“I didn’t want to be with him. I just didn’t want to be at the party. Your reaction was completely irrational. I didn’t do anything to deserve any of that. What did I do that was so awful that you would want to deliberately hurt me?”
He’s frustrated again. I can tell he doesn’t want to answer, and he doesn’t like the direction I’m taking this.
“Lillian was a very popular actress in her day and the biggest whore in London, Chrissie,” he says through gritted teeth. “I didn’t even know who my father was until I was eighteen and he died. Lillian gifted me with the truth and a trust fund, as if everything would be fine. I knew him my entire life and never once did he acknowledge me. I didn’t have a clue he was my dad.”
He turns away from me and I can see something powerful coursing through him. “My father was Vittorio Manzone.”
My eyes round in surprise. “The Italian tenor?”
He nods.
He stares down at me. “You hit a nerve, Chrissie, not wanting to be seen with me, and I fucked up. I’m still working through some things. You have to be patient with me. I’m doing my best here.”
“I don’t think your best works for me, Alan,” I whisper with more injury in my voice than I want to show.
“I’m doing my best,” he repeats, raking a hand through his hair. “I’m being honest with you, I’ve told you things I’ve never told anyone, and if you were anyone else I wouldn’t be here or trust being honest.”
I change course. “I’m not staying in New York any longer. I have to go home.”
He takes a deep breath and doesn’t move.
“You are not leaving, Chrissie.”
He leans in to kiss me and I inch back instinctively. If he touches me I will crumble. I pull farther back.
“You need to go.” I’m proud of how my voice sounds this time. Calm. In control. Firm.
“What? No.” He eases back from me, blinking. “No, I’m not leaving until we’ve worked this out.”
“There is nothing to work out.”
“Don’t say that.”
“You’re not good for me.”
“How can you say that? We are good for each other,” he says in desperation. “I am completely lost in you and that’s a good place to be, Chrissie. A very good place to be.”
I look away from him again. I am lost in you too, Alan, and I’m not sure if that is a good place to be. I feel the tears. I grab a tissue. I hate that I’m crying, that I couldn’t hold it back until he was gone.
I stare about the room. I’m so tired. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want Alan to leave. I want to curl up in bed, cry, and then fall asleep next to him. But I can’t forgive him. Not after last night. I need to send him away.
“When will you send my things over?”
“Never. You’re not going.”
He sinks down on the sofa beside me. I can suddenly see how tired he is. It feels so very right to have him close to me. “I love you. I don’t want to fight. Please, don’t leave.”
“You hurt me.”
He swallows. “I love you.”
He inhales sharply, lies his head back against the cushion and closes his eyes. He looks so despondent, so weary, and so young. It’s so unfair that he can shift effortlessly into someone who melts my heart. It makes me want to curl into him, hold him, even after the horrible things he’s done.
“I’m so tired, Chrissie. Tired of the bullshit. Tired of everything. I just want one thing in my life not drowning in shit. I just want to be with you and be happy, be with you and let all the other fucking shit go.”
His lids lift just enough so he can look at me. Gently, he tugs my hand from beneath me, where I’d buried it so he couldn’t take it. He places a feather-light kiss in my palm.
“Can we just go to sleep and finish this later, Chrissie?” He sets my teacup on the table. “Never argue when you’re tired. It’s not good. And I won’t be able to sleep unless you are next to me.”
I hesitate. Alan picks me up and carries me to my bedroom.
* * *
Reluctantly, I open my eyes. I don’t want to wake. I don’t want round two of the fighting. I don’t want to end us. And I don’t think I should go any farther with Alan. I’m at a point where I can exit. Only I don’t want to exit, though I know deep down I should.
I check the clock. It is 10 p.m. We’ve slept fifteen hours straight, and I have not moved from the tight ball on the edge of the bed where I deposited myself after Alan released me. I didn’t argue with him about postponing our fight or lying down with him to sleep, but I wasn’t about to lay down with him as if everything were normal. I don’t know where we are, but we are not in normal. Not that we are ever in normal, not really, not in the way I used to think normal would be. Alan and I together are a lot of things. Normal just isn’t one of them.
I carefully turn to look at him. I want to get up, but I don’t want to wake him. He is wrapped around me in that warm, surrounding way that feels as though he is holding onto me, even in sleep. His flesh is warm. His breathing is quiet.
How do I get out of here without waking him? I need a little distance so I can think through what I should do.
Suddenly, my panties are gone and I am pressed into Alan in a perfect, side-by-side fit, and he is in me without foreplay or stirring touch or kisses. He’s just in me and this is different. It feels dark and angry as he slams into me, filling me, even more so than it did being pounded against the bedroom door.
His groans are different. His touch is different. His fingers on my breasts are different, the way those callused tips roll my nipples, tugging and pinching. He is something beyond angry, I can feel it, and I close my eyes, absorbing him, part afraid, a greater part hungrily savoring. The sensations through my flesh push me higher, too quickly, so right.
He grasps my hip firmly, eases out of me slowly, and then again, harder this time, slams into me.
“Don’t ever leave me.”
I lie panting beneath his touch, feeling his intense anger, knowing he’s going to get rougher. My femaleness courses through my veins. It is messed up, but my insides quicken, excited by my femaleness and his temper.
I’m about to surrender to the heat of my own flesh. A ragged whisper penetrates my near exploding senses.
“Did you fuck him?”
What? No! My senses halt in their march toward climax.
“Did you fuck him?” he repeats fiercely.
He stays still.
“No,” I hiss furiously, the shock of him asking me that leaving me breathless and flashing with anger. “No.”
He closes his eyes, there is a ragged shudder through his limbs, and the feel of him is different, frenzied and possessive. He starts again, a brutal, divine rhythm. I hear his groan, a guttural thing, desperation, relief, sadness. He moans low in his throat and I can feel the tension change, as his adrenaline runs through his veins, a different type of current.
“I’ve been out of my mind since you walked out the door with him,” he breathes, his face buried in my hair. “Don’t do that again. Don’t walk away from me. Don’t make me feel like I don’t matter to you. I can stand anything, Chrissie, except not mattering to you.”
And then the words are lost. Alan is letting go, calling my name, and I surrender and explode with him. I sink to the bed. I sleep.
* * *
Alan gazes at me, assessing my expression as I stare up at him.
It’s morning and I don’t have a clue where we go from here. Last night was different. I don’t know what is happening beneath his surface, but there is something and I can feel it. I should be furious that in the cease-fire between the rounds of our fight, he decided to have an extremely rough “did you fuck him” fuck.
His anger issues. I’ve seen them, but last night I felt it in his body, in the way he had sex with me. Did I fuck him? God, Alan, how could you ask me that?
I try to rally my anger, fortification for today’s round of fighting, but I’m slightly disappointed in myself. I realize that I am less angry with him because I really got off on the angry “did you fuck him” fuck. It was weird, consuming, and a turn-on.