For You

Chapter NINETEEN

SAWYER JONES

Frustration.

Punch-a-hole-in-the-wall frustration.

Aubrey was so near, but so far away. I felt like I was dating someone who lived in another time zone, or on another planet.

She would text me, all the time, but if I tried to make plans to see her, there was always an excuse. She was either at work, or with her kid, or just plain unavailable. Sometimes I wanted to talk to her, but her cell phone battery would be dying. All the time.

I had to wonder if what she really wanted was a new cell phone with a Boyfriend App. Boyfriend App could send her interesting and informative messages throughout the day, and she could send back smiley faces in place of communicating.

I'd have my phone out all hours of the day, and Spanky made fun of me.

“Girls are like jobs,” he said. “If that one's only giving you part-time hours, maybe you should pick up a second one. Lemme know, I'll set you up.”

We were playing a game of pool at the house, and he was kicking my ass because my head wasn't in the game.

“One of your potheads?” I asked.

He grinned, his lips pale and pink against his yellowing teeth. Spanky didn't always look like a dirtbag with a mullet. When we were younger, he used to get his tips highlighted, so he looked blond, and he used to wear clothes that didn't look like they'd been stolen from a clothesline as he was running away from someone. Today, he had on a pair of jeans that were more holes than jean, and an extra-large shirt with a roaring tiger on it. His toenails looked like they hadn't been cut… ever.

He said, “Nothing wrong with a pothead girlfriend. The sex is great, and it goes on for hours, bro. You get tired, and bored, but it just keeps going. So you do one of these.”

He grabbed my phone and plopped it on the floor, then dropped down into one-handed push-up position.

“Yeah, baby, you like that, huh?” He moved forward and back on his toes, swinging his hips into the imaginary girl beneath him while also staring at my phone. He grunted, “Just checkin' my email. Just bangin' my pothead girlfriend who can't get enough, and checkin' my email.” He flicked my phone over to his other hand and switched arms. “Aw, baby, I can't even feel my dick. Everything's numb from the waist down. You sure it's still in there?”

I grabbed my phone back.

“There's more to life than sex and drugs.”

Spanky jumped up to his feet, red-faced and grinning. “There's rock-n-roll.” He punched me in the shoulder, hard.

“You choad.”

He grinned. “Choadsmoker.” His hand darted out and he got me in the solar plexus.

The instincts kicked in and my hands flew up. “You cock. Try it again when I'm looking, and I'll lay you out.”

He stepped back to remove the temptation. “You are wound up. Let's smoke an old fashioned and I'll call some girls over. This girl I know will suck your dick like it's cherry cola.”

“Huh.” Was he talking about the blonde with the dirty mouth or the brunette who always had to pee? One time, the brunette had brought over her own toilet paper, because she knew we were always out.

Those two girls were best friends, and they both knew Janine, my ex, through school or something. After Janine and I broke up, the two of them came over together with a pie to cheer me up. An actual pie that one of them had baked.

“Party tonight,” Spanky said, running his hand back through his hair. The smell of body odor coming from his armpit made me take a step back.

“I don't know.” I glanced down at my phone for the millionth time that day, hoping to see something from Aubrey. I hadn't seen her since Tuesday, when she'd shaken me to my core in her bedroom and then practically thrown me out of her place. Now it was Saturday, and I'd had nothing but text messages from her.

Not enough.

She was at work that Saturday. I wanted to go see her, but I also got the feeling she didn't want me to swing by the bar.

The only up-side to not knowing where I stood with Aubrey was that I felt more productive than ever with my art. The big piece, the commission for a new restaurant, was coming together better than I'd dreamed. Sometimes I'd walk into my room and it would take my breath away.

Not that I was getting conceited. It was the other way around. I wondered if someone more talented than me was sneaking in and fixing it behind my back. No way had I painted something so pure and confident as that piece.

If I couldn't see Aubrey, I wanted to spend my evening working on my art, not entertaining Spanky's new friends. Some of the girls who'd been coming over looked young, like sixteen. They made me feel like a creeper, and the pathetic ones just made me sad. The hot ones disturbed me for a different reason. They were so much more available than Aubrey. I worried that one day I'd slip up and grab for some low-hanging fruit rather than chase around a girl who seemed ambivalent toward me.

Spanky was sending out messages and chattering about the party. I put some chalk on the cue and tried to focus on the game.

