Chapter 51
My phone rang early in the morning. My dad was being discharged tomorrow, and I thought it might be the hospital, still in a dreamy fog when I answered.
“Hey,” Jay said softly.
It was barely eight on the East Coast. I looked at the call to make sure I wasn’t still dreaming. “Hey?”
“Sorry to call so early. I just wanted to see how your dad’s doing. Are you okay?”
I rolled over sluggishly onto my side. “He’s fine. I don’t know what I am right now.”
“You don’t have to be or do anything. You can just be tired and confused or nothing at all.”
“Being nothing feels good.” I yawned. “Oh yeah, and my mom’s moving out in like three weeks.
So now I’m the one who’s gonna have to clean my dad’s stinky foot, like, what the fuck.
” I was laughing, my stomach muscles seizing.
Jay laughed too. Then my laughter dried up, and I was walloped with exhaustion.
“I’m sorry for hanging up on you. That was mean and unnecessary. ”
“It’s all right. I can never really stay mad at you for long.
” I grinned like an idiot against my pillow.
He said, “Here’s a weird synchronicity for you.
My dad has to get surgery on his knee again so I guess we’ll both be taking care of our dads’ stinky feet.
Well, my dad’s knee. And actually it probably won’t stink now that I’m thinking about it. ”
“When’s his surgery?”
“April.”
He told me about the latest saga with his students. I told him about my writing. We laughed at each other’s jokes. Our exchange felt so normal, easy, that it didn’t hit me until then that I had never told him about my dad.
“Wait. How did you know about my dad’s foot?”
“Tristan told me.”
I froze, blindsided. I had called Tristan needing to be comforted, not so he could turn around and call Jay.
What had he said to him? I could almost hear them speaking in some masculine Morse code: Cat called crying about this crazy situation with her family, yeah, I don’t know why she called me and not you, I guess ’cause you guys are taking a break or whatever, but yeah, you know I’m not really good with that stuff, she’s still basically your girl, so you should really check on her, man, her dad shot himself in the foot or something, it’s wild, brace yourself.
I gathered all my strength and said evenly, “Thanks for calling. I need to get ready for work.”
Jay seemed startled by my shift in tone but didn’t say anything. “Oh, okay, yeah sure. Let me know if you need anything.”
I know Tristan had seen me through his peephole but acted surprised when he opened the door. “How’d you get into the building?”
“I followed one of your neighbors.”
“Are you all right?” He moved back so I could step inside. Seeing my face, he said, “Are you mad at me or something?”
“Why would you tell Jay about my dad?”
“Why would I—” His eyes got big. It would’ve been funny under other circumstances. “What? You’re joking, right?”
“I called you the other night in confidence.”
“I wasn’t trying to spread your business. You and Jay have been together for years, break or not. I thought it would help.”
“I would have told him if I wanted him to know.” I was more upset because I was trying to prove to myself I could be independent from Jay, but we kept being pulled back together. We kept needing each other.
Tristan looked like he was about to apologize, but then he said, “Now you see how I feel.”
“What?”
He walked into the kitchen but didn’t do anything in there, just turned back to face me. I followed him. It was like a poorly staged play. “You’ve been seeing Nia when we already talked about it.”
“Her painting me is not some weird conspiracy against you. We don’t even talk about you.” Incredibly, he seemed a bit wounded by this revelation. “And it’s not the same as you calling Jay and telling him something I told you in private.”
“Jay’s my friend.”
“Nia’s my friend too.”
“Not the same.”
“What, because you’re MEN!?”
Tristan looked confused. “No? Because we’ve been friends for like fifteen fucking years and you met Nia two minutes ago.”
I didn’t say that those fifteen years were rendered meaningless by what he was doing with me. “And I met you three minutes ago.”
“False. You met me seven years ago, but you don’t remember.” He added, “He asked me to keep an eye on you anyway, back when I moved out here.”
“What the fuck are you two, a tiny surveillance state?”
“He just wants to make sure you’re okay.”
My arms flapped in the air. “I’m fine!!!”
“Yeah, you seem fine.”
“Stop acting like you’re trying to look out for me or whatever. Did you forget the part when you made out with Nia to upset me?
His expression was dark now but with some new emotion shading it. “It didn’t work though.”
“No, you jerkoff, it didn’t.”
“No.” He shook his head. “But it did turn you on, right?”
I paused. “What?”
“Don’t act like you didn’t hear me.”
“I heard you I just—
He stepped closer, brushing a thumb over the hill of my nipple. I hadn’t felt aroused in weeks. I remembered the way desire could demolish all other feelings in one clean sweep. “You didn’t think I’d noticed?” He took my chin between his finger and thumb, his voice dropping an octave. “I know you.”
I started to speak when he dragged his tongue up my throat. My legs gave out. I caught myself against the counter. He crowded me against it. “You love that I see you for what you really are.”
“What am I?” I murmured. “Tell me.”
He hesitated, but I was in a hurry so I shoved my tongue in his ear. He groaned, “A fucking slut.”
