Role Play Page 17

  “Ouch,” she said, trying to pull her knee away.

  I held onto her. “You don’t want it to get infected.”

  I washed methodically until slowly my hand with the towel stilled, as I remembered when I was a kid and the school nurse had cleaned a cut on my knee. Nobody ever touched me as a kid. Nobody ever gave me hugs or lay on the couch with me like I saw other families do. So I vividly remembered the nurse’s touch, and the kind look in her brown eyes as she smiled down at me and took care of me.

  It had filled my heart then, though I had forgotten it until now. Remembering it, I felt that same sense of crushing emptiness suddenly filled with a golden light—a simple touch and kind brown eyes. For a moment, everything was good.

  “Are you okay, Victor?” she asked.

  I realized I was looking into her brown eyes, feeling safe and happy like I did in that rare moment when I was a kid.

  Instantly I pulled back, looking down to gather up the bloody towel and bowl of soapy water. I was revealing too much, feeling too much. I had to get control of myself—

  “Don’t…” She reached out and put her hand to my cheek, pulling me towards her. “Don’t leave me.”

  That decided it. I couldn’t deny her. I held onto her tightly, not wanting to let go either. It wasn’t a sexual thing, which was unbelievable considering how I reacted in the Sanctuary, when I was all over her.

  This was more. I needed her comfort, and she needed mine. And for some reason, it was okay for her to need something from me. Because she was giving back to me wholeheartedly.

  We lay together on the couch for a long time, and I got up only to remove the ice pack for twenty minutes, then put it back on again. Neither of us said much. It felt as if she was drifting out of reach even as I held onto her tightly. I knew it was only a strange illusion that made it feel as if she was sliding out of my grasp. But it made my body tense as she moved against me, molding herself to me. As if I was resisting a hurricane wind that threatened to tear us apart.

  Even when it was late, I didn’t want to let her go. “Do you want to stay the night?”

  She glanced over at the bed, biting her lip.

  “No sex.” I couldn’t tell her that was impossible now. The only way I could make love to her was if I was honest with her. And I couldn’t be honest right now, not when I felt torn open already. Not when I was realizing what kind of words I would have to say to admit the sham of a life I’d been leading. To admit that I wasn’t worthy of her.

  But I couldn’t let her go.

  She put on one of my old T-shirts to sleep in, and I carefully climbed into bed next to her, taking her in my arms.

  And then nothing else mattered.

  Then everything felt real and solid. Then I knew this was right. I was exactly where I was supposed to be, holding her close and protecting her. I realized then how much I had hated going to bed every night these past two weeks, when I didn’t know where she was or what she was doing. That I had walled in my own feelings so I couldn’t hear my own longing for her.

  But now I couldn’t deny it.

  Chapter 22

  Sierra

  It was heaven cuddling with Victor on his bed, looking out at the lights of the city. Even though everything else in my life was seriously messed up—with Dick’s mauling smack on top of the awfulness—I wanted just one night off. One night of peace, lying in Victor’s arms. One night when I didn’t have to care about anything else. When I didn’t have to care about what this meant or where it might be going.

  I could just feel happy.

  Every time I opened my eyes I saw Victor and beyond him the open windows with lights of the city, like we were at the bottom of a bowl of buildings that rose up gradually on either side of us.

  It was the first thing I saw when I woke up in the morning.

  Victor was still holding me, moving sleepily as I woke him by shifting. His hands tightened on me for a moment before he was fully awake.

  “Now that’s a view to wake up to,” I murmured, looking down at his naked back and curve of his buttocks in the shorts.

  “It’s too bright,” he murmured.

  I realized he was right about the sunlight. Checking the time, I saw it was nearly 11. A jolt of panic shot through me. “Oh, no! I can’t believe it’s so late! I have to be at work by 12:30. I can barely get out to my place and back in time.”

  Victor propped himself up on his elbow, looking adorably tousled. “Are you okay to go to work? What about your ankle?”

  I carefully stood up. A sharp twinge went through my ankle when I put weight on it. “I need to wrap it, but I think it’s okay. I really hate to call in sick when Kalisha was so cool about letting me off for the Festival.”

  “You can get ready here. I have an ace bandage. That would save some wear and tear on your ankle traveling back and forth.”

  “I guess I could…”

  He leaned over and snagged my red dress from the floor. “It’s wrinkled.”

  “I can’t wear that. But I do have the dress I wore yesterday. I bought that one at work.”

  He grinned. “So you decided to go to the Sanctuary at the last minute?”

  Actually I had started planning it the moment Candice suggested that I go out and get what I wanted.

  But I wasn’t going to tell him that.

  “Can I take a shower?” I asked.

  “First you have to pay for your overnight stay.” He drew me closer and kissed me. It was nothing like our passion-laden kisses at the Festival, or even last night at the Sanctuary. It was more like a girlfriend kiss, a loving morning kiss.

  As I showered, he made breakfast for us. There was French toast waiting for me when I got out. I sat down at the black granite counter and looked out at the view as I ate my French toast with maple syrup. His coffee was divine—it came from a one-cup dispenser that probably cost a fortune.

