The Unraveling

Chapter Twenty-Five

Luca is sitting in the corner of the dark bar at a table with a tea-light lamp, a half-full rocks glass in front of him.

I know that one of my options is to turn around and leave. Do I really need to risk complicating everything further?

According to Cynthia, one of the appeals of Luca is that he doesn’t make anything complicated. All the gossip I’ve heard about him has only confirmed it. The dancers act like he’s a rite of passage. A favorite toy to be shared around, everyone understanding that it’s a matter of turns, not possession.

“Hey,” I say, walking up.

“Jocelyn!” He looks delighted to see me and puts down his book— The Last Nude by Ellis Avery—and stands. “Come, sit, please.”

I take off my scarf and coat, which he takes and hangs up for me.

“What would you like to drink?” he asks.

“Um—what are you drinking?”

“A Negroni made with Montenegro instead of Campari.”

“That sounds perfect,” I say.

“You got it,” he says. His accent lilts over the very American expression, and I sigh at how adorable and appealing it is.

A moment later, he returns with two more cocktails and sits down at the table with me. He, of course, smells incredible.

“So, what brings you to the bar on our day off? And by yourself? Surely a beautiful girl like you has many men, no?”

“Uh, no,” I say, with a laugh. “And, I don’t know, I just got off the phone with my grandmother and then…fancied a drink.”

For the next two hours, we chat about everything and nothing. We talk about the book he’s reading, which he’s reading because a girl he knows recommended it to him, we talk about movies, great restaurants, and then, eventually we come to where we grew up.

He grew up in Northern Italy, in an absurdly idyllic-sounding setting. His father was a poet and his mother an opera singer. They had him when they were both on the older side, his father fifteen years older than his mother. His mother would travel around singing in various operas, but his father was always home. They were both dead now, his mother having had a condition that meant she would always live a relatively short life—he didn’t know the English word for it—and his father having died in his eighties.

Naturally, this led to him asking about my upbringing. And for some reason, it felt very safe to tell him.

I told him about Louisiana, and my contentious relationship with my mother. My wonderful relationship with Mimi. Where Mimi was now.

Eventually he asked, “And your mother? Do you no longer talk?”

“She actually died. This past winter.”

His face falls and he shakes his head. “No. Life…life can be so painful, can it not?”

“Yeah.” I play with the condensation on the side of my glass. “It’s actually the first time I’ve really said it out loud like this, except, unfortunately, to Isabella on her first day,” I say with a cringing laugh.

He laughs. “Well, Isabella is the perfect person to spill to. She has a good heart. I’ve worked with her a few times now. I’m sorry to hear about your mother.”

“Thanks. Yeah. It was really shocking,” I say. “How she died. I mean, it wasn’t until Isabella started talking about Manon dying in poverty in Louisiana that it hit me. Even though I wasn’t particularly close with her. I wasn’t…I mean, I wasn’t close with her at all. She was kind of a stage mom—do you know that expression?”

“Yes, I’ve learned it,” he says.

He’s listening intently, but without putting pressure on me. He’s leaning on his fist, elbow on the table, eyes scanning mine as he listens.

“Well, anyway. Yeah, and she was kind of a shitty mom in that way. But I also really wanted to be a ballerina. I didn’t have that much discipline, or at least I wouldn’t have. I never would have given up ballet, but I might have been too flaky to really succeed. She didn’t let that happen. I’m…I mean, I’m grateful for that.”

He nods, and when I take a sip of my drink, he follows suit.

“So we didn’t talk much in the last several years. She’s always trying to sleep with wealthy men to get the life she wants. Or—was always. And wanted. So she was driving on a road near our house, her house, on a road she’s driven a million times. And I have no idea what happened. She wasn’t drinking or anything. It seems like she just lost control of the car. It was late. They think it was maybe an animal she was avoiding or something. She drove off the road and hit a tree.”

“Terrible.”

“It is,” I say. Another sip of my drink. “She was hospitalized. I didn’t—”

Here’s the part I’ve really never said out loud. Jordan was with me, so I didn’t have to admit to it. He’d seen it. But I’ve never said it out loud. Especially to someone who might judge me. I don’t think Luca will, but it still feels scary to say.

