Releasing my shoulders, he drags his hands over my chest and stomach, pausing and squeezing as he goes. I let my head fall and our foreheads rest together. I feel his breath on my lips. Soft and long. Tilting his mouth up, he kisses me, gently biting my lower lip and emitting a gentle growl. A purr of contentment. With my left hand, I massage his thigh. He has strong, powerful legs tapering to charmingly delicate ankles, only enhancing the development of his calf muscles.
He smells so good. I can’t take it, this exquisite tantalization of the senses. Placing my hands on his chest, I playfully push him backward. He laughs, his green eyes sparkling at me. I sit on top of his hips and gaze down at my Greek god. As Aeneas, just and loyal. Wise and good like Deucalion. In the name of Janus, an open door to adventure and new beginnings. Full of love like Echo. I’ll dance with Dionysus forever.
“Room service.” A knock on our door interrupts my rambling mind.
“I’ll get it, babe,” Mikal offers, pulling himself up from the bed. Giving me a quick kiss on the forehead, he turns and walks to the door. His jeans hang, revealing his hip bones and tailored oblique.
“Wine. For your pleasure and eternal youth,” Mikal announces, bottle and corkscrew in hand, pushing a wheeled silver tray set with two glasses. He really is Dionysus, I muse as he pops the cork and brings it to his nose, then pours a quarter glass and hands it to me. I swirl it and hold it to the window’s light to examine the legs. I bring it to my nose and then to my lips. I love a good red. Okay, actually I just saw someone do that in a movie once.
“I approve.”
“Good, and I approve of you standing up and giving me a kiss,” Mikal says. I obey, glass in hand, and melt into his warm skin. Hooking my thumb into the front of his jeans, I look up into his eyes. He smiles broadly and a surge of pure joy rises from my stomach. “So now that we have a little time off, I was thinking maybe you’d like to come to Miami with me. Unless you have another job lined up between now and the catalog release?”
“Well, I’ve been horrible and haven’t been searching out more gigs. I either need to get an agent here or start busting my ass a little more in downtime,” I say, realizing how very new I am to the modeling world.
“I think you’re gonna be just fine. Now that the billboard is up and with our mugs soon to be plastered everywhere, work will come to you. But they need to know how to find you. And don’t expect Otter Fashion to just pass along your number when another company calls.”
“Yeah, I never thought of that. Guess that’s why I need an agent. Anyway, I was thinking of going back to Victoria for a bit. Just to see friends, tie up any loose ends, that type of thing.”
“To see Chris?” Mikal catches me off guard.
“What? No. I don’t even know if he’d be there.”
“What about us?” he asks, resting his weight on one hip, arms hanging without motivation at his sides.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean have you thought about what happens when this contract is done? Where are you going to live? Are you going to keep pursuing modeling? Where do I fit into your plan, if you have one?”
I’m speechless for a second and sit on the bed.
“Mikal, I don’t know all those answers. I’ve thought about them, but not seriously. Originally, I thought I’d do this contract, then go back to Victoria to….” I stop. “I don’t know what I was going to do. I guess I thought I’d be with Chris,” I say, working furiously at detaching a hangnail on my forefinger. “Things have changed. Obviously. I never really thought I’d be modeling so I didn’t walk down this path in my mind. I mean, I really like Los Angeles. And of course there’s you. You know I really care about you.”
Mikal comes to the bed and sits facing me, one leg crooked under his butt.
“Sometimes I look at you and I can’t believe you really like me,” I continue. “It seems too good to be true, and I don’t want to get hurt.”
“So stop believing that’s what’s going to happen. Can’t you let yourself be in love with me?” he asks, grabbing my hand.
“But Mikal, I don’t even know what you’re doing. Are you going to live in Miami or out in L.A.? How serious are you about this?”
