Authors: Alexandra McBrayer
He pulled on her foot and she stretched her leg out in front of her. He grabbed it and her other leg and pulled her across the bed towards him. The silk of the sheets rubbed gently across her flesh and when she was in front of him he pulled her up so that she was straddling him. She felt the hair from his thighs on the backs of her legs and before she could stop herself she rubbed against it.
“You realize that’s crazy right?” he asked. “You’re a reverse snob Lucy Jacobs.”
She shrugged her shoulders and he reached up and cupped her breasts. “That’s unfair,” he said. “You’re judging me on something that I have no control over.”
She sighed, and her head fell back as his thumbs lightly traced over her nipples, still sensitive from earlier. “Lucy?”
“Hmmm?”
“Lucy look at me.”
She rolled her head forward, opened her eyes and smiled. It was the smile of the cat that ate the canary, it was the smile of a woman who had been loved good and proper and who knew she was about to get it again.
“Why does it matter?”
She frowned and reached forward and put her finger on his mouth. “Shhh, enough talking.”
He shook his head, and shook off her finger. “Why does it matter?”
She gave a huge, loud sigh of frustration and asked, “Why does what matter?”
“Why does it matter how much money I have or that we’re so different, if you say we don’t have a future?”
His words penetrated her desire and she thought about what he said. She didn’t like the answer that formed in her mind. He was right; they didn’t have a future together. It didn’t matter how much money he did or didn’t have. None of it mattered. In nine days she was marrying Sam and all of this would be just a fond memory.
She looked down at him and angry at him and
at herself she asked, “Do you want to talk or do you want to fuck Lucas?”
Her words shocked him, and his head jerked back. She swore that a look of hurt went across his face, but it didn’t stop
his body from reacting to her words. He looked as if he was about to say something but he didn’t. Instead he picked her up off his lap and pushed her down to the bed. He came up over her, spread her legs with hard hands and thrust into her.
Later s
he was standing at the foot of the bed, pulling her sweater on over her head when he asked, “Are you protected?”
She didn’t understand so she turned to look at him. His meaning only dawned when their eyes met. She nodded her head, trying to keep her face blank. She wasn’t protected, she hadn’t even thought about it once, but he didn’t need to know that.
Her stomach felt sick as with shaking hands she pulled on her pants and buttoned and zipped them. God what had she done? She had never once considered the possibility of getting pregnant. It wasn’t something that she had to worry about with Sam. A childhood struggle with leukemia had made it impossible for him to father a baby and since he was the only man she had ever slept with, protection was something that she had simply never had to think about.
She didn’t look at him, too afraid that he would be able to read the fear in her face as she put her boots back on.
She grabbed her purse from the floor and without saying anything to him she opened the door and walked out of the room. She was halfway down the stairs before he caught up with her. She looked down at his hand on her arm and then at him and saw that he hadn’t bothered to put any clothes on. She wanted to smile but she fought it.
She pulled her arm away and continued down the stairs. At the front door he grabbed her coat and helped her on with it.
“Will I see you again?”
She shook her head, not trusting her voice not to shake.
“Can I have a kiss goodbye?”
She shook her head again.
“Please,” he asked.
She looked up at him, helpless at the plea in his voice and when their eyes met she had the startling image of a baby with his green eyes. It was so powerful, so unexpected that she felt dizzy with it and she closed her eyes.
“Lucy, what’s wrong?” he asked and pulled her towards him.
She could only shake her head against his bare, warm shoulder. Everything was wrong. Every single thing in her life had gone to shit in just a few months time. She was in a strange city, cheating on Sam, and possibly pregnant with her lover’s child. Everything was wrong and nothing was right.
She pulled back from him and he squeezed her shoulder. She felt the warmth of his hand through her coat and despite everything she wanted to sink back into his arms. She wanted him to hold her and make everything okay.
But that was only part of her. The other part wanted to erase this last month and to be able to forget his face.
She stood on her tip toes, kissed his cheek and was out the door before he knew it. Not caring that she was far from home in the dark, cold London night, she ran and as she ran she sobbed out her regrets for the night to hear and to absorb.
It didn’t seem that things could possibly get any worse but they did.
She walked in
her front door and the living room was dark and silent. She took off her coat, threw it and her purse on a chair, and took her boots off before she went to the bedroom. She had expected that Sam would be sound asleep but he wasn’t. Instead he was sitting on the bed and in front of him was her suitcase. It was open and its contents were spilling out.
He looked up and met her eyes and she felt her stomach heave without warning. She turned and ran, barely making it to the bathroom before she threw up. She waited a few minutes until her stomach had calmed, wiped her face with a wet washcloth and went back into the bedroom, ready to face her doom.
Sam’s face was angry, his mouth a thin, white line as he stared at her. Instantly she went on the defensive. “What are you doing? Those are my things.”
He stood up and in his hands was a stack of letters. He snapped them at her and said, “My mom called. She had a question about the guest list. I looked everywhere and I couldn’t find it but what I did find was these.”
She grabbed the letters, bills really, from him and said, “You had no right to go through my things.”
His face was livid as he stepped closer to her, “No right? No right
? You’re about to be my wife! I have every right in the world!”
Spittle landed on her cheek and she wiped it off and stepped back from him. “That doesn’t mean you own me and it doesn’t give you a right to go through my things.”
He turned back to the bed and angrily pointed at the suitcase. “When I saw the bills, thousands and thousands of dollars, I had to see what you had spent it on. I had to know, but I could never have imagined this!”
