“He probably just wants to rehearse the kiss again,” I said, my jealousy coming through more than I thought it would. Her eyes were wide and she grinned at me.
“I love it that you’re possessive,” she said, then winked at me. “Just don’t take it too far. Such a turn-off.”
“You have an amazing body, baby,” I told her, then I leaned on the round table in the middle of the fast food restaurant and smiled at her as my eyes roamed over her chest. “You don’t know how bad I would love to see your tits again.”
She whispered bad, mischievously, “You want me to take them out? Here?”
My smile was too big, but I still shook my head. “I haven’t even gotten through my chicken sandwich. I don’t want to get kicked out. Would you do that for me, though?”
“I definitely would,” she said, then winked at me. “I should probably send you some pictures.”
“You don’t need to do that. I don’t want you to do anything that makes you feel weird.”
“I’d kind of like to–to tell you the truth,” she said, then licked her lips to remove some of the salt. I wished that tongue had been touching me. Her eyes found me again and she confessed, “I keep thinking about when I did that movie. How much I hated it. I didn’t trust Nando. And I knew it was a bad idea to be doing that… on film and all. Especially in such a shitty little movie. But, darling… oh my god, it was so exciting. Honestly. I never felt like that in my life.”
I chewed a bite of my sandwich slowly as I adored her flush skin and darting tongue while she spoke.
“It was awful, but it wasn’t entirely awful. There was something frustrating and terrifying about having no control over what happened with that footage… but I could see how much the sight of my body was getting to the guys in the crew and Nando was kind of jealous, even while he was telling me to do this… I’ve never felt like that before. In a twisted way, it was like being the homecoming queen.” I laughed and she laughed along, then rolled her eyes. “You know the first time you got on stage? How you felt like you just might completely fall apart and how you were humiliating yourself and everyone was going to laugh ’cause you looked so ridiculous–and somewhere underneath that you felt like maybe you just didn’t care? Honey… I have never felt as electric like that as when I was doing those scenes. Right then, while it was happening, you know, I just wanted it to be over. But when it was, I was also bit disappointed.”
Our eyes met and her smile grew.
“I’m a freak. I know. You’re… spending all this time with a freak.”
“Normal is overrated,” I said, and then I stole one of her fries.
Before I could eat it, she stood up and leaned across the table, taking my face in hand and kissing me. It was a deep, wet, sex-tinged kiss. I started to run out of breath just when she left my lips.
“I wish I had time to suck your dick again,” she said, then sighed. In my jeans, the subject of our conversation twitched against the fabric. “It’ll have to wait. Come back to the dressing room tonight after the show. I’ll make you spout like Old Faithful.”
She kissed me again, quicker, and then told me she had to go meet Albert. I couldn’t even get up to walk her out to her car, but she was moving too fast to be disappointed. For seconds, I couldn’t think about anything but sex with Liz. I staged us in so many unique positions and imagined us thrusting, bobbing, undulating, and bringing each other to orgasm several times over. That lasted about two minutes, maybe, and then I had to change my thoughts or I would have to change my pants.
That’s when it occurred to me that Liz had kissed me in public. More than that, I hadn’t thought about stopping her. We weren’t that far from Gates, and it was possible someone who knew us could have seen. Someone who knew Emily, for that matter. It wasn’t like it would be a great surprise to her now, I remembered, but I ought to at least have the decency to not rub her face in my infidelity in public. But as bad as I felt, I also retained a teenage exhilaration–she had kissed me, right where everyone could see. The more I thought about Liz as my girl, the more I wanted to think about that. If I could set things right with Emily, life would be perfect, or at least as close as I’ve gotten.
I went back to the college and the shared office where a couple of other instructors camped between classes and read a few submissions for the playwriting contest the other faculty had asked me to judge. With all the performing, it was one of the responsibilities I had been letting fall slack, and while some of the entries weren’t terrible, it wasn’t fun to sit and read them back to back. I decided to call Emily at 5 o’clock because I knew she would be home for work–unless she had gone out with the girls from work to bitch about me. She would be justified to do so.
“Oh, hey. What time are we doing dinner?”
That was a surprise. I told her I had already made plans to have dinner with a few of the students just before the show, which started at 8. I had presumed she wouldn’t be in the mood to talk to me, though I didn’t suggest that with such specificity.
“I thought you were coming home.” I said I would be home tonight–but late. I could hear her fuming, even though she made no noise at all. “You know we need to talk, right?”
“This is… really bad timing, Em.”
“Are you kidding me? ‘Bad timing’? Did you or did you not tell me you and Liz were… doing things–”
“I know. It was… you asked me, and I couldn’t lie to you. It’s not been going on very long. Really. I’m trying to be straight with you about it. And I screwed up and I’m sorry and…” As I began to collapse under the weight of all the things I meant to say, I decided instead to shake them off. “See, this is what I mean… I can’t talk. I’ve got to focus on the play tonight.”
“That’s bullshit. Then next week it will be the next play. You teach and you act and that’s your whole thing and I’m sorry you need to keep your head clear for a show, but you dropped a fucking atomic bomb on me. You can’t expect me not to want to talk about it.”
“You’re right. It was a shitty thing to do–but I was trying to… correct the wrongs. All of that… I know you’re going through a lot and it’s all because of me. But things are cool right now. Not good, just… we don’t need any more drama. No surprises. Can you just give me tonight and Saturday and then on Sunday we’ll talk about everything?”
A puncturing silence, then Emily asked, “Do you still love me?”
I could have said yes and eased her mind. No, I had to think about it. I had to prepare her for the fact I was working up the nerve to dump her. A heavy exhale seemed to say more than I intended.
“Oh. Then I guess I understand…”
“Sunday, okay? I just… I can’t give you the attention you need right now. I’m sorry, okay? I’m not trying to make things worse. You didn’t do anything wrong. This is all my fault. I know that…”
She hung somewhere in the middle of that belabored apology. I sighed and thumped the phone receiver against my head, then hung up. At least I should expect she would be leaving me alone.