Chapter 32 #2
It had been such a long time—Annie didn’t want to do the math—that at first, Annie’s body felt like it was sounding an alarm, like one of those scenes in a movie where someone was stealing something from the Louvre and every red line of light was another trip wire.
Her whole body was tripping wires left and right.
His chin was sharp, and she could feel each hair pressing into her skin.
An involuntary moan escaped her mouth midkiss.
She had forgotten so much about kissing.
Why would anyone have sex with a dragon when another human being was a possibility?
Annie drew Greg closer so that they were pressed up against each other, their faces smashing together hard.
His tongue was in her mouth, and hers was in his.
Their teeth clattered together. Annie felt like she was fourteen years old, kissing badly because she didn’t know how.
She could feel Greg’s erection through their nightgowns, and he pressed it against her, groaning.
The cruelest part of Annie’s brain told her that it was so dumb how much she was enjoying this, and the larger, better part said, You’re not dead yet, baby, and danced a jig.
“Okay,” Annie said. She pushed him gently off her. Greg took a step back and pulled off his hat. There was sweat in his hairline, and his cheeks were red. “Just hang on.”
“Hanging,” he said. He was out of breath and put his hands on his hips. “Though I would like to continue doing that.”
“Who are you?” Annie asked. “I mean, who are you when you’re not here?”
“But I am here,” Greg said.
“I know what you mean,” Annie said. She straightened out her nightgown. There were some stains on it now, pink drops from her drink, or someone else’s. “I can’t do this here. I’m an adult.”
Greg picked up his bucket of beer. “Your place or mine?”
The breeze felt cold on Annie’s skin. She stepped out on the balcony and saw Maira by the tiki bar—Annie waved, but Maira didn’t seem to notice.
The guys had welcomed half a dozen people onto the small stage with them and were clapping their hands in unison over their heads.
Keith was standing toward the back of the stage, and Annie watched him tug at the hem of his shirt, pulling it down.
His legs were long and pale with dark hair.
They all looked like they’d been interrupted while getting dressed.
Annie didn’t want Keith to see her doing whatever this was.
He couldn’t see her, of course, and even if he could, she was a stranger to him, one drop of water in the ocean lapping at his feet.
Corey was leaning over the railing, signing autographs on things that people handed to him.
Scotty was wearing bright yellow sandals and doing the Macarena with a woman dressed like a sheep.
Annie looked down and saw the rest of the woman’s flock, all screaming their heads off.
“Mine,” she said.
The elevator banks were empty. The hallways too.
Greg didn’t hold her hand, but he stayed close enough that they kept brushing against each other.
Everyone was either in bed or on the deck.
Annie passed the room of doom, where all the photo groups assembled, and the casino and the empty nightclub and then made her way down the last flight of stairs to her room, Greg at her heels.
It was empty and neat. Maira was a tidy roommate, thank god.
She shut the door behind them, and Greg’s mouth was on hers again.
He set the bucket of beer down by the door, and Annie let him push her back toward her bed.
She hadn’t had sex in a twin-size bed since she was in college—it seemed physically impossible.
She and Chris would not have been up to the challenge, but Greg pulled his nightdress over his head and then Annie’s, and their bodies were already pressing together.
She thought she’d feel self-conscious, but she didn’t feel conscious at all, just present and enjoying what was happening.
There was nowhere else for their limbs to go but on top of each other, intertwined with each other, pressing, pressing, squeezing, holding.
Annie closed her eyes and just paid attention to what her body was feeling: Greg’s mouth on her neck, Greg’s hand slipping between her legs.
He was thin but strong, and Annie felt the muscles in his arms flex as he held his body above hers.
“Can I go down on you?” Greg said into her sternum.
Annie mumbled, “Yes, yes,” and then Greg was moving down her body.
Some part of him fell out of the bed, and they both laughed.
Greg yanked Annie’s body to the edge of the mattress and kneeled in front of it.
For a second it felt like a gynecological appointment, with her butt hanging over the edge of the narrow bed, but Annie pushed it out of her mind.
It had been a long time! Greg threw her legs over his shoulders, and Annie couldn’t think anymore.
She was replaying it all in her head, everything that had happened that night, all while the temperature in her body was going up, up, up, but instead of Greg pulling her through the crowd and up the stairs, it was Keith Fiore.
Instead of Greg’s face so close to hers, it was Keith’s.
The shape of his lips. The stubble on his cheeks.
She imagined Keith leaning in, pressing his body against hers. Her body started to shake.
The door swung open, and the hallway light flipped on. Annie scooted back all the way onto the bed, leaving Greg crouching at the end in his underwear. Maira stood in the doorway and crossed her arms.
“Oh, god,” Annie said. “Sorry, Maira, I thought you were upstairs…” Annie didn’t know why she was apologizing, but an apology seemed necessary. They hadn’t been doing anything in Maira’s bed, but it was a small room, a shared space.
“She’s your roommate?” Greg asked, looking from Maira to Annie and back. Annie couldn’t tell who he was talking to.
“Yes!” both Annie and Maira said.
Greg felt around for his nightshirt and pulled it back on. The open door had knocked over his beers, and he picked them up one at a time, leaving a trail of ice cubes in his wake. “She’s crazy,” Greg said to Annie. “Just so you know. Everyone knows she’s crazy.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve had sex with half the women on this ship!” Maira said.
Greg shrugged. “See you around, Madonna.” He winked and angled his body through the door, which Maira then slammed behind him.
Annie held the sheet up to her neck. Maira turned around to give her some privacy.
“It’s okay,” Maira said. “You’re not the first to fall for him.”
But Annie wasn’t really listening. She hadn’t fallen—she’d jumped.
It didn’t matter if Greg had done whatever with whoever; that had nothing to do with her.
Annie pulled the cover over her head and tried to go back, just for a second, to the way it had actually felt.
Annie’s impulse was to apologize, to cater to everyone else’s feelings.
She was a mom. She’d been a wife. She was a helper, like Mister Rogers always suggested, a person who went out of her way to make things easier for other people.
If Katherine had been on the ship, she wouldn’t have brought Greg back to her room.
Annie wouldn’t have fooled around. Fooling around!
What a phrase, to be a fool on purpose. She had enjoyed being a fool.
Annie wanted to be a fool again, as much as she could, until she dropped dead.
There were little noises in the room—Maira was doing whatever she’d come back to the room to do. Annie slid the cover off her head and watched as Maira plugged her phone charger in to the power strip and leaned closer to the mirror to redo her lipstick.
“To be clear,” Annie said, “I’m sorry that you walked in on that, but I’m not sorry I was doing it.” She was saying it more for herself than for Maira, who paused with the tube of lipstick an inch away from her mouth.
“Good for you,” Maira said, and winked. “Want to go back to the party?”
Annie did. “Let’s go smoke a cigarette first.”
Maira clapped her hands. “Now we’re talking!”