Ink and Lies

  “Congratulations,” I remark flatly.

  “Things are getting serious.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “So… maybe we should just be friends. He’s a good catch. Good job, dependable, attentive. I want to make it work with him.”

  Somewhere in the world, Alanis Morrisette is dusting off her red beanie and phoning home to 1995. All I can do is chuckle darkly before leaning over to place a final kiss on Maureen’s still damp forehead.

  “Take care of yourself, Mo.” When I pull away, she looks affronted.

  “Wait. So you don’t even care?” she stammers. “That’s it?”

  I shrug on my coat and turn for the exit. “That’s all it ever was.”

  My skin is crawling by the time I hit the frost-kissed sidewalk. I tell myself that I’ll just walk up the street back toward the bar district to catch a cab, but the feeling of cool air against my face is a refreshing reprieve from the burning in my gut. I feel sick and grimy. The ruse of momentary passion as I filled Mo with my dirty lies was regrettable at best. Sex once inspired me. By freeing my body, I was able to open my mind. And I was a man of many muses, each of them willing to do their part to arouse my psyche. But that—what I’d just done with Maureen—didn’t feel like inspiration. It felt like a transaction. And I didn’t even have the decency to leave the money on the dresser.

  Before I know it, I’m halfway to my apartment, so I say fuck it and keep going. It’s cold tonight, but I don’t care. It’s a welcome distraction—focusing on nothing more than the frigid bite of late October on my cheeks over the hollow ache in my chest. Fiona said I was empty, and my actions tonight proved her right. And as I approach my apartment building, the vacant space in my chest expands with the remembrance of her scent wafting over me as she kissed my lips. A tangible ache blooms within the void, clinging to my ribs like thick, sticky tar as I remember the sound of her moan when I entered her. The achiness evolves into searing burn as it slides like sludge through my bloodstream at the memory of the way her body felt beneath mine. Her warmth…her softness…is my torture. And every thought is a stinging lash across my battered heart.

  I expect to walk into my cold, desolate apartment, pour a few fingers of scotch, and stare blankly at my manuscript while Bartleby licks himself from his spot on my desk. But what I don’t expect is someone sitting on my living sofa, the same sofa I had been contemplating burning. And I damn sure don’t expect that someone to be the very same person I had been obsessing about all damn day long.

  “August.”

  I stalk towards her, pain and anger carrying me to my self-made torture chamber.

  “Oh, so I’m August now?”

  WE DON’T SPEAK. WE HARDLY look at each other. I take off my coat, wishing I had showered before leaving Maureen’s apartment. I wonder if she can smell the sex on me. I wonder if betrayal singes her nostrils and disgust roils her stomach. I wonder if she would even give a fuck.

  I retreat to the stainless steel sanctity of my kitchen for a much-needed dose of liquid fire. The good stuff stays on the shelf. I need JD to have my back on this one.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Her voice fills the silence and pierces right to the empty pit of my stomach. Shit. When was the last time I’d eaten a decent meal?

  “You said that before. But according to you, you have nothing to be sorry for.”

  “I know, it’s just… I’m sorry. It seems appropriate.”

  “False remorse seems appropriate?”

  “It’s not false. I truly am…sorry. For what I said.”

  “Are you still engaged?”

  Her brown eyes dart around the room nervously as if the answer lies somewhere within the scattered books that rest atop almost every surface. “Um, yes.” It’s like being punched in the gut.

  “Then you’re not sorry,” I reply, schooling my features to keep from wincing.

  “I am. I’m sorry for hurting you.”

  “Who said I was hurt?”

  “August…”

  I let myself really look at her for the first time since I arrived. She’s wearing a blue turtleneck sweater dress and knee-high boots. They’re her clothes, not something that was bought or picked out for her. She came without the armor.

  “I’m not hurt, Fi.”

  “But what you said… about feeling for me…”

  I down my drink in a swift gulp. “Forget about it. Must’ve been the Bloody Mary talking. It’s no big deal.”

  She climbs to her feet and abandons her spot from the very same couch where we shared our first kiss. “You don’t have to lie to me, August. I know you, and I know you don’t say things you don’t mean.”

