Maldeamores (Lovesick) (Heightsbound #0.5) (13 page)

Fuck that.

But I do study every book of spells I can find in the library. Every night I dream of Lucky when I start casting them. Who knew there were so many love spells from so many different cultures? It makes me think something is working and my whole room starts filling up with witchy things. I even build an altar.

I often see him in my dreams, like I’m looking through a watery lens. I’m suspended above him and I see him magnified, but he’s tiny and way far below. I watch him do things like I’m looking at a moving diorama. I sometimes see him having sex with other women. But he’s also working and sweating and laughing with friends. He looks older, more cut, but his face is still young and ruggedly handsome. He’s still the Lucky I remember.

Then early one morning before fall semester starts, I get freaked out by all of my parapsychological advances and I cart everything outside and trash it in the dumpster. I promise myself to start fresh and make new friends and go on some dates. The weekend Lucy gets back I’m so relieved that I end up crying in her arms.

“I guess I missed you,” I say, laughing.

“You look like a ghost, campus girl,” she says.

“You look really healthy,” I say. “Like you had a ton of fun.”

“I did. And I think we need to get
you
some professional help.”

Thursdays are individual sessions with Dr. Davison. I’m doing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and trying to deal with my issues logically and rationally. I’m also doing exposure therapy—not exposure to Lucky but social exposure—going out, making new friends, online and speed dating, which are supposedly normal and healthy things for a girl my age.

We also talk a lot about sex. My roommate thinks it’s awesome that I’ve been prescribed erotica for therapy and she steals the books as soon as I’m done.

“Lucy, why do you wanna read about a hot woodsman if you don’t even get turned on by men?”

“Sexual tension is sexual tension, Bey. Even if it’s between a demon lord and a frog prince. I can relate to human experience, I’m not an alien.”

“Okay, you’re right. Sorry I’m insensitive,” I say. I’ve got a lot to learn about real lesbians, not just girls who kiss at parties.

My therapist assigns a bunch of stuff I read in my English classes—D.H. Lawrence, Anais Nin and Flaubert. But some stuff is new to me, like Nabokov’s
Lolita
and Pauline Réage’s
The Story of O
. I don’t know how much I relate to any of it. Sometimes I feel like my therapist is trying to expand my definition of what’s deviant, so that I can learn to accept myself.

But one thing I know for certain—I loathe O and everything she stands for, but switch her lover René out and replace him with Lucky and I’m on the floor in chains right next to her, taking every single blow.

Dr. Davidson thinks that I don’t necessarily have to have sex or lose my virginity, but she does want me to engage with people outside of my family.

So Lucy helped me set up my online profile for dating—she took all the pictures. I’ve been on three dates but Poughkeepsie is small and it seems like everyone here either goes to the University or works there. That, or they never left town for some terrible reason, like poverty or mental illness or utter lack of ambition.

What I really like best for exposure is going out with Lucy. She takes me to the only lesbian bar in town, out for sushi and to parties. Lucy has surpassed Yari in the friend department. She doesn’t judge me or try to force me to get laid. She just likes to have a good time, enjoy life and learn new things.

“Bey, you’re the only sexpert I know who’s a virgin.”

“It’s good to understand things fully before you agree to participate in them. Studying variants can help you decide what you like.”

Lucy throws her arm around my shoulder and lays a kiss on my forehead.

“You’re a trip and a half, girl. I’ll buy your beer just to hear the shit you say.”

Both Lucy and Dr. Davidson suggest that I be open to dating to women. They think that I have some repression issues going on and that’s why I stay infatuated with my cousin, because it’s safe and it keeps me from ever stepping out of my comfort zone. I guess they haven’t met Lucky, because nothing about him is safe. But I can still see their point. Lucky
is
safe, because he can’t un-cousin me.

So I’ve been trying to be open to the idea—here. I could never be at home. I don’t think dating girls would go over well with my mother. So far, I don’t think I’m attracted to women, but what do I know? I tried watching some lesbian porn Dr. Davidson gave me. I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t like it any more than straight porn, either. Maybe I’m frigid, like Yari told Jeremy. But I sure as hell don’t feel frigid when I’m standing in front of Lucky. In fact, all I have to do to get my blood racing is imagine him standing right here with me now, his smile, his mouth and all that he can do with it.

I make the suggestion to Dr. Davidson that maybe what’s missing is love—that I can’t get turned on by someone I’m not in love with.

“But Belén, you lubricated when you made out with Jeremy in the bathroom, if you recall. You were so turned on that you were ready to have sex with him, were you not?”

“I think it’s because I was drunk. And I
was
in love at that point, I was just directing it at another person.”

“Love and sexuality are two separate things. I know that, as the sensitive and romantic humans we are, we’d like to believe differently, but sex and love can be mutually exclusive. It’s quite possible, Belén, that you were turned on by Jeremy and you don’t even have to like him.”

“I disagree. I think I got wet – ”

“Lubricated,” Dr. Davidson suggests.

“I think that I lubricated and wanted him to fuck me – ”

“Wanted intercourse,” she says, raising an eyebrow.

“Sorry,
wanted intercourse
, just to make Lucky jealous and desire me.”

