Restricted Release Page 17

  “I want you both. At once. You and her. Can I have that?”

  There was silence again and then he laughed softly. “Clara, you can have anything you want.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I didn’t rush it. I didn’t insist on it happening right away. I just told him about my dream and listened to him breathe. By the end his breathing was harsh and I could tell he was turned-on.

  “Do you hate me?” I asked. No one had ever brought up the three of us together.

  Matt laughed. “You’re hell-bent on me hating you at some point or looking down on you. Don’t you get it, Clara? You have gotten in my head like no woman has…ever.”

  He was silent.

  “You there?” I asked.

  “I am. I just realized that as I said it. That’s all. I didn’t realize that I have never felt this way.”

  A blush crept up my cheeks and I put my head down.

  “Did you hear me, Clara?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Good. You don’t have to say anything. I just needed to know you hear me.”

  “What about Nadia?”

  “I’ll call her. We’ll leave you be until tomorrow.”

  And there was that jealousy again as I said, “Will you see each other?”

  “No, Clara. Not at all.”

  I hung up, wondering if I was ready. To end the game, to claim the boy, to have what scared me. If I could handle letting it scare me but have it anyway. I wondered if he knew. Or if he still wanted just me.

  This game—this thing—it had saved me in a way and made me fearful in another.

  And what about how I felt about Nadia? I didn’t feel exactly the way I felt for Matt about her but she was a beautiful woman who made me feel so much bigger and brighter and more secure. I felt a lot for her and I wasn’t sure I was ready to let her go just yet.

  I fell into bed that night, hoping for another dream. Welcoming that movie in my head, the three of us together. Beautiful and sharing and entangled.

  Just once, I promised myself. Just once…

  * * * * *

  I got up with the sun because there was sun. I bundled up and did something I hadn’t done in almost two years. I ran. Slush kicked up and soaked my leggings and even seeped into my shoes but I didn’t care. I had so much anxiety and excitement in me and I needed to move. Somehow moving around my house or doing some kind of exercise routine indoors did not come even close to what I needed.

  I had to stop worrying that the outside world was my enemy and move my ass. The outside world was whatever I made it. I would embrace it today. Feel the wind on my face and the sun’s warmth despite the cold weather. I’d let my feet get a little wet and my nose get a little frigid and I’d run. Run because I wanted to move and be alive, not to punish myself or because I thought I had a fat ass.

  So I ran. I zoomed past the newsstand and waved to the vendor. I ran like the devil was on my ass when really I wondered if he was on my shoulder, seeing as I wanted Matt and Nadia so badly. Together. With me.

  I ran past the bus stop shelter and the farmers’ market stand where Mr. Moore sold his wares when the weather was cold. In the summer months he sold them off a wagon drawn by a horse. I knew because I would often dart out to get some of his cucumbers and tomatoes when he was on my street.

  He waved, looking shocked to see me out and about instead of scuttling out of my home to get something fast and then scuttling back like a hermit crab racing up the sand.

  I waved back, laughing at his confusion. Laughing that I was out. I took the right turn without thinking. It was Sedman Street and I was halfway down the block before I recalled exactly where I was.

  I fought the urge to retreat instantly. I would run to the end of the cul-de-sac and then I’d run back home. I kept my head up and my heart as steady as it could be, given the activity. When I hit the dead end, I turned and ran back.

  My phone vibrated and when I tried to fish it out of my jacket it slid from my hand and zipped across the wet macadam. I bent to grab it, my pulse pounding in my ears, my fingers almost came in contact before the shoe pressed down on my poor phone. Hard enough to keep me from getting it, not hard enough to shatter it.

  “Well, lookie here. Hello, Clara.”

  I looked up at him. I made myself look. As soon as his voice washed over me dread swiftly followed. But I looked up, steeling myself internally, the image of me sketched by Matt flashing through my head. The reminder that Nadia had suffered thoughts and feelings and fears much like mine…and God, look at her.

