by Alix Nichols
Man, I regretted it once he was gone and I found myself missing him so much my heart had crazy spasms in my chest. “Juvenile tachycardia,” the doctors proclaimed, no doubt caused by the stress of upcoming exams. “Not to worry, it’ll pass soon enough,” they said.
That convenient diagnosis fooled my parents, teachers, and friends. But not me. I knew what was wrong with my heart. It wasn’t tachycardia. It was first love.
Why, oh why, couldn’t I keep that knowledge to myself?
Pre-armor unworldliness, I guess.
One warm Saturday afternoon in May, when Lise and I hung out in the Galeries Lafayette, I spilled the beans. The silly cow that I was, I confessed to the Number One Mean Girl of the Lycée Molière that I was pining for Julien.
At first, she thought I was messing with her.
But then I showed her the diary I carried around in my school bag, so my mom won’t have a chance to lay her hands on it at home.
Lise read a few entries and handed the diary back. “Wow.”
That was all she offered as feedback. No words of comfort, no scolding me for being so undiscerning in my affections. Just “wow.” That should’ve raised a red flag. But, as I said, those were my pre-armor days. So it didn’t.
The next day, Lise filched the diary from my bag and showed it to the other Cats, who kindly shared it with the rest of the class before I could recover it.
And, just like that, I became the school’s new pariah, succeeding Julien who’d moved away. I guess that’s why, just like him, I’m wary of confessions and why I’ve never spoken of love to him.
What a screwed up couple we make!
I swallow the rest of my cold coffee and massage my temples to focus my attention back on work. For the next three hours, I wade through the murky waters of digital copyright, reading dozens of cases, legal texts, and expert commentaries so I can give Bertrand the arguments he needs to win this litigation for our client.
I toil until everyone has left and the office has grown almost spookily quiet. When I run out of reference material piled on and around my desk, I haul my ass out of my cubicle and head to the bookshelves to dig up a few additional binders.
Bertrand emerges from his lair.
Weird. He never works so late.
He surveys the empty cubicles and marches to Melissa’s desk. The overhead lights are still on since the cleaning staff hasn’t been to our floor yet. I have an unobstructed view of Bertrand through the gap on the shelf created by the binder I just pulled out. He sifts through the letters and other official documents in Melissa’s outbox. Glancing around again, he picks out two and sticks them in his briefcase.
Then, his lips pursed hard, as if he was trying to crack a nut between them, Bertrand arranges the papers into a neat stack.
Carefully, he sets the stack back in the outbox, and strides out the door.
I recount this incident to Julien over dinner.
“So, your boss is resorting to black hat tacks to get rid of his PA, huh?” he says.
“It isn’t right.” I sigh. “And it isn’t fair.”
He gives me a funny look as if he’s surprised at my words or didn’t expect me to care about what Bertrand is doing to Melissa or the unfairness of it.
The doubt I’ve been suppressing since Julien and I went on our first date rears its head again.
Does he really love me?
Is it possible to love someone who showed no compassion in the past? Someone who was mean to you? Who was mean, period?
Is it possible to love someone who used to act like a coldhearted bitch?
Julien strokes my hand. “Will you tell Melissa about what you saw?”
“Not yet,” I say. “But I will once I have proof.”
There’s no doubt in my mind that I’m going to help Melissa by any means possible. I’m prepared to stick my neck out for her. But if I do it now by telling everyone what I saw, it’s my word against Bertrand’s. I have no proof of his machinations. I’ll get fired, and I won’t save Melissa’s job.
But if I’m clever about this, Melissa can talk to him from a position of force.
Julien surveys my face. “You’ve changed since high school.”
My eyes bore into his. I have changed. The old Noemi would’ve done nothing so she could stay in Bertrand’s good graces and make sure her contract is renewed next year. The new Noemi believes that by doing nothing, she’ll help Bertrand frame Melissa.
Aside from the fact that the poor woman doesn’t deserve it, it’s just plain wrong.
Julien doesn’t add anything to his observation, but there’s enough approval in his eyes to forgo words. I guess that’s it—the answer to my doubts. Julien is giving me a second chance. He still loves me. A man who feels nothing for a woman can’t look at her the way Julien looks at me. He wouldn’t make love to her so tenderly, so reverently. He wouldn’t propose to her just to give her a comeuppance for a childish prank.
That’s it! No more questioning his feelings. No more poisoning our relationship—and our future marriage—with my doubts. I’m going to trust him the way he trusts me.
Who knows, maybe he doesn’t even think I was such a bad person in my teens. After all, I didn’t break the law, mistreat a dog, or kill anyone.
All I did was to play a stupid joke that hurt his ego.
A joke he got over within a month.
Julien
Has she really changed?
Is she capable of it?
Or is the whole Melissa story just another ruse, one of the many tricks in my fiancée’s duping toolbox? Something she made up to show herself in a better light? How I wish I could read her mind!
As we watch Noemi’s favorite show before going to bed, memories race through my mind. I recall the worst day of my life.
Jeez, I was dumb at eighteen!
