Текст книги "Animate Me"
Автор книги: Ruth Clampett
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 26 страниц)
“They got married after you were born?”
“Yeah, my mom didn’t even want to but the families kept pushing. A lot of good it did; they always fought, and finally divorced when I was thirteen.”
I feel sad for her. As weird as my parents are, they love each other deeply. I can’t imagine what my home life would have been like if they didn’t.
“I think that’s why I’m with Arnauld. I purposely picked someone who is as adverse to commitment as I am. He doesn’t ever want to get married or tied down to just one person.”
“And you feel the same?” I boldly ask. “You couldn’t be happy with just one person if you loved them?” I hold my breath waiting for her answer.
She examines the beer bottle intently before taking a swig and looking back out at the view. “I don’t know. I’ve never felt that strongly about anyone. It’s hard for me to imagine, but I guess that with the right guy it could be possible.”
I turn and look at the view mulling over what she’s revealed. Again, the lottery odds and my willingness to gamble on her drift into my mind. She only left the lowest odds with her answer, but that doesn’t mean I won’t bet all my chips on her anyway. What choice do I have? She’s all I want.
We finally carry our beer bottles into the kitchen and I gather up my things.
“Oh,” she moans, rubbing her tummy. “All that beer and I’m stuffed, my jeans feel tight.”
“Next time we do this just wear your yoga pants, they’re stretchy,” I suggest in my most innocent voice…the sex fiend inside of me howling with delight.
“Oh, you just want to ogle my ass,” she teases.
What does she expect? Her yoga pants have become a visual cue to my sexuality. “So what if I do? Anything wrong with that? I’m a guy, you know.”
After all…now that I’ve seen Brooke in yoga pants…I have seen the light.
She steps behind me, puts her hands on my shoulders and starts massaging as she pushes me to the front door. “Speaking of which, when is your date with lucky Miss Dani?”
“Saturday,” I lie. I haven’t even set the faux date up yet.
“Where are you taking her?” Brooke’s hands work harder digging into the knots under my shoulder blades.
“I don’t know yet, do you have any suggestions?”
“Let me think about it when I’m not beer buzzed.”
“Okay, I’ll ask again tomorrow when I bring you your coffee.”
As much as I hate to end the massage, I turn around to hug her goodbye. “Thanks. I had fun tonight.”
“Working on my website was fun?”
“Well, yeah, you’re always fun.”
She pushes my hair out of my eyes in a gentle way and smiles warmly.
As much as I know I shouldn’t say anything, being this close to her does something to me.
“Hey, would you mind if I practiced with you one more time? You know, to get ready for my date with Dani.”
“You want me to kiss you?” she asks, not sounding against the idea.
“I thought maybe this time I could try to kiss you. You know, learn to be more assertive.”
“Are you going all alpha-male on me?”
“Well, I thought I would try. But if you don’t want me to…”
“No, I’m committed to the cause here. We are sacrificing for the greater good. Go ahead and pretend I’m Dani. Pull me in your arms and kiss me, you fool.”
“Okay,” I bite my lip and try to figure out which angle I should work from. “Are you ready?”
“Don’t ask that. It’s not sexy to ask a woman if she’s ready. Just give her the look and if she gives the look back, go for it.”
I repeat that advice twice in my head so I won’t forget it. “Okay, the look.” I narrow my eyes at her.
She giggles. “You look pissed. Why don’t you take your glasses off?”
I pull my glasses off and carefully fold them, slipping them in my pocket.
“Wow, your eyes are amazing!” she exclaims. “We’re going to take you contact lens shopping soon.”
She loves my eyes. I’ll put up with sticking painful plastic discs in my eyes just to hear her swoon like that again.
This time I just look at her without trying to be cool or suave and I can feel the difference. I’m looking at her with my heart not just my eyes, and I think she sees it too.
Her eyes say yes back. She settles against the wall right next to the door and waits.
I lean down and move forward, leading with my lips as if they’re a missile slowly heading towards a target. When they land I remember how soft and warm she felt last time we kissed, and I relax into her and let my instincts take over.
She’s tentative, seemingly not wanting to take over, but lets me give my best effort. If I were being graded, I probably would’ve gotten a C plus, not stellar, but a far cry from my previous total failure.
When we part she looks up at me and smiles encouragingly. “Once, more,” she instructs, “but this time we’ll get your hands involved.”
She takes one of my hands and perches it on her shoulder, the other on her hip. “Okay, that’s good,” she affirms.
