Chapter Nine
I close the blinds in my bedroom and slip into bed. I pull my computer onto my lap, settling under the covers. It’s been ten hours since my lunch with Chris and I know one thing for certain: I want to see him again.
I knew pretty much the second I sat down with him, the instant we started talking, that I wanted to see him again. I think it works that way more often than not. The whole idea of liking someone. You just kind of know, right away, within minutes usually. There was a moment, maybe when he was talking about having looked me up online, when he paused and then moved on to something else. It was almost as if he was going to say that he thought I was cute, or something. Or maybe it was when he said it’s a shame. It felt like something went unsaid, something good went unsaid there at our lunch.
Maybe I’m fooling myself. Maybe I’m just wishing and hoping for things I won’t have. Things I don’t even know how to deal with. Even if he does like me, what would I do with that? How would I fit that into my grand scheme?
I don’t have the answers though, so I focus on the here and now. On the feeling. On the wish and the hope that I might see him again.
I open an email message to him and start it in medias res.
So that one time I played Guitar Hero I only made it through two songs. I think I have two left hands.
I hit send, then slide out of bed to brush my teeth. Once they are scrubbed and buffed and clean as can be, I turn off the light in the bathroom, then the bedroom, telling myself to close my computer for the night, to resist hitting “send and receive.” But self-restraint has never been my strong suit. So I hit that tantalizing little button in my email program, just in case.
The icon whirs and a few seconds later, I’m rewarded.
That is so not OK on so many levels. I will teach you. Meet me at that electronics store on Thursday at 2 p.m. for a lesson.
I write back.
Lesson? You teach at the computer store?
His response comes moments later.
That’s why I was there when I met you. I teach newbies how to play video games once a week. Like yourself, evidently. Go ahead and say it. I am a full-fledged Internet geek.
I reply.
You are indeed. But then again, so am I. I will see you there in two days.
Then I do shut my computer down for the night, as Ms. Pac-Man sleeps at the foot of the bed. My laptop occupies the left half of the bed, the side Todd used to sleep on. I sleep alone, haven’t shared a bed for the last year. Except with a computer and a dog.
I snuggle under the covers and close my eyes, thinking about Chris and how he blushed something fierce when I asked him to be a Trophy Husband. Of course, I was just playing around.
Still, he would make a good candidate if he were twenty-three. Then I wonder what actually constitutes a good candidate.
I say the words quietly aloud.
“Trophy Husband.”
I break it down.
“Trophy.” Then, “Husband.”
As I separate them, as I pull the adjective away from the noun, I find I don’t really like them apart, I don’t really like the second word by itself.
Husband. Husband. Husband.
For the first time since I started this project that word echoes in my brain. That title, that role. But I don’t want to think about the practical application of the title. Because I’m not ready to think about what it means. That’s why I have answered the question in other ways. That’s why I have turned the question into one I want to answer, a question about politics, about equality between the sexes, about what women can do, about proving the naysayers wrong, about making a point. Or about my friends, and how they want me to do this to move on. How I need to need move.
Even though now I kind of want to move on to Chris. So I close my eyes, and think of him, and the way he blushed, and how he touched my hand, and how he said all those nice things that make me want to curl up with him instead of my Mac.
I’ve let my mind wander to him so often already. I’ve pictured snapshots in time with him – on my table, kissing him by his car, making out with him on my couch. But today, for the first time, I felt as if maybe, just maybe, he might want those things too.
And so, I let the images rush by. I picture him here with me, walking into my bedroom, seeing me here in my bed with just a tank top and bikini underwear on. He drinks me in, his eyes saying how much he wants me. He doesn’t lower the light. He wants to see me, to watch me, to savor every inch of me. He walks over to the bed, crawls up onto it, and straddles me. He’s pinning me, a knee on each side, then he brings my wrists up high above my head. I’m helpless, but I don’t care. Because each move he makes stakes his claim to me. He buries his face in my neck, kissing me behind my ear, and making me groan. He runs his tongue down to my chest, cupping my breasts through my top. I’m completely aroused in an instant and I wriggle under him. He flashes me a quick and wicked smile, knowing he’s having the desired effect already. But he doesn’t give in to the arch of my hips just yet. Instead, he lets go of my wrists, removes my top, and kisses my breasts. First one, curving his hand all the way around and tugging at my nipple until I say his name in a hoarse kind of voice. Then the other, so deliciously, that all I want right now is to know exactly how his mouth feels against the center of me. I writhe underneath him, trying to guide him faster down my flesh to the throb between my legs. And soon, soon, he listens to my body, inching down my waist, kissing my belly button, and then nipping at my hipbone. I cry out.
“Please touch me,” I say. And he knows what I mean and how much I need to feel his tongue swirling a delirious line across all that liquid heat in my core. In one swift move, my panties are off, and his face is between my legs, and my hands are in his hair, and I am mindless with pleasure as his tongue swirls against me. My knees fall open, blood rushing through my veins, heating my body, as I see him, feel him, picture him here with me. He is masterful, his tongue painting dizzying brushstrokes through all my wetness. I grab him, bring him closer, wrap my legs around his shoulders. He grips my calf, running his hand over my smooth skin as he buries his face between my legs, spread open for him and holding him tight at the same time. I rock into him, and I can’t stop. I can’t hold back. I don’t want to. He goes deeper with his tongue, as if he can’t hold back either, as if he can’t resist drinking me in, as he grips my hips and devours me with his lips so intensely that the neighbors may soon know his name. Drenched with desire, I am panting and moaning, singing his name and wishing he were the one doing this to me right now.