An hour later, I was craving cherry cola so bad it was all I could think of.

Cherry cola I could do, so I walked to the London Drugs just up the hill.

When the first customer approached me and asked me where the store had batteries, I didn't think anything of it. When the third person came up and asked if “we” still did photo processing, I finally clued in. I was wearing the last clean shirt from my closet, a blue one with short sleeves, and people assumed I was in a store employee uniform. This had happened at least once before, and Spanky made a comment about it any time I wore the shirt, which was exactly why I didn't wear the shirt unless I had no other options.

After I helped direct the gentleman to an actual employee, I dug out my phone and sent a series of text messages to Aubrey, telling her all about my hilarious blue-shirt adventure.

She didn't reply until I was back home with the cherry cola and some bags of snacks for the party.

Aubrey: I don't get it.

Me: I was wearing a blue shirt, and people thought I worked there. I would send you a photo, if you had a decent phone like regular people and could get photos.

Aubrey: :-(

Something about that frowny face set me off. What did it mean? Was she hinting that I should buy her a phone for her birthday? I didn't even know when her birthday was. Or how old she would be. I hardly knew anything about her, except that she drove me crazy.

I'd never been with a girl who seemed so unsure about having a relationship with me, yet so utterly confident about sex. Her naked body was as gorgeous and awesome as her face when she smiled. The way she'd sucked my cock had almost made my balls explode. I wanted her so bad, which is why I was so damn frustrated that I couldn't get near her.

As I stood there in the kitchen staring at her frowny face on my phone, my dick got heavy like a pewter candlestick holder suitable for bludgeoning intruders.

Maybe I wasn't lovesick, or even infatuated. I hadn't jerked off that day, or the day before, and it was time.

Back home, I ran up to my room and shut the deadbolt. I also had a key for the door's lock, and I'd use that later tonight to keep the partygoers from using my room, but for now speed was crucial.

Still standing, I unfastened my jeans and pushed them down. Catching sight of my boxer shorts confused me for a minute, like I was watching something on TV that wasn't me. I had on these ridiculous white boxers with black polka dots—definitely bottom-of-the-drawer, well-past-laundry-day stuff. I pushed them down and grabbed myself. Smooth, steady strokes, and I pictured Aubrey's mouth. Frowning. Smiling. In a straight line. Then opening and taking me in.

I thought about her tits and squeezing her nipples, rolling them between my thumb and forefinger. A heaviness rolled through me. I wanted to have her breasts under me, and to kiss in a trail down her stomach, then drop my chin between her legs and thrust my tongue into her. I wanted to grab her ass with both hands as I licked her up and down, taking my time, making her writhe beneath me. Her hands in my hair. Calling my name. Sawyer.

The thunder in my loins rolled over, twisting away and then back, as inevitable as the waves on the beach. Up on my toes, now facing the wall with the top of my head next to the light switch, I grasped around on my dresser for something. The box of tissues had been commandeered for the bathroom, so I grabbed the nearest soft thing and shot a payload into it.

After, I unclenched my teeth and shuffled my way back to flop on my bed and catch my breath. I'd just made a spectacular mess on the shirt I'd been planning to wear that night. Perfect.

I took maybe two long breaths before the front door banged and the music started. Spanky had some people downstairs, and that meant it was four-twenty time. And my night was just getting started.

The music was low enough that I could hear laughter above it—female laughter. The sound was appealing, like that of the mermaids who lured sailors to their death on the rocks.

Why was I hiding in my room with my now-limp dick in my hand instead of downstairs enjoying some social interaction?

I tossed the dirty shirt on the teetering laundry pile, got myself put together, and started down the stairs.

Spanky took one look at me and yelled, “Bro! You got that job at London Drugs! Don't give up, it makes me sad. Hang in there, something's gonna pick up for you.”

He had on a ripped shirt he'd cut the sleeves off of, paired with loose cotton pants, navy blue, with stars and moons. To top off this fashionable ensemble, he wore a pair of bedraggled Adidas sports sandals, and white tube socks. And he had the balls to rag on me?

“This is your shirt, Spankmeister.” I tugged the waistband of my boxer shorts up above my jeans. “And these are your gonch I'm wearing. I like how the soft cotton cups my sack, don't you?”

He had two girls on either side of him—the blonde and the brunette, whatever their names were. The girls were young, maybe nineteen or so, and possibly attractive under all the makeup.

