Dirty (12 page)

“Want something to eat?”

On his knees, he looked over his shoulder at me. “Sure.”

I put a couple frozen pizzas in the oven and went upstairs to change into paint clothes. By the time I came down, Gavin had spread out the brushes and rollers and poured the paint into the trays. The oven dinged and he stood, turning toward me.

I stopped short at the sight of his arms. The sleeve of one had pushed up on his bicep, exposing skin normally covered. He had lines there. Three or four, thin and angry red lines. Cuts.

“What happened to your arm?”

He pulled the shirt down lower to hide them. “My cat scratched me.”

I used the excuse of pulling the pizza from the oven to not answer that. Maybe his cat had scratched him. Maybe he was telling the truth. I didn’t mention it again.

He ate only two pieces of pizza instead of his usual four, but I didn’t comment on that, either. I wrapped up the extra and set it on the counter.

“Take this with you when you go,” I told him. “I won’t eat it.”

He smiled, a little. “Okay.”

I stifled the urge to reach out and ruffle his hair. He was a kid, but he wasn’t my kid, and he was fifteen. Fifteen-year-old boys aren’t too fond of having their hair ruffled, I’m pretty sure.

We got to work, and he asked if he could put on some music. My CD collection seemed to surprise him.

“You’ve got some cool tunes, Miss Kavanagh.” He held up the latest by a new alternative rock band.

I tried not to be offended by the unspoken addition “for an old lady.” “Thanks. Why don’t you put that on?”

He did, and we worked some more. Sometimes side by side, sometimes in different sections. He’d shot up over the past few months and now stood an inch or so taller than I, so I let him get up on the stepstool to do the parts closest to the ceiling.

“You know, Gavin,” I said after a bit. “You don’t have to call me Miss Kavanagh. You can call me Elle.”

He looked down from his perch. “My mom told me I have to show respect for people.”

“Your mom was right. But I don’t consider you calling me by my first name to be disrespectful.” I finished the last corner and stood back to put my roller in the tray. “I’m giving you permission.”

He rolled some more paint onto the wall for a moment. “Okay. I guess I could do that.”

The room looked good, though another coat of paint would finish it off. I started cleaning up. Gavin helped. The laundry room was small, and we bumped into each other, dancing with awkward smiles as he tried to put a roller in the sink while I tried to back out of the way. I knocked against the shelf where I kept my detergent and extra hangers. Some of them started to fall, and Gavin reached for them.

It was all innocent, aboveboard. He wasn’t even touching me, just reaching around to keep the hangers from sliding off the shelf. We were laughing. I looked up to my back door, the window of which showed a face peering in.

I stopped laughing long enough to scream, embarrassed a moment later by recognizing the face of Mrs. Ossley. Heart pounding, I pushed past Gavin to thumb open the lock. “You scared me.”

“I knocked at the front, but nobody answered.” She gave me a narrow-eyed smile. “Gavin. It’s time to come home.”

“I want to help Elle finish cleaning—”

“Now.” Her tone brooked no argument.

“It’s all right, Gavin,” I said. “There’s only a bit more to do. You go ahead.”

“Lemme grab my sweatshirt,” he said and went to retrieve it.

Mrs. Ossley and I stood in awkward silence in my tiny laundry room. She seemed disinclined to speak to me, and I had nothing to say to her. We were saved from true discomfort a moment later when Gavin returned, hooded once more, and followed his mother out the door.

I locked the door behind them, thinking I’d made an enemy of her somehow but not sure why.

It wasn’t unusual for me not to hear from Chad for weeks on end. We kept in touch through e-mail and cards, with phone calls thrown in when one or the other of us realized it had been a long time since we’d spoken. Or one of us was undergoing a crisis. When I didn’t hear back from my brother after I’d left a message thanking him for returning “Princess Pennywhistle” to me, I wasn’t concerned. As the days passed, though, and even e-mails went unanswered, I knew something was going on.

His voice sank my stomach. He sounded like he had a mouthful of syrup, oozing, making him slur. “Hello?”

He perked up a little when he heard my voice, but the bubbly, effusive chatterbox who usually greeted me was gone. He mumbled on about being busy with work and the amateur theater group he’d joined, and about Luke’s sister who’d just had a baby. Inconsequential things that filled the space between us but revealed nothing.

