Chapter 10 Dust in the Wind #2
I’m calculating how long it would take to swipe her phone and lock myself in the bathroom without getting caught.
“What’s your cut-off dick size again?” she asks, like she’s asking about shoe sizes.
“Four and a half inches. Max.”
Her knife pauses.
“So you’ll eat a 5th Avenue chocolate bar, but not Fifth Avenue dick?”
Hahaha…
She thinks she’s cute.
She thinks she’s funny.
All she managed
was giving me a 5th Avenue craving.
“Four-point-five,” I confirm. “Just enough to know the cock is there, not enough to leave a memory.” Then I narrow my eyes. “And you know I don't give head. Would rather cut out my tongue with a pair of dull scissors than lick a dick.”
Spent enough of my life being quiet
while a man got what he wanted.
She sighs.
“Your coochie deserves better than 4.5 inches.”
The blade comes down harder.
She’s not wrong. My pussy had one glimpse of Andrew's beautiful dick, and she was salivating.
“Yeah, well—for a hot sec I was considering full penetration on a six-point-five,” I say. “Dopamine had me fucked-up-drunk, bro. Almost risked my pussy’s legacy for a Jersey boy.”
She eyes me without lifting her head.
“Legacy don’t mean shit if you never let nobody in.” She shrugs. “Six-point-five woulda been a good start.”
I pluck a grape off the counter
next to her phone,
practicing,
training her to see my hand on the counter
so when I do grab it,
she doesn’t notice.
I’m brilliant.
“Start? I’m not trying to meet God, Celie. I’m just trying to come and pass the fuck out after.”
I want to ask how big Drake was.
But she’s holding a knife
and I’m not dying over dick stats.
I pop the grape into my mouth. “I need a penis humble enough to know it’s not the main character in the story of my body.”
She laughs. “I cannot with you.”
I raise my hand—“Okay, five inches under special circumstances. If it’s Teddy Vale. But his dick better come with my name tattooed on it. Right down the down middle,” I say, drawing a line into the counter. “But even five inches is pushing it.”
She leans into her hip in disbelief. “So lemme get this straight. If Teddy Vale was hard and crooning love songs in your sex room—six and a half inches of serenade dick—you’d… walk?”
“Walk away? From Teddy fuckin’ Vale?”
I blink at her like she asked if I eat air.
“The fuck I would.” My eyes squint, offended on behalf of Teddy.“I’m walking all around that danger zone.”
Celie tips her chin at me.
“You down bad and I’m prayin’ for you.”
I lean into the counter, raise a brow.
“So you sayin’ DJ Crush walkin’ around with a micro, you’d bounce?”
She grins.
“I’d dab ‘im up for tryin’, then ghost his ass.”
Then adds, all city-bred and brutal:
“I’m Bronx, baby.
“I ain’t blind. And I ain’t brain-dead.”
I throw a grape at her. “Y’know there’s more than one way to fall apart with a man. Penile penetration isn’t even in the top three. And if DJ Crush’s packin’ a micro, I’d put money on his oral and finger game being fuckin’ fire from spinnin’ those records all night…”
I glance at her phone
as if I’m done with the convo,
though I’m obviously not.
“And keep my man's name out'a your mouth before I start swingin’,” I mutter under my breath. “Teddy Vale’s not even a man. He’s a goddamn sepia-toned watercolor painting of heartbreak.
A six-string romantic. With a vintage soul.
And feelings. And probably a journal full of sad poems about women who said no to anal. ”
The laugh breaks out of me the second my words hit air—
Then hers.
“Anyway. We are women of taste and restraint, Celie. I respect him too much to talk about sitting on his face again. We don’t reduce musicians to their sex appeal anymore.”
I clear my throat,
sitting up straighter, behaving.
“We internalize our objectification of men like ladies.”
Celie’s laughing.
“You disrespectful in the politest fuckin’ way.”
I shrug. “Yeah… well. I’m nothin’ if not consistent in my contradictions.”
I sip the cucumber water. “Bitch got me ready to throw hands over a man who don’t even know I breathe,” I mutter into the glass, shaking my head.
She takes the opportunity to go in for the kill—“So how do you know Jersey boy’s dick is six-and-a-half? You bust out a ruler? Measuring tape? Keep one in your purse or somethin’?”
I point to my hand,
swipin’ from wrist to tip of my middle finger.
“I know this is six and a half inches. Exactly.”
Then I swipe diagonal across my palm,
from the base of thumb to base of pinky.
“I know this is four and a half inches. Exactly. Don’t play.”
She watches me,
a slow smirk pulling at her mouth.
“So what are you gonna do about your Six-and-a-Half blood prince then?”
I pop another grape.
“Nothin’. He’s the one with the feelings. I just… borrowed them for a night or two.”
(And now they’re burning a hole through my ribcage, homesick and trying to find their way back to him.)
She’s watching me,
one brow raised and suspicious.
