Cheating on Myself (15 page)

“I want you back,” he said quietly, between breaths.

“We can’t,” I whispered, trying to get myself to pull away. I couldn’t. “I shouldn’t have.”

What had I been thinking? Why had I come here? As the regret began to wash over me, Erik took my hips in his hands and moved in toward me. He swayed between my thighs and I could feel him harden in the space between us. His eyes locked on mine, and everything inside me melted again.

Within seconds, he’d pulled my tights down and tossed them onto the floor next to my shoes. He fumbled with his belt, so I reached out and helped him pull it open, grabbing greedily at his pants. Before I even realized they were open, he was inside of me and it felt so right, so good, so warm. He held my legs around his waist and pulled me in closer, leaning over me to kiss my breasts through the thin fabric of my shirt.

My fingers worked at the buttons, pulling it open so he could push my bra up and out of the way. His lips found first my left breast, then my right, and I heard him moan as he pressed himself further inside of me. I let my head tip back, and relished the crisp whiteness of a fall sky, wondering if anyone from the building across the street could see us, wishing they could. We’d never been so good, and I wanted to stay like this forever. With Erik inside of me, and his hands all over me—with the passion of knowing someone so well holding us together.

We’d been together long enough that I could sense his climax and he waited, making sure I was with him. We came together, both of us quietly, and then he collapsed on top of me while stroking my hair. It was a routine, the hair stroking, and I found it both comforting and chilling. I loved how it felt, but I hated the sense of tradition combined with the exciting newness of what had just happened. Erik and I had never been together like this before—
never
—and I wanted it all to feel new. I wanted it to feel like the first time, but I knew it never could.

“Thank you,” he murmured, standing up to button his pants and refasten his belt. He held his hand out to me and I stood, pulling my skirt back down to cover my knees, and settled into one of his office guest chairs to put my tights on. Erik moved around to the other side of the desk and took a seat facing me, appraising me. It felt suddenly formal, like he was my boss, and I squirmed under his gaze.

“Do you want some water?” He reached under his desk and pulled out a bottle from the private stash he kept there for when the office water cooler was empty. I knew he didn’t like to replace the empty jug with a full one, so he found an alternate source of water until someone else came around to deal with it.

“I’m okay,” I said, and he cracked open the bottle to take a long swig. “Listen, Erik...”

He looked up, wiping a drop of water from the corner of his mouth. “So you got the flowers? My mom dropped them off at your office front desk this morning. They wouldn’t let her come up to put them on your desk in person.”

“Your
mom
dropped them off?” I felt the lust that had been there moments before screech to a halt and swiftly change into something else, something sour. Did it make the gesture feel less significant, now that I knew Laurel had been involved? “Thank you,” I said, clearing my throat. My mouth was dry and I wondered why, especially after what had just passed, I was nervous to see him. “I love them.”

“We knew you would.” Ugh. There was the “we” again. I desperately wanted to get Laurel the hell out of the middle.

“So I should have said this before—um, well, before
that
.” We grinned at each other, and I felt like a teenager who’d just gotten away with doing it in the back of my parents’ car. Not that I’d had sex in high school, since I was too busy planning and preparing for the life that was now so dull, but I’d seen that scene in TV shows. “What I wanted to say is, we should talk about what this means.”

“Isn’t it kind of late to talk about what this means, Stella?” He looked so proud, so satisfied, so in love.

“It’s not, and we need to.” I looked into my lap at first. But then I stared straight at him, knowing I had to stick to my convictions or I was going to hate myself by lunchtime. “This wasn’t us getting back together.”

His eyebrows went up. “Okay…”

“I haven’t changed my mind.” It just spilled out. “I’m happier without you.”

Erik blinked rapidly a number of times, making it look like his contact was stuck somewhere up in his eyelid. It was his classic stalling tactic.

“I’m not sure I get this, then.” He gestured to my open blouse and messy hair.

“I don’t get it either.” I didn’t get it. It had felt so good, but part of me wondered if maybe it felt so good because it was wrong. It felt like something illicit, scandalous, secret. “Maybe we could talk later this week?”

