Thou Shalt Not (33 page)

“She was controlling.”

April cocked her head to the side. “In what way?”

I rested my elbows on my knees and stared at the water. I wished I had a toothpick.

“I had this big—no, huge—movie collection,” I said. “I’m a movie snob.” I grinned and looked at her out of the corner of my eye so she’d know how serious I was.

“Surprise, surprise,” she said. I leaned up to kiss her.

“I added to it while we were married. She used to get upset sometimes at the movies I used to bring home. I always risked a lecture when I walked through the door with a new DVD. I started sneaking them in. It was pathetic. But, eventually she’d see them on the shelf and I’d get a lecture anyway. They were too violent, too sexually explicit, too immoral. She wanted me to be like her, I guess. Watch Disney movies…”

April groaned. I imagined Disney movies were the bane of a mother’s existence.

“Anyway, one day I came home and the shelves were empty. She’d thrown them all out. Years and thousands of DVDs.”
“Oh my god, Luke. What did you do?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head, even now disgusted at the memory. “I didn’t do a damn thing. Pretended like it never happened. I didn’t want the fight. I was hurt, but I just took it as my compromise. She wanted me to give up movies. I gave up movies. Because I loved her.”

I looked at April. “There is a point to all of this, believe it or not.”

She nodded and touched the back of my head, her fingers lightly running through my hair. I closed my eyes for a second and allowed myself to enjoy it. Holly and I fucked. All the ways we touched were sexual. But, a woman hadn’t touched me like this in a long time.

“I don’t think real love tries to change you. The movies were part of me. When a person tries to strip you of the things that make you
you
—only to make you more like them—it starts to make you bitter.”

Her eyes filled with tears. She tilted her chin toward her lap and one dropped onto her dress.

“I like you,” I said. “I don’t feel judged by you. I’m not trying to sound like a teenage girl and ask you what exactly ‘we’ are. But I want you to know that you make me want to get up in the morning. Seeing you every day at work gives me something to look forward to. And now, actually getting to spend time with you is messing with my head. You are married, and you have children. This is complicated any way you look at it. Truthfully, I don’t even know what you want out of all this. But, it’s only fair to tell you that the more time I spend with you, the more I find myself falling. Hard. I don’t just want to be a plaything to you.”

She had been looking at me, but now she turned and looked out toward the water. The moon reflected off the surface. The effect was eerie.

“I am happy, Luke. Right now. I am happy. The last twenty-four hours have been the best I can remember having in years. Maybe ever. And it’s easy to get caught up in them and not have to think. When I’m with you, even when we are just talking at the school, I sort of lose all worries about anything else. I focus on you and how you make me feel.”

She paused, and let the words linger between us. I knew there was a “but” coming, though.

I was right.

“But, then when I’m sitting in the classroom, or I’m driving around town, or I’m at home alone, I think about him. I think about the kids. I think about what would have to happen for us to ever be able to try something. And it scares me. It wears me down to even think about. “

She turned back toward me and took my hand.

“You aren’t a plaything,” she continued. “Although, I think I’m going to want to play with you all the time now. I find myself wishing I had known you before I married the biggest asshole I’ve ever met. I was young, and stupid, and knew in my heart I shouldn’t marry him. And now that I’ve found a man who makes me feel butterflies when he looks at me, I realize that I am going to have to pay for the mistake I made.”

“You don’t have to punish yourself for those mistakes. You were young. But, continuing to live in a mistake once you’ve learned better is the worst thing you can do for yourself. You have no right to punish yourself any more for that choice. You have been punished enough just by having to live with him.”

“I don’t mean it like that, Luke. I am going to suffer the consequences for my mistake. Even if I decided not to leave him. There will be consequences for my actions. I think about that a lot. My kids will be dragged through it. Marco will make things miserable for me. He could and would do everything in his power to make things miserable for you too. Even if he never found out I had already started something with you. You’ve already been through so much. So, I question whether or not I’m willing to put you through even more. And whether I can subject my kids to that.”

Her voice quivered when she mentioned her children. I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her toward me. She cried, her head pressed to my chest.

“I don’t want him to come back,” she said through tears. “And I want my babies.”

“Listen,” I said, as she continued to cry. “You don’t get to make the decisions for me. I want to have something with you. Something that doesn’t involve sneaking around and trying to keep things under wraps. I know it won’t be easy, but I want you, and whatever comes with you.”

“Okay,” she said.   

I lifted her chin up and looked at her face. Her eyes were wet with tears, and her eyelashes glistened in the light.

I kissed her cheek and could taste the saltiness of her tears on my lips. I kissed the other cheek, and then her forehead.

Then I kissed her lips. The kiss started slow and continued that way, but I could feel it in places I had never felt a kiss before. I loved Carrie as a young, inexperienced kid. The things I felt for April were more complex. I was more complex. Was this love?

My hands were on her waist, and hers were laced behind my head.

She began to scoot off the bench, pulling me down with her. Before I knew it, she was lying down on the dock and I was on top of her.

We continued to kiss as she undid my belt and unzipped my pants. I grew hard the second she touched my bare skin.

She took my shaft into her right hand, and with her left hand I could tell she was pulling her panties to the side, making room for me. She guided me inside her, and I felt her warmth wash over me. I buried my face in her neck for a minute. This was the best part—the heat, the tightness. Her legs open and tensed.

People would have been able to see us on the dock if they had been looking out their back windows. But we were oblivious as we made love to the sound of the water lapping against the dock, illuminated by the light of the moon.

