Текст книги "Cam Girl"
Автор книги: Leah Raeder
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
I set the phone down shakily.
iwatchusleep: bb, we gonna get a show or not
aussieboi: lets see you ride it
[PM to SoBlue]: send me a private chat request
I waited, my fingers curling and uncurling over the keys.
Incoming video call from SoBlue.
ACCEPT.
Cam window: me on one side, disheveled, flushed; his side, the ubiquitous black rectangle. His mic was muted. I stared at the chat box for an endless minute, watching the status bar informing me that SoBlue is typing . . .
SoBlue: hi.
I laughed, the tension breaking. “What took you so long? Hi, baby.”
SoBlue: i tried out some suave lines.
SoBlue: but every time i look at you my mind goes blank.
SoBlue: and all i can think is . . .
SoBlue: hi. hi. hi.
SoBlue: like an excited puppy.
He was cute. I sat back on the bed, pulling the laptop between my legs. All I wore was my tee and a thong.
“Hi hi hi to you too, Mr. Big Spender. What can I do for you?”
SoBlue is typing . . .
I watched the ellipsis fill and reset and fill again, over and over, as he chose his words.
SoBlue: i just want to talk.
“You sure? You seem pretty flustered. I could do something about that.” I ran a hand down one thigh. “What do you want to talk about?”
SoBlue: you.
SoBlue: close your legs.
Those legs tightened. Domination turned me on. I never let men in my real life dominate, but here the right edge of aggression could make things so much easier. Some nights I was little more than a sex therapist, assuring timid men that it was okay, no judgment, no shame.
I tucked my legs beneath me. “Is this better, Blue? Can I call you that?”
SoBlue: yes.
SoBlue: now.
SoBlue: tell me about yourself, morgan.
SoBlue: who are you?
I leaned in, breathed deep. Cleavage boost. Strange, how ridiculous these cam tricks seemed right now. Once you’re paid it’s all revealed for the absurd skin circus it is. “I’m twenty-one.” Every cam girl was either eighteen or twenty-one. “I’m in college for photography.” MFA dropout. “I love the outdoors, hiking, camping.” I loved torturing my body till every nerve burned and I groaned like the beast I was, passed out from exhaustion before I shored the boat, woke to fish nibbling at my toes and sand in my mouth. “I’ve never had a serious boyfriend.” I’d been in love once. “I’ve never been in love.” And it wrecked me.
SoBlue is typing . . .
SoBlue: i don’t believe you.
“About what?”
SoBlue: anything.
SoBlue: try again.
SoBlue: tell me something true.
“It’s all true, baby.”
We’d never know what was real and what wasn’t about each other. That was the beauty of our shared fiction.
SoBlue: here’s something true.
SoBlue: you’re sad.
SoBlue: tell me why.
For the first time, I drew a blank in front of the camera.
I’d heard it all. The objects men wanted to put inside my body. The ways they wanted to touch me, fuck me, defile me. The names—slut, spic, cunt, whore, bitch, honey, mommy—and the people I stood in for—ex-girlfriend, sister, stranger, boss. They acted out fantasies with me that they couldn’t in the real world. Followed me off a bus and dragged me into a dark alley. Locked a classroom door and bent me over a desk. None of it fazed me, because none of it was real. We were both characters. Only our loneliness was real, and for ten dollars a minute I’d pretend to care.
But sometimes they really just wanted something human. Someone to talk to. Those guys were the hardest for me.
I faked a laugh, throaty, reckless. “Why do you think I’m sad?”
He didn’t dignify that with a response.
I glanced at the clock. Fifty more minutes.
I could log off whenever I wanted. I already had his money.
SoBlue: do i make you uncomfortable?
I started to speak and then, on impulse, typed instead.
Morgan: I’m not sure what you want from me
SoBlue: i just want to talk.
Morgan: you want to talk about real things
Morgan: that’s not what I do
SoBlue: too kinky for you?
SoBlue: i could describe my big veiny cock if that makes it easier.
I laughed again, genuine. “It sort of does, yeah.”
SoBlue: why is that?
“Because then I know what you want.”
SoBlue: it’s simple.
SoBlue: i want you.
A thousand other men had said those words to me. This time I felt exactly how heavy they were.
