When I returned home and went to my room, I closed the door. Mark still hadn’t texted me back. Maybe he had to take a longer flight. Maybe he lost his phone in his rush to pack. I sent a message through his Facebook. I tried to keep it casual, simply asking him if he’d made it back to Britain safely.
I ate dinner with my parents, where they asked me about my time in Paris, avoiding the elephant in the room that looked a lot like the Louvre. I tried to talk to them about it, but every memory was attached to Mark and with every story I recounted, I questioned his motives to myself.
I’ve always prided myself on being a woman that wasn’t consumed with thoughts about men. I didn’t spend my high school nights clutching my pillow and crying my eyes out. I went to my prom with some friends and didn’t feel bad about it. I considered myself to be a modern woman whose focus was on her future career and had a ten-year plan without a man included in it.
So, every time I checked my phone and every time I looked on Facebook, the feeling that I’d become the most pathetic person on earth stabbed through me. This wasn’t who I was, but I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
I thought about how I lost my virginity to him.
I thought about how he grabbed my hand, racing with me through the Louvre to try to find an exit that the police wouldn’t find us at and refusing to answer any of my questions.
I thought about how he couldn’t look me in the eye after the police caught us in a room filled with priceless paintings and my shirt on backward.
I thought about how I could have gone to prison because of him.
And, even with all of that, I thought about how I’d still do anything for him to text me back. Because I loved him, like a pathetic fool.
Chapter 10:
Mark
Zandra’s hands are on my chest and her thighs straddle around my thighs. Her breathing is slowly falling back into a slower rhythm. My hand slides down from her breast, amazed by her beauty. And her stamina. And her whole damn body.
“Good morning to you too,” I say. She grins, slowly pulling herself off me. She slides up against me, her legs wrapping around my right leg, her head resting on my shoulder, and her hand settling on my chest. A stream of light through the window shade cuts across her shoulder. She’s a masterpiece.
“I’m always a little bit frisky in the morning,” she says. “It’s nice to have something other than my hand.”
Imagining her touching herself is nearly enough to get me hard again. It’s a shame that we have to go to work. It turns out life isn’t cruel, but it maintains a habit of ensuring we don’t get too much of a good thing in a single moment. Because right now is so generously good that if I have it for another hour or two, it might irrevocably change who I am.
“I’ll always be happy to help you with that,” I say. I close my eyes, lightly stroking her arm.
“Can I tell you something?” she asks. I nod, though it feels like the smallest confession could cause a crack between us. “After Paris, I used to have dreams like this. Just lying here with you. I almost got used to waking up and finding out you were never there.”
I stop stroking her arm. In these scenarios, I never understand what women want. Should I apologize or would that sound false? Should I reassure her that I’m going to stay or would that sound like I’m brushing over what happened before?
She props her head up on her hand. “You don’t need to say anything. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. It wasn’t meant to be heavy or a guilt-trip. We were teenagers and now we’re not.”
Sitting up, she runs her hand through her hair. When she stretches, I search for signs that she’s still waiting for me to be apologetic or provide assurance, but her face is serene, and she still has that afterglow from her morning surprise.
I raise myself up. My hand cups her cheek to turn her face. I kiss her, savoring the moment. I could live in this moment forever. I want her fingertips on my skin forever. I want her lips searching for my lips forever. I want her breasts pressed up against my chest forever.
The faint sound of a stomach growling rumbles in front of me. I pull away to look at her. A pale pink hue colors her cheeks.
“That sometimes happens in the morning too,” she says, hastily. “I’m fine. My stomach is just used to a certain schedule.”
“Well, I don’t want to disappoint your stomach,” I say, letting my hand touch her stomach and slide down far enough that she leans up against my fingertips. “Do you have a breakfast preference? If you have some eggs, I could make you something, but there are also a lot of great breakfast places on this side of the city.”
“I forgot that you can cook,” she says, nudging closer to me, so her clit is against my fingers. “I would have thought in California, you’d give in to all of the food choices.”
“Usually, I do,” I say. “But I wouldn’t mind taking a long shower with you, which we’d have less time to do if I left the apartment to get food.
“Oh, that’s true.”
She kisses me. We collapse back onto the bed, folding together like a single origami piece.
******
They say owning a business is the American dream, but it’s a nightmare.
