation or a tech-related database that he could somehow stick his penis into, I would feel like part of his world for more than an hour at a time.
When he returns from the bathroom, he’s wearing his glasses and pajama bottoms. He leans against the side of the bed and says: “If it’s okay with you, I’m wide awake, so I’m going to put on my Bose headphones, listen to Led Zeppelin and do some work for about an hour.”
I suppose that ranks higher than having him passed out beside me or out the door after a quick peck on the cheek, but lower than post-coital spooning. “How can you listen to Led Zeppelin and not get totally horny?”
“I only get horny when I listen to Led Zeppelin II.”
I smile. That’s my favorite. “Fair enough.” I slide under the covers and stretch out. “Can I ask you one thing before you put your headphones on?”
“You can ask me two things, if you so desire.”
“Well, it’s not a question, exactly. Can you tell me about your mom? I’ve never met her. I’m just curious. Did she inspire you to start that foundation?”
He crosses his arms in front of his chest and looks down. “I wouldn’t say she inspired me to start it, no…I need to get back to Sanjay on some important things. We’ll talk about her another time, okay?”
“Okay.”
He goes over to the desk and taps his fingers on the desktop.
“I have one more question,” I say, cheekily.
He looks over his shoulder at me, raising an eyebrow. He looks so hot like that, I want to take another picture of him. A not-dick pic.
“Which Zeppelin album are you going to listen to?”
“III.”
“Okay.”
He nods. “Okay. You going to sleep?”
“I think so.”
I can practically hear the voice in his head telling him to come over and kiss me goodnight before he loses himself in his work stuff. Or maybe he can hear the voice in my head willing him to do it. Either way, he does it. He sits on the bed beside me, kisses my forehead, runs his fingers through my hair and says, “Good night, beautiful. I’ll wake you up before I go to my meeting tomorrow morning.”
“Wake me up when you get up. I want to have breakfast with you.”
He smiles. “Okay.”
I watch him for a while, before drifting off to sleep. His ability to focus on whatever he chooses to is annoyingly attractive to me. His discipline and drive is no different from mine as a dancer, I realize. It’s just that it’s off-season for me, and he has no off-season. Or an off switch, it seems.
I imagine what it would be like, being in a relationship with him when I’m in ballet-mode. Maybe it would be perfect. He’d be busy, I’d be busy, we’d find an hour in our schedules a few times a week to practice exotic and health-enhancing bedroom arts together and just live separate successful lives that are conjoined by our genitals, shared history and love for my brother and parents.
Or maybe he doesn’t even want that. Maybe he just occasionally needs someone that he doesn’t have to make a constant effort with, for business trips and gala events. Maybe he doesn’t want the same person every time.
It is disappointing that my euphoria has so quickly devolved into neurosis, and very unlike me to be wondering where I fit into a man’s life. I never cared much about whether or not Julian was thinking about me when he wasn’t around; I’ve just always been flattered and happy to hear from him when he wanted to see me. But then again, when I do see him there’s never been a spark, or challenge, and there’s certainly never been a feeling of comfort. Same is true for every other guy who’s not John.
I try to remember what it felt like, slow-dancing with him earlier, to hold onto it. Every muscle in my body remembers the choreography of that dance that Mrs. Broadhurst taught me when I was twelve. That Elvis song was what she had chosen for her first dance with her husband at her wedding. I couldn’t get it out of my head all year.
I bury my face into the pillow, shocked and overwhelmed by the idea that for the rest of my life now, every time I hear Can’t Help Falling In Love I’ll think of Johnny Brandt, the way his hand rested on the small of my back, and how he had no idea that I was lying in a bed behind him while he was busy typing away on his laptop, deciding on that song for my own wedding, hating that I’m unable to picture myself dancing to it with anyone other than him.
15
John
We land in New York in the early evening.
The flight was almost fifteen hours, and I spent most of it drifting in and out of sleep, thinking only of Olivia when I was awake. I was so moved by how enraptured and fascinated she was by the Peking Opera we went to last night. I was impressed by the way she interacted with my colleagues. She is classy, smart, charming and fun in social circumstances, a winning combination.
The sex has been better than I’d anticipated, better than sex with anyone else (this was expected), and better than pretty much anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s…troubling. I suppose I’m worried I might become obsessed with her. That she’ll quickly become a black hole. How do people have ongoing relationships like this without losing millions? It’s quite possible that they don’t. It’s quite possible that I’ll have to choose. Continue scaling my businesses at the same already conservative pace and limit my interactions with Olivia, or slow their growth and change my goals in order to incorporate loving and fucking Olivia into my daily schedule. Thinking about it makes me uneasy. Not thinking about it is impossible when she’s around.
She was silent and probably mad at me for the first half hour after we were seated on this plane.