“Who are you?”
SoBlue: i’m just a lonely guy on the internet.
SoBlue: who’s in love with a lonely girl.
It’s funny. Boys call us mushy and romantic, but they almost always declare their love first. Girls are the ones who hold back.
“You’re silly, but sweet. You want real talk? I’m sad because I’ve completely fucked my life up.” I wrapped my arms around my knees. “But that’s such a cam girl cliché. Let’s talk about something else. Like the color blue.”
Then I told him something true.
A long time ago, there was no word for the shade of the sea and sky. People described them instead as moods, temperaments: fierce and volatile, or melancholy and pacific. In Homer, the sea was “wine-dark.” In other classic texts it was a degree of gray. No one knows, really, why the ancients couldn’t put a word to that hue. It was colorblindness not at a physical but an intellectual level, an inability to describe what we saw because we lacked the language to conceive of it as separate. The sea was a vast goblet of wine. They looked right at it and saw juiced grapes and the fluid in their veins.
Scientists studied isolated tribal societies to see if the phenomenon still occurred in the modern era. And it did. Those with simpler languages called the sea a shade of black or red, a primal color. It wasn’t important enough—not like blood or nightfall—to give it its own name. Their brains became wired to see it as a subsidiary of another color, glossing over the hue and instead focusing on its emotionality. But people with more complex, technical languages, those rife with hues and hex codes and Pantone swatches, are trained to see color in a different way. We all see blue, but some of us see blue as an inflection, a mood, of black or red, while others see blue as its own creature.
“A lot of artists,” I said, “have been obsessed with the color blue. Yves Klein got so crazy about it he painted canvas after canvas with nothing but pure ultramarine. They named a new color after him. He had models roll around naked in blue paint and throw themselves at blank canvases. He called them ‘living brushes.’ That’s how intense it was for him.”
SoBlue: you’re an artist.
“Photographer.”
SoBlue: more than that.
SoBlue: you speak about art sensually.
SoBlue: you’re a living brush, too.
“I’ve dabbled.”
SoBlue: don’t be modest.
SoBlue: let me see your art.
I waved at the wall behind me. “Voilà.”
SoBlue: not photos.
SoBlue: i want to see something that came from you.
My first instinct was innuendo—I washed that off in the shower, baby—but instead I gnawed my lower lip, not even caring how unattractive it looked. I kept staring at that black rectangle and thinking how, a thousand years ago, it would have been the same blue as the sea.
“That was the past. I don’t paint anymore.” Then I let my temper fly, a small barb. “Don’t ask about it again.”
Blue didn’t respond.
It shocked me to see that the hour was up. It’d felt like mere minutes.
“Why did you pay so much to listen to me ramble?” I said.
SoBlue: i’ve thought about you all day.
SoBlue: every day.
SoBlue: for a long time.
SoBlue: tonight i just . . .
SoBlue: needed more.
“So you’ve been watching me. Are you one of my regulars?”
SoBlue: i wouldn’t call it regular.
“What would you call it?”
SoBlue: obsession.
It wasn’t unusual. The entire point of camming was to coax viewers into a frenzy of infatuation. Make them want more, and more, and put a price tag on each piece. We became obsessed with them, too. We fell in love with their infatuation. It’s hard not to love the way someone loves you. The entire industry was a device to bring two lonely minds together in a digital nowhere, put two disconnected obsessives inside the same small box and let our explosive yearning generate money.
In a way it wasn’t so different from art. It bridged the void between minds, let us feel something together, ten tokens per minute. Sometimes I thought, Money isn’t filthy or cold. It’s the only way we can be human with each other anymore.
SoBlue: morgan is thinking . . .
I smiled. “I wonder what you think will happen. Between you and me.”
SoBlue: i’m not thinking beyond this moment.
SoBlue: i’m completely in it with you.
His words made my chest expand in a strange way. Partly just the breath in my lungs, partly something unnameable.
“Tell me about yourself, Blue.”
SoBlue: our hour is up, morgan.
First rule of camming: protect the product. Value your time.
“You’ve already paid me a ton,” I said. “I don’t mind talking more.”
SoBlue: if you could see how my face just lit up, you’d laugh.
