by Reiss, CD
“You’re so sexy,” I said into her ear, pulling up her top to feel the silk of her skin.
No bra. Jesus, no bra. All supple breast and hard nipple that made her gasp when I pinched it. How soft would this hard woman get? How long could I edge her before she lost the last shreds of her hard shell? I had to know.
“I want to make you come,” I said, pulling away long enough to look her in the eye. “Let me taste you.”
Her hips reacted independently of her mind, jerking forward.
“I can’t tonight.”
“Why?”
“It’s my time of the month. Last day, but still.”
“The only thing a period ends is a sentence.”
Her smile was all intrigue as she bit her bottom lip.
“You’re dangerous,” she said. “You keep saying things that make me like you.”
“So, yeah?”
“Let’s wait.”
“You’re the dangerous one,” I said, getting up. “I need to lay off if I wanna be able to walk tomorrow.”
“Fair.”
We sat there. She rubbed her hands on her jeans. I scratched the back of my neck, wishing I hadn’t just kicked myself out for the night.
“I should let you get to sleep,” I said, making a Hail Mary pass for an invitation to hang out.
“Okay. I was just going to watch a movie anyway. So . . .”
“Yeah? What movie?”
She went to a box and flipped the top open. It was filled with hand-labeled black boxes.
“Take your pick.”
“Are these . . . movies?”
“The VCR works.”
I picked out a random box and handed it to her. It rattled when she cracked it open.
“A Star Is Born. Streisand edition,” she said. “You want to pick again?”
“Never seen it. I’m down for something new.”
The TV was a hundred-pound box on a table at the end of the bed. She turned it on and stuck the tape in a built-in slot. I dived to the end of the bed and grabbed a pillow as I stretched across the width.
“Netflix and chill,” I said. “Eighties style.”
“You do not,” she said, crawling to me.
“Not what? I’m a big guy.”
“Move it or lose it.”
“There’s a chair over there.”
I’d been betting on a wrestling match—what I got was her fingers digging into my armpits. I squirmed to get away, but she straddled me.
“Quit it,” I laughed.
She was a genius at finding the right spot to tickle.
“Surrender.”
“Never.”
I kept grabbing her hands, and she kept slipping away to torture me until I had to wiggle off the bed entirely. She snapped up the pillow and hugged it.
“I win.”
“Damn. How did you know?”
“You’re not the first ticklish person I fit a pair of pants on. You were so cute.”
“That’s on the DL.”
“You surrender?”
I held up my hands.
“White flag.”
She sat back against the headboard and patted the spot next to her. I sat, keeping a safe distance through the front-end credits. Then my hand found its way to her lap, and she shifted so she had her head on my chest. We kind of watched the movie. Kind of made out for two hours and then some. I pulled up her shirt and tasted her tits, rolling my tongue and running my teeth over them as she dug her fingers in my hair and pushed up against my dick. I couldn’t get enough of her.
She was under me with her legs wrapped around me and her lips puffy and pink from my beard when the tape clicked off.
“That was the best movie, ever,” she said.
“I think it won an Oscar.” I rolled off her.
“Well deserved.” She ran her hand over my chest, and I grabbed it so I could kiss her palm, then her wrist.
“I should get going,” I said.
“You should.”
“I don’t want to.” I kissed the inside of her elbow.
“But you still should.”
I took my mouth off her arm.
“Yeah?”
“Let’s pick this up next time.”
“Next time, Kaylacakes.” I shifted to the edge of the bed. “Next time you’re going to come so hard they’re going to give you an Oscar.”
“I doubt I’ll be acting.” She pulled her shirt down.
“Shoot’s over. I won’t see you on set anymore.”
“Now it’s a choice,” she said, shoving her feet in her shoes. “Seeing each other. I can’t hide you or pretend we just passed each other on set.”
“Yeah,” I said, taking her hand.
Ken had told me to wait, and I hadn’t. The movie had been cover, and now it was gone. I had to deal with him, because this girl was going to be mine no matter what he said.
After I got home, I lay in bed with aching balls, thinking about her without a single unpleasant thing on my mind.
Then Shane came by. Unlike Ken, he didn’t give my cook a hard time, but just like my PR guy, he used how well he knew me to get in.
“I changed my code,” I groaned after he slammed the bedroom door open.
“To your mother’s birthday.” He stood over me, toothpick jammed in the side of his mouth, a corn-kernel-size flavor saver under his lower lip. “I woulda called, but some girl’s got your number, right? She’s suffered enough.”
“What the hell do you want?” I threw the sheets off me and dragged my ass to the bathroom. When I got home from Kayla’s, I’d stripped down to my jocks. Not that Shane hadn’t seen my dick before, but the last time he had everything had gone down the toilet. Whatever. I had to take a leak. He didn’t have to look.
“Gordon don’t want to talk to you.”
I left the bathroom door half-open and relieved myself.
“You his messenger now?” I shouted over the echo of piss hitting porcelain.
“You’re Heidi’s?”
“Yeah. I am. Because Gordon’s an idiot who won’t talk to his wife.”
He braced himself in the doorway in ripped-up jeans with a ring of keys on the loop and a Guns N’ Roses decal chipping off his black T-shirt.