He didn’t bother taking off my shirt or pulling my pants all the way down and they hung like a rope around my thighs.
Lifting my ass onto the oven, he said, “I should’ve known you’d like that.
” Shifting my underwear to the side, he shoved himself into me, my head hitting the cabinet.
“But who knew fucking me wouldn’t be enough. You want my girlfriend too.”
I didn’t even know if this was true. According to my vagina, my liquid legs, it was.
He cupped my breasts. “For once, I want to share you.”
I started to gasp but he caught my mouth with his. “Oh? You like that?”
“Yes,” I choked.
“You’re such a slut letting me fuck you on my stove. Should I turn the flame on?”
I nodded, losing language. Why was he being so mean to me?
I loved it!!!
He talked in a taunting purr: “Does it turn you on thinking of me inside of her? You like sharing my dick with her?”
Basically: I lost it.
“You like sharing me?” I said.
Tristan paused briefly. Without answering, he lifted me off the stove and turned me around with clumsy urgency, like he’d forgotten how to touch me.
The counter pressed against my stomach with a soothing sharpness.
He slowly wound my ponytail around his forearm then pulled it so that the crown of my head was on his shoulder.
I turned toward him, and he leaned down further, our faces close together, his breath hot in my ear.
We paused, suspended like this, eyes deadlocked.
“Tell me it’s mine,” he rasped. He pressed his forehead to my temple. It was hard, warm. “Tell me that pussy’s mine.” He was trying to sound light, but the demand came out grating.
“So, you want me to lie?”
He exhaled, dropping my hair. I straightened as he stepped back, pulling up my pants.
“It’s just something people say during sex, you know.”
“Well, I don’t really say that.”
He paused. “I don’t get you.”
He was reaching into the fridge for an apple. This incensed me, the way he bit into it so casually.
“What’s that mean?”
“Out of all the guys you’ve been with, you don’t have a preference, a favorite? Not even deep down?”
“No.”
“Bullshit.”
I gripped the counter’s edge until my palm burned. “It’s not bullshit. You’ve just been brainwashed.”
He laughed. “Brainwashed?” He walked toward me, setting his half-eaten apple on the counter to punctuate the drama.
“Everyone wants to feel special. That’s why people get into relationships, to feel chosen.
But to feel chosen you have to be the only one.
It’s not special if everyone can have what you have. ”
My throat pounded. I felt like a creature being hunted in the dark of night. “So, I’m not special to you because ‘everyone’ can have what you have?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Well, that’s sure what it fucking sounds like. American capitalism says that’s what makes something special but I’m not a commodity.”
Cupping his sack, he said, “I literally can’t have a conversation about capitalism right now, like, I’m not trying to be an asshole, I know you’re not a commodity, I just have the worst blue balls ever.”
“You’re the one who brought it up.”
“I didn’t know it was gonna turn into a whole thing or else I would’ve never said what I said. I obviously don’t want you to say things you don’t mean. It’s not like I need to hear it from you.”
“Are you sure about that?”
He laughed sarcastically, scooping his apple back up. He ate it, filling the silence with a wet, crunchy sound, and stared at the floor.
“How come you get to taunt me with you fucking Nia?”
“You’re the one that’s into it.”
“You must be into it on some level or else why are we even doing this?”
He didn’t respond.
“You’re such a fucking hypocrite, I can’t.”
He smiled joylessly. “A hypocrite?”
“Yeah, do you need me to spell it?”
His eyes burned a hole into me. “Okay, Ms. Nontraditional Relationship. You’re pretty fucking traditional when the check comes.”
“You insist on paying!”
“And I don’t mind!” he cried. “But c’mon, don’t act like you’re not traditional when it works for you.”
“Why are you even with me?” It was an honest question.
“Because I like you, I’m just not into this whole… I don’t necessarily agree with your, I dunno, your lifestyle. But you’re so much more than a relationship paradigm.” When I didn’t say anything, he said, “Are you not?”
My mom’s voice was close to my ear. I already know how this story ends, and it’s not the ending you want. “I have to go.” I couldn’t find my shoes fast enough, spinning around the room searching for them.
“Don’t leave like this.”
“I don’t feel like being insulted.”
Tossing his apple pit in the trash, he sounded genuinely perplexed when he said, “How did I insult you?”
“I’m tired of explaining.”
“Then don’t.”
“You can be a low-down cheater but I’m… I’m somehow a person with a ‘lifestyle’ you can’t get behind? What fucking sense does that make?”
He looked like he was softening, but then he said, “You realize you’re also a cheater in some ways?”
I grabbed my shoes and forced my feet into them. “You knew I was poly. You knew I was with Jay. You’re one of the only people in this who knows it all.”
He said quietly, “Yeah, sometimes I wish I didn’t.” When I didn’t respond, he said, “Let’s please not fight, okay? I’m sorry.”
“We’re not fighting.”
“We’re not?” He laughed. “Then what are we doing?”
I tripped toward the door, my shoes only halfway on. “I don’t know anymore.”