SoBlue: i’m like a little boy on christmas.
I laughed anyway. “You’re kind of cute.”
SoBlue: i’m excessively cute.
“Don’t be modest. Let me see how cute.”
SoBlue: clever.
SoBlue: you like me, morgan. admit it.
SoBlue: you don’t want to stop talking.
“You make me laugh. It’s been a while since a client’s done that.”
SoBlue: “client” sounds so cold.
“What are you then? My Romeo? My—”
I’d started to say Prince Charming and felt a stab of guilt. Here I was flirting my ass off with some guy, while Elle was alone out in the dark woods.
SoBlue: not quite that tragic.
I sprawled on my side, switching to typing.
Morgan: sorry, bad thoughts
Morgan: where were we?
SoBlue: let’s see.
SoBlue: what are you wearing?
SoBlue: no. we’ve established that.
SoBlue: the question is, what am i wearing?
Morgan: bet I can guess
SoBlue: please try.
SoBlue: this should be good.
Morgan: you’re too anal-retentive to be a boxers guy
SoBlue: why do you say that?
Morgan: no misspellings, perfect punctuation
SoBlue: i’ll take it as a compliment, then.
Morgan: you’re also too much of a hipster to be a briefs guy
SoBlue: this seems more like character judgment than an erotic guessing game.
SoBlue: why am i a hipster?
Morgan: your pathological disdain for the Shift key?
SoBlue: fair point.
Morgan: so, Blue
Morgan: I think you fall somewhere in the middle
I raised a knee, not too provocatively, just teasing him a bit.
Morgan: you’ve got an edge in you
Morgan: a little ego, a little swagger
Morgan: but you’re too smart to be one of those caveman chest beating types
Morgan: you’re a boxer-briefs guy
Just the way I like them.
He didn’t respond for a second and I said out loud, “Am I right?”
SoBlue: you’re right.
SoBlue: but i bet you can’t tell me the color.
On impulse I said, “Red.”
SoBlue: i’m torn between being aroused and alarmed.
“My next guess was Superman undies.”
SoBlue: funny you should mention that . . .
“Oh my god. No.”
SoBlue: yes.
SoBlue: owned. never worn.
SoBlue: i’m saving them.
“For what?”
SoBlue: for the girl of my dreams.
SoBlue: who’s waiting to be swept off her feet by a suave anal-retentive hipster wearing superhero skivvies.
I lay back on the bed, laughing. “What grown man admits he owns Superman underwear?”
SoBlue: one who’s very comfortable with his masculinity.
You are, aren’t you? I thought. You don’t give a shit what I think. You’re not one of those try-hard guys desperate to prove how alpha you are.
You just paid me enough to get my attention. And then you were yourself.
There’s nothing sexier than a man who’s comfortable being himself.
I gazed at the cam, my eyelashes lowering. “Blue.”
SoBlue: morgan.
SoBlue: you have that look in your eyes.
“What look?”
SoBlue: like you want to get off.
“Do you?”
SoBlue: in my mind, this whole time . . .
SoBlue: my hands have been all over you.
SoBlue: every time you move, every time you breathe, i can feel it.
“That’s fucking hot.” I slid a hand over my thigh, toward the inside. “Let me get you off. Both of us.”
SoBlue: i want you.
SoBlue: so badly.
SoBlue: but not yet.
“Don’t be shy, baby. Are you hard?”
SoBlue: no.
SoBlue: now stop.
Spit stuck in my throat. I sat up straight. “Are you for real? I want to do this for you.”
Do you not realize how rare that is, dumbass?
SoBlue: this isn’t business.
SoBlue: i’m not your client.
SoBlue: don’t give me a show.
“Who exactly do you think you are?”
SoBlue: let’s not end on a bad note.
“Well, being sexually frustrated kind of sucks. Which I’m sure you know, since you drop thousands of bucks on cam girls. I can’t believe a client is turning me down.”
SoBlue: i’m not your fucking client.
There we go. I’d found his button.
I dragged the laptop closer.
“You are, though, Blue. You might be funny and cute, but you paid me to talk to you. Don’t forget that.”
SoBlue: when was the last time you truly connected with someone?