Wow. What a difference; I’m stunned. Maybe it’s just because the kiss warmed me up, but it feels like there are sparks firing from her body right into mine. It’s a super-hero force field. Surely if we harness this, we could save the world.
Deep breath, I look in her eyes…they are sparkling and saying, oh yes, kiss me. I note the green light, and go.
This times when our lips touch the melting begins immediately. I don’t even think about it, the hand on her shoulder slides to her back and pulls her into my arms. The other hand winds across her hip to her lower back, just above her bottom. I press her even closer as our lips move together. When I feel her hand twist in my hair my tongue gets involved…very involved, and so does hers.
I’m kissing Brooke, and it’s so hot. This has to be at least a B plus. Hot damn.
I only pull apart when I worry that if I don’t pull my hips away I won’t be able to hide my growing secret. He’s that happy, the guy in my pants, and I’m not ready for Brooke to meet him yet.
I open my eyes to see that Brooke’s are still closed, and her lips flushed and swollen.
“Wow,” I whisper and she smiles lazily.
“Yeah, wow. You’re a fast learner.”
“Well, I have a great teacher.” I grin, trying to keep her attention focused above, so she doesn’t see what’s happening to my body below.
“Keep kissing that that, and no girl will be able to resist you.”
“Okay.” I nod my head. I desperately want to forget that in her mind this was intended for Dani, and she was just trying to help me.
She pulls the door open. “Thanks again for your help with the website. Can we do this again next week?”
“Sure,” I say as I step outside. “So, see you tomorrow afternoon.”
“See you,” she says softly, smiling.
I’m almost to the gate when she calls out to me.
“Hey Nathan, when you go to Starbucks, do you buy Dani a drink too?”
I should probably lie, but I just can’t. Not about this. It’s Brooke and my special thing…just ours.
I shake my head and push my hands in my pocket.
Her smile is big and bright. If I didn’t know better I would think that she was really happy about that.
“Just wondering,” she calls out, before buzzing the gate and waving her final goodbye.
Later, about a mile from my house, I drive by my local Starbucks and smile. It’s closed, but its sign’s still lit, glowing against the dark sky. That green and white circle is the bright light in my murky afternoons, my very own Brooke-beacon of hope. In my quest for Brooke, I have come to believe in its power as we move forward, one caramel macchiato at a time.
Animate Me / Chapter Seven / I am Clark Kent
“There’s nothing better than a little old-fashion Smurf Power!” ~ Hefty Smurfvi
Just past noon Joel sticks his head in my cube. “I think the Incredible Hulk is looking for you.”
I find my tall, well-built brother, Curtis in the lobby chatting up one of the producers, Dawn. His charm is irrefutable. Dawn is pretty serious, yet he has her giggling.
“Hey Nathan,” she says as I approach. “Look who I found.”
“I found you,” he corrects her. “And you can bet I’m going to come looking for you again.”
She blushes, looking down. “Okay, well it was nice meeting you Curtis.” She scurries off.
“Do you know I’ve seen at least a dozen cute girls since I’ve been here, dude. You should be hitting this stuff hard.”
“Thanks for the brotherly advice,” I say, trying not to smirk. “Hey, you still want to see my work before we have lunch?”
“That’s why I’m here,” he responds, nodding.
I lead him back to my cube and he starts looking at the drawings on my animation desk. “I still can’t figure out how you learned to draw like this. It’s not like we have a single artist in our family.”
I click on my computer screen. “Here, check out this pencil test of a scene I’ve been working on.”
A sequence comes on of Bucky chasing Bernie through a flea market and strange items like sombreros and suits of armor attach to them as they run.
“Where’s the color and why are they floating in space?” he asks, leaning into the screen.
“I’m working on the animation part. When I’m done, the character lines are digitized and the colorists digitally paint the animation. Then the backgrounds are created separately by a different set of artists, and the work is then layered together.”
“That sounds complicated.” He says, rubbing his chin.
“Yeah, and that’s not the half of it. There are sound effects, music, editing. Not to mention the writing, storyboarding and timing and voice recordings at the front end. These days most studios do most of it overseas, so I’m lucky I still get to do it this way.”
“All of that for a fucking cartoon,” he shakes his head in disbelief.
“Well, I could say the same for what you do—all that bullshit for some fucking money.”
“Don’t pop your cork, bro, I’m actually really impressed.” He pats me on the back. “Let’s go eat. I’m starving.”
I decide to take him to Mo’s in Toluca Lake because the burgers are almost as big as his head. Big C still eats like he did when he played football in high school.
