7
The movie theatre is dark. We came in late.
Mark was trying to decide between popcorn and Red Vines at the concession stand, so we missed the previews, which are the best part.
I chose a rom-com last week, which meant today it was Mark’s turn to choose, and now I’m stuck watching yet another action flick with actors who can’t act and unrealistic car chase scenes.
I take a seat in one of the familiar old chairs at our local theatre, but something is different.
Something isn’t right. The seats in the theatre back home are red.
These are blue. I turn to Mark to ask if he knew that the seats were being replaced, but he shushes me.
He’s been doing that a lot lately, not caring what I have to say.
I sit down before the people behind us have a chance to get angry and turn to apologise, but they don’t have any faces.
“Watch the movie,” Mark instructs, taking the popcorn bucket from my hands. I look towards the screen. This isn’t the right movie.
“I think we’re in the wrong theatre,” I whisper.
Mark leans the popcorn bucket towards me.
I guess that means he wants me to put food in my mouth and shut up.
I reach over to grab a handful of popcorn without looking where my hand falls and accidentally miss the bucket.
My hand grazes his crotch, and I feel the outline of his penis.
He jumps with surprise at my touch but doesn’t move my hand, so I leave it there.
He frantically searches around us to see if the faceless strangers are watching, but they’re not.
How could they? They don’t have any eyes.
I lean over, bringing my lips to his cheek.
I would give anything to have him hold me like the couple did in the movie last week.
I didn’t tell Mark, but the way the guy grabbed her, kissed her and pushed her up against the wall before making love to her turned me on.
I wish Mark would touch me like that. Maybe he feels the same, and that’s why he hasn’t moved my hand.
I stroke my fingertips along his shaft, feeling him grow hard and a tingle of excitement bubbles inside of me.
His hand slams down on mine, and for a second, I’m hopeful, but he grips his hand around mine and shoves it away.
“What’s gotten into you? Watch the movie,” he scolds.
I slump back into my seat. Why doesn’t he want me?
Is something wrong with me? Am I not desirable enough?
Maybe he doesn’t find me sexy. He has those magazines under his bed, and I don’t look anything like any of those girls.
I look down at my feet. I’m wearing my pink fluffy slippers.
Their colour looks vibrant against the stained cream carpet.
I must have forgotten to take them off before leaving the house.
I look up towards Mark, but he’s gone. I’m alone in the cinema, an erotic movie playing on the screen.
“Abi?” I hear a faint voice call for me. I look around, but I’m alone. “Abi, wake up.”
My eyes snap open. Where am I?
“Thank God, you’ve been asleep forever!” Luna huffs. She’s sitting on the end of my bed, already dressed in blue shorts and a tight-fitted black tank. I look around the room, taking a moment to realise where I am.
“What time is it?”
“After eleven.”
I reach for my phone. She’s right. Back home, I would be up and showered by 8 am every day, even on the weekends. One night here, and I’ve transformed into a slug who can’t figure out where they are in the morning.
“Are you seeing Sam today?” I ask.
“Maybe later. His roommate is getting a tattoo, and he went with him. Moral support, I guess. Do you want to do something? Or are you going to see Loverboy?”
I think back to the way I left things with Brooks last night. I wanted to make a plan to see him again, but I was riding on such a high that I didn’t want to push.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I’m not sure. We didn’t make any plans.” I push the blanket off my legs and place my feet on the worn carpet. I think at one point it was a light cream colour, but now it’s slightly brown and worn, after years of tenants scuffing their dirty shoes into the surface.
“That’s so unlike you. You always make plans.”
“This is the new me. No plans. Cool and mellow.” The words don’t feel right rolling off my tongue, and if I don’t believe them, I can’t expect my best friend to.
I wish I were more spontaneous and carefree, but it’s an unnatural concept.
The thought of not knowing what’s going to happen causes an anxious panic to rise in my belly.
“Or, I guess I’ll go through my class schedule and book list for tomorrow. ”
“There she is,” Luna says with a laugh, welcoming the old, predictable version of myself that she’s used to. “But maybe have a shower and brush your teeth just in case he shows up. You want to be ready to make out at the drop of a hat.”