“Do you want to come over?” he asked, taking another drink of water. His lips were still puffy, and I wondered how long he would stay hidden in his office before facing his coworkers. Ten minutes? Was post-sex glow a source of pride for most people? Not for Erik, I could be sure.

“No, I can’t come to your place.” I thought about the sex, and how if we met at Erik’s house, there might be opportunity for more. It felt so good, but… “Or maybe—” I stopped. What was I doing? I had to get out of there before I committed to something I would later regret. “No, I’ll email you, okay?” I stood and slipped my shoes on. As I looked down and wobbled my way to the door with one shoe on and one still half-off, I realized Anders was right. I really did have a lot of sensible shoes. That needed to change if this was the new me.

I opened the door, walked out, and closed it behind me without a look back.

CHAPTER TEN

After I left Erik’s office, I trudged shamefully back to my cubicle. I spent the rest of the day waffling, alternately reveling in the incredibleness of the sex and kicking myself for having done it. What was I going to say when we “talked” later that week—that I still didn’t think he was perfect for me, and I still resented his inability to commit, but I liked the way he made wild rice soup? That his thighs were always nice and warm at night, and that was maybe enough?

Why couldn’t I just let go?

James came by my desk around noon to drop a small Care Bear figurine on my cube wall. “Found this at a garage sale this weekend,” he explained proudly. “Made me think of you. Always upbeat, aren’t you, Stella?”

I glowered at him, unwilling to stay upbeat in the midst of a salary cut and my own grumpiness.

“Forget to take your happy pills this morning, sweetheart?”

“Don’t call me sweetheart,” I spat, irritated by his false cheer and emotion-marketing messaging. “Save it for your boss.”

James reddened, nervously dancing the figurine around on the top of my cube wall. “Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” I grumbled. It wasn’t wise to wage a war with my boss over his crass and inappropriate relationship with his boss. After all, I was one red folder away from losing my job altogether, and then I’d have no choice but to go back to Erik. Laid off, desolate, and with Christmas on the horizon. I could think of nothing more depressing, except being alone, too.

James strode off, all coiffed hair and snazzy suit, and I grabbed the Care Bear off the ledge. With a laugh, I chucked it ceremoniously into the trash.

“I hate this job,” I muttered, and as I said it I realized it was true. Professionally, it was everything I’d ever achieved to be in life, and now I was here and it sucked. What kind of stupid teenager makes her ultimate goal a meaningless job marketing Soft Scrub and mops to the masses?

I’d seen this happen to other people—they get everything they’ve always wished for, and then they realize even that sucks. Like my cousin Aria, who spent years getting advanced degree after advanced degree in her pursuit to be some kind of medical specialist (something that involved penises, that’s all I knew), and when she finally graduated and got a high-paying job, she left it all because she had no work-life balance. Her lifelong goal had let her down, and now she owed more money than I’d make in my entire life but she had no idea what to do with herself.

I shut down my computer at two and went looking for Lily. The interns outside her office informed me Ms. Sparrow had gotten called into an hours-long advertising review, so I left. I went home, put in the first of the
Alias
Season Two DVDs, and poured myself a glass of wine.

I drank two glasses of afternoon wine as I wondered what right I had to be depressed. I had a date the next weekend with a guy who seemed totally decent, and who smelled like cinnamon rather than antiseptic. But even still, I couldn’t stop pitying myself.

Just as my buzz kicked in and Sydney Bristow started kicking some serious ass, my cell phone rang. Foolishly, I picked up without looking at the caller ID.

“Stella?” Laurel Wesley’s sharp voice rang through the phone and I inadvertently released a loud, exaggerated sigh.

“Hi, Laurel.” This was going to be hard. I found Laurel difficult to deal with when I was in a good mood, but in this state I worried about what I might say. I’d grown comfortable enough with her that I treated her much like I might treat my own mom if she were around—though we’d always had a few extra layers of the tension that tends to exist between a mother and her only son’s significant other. She was the closest thing to a mother I had, and I was going to have to let her go, or this situation would get really awkward. As I realized that, my mind flashed back to that morning, to the feeling of Erik’s hands confidently gripping my thighs in that comfortable grasp and I wondered if maybe she knew we’d been together. “How’s it going?”