“So how’s it going with Beth?” he asks before taking a handful of fries.
“Brooke,” I correct him. “It’s going fine, well better than fine, I think.”
He raises his eyebrows like he can’t believe a dork like me can be doing fine with a girl. “Are you being chill, like I told you to be?”
It occurs to me that in his eyes my plan may be a good one, so I test the waters.
“Really chill. As a matter of fact she thinks I like another girl at the studio, and she’s going to help me get her.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? I told you to be chill, not insane.”
“Don’t you see, she feels safe now spending time with me. And she’s like my dating coach, she was showing me how to kiss Dani…the other girl.”
“No shit, that is bizarre. So she is kissing you to show you how to kiss someone else when she doesn’t know that you’re actually really kissing her?”
“Exactly!” I exclaim.
“You are one crazy fucker. So tell me Einstein, how do you see this playing out in the end? Or did it occur to you to figure that out first?”
“No, the whole thing just sort of happened. I’m figuring it out as I go along and it seems to be working just fine.” I am getting irritated with his doom and gloom. It’s a black cloud lingering over our table.
He shakes his head. “But in the end—no matter what—she will know that you lied. You deceived and manipulated her. And in my vast experience with women, that’s usually a deal breaker.”
I spend the rest of lunch watching him eat, since I’ve completely lost my appetite. As we go to leave I ask if he minds us swinging by Outer Limits since Billie wants me to pick up my special-ordered vinyl Harley Quinn collectible figurine that goes with my Joker. It’s the last one she has and she’s sick of people eyeballing it despite the fact that my name is on it.
Billie is standing near the door rearranging a display when we enter the store. She turns towards us, and her eyes widen when she sees Curtis. For almost any girl, you would hardly notice the gesture, but with hard-ass Billie it’s like the earth has tilted off its rotation. He must be wearing that pheromone cologne or something, since I appear to be witnessing textbook instant attraction.
“Hey, Nathan,” she says, never taking her eyes off him. “Who’s your friend?”
Curtis steps forward. “Hi, I’m Curtis, Nathan’s brother. And you are?”
“Wilhelmina.” She smiles. “But you can call me Billie.”
I move to the back of the store, disgusted that in ten seconds he has scored with Billie-the-ball-buster. Everyone but me has asked her out and she usually just rolls her eyes and punches them on the arm.
When I finally head back to the front to see what’s going on, Billie has her shirt hiked up and she is showing Curtis the tattoos on her lower back. He is running his fingers over her skin and quietly charming her with his admiration.
Curtis wins yet again.
I’m quiet for the first part of the ride back to the studio, but then I can’t help myself. I need my suspicions confirmed. “When?” I ask.
“Late this afternoon, after work.”
“Really?” I grumble. I’m not jealous, just frustrated. Everything is always so easy for Curtis.
“She told me that she wants to know everything about me…if you know what I mean.”
I take a sharp breath. Damn. We weren’t even in there twenty minutes.
“I can’t even believe how I feel,” he says. “There’s no bullshit with this girl. She serves everything straight up, and it’s a revelation compared to the other women I’ve known. Our attraction was completely visceral.” He shakes his head in wonder.
• • •
Later in her office, Brooke gives me a soft smile as I present the latest Starbucks cup to her. “Do you know how much I look forward to seeing what you’re going to create for me?” She asks.
“Well, I like drawing them for you,” I reply. “I hope you like this one.”
She turns the cup and grins when she sees that I’ve rendered one of her collectible lady-head vases on the cup, but this time she’s the lady head with pencils and a pair of scissors coming out of the top of her head.
“Oh, Nathan…I love it! I’m going to set this cup next to my collection.”
“I’m glad,” I say. “It was fun to do.” I let out a sigh as I sink down into her guest chair.
“Hey, are you okay?” Brooke asks as she notices me pull my hand through my hair.
I can’t hide anything from her. “Not really.” I admit. After my loser lunch with Curtis I’ve convinced myself to tell Brooke the truth and cut my losses.
She walks over to her office door and closes it.
“What’s up?” she asks after sitting on her couch and motioning for me to join her.
“I just have the worst feeling, like everything’s a mess and I’m not sure how to fix it. Do you ever feel that way?”
“More often than I’d like,” she says nodding.
I look over at her and notice that her face looks drawn and pale.
“What about you? Are you okay?”
“Not really, no. I had something really disturbing happen earlier.”
“You want to talk about it?”
She suddenly stands up and goes over to her desk, grabbing her purse. “Come on. Let’s get out of here, I need a drink and it sounds like you do too.”
