Random Acts of Hope (21 page)

I stepped into the hall, opened my door, stepped in, and took a deep sniff. “You nailed it perfectly,” I marveled.

“Apartments are part of the reason I’m here.”

“You want to move in?”

She choked with laughter. “No. I want you to move out.”

“Huh?”

“I’m moving in with Sam.”

“Congrats. You mother will flip her shit.”

“I don’t care.”

I couldn’t help but smile wider. “Double congrats.
Joining the ‘I don’t give a shit what my parents say’ club is a big leap for you. For anyone.”
 

She ignored the comment.
“And I want you to take over the lease on my apartment.”

“
Y
our apartment? The shoe box?” Amy had this weird little studio apartment carved out of the corner of a building. Literally. She had to peel her futon mattress back at one corner to be able to open her front door.

“It’s $400 a month less than what you pay for this festering butthole.”

“That’s
my
festering buttho
le. Q
uit insulting it.”

“My place is cheaper, and if I find someone to take over the landlord will let me out of the lease.”

“$400 a month would be awesome to cut out of my budget,”
I agreed.
 

“That’
s
two
or three
fewer parties a month you’d have to do,” she said with an eye roll.

“Is that why you want to move in with Sam? To cut down on
his
stripping?”

“No!” she snapped. But there was a glimmer of truth there. “It’s because we love each other.”

“
And
you want him to get out of stripping.”

“Okay, sure. If the band keeps getting all these gigs then soon you—he—might be able to get out of it. I don’t mind it that much, it’s just…it gets hard, you know? Being the girlfriend and knowing all these hands have been on him. The nights he comes home smelling like other women’s perfume and body lotion. Knowing that. Imagining it. It’s just…”

“You trust him?”

“Of course I do!”

“Then don’t worry about him. Sam adores you. He’
d
never cheat on you.”

“That’s
not
it!”

“
T
hen what is it?”

“
I
t’s more about wanting him to excel at what he’s really good at. The drumming. If he came to me and said the stripping was his life’s work and he loved it and wanted to do it forever, I’d honor that. But it’s not. And so if we can spend more time together and deepen our relationship and—”

“And save money.”

She nodded.

The way she was acting was a little too…something. Angry? Resentful? Hesitant? Amy was always a mi
x
ture of so many things under the surface that you couldn’t put your finger on. Charlotte could be quiet and intense, but in a totally different way. That flashpoint temper was underneath and you always knew where you stood, emotionally, with Charlotte.

Amy was a complex labyrinth, and while I’d known her since we were toddlers, I wasn’t sure I actually understood her any more today than I did when I was two.

“W
h
y else are you here?” The best way to deal with a mystery
wa
s to expose it to sunlight.

She seem
ed
shocked and yet not at all surprised by my question.
T
hat
wa
s what
I
mean
t
—Amy
wa
s too many reactions all layered into one. “I’m here to talk about Charlotte.”

“You and everyone else. Darla’s been picking at me for weeks.”

“She won’t bug you for a while. She’s deep in the fur.”

“The
what
?”

“Writing. Oh, never mind. Anyhow, back in h
i
gh school you wouldn’t tell me why yo
u
and Charlotte broke up. She called me a few times and I didn’t know what to do.”

“Was this before or after…”

“After. After the prom.” Sam had completely disappeared off the face of the earth during our senior prom and Amy had been so sad, while I was at the beginning of my fuck-anything-with-a-pulse phase, and in a stroke of genius—and not one of my finer moments—I’d been gentlemanly enough to accept her flower. Pop her cherry.

Be her first.

We weren’t weird about it except when we were weird about it.

“
What did you do?” I asked, wondering where she was headed with this and getting a dark feeling about it.
 

She shrugged. “I didn’t. Do anyt
h
ing, I mean.
I
t’s not like we were super close.”

“But you were friends,” I protested. Amy was right—she didn’t really hang out with Charlotte back then, but the edge of our different social circles did form a
V
enn diagram with overlap sometimes.

“I was seventeen and freaked out by Sam’s silence and…you know.”

“Right. Hey, no judgment. I didn’t exactly handle things well back then, either.”

Long sigh. “And that’s what’s got me thinking, Liam.”

“What.”

“How you handled Charlotte’s
p
regnancy.”

A slow burn began. “You’re going to lecture me now about breaking up with her back then?”

“
N
o. No, seriously. No lectures. More just a nagging thought about what you said about your…” She waved at my crotch.

“My dick.”

“Your sperm.” Her faced scrunched up and she asked, without looking at me, “Are you really sure you’re sterile?”

“Have you and Darla been plotting this?”

She looked genuinely surprised. “Darla?”

“Okay, never mind. She asked the same question.” I blew out a long puff of air and ran my hand through my hair. Ew. I needed a shower. “Look, all I know is this: my mom,
dad,
and my doctor
s
told me, twice, that I can’t have kids. Ever. My sperm are like
Tony Romo: they can’t do the job when it matters.”
 

“You keep joking about it, but that has to really hurt. I know I don’t want kids
yet
, but I know I want
k
ids. If someone told me when I was sixteen that I could never, ever have them, it would be devastating.”

Who knew this would turn into a therapy session?

“Sure.”

“Liam.” She said my name with that tone women get, the kind where they want you to be Sensitive Man and explore your feelings. Here’s the thing: I don’t have feelings the same way women do. Women have layer after layer after layer of feelings.

Mine are just one big thick chunk of rock. No, really.

“You want me to cry and tear my clothes and talk about how much it sucks?” I smile
d
a sick grin, one that ma
d
e me feel a little man
ia
cal. “I could.” I play
ed
with my thumb cuticle, pulling at the skin until it bled. The blood made me think of Charlotte and I touched my scab, the
head
wou
n
d healing nicely.

