She sinks her teeth into my thigh again. Harder. I squeeze her. Harder.
"Fuck." She moans. Her eyes find mine. A
you're going to pay for that
look.
She drags her lips up my thigh, kissing and nibbling, her mouth getting closer and closer to me. Almost... almost...
And then she brings her lips to my cock. It's such a soft and light pressure. The ache builds. She is torturing me. And expertly. It feels so fucking good. I can barely take it. She grips me hard and flicks her tongue against me. Jesus. She does it again and again. I squeeze her nipples harder.
She groans, vibrating all around me.
"Fuck, Alyssa," I moan.
She envelopes me with her mouth. It's such a sweet pressure. It's almost too much to take. I pinch her nipples, harder and harder, as she sucks harder and harder. That sweet ache builds and builds until I'm nearly at the edge.
I grab her hair and guide her mouth over me.
She moans louder.
With one hand firmly around my cock, she slides her mouth over me. Again and again and again. The tingling in my groin increases. Almost.
She settles on my head, sucking hard, her tongue flat against me.
Her eyes find mine. They're on fire. She sucks again, harder, deeper, and it pushes me over the edge.
"Fuck," I groan. "I'm going to come."
She makes her grip on me firmer, sucking harder and harder and harder. The fullness grows. I can't take it anymore. An orgasm rocks through me. I shudder, squeezing her, groaning her name.
She doesn't move off of me until I'm empty. She swallows hard and looks back at me.
I catch my breath and she lies next to me, wrapping her arms around me.
I lean into her, pulling her close. My mouth hovers over her ear. "Remind me to torture you more often."
"Deal."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The rest of the night is bliss. I help her make dinner. She's come a long way since her fear of the chef's knife, and I mostly stand back and watch as she slices an onion into tiny pieces. I swear it takes her twenty minutes, but she's so amazingly focused on doing it perfectly. I make fun of her speed, and she furrows her brow, trying to work faster.
I put my hand on hers to stop her. "Don't," I say. "You'll slice off one of those fingers."
She shakes her head, but she moves more carefully.
We eat together. It's a sweet, slow thing. We soak in the silence, the sound of the waves lapping against the marina, the wind blowing through the balcony. There's something nice about being in the apartment. So much has happened here. It's as much a part of us as the house was.
We can make our home here, or somewhere else. We can make our life together.
She drags me to the couch, draping her body over mine. Her lips are on my lips. Her hands are on my hips. And she peels off her layers--a T-shirt and boxers borrowed from my bottom drawer--before getting to work on mine. And just like the first time, our bodies melt together on the couch. It's only the two of us, our breath, our heartbeats, the moans and groans escaping our lips.
Afterwards we lie together, our limbs a tangled mess. I can feel her heart beating through my chest, and in this moment, I know everything will be okay as long as she's here.
Eventually, she presses her lips into mine. I'm so tempted to ask what this means, if she's done with this awful space, but I wait. I need to prove I can be patient. I need to prove I can let her come to me.
We lie together for a minute. Then she pushes herself off the couch and slips back into her clothes. Well, my clothes, really.
I reach for my boxers and she pushes my hand aside. "You should stay naked. It's a good look for you."
"I will if you will."
She shakes her head. "It's too cold." She moves into the kitchen and looks through the cabinets. She picks out a canister of rooibos tea and fills the electric kettle.
She turns back to me, looking me over once again. It's not like before. It's not base. It's sweet.
"Come on." She nods to the balcony. She fills two mugs with tea and makes her way to the sliding door. She has a mug in both hands and no way to pull the door open. "Luke. A little help?"
I play dumb. "Help with what?"
"The door."
"Oh, this door?" I run my fingers over the handle.
"Yes, that door."
I pull it open and she steps outside. "Jerk." She rolls her eyes, but she's smiling.
She sets the glasses on the floor and sits on one of the lounge chairs. She shivers, rubbing her arms with her hands.