“What’s wrong,” I asked him after listening. “Tell me, Chaddie.”

He didn’t say anything for so long I thought we might have been disconnected but for the sound of his breathing. “I’m down, Elle. Just a little down.”

“Oh, Chad.” There wasn’t much more I could say. Words couldn’t replace a hug, no matter how heartfelt the empathy in them. “What are you doing about it?”

That roused him enough to chuckle a little. “Same thing I always do. Drown my sorrows in hot fudge sundaes.”

It was better than in alcohol, which Chad never touched. “What’s Luke say about it?”

Chad didn’t say anything again after a moment. “He doesn’t say anything about it. I don’t tell him.”

“He’s got to know,” I told him gently. “You live together. He can’t not notice.”

“We don’t talk about it,” Chad said. “Luke’s happy all the time. I don’t want to bring him down. I don’t want to bring you down, Elle. I just need to get through this.”

“You don’t have to do it on your own.”

“Forgive me if your advice doesn’t really mean a whole lot,” Chad said more snidely than I’d ever heard him speak. “Miss Island Unto Herself. Tell me something, big sis, when’s the last time you cried on someone’s shoulder?”

We went back to silence after that. I waited for him to apologize. He didn’t, and after a minute I muttered an affronted goodbye and hung up. Sometimes, even when you know someone else is right, it’s easier to be the angry one than it is to admit they’re telling the truth.

I’d been invited to home parties before. Candles, cooking equipment, jewelry. I didn’t ever go, though I was always polite and ordered something from their catalogs. Just because I didn’t want to spend my time sitting around the living room of someone I didn’t know giggling about products I didn’t like didn’t mean I wasn’t smart about the way women work. Helping them out with their home parties engendered good feelings, and I usually ended up with a bunch of things to give my mother for Christmas and her birthday.

Marcy hadn’t invited me to buy measuring spoons, earrings or dip mix. She hadn’t let me get away with flipping through a glossy brochure and writing a check, either. She’d insisted I attend her home party, and I couldn’t think of a good reason to turn her down.

Uncertain of the etiquette about these sorts of functions, I stood outside the door to her apartment for a full minute debating if I should knock or try the knob. Two women appeared in the hallway behind me and saved me from having to decide.

“Ooh, you’re here for the toy party?” The taller one giggled.

The door opened. Marcy squealed. The other women squealed. I allowed myself to be dragged forward, hugged, my ear squealed into, my hand filled with a glass of wine, my rear end seated in a chair. Marcy passed around snacks. The women chattered. I sipped my wine without saying much. I didn’t know anyone but Marcy and didn’t have much to say.

I haven’t been locked in a cupboard for my whole life. I know what sex toys are, even if I’ve never owned one. And even though my tastes in lingerie run to simple, lacy garter belts and pretty panties instead of leopard-skin thongs and stockings with holes, I have seen items of that sort in the stores.

I thought I was prepared for this party, my pen in hand, the order form in front of me. Three minutes into the hostess’s spiel, I knew I was in over my head. By the time she passed out the penis pencil toppers, I was hoping I’d get out of there without thoroughly embarrassing myself.

I shouldn’t have worried. Marcy, for all her bluster about sex, squealed and covered her face when the hostess pulled out the first item, and there were many other women there who blushed or peeked out through their fingers, too. Obviously the King Dong with detachable vibrating bullet wasn’t something they saw every day, either. I relaxed. I wasn’t as backward as I’d thought.

“Now, ladies,” said the hostess, passing out pink papers to each of us. “It’s time for Twenty Kinky Questions! And I’ll be handing out some prizes, so be honest!”

We all laughed and bent over our pink surveys, which wanted to know how many partners we had, where the craziest place we’d ever made love was, if we’d ever slept with more than one man at a time. We were supposed to list our celebrity crush, if we’d ever cheat on our significant others, our favorite sexual position and more.

Dutifully, I filled out all the answers, being less than honest, though the hostess had admonished us to be truthful. There were simply some things I wasn’t going to admit to a roomful of strangers. Not even for a free set of fur-lined handcuffs.