“That’s not your problem since you’re the one that started it.”
“I told you.” I slammed the flusher. “You didn’t see what you think you saw.”
He crossed his arms and leaned on the jamb as I washed my hands.
“They call that gaslighting. I’m not a ‘Beckette,’ okay? I’m the guy with the crooked nose.”
“You wouldn’t listen.” I dried off. I’d done a lot of stupid stuff at the Roosevelt Hotel. What I did to Shane was the worst.
“I’m not getting into this.” He stood straight. “Just saying leave Gordon alone.”
He turned and left. I threw the towel at the hamper. Missed.
How could I feel so good with Kayla a few hours before and like a pile of trash now? Like a minute of relief from guilt was money I hadn’t earned. I beat the dog and kept kicking it. Gordon. Heidi. Shane. Chad.
Eighty percent naked, I ran downstairs and caught Shane before he left.
“Hey, Shane.”
“We got nothing else to talk about.”
“Have you heard from Chad?”
He stopped. Turned.
“No. You?”
“I mean in the last few weeks.”
“Not since you left that shit in his room and he split.”
I shut my eyes and mouth against everything he got wrong.
“What’s going on, Justin? Why you poking at all of us?”
“It’s a long story. But he was in Vegas. He contacted me.”
“What? You didn’t tell us?”
“Stop. Okay. Look, I’m not supposed to talk to you guys. But I did. I talked to him, and he said he was coming back. I haven’t heard a word since then.”
“What did he say?”
“Not much. He
said he was on the 15. Then poof.”
“Dude. You shoulda said something.”
“You’re joking, right?”
He had the nerve to look at me as if I was off my nut, when he hadn’t even seen his nuts since the night I broke his nose.
Okay. Whatever. Fine.
I went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. Maybe a little caffeine would make my arguments with myself coherent.
Charlotte was nowhere to be seen, but she’d left a pot of coffee for me. I didn’t expect Shane to follow me in. He’d already said what he wanted to. He could leave the same way he got in. But there he was.
“You wanna put some clothes on?” he said.
“It’s my house.”
“You’re a biohazard like that.”
“You want coffee or nah?”
“Yeah.” He sat on a barstool as if he’d been invited. “So, what are you going to do about Chad?”
“What am I gonna do?” I put two mugs on the counter and poured coffee. I took it black, but I got cream out of the fridge for Shane. “I’m going to stop giving a shit. Every time I try and help you guys lately it blows up in my face.”
“And I’m supposed to what? Feel sorry?”
“You’re supposed to listen when I tell you something. Not threaten me.”
“Dude. You were standing over Heidi with your dick hanging out. She was naked. What was I—”
“First of all, she wasn’t naked.”
“Come on. Give it up already.”
“What color was her bikini that day?”
“How should I know?”
Here we were, going over the basics we should have gone over the morning after.
I was done with this.
“Beige.” I dropped it like a bomb. “She’s white and it was beige, and you saw her through a doorway for half a second before you started yelling like a fool. And when I came outta the bedroom to talk to you? What did you do instead of listen? You ran out with your mouth flapping about going up to the pool and finding Gordon. So, yeah, I chased you into the hall, and, yeah, when you swung at me with your drunk ass, I nailed you.”
He poured cream into his cup with his mouth twisted to one side.
“Four times.” He slapped the carton down.
“I’m sorry about the extra three.”
“Fuck you,” he mumbled. He could curse at me all he wanted, as long as he was in my kitchen drinking my coffee out of my cup. I was going to say the shit I hadn’t, and he was going to hear me out.
“I was in Chad’s room because his dirtbag of a dealer sent me up there. He was freaking out. He was curled up in a corner of the bathroom with his eyes bugging out. The counter had a burn mark and a half-empty bag of powder. I didn’t know what to do, because we had recording dates, and he’s no good to us in jail. I dragged him into the shower and tried to snap him out of it. He puked on my shorts, so I took them off. He was looking a little better when Heidi comes in with her bikini, all ragey because she saw me talking to the dirtbag dealer. She starts giving me shit for being a bad influence. Me. The one kicking the dealer out. I’m telling her to back it up when who comes in? You. Giving me a hard time about fucking her, which I wasn’t even close to doing. Running out to tell her husband a story your drunk ass made up.”
Instead of getting more pissed off with every word, I emptied a well of anger I never acknowledged.
“What happened to Chad, then?”
“How many times did he cut out in the middle of geography? And Mrs. Ramirez didn’t even notice until the bell.”
Shane laughed a little. Good. I’d jammed a wedge in the seam between resentment and friendship. All I had to do was wiggle it enough to split the two apart without breaking everything.
“He’s like Houdini, and you know it,” I said. “He woke up and slipped out while I was dealing with you.”
“You mean breaking my nose?”
“Yeah. Shutting you up before you ruined their marriage. That’s the one thing they say I did that night that I actually did. I took the heat for the drugs so Chad wouldn’t get arrested again. I got accused of sleeping with Heidi, and you all hate me so much you didn’t even believe either of us. So you know what? I cut you off. It was self-preservation, and you can blame me for it but . . .” I picked up my cup so I could prepare for a lie. “. . . I don’t care.” I drank from it and lied again. “I don’t care.”
