Dirty

  “Not like he wanted me to.” I closed my eyes, thinking he might expect tears with a story like this but knowing I’d shed none. I had disassociated myself from the memory in many ways, just as in many others it never left me alone. “But…I let him do what he wanted, anyway. He always said thank you, after, like that would make it okay. And sometimes he didn’t just want me to do things to him. Sometimes, he wanted to do things to me. Like you did. I’ve never let anyone else.”

  He kissed my shoulder again, lips lingering before he spoke. “How old were you?”

  “I was fifteen when it started. Eighteen when it ended.”

  His arms tightened on me for a moment, then a bit more when I didn’t tense or pull away. “What made him stop?”

  I pushed the sheet off. Sat up. Looked over my shoulder at where he still lay, now on his back.

  “He meant what he said, I guess, when he said he’d die if he couldn’t have me.”

  I waited for a platitude, a stifled gasp of horror, a grimace of shock. Dan only sat up and put his arms around me again, turning me into the circle of his embrace.

  I waited for him to ask me who it had been, this boy who’d loved me so much he’d rather die than be without me, but Dan didn’t ask and so I didn’t tell.

  Summer nights started later, and I was tired by the time darkness fell. We’d spent the day at a local farmers’ market under the hot August sunshine, and I was too lazy now to bother getting up to go home. That had been happening more frequently—me being too lazy to leave. I’d even started leaving a toothbrush there and bringing a change of clothes.“It’s called two truths and a lie,” Dan said from beside me.

  “Like truth or dare?”

  His overhead fan whirled, sending cooler air to caress us. I watched the circling blades and yawned, content at that moment to be semidressed, semiawake, semicogent.

  “Sort of. You tell me two truths and one lie, and I’ll try to guess which is the lie.”

  I turned my head the barest inch to look at him. He looked too damned fresh for having spent the day in the sun, which didn’t seem to wilt him like it did me. It brought out the pattern of freckles on his nose and bronzed his cheeks, highlighting the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He slid his hand beneath his cheek as he waited for my answer. “Why?”

  “Because it’s fun,” he said. “It’s a drinking game.”

  “We’re not drinking,” I said, still too lazy and contented with the bed and the air to consider getting up.

  “I’m afraid of heights. I once ate a worm. And my middle name is Ernest.”

  “Should I hope the third is a lie?” I rolled onto my side and put my hand beneath my cheek in conscious mimicry of his position.

  He smiled. “You can hope, but it’s true.”

  “I believe you ate a worm. So that means you’re afraid of heights.”

  “Very good,” he praised. “See how it works? Your turn.”

  If not for my utter lack of interest in moving, I’d have refused. Being churlish didn’t seem worth the effort. “I once sang ‘This Is the Song That Never Ends’ 157 times in a row. I love the color red. And I’ve never been to Mexico.”

  “Easy,” he said. “You hate red.”

  I watched him, curious. “What made that one so easy to pick out?”

  “I’ve never seen you wear it. You won’t pick something that’s red when you have a choice.”

  “You’ve never seen me wear a lot of colors,” I told him.

  Dan smiled. “True. But definitely not red. Besides, it’s easy to believe you’ve never been to Mexico, lots of people haven’t. And you’re the sort who’d know exactly how many times you’ve done something, so that one was a snap. I never heard that song, though.”

  “I could sing it for you,” I said. “But it never ends.”

  I rolled onto my back again, to stare at the ceiling. I watched the fan blades whir in their lazy roundabout way for a minute. Dan didn’t move. He stayed on his side, looking at me. I could feel it.

  “You know about the counting?” I kept the question light, neutral, as though I didn’t care.

  He reached out and twirled a strand of my hair around his finger. “Yes.”

  “It’s…it’s that obvious?” I kept my eyes fixed on his ceiling. It had thirty-four cracks in it.

  “No. But I noticed you always know how many there are of anything, it doesn’t matter what. How many times we’ve gone round the block looking for a parking spot.” I heard the grin in his voice. “How many marbles are in the vase.”

  “The day I dropped it.”

