Chapter Eighteen
Janene
Sunday was a lazy day. We did a little site seeing, places Harlyn had been to before that she thought were worth our time. She was boisterous when she talked about the city and explained how she came upon certain places but since we left the club, she’d been distant.
When we climbed into bed that night, she rolled onto her side to face me. I thought maybe she’d want to talk but instead she closed her eyes and within a few moments, she was asleep. I laid there and watched her. It had been a long day of travel and we managed to have very hot, though quick, sex in a bathroom stall, still it wasn’t like Harlyn to not attempt to have sex one more time when we crawled into bed. She’d done it every night that she stayed with me. It didn’t matter that we’d had sex earlier that day or an hour before while making dinner, she was young and she had a healthy appetite. There were even times when she ground against me while she slept. Not this time. About an hour into her slumber, she shifted and I wrapped my arms around her. She didn’t pull away, instead she slowly relaxed into me, but as soon as her eyes opened the next morning, she was out of the bed.
If I was guessing, her shift in demeanor had something to do with what I said to the woman that was hitting on her. I hadn’t meant anything by it, but I was suddenly a petulant child when I looked into the bathroom mirror and saw them talking. I knew what that woman was aiming for and Harlyn didn’t look like she was going to turn the woman away. It wasn’t fair that someone else could make her laugh, not in that way, not after what we had just done.
I overreacted. I knew I had no right to break up whatever was going on. Harlyn wasn’t my partner. She had the right to flirt and even accept whichever advances she wanted to accept. It was unstated but a known fact that our fling would end when Harlyn found someone better suited to her needs. Someone who was probably just like that woman, young and full of energy. It was when Harlyn introduced me as her friend that I came to understand that the end was closer than I wanted it to be. I wasn’t ready to step aside. Not yet. I enjoyed Harlyn’s company, and I always thought she did too, it wasn’t just about the sex. That woman was only after sex, Harlyn could do better than that.
Standing in the lobby of the Mount Sinai Corporate building on Monday morning, watching her talk to yet another stunning woman, that hopeless feeling was back. I had stepped away for a minute, just a minute to use the restroom and I returned to find a very sophisticated woman making Harlyn laugh. She put her hand on Harlyn’s arm and I wanted to pull my hair out. I took a moment to reset. A deep breath, and then I walked toward them. The woman took her phone out of her satchel and then turned it sideways so that they could take a selfie together.
“I miss you so much,” the woman said as she squeezed Harlyn.
Her words hit me harder than the rub of her arm or the selfie. I couldn’t help wondering if maybe this was the mystery bisexual-ex Dani. I searched my mind for details Harlyn had shared about her ex but there wasn’t much. They went to school together, lived together briefly, the end. This woman looked too old to be the ex. That gave me temporary relief but they were chummy. I didn’t know anything else about Harlyn’s previous relationships. Did she normally date older women? Was it possible that I was not the one-off and instead that Dani had been?
The woman kept rubbing her hand up and down Harlyn’s arm, it was making my heart race and my hands clammy. If this was an ex, or any other pursuer of Harlyn’s affection, how had they tracked her down. Was I supposed to charge in and introduce myself as the girlfriend, again, to save her, or was I supposed to be her friend, worse yet, was I just her boss? I ran my hands down the front of my slacks as I approached.
“Hey,” Harlyn said. I noted the excitement in her voice. “Janene, this is Krystal. Krystal, this is my boss, Janene.”
Krystal extended her hand and I shook it. She was not the bisexual-ex and I was not the girlfriend or a friend.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
“Krystal was one of my bosses when I worked for Linear Design Group. She’s pitching for the Colorado Springs hospital as well.”
“Really?” I asked. “We just came from our pitch. I’d wish you luck but I have Harlyn in my corner, I’m not sure there’s enough luck to overcome her talent.”
Krystal laughed. “Tell me about it. I was just telling Harlyn that we missed her and could have used her home state knowledge for this pitch. We were sad to see her go after four years, but I hope we can steal her back soon.” Harlyn and Krystal shared a look that I wasn’t sure I wanted to understand. “Listen, it was great to see you but I have to finish setting up for our presentation. Keep me posted. I’m telling you, New York suits you.”
Harlyn gave Krystal a hug and then we watched her walk away.
“Are you giving secrets away to the competition?” I tried to laugh at my own joke but my stomach was turning.
“Krystal was telling me that there is a junior advisor position opening up here in the New York office. She knows it’s my dream job. And even though it normally goes to one of their active interns, they allow outside applications. She was just trying to convince me to apply.”
