Dodging Trains (14 page)

I sway my hips slowly. I’m dancing, not having sex, and there’s a difference in how I move. I hold her carefully. Want her to follow me, play, and slowly she relents, her hips doing slow undulations with mine.

I bring her closer to me. Smile down at her as the song I hummed turns to a whisper. I bend my head. Run my nose along her ear, breathe against her hair while I make our bodies sway wider. Paislee’s hands slip around my neck and rest there, the length of bare forearms warm against my skin.

“Wait,” I whisper and lean over for my phone. I point it at Dad’s speakers, click, and a ballad streams out of them.

“That’s better.” I smile and scissor her in against me, my arms crossed over her lower back. She adapts quickly to my flow, understands how I want us to roll.

My dick is hard from her nearness, but I ignore it because this intimacy is of a different kind. It’s of agreeing to the music, to the joint movement of our bodies and being in a sensation that’s not a race toward an end.

When the song fades, her head is against my chest. Her shoulders should be relaxed, her smile easy and finding mine, but she’s tight shoulders and spine that holds pain.

Carefully, I gather her hair in a ponytail. Pull her head back so I can see her face without her slipping out of my arms.

“Baby?” I ask. “What’s going on?” She drops her hold around my neck and shakes her head, sniffling. She’s mad at herself.

“It’s nothing. Gah, I try not to be all emotional and stuff, but—it’s just, I’ve never danced like this with anyone.”

“And you hate it?” I smirk. Girls and crying, man. All over the place.

“Right. You’re a terrible dancer.”

“Can we have sex now?” I try for puppy-eyes, which doesn’t come as easily as the Stare-Down. My request, maybe my half-assed pleading, makes her roll wet eyes at me.

“Pretty please? You know you like it. I kick ass at making you come.”

“You kick ass at being silly is what you do.”

“Aw. What about the guns?” I ask, flexing to remind her how she gasped at them earlier. “Are they silly too?”

She slumps against my body, laughing quietly, and I gather her close another moment. It’s bizarre how I don’t get tired of her weight in my arms.

I bend my knees, lock an arm around her thighs, and heave her over my shoulder. She lets out a squeak of surprise that goes straight to my cock. Yeah, let’s be honest: I’m definitely thinking sex at this point.

“All righty. Time to bring you to my cave to give you a first-degree encounter with the guns. And a few of their friends.”

“Keyon!” she cries while I run up the stairs with her, and right then I decide I’ll possess her so hard she’ll cry that way from pleasure too.

PAISLEE

I
’ve got the lights off
in my apartment, it’s late, and I’ve just returned from Keyon’s house. Confusion reigns in my mind and in my heart. All I’m sure of is I’ve been spending too much time with that man. And soon he’s leaving, and I wish he wasn’t.

Funny how one has a system that works, then a small thing happens, like an old friend popping by, and that system crumbles. It’s just for a few days though. Once Keyon has left, I won’t slink away from Mack anymore when he needs me. I’ll pick up the phone when Mr. Sharmack wants some warmth added to his cold marriage—and that wholesome guy at the grocery store, he deserves an
“I’ll be there”
to his text messages. There’s nothing wrong with any of these men.

I just can’t seem to stomach the thought of my skin against anyone’s but Keyon’s at the moment. I stroke Old-Man’s mirror, my Murano, the aged gold of its surface smooth against my fingertips.

I’m not much for seeking out my own reflection in general. Ironic since I work at a mirror factory, I know. Like everyone else, I use mirrors for makeup and hair, maybe to check for smears, but that’s it.

It’s a matter of time how long a person can stare at herself and not find flaws. Depending on the mood, I’ve seen people last minutes before they do, while others break down after seconds.

In high school, I learned what girls commiserate over in the restroom:

Uneven lips. Crooked noses. Zits. Double chins. Overgrown eyebrows. Hairlessness where there shouldn’t be. I never chimed in when they complained.

Me, I’m right at two seconds when it comes to finding my flaws. Mine are not nouns fixable with colors and powder. They’re adjectives I’ve learned to shy away from. Tonight, I’m particularly fragile. A few of my adjectives float through my mind before I can stop myself:

Dirty.

Shattered.

Broken.

Unworthy.

Ugly
, because an unflawed exterior doesn’t equal beauty.