“I didn’t go visit her,” I say. “I knew she was in critical condition. I could have gone. I wasn’t dancing at the time or anything, I can’t even pretend I had a conflict or something. I just didn’t want to go.”

“Why do you think that was?”

I think. “I…” I pause again, unable to say what I’m really thinking. How I thought she would recover, and we would have more time.

We’re silent for a moment, my gaze locked on a knot in the wooden table. When I look to Luca, I’m afraid I’ll see a cringe, a separation between me and this guy I barely know, wedged there between us by my selfishness. My inhumanity.

“How was your Christmas?” he asks.

Tears brim in my eyes as I laugh and say, “Actually, really”—I gasp as the tears start to fall—“really beautiful.”

He gives me a compassionate smile and then says, “Do you mind if I touch you?”

I sniff and shake my head, and he moves his hand to my shoulder. He rubs it and says, affectionately, “You got what you needed from her. She couldn’t give it to you without you taking it. I’m glad you stayed here. Took care of yourself.”

“You don’t think I sound like a monster for letting my mom fucking, like”—my breath catches—“die alone?”

He shakes his head. “It’s complicated. Life is complicated. You did the best you could. You listened to yourself. It’s the best you can do.”

I bite the tip of my tongue and nod. “I couldn’t imagine going. God, sorry, I’m such a mess!”

He laughs. “What ballerina isn’t?”

I laugh, relaxing a little. “You’re really amazing.”

“No.” He waves a hand.

“No, you know it. I mean seriously, how are you so perfect? It’s kind of unfair to the rest of the men on the planet.”

“I’m not perfect,” he says. “I spend all my money and I have a very small penis.”

The last comment is so unexpected that I burst out laughing in his face, falling forward into his chest. I can’t breathe for laughing, and I can feel him laughing, too.

A while later, he’s walking me home. It’s already dark out.

“Thanks for walking me home,” I say when we arrive at Ivory Towers.

“Of course,” he says. “I don’t live too far from here, but not in a place as nice as this.”

“It’s my donor’s extra flat,” I say. “I can’t afford something like this. I can’t afford anything.”

He laughs, and that makes me laugh.

“I’m glad you have a nice place to stay.”

“Do you wanna…see it?” I ask.

He looks down at me. He’s six foot two, so he stands a lot higher than me. I look up at him.

“You want to show me the flat, or something else?” he asks.

I shrug. “Whatever.”

“You don’t have to,” he says. “You know that. I find that women often feel guilty for crying and things like this. If I come up, I expect nothing from you. Not in the least.”

I know he’s saying something nice about consent and respect, but I’m distracted by his incredibly sexy accent.

“Oh, it’s fine,” I say, blowing him off and pulling him in by the hand.

We go inside and up the elevator. For the first few minutes, he just walks around saying, “This is amazing. Just amazing.”

I go to the study and I grab something at random off one of the racks of wine, making sure it’s not too old or special looking. I end up with something white and French.

For the next hour, we just talk more. I find that it’s too painful to say Jordan’s name, and too hard to really bring him up at all, especially to another guy. So I basically tell Luca, honestly, that I’m still in love with my ex, so I don’t want to talk about him.

Of course, he understands.

It’s not until nearly nine thirty that something in the tone shifts enough that I think we might actually hook up after all.

It starts because we start talking about sex.

“So what’s the worst sex you’ve ever had?” I ask, sipping my wine, feeling tipsy and happy. I know Luca well enough to know I can ask him anything at this point.

“I don’t like to answer that!” he says. “I’ve never had bad sex. And it was definitely never the women.”

I roll my eyes performatively. “I mean, that’s a very nice answer, but come on. There must have been something.”

He thinks for a moment, and then says, “Okay, I’ve got one. It was a three-way. Two girls from Sicily. Gorgeous, both of them.”

“I did say worst you ever had.”

“I know! I know, okay, so these two girls. I meet them at this hotel in Positano. I was there visiting family, staying alone; they saw me at the bar, and they walk right up and ask me if I want to fuck them.”