  “This is the life!” I said. “I feel like Cinderella. Only I’m still at the ball.”

  “It’s way past midnight,” Victor reminded me.

  As I took a bite, I asked, “Are you going up to your house in Connecticut or staying here for the rest of the weekend?”

  He wiped his mouth. “Staying here.”

  I looked out at the view with a sigh. “I wouldn’t want to leave if I had this place. It’s small, but it’s perfect, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do.”

  We ate in silence for a few minutes. I asked, “Are you leaving town this week?”

  “No, I’m not going anywhere this week.”

  That familiar wall was rising up between us. He looked preoccupied, like I had sparked some train of thought that was taking him further away from me.

  “What do you do for the airline?” I asked.

  He chewed and swallowed before he answered, “I deal with the ground services, the behind-the scenes airport systems that gets the food onto the planes, the baggage moving, and keeps the gates up and running.”

  “That’s interesting. Is that why you have to go to other airports?”

  “Sometimes. I’d rather travel for fun, not work. You saw how easy it is for us employees. It’s the main reason I took this job. I get to go to the places I always wanted to see. I’m thinking about going to India next.”

  I was so envious. He had the life I wanted! And he was only twenty-eight. In seven years, hopefully I would be in a much better place. But some people were lucky—they got a boost in life. It would take a lot to bring me up to his level of success.

  After that I stopped asking questions, and he stopped talking. He did give me a lingering kiss good-bye at the door, but he didn’t say anything about getting together again. It was an odd way to leave things after such an intimate night.

  Maybe it was intimate, but what exactly was it? He didn’t try to have sex with me, not even this morning when it would have been natural for a man to try, when he was waking up in bed with a woman he supposedly couldn’t keep his hands off.

 
I couldn’t complain because he respected my decision to not have casual sex. But I was disappointed that casual sex was the only kind of sex he had.

  Yet nothing felt casual about the way we made love. It was all-engrossing, over-whelming passion that swept us up and dashed us both against the rocks. There was no faking that, no ignoring what happened between us.

  By the time I got to the department store, it felt like a safe haven. I knew my place there, and what I had to do. As I clocked in, I felt more like myself than I had in days.

  But the second Kalisha saw me, my boss exclaimed, “What happened to you?”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, putting my hand to my hair.

  “You look all bright-eyed and glowy.” With a narrow look at my outfit, Kalisha added, “Isn’t that what you were wearing yesterday? Don’t tell me! The red dress worked? I told you that was the one.”

  I laughed and blushed. I never would have imagined sharing my personal life with my supervisor. But Kalisha seemed to like it.

  And I would take friendship in any form it came, and be grateful.

  Eight hours never passed so quickly—it was always busy in the store on the weekend. When Kalisha found out I had strained my ankle, she let me switch back to wearing my sneakers on shift. It was the only thing that got me through.

  As I limped around helping customers and stocking merchandise, I tried not to think of how badly our morning had ended, or the way he had kissed me last night at the Sanctuary. Being with him was more erotic than anything I had ever experienced before. It was like I never knew what passion was—that true desire that made two people want to dive into each other and never come up for air.

  But I knew my limit, and this was it. I would have a real relationship with him or nothing. I couldn’t do anything casual with Victor.

  ...

  When I got home from work late on Sunday night, I limped straight up to the roof. Looking at the skyline of the city bright with lights, I picked out the low dip over the east village, nearly at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge, where Victor lived.

  He was probably there right now. Unless he was out with someone else.

  Candice was on the roof drinking a beer with a few of the other roommates. “I think that dress is a repeat,” she said.

  I pulled out a bit of the red dress from my bag. “It worked. My boss helped me pick it out yesterday.”

  Candice’s eyes lit up. “I saw you didn’t come home last night, and I wondered… tell me!”

  I settled into a folding chair next to Candice looking out at the skyline. At Victor’s place, it felt like we were inside the view, surrounded by buildings. Here, the city was barely out of reach on the other side of the river.

  “He was all over me at first,” I said, “but then I found out he was there with someone else. A terrible blond woman who was drinking too much.”

  “Sounds awful.”

  My expression fell. “It got worse. After I ran out, my sister’s old boyfriend grabbed me and tried to get me to tell him where Lola is living now.”

  “Honey, are you okay?” Candice asked.

  The concern in her voice made the whole thing wash over me again with a sick feeling.

  “I’ve known him for a long time, but he went crazy. He hurt me.” I showed Candice the fresh scabs on my knees and the bandage on my ankle. “He would have hurt me more but Victor stopped him. You should have seen him. Victor carried me all the way to his place, blocks and blocks. It was like we were both possessed.”

  “And you made love all night,” Candice finished. She must have seen the doubtful expression on my face. “Or did you?”

  “I told him that I didn’t want to have casual sex. But after Dick attacked me… I didn’t want to leave his place, and he didn’t want me to go. So we cuddled all night.”

  “Cuddled?” She gave me a hard look. “That is so romantic. Nothing like a near-death experience to wake a body up.”

