Good In Bed

by Bromberg, K

  Life would go on. I was wiser. Older. I’d looked in the face of my utter idiocy, fallen for the idea that good sex was a miracle that made sense of the impossible, and woken up with a hard slap to the face. So what if I could love him? Why wasn’t I asking if it was what I wanted? Why wasn’t I asking if I should?

  Byron was no less beautiful with his voice drowned out by the pounding blades. His blue-and-gold eyes weren’t cutting or monstrous anymore. He hadn’t changed. I knew that. I’d let the veil of hope come between myself and his reality. I’d let it change what I saw, but I was onto that game. I was smarter than that. I knew when I was being lied to, and hope was—if nothing else—a liar.

  When I got home, I could reassess what I wanted and whether or not I could get it. Coldly. Without distraction.

  All I had to do was get there. Hold my breath, my thoughts, and my emotions until I was home and alone.

  Over the California coast and the line of traffic on the 101, Byron reached for my hands. They were clutching the headset controls. He switched the channel, then switched his own to match.

  “The pilots can’t hear us.” His voice was in my head.

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” I smiled at him and turned back to the coastline below.

  “Beauty?”

  “You don’t have to call me that anymore.” I watched the jagged lines of ocean foam write their endless story onto the beachfront.

  “I want to see you again.”

  Byron wanted something. Bully for him and the veil he’d put over my eyes.

  “You’ll see me. In court.”

  I’d thought he was going to leave me alone, but he was only pausing long enough to lull me into thinking he’d heard me.

  “I think we’re better together.”

  Byron Crowne wants, and Byron Crowne thinks. Gold star for Byron Crowne.

  “Let the judge decide.”

  “Olivia. Look at me.”

  I didn’t have to turn around just because he asked. I had my own mind. It was a jumbled mess of shattered, mismatched pieces, but it was mine.

  “Please,” he said, crawling through the spaces between confusion and determination.

  I turned my head but left my body shifted toward the window. The sunlight chased every shadow from his face as if nothing was hidden.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m serious. I want you.”

  His declaration echoed in the hollow tin cavity of my heart and died into silence as if it had never been uttered.

  “I know.”

  I turned away and said nothing more.

  Chapter 17

  BYRON

  The negative test had shut her down. Or maybe breaking in front of me had done it. I couldn’t begin to fathom why she’d gone so cold so quickly. I was never a student of human nature and had never cared to be. But as she offered me her cheek when we parted, I wished I was.

  If I knew why she felt this way, I could fix it. If I could fix it, I could have her.

  But either she didn’t want it fixed, or she didn’t want me to help her.

  My impotence over the situation curled around itself into a hot ball of rage. It didn’t have a name, but I recognized it. It was the frustration I’d felt with Samantha when someone pushed her around and she let them. Her sister, who plied her for money and favors. Her mother, who told her to get a bigger diamond on the engagement ring she loved. I never knew if she threw it in the toilet as a message to me or her family, and that pissed me off too.

  If I’d listened, maybe I’d know. If I hadn’t failed at knowing her, the whole thing could have been avoided. Then she was gone, and it was too late.

  Helpless anger turned inward. That was the name of the heat in my heart. Reasonable thought could barely get past it, but a thread got through. A single question.

  Why do you care?

  Olivia wasn’t supposed to get pregnant with my child in the first place. Why did it matter if she wasn’t? I didn’t need to start a family. It wasn’t an immediate goal or even a long-term consideration.

  So, why did I care?

  Naked and shaking in the penthouse of the Waldorf Astoria, with my thick seed dripping down her leg, she’d pointed at me and told me she was on fertility meds.

  Something had changed with those words. Why had it changed? Why had I gone from no to yes to need in the blink of an eye? How did I get from living an organized life to this fucking mess of unexplainable, confused cravings?

  Hope. It had been a crazy hope that my failures could be made right. That I could have the things I’d denied myself for years, and she was the only woman I’d trust to get me there.

  She was clarity and desire and the only one with the strength to change me. The only one I wanted to make happy.

  She was hope.

  The day darkened, and I knew the mark I’d left on the base of her neck was fading. She’d be clear of me when it did. Nothing would connect us. Nothing would remind her that she was mine. I’d be invisible to her except for one thing—the conflict that had brought her into my orbit in the first place.

  I wanted to own her, and that was going to take subtle work. I had to give her what she didn’t know she wanted…and exactly what she’d asked for.

  On Tuesday, I went into my office gunning for a fight. If Olivia needed a struggle, she was going to get it, because I needed to be present in her life. Even as an opponent. Even as a thorn in her side. Her case against me was all I had, and if it ended, win or lose, without her at my side, I’d know it was truly hopeless. I’d go on as before, but somehow chastened like a dog trying to get the food on the counter one too many times.

  “Set up an appointment with Janet,” I told my assistant, Clarissa. “Today. We’re going into offense on the Bel-Air house.”

  “Yes, sir.” She made a note in her iPad, long, red fingernails clicking on the glass.