The blonde licked her lips and said, “Nice polka dots. Why don't you come sit next to me and let me play connect-the-dots.”

The brunette gave me a shy wave and softly squeaked, “Hi, Sawyer.”

I recognized their faces, but still couldn't remember their names. These were the girls who'd brought me the home-baked pie after Janine dumped me.

“Pie girls,” I said.

The blonde tossed her hair over her shoulder. “We're about so much more than pie.” She wore a thin white shirt with a red lace bra clearly visible underneath.

The three were on the long sofa—the brown, floral-patterned low-rider that had no legs. I took a seat across from them in the vintage gold brocade armchair.

My gold chair had a great shape, and I'd had big plans to learn about upholstery and restore it to its original splendor, but it had smelled like dog and now it smelled like dog and incense, like the inside of a thrift store.

Spanky didn't have one of his pipes, but was rolling a joint on his lap, on the pull-out wood cutting board from the kitchen. He didn't call joints jays or doobies or spliffs, but old fashioneds.

“That's quite the old fashioned you're rolling there.”

“My friends deserve the best, and if I can't give them the best, I'll give them the most.” He grabbed his crotch suggestively.

“No thanks,” I said, laughing.

Spanky had styled his hair into a fauxhawk, the red locks pointed up and making him resemble a one of those crest-headed birds old ladies keep. He leaned over to kiss the brunette's neck. She squealed and nearly knocked the board and smattering of buds to the carpet. They started kissing, and I had no choice but to look away from them out of decency.

My eyes eventually finished the circuit of the room and returned to the blonde. Who wears a red bra under a thin white shirt? This one, that's who.

“Charity,” she said. “That's my name. I'm sure you didn't forget, since I baked you that nice pie, but I'm Charity.”

“That explains why I feel so charitable toward you.”

Her face crinkled. “Huh?” She had a short nose that made her look young, especially making that face. “I'm thirsty. We threw some cider in the fridge.”

Spanky stopped kissing his girl long enough to mutter at me, “Get the ladies a drink, you f*cking hipster douchebag with no manners.”

“Choadsmoker.”

I got up with a groan, and Charity followed me into the kitchen like a puppy.

“I have a girlfriend,” I said to her as we looked through the drawers for a bottle opener.

“She coming tonight?”

“No, she's at work. Plus she's got a kid.”

Charity made a face like she'd just smelled something awful. “Tough break. My mom was a single mom. We were always getting f*cked around by guys who said they'd be there for us, but none of them stuck until I got my little brother.”

“Tough break.”

“What's her kid like?” Charity asked.

“She won't let me meet her daughter. Actually, I don't even know if she's officially my girlfriend.”

Charity smiled up at me, all cute and blonde, face full of dimples… sexy red bra… small waist, nice hips. She had taken her shoes off, and even her bare feet were cute, with red polish on the toes. I had no doubt she wore matching red panties under her peach-colored tight jeans.

“I'm a good listener,” she said.

At last I found the bottle opener and got all four bottles open. I moved quickly to the doorway, eager to get back to the living room and the other people. It wasn't that I didn't like the conversation I was having with Charity—she seemed like a nice enough person, but I didn't want to give her the idea I was interested.

I'd never been one of those guys who had to make an effort to avoid the temptation of other girls. When I was dating someone, my loyalty was with her.

For some guys, other girls were like Jell-O. By that, I mean there was an old advertisement for Jell-O that my friends and I had seen on YouTube. In the advertisement, the announcer said that even after a big meal, there was “always room for Jell-O.” Some of the guys I knew felt that other girls were like Jell-O in that there was always room for them. And that blow jobs didn't count.

I had tried to be more adventurous about hookups, back before Janine and I started dating. Spanky and I had just moved into the house, and we threw a housewarming party to immediately set ourselves up as the most hated house on the street. In retrospect, it would have been a good idea to keep a low profile for a few months and meet some of the neighbors, but what did we know?

So, this pretty girl with long, black hair asked to get a full tour of the house. She was loud and demanding, and not really my type. I actually thought she was into Spanky, so I was surprised when she started kissing me in the upstairs hallway. Before I knew what was happening, she had my jeans down, and I found myself saying that corny thing I bet all guys say: “You don't have to do that.”

Why do guys say that? You don't have to do that.

Of course she knows she doesn't have to do that. But you know once that top button gets undone, it's heading one of three ways. Or four ways.

