Me and Mom Fall for Spencer (14 page)

He lowers his head,
runs
his lips
along the puckered skin, the old wound, my badge of courage.

It’s
a few seconds into the after. It’s the softest time I’ve ever consciously
experienced. He is close and I cry.
Old tears under new
tears.
He situates himself next to me. He gathers me, and pulls the
sheet over me, and his hands, like on the water, he holds me and the tears, and
his arms, and his chest, and he keeps me…he keeps me…afloat.

Me and Mom Fall for
Spencer

Chapter Twenty-One

I have never slept with someone, besides
Freida
…Mom, on occasion growing up and scared of the
dark, or
Leeanne
, and then we stayed as far from one
another as possible.
 

But this morning I wake up and I am
caged by limbs, long, masculine, heavy, well-shaped, breathing, pulsing
limbs.
 
I am Hermione encased in Devil’s
Snare.
 

I do not want to move, because I can’t
compute.

Now the shortness of breath comes, the
suffocation.
 
I’m trapped.
 
I bolt out of there, and I’m standing, and
I’m in my tee-shirt and that’s all.

He is looking at me.
  
He has seen me, my state, oh it’s in his
eyes the serious, intense gaze at my naked lower half and I pull the shirt down
in front but it not quite long enough, so I stretch it to a point over my
beave
and with one hand beneath that I graze the hair there
like I think it might have slipped off, and I’m looking at him, and I’m not
moving.
 
I don’t know….

He laughs a little, well smiles…beams,
and raises his head, not his eyes—he doesn’t raise those I mean, but he
supports himself with a hand, elbow on the pillow.
 
“Look at you, Miss Sarah,” he says,
looking…there…still.

It’s not funny.
 
He is so swollen with sleep, like he’d been
so far under, and me…I am groggy as hell but this whole situation is like a
caffeine injection, I am waking up.
 
I am
awake.
 
I’m screaming inside.
 

I take a step to his bed and pull at the
covers.
 
My underwear, please God,
please.
 
I see them balled on the floor
at the foot of the bed, and my sleep shorts, and I take a couple of awkward
steps and I pull on the shorts, jump a little to get them pulled up and feel
everything jiggles and he’s not missing a thing I can tell you.
 
So I just keep moving, I go to my computer
bag, stuff my underwear in
there
first thing.
 

“No, no,” he’s saying, exploding out of the
sheets toward me.
 
“No, Sarah, stay,
stay
with me.”

He’s got clothes on.
 
All night he wore clothes and I…I….

His arms are around me, and I am soon
against his chest, and he’s warm, so warm and he’s tall and he smells good and
earthy, maybe like me, and he isn’t taking my breath like before, now that I
know what’s going on.
 
It’s okay.
 
It’s good.
 
Holding me, hands on me, smoothing over me…him.

“Come lie down with me…Sarah?”
 
He has some gravel in this morning voice, so
deep, so filled with sleep, this lazy, voice that seems to know what we should
do.
 

It has started in me, the spinning wheel
of ‘I
gotta’s
.’
 
I
gotta
get home.
 
I
gotta
work.
 
I
gotta
get over to
Billy’s.
 
I
gotta
make sure he eats.
 
I
gotta
finish cleaning.
 
I
gotta
talk to Mom.
 
I
gotta
make sure…I
gotta
make sure….

I am looking at him…maybe I could be
lost with him, on that bed, floating there….

“Where’s Ned?” I say,
cause
it’s always this way, the words coming from the side of everything.

“I put him out early this morning.”
 
He’s kissing me, under my ear, oh God…oh
God.
  
“You’re tired.
 
Let me hold you…one more hour.
 
While you sleep.
 
Let me hold
you
baby.”

I remember the lick…the suck…the wild
euphoric writhing the last time he ‘held me, just held me.’

“I can’t…I don’t trust…you.”
 
I speak softly, as if I’m afraid of my own
voice.

“Don’t trust me?”
 