He picked up the filigree bracelet that Lucas had given her, which of course she hadn’t paid for but he would never know that, and angrily held it up to her face. “You’ve spent fifty grand on this…this shit!”
He turned and before she could stop him he threw the bracelet. It hit the wall with a sharp crack and she saw stones fly as the bracelet dropped to the floor.
It felt as if he had hit her.
She went over to the bracelet and got on her knees in front of it and picked it up. At least ten of the stones were missing and as she searched the floor for them tears began to fall. He came over, stood over her and said, “You were going to bring this debt to our marriage. You were going to try and saddle me with this!”
Not bothering to look up she said, “No I wasn’t. I would never do that. I bought them and I’ll pay for them. I’ve never asked you for anything!”
He crouched down next to her and she felt his breath on her hair as he said, “No you don’t ask, but you sure as hell take. I paid for this place, I paid for the heat and the water and I paid for the food that you ate for two months. You can’t even be bothered to get a decent job. No, not you, you’re too good for a real job. You have to have something artistic and special.”
That hurt and she looked up at him. “I searched and searched for a full-time job when we got here. I sent out over a thousand resumes and went on at least a hundred job interviews. The part-time job was the only one I could get and they didn’t want to lay me off but they couldn’t help it.”
He snorted, “Yeah because you have a crap degree! Who the fuck gets a degree in architecture? It’s ridiculous.”
She looked at him, at the man she loved, and she didn’t recognize him. His face was bright red with fury and his
brown eyes were filled with an anger and hatred that she hadn’t believed he was capable of.
“I’ve tried to get any kind of job that I can Sam. I haven’t been picky.”
He laughed, and it was a harsh sound that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “But that’s the point Lucy,
they
can be picky in this economy, and you’ve got no skills. You’re useless.”
She wasn’t useless. It was true that she had a master’s degree in Architecture but without her exams she couldn’t do anything with it and he knew it. Besides that she had plenty of work experience, she had worked her way through college and more than one person that she had interviewed with had told her that they wished they could hire her, but they didn’t have the money.
Sam knew that. She had told him all about her interviews and he had reassured her that she would find something. Obviously he hadn’t meant any of the things that he had said.
Angrier than she had ever been before she rose up on her knees and faced him. “You
paid for this place for two months! I’ve paid for all of it since then. You spend your money on eating out and trying to impress your stupid co-workers and bosses. I eat two small meals a day, unless my grandmother feeds me, while you eat like a king. You don’t thank me for anything I do for you and you never have! I wash your clothes, I clean this place, I buy the food and cook it and you come and go as you please with never a word to me of thanks.”
He made a sound of disgust, “
Why would I thank you for doing what you’re supposed to do?”
His words felt like a blow to her solar plexus and all the breath in her body drained out. She had never heard such arrogant, sexist words from him before and they shocked her. Tonight, she had seen so much more of him than she knew existed and it wasn’t pretty.
She turned and gathered up the rest of the stones and got to her feet. She went to the kitchen, found a plastic baggie and put the bracelet and stones in it. When she went back to the bedroom Sam was seated on the floor under the window with his back against the wall. She ignored him and went to the suitcase and began to carefully put all her jewelry back in it.
“Listen babe. I don’t want to argue with you about this, but I’m not going to pay for that shit. It’s too expensive and you don’t need it. What the hell are you going to do with crap like that anyway? You
don’t need fancy jewels.”
Ignoring him she continued to wrap each item carefully
and pack them away but her silence didn’t deter him. “At first I was going to tell you to sell them and pay the money back to your credit cards but that’s crap. Why should I suffer? I think you should sell them and buy us a honeymoon. It’s the least you can do.”
She turned at that. Her voice was deadly calm as she asked, “The least I can do?”
He nodded and getting in to the spirit of it he said, “Yeah, somewhere nice and warm, some tropical beach, somewhere. Have your grandmother pay for that shit since it’s her fault anyway.”
“My parents have spent almost ten grand on our wedding, a wedding that I never wanted
, a wedding that you’re mom forced us into having and it’s the least I can do? And how in the hell is this my grandmother’s fault?”
He shook his head. “You’re dad was right all along. He warned me about this but I didn’t listen.”
She stomped over to where he was sitting, looked down at him and asked, “My Dad warned you?”
Sam looked up at her with a smile on his face. “He told me she was a bad influence, that she made you and your mother want things that you couldn’t have. I didn’t
listen though. I thought she couldn’t be as bad as he made her out to be. But he was right. I couldn’t believe it when she showed up to the airport dressed like that! Who wears fur anymore? And her behavior with that young guy was disgusting. It made me sick to my stomach. I guess sleeping with that old whore must be worth the money that she gives him.”
Her blood was boiling in her veins and it took everything
in her not to kick him as hard as she could.
She turned, walked over to the bed and picked up her suitcase. She walked out of the room and Sam called her name. Ignoring him she went to the living room, sat the suitcase down and put on her coat before grabbing her purse. Picking up the suitcase again she went to the door.
“Where are you going?”
She turned. He really did seem shocked that she was leaving. “You’re a pathetic piece of shit Sam. My grandmother tried to warn me about you but I wouldn’t listen.
I’m
too good for you and I finally realized it.”
He snorted and she looked at him in shock. He looked ugly and mean
. How could she ever have thought that she loved him?