  I laugh so loudly that it makes her take a step back. “Seriously? I don’t mean anything that I say. Or have you already forgotten?”

  She shakes her head, refusing to acknowledge the badge of truth that I’ve worn so boldly for years. “I don’t believe that.”

  “How can you not?” I ask, throwing my hands up incredulously. If my glass wasn’t already empty, it would be now. “Fi, you know better than anyone on earth what type of guy I am. I write romance, for fuck’s sake, and I not only reject the notion of it, I loathe it. I just tell people what they want to hear. Women especially.”

  “Yeah, but that’s different,” she asserts. “We’re different.”

  “How so? You said so yourself, Fi—I have no interest in women unless I’m sleeping with them. And that’s the only interest.”

  “Yeah, but…” Her eyes grow wide and glossy as she tries to sift through all the reasons why that theory shouldn’t apply to her. In the end, she relies on her heart. “You said I wasn’t like those other women…that those other women weren’t me.”

  I should tell her she’s right. I should put her out of her misery and reassure her that the last ten years were as real and meaningful to me as they were for her. That even though I may sling gift-wrapped bullshit for the general public, only she knows the true, honest parts of my heart. But with my tongue possessed by the taste of her rejection, I play the petty card, and do just the opposite.

  “I guess I was wrong, especially considering yesterday’s events. Maybe you’re no different from them. And maybe you were right about me…that I do sabotage with sex to keep people at arm’s length. Because in the end, that’s all I want anyway, right?”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  I nod. “Yeah. I do.”

  “So what are you saying?” The hurt is so thick in her throat that I can barely hear the words.

  I suck in a breath, and scrub a hand over my forehead. “You were right about me. About us. We shouldn’t have done…what we did. And we can’t move on and pretend that it didn’t change us. What’s done is done.”

  “I agree,” she nods, with a tinge of hope in her voice.

  “So, maybe we should just see this for what it is—the end. You’re starting your life with Joshua and moving away, and I’m going on with mine.”

  “Wait, August. No, that’s not—”

  “You didn’t actually think we’d be able to keep this up, did you? What, you thought we’d turn out to be the modern day Cathy and Heathcliff? I’m not some swoony, literary hero, Fi. I’m not here to rescue you from your shitty love life that stems from your shitty childhood.”

  “I never said you were—”

  I’m rambling, spewing verbal diarrhea all over her blue cashmere, but I can’t stop. I can’t shut off the bile that has been choking me since this morning when she disclosed her impending nuptials. “You have Joshua. He’s the one you chose. He’s the one you want. You made that perfectly clear. So what the fuck do you need with me?”

  “I thought we were friends, August. I thought you and me were—”

  “Well, I guess you were wrong. Friends don’t fuck each other and then five minutes later get engaged. And why would you want to be friends with some empty, misogynistic prick like me anyway?”

  “I-I didn’t mean,” her vo
ice cracks, and the first tear escapes. She quickly dashes it away, refusing to let me play witness to her weakness. But I’ve already seen it. I share that very same weakness that has her bottom lip trembling. I’m just too much of a coward to show it.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I think we just need a break.”

  “A break. Yes,” she nods, dashing away tears. “You’re right. We both said things we shouldn’t have. Let’s just take a few days to…”

  “No. A break from this,” I clarify, gesturing between us. “From us. This isn’t working anymore.”

  “You’re being melodramatic, August. We’ve had fights before. We’ve said things we didn’t mean, and we always were able to work it out.”

  I shake my head and look away, refusing to acknowledge the dejection on her face. “But I meant everything I said.”

  It’s quiet for a moment too long. I want to turn to her. I want to take it all back, but I can’t. This isn’t me being stubborn. This is me trying to save myself.

  I sense her before I feel her. Her soft, petite hand grazes my jaw with the lightest of touches. I turn into her palm and catch a glimpse of the pain set deep in her eyes. All it would take is one second. One single moment to make this right. It’d be so easy fall back into the comfort of her arms. Easier than it is to pretend that I don’t want her.

