Tear You Apart

  “I’m a freak,” I said in a tortured whisper after a minute or so. “I’m sorry, Mr. Braverman, but if I don’t eat the candy while I’m sitting next to her, I’m going to barf.”

  “We don’t want that, for sure.”

  I risked a look at him. “I’m sorry. I like your class. I wasn’t trying to be a pain.”

  He let his butt rest on the edge of the desk across from mine. “You’re not a freak, Elisabeth. But I can’t believe nobody’s ever talked to you about this before.”

  Grammy had. My parents knew. My brother knew. We just never talked about it.

  “Let me show you something. Come here.” He beckoned me into his small office, a closet, really, tucked into the back of the room. Floor-to-ceiling shelves overflowed with books and lab supplies. He pulled a thick volume from a shelf and settled it on the desk, flipping through the pages. He tapped one. “Look.”

  That was the first time I saw the word synesthesia. “A neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second.” I read the definition. I looked at him.

  “It’s a neurological condition. Probably genetic,” he offered.

  I thought of my grandmother. “I inherited it?”

  “Yes. Most likely.” Mr. Braverman motioned for me to move closer until we stood shoulder to shoulder in the cramped space. “Look, Elisabeth. Here are charts and lists of all the different ways the people in this book manifest their different...well, I hate to say symptoms, because that makes it sound like a disease. And it’s not, really.”

  I wiped my nose with a tissue and leaned over the book, then looked at him. This close I could see that behind the glasses, he had pale blue eyes framed by thick black lashes. Suddenly, I felt swimmier than my senior varsity wrestler crush had ever made me. Small gold sparkles like stars flashed and twinkled along the arches of his eyebrows before they faded. I focused on his arm, leaning on the desk beside me. That was no help.

  “This person lists tasting shapes.” I laughed a little. “Weird.”

  I ran my fingertip down the columns, skimming the information. Mr. Braverman tapped on a photograph. Underneath it was a small chart showing what colors corresponded to which numbers. That person also saw letters as having personalities and gender—A was feminine, for example. I couldn’t grasp that.

  On the next page, I started to read aloud. “‘Mary Sheeran says the colors are like watching fireworks, alternating bursts of pattern and light that expand and contract along with the rhythm of music.’”

  I knew just what that was like, though mine was connected with facial features. The curve of brow or jaw, the lift of a smile. “For Mary, alcohol intensifies the experience, as does sexual activity. She says during or-orgasm...”

  I stuttered on the words, blushing hard. Something palpable hovered between us, and I was afraid to look at him. Not worried that I’d see something nobody else did, but that he would see something in me I didn’t want revealed.

  Mr. Braverman broke the uncomfortable silence by closing the book with a solid thud and pushing it back on the shelf. “Everyone has something unique about them, Elisabeth. I wish you’d just told me about the candy, instead of acting like you were doing it just to be bad.”

  “My grammy told me not to tell anyone about it. That people would think I was crazy.”

  “Well,” Mr. Braverman said, “you’re not.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Since that day in Mr. Braverman’s class, I’ve never forgotten that Mary Sheeran, that lucky bitch, literally sees fireworks when she comes. Orgasms are pretty spectacular all on their own, but to see bursting and shifting patterns of color—that’s always seemed like an extra bit of luck. And now it’s happened to me.

  It doesn’t escape me that of all the lovers I’ve ever had, Will’s the first to make me come so hard I literally saw stars. I look at his photo on the computer screen, not even embarrassed to be cyberstalking him, because it’s been over a week since the day he took me to MOMA. I haven’t heard from him since, not an email or a text. And fuck him, I left his apartment with him still coating the back of my throat, so he can very fucking well text me first. I’m not going to go chasing after him as if I have no self-control.

  He has a Connex account, but it’s for his business and not personal, so it’s not set to private. I scroll through his pages of pictures, most of them his work or the book covers that have featured his photos. There are a few of him, though.

