A dream about kayaking on a river of broken glass dissolved and faded away as Russell woke up, an unfamiliar but not unwelcome warmth and softness pressed up against his body, a semi-familiar fragrance tickling his nose.
Kathleen.
She was spooned up in front of him, her ribcage rising and falling under his arm with slow, even breath, apparently deeply asleep, her ass nestled against his groin. It was sweet and cozy and more than a little arousing.
The problem was, he had to pee.
Moving slowly and carefully, Russell pulled his arm away and slid out of the bed, feeling his way to the bathroom in the darkness. Opening the door, he cringed when the hinges squeaked, not wanting to wake Kathleen. The light switch produced a glare that made him wince and close his eyes until they adjusted a little. He found the toilet with squinting eyes and lifted the lid and seat to relieve the pressure in his bladder.
Don’t forget to put it down. The years of living alone had put him out of the habit, but the patterns of growing up in a majority-female household swiftly reasserted themselves. He finished relieving himself and settled the lid down as he flushed, washing his hands and turning out the light before reopening the door. He stood in the darkness for a few moments, waiting for his eyes to re-acclimate to the dimness.
“Are you leaving?” Kathleen’s voice was thick with sleep.
“Do you want me to?” Trailing his fingers across the wall for guidance, he made his way towards the bed.
“No. Why do you keep asking me that?” The covers rustled as she shifted and he bit back a curse when his toe connected with what must be the leg of the nightstand.
He pushed the covers back and eased into the bed, his toe throbbing. “It’s complicated.”
“So, tell me the complicated thing. You’re a professor. Profess.”
“Aren’t you sleepy?” He bunched the pillow under his head, heard the bedclothes rustle as she moved, maybe doing the same thing, the two of them facing each other in the dark that smelled of light perfume, clean bed linens, and sex.
“Nuh-uh. Wide awake.” Her voice sounded clearer, more alert. “What time is it?”
Russell twisted around to look at the glowing numbers on the nightstand clock. “Almost three.”
“Tell me a story.”
He considered for a moment. Where to begin. How far to go. “Well, it started with my parents. And my older sisters. They taught me to respect women. That was the framework I started with.”
“Your family seems nice.”
“They are. We’re a close-knit bunch.”
“Sounds like there might be something more than that, though.”
Huffing a laugh, Russell said, “Something like that.”
“So…”
“It’s ancient history.”
“It made you who you are. I’m interested.” Kathleen’s voice was soft in the darkness. Her foot reached out to touch his, toes brushing—luckily not making contact with the tender one that still throbbed.
“I was…something of a late bloomer. My high school girlfriend was ready for sex before I was. She pushed. I gave in. Broken condom. A few weeks of panic, but luckily no pregnancy. And a lifetime of caution.”
There was a long silence. Then Kathleen said, “That explains the caution, but not the…what is the word I’m looking for? Chivalry? The constant checking in to see if I’m okay?”
Russell paused. He’d never told this story to anyone. Not the full story, at least. He took a deep breath. “The biggest lesson I took away from that experience is that I let my own choices be overridden by her desires. I let the ‘should’ get to me.”
“The ‘should’?”
“I should have been a horny teenage guy, up for everything. I should have taken anything I was offered. I should have jumped at the chance.”
“And you weren’t horny?”
“Of course I was. But I was also scared. And not ready yet. And I knew it. But I let her pressure me into doing what I wasn’t ready for. Because of what a young man should be.”
“Ah.”
“You get what I’m talking about?” He could barely breathe. The possibility that she—that anyone—would really understand seemed more remote than a star.
“I think so. One of my aunts has a saying: ‘I shan’t be should upon.’”
He closed his eyes, exhaling a long, slow breath. “I’m going to steal that phrase. Your aunt sounds like a smart lady.”
“She is. She’s the only one in my family who doesn’t refer to me as a free spirit.”
“I can practically hear the air quotes when you say that.”
Kathleen laughed, a low, quiet sound. “So that experience you had…it formed you.”
“It did. I started thinking a lot about who decides things. What the practical effects of pressure are. How society is constructed. How expectations overrule our own wishes and sometimes even needs. I think it’s part of what led me to law school. It definitely led me to my undergrad degree.”
“Which was?”
He paused. She would think him even more pretentious than she probably already did. “Philosophy.”
“Wow. Heavy.”
“What, philosophy?”
She shifted, the motion rustling the bedclothes. “All of it.”
His breath caught in his throat. Too late, he remembered that her father was a professor. He must have sounded like a complete jerk. “Too heavy?”
“No.” Kathleen rubbed her face against the smooth cotton of the pillowcase.
Russell exhaled audibly. “Good.”
She felt a little kick in her heart at his obvious relief. “Were you worried that I was going to boot you out of my bed for being smart and self-aware?”
“Is that what you think of me?”
“Yes.”
“Not pompous and self-important, then?”
“No.”
He moved in the darkness, doing something that made the covers slide down off her shoulder, chilly air sliding down her neck. She tugged them back up, inching closer to the warmth of his body. Seriously, this man was a radiator.
“Are you cold again?”
“Maybe a little, yeah.”