I bring out a blanket, and she accepts it with little protest. She looks adorable with the blanket wrapped around every part of her but her head.
There's something bothering her, something she wants to say. But she isn't ready yet. I sit next to her. I have to give her time.
We listen to the wind. There's something so calm and peaceful about it. This could be our life together. It could be this perfect.
After a few minutes she turns to me. Her eyes are glued to mine, her hand is glued to mine, but her lips are glued together.
She's still not talking.
I lean closer. "You want to tell me what's wrong?"
She looks out at the water--a giant mess of black bleeding into a dark sky. "I've been taking a lot of meetings. Mostly they were good. The show is doing well, and it looks like it will be a huge boon to my career."
"That's great."
"Yeah, it is." She trails off. Her eyes move to the sky, to the tiny sliver of moon above us. "It's mostly been the same kind of thing. The hot chick, the ex-girlfriend, the bitch. I have to thank Laurie for writing Marie Jane as such a completely awful woman, because everyone thoroughly buys me as awful."
"It suits you."
She laughs but the joy fades quickly. "This one was different though. This guy is in his thirties. He's a writer-director. Shot this tiny micro-budget film that rocked the festival circuit. And now he's looking for a lead for his next feature."
"That's great."
"I thought so. And the character is great. She's dynamic, strong and vulnerable all at once. A bitch sometimes, but still sweet and caring. And she isn't the love interest. She's not the hot babe. She's the star." She squeezes my hand tighter. "It's stupid. It's not a big deal at all, really. I shouldn't be upset."
"What happened?"
"Well." She turns her gaze back to the water. "He talked so much like he was different. He talked about how he wanted to make something real and gritty." She imitates him, hunching over, clutching an invisible cigarette. She brings the invisible cigarette to her lips and inhales deeply. "I see all this fake Hollywood bullshit. Happy endings, pretty people. It's all fake. That's not the world. That's not life." She exhales from her fake cigarette, looking to the sky ever so pretentiously. "Life hurts. And I'm not about to show people sanitized bullshit. Have you ever seen downtown LA in a movie? It looks so clean. So fake." She shifts back to her normal posture. "He went on and on about how real he wanted the movie to be."
"Sounds like a douche bag."
"Yeah, basically." She pulls the blanket tighter. "I liked his passion at first. He had me convinced." She bites a fingernail, her eyes on her knuckles. "I really thought he was different."
"But?"
"He told me I was too fat to play the lead." She pulls her fingernail from her mouth and presses it into her free hand. "Not in those words, of course. But he got the point across."
"Ally, I'm so sorry."
"It shouldn't bother me. This is just how it is for actresses. We need to look a certain way if we want to fit into roles."
"That's bullshit."
"Sure, but there's nothing I can do about it. And your outrage isn't going to make it any easier."
"If you tell me where he lives, I'll kick his ass."
She cracks a smile, but she shakes her head. "That's not necessary."
I move closer to her. All my attention is on her, so I can soak in every ounce of this moment. "I'm so sorry. I wish you didn't have to go through this."
She bites her lip. "I don't. I don't have to keep acting." The look on her face is grim, like it's a horrible thought she hates considering.
"You love acting."
"Yeah, I know, but... maybe Ryan was right. Maybe I can't handle it."
"Alyssa, don't do this to yourself. Don't let him back into your head."
"I'm not."
"You are." I run my fingers across her cheek, tilting her head so her gaze meets mine. "He convinced you that you're weak. He convinced you that you're useless without him. But he's wrong. You are the strongest person I know."
She shakes her head. "This has been so hard. Especially on my own."
"You don't have to be on your own. I'll always be here."
"Always?"
"Always." I press my lips into her forehead.
"Even if I sleep with Ryan?"
"As long as you help me hide the body."
She laughs. "You know, I'd never..."
"I know."