  “Yes.”

  I took an even breath, trying not to care he’d discovered such a thing about me. Such a strange, embarrassing thing. He had seen me in nearly every sexual position, yet this made me feel more naked in front of him than I’d ever felt without my clothes.

  “You don’t like me knowing.”

  I turned on my side, away from him. “No, Dan. I don’t.”

  He touched my shoulder, then moved up behind me. His body fit along mine, hip to hip and thigh to thigh. Puzzle pieces. Like we’d been cut from wax and meant to mold together. He sighed, and his breath moved against my bare skin.

  “Why, Elle? Why does it matter?”

  I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t explain what counting meant to me. How I’d used it for so long to keep from thinking of things that would otherwise have hurt so bad…I couldn’t answer, even to myself.

  “It’s embarrassing.”

  He said nothing for a few moments. His hand began a gentle pass along my body, from my shoulder, down my arm, over the slope of my hip and to my thigh, then back up again. His cock and belly pressed against my butt, and it occurred to me our nakedness had not aroused him. That we had reached the point where naked meant comfortable. His hands on me could soothe as well as arouse.

  That I no longer felt vulnerable in front of him.

  I closed my eyes against the sting of tears and pressed my fingers to my eyes to further hold them back. Dan smoothed his hand over me again and again in silence. I wanted to move away from him and I did not. I wanted to get out of bed, dress, go home to my clean, cool sheets and white, bare walls. To solitude.

  “Elle,” he said after a while. “I’ve never broken a bone. I’ve never ice-skated. And I’m not in love.”

  I’d seen the scar from the bike accident that had sent him to the hospital with a broken leg. I had seen photos of him on his grandparents’ wintertime pond. “Dan. Don’t.”

  He nestled closer to me and pressed his lips to the place he loved to kiss between my shoulder blades. “You are so beautiful, Elle, why won’t you let me—”

  The word gave me reason to move, and I sat, swung my legs over the bed. “No. Stop it. Don’t Dan, you’ll ruin it. You’ll ruin this.”

  The bed moved as he sat, too. “How am I going to ruin this? What is this, can you tell me?”

  I stood and started looking for my clothes. I did not want to hear what he had to say. Did not. Would not. I would not hear it, I would not listen.

  “Elle, look at me.”

  “This is…sex,” I said. “It’s…acquaintanceship, it’s the two of us finding someone we’re compatible with in bed. It’s friendship.”

  “That’s not all it is,” he said.

  I found my shirt and pulled it on without bothering with a bra. Panties. The long gypsy skirt I’d worn to the market. I found one shoe, but not the other.

  He watched me from his place on the bed. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting dressed.”

  I caught his glance. The face which had, despite my best attempts, become so familiar to me, scowled. He hooked his fingers around his knees.

  “I’m going home,” I added.

  “Why? Because I made you a little uncomfortable? What?”

  “Yes!” Shoe in hand, I turned to look at him. “Isn’t that reason enough?”

  “No, it’s not!”

  His shout forced me ba
ck a step. I held up the shoe in my hand as though it were a shield, and the ridiculousness of my response sent heat to flood my cheeks. He looked offended, then angry.

  “You act like you think I’m going to hit you.”

  I didn’t look at him. “I don’t think that.”

  “But you think I’m going to hurt you, right?”

  He sounded so hurt and angry I had to turn away. I found my other shoe and held on to the dresser for balance as I slipped them on. One plus one is two. One plus two is three. I was counting and didn’t care. Couldn’t. I needed them, the numbers, the task, needed the distraction so I wouldn’t have to look at him.

  “You’re doing it!” He accused, getting off the bed and stalking toward me. “Blocking me out!”

  “I have to go.”

  I got to the doorway before he snagged my sleeve and yanked me back. I didn’t fight him. He put his hands on my arms and turned me to face him.

  “Elle, why do you think I’m going to hurt you?”

  “I don’t think you’re going to hurt me,” I said at last, each word pulling out of me like tearing thorns from skin and leaving the same bloody wounds behind. “I’m going to hurt you.”

