After Dark (23 page)
I envisioned us through Rachel and Nicole’s eyes: Matt’s nude, stunning body, and my hands devouring him. I stroked his stiff cock and massaged his balls. I caressed his abdomen.
Mine. All mine.
I laid a hand over his racing heart.
“Close your eyes,” he said before we traded places. “I’m steady behind you.”
I closed my eyes, and I kept them closed as he undressed me and touched me. He showed me off wordlessly—bending me over, sitting me down on the bed and spreading my legs, then spreading my sex and putting his fingers inside.
I could feel their eyes on me there, and Matt’s trembling excitement.
He entered me. Covered my body. Nothing for Rachel and Nicole to see but his muscled back, his strong thighs and ass, and that most intimate motion that brought him against me, again and again, until we both unraveled.
But that unraveling wasn’t the half of it.
I couldn’t forget how it felt to own him. The fierce, simple trust in his eyes when he told me to do it to him.
I’m steady behind you.
Words I believed. Words I believed for my life.
“Open your eyes,” he said.
I did, and we were alone.
MATT
“When did you send them out?” Mike said.
I smiled and shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“To my curiosity, yes.” He shook his head, but he looked pleased, and I felt one of my rare surges of gratitude for my psychiatrist.
I had spent the better part of my appointment describing Saturday night at Four Seasons. I told Mike how I shared my journal with Hannah, and how I whipped her, and how she organized my wildest fantasy into a reality.
“It’s jarred us out of our frustration¸” I said. “I mean with the house-hunting. I feel … refreshed.” I leafed through my journal, which contained no new entries. I studied a bare page. “Some fantasies one expects to remain in the realm of fantasy. I’d thought exhibitionism was one of those. This has been…”
I closed the journal, which had been more than a useful tool.
“Well, thank you,” I finally managed.
“You don’t need to thank me. Without Hannah’s open-mindedness, the journal would have been nothing but a sounding board for your thoughts. Thank
her.
”
“I have.”
“Good. I don’t mind saying I wasn’t sure about her role in your well-being—whether she was good or bad for you. But that’s clear to me now. She seems very extraordinary.”
“She is,” I said.
“If you would consider a group session or two…” Having triumphed with my aberrant desires, Mike started in on the efficacy of group therapy and marriage counseling. I could only laugh. I felt sure he was right—a few appointments with Hannah, Mike, and me might smooth out our engagement—but I wasn’t ready to talk about children, and I knew we would end up talking about children.
First, I needed to settle that score with myself. Did I want children, or didn’t I? I thought I did. I considered the idea, I imagined the child, my mind lurched through a reel of happy images, and then horror seized me and I recoiled.
Too much happiness … is a dangerous thing.
I’d tried to explain that to Hannah in our story, just as I’d tried to explain it to her when we drove through my hometown in June.
We were happy
, I wrote,
with this happiness so cosmically unfair … I knew it couldn’t last … that somehow I would have to pay for it.
I e-mailed Chapter 10 to Hannah on Tuesday. We wouldn’t have time to discuss it—I didn’t want to discuss it—because we had a full evening of showings with Marion.
Hannah got home early and changed into jeans and a T-shirt.
We ate a quick dinner of takeout Chinese.
I pulled on my Brooks, my favorite running shoes, and we grinned at one another.
We’d been doing that—grinning dopily at one another—ever since the weekend and Mission Exhibition’s completion. We spoke about it remarkably little. To me it was surreal, a moment in time that too much talk might jeopardize, and it must have been the same for Hannah.
Later, we could process it into writing.
For now, it had revitalized us, just as I’d told Mike, and we were excited to hunt for our future house. Our future home.
I let Hannah sit up front with Marion. First we drove to Pradera, a community of luxury homes in Parker. Hannah frowned at the colossal house, but she listened and held my hand as Marion extolled the four-car garage, the hickory hardwood, granite counters, oversize laundry room, and finished basement.
I loved it.
Hannah endured it.
Next, as we toured a two-story shanty in Longmont, I tried to show her the same courtesy. I sort of smiled at the bland siding, the postage stamp of a yard, and the window through which we could literally pass notes to our neighbors.
