The fleeting worry that this would really piss Lisa off was obliterated by the thrill of having a man’s torso up against her own and his tongue halfway down her throat. Alison’s brain vaguely noted how quickly Seth’s right leg shoved itself between hers as he actually lifted her up against the wall, how his hand slid up the back of her shirt, but after that, her brain went on hold, and there it stayed. Her lonely spirit and young body were severely in need by that point, and the brain’s concerns seemed less and less relevant with every passing second in that elevator. Seth was momentarily surprised at the visceral power of that first kiss, and so was she, and the heated cab ride home did nothing to diminish their sudden and demanding physical hunger. So when they finally made it into an actual bed the sex was long, complicated, and satisfying.
After they had finished, Seth stretched his arms toward the wall, yawned, and glanced at the cheap LCD alarm clock plugged into the wall at the side of the low futon. “What time is it, three?” he noted. “Shit, I have to go.” He stood, naked, and drifted into the bathroom, peeling off the condom he kept so handily in his wallet. He returned moments later and idly picked up a corner of the strewn sheets and blankets, carelessly searching for clothes which had been torn off in an unself-conscious frenzy hours ago. Reason reasserted itself and as he located his boxers and stepped into them, Seth’s maneuvering mind moved back into place.
“That was great,” he told Alison, as if to reassure her that in fact he hadn’t already forgotten how great it was.
“Thanks,” she replied.
“I’ll give you a call, okay?”
“You have my number?”
“Oh. No, I guess I don’t. Hang on. Let me get my pants on . . .” He slipped into his jeans, and found his socks, barely paying attention to her. “You have a pen?” he asked. “Something to write on? You don’t have a card, do you?”
“What? We just had sex so you want my card?”
Seth sighed; he remembered this about her now—she was difficult. This really was the problem with so many of these women: They wanted a career and a life in the fast lane and love and commitment and a man who would almost fuck you in the backseat of a cab and then pretend that it was love. He had appreciated the fact that Alison was so receptive to his come-on, and that once things were moving in the right direction she didn’t seem all that interested in talk. He regretted the fact that she seemed to want to talk now.
“Look, I said it was great, and it was great,” he reminded her, successfully keeping the impatience out of his tone. “I want your number, I think is what I said.”
“Well, I’m kind of lying here naked, so I don’t actually have a pen, or a card, on me.” She didn’t mean to sound like she thought he was an idiot, but there was something about this all that bugged her, even in the languid throes of satiation. She wasn’t mad at this guy, she really wasn’t; she wanted to tell him how much she enjoyed the meaningless sex, the way he was telling her the same thing. There was something vaguely bemusing about this onset of manners.
“I don’t need you to say you’re going to call me,” she said.
“It’s not whether you need it,” Seth told her, zipping up his fly. “I want to. I think you’re great. Didn’t you think that was great?” Some writer, she thought, the only word he can come up with is “great.”
“It was fucking awesome. I have not had sex that amazing in my entire life,” she told him. This was, not to put too fine a point on it, the truth. She had had several on-and-off boyfriends in her years in Seattle, in between the torturous months when she was once again trying to work things out with the insistently celibate Kyle. But none of those guys—and there weren’t, honestly, all that many of them—were any great shakes in bed. This so-called writer, on the other hand, clearly enjoyed sex, and he was good at it. Sex with tall, arrogant, self-involved Seth was fucking awesome. Unfortunately, Alison’s cool tone belied her hyperbole, and Seth heard sarcasm instead of truth in her statement.
“Well—you weren’t exactly pushing me off.”
“No, I was not pushing you off.”
“Oh, brother,” he muttered. This chick got under his skin in all the wrong ways. And it was too bad, because she really was great looking—those green eyes were killer—and she was a total animal in the sack. But even after sex that good, she was too much work. “What do you want? You want me to say I’m in love with you?”
“No, I’m not interested in ‘love.’ I think that’s pretty obvious.”
“Well, then is there a problem here? I really was going to call you. Unless you don’t want me to.”
“You know, I don’t think I do want you to,” Alison admitted. Mere moments before Seth’s brain had been busily trying to get his body out the door without committing himself to any future contact with this great-looking actress. But now that she told him she didn’t want any contact either, he felt wronged.
“Thanks a lot,” he said.
“Don’t be mad,” Alison sighed. Boys are morons, she thought. They act more like girls than girls do.
“I’m just confused,” Seth continued, trying now to sound more like he gave a shit. “Is this about Lisa?”