“Damn,” I say. “Bold.”

“ Damn is right. So, I was twenty years old at this time, I couldn’t see why to say no. So I take them back to my room, and—”

“You’re really bad at this.”

“It’s true, it’s the worst! We were all there, you know, in the bed”—he blushes—“and I don’t know, there was something about it that just felt bad. It didn’t feel like sex, it felt like something else. Sex is about connection. This felt like it was something else, something more about the feeling itself. Or about saying Look how crazy we can be , but I couldn’t see to what audience we were performing. Each other, I guess?”

“Okay. Okay, I can give you that. I had a weird threesome thing once, too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it was with my best friend, Sylvie, and this, like…absolute asshole named Sebastian. He was the ballet master at the time, and in retrospect it was a total abuse of power. But basically we all kind of fooled around and then later on when I was asleep, the two of them started hooking up without me. I didn’t want to be part of it, but I still felt weirdly, like…excluded? If that makes sense?”

“Definitely.”

“Then they also went on to have this crazy affair. So it felt even weirder, like I felt like I had actually been in the way that time we all hooked up. Like an obstacle.”

“Did it feel good?”

I sigh. “Well, kinda, but same as you said, I was too preoccupied with the performance of the whole thing. I was on Molly at the time, though, so that helped.”

“Ah, I see.”

“I’ve had a lot of bad sex,” I say.

“Really?” he asks with genuine surprise.

“Yes. I mean, I’ve had great sex, too. My ex was amazing, but that really had more to do with my connection to him, I think. I still was all in my head about it. I don’t know, I just have trouble letting go.”

His eyes stay on mine for an extra moment, and I feel my skin grow warmer under his gaze.

“That’s a shame.”

There’s a silence then, neither of us seeming sure what to say next. The music we have playing on the speakers fills the void, but something is unquestionably building between us.

It’s crazy, because as physically perfect as he is, I’m not all that attracted to him. Do I want to fuck him? Yes. But not in the way I felt compelled to Jordan. Or even to Alistair. With Jordan, it was love. With Alistair, it’s lust.

With Luca, it just seems like fun.

“Should we…” I bite my lip and wedge my foot a little deeper under his thigh.

He touches my bare leg and says, “On one condition.”

“?’Kay, what?”

“It’s all for you. Nothing for me.”

I squint at him in confusion. “You mean, you don’t want to fuck me?”

“That’s not what I said. I said, nothing for me. Not tonight.”

I consider, and then say, “Okay, your loss.”

I then set down my glass of wine, get up, and run across the apartment.

“Oh, wow,” I hear him say.

Then he comes after me, and I fall, laughing, onto the bed with the velvet duvet.

I was already stripped down to a pair of sweat shorts and a T-shirt. I had washed all my makeup off when we got back, since I ruined it by crying anyway, and didn’t really feel the need to impress Luca.

He has a gentle, firm touch that I feel comforted by as he takes my clothes off. He takes off his shirt, exposing an excessively attractive, lean body. He’s got an intense eight-pack and that sexy V between his hip bones. Male dancers always have good bodies, but for one thing, they’re not always straight, and for another thing, they are rarely this good.

“Jesus Christ, you’re not human,” I say.

“Coming from a goddess like you,” he says, lifting me and scooting me back further onto the pillows.

He doesn’t remove my bra or thong right away. First he comes over me, and kisses me. He has just the right amount of softness in his lips, not so much as to be feminine, but not too little either.

He kisses like he was sent from God, his tongue so correctly gentle, his lips against mine in such a satisfying way. He groans a little at how good it feels, and I can feel his hardness on my leg. I know now, for sure, that his small penis joke at Gravitas was indeed a joke. He’s huge. Of course he is, because he’s a perfect specimen.

Luca kisses my cheek, my forehead, my jaw, my neck, and then in my ear he whispers, “You have to do me a favor.”

“Going back on your one condition already?” I writhe a little under him, overcome with comfortable desire.

“No,” he says. “You must tell me what you like. Don’t be afraid.”

He touches my waist gently and I suck in a breath. “Fuck,” I say.

“You like that?” he asks.

I nod against him.