  I reminded myself all of that as I made myself say very softly, “Please move your foot, Richard.”

  “Out running are we?”

  “At the moment I’m waiting for you to get your foot off my phone.”

  He didn’t move it. He grinned at me. An unnerving grin that was not sexy at all. In fact if I had to pick a word I’d pick terrifying. It was the smile of a man teetering on the edge of his control.

  I backed up one step and stood up. I stood as tall as I possibly could to make myself look bigger. For once I wanted to look bigger in his eyes. I squared my shoulders and shoved my elbows back in an effort to appear large and strong.

  “Running off some of that fat ass?”

  I forced myself to look at him, schooled my face to appear annoyed and almost flippant. I turned my head to peek over my shoulder at my own bottom and shrugged. “Looks fine to me.”

  “You’re delusional,” he said. He’d moved his foot from my phone and very fast, I bent and plucked it from the asphalt.

  I never took my eyes off him though my fingers were walking by memory over the keys. God, I hoped I wasn’t on the wrong keys. One key to the left and it would all be gobbledygook should I need help.

  “No. I’m better,” I said.

  He cocked his head at me but the smile grew. “Better than what?”

  “Better than I was. Better than that girl who was with you. And better than you.” The last bit surprised me. “What inside you, Richard, is so weak that you need to crush others down to lift yourself up?”

  It flashed in my mind again. Matt’s sketches of me. That woman looked different to me in so many ways. Lean and pretty and serene. The woman in those pictures would stand up to this slug of a man.

  He’d never—but for one time—raised a hand to me. But now he stepped in fast, crowding me like a bully, and raised a hand. Even here. Even in the street where people could see.

  “If you touch me,” I managed to say so fast he had to stop and take notice. “I will scream. I will scream loud and long and high.”

  He looked alert but no less volatile. Richard did not put his hand down. He laughed and the laugh skittered up and down my spine like some slippery living thing.

  “And…” I went on, trying to sound self-assured and not at all short of breath, which I was. From fear. “I will press this little Send button on my phone. Because I’ve already entered 9-1-1.” I waggled the phone at him, hoping that if I had mistyped it wouldn’t be readable because it was moving.

  Another laugh and the hand came halfway down. “So you’re just as fat but a wee bit more cunning. That’s fine. Even animals are cunning, no matter how dumb.”

  “You can think I’m dumb. You can think I’m fat. It doesn’t matter, Richard. Because you…I don’t think about you at all.” I took three big steps to the side and started to run.

  “You always were a fucking cunt,” he called.

  “And you always were thinning up top,” I responded, putting on some speed. “But now you’re downright balding!”

  I went right in for a sprint and rounded the corner fast because this time the devil really was on my heels. He was right behind me in a cul-de-sac. And then I was laughing. It was the kind of laughing that said you’re close to cracking emotionally. But that was okay. I’d just had a run-in with Richard and I was laughing. I’d take laughter over tears any day.

  I ran two more miles and then darted into the pas
try shop. One lemon meringue cupcake later, I was back at my door. Sweaty and gross and feeling more alive than I had in ages.

  I dropped my running shoes in the dining room.

  “I thought you’d run off to the Islands.”

  I jumped and clutched my heart, the yell that had ripped out of me still ringing in my ears.

  “Jesus Christ on a cracker, Cat! You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Where were you?” My sister lounged against the doorjamb, dipping a tea bag in a steaming cup of water.

  “Running.”

  She raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

  “How did you get in?” But before the words were past my lips, I remembered.

  “You gave me a key, Tigger,” she laughed. “When the dick moved out you said you wanted me to have one so if you slipped and fell you wouldn’t rot in your home because you were alone. It was very dramatic.”

  I laughed and my sister followed suit. “Yes, well, I felt very dramatic quite often.”

  She nodded. “Rightly so.”

  “I’d just be careful coming in with your key now,” I said, laughing. “You might get more than you bargained for.”