SoBlue: when you didn’t feel completely alone?
SoBlue: i saw it in your eyes.
SoBlue: it was tonight. with me.
SoBlue: i may have paid you, but i gave you something, too.
SoBlue: don’t forget that.
My pulse vibrated so hard it made my hands shake. Who the fuck did he think he was? Paying me a couple thousand bucks didn’t mean shit. He had no idea what kind of relationships I’d had. What they’d meant to me. What they still meant.
When I wrapped my hands around Elle’s neck I felt a deeper human connection than I ever had with anyone else. It might be sick and unhealthy, but it was real. I felt it in my marrow. My blood.
This? This was words on a screen. Nothing.
“You know nothing about my life,” I said. “Nothing about my loneliness. But I know all about yours.”
I moved my cursor over the DISCONNECT button.
“Thanks for reminding me why we don’t get personal with clients. Have a nice night.”
Click.
Morgan left the room.
Session ended. Total: 1:31:16.
—6—
Ellis was in the kitchen again the next morning. This time two coffee cups stood on the table. She eyed the farther one, then looked up at me.
I sat grudgingly. “Caffeine: my one weakness.”
“You also have a weakness for gummy bears.”
“Okay, two weaknesses. I’m still supervillain material.”
“And what about gel pens?”
I narrowed my eyes. “You know too much, Ellis Carraway. I’ll have to destroy you.”
She lowered her face, but I caught a slight smile. A brassy red lock strayed across her forehead and I clutched the mug, battling the urge to touch her hair.
It was so easy to forget the bad blood when she was right there, across the table, sitting in the morning light. It could’ve been a year ago. No time lost at all.
“So what are we working on today?” I said.
“Actually, Frankie’s going to—”
On cue Frankie walked into the kitchen, radiant in white chiffon. She rubbed my shoulder in friendly greeting and nodded at Elle.
“Ready, Miss Daisy?”
Ellis blushed.
“She’s kidding,” I said. “She likes putting people on edge.”
“I’m a professional provocateur,” Frankie said.
I raised an eyebrow. “Is that what they call stripping on the Internet now?”
“Sassing the woman who writes your paycheck. That’s bold.”
“Did you just say ‘sass’?”
Frankie flipped her sunglasses down, Deal With It style.
“Where are you guys going, anyway?” I said.
“To take over the world. But first, legal meetings.”
“Well, knock ’em dead.”
Elle rose to leave, then paused beside me and murmured, “Bye, dorkus malorkus.”
I tried to be cool. I really did. But she gave me that crooked, sweet girl-next-door grin that I could never resist, and I said, “Bye, nerdus maximus.”
“You look pretty.”
My stupid sappy heart mopped this up. “So do you.”
“Oh my god,” Frankie said. “Too cute. You two. I can’t.”
I sat there after they left, the coffee forgotten, feeling mixed-up and conflicted and inexplicably warm.
Then Jasmine, a petite, cherubic cam girl who did BDSM, came downstairs in just her panties and a pair of nipple clips and I returned to my room. Dane had finally answered my texts.
DANE: sorry busy night
DANE: did u do it?
MORGAN: yeah
MORGAN: we just talked
MORGAN: and he paid me
DANE: damn
DANE: ez $
MORGAN: the best kind
I sprawled on my bed in a drizzle of honey sun.
DANE: be careful
DANE: guy gives u $
DANE: wants to meet irl
MORGAN: he didn’t say anything about that
DANE: he will
I thought of Blue’s parting words. I may have paid you, but I gave you something, too. Don’t forget that.
Yeah, but I don’t owe you shit, buddy.
I asked about Boston but Dane had errands to run. I could pass the time with another surprise cam show, but it didn’t appeal. Nor did reading, sunbathing, taking photos, or getting off purely for my own gratification. I paced my room, nervy, agitated, feeling like Max.
Get out of the fucking house, loser.
Last time I’d seen the tree house, rain had been falling right through the roof. Today the woods were full of sunlight, clear beams glittering with dandelion seeds and pollen like jewel dust. The air was pungent with sweet summer rot. I climbed the split-log staircase winding up the old oak. The door had no lock. Few things did out here.
