Hard Time (7 page)

I lit the candle and set it beside the wine. Went back to the bathroom and put on makeup, spritzed perfume in the air, and whipped my hair through it, like my mom had taught me. I put on jewelry, headed back to the couch. To the closest thing I’d had to a date in over five years.

I took a deep drink. Found Collier’s pages in my bag, stroked the backs of his words, unfolded the paper and smoothed its creases.

Drank some more.

Breathed in, breathed out.

Read.

Darling,

I guess you wore red. So I’ll tell you the things I think about.

First I feel like I should tell you what I’m in for in case you didn’t look it up. I know lots of the guards and other staff don’t like to know. Makes it easier to treat us half decent if they don’t know what we did. So if you didn’t find out for yourself I’ll tell you straight that I’m in for assault.

I blinked at that word, feeling strangely numb.
Assault.
That explained the ten years Jake had mentioned.
I wasn’t surprised, not horrified either. Not even disappointed. Maybe a little unnerved, but purely by my own complete
lack
of reaction. I was relieved though, that I’d heard it from him. All the times I’d considered snooping around online, I’d wound up shaky and dry-mouthed, and chickened out.

I read on, bracing myself for details.

It was against a guy who had it coming. You’ll have to trust me on that since I’m sure he’d tell you different. Anyhow it was bad and it was ugly and impulsive. If that scares you then maybe it’ll help when I say it’s real unlikely I’ll be getting out anytime soon.

Though it made me feel guilty . . . yeah, that did help. And although assault was terrible . . . Impulsive, he’d said. Not planned or plotted or premeditated. That loosened my chest. Maybe it’d been some bar fight gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Ten years, though, Jake had said. Hell of a bar fight. I set the worry aside—shut it back its drawer, the one labeled Massive Denial that made this reckless affair possible.

Anyhow if you’re okay with knowing that I’ll get back to the nicer stuff. Just seemed like time you knew if you didn’t already. I know I don’t know you or what you like so I hope nothing I say offends you. All I got is the truth. I hope maybe you’ll like it.

I like to watch your mouth when you read from that book. I can’t tell you what the story’s even about but I’ve got your lips memorized. I shut my eyes sometimes and just listen to how you talk. I’ve never been with a southern girl but it’s like every word you say comes out rolled in sugar. I think about kissing you like I said. Real deep and slow with our eyes closed. Maybe feel your hands on my chest or my back. As I hold your face or your hair. As I got to see if you taste like sugar to match how you sound.

I grabbed my glass off the table, took a deep taste and let the wine coat my mouth.

There’s other ways I think about your mouth and about holding your face and hair, too. I think you can guess what I mean.

“Oh mercy.”

I’d be real gentle, though. Tender. I promise. It’s just that I’ve felt nothing but my own hand for so long. I’d kill to know how your mouth felt. Warm and wet. Nothing nasty. Whatever you maybe want to do to me.

My hands shook, the letters blurring. I shut my eyes tight, and I let myself imagine it. Us, in his cell, but no one around anywhere. Perfect silence except for his breathing, hitching above me in anticipation. A thumb hooked under that waistband and his strong hand easing it down, that staple of my recent fantasies. Collier exposing himself. Those dark eyes full of hunger or need, aggression or total helplessness. I couldn’t begin to guess, so I opened my own eyes, needing more clues to who this man was. And what he wanted from me.

I’d do the same to you.

“Praise Jesus.”

I want that even more because then I could hear your voice. I want your hands on my head and my hair and you saying things to me. Anything. Just my name. Or you could tell me faster. Slower. Deeper. Lower. Use your hand Eric. I’d do whatever you asked for as long as you wanted it. With my lips or my tongue or my fingers. I used to be real good at that. Maybe you could teach me all over again.

My body clenched hard.
Teach me.
This dangerous, hardened criminal wanted to be taught something by little old me? My arousal went from mouse to cat, fearful to wicked. I reached for the glass but found it empty. I licked the inside of the rim.

