He heads towards the kitchen where his jacket still lays sprawled out on the island. The one piece of clothing that was not tossed carelessly somewhere on my floor. I take advantage of the moment alone to throw on his white button-up that just barely covers me and slip into the bathroom.
Sitting down, I replay the experience in vivid detail, and even the memory is completely exhilarating. It was like my body was sleeping before him and was just now woken up, tingly and heavy like after you sit on your foot, and it falls asleep beneath your weight.
It was like Jay being vulnerable about his brokenness, and the way I still needed him despite it, released something inside of him that had been locked away, just clawing to get out. His ability to possess yet empower, control yet liberate, dominate yet give me reign, quite simply, turned me on. Between his commands on where to go and what to do —"Lay back," "Turn over," “Look at me, Claire”— and his physical strength and natural power, he was the director, and I, his willing participant.
The sound of him opening and closing drawers in my kitchen startles me from my trance. I wash my hands and walk out of the bathroom just as he walks back into the room. Scanning my dangerously short ensemble, he turns his lips inward, eyes now glued to the hem of the shirt.
“And I suddenly don’t hate that shirt as much as I did before.” He walks over to me, throwing a stack of something on my bed.
“Looked better on you,” I say as he moves closer.
“Not even for a second,” he argues, bringing his hands to the gap where the last button used to be before he ripped it open in my kitchen.
He moves one hand to the back of my head while he pushes open the flap of fabric now button-free at the bottom of the shirt. As he moves his lips to mine, he presses the pad of his thumb just barely to my center, and my stomach lets out a growl I’m pretty sure my neighbors could hear.
We both smile, our faces just inches apart, and the tension between us settles as he speaks.
“Anyway…" he laughs. "Good news or bad news?”
“Bad news first, always.” He drops his hands and brings them to his hips.
“We missed our reservation by an hour.” He walks over and picks up the papers off the bed and looking closer I see now that they are takeout menus. “Good news is, I found like six different menus for places that deliver.”
“You can thank Chloe for those.” I take the menus, shuffling through them. “Pretty much every time she comes over she either brings food or insists on ordering some, so I just started collecting menus.” My stomachgrowls again. Thankfully, it didn’t wake any sleeping babies this time, but it’s still as embarrassing as ever.
“Let’s get you fed,” Jay says and my eyes shouldn’t dart to his crotch, but they do because, of course, they do. He laughs and holds up two menus. One is Chinese and one is for the burger place down the street. The idea of slurping lo mein in front of Jay this early in the game has me sweating, so I tap the burger menu.
“Burger Barn it is.”
He takes my order and then walks to the kitchen to make the call. I put on new underwear and the same pajama tank and shorts set he’s already seen by the time he comes back.
“Twenty minutes,” he says. Looking at his shirt on the bed, he drops his shoulders in disappointment.
“I thought you might want your shirt back,” I say and he nods begrudgingly before sliding his arms into it. I move to him, helping him button it back up and rolling one sleeve as he does the other. My hand runs down the silhouette of the person he has tattooed on his forearm.
“Who’s this?” I ask.
Emotionless he says, “Huck Finn.”
“I love that book!” I gasp, still holding his arm. “We read that in my sixth-grade honors course two years ago.” He forces a smile but his eyes lack expression.
“I read it a lot as a kid,” he says. “Well, my brother used to read it to me at least.” My face softens at the admission. Another personal piece of him he’s offering to add to my collection.
“When was the last time you saw him?” He turns away picking up the discarded menus, but I see the way his body changes as he does it.
“About seventeen years.”
I completely freeze, shocked by his response. He said it had been a long time since he’d seen him, but seventeen years? What I want to say is “Why?” “What happened?” “Where did he go?” but judging by the tension in his jaw, it’s not a story he wants to share.
Instead, I say, “That’s a really long time.”
Anda simple, “Mhmm” is the end of that conversation.
In my attempt to lighten the mood, I sit on the bed, leaning back on the headboard. “What about the other tattoos?”
“What about them?” he says, sitting on the side of the bed, still fiddling with the menus.
“Tell me about them.” I play with a loose string on my bedspread, wondering if I should have changed subjects altogether.