She is eighty percent dark matter, immeasurable, unknowable, and I remember being able to walk away from her whenever she suddenly turned against me when she was younger, I could easily turn down the volume on the part of my brain that was screaming “WHY IS SHE MAD AT ME NOW?!?!?” But this question was rumbling through my head, louder than the plane’s engines.
There is a sweet young newlywed couple sitting in front of us, a cute elderly couple across the aisle. Everyone has been quiet; there are no noisy babies. I had put my phone away ten minutes before boarding, gave her my full attention, and I didn’t say anything to her beyond totally benign questions like: “Do you want the window or the aisle?” and “Are you sure you want champagne now? It’s dehydrating.” But I didn’t stop her from drinking it. She slipped her ear bud headphones in and I could hear the music she was listening to. Rage Against the Machine. Fucking great song, but I couldn’t stand seeing her the slightest bit unhappy. I did tell her she was free to scowl when we weren’t in public, but no. This was more than annoyance. There’s some kind of pain lurking beneath her beautiful surface.
I pulled my pen and notebook out from my bag and tore out a piece of paper. I wrote: Hi. P.S. I like you. P.P.S. I like you a lot. P.P.P.S. How can I make you happier? I placed the note and the pen on the tray in front of her.
; She stared at it for a moment, the tiniest smile on her face, but then she looked sad again. She picked up the pen and wrote: Hello. P.S. I like you also. P.P.S. I’m sure I’m just dehydrated. P.P.P.S. I like you a lot too. P.P.P.P.S. I didn’t expect to like you this much. It’s weird. That’s all.
When she passed the note and pen back to me, I thought about having it framed and giving it to her as an anniversary gift. And then I remembered we aren’t married yet.
She watched as I wrote: I know what you mean. I hope we get used to it. I could get used to you… P.S. No more alcohol until tomorrow. Long flights are hard on the body even without alcohol. I flipped the piece of paper and wrote: I’m the only one who’s allowed to be hard on your body for this trip.
She smiled, swiped the paper from the tray and slid it into her purse. Then she slid her hand into mine and held it until the flight attendant came to take our dinner order.
“So, are we going to do it New York-style while we’re here?” she asks, when we land.
“That’s right,” I say. “For a New York minute.”
“Ooooh,” she gives a dramatic coo and shudder. “Thin crust, wide slice.” She leans in and says: “I can’t wait for you to fold me in half and eat me.”
That’s when I nearly swallow my own tongue and start coughing and may never stop. Which would be a shame, because I really want to know what thin crust wide slice sex is like, and I definitely want to fold this woman up and eat her.
“By the way, I just emailed Louisa that I want to meet her when we’re back in the Bay Area, to discuss a donation. She said she’s seen the pictures we posted and we look cute together.”
“Really?”
I nod.
“When?”
“An hour ago. In flight Wi-Fi.”
She doesn’t smile this big very often, but when she does I almost feel like bursting into song. I would never burst into song, ever, but it’s nice to feel this way, sometimes.
“Thank you, that’s…cool.”
“It’s my pleasure.”
She looks serious again all of a sudden. “I just want to say…if it were all based on skill, I’m pretty sure I would have been featured already.”
“I have no doubt. If it were based on beauty you’d be a principal in the Bolshoi Ballet already.”
She giggles and shakes her head. I don’t think I’ve ever made her giggle before.
“I can’t wait to see you dance on stage again.”
“Again?”
“I mean…” I could tell her. Why shouldn’t I tell her? “I mean, I went to that recital in Cleveland.”
“Right. It’s just…”
“What?”
“You really didn’t think I should be a professional dancer.”
“I was wrong.” That may be the first time I’ve ever said those three little words in my life, and I mean it.
She is even more stunned by my utterance than I am. Her lower lip quivers, but she manages to hide it with a small smile that reaches inside me, grips my heart, and then plucks it from my chest when she forms the quiet words, “Thank you, Johnny.”
My fingers reach out to touch her mouth. I don’t know why, until she kisses them. My fingers understand her so much more than my brain does, I guess. I cradle her face in my hand. Her eyes are wet. I don’t understand. “What?”
“Are you acting right now?”
“What? No.” Why would she ask me that? “No.”
She unbuckles her seatbelt and leans over to kiss me, almost frantic, like it’s a kiss goodbye, like we might never see each other again.
I run my fingers over her hair. “Hey. Hey. Are you okay?”
She nods, kisses me one more time, then settles back down into her seat, straightening herself out, just as the captain turns off the seatbelt sign and all the other passengers on the plane stand up.
I don’t know if I can stand. I feel queasy. I don’t ever want to be kissed like that again, like it’s the last time. I don’t understand what just happened. This plane ride has been a roller coaster of emotions for me. I don’t do roller coasters. Or emotions.
When we’re in the back of the car, being driven to the hotel, once I finally get off the phone with Sanjay, I ask her what she wants to do tonight.