“We don’t hate you,” Shane said.
“Whatever.”
“We just don’t trust you.”
Fuck the wedge. I could stand their contempt, but the mistrust was bullshit. I thought I deserved it, but nah. I didn’t. Not from these guys.
“You know what?” I pushed my cup away as if it mattered where it was. “Get out.”
“My pleasure.” He stood. “Just do everyone a favor. Let us have a little self-preservation. Stop asking us to listen to your explanations. You’re a shitty liar.”
He stormed out.
“Fuck you!” I shouted after him. My voice echoed against the walls of my big empty house. I threw my cup against the sink, shattering it. That echoed too.
I put my hands on the edge of the counter and dropped my head. What was I supposed to do? How many times was I supposed to bang my head against the resistance of everyone I loved? They wouldn’t let me back in, and they wouldn’t let me cut them off. I couldn’t make a deal or a gesture that would change their minds. My life was crowded, and my house was empty.
“Give me a break,” I said, picking up my head. “Nobody likes someone nobody likes.”
Self-pity wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Neither was trashy brain poetry. I’d write a few songs about it, clear out my system, and face forward.
I had a past, and I had a future. It was time to start building the one I had control over.
Laying the first brick, I called Ken.
“Yo,” I said when he finally picked up. “You finished googling Kayla or nah?”
“We’re following up on some things.”
“What things?”
“Give me a couple more days.”
He was getting zero days, but I didn’t tell him that.
CHAPTER 13
KAYLA
Until the day she was hit by a car, walking across Broadway against the light, my mom loved my dad. He wasn’t allowed to come to her funeral because, though he loved her as well as he could, in the end, he loved men more. But during their marriage, he got her flowers on her birthday and took her out for their anniversary. He didn’t miss a beat until she brought his lunch to the office and caught him getting a blow job from his boss.
She didn’t tell me that right off. Not when I was four, obviously. I got that tidbit right before she died, as if she needed to drop that last betrayal to carry me through the years without her so I’d be protected from men like my father.
Mom said, “Trust but verify,” but I got only the verify part. I verified a guy didn’t write me love notes or buy flowers. I made sure he didn’t do anything to prove he loved me. No favors. No sentimental gifts. I thought being loved meant being respected, and respect meant being treated like a piece of furniture.
When I pulled my van into the alley and got out to close the gate, I saw the bolts of denim lying on the tarp in the corner.
Was Justin playing at caring about me with kind acts and gentle words? Was I a conquest and no more?
Did it matter?
It did. How he felt mattered a lot. I believed he was being honest. And why should I? He was a player. An entitled child. He was careless with other people’s feelings and protective of his career.
But I enjoyed his attention. He made me feel good, even when he pissed me off. He understood and accepted me the way I was. Maybe that was all fake. Maybe his favors and compliments were tactics in a larger game. Maybe he liked that I was a challenge, and once I wasn’t anymore, he’d declare victory and move on.
Probable. He was Justin Beckett, and I was just me. But I was going to
see him again. I was going to let him do whatever it was he planned to do, because I was absolutely powerless to protect myself.
I rolled up the gate, letting the light flood in. I needed to sweep the alley. It was mine. The theater was my home, and a friend was coming so I could alter her costume for a Regency ball. The responsibilities I’d chosen proved I was building a new life, and I closed my eyes, turned my face to the sun, and smiled.
Evelyn’s car pulled down the alley moments later, and I waved her into the garage. She popped her trunk as I closed the gate and locked it.
“Wow,” she said when she got out. “You really live in a theater.”
“It’s a dump, but it’s mine. Kind of.”
We gathered the garment bags from her trunk and clapped it shut.
I’d set aside a work area with my machine and an ironing board and removed stacks of boxes from the dining room table, revealing a wood surface marked with rings and dark-brown spots.
“I remember these,” Evelyn said, rubbing the spots. “My grandmother smoked. The cigarettes were always rolling off the tray.”
The spots were clustered in the center, but all over as if the table had been ringed with smokers. The rings were on all sides too. If they’d been caused by one lonely old man, they’d be in his habitual spot.
“Weird,” I said. “My grandfather didn’t have friends.”
“You sure?”
“I guess not? I mean, he was terrible.”
Maybe he wasn’t? Maybe he had qualities that attracted a small group of confidantes. Maybe he reserved his awfulness for his family or turned inward toward the end. He was lost now. Any chance I had of sitting at that table and asking him was gone.
I had no way of fully knowing the past and had to accept that I’d never correct it. History had left clues but was unchangeable. The marks were mine now.
I draped Evelyn’s inside-out dress over the table.
“Okay.” I held up my seam ripper. “Close your eyes. This may be painful.”
“I want to watch.”
“Your funeral.” I dug the point into the sideseam and tore the threads.
“You know,” Evelyn said. “This big fashion guy puts on this super-exclusive thing during the cocktail hour.”
“Oh?”
“In the Toledo Room. It’s invitation only, but maybe you can find him in the ballroom after and make friends.”