“You should.” The turning feeling in my stomach was replaced with a hollow emptiness. “It’s what you’ve been waiting for. You don’t have long to complete your hours and soon it will be time to apply for your license.”
“Yeah, I think I might.” She sent me a quick smile and then headed toward the exit.
I missed her genuine smile. The one she’d been using over the last few hours was her work smile. It was bright and confident but it said she was approachable. The one she had just used on me was one I had seen her use with Renee when she was making life difficult. I wanted my smile back. The one that curved just a touch at the corner of her mouth but showed all its intension in her eyes.
The first few minutes of the ride to the hotel were quiet. Harlyn went back to watching the buildings as they crept by outside her window.
“I have an idea for tonight,” I said as the traffic came to a standstill.
“I’m pretty tired,” Harlyn said before I could even give her any details. Her eyes never left the window. “We have to get up early to catch our flight. I was actually thinking I would just go to my room tonight, pack up my stuff and try to get some sleep.”
“Your room? Why? Do you have a hot date tonight?” Again, my attempt at humor did not garner a reaction.
“It seems silly not to use it at least once. Besides, I like to lay out my things to repack, I don’t want to make a mess of your room.” Her tone was void of any emotion at all.
“Harlyn, look at me,” I pleaded.
She didn’t turn toward me. I saw her jaw clinch. That was all I needed to see. I didn’t push. If past experience taught me anything, it was that life could take a terrible turn at any moment. I didn’t want to pick a fight. Not when we already had very limited time left together. It wasn’t just the tension that was brewing between us, it was the way she lit up when she talked about New York City. She was ready for that life to begin and if Linear could give it to her, who was I to stand in her way.
We rode up the elevator in silence. It was quite possible she really had a date lined up and there was nothing I could do about it. Harlyn collected her things and then went to her room. She didn’t say goodnight, she barely offered me a nod before she closed the door.
I packed my bag, took my shower, then I lay in bed, alone, watching the ceiling with an empty feeling at the pit of my stomach. This was why I didn’t do relationships, or weeks long affairs, or whatever it was we had been doing. I swore I would never feel this helpless again and yet here I was. I closed my eyes and thought about the long day to come. The flight home had a four-hour layover in Dallas. There were a million different ways we could spend that time. Together, separated, with other people. New scenarios entered my head every ten minutes. The worst ones were Harlyn sitting at the airport bar, woman after woman offering to buy her a drink. She’d smile at them, sometimes laugh at their jokes. If they attempted to make a move she never pulled away, she always welcomed it. In one scenario she got up and walked away with a stranger and I never saw her again.
Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much. The first leg of the trip didn’t help me to relax either. There was a thunderstorm somewhere over Texas that required our plane to take a slightly different, turbulent filled route. By the time we landed and began to exit the plane, my heart was pounding so hard I was sure I was having a heart attack.
“Can we talk?” Harlyn said as we walked out of the airbridge. I had never been happier to hear her voice.
“Would you like to get something to eat?”
“I’m not hungry, but maybe a drink?” I clutched my satchel a little tighter. This was not looking like a situation where we resumed entertaining each other. It wasn’t sounding like we’d even go back to being friends.
She put her hand in mine and my heart lurched into my throat. I hadn’t realized how much I missed her touch. She walked us to the nearest bar. I pulled a stool back to help her up and then changed my mind.
“How about we take that booth in the back?”
She smiled and nodded. I was happy to see that she still had one of those for me.
The waitress took our order and then we sat in silence. The thing I had not allowed myself to think about was what she’d say to me about the way I behaved, about how even though I had many years on her and I was supposed to be more mature, I acted like a thirteen-year-old. The fact that I’d used the word girlfriend and not partner was proof enough that I was being ridiculous.
The waitress returned with our drinks and I took a deep breath as she walked away. “I’m not sure what I did, maybe I am,” I said. “But I don’t like that you’re mad at me.”
“I’m not mad. I’m confused. I don’t know if this is really the best place to have this conversation but I can’t get it out of my head and I feel like I’m going crazy. I keep replaying how things went down and it doesn’t make sense.”
“I shouldn’t have said you were my girlfriend. I’m sorry. I just—I got jealous. You’re young and attractive. And that woman was —I can’t compete with that.”
“That’s not what this is about,” she said. She may have said she wasn’t mad but the frustration on her face told a different story. “It’s what led up to that moment that’s the issue. You’re sitting here, telling me you were jealous but still you…” she trailed off.
“Is this about the sex.” I tried to send her a sly smile. “I’d never done that before. You have to cut me some slack.”
Harlyn’s eyes were glued to her beer mug. There wasn’t even a slight uptick to her mouth at my attempt at humor. She played with the condensation as if it held all the answers to our predicament.
