Curved Page 8

  “Hard not to,” I said. “You’re… Really perfect. For any other women, you’d be an instant yes.”

  “But I’m not with you.”

  His breath surrounded me, cool and rapidly evolving, as if the atoms from inside his body told me his about his true feelings.

  “You’re a yes,” I said, “and a no.”

  He lifted me up slightly, his arms stronger than I thought.

  “What?” I said, looking at him in the darkness.

  “You’re confident for a virgin,” he said.

  “Former virgin,” I said. I tapped his nose, rolling over to my side. “I might’ve heard you screaming at Antonio. But I’m not scared of you—I want you to know that.”

  “I never intended for you to be scared,” he said.

  He held me, kissing my neck.

  “You think so now,” I said. “But in the future, who knows.” I yawned one last time, my body shutting down. “I can see it already: I do something egregious, and you’ll be at my throat.”

  “No,” he whispered, stroking me. “No, no way…”

  ***

  When I dreamed, I dreamed of the kids in the playground. They were taunting me, my clothes, but this time Joseph rolled through the blacktop. He drove one of those bikes made for twelve-year-olds.

  Then he hopped off, wielding a bat, and he forced all the rest off and away from me.

  “Ophelia,” he echoed. “Trust me?”

  “Yeah, as much as I can,” I said. “I have to. You’re paying me.”

  He brandished his hands as if he were struck by an arrow. “Oh, you wound me.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Yeah, you don’t have to ‘just say’ to give me directions. I can take a hint.”

  “Really?” I said.

  His visage evaporated, chunks of him blackening and fading into the surrounding dreamscape.

  The ground below me chipped away, and I fell through, waking up at exactly 8 AM in the morning.

  ***

  “Ophelia,” he said, shaking me. “Hey, you?”

  I rubbed my eyes out. Smiling at him, I touched Joseph’s cheek. “I saw you in my dreams,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “Joseph, I have to think about this before we… Go any further. I have to make sure that this investment banking thing—you—is what I want going forward.”

  “And?” Joseph said.

  “And,” I said. “Just give me some time. I want to… Have some time alone.”

  I had to contemplate more. Waking up, I felt extremely conflicted about being with him.

  Investment banker.

  My boss.

  Me.

  The homeless shelter.

  “I can wait for you,” he said. “But be careful, I might not forever.”

  “There are plenty of other women who would like you,” I whispered. “Why not them?”

  “Hmm…” Joseph sat up on his elbow. Kissing my cheek, he stroked my nipple. “Why not indeed?”

  I pulled off the bed sheets, swinging my legs down to the floor. Stretching my arms, I glanced at Joseph, his hand swerving across my back.

  Trying to be professional, I stood, naked, of course, but still. Maintaining composure and grace was important to me. It made me seem more elegant, or so I thought.

  “You can keep pretending,” Joseph said, rolling himself out of the bed sheets, as I went to grab my clothes. Bending low, I changed, Joseph’s hands helping me, assisting me at every point. He pulled up my pants, my blouse, strapped on my bra, slipped my panties on. He touched my clit, massaging the center, reaching for my cunt lips. “Keep pretending,” he sung, “just keep pretending…”

  His mouth traveled around my neck, reaching up to my own. I kissed him, the warmth of saliva flowing between us like a steady channel.

  I sucked on his tongue, feeling the rasp of his beard against my skin, raking my flesh, scratching me hard.

  His cock got stiffer until it rose along his boxer briefs.

  His suit was on the floor. Where we had left it before we went to bed.

  I massaged his balls, feeling the crevice in between, stroking his chest. Watching him grow more erect.

  When he was at full mast, I knelt down, pulling his boxer briefs open. The panel flew apart, my mouth on the tip of his mushroom.

  A string of pre-come stretched from his cock eye to my lips. I savored the taste, somewhat scared of this position.

  I looked up at him, my eyes swimming to the top of my face.

  “Maybe later,” I said, suddenly standing. Kissing him on the cheek, I pat shoulder, stroking his muscular biceps, the round triceps to fill out my palms. “Okay?”

  “All right,” Joseph said. “But don’t keep me waiting forever. Someone can’t just wait forever.”

  Nodding at him, I took my purse, found my subway card, and walked with him to the door.

  “Breakfast?” Joseph said.

  I shook my head, snatching my heels up. Sitting on the duvet nearby, I planted my feet in both pumps, Joseph lording over me, the shadow casted from the kitchen light.