I don’t mean it like that.
 
But I do.
 
“Trust me,” he says kissing down my neck, his lips so, so warm, so…so.

We’re tumbling on to the bed and he is
soon nestled between my legs and we are kissing, kissing, how have I lived
without kissing…him?
 
His thumb on my
cheek as his lips pull at mine, as he does to my mouth what he did down below,
he has this consuming way of becoming my world, of becoming the room, of
becoming all there is…for me.
 
He is so
focused and I feel like there is nothing else for him…as well.

My shirt is up and he sucks on my
breast, he eases off, the sound of his breathing as he looks at the nipple huge
and red from the pressure, he looks at me and I love his face, his unguarded
eyes and mouth and then he’s back to sucking the other breast, he awakens
pleasure from every dormant hiding place in me.
 
I think I’ll explode from the pressure of his mouth, sucking, and now
the lower half grinding, him into me and me lifting and writhing side to side,
we roll finally and I am on top and I go to town then and I come again, and he
pushes up against me as I do, and he’s letting himself go with a sound, a deep
sound, and I know he comes too, my hands on his face as he soars, and I watch
him even as I
pant
my way down from where he’s taken
me again, he’s closed his eyes, to come, but now they are open, looking at me,
languid and sated, I see that.
 
I don’t
know what all this is, this look.

What will we do now?
 
What can we do?
 
It’s so fierce between us.
 
It’s
takes hold…it
takes over.

“Sarah,” he says.
 
“Sarah.”

I swallow convulsively.
 
I need to look away.
 
He is looking in to me.
 
I am not strong enough to keep looking back.
 
I…I feel so much.
 
Too much.
 
Always.

I leap off of him.
 
Pull at the sticky shorts, pull them from
crotch.
 
I am fumbling to gather
everything.

“Where are you going now?” he says
sitting up.

“Home,” I say like he should know.

“Let’s shower.
 
We’ll eat….”
 
He is up and his hands….
 
“Sarah.
 
Sarah.
 
Don’t run away.
 
Let’s be
together.
 
I’ll help you.
 
Whatever it is…we’ll do it.
 
Slow down.”

I am clutching my things.
 
“You can’t do my work, Spencer.
  
Only me.”

“Let’s shower and I’ll make us breakfast
while you work.”

I’m not sure…yes or no…I’m not sure.

“I will go home,” I say.

“I’ll see you in a few minutes,
right?
 
You go home then and I’ll cook
over there.”

“You cook?”

“I can.
 
A couple of things.
 
I’m learning.”

“Oh.
 
Well…good-bye.”

He laughs.
 
“Sarah…you make good-bye so final.
 
It’s like I’ll never see you again.”

I can’t help it.
 
Good-bye is a very final word.
 
It’s just the way I say it.

I pull away from him then.
 
I am a mess.
 
A stinking mess, truly, but he hasn’t seemed to mind.
 
He watches me,
then
he’s there to help me unlock the door.
 
He lets me out and he follows me.
 
He reaches around and undoes the locks on the door.
 
He lets me out.
 
He grabs my arm before I can leave.
 
He kisses me.
 
“A few minutes.
 
I’ll be there.”

I just nod.
 
I don’t know what to do with him.
 
But I’m figuring it out.
 
I look back, on the porch, I look back.
 
He’s standing there…that grin.

“Watch where you’re going,” he says,
“Sullivan.”

I’m trying to.

Me and Mom Fall for
Spencer

Chapter Twenty-Two

Mom is already at work when I get home. I
enter the kitchen and it has that sad silence of aftermath, scene of the
crime…a broken cup on the floor, a coffee stain there. She’s dropped her
coffee.

I lay my bag on the kitchen table and
get paper towels and clean. If I told her it was hard, splattered everywhere,
dried now and difficult to clean, unfair, if I said that she would laugh me
off, say it was no big deal, get over it, in the scheme of life, in that, there
is more, get your head up, she’d say.