After demonstrating all the products and displaying all the lingerie, the hostess retired to Marcy’s kitchen table to take orders while the rest of us replenished our wineglasses and giggled over pink plastic phalluses. I had a handful of cheese cubes in one hand and my wine in the other when Marcy cornered me.

“So. What are you going to buy?”

I showed her my order form, printed neatly with my penis-topped pen. She looked it over and took my pen to scribble something else on it, jerking the paper away when I tried to protest. With full hands I couldn’t grab it back from her.

“Marcy, what are you doing?”

She giggled. “C’mon, Elle. All you got was the babydoll nightie! In white! Don’t you want it in red, at least?”

“Absolutely not.” I finished the cheese and grabbed at the order form. “No, Marcy.”

“I’m getting the Deluxe Rodney Rabbit.” She smirked. “I put you down for the Eager Beaver.”

I looked at the paper. “Marcy—”

“C’mon,” she teased. “Every woman should have a good vibrator. If you don’t want to pay for it, I’ll buy it. My treat. Consider it my contribution to your good health.”

I didn’t want to laugh, I really didn’t. But she always made me, anyway. “I can take care of my own good health, thanks. And not with the Eager Beaver. I don’t want to go to bed with wildlife.”

“No?” She grabbed up the catalogue from behind me. “How about the Silver Bullet?”

“Do I need to worry about werewolves?” The wine had loosened my tongue.

Marc looked up with a grin. “The Mermaid? She’s waterproof.”

I looked at the picture. “Nothing with a face on it. Geesh.”

She was cute, that Mermaid, with her smooth tail and flowing hair. Marcy flipped another page and let out a triumphant cry. She stabbed the page with her finger.

“That’s the one for you.”

I looked. “Blackjack?”

“You’ll be screaming hit me baby, one more time, with the Blackjack. Made of smooth, contoured silicone and using our patented vibro-sleeve technology, the Blackjack is guaranteed to hit all the spots that count. Silent and discreet, the Blackjack enhances solo play or lovemaking.” She giggled at the advertising copy.

“Clever,” I said, looking at the picture again. Unlike the other cutesy vibrators, the Blackjack was about three inches long, shaped like a cigar, plain black. “Very utilitarian.”

Marcy laughed and nudged me, her eyes shining. “Get that one.”

I hesitated. “Marcy, I just don’t…”

“Elle,” she interrupted. “For fun. C’mon. Try it.”

I looked around the room at all the other laughing ladies holding up slinky animal-print nighties and getting out their checkbooks. I looked again at the picture of the Blackjack. Then I looked at her.

“If one word of this gets out around the office—”

“It won’t. Cross my heart.”

I sighed. She’d won me over. I couldn’t resist the allure. Marcy crowed and squeezed me, spilling wine down the front of my blouse.

“Here’s to my good health,” I told her as she bounced.

My cell phone rang, and she gave me another squeeze before leaving me to answer it. “Kavanagh.”

“Kavanagh, Stewart here.”

Dan. I crumpled the order form in my hand as if he could see it. I let out a strangled giggle.

“Elle, are you all right?”

“Fine.” I smoothed the paper.

“I called your house but you weren’t there. Thought I’d catch you on your cell. What are you doing?”

Two women had grabbed hold of the giant double dildo and were attempting to do the limbo with it. Raucous laughter drowned out my response for a moment, and I ducked down the short hall leading to Marcy’s bedroom before I could answer. I leaned against the wall, phone pressed to my ear, the order form a guilty weight in my hand.

“Marcy invited me over to a home party.”

“Yeah?” He sounded unaccountably pleased. “Pampered Chef?”

“Umm…no.”

“Too bad. I need another cooking stone.”

I couldn’t blame the wine for the surreal, woozy feeling overtaking me. “You use cooking stones?”

He laughed, but sidestepped answering. “How long will you be there? Can you come over after?”

“I have to work tomorrow, Dan.”

“Elle. It’s only eight o’clock.”

“Dan.” I laughed. “You are becoming very demanding.”

“I know.” He sounded proud. “Come over after. You want to. You know you do.”

My stomach jumped at the way he said it, and I closed my eyes for a moment. The wall felt cool against my cheek. I let the order form slide between my fingers, back and forth.

But in the end, I agreed, because he was right. I did want to. It would be good for my health.

