“He did!” she insisted. “He would whimper and growl in his sleep.”
“You know I don’t like that shit,” I reminded her, “comparing me to a fucking dog.”
“I loved Mister Fluffy,” Raine said quietly, “and I love you, too. You have a lot in common. He was fiercely loyal to me and would try to protect me when people he didn’t know came around. It took a long time for him to trust me, but once he did, I couldn’t have asked for a better companion.”
I thought about it for a bit, but I still didn’t like it.
“What did he think of your boyfriends?” I heard myself ask.
“He didn’t like Andrew too much,” she said. “He did eventually stop growling at him, though.”
“What about the others?”
“There weren’t any.”
“Why not?”
“No one ever…appealed to me in that way.” I felt her shrug her shoulders. “After my dad died, I had Andrew. He understood what I was going through, so I didn’t have to explain it to him. Once we broke up, I had so much else going on in my life when my friends were dating and stuff, it was just too much. I didn’t want to have to explain to some guy why I would start crying out of the blue, or why I was in therapy, or why I kept visiting with lawyers even when they said they couldn’t do anything else for me.”
“So you never went out on another date?”
“Well,” Raine laughed. “I tried to once.”
“Tried?”
“This guy asked me out when I first went to college,” she said. “We went to dinner, and Andrew showed up and kind of caused a scene.”
“What did he do?”
“He was really mad when he found out I had a date. He showed up at the restaurant and started questioning the poor guy. He was acting like an overbearing parent, and when my date figured out he was my ex, he just threw some money down on the table and walked out. He said he wasn’t going to put up with that kind of…stuff. He never spoke to me again.”
“Andrew’s a dick.”
“He’s not; he just wanted to protect me. He was afraid I would get hurt.”
“If I had been on that date with you, I would have fucked him up.”
“Bastian! You can’t just do that.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“You can’t just beat someone up for something like that. People have a right to their own opinions, and you can’t hit them just because you don’t like what they do or say.”
“Some motherfuckers seemed to be of the opinion that you should be fucked against your will. Do they have that right, too?”
“No, of course not.”
“I would have fucked this Andrew up,” I reiterated.
“It’s not the same thing.”
“It is as far as I’m concerned,” I grumbled. “He did something you didn’t want and screwed up what could have been a good thing for you.”
“And if he hadn’t, maybe I wouldn’t be here now.”
When she put it to me like that, all my arguments went out the window, so we lay on the sand in silence for a while. The sky was starting to brighten and bring in a new day, but I didn’t really feel like moving from where I was. I had way too many thoughts going through my head at once – the remnants of the dream, Raine’s date getting fucked up by her douche bag ex, being compared to the fucking dog again – and I couldn’t seem to make them stop. I wished I had something I should be working on so I had a reason to get up and do something. However, lying with Raine just felt too good, so I stayed where I was as the sun rose, and Raine kept stroking her fingers through my hair.
“What do you miss the most?” Raine finally asked. “I mean, from the real world?”
I snickered at her, wondering if she thought this was actually some kind of fantasy.
“Booze, smokes with nicotine, and fucking huge Chicago-style pizzas,” I replied after a moment. “What about you?”
“Showers.” I felt her nod her head. “A nice, hot shower would feel really, really good.”
“Yeah, that does sound nice.” I thought about showering with Raine and almost forgot to ask her about anything else. “So, is that it?”
“No…I miss sleeping with a pillow, too.”
“I still sleep with pillows,” I murmured softly.
“You use me as a pillow; that’s not the same.”
“It works for me,” I said.
“I’ve noticed!” She giggled and went back to stroking my hair again. A minute later she let out a genuine laugh. “I miss underwear as well!”
“You have mine,” I reminded her. “If you ask me, that’s almost as sexy as it would be if you were wearing a thong or something.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. Seeing you in my boxers makes me want to rip them off you and fuck you in the sand.”
“You’ve done that.”
“True.”
“You’ve done that when I was wearing my own shorts as well,” she reminded me, as if I needed reminding, “and when I wasn’t wearing anything.”
“Well, no shit!” I laughed. “What can I say? I’m a horny motherfucker, and you’re beautiful in anything and nothing.”