“Come here then.” His arm wrapped around her, rolling to his back and pulling her onto his chest. He pulled the covers up around her neck and smoothed her hair in long, delicious strokes. “Better?”
Kathleen sighed, her muscles relaxing against his as heat penetrated her body. “Yeah. Are you always this warm?”
“I guess.”
“It’s nice. I’m always cold.”
“Happy to be of service.”
“What was young Russell like?”
“Enough about me. Did you have a big formative experience?”
Okay. Another deflection. Fair enough. She thought about his question. “I guess you already know it. I wasn’t the same as the rest of my family. Didn’t fit in. And being different wasn’t a good thing.”
“Free spirit.”
“Exactly. It’s weird. It’s one of those things that should sound like a compliment but isn’t intended as one. Like those awful people who say things like social justice warrior or virtue signaling.”
The hand stroking her hair stilled for a moment, then continued. “What did you take away from that?”
“Eventually? That it’s okay to make your own family. Find your people. People like Alicia and Wendy. That I wasn’t wrong to be me, to be an artist, to be emotional.” She laughed. “To make scenes for a living. Literally.”
“That sounds like a good solution.”
“It was. Wasn’t easy, though.”
“How so?”
“My family is…” Kathleen groped for the right words. “You ever meet people who talk a good game about something, claim to be a particular thing but are really fooling themselves?”
“All the time.”
“Well, my parents have a thing they always say. ‘Anything for family.’”
“And they don’t mean it?”
“I think they mean it. Or they think they mean it. For big things, anyway. Like I know if I was in trouble and needed them, they would drop everything to help. But for everyday support? The little stuff? Not so much. Or they use it as a guilt-stick to whack me with whenever I can’t go to a family function because I’m working. Like I should…lose my job because they’ve decided they want to celebrate something on a Saturday night.”
“That sounds ridiculous.”
Kathleen smoothed her hand across his chest, tracing patterns on his skin with her fingertips. “All my siblings have nine-to-five jobs. My parents don’t understand that I can’t just say, ‘Call the understudy, I have to go to my nephew’s birthday party.’ Or if I’m doing tv or a movie and have a shoot when the family wants to schedule something. I can’t say no to work, usually. I’m not exactly a star. Any production could easily re-cast the smaller roles I get.”
“Your parents’ imagination or their understanding is severely limited if they can’t grasp the concept that some people’s work hours and demands are different. And that your career is important to you.” Russell’s voice had dropped low, rumbling his chest under her cheek. Soothing.
“I think it’s just avoidance. I think when I started getting professional gigs, they decided it was a phase, something that I’d either work my way through or, more likely, fail at and be forced to get more normal work.”
“Supportive parenting at its finest.” The disgust in his voice made a flare of defensiveness rise in her, then she blinked and laughed. He was right.
“Oh, and don’t get me started on how they’ll be when they finally find out for sure I don’t want to have kids. I think they already have suspicions.”
“You don’t?”
Kathleen shook her head, knowing that even though he couldn’t see the gesture, he’d feel the movement. “Never have. Some Catholic I am. I mean, I love kids. My nieces and nephews are great. I just prefer being able to give them back.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
“You do?” She lifted her head as if she could look at his face, invisible in the dark.
“Yeah. It was the reason my ex-wife filed for divorce. She wanted kids, I didn’t.”
There it was. Another thing he usually didn’t tell people. And here he was spilling his guts after barely more than twenty-four hours of knowing this woman. Maybe it was the hypnotic way her fingers ran across his chest. Soothing and arousing at the same time. Transforming his iron defenses to water.
“You hadn’t talked about it?”
“We talked about it. She just thought I would change my mind.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good strategy.”
“No.”
“Did she try to pressure you to change your mind?”
He swallowed, his throat thick. “She did.”
“And given what you just told me about how you feel about should, I doubt that went over very well.”
His eyes squeezed tight against the memories. “It didn’t.”
“I’m sorry. It must have been difficult.”
“It was. It takes a lot to make me lose my temper. But…let’s just say there was a lot of uncharacteristic yelling on both sides. Anyway, it’s over. She remarried. Has a kid now. I hope she’s happy.” Russell didn’t like the hard edge in his own voice when he talked about Therese. He hadn’t thought he had much emotion left over from that period of his life.
He guessed he was wrong.
Kathleen shifted on his chest and soft lips pressed against his skin. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. But I’m selfishly happy that you were free to be with me tonight.”
“Just tonight?”
“Well, I don’t want to presume. That wouldn’t be a good look, given the conversation. What you said about pressure and should.”
Russell blinked. “Given that I want to spend more time with you, that never even occurred to me.”
“That would be nice.”
“What should we do tomorrow?”
“Should? I thought we were against that.” Her voice was starting to slide into a low, sleepy murmur again.
He laughed and she moved, her silky hair sliding over his chest and shoulder. “Okay, then. What are we doing tomorrow?” he said.
“Well, it’s today.” The barest mumble. She was fading.
“True. What are we doing today?”
She yawned. “Ask me again when it’s light out?”
He stroked her hair again and she sighed, snuggling even closer, her leg on his thigh. Arousing, yes, but her body, warm now and molded against his, was oddly lulling. As if she had taken his hand and drawn him down into the warm darkness of sleep behind her.