He remembers very little of it. He remembers feeling her legs squeezing him, almost fighting him. He remembers the tightness, the heat. He can see himself shoving into her again and again, her hair falling loose and swinging back and forth as she screamed, her breasts, her nipples…he remembers thinking they were much lighter and smaller than he imagined as he squeezed them in his hands, clutching her into him. Her free hand came up into his, over his, squeezing with him. ‘…ohgod,’ she whispered breathlessly as she contracted around him, against him, challenging him. But that’s not what did it. It was her nipples, her tiny nipples, locked in between his fingers. He realized what they were, not a part of him, not his, not under his control. He realized what he was doing and he couldn’t stop himself.
He moans and rolls over, his dress shirt draped across his eyes. The sun filters through the beige curtains and pours over his naked body tangled in the white sheets. Nausea and a stinging headache overwhelm him as he slowly removes the shirt and blinks into consciousness. His mouth has never felt so dry, his tongue thick and heavy. He hears her voice low, soft, very far away. She laughs and murmurs. He strains to hear her words but the traffic beneath them and the low hum of the heater bleach out the conversation. She falls quiet, water runs and then stops. He wonders if he should try and rise before she comes out of the bathroom but another wave engulfs him.
“Shit…” he whispers, wincing once more. His hand moves blindly to the nightstand in the hopes of finding something to drink.
“Here,” she says, placing the cup in his hands.
He opens his eyes and squints up at her. She is radiant, freshly bathed and fully made up. Her eyes are bright and clear, her cheeks flushed, as if she had slept peacefully the entire night. She wears a white tank top and a pair of tiny blue shorts. Her skin is preened and clear, shimmering with a light, raspberry scented lotion. Her freshly washed hair is braided and hangs to her left in a soft mass. He feels suddenly very unattractive as he takes the cup and gulps it down.
“Slowly,” she laughs, taking it away before he has finished. “You’ll choke and puke everywhere.”
“God, I must look like shit,” he mumbles, wiping furiously at his mouth.
“You’d be surprised. I think it’d take a lot more than a night of heavy drinking. Do you want more water?”
“Yes, definitely, yes.”
She bounces away as he lugs his body up to a sitting position. He stares down at his massive thighs in disgust, hiding his flaccid penis with a swift tug of the sheets before she returns.
“What time is it?”
“Almost ten. Here. Drink it slower this time,” she smiles.
He nods and drinks. She curls up beside him, kissing his neck and running her hands over his chest. He smiles and pulls away, holding her hand delicately but firmly.
“I’m gross right now. I have morning breath,” he says, remembering a rant Alice had about people kissing in the morning in movies. ‘It’s totally unrealistic! I mean, c’mon! Nobody makes out with morning breath in real life!’
She smirks and bounces away again, returning with a spray. “Open.”
“What is it?”
“Just open.”
He opens his mouth and she sprays the spearmint freshener on his tongue. “See? All better. Now…”
She moves in, kissing his mouth fully as her body swings around him and straddles him. He kisses her back, somewhat more reserved, much slower and less passionately, his tongue moving around hers in light, tender strokes. She wraps her arms around his neck and runs her hands up through his tangled, sandy mop, pulling and rocking against him, feeling him harden beneath her. His mouth moves to her throat, his hands over her behind, through her shorts until he cups her cheeks, pressing her into him. He moans, fighting the hang over.
“See? All better,” she whispers as she slides her hands beneath the sheet between them and begins stroking him. “Do you have condoms?”
“No…” he whispers. “I wasn’t planning on this sort of thing.”
“Ohhhh, Julian,” she moans, squeezing him. “You should always plan on this sort of thing.”
“My date was Scott, remember? I definitely should not always plan on this sort of thing,” he smiles.
She giggles and showers him with parting kisses. She pulls away and looks him in the eyes, her hands still caressing him, smiling the same tilted smile she wore the night before. “I had a lot of fun last night.”
“Did you? I think I did, too.”
“You were really wasted.”
“I know. It happens,” he whispers into her neck, kissing her.
“It’s pretty incredible that you were as good as you were, that wasted,” she whispers, her eyes fluttering shut as he turns her mouth into his. They kiss one another for a long time, their hands moving over one another, squeezing and pushing against one another. She pulls away and studies his eyes, running her fingers over his lips.
“What time do you leave?”
“2.”
“That’s so early…can’t you stay a little later?”
“I can’t. I have to be back. I wish I could…”
“Do you?” she says, her hand trailing down his chest to his stomach, feeling the tight, hard muscles before moving between his legs again.
“Yes, yes I do.”
“I do, too.”
She lets him go and slowly rises off of him, bringing her stomach up against his face. He grabs her hips and kisses it, his hands moving down between her legs. She moans and moves against his thumbs that slide beneath her shorts, pulling her back towards him.
“Nope,” she says, moving quickly off of him and turning. “No condom.”
“There are other things that we could do without one,” he says, catching her by the waist and drawing her back against him, kissing her throat and breathing in her hair.
She wraps her arms up around his neck as he idly runs his fingers against her hard nipples and remembers the night before, feeling the desire rising in him.
