Chapter 16
Julia
The bubble moves from one side of the tube to the other. The rocking that’s imperceptible to me is obvious from the movement in the level.
This is terribly inconvenient.
Right side, crossing the middle, then left.
I have half an hour to get Tony out, then Caspian, then Tony again because that man has to leave this boat or I’m in the purview of a billionaire who docked his boat on just the wrong side of some legal line.
Back-middle-forth.
The bubble spends a split second in the level zone. If I could just freeze it there, I could do this.
Oh, there’s a dorm fridge. I could put him in the freezer!
But that would take too long, and though it might freeze a bubble in place, the idea isn’t a centered bubble. The idea is Tony’s position being parallel, perpendicular or at a forty-five degree angle to the surface of the earth.
Okay, but what if the level isn’t frozen?
What if I am?
“Is what I’m thinking right?” I ask.
Tony doesn’t answer. Thank God.
I strip down.
All right. Ready to go.
All I have to do is not be as dry as a bone.
“Help me out, Tony.”
I warm up the tool. I run its ridges against me. I think of him. I hear his voice saying he’s going to fuck me on all three bunks. I remember his tongue between my legs.
A ticking clock is not conducive to sexual arousal. Neither is a level. I drop my head back on the mattress.
“Shit.”
My idea was to come long enough for the bubble to cross the center. At this rate, there’s not going to be any kind of orgasm, much less one that lasts for an entire bubble-crossing.
I get up on my elbows. I can see myself in the mirror over the dresser, knees spread apart, my entire pussy out. Right in the middle, on the dresser, Tony’s slutty little glasses are propped up.
“Hey,” I say, “look at me.”
He’s not in the glasses. He’s in the level. But they’re a reminder that he sees me. He’s watching me. He knows my legs are spread open for him.
“Can I ask you for a favor?” The glasses distort my image in the mirror as I spread myself open. “When you come back, be inside me. Be fucking me.”
I touch my opening. Wet.
“Be watching me. Say my name.”
I position the level between my legs, measuring how perpendicular it is to the earth. The boat rocks, and I rock against Tony, while his glasses watch me and I watch myself.
When I’m close, I slow down.
This needs to last or it won’t work. And I can’t play with this vertical shit.
Eyes on the glasses, I get up on my knees, lay the level on the mattress, and slowly rub against it.
When I can’t take it, I go even slower.
Then just this close to stopping, until I come, and I come so long that at some point, I’m coming while the level is at a line parallel to the surface of the earth.
He’s under me and inside me, just like I asked.
The whole man. He’s back. I did it. But he’s half on, half off the bed. Before I can get too excited, we’re on the floor and he’s on top of me.
“Julia,” he says as if he’s found a treasure he’s hunted for years. Nose-to-nose, he touches my face.
Suddenly, I’m cracked open. I didn’t know it was happening. He didn’t tap me on the counter and gently peel off my shell. With just my name, he threw me against the wall. Now I’m drippy and viscous and unprotected.
Tears drop down the sides of my face. My lungs squeeze and push air out in a burst. I can’t inhale. Fuck. I’m sobbing.
“It’s okay.” He kisses my tears. “We have you. We’re here.”
We.
It was never about Caspian or Tony. It’s about all of us.
His dick moves slowly inside me as I cry in his arms. He says nothing with his mouth. There are no words. Just his arms, which hold me tighter than the brittle shell I built.
My next climax isn’t a height of pleasure, but a depth of feeling. A release of earthly concerns. For just a moment, I am fully connected with him, and myself, and the sloppy vulnerability I’ve protected for so long.
Then the world snaps back into place. I open my eyes.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah. You?”
“I’ve been really close for awhile. I just…” He stops long enough to suck in a breath. “Wanted to keep an eye on you.”
“Thank you.”
“Also, no protection.”
He pulls out and wraps his hand around his dick.
There’s a knock at the door. “Mr. Giraldi.”
Tony calls out, “Coming!” then releases onto my stomach.
“Did you get my father the pictures?”
Tonya already knows the answer to her question, and she’s suspicious. She knows I don’t fuck around with getting things done on time, but she also sees Tony isn’t a level any more. He’s right here next to me, apple on his tray again, smiling as if he doesn’t have a single swimmer left in his balls.
“Caspian locked the phone.”
“He locked your phone?”
“If he wants privacy, that’s fine.” My toast drops off the conveyor with only one brown side. It’s fine. We need to finish the gallery and get out before the kids arrive. “I’ll figure it out.”
We hustle back to the gallery and work through the morning to get the finishing done. The staff’s already turned the hallway into a wonderland of ice cream and cake.
We put Tony on window washing and putting our shit back in the cart. He takes every task with the utmost seriousness, and only leaves three times to wash his hands.
I center the frame at forty-two inches and—since even if I had a level, it would be useless here—square it up with a metal right angle. It never seems right. I measure the wall over and over, then finally commit.
With half an hour to go, we wire up the back of the frame and hang it, then step back to check our work.
“Are we done?” I ask anyone who’ll listen.
“It’s not level,” Tony says dryly.
“Haha, funny guy.” Tonya’s dry back.
“No, I mean it. Look at it.”
I tilt my head one way, then the other. Maybe he’s onto something.
Tonya and I shift the frame while Tony directs us. Little up. Little bit down.
Heels to the back wall, we check again. Tony’s pinkie finger loops mine.
“I hate to say this,” he says with true regret in his voice.
I follow his gaze and see the problem.
“It’s not centered,” I reply, checking the time on my phone. Twenty minutes. “We can make it.”
That’s when we hear the first child scream. The second soon follows. They’re early.
“We’re done.” Tonya’s ready to go.
“We can’t leave it.”
“Don’t do this again, Julia.” Her voice has dropped half an octave. Fuck.
“We have to.” I turn to Tony for backup. “Tell them to hold off twenty minutes. They got out of school early. They’re eating cake and ice cream. They’re happy. It’s half an inch.”
“Let’s go. I’ll make you forget all about that half an inch.”
He cups my face in his palm. It would be so comforting if his thumb didn’t feel like it had a Corn Flake stuck to it. I pull it away. It’s cracking from overwashing.
The noise from that asymmetry shuts like a switch. They can take that half an inch and shove it.
“I have Vaseline,” I say.
Nigel rushes in as if the children and the workforce crossing paths is a national emergency and sneaks us and the tool cart out the other door.
I don’t want to think about how much ice cream and cake is going to end up on the walls.
My eyelids are heavy as I lean my head on Tony’s shoulder. The SkrillaKilla’s engine hums without a hitch or gurgle. I feel safe enough to drift off, but my head is too busy.
We can’t live on a boat forever. Dan needs to get back to business for the summer. Tonya needs privacy. I need to extract photos from a locked phone. My human level needs to rescue his friends from my toolbox.
Tonya counts the cash on the galley counter, making little piles, heads all facing the same direction.
She’s double-checking the second installment.
She already counted it before we disembarked from the Goddess because the bank counted the first installment twenty dollars short. Twenty stinking dollars.
We shoulda sunk that boat.