  “Tell her we’re filing motions challenging the EPF’s standing.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Bellini. Get her or Jonson in here with the drawings. We’re adding another floor. A fucking tower.”

  Click, click, click. “Got it. You have an appointment with Logan in ten minutes.”

  “I’ll meet him in the conference room.”

  By the time I got there, Logan was already sitting at the head of the table as if he was in his own damn office.

  “Nice of you to show,” he said.

  I looked at my watch as I sat. Sixty seconds late. Nothing like getting scolded by your younger brother when you already felt as if you’d been through a wood chipper. “We could have met at Crownestead.”

  “Didn’t want you mixing business with pleasure.”

  “So, what is it?”

  “Right.” He straightened his posture and put his elbows on the table, hands folded as if he wasn’t always businesslike. “About the One Big Thing. Dad has some concerns.”

  “Of course he does.”

  “Have you and Olivia disclosed her contacts with you without counsel present?”

  “I initiated them.”

  “How cute you think that matters. Her name’s on the pleadings, dumbass. And you’re riding down to Dead Man like… what the fuck? How stupid are you? How bad does she want to beat you?”

  “She’s taking a risk.”

  “So are you! She can claim sexual harassment after they fucking disbar her. What are you thinking?”

  I tapped my finger on the shiny surface of the wood, leaving a matte oval behind. Disclosing the truth was more difficult than any disclosure filing.

  “There is no relationship.” I flicked away an unidentifiable speck.

  “Says who?”

  “Olivia.”

  “Because she doesn’t want her license?”

  “No. Because she doesn’t want me. Anything else you want to pry into? Time and place of the last time I jerked off?”

  “No, no.”

  “I was fifteen. In C
omo. Natalia Vinerelli took her top off, and I ran to the pool house.”

  “Byron. Stop. What happened?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Personally or professionally?”

  “Yes.”

  He sighed and sat back with his hands on his knees. “Here’s what it is: Dad’s ready to write the check, and you know it comes with no questions asked. Wipe your ass with it. He doesn’t care. But he… We want you to be sure this is the best use of it. If the build’s in trouble and there are conflicts, it could take decades to sort out. You’ve waited this long for your OBT. Why not use it for a sure thing?”

  “This is a sure thing.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “Good.”

  I was about to stand when my little brother opened his mouth again. Jesus, this kid was drunk with power.

  “Why is it complicated?” he asked.

  “I’ll have Clarissa write you a memo.”

  “Can you forget all this?” He waved at the office, the stretch of the city out the window, the sky and the stars behind it. “Tell me as your brother?”

  “No,” I said. “I can’t forget any of it. It’s hanging over me. Everything. And I couldn’t figure out how to shake it loose until her. The problem is me. I’m what’s hanging over me.”

  His fingers tapped a rhythm on his knee. This was all too vague and abstract for him. If he couldn’t read it as if it was an entry in a profit and loss statement, it didn’t count.

  “We had a night together,” I said. “We thought she might be pregnant.”

  He stopped tapping.

  “Turns out she’s not,” I continued. “So, she’s done with me.”

  “And you? You done with her?”

  “No.”

  “No. Okay.” He looked out the window as if Los Angeles had the answers. Maybe it did, because he turned back to me resolutely. “Be careful. Just be careful. You have a way of battering down a door when you could just knock.”

  Chapter 18

  OLIVIA

  The Tuesday morning after I returned from Santa Barbara, I got a last-minute appointment to see Dr. Galang. I didn’t know what I wanted to express to him because neither my disappointment nor Byron’s derailing of the medical process was in his purview, but I promised to keep it short.

  After the mandatory blood and urine degradations, I was sent to the little room where he met patients. The early-morning light was unforgiving. Everything seemed more worn at the edges. I noticed chips in the wood stain of the side tables. The pilling in the upholstery where the doctor sat. The tissue box on the center table had a fluffed white flower of paper jutting from the top slit, indicating a military-grade readiness to absorb sadness. The box was different. Blue last time. Brown now. Someone had done a lot of crying in here.

  My legs were crossed, and my shoe dangled from a toe.

  Byron had slid my shoe back on at some event eons ago. His hands had lingered on my ankle. He’d turned my bad habit into tenderness.

  “Don’t,” I whispered to the empty room and jammed my heel into the shoe.

  When I moved, the bruise at the back of my neck protested. The muscles had broken down under Byron’s attention. Before my mind got rid of him, my body had to flush him away.

  He’d be gone with the pounding of the ticking clock.

  The door opened, and Dr. Galang appeared with his wire-framed reading glasses on his bald head. He smelled more heavily of aftershave than in the afternoons, and his eyes were—as usual—bright with hope.

  I used to hang on to his positive energy. Now it was a reminder that I’d been fooled into believing the impossible.

  He sat in his usual spot and put my file on the table. “Ms. Monroe, how are you feeling?”

  “Fine, I guess.”

  “You took my advice.” He pointed at me with a smile. “Did you go away for the long weekend? You’ve been relaxing. I can see it.”

  Though he was right about the weekend, I wouldn’t have called myself calm. “I did go away.”

