35
What do you mean she’s coming right now???
I mean she freaked out that you haven’t been answering your calls and is driving to your doorstep.
In a fit of guilt, MC added:
I might have insinuated that you waited to tell her about Gabby stuff because you thought she would be mean about it? Haha.
Conrad took a full ten minutes to reply.
What is wrong with you?
She tried to defend herself by saying she thought their mom deserved to know why they didn’t include her in anything. They were all adults now. But Conrad wasn’t having it.
“What about your dating life?” her mom said, in traffic on the Long Island Expressway. “Anyone special?”
MC stared at her, unsure how to explain Girl Next Door , the article for Jawbreaker, or anything about her romantic history up until that point.
“I’m seeing someone,” she said slowly. “But it’s hard to say how it’ll turn out.”
“Sounds exciting.” Her mom looked cheerful. “Maybe I’ll meet her someday.”
When the black car rolled up at the movie theater, MC nearly leapt to the curb. “Thanks for the ride,” she said, feeling like a thirteen-year-old again. “And good luck with Conrad.”
Her mom’s expression hardened into its familiar look of reserve. “He’s always been unbelievably stubborn.”
“Couldn’t agree more.”
“It runs in the family.” One more smile broke through. “It was good to see you.”
“You too, Mom.”
“Enjoy the movie.”
Then she signaled to the driver and sped off.
The theater was big, boxy, and decrepit, perched at the edge of the town’s central business district, across the street from the grocery store and a bagel chain MC used to think served the best egg and cheese in the world.
The bagel chain was gone now, replaced by a wineshop.
But the groceries remained, the giant green sign still visible across the tree-lined street.
She headed inside. Stood in front of the cardboard cutout of the original Matrix crew in their signature apparel from the first movie. Black pants and black shirts, lots of nylon and leather.
“Has the ambush started?” Nora said, appearing beside her in a pair of green overalls, a black long-sleeved T-shirt underneath.
MC attempted to hide her relief at Nora’s presence by keeping her eyes on the promotional material. “Any minute now.”
Nora smiled. “Poor Conrad.”
“He can handle it.”
As they walked over to the concession, MC felt a powerful urge to hold Nora’s hand.
She was pretty sure this was a date. Maybe their first legitimate date ever.
But somehow, that made it even more stressful.
She thought about Nora getting skittish after seeing Jen at the Horny Ram and kept her hands to herself.
In addition to candy, they agreed to split a popcorn. “And a large Diet Coke, please,” MC said, just before they got rung up. She reached for her wallet.
“Make that extra-large,” Nora said, pushing MC’s hand down. The touch, brief as it was, made MC’s stomach flip. “I’ve had a resurgence in royalties thanks to you being a prying asshole. It’s on me.”
An escalator carried them to the second floor. The theater itself was almost empty. MC liked to sit in the middle, not too close to the screen, not too far. But Nora went right for the back. They ended up in a corner near the emergency exit.
“Can’t even remember the last time I was here,” MC said.
“It’s got a real rat problem these days.”
“Oh.”
“Have some popcorn.” Nora offered her the tub.
MC became aware that an annoying tapping sound was actually her heel drumming against the floor. She cleared her throat and said, “Did your parents take the offer on the house?”
“They did.”
“Wow.” MC swallowed. “Good thing you got an early start on packing.”
“I know. Feels weird to be almost done already.”
“The storage space is big enough?”
“If you can believe it.” Nora tore open a bag of sour gummy worms. “I convinced my parents to sell most of the chinoiserie, so that helped.”
“You’re not going to need a hand-painted armoire where you’re going?”
“I hope not.”
MC shook her head. “Still can’t believe you did it all by yourself.” She’d volunteered numerous times to come over, more or less begging to attempt to lift a couch, and maybe picturing some time on that couch in the aftermath of her inevitable failure. But Nora had never taken her up on it.
“Lois and Maureen helped.”
“They did?”
“Well, Maureen’s boyfriend did.”
MC frowned. “So, Maureen’s boyfriend can hang out with you, but I can’t?”
“Are we not hanging out right now?”
“Okay, but at the bar—”
“It’s starting,” Nora said.
The lights had just gone down, and the instrumental score filled the theater. The screen rippled green with the opening credits from Warner Brothers. Trinity’s voice, soft and serious, piped in over lines of code.