That zipper comes down and as a guy, you gotta say the polite line. You don't have to do that. Ridiculous. Like two women fighting over whose turn it is to pay for lunch. “You don't have to do that, Suzanne, it's my turn to pay for lunch! You paid last week, and you only had a salad.”

In my experience at restaurants, I'd seen that exact scene more times than I cared to remember. I'd also seen my share of pink lipstick on cups that had been through the dishwasher. And chewed-up soggy crackers from babies. But I digress.

The girl with the black hair dropped to her knees and kissed the head of my cock. I said the line again, and she responded by stuffing my dick in her mouth. She felt so hot, and her sucking ironically gave me the shivers. As she power-vacuumed my cock down her throat, part of me was so embarrassed for her. Who was this girl to give a blow job to some guy she didn't know? And who was I to think that was okay? I was completely single and available, but it still didn't feel right. Well, physically, it felt completely right, which was why I didn't try that hard to stop her.

After I came, she got back to her feet and hugged me. She whispered in my ear, “I'm Janine. Nice to meet you.”

What to do next?

I asked for her number.

So, we went for a date the next night, because I didn't want to be that guy. That guy who gets head from some random chick at a party.

I grew up with a lot of female cousins around, so I had some insight into the female brain, though many aspects remained a mystery.

Janine told me she'd taken something before the party—some tranquilizers her friend stole from her mother. She claimed she was a good girl, and that giving head to a stranger was completely out of character for her.

I wasn't so sure about that, especially since she invited me over to her place for “a rematch” right after our first date dinner. I went to her place because I didn't want to be that guy. That guy who feels guilty enough about a blow job to go on a single courtesy date and spend $48.77 with tax and tip, and then dumps the girl and never calls again.

I felt comfortable around Janine, like I could say whatever dumb thing popped into my head and she'd laugh with me rather than at me. She had a good laugh. I loved her juicy ass and her big, loud laugh.

But I hadn't loved Janine.

I'd said the words, of course, but by now, a year after our breakup, I felt like someone else had said those things.

After she dumped me, I'd been low for day or two, and then I didn't get over Janine so much as I just plain forgot.

When I looked at some girls, I saw the parts rather than the whole. I don't mean the tits and ass, either, but the hair that needs daily straightening with a hot iron, the hand that needs to be held at all times while walking outside, and the eyes, always watching my eyes, trying to see what I'm seeing.

Aubrey had the cutest hair. The first time I saw her, it was wavy on one side and flat on the other side, like she'd slept on it and couldn't be bothered to disguise the fact. And she had that expression—that flat line to her mouth, like her whole life was a staring contest and she was determined not to be the first to blink.

I blinked.

When I looked up at those moon-colored eyes and felt their pull on me, my whole life came to a point, a destination, and it was Aubrey. It had always been Aubrey, even before we met. I'd seen her face a thousand times in my mind, even tried to draw it, but the pictures always came out wrong. This girl in my mind, I'd always imagined her smiling, no trace of sadness in her eyes, but one look at Aubrey and I knew where the lines would go. Aubrey's eyes tilted down at the corners, and her flat frown was like a wrinkle in an otherwise perfect canvas—the wrinkle that made everything come to life with beautiful, sad, precious imperfection.

After I met Aubrey, sometime between our first words and my attempt to kiss her, I fell for her. She was the muse I'd always wanted, the one who could inspire me to work harder and be greater than myself. That angry man who punched people was part of the past, and she was my future.

So, yeah, I was having a party at my house that Saturday, and I should have been having fun, but all I could think about was how much I missed Aubrey, this girl I barely knew. The idea of her moved through the house alongside me like a ghost of wanting.

I felt her presence so strongly, I was actually worried about catching hell for noticing Charity's red bra through her thin shirt. It was hard not to notice.

Back in the living room, I dropped into my dog-and-incense-imbued gold chair, dropped all four bottles on the coffee table, and reached for the fat joint from Spanky's hand. I had to shake myself out of my gloom or it was going to be a very long night.

“Go easy,” he gritted without exhaling. “That old fashioned has some kick. New hybrid blend.”

The cherry sizzled and burned up the paper with my inhale. I let the hot smoke out of my lungs slowly so as not to cough, saying, “When's everyone else showing up? Are we having a party or what?”

My nostrils stung, and I felt sick and calm at the same time, like I was on a boat with my eyes closed.