She rinsed her mouth in the bathroom sink while I toweled the saliva from my rod and hoped Emily wouldn’t detect any trace of her left on me, from a scent to a bite mark.
* * *
The phone rang just as I was about to get to sleep. Beside me in bed, Emily was further gone than I was. She mumbled for me to get it and I told her I would. I didn’t think about it being Liz, or for that matter, how incriminating it looked to leave the room rather than talk to her right there in bed like someone with nothing to hide. Lucky for me, Emily was too sleepy and maybe too trusting to picture the worst, at least so far.
Liz told me, “I miss having you in my mouth.”
“Oh, man… what time is it?”
“I loved having your body squeezed against mine today…”
“Liz… it’s not good to call here like this,” I said, then stifled a yawn. “I mean, I’m crazy about you… I don’t really have any regrets… but either we need to break things off now or I need to have that conversation with Emily. To split up with her.”
I heard her take a drink. “Are you serious about that?” When I hesitated, she hurried to tell me, “I’m okay with you staying with Emily–if that’s what you want. I don’t have a problem being the other woman–or whatever this is. If you just enjoy the blow-jobs, if you just want to fuck… not like I don’t have any pride, but we didn’t talk this out or anything. Don’t tell me something if you don’t mean it, because I’m not putting any pressure on you. I just like being with you.”
“I’m crazy about you, girl,” I said, and felt a bit rattled to say it out loud. “I don’t want to be with Emily anymore. I know what you’re saying. I wouldn’t tell you that if I wasn’t feeling it, though. I’ve had time to think about it and it’s not just… I’m not just bored or whatever.” I looked to the door of the bathroom, figuring it might be easy enough to hear me through it if Emily left the bedroom, so I turned on the water. No one can accuse me of being good at this subterfuge. “I want to be with you. Me and you feels… natural. I mean, I probably would have made a move a long time ago if I wasn’t with Emily already.”
“Let me guess,” she laughed quietly, “you didn’t want to jump ship and take a chance before you knew I liked you?”
“I guess it’s something like that. I never dreamed you might feel this way about me,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bathtub. “I’m not a great guy or anything, Liz. I’m certainly not much of a player. Emily and I were set up by a friend we both know, Gary. We just… we fell in together. I liked her a lot, I probably even loved her, but there’s always this… like she can’t really connect with me. We try different things, we like a lot of the same stuff, but she doesn’t show her passion like you do. Like we do.”
There was a bit of silence, then a long draw of breath, and Liz said, “I think I understand all of this, Mike. And I know you’re telling me the truth. But… I can’t be your therapist while you’re in this relationship.”
“No. That’s not what I was trying to–”
“I can’t talk about you and your girlfriend,” she said, then quickly added, “I’m not mad. That’s not how I sound, I hope. I just… like a conflict of interest, you know? I like being with you. I really do. You’re so exciting–sexually. Emotionally. I’ve talked with you for hours without even thinking about sex, of course. Lately, though, I can’t think of anything else.”
“I want to be with you, too, Liz. I do. I probably need to figure out a way to get out of this with Emily, though. It doesn’t feel right.”
“I know. I’ve always liked Emily. I don’t like doing this to her either. You’re so…” I heard a breathy sound and she didn’t bother finishing the sentence. “I didn’t call to work out this weird relationship, though. You know how much I want to fuck you.”
“Yeah. But–”
“I can wait–however long it takes,” she said. I thought I heard her splash water, like she may have been in the bathtub; she also could have been washing dishes. “Mike, I actually called to say that I’ve got an offer to do a play. Here in Chicago.”
“Was it that original piece they’re doing at the Brown?”
“Do you know the play already?”
“No. I can’t even remember the author. But you were excited about the audition. I thought they passed on you.”
“They did. It’s a long story, but… keeping it short, they went with Andrea Crown, she’s a bigger name and she’s got this professional relationship with the director. But she had to pull out. They extended the run of her show in New York, that’s what I was told. The director, Tom Buckland, wanted me for the role–the producer called me, Jared something, and he said he wanted me from the beginning, but Buckland wanted her. I’m making the short version longer–I got the offer. I’ve got to start rehearsing next week, which is good timing, but we only have a couple of weeks before we go on. They’ve been doing all this rehearsing all this time with Andrea Crown’s understudy, but she’s having vocal cord problems and they want me, if I can learn all of those lines in time.”
“Jesus. That’s a pretty short turnaround time. You think you can jump in and learn the role that fast?” I heard a doubt in my own voice that I worried would infect her, so I changed my approach and said, “That’s dumb to even ask. I know you’re a professional. You memorize lines better than I do.”
“Not even close–but the role of Leigh only has 30 lines. It’s relatively small. Four scenes. But… I haven’t said yes just yet. There’s nudity.”
“Oh.”
“Nothing like the movie I did, you know,” she said, then sighed. “God, I’m so glad you know. I am. I don’t know who I would talk to about this if no one here did.”
I said, “The rule is pretty simple… don’t do anything you’re not comfortable with, honey…”
“I know all that. I’m not actually leaning toward saying no,” Liz told me. “After all, there’s already some pretty damning nude scenes of me out there in the world. This doesn’t seem like such a big deal.”
“Are you sure, though? Because you were freaked out about it when I first found out,” I reminded her. I didn’t want to be the negative voice in her head, but I had suddenly grown scared of what big regrets might bring. “The last thing I want is for you to feel like you have to leave town again, babe. Really.”
“I know. I lived through it. But when I think back on it now, it doesn’t seem so bad. Maybe that’s just because you helped me be cool with it,” said Liz. “I’ll put it this way… I felt used by Nando. Like he took advantage of me. It was a shameful little secret of mine. Then it got around the school and I didn’t have anyone to make me feel like it was okay. Natural. Just part of being an actress. If I had it do all over again… if it was my choice, not just Nando convincing me it would be good for him… I might even do it again.”
“Really?”
“Probably,” she said, then amended to, “Maybe. You know, what do I care what anyone at the school thinks? The students are just kids. Well, a few years younger than me–and most of them are really supportive. Any that had a problem with it wouldn’t bother me much. As for the faculty–I don’t mean you, you know… but most of them never did acting beyond a few stage productions. If they looked down on me… I suppose that wouldn’t be as bad as I might have thought at first.”