Morgan doesn’t say a thing when Brooke tells her that we’re leaving to take care of something. I keep as neutral of a face as I can, despite the fact that I am nervously thrilled to be running off somewhere with her. The excitement distracts me from the feeling of doom that was weighing me down only minutes ago.
We stand quietly in the elevator, and when we stop on the sixth floor Kevin joins us holding some storyboards.
“Hey, Nathan,” he says before turning to look forward.
Something suddenly occurs to me. “Um, Kevin, will you do me a favor? I need to run out and take care of something. Can you let Joel know? Tell him I finished the revisions.”
“Sure, no problem.” Kevin nods. I don’t think he’s associating me with Brooke who is standing quietly in the corner.
For a moment I’m grateful he’s the one that I ran into. Andy or Nick would have asked me twenty questions.
Once in Brooke’s Prius we head out without a word. After a long quiet minute I finally speak up.
“Where are we going?”
“Smokehouse, over by Warner Bros.”
I smile at the odd choice. It’s so old school that it’s cool. Despite the traditional decor, and older clientele, there’s something about the place. I’m sure a million film and cartoon deals have been made there.
“I saw Frank and Ollie there once eating soup.”
“Disney’s Frank and Ollie?” I ask with reverence. They were a famed part of what was termed Disney’s Nine Old Men, the brilliant animators who had worked on all his key classic films.
“Yup, I almost asked if I could join them.”
“I bet they would have loved that, such a beautiful woman fan-girling all over them.”
She looks up at me surprised. Is it because I called her beautiful? It can’t be since that fact is irrefutable. Maybe she’s just surprised that someone as dense as me noticed.
“I wish I had.” She responds after the pause. “Now they’re both gone, and I could have told them what Bambi and Dumbo meant to me as a young girl.”
After being sat in a deep booth in the corner of the room, we decide to order serious drinks so Brooke gets a martini and I, a double Jameson on the rocks. We start out talking about the cartoons we grew up with. The Smurfs are on both of our lists and I laugh telling Brooke about the twisted caricature I remember seeing of Hefty Smurf doing inappropriate things with Smurfette. Brooke practically spits up her martini.
“You’re so evil,” she laughs. “I’ll never be able to look at those little creatures again without having that idea in my head!”
“I guess that’s the point, revising animation history, one disturbing caricature at a time.” I can tell as I watch her face warm up that the drink is doing its magic. She looks much happier and relaxed now then when she was in her office.
“Oh, I’m glad we did this,” she exclaims, stretching her legs out under the table so that they pass in between mine. “I was ready to kill Arnauld, and now I barely give a fuck about him and his agenda.”
“Agenda?” I ask, too curious to stay quiet.
She rubs her hands over her face and moans.
I take a long sip of my drink before setting it back on the table near hers. “What did he do? It must have been bad to get you so upset.”
She plops a green olive in her mouth and watches me as if she’s trying to decide whether to tell me a secret or not.
“He tried to whore me out.”
I grip the edge of the table and my back goes rigid. “What? Did I hear you right? You have to explain what you mean by that.”
“Okay, I’ve told you that we have an open relationship, right?”
“Yes.” That’s one bit of information I’ll never forget.
“Well, we had our network meeting today and they’ve been working us over hard, both with content and budgets. It’s so aggravating to always feel like you’re on your knees for them…at their mercy in every way.”
This is a side of the business I never hear about, and from the sounds of it I’m lucky to be shielded from it.
“So the key decision maker, Stephen, is this prick with a bad comb-over. And lucky girl that I am, Stephen seems to have a thing for me. The looks he gives me during meetings are so inappropriate. He’s even suggested that we go out a few times to ‘go over business’ but I always turn him down.” Her hands curl into fists and press into the table. “Arnauld knows all this; he knows how I feel about him.”
My stomach’s churning, and our waitress brings over our second round. I take another long sip, as does Brooke.
“So the meeting ends, and as I’m packing up, Stephen slithers over to me and asks me to lunch. I lie and tell him that I have a lunch meeting with Arnauld and our directors. The words have just left my mouth when Arnauld jumps in and assures me, in front of Stephen, that they will be fine without me and to go ahead and have a nice time with Stephen.”
“He threw you under the bus,” I say quietly, anger in my voice.
“And removed my panties before he did,” she agrees, disgustedly.
“So Stephen says he will meet me in the hallway after a pit stop, and Arnauld pulls me aside and encourages me to charm him into getting the deal through.”
“Hell no, what did you say?”