D
an laughed when I told him where I’d been. His seawater eyes gleamed, encouraging me to describe the party. I never felt I was a good storyteller, but he was such a good listener I kept talking until I realized I’d blurted out twenty minutes worth of conversation about sex toys and crotchless panties, and I stopped myself short.

“Sounds like you had a good time,” he said. “Twenty Kinky Questions.”

Dan’s wine was better than Marcy’s, and I sipped it before answering. Wine made me expansive. I leaned back against his cushions. “I think society, as a whole, is so focused on sex and being sexy it’s become a caucus race. Everyone runs and runs, trying to catch up to everyone else and in the end we all think we deserve prizes.”

He laughed again, shaking his head. I frowned. “Are you making fun of me?”

He shook his head again, still smiling. “No. You’re so sincere I can’t make fun of you.”

I put my wineglass down on the table. “You are.”

“No.” Dan scooted forward to put his hands on my upper arms. “It’s cute. You’re a little drunk.”

I was, but indignant just the same. “It’s cute that I’m a little drunk?”

He rubbed his hands up and down on my arms. “No. That you’re so affronted by society turning us into sex maniacs. It’s cute. And cute that you relate kink with something from
Alice in Wonderland.
”

I tried hard to be affronted some more, but with him so close to me it was difficult to maintain the temper. “You’ve read it, then.”

“Yeah, I’ve read it.” He moved closer again. “Does that surprise you?”

If I said yes, that might be insulting. I let my eyes wander around his living room and spotted his bookshelves. “Do you like to read?”

I got up before he answered and wandered to peruse his collection. Looking at the books someone has on his shelf can be as intimate as peeking in his medicine chest. Dan had several shelves of leather-bound volumes on law and other boring stuff, but below them were copies of paperback thrillers and hardback classics I recognized. Grinning, I glanced over my shoulder.

“You joined the Classics of the Month Club?”

He put on a hangdog look. “Yeah.”

“Have you read these?”

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Jane Eyre. Wuthering Heights. Dracula. The Sun Also Rises.
I ran my fingers over the spines and pulled one out. I sniffed it. There’s something special about the way a good book smells.

“Yeah, I read them.” He came over behind me, his arms around my waist as I fondled his books.

I put back the book in my hand and looked at the others. My fingers stopped again, and I turned to look at him. “You have
The Little Prince?
”

He chuckled. “Yeah.”

I pulled it out. His edition was newer than mine, the cover unscuffed and the pages unbent. Someone with bad handwriting had inscribed the book “To Dan, with love.” I showed it to him.

He shrugged. “Old girlfriend.”

I looked back at the book. “Have you read it?”

He shook his head. “No. Should I?”

“Far be it from me to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do” came my lofty answer as I put it back.

“You’ve read it.”

I smiled. His hands gripped my hips lightly, and I did a sideways turn and step combination that took me from his grasp without making it seem like I was jumping out of his arms. I leaned against his shelves.

“I have. It’s one of my favorite books.”

“Yeah?” He looked over my shoulder, then back at my face. “Maybe I should read it, then.”

“You don’t have to on my account.” I was a little embarrassed.
The Little Prince
is a children’s book. Sort of. Revealing it to be my favorite had revealed something about myself.

“I know I don’t have to.” He moved closer. “Maybe I want to.”

I ducked under his arm and headed for the couch again. “You might not like it.”

“Or, I might.” He followed me. “Want some more wine?”

I gave him what I meant to be a stern look. From the way his mouth tilted up, I think I failed. “I think you want me to get very drunk.”

“Of course.”

“So you can take advantage of me.”

“You caught me out.”

I kept my mouth from quirking into a smile, but only barely. “So you can do kinky things to me.”

He laughed. “Sure. You got it.”

I looked into his eyes as he sat beside me. “I got the lowest score on that test, by the way. I felt quite inadequate.”

He made a sympathetic face. “Is that what prompted the rant?”

I nodded. Dan gave a soothing coo and patted my head. We laughed.

“Poor baby,” he said. “What haven’t you done that everyone else had?”

“Everything.”

