Jessica and Sharon (Songs of Submission #3.5)(2)

Well, maybe not as mad.

Damn. I should have taken her home. I had a weird compulsion to reach out to her.

—Thank you for tonight. I’ll call you during the week to check on that baseball—

—You’re welcome—

A flat, emotionless response. Odd. I regretted letting her out of arm’s reach.

—Speaking of…They’re playing the Mets the day after I get back—

—Ok good night—

I sat back. Not even a joke or wisecrack. I shouldn’t have cared, but I did. My phone dinged again, but it wasn’t Monica loosening up. It was Jess.

Interesting that Erik wasn’t there. He usually followed her around like a little beta puppy. Exactly what she needed. Half a man. I took a calming breath and called her.

“Jess.”

“Jon. Where are you?”

She didn’t sound good, and if I judged the whooshing background right, she was already home.

“Coming up LFB.” Our shortcut for Los Feliz Boulevard, from when I was whole and had someone to make up little acronyms with.

“Are you alone?”

“Lil is driving. What’s wrong, baby?” I could have guessed it was Erik, but she’d never admit it.

“Can I see you?”

I looked at my watch. My plane was scheduled out of Santa Monica at six. I could make it if I left Venice by four. If history was any indication though, I’d be out of there in an hour. I wished I could tell her no, but we had too much history, too much intimacy to just turn my back. So I let Lil take me home, then I got into the Mercedes and went to Venice.

Again.

***

Jessica lived on the beach, as her publicly sunny demeanor demanded. I parked and walked up the long stairway to the back, where the pool overlooked the ocean. The furniture was gone, as was the barbecue. She stood alone at the half empty bar with her glass of white wine, still wearing her flowing white dress. It outlined the shape of her body in the breeze, making me think immediately of pulling her legs open, but gently. That brought my hot little goddess back to mind, because with her, gentle was optional. I should have nailed her in the car, bruises or no. I wasn’t any less aroused than her, and now I was in a dangerous position. I wanted to f**k. I had a weight at the base of my c**k that needed to drop, somewhere, somehow.

“Jess,” I said when I could see her puffy eyes. “Wasn’t there a party or something? After the opening?”

“I couldn’t take it any more. Smile, talk about popsicle sticks and culture’s effects on childhood memories. Smile. Answer process questions about keeping dead trees alive. Smile again. How are you?”

I snapped a glass off the rack, and Jessica poured me some wine. “I’m fine, really. You called me over here to ask me how I am? It looks like I should be asking you the question.”

She barely paused before getting to the point. “Erik.”

“I thought you were engaged.”

“So did I. Do you want to sit?” She indicated the indoor patio behind sliding glass doors.

The thought of going inside and lounging on a couch with her, which I’d done a hundred times, somehow seemed too risky, so I slid onto a barstool. “Where’s everything? Those hideous f**king lamps are gone.”

She took a deep breath and swished her wine around. “Three days ago, he took them. They were his.”

“Figured.” I didn’t know what she wanted. Was I supposed to sympathize? She had dozens of girlfriends, each with two shoulders to cry on. What the hell was I doing there?

“He found out you were coming to the opening. And he just went off. ‘Why’s this guy still hanging around? Why can’t you cut him loose?’ Blah blah.” She downed her wine. “He doesn’t understand. Or didn’t understand. As you can see, he decided to stop trying, which I guess is for the best.”

“I’m sorry to hear it, but I’m not taking the blame for it.”

“Jon. You don’t have to get defensive.”

“Jess. What do you want, if not to blame me?”

She was a bundle of nerves, which no other person would notice because she never wasted a movement. She didn’t have a set of sweet little tics like Monica. Jessica was still water, her tension revealed in her gaze, which sat in the middle distance.

“I should be frank,” she said.

“You be anyone you want.”

“Not funny.”

I waited until she was ready, because she’d get to it if I stopped cracking wise, and I had the feeling I would want to hear it.

She took a deep breath. “I think Erik had something. I think he was seeing something I was pretending wasn’t there.”

She was squirming. Oh, this was good. Delicious even. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t want to assume she was going where I thought she was because I didn’t want the rug pulled from under me again. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d implied she wanted me back and then turned the conversation back on itself.

“You’ve always been there for me.” She looked up, right at me.

“We were married,” I said. “I told you, I take that seriously.”

She took half a step toward me. I’d been through that before with her, and I wouldn’t lean into her half a centimeter I didn’t have to. I hoped with the same fervor, but I was gun shy. Even when she put her fingers on top of my hand, which she hadn’t done in a while, I was torn. After the divorce, she’d still touch me, but she’d back off like a hosed down cat as soon as I went for her. I was impatient with the games and horny as hell from being around Monica. I felt like a caged animal.