“Since we didn’t use protection the first time,” she says, “do I need to get tested?”
The question surprises me, but it shouldn’t.It’s a reasonable one, and she’s smart.
“No,” I tell her.The water turns off a second later, followed by the rustling of the curtain.She doesn’t pull it all the way aside, doesn’t let me see her naked body.Instead, she pushes her face through the narrow gap she’s made, holding the curtain in front of the rest of her like a cloak.Her face floats, disembodied, in a sea of champagne as she blinks her water-spangled lashes at me.
“I don’t?”she presses, a pucker forming between the winged arches of her pale eyebrows.“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” I reply.“The only two women I’ve ever been with were tested very regularly, and they both presented me with the paperwork showing their results before we did anything.Plus, we used protection on top.”
“They showed you paperwork?”The pucker between her brows deepens.“Like it was some kind of business deal or something?Is that normal?”
“It’s normal when you’re charging thousands of dollars an hour for your services,” I say.“And it basically was a business deal.Both times.”
“Oh.Oh.”The little divot on her forehead disappears, her eyebrows rising now with apprehension.“The two women you’ve been with…They were professionals.”
“Correct,” I reply.There’s no reason for me to lie to her about this.I feel no shame, no remorse, no guilt about any of it – not that I feel those emotions in other areas of my life either.
When I think of those two encounters, I don’t really feel much of anything at all.I don’t recall the women’s names, or if they ever even told me their names in the first place.I don’t remember their faces.
I do remember they were both blonde.
I’d specifically requested that.Something I’ve never really analyzed in a conscious way until this very moment, watching water drip its way through Aurora’s pale strands.
Huh.
“And is that something I’m going to have to contend with while we’re married?”Aurora asks.“You having your little…encounters…on the side?”She says it brazenly, but there’s a brittleness to her boldness, a flicker of vulnerability in her eyes.Like she’s secretly frightened of the answer, but doesn’t want me to know.
“I don’t see why,” I reply.“It’s not something I typically partake in.The two instances I’m speaking of happened more than ten years ago.I haven’t been with anybody since.”
Anybody since you,I add inside my own head.
The only woman I’ve ever fucked raw.The only woman I’ve ever taken, not because I had a physical urge I needed to work out of my system, but because I wanted her,specificallyher.
Wanted her.No, that’s not quite right.The word “want” doesn’t even come close.
“Well, aren’t we quite the pair?”She gives a harsh laugh.“A virgin with all her fucked-up baggage.And a psychopath who’s only ever been with whores.”
I don’t deny the psychopath bit, but the first part doesn’t sit quite right.“You’re not a virgin anymore,” I point out, muscles tightening in my jaw.I crack my knuckles to release some of the tension.“I fucked you.And as far as I know, you’ve never been a whore.”
“As far as you know,” she mutters in a tiny voice, shifting her gaze away.Before I have the chance to ask her just what the fuck that’s supposed to mean, she meets my eyes with hers again and says, “Are you lying about this, too?”
“No,” I say, “Morelli left a couple of hours ago, but if you want me to call him back, I’ll do it.I’ll get tested, and so can you, if you want.”I pull my phone from my back pocket and hold it aloft, ready to demand the doctor’s return.
Aurora swallows, then shakes her head.
“I’ll leave it for now.I’d like to have a day – one freaking day – without men poking and prodding at me.But I will need the morning-after pill.Since it’s, you know, themorning after.”
My mind has already returned to her earlier comment –a virgin with all her fucked-up baggage– and it takes me a second to realize what she’s asking for.
She doesn’t want to be pregnant.
Not a surprise, really.I heard her earlier, talking to my brother, hissing that she doesn’t want to stay married to me.Of course she doesn’t.I knew that from the jump.She probably wants my baby in her even less.
“Leo will take care of it,” I tell her, sending him a quick text message about it.“Do you need anything else from the pharmacy?”
“No, I don’t think so.I brought a bunch of the stuff you bought for me in Montreal.It’s all in my bag…” She leans out further, looking around, clutching the curtain in front of herself.I eye the thin, plasticky fabric of it.Think about how easy it would be to tear it from her hands.Last time I was this close to her in a bathroom, I was thrusting ruthlessly against her, fucking her hard between her thighs.Feeling her come, just from that.Christo santo, my fucking dick aches.
“Where is my bag?”she asks before sighing.“Crap.I left it downstairs.”She snakes a glistening arm out from behind the curtain.And just like earlier, with her feet on the stairs, I’m transfixed by the shape of it, the sheen of pale skin, the elegance of elbow and fingers and wrist.Her fingertips hit the wall, searching, finding nothing.