  But then what?

  She’ll still go home to him, and I’ll still be alone. She’ll get married, and I’ll chase the empty thrill of casual sex. She’ll move to Seattle and I’ll still be here, going to our once favorite bistro, sitting at our once favorite table, and scribbling notes about the girl that just didn’t get away, but the girl who ran away.

  I pull back from her touch, knowing that a second longer will only cost me hours, days, weeks of torment. “You should go home to your fiancé.” My voice is as cold and icy as my heart.

  “You don’t mean that.” She reaches out to touch me again, but I grip her wrist before her hand meets my cheek.

  “I do. Go, Fiona. Go home to him. I have nothing for you.”

  “But, August, I—”

  “Just go! Leave me alone! You said so yourself—I’m empty…that once I get what I want from a woman, I’m done.” I tip my head down so my eyes are aligned with hers. So she can see with crystal clarity that I mean what I say. So she can feel the heat of my rage fan over her face. “I’ve gotten what I wanted. So unless you plan to be naked and splayed across my desk in the next two minutes, we’re done here.”

  She just stands there, horror and humiliation splotched on her pale face like twin bloodstains. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t speak. At this point, she doesn’t even cry.

  “Ok. If that’s what you want.”

  I begin to undress, starting with my shirt. She doesn’t want to look at me, but she can’t help but stare at my bare, rippled torso. Or maybe she’s looking through me. It’s hard to tell if she’s even aware of what’s happening at all.

  I work on my jeans next, taking my time with the belt and zipper. I’m stalling—for her and for me. I want her to come to her senses. I want her to tell me to stop. I’m still soiled with the remnants of my time with Maureen, and no matter how pissed I am with her, she doesn’t deserve that.

  Fiona flinches when my jeans hit the hardwood, the belt buckle slicing into the moment with a piercing clang. It’s enough to wake her from her trance and realize what’s happening. She blinks rapidly, taking in my tense, nearly naked body and the obvious erection bulging in my boxer briefs. She sucks in a breath as she stares at it, bites her bottom lip as she remembers it, and shakes her head as she collects herself.

  “You’re disgusting,” she sneers.

  “Am I?” I smirk, sliding a finger under the waistband of my underwear and running it along the rigid V of taut muscle. Her eyes follow the movement in an act of betrayal.

  “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Baby, I’m not doing anything to you. Not yet,” I taunt.

  “August, stop it. Put your clothes back on.”

  “Is that what you really want me to do? Because considering the way you’re looking at me, I’m betting you’re just itching for me to take everything off.”

  “No, I don’t want that,” she quavers.

  “No? So if I do this…” I pull down one side of my briefs, exposing a chiseled hip and my upper thigh. “You don’t like that?”

  “No.” Her expression is hard, but her body disagrees. She shifts from one foot to the other in an act nervous arousal, and the flush of her cheeks blooms bright red.

  “Oh. Then maybe it’s this that you want.”

  In a boorish act of desperation, I slip a hand down the front of my shorts and palm my cock. It throbs in my hand, and without even meaning to, I moan at the tight feel around it. The sound is like a jolt of electricity in her veins, and she gasps at my sordid audaciousness. Her reaction is exactly the motivation that I need, and even though I want to hurl at my own repugnance, I begin to stroke my cock slowly inside the barrier of thin cotton, my unrelenting gaze trained on her. She covers her mouth as she realizes what I’m doing and takes a step back. Angry, devastated tears rim her reddened eyes. I answer the sight with a haughty groan.

  “Stay away from me!” she shrieks as she rushes to escape my apartment.

  “Wait, don’t you want to—”

  “Leave me the hell alone!”

  The last thing I see before she slams the front door is a blur of cobalt-streaked tears and tousled brown hair. I drop the act and sag onto the couch, my mind and body too exhausted to even bother redressing or showering. It wouldn’t matter anyway. I’ll never be clean again.

  I’M NOT SOBER UNTIL THURSDAY.