She knows I’m full of shit.
My eyes drop back to her cellular device.
I stand,
stretch,
casually reaching for her phone,
the way murderers whistle before they stab someone.
“I’m gonna use the bathroom,” I say,
breezy, nonchalantly, non-criminal.
She hums,
not looking up.
Idiot.
And then I’m gone,
phone in hand,
conscience dead.
In seconds, the bathroom door's locked,
and I'm yanking the shower curtain back
to step into the tub.
Because that’s where you stay safe from
tornadoes, hurricanes,
and girls from the Bronx.
I type in the passcode.
(Don’t ask me how I know it. I know everything. I am God today.)
Contacts. Dr. Mitchell—therapist.
My finger hovers,
then dives.
It rings.
And rings.
And my heart is doing CrossFit.
Click.
“Dr. Mitchell’s office. This is Dr. Mitchell.”
My eyes widen. Shit.
She doesn’t have a receptionist or something?
Is this her cell phone number?
Celie got it like that?
I clear my throat.
“Hi, Dr. Mitchell, yes, this is Celie.”
“Remember me?”
Pause.
“Celie, it’s been a while. How are you?”
“Not good,” I blurt. “Spiraling. Emotional sepsis. High oxytocin, low impulse control. Need help. Got some questions. Rapid-fire. I’ll be brief, cool?”
I don’t wait for permission.
“Let’s say there’s this person—hypothetically—who runs her life by a ‘no feelings, only orgasms’ policy, and she stumbles into a once-in-a-lifetime connection.
With a sincere guy. A monogamist. Who cried post handjob, then waited every night for twenty-eight nights for her to return.
Do you think it could end without either of them dying or… ?”
Silence.
“…. is this Allison?”
I clutch the phone tighter and whisper-yell.
“Okay, Dr. FBI. Calm your HIPAA. Yes, it’s me. No, I don’t have a therapist of my own. Yes, this is emotional identity theft. But you answered, so technically that’s consent. Can we move on?”
She sighs, betrayed but still professional.
“What’s going on?”
“Oh, buckle up.”
I drop to the edge of the tub,
phone in one hand, forehead in the other,
moral compass smashed to pieces all around me.
“Picture this. You spend your whole adult life building a system. Not a life. A system, with contracts, rules, men trained to worship your orgasms, but none allowed to want more. That was the rule. That’s how I kept my head above water.”
“...Go on," she says.
“And then he walks in.” I scoff. “This guy. This… Andrew. Out of nowhere. Type No. 45. Heart in his hand. And I hate it. I fuckin’ hate it.”
I swallow,
my heart drop-kicking my bones.
“He texted me something,” I whisper—
“And you wouldn’t believe the shit he said.”
“What did he say?”
I close my eyes.
“I wanna see you,” I quote,
mouth dry. “No period.”
Silence.
Then her inhale. A slow, professional one.
“Sounds like he wants to see you,” she says.
“RIGHT?” I hiss. “Who says that? Who the fuck texts wanna see you with no punctuation, no period? Like there’s no end to the seeing me.
He mean… forever? Without an agenda? No games.
No angle. Just me. He’s not playin’. And I know he’s serious ‘cause he’s still…
around. Still… all up in here, Mitch. Like a psycho.
Ruining everything. I had a system. It worked. ”
She waits through my spiral.
“Now I’m hidin’ behind a shower curtain, sweating my ass off ‘cause I care now. Apparently. Against my will. And I don’t care about guys, I care if they leave me the hell alone. And he hasn’t.”
The silence settles long enough to make it uncomfortable.
She’s doing it on purpose.
“How does that make you feel?”
How does that make you feel, my brain mocks.
“Unsafe.” No hesitation.
“Why?”
“Because I like it,” I breathe.
“And I didn’t realize until right now.”
The confession hits the air,
echoing back at me.
I tip my head back. “God, you’re annoying.”
“It’s okay to be scared,” she says,
gentle now. “Vulnerable is scary.”
“No.” I shoot down.
“No. Uh-uh. This ain’t about me anymore.” I wipe sweat off my brow with the edge of Celie’s phone case. “You’re not grasping the severity of what I’m dealing with here. Three words, three syllables, Dr. Mitchell: Post-nut cry.”
I close my eyes, remembering—
“Then after? He didn’t even fuck me.” I laugh under my breath. “Could’ve tried. Didn’t. Even after telling him it was a one-night thing. I handed the kid no strings, no consequences. And he said no. Said he didn’t wanna ruin it.”
My chest tightens.
“So I leave him high and dry… and this fucker waits every night. Twenty-eight nights in a row.”
I blow out a breath, rub my temple.
“He’s Greek tragedy-level.”
I laugh again,
but it’s gravel and scraping my throat.
“And people like me shouldn’t be handed people like him. I’m the grim reaper of intimacy. I crush feelings like dead flowers. I destroy people I care about.”