I turn on my other side to look at him. As badly as we started this, the week has been wonderful. I recall his weird manner when we arrived first at the house, his anger and how he stared at me. It didn’t occur to me until that moment that I hadn’t said I love you to Alan. Not in Berkeley. Not on the phone. And not in my first minutes here. It was in my heart. It was in my head. Somehow I never said it.
Slipping from the bed, I spot the shirt Alan was wearing yesterday laying on the floor and I shrug into it. I go into the bathroom, quietly close the door, and I sink onto the icy travertine floor, staring at myself in the full wall mirror. I leave tomorrow for Berkeley. It hurts so much every time I think of returning to my life there.
A light trickle of tears spill down my cheeks since I don’t know what happens after tomorrow. I’m still not sure what we are and what this is. Logic tells me when I walk out that door we are over, but my heart doesn’t want to believe it.
I hear the door open and I lift my face to find Alan staring down at me. He crosses the space between us and sinks beside me on the travertine. “Chrissie, why are you crying?”
“I don’t know.”
He leans his back against the tub, copying my posture, legs bent in front of him, and lets out a slow, even breath. His eyes lock with mine in the reflection. “If you’re crying in here over us being together, then you should stop it now,” he murmurs, a trace of irritation in his voice. “It’s probably the first sane thing either of us have done in over two years. It’s definitely the first sane thing I’ve done since you left New York.”
A soggy laugh pushes its way out of my emotion-tight throat. I lay my cheek on my knees and stare at the scar on my wrist. How ugly the scar looks in all moments of my life except the moments I’m with Alan.
“I don’t think I would qualify as a sane thing for anyone to do, not even you,” I mutter, deliberately silly to hide that I feel completely overwhelmed.
He doesn’t smile, he shakes his head and eases back from me. He reaches into the tub and turns on the knobs. “Why is it you still can’t talk to me?”
“It’s not just you, Alan.”
“I know. But with me it shouldn’t be that way.”
I watch him as he focuses on filling the tub, feeling my heart clench tighter. He’s right. I should be able, after all we’ve been through, to say anything to Alan. I don’t know why I can’t and I don’t know why I always seem to be my worst me with him.
He turns off the knobs, undresses me and sets me in the tub. He climbs in behind me and eases me back against him. His hands move up and down my arms with the soap. “Tell me what’s going on inside that head of yours, Chrissie.”
“I don’t want to leave tomorrow.”
“Then don’t. Stay.”
“I can’t stay, Alan. My classes start next week. I can’t not show up, especially since I don’t even know what this is.”
“This?” The way he repeats that makes me tense. “I love you. You love me. That’s what this is. It’s that simple.”
I can feel him studying me, trying to assessing my reaction to this, but it’s not simple and I don’t know what to say so I say nothing.
“Are you going back to Santa Barbara or Berkeley tomorrow?” he asks.
“Berkeley.”
“I won’t call you unless you tell me you want me to. Do you want me to call after you leave here, Chrissie?”
I can feel him watching me, waiting. “I want you to call.”
He continues to wash me, and I can feel his body relax and quiet behind me. In spite of my internal distress, I feel my emotions start to calm. His long fingers wash me gently, up and down, very slowly everywhere, changing me from disjointed parts into a single vessel, aroused and wanting him.
My hair is lifted from my shoulders and his lips touch my neck. He turns me in his arms, but he doesn’t lower me to straddle him. Instead, I’m gently lifted and he lays me on the wide tiled surface beneath the window. My damp flesh chills even as I heat with anticipation. He slides my hips to the edge and I lean back on my elbows atop the stacks of towels there. My legs are brought to rest and dangle over his shoulders, and he’s devouring me with his mouth there, the strokes of his tongue, torturously light and slow, potent anyway.
His mouth roams my thighs, my hips, my scars, and my sex. My legs start to quake and his hands clasp my thighs, his mouth never breaking contact with me. I start to move against him, impatient in a feral way. I don’t know how he does this to me, from emotionally messy to sexually urgent from the first second he touches me.
He goes deeper with his tongue and I’m raging. My fingers curl in his hair and my back arches. I begin to shake more violently, and I come against his mouth in shuddering waves; but only now because he wants it so.
Panting and limp, I lie back on the towels, his mouth still there moving lightly against me. He scoops me up in his arms and carries me back to bed. He lies us both atop it, our bodies damp, and he starts kissing and touching me. He sinks his body into me deeply, but stays carefully balanced above me on his arms, surrounding me, my eyes unable to see anything but his face.
I’m breathing hard and I’m pulsing again. He pounds hard into me in a frantic rhythm, faster and faster, less gentle each thrust. He doesn’t hold back. He pumps his body in me and lets go.
His body moves from mine in an uncharacteristic quick departure and a ripple of pain moves along my nerves from his rapid retreat from my flesh. My eyes flutter wide to find Alan sitting on his knees staring down at me.
“This is what I’ll think of when you’re not with me…” he roughly breathes into my chaotic senses. “…how you look at this moment loving me.”
~~~
The next morning, I open my eyes to find Alan sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed. Our last night together was intense and I’m emotionally drained.
I stare at him and say nothing. His posture tells me he’s struggling with something. Perhaps with what he wants to say. Or maybe with what he doesn’t want to say. I can’t tell which. Everything feels strange, off-kilter, between us.
Alan looks at me. “This can be anything you want it to be, Chrissie.”
He eases forward and sets something on the table beside the bed. I can’t look because I’m afraid of what I will see. I watch him walk from the room, and then shift my gaze to the table next to me. Everything inside of me collapses in slow, agonizing waves as I pick up the key. The metal in my hand is cold and jagged of edge. In elegant simplicity, Alan clarified exactly what we are in a brutal, single shot-glass-like dose of reality.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
December 1992…
I curl on the couch, sipping a cup of tea, watching as Neil and Rene battle over video games. Now that Neil is hardly ever here and his music is getting some radio play, Rene seems not willing to break the détente that started when Neil moved to Seattle in 1990.
Rene throws her controller, only just missing the TV. She points at Neil. “Asshole.”
He leans back into the couch cushions, laughing in exasperation. “You’re not only the most shallow girl I’ve ever met, you’re a poor sport and you suck at video games.”
Rene springs to her feet. “I’m going to grab another beer. Do you want one?”
Neil nods. “Yep, bring me one.”
He laughs as he watches her walk away and then turns until he’s facing me on the couch. “Are you OK? You’ve seemed really quiet, kind of off for the last week.”
I force a smile that does nothing to calm my inner distress. “I’m OK. Just worn out from finals and I’m not looking forward to that seven hour drive home tomorrow.”
He pulls my feet onto his lap and starts to rub them. “Then don’t go back to Santa Barbara. Stay with me.”
“I’ve got to go home, Neil. I don’t want to piss off Jack by ditching him for the holidays.”