In freshman year, the girls made a few attempts at pulling me in with their self-deprecations, but I couldn’t play along. When I withdrew, they stopped including me, their chatter dying whenever I entered the girls’ room.

“She thinks she’s so pretty,” I overheard. “Little Miss America is too good for normal people,” they whispered, seeing only smooth skin, big eyes, façade, façade, façade. They didn’t know train stations devour harmony, that I was worthless, and that I held onto sanity by willpower only. Even so, I understood how lucky I was when their whispers never grew loud enough for me to be bullied like Keyon.

Since Old-Man gifted me my gilded Murano, I’ve shied away from regular mirrors as much as I can. If I glance quickly into it, I glimpse the woman I would have been if the train station never happened. She is one that I almost like.

Lately, I’ve been craving this fairy tale me more often. At home, I can dim the light and watch my silhouette without pain, which beats the sharper image under the ceiling fixtures in the factory.

To see my outline isn’t enough tonight though. I need to glimpse my soul in my eyes, to face confusion and anxiety.

I turn the dimmer knob. My room slowly brightens. I squint so I can regulate the sight of me. Like always, the hue of the mirror comforts me, and I dare myself to widen my eyes.

I blow a sigh of relief. Move up on my toes and step closer. It’s four in the morning, I’ll have to get up for work in two hours, but here I am, a crazy person drinking in my own expression like I’m looking for evidence.

Keyon wanted me to stay the night, but I couldn’t. “I’ll be working early,” I told him and couldn’t help touching stubble that’s the softest thing on him. If I could, I’d have remained there and kept stroking his face until after he fell asleep. Instead I woke him up to let him know I was leaving.

“Breakfast date then?” he’d said.

“I can’t. I don’t have breaks that early at work.”

“So lunch,” he decided. “At your mother’s café?”

I could only imagine Mom’s hovering and poorly disguised winks. “I can do Yellow Pub if you’re there at twelve sharp.”

“Ah, early lunch. I like it,” he husked, sleepy and delicious from the bed. For a second, I almost considered staying. Falling asleep on his arm.

My thoughts fade as a dull ache at the apex of my legs claims center stage. I want to rewrite that phrase from an old Michael Jackson song—
I’m a lover not a fighter
—for Keyon.
I don’t actually have a rewrite though, because Keyon is a fighter even when he loves.

My eyes enlarge, the mirror adding gold to the green. As I undress, I try to sum up how I feel. I hold cloth-wrapped ice against my girly parts to soothe the soreness after Keyon’s ministrations.

Since we’ve reconnected, I’m more fascinated with Keyon Arias than ever. He’s thoughtful, impulsive, funny, sweet—and too damn ferocious for any normal human being.

He fights me, breaks me down, loves me so hard he shoves me to the fringes of fear. With him, pleasure mixes with terror, and I lose the ability to breathe. I hate it. I love it. I want it.

To me, sex is ten times bigger with Keyon than with any of my other friends. I’m sad he’ll be leaving, but I’m relieved as well; with him it’s a new way to mend what I’ve mended for a decade, but I’m not stupid enough to think it’s healthy. Because in the long run, that delicious sting of surviving the night in his bed can’t possibly be without consequences.

“Beauty means nothing,
and you’re dumber than I thought if you don’t see that.” I’m bristling, not okay with the turn our lunch has taken. Impatient, I pull dead lettuce out of my salad. I don’t have another plate, so I just leave it on the table. Keyon doesn’t flinch at my outburst. Rather the opposite. His eyes go bright with humor, and I want to smack him in the face.

“So you don’t allow people to talk about your looks?”

“Duh, I can’t control what people do,” I say, contradicting myself and glaring at him. “But—”

“But I’m not allowed to say it?”

“You’re my
friend
.”

“Right, friends don’t tell friends they’re beautiful.” Keyon nods solemnly. I’m desperate. He’s leaving tomorrow morning, and he’s got to understand more of me than this before he does.

“Listen up, buddy,” I say, straightening in my seat. He’s slouching against his backrest, panther-like and hot and gorgeous, and even as erect as I sit, I have to tip my chin up to stare him down.

“I. Am ugly as shit in here, okay?” I tap my sternum hard enough to make sound. “There’s freaking mud in here, Keyon; I’ve got no spine, and I’m a total loser. I barely made it through high school. My only aspiration in life is to remain sane. You think that’s beautiful?”

