Chapter 23
CJ
Luis is staying at the restaurant, which turns out to have a handful of rooms under its proprietorship.
It is CJ, in the end, who leans into him and says, more confidently than she feels, on account of being absolutely terrified despite being ninety per cent sure this is what she wants: ‘Can you show us where you’re staying tonight? ’
They sneak off, the three of them, around the back of the courtyard and up some old stone steps, only a small lamp back-lighting them so that they fall silent, reverential, even, because to speak might break the moment.
In the darkness their resolve doth lie. The door is open, Luis doesn’t need to unlock it, and so he slips inside and lights six tapered candles to reveal a grand four-poster bed strewn with rose petals, a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket on the bedside table.
There are three glasses beside it. If CJ has questions about his prior expectations of this happening, plans he’s made for it in advance, she doesn’t ask them.
The evidence is clear. CJ knew, herself, that this was always going to unfold, and that is why she shaved her legs and used her baby oil and has condoms in her bag and changed the subject when her cousins teased her.
It’s why she’s been watching porn on her phone before bed, googling how to have a threesome MFF and scrolling for hours.
She did not admit it to herself, but she knew.
The floor is tiled, and cold. A huge sliding door reveals the street lamps of Bairro Alto, and Ash carefully draws the drapes, shuts them all away from the world, and the lingering noises of the party.
Luis hesitates, like he’s not sure how this all works, and so CJ moves to get the champagne, lets the water from the melted ice drip on her thigh as she opens it with a hiss, puts the bottle to her lips and drinks.
She hands the bottle to Luis, who does the same, and before he can swallow it down Ash stands in front of him to reach up for a kiss, so the champagne spills out of Luis’s mouth and down her chin.
Ash drinks what she can and then Luis uses the flat of his tongue to lick the spillage from Ash’s clavicle to her chin, like a wolf, like a predator, like a man about to have the very best sex of his life.
Ash tips her head back, lets him lick her, and CJ stands there and watches her best friend paw at her new friend, a woman who is beautiful and interesting and who, CJ thinks, she would very much like to taste herself.
Sod it. Miguel and Todd were right. She does want to fuck her. She has done for a while. And so, why not? She can’t think of a single reason against it. Not now she’s here.
Ash and Luis kiss, and Ash puts a hand to Luis’s chest so that he moves backwards, falling to sit on the edge of the bed.
CJ reaches for the bottle, takes another gulp of the zesty bubbles, and watches as Ash undoes the top button to Luis’s shirt, and then another.
Ash looks at Luis, her eyes bright and hungry, and Luis lets out a sound, a grunt of happiness, and CJ wonders if this was what it was like between them when they got together, if this is how they always are, always have been. Slow. Purposeful. Teasing.
Ash undoes a third button and then pauses, a lazy smile wreathed across her pretty face.
She looks up at CJ and tips her head, motions for the champagne.
She watches CJ as she drinks, passes it off to Luis.
Nobody has spoken, yet, not since they were downstairs, this is all wordless and suggestive and hot as anything CJ has ever experienced in all her days.
Ash pulls down one shoulder of her dress, and then the other.
It falls down to her waist to reveal she is not in a bra, and after the suggestion CJ has had of Ash’s breasts, for the first time CJ is actually seeing her, naked. Impeccable. Complete.
CJ doesn’t know the etiquette, but she cannot stop staring at her friend’s generous pink nipples.
They’re stood to attention, staring at CJ right back, and Ash is so petite, so slender, almost bird-like in frame, and CJ feels very certainly that when she reaches out to touch her she will be gentle. Oh so very gentle.
‘You’re beautiful,’ CJ says, breaking the quiet, and Ash looks almost shy at the compliment, but pleased.
‘Come here,’ Ash whispers, and Luis looks on, bottle between his fingers, nibbling at his own lip, already straining at his trousers.
CJ steps forward and takes his free hand, grips it tightly.
He gives it a squeeze, lets her know she’s OK, this is all right, and when he releases her she looks down at him, smiles, communicates her thanks with her eyes.
She reaches out to brush Ash’s hair over a shoulder, soft like spun silk, and CJ’s fingers graze her naked shoulder, so smooth CJ is surprised her fingers don’t leave imprints.
Ash pulls CJ towards her at the waist, grip delightfully, unexpectedly, firm.
They’re close. Closer than they have ever been, CJ able to feel Ash’s champagne-y breath on her face, smell the tuberose of her perfume.
CJ moves to take the back of Ash’s head, tilts herself at an angle, and then their lips touch.
CJ has always enjoyed kissing, the curious probing of it, the dance of tongues, the push/pull, the exploration of it all.
She could kiss for hours. But this, kissing Ash, isn’t like anything she’s called kissing before.
It is light, gentle, it is like her mouth has met a cloud.