“I’m fine, Stella. I hear you saw Erik?” My stomach churned. Erik had already called her? “Cat mentioned she was out with you on Friday and you ran into Erik at his firm’s intern farewell dinner?”

“We didn’t get a chance to talk,” I said, relieved Laurel didn’t seem to know about that morning. “But yeah, I saw him from afar. That was an intern farewell dinner? Awfully intimate, Erik and just one cute blonde.”

Laurel cleared her throat. “Well, yes. Did you notice how good he looks?”

I rolled my eyes and paused
Alias
. “Yes, Erik has always been good looking.”

“He looks better than ever, Stella. He’s been on a new soup diet, and I took him to get his hair cut at my salon.”

“Laurel?” I said, attempting to cut her off. I didn’t want to listen to her prattle on about the merits of her son.

“It’s all for you, you know.” I could tell she had mustered up her courage to tell me this. “He loves you, Stella. I just wanted to know… should I put you in the Christmas drawing this year? I can add your name to the gift exchange, if you want to come spend the holidays with family.”

I sat on the line silently, listening to the click of Laurel’s iPad as she dragged letters around on her Scrabble game. “I appreciate that. But I won’t be at Christmas this year.”

“We’re your family! If you don’t come to my house, where will you go? I don’t want you to be alone for the holidays.” I knew she meant it well, but instead her reminder that I’d dropped my whole family, along with Erik, really stung. I hadn’t thought about Christmas. My parents were both gone, my friends all had families of their own, and I hadn’t sent gifts to my extended family in more than ten years. “I’m cooking lamb. I know it’s your favorite.” That actually wasn’t true. It was Erik’s favorite, and I always thought it tasted gamey. But I’d never said anything, so I suppose it was fair that she thought he and I were both lamb-lovers.

I said, “I’ll be fine for Christmas. Listen, Laurel, I have to go. Did you need anything else?”

“I was hoping to get your Brussels sprout recipe—I’m entering the Foodie Channel Home Chef competition, and I was hoping to include them in my audition video.”

“Sure, I’ll email it to you.” Laurel tried out different hobbies the way some women experimented with new hairstyles—often, and frequently with disastrous consequences. She’d been on a cooking kick for a few years, and had entered every single contest the Foodie Channel had offered. She’d yet to win any of the competitions, but was determined to get one of their fancy chefs to visit her state-of-the-art kitchen to film her fifteen minutes of fame. “Please say hello to Peter for me.”

We hung up, and I felt even worse. I poured myself another glass of wine and clicked play. If only I could transform myself into a new existence with something as simple as spandex and a purple wig, a la Sydney Bristow. But my thighs would never fit into catsuit, so I guess that was out.

* * *

The next morning, I was up early, ready to face the ladies at water aerobics. For once, I arrived on time and got myself stripped down and dressed amongst the scuttle of everyone else’s bare bottoms. The gang was downright cheery around me now, and I had begun to find their random musings on life comforting in a weird sort of way.

The women of Water X Power rarely had conversations, per se, but stacked stories on top of stories as they talked at one another. Fran muttered crabbily about the way the garbage men always left her garbage can in the middle of the alley, and she had pulled her hamstring dragging it back to its place in front of her garage. Lydia often had the latest on some sale or another. Rae was quick to share recipes and gossip from a dinner party she’d attended sometime in the few days prior.

Barbara always told tales of her grandson—the famed Jonathan, my favorite date yet—and his escapades with ladies in his life. Had I stuck around after that first water aerobics class, I would have heard enough to convince me to never go out with him in the first place. But now, Barb seemed to have forgotten we’d ever gone out, since she hadn’t brought it up since.

Barb also talked often of her husband, who had passed away earlier in the year. Apparently, he left a mysterious collection of chewing gum under surfaces throughout their house.

“It’s hard to speak ill of a dead husband,” is how she prefaced most of her comments. “But that bastard has me hunting on hands and knees for dry, chewed-up wads of old gum. It’s as though he never threw them away—must have known he’d knock off first and stick me with the messy job of cleaning up after him. I keep hitting on them accidentally. Last week, I got my good church pants stuck on a chunk of mint gum. That bastard left chewed up wads until the day he died, and probably laughed his ass all the way up to heaven.” She crossed her hand over her chest and added, “Bless his heart.”