Page 94 of The Unraveling

He takes away the vibrator and uses just his tongue and fingers, and I feel it build and then finally crash over me. I scream loud and long, and he says, “Yes, baby, yes.”

When I finally finish, I feel completely empty. Spent. The most relaxed I can remember feeling in a very, very long time.

He comes up to me, shutting off the vibrator and then putting it away from us; he pulls me into his chest and we lie there for a while.

I must fall asleep, because the next thing I know, I’m tucked under the comforter and he’s sitting on the edge of the bed.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” he says.

“It’s okay, I didn’t realize I fell asleep.”

“Do you want me to stay?” he says, moving the hair off my face.

I consider.

He says, “It’s okay either way, truly.”

His voice is so gentle.

And I realize I don’t want him to stay. Not because it wouldn’t be nice. But because I kind of want tonight to be its own thing.

“You don’t have to stay,” I say.

He smiles and says, “Okay. I’m just going to clean up and then I’ll go, okay?”

I nod.

He shuts the lights off, leaving on only a dim one in the corner I hadn’t even known was there. I hear him bustle around in the kitchen washing out the wineglasses. I hear him wash my vibrator in the sink. I hear him putting away our takeaway.

And then, he goes.

I don’t love Luca. I don’t even feel particularly compelled by him, despite his beauty.

But he might just be the most perfect man I’ve ever met. Why, I wonder, as I drift off into a soothed sleep, is it that I cannot just want a man like that?

Chapter Twenty-Six

I’m so excited that I have to practically tie my ankles together to keep from showing up to rehearsal an hour early. It’s how most people describe Christmas as a kid. Joyful, almost frantic anticipation. And the little rendezvous with Luca didn’t hurt giving me a great sleep.

I still get back to the theater early. I have to stop myself from walking at top speed from the flat to the studio.

After getting changed and doing a short Pilates practice and some other warm-up exercises, I wait in front of the elevator, shivering a little from excitement.

When the doors open, I feel my gut sink.

“Jocelyn!” Arabella gushes, stepping out and toward me.

My ear throbs as a reminder that she can’t be trusted.

“Arabella.”

“Cariño, I thought about you all day yesterday. We’re like Spanish lovers, aren’t we? So much passion between us. We’re here, we’re there.”

She laughs, flippant and confident. I recall the first days I knew her, when I thought she was so glamorous and interesting. Sort of like a more sexual Holly Golightly. Now her erratic mood swings feel more like those of a kid who’s been prematurely prescribed psychiatric medication.

Girls push by us and get in the open elevator.

“Are you coming in?” asks one of them, the girl Anastasia, who I met on that first night at Arabella’s.

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