Love in Lingerie(46)

A club. Probably an expensive one, as if a membership fee and fancy website make it any less sleazy. Sometimes they just like to watch. I should leave. Walk away from this conversation, cross Trey Marks off of my heart forever, and move on. Never mind that I’ve spent almost three years pining over him. Never mind that when he breathes, I can feel it in my heart. He should have told me this. He should have told me this years ago, before I fell in love with him, before he injected his soul into my veins and I became addicted. Can I even work for him after this? Can I be around him without falling deeper in love? Before, I always thought there would be a time—once the company is kicking ass, once he is ready to step away from management and retire—when we would be able to date, when we could try a relationship. But now, with my one stupid question, with his one stupid confession, it all dies. I can’t date a man who—I don’t even understand what he does. I rub my temple. “Tell me exactly what happens.”

“Kate.” Just a single syllable, but I can hear so much in it. He turns away from the window and rests his back against the glass, his face hanging, as if he is a child being punished.

“Tell me Trey.” I wait. “I need to know.” I have to know how bad it is. He won’t lie to me. He won’t sugarcoat it.

“I enjoy pleasing women.” His eyes lift and meet mine. “So that’s what I do. With my hands and my mouth, and my cock. Sometimes the guy joins in, sometimes he doesn’t.”

“’Joins in.’ Define it.” My mouth is cottony. I swallow. It doesn’t help.

“Sometimes double-penetration. Sometimes she sucks him while I fuck her. Or she jacks us both off at the same time.”

“But you’re not gay.”

“No.” He holds my eyes. “I’m definitely not gay.”

Little difference that makes right now. I want to close my eyes, to look away, to yank at my hair and scream at him. I don’t. I wait, and it’s almost painful to do so.

“The woman is always the focus. That’s the extent of my interaction with the men.”

“Oh, that’s it?” I laugh, a hard hack of a sound, one I’ve never heard from myself before, one that I instantly hate. His eyes harden, but he says nothing.

In that silence, I almost hear our future crackle and burn.





Him

I’ve lost her. I can see it in her eyes, in the tremble of her voice, in the questions that she asks. Maybe I should have lied. Maybe I should have muted the truth. Maybe then, she wouldn’t be looking at me as if I am a monster, as if we don’t have years between us, as if she doesn’t love me at all.

I can’t be surprised, not after that conversation so long ago, over beers and burgers, the disgusted look on her face when she told me about the threesome that her boyfriend had tried to have.

“Just because you don’t understand it,” I say, “don’t judge me for it. We are all aroused in different ways. This is something I’ve done, something I liked.”

She looks down, as if searching for a response. When she finally lifts her head, she blinks quickly, her face growing red. This stupid thing of mine is bringing her to tears. “You should have told me,” she says tightly. “This changes everything between us.”

The words are a hammer to the center of my chest. In them, there is everything that we’ve never said aloud, never put anywhere close to words. Is there an “us”? Us is more than I’ve ever hoped for. Between the risk to the company, and my sexual past, I’ve spent years avoiding any thought of Us. I always understood that we would, at some point, come to this. Her glaring at me, distrust thick in her eyes. Her flinching when I reach out to touch her.

Us. In a way, the word is almost freeing. The crack of the protective wall. Our rules gone, the battlefield wide open. “Us?” I tilt my head at her. “What us?” I step forward, ignoring her start, the way she peels away from me. “There is no us.”

“You know what I mean,” she whispers. “Our friendship.”

“No, I don’t think that’s what you meant.” I watch her mouth, the nervous way she licks her lips, her eyes darting from my mouth to my eyes. She’s done it a hundred times before, the tensing for my kiss, the kiss that I have never delivered, but this time it is all wrong. It isn’t breathless or hopeful. It is panicked and frustrated. It is … I straighten, stepping back, away from her. It is filled with disgust.

Incredible how quickly a world can change. How my entire person, our friendship, can be reduced to nothing, with just one confession. I’ve worried for years about her judging me for this. And now that it’s happening, I’m as disappointed in her as I am mad at myself.

Is this who I fell in love with? A woman who would toss me aside so easily? Is she that judgmental, that close-minded? She isn’t even asking the right questions. She isn’t even giving me, giving us, a chance.

I turn away, my words tight and controlled when I allow them out.

“I love you, Kate. I am in love with you. I’m sorry that you don’t like this. Or that you don’t understand it. But it doesn’t change who I am.”

Her words stop me, their edges as sharp as broken glass. “Don’t do that. Don’t use those words right now, as you are walking away, you fucking coward.”