I bet you taste amazing. I’d treat you so good just to taste even more of it. I’d make you come that way if you’d let me. I’d spoil you so good before I ever asked for anything for myself just so you’d know I care about you. Maybe if I did good job you’d reward me. Let me inside you. It’s been so long since I felt that. And you’d be so wet from what I made you feel. I hope I can say that word to you. Wet. That’s probably a rude word to say but I think about it. About making you that way and how incredible it’d feel. Being inside you.

I’m hard now. Typing this. I’ve been hard since the part about kissing you. I never imagined I’d get hard from writing or typing. How about that. You really are a good teacher.

When I think about being with you it’s always away from here. Outside. In the sunshine maybe by the lake.

I changed my own fantasy, rereading everything he’d written, laying my back against the sand and grass instead of some narrow, metal bed. Warm sun on my face, warm dark hair clutched in my fingers. Same hungry man between my thighs, wanting to be taught.

Sometimes I want you on my lap. Riding me. It’s been so long I bet I couldn’t last a minute. But at least that way it might be like you were doing that to me. Making me lose control. Or maybe if it was real I’d need to be on top. Like I’d die if I couldn’t move how I wanted. I’d try not to be too rough. Unless you like that. You seem like maybe you’d like for a guy to be gentle and romantic. I’d do my best to be that man. But sometimes I like it fast too. I’m not the nicest guy but I’m not an asshole either. I’d try real hard to be whatever you wanted.

I’ve been typing for two hours and using an outlet in the TV room. All the guys are pissed off about the noise so I better quit it. Next week wear green and I’ll tell you more about what I think. If you don’t I’ll leave you alone.

Yours,

Eric

PS I like feeling like I’m dressing you. I hope you like it too.

I did. Especially when he said it like that.

I wore green next week, that same spruce-colored top as my first day at Cousins. At ten of five he gave me two more pages without a word—just set them atop a slim stack of other inmates’ correspondence with a little nod.

* * *

Darling,
I read an hour later, lounging on my couch in a silk camisole, hair down and sticking to the back of my sweaty neck. The Devil was whispering secrets, my grandma would say of the day’s humidity. And a man who was far from a saint had a few of his own to tell me.

I don’t know what women think about when they think about sex,
he wrote.

I bet it’s nicer than what guys think about. So I won’t bother describing my dick or anything. Women probably don’t care about those kinds of details. We can talk about how stuff feels instead. I can tell you how my dick feels instead of how it looks. Hard. Harder than I think I ever felt before I had you to think about. Hot too. So hot I bet your hand would feel cool on my skin. I’d give anything to feel that. To kiss you while you touched me. I’d show you what I liked with my hand on yours. Slow and tight to start. Then faster.

Fucking hell.

I reread that first line.

I don’t know what women think about when they think about sex . . .

I smiled. This one thought about whatever Eric Collier told her to.

That’s how I like fucking too,
he wrote, and the room spun.
Slow to start. But by the end you’d have me so wound up I can’t promise I’d be gentle anymore. But I kind of want to show you that. How bad I want you and how hard I’d have to work to stay in control.

I wish you knew what it does to me when you wear the colors I tell you to. I didn’t know color could do that. Get me hot as a photo of a woman or someone’s actual hand on me. I was out for work release a few mornings this week by the airfield. I was only trimming the weeds but they had flowers planted around the front of this one building. Marigolds. Most were yellow and orange but some were almost the same color as the poppy on that shirt of yours. I saw that red and smelled all that grass and I thought about you. It got me all messed up in the nicest way and made me forget where I was and all the ways I fucked up to get there.

I don’t think you’ve got any clue what it means that you let me write these letters. It gets me so riled up it hurts. But I like it. I imagine it’s some spell you’ve got me under. Makes me want to be all kinds of ways with you. Helpless sometimes. But darker stuff too. Like I want to punish you for making me this crazy. But nothing bad I promise. Nothing you wouldn’t be okay with. The kind of stuff lovers get up to. That’s how I think of you now. Like my lover. That sounds crazy but you have to understand I can’t even remember what it was like the last time I had sex. Not because of how long it’s been but because the stuff I imagine about you is just that real. So real it’s like I’ve got the crispest memories of it.