“What are we doing?” she whispers. “What is this? Are we just…hooking up?”
He stops kissing her and blinks. “Is it?”
“I don’t mind if it is. That’s fine. But-”
“Yeah.”
“Mike was pretty clear about the situation.”
“Professional relationship.”
She leans up and kisses him, studying his electric eyes, scratching herself against his dark stubble. “This isn’t very professional, I think.”
“No…no, it’s not, but…”
“I know.”
He caresses her cheek with his fingers. “When do you get back to L.A.?”
“In three days.”
“When you get back, I think regardless of our situation, I want to see you. I-I don’t want this to be just a hook up, you know?”
“I don’t either.” She turns herself around, into his arms and kisses him deeply, passionately, pushing him backwards onto the bed as she moves her long, elegant body against him. He wraps his arms around her back and presses her against him, breathing in her scent, listening to her quickening breath, tasting the expensive lotion all over her skin. She moans and pulls away, looking into his eyes, the sober, controlled eyes that betray nothing. She smiles at the challenge. “Tell me about the other things we can do.”
Alice pulls the slice of pizza from the pie, pulling up until the cheese breaks and releases her prize.
“My god, I can’t remember the last time I ate pizza,” she whispers, her eyes rolling back as she bites into the slice.
“You look really good,” Trina says as she chugs her beer and plops down beside Alice on the floor of her apartment. “Are you working out and eating healthy and junk, too?”
“Naw. I mean, I try, sort of. But mostly, I’m just constantly running around and shit. I don’t have time to eat,” Alice answers.
“You need to eat, girl,” Will calls from the kitchen. “That’s how you get anemic. It happened to my sister that
way. She was trying to lose weight after her last one and she just drank smoothies and ate energy bars. After a month, the doctor told her she had anemia. She had to start taking iron supplements.”
“Did she lose weight?” Trina asks.
“Oh, fuck yeah! Like 30 pounds! Bitch looks amazing!”
Will comes into his tiny living room with cutlery and plates. He is a large, meticulously maintained man in his 40’s with a short beard and small, round glasses that perpetually slide down his long nose. He and his boyfriend, Chris, live in a small, one bedroom in a complex of four others, one of which Trina rents.
“Go get hot sauce, I’m all out,” he tells her.
“Didn’t they bring peppers?”
“Girl, it is not the same! Go get it!”
She rolls her eyes and drags herself up, stomping to her apartment next door. Will scrunches himself down between Alice and Chris, who fiddles with the remote, trying to get the movie to play.
“Did she tell you Anthony was coming?” Will asks casually.
Alice nods and gives Willa look. “Who’s idea was that?”
“His. Well, sort of. He asked me if we wanted to go to the pool hall tonight and I told him we were having movie night.”
“He didn’t know you would be here,” Chris mumbles as he scrolls through the DVD’s menu.
“He didn’t not know, either,” Alice retorts. “It’s fine. We’re okay.”
“As in, back together‘okay’ or‘not gonnakill each other today’ ‘okay’?” Will asks innocently.
“The latter. But the night’s still young!”
“How’s your job? Trina says you’re living large.”
“Why, because of the car?”
“And the flat screen. And the new furniture. And clothes. And your complete and sudden absence from our lives,” Will sighs as he bites into the pizza.
“C’mon! You make it sound like I’ve been M.I.A. for the past two months!”
“Pretty much. More or less.”
“It’s hard, okay? The new job is hard, way harder than I thought it would be.”
“Is he a dick? He is, isn’t he?!” Will asks, his eyes lighting up, both he and Chris leaning eagerly towards her.
“Not in the least. He’s the nicest guy ever.”
“They make you say shit like that, right? Like, you had to sign some sort of contract or something when they hired you, that you couldn’t talk shit or they’d sue you for character defamation.”
“No, they didn’t. That’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t lie about that. And I wouldn’t stick around if he wasa dick, either. Give me some credit.”
“So…then, why’s it hard?” Chris asks, leaning his skinny frame against Will.
“I don’t know…it’s a totally different world. I don’t really feel like I’m his employee, to be honest. I feel like I’m his friend just doing shit for him.”
“But he pays you. He’s not your friend, he isyour employer.”
“No, I know. But it’s not really like that with us. Like, he doesn’t make me feel like I’m a servant or whatever. But I know what I’m doing is important to him. Like, it’s a series of seemingly meaningless activities that I perform all day and it drives me crazy because it seems so small and pointless. But they aren’t, you know? If I didn’t do them, he’d have to worry about it and not do hisjob.”
“It sounds like the best ever. That man is the definition of booty beauty, I can’t understand how you can be so close to him without going blind. And, on top of that, Trina says you go out to parties and clubs and shit with him! With him, girl! Are you serious right now!”
“Uh, first off, I did, back when I started. But he doesn’t really do that anymore,he’s getting ready to shoot. And second, it’s not like what you imagine. Like, it’s not a party full of friends or even people you want to make friends with. And it’s not clubs full of people you know. It’s all…”
“Phony?” Chris asks.