There was a day her light skim helped
me. But now, if I gave her a chance, I would go away. While she looked, I would
pop into nothingness and she wouldn’t notice…hadn’t noticed.

Every noise is magnified. I am looking
over my shoulder for Spencer. I don’t want to meet him here, in this space. I
don’t know why. I’ve slept with him in Frieda’s house. I’ve slept there…with
him. And now I don’t want to meet with him here? I don’t.

I make sure the door is locked and I run
upstairs and get in the shower, let the water hit me for a long time and the
memories, the feelings.

I’ve been touched and held. I wonder if
I look the same. I whip the shower curtain back so I can look in the mirror
over the sink. I look…the same. I smile, but I look the same. And I have a
hickey.

I feel different, I swear I do. I
feel…excited.
And worried.
I don’t know why I’m
worried.

When the water is tepid I shut it off. For
a long time then I am stuck here, hands on the faucets, dripping, staring at
the drain. Spencer. Oh God. This won’t leave me, won’t swirl down the drain. This
is…inside.

I may have momentarily escaped his want.

But I can’t escape mine.

So I get dressed.

But I do not open my laptop.

Later, at
Cyro’s
I plunge in, I don’t say good morning.
Cyro
is still
in bed. I know where Jason keeps the extra key so I’ve broken in, technically,
but this is not the first time.

I turn on the lights. Right away I see a
mouse stuck on the trap in the corner, its legs still pedaling frantically. It’s
not the only issue I am avoiding. Spencer was knocking on my back door when I
got out of the shower and I never answered.

And I ran over to
Cyro’s
once dressed, literally ran. This is why what I’ve started with Spencer is
wrong. I’m in trouble.

So I just don’t look there, the presence
of the mouse somewhat dwarfed by my own problems. I go in the kitchen. The traps
in here are still empty. I start at the sink.

My hands are in the soapy water when Spencer
knocks at the back door. I don’t know how he knows to come here, but I open the
door and go back to the sink. He carries a bowl and it’s fragrant.

“Breakfast,” he says. He sets the bowl
on the table. “There’s a broken basement window. That’s how the mice get in,”
he says.

I don’t answer. I’m thinking of what to
do.

Then he tells me he’ll be right back, a
light touch on my waist and he leaves. I think he is going for Ned. That is my guess.

I take the new dishtowel off the bowl
he’s brought over, and
it’s
eggs and cheese on the top
and tomatoes cut up.

I call
Cyro
. If
I can get him up that will be all I need to hide behind…from Spencer.

Spencer is back before
Cyro
is up. He knocks and I say to come in. I am back at
the sink scouring a fork.

“I brought paper plates,” he says. Those
are under his arm, and he carries the two buckets of paint Mom bought him. “Is
Cyro
still in bed?”

“Um…yes.” Scour, scour.

“Well…you want to eat?”

I do. I just now realize I’m starving. “Okay,”
I say, and the table is full of mail, opened and unopened, and two fly-specked
salt shakers. It’s not a place where I want to sit and eat, and it puts us
close and facing one another, knee to knee.

Cyro
comes out of the bedroom, using a crutch. He is in a T-shirt and boxers. He
looks at us, mostly at me, shaking his head.

“Morning, man,” Spencer says.

Cyro
goes in the bathroom.

I know he feels invaded.

Spencer digs in. I stack the mail,
serious looking to the left,
junk
to the right. I take
the junk pile to the trash and sit back down in front of my food. Then I take a
bite.

“What do you think?” he says. But when I
look at him, the question is bigger. It’s about us. What do I think? Which
time…when you were holding me in your bed or knocking on my locked kitchen
door?

“Sullivan?”

I’ve had my eyes closed.

“Think he’ll let me paint his living
room?” He looks around. “Shit this needs it too.”

“You,” I have to clear my throat, “…you
ever panted…oh no…painted before?”

He laughs. “Like cherry tomato?”