The day of the “life-changing” McDonald’s conversation with Noemi, I booked appointments at the barbershop and a tattoo parlor on my way home. Later that evening, I ordered the lemon-colored underwear from an online retailer and wrote the love letter.
I completely rewrote it three or four times over the next few days, baring increasingly more of my soul with each rewrite. Noemi wanted it to be heartfelt. It had to be sincere. No crutches in the form of song quotes, no swiping sugary samples from the Internet, no shielding myself with humor.
I had one shot at winning the girl of my dreams, and I was giving it all I had.
On the evening of Noemi’s birthday party, I arrived at her place in yellow briefs, my hair dyed a flashy shade of green, and an enormous double rose drawn on my acne covered back. The tattoo was still fresh and covered with scabs. A line of text cut through it between my shoulder blades.
It read, I love you, Noemi Dray.
There’d been a considerable amount of pain associated with that tattoo, but I’d welcomed it as a tribute to the gods for my chance to be with the woman I loved.
Everyone fell silent and stared at me. The girls whispered and giggled, and a few of the boys said things like, “You’re a nut job, dude.” If Roland were there, he would’ve done something to make it easier for me, but he hadn’t been invited.
Noemi emerged from the crowd, took my hand, and led me to her room.
Once we were inside, she pulled the door shut. “I didn’t think you’d have the balls to actually do this.”
“Yet, here I am,” I said. “Green and yellow as requested.”
She smiled.
I itched to add that if she’d allowed me to wear a blue T-shirt, I could pass for a Brazilian soccer fan, but I bit my tongue.
No humor, remember? Just feelings.
I handed her my letter.
“Will you read it for me?” she asked.
Uh-oh.
I’d been hoping she’d read it herself, silently, in my presence. Or—even better—after the party. I wasn’t prepared to voice the raw emotion I’d poured into my words.
She thrust the folded sheets back into my hand
, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Please?”
Oh well. I’d come this far…
“All right,” I said. “Sure. I’ll read it to you.”
I unfolded the three handwritten pages and began to read.
Darling Noemi,
I saw you for the first time in Madame Foucault’s class exactly one year, three months and five days ago. You’d just transferred to our school.
That day you rocked my world. I thought you were the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. I thought you were a blessing. A gift from heaven.
Something hatched in my heart that day, and that thing has been growing ever since. It gets bigger every time I look at you. It doesn’t stop growing when I can’t see you like in the evenings, on weekends, and holidays. At night, when I make love to you in my fantasies and dreams, it doubles in size.
You are so incredibly amazing.
If I was granted one wish, it would be to experience your love, even for a day. To have you want me like I want you, to take you in my arms, to kiss you, and to make love to you because you need it. Because you love me. After that, I could bite the dust, no problem. I would die a happy man.
Sometimes I think you’re too flawless to be real. Or to be human. Sometimes I wonder if you’re an angel or an alien or an android from the future. For the record, I don’t care what planet or time you are from. What matters is this: You are Perfection.
Sometimes, I try to picture you old with your curves gone, your hair white, wrinkles all over your face, and brown spots on your hands. And you know what? Even in those fantasies, you are still perfect.
Noemi, I had to tell you how I feel because if I didn’t, my love was going to burst like a supernova and end the universe. OK, maybe not the whole universe, but my universe. In other words, my existence.
I would do anything for you. Anything. If you want me to strip naked and jump into an icy lake, I will. If you ask me to drop out of school and join the Foreign Legion, I’ll do it. I would eat your poop if for some reason you wanted me to.
I want you to know there are no limits to what I would do for you.
If you allow me to protect and cherish you, I will do it from this day until my last breath. I would give my life to keep you safe, and it would be an honor.
I will love you always.
I looked up at Noemi as I said those words. Her eyes glistened with tears. Emboldened, I took a step toward her.
She took a step back.
What happened next was something my brain failed to understand at first. She grabbed a small cactus-like plant from the shelf behind her and ran out.
I followed her.
When I entered the main room, just a few steps behind Noemi, there was an eerie silence. Then the booing, catcalls, and laughter started. Someone threw food at my face.
“Anyone needs to go to potty anytime soon?” Noemi’s friend Lise asked. “Be sure to wrap your crap for our very own gourmet!”
The room roared.
That’s when I noticed the huge flat screen on the wall with a video that had been paused. The still image showed me in Noemi’s room, mouth gaping, as I stared at Noemi when she grabbed the plant and bolted.
Lise took it from Noemi’s hands. “This is a nanny cam, you dimwit.”
“What a show!” Noemi’s second crony, Tanya, said. “You went above and beyond in ridiculing yourself.”
Irene, Noemi’s third friend, shook her head in fake sympathy. “How will you ever recover from this?”
Dropping my head low, I ran to the door, bumping into chests and shoulders, stumbling over feet trying to trip me, and jostling guys who blocked my way. The pain of my humiliation was staggering, but what shook me to the core was the depth of Noemi’s betrayal.
Recovering from it wasn’t something I planned on at that point.