I hope you don’t think I’m blowing smoke up your ass with these letters. Or that I want anything more than just to say this stuff to you. If I could think of a way to prove it I would. Since I know me being a convict won’t give you any reason to trust what I say.

I’ve gotten way better at typing by the way. I still only use two fingers but I’m way faster. And copying it down on paper had gotten easier too. I thought it might make you happy to know that.

Wear pink next week and I’ll tell you more. If you don’t I’ll stop bothering you.

Yours,

Eric

PS Wear your hottest underwear too. I don’t care if it’s a thong or granny panties. Whatever makes you hot is what I want to imagine you in. Say the word and I’d slide them off real sweet and slow or rip them right down the middle. Whatever you wanted. Whatever man you want me to be.

Whatever man I wanted him to be.

One I could actually touch, and kiss, and be with? Or exactly who he already was, and trapped safely behind those bars? A couple of weeks ago I’d have said the latter—no hesitation. But things were changing. My bad idea felt real, now.

I couldn’t say exactly what did it.

Maybe,
I’d show you what I liked with my hand on yours.

Maybe,
I can’t promise I’d be gentle.
Whatever the reason, I slid my notebook from my bag.

And I finally wrote him back.

Eric,

I just read your latest letter. I’m glad you write them, and I’m glad to hear it’s getting easier. And that doing it means so much to you. I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to write to you in return, but I’m sure you can appreciate why I need to be careful. Though that’s not the only reason.

When I was younger, I was with a guy who didn’t treat me well.
I paused, wondering how foolish it might be to tell him this. Could a manipulative convict turn this into a weapon, surely as he might fashion a toothbrush into a shank? Fuck it. I had six days to come to my senses.

He made me not want to be with men, for a long time. Not since you first got locked up, actually. I shut myself off from feeling sexual right around the time you got shut inside a cell. So we’ve both been missing these feelings. How about that?

You said you’d try hard to be whatever kind of man I wanted. I don’t know what I want, to be honest. But I do know I haven’t desired anyone in five years. Not until you. I’m not making any promises to wait for you or for this to ever be anything real, but I like talking to you this way, in letters. I’m afraid to say too much. To promise too much. I’m afraid I’m being selfish, enjoying your attention, and using you to feel this way again. But I haven’t felt this in forever, and it’s hard to just shut it off.

Like you said, we don’t know each other. Only how we seem to make each other feel. But sometimes that feels like enough. So simple and right, when real life can feel far too messy.

He’d assumed I wouldn’t want to talk about crass things, about our bodies, but he was wrong. I wanted to tell him how I watched him from the office window, when he was exercising. But if someone searched his cell and read this letter, looking for contraband, too many roads would lead to staff, and to me. I’d have to fib, and assume he could read between the lines.

I bet I know what your body looks like, when you’re out in the yard. I bet it’s beautiful, and I say that as a woman who’s not been all that preoccupied by shallow things, like the way a man looks. You make me care about that, somehow. Maybe because I know so little about you. And because our lives are so different. Maybe I want to understand your body because I worry I could never understand what it’s like, being you.

I paused, wondering if that even made sense. Whatever. It was true.

I bet when you’re outside, your skin is tan and shines with sweat. I bet you have tattoos, on your back and shoulder . . .
I hoped he’d realize what I was saying. Hoped he’d feel my eyes on him from now on when he worked out on Fridays, a woman’s admiring gaze cutting through that sea of male hostility.
I want to lie you down on a bed and trace my fingertips over those designs, whatever they might be, and ask you what they mean, and about the man you were when you got them. And if you’re the same man now, or someone else. I feel like someone else now, since you started writing to me. I feel alive and vibrant and excited in ways I didn’t even a month ago. I’m afraid of what I feel sometimes, but I like that better than feeling nothing.

You said you didn’t know what women think about, when they think about sex. I can only tell you what I think about.