“Is that how it really feels?”

“
I
t sucks,” I repeated. “
I
t sucks to know that I have to carry this into every single romantic relationship I ever have, and to know that some women will reject me as husband material because I can never, ever be a biological father. That’s the phrase the doctor used. Both doctors, actually. Mom made me go to two different specialists.”

Amy just nodded. Maybe I had more to say about it than I realized.

“And both of them said ‘biological father’ and were careful to say that reproductive technology meant my future wife and I could use donor sperm. I was sixteen. I didn’t want to talk about sperm in front of my mother. Sure as hell didn’t want to jerk off in a cup looking at naked pictures of Jenna Jam
e
son or
Asia Carrera
a
nd
hand my fresh goo off to get tested.”

Blood poured down my thumb and I sucked it, the metallic taste helpful somehow. “
T
hey both said that and I went back home and stared at my ceiling and pretended everything was fine when Charlotte asked me.”

“That was junior year, right?”

“Yep. Her senior year.”

“And you never told her.”

My hands started shaking. It wasn’t cold. “No. I just…should I have? Probably. But you don’t play in a band and run cross country and play soccer and study for AP History and go to football games and get high
in
T
revor’s garage and then throw out ‘Hey, Charlotte, if you ever want to be a mommy you’ll have to shove another guy’s jizz up your love tunnel in a doctor’s office to have a baby if you stay with me.’”

“Ouch.”

I spread my hands wide. “Reality is nothing but pain.”

“
You don’t really believe that.”
 

“Try me.”

She thought for a minute. “Two different specialists? And no hope?”

“One of the doctors said in the future there might be some way they cu
t
out my ball and squeeze a functional sperm out of some tissue. I don’t remember the details, but he said there’s a tiny sliver of ho
p
e if I let them half castrate me.”

Amy look
ed
like someone watching
The Human Centipede
for the first time.

“Yeah. I know.” I
s
wallow
ed
hard and whis
p
er
ed
, “But I’d do it if it meant I could
have kids
. If it meant I wouldn’
t
…well, you know.”

She reached over and grasped my hand. “I know.”

“The part that suck
ed
the most, though? Wrapping it.”

She snatched her hand back. “What?”

“I can’t get a chick pregnant. I can still get an STD, though, but the spermies don’t work, and I still have to use condoms. If there’s one thing being sterile is good for, it’s getting out of taking a shower with your socks on.”

“You make no sense.”

“Sure I do. Sex with a condom on is like taking a shower with your socks on.”

She slapped my shoulder. “That is such a stupid comparison.”

“Go ask Sam. He’ll tell you the same thing.”

“You
do
wrap it, I hope? Sometimes we all wonder if you’re a
Petri dish
.”

That, of all the things out of her mouth, finally offend
ed
me. “I get tested every two months or so. Just went through it at the department of health. Clean as can be.”

“If you’re sleeping with Charlotte, you better be. Not
h
ing like passing on an STD to a woman whose job involve
s
teaching coeds how
not
to get them.”

Good point. “Hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“
T
hink about what she does for a living, Liam. Why would she choose to do sex toy parties and work in
r
esid
e
nce
l
ife?”

“For fun and good stories?”

Amy rolled her eyes
and stood gingerly. “Speaking of sex toys—”
 

“
L
et’s not.”

“Ask her for a catalog next time you see her. I’d love to buy some new—”

I shoved her out the door. “Thanks for coming over! Yes on the apartment! Goodbye!” I said loudly over her talk of buying dildos and warm-water flesh simulators.

Bad enough she succeeded in getting me to talk about my
feewings
.

But to make me talk about her sex toys? That was
a low blow.
 

Liam

“This whole climbing-through-the-window-in-the-dark thing was cute and romantic at first, but now it’s just a massive pain in the balls. Like Darla,” I groused as I hefted myself into Charlotte’s apartment.

“You let Darla touch your balls?” Charlotte asked in a throaty voice. All the lights were off and I could hear, but not see, her. This was a rare night off for me—no stripping, no performances, no practices—and I was looking forward to an entire night with Charlotte. And breakfast with Charlotte. And leaving with the smell of Charlotte on my cuticles, in my ears, on my beard…

“Where are you?” I asked through laughter.

“Right here. Come and find me.”

I stood up a little straighter at that command. Were we playing a game?

I love games.

Especially
winning
games.

As my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I walked into her bedroom, following the only dim source of glow I could find. Upon closer examination, I discovered candlelight. The strong, perfumy odor of lavender tickled my nose. And my cock.

Because
candles
?

Candles meant I was getting laid.

And then my cock realized there was
leather
.

On Charlotte.

On Charlotte’s tits and
ass
.

My cock did that cheering thing, like Kermit the Frog.
Yayyyyyyyyy!
Arms in the air and flailing and everything.

And then it got even better, because Charlotte was stretched out on her bed wearing a black leather corset, some black leather…
thing
with garters and fishnet stockings, and her nipples popped over and out of the bustier. Bright red stilettos, the kind you want to have digging into your ass while you’re buried balls deep in a woman, perfected the look.

I was going to eat her right now.

“What is this all about?” I asked as I striped my clothes off, from 0 to Naked in 1.2 seconds. Faster than a Ferrari. Powered by 8.0 Litre Hard-on.

“Product samples from my company,” she said in that low, sexy voice. “They asked a few of us if we wanted to try out some of the new BDSM-themed items.
And they sent me an Esme 2.0.” She nodded toward the corner.
 

Esme stared back, doing her best Mr. Bill imitation.

“Version 2.0? What’s the upgrade?”

“Vibrating vagina simulator.”