Heartless (11 page)

“The light’s green,” he whispered.

He pulled me into the flow of the other pedestrians crossing the street. There was space between us now, only our hands connected, and I felt my heart sink with the missed opportunity of that kiss. But really, what was I expecting? I had specifically told Josh to take it slow. He was now asking permission to
hold my hand
. He probably wouldn’t even try to kiss me on our first date, and even if he did, he’d ask first. I felt, for the zillionth time in my life, that I had messed up something important because I was so full of contradictions. Miranda once said to me, early in therapy, “You’ll never get close to anyone if you constantly push people away.” I couldn’t have it both ways. I couldn’t keep my boundaries so impenetrable
and
be surprised by a kiss.

“You know, you’ve said that to me before,” I said. “When we first met.”

“Said what?”

“‘The light’s green’.”

He tossed his head back and looked up at the stars, perhaps recalling the moment. “Ah yes, in the car. When you were hesitating.”

“I think I do that a lot. Hesitate.”

Santa Monica pier sparkled in the distance. We turned away from it and walked along the path that wove through the grassy park.

“You mean you miss a lot of green lights?” Josh grinned, teasing me.

“Maybe. Metaphorically, at least.”

“I see.” He grew thoughtful. “Metaphorically, green lights are opportunities to move forward, is that what you mean?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

A salty gust blew up from the sea and made the palms rustle. I shivered. Letting go of Josh’s hand, I unwound my sweater and slipped my arms in the sleeves. Josh donned his jacket as well. We kept walking and this time I reached out and took Josh’s hand. I stole a glance at him as he stared ahead at the path and I saw him smile. Not at me but I was pretty sure
for me
, and for him, too.

We took the pedestrian walkway and descended the stairs. Beyond the parking lot, where the sand started, I bent down to untie my sandals. I wrapped them around my wrist and let them dangle from my hand. Josh sighed and looked down at his feet.

I laughed. “You didn’t think we were going to walk along the beach in our shoes, did you? Go on, untie!”

I leaped from the pavement to the sand while he slipped out of his dinner shoes. As soon as my toes hit the sand I felt the cool curves of silica enveloping the bottoms of my feet. I wiggled my toes and pushed them deeper into the sand, feeling something almost magical rising up through my heels.
I’m heee-ere
, beach-girl whispered from my imagination.

Suddenly, I felt bubbly and loose inside. Ready for anything. I gulped. Did I really mean
anything
?

“Josh?”

He finished tucking his socks into his shoes, hooked his fingers into them, and stood to face me. He blinked when our eyes met, almost as if he was doing a double take. Did he sense the change that I felt inside myself? I smiled at him, a little daringly.

“Is it normal to kiss on a first date?”

He blinked again. “Sometimes. If you want it to be.” He watched me very closely. I swayed slightly, like I had while talking on the phone when he couldn’t see me. His eyes followed my hips for a few seconds and then he looked into my eyes again. My smile grew wider but also slightly mischievous—it was a beach-girl smile.

“I do. And I give
you
the green light.”

With that, I turned on my heel and ran through the wide swath of sand toward the water. I couldn’t help giggling as I heard Josh chasing after me. Off to the left, the festive lights from the pier bounced off the dark water looking like flickering earthbound stars.

Josh

I want to grab her and pin her on the sand but that would be so much more than the kiss she’s just invited me to offer. And a first date kiss at that—sensual, soft, slow, exploratory—not the driving, probing, lashing my tongue is dying to foist upon her. I know I can’t yet, but I want to. I keep feeling like I’m on the brink of exploding around her, and then I reel myself in, calm down, be the good, stable, strong, supportive guy. Which is what she clearly needs. And I can be all those things; I am all those things, but I’m also so much more.

This girl is pretty fucked up. She’s all over the map. Happy and sweet one moment, frightened and paranoid the next. I think she likes me though. She took my hand of her own accord tonight. That’s progress. I am being so careful about touching her. I’d really like to pick her up and swing her around, or throw her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and feel her giggling and kicking over my shoulder, or take her small face between my hands and draw her lips toward mine… All in good time, I guess.

She’s a fast runner. Not as fast as I am but I’m not gaining on her too quickly. I’m going to let her run all the way to the water’s edge before I catch up. I wish she was running
to
me instead. Then I could see that playful smile, her sweater flowing out behind her, and her tits bouncing under her tank top. Oh man, if I picture her running legs jumping up and wrapping around my waist I will be a goner. I was semi-hard all through dinner, and then when our hands were resting on my thigh—what was I thinking? Thank goodness dessert arrived and I could go back to normal before we had to walk across that crowded restaurant. If I kiss her tonight—who am I fooling?
When
I kiss her tonight—and I hug her, too, will she be frightened of that? She doesn’t seem to be very experienced and yet I don’t think she’s a virgin. Shit, I’m getting ahead of myself. I can’t help it. I want to pin her down on the sand, climb on top of her, hike up her skirt… Or I’m on the sand, her straddling me, her skirt all bunched up around her hips, which grind into mine… I reach down and adjust the boner shifting in my jeans. I slow my pace, too. Calm down, I tell myself. There ain’t no rush.

She’s still running ahead of me but she’s nearing the water’s edge now. The lights from the pier sparkle off the sea’s surface. Did the stars bring us together? Or Fate? Does it matter? We found each other. That’s all that matters.

She turns to me and smiles. She’s watching me,
all
of me. She’s trying to focus on my eyes and face but I sense her gaze roaming. I like it. It tells me her animal appetites are still intact, despite her past.