“I want to order room service, eat it in bed, and watch dumb movies with you. Watch you squirm until we fall asleep.”
“How do you know I’ll squirm?”
She laughs. Is it possible she knows me better than I think she does?
She’s right. I squirm. We order pretty much everything off the room service menu and she makes me watch Hot Tub Time Machine 2. I had actually liked the first one, but the sequel just makes me angry, because where the fuck is John Cusack? But mostly I squirm because her arm is around me and one hand is resting on my abs. I promised myself I would refrain from having sex tonight, because we cannot afford to have sex hangovers tomorrow. I have three meetings tomorrow and a plan to check out a potential investment in midtown, then the gala event tomorrow night where we will have to pose for pictures.
I keep telling myself this while she’s clearing the dishes off of the bed, while she casually removes her sleep shirt and climbs under the covers beside me, totally naked, when she turns away from me and says, “good night,” with her husky voice and a tone that says: “good luck with that no sex thing, buddy.” And then I drink a bottle of water, take a double dose of Vitamin C, and have New York-style sex with her—hot and dirty like Times Square in the 1970’s—because she’s here and I’m here, and I may be a nerd but I’m not an idiot, and whatever power or resolve I once had to resist her got lost somewhere over the Pacific.
I can’t believe how much this scares me, but fuck it.
I’m a genius.
I’ll figure it out.
16
Olivia
After getting up to eat a ridiculously beautiful breakfast while reading the morning papers with John in the glamorous hotel restaurant, and then watching him flee out the door of our suite for “back-to-back meetings,” I have spent the entire day within the confines of this swanky Upper East Side hotel. Our gorgeous junior suite has two bathrooms, which pretty much demand serious bath time, and I spent ninety minutes in the fitness center.
Normally when I’m in NYC I just want to get out and walk around, see the shows, check in with my friends from ballet school who moved here. But, when I looked at my phone this morning, I found texts from Julian. He follows me on Instagram, and had seen the picture I posted last night, of my barefoot fouetté leap on the black and white stripe marbled floor of the hotel lobby. I had forgotten that my account has a location stamp on it, so he knows I’m in Manhattan and asked if I wanted to “meet up” while I’m here. Actually, he didn’t even ask if I wanted to, he wrote: I’m free to meet up, let me know your schedule.
I didn’t reply right away. I wasn’t sure how much to tell him, or what I wanted to tell him. I certainly have no interest in seeing him now. Surely he gathered from my Instagram that I’m with John.
Or is it just obvious to everyone that this isn’t a real relationship?
Is it a real relationship?
I’m so confused.
It’s difficult for my brain to catch up to my body, I suppose. In just a week, John Brandt has gone from Brother’s Annoying Friend That I Want To Punch, to Person I Can’t Imagine Living Without Despite Sometimes Wanting To Punch Him. My body has accepted it since it first felt his hungry mouth all over it, but the sassy black lady who lives inside my brain is all hand on her hip, wagging her finger at me: “Girl, you have got to pace yourself.” And then some calm, quiet inner voice reminds me that I have known Johnny for so much longer than a week.
It’s like when I was trying to learn fouetté turns in ballet class a decade ago—I struggled with these repeated pirhouettes forever it seemed, they eluded and terrified me and I hated doing them, but all of a sudden I nailed it and it became my favorite move.
Is that the secret to
dealing with him? Practice, practice, practice?
When we got on the plane in Shanghai, I saw the adorable newlywed couple who were seated in front of us, and wondered if that could ever be us, and immediately felt foolish thinking it, because John is such a rational, literal person and I knew that he would think I’m nuts if he had any idea it was even a passing thought after only a few days together. When I turned my attention to the sweet old couple across the aisle I got even grumpier, because I thought: John is the only guy I know that I’d want to grow old with. And then the sassy black lady in my brain was like: “Girl, you haven’t even gotten through a full month with this man—calm the fuck down!” And then I just got mad at John for complicating my life. It felt familiar and therefore comforting, so I just stuck with that until that impossible turd had to go and melt my heart with his note.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I should feel safe. I should let myself really fall in love with him. There is no non-relative man on earth that I know better than him. But I’m afraid of it.
I’m afraid of it for the same reason I’m afraid of jogging or running for exercise—if I trip and injure myself, that’s it for my dancing career. At least if I get hurt while dancing, I go down in battle doing the thing that I’ve chosen to devote my life to.
Right now, being with John feels like running while drunk on a tightrope. If my heart gets broken and this is still just a fake relationship to him, my love career would probably be over before it starts. I don’t see myself bouncing back from that.
After a long soak in the tub that is bigger than our bathroom at home, while eating a massive late lunch in the room, I catch up on texts and emails with Callie, Franklin, Mom, and Nathan.
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