I’d had a lot of sex with a lot of men, but most of it had been dull and useless, ten minutes of haphazard foreplay followed by a minute and a half of frantic humping. People are not as imaginative as the movies make them out to be. Maybe I’d just been lucky in my conquests, never picking up the stray fetishist or serial killer. Maybe I’d just been careful to pick guys who didn’t impress me with their imaginations…until Dan, and his hint of whimsy.

“Elle.” He lifted a brow. “I know you’ve done some things.”

“Not kinky things.” I let him pull me closer, into the half circle of his arm around my shoulders.

“You don’t think so?” He leaned over to nuzzle my ear with his lips. “I’d say letting me fuck you in the bathroom was pretty damn kinky.”

“That wasn’t one of the questions.” At least not one I’d answered truthfully. I shivered at the deliciousness of his mouth on my skin. I leaned down and pulled the pink paper from my bag, resting at my feet. I handed it to him. “There you go. Twenty Kinky Questions. Learn the secrets of my sadly unkinky past.”

Dan unfolded the paper and we leaned together to read it. His eyes scanned the page, and he looked at me to let them scan my face. He put his hand up to my cheek, his thumb rubbing over my skin, then over my lips.

“You were fifteen when you lost your virginity?”

That, at least, I’d answered honestly. “How old were you?”

“Older than that.” He looked at the paper again. “You’ve only had one boyfriend?”

“Yes.” I watched him think but was unable to guess his thoughts. “How many have you had?”

“None.”

“Girlfriends, then.” I knuckled his side.

“Four or five serious ones.” He laughed and jerked away from my tickling. “Hey, cut it out.”

We settled back against each other. He put the paper on the coffee table and turned to me. He looked serious, and I tensed.

“You’ve been with seventy-eight men but only had one boyfriend.”

I nodded. “Yes.”

I waited for him to ask me why. He didn’t. Instead, he put his head against mine and said nothing. We sat in silence that could have been awkward but wasn’t. The hand around my shoulder traced small circles on my upper arm. The other one took mine and settled it with his upon my thigh.

“Have you ever been with two men?”

“Have you ever been with two women?”

“Yes. Would that turn you on?” He asked me. We might have been discussing the weather. “Being with a girl?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never tried it.”

“But you’d like to be with two guys.”

I nodded, wetting my lower lip with my tongue. “I think so.”

He said nothing. Waiting for me to speak. I took a deep breath.

“I’ve had a lot of sex but…not a lot of…variety.”

“Variety can be fun, Elle.”

“I haven’t had a lot of fun, then.”

He tilted his head to look at me and gave a small nod. “I’d like to change that.”

I chewed my lower lip. “I just…I don’t know—”

“Hey.” He interrupted me smoothly. “Would it make you feel better if you didn’t have to know? If you could just do?”

I wasn’t sure if it would or if it wouldn’t. I’ve never cared for surprises. I live my life according to calculations, statistics, numbers, plans, rules. Lines. Grids. Everything I did revolved around order. Structure. Control.

Everything, until Dan.

“I’m a little uptight,” I admitted. “I’m a lot uptight, actually. I’m very tense. A lot. And I have issues about control.”

It seemed obvious to me, but Dan shook his head. “I don’t see that about you at all.”

“You don’t?” I sat back from him. The wine was wearing off. “Tell me, Dan. What do you see?”

He smiled and looked me up and down. “I see a woman who’s smart and sexy as hell.”

He laughed at the look I gave him. “Elle, I mean it. Sure, you’re a little…reserved. But you’re not uptight. Especially not with a couple glasses of wine in you.”

I waited a moment before answering. “Have you ever listened to a sound so long you’ve forgotten you were hearing it until it stopped?”

“Sure.” His hand tightened on mine a bit. “Cicadas, the year they came out. They were so loud they sounded like a spaceship landing, but after a while it just became background noise until nighttime, when they stopped and I realized they weren’t still buzzing.”

I nodded. “White noise. That’s the inside of my head. All the time. I’m never not thinking about something. I just…keep going and going, all the time.”

I tried to gauge his reaction, but Dan didn’t seem put off by this little revelation of weirdness. I amended my statement. “Almost all the time.”

His thumb stroked my skin. “What makes it stop?”

“Drinking.”

“That stops a lot of people from thinking.”

I looked down at our hands, clasped with such intimacy. “And fucking.”