I dropped April off at her house a little while later so that she could get her things and drive her car over. I went on ahead without her.

When I pulled into my neighborhood, I saw a car in my driveway. Holly’s.

Oh god.

Foolishly, I had thought maybe if I just stopped talking to her during the day she would go back to Kyle and work things out and everything would be fine. That we wouldn’t have to talk about things. But, I had known things were changing for her, that she was developing an attachment to me again. Hell, even I was feeling it. Squashing feelings was a gift of mine. So, I was stupid to think I could casually sever it by not talking to her for a few days.

She had a key to my house, so she was already inside, seated on the couch when I walked in. A white bra was next to her on the couch. April’s. In our haste to leave that morning, April had put her tank top on and gone braless. I remembered her nipples poking out spectacularly as I had driven her to her house.

“Well, I know this isn’t mine,” Holly said, forgoing salutations. “Way too small.”

“Look, Holly, I…”

She cut me off.

“Spare me.”

She stood up and tossed the bra at me. I caught it out of instinct. She walked out the front door and I followed her to the driveway, bra still in hand.

“Holly, wait.”

“For what, Luke?” she said, turning back toward me. Her voice was cold. “I’ve waited. I’ve dated other people while I waited. For you. Because you needed time to heal. I was always there when you needed someone, something. A fuck. A friend. And here I thought we had finally turned the corner.” She shook her head, and then her voiced cracked. “God, I’m so stupid.”

“No, you aren’t stupid,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

There it was, out in the open. I knew the feelings were there, but I wasn’t sure either of us was ever going to acknowledge them. I had spent so much time mentally on what was going to be happening with April, that I hadn’t been thinking much about what was happening right in front of me with Holly.

I had thought Holly was too badass to let something like this bother her. I thought I’d be able to tell her and she would be understanding. We fuck each other; we fuck other people. But, I was stupid for thinking that, for trying to excuse what I was doing. And Holly was the one paying the price.

“You aren’t the stupid one, Holly.”

“Just shut the fuck up. Leave me alone.”

I moved quickly to cut her off at her car door before she could reach it. She swung her arm at me, trying to either hit me or push me to the side, but she missed. Her feet moved backwards as she stepped away from me.

“Move,” she said.

“No.”

“Get the fuck away from my car.”

I didn’t move.

“Let’s talk.”

We stood staring at each other for what seemed like an eternity. I tried thinking of a way to explain everything, but “I’m sleeping with my married coworker” wasn’t a great way to start a conversation with a woman who was hurting and mad as hell.

“Who is she?” she finally asked. I had known that question would come.

“Her name is April,” I said.

Her eyes got big, as if the name rang a bell.

“The soup lady? The one you said was taking over Robin’s class?”

God, how did she even remember that?

“Yeah.”

“So, you’ve had this secret girlfriend on the side and were just using me as a good ol’ fuck buddy who you could toss to the side whenever you had to?”

“She’s not my girlfriend, Holly. It isn’t like that.”

“You’re just fucking her too? What, is she married or something?”

I could tell she meant the last part sarcastically, but when I didn’t answer immediately, she knew.

“Oh my god, she is.”

I was still standing in front of her car door, but she began pacing back and forth in a small space. Three feet to her right, then back to where she started and then three feet to the left.

“It’s complicated, Holly. I can explain.”

She held her hand up as she paced, silencing me.

“How long?”

“What?”

She stopped pacing.

“How long have you been fucking her?”

I paused for a second to think. Had it really only been twenty-four hours ago that April and I had sex for the first time?

“Since last night.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, Holly, it’s true.”

I could tell she was processing the information.

“So, that,” she said, pointing at the bra that I had balled up in my hand. “That is from last night?”

“Yes.” I said. “I dropped her off at her house this morning before work. She left it here accidentally.”

There was no use in lying to her now.

“You only fucked her once?”

I shook my head.

“God,” she said, closing her eyes.

“Her husband is abusive,” I said. I wasn’t sure why I had said it. The words had just kind of fallen out.

“Oh, and you are saving her with your dick, is that it? Because I’m sure he’d be thrilled to know what his wife has been up to.”

For a second I wondered what Holly would do with the information she had. If she would figure out who April was, and somehow contact Marco and tell him everything. I didn’t think she would do that. But, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

“That’s not what I meant, Holly.”

“Why her?”

“Excuse me?”

The look on her face was foreign. I had never seen her eyelids lower themselves that way, or her lips pull into a pucker like what I said tasted like an emotional lemon. It was hurt. Deep hurt. I clenched my fists.

“Why her?” Her voice cracked again. “Why wasn’t I good enough?”

My mind went searching for an answer. I was ashamed that I didn’t already have one. Why April? Because I thought she was sexy? Because I wanted to kiss her neck? Because she smelled good? Because she made me soup? Those wouldn’t hold up in any court, much less with Holly. It had all made so much sense at the time, but now I felt ashamed.

I had so quickly thrown caution to the wind in starting something with April. I mean, god, I had only known her a few weeks. But I had been so focused on whether or not it was right to start something with her that I hadn’t bothered to stop and ask why I would be willing to start something with her in the first place. I had been happy with Holly. Very.

So, why April?

And then it hit me that I didn’t have a reason that made sense. And it would sound even more ridiculous if I feebly tried to explain it out loud. I wasn’t going to be able to convince Holly with an answer. I suddenly wasn’t even able to convince myself.