Face down, you won’t see my shame,
But you’ll know with each tight forbidden thrust
By the blush that spreads
Down my spine.
I have to look up at the ceiling a moment to ramp down my arousal. I’m going to whittle her down to nothing if I don’t stop fucking her at every turn. I don’t have to ask if she’s ever tried anal. The tense of her body any time I’m in the area tells me she’s not sure she wants it. It’s not the only thing in the journal that caught me off guard, though. I flip to the middle, to a passage about several hands and mouths on her at once. I had to read it a few times to process it.
Just tonight, tomorrow we’ll go on, but just tonight, I’ll be all-loved by lovers all.
If I had any question about what I was reading, one line in particular spelled it out for me.
Fucked from both ends, I’m your willing doll.
I hadn’t known what to think. Still don’t. I got fucking hard, I’m a man after all, but the idea of someone else touching my girlfriend also made my blood boil. She said she didn’t necessarily want everything she wrote about in the journal, but I’m not sure how to clarify without upsetting her. If she thinks I’m weirded out by it, she might react again.
I put it away—I’m not able to go there now—and return to my tried and true journal. I can find what I need in here. I pick an entry that describes waiting for her man to come home that’ll work for the bodysuit image.
Her phone lights up on the counter, so I take it and the journal back into the studio. “Found what I need in practically no time at all,” I say. “I told you it’d be—” Two steps into the room, I stop. Halston’s head is blocking most of my view of the picture on the computer screen, but I’d know those tits anywhere. The fan of black hair on the cushion of Kendra’s hideous, deceivingly uncomfortable green velvet couch.
Sadie.
Halston doesn’t move, but her sweatshirt quivers with each breath. “You told me you never photographed anyone else,” she says. “Not like this.”
My throat and mouth dry up. As I walk up behind the computer chair, Sadie comes into full view. She stares at the camera with her intoxicating, purple-blue eyes. Her back is arched off the couch, her breasts on full display. Desire is clear in her face. “It’s not . . .” I try to explain. “This was something else . . .”
“What was it?”
That afternoon with Sadie hits me in the chest like a slab of concrete. I’d thought I finally had her, but what a fucking fool I’d been. We’d spent the day together, gotten caught in the rain, and sought shelter in my apartment. Her own was across the hall, but she’d come to mine. Wet. Cold. Lonely. I’d warmed her up all right. Caught up in the moment, I’d loved her with my camera before devouring her head to toe on that couch.
I can’t speak. Halston asked me a question, and I need to answer, or her imagination’ll run wild. My silence will hurt her more than I already have. “What?”
Halston only gives me her profile, avoiding my eyes. The cute tip of her nose is bright red, her lips parted. “I asked you what this is.”
I set her journal and cell on the desk. “It’s Sadie.”
“I figured, since the folder’s named Sadie.”
“It was just . . . when we were together, I took these. It wasn’t for any other reason than I felt—”
“Inspired?” Her voice breaks.
Fuck. Halston of all people knows what that means. For me to feel moved by someone. She’s that to me every day. “She never inspired me the way you do.”
“Why should I believe that?”
“It wasn’t real. I was looking for something and Sadie came along.”
She continues to stare at Sadie, even though I want nothing more than for her to close out of the photo. “What were you looking for?” she asks.
“A way out of my marriage. I didn’t think I could do it on my own. I wanted an excuse, a partner to go through it with. I put all that on Sadie’s shoulders. I was a coward.”
A notification pops up on Halston’s phone. She goes to pick it up.
“Leave it.” I move it out of her reach. That fucking phone’s in her hand more often than it’s not. “We’re having a discussion.”
“But my phone keeps vibrating. Something’s happening.”
“I don’t care. I need your attention on me right now. Please.”
“Fine.” She returns to the computer and clicks to the next photo in line. And the next. Sadie flips between poses.
I have to look away. “Stop.”
“No.”
“I never looked at these again, not once after she left,” I say.
“It’s taken you this long to get over her—if you even are—there’s no way you haven’t been jerking off to these. Probably even when we were together.”
My face warms. I’ve been nothing but good to Halston. Her accusation is unfounded. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. She’s married. Looking at them never felt right.”
“But screwing her was?”
I shake the chair a bit to get her attention. She turns to me, startled. “You don’t have to believe me, but it’s true,” I say. “I never looked at them. I never thought of them when I was with you. I would’ve deleted them, but I forgot they were there once I met you. I’ll delete them now.”
She glances at the phone, then Sadie, then me. “She’s beautiful. I had no idea she was that pretty. I mean, I guess I figured she was. Is . . . Kendra like this too? Are all your exes like models?”
The way Halston says it, she almost makes it sounds like a contest. Her, versus the other women. I tell her a lot how beautiful and sexy she is. Even if I didn’t, she sees herself through my eyes on a daily basis. Will it ever be enough? If I forget to tell her sometimes, will she spiral down, comparing herself to every woman who crosses my path?
“Kendra’s . . . cute, I guess.” Cute? How the fuck do I describe my ex-wife and ex-lover without hurting Halston’s feelings? “She’s spunky. Not beautiful like you.”
Halston’s shoulders lower a little. “Oh.”
“And Sadie, she was attractive, yes, but cold.”
Halston shifts against the leather. She unpurses her lips, the lines in her forehead smoothing. With a tilt of her head, she asks, “How so?”
I’d rather drop the subject, but I think Halston needs to hear this. Sadie, the dark beauty on my couch, will eat at Halston if I don’t share her flaws. It’s true, Sadie was cold. “For the longest time, I didn’t see that about her, the way she could so easily detach. I thought she was unhappy, and that she needed someone to make her smile, and I did, but it wasn’t enough.”
I’m relieved when Halston relaxes, pulling her feet in to sit cross-legged. “I think I can see it in her eyes,” she says. “She doesn’t look friendly.”
I nod. It’s working. “She belongs with him—Nathan—her husband. He’s right for her, I guess. I think I would’ve realized after it was too late, that I wasn’t.”
“Is that how you saw me?” she asks. “
Unhappy? Cold? Someone to be rescued?”
“Oh, God. No.” I squat and take her face in my hands. “You’re the warmest, most loving girl. You know that? You have so much to give, and I just take and take. I’m not even sorry about it.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. “I wasn’t like that with Rich. Or anyone really. Just you.”
“Good. That makes me happy.” When she smiles, my heart melts. I never want her to feel inferior or question my feelings for her. I hope her insecurity is only because we’re still new, and that one day soon, she’ll hear me when I tell her how wonderful she is and stop needing reminders. I lean over her, blocking her view, as I trash the photos. She lets me. Seeing them again makes me feel many things, but mostly just sick to my stomach. I’m not sorry about erasing them for good.
Halston kisses me on the cheek and rolls the chair back to get up. She takes her phone and leaves the room. I think I’ve diffused the situation, but I’m not entirely sure. Because once in a while, rare as it is, it feels as though the more I get to know Halston, the harder she is to read.
26
The afterimage of Sadie’s naked body is still burned into my vision when I walk out of Finn’s studio. If he photographed me that way, face and all, would I come off as confident as her? By Sadie’s expression, she knew she had Finn on the hook. He and I have been together longer than they were. He didn’t love her like he does me. I know that’s true, but sitting there, faced with her beauty and poise, I couldn’t help thinking about all the things I’m not—normal, calm, cheerful, charming. But I am warm, unlike her.
I check my phone. I was only away from it half an hour, but the amount of notifications makes me stop in my tracks. I can’t even scroll to the bottom of the lock screen. I type in my passcode and my mouth falls open. “Finn? Finn. Come here.”
He appears in the hallway. “What?”