  “No, you don’t have to.” He touched my face with soft fingers. “Elle. You don’t.”

  “But I will.” I looked into his eyes. “I will, Dan, I will, I know it!”

  “No.” He forced me to look at him, though his touch remained gentle. “You don’t want to.”

  I jerked my arms away from him. “I didn’t say I wanted to! I said I would! I don’t want to but I’m going to, that’s the way it is, that’s what happens!”

  “It doesn’t have to.”

  If he’d pleaded I could have looked at him with contempt and gone my way. As it was, he talked to me the way he always had, right from the beginning. Like he knew me better than I knew myself. But he didn’t.

  “I need to go, Dan. Please. Don’t make this harder than it already is.” I buttoned my shirt with trembling fingers.

  “It doesn’t have to be hard.”

  I stopped and looked up at him. “You said you wouldn’t.”

  In reply he gave a small shake of his head and held out his hands, fingers spread. Mea culpa. Forgive me. “I know. But—”

  “No!” I cried. This time, my shout drove him back. “No excuses! You said no attachments, Dan! You said so in the beginning! I was very clear with you about what I wanted, and you said…you said you wouldn’t.”

  I couldn’t scream through a throat gone so tight I almost could not breathe. I had misbuttoned, and anger and frustration shook my hands so much I couldn’t loose the buttons from their holes to fix the mistake. I clenched my jaw tight, to prevent more words from flying free. I didn’t want to do this. Yet it would be done, no matter what I wanted, and the powerlessness of it made me grip the misaligned tails of my shirt hard enough to leave wrinkles in the fabric.

  “You agreed.” A deep breath had let me speak without my voice shaking. “You said you wouldn’t get attached.”

  He said nothing. He stood before me, unconcerned with his nakedness. I couldn’t look at him that way, at his body I had touched with every part of mine. I reached for a pair of scrubs from the top of his dresser and tossed them. They hit him in the chest, and he grabbed them, pulled them on, saved me from the shame of having to fight with him unclothed.

  “Elle, we’ve done everything a man and woman can do together, almost. We’ve done things I never dreamed of doing. That I never wanted to do with another woman. When I wake up and you’re not here beside me, I miss you.”

  “You’d miss a dog or a cat, too, if you got used to it on your pillow and suddenly it decided to sleep on the chair.”

  He put his hands on his hips. “I miss you when you’re not with me. When I see something funny, I always look right away to make sure you’re with me to see it, too. And if you’re not, I want to tell you about it, just to see you laugh. You’re beautiful when you laugh Elle.”

  “Stop it! Stop saying that, you know I don’t like it!”

  Again I headed for the door, and again he blocked my way. “Why can’t you let me inside?”

  “You’ve been inside me at least a hundred times.”

  I knew the words were cruel. The tone crueler. I waited for his gaze to shutter or blaze in anger.

  “You let me fuck you,” he said quietly. “But you never let me inside you. Not really.”

  I stopped. “I’m sorry.”

  “Then don’t go. Stay here with me. I’ll make popcorn.”

  “I’ll have to count it,” I warned him, letting him pull me closer into his embrace.

  “I’ll help you,” Dan said. “Every bite.”

  I let him cuddle me against him. “I’m sorry, Dan.”

  “Shh,” he said. “You don’t have to be.”

  I’d bought the book on a whim from the independent bookstore downtown, and given it to Dan wrapped in aluminum foil. Three Hundred and Sixty-Five Sexual Positions. With creative names like Cradle of Love and The Gay Blade, it promised to have something for every gender combination.Dan had laughed when he opened it, but he’d also immediately started flipping through the pages. “This one?”

  I looked at the line drawing that showed a man holding a woman upside down while, apparently, they gave each other oral. I laughed. “Oh. I’m so sure.”

  He looked at the book again. “Doesn’t that look like fun?”

  “No.” I took the book and flipped the pages until I found one that seemed more realistic. “This one.”

  He looked at it. “Says we need a rocking chair.”

