Frankie
Ash has a body like the Greek and Roman statues Richard used to drag me to see at the Met. Not that I have anything against
art; I just prefer the Impressionists.
Nevertheless, I visited that wing often enough to recognize that Ash bears an uncanny resemblance to the Met’s marble statue
of a youthful Hercules—except that Ash’s hair is longer.
He’s hard as that statue, too . . . everywhere, especially where I wanted it most.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he’s such a generous and enthusiastic lover—generous about making sure I got off first, before
he did, and enthusiastic about his work to get me there.
And get me there he did—several times.
Afterward, I run my fingers over those finely chiseled muscles and ask, “How did you get the name Ashraf?”
“Oh.” Ash lies there, panting. “So now I’m allowed to talk?”
“Sorry.” Chagrined, I kiss his shoulder. “Yes, you can talk now. I didn’t mean to be so bossy earlier.”
“I liked it,” he says after wadding up one of my pillows and stuffing it beneath his head.
“But it’s a little deflating to a guy’s ego after a performance like that to get asked about his name and not, you know, his technique.
I’m not saying I expect a prize or anything, but that was really some of my finest work. ”
I laugh and kiss him again, this time on the mouth. “That performance was a ten out of ten. I was just wondering about your
name because it’s unusual, especially given the fact that you have an uncle almost the same age named Derrick.”
“Yeah. Well, my mom is Egyptian and wanted to call me Farouk. My dad was from Ohio and wanted to call me Jason. They compromised
on a name that could be easily pronounced in both Arabic and English—Ashraf, or Ash, for short.”
“That’s so interesting.”
“Is it?” He pulls me close, which is nice. Our bodies fit together weirdly well. “I kind of wish my mom had won. My dad didn’t
like me very much, or my superpower. He was always threatening to send me to military school,” he says. “But fortunately my
grandma intervened, and I got sent to boarding school instead—”
“Boarding school?”
“Yeah, in Switzerland. No one else there was called Ashraf, that’s for sure. But I didn’t mind being different.”
“Is it your name that’s always made you feel different,” I ask, “or your superpower?”
“Wow,” he says with a grin, running a finger along the curve of my right breast. “So this is what it’s like to sleep with
a shrink. So many questions!”
“I’m sorry. Asking questions about people is my superpower. Does it bother you?”
He grins some more. “No, I like it. But where is this going? Are you thinking about getting a tattoo of our names entwined in a heart? I had no idea how possessive you are. But, hey, I like it. I’ll get one, too, if it will make you happy.”
I laugh again. “No, that’s not why I’m asking. I just wondered. You lost your dad at a young age, like I did. That’s got to
have made you feel different, too. It did me.”
“Yeah, well, you come from a normal family—”
I can’t help snorting at this. No one who knows my family would ever call it normal . . . except someone like Ash, whose family
appears to be even more dysfunctional.
“You do,” he insists. “Do you know what I’d have given to have a family like yours instead of the one I got?”
“Why? What was wrong with your family? I mean, besides having Derrick Winters as your absurdly young uncle.”
“Yeah, right. There was that, just for starters. Then my dad was a drunk—”
“Oh, Ash. I’m so sorry.”
He shrugs. “It wasn’t a big deal. The worst he did was hit me, and that—”
“Ash!”
“What?” Ash looks startled by my reaction. “Oh my God, don’t look like that. I told you it wasn’t that bad. I was a lot to
handle as a kid. I definitely deserved to get smacked around every now and then.”
“Ash, you’re minimizing, which is very common in survivors of abuse. I know you know that no child deserves to be beaten,
no matter what they’ve done.”
“I wouldn’t call it beating. It was just a smack every now and then if I didn’t duck fast enough. And look at me. I turned out all right.”
“Yes, you did,” I say carefully. “Children are very resilient. But, Ash . . . what your dad did was still abuse.”
“Yeah, I know. But he traveled a lot, so I didn’t have to see too much of him. My mom was what they call codependent—you’ve
probably heard of that.”
“I have.”
“Yeah. So she was in denial for a while that any of it was really happening. She’s better now. But her mom—my grandmother—really helped. She’s the one who convinced my parents to send me to boarding school when I was seven—”
“Ash.” My heart twists. My niece Portia is seven. She only just had her first sleepover, and that was at her cousin’s house.
“That’s really young.”
“Maybe. But it was way better than being at home.”
I bet it was. “I’m so sorry,” I repeat. “That had to be tough.”
“It was fine,” he insists. “I spent most of my holidays with friends or my grandmother.”
