Desire (42 page)

50

Isaac

Calling Maya was a mistake. I freaked her out, I freaked myself out, and
I’m pretty sure we were both more depressed afterwards, which is a shitty way to end it all if that’s how it goes down. Glory totally noticed something was off and started screaming at me about seeing someone else, so obviously she’s done worrying about my health and waiting for me to get my shit together.

After avoiding her for a few days, I apologized and she kissed me. I had to kiss her back, I didn’t have a choice. So I thought of Maya, which made the kiss way to
o good and I couldn’t believe how fucking awful I felt afterwards. I thought my chest was going to collapse. Now Glory wants to go to some party tonight and I just can’t fucking deal with it, so I do the only logical thing to do. I steal one of her very fast, very expensive cars and get the hell out of here before she comes home.

I start driving to
Maya’s house without even thinking. The closer I get, the crazier my thoughts become and I slip in to full on desperation mode. I have to see her. I just have to. Yet somehow I manage to pull myself out of the mania, forcing myself to take an exit onto the Interstate and just start driving with no idea where to even go. But every time I’ve driven out on this road I was either with Maya or going to meet her. Every fucking billboard, exit, and sign make me think of her.

I pull into that forest preserve where we had sex on our birthday. She teased me the whole way just so I would make her pay for it when I got a hold of her and then she giggled in my ear the entire time. I lasted about thirty seconds, which is kind of a good thing when you’re fucking in a forest preserve parking lot in the morning light.
I had to finish her off by hand. Her eyes were so wide, she used to get so nervous when we fucked around in public and she’d always snuggle so close to me. She’s so fucking adorable.

When I close my eyes,
I can feel her little fingers sliding across my neck. I do this all the time, it’s so comforting. It’s been so long. I’m going through some kind of bizarre sexual withdrawal. I didn’t think it was physically possible for anyone to get this horny. I didn’t know my dick could fucking scream. The only one that can hear it is me though. The need is always shrieking and shredding its way through what’s left of my insides. Sometimes I think it’s cauterizing that continuous internal bleeding because I’m pretty sure those wounds keep reopening again and again. It hurts so much to be away from her I don’t understand how I’m still alive. I can’t jerk off, I haven’t since that time on the phone. I don’t think I’ll come back from the crash afterwards. Because if I’m not starving for her perfect, beautiful body, aching for her hot, slick little pussy, and dying to hear her squeal and feel her shudder when she comes for me, the only thing I can see is the terror in her eyes and my blood all over her face. And then all that need hits my arms. My empty fucking arms.

I decide to keep driving and I make it about an hour until it’s not safe to be behind the wheel, so I pull over at
a gorgeous scenic overlook I’m sure she would love. I’m barely out of the car before I start throwing up while I’m sobbing, which completely terrifies the old retired couple I somehow didn’t notice at the other end of the lot.
It’s fucking winter, what the hell are you doing here?
Eventually they leave, but they must have called the cops because soon afterwards a squad car pulls up. Great. Just fucking great. I look totally fucking insane even though I’m only halfway gone, sitting in the tall brown grass next to a million dollar car, crying and shaking uncontrollably.

“Everything okay?”
a cop asks after he and his partner check out the car like it’s a naked woman. The older of the two young officers approaches me slowly, his hand on his gun. “You need help?”

“Um… I’m just kind of dumfounded and los
ing my shit right now while I fully experience the depths of human despair and I’m pretty sure that’s not illegal. I’m not going to hurt anybody, I just can’t fucking drive and I don’t have anywhere to go.”

He looks at me quizzically, at a loss for words “That’s a
pretty nice car for a homeless guy.”

“I’m not technically homeless, I just can’t go home. And the car isn’t
mine, it’s my girlfriend’s.” I choke when I call her that. “Fuck, she’s not my girlfriend really, but—”

“W
ell, who is she?”

I
sigh and it sounds pissed off because I am, but I need to keep that shit in check. “Do you want the real answer because it’s a fucked up story.”

He pauses, his posture losing some of its defensiveness. “Yes.”

“Well, we live together now and I used to fuck her a lot. She’s my father’s old girlfriend and my dead mother’s former best friend turned arch rival.”

“Y
our mother?”

“Y
eah. Well, she wasn’t my biological mother. I’m adopted, but that’s a different sad, fucked up story and you’re not a fucking therapist.”

“S
top saying fuck so much.”

“
Fuck!” Did I seriously just say that out loud? “Sorry, officer. But that’s not illegal either, is it?”

“It could be.”

“Can I just go?”

“
You said you couldn’t drive.”

“
You sort of snapped me out of it.”

“
Yeah, for now. You want a ride somewhere?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. My partner ran the plates, it’s not stolen. I could get someone else to drive that awesome car to the station.”

“
Only if they won’t wreck it. I’ll tell her what happened. She has a lot of money, but she will still be pissed.”

“Nothing is going to happen to it, but some of the boys might take her for a spin.” That’s better than getting arrested, I guess. “So,
where would you go if you could?” he asks.

“
I can’t go there.”

“
Why?”

“
I don’t want her to get in trouble.”

“You’re real girlfriend?” he says, and I grunt
out some version of ‘yes’, wiping my eyes. “Why would she get in trouble?”

“
Because I’d show up and never leave.”

He kneels in front of me and takes off his glasses. I thought cops were supposed to be dicks,
but this guy seems really fucking nice. After a long pause, he places his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “C’mon.”

“Okay.” I
can’t believe I’m getting in this cop car and leaving Glory’s Bugatti in the hands of that police officer who looks like a little kid on Christmas morning. Hell, he is a kid, he’s younger than I am. Aw, fuck it. “I don’t really know where to go,” I say once we’re pulling away from the overlook.