Awesome
.
“Cute place,” Hannah said as we climbed back into the Prius.
I grimaced.
“I want to show you a new listing out in Clear Creek County, different from this and very exciting.” Poor Marion sounded defeated. “Is a thirty-minute commute feasible?”
“That’s up to Hannah,” I said. “There’s not much I need in Denver.”
Hannah shrugged. “I’m willing to look.”
We traveled west, toward Mount Evans. The city receded; flat land gave way to foothills. Sometimes Marion talked up a listing as she drove, but she said nothing about the Corral Creek place. Maybe she hadn’t familiarized herself with it.
We turned onto a dirt road and Hannah glanced back at me.
I frowned and shrugged.
No idea.
“Here we are,” Marion said. We pulled through an open gate. The road extended into a meadow toward pine-covered hills. Lodgepole fencing followed the curve of the land as far as I could see. Where was the house?
Spruce and aspen were interspersed through the meadow. The sun was going down, showing the land to great effect. Long shadows and golden light. Fringes of prairie grass shining like torch heads.
I have always had a weakness for meadow landscapes, and I felt my soul expanding to let in that place.
“As you can see,” Marion said, “the property is extremely private and secluded, but just a thirty-minute drive to the amenities of Denver. The ranch covers two hundred and ninety acres and one-fourth mile of Corral Creek, which—”
“Ranch?” I blurted. “Two … what?”
“Yes, this tract was originally a gentleman’s ranch and summer home for the—”
“Ah, could we”—I touched Hannah’s shoulder—“step out briefly?”
“Sure, of course.” Marion parked and remained in the car while Hannah and I stumbled around to one another. Cool, pine-scented air and stillness surrounded us.
I snagged her hand and pulled her into the meadow.
Several yards from the Prius, we stopped.
“Is she out of her mind?” I laughed. “Have we finally driven her crazy?”
“Maybe she took us out here to shoot us.” Hannah giggled.
“Right? I mean, Jesus.” I stared at the vista. “Did you hear that shit? A creek? Almost three hundred acres? Hannah, that’s more land than … I even know what to do with. I’m sorry, I”—I wrung my hands—“we’ll have to be clearer with her.”
“Yeah, for sure.” She glanced at me and then at the meadow and mountains. “I mean, it’s definitely beautiful.”
“Oh, very. Too bad it’s so, ah…”
“Crazy?” she offered.
“Yeah, ridiculous.”
I cleared my throat and we stood there in silence, surveying the land.
In retrospect, I realize we were feeling one another out. The house itself didn’t matter. Nothing could be said against that land and its absolute beauty. Thick groves of trees stood in the distance, filled with mystery, and forest carpeted the mountainside. I wanted to be there when night fell. How powerful that night would be, and the wind and the stars.
I wanted to own it. I had never conceived of owning so much land, and maybe part of the allure was the insanity of it.
And now
, I thought,
you have to say good-bye to it. Hannah would never—
“Let’s see the house,” she said.
“What?”
“Just for fun.” She toed the earth. “We came all this way.”
I led her back to the car, the phrase “just for fun” digging at me. See the property of your dreams,
just for fun!
Rub salt in your wounds,
just for fun!
“Honestly, I’m not sure I want to see it,” I said.
“Well, I do.”
I frowned as we got back in the car.
“Stunning, right?” Marion smiled uncertainly at us. I glared out the window.
Fuck all this house-shopping, and so much for my rejuvenated mood.
“It really is,” Hannah said. “Can we see the house?”
“Just for fun,” I muttered. No one heard me.
“Of course!” Marion stepped on the gas and we rolled deeper into that gorgeous world. It closed around us and filled me with longing. I must have looked like a little boy staring out the window.
Can I have it, please?
Marion pointed out “improvements” as she drove: a paddock, a horse barn, another, smaller barn and a cabin.
I refused to look at Hannah, who was probably snickering.
The house stood on the northwestern side of the property, at the base of a large rock outcropping. It was, quite simply, the killing blow to my hope—a chateau-style refurbished lodge with a white stone exterior and a giant, solid joke of a front door.