  In one he wears a dark shirt, skinny dark tie, his hair a mess, all pushed in front of his ears and over his forehead, a little slick with sweat. The lines at the corners of his eyes are very distinct in this shot, maybe because of the light or because he’s squinting. Not smiling. He’s not smiling in any of the pictures, and I wonder if it’s because he wasn’t happy in any of them or if it’s because, as a photographer, he knows that smiling makes his eyes squinch up like that.

  I love the way he looks when he smiles.

  In this picture he’s pointing at something out of range, a cigarette held between his first and middle fingers. Brow furrowed. Familiar black Converse sneakers. And oh, there, that braided leather belt. I know that belt, the length of it, the feel of the leather in my palm. The click of the metal buckle as it’s undone.

  My clit pulses. I shift in my desk chair, crossing my legs. Uncrossing. I’m wearing a pair of yoga pants I picked up on sale, thinking I was going to start doing something crazy like Zumba. Be like the wives of Ross’s coworkers, speed-walking around the block listening to recipe podcasts. I should’ve saved the money and bought a couple cartons of high-end ice cream with the money. At least I’d have enjoyed them.

  The fabric, though, is clinging, soft and so thin the first tickle of my fingertip over the bump of my clit is almost as if I’m touching myself bare. Almost better, since the fabric barrier blunts the sensation enough to be teasing. I rub in slow circles as I study another picture of him. Someone caught him in profile, a half hint of a smile, his gaze bright. He has one hand around the waist of a tall blonde in red lipstick, both holding sweating drinks of clear fluid. The flash is reflected in the ice cubes.

  They’re lovers. He and that woman, at least in the moment captured by this picture. I can see it in the way his fingers curl so slightly, denting the material of her sheer blouse. How she leans into him, how her gaze has fallen on his face. Her mouth is open a little, showing a glimpse of white teeth and pink tongue, as if she’s getting ready to lick her lips at the sight of him. I understand completely. I can’t even be jealous of anything except maybe how lovely she is, lithe and blonde and young, and that she had that moment with him and I’ve had hardly any.

  Did he take her home that night to his apartment? Did he put her on that couch? No. His bed. Did he push up her dress, run his fingers over her long, lean thighs? Did he slide inside her cunt?

  Up and down, my fingers press. I’m wet all the way through the scant lace of my panties. The yoga pants. My head falls back as I rub, rub, rub. So close already, just from thinking of Will fucking another woman. I shouldn’t like that, should I? Maybe it should even make me jealous, but instead I imagine him pushing her onto a bed, the sheets a tangled mess, the pillows scattered.

  He tugs up her dress and finds her bare beneath. A woman like that would keep her pussy smooth. My fingers slide past the waistband of my pants at last, beyond the lace, to stroke the soft curls between my legs. I groom, but I’m never bald. My clit’s a hard, tight knot under my fingertip. All I have to do is press, just a little, and the walls of my pussy clench. One finger slips inside my heat. My body bears down on the intrusion.

  I think of him pushing her legs apart. Crawling up the bed to get to her cunt with his mouth and hands. His tongue, the slick, hot swipe of it against her flesh.

  Oh, fuck.

&nb
sp; My back arches, my head pressed to the back of my chair. Both hands, now, one with my fingers deep inside, the other lightly pinching my clit in time to the rocking of my hips. I haven’t touched myself this way in a long time, so long I can’t remember the last time desire hit me so hard in the middle of the day that I had to relieve it.

  I want Will between my legs. I want his tongue on me, his fingers inside, stroking upward while he sucks my clit. I want, I want, I want. At the base of it, that is what this is.

  Desire.

  The leather of my chair creaks as I rock against it. Soft, breathy moans escape me. Then some a little louder.