Inside was a single large room. Tree branches thrust up through the floor and exited through holes carved in the roof. Kitchenette, couch, loft with a bed at the top of a narrow staircase. Ellis had swept out the drifts of leaves and scrubbed the pine boards pale. Her neatness and precision were everywhere: dishes aligned razor-straight on the sink counter, blanket folded crisply on the couch.
“This is so you,” I said aloud.
All this bare wood needed color, life. I’d bring her something. Housewarming gift.
Wait, why am I gifting someone I want to leave me alone?
“Because,” I said, “I’m the queen of fucking denial.”
I walked to the window. On the table she’d stacked a pile of small logs, too tiny to give much heat. Besides, it was summer. Who needed fire? So Ellis: overprepared but impractical.
“All you do is hurt me,” I said, hefting a log and smacking it into my palm. “And I keep coming back for more. Why do you keep hurting me, Vada?”
I answered, “Because I hate the way I feel about you.”
“Why do you hate it?”
“Because it screws up the whole way I see myself. It makes me feel crazy.”
“Well, you are crazy. You’re standing in a tree house talking to yourself, psycho.”
Time to bounce.
I retraced my steps, searching for clues that someone had been there. When my phone buzzed I knocked a glass off the counter but caught it like an ace, lefty.
“Hello?”
“Where the hell are you?” Frankie sounded riled. The hair on my arms prickled. Frankie never got upset.
“Went for a walk. What’s wrong?”
“Get back to the house immediately. We have a situation. Ellis is freaking out.”
She hung up on me.
It wasn’t until I got home that I realized I’d left one thing different. I’d forgotten to replace that log atop the stack.
Frankie crossed her arms and said, “Who is Max Vandermeer, and why is he stalking you two?”
I glanced at Ellis beside me on the couch. Glasses off, eyes red. She sniffled into a tissue and my hand floated toward her, then fell.
“He’s not stalking us,” I said wearily. “There was an accident.”
If you tell a story enough times, it sounds like fiction. You don’t feel that visceral throb of resonance with the person who is you, who did the things you did. She’s just a character. Vada and Ellis on an icy winter road. Flaring headlights, bursting glass. Three white dragon tails of breath. Then only two. Later, a haggard man who holds you and cries, who wants to be close to you because you’re haunted, because you carry the ghost he loves. His hands touch you differently one night but you don’t tell anyone. You pretend everything’s fine. Even when your feet feel heavier every day, when the air smothers like a pall. When you feel something pulling you under but can’t escape, because it’s pulling from inside.
“I don’t understand,” Frankie said. “His kid was the drunk driver. Why is he harassing you guys about it?”
“It’s not harassment,” I said. “He wants closure, and he’s looking for it anywhere he can.”
Ellis gripped the couch cushion. “He said there are ‘strange findings’ in the black boxes. They don’t match our reports.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
“They could reopen the case—”
“They won’t. Relax.”
She eyed me askance. “Why are you defending him, Vada?”
It was jarring to hear my real name in front of others. “I’m not. But I had to deal with him when you were gone. When you abandoned me. So I’m the authority here.”
Ellis averted her face.
“Is this going to be an ongoing problem?” Frankie said. “I can refer you to a good defense attorney.”
“It’s fine, really. I’ll handle him.”
“You understand why I dislike strange men yelling my colleague’s name on the street, right? Anonymity is a precious thing. It protects us.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Ellis took a shaky breath. “It’s all because of me. I’m a liability.”
Frankie frowned. “Liability?”
“She’s upset,” I said. “She always blames herself.”
“No, it’s true. It’s my fault. I was the one who—”
I put my arms around Ellis and yanked her to my chest. I had to shut her up.
“It’s okay.” Over her head I gave Frankie an apologetic smile. Look rational. Look calm. “We’ll get a restraining order or something. He won’t bother you again, Elle. I promise.”
She trembled in my arms.
“It’s okay. It’s okay, baby.” My right hand was hidden from view and I traced her ribs, the curve beneath her breast, gentle. Her breath caught. My voice lowered. “Let me take you home.”
