Dirty Read online

  “Not like he wanted me to.” I closed my eyes, thinking he might expect tears with a story like this but knowing I’d shed none. I had disassociated myself from the memory in many ways, just as in many others it never left me alone. “But…I let him do what he wanted, anyway. He always said thank you, after, like that would make it okay. And sometimes he didn’t just want me to do things to him. Sometimes, he wanted to do things to me. Like you did. I’ve never let anyone else.”

  He kissed my shoulder again, lips lingering before he spoke. “How old were you?”

  “I was fifteen when it started. Eighteen when it ended.”

  His arms tightened on me for a moment, then a bit more when I didn’t tense or pull away. “What made him stop?”

  I pushed the sheet off. Sat up. Looked over my shoulder at where he still lay, now on his back.

  “He meant what he said, I guess, when he said he’d die if he couldn’t have me.”

  I waited for a platitude, a stifled gasp of horror, a grimace of shock. Dan only sat up and put his arms around me again, turning me into the circle of his embrace.

  I waited for him to ask me who it had been, this boy who’d loved me so much he’d rather die than be without me, but Dan didn’t ask and so I didn’t tell.

  Summer nights started later, and I was tired by the time darkness fell. We’d spent the day at a local farmers’ market under the hot August sunshine, and I was too lazy now to bother getting up to go home. That had been happening more frequently—me being too lazy to leave. I’d even started leaving a toothbrush there and bringing a change of clothes.“It’s called two truths and a lie,” Dan said from beside me.

  “Like truth or dare?”

  His overhead fan whirled, sending cooler air to caress us. I watched the circling blades and yawned, content at that moment to be semidressed, semiawake, semicogent.

  “Sort of. You tell me two truths and one lie, and I’ll try to guess which is the lie.”

  I turned my head the barest inch to look at him. He looked too damned fresh for having spent the day in the sun, which didn’t seem to wilt him like it did me. It brought out the pattern of freckles on his nose and bronzed his cheeks, highlighting the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He slid his hand beneath his cheek as he waited for my answer. “Why?”

  “Because it’s fun,” he said. “It’s a drinking game.”

  “We’re not drinking,” I said, still too lazy and contented with the bed and the air to consider getting up.

  “I’m afraid of heights. I once ate a worm. And my middle name is Ernest.”

  “Should I hope the third is a lie?” I rolled onto my side and put my hand beneath my cheek in conscious mimicry of his position.

  He smiled. “You can hope, but it’s true.”

  “I believe you ate a worm. So that means you’re afraid of heights.”

  “Very good,” he praised. “See how it works? Your turn.”

  If not for my utter lack of interest in moving, I’d have refused. Being churlish didn’t seem worth the effort. “I once sang ‘This Is the Song That Never Ends’ 157 times in a row. I love the color red. And I’ve never been to Mexico.”

  “Easy,” he said. “You hate red.”

  I watched him, curious. “What made that one so easy to pick out?”

  “I’ve never seen you wear it. You won’t pick something that’s red when you have a choice.”

  “You’ve never seen me wear a lot of colors,” I told him.

  Dan smiled. “True. But definitely not red. Besides, it’s easy to believe you’ve never been to Mexico, lots of people haven’t. And you’re the sort who’d know exactly how many times you’ve done something, so that one was a snap. I never heard that song, though.”

  “I could sing it for you,” I said. “But it never ends.”

  I rolled onto my back again, to stare at the ceiling. I watched the fan blades whir in their lazy roundabout way for a minute. Dan didn’t move. He stayed on his side, looking at me. I could feel it.

  “You know about the counting?” I kept the question light, neutral, as though I didn’t care.

  He reached out and twirled a strand of my hair around his finger. “Yes.”

  “It’s…it’s that obvious?” I kept my eyes fixed on his ceiling. It had thirty-four cracks in it.

  “No. But I noticed you always know how many there are of anything, it doesn’t matter what. How many times we’ve gone round the block looking for a parking spot.” I heard the grin in his voice. “How many marbles are in the vase.”

  “The day I dropped it.”

  “Yes.”

  I took an even breath, trying not to care he’d discovered such a thing about me. Such a strange, embarrassing thing. He had seen me in nearly every sexual position, yet this made me feel more naked in front of him than I’d ever felt without my clothes.

  “You don’t like me knowing.”

  I turned on my side, away from him. “No, Dan. I don’t.”

  He touched my shoulder, then moved up behind me. His body fit along mine, hip to hip and thigh to thigh. Puzzle pieces. Like we’d been cut from wax and meant to mold together. He sighed, and his breath moved against my bare skin.

  “Why, Elle? Why does it matter?”

  I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t explain what counting meant to me. How I’d used it for so long to keep from thinking of things that would otherwise have hurt so bad…I couldn’t answer, even to myself.

  “It’s embarrassing.”

  He said nothing for a few moments. His hand began a gentle pass along my body, from my shoulder, down my arm, over the slope of my hip and to my thigh, then back up again. His cock and belly pressed against my butt, and it occurred to me our nakedness had not aroused him. That we had reached the point where naked meant comfortable. His hands on me could soothe as well as arouse.

  That I no longer felt vulnerable in front of him.

  I closed my eyes against the sting of tears and pressed my fingers to my eyes to further hold them back. Dan smoothed his hand over me again and again in silence. I wanted to move away from him and I did not. I wanted to get out of bed, dress, go home to my clean, cool sheets and white, bare walls. To solitude.

  “Elle,” he said after a while. “I’ve never broken a bone. I’ve never ice-skated. And I’m not in love.”

  I’d seen the scar from the bike accident that had sent him to the hospital with a broken leg. I had seen photos of him on his grandparents’ wintertime pond. “Dan. Don’t.”

  He nestled closer to me and pressed his lips to the place he loved to kiss between my shoulder blades. “You are so beautiful, Elle, why won’t you let me—”

  The word gave me reason to move, and I sat, swung my legs over the bed. “No. Stop it. Don’t Dan, you’ll ruin it. You’ll ruin this.”

  The bed moved as he sat, too. “How am I going to ruin this? What is this, can you tell me?”

  I stood and started looking for my clothes. I did not want to hear what he had to say. Did not. Would not. I would not hear it, I would not listen.

  “Elle, look at me.”

  “This is…sex,” I said. “It’s…acquaintanceship, it’s the two of us finding someone we’re compatible with in bed. It’s friendship.”

  “That’s not all it is,” he said.

  I found my shirt and pulled it on without bothering with a bra. Panties. The long gypsy skirt I’d worn to the market. I found one shoe, but not the other.

  He watched me from his place on the bed. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting dressed.”

  I caught his glance. The face which had, despite my best attempts, become so familiar to me, scowled. He hooked his fingers around his knees.

  “I’m going home,” I added.

  “Why? Because I made you a little uncomfortable? What?”

  “Yes!” Shoe in hand, I turned to look at him. “Isn’t that reason enough?”

  “No, it’s not!”

  His shout forced me ba