One of the three other audience members whistled from the front row.
MC couldn’t focus. The news of Nora’s house being sold had sparked a fresh impatience, or a fresh fixation, her gaze drifting to the pucker of Nora’s lips on her soda straw, the rise and fall of her chest under her overall straps.
By the middle of the movie, when Neo was visiting the oracle only to be told he wasn’t The One, MC had worked up the courage to brush her pinky against Nora’s thigh.
The touch was tentative. She wasn’t sure Nora would even notice. But then, in the glow of the screen, she saw the corner of Nora’s mouth move. Just a little.
MC brushed against her again.
Nora’s smile deepened as she pretended to concentrate on the movie, a wicked glint in her eyes.
MC turned her hand over. Nora’s palm, soft and warm, slipped into hers.
It was tame—a small squeeze here, the brush of knuckles there.
But the longer it went on, the more MC started to fidget in her seat.
At some point, Nora put the empty cup in one of the far cupholders and set the popcorn in an empty chair.
Then she leaned over and whispered in MC’s ear: “Do you think about me when you get yourself off?”
MC’s mouth went dry. She swung her gaze to the screen and nodded.
“Do you think about taking my clothes off?” Nora’s breath was hot and close, raising the hairs on the back of MC’s neck. “Or do I take them off for you?”
“Usually I take them off.”
“Slow? Or fast?”
“Slow.”
“What do you start with?”
“Shirt.”
Nora stifled a laugh. In the movie, Cypher was getting ready to betray Morpheus. The actor, as MC recalled, had played a prominent role in a lesbian gangster film—the Wachowskis’ directorial debut and proving ground for some of the stylistic concepts they’d take to dizzying heights in The Matrix .
“How often do you do it?” Nora asked, keeping her voice low, skimming the tip of her nose up MC’s cheek.
“Every day.” MC took a breath. “Sometimes multiple times.”
Nora brought MC’s hand to her lips and kissed her knuckles. One by one.
Then she separated out MC’s index and middle fingers and slipped them in her mouth.
MC’s toes curled. The way Nora used her teeth was subtle, maddening.
She looked right into MC’s eyes as the tip of her tongue traced between MC’s fingers.
MC wasn’t sure she was going to maintain consciousness much longer.
But a moment later, Nora pulled up again, slowly, letting MC go with a small, wet pop.
She leaned over the armrest, dipping her face toward Nora’s. But Nora put a hand on MC’s shoulder, holding her off.
“If you kiss me,” she whispered, “it’ll be too obvious.”
MC settled in her seat again, heart thudding against her ribs, as Nora seemed to go back to watching the movie.
But then she put her hand on MC’s thigh.
Someone in the audience coughed. Nora moved her hand higher, dipping between her legs, rubbing her over her jeans.
MC blew a long breath out of her nose, every nerve ending in her body lighting up.
“You feel so hot,” Nora said in her ear, rubbing harder. “Do you always get this hot for me?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want me to keep going?”
MC nodded.
Nora undid her top button and pulled down her zipper, slowly working her hand under the fabric, then teasing MC for a second before letting her feel the full length of her fingers.
MC couldn’t breathe. The action on the screen felt distant, absurd.
She gripped her armrests, incapable of returning any kind of touch while being mastered so thoroughly.
Then she asked, “Can I kiss you now?” Because she felt emboldened by the emptiness of the theater, how far away the other people in the audience were.
Nora was still smiling. “No.”
She moved her fingers in a circle, watching MC’s face.
MC closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the pressure of Nora’s hand, the weight of Nora’s forearm across her stomach.
After a while, MC turned to Nora again, wondering if she’d changed her mind about kissing, if she’d gotten her fill of torture yet. But she held back.
“Do you think you can stay quiet when you come?”
MC did not feel capable of answering this.
Nora moved her hand faster. MC’s head was spinning. At some point she transferred her death grip on the armrest to Nora’s forearm, hanging on for dear life, as Nora brought her to the edge and pushed her over, the theater disappearing, wave after wave breaking through her as she held her breath.
When the pleasure had receded to a bearable level, MC slumped in the seat.
Her legs felt like rubber, though she’d been sitting the whole time.
But Nora wasn’t done. She’d let go of MC and was slowly undoing the buttons on the side of her overalls.
Once the waist was loose, she pulled MC’s hand in, that same wicked look in her eyes.