“Sex makes you stop thinking so much?”

And counting, I thought but didn’t say aloud. I nodded. “There had to be a reason why there were seventy-eight men, don’t you think?”

He stayed silent while I studied our hands. I didn’t want to look up at him, afraid the eyes that had encouraged me to speak would be filled with scorn.

“Come with me.” He stood and pulled me up along with him.

My heart pounded, but I followed him to his bedroom.

“Sit down on the bed.”

I did that, too.

He went to his dresser and pulled out a bandanna. He folded it, once, twice, and again, then placed it over my eyes and tied it behind my head. Instant darkness. A sliver of light below it. I let out a nervous laugh he didn’t join.

Then, I waited.

Nothing happened. I heard him moving around the room, the soft shuffle of something that might have been him taking off his clothes, or maybe not. The drawer slid shut with a muffled clunk. He didn’t speak.

I sat on the edge of the bed, my mouth slowly going dry with anticipation and anxiety. I didn’t move. My entire life was about control, except here, in this one place. This time. With this man.

I felt his hands on the hem of my skirt, pushing it up over my thighs. The bed dipped with his weight as he settled next to me. I straightened my back, and he put a hand on my shoulder, holding me still. His hand moved over my thigh, between my legs. His fingertips brushed my panties. Then he didn’t move again.

Without sight, my other senses had heightened. I could smell his cologne and the wine he’d drunk. Hear the puff and blow of his breath. Feel it on my neck. I sat stiff and straight, muscles tense with waiting.

“Dan?”

“Shh.”

I swallowed. The hand between my legs traveled up to unbutton my blouse and ease it off my shoulders. Cooler air caressed me. My nipples spiked. He took off my bra, too. His hands held my breasts. His thumbs circled my rock-hard nipples, and a moment later I cried out when I felt heat and wetness surround one.

His mouth. He suckled my nipple, still holding the other with his hand. I drew in breath after shallow breath. He moved gentle lips along the slope of my breast to capture the other nipple and suck that, too.

His hands roamed my skin. He unbuttoned my skirt and pulled the zipper at the side. He lifted me a little to take it off. Then I felt him between my legs, his hands on my thighs again while his mouth found my nipple. He pushed my legs wide apart. I tensed.

“Are you still thinking?”

“Yes.” My voice sounded breathy and a little hoarse.

“Let’s see if I can help you with that.”

The little bit of humor loosened my muscles. His fingers whispered up my inner thighs. He teased the hollows high up on the insides, and I shivered. Beneath the blindfold, my eyes closed. My head fell back. I supported my weight on my hands.

When he touched between my legs, at last, I jumped a little. He stroked me through the lace, then pulled the panties off. His comforter felt silky and cool on my bare skin.

“Are you cold?”

I shook my head. His hands moved over my body again, up my thighs and over my hips, my belly, my breasts, up to my shoulders to encircle my throat with gentle pressure.

“You’re shivering.”

I licked my lips. “It’s…the way you’re touching me…”

His breath stroked my skin, and a moment later his mouth fastened on my throat, just over my pulse. I tipped my head back further. He nipped and nuzzled me. His hand went back between my legs. His fingers slid against me, then inside me, and I moaned.

“I love the noises you make when you get turned on.” He murmured this directly in my ear as his moving hand urged another moan from my throat. “I love the way you get so wet for me, right away. I’ve never had a woman respond to me the way you do.”

His fingers moved inside and against me and in moments I trembled on the edge of orgasm. Dan teased me, moving slow, his mouth tracing erotic patterns on my skin. He backed off, leaving me gasping. He touched me again, feathering strokes with a fingertip countered by firmer circles. My back arched.

He left me for a moment and came back. His fingers pushed the insides of my thighs and I felt his breath again. This time, not upon my neck, but against my belly.

Every muscle in my body went stiff, and I sat up. “No.”

He rubbed soothing hands along my legs. “Relax. It’s all right.”

“No, Dan. I need to know that if I say no, you’ll stop. I need to know that.” I sat up, pushing away from him.

I put my hand to the bandanna to take it from my eyes. He put his hand over mine to stop me. We stayed like that a moment until, trembling, I put my hand down at my side. His shadow moved across my face, blocking out the sliver of light for a moment.