“
So go somewhere you wish you could take her. That’s why you drove all the way out here, right? I’m technically off duty now anyway, I just wanted to see that car in person. So tell me and you can cry and freak out in the backseat until we get there.” He sounds dead serious, but I still laugh. “I’m a faggot in a very small town. I get it.”

“
Seriously?”

“Yep.
My daddy runs everything around here. The boys’ll take good care of the car.”

Fuck. My heart starts beating really fucking fast when I realize that there aren’t any door handles back here and I’m trapped.
“Look, man, don’t take this the wrong way, but… and I don’t think gay guys are like this, honestly, it’s the cop thing that’s got me freaked out. I’m just covering all the bases here. Please don’t rape me. I’m having shitty enough day as it is,” I say, sitting up straight. His jaw drops open and he gasps. “If you do, just don’t be a dick about it and kill me afterwards or leave me in the woods to die. I love the outdoors, but I have virtually no survival skills, plus I’m wearing the wrong shoes. I won’t make it. And it’s not that big of a deal, I won’t tell anybody.”

H
is shocked eyes meet mine in the rear view mirror and he shakes his head. “Well, shit. Not a problem, man.”

“
Take a left then. It’s pretty far.”

Officer Ray turns out to be a genuinely nice guy
and I feel horrible about offending him. We drive out to that meadow and I curl up into a ball on the same spot where I held Maya both times we were here. The cop doesn’t come looking for me until it’s getting dark and he’s afraid that I’ll freeze to death, then we go to this little diner for some kick ass chili to warm up. Turns out he goes into the city to meet guys and he’s always worried about somebody seeing him, so we have that in common.

Her car is fine, but Glory is less than thrilled when I pull in
to her driveway at midnight. She starts to scream at me, but I can’t take it, I just start bawling before she finishes her first sentence. Exhausted, I stumble to my room, my real bedroom that I need to learn not to hate so much because this is my life now.

She’s pleas
antly surprised in the morning when I make her favorite breakfast and agree to accompany her to some charity event in Las Vegas. Maybe it will be easier to go through with it there because Maya won’t be as close. I don’t know why that matters, but it does, at least for the first time. I can’t call her, I try, but I just won’t be able to say the words and hear her mask the pain in her voice when she tells me that she’ll be fine. She won’t be. Neither will I.

*
*******

There are way more
speeches than normal at this thing. Glory puts her hand on my knee in the middle of it and I don’t pull away. Our eyes meet when she glances over at me and I give her a quick half smile, forcing myself to lean just a few inches closer. Her hand slides around my thigh and stays still for the rest of the presenters. After a while I get used to it being there and I’m not as anxious, but I can’t manage to put mine on the small of her back until I close my eyes and pretend it’s Maya. That makes my dick hard and the guilt is so intense that I have to pull my hand away, but it’s still not enough, so I get up from the table and bolt towards the bathroom as fast as I can without making a scene.

When I get back, Glory kisses my cheek and wants to make the rounds. She doesn’t know that many people here
and I don’t know anybody, which is nice for a change. It’s all very professional. Too professional. I thought she just went to these charity balls for social reasons, I had no idea she actually cared this much about needy kids. And I can’t believe she gives them so much money. She’s bankrolled an entire school for girls in Africa for years. Everybody we talk to mentions how successful it is. How the hell did I not know this? She’s actually a little embarrassed over all the attention. That doesn’t happen. And she only has two or three glasses of champagne. That doesn’t happen either.

Thinking of Maya when I dance with
her doesn’t work very well at first. Glory’s body is too lanky. Her hands don’t feel right on me. She’s wearing her signature perfume, which is nothing like the one I created for Maya that I only got to smell twice. Glory’s not dancing like she usually does, she’s almost being… cuddly. That part does make it easier to pretend, but her head rests on my shoulder, not on my chest under my chin the way Maya’s does. After a few tries, I keep my eyes closed most of the time and slip away until I’m not sure which one of them is in my arms because half of me is dancing with Maya in the apartment in front of that big picture window. It lets me pour a more authentic kind of sensuality into it and Glory notices, along with the erection pressing into her belly that she thinks is for her. I slide my lips up from her collarbone and kiss her neck gently, but I was expecting to feel the square of Maya’s jawbone beneath my lips instead and I freeze up, choking as I’m ripped out of the illusion.

“It’s alright, Isaac,” Glory whispers in my ear, pulling herself closer and t
racing circles on my neck. That makes it better and worse at the same time. “Do you want to leave?”

“This seems
important to you. I just need some air.”

“It’s over. These things don’t go
until three in the morning. Half the people are gone.”

Lifting my face, I look around and see that she’s right.
“Okay. I’ll meet you in the car.”

She doesn’t come on to me that hard on the ride over, but I’m still in fucking agony. Am I really going to do this?
Every time I decide that I can’t, I see Maya sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over a stack of paper with her hair pulled back, the side of her hand smudged and gray from the pencil lead as her eyebrows furrow in concentration. I want to see that every night. I want to tell her that it’s late and she should go to bed an hour before I’m actually tired because it will take at least that long until she gives up when she tells me she just needs five more minutes. And I want to rub her shoulders when she finally stops, kiss her neck, and fuck her while she’s sleepy because she’s super snuggly and bratty then. I want it so fucking bad. And I keep telling myself that I’ll do anything to get it. Anything. I’ve said it ten thousand times. I guess it’s time to prove it.

Glory keeps the lights low when we get back to the hotel suite. She holds my hand, but her lips don’t touch mine. “I don’t know if I can do this,”
I choke.