Chapter 25 #3
“I want you so badly.” It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, and may turn out to be the last. “In ways I didn’t think happened in real life, to real people.
Definitely not to me.” I let out a laugh, pausing, staring at his face through the glass, but it’s unmoved.
“I bet if you heard me, you’d laugh, say something like ‘Louisa, this isn’t a good idea.
’ And that would do it. Because god, I want you to hear you say my name, out loud, while the thing between my legs isn’t my hand, or a vibrator, but you.
Sometimes I just lay there, imagining you on the other side of the apartment, and I wonder if you’re thinking about me the way I am you.
If the days you spend a little longer in the shower is because you’ve got your hand so tightly wrapped around your cock and you’re picturing me, the way I picture you.
Desperately, wantonly. Wet. Like I am now. ”
It's bizarre to say it all now, or as much as I will let myself. Because the thing about being truly unheard and alone in the silence that belongs to you, is that the truth stops feeling as dangerous. I wonder what it is he’s imagining right now, what he thinks I’m speaking into the universe.
Maybe some script pages I memorized, my favorite monologue from a movie, or my lyrics to my favorite song.
And his oblivion gives me the confidence to continue.
“I just imagine what you’re like. You’re so intense, at everything.
Every time you look at me, it’s this expression you manage to contain.
I’ve seen it soften, but that’s not what I want.
I want, just once, for you to let me see it.
Because I know whatever is underneath, what you’re controlling, has to be devastating. And I want to be devastated by it.”
He’s just standing there, hands in his pockets. Looking back at me like he's waiting.
He has no idea he already has me.
“You told me to come to you, well, here I am. Hiding in plain sight. Not because I want to be with anyone else, not because the arrangement has gotten to me, because it’s been too long and I need a physical release.
But because I want you.” I swallow hard, as my eyes remain locked on his. “I want you... to fuck me.”
The stillness in this box holds every word I just said, absorbs it into the walls the way a confessional might, and I am deeply grateful for that because I can’t take any of it back and I'm not sure I would if I could.
He takes a step toward the door, waiting, the way he always does.
Like he has already decided and is giving me the time to catch up.
He pulls open the door when he sees me stop and reach for it.
He’s right there, filling the frame the way he fills every doorway, every room, every space, every fold of my brain I have tried to keep him out of and failed at consistently.
There's exactly enough room for me to step out and the door to close behind me.
Not enough room for anything else. Which is either very considerate or the cruelest thing he's ever done, and with him, I've learned, it's usually both. But I step out of the recording booth, and the door closes behind me. Keeping my secrets trapped within. (Even if he’s looking at me like that.)
His eyelids look lowered, desirous in a way I have only imagined. And wonder for the splittest of seconds if the air didn’t hold my secrets like I thought. “Could you hear me?”
“What did you say,” he asks, but it's more of a directive than a question.
“Nothing special,” I reply. Knowing how easy it would be to kiss him if I just lifted up on my toes even the smallest amount.
“Louisa,” he says my name and sends a shiver down my spine in a way I’m afraid he can actually see.
“Really, it’s nothing you’d care to hear,” I say, and his eyes narrow ever so slightly on me.
He tuts his tongue and shakes his head. Releasing a hair that falls into his face, and he makes no movement to put back in place. “You said no lying, remember? With you, I want to hear everything.”
“What is it you want me to say?” I give up, and I sound like it, my breathing is heavy, but his isn’t calm either.
“I want you to tell me,” he shifts his body closer, “that you want me to fuck you.” His hand lands on my hip, backing me into the wall of the booth. My lips fall open as his eyes drop to my mouth, the first time he’s looked away from my eyes since I stepped inside the booth.
“How would you know that?” I ask, my back arching me into him as his hand cages me in.
“If you think I don’t know what it looks like for you to mouth those words, to me, you are sorely mistaken.” His hand comes to cradle my face as the pad of his thumb runs across my lips, like it’s asking them to be honest.
“You’re gonna want to get a refund on the booth if you were able to hear all that.”
“I’d pay more to hear the rest.” His face is closer, daring me to close the distance, to admit what I said. And I want to, but the pit in my stomach prevents me.
“Won’t this be a ‘liability,’” I ask, breathing life into the thing I’m most afraid to admit. Hoping my tone doesn’t give me away, calling back to his phrase that stopped me in my tracks the first time I heard it.
“No, because you don’t love me.” He says it like the fact he thinks it is. “You willing to risk it?
I’ve risked everything else, why wouldn’t I add this to the list.
“Yes.” The word is strong out of my mouth, and our lips are on each other before I can question it.