Chapter Sixteen
When I get back to Arabella’s that night, she has moody music playing and the apartment is cast in darkness but for a few red candles burning by the open windows.
I recognize the music as being a Kelsey Lu album called Blood .
Arabella is lying face down on the couch completely naked, flipping through a magazine.
I put the key back under the mat and then shut the door behind me, locking it.
“Arabella?”
She rolls over and I see her whole body. She is slow and languid, moving like honey.
“ Jozz-leen ,” she says, wetly. “You came back.”
“Of course I did.” I glance around. “What’s going on in here?”
I ask without judgment, but seriously, what the hell is going on? I realize then that maybe she has someone over.
“Nothing is going on ,” she says. “I’m just feeling myself. I did a little bit of Molly. And now I’m sort of rolling around. Looking at pictures of beautiful people.”
Oh, so exactly what it looks like.
“That’s fun,” I say.
“You’re a beautiful person,” she says. “Where were you?” Her long hair hangs over her breasts, barely concealing her nipples.
“I was at dinner. Remember? The Cavendish dinner?”
Her face darkens. “Right. I remember. I forgot.”
“Clementine didn’t show up,” I say, trying to sound normal, going to the fridge and pouring a glass of water. “So it was just Alistair and me.”
There is a heavy silence behind me. I turn and see her looking at me.
When I look at her, she smiles and says, “And how was that?”
“It was okay,” I say. “He’s very intense.”
“Intense.”
“Yeah. I think it was okay, though.”
“He’s not going to sponsor you, though. I heard he has so many things going on that he probably has no space for another.”
I narrow my eyes at her momentarily, but then take a sip and say, “He might. I think he might.”
She shuts her eyes and shakes her head in confusion. “That can’t be right.”
This is so weird. I know she’s on drugs, but still.
She then seems to change her mind about unpuzzling it all, and bursts into a big, incongruent smile. “Come over here!”
She stretches her arms out and puts a leg down on the ground to make space for me.
I put my phone and purse down and go to her.
“You are so beautiful,” she says, putting her arms around me. Her thick dark hair tangles against her face as she presses her lips to my neck. Then she whispers, “I’ve been thinking about you all night.”
My breath quickens at the sudden contact. Her legs are over my lap; my legs are basically bare beneath the airy slip dress.
Her hand runs slowly from where she tucks my hair behind my ear down my neck, down my collarbone, and to my silk-clad breast.
“ Dios mío , that is so soft. You wouldn’t believe,” she says with a deep-throated laugh, her lips and teeth now on my clavicle.
“Will you touch me?” she asks, desperate and lethargic. “Please.”
She looks at me, her glassy eyes like those of a doe, her puffy lips swollen and the color of maraschino cherries.
I have so much more to think about, but suddenly my mind is empty of anything but desire. I’ve been wanting all night. I wanted Max. Or Alistair. Whatever his name is.
Now Arabella is here, and I want her, too.
I let my lips land on hers and she lets out a relieved moan of satisfaction.
Our tongues touch for the first time, and hers tastes like vermouth. Hot and red, as juicy as a ripe peach. Suddenly I want to consume her desperately.
I put my glass down and push her back onto the couch. My thigh lands between her legs and I can feel that she is dripping wet. I can smell her, too. As psycho as she may be, Arabella smells like she got her pussy at Le Labo.
It makes me feel drunk with desire.
I pull my straps down and lie on top of her, our nipples touching, our breasts pressing together. I shut my eyes and kiss her, unable to resist thinking of Alistair.
I think of the way his mouth looked as he pressed the oyster shell to it. I imagine his five-o’clock shadow against my thighs.
Arabella groans and it brings me back to her. She takes my hand and drags it across her body and down to the wetness between her legs.
“Oh my god,” I say into her ear. “You’re so wet.”
“Everything feels amazing, just touch me.”
I play with her clit, putting my fingers inside her and feeling her soft inside. She writhes against me, her warm skin dewy with sweat. It clings to my dress and to my own skin.
“Jocelyn,” she says, “you are so beautiful. So fucking beautiful. You’re so hot.”
I think of Alistair again as I touch her. I think of him touching me. Those hands, the ones that had such a hard grip—I remember them grabbing my waist, my breasts, cupping my jaw and drinking me in.
His hands on my ass, spreading me apart then entering me.
I let out a gasp of desire and she says, “Oh, yeah, baby? Does that turn you on?”
She pulls up the dress and moves aside the panties, her fingers entering me two at a time. The pressure of the width makes me want more as I think about Alistair.
I remember the taste and feel of his dick, hard as marble and hot as sun-soaked silicone. I picture it entering me, too big to be easy, but not so big that it hurts.
“Harder,” I whisper, breathless.
“Harder,” she responds.
We both press harder on and into each other.
I bury my face in her neck and breathe in her spicy scent. Kelsey Lu’s silky voice sings on in the background, mingling with the street sounds.
I hit the right spot on Arabella and I feel her tighten on my fingers.
“Yes, yes,” she says. “ Yes . I’m going to—I’m—”
She climaxes, tightening and pulsing around the rhythmic motion of my hand.
After she finishes, she hurries out from under me, flips me over until I’m on my stomach, and pulls my ass up toward her until her mouth is on my clit.
I let out a primal sound of pleasure as she puts her fingers inside me and she manages to get her tongue around to my clit.
I remember my ass pressed against Alistair’s solid-looking frame. I imagine his strong sculpted stomach. I remember how he pulled me back hard again and again on his throbbing dick during round two.
I get close and I tell Arabella. She groans against me, and the vibration of the hum gets me there.
In my mind, Alistair bursts inside me. On Arabella’s couch, I reach climax and I yell out in orgasm.
She slaps a hand over my mouth, laughing behind my ear.
“Shut up, you silly girl, we have neighbors.”
I laugh when I can breathe again, and we both collapse on the couch, panting.
“You know I was kidding. You can be loud as you want. I don’t care.”
“I’m sorry if it was—”
She takes my jaw in her hand and says, “I don’t care!” She gets up, still fully naked, and goes over to the window. At the top of her lungs, she screams, “I just came , motherfucker!”
I crack up, saying shhh! but not really meaning it.
We slip into T-shirts and Arabella makes popcorn, and we fall asleep on the couch watching Sliding Doors .
I watch the main character’s life split in two, all because of one small decision. Where, and how many times, did my life split?
What if I’d never gone to that restaurant in Vienna and met Jordan?
What if I’d gone to a different bar here in London, never met Alistair, when I thought he was Max?
What if my mom hadn’t gotten in the car that night, or had left the house a moment later?
It’s a dizzying rabbit hole.
I was supposed to go into that bar that night. It’s what gave me the courage to tell Alistair to choose me. And in my last wakeful thoughts, I make a promise to the universe that I’ll do anything for him to say yes.