I slip my feet into my pink slippers, and a rush of deja vu comes over me. I haven’t worn them since last week, back at home, but I have the faintest memory of seeing them up against this stained carpet. I shrug it off and trudge towards the bathroom, leaving Luna sitting on my bed.
The hot water runs over my body, and I wonder if Brooks is having a shower right now.
His wet abs would be glistening, his arm muscles flexing as he rubs soap all over his body.
I let my hand fall to my side. I’ve never touched myself before, but maybe?
It might relieve some of the pressure that’s building inside.
If I don’t like it, I can stop. I place my hand on my stomach, hesitating.
Why am I so nervous? Luna does it all the time, she told me.
She even showed me a vibrator she bought.
A pink one with little bunny ears. My fingertips softly graze my skin, causing goosebumps to form in their wake.
I’m going to do it. I move my hand lower.
“Abi,” Luna’s voice startles me. I quickly yank my hand away from my body and rip the shower curtain open to see Luna standing in front of me.
“Loverboy is here. Do you want me to tell him to come back later?”
“No,” I shout, a little too eagerly. I shut off the water and grab my towel, wrapping it around my body. “Tell him I’ll be a minute. Don’t let him leave.”
Luna raises her hands in the air, letting a sly smile creep across her face as she leaves the bathroom and closes the door behind her.
As soon as it clicks shut I bring my ear to it, straining to hear if there are voices in the apartment, but it’s quiet.
I pull the door open slightly, peeking out of the crack.
The apartment is empty, but the front door is open, so I jog into my bedroom, holding my breasts so they don’t bounce the towel loose.
I pick my prettiest bra and matching panties, they’re a soft pink with floral lace.
I pull the first dress I see out of the wardrobe and slip it over my head, a yellow sundress with thin straps and flowers embroidered on the bottom, and slip my feet into sandals.
I reach for the blind, pushing it away so I can look out into the courtyard. Luna and Brooks are standing closely together, a little too closely. If he spends too much time talking to her, he’s going to change his mind and pick her, like everybody else. I have to get out there.
I clear my throat as I approach them in an attempt to get their attention away from one another. Luna notices me first and smiles. Brooks turns as Luna shoots me a thumbs up behind his back, instantly providing me with confidence that I didn’t realise I was missing. Brooks walks towards me.
He presses his lips up against my cheek. “You look great,” he says, then whispers, “I love the wet hair,” sending a shiver down my spine.
“You crazy kids, have fun. I have to work out what the fuck I’m doing at uni tomorrow,” Luna says, before shooting us a quick wave and disappearing back into the apartment.
“What did you want to do?” I ask as Brooks reaches out and takes hold of my hand.
“You mentioned last night that you didn’t know your way around the city, so I thought I’d take you on a tour of all my favourite spots.
” Brooks leads me out of the courtyard, still holding my hand in his.
We walk past his car, and I try to picture myself sitting in the front seat, his arm around me as we drive down the road, heading off for a romantic weekend away.
“So, you’re like a real local. Did you come here often as a kid?” We stand still at a crosswalk, waiting for the cars to stop.
“Yeah, my mum brought me up on the school holidays to visit my uncle after my dad pissed off.”
“How old were you when he left?”
“Young. I don’t remember him. It was always just me and Mum.
” He looks both ways and pulls me across the road before the signal tells us to.
I’ve never jaywalked before. I quickly look around to make sure there aren’t any police officers sitting down the road, waiting for impatient pedestrians like ourselves to break the law.
With Brooks holding my hand, coaxing me with his intoxicating charisma, I feel like I could do anything.
And I would do anything to be able to stay in his presence. Even if that means breaking the law.
“When did your mum get sick? If your uncle was in the city, does that mean you looked after her on your own?” I love how much he’s opening up to me, maybe more than he’s ever done with anyone, and that has to mean he plans on showing up day after day.
Right? I need him to open up more. I need to know him.
“Mum got sick when I was sixteen. It started in her lungs. She tried everything. Chemo and radiation, but nothing worked. It spread everywhere. I had a lot of time off from school to take her to the doctor’s appointments.