There’s a softness, and CJ is so very aware of the femininity of Ash, the smoothness of Ash’s skin, the total absence of stubble, of anything rough, that she giggles, involuntarily, and Ash murmurs into her mouth, ‘What?’ but CJ doesn’t answer.
She has a sense of falling. Leaping, wind in her hair, not a dangerous fall but an exhilarating one, like the parachute cord has already been pulled and so she is bobbing through the air, taking in the sights, being aware of herself, of Ash, of every tickle and sensation and stroke and pulse and flicker.
Where men are hard, angular, Ash is curves and suppleness.
They bend and mould into one another, and at some point the kissing gets firmer, CJ is pushed up against the length of Ash, who is taller, but not as tall as CJ had first thought.
She surrenders, stumbling back into Luis’s legs so that he is able to grab her from behind, pull her into him, whisper into her ear that she is so fucking sexy.
Luis. He is here. CJ had forgotten that.
He runs his hands up and down her outer thighs, and it distracts CJ enough that she pulls away from Ash.
Luis takes this as opportunity to pull her down so she sinks onto his lap, onto the bed, and then his lips are on the back of her neck, up towards her ear, his hands snaking around to her chest, and CJ doesn’t know what she feels then, what she thinks, except that she longs for Ash, where is Ash?
She forces her eyes open, searches for her friend.
Ash is looking on, pupils big as full moons.
A hand is playing over the lace of her panties.
CJ has never even allowed herself that image, the image of Ash touching herself, in even her wildest fantasies.
CJ reaches out, grabs at Ash so that she’s on the bed too, and for a second there’s a three-way kiss, three tongues, three noses, three sets of lips, but it’s awkward, doesn’t really work, and so CJ slinks back and watches Luis and Ash kiss, only this time she thinks, no, I don’t want them to kiss, I want her to kiss me.
This feeling grows. She wants to switch off her brain, to be here, enjoy that this is finally happening, but every time Luis touches her she feels mad that he’s here, resentful, and that isn’t hot, isn’t sexy, it’s annoying, like noticing a growing pimple, under the skin, not that Luis is a pimple, but rather she can’t leave it alone, can’t stop prodding at the thought now she’s had it.
Luis’s hand is on her leg again, Ash is loosening his belt to free him, moving to take off his trousers fully.
Ash leans in to kiss CJ and as she does it CJ tries to smile, but Ash catches the dishonesty of it, frowns, and that’s it, that’s the wallpaper coming off the wall until there’s a hole big enough to stick her elbow in and CJ can’t lie in the face of that frown.
She can only voice her truth. Now she knows her truth, now it has hit her like a freight train, nothing else can be done.
Ash isn’t CJ’s friend.
CJ is in love with Ash.
And so, CJ cannot share her, cannot commune with her this way, with Luis here. Luis was the excuse. Ash pauses. CJ closes her eyes.
Luis says, ‘CJ?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she says, standing up. ‘I can’t do this.’
And then she leaves.
Outside, in the courtyard, Miguel sees CJ making her way to the exit from where he’s twirling around on the dance floor.
‘Cousin?’ he yells, but she ignores him, pushes past anyone in her way.
Hot tears sting at her eyes. Her whole chest could collapse in on itself, but she has to get away from here, and she has to do it now.
As the doorman lets her out she goes over on her ankle.
Stupid fucking shoes. She pulls them off and without them is able to break into a jog, and then a run, and she speeds down the hill towards home at increasing haste, nausea growing, because this is awful.
This is horrible. She doesn’t want to be in love with Ash.
She doesn’t want to be in love with anybody.
It isn’t safe. People leave. People hurt other people.
Ash doesn’t love her back. Ash is going soon, anyway.
Not safe, not safe, not safe, not safe.
She scrambles for the house key in her bag, takes the stairs two at a time, pushes into the flat with such force that the babysitter jumps up off the sofa and springs into a kick-boxing stance.
‘Fuck,’ the babysitter says. ‘I thought you were a fucking intruder!’
CJ stands there, sweating, panicked, drunk, suddenly sober, sad as anything.
‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s just me.’
The babysitter looks at her like she’s gone insane. Maybe she has.
‘OK,’ the babysitter says. ‘I’ll just … get my stuff?’ A question.
CJ has scared her. CJ has scared herself.
‘Yes. Thank you. I’ll send you the money.’ She goes to the kitchen sink, pours herself a glass of water. Downs it. When she’s done she says, ‘I’ll put an extra twenty euro on what I owe you. For acting crazy.’ Her words come out staggered, staccato.
‘CJ,’ the babysitter says. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes, yes,’ she says. ‘I drank too much, that’s all.’
It’s only when the babysitter has gone and she’s curled up like a question mark around her son that CJ finally cries, soundless tears pushing their way out of the eyes she has scrunched shut until she makes so much noise she has to push her face into Jorge’s pillow.