JONATHAN
I brushed my thumb against her nipple, bending it, then I leaned down to suck it. She wove her fingers in my hair. I tasted the water of the shower on her, the tinge of soap on my tongue. Steam still fogged the room.
“Jonathan,” she whispered. “I’ll miss the plane.”
“No you won’t.”
I drew my tongue down her belly, flat and tight, stopping at the navel bar she still wore for me, then down between her legs. I bent one of her knees and put it over my shoulder, giving my mouth access to her.
“I haven’t packed yet,” she said, but I knew I had her. I opened her lips with my thumbs and licked her clit slowly, tip to hole and back again, tasting the fresh, clean skin and clear, rushing fluids.
“Pack fast,” I said. She’d be gone for a week. I wanted her before she left.
“I have to pack the Theramin and it’s oh, God,” she moaned when I sucked her, hitching her other leg over my shoulder. “Delicate. Jesus, what is with you lately?”
I stood up and wiped my mouth with my hand. She sat spread eagled on the bathroom vanity, wet and ready. She was mine, and I loved her.
“What’s with me lately?” I was in my underwear, which I didn’t bother taking off as I pulled my dick out. “Maybe I’m bored.”
“You could work again.”
“I could.”
I slid in nice and easy.
There was a feeling, as I f**ked her on the vanity, that something wasn’t quite right. Something was missing. She was wet. I was hard. Her tits bounced when I thrust and there was enough nudity between us to get my dick inside her.
But her arms. I didn’t know where they were going next. She moved in unexpected ways. I put my arms around her, holding her together and I leaned in close to kiss her, dragging my stubble on her cheek and the sensitive part of her neck. She whispered, ouch.
I felt suddenly powerful. I’d been f**king her for months with this borrowed thing in my chest, but when she said ouch, I wanted to more than f**k her. I wanted to tear her apart.
I lost my shit at the thought of it, coming in her the way I’d been since the hospital, without control or intent; just because I was ready.
Monica came a second after I started, and we gripped each other, quivering. The steam had barely cleared the mirrors when I kissed her shoulder and realized I had a problem in my arms.
***
I stretched out in the sun with my chest to the sky and felt that thing beating. The July heat baked me, muggy and sticky, sharing sweat with a stranger’s tissue, grateful to be alive, yet in a state of constant bewilderment, thinking, how the f**k was I pulled from death for this? I pondered it too often, and for too long.
“Hey,” she said, stepping into my sunlight. She wore a pale blue dress and clunky bracelets. “I’m going.”
I patted a place for her to sit next to me.
“I can’t,” she said. “Lil’s waiting.”
I flipped my sunglasses up so I could look her in the eye and with that gaze, let her know I was entitled to a minute of her time.
“Goddess.”
“I’ll call you when I land.” She bent to kiss me, and when her lips hit mine I held her head there an extra few seconds. She smiled and trotted away.
I had a problem. She was going to Caracas for three days to open two shows with some madhouse band, and I wasn’t going with her by doctor’s orders. Not yet.
The impulsive side of me wanted to follow her, and let the team of highly-paid specialists kiss my ass, but I stayed behind. There was no need to rush. Three more days wouldn’t change anything.
When I’d met Monica, I’d known what I was. Who I was. I knew what I was made of and I knew how to get what I wanted. I’d still been in love with my idea of my ex wife, but my goddess had cured me of that.
I thought being happy was what had made me demand control in the bedroom, but I was wrong, or at least only partly right. All the soul-searching in the world had led me to a false conclusion.
I’d been dominant because I knew myself, and in knowing myself, I had the confidence to bind and hit and hurt, because I’d know when to stop.
We got home from the hospital, Monica and I, and eventually made love again. Still, I wasn’t myself. I was mostly me and partly someone else. An alien piece of meat had been lodged in me. I didn’t know what it would do. Would it beat right for me, or for the person it was meant for? Would it skip a beat at the sight of some strange woman? Would it break over a different past or a lost present? I kept dreaming it jumped out of me like a frog on a frying pan, slapping to the kitchen floor with a splat, beating on the tiles, squirting yellow plasma. Once, I dreamed it bounced out of me and landed in the pool, swimming with Sheila in a trail of curly red blood. And I laughed, in my dream, but when I woke up, I ran to the bathroom mirror to make sure I had a scar instead of a hole.