  “Oh, do tell. You never give me any details,” she teased. Cat sat across from me at my antique dining room table, her eyes wide and eager and her tea steaming up the joint.

  “You don’t want to know. Trust me,” I said. I wondered if I did tell her if my sister would judge me. Think me a terrible person.

  “Oh, sure I do. Bondage? Spanking? Nipple clamps?”

  I let out a shriek and buried my face, laughing. “Yesterday you had no interest in this! Good Lord. You do have an imagination. Not that it would be out of the question.”

  She threw her hands up, laughing. “See! And yesterday I was so overwhelmed to see you eat this seemed very unimportant. Now tell me.”

  I sighed, sliding my fingernail along the seam where the table leaf was nestled into the table. “You sure?”

  “Sure, I’m sure.”

  I stole her tea and took a nice warm sip. “A three-way. Two new lovers…one big bang.” Then I snorted at my own joke.

  “Ah, yes, the three-way. Me and Doug did one.”

  I almost choked on the tea. “You what?”

  “What? You think we’ve been old married people forever?” She rolled her eyes and opened her purse. “Just one,” she said.

  My sister is a closet smoker—or she had been. She hardly ever broke down and smoked but always had a pack of cigarettes. And every once in a while she sees the opportunity to light up and be a bad girl.

  “Just one,” I said and took the cigarette she offered me. We lit them off one flame and I said, “So…do tell, dirty sister of mine.”

  She shrugged. “My God, it was ages ago. We weren’t even engaged. But we’d gone to Mexico.”

  I nodded, taking another drag and coughing when the full impact of the nicotine hit me. “I remember that trip.”

  “Anyway, we were in some nightclub drunk as skunks and see this girl kissing this other girl. She’s clearly on something. E was what it was. But we’d never even heard of that then.”

  “And are too smart to have tried it I hope,” I said. Drugs scared me. My best friend from high school died from heroin. She shot up exactly once. First time and last time all in one go.

  “Of course. Sex is our speed, drugs not so much.”

  I snorted. “The things you learn.”

  “Yes ma’am. If you ask.” She winked at me. “Anyway, it was me and her and Doug and we spent the night together. It was…” She grinned and blushed.

  “Hot. And good fodder for future fucking,” Cat said, leveling her cigarette at me.

  “I bet.” I crushed my smoke out in a shallow bowl I used for keys. “So…was she local?”

  “Nah. Another person on vacation. A brown-haired, green-eyed girl named Colleen. Big tits,” my sister said and again I was choking. She took my hand. “So…are you going to do it?”

  “I am.”

  “You ready for it?”

  “Meaning what?” But I knew.

  “There can be a ton of emotion in sex with someone you connect with. Imagine how much there is in sex with two someones you connect with.”

  I nodded.

  “What Doug and I did was fun. We had no emotional attachment to that girl. But you have something with both of them and I think when all is said and done you’re going to know who you feel more for.”

  “Oh.”

  “Just think about it.” She stood and checked her watch. “Gotta run. Work and all the funky stuff. I was just popping in to say hi. Imagine my surprise when my baby sister wasn’t here! You sure you’re okay? You’re still flushed.”

  “I am. I had a run-in with Richard,” I admitted.

  Cat’s eyes narrowed. “And?”

  “And I told him he was balding and then ran all the way home.” Then I was laughing again.

  But my sister was too. She leaned in, kissing me full on the mouth. It was loud and dramatic and made us both giggle.

  “And then I ate a cupcake,” I snorted.

  She raised her eyes to the heavens and said softly, “Thank you.” Then she kissed the top of my head and said, “Welcome back, kid.”

  Chapter Thirty

  I showered forever. Steam billowed from my clawfoot tub complete with old-school wraparound shower curtain. I washed my hair and slathered on conditioner so it would be smooth. Perching on the edge of the tub, I shaved my legs slowly so I wouldn’t cut myself. Not my normal haphazard way.