“Mm,” he says, and then he spreads his palm flat on my waist, then tightens his grip.

“Ah, my god,” I say, jerking in pleasure at the touch.

He moves down, kissing my chest, touching my breast through my bra, then kissing that same spot on my waist. He drags his mouth across my flat stomach, flicking his tongue a little. He puts a hand flat against my back and brings me even closer to his kiss.

I feel so completely comfortable. Drained, in a nice way, after crying so much, at ease in the arms of this nice, beautiful man, who only wants to make me feel good.

“Do you want me to touch you here?” he asks, gently touching me through my underwear.

I nod. “Yes, please.”

Still through the fabric, he begins to touch me, using his thumb against my clit, planting his ring and middle fingers firmly against my vulva.

I bite my lip and gather the blanket in both of my hands.

He does this until I can’t stand it anymore, and without me needing to tell him, he puts his fingers inside me.

“Fuck,” I scream. “That’s—so—”

He finds my G-spot and I flatten my hands against the mattress, then cover my face with my arms as he finally puts his mouth against my clit, moving the thong to the side.

“That’s good, right there,” I confirm, though it’s clear he knows it’s the right spot.

“You taste so fucking good,” he says. The words themselves would be hot enough, but combined with his accent, I actually feel a wave of orgasm come close. “You’re getting so tight. Fuck.”

I gasp as his mouth envelops me, his tongue moving rhythmically. It’s as gentle and satisfying and plush as his kiss.

“Where’s your vibrator?” he asks.

“I don’t think I need it,” I say.

“Do you want it?”

I think, and then laugh, nod, and point to where it is.

Luca releases me, and the absence of him makes me even hotter for him.

He retrieves it and comes back over, this time with slightly more intensity. He plunges his fingers into me, just the right amount, and then kisses my inner thighs while he turns on the vibrator.

It has a low, quiet hum. I didn’t want something loud. I could be in the same room as someone else and they wouldn’t even know it was on.

He puts it on my clit and I let out an “oh,” while he groans against my thighs.

“You’re so good,” he says.

The silicone head of the vibrator buzzes against me, his fingers move inside me, and he uses his mouth wherever he can.

It’s not long until I feel it coming.

“I’m close,” I say.

“Take your time, baby,” he says. “I could do this all night.”

He really says all the right things. So often, sex feels performative or rushed. Like I have to get there faster than I can or want to.

But I believe Luca when he says to take my time.

I don’t need to. Only a minute after he starts using my vibrator, I feel the warm tsunami start to churn within me, then it all hits the right rhythm at the right time, and I say, “I’m close, I’m close, I’m—”

And then I let out a scream of pleasure. Then another, and another. Then I feel the tsunami again, and I can tell I’m going to climax again.

He takes away the vibrator and uses just his tongue and fingers, and I feel it build and then finally crash over me. I scream loud and long, and he says, “Yes, baby, yes.”

When I finally finish, I feel completely empty. Spent. The most relaxed I can remember feeling in a very, very long time.

He comes up to me, shutting off the vibrator and then putting it away from us; he pulls me into his chest and we lie there for a while.

I must fall asleep, because the next thing I know, I’m tucked under the comforter and he’s sitting on the edge of the bed.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” he says.

“It’s okay, I didn’t realize I fell asleep.”

“Do you want me to stay?” he says, moving the hair off my face.

I consider.

He says, “It’s okay either way, truly.”

His voice is so gentle.

And I realize I don’t want him to stay. Not because it wouldn’t be nice. But because I kind of want tonight to be its own thing.

“You don’t have to stay,” I say.

He smiles and says, “Okay. I’m just going to clean up and then I’ll go, okay?”

I nod.

He shuts the lights off, leaving on only a dim one in the corner I hadn’t even known was there. I hear him bustle around in the kitchen washing out the wineglasses. I hear him wash my vibrator in the sink. I hear him putting away our takeaway.

And then, he goes.

I don’t love Luca. I don’t even feel particularly compelled by him, despite his beauty.

But he might just be the most perfect man I’ve ever met. Why, I wonder, as I drift off into a soothed sleep, is it that I cannot just want a man like that?