I barely passed, and if it weren’t for the teachers taking pity on me, I doubt I would have graduated at all. ”
“She passed away right before graduation? That must have been hard.” He glances at me but doesn’t answer.
“You ask a lot of questions, you know that?”
My feet catch on the pavement beneath me, and I stumble. Brooks brings his hand to my stomach, catching me before I fall further. I look up into his eyes, my heart thumping in my chest. I hadn’t meant to ask so many questions. I just wanted to know everything about him.
“I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” My voice comes out as a whisper. I look down at my feet, the intensity of his eyes becoming too hard to handle. He brings his hand to my chin, lifting my face to look at him again. He brushes my almost dry hair behind my ear.
“You can ask me anything you want. But maybe we could cap it at five questions a day?” He lets out a soft laugh, and the tightness in my chest disappears. “My turn. Have you ever had a boyfriend before?” he asks, a playful smirk appearing on his lips.
“Yes, I had a boyfriend. His name is Mark.”
“How long were you with him?”
“Just over three years.”
Brooks slows down his pace, and for a moment, I worry that he doesn’t like my answer until I look up and see a shop window with a neon pizza.
“Hungry?”
“Yes, and that counts as a question, by the way.”
“It’s going to be like that, is it? Ok, I’ll make the next one count.” He pauses for a moment as we take a seat at a table in the window, and I raise an eyebrow, anticipating a question I might not want to answer.
“How often did he make you cum?”
I take in a sharp gulp of air. I had a feeling he was going to ask something sexual, but I never imagined he’d go that far. I don’t want to tell him that in all the time Mark and I were together, he never touched me the way I crave for Brooks to touch me.
“It wasn’t like that with Mark,” I reply, looking down at my menu, praying that no one can hear us.
“Did you two not have sex?”
I slam the menu down on the table. Mark’s voice is playing in my head, telling me this is not a conversation to be having in public, while Luna would tease him, calling him a prude.
I don’t want Brooks to think that of me.
I want him to think I’m sexy and cool—someone he could see himself being with.
“Yes, we had sex,” I whisper. He lets out a chuckle, enjoying the fact that he’s making me uncomfortable. He leans back in his chair and waits for me to elaborate.
“Mark didn’t like PDA. We held hands, but he didn’t like to kiss in public…
and I guess when we were alone, it wasn’t much different.
We had sex sometimes, but it wasn’t passionate.
It’s not like I have anything else to compare it to, but it just wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t like the way it is in novels.
” I hate admitting this to him. Brooks has clearly been with more than his share of girls.
I can tell by the way he confidently took charge last night, like it was just another Saturday night for him.
But it wasn’t for me. It meant something, and now he knows how pathetic I am.
I want to sink into my chair, disappear and not feel his eyes burning into my skin.
“I don’t know what kind of novels you’re referring to,” he teases, causing my cheeks to blush. “But one day, someone will come along, and you’ll have your big passionate moment. Sounds like this Mark just wasn’t the right guy.”
Is that his way of telling me that he is the right guy for me?
That he’ll be the one to give me that perfectly written moment?
The one where the male lead feverishly pushes the girl onto the bed before making steamy, passionate love to her, bringing her to an explosive climax within seconds.
Just imagining Brooks’ hands on my body makes me wish he were touching me right now.
A tall, skinny man with long brown hair and a green backwards cap approaches our table with a pen and pad in hand. I shift my weight in my seat, hoping that my blushing cheeks don’t give away my internal desires.
After ordering, Brooks stands and walks towards a small table with water jugs on it.
I take a deep breath. I miss him being close to me, but I needed a moment to collect my thoughts after his questions.
I’ve been turned on before, but never this intensely and never this often.
Since I locked eyes with Brooks on my first day, I’ve remained in a constant state of arousal.
I can’t even imagine what it would be like if he were to touch me, down there.
He returns with two glasses and a tall metal jug. Placing them on the table, he fills both with water before sliding the jug to the side. He rests his hand in the centre, his palm facing up. I reach out, without thinking, and put my hand in his.
“You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met before,” he says softly, rubbing his thumb in circles over the back of my hand.
The waiter slams plates on a nearby table with a clank, so abruptly that Brooks pulls his hand out from under mine.