“Does it matter where we live? We’ll make it work. I’ll be wherever I need to. I just think we should talk about it. Not pretend like it will all work out. If we want it to, we need to make it work. Otherwise one of us gets lost in the dark. I don’t want to be in the dark with you. Tell me what you’re feeling.”
“I’m scared, honestly.” I look past him and out the window. “Whenever things seem too perfect, I expect them to break.”
“I’m not gonna break, and we’re not going to break either, but you have to trust me and be open with me.” Mikal takes my hand in his.
“Does it ever feel overwhelming to you? Like you have so much opportunity you don’t know where to start so you hate yourself and start wishing you could just sleep instead of facing your failed opportunities every day? I have so much I want to do, but I get scared. What if I succeed? What would life be like? What if I try and fail? Could I handle it?”
“Ashley, you already are a success. What you do with tomorrow doesn’t really matter if you’re a good person.” Mikal pauses a moment and then says, “Don’t you think I’ll help you? I’m in love with you. I’m gonna be here, and I’m gonna help you through anything. Where’s all this coming from, anyway?”
“I don’t know. I have a habit of jumping from the train once it starts going too fast. But I know if I push through, it will be amazing.” I run a finger over the embroidery on the duvet.
“What will?”
“Everything. Us. My career. Your career. Sometimes it just freaks me out because it’s everything I ever imagined. I guess on some level I feel guilty. Like, how can I deserve you or the opportunities I’ve been given?”
“Of course you do. Don’t you realize what you mean to me? How I didn’t even know how much I could love someone until I picked you up that first day at the airport? Ashley, I saw you and I knew. My life was about to change. Regardless of what I believed before. Who I thought I was. I had to give it up. I took a leap of faith and here I am, and I know it’s right.”
“I know it is too,” I say, taking his glass of wine and setting it on the table. “I think room service interrupted us.”
I’m nervous, but I know without a doubt the time has come and I have to be with him. We kiss and hold each other desperately, as if our souls are searching for a way to unite and find a connection point through our bodies. Standing, we pull off each other’s jeans and fall onto the bed in a heap, fearful to never let one mouth part from the other’s. Mikal’s whole body is rigid against mine as he drags his hands over my skin and clutches my muscles roughly.
He takes my underwear in his fists and receives my permission with a nod before pulling it down. I don’t need to prod him to lose his and finally we are together, for the first time, as Antonio and Bobby had created us. “I love you, Ashley.”
“I know. I love you too.” I desperately want to be inside him and want him inside me. And so it is. A continuous discovery of each other throughout the night, switching roles and positions and guiding each other in manifesting our love. Lying in each other’s arms we are fulfilled, our lovemaking a rapturous climax and new beginning in the story of us.
XXI
“OKAY, LET me call you back, all right?” I say and end the call as arms hug me from behind. Mikal, having just gotten out of the shower, runs his wet hands tightly over my torso, and we stand looking out over the Las Vegas strip from the floor-to-ceiling windows in our hotel room.
“Who was that, babe? It’s like six in the morning.”
A shiver runs up my spine as a few drops of water fall from his hair onto my shoulder. I turn to look at my boyfriend, an erotic vision with the white towel around his waist, his bronze skin covered in a moist sheen, and damp locks of hair tickling his eyelashes.
“You’re dangerous
right now, mister.” My gaze darts up and down the length of him. “You need to put some clothes on.”
“Danger is my middle name,” Mikal growls in an English accent as he takes my hand and places it on his chest. “So was that Ferni? Did you assure him that yes, we used protection? Unfortunately no little Mikal and Ashley babies…,” he jokes, rummaging through his bag and emerging with the tank top of mine he discarded earlier.
“It was Chris,” I admit, crossing to where Mikal is pulling on some underwear. Once they’re pulled up, he lets the towel drop. He’s a locker room fantasy. Tan muscular legs, fitted briefs, and my tank top.
“What did he say?”
“He wants to see me. He’s here, in Vegas.”
“What?” Mikal asks defensively.
