“It will hurt more now.”
“You’re beautiful,” Cal whispered the moment he pushed himself inside her.
She sighed. They were downstairs, the front of her body still flush with the couch. He brushed his nose against her cheek, but Jocelyn turned her head to the opposite side.
“I want you to say that to me.” He pulled out, then filled her again slowly. “Say it.”
“I’m beautiful,” she said like reading text from a boring book.
Cal thrust harder, deeper. “Tell me again.” He pinched one of her nipples through her clothing. “Say it like you mean it this time, Jocelyn. You. Are. Beautiful.”
She shifted her head again.
Goddammit. Cal took hold of her hips and groaned. “Say it.”
“You only think I’m beautiful because you’re inside me.”
Cal pulled out, flipped her around, and stared into her eyes.
“What are you doing?” She tried to maneuver him back inside her body. “Don’t stop.”
Instead, he sank his fingers into her hips. “Look at me.”
She began to massage him over the condom.
Cal smirked, grabbed her wrist, and pinned it to the couch. “Look at me, goddammit.”
Their eyes finally locked.
“You’re beautiful.”
“You have other girls to say that to.”
“No,” he whispered. “Only you.” His nails bit into her waist and wrist. “It’s only been you.”
“Please, Cal, stop. I just need you… I need you inside me now.”
Jocelyn gasped when he filled her for the second time in minutes while Cal became drunk on her sounds, moving in and out with an intensity he felt slicing through his core.
“I left her there,” Cal panted as he yanked the top of her dress down and buried his face in her breasts. “Did you hear me?” His lips moved over a nipple. “I left her—”
“What?” She lifted her head. “Why are you telling me this now? Stop ... talking.” Reaching her hands to his ass, she pulled him closer.
“I didn’t fuck her. I didn’t fuck the spider.”
“Stop it, Cal!”
“I left her there ... alone ... to be with you. I needed you.” Wincing, he dropped his head to the side and concentrated again on making her feel like she was beautiful, the only way he could show her … the only way she would allow.
Several seconds later, when he finally glanced back up, he found Jocelyn staring at the ceiling.
“Joc…” he choked out. The wind from the open windows, their breath, their hearts beating out of their chests, pounded between his ears. “I love you.”
Jocelyn swallowed his words with her mouth. Cal returned the kiss with a passion he still couldn’t believe existed. He trusted where he formerly doubted. Felt rather than thought. Don’t think… Just feel. The two dancers were alive. Right now.
But then it would end.
Like all things eventually did.
Jocelyn’s nails scratched down his backside, and Cal’s skin caught fire. Broken vowels left her lips between kisses as she started to orgasm. Then she began to laugh quietly, the way she often did afterward. A single hand rested between her breasts, her back arched over the couch, as she giggled and giggled.
“Tell me.” Cal’s hands jostled her waist.
She quieted, lifted her upper body, and met his eyes. “You haven’t even come yet.”
“I will.” He smiled. “Tell me first, Joc. You know you’re beautiful.”
“I’m beautiful,” she yelled in a pop, falling backward. “I’m beautiful…” A hand on a breast, Jocelyn gazed at him.
“Again,” he said, moving faster, going deeper. “Again.”
“I’m beautiful…” Lifting only her head, she reached an arm out and grabbed at his damp hair, pulling his face closer. “I’m beautiful,” she whispered, and he stared into the caverns of those brown eyes knowing she meant it … that she felt it … finally.
“You’re beautiful…” he confirmed, groaning as he released inside her.
Wrapping her legs around him, Jocelyn laughed and gave him a squeeze. “God, you’re something, Prescott.”
“You’re drunk.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Why didn’t you speak to me earlier? At graduation?” Cal asked, never more aware he was still a part of her body. Two dancers. Cutouts. One. Fluid. Motion. “I saw you there too, you know?”
She palmed his cheek. “I… I couldn’t.”
“It hurts,” he said. “Either way, it hurts.” Cal guided her up as he stood and grabbed his clothes from the floor.
“It will hurt more now.”
“I’m taking a shower.”
“You can’t stay here. Please. I want to wake up alone tomorrow. I told you, I’m deciding.” She yanked the dress over her breasts. “I want to go to bed alone, and I want to wake up alone.”
“You’re not alone.”
“This hurts. Right now.” Her voice went up an octave. “Don’t you see that? I didn’t want you here.”
“Mmm, I could tell by the way you begged and moaned.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Go upstairs and get into bed.”
Jocelyn stepped behind him and touched his hips. “If you love me, Cal, then let me go.” After kissing his shoulder, she waited, and he could feel her watching him, her stare burning him. “Don’t come back here. Don’t call me. Nothing. Do you understand?”