I toss my shoes onto the sand a few feet behind me. She giggles. I reach for her hand, untwist the sandal straps from her wrist, and toss them next to mine. Then I grab both of her hands in both of mine and pull back, drawing us apart. I start turning us in a slow circle. I guide us closer to the froth of gently incoming waves. Her giggles turn to laughter as we twirl and splash. We spin until we’re both dizzy and then I draw her toward me, her hands against my chest, her elbows bent against my stomach. Our hips don’t touch but our faces come close. I hear her breath catch, feel her grow very still in my grip. She is smiling. She is open to me. Her wide hazel eyes reflect the glittering carnival lights of the pier. I was bewitched by those eyes the moment she took her glasses off in the car that first day. Those haunted hazel eyes. I’m sure I’ve seen them before. But I don’t know where. And right now I don’t care. I draw my lips together, moisten them from the inside. I am about to ask if I can kiss her, and I’m willing the stars and Fate to make her say yes, despite the fear that makes her begin to tremble as we stand in inches of cool water and on the brink of our first kiss. But she closes her eyes, tilts her head up, parts her lips ever so slightly… and I know that she, not the stars or Fate, is saying yes. I savor this moment. The tender vulnerability of her trusting face, and her soft pink lips so open and inviting, make my heart ache, and another part of me surge with desire. I draw up that heat, allow it to rise up to my lips, and I bend down and give it to her. She receives it willingly, ravenously. I am lost to our shared desire.

Heather

I was changed by that kiss.

Standing on the shore, water lapping around my toes, the lights of Santa Monica pier making a halo around Josh. For the first time in years I thought of angels, the ones I dreamt about, and felt around me, when I was little. The ones Pastor Guthrie said were real and I believed him, until I found out he lied about other things and I had to distrust everything he told me, even the good stuff.

When Josh swung me around, in the sand and the surf, under the stars, beside the sparkling pier and the wide open sea I felt… not just my hair fly out behind me, but also certain fears. I started moving, spinning, held by someone strong enough to hold me and move me in such a way that the things that shrouded my spirit could be displaced and driven off into the wind made by our spinning force. And then he brought me to him, my hands curled into his and pressed against his heart and I felt him there, through my hands, his heart beating a life that was offering itself to me, in this moment, under these stars, no matter what was past or future. The stillness I felt inside was new, and I knew it was because of him. He looked at me so softly, but strongly, too, and I knew he wanted something and I knew I did, too. Only I didn’t want him to ask. I wanted to give so he could take. Take my lips in his so that he could give that spirit, that fire, burning behind his eyes, to me. In that moment I wasn’t afraid or full of doubt, despite a tiny trembling in my bones. Excitement rather than fear this time. Beach-girl had gotten me to the edge of the shore but she had receded for a moment and it was just me now, the deepest, realest part of me, and him. I had a fleeting taste of my own freedom, the freedom that lies between past and future and the connection to one’s deepest spirit. I knew it was just a taste, a glimpse, of what was possible. I would stumble again on this journey, but in this moment, with Josh’s soft lips pressed to mine, his heat bearing down on me, his tongue a sweet, slow invasion, my mouth an opening flower, expanding, blooming until a hunger rose up from my belly and slid across my tongue, this tongue that wanted to bridge, seal, any distance between us. I rose up on my toes, pushing my mouth into his as if trying to merge completely, while my hands, still clutched in his, pulled my weight closer and closer, so that my lips could experience the full pleasure of devouring.

It was only a kiss, but it changed me.

Josh hugged me after. Brought me close and breathed into my neck. An animal breath of longing, and of patience. He held me to prolong the connection, his arms encompassing my back, our chests pressed together, his hips aligned with my belly, and I felt his hardness there…

And my deepest self, so strong in spirit for those moments of kissing, retreated and I had my fractured self back, broken at the edges, glued together by beach-girl, meditation, my sessions with Miranda, and the turning away from the past. But one thing was different. Josh was here with me, touching me, holding me. I had opened my mouth to him through that kiss, and that was one path directly to the heart I was still healing, the heart I did, eventually, want to share.

I pulled back and turned away from him, to face the sea, because I wasn’t ready to face the fullness of his desire. Not yet. But I held his hand in mind and let it rest against my hip, while he, I hoped, relaxed, and let go of the ‘more’ his body clearly craved. I felt it too but in a different way, a way that told me I wasn’t quite ready for that. But it was more about timing than desire. It was more about catching up.

“Thank you, Ocean,” I said to the sea. “Thank you for rolling relentlessly around the world and showing us how everything’s connected. Thank you, Stars,” I said looking up. “For shining down from such a distance. You show us how small we are and yet how magnificent it is to be alive. Thank you, Earth, for holding everything all together and giving us a place to walk, and sleep, and love.” I squeezed Josh’s hand. “And thank you, Josh, for being earth and water and stardust and for coming to me in the uniqueness of yourself.”

That was another practice Miranda had taught me. Gratitude. And when the heart felt full, the spirit happy, it was better than any prayer, and it could make me feel connected, even though my religion was long gone.

Josh stood silently beside me. I assumed he was watching the swell and dip of the dark sea with me, but then I wasn’t sure. Doubt crept in, and I stole a glance in his direction. He was watching
me
, and I suddenly felt embarrassed for the things I’d just said. Did he think I was flaky now? What with the astrology and all?…

His eyes, catching the light from the pier now, looked warm and wondering.

“You’re a poet,” he whispered.

I bowed my head. “No, I’m not.”

“It’s beautiful, what you said.” He kissed my bent forehead, using a finger to lift my chin and hold my face up to the sky. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

“I don’t pray anymore. But sometimes saying things like that makes me feel better. Or when I’m already feeling good—like tonight—it makes the goodness even better.”

He nodded. “It made me feel good, too.”

We were still standing on the damp sand with the cool water swirling around our toes. I felt a little chill and I shivered.