  Everything inside me goes tight, tangling and twisted. When I come, I taste him. Not my synesthesia, but true memory, and it floods me. All my muscles twitch and jerk, until at last, spent, I melt into my chair with my arms and legs sprawled. I’m coated in sweat, tangy when I lick my lips. My hair is stuck to my forehead and small wisps cling to my cheeks. I feel as if I’ve run a mile with hungry zombies hot on my trail.

  I’m starving.

  “Mrs. Amblin?”

  Startled, I spin in my chair, face even hotter than it was a minute before. “Maria. Hi.”

  Our weekly housekeeper pauses awkwardly in the doorway. “I wasn’t expecting you to be home today.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I’m working from home.” I carefully do not turn around to close the Connex window, still showing the picture of Will and the blonde. I rub my fingers along the soft fabric of my pants, glad I took my hands out of my panties. “I was going to work out.”

  Maria has been with our family for a long time. Now she tilts her head a tiny bit to look around my office. It used to be the smallest bedroom, the spare room, but since we finished the basement with a guest room and full bath, I took it over. Ross has the house’s official “office” on the first floor, and yet he never works from home.

  “You need me to do anything in here?”

  “No, thanks.”

  We look at each other.

  “You all right?” Maria asks.

  “Me? Fine.” I give her my best broad smile. “How are you? How’s your granddaughter?”

  Maria is always happy to talk about her granddaughter, and today’s no different. She chatters while I casually shut down my laptop and lead her out of the room. In the kitchen, she disappears into the laundry room while I pour myself a tall glass of orange juice and gulp it so greedily it makes my stomach hurt. I could’ve left the glass in the sink for Maria—Ross would’ve. But I rinse it thoroughly and put it in the dish rack.

  My knees are still weak. I want a shower. I need the kiss of sunshine, though, the caress of fresh air. Outside, I pull catalogs and bills from the mailbox and wave at my neighbor Sandra from across the street. She’s weeding her flower beds. I nod at a couple walking their dog as they pass, and send another wave toward Ed from next door as he gets out of his car.

  If I sank down onto the green, soft grass in my front yard right now, if I rolled in it and pressed my face to it, what would any of them do? Would they run to help me up, feel my forehead, call an ambulance? My husband? Or would they watch me wriggle and writhe without a word?

  My world has changed. Upside down and inside out. I am not the woman who brought macaroni salad to the neighborhood potluck picnic last year, or the one who passed out Halloween treats in a witch’s cap and pointy shoes. I’m not the one who picked out this oversize mailbox so the mail carrier wouldn’t have to leave packages on the front porch, or the one who chose the color of these shutters and the front door when it came time to paint them.

  I am someone different now, and I don’t quite know who.

  Inside, Maria gestures at my purse on the counter. “It was ringing.”

  Expecting Ross or one of the girls, I thumb the screen. One recent call. One missed call. One voice mail.

  Will.

  I delete the message without listening to it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Saturday is laundry day. For me, anyway. For Ross it’s golf and beer with his buddies day. It used to matter more when the girls were small and I was overwhelmed with ferrying them where they needed to go, when I needed a break. Now the break is Ross spending the entire day away from the house instead of hovering over me while I try to read or do anything else.

  I could have Maria do the laundry, but it’s been hard enough for me to allow her to clean our bathroom. Having her handle and fold my underwear is just too much. So, though it’s not a task I enjoy, it is one I’ve refused to delegate, and therefore, one about which I try not to complain.

  Ross has no problems about complaining. He’s very particular about the state of his whites. They have to be washed separately, using a special extra stain treatment, and sometimes even soaked for a while first in a bucket of diluted bleach. He only wears white business shirts and will throw them out if they’re not pristine.

  I don’t mind going to the extra effort for his laundry—so long as he separates the whites from the rest of his laundry. Which he consistently doesn’t do. Today, looking at the jumble of shirts and socks and briefs among the rest of the clothes, I can’t face it. I cannot sift through his dirty clothes, I cannot turn the pockets inside out and check for change or receipts or anything else.