Thank goodness for her, I think, softly stroking his dark hair. Recent studies have shown that having just one caring adult
in a child’s life can help them cope and even thrive in a dysfunctional environment.
“How did your dad die?” I ask gently.
“He got struck by lightning.”
My fingers freeze. “What?”
“Yeah, can you believe that?” Ash chuckles. “On the seventeenth hole at the Biltmore in Phoenix, of all places.”
“Phoenix, Arizona?” I stare at him. “He got struck by lightning in the desert?”
“I know! There wasn’t even a cloud in the sky. A giant bolt of lightning came from out of nowhere, and boom!”
“But . . . but I thought you said he went into a nursing home?”
“He did, after the accident. It was the burn unit. He lived there for a couple of weeks, but . . .” He shrugs.
“Ash.” I sit up in bed to face him. “That sounds really horrible. I’m so sorry you went through that.”
“It was fine. Essentially, he died doing what he loved. Isn’t that the best way to go? How did your dad die?”
“He had a massive coronary while trimming the fat off a twelve-pound pork belly he was going to make into the special for
that evening—porchetta.” I give him a rueful little grin. “So I guess in a way he, too, died doing what he loved. He loved
cooking, and he especially loved porchetta.”
Ash reaches out to pull me back down to his side. His body is warm and welcoming, his arms strong. “That sucks.”
“Thanks. It sucked most of all because I was helping him in the kitchen at the time. I was the one who ended up giving him
CPR. Not that it worked—we didn’t have a defibrillator in the restaurant back then. But the coroner said it probably wouldn’t
have made a difference anyway.”
A widow-maker, Dr. Hopkins had called the heart attack. Dad was dead almost before he hit the floor.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” Ash says, dropping his lips to my neck.
His voice is so earnest and heartfelt, I feel tears spring to my eyes. He notices right away.
“Hey,” he says, his grip on me tightening. “I’m sorry. Why are we even talking about this stuff? We’re supposed to be busy
lowering our risk of heart disease and dementia while seeing if we’re sexually compatible—”
I start to laugh. “I think we’ve pretty much established that.”
“Well, I’m not so sure. You’re crying. That’s not exactly reassuring to a guy’s libido.”
I reach up to wipe the tears from my eyes even as I continue to laugh. “I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s me. I don’t know what’s
wrong with me. I never cry—at least, not over my dad. Not anymore. It isn’t that I don’t miss him, exactly. It’s just—”
I don’t know what comes over me, but suddenly, I’m telling Ash Merit things I’ve never told another living soul.
“I just have this weird feeling that we’re going to meet again someday, you know? Not in heaven, with angels flying around,
or something silly like that. Some scientists believe that our consciousness really does go on after our hearts stop beating.
So maybe I’ll see my dad again in a different dimension, or another life, or something. And when I do, I’m going to get to
tell him about all the stuff he missed while he was gone, like smartphones and the birth of his grandchildren and the fact
that Mama Giovanni’s profit margin has increased so substantially thanks to witch tourism. I know that sounds corny, but—”
“That doesn’t sound corny at all.” Ash is looking at me very seriously, not smiling at all. His eyes, in the dim light of
my bedroom, are like the lake outside my house on a winter morning: deep, dark, and in many ways, unfathomable. “I think that’s
beautiful. You’re beautiful. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. And the smartest—”
“Oh, please.” I try to pull away from him. But he only drags me closer.
“I’m serious,” he says, earnestly. “Why won’t you ever let anyone give you a compliment? Look at you, you’re physically trying
to pull away from me so you won’t have to hear nice things about yourself!”
“It’s not that. It’s just—”
He keeps me wrapped in his arms, not budging an inch. “I think you’re beautiful, and intelligent, and funny, and kind, and
if I were your dad, I’d be trying like hell to get from wherever he is now to your side so you could tell me all about how
much witch tourism has increased Mama Giovanni’s profit margin—”
“Stop it.”
But I’m laughing. Who even is this man in my bed? Is he the absent landlord whose benign negligence has been driving me crazy
all year? Or is he the sweet—maybe a little screwed up—but very handsome and attentive lover who so heroically rescued one
of the missing girls from the mud beneath his back deck?
I don’t know. But something is happening. Something that, if I weren’t so jaded, I might even call falling in love.
Not that I would ever admit that out loud, especially to Ash. I’m well aware that I’m more likely suffering from the effects
of the dopamine and oxytocin and other pleasure hormones that fill women’s brains after orgasm.