A joke, yes. This house and land were a practical joke at my expense.
Nine bedrooms. Six bathrooms. Five fireplaces.
I sneered at the rustic, elegant interior. Light wood and pale stone gathered the day’s last sun. Hannah squealed in the kitchen, skirting around the granite island like a child.
“So beautiful,” she said.
“And completely modernized with new appliances,” Marion put in.
On the second floor, they tried to lure me into one of the two libraries.
“You’ll like this,” said Marion, and Hannah yanked my sleeve.
“Matt, look how many shelves this place has.”
“I don’t want to see it,” I snarled. “I’m tired.” I threw myself into a nook at the end of the hall. Hannah’s phone buzzed.
“I’ll give you two a moment.” Marion drifted down the hallway.
As Hannah thumbed her cell, I stared out the window at the blue evening.
I pretended it was all mine.
Soon, I could go for a run across the meadow, or an ambling walk with Hannah. Two hundred and ninety acres. We could get lost …
“Shit,” she said.
I snapped out of my daydream.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s … Seth. Well, Nate.” She wiggled her phone. “He texted me. Seth was in the hospital last weekend. They just released him. God, why didn’t we hear about this sooner?” She stabbed at the screen.
My dark mood shifted.
“Why was he in the hospital? Who are you texting?”
“He collapsed after a show on Friday. And I’m texting
Nate
.” She glared at me. “He didn’t say what happened, exactly, but I’m pretty sure we can guess…”
With Marion in hearing range, Hannah just gestured.
I snatched her phone and read her half-written text.
Out with Matt. Will call ASAP. Pls give more
“More
what
?” I said. “
Out with Matt
? What the fuck? How long have you been—”
“More details, obviously. Give me that.” She pried her phone from my hand. “What is wrong with you?”
“I almost put him in the fucking hospital myself. Do you realize that? I don’t care how much he fucks up his life right now. When are you going to get that? I despise him.”
“Well, I don’t. And Nate doesn’t. When are
you
going to get
that
?”
“We are getting married, for God’s sake.” I slammed my palm into the wood-paneled wall. Hannah flinched. It was the first anger I gave that house, but not the last.
“That doesn’t mean you get to tell me how to feel about people. Your brother is sick. He’s suffering. You should empathize.”
Seth’s invisible intrusion into my night, which was already going so poorly, infuriated me. Why did Hannah continually throw herself between Seth and my rage? Couldn’t she see that she was at the heart of that rage? Seth touching her … Seth trying to take her from me …
“I am done … talking about him.” I made my voice low. It shivered with emotion. “Done for good. Stop bringing him up. I am not going to fucking forgive him.”
Tears shimmered in Hannah’s eyes—whether from frustration or sadness, I couldn’t tell.
“You are always so upset,” she said. “Always. You don’t know how to be happy.”
“That’s not fucking true.”
“It is.” The first tear rolled down her cheek, and then the next. And I hated Seth, and the possibility that she might be crying for him. “I found this listing. I actually thought you would like it. I sent it to Marion”—she snuffled loudly—“for a surprise for you. Y-you said to meet you in the middle, but there is no middle with you! You don’t like anything!”
She started to cry in earnest.
I grabbed her wrist, my eyes wide.
“What?”
“M-maybe you don’t want to live w—”
“You said you didn’t…” I stood swiftly and cradled Hannah. In spite of her anger, she clung to me. “… didn’t want to live in the sticks. I don’t understand.”
“Thirty minutes from Denver
isn’t
the sticks.”
“Hannah. Bird.” I kissed her damp cheeks. I wiped away her tears until only her lashes were dewy. “Would you seriously live here?”
“Yes.” She laughed—a little hysterically—and her eyes filled again. “I would. I’m tired of the city, tired of the condo. And I know it’s … ridiculous and huge, but … we could get people to take care of the—”
Seth faded from my mind like a ghost, paler and thinner … gone. My anger faded with him. I lifted Hannah off her feet and I turned and turned, laughing.
HANNAH
“You can touch it,” Chrissy said, frowning at the subtle swell of her stomach. “If you want to, I mean. I just hope random women don’t try to touch me. Ew.”