I have to smile.
Hardy-
har
.

“I’ve panted, I mean painted before
Sullivan.”

“Cute. Just go in there and do it,” I
say.

“Does he still have his gun?” he says.

“He’ll be okay. Just do it. Don’t ask.”

“Yeah,” he says, that deep eye contact
he can make so easily, “some people…they don’t like a lot of questions.”

“You don’t,” I blurt in case he means
me.

He smiles like he’s taking a dare. “What
do you want to know?”

I eat quietly for a minute. “How you
bought Frieda’s.”

“Cash,” he says, clever. He forks a
mouthful, he chews, still smiling.

“Why Frieda’s?”

“Fresh
start…
like
I told you.” He says this, like an umbrella he pops open to keep off the rain. “I
always wanted to live north. My real estate agent sent me the
ad.
I decided
quick
.”

“Were you in trouble?”

He has to take a big bite now. He has to
chew, lick his lips. “No. I’m not in trouble. I’m…out of trouble.”

“Something happen at your school, with
your job?” Why can I only think he was involved with a female student? What
else do male high school teachers do that they have to leave town over?

“No.
Nothing like
that.”

“You…ever been locked up?”

He laughs. “No jail time,” but there’s
something a little off in his answer.

Maybe I’ve hurt his feelings? Or maybe
he’s mad, like before when I read his palm…without his palm of course.

“I only have today…the present…that’s
why it’s a gift or something.” He laughs.

What does he mean repeating these broken
bits of slogans…does he mean any of it?

“Brothers?”
I say.

Now he does miss a beat.
Looks down at his plate.
“Only child, remember?”

“Yeah.
It’s something you said….”

“To a dog,” he interrupts. “I was
talking to a dog.”

So he knew…I knew. He had looked at me
when he’d said it…to Ned. But people told dogs the truth. I did. Except when I
had to have King put down. I didn’t tell him until right at the end. That was
my first and only lie.

“He’s in WITSEC,”
Cyro
says, suddenly emerging from the bathroom. He about gives me a heart attack. I
have to start listening for more than Spencer’s voice.

Spencer turns to face him. “I’m not in WITSEC,”
he says…like vehemently.

“The hell you’re not,”
Cyro
says. He leaves then, stumps to the living room.

“Are you?” I say again. It makes perfect
sense. “You’re in WITSEC.”

“No,” Spencer says again, two hands on
the table.

“What dog is that?”
Cyro
calls from the living room. If he can see Ned, then Ned must be out of the
yard.

“Son of a bitch,” Spencer says and he
runs out the back door.

I run to the living room…well I walk fast.
“Did you call Colin or something?”

Cyro
doesn’t answer right away. He’s in his recliner again and he’s craning his neck
to watch Spencer chase Ned all over the place trying to get him back in the
yard.

“
Cyro
, did Colin
tell you Spencer was in WITSEC?” A million thoughts are running through my head.
I’m trying to look calm. Maybe I don’t even know Spencer’s real name.

“No,”
Cyro
says still not taking his eyes off of Spencer.
“You Google
him yet?”

Well maybe I have, but nothing really
showed.
Nothing at all actually.

“It’s an alias,”
Cyro
says in this thin voice like he can barely be bothered to move his lips he is
so engrossed in Spencer’s movements as he tries to corner Ned.

“Okay Ironsides,” I say folding my arms.
He’s speculating.

He laughs at the name.

“
Leeanne
,” I
say, happy to throw her under the bus. “Sorry.”

He’s shaking his head. He picks up his
paper then. “Give me some of that stuff John Doe brought over.”

“Just so you know, Spencer,” or whoever
he is, “is painting in here today.”

That does wipe some of the smug smile off
his face.

I walk blindly back to the kitchen, see
the food there he’s prepared, and everything he’s said and done rushes through
my mind and in this new WITSEC frame it’s like I’m getting ready to star in an
episode of
Dateline
.

Who did I get naked with last night?