She leans forward into her drink and sighs. “I was so stunned, so completely stunned and furious that I couldn’t say anything. I just turned and walked away from him. Besides, I couldn’t exactly start screaming at him since we were till in the building.”
“I understand,” I say sympathetically. “When I’m surprised I’m dumbstruck, that is my reaction more times than not.”
“And I got to spend the next two hours listening to Stephen talk about himself and avoiding his slimy advances.”
“Are you okay?” I ask, worry etched across my face.
“Yeah, but it was nasty. I had to abandon polite Brooke early on, but of course he liked that challenge. I did everything to dissuade him but kick him in the balls. That ass is persistent. And it’s beyond me how any of that could have helped Sketch Republic’s cause. The whole thing made me sick to my stomach. I will never be put in that position again.”
“I’m so sorry.” I look down and feel so frustrated that I can’t do anything to take that memory away. “So what are you going to do now to Arnauld? Let’s think of something deserving of the offense,” I say determinedly.
“Something really evil,” she agrees. But just then her phone vibrates telling her that she has a new text and I can see on the screen that it’s Arnauld trying to reach her.
“Where are you?” she reads off the screen. She laughs and then slowly types the answer. “Exactly where I want to be.” After hitting send, she looks at the phone and curses, “Fuck you, Arnauld.”
I smile, hoping she really means that. She turns and looks at me. “Have I ever told you that his real name isn’t Arnauld…it’s Arnold?”
“Arnold?” I choke out, almost spitting up my drink.
“Yeah, isn’t that rich? I discovered his high school yearbook once and found his picture. I called him Arnold once when we were having a fight and he stormed off like a big baby.” She grins.
A second later her phone prompts again.
She reads his response aloud. “What are you doing?” Her fingers fly over the text keys to respond. I imagine I can see the steam rising out of her ears like what happens to Yosemite Sam when Bugs Bunny really pisses him off.
“I thought you knew. I’m bending over. If he fucks me again I really think I’ll be able to close this deal.”
Why did she have to read that to me? It makes me sick and yet arouses me at the same time. I’m in pain, and I down the rest of my drink. The room tilts as a result.
She reads his response with a mock angry face. “That isn’t funny, Brooke. Oh, hairy back is getting angry,” she slurs.
“No, it really isn’t,” she types while reading aloud, then shuts off her phone. She waves for the waitress, who comes over warily. “Another round, please.”
You go, Buttercup!
I sit quietly wondering what to say. Finally I offer my best idea. “You want me to beat him up? My brother, who’s looks like the Incredible Hulk, would help and it wouldn’t be pretty.”
“You’re so thoughtful, and for the record that’s really hot.”
“I mean it,” I say. I want her to understand I mean business.
“I know you do and that means a lot to me. Still I have to say no, but thanks. Look, I’m a little loaded and enjoying venting, but for all my bitching I know he didn’t really want me to sleep with him. Charm him, yes, but not fuck him.”
“It’s still disgusting,” I insist.
“Yes, it is.” Her head drops and we sit silently for a minute before she looks back up. “Look, enough about me. What happened to you today?”
I realize that I shouldn’t tell this story drunk, but I’m overwhelmed with the urge to let out this gnawing frustration.
“Oh, I’m having envy issues. I’m so pathetic.”
“What happened?” she asks sympathetically.
“I had lunch with my brother today. After lunch we stopped at the comic book store, and I introduced him to my friend, Billie. She runs the place and is exceptionally good looking. And of course they had an instant love connection.”
“But I thought you liked Dani, why does him liking Billie, and her liking him, bother you?”
“I don’t know, probably because they’re most likely in bed right now. Women always fall all over Curtis and drag him to bed. He has amazing sex all the time, and I don’t. Things never work out that way for me.”
“Really?” she asks, looking disappointed for me.
“Sorry,” I groan, letting my face falls into my open hands.
“You don’t? What do you mean you don’t? You make it sound like you’ve never had great sex or something.”
I look up at her and blanch as I watch the blood also drain from her face.
“Oh my God,” she chants. “You’re not a virgin, please tell me that you’re not a virgin.”
I’m already the worst kind of loser and I don’t even care how it looks anymore. Defeated I lean into my drink and take another long sip. “Well, technically I may as well be for the lack of fun I’ve had.”
“I don’t understand. Is something wrong with you physically? I would imagine not since you felt more than healthy when you were holding me last night.”
I’m horrified and dumbstruck. I can’t even look her in the eye. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable talking to you about sex, or I mean my lack of hot sex, Brooke. It’s so humiliating.”