The glint of amusement drains from his eyes. For an instant, he takes in what I’ve said. Then his eyes darken, and he drags himself up, arms on the table. “There is nothing ugly about you.”

“No? I sleep with every guy I get my hands on”—I hiss my weakness, my sin, my saving grace into his face—“and I don’t
give
a damn.”

“Because you’re hurt.”

“Hurt? You don’t understand. I’m ruined. I’ll never be anything but ugly.” I try to pull away, but he locks my hands tight in his.

“Give up,” I say. “You won’t be the first.” There’s a spasm in my throat as if I’ve been crying. I haven’t.

“Give up what, Paislee?”

I look around me in the restaurant, not wanting to become the entertainment. My heart commits offbeat bounds beneath my ribs. “Give up on me.”

“Shut. Your mouth.” Keyon’s voice is so low the vibrations hit me before the sound does. I should be offended.

I blink, needing my eyes closed. The thing about thoughts is, they don’t stop spinning, and I didn’t filter myself before speaking. So I let my emotions spool off and litter out regrets of the kind I don’t even let myself think.

What does it matter though? I
want
him to see how despicable I am.

He took me to lunches and dinners. Slow-danced with me and wanted me to sleep over after we’d had sex. I’ve felt special. It’s not right.

“You listen to
me
, Paislee Marie Cain,” he says in that same, low voice. He grabs my upper arms and pulls me so close his lips almost meet mine. When he continues, warm air wafts over my mouth as he speaks. “It so happens that people don’t become ugly from being raped as a child. The ugly ones are the sons of bitches who commit those deeds.”

“Are you sure?” I say though he’s said it before and it’s a truth everyone knows. “Because I think…” I start, but then I can’t continue. I haven’t been this honest with anyone before, and it makes me want to cry. Fuck, it shouldn’t be this hard to keep stuff at bay. I have
years
of practice.

“What?” his pitch softens, thumbs sliding up my arms, giving me strength. “Tell me, baby.”

I cover my mouth and swing away from the bar. I don’t want the waiter to have more to gossip about when it comes to me. I try to speak again, but my voice has disappeared and the only thing left in my throat is a sob.

“I think,” I whisper, trying again.

Keyon gets off the chair and sinks down in front of me. “What are you thinking?”

“That being raped is a chronic disease, and I’ve caught it, and I’ll never be in remission.” My nose is runny.

“No, no, no,” he says, voice unsteady as if he’s feeling my pain too. “Don’t ever think that way. Tell me you don’t.”

“I’m chock-full of it. I feel like his evil lives inside of me and breeds ugly on a daily basis.” A weird little laugh forces its way out between my whispers. “I don’t even know who I’ll be in twenty years. It’s a fucking daily fight, Keyon, to not let it overtake me.”

“Then fight,” he says. He pulls me up from the chair and into his arms in the quietest hold. “Keep fighting it. Hell, we all fight something. And tell yourself that instead of mud and ugliness, you’re full of love and unselfishness and beauty.”

“Never beauty,” I mumble, stubborn.

“Always beauty. Here.” He shows me, cupping my face. “Here.” He touches my heart. “Everywhere. And no child-slaying monster can ever change that.”

“Someone’s here to see you,”
Old-Man grumbles, a flicker of contentment hitting the blue slits of his eyes. “I need you back at two though. Don’t be late.”

I inhale at who’s in the low opening to the break room. I’m not on break yet. No, I’m just tidying up after the boys. Old-Man and Mack had cans of spaghetti here last night, watching a football game after work, and they did a horrible job cleaning up after themselves.

Keyon ducks his head to get all the way in, and he’s in my private space in a way that’s almost as big as when we have sex. Keyon has been here before—I’ve shown him around—but it’s different unannounced like this, and now my heart skips.

“Keyon,” I gasp like women do in movies from the fifties. This moment will become a film clip. I know it will. “What are you doing here?”

His grin is big and unapologetic. “Saying goodbye to you.”

“But we did that this morning?”

“When you left while I was downstairs, you mean?”

I bite my lip. In all fairness, we had said goodbye, but he wanted to give me something before I left, and I chickened out and took the backstairs.