  “Oh, I know it’s silly,” I said, “not wanting to… Stay… But… I’m just really conflicted. Inside of me I really do have two different people. There’s this girl who wants to chase paper, and then this other, softer girl who remembers what it’s like to be poor. I’m thinking that you and I won’t get along because of my past, or that we’ll have conflicting political outlooks… But then, when we’re together, it’s just like I thought it would be.”

  “Passionate?” Joseph said, stepping forward. Even his feet or muscular. I hooked my heels around his calf, reeling him in slowly. He brushed my hair, his fingers worming through my roots. “You’ll never find better.” He winked and smiled at me, those white teeth of his attracting me closer.

  I slid upwards, against him, finding myself slightly above his chest once more. His hands carved an arc straight to my cunt, pushing in for my canal. I clutched his shoulder, twitching on my heels. My knees jammed together, as they had before, as if I were still a sensitive little innocent.

  “You took it from me,” I gasped, swallowing a ball of saliva. “You… Took my virginity.”

  “And did you like it?”

  I nodded.

  “All the more reason to come back,” he growled.

  His fingers doubled to my clit, juices flowing once more out from the center, dripping across his fingers.

  “Ugnh,” I said. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”

  Joseph smiled at me, holding my hand, opening the front door for me.

  ***

  The walk to class was a walk of shame. Even though no one in the streets could tell what happened—it’s not like they could read minds—I still had massive guilt about wasting a night with Joseph.

  Precisely that. I saw him as a waste.

  If I wasn’t staying inside studying or working on my charity, I hollowed out. Became an empty husk.

  “You’re a workaholic,” Angela said, when I caught up with her in the cafeteria. She was eating a burger, wore a dressed down outfit: jeans and a T-shirt. She swung her head to the side for a better bite, opening her mouth wide. “I’m serious,” she said, in between her chewing, “you have a case of seriousitus. You need to relax and just slow down.”

  “It’ll never work out,” I said. I had told her about what happened. About our get-together under the sheets.

  “Even if he’s a playboy,” Angela said, “you need to learn how to use him to your advantage.”

  “That’s the investment banker in you,” I said. “I don’t know if I could go against him.”

  “Um, hello?” Angela wrapped up her burger, tossing it into a nearby garbage can. She slurped from a large bottle of Pepsi. “You already have. Those programs? It’s not like he authorized them.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but, I told him about them. Eventually. He knows now.”

  “After he caught you.”

  “Well…”
<
br />   “Just think of it this way: he wants to spend time with you. And if you work out, then you work out. In the meantime, you should be prepping yourself for heartbreak.”

  I smiled at Angela, lightly laughing. “How so?”

  “I’m not saying it won’t work out,” Angela said, “but by the way you’re talking about him still, you might really not be compatible whatsoever.”

  “I’m just being stubborn,” I said. “I want it to work out.”

  “Then make up your mind,” Angela said. “You can’t have it both ways.”

  “I just don’t feel like… Him and me? But then…”

  “Stranger couplings have happened in fiction,” she said.

  “I guess.”

  “Look,” she said, “I have to go to class. But man, you are lucky as hell. Enjoy the sex with him.”

  “You’re not jealous of me, are you?” I said, playfully. But when I looked at Angela, she held her gaze on me, imprisoned me in her glare.

  “No,” she said. “Not really.”

  She walked off, her books at her chest, arms wrapped around.

  Maybe I should’ve told her about what I was doing at work. It would’ve saved her a lot of work. Then again, in this industry, you couldn’t trust even your own best friends.

  I had heard horror stories about how backstabbing and conniving bankers could be. Horrible, awful tales of sex, money, drugs—the usual suspects.

  Walking across campus, I caught up with Lindsay, mainly because I had to ask her some questions about our homework from the day before. Her eyes were watery, red in the center. She snapped her neck up at me as if she were fighting in combat and fending off a much larger stranger.

  “What?” Lindsay said.

  “Did you—”

  “Of course not.”

  I casted my eyes off to the side. She was being bitchier than normal.

  “Anything going on with you?” I said. Even if she was a nasty individual, I tried to treat everyone with kindness and openness.

  “No,” she said. “Homework. Lots of it. Clubs. I’m vice president of the speed dating association now.”

  I cupped my hands over my mouth to stop from laughing. Her?

  “Yeah, you surprised or something?”

  “No, no,” I said. “It’s just… I never thought.”

  “How’s sleeping with the boss?”

  I glanced at her, nervously. Did she know? Did other people know? Had rumors erupted around town, spread throughout all of Manhattan?

  “I’m not… Sleeping with him,” I whispered. Some passersby looked my way—did they hear what I said? “Anyway, I’m not that close with him.”

  “It must be nice at the top,” she said. “No problems.”