  It was true. I was not in my right mind last night, and I ventured to guess that Victor wasn’t either.

  “Yeah, well, in the cold light of day, things definitely looked different,” I said. “On his side. As soon as I started asking him what he was going to do today and what’s up with his work, he shut right down.” I sighed. “I think I am just a booty call.”

  “You weren’t last night,” Candice pointed out.

  I sat back and put my foot up on the rickety table to elevate it. I had tomorrow off, so it would give my aching ankle a chance to recover. That many hours standing up had taken a toll.

  Right now, all I wanted to do was sit with my new friends and enjoy my beer.

  I knew exactly where I stood with Victor, and that was nowhere. If he wanted a relationship, he knew where to find me. I had gotten one text from him today, close to dinner time, asking how my ankle was. I had replied: Doing okay. I should get through the day. And after that, nothing. Not a word.

  After a night like last night.

  He was keeping his distance from me. Otherwise he would have texted more. He had done the bare minimum that human decency demanded, and that was it.

  I had no idea when I would see him next. Would I see him again? I wouldn’t track him down again like I did last night. I couldn’t stand having to drag him away from another date.

  “I feel like I’m not good enough for him,” I sighed.

  “Don’t you ever say that! You should bite your tongue before you say that.” Candice smacked the back of my hand. “You’re good enough for any man, Sierra.”

  “This one is complicated. He has casual sex with girls like me who he meets in fetish clubs.” I laughed when Candice’s eyebrows went right to the top of her forehead. “I was following my sister! I was worried about her.”

  “I would have pegged you for vanilla all the way,” Candice said.

  “Not so much anymore,” I admitted. “But Victor doesn’t take me seriously because of the way we met. He’s never taken me out on a real date. I haven’t met any of his friends. He probably saves that for potential girlfriends while I got slotted into the slut category.”

  “Well, honey, it’s up to you what you want to do.”

  I nodded. “I’ve already decided. If he doesn’t care about me the same way, then I don’t want him.”

  Chapter 23

  Victor

  I was in agony. I should have confessed this morning, but Sierra woke up talking about my amazing view and kept right on gushing through breakfast about my amazing life. I lied to her face. Along with different kinds of evasions of truth I usually justified as “not really lies” even though they most definitely were lies.

  I was caught in a nightmare of my own making. I should have told her. But I couldn’t form the words. I couldn’t face the slow disbelief that would spread across her face, and the disdain and disgust that would follow.

  I needed more time, to figure out how to say it. Suddenly I knew why people broke up by text message. They didn’t want to see that look. That look of shock and pain.

  Beating my head with my own hands, I paced all day, trying to figure a way out of this mess.

  My feelings had grown beyond desire, beyond passion for Sierra. As a kid, I had learned I couldn’t trust the women I was closest to, not my grandmother, not my sister. They let me down every time.

  But last night I felt such deep trust for Sierra, such simple comfort in her arms. I was sure that she cared about me. She was holding me.

  She understood me, and saw the real me through the lies. She had been through hard things, too. I could tell. It was like we were made for each other.

  I regretted that I hadn’t told her the truth weeks ago, blurted it out when she came to see my place that first time, or at Festival when we were so close. Maybe then she would have understood. I could have helped her look for a place and helped her move, and shown her I was a good guy in spite of everything.

  All night, I had planned to tell her the truth this morning. But her enthusiasm for my amazing view
and my amazing job threw me off. I was accustomed to thinking that without my faux-riches, no woman would want me. It was hard to think otherwise and too easy to slip into that role.

  I had hated letting her go like that this morning, but I was paralyzed by indecision, the words admitting that I had lied to her, had lied to everyone, were on the tip of my tongue.

  But I couldn’t pull the trigger.

  Even if she would date a baggage handler, she wouldn’t forgive me for lying, not on top of finding out that I wasn’t rich or successful. Sierra was an achiever, and she wanted a man who was also making something of himself. Not a grunt stuck in a dead-end job.

  I either had to give her up or tell her.

  I couldn’t keep lying to her so I could keep on kissing her. That wasn’t an option anymore. Last night had proven that to me. And this morning. I wanted her, but my lies stood in the way. Apparently I had enough decency left to finally stop me.

  All evening long, I kept an eye on the clock, and knew when she should be home. That’s when I realized I had forgotten to ask her something.

  Grabbing my phone, I texted her: Are you home okay?

  She answered: Yes, hanging out with my roommates on the roof.

  I forgot to ask. How did Dick know you were going to the Sanctuary last night? It was the question that had niggled at me the entire time I carried her home, but in the overwhelming feelings of last night, it had been pushed aside. Then the crushing lies had clogged my mind.

  There was a much longer pause before she replied: I don’t know. He said Lola wasn’t posting on her profile anymore. Maybe he hoped she would be there.

  I wanted to believe that was true. But it didn’t feel right. None of this felt right.

  Before I could ask her, another text from Sierra came through. Or maybe he followed me there from work. He was watching our apartment before I moved.

  I took a ragged breath. Bingo! Dick was a nasty guy. Only a shithead would stalk his ex and then hurt a girl like Sierra.