“He called and he’s here. I mean, he didn’t know I was here and so….”
“And so you’re going to see him?”
“No.”
“You’re not….” Mikal crosses his arms and furrows his brow. “You don’t even want to know what he has to say?”
“Sure, I’m curious, but I’m not letting it ruin my time with you. Chris and I… we’re over. I have the most amazing boyfriend in the world right here.”
“What does he think, he can come and take you back? What’s he even doing here?” Mikal asks, his anger beginning to bubble to the surface.
“I don’t know why he’s here. He just called, out of the blue. You know I haven’t heard from him since I left home.” I pull his hands down from where they are crossed tightly across his chest. “I already said, I’m not going.”
“I’m sorry,” Mikal says, searching my face. “I’m jealous, I guess. I don’t know this guy.”
“Mikal, nobody’s taking me away from you,” I assure him, wrapping my arm around his waist. He looks down at me and takes a deep breath.
“Then you need to figure this out. Put it to rest, otherwise there might always be a part of you that wonders, what if you were with him. I don’t want that.”
“I don’t need to go. I know what I want.”
“Ashley, I love you, you know that. Go see him. If you realize there’re still feelings—I’d rather find out now than later. Our flight is at ten. You got a couple hours. Go.” Mikal looks at me seriously. “Honestly, it’s okay.”
I open my cell and dial back the number Chris called from. “Chris? Yeah, it’s Ashley. Grand Lux Café? Perfect. Yup, I’ll be there.”
THICK GRAY clouds mask the morning light as I step out into the street to hail a cab. “The Venetian, please,” I tell the driver as I scroll though my contacts and click on Millie.
“Which crazy student is calling me at this hour?” The voice is chipper and drips with sarcasm.
“Millie! It’s Ashley. How are you?”
“Practically perfect in every way. What kind of trouble are you in?”
“Trouble?” I ask.
“I can hear it in your voice as plainly as I’d see it on your face if you were standing in front of me. People don’t call to chat at 7:00 a.m. Who is he?”
“I’m in Vegas and Chris is here…. I’m going to meet him now.”
“Not Chris. Someone else. Who finally made you fall in love?” The good witch has spoken.
“Finally?” I defend. “Millie, I’m eighteen.”
“Yes, but you’re an old soul, and you’ve been searching for a long time,” she says offhandedly, as if this information is as plain as the weather.
“I’ve just been seeing this guy…. Mikal.” Saying his name makes me smile, and I can picture her eyes smiling back knowingly. “He’s wonderful and gorgeous and perfect in every way. He scares the shit out of me.”
“And now Chris is there. So you’re going to see….”
“I really don’t know what I’m doing. Last night with Mikal was so amazing and when Chris called I just got so flustered all of a sudden. I felt like I had to run,” I explain, looking out the window as we sail down the near empty morning boulevard.
“Fly,” she says calmly. “You had to fly.”
“Well yeah, I’m in a cab actually. Running would have taken forever.”
“Ashley, you are a Puer Aeternus.”
“I’m a what?”
“Puer Aeternus, the eternal boy. Peter Pan. You can’t stay in one place too long. You like the idea of relationships and growing up, but you flee them.”
“I don’t flee things,” I say.
“What are you doing right now?”
“I’m going to… I wanted to….” I stammer. I have no idea.
“Exactly. So you’ve left this Mikal alone in Las Vegas. For what?” Millie pauses and then asks, “Do you think you were really in love with Chris?”
“I don’t know. I thought I was, but it’s nothing like what Mikal does to me.”
“You weren’t. You like the idea of being in love, but you run from it at every opportunity. This Mikal is different, I can tell. You may run but not forever.”
“Millie, what should I do?”
“I can’t tell you that. I think you should do what you’re going to do.”
A moment of silence passes between us as I contemplate it all.
“Do you have a plan?” Millie asks.
“Do I ever have a plan? I am a free-floating idea. I just don’t know which direction to run. Excuse me, fly.”