Cal said nothing as Jocelyn walked toward the stairs.
“I’m taking a shower, Joc,” he yelled. “I am sleeping with you … in your bed.”
* * *
A little while later, Cal sat on the edge of her white comforter, still wrapped in a towel. He’d stayed in the shower much longer than necessary. Until the water ran cold.
Lying on her stomach, her arms around a pillow, Jocelyn seemed to have fallen asleep. He put a hand on her shoulder, played with her hair, and gazed upon the small of her back, wishing he could always be near her.
She began to wiggle, and he leaned closer and kissed her cheek.
“I have something for you,” she mumbled, barely opening her mouth. “I took it to graduation, and then I chickened out. I thought I could somehow send it to you.”
Cal hadn’t stopped fiddling with her hair, stuck on the way her body moved as she breathed, touching the waves she made, in and out, up and down.
“It’s in the kitchen. Don’t look at it now. Open it in New York.”
“Go back to sleep,” he whispered, continuing to stroke her hair.
His fingers made their way down her spine until she relaxed beneath his touch, her eyes closing, breath calming, heart beating against his palm. His throat was so tight he thought it might burst.
Cal stayed there, next to Jocelyn, watching her, caressing her for several more minutes, becoming aware again of all the sounds of the room and its smells, her smell, aware of everything, even the fucking Matisse, and then Cal stood, got dressed, and went downstairs.
The moment he spotted the package on the kitchen table, he inhaled a sharp breath — one he feared he might never release. Disobeying her wishes, he opened the brown paper wrapping and pulled out a book.
The hard-bound novel appeared worn, but the edges felt crisp. The dust jacket was yellowing yet vibrant with wavy red, pink, and white horizontal stripes, zebra-like. The title was set inside the shape of what looked like an eye: Siddhartha.
He had never read it.
A tiny note was paperclipped to the jacket, handwritten.
Promise to read it, Cal. I discovered it at nineteen. I never forgot its wisdom. Always keep it. And never forget me … the lady … your lady. I love you. Wherever you go, I’ll love you.
— Joc
Inside the first few pages, peeking out of the top of the old Herman Hesse novel, was a photograph Cal had never seen. But he hadn’t forgotten the day it was taken. The time Jocelyn had snapped a picture of the two of them, her arm stretched out toward the shutter while peering at him, her mouth open in laughter.
Cal’s hand dropped. His wrist hit the table.
He looked at the book, the note, then at the photograph again and again. He glanced across the room, at the curtains, the couch, the frames, the paintings, then he gazed again at the photograph.
She was right.
He couldn’t stay. If he did, he might never leave. And he had to leave. He had made his decision months ago. And it never included her. These last several months weren’t supposed to include her.
It didn’t matter.
Cal wanted to be with Jocelyn. He wanted to tell the world he loved Jocelyn Ryan. He wanted to wrap her up in a sheet and take her with him to New York City. They could sneak off together. She could stow away with him somehow.
But it was no good.
Cal glanced at the photo again. They’d lived a fantasy. Their love was real, but their existence had only been inside the walls of her house. Every moment between them pleasure and absent of reality.
A dream world.
Reality would eventually kill them: jobs and bills and adult decisions. Reality would destroy their love, and maybe their lives and dreams. At least this way, Jocelyn would remain a dream, an impossible one, a dream that had been real for a time … until the details grew fuzzy, then fuzzier and fuzzier.
This way, her love would never, ever leave him. He would leave, but the love wouldn’t. Like a fresh wave breaking over the horizon. The moon to gaze upon in the night sky. The sun eternally rising over the ocean.
The love would last forever.
Like the two dancers.
Cal spread the brown packing paper out, flattening it against the tabletop, then he took a Sharpie from a drawer. He wrote Jocelyn a note, and then he walked out the door.
Jocelyn,
You were right. I can’t stay. I can’t see you in the morning. I can’t look at your beautiful face or your skin, and listen to your heartbeat.
I’m torn.
I thought about staying, not just tonight. I mean staying here in California, but you need something far better than me. I’ll burn out eventually, and then you would hate me. This way, you’ll love me, and I’ll be a memory. The kind you’ll call upon on a cold, dark night. The kind you might need as you grow older. One day, as you lie next to your much older husband, you’ll smile, remembering the days when a bright, odd young man fucked you and got it right — the young man who made love to you — the one who saw everything in your luminous brown eyes.
You taught me things. Like you promised. You showed me love. A love like I’ve never seen. You’ll never be out of my heart, Joc.
I love you,
Cal
PS: I will keep the book and read it. You didn’t have to get me anything. You’ve already given me everything.