“Yeah. Something like that,” she shrugs.
“Well, I don’t care how phony baloney those bitches are, it still beats stocking fucking fruit all day. Did I tell you about that lady? That fucking old, bent bitch?” Will asks.
“No, what? Which one?”
“The bent bitch, the one that’s all hunched over? The one that threw the bagel at you!”
“Oh my god! No, now what’d she do?”
“I was stocking pears and the bitch slapped me!”
“What the fuck, are you kidding?”
“Nope! She kept asking me about Italian plums and I kept trying to tell her we didn’t have them in. And she kept insisting they were in season. I tried telling her that even if they were in season, which I wasn’t even arguing, we didn’t have them to stock. And she slapped me in the mouth!”
“No she didn’t!”
“She slaps me and says,‘Youshut up! I know what I’m talking about. I know when they’re in season and they are in season now!’ and walks away!”
“What did you do?”
“Ah, nothing. It didn’t hurt, it was like a,” he slaps her lightly on the cheek,“like a fly on a cow’s butt. I’m sure she hurt her wrist worse than my face with those twisted, old bird bones.”
“Yeah, when she threw the bagel at me, it barely made it to the counter. I wonder what she was like in her youth. Like, you think she just went around, plowing into people to get whatever she wanted?”
“Naw. She probably had a PA to get everything for her. Now she thinks the world is her PA,” Chris grunts.
Will chuckles through his pizza and nods. “Seriously.”
Alice is quiet, contemplating the bent, old woman in her gold jewelry and expensive clothes, reeking of perfume and mothballs, slapping her friend. How degraded he must have felt, how insignificant. “I’m sorry I missed your show, Will.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Will sighs, unconvincingly. “I understand. It was a small show.”
“It was a brilliant show,” Chris chimes in, hugging him. “He sold eight pieces.”
“That’s really good. I’m proud of you,” she smiles sadly.
“I’m having another one in Koreatownnext month. Maybe you can come to that?”
“I will, I promise. I swear, I will,” Alice answers.
“Are you still working? Like, real working?”
“I try. It’s…hard. Anthony asked me to paint a picture of his niece to give to his sister. It felt good to be creating again,honestly…it had been a long time. But when I was doing it, I sort of felt like…it was pointless. Not that painting, because Anthony was taking it. But everything else piled up in my place, collecting dust and waiting.”
“I know what you mean. I feel that way too. Sometimes I just want to give up and never make anything again. And then I realize thatif I did, I would just have my endless job of stocking fruit and getting slapped, and it makes me want to hang myself instantly. So I move faster. You move faster, start marketing yourself. You’re in all these new circles now, it’s a great place to network, even if they are balonies.”
“Do you guys think I’ve changed any since I started working for him?”
Will and Chris look to one another as if thinking about it for the first time and not an ongoing topic of theirs for a while. “No, hon. Why?”
“I don’t know. Trina says I’m different. I don’t see how.”
“Well,” Will says innocently,“if I had to like, say how you were different in any way, and that’s like, in the slightest way, I would maybe say that you were a little more…”
“Distant,” Chris finishes, Will nodding vigorously.
“Distant? How distant?”
“I don’t know, like, before, you would share everything. All the time. Now, maybe it’s because we don’t see you much but I don’t know…you just seem really quiet.”
She frowns and tears at the crust with her teeth. “I have a lot on my mind, I guess.”
“Listen, hon, if you’re happy working for him, and he’s
not a dick, and you’re happy with the work you do, then that’s all that matters.”
“It beats the fucking store,” she says.
“Oh, that’s a given.”
“ ‘AK-47! When you absolutely, positively have to kill every last motherfucker in the ROOM…accept no substitutes!’” Anthony shouts, stepping through the front door and startling them all.
“I found this creep lurking in the halls, peeking through windows,” Trina laughs, pushing past him and curling up beside Alice, handing Will the hot sauce.
“You made it!” Will beams, clapping his hands. “Get a slice and sit down!”
“Thank you, thank you,” Anthony says, his eyes glittering as he smiles down at Alice. “Hi everyone, especially Alice.”
“Hi everyone, includingAnthony,” Alice says drily, turning to the TV as Anthony peels off his leather coat and moves to sit on the end nearest the girls.
“We were just talking about Alice’s new job,” Will says, handing Anthony a beer.
“No, no we were not,” Alicelaughs. “We were talking about Will’s new show.”
“No, we were talking about bent, old lady’s left hook,” Chris says.
“Wow, you guys have been really verbose lately,” Trinasays. “Now, can you shut up and put the movie on! I wannasee my man!”
“How can you be in love with Robert De Niroin this movie? Seriously, he’s so old and this was like, decades ago! He’s got a total cabbage face!” Alice says.
“I don’t care! He could be 80-”
“I think he is-”
“And I would love him.”
“Based on what? Please, tell me, because I look at him and all I see is saggy, gray old man balls in my mouth.”
“Fine! Based on Taxi Driver. Based on Mean Streets.”
“ ‘Big Shot!’ Will quotes loudly, spitting bits of pizza from his mouth.
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