“Love is frightening. So is life. Without risks it would be rather tasteless, though. Don’t you think?”
THE MORNING air is surprisingly brisk as I step out of the cab. I walk into the Venetian Hotel and head for the Grande Lux Café, wondering how life would be different if I’d chosen to stay at college, with Chris. I flew away, though. I left just as we were getting started. No profit to dwell on it. I would have missed a grand opportunity. I wouldn’t have met Ferni, or Mikal.
In a gift shop window, I see a miniature train set. Flashes of childhood memory stream back. My older brother and I used to cross “the tracks” to go to school each day. I used to love that walk, balancing along them until I’d tip off. Then squatting beside, I’d line up stones on the tracks. A long line of dusty gray rocks. As a kid I subconsciously tried to derail trains, and now I have become somewhat of an expert in derailing relationships. Practice makes perfect I guess.
I walk into the restaurant and see Chris sitting in a booth near the front, intent on creating the perfect alchemy for his morning coffee. His skin glows from the Bahamas sun. Seeing me, he stands, wearing faded jeans and a bright red T-shirt. French Connection. “FCUK Me” written across the front. “Ashley!”
“Hello, Chris,” I say, my voice glacial.
“I’m so happy you’re here! What a crazy coincidence, right?” he says, reaching out to hug me. I half return the effort.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, cautiously sitting across the booth from him.
“Just visiting a friend…. You look amazing. I’ve missed you.”
“Have you….”
“I’m so sorry. I’ve been wanting to call, it was just difficult to get ahold of you. You’re so busy now!” he says, smiling in a way I used to take as genuine. “Look at this, though, we show up in the same city. It’s meant to be, right?”
“Coffee?” our waitress asks, carafe in hand.
“I’m not staying. I just came to say good-bye.” Our waitress nods and walks on to the next table. “I think it’s something that should be done in person.”
“Ashley, come on. I know I screwed up, but we can make it work this time, I promise.”
“I thought I loved you but I just loved the idea. I’m glad I figured that out,” I say, leaning back in my seat.
“Come on, Ashley. I’m really sorry. Seriously, I am. Give me a chance. I was stupid. Let’s at least talk about it.”
“Chris, we haven’t spoken to each other in months. If you had cared, you would have made that happen.”
“We can make this work.”
“I don’t want it to. We weren’t really in love. T
rust me, when you find the real thing, you’ll know. Good-bye, Chris.” And I turn and walk away. Only this time I’m not walking away from love. I’m not running. I’m not flying. I know exactly where I’m going.
I STEP out onto Las Vegas Boulevard and the sky is falling. The wind whips around me and brings with it sheets of rain. I pull the blond locks of hair matted to my forehead back away from my face. I feel a sense of completion. Calm.
Then I look at my watch. Eight thirty.
I search the streets for a cab, but each one I spot has its hired light illuminated. Everyone is getting out of the torrential downpour. I have no choice but to run. Hitting the street, I pound the pavement as the big drops plummet on my brow. I run faster and the rain slaps my face. My shirt is soaked through and the front of my jeans cling to my legs, heavy and wet.
Emptiness overtakes me as I taste the rain on my lips, ice-cold. Life suddenly feels so fleeting and I’ve spent so much time running from it. I don’t want to spend it alone. I don’t want to run forever. I don’t want to fly away anymore. I want to be with my man and live our life together.
Finally I arrive at our hotel, drenched, and trudge through the lobby, a sopping mess. I take the elevator up to our floor and swipe my card at our door. It blinks red. I try again to the same response. I knock on the door loudly. “Mikal?”
No answer.
My heart sinks as I contemplate the worst. He’s left without me. He had second thoughts. Maybe it was a test. I never should have gone to see Chris.
I run down to the lobby and up to the front desk. “My key card isn’t working.”
The attendant swipes the card, and then shakes his head. “You’ve been checked out, sir.”
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