  It’s not by choice though. Thursdays are reserved for meatballs, and even though I haven’t even bothered to check in with the Colonel since our argument Sunday, which will also be known as the day I lost my ever-loving mind, I know he’ll be expecting me for Thursday night football and homemade Italian. So after a much needed shower, shave and about a gallon of water to flush away the whiskey and remorse, I reluctantly trudge down to the senior center. However, I realize within seconds that I should have stayed my ass home.

  “You look like shit,” my grandfather says in greeting. He’s sitting on the couch in the entertainment room and staring at the TV with a plate of untouched meatballs on his lap.

  “Nice to see you too,” I remark, taking the space next to him.

  “I didn’t think you were coming. Had I’d known, I would’ve waited.”

  “That’s ok. I’m not hungry.”

  He looks down at the hunk of meat and sauce on a Styrofoam plate and blanches. “Yeah, me neither.” He sets down the flimsy platter on the coffee table.

  We go without speaking for several minutes, both of us pretending to be wholly engrossed in the match up between Green Bay and Arizona. I know he was just trying to be helpful and objective, but I’m too stubborn to admit it. And he knows I was just being frustrated and overly sensitive, but he’s too thoughtful to say it. So we sit and pretend like we’re not silently suffering, letting the silence build mountains and stretch valleys between us. We’ve never fought like this before, but then again, I’m on a roll.

  “I think I’m going to turn in early,” the Colonel states right around halftime. He struggles to stand up, and when I reach out to help him, he waves me away. To say the Colonel is prideful is an understatement.

  “Let me walk you back to your apartment.”

  Again, a wave. “Nonsense. I’m a grown man. I got myself here, and I can get myself home. Go on. I’m sure you need to write.”

  “Yeah,” I remark, running a hand through my thick brown hair. I’m in serious need of a haircut. And with the touch of Asian blood in my genes, my hair has begun to curl around my ears and forehead.

  “I’ll see you later, son,” he murmurs.

  I stay for a minute too long to watch him walk to his place. Had I hightailed it out of there, I would have missed Hel
en and her granddaughter, April, who I still haven’t called. Luckily, April doesn’t seem too nonplussed about my communication skills, or lack thereof.

  “Nice to see you,” she smiles. “Looks like I got here just in time.”

  “Yeah, uh,” I stammer. “I was just leaving, actually. The Colonel is tired, and I have a deadline.”

  “Oh.” Disappointment dimples her brow. “Well, ok. Maybe we can get together this weekend?”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” I don’t even bother sugarcoating it with some lackluster promise.

  “I’ve got a thing for work this Saturday. A Halloween party. Maybe you could come?”

  “I don’t know,” I grimace. “Usually I just sit around and watch really awful horror flicks and OD on candy corn and caramel apples on Halloween.” With Fiona.

  “Oh. Well, maybe we could meet up after?”

  She seems really pressed, and clearly not picking up on my less than amiable vibe, so I put her out of her misery and nod. “Sure. Sounds good.”

  The light in her baby blues flicks on instantly, so I lean in to leave her with a peck on the cheek before she starts picking out the color scheme of our wedding. I have to get out of here. But there’s honestly nowhere I want to go.

  I stick to my guns and resist the temptation of scantily clad women donning bunny ears and cat tails in 30 degree temps, and resolve to staying in. However, nothing is going as planned, and my company for the evening has zero interest in Scream or The Human Centipede.

  “Brad from my Contracts class asked me to go to some stupid party tonight. He even tried to entice me with the promise of a keg. Seriously, how did half of those dumbasses even make it into law school? When they’re evidently still latched on to their mother’s tit?”

  Denae sips her Malbec and runs a bare foot along my leg. I hate it. I hate it with the fiery passion of Lucifer in a sauna with a red-hot poker rammed up his ass. I down the rest of my scotch, in hopes I will hate it less.

  Nope. Still hate it.

  “And he even expected me to dress up in lingerie like some half-wit bimbo who thinks Red Lobster is a fancy restaurant. Did I tell you I let him take me to dinner once? And that’s where he took me? He thought I was a sure bet because I ordered the Endless Shrimp. Fucking inbred hillbilly.”