  I looked pointedly at the corner of his bedroom, where the cane-backed chair was almost invisible beneath the clutter of clothes, magazines and junk mail he habitually piled on it. It took him a second to clear it, another to turn with a grin. A moment more and his belt was undone, the zip pulled, his pants around his knees.

  I watched all of this from my spot on the bed, the book still in my hands. “You are such a horndog.”

  He grinned, unapologetic. “Ah, but that’s why you love me.”

  I ignored that statement and tossed the book aside as I stood and pulled my shirt over my head. My nipples were already erect, my cunt already getting slick.

  We’d been lovers for five months. I did not want to love him. But I couldn’t stop wanting to fuck him.

  Dan stripped off the rest of his clothes and sat on the chair. His penis rose against his belly and he stroked it lightly as I wiggled out of my clothes. It wasn’t much of a strip tease, but the heat in his gaze showed me it didn’t matter that I wasn’t swinging around on a pole or wearing six-inch platform shoes.

  “Wait.”

  I paused, my thumbs hooked in the sides of my panties.

  Dan made a twirling motion with his finger. “Turn around.”

  I did, my heart skipping at his low whistle of approval. I’d bought the thong on a whim and hadn’t told him I’d be wearing it. The soft lacy fabric had been far more comfortable than I’d expected.

  “Jesus,” he muttered. “Let me see the front.”

  I obeyed, pleased at his reaction. The front was sheer peach lace that blended with my skin to make it look almost like I wore nothing.

  “Leave them on.” He stroked himself harder and leaned back in the chair.

  I took my thumbs out of the sides and moved toward him. He reached for me, helped me slide my legs through the arms of his chair and settle onto his lap. We faced each other, this position familiar but for the wobbling of the chair under us.

  “All those positions and this is the one you wanted to try first?” He tilted my head toward him to kiss me.

  “It will be fun,” I scolded. “Don’t be so pessimistic.”

  “Elle, anything with you is fun.”

  That pleased me, too, and I couldn’t hide the smile. I put a hand between us to tug aside the thin lace panel between my legs and Dan helped guide me down onto his cock with a s
igh.

  “Very nice,” he said as I settled onto him. His hand came up to stroke my breasts and tug down the cups of my bra. He bent to kiss each nipple.

  “It’s not much use if you take them out. I might as well take it off,” I said.

  “Shh,” Dan ordered, voice muffled against my flesh. “Fuck me.”

  Inelegant wording but it made me twitch in reaction. My inner muscles clamped him. I smiled again when he moaned a little. I did it again, working him as I pushed the floor to start us rocking.

  Effortless sex. The movement of the chair took the place of any thrusting he’d have done. All I had to do was keep pushing. We rocked, moving him inside me. The lace of my panties rubbed my clit in a way that made me shiver and moan, and I let my head fall back as his mouth suckled my nipples.

  I was almost ready to come when my phone rang. Dan looked up from my breasts, his face flushed. We didn’t stop rocking. The phone kept ringing.

  “Voice mail,” I muttered, too close to even think of stopping to take a call.

  He nodded and took my nipple between his lips again. The chair rocked harder, pushing him deeper inside me. The gentle rub-rubbing of my clit on his belly wasn’t enough, and before I could slip a hand between us he anticipated it and pressed his thumb there. The touch jolted me closer. I made a mindless noise of pleasure.

  My phone rang again. “Fuck,” I muttered.

  “I am,” Dan said, and we both laughed.

  It was the laughter that sent me over, that ease and comfortable manner he had. I came with a gasp, clutching his shoulder hard enough to leave a mark. My phone rang again, and this time I started to be more than annoyed.

  Dan came a moment later with a muffled grunt and a thrust that made the chair skid along the polished wooden floor. We settled against each other, our breath falling into the same rhythm before the phone rang again and mine hitched in my throat.

  “I’d better get it.”

  “Can you reach it?” Dan gripped my hips. “I’ll hold you.”

  Of course it would have been easier to get up, but he’d tempted me into the hint of whimsy. I bent backward, hooking my bag with a finger and yanking it toward me as he pulled me upright again.