  Everything goes in the washer together in double handfuls, shoved until I can’t fit anything else. I add detergent, choose the temperature. My fingers fumble on the washing machine’s controls, as if I’ve forgotten how to use it.

  All I can think about is Will.

  This is me, on my knees, where I want to be. Hard floor pressing my skin, maybe I’ll even bruise, just a little. That’s okay. Later I’ll look at the bruises and remember what I’ve done.

  He has the most beautiful cock I’ve ever seen, but I haven’t taken him inside my mouth. Not yet. I want to take my time. Make this last. I want to measure and map him with my hands and tongue and teeth before I consume him. I want to taste and tease him. When I slide his cock into my mouth to nudge the back of my throat, I want him to already be weak-kneed and throbbing, ready to spill.

  When I look up, he looks down. His hand has found my hair; his fingers tangle but don’t pull. I put mine over his and tuck them in deeper. I encourage him to tug. To push my head, just a little, toward the sweetness of that cock. I want him to beg me to put it in my mouth, and in another minute...

  “Please,” he says. “Please just—”

  The house phone rings, pulling me out of my fantasy. I don’t answer it. I blink and shake my head to chase away the images, but I can’t manage to rid my mouth of his remembered flavor. My mouth is dry, but even gulping orange juice straight from the bottle can’t quench my thirst.

  I try to think if I’ve ever wanted someone this way, and can’t remember it if I have. I take myself off to the den with the book I’ve been trying to read forever, and settle into the couch with a glass of iced tea, and my iPod shuffling up songs I’d forgotten I had. I read the same page four times before I give up and let my head fall back against the cushions. I stare at the ceiling. There are cobwebs.

  I open my mouth and slide him in. All the way, balls-deep. My tongue caresses the head, my teeth scrape, just gently. Then out, my hand at the base, sucking a little harder on the tip while he shudders and mutters my name, and his fingers go tight in my hair, this time hard enough to hurt. Just a little.

  I want it to hurt, just a little.

  His ass is resting on the edge of the desk. His pants around his ankles. My hand’s between my legs, fingers in my panties, and I’m wet and slick. My clit’s hard under my fingertips. I pinch it gently, making my hips buck, and for a second or two I lose my concentration on his cock because the pleasure in my cunt is just too much....

  The phone rings again, and this time I twist to look at the handset on the side table next to the
couch. It’s Kat, so I snatch it up and connect just before she gets sent to voice mail. “Hi, honey.”

  “Hi, Mom. You’re home. I’ve been calling your cell. And I called here earlier, but you didn’t answer.”

  I turned off my cell so I would stop checking it obsessively. “What’s up?”

  “Just wanted to see how you were doing.”

  I’d spoken with her on my birthday, but not since. This wasn’t unusual. Jac’s the one who keeps in almost constant touch, texts, phone calls, emails, posts on my barely used Connex wall. Kat is more reticent and independent.

  It’s impossible for my daughter to know what I’ve done, but that’s the first thought that springs to my mind at her question. How am I doing? I’ve been better. Then again, I suppose I’ve been worse.

  “I’m fine. What’s going on with you? Everything okay?”

  She sounds quiet when she answers, but not upset. “Yep. Everything’s fine. Just trying to finish up everything here. Did you have a good birthday?”

  “It was fine. Thanks for the gift card. You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Did you like it? What did you get?” She sounds brighter now.

  I list the music I’d downloaded so far. A couple songs I’d been thinking about but didn’t own. I love music, but it can be hard for me to find songs that don’t smell or taste bad. Kat understands, while Jac does not. We talk about music and books for a few more minutes, then Katherine says abruptly, “How old were you when you got married?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Did you think that was too young?”

  “I didn’t at the time,” I tell her. “But now? Yes. I think that maybe it was too young.”

  “So...why did you get married?”

  I laugh. “Because I was in love with your dad, and he asked me, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  More silence from her. Something is...maybe not wrong. But it’s not right.