She looks into my eyes. Her eyes are so bright, but there's a sadness in them. She's still upset. I wish my words were enough to convince her she deserves every bit of happiness in the world.
She continues. "There's going to be a point, one day, where I'm too old to play the hot ex-girlfriend, and I'm going to be miserable, pulling my hair out."
I formulate an argument, but she's right. There aren't exactly a lot of women in film and TV over the age of thirty-five. And they tend to fit into very narrow roles--the mom, the wife, the innocent schoolteacher. There are exceptions, sure, but not enough.
She hugs her chest. I can tell she wants to say more, that it's hard for her to even entertain the thought. "Is that what you want?" I ask.
"No. But... after that meeting, all I wanted to do was inhale two pints of ice cream and throw them up." She pulls the blanket tighter. "I'm so lucky with
Model Citizen
. It's a cheesy show, sure, but the work is interesting. Do you know how rare that is?"
"But you get so excited about acting. You light up when you talk about it. How could you give up something that brings you so much joy?"
"But it brings me just as much pain." She hangs her head. "Maybe I would be happier if I resigned myself to this. Just do
Model Citizen
. Take the occasional film role. It's ridiculous. I'm either the hot chick or the fat chick. It's never anything in-between. No matter what, I'm always defined by the shape of my body. The only way it will change is if I lose fifteen pounds."
"That's not funny."
"I'm not joking," she says. "It would help my career."
I bite my tongue. She can't be thinking of losing weight for her job. Not now, not when she's come so far with her recovery. I want to tell her how wrong she is, that she's perfect, that she shouldn't risk all the progress she's made.
But I hold back. She doesn't want another person who tells her how to live her life.
She brings her gaze back to me. "Maybe it would be better if I had a job that didn't rely on my looks."
"Like what?"
"I don't know," she says. "I've never wanted to do anything but act."
"You'll find a way."
She nods.
"I meant it. You're the strongest person I know. You can do anything."
She holds my gaze for a while. Her eyes are wide, like she's really mulling it over. "Maybe."
I nod. "You might not get it perfectly the first time, but you'll figure it out."
She pulls her eyes away, bringing them back to the water. There's still something haunting her, something I'm not giving her.
"I'll be here," I say. "If you start to fall, I'll be here."
She looks back to me, her eyes wide again. The corners of her lips curve into the tiniest smile. "What if that's not enough?"
"It will be."
"How do you know?"
"I do."
She laughs. "Of course you do." She looks at the water for a while. It feels like forever passes. It's the two of us, on this balcony, our own sheltered world.
Then Alyssa stands and pulls the blanket around her shoulders like a cape. "Come on. Let's watch a movie."
"What?"
"I don't care, as long as it's something you love." She catches herself. "That I'm not in."
"Damn, I almost slipped that one by you."
She smiles. "Something that means a lot to you."
I have just the pick.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I run my fingers along the case of the DVD. This shouldn't feel like a big deal. It's not like it's a secret movie no one has ever seen.
The African Queen
is on the AFI top one hundred films list. It's near the top. It's not a big deal that I'm going to watch it with Alyssa.
She sees right through me. "What are you thinking?
"I've never watched this with anyone but my mom." I slide the DVD into the player. "It was her favorite."
I still remember sitting with her on the couch, way too young to appreciate anything she watched. My friends forced their parents to watch cartoons or silly action shows for kids, but I didn't want to do that to my mom.
I still remember the way the light of the TV flickered over her face. The way she smiled. The way she was glued to the screen. It was the only time she ever seemed alive. It was the only time she was more than Mrs. Lawrence, more than Luke's mom. She was Emilia, a person.
Most of her life was so dull and gray. Every day she cooked dinner for my father. She waited for him to come home, and they sat together in silence. I eavesdropped while I did my homework. He never listened to her. He never cared about any of her wants, her feelings, her dreams.
She was his wife, and it was all she was allowed to be.
But when it was just her and her film collection... she was a different person. She had passion. Joy.