Tear You Apart Read online

  “I’m a freak,” I said in a tortured whisper after a minute or so. “I’m sorry, Mr. Braverman, but if I don’t eat the candy while I’m sitting next to her, I’m going to barf.”

  “We don’t want that, for sure.”

  I risked a look at him. “I’m sorry. I like your class. I wasn’t trying to be a pain.”

  He let his butt rest on the edge of the desk across from mine. “You’re not a freak, Elisabeth. But I can’t believe nobody’s ever talked to you about this before.”

  Grammy had. My parents knew. My brother knew. We just never talked about it.

  “Let me show you something. Come here.” He beckoned me into his small office, a closet, really, tucked into the back of the room. Floor-to-ceiling shelves overflowed with books and lab supplies. He pulled a thick volume from a shelf and settled it on the desk, flipping through the pages. He tapped one. “Look.”

  That was the first time I saw the word synesthesia. “A neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second.” I read the definition. I looked at him.

  “It’s a neurological condition. Probably genetic,” he offered.

  I thought of my grandmother. “I inherited it?”

  “Yes. Most likely.” Mr. Braverman motioned for me to move closer until we stood shoulder to shoulder in the cramped space. “Look, Elisabeth. Here are charts and lists of all the different ways the people in this book manifest their different...well, I hate to say symptoms, because that makes it sound like a disease. And it’s not, really.”

  I wiped my nose with a tissue and leaned over the book, then looked at him. This close I could see that behind the glasses, he had pale blue eyes framed by thick black lashes. Suddenly, I felt swimmier than my senior varsity wrestler crush had ever made me. Small gold sparkles like stars flashed and twinkled along the arches of his eyebrows before they faded. I focused on his arm, leaning on the desk beside me. That was no help.

  “This person lists tasting shapes.” I laughed a little. “Weird.”

  I ran my fingertip down the columns, skimming the information. Mr. Braverman tapped on a photograph. Underneath it was a small chart showing what colors corresponded to which numbers. That person also saw letters as having personalities and gender—A was feminine, for example. I couldn’t grasp that.

  On the next page, I started to read aloud. “‘Mary Sheeran says the colors are like watching fireworks, alternating bursts of pattern and light that expand and contract along with the rhythm of music.’”

  I knew just what that was like, though mine was connected with facial features. The curve of brow or jaw, the lift of a smile. “For Mary, alcohol intensifies the experience, as does sexual activity. She says during or-orgasm...”

  I stuttered on the words, blushing hard. Something palpable hovered between us, and I was afraid to look at him. Not worried that I’d see something nobody else did, but that he would see something in me I didn’t want revealed.

  Mr. Braverman broke the uncomfortable silence by closing the book with a solid thud and pushing it back on the shelf. “Everyone has something unique about them, Elisabeth. I wish you’d just told me about the candy, instead of acting like you were doing it just to be bad.”

  “My grammy told me not to tell anyone about it. That people would think I was crazy.”

  “Well,” Mr. Braverman said, “you’re not.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Since that day in Mr. Braverman’s class, I’ve never forgotten that Mary Sheeran, that lucky bitch, literally sees fireworks when she comes. Orgasms are pretty spectacular all on their own, but to see bursting and shifting patterns of color—that’s always seemed like an extra bit of luck. And now it’s happened to me.

  It doesn’t escape me that of all the lovers I’ve ever had, Will’s the first to make me come so hard I literally saw stars. I look at his photo on the computer screen, not even embarrassed to be cyberstalking him, because it’s been over a week since the day he took me to MOMA. I haven’t heard from him since, not an email or a text. And fuck him, I left his apartment with him still coating the back of my throat, so he can very fucking well text me first. I’m not going to go chasing after him as if I have no self-control.

  He has a Connex account, but it’s for his business and not personal, so it’s not set to private. I scroll through his pages of pictures, most of them his work or the book covers that have featured his photos. There are a few of him, though.

  In one he wears a dark shirt, skinny dark tie, his hair a mess, all pushed in front of his ears and over his forehead, a little slick with sweat. The lines at the corners of his eyes are very distinct in this shot, maybe because of the light or because he’s squinting. Not smiling. He’s not smiling in any of the pictures, and I wonder if it’s because he wasn’t happy in any of them or if it’s because, as a photographer, he knows that smiling makes his eyes squinch up like that.

  I love the way he looks when he smiles.

  In this picture he’s pointing at something out of range, a cigarette held between his first and middle fingers. Brow furrowed. Familiar black Converse sneakers. And oh, there, that braided leather belt. I know that belt, the length of it, the feel of the leather in my palm. The click of the metal buckle as it’s undone.

  My clit pulses. I shift in my desk chair, crossing my legs. Uncrossing. I’m wearing a pair of yoga pants I picked up on sale, thinking I was going to start doing something crazy like Zumba. Be like the wives of Ross’s coworkers, speed-walking around the block listening to recipe podcasts. I should’ve saved the money and bought a couple cartons of high-end ice cream with the money. At least I’d have enjoyed them.

  The fabric, though, is clinging, soft and so thin the first tickle of my fingertip over the bump of my clit is almost as if I’m touching myself bare. Almost better, since the fabric barrier blunts the sensation enough to be teasing. I rub in slow circles as I study another picture of him. Someone caught him in profile, a half hint of a smile, his gaze bright. He has one hand around the waist of a tall blonde in red lipstick, both holding sweating drinks of clear fluid. The flash is reflected in the ice cubes.

  They’re lovers. He and that woman, at least in the moment captured by this picture. I can see it in the way his fingers curl so slightly, denting the material of her sheer blouse. How she leans into him, how her gaze has fallen on his face. Her mouth is open a little, showing a glimpse of white teeth and pink tongue, as if she’s getting ready to lick her lips at the sight of him. I understand completely. I can’t even be jealous of anything except maybe how lovely she is, lithe and blonde and young, and that she had that moment with him and I’ve had hardly any.

  Did he take her home that night to his apartment? Did he put her on that couch? No. His bed. Did he push up her dress, run his fingers over her long, lean thighs? Did he slide inside her cunt?

  Up and down, my fingers press. I’m wet all the way through the scant lace of my panties. The yoga pants. My head falls back as I rub, rub, rub. So close already, just from thinking of Will fucking another woman. I shouldn’t like that, should I? Maybe it should even make me jealous, but instead I imagine him pushing her onto a bed, the sheets a tangled mess, the pillows scattered.

  He tugs up her dress and finds her bare beneath. A woman like that would keep her pussy smooth. My fingers slide past the waistband of my pants at last, beyond the lace, to stroke the soft curls between my legs. I groom, but I’m never bald. My clit’s a hard, tight knot under my fingertip. All I have to do is press, just a little, and the walls of my pussy clench. One finger slips inside my heat. My body bears down on the intrusion.

  I think of him pushing her legs apart. Crawling up the bed to get to her cunt with his mouth and hands. His tongue, the slick, hot swipe of it against her flesh.

  Oh, fuck.

&nb