  He spread his legs and opened my file, flipping through pages with tiny print and tight, illegible notes in blue ballpoint. “Nice time?”

  “Yes. I wanted to discuss how we’re proceeding.”

  “Ah!” He jabbed a slip of paper the size of a supermarket receipt stapled to a larger printout. “This.” He tapped it again even harder. “We did a different panel this time and dingaling! You have an irregularity in your blood. Very unexpected but not unheard of. The hormones. The hormones are everything.”

  He acted as if he’d made some kind of breakthrough, and I was huddled so deep in a corner I wondered if he was talking about someone else.

  “Dr. Galang. I came to tell you I don’t want to anymore.”

  He looked at me over his wire frames. “No? You don’t want a baby?”

  “No, I want… I still want a baby. But this disappointment every month? It’s hard on me. I need a break.”

  A deep-throated hum came from his closed lips. “Yes. Understandable.”

  “I used to be excited every time I took a test, and now? I dread it.”

  “Well,” he put his hands on his knees. “It’s your decision. There’s one more packet with us, and you have up to a year to implant.”

  “Thank you.” I uncrossed my legs and put my bag in my lap.

  “You’ll have to restart the fertility drugs from the beginning.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But at least we’ll know which drugs.” He closed the folder.

  “Wait. What?”

  “We’ll give you a different protocol.”

  “Why?”

  “You have a hormone in your blood usually found in women who have been nursing. Because you never bore children, we didn’t test for it. This was my mistake.”

  “And the hormone? What does it do?”

  “Keeps you from having babies too close together.”

  “You mean… it prevented me from getting pregnant?”

  “Yes.”

  “And… you can fix it?”

  “There’s a drug that will correct it prior to implantation. I’ll write it up for you, if you want? Take them or don’t. Just let us know.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Okay. Do that.”

  * * *

  Time was a zero-sum game.

  There were no extra resources of time. No surprise seconds hiding in the couch cushions. No accrued interest. Investments of time didn’t pay returns in more time. When the clock stopped ticking, time hadn’t stopped or folded. It wasn’t a gift. The battery had died.

  I could admit I liked Byron. I desired him. He wanted me. I had no problem with my feelings. I wasn’t even ashamed of them. I knew things about him no one else did. The more I understood him, the more beautiful I found him, and no one else had to like it. But understanding him meant I knew what kind of time suck he was.

  After I left the doctor’s office, I drove on the 101 with the top down, doing the math in my head for the hundredth time.

  I was almost thirty-three.

  Assume success with Byron.

  Give him a year to remove his head from his ass.

  Almost thirty-four.

  Give us a year to get married, if we were speedy.

  Almost thirty-five.

  Assume we tried for a family right away.

  Give us a year to get me knocked up.

  Almost thirty-six.

  Nine months of pregnancy.

  Second child, with decent spacing.

  Probably thirty-nine.

  An astronomical number of things had to go right to give me two children before forty.

  But what if he didn’t come around? What if he wasn’t temporarily emotionally unavailable but permanently closed off? What if it wasn’t that he couldn’t love anyone but that he couldn’t love me?

  I was almost thirty-three.

  Assume failure with Byron.

  It would take a year—minimum—to realize he was never going to commit.<
br />
  Almost thirty-four.

  Get back to Dr. Galang. Luck hadn’t factored in in the past and shouldn’t be added as a variable in the future.

  So, calculate a year of attempts.

  Almost thirty-five.

  Nine months of pregnancy.

  At the outside, with padding, thirty-six.

  Second child, with decent spacing.

  Again, thirty-nine.

  It was a wash. Just looking at the math, failure with Byron was preferable.

  Time didn’t rush forward, nor was it a horror movie door at the end of a hall stretching out like temporal taffy. Time was a steady march forward, and my calculations were a prayer I recited to a god I couldn’t control.

  * * *

  “So, I might be back to plan A, maybe,” I shouted over the banging pots and chattering chefs as I followed Emilio along the length of the kitchen. The opening was in eight days, and the full staff worked to perfect the process and the food.

  “I can’t believe Byron’s swimmers couldn’t make it just out of ambition or spite.”

  “Turns out I was slippery. They have enough for one more try with yours. I might use it. Or maybe not. Is that okay?”

  “Mi spunk es su spunk,” he said, leaning over a woman with blond bangs peeking from her red bandana so he could dip a spoon into a pot of boiling bouillabaisse. “Do what you want. When I come in a cup for a girl, it’s out of respect for her decisions.” He held up the spoon. “Taste.”

  I took the stew, rolling it around my mouth. “It’s a little flat on the back.”

  “That is not what she said,” Emilio responded before sharing solutions with the chef. “Come.”

  He pulled me into his office and closed the door. The room was smaller than a Hollywood closet. The chair had been rolled in from someone’s curbside trash. The desk had only fit after he’d sawed six inches off one end. Invoices and business cards were tacked to a corkboard with multicolored pushpins. An ineffective air conditioner droned in the only window, which had looked out onto the dumpsters before it had been covered with cardboard and the cracks sealed around the unit with gray goop.