“First of all Nathan, I love to talk about sex. It’s my favorite subject. So please don’t be shy.”
She scoots over closer to me and reaches over, putting her hand on my knee. “You have to understand, I was raised by free-love hippy parents who were very open. By the time I was in high school, my mom left a candy jar full of condoms by the front door and tried, to my horror, to show me the best way to perform fellatio on a banana. Hell, all she ever talked about was sex. So there’s nothing you could say that would change what I think of you. This is a subject I’m very comfortable with. Besides, I bet I can help you.”
I look down into my drink and nod. “Okay.”
“Let’s take a step back for a moment. I knew about the awkward kissing issue, so is it similar with sex? Did you try, but not like it?”
“I don’t know where to start.” I pull on my hair in frustration.
“How about at the beginning?” she suggests gently.
“Well, I think I already told you that I was really shy in high school with the girls. My senior year I ended up going out with my friend’s sister for a while. We fumbled around and did stuff a few times but she was even more uncomfortable than I was about it and it wasn’t very satisfying. We really didn’t have any common interests, nor did we have good chemistry together so that didn’t help. We finally just gave up. Later when I got to CalArts I met Rachel, another animation student and within weeks we were involved.”
“She’s the one that didn’t like to kiss.”
I nod. “Yeah, but she’s so great in so many ways. We felt the same about animation and we talked about it non-stop. Before you knew it we were glued at the hip, together all the time. I was so happy to finally have that with someone.”
“That sounds great.”
“It was. Plus she was my biggest support, always telling me that I was the most talented in our year…that I was going to have a great career.”
“How sweet.” Brooke nods, encouragingly.
“It was so confusing though when it came to sex. She was very physical with me, always touching me, holding my hand, sitting on my lap but whenever I would try to initiate anything more she would just freeze. It started with the kissing. She hated the kissing. So finally I gave up with that.”
“But I had needs you know. I loved her and wanted to be with her…really be with her. So I just kept asking and finally she gave in, agreeing to try making love.”
“Well, that’s good, right?” she says, smiling.
“Honestly, I don’t know what I did wrong. I thought since we were in love it would be different than high school. But no matter how I touched her she didn’t react the way I expected…the way I’d seen in movies or read in books. She just laid there. And then when I tried to, you know, go inside of her, she said it hurt and she stopped me.”
I realize that my hands are twisted together painfully, and I pull my fingers apart and flex them while sighing.
“I cared about her so much. It took me weeks to get over that first time.”
“That’s awful,” she says.
“The next time I tried, I got us drinking first thinking it would relax her and the situation. Instead it just made her emotional. She started crying when I was only halfway inside of her.”
“Damn,” she mutters.
I nod. “You can imagine how I felt.”
“So I started doing research on how to please a woman. I desperately needed to figure out what I was doing wrong. I was obsessed. It was like I was trying to crack a secret code. I put together an arsenal of techniques and a plan of seduction…and the only thing that seemed to work was…you know…” I can feel my face on fire.
“When you went down on her?” She gently asks.
I nod, and look down embarrassed. “She was crazy for that and I got really good at it.”
“But what about you?” I can’t help but notice how sad Brooke looks, and my heart sinks even further.
“I loved making her feel good so it wasn’t the end of the world. Sure I wanted more, much more, but what could I do? And that is when I finally just accepted that I just didn’t have it – that indefinable thing that men should have to make women want them.”
But suddenly Brooke’s mood seems to shift, and she even looks a bit angry.
“Why are you making this all about you? What you did or didn’t do? Did you ever consider that she was just frigid when it came to full on intercourse?”
“Not really because she said she had a boyfriend in high school that really made her feel good. She made it clear it was me; whatever it was, I was lacking. Besides, my experiences hadn’t been good in high school either.”
Brooke huffs and folds her arms over her chest. “Really? Maybe she was lying about the boyfriend. She could’ve made him up to cover for her issues. Did you consider that?”
“No, Rachel wouldn’t do that to me. She loved me; I know she did. We stayed close even despite all that.”
“Do you still see her?”
“No, other than seeing her once last year; but we still talk. She took a job at Pixar and moved up North.”
“Does she have a boyfriend now?”
“Not that I know of, but that doesn’t prove anything. I don’t have a girlfriend either.”
“You’re unreal, Nathan.” She shakes her head with disbelief. I can hear the martini drawl in her tone. “Maybe I should just sleep with you and show you what you’re capable of. You need to know what good sex is.”