  “It’s still a lot of work,” I said.

  “Sure,” Lindsay said. We walked into the auditorium of macroeconomics, a PowerPoint presentation set up at the front. We grabbed some seats on the right side wing, my phone blowing up with texts from Zena and Ricarda, as well as some of the other girls.

  Even when they wrote to me they were passive-aggressive, sending pictures of them and incredibly hot jocks from their little party.

  I turned my phone off because the professor was walking in. Just then, I noticed Lindsay’s eyes growing watery again, and she stood up, bolting for the back room.

  Everyone craned their necks, as if we were on the road looking at a crash and passing by.

  Before the professor could even greet us, I stood, rounding the side of the auditorium, my purse at hand.

  Lindsay made a beeline for the bathroom. Did she have… Diarrhea or something? No. This had to be much more stark—she was crying.

  “Lindsay,” I said, following her in. People stared at us as we ran by. “Lindsay.”

  She burst into the bathroom. I chased her down to a stall.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I said, the lights dim and unclear around her. Other girls put on make up, flushed their toilets, stepped out and about Angela and I. She yanked for a ream of toilet paper, patting her eyelashes, her wet eyes.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, wadding the tissues together. Of course, there had been a problem, but she wasn’t going to explain it to me outright.

  I squatted on the ground, looking up at her. “If you need me, you know where to find me,” I said.

  Heading back to class, I hated to leave Lindsay there. But she protecting herself with this wall of negative energy—she constantly berated people, always maintaining her rough exterior.

  It was a farce, I knew that much.

  In class, I listened to my professor drone on about whatever. Same as before. Honestly, I always was so good at school, that I barely even needed to study.

  By the halfway point, I checked the clock, seeing that Lindsay still hadn’t come back. Afraid and fearful for her, I went to go see if she had encountered… Trouble.

  She was on the toilet seat edge, her eyes puffy, her face glowing in the light. Red. Bold.

  “Hey, there,” I said, trying to open the door, which she had locked. I cupped my hands over the dividing wall, knocking gently. “Lindsay. Lindsay, come on.”

  “I’m not coming out,” she whispered.

  Then she flushed the toilet. Only me and her were there, so whenever I spoke again, she just flushed to shut me out.

  “I want to help you,” I said.

  “No, you don’t,” she said. “People like you only care when it benefits them on a primal level. There’s no real true altruism in you. You just want to feel right in the world. That you’ve done something.”

  “Not true at all,” I said. “Let me talk with you, let me see you.”

  “I’m only going to do this.” Lindsay cranked the toilet lever. Slumping against the wall, I crossed my legs on the ground, watching Lindsay’s shadow arch out from underneath. “Leave me alone, please.”

  “Lindsay,” I said, “we don’t always get along. But if you don’t go back to class, you’ll miss out on fifty points of today’s quiz.”

  “Is it a group quiz?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can take the hit,” she said. “The semester’s almost over anyway. I would’ve dropped if I were close to failing.”

  Overachiever. Both of us. Neither she or me could deal with a low grade—anything less than an A- was failure to me. To her.

  “You calculated?” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “If I make a C on the final, I’ll still pass with a ninety-one.”

  “Well, then,” I said. “Me too.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t feel like leaving you here. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “People only say that when they’re not,” I said. “Haven’t you seen the movies before?”

  “Too busy smoking pot,” Lindsay said, giggling. She unlocked the door, leaving a slit available for me to see into. “Look, I’m having a difficult time with my personal life. That’s all.”

  I rose up onto my feet. “Okay.”

  “My mother… She died.”

  “Oh, shit,” I said. “Lindsay.”

  She sobbed, her hands catching her face, the tissues at her eyes again. She squeezed her cheeks, rubbing the skin seemingly raw.

  “I’m not okay,” she said. “It’s whatever though. I knew she was passing anyway.”

  “Yeah,” I said, not knowing what to add. “I’m sorry.”

  I fiddled with my purse as a pretext to do something more. Otherwise, I would awkwardly have been standing next to her. Nothing said, nothing done.

  Even though Lindsay could be a wicked bitch, she had her moments. At the very least, she was funny, in a cruel, sadomasochistic way.

  And here I was, thinking about Joseph. When other people had much bigger problems going on.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  Lindsay pushed me away. “Whatever. You can just sleep with your man and get away with anything. I still have to do work. Lots of fucking wor
k, not just fucking.”

  Walking out of the stall, I put my hand on my hip, shaking my head. “I don’t do anything like that,” I said. “Joseph and I might be… Friends… I’m not sleeping with him though.”