Page 73 of Intoxicated
No more words, all right? I don’t want to say anything. He better not say anything. I’m conflicted enough as it is, since I barely know how to have sex without the fury of need and desire fueling my every motion. All I want to do is finish this. I don’t care how it feels. I only know that, to enjoy it a little, I need to throw my whole consciousness into it. I’ve gotta ride this man until the saddle gives out and I land with my face up to the grand, blue sky.
There’s only one way to go. I don’t know which way that is. Does it matter? Let fate take the reins and drag my horse wherever it needs to go. I’d rather follow the current of this moment than get bogged down in the fears that constantly plague my heart. Yeah. My heart. That stupid thing I had completely forgotten about until today. Who knew that thing could still feel shit? Not me. I’ve been too busy bringing feeling back to the rest of my body. Stimulating my brain and my clit. I hear they’re related.
Drew can do whatever he wants, as long as he doesn’t speak. Grab my tits, hold my hips, or throw his hands down to his sides and maul the sheets. I don’t want to look athishandsomeness or whatever, either. I want to…be.
I want to float on the breeze coming through his opened window. I want to remember what it’s like to not give a shit about inconsequential – or consequential – things. Let’s not consider what it means for a man to say he likes me. Let alone a man like Drew Benton. Even without his job, or the circumstances through which we met, there’s the fact that he’s his father’s son. He’s aBenton.He’s good looking, charming, and knows how to trick you into thinking he’s an everyday guy. Even when there’s no pretense with him, there’s a ton ofpretense.He’ll always have that family history and experience backing everything he says or does in your presence.
I’m not supposed to be thinking about that. I’m supposed to flying through the air, thinking of nothing but how good this feels. Right here. This moment.
Do I come? Does he come? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now, does it? Our lot in life is to lie next to one another, our chests gently rising and falling as our breaths sync. Drew folds his hands behind his head and considers the ceiling. I slowly close my eyes and try to remember what had me so angry earlier. It couldn’t have been so bad if I ended up in bed with him again.
“Hey…” Drew breaks the silence, although he doesn’t break the unspoken vow between us to no longer touch. We’re both on our respective sides of his bed, never minding our nudity or thinking about going to the bathroom. Not yet. I’m too weirded out by what’s happened to get to that. “Why not be my girlfriend? Why not make it official?”
I don’t turn my head. Such a question doesn’t deserve so much attention from me. “Come again?” I mutter.
“I guess it’s a nice way to say we should make this exclusive. Not that I think you’re running around with a bunch of other guys. I mean, I haven’t been with…”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
He takes in an audibly deep breath. “Are you trying to say you don’t feel like there’s something more between us than sex? I mean, if that’s all there is, would it be so bad if we explored a possibility of more? At least then we’d know.”
I want to say,“You meanyou’llknow.”I don’t. That’s asking for an argument, and I don’t have the energy. “I don’t think it’s that deep between us. We have sex. That’s it.”
“Things don’t really have to change,” he argues. “We meet up when we feel like it…”
“No. That’s not how it would work.” I sit up. “A casual thing is meeting up when we feel like it. Calling each other something more than a fuck buddy is trying to meet up whenever wecan.” That’s the distinction I must drive into his head. “There’s pressure. I don’t want pressure.”
“What pressure? You’re not feeling pressured right now, are you?”
“I’m not talking about that kind of pressure…” If he conflates what I said for failing to secure consent, then I don’t know what to tell him. Here’s hoping it was the sex that addled his poor, dumb brain.
“What are you talking about, then? Do you really not care that I like you? Does this truly mean nothing to you?”
Who is this man and where did he come from? Why the fuck is he asking me these stupid questions? You know, I keep thinking stuff like that, yet all I really get out of this is… fatigue. I flop back down onto the bed, tears forming in the corners of my eyes. Not to cry, no. I’m not upset enough overnothingto cry. The water in my eyes is more about frustration. Why do I have to be dealing with this right now? Drew isn’t someone who should be on my radar. I shouldn’t be considering his prospect that we meet up every weekend to giggle over drinks and swing in hammocks by the sea. If I agree to be his girlfriend, this ends. No more hooking up. No more playing fun little games to see who can outdo who. I can ask the man paid to ruin me to go ahead and fuck me like the town bitch everyone despises. I can’t ask myboyfriendthat. He’ll want more of what we did tonight. Even if he gets so horny he can’t help from pounding me like a drum, he’ll always be holding something back. I’ll have to meet his insufferable family. We’ll start showing up in the society pages. Jason, my blasted ex, will make Drew’s life hell. Every ex of mine will come up to Drew and ask him what the hell he’s doing throwing his precious life away on me.
You see, I know how this goes. And I’m not sure I have the energy – or the fortitude – to play that long con with Drew Benton, no matter how much I like hanging out with him or how much money he’s got in his bank account. He can give up his business today and start doing something much more respectable tomorrow, and it would only be another sign that he’s changing…because of me.
That’s when it goes south. That’s when I start planning my escape. Things will change. I will change. He’s already changing.
Fuck me.
I get up and grab my clothes. It takes me a while to find my T-shirt, since I forgot it disappeared underneath his. Funny. What a lovely example of where we’re heading. A metaphor for how we have sex when it’s most convenient. Him. Smothering me.
“Cher.” Drew is up in his bed, one arm tentatively reaching toward me. The man is naked and waiting for me to come to him. Yet here I am, getting dressed, putting up my shields of plain, inconsiderate fabric. “Talk to me. I don’t mean to put pressure on you. It was something I was thinking about.” He flings back against his headboard. “Damn me for mentioning it.”
“I shouldn’t have come here.” That’s what I say as I pull my shirt over my stomach. My hair is a mess, but I need to get out of here. There’s no time to stand in front of his mirror and primp. I’ll be taking a Lyft home, anyway. I don’t need to look nice for a Lyft driver, who will probably smell the sex on me.
“Don’t say that,” Drew says. “I wanted you to come so I could explain myself. Why do you think I drove all the way down here from Seattle?”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
Drew snaps his mouth closed. He’s utterly silent as I finish getting dressed, grab my bag, and head out.
He doesn’t follow me. He doesn’t text me as I head to the lobby of his building and ignore the concierge in favor of hailing a Lyft. The way the guy looks at me insinuates he knows why I was there. To get laid. Probably with Drew, a hot guy with a lot of money and one of the more expensive apartments overlooking the Willamette.
It’s not like I want Drew to follow me, to blow up my phone, or otherwise intrude upon my life tonight. His silence speaks the volumes he couldn’t upstairs.
I get in the back of a white Subaru. My driver makes very little small talk as he takes the fastest route to Northwest Portland. The only sound I hear is the hum of the jazz station and the gentle rumbles of the car on the road.
And my heart. It thunders in my head.