“I saw you in the bathroom stall,” she said. “There was a gap between the door and the frame and I saw you—taking care of, things.”
She looked up and the rushing sound of people running around the airport went still. There was no way she’d said what I’d heard. My face, my entire body, went hot. I wanted to flee. To find a corner of the airport where I could hide out until the last call for boarding my flight was made. Then I’d go home and lock myself away for the rest of my life. Never look at Harlyn again. But I didn’t flee. I didn’t hide away and feel sorry for myself because her green eyes were filled with hurt, I just nodded.
“I guess I don’t understand,” she continued. “Is it me? Is the thought of me touching you—”
“No!” I lowered my voice. “No. It’s complicated. Believe me, I desperately want you to touch me.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Promise me that no matter what happens between us, you understand that this has nothing to do with you.”
“We were having sex,” She lowered her voice to a whisper but the frustration was still audible. “How can you say it has nothing to do with me?”
“That’s not what I mean. What happened in that stall is my problem.”
“Your problem? The last month may not have meant anything to you but that doesn’t mean you get to use me like some blow-up doll you’ll recycle at the end of summer.”
I took her hand. “You’re not a—what did you say? Blow-up doll? God, I don’t even know where you get these things from,” I couldn’t keep myself from chuckling. “Please, hear me out.”
She didn’t pull her hand back but she wasn’t returning my clasp either. When she didn’t say anything, I took that as an opportunity to continue.
“I lied, yes but it’s more complicated than that. I never expected you to be interested in me. I got scared when you wanted to do things to me and for the first time in decades, I wanted it just as bad. I never should have lied but it’s hard to explain.”
“Please try!”
Harlyn was getting worked up over this. In its own way it was endearing but it was also humiliating to have to explain just how screwed up my head was. I’d never told anyone about my self-imposed restriction, not even my therapist which was probably why I’d made such a mess of things.
“You make my body ache in ways it hasn’t in a long time, but you’re twenty-six and I’m forty-five. What could you possibly see in me? I thought we would have a quick fling, you’d get bored, lose interest and move on. I never —it doesn’t matter what I thought. I lied and I’m sorry.”
“But why? Because of our age difference? You don’t want me to touch you because you’re older than me?”
I shook my head. I closed my eyes to reset. I needed to just come out and say it. “I haven’t let anyone touch me since Coreen.”
There was an audible intake of air that came from Harlyn’s direction. I opened my eyes and expected Harlyn to say that I was too damaged and not worth the effort but she didn’t. She sat quietly and let me continue.
“I know it’s been too long for me to still feel this way, but I’ve never been able to let her go. When my sex drive returned, I didn’t pay attention to it. For a long time, I told myself that I was being unfaithful if I slept with someone else. But I was young and it became harder and harder to suppress those urges so I made a deal with myself. Sex would be just that, sex. Whenever I was with another person I viewed it as just an act, a little bit of fun, a way to release some stress. It worked because I never felt the need to have anyone touch me. But with you, from the very beginning all I wanted was to feel you draw that high out of me. The first time, I thought it was some freak accident. You have to understand that I haven’t felt that way toward anyone in over twenty-six years, so I lied. Then it just kept happening and no matter how hard I tried to push the tension down there was only one way to get relief.”
“So, all the women you’ve slept with over the years, you’ve never let anyone touch you? You’ve never had the urge to have them touch you?”
I shook my head. “Never. The other night, at the club, I needed you so bad, I didn’t think I’d be able to walk out of that bathroom without combusting and I couldn’t very well tell you that after I had lied.”
“So, why now? Why not just keep lying to me? Tell me that it was a fluke?”
“You may not believe it because of the way I’ve acted, but you’re important to me, Harlyn. I don’t want to make you feel bad about yourself. That’s what I mean when I say this has nothing to do with you. I should have come clean from the beginning, yes. You have every right to be upset about that, but please believe me when I say you did nothing wrong.”
I closed my eyes to reset again. My past had always been off limits, even around Renee I avoided the topic, and she had been there from the very moment I met Coreen. She’d been Coreen’s best friend before she was mine. She’d been the one who introduced us in high school. Try as she may to get me to talk, especially in the beginning, I couldn’t do it. With time, it became easier and easier to keep that part of my life separate from everything else.
I felt her hand close around mine and I opened my eyes to find the very edges of her mouth curled up, her green eyes soft again.
“I don’t expect you to want to continue sleeping together but please tell me we’re still friends,” I said. I hadn’t realized how much I needed Harlyn. She made it easier to face my fears. She made it easier to face everything.