The light was failing, a rusty stain seeping through the trees, like cooling blood. A thousand leaves whispered little lies underfoot. I let her walk ahead so I could see what she reacted to. What she noticed. When she froze in the tree house doorway, I stepped behind her and threaded my arms through hers. Stronger now, sinewy from rowing. I pushed her past the beam of bloody sun that cut across the living room and into the shadows and stopped, holding her against me. My hands cupped the thin cage of her ribs, felt her heart flitting madly at the bars. My own pulse beat hot and tight in my belly.
The last few times we’d been this close, we’d been hurting each other. But not now.
“Vada,” she whispered.
Control yourself.
I released her, crossed the room. Faked a stumble and knocked the log pyramid off the table, hiding the misplaced one. “Shit. Sorry.”
“I’ve got it.” Elle nudged me aside. “Light a candle? Matches by the stove.”
I pulled a candle from a cupboard and lit it. When I brought the shivering yellow light over, Ellis looked up at me strangely.
Had she told me where the candles were? Fuck.
“Need some help?” I said.
“Someone was here.”
“No one was here. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Max found me in the middle of nowhere.”
I set the candle on the table and touched her shoulders. “You can’t talk to anyone about that night. Especially not him. Let me do the talking, okay? We have to stick to the story.”
“The story,” she echoed. “The story we’re telling each other.”
I let go and tumbled onto the couch. An oak branch snaked to one side of the table, and the flame flickering against it made long, clawing shadows on the wall, the scratching of a black nail. “Are you punishing yourself, Elle? Is that what this asceticism is about?”
“No.”
“Then why are you living in the woods?”
“I wanted to be near you.”
I winced, and looked up at her, and couldn’t bear it anymore. “Come here.”
She threw herself into my outstretched arms and I hugged her fiercely. Our first real hug since I was in the hospital, so tight I felt the tendons in my arm pull like barbed wire. But I didn’t relent. I’d dreamed of this. This was exactly how it felt in my dreams: so sweet it hurt.
After a while I realized she’d gone still and I’d pressed my face into her hair and was just breathing her scent, that autumn spice, leaves turning, grass crackling. Her heart drummed fast against mine. I disentangled myself, sprawled on the opposite side of the couch. She drew her knees up tidily.
“Are we okay?” she said.
“I don’t know. But this is better than hating you.”
“Did you really hate me?”
I gazed at her across the couch. “Hate is when you love someone but wish you didn’t.”
Candlelight danced in her lenses. She faced me unflinching. Elle had a hard time looking people in the eye, but not me.
“Max won’t bother you again,” I said. “I promise.”
“How can you promise that?”
“I just can.”
They were paying too much attention to us. I was designated drink-watcher that night, and I spotted the creepers right away: two clean-cut frat boys in Ralph Lauren who ignored a club full of sorority girls to beeline straight for us—my nerdy bestie, our tatted-up Aussie friend, Blythe, and me in paint-splotched work clothes. Not your typical bro bait.
These guys were up to no good.
Blythe was already hammered. “So which one of you blokes is the bottom?” she said, and Ellis, polite as always, tried to apologize till Blythe kissed her in front of everyone, open-mouthed. We were all shocked. I looked away, feeling weird. Like something clutched at me from the inside, claw-nailed. Something you might call jealousy. Ralph #1 caught my eye.
He smiled, but it was a shark’s smile.
I put Blythe in a cab, and told off Ralph #2 when he tried to climb in with her. Sleazebag. When I walked back into the club, Ralph #1 was pulling the oldest trick in the book on Ellis.
He dropped his wallet to the floor, credit cards sliding out. As she bent to retrieve it, he tapped a packet of powder into her drink.
“We should get going, too,” I said. “Mind walking us to the train?”
I flirted the whole way. He boarded with us. When we left the station I insisted that we switch cars, sending Elle across first. The frat boy followed, and I yanked him back onto the coupling between cars. He teetered off balance. I levered him over the edge by his collar. Wind screamed and streetlights smeared past in neon ribbons.
“Look down.” I pushed his head forward. “See this? If you ever lay a finger on her, this is how I will kill you.”
(—Bergen, Vada. The Things We Do for Love. Colored pencil on paper.)
“I’ve never let anyone hurt you, Elle.”
“That’s true. You’re the only one who hurts me.”
Something sharp pricked my gut. “I should go. Don’t talk to anyone else about the accident. Come to me first.”