  Then, parting my legs, I lathered my pussy with shaving lotion and slowly shaved that. I rarely paid much attention to the process. I was normally running something else through my mind. Worrying over my insecurities or fretting over being backed up in my work. But this time, I went slowly. I took time to appreciate the sensuality of my grooming routine.

  I was grooming myself…readying myself. For them.

  When I finally climbed out of the shower my skin was lobster-red and soft. My nipples spiked in the chilly air and I wrapped my hair in a towel turban while I applied lotion and then a dot of perfume.

  Finally I found the small bag that held strips of clean cotton and I proceeded to twist and wrap my hair so that when the time came for Matt and Nadia to arrive I’d have wild waves. I loved my hair like that. It made me feel like royalty. It made me feel powerful.

  I moved quickly to the window and there he was. I knew he would be. As weird as it sounded—even to me—I could feel Matt standing there. I raised my hand and waved and he mimicked me. Even from this distance I could see his eyes studying me head to toe. I laughed softly, cocked my hip and stuck out my breasts and posed.

  He grinned and my heart warmed.

  I pointed to my hair and made a face like, Well, what do you think?

  He gave me two thumbs up and that made me laugh again. My phone was ringing and I turned toward the sound. I blew him a kiss and watched a look of pure satisfaction wash over him. Before I could let myself fully appreciate that look of his, I was darting down the hall, rain beginning to tip-tap on the skylight.

  “Hello?”

  “I can’t wait.” It was Nadia.

  My stomach felt like I was in free fall and I dropped my bare ass to the edge of the bed and sighed, “Me too.”

  “Will you be okay?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “For real?”

  “For real,” I said.

  “You’re not worried?”

  “I’m not.”

  “I am. What if you’re done with me when it’s over?” She laughed but under it was a real question.

  “I…”

  “Look,” she sighed. “You were basically a favor to Matt. I know it, you know it, Matt knows it. I never expected to feel anything for you beyond a fuck. So, scratch that last comment.”

  “Will you hate me if…I end up feeling a certain way?”

  I didn’t know how I was going to feel—not rea
lly—but I needed to know.

  “Nope. I could never hate you, Clara.”

  “Do you want to not do this just in case?”

  “I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Nadia said.

  “See you in a few hours?” I played my fingers between my nether lips, giving my clitoris a gentle stroke but no more. I would save all the arousal for tonight. I wanted to be primed, damn near mindless with want.

  “A few hours,” she agreed. “And eat up, Clara.”

  “Um…okay. Why?”

  “You’re going to need your strength,” she said and disconnected.

  The time barely seemed to be passing. I puttered and wandered. I put on makeup and watched a sitcom. I watched the clock like a madwoman.

  When I got hungry, I ate a bowl of cereal, a banana, a piece of toast. Sick food. Simple carbohydrates. Energy in soothing comfort-food form. When I thought of my dream and what we planned to do tonight my stomach felt light and woozy. Too much food was a bad idea.

  When I took my hair down after a few minute of full-blast with the hairdryer, it hung in burnished gold and raw-honey-colored waves. My eye makeup was dramatic, my hair perfect chaotic beauty. I didn’t look like me, I realized. But I also hadn’t felt like me for quite a while. Tonight we would put poor boring mousy Clara out to pasture. A newer, braver, bolder Clara was taking over.

  Right before the doorbell rang I picked up the sketch that Matt had left for me on the bed the other morning. I wanted to be that woman. The one he saw when he drew me.

  When I opened the front door that woman said, “Hi guys. Ready for me?”

  My voice was steady but my heart was a runaway drumbeat.

  Matt stepped in first and kissed me, his lips warm and soft against mine. He touched just the tip of his tongue to mine and a slow, syrupy arousal filled me. I felt like I was shining. Bits of light shooting out of my fingers, my toes and the end of my hair.

  He smoothed my hair and whispered, “Pretty. You’re always pretty, Clara, but you look like some kind of vibrant warrior tonight.”

  I blushed and looked down but then forced my gaze back to him. “I’m glad you’re here.” And I was. All the way down to the very center of me.