I got home, found a piece rope in the broom closet, and hung myself from the hook on the door of my room. But luckily, once the rope tightened around my neck, I started thrashing. The noise drew Mom into my room. She cut me down and drove me—dizzy but still conscious—to the ER.
The doc there examined me without doing any scans and discharged me into my parents’ care.
A few days later, I began to show signs of aspiration pneumonia and acute respiratory distress—both rare but potentially fatal consequences of near hangings. Those delayed effects came close to killing me a second time.
But I lived.
And strangely, I’ve never envisioned suicide again.
Seeing the Grim Reaper up close twice within the space of one week made certain I didn’t attempt a third encounter anytime soon. My survival instinct woke up, and my brain shifted from wishing to flee to wanting to fight.
While I was in the hospital, Mom vowed she’d take her own life if I ever took mine. Dad pledged he’d toughen me up, if I let him. I promised him my full cooperation. Flo just cried. Roland made me swear on my parents’ and Flo’s lives—since I obviously didn’t hold my own in high regard—that I’d make Noemi pay.
And that’s what I’m doing now.
Noemi scoots closer to me on the couch and fingers a button on my shirt. I blink and glance at the TV screen. Her show is over.
“How about we make love on the sofa tonight?” she purrs.
I smile, as I try to drive away the image of eighteen-year-old me hovering between life and death in the intensive care unit with a breathing tube and an IV needle sticking out of me and a ligature mark still visible across my neck. “Sure.”
“I’d like to try something new,” she murmurs.
“Be my guest.”
Before I have time to guess what she has in mind, Noemi slides to the floor in front of me and unbuckles the belt of my jeans.
Really?
Princess Noemi intends to service her “knight” with a blowjob. How shockingly un-princesslike.
How… tantalizing.
I lean back and let her take control. In a moment, she’ll discover I’m not as hard as she’s used to finding me at the slightest mention of sex. Not my problem. She can use this rare opportunity to hone her seduction skills.
They’ll come in handy with her next man.
Noemi
I free Julien’s penis, which is only half-hard, and stroke it gently. He must have some worries he’s hiding from me because his shaft has never been anything but rock hard before. I suspected as much, what with the deep crease that had settled between his eyebrows at some point during the show and never left until I kneeled before him.
In the three months we’ve been dating, I’ve never gone down on Julien. He hasn’t gone down on me either. We’ve had lots of sex, to be sure, but it’s been… what some would describe as “plain vanilla.”
Not that I didn’t enjoy it. I loved it—loved Julien’s tenderness and the care he took with me. So gentle, so considerate. And yet… It’s starting to feel a little forced as if he feels kid gloves are in order because I’m such a delicate flower. And because I’m the woman he chose to be his wife.
The mother of his future children.
I say, screw that.
If only I had the guts to tell him the mother of his future children can be fucked harder and in many positions far less demure than the missionary! But it’s too difficult to utter those words. So I’m going to show him instead.
Sitting on my heels between his widespread knees, I shove my thumbs into the waistband of his jeans and push them down. He lifts his ass for a moment so I can pull them off, together with his boxers. I wrap both my hands around his flesh and pump him. With every stroke, his member grows bigger, harder, hotter. I shift one hand to his sac. My other hand continues to press and rub, and after a few moments, my thumb can no longer touch the tip of my middle finger.
My breath hitches as I gaze at his now fully erect shaft throbbing against my palm.
With a quick glance at his eager face, I bend down and take him in my mouth. Julien groans through clenched teeth, and his head falls back against the sofa. I push
lower, feeling him bump against the roof of my mouth, the inside of my cheeks, the back of my throat. And then I push more.
Julien gasps loudly and threads his hands through my hair.
Spurred by his reaction, I give my caress everything I’ve got, moving up and down his length, my tongue circling him, my fingers pressing at the base. Faster, harder, greedier.
His breathing becomes shallow.
“Jesus, woman!”
He fists his hands in my hair, pulls me back until only the crown is inside, and then drives in. I’ve had oral sex before, but it’s never felt so erotic, so heady, empowering even. And when he comes, I drink him in.
I wonder how he’ll qualify my initiative once his orgasm has waned. Will he praise me and say I should do that again, or will he admit he’s disappointed to see how slutty his fiancée really is? But before I have time to envision the full implications of the latter scenario, Julien picks me up, lays me back on the couch, and spreads my legs.
“Need to taste you,” he explains, yanking off my skirt and panties.
Do I dare to interpret his remark as a sign that he doesn’t mind my sluttishness? Perhaps, he even approves of it. Should I ask him?
But there’s no time because in the next second, Julien buries his head between my thighs and presses an open-mouthed kiss to my center. My lids flutter shut.
Sweet Lord, I needed this.
“You taste like paradise for bad boys,” he mutters before his mouth comes down on me again.
As he tongues, kisses and sucks me, pressure builds. I begin to writhe and to buck up to his mouth. But suddenly it’s all too much. I use my hands push him away so I can get a respite.
“Don’t fight it, sweetie.” He captures my wrists. “Ride it.”
And so I do.
When I peak—shaking as if I were having a fit—Julien growls his approval and licks me clean.