“Why don’t you tell Max the truth?”
“I did.”
“Then why don’t you tell me the truth?”
I got up and stalked toward the door. Elle darted after me, and when I knocked her away she made another grab, rougher, and we stumbled against the wall.
“What are you doing?” I hissed, pinning her to the planks. “We’ve been through this before. It doesn’t end well.”
“It doesn’t end, ever.” She trailed her fingers over my throat, my wild pulse. “I know you still feel this.”
“Of course I feel it. I’m not totally dead.” I shoved her hand off. “But it fucking hurts. And I’m tired of pain.”
“Then stop fighting.”
“Fighting what?”
“Us.”
Ellis grasped my face and kissed me.
My mouth hung open against hers, gasping. Shock. Every nerve lit and overloaded and popped and for an instant it was like the moment of impact, glass floating all around me, a shrapnel cloud of shattered light. Then my hands shifted to her jaw and I kissed her back, hard. She tasted like cigarette vapor, cool and herbal. It used to drive me so crazy. It still did. My thumbs bracketed her mouth and I pulled her lips open, took the top in mine. Ran my tongue inside, roughly. I tasted spearmint and sage and her, just her, a clear sweetness like a mountain stream. I pressed my body to hers to the wall. Slim bones, the thrash of blood and breath beneath translucent skin. Her want all tangled up in rage and fear. My hand slid under her shirt, found the tattoo on her left ribs. The one that matched mine.
If you’re going to get one, I’d told her, get one that’ll mean something when you’re older.
Get it for someone you’ll love forever.
She kept kissing me and I couldn’t stop. My body rebelled. I wanted this so much, even knowing where it would lead. Knowing I’d wake in her bed, a lace of bare limbs and soft skin, hair knotted, hearts heavy. Knowing she’d bury her face in her hands while I dressed and left.
I jerked away, breathless.
“Don’t stop,” she said.
“I can’t do this.”
“Why?”
I started to speak but I really just wanted to kiss her again, softer. We drifted from the wall to the couch and I leaned on the armrest and brushed my lips over hers. An open kiss, breathing into each other’s mouths. Slower, lighter. Eventually so slow and light it stopped being a kiss at all, and I looked up into her face.
“I can’t,” I said again, weakly.
“I missed you.”
I touched her cheek. “I missed you, too. So much.”
Her bangs tumbled into her eyes, hanging above that wine-red mouth. Her eyelashes were a fringe of fire. She gave me a mournful, longing look that twisted me up inside.
“This is why we fight so much,” she said. “Because we’re fighting this.”
I kept trying to let go but my hands locked to her skin and she kissed me again, this time slow, intent, raising my chin and raking my hair back. Ellis kissed with that charming meticulousness that was so her, moving over every inch of my mouth and parting my lips and curling her tongue around mine softly and insistently till I tasted her everywhere, till I felt totally filled in, completely kissed, completely hers. Then her teeth sank into my bottom lip and I gasped and she tilted her head, watching me come undone.
This felt right. No matter how fucked-up things got, this always felt right.
Being in her hands.
“I want you back,” she breathed.
“As your friend, or this?”
“Everything. You were my everything, Vada.”
This was the problem with being so close. Friendship became codependence. Codependence consumed. When you possessed every piece of someone’s heart and soul, it was only natural to want the flesh, too. Skin, bone, blood.
I grazed my lips over her cheek. “I have to go.”
Out in the night woods I sank to my knees, hands over my mouth, holding in something wild, bestial. In The Wounded Deer, a buck with Kahlo’s face kneels on the floor of a withered forest, his body pierced with arrows. His eyes are calm, focused on something far off. In the distance the turquoise sea glistens while he bleeds.
I bit my palm. Didn’t cry out. An owl watched me with coin-bright eyes, pitilessly.
Need to avoid real life? Drown yourself in work.
I’d disappointed my regulars this week, so I made up for it with hard-core shows. No build-up, no tease. I started with the tie around my neck, face aflame with broken blood vessels, all the life in me surging to the surface of my skin. Afterward I’d check stills from the video captures and see a stranger. A necklace of bruises around her throat. A glaze in her bloodshot eyes.