Dr. Davidson sends me home with a folder full of printed-out studies on human sexuality and arousal. Doesn’t she know I work in the library? Doesn’t she know I’ve spent a year and half trying to reason with all of my feelings for Lucky?

I show up the following week and tell her I finished reading her studies. I hand the folder back to her and plop in my chair across from her desk without taking off my jacket.

“And?” she asks, pushing her glasses up her nose.

“I’ve decided I’m different. I’m my own case study. I can’t be classified. I still believe in love.”

She sighs and nods her head. We spend the hour talking about how I need to hurry up and decide on a major. She sends me home with a few more porn DVDs and a meeting place and time for co-dependency group therapy. I’m getting help, but from the contents of my backpack you’d just think I was getting sicker. I don’t even
have
sex, yet I need all of this therapy for it.

I study the porn like it’s an assignment. I learn about rim jobs and deep throating, double penetration and ass-to-mouth blow jobs. None of it looks sexy to me, but I do find it interesting. I would do all of it, and then some, but only with Lucky. Lucky and no one else.

On Friday, Lucy takes me to a gay bar and I get completely hammered. Lucy’s friend Kat from Chicago is visiting New York City; she took the bus up for the night to come hang out with us, so we have reason to celebrate.

Kat is beautiful, with long, dark, lush curls, full pouty lips and a soft, round face. Her breasts stand at attention even though she’s not wearing a bra. I can tell after she has a few drinks that she’s flirting with me. I do want to experiment, I do want to try to be a normal girl with normal feelings and not be stuck perpetually in love with one person.

I ask Lucy to accompany me to the bathroom. It’s a single room with no stall and she pees in front of me. We are roommates, after all, so we’ve seen all there is to see of one another.

“Do you like her?” Lucy asks as she rolls toilet paper around her hand.

“She’s beautiful and sweet. She looks soft. I do think she’s sexy.”

“Yeah, but are you attracted to her? Sometimes, Belén, you are so weird.”

“I’m attracted to her, as much as I can be.”

“Then go for it! I mean, ask her if she’s interested. Do you want me to talk to her about your situation?”

“Nope. Because then she’ll either think I’m crazy or she’ll get her feelings hurt. I don’t want her to think that she’s some kind of experiment.”

“Just so you know, Bey. Most people are down for casual sex. It feels good, it’s fun—sometimes even more fun without the trappings of a relationship.”

“What are you saying?”

“Saying that even if they knew that you were collecting case studies, most humans would be down for fucking—I mean, volunteering for your cause.”

“Well, I just don’t want to take advantage of anyone.”

“Guess what, BeyBey? I don’t really think it counts in this situation. I mean, normal people don’t really hold casual sex against one another. Chances are, she’s not going to wake up in the morning demanding blood tests and a marriage license. Although she might ask for your email,” Lucy says as she washes her hands.

“Okay. Thanks for the advice.”

“Kat’s a cool girl. I’m sure if you tell her how you feel she’ll be fine with it. Just don’t do it if you’re only trying to score bonus points with your psychologist. You should be doing it for you—not as an assignment.”

We walk out of the bathroom together and I’m nervous and excited.

“Bey?”

“Yeah?”

“Try not to do that much talking.”

“Got it.”

“And Bey? Maybe try to not even mention the whole Lucky thing. It kind of ruins the moment.”

Kissing a girl is truly very romantic. They have softer lips and their hair tickles your face, plus they smell really good. They have pillowy breasts instead of stubble. Kat is kind of breathless and gaspy, which is different from grunting and growling or swearing and posturing. I’m too scared to touch her breasts even though she feels mine through my shirt.

She also asks me lots of questions, which seems different from boys. She asks permission before she does every single thing; maybe that’s date rape awareness from college, but it seems light years away from the boys in the Heights.

We only kiss for a little bit and then I can’t keep my mouth shut. I tell her that she looks like Snow White and that her hair is the softest I’ve ever felt.

Her fingers dance down my belly and slip into my underwear. I gasp in surprise and she drags her finger down the center of my core. I shiver all over and feel heat flush me there. She pushes her middle finger in as far as it will go. I whimper a little bit and even move my hips. But I can’t tell if I’m scared or turned on or a strange mixture of both things.

Eventually she pulls her finger out and lifts it to her face. She then delicately traces her lips with the juices she pulled from inside me. She moves it all the way around like she’s applying her favorite lip gloss. I quiver a little at that. Kat knows something about seduction. We make out some more and I taste myself on her lips. Instead of heightening my arousal, it kind of puts a damper on it. It smells too familiar—I don’t know how to explain it. We end up chatting more about school and music.

Then, inevitably, my thoughts move to Lucky. I tell her everything, from my cousin, to Jeremy, to my porn collection and my new group for co-dependency.

“So you’re almost twenty and you’ve only kissed two people before tonight? Wow, what a trip!” Kat says, yawning. “And you’ve never had sex?”

“Not yet,” I say studying her face trying to interpret her reaction. “But I know a lot about it.”

“You want to try?”

I nod my head yes, but I’m not a hundred percent sure that I do.

“Do you?” I ask her.