Not that I can’t find trouble. I was always able to find trouble. I got into plenty of it, too, when I lived here.
It’s no different now.
I spent the first coupla days just gettin’ used to being here. It takes me longer to get used to different places now that I’m sober. When I traveled a lot, if something bothered me or wasn’t just right, I’d take a drink. Maybe a lot of them. Later on it was drugs and shit, but mostly I’d drink just to calm myself and loosen up.
Now I just gotta deal, ya know? So I hung around the house and didn’t go anywhere. I slept a lot. When you’re asleep you don’t have to deal with anything.
When I was awake, I was with my mom. No work yet, I guess she’s savin’ that up for me, just the two of us. It’s been a long, long time since it was just the two of us.
She looks tired. I didn’t say anything about that, I just noticed that she looks real tired and that she’s put on some weight. When grandma was sick she lost a lot of weight. Not a whole lot, but enough to notice. Now that’s back plus some. And I should talk, I’m no light weight myself. I, hell, I guess that not seein’ her for so long, she just looks different. Okay. Older. She looks older and that’s just scary. I guess she’s fifty now, gonna be fifty-one this year, and for the first time she looks older to me.
So I didn’t say a damn thing about her weight, or anything that might sound, you know, critical. And it’s all been fine. She seems happy to see me and I’m happy to see her. I wasn’t sure how I was gonna feel about that. Not really. I wasn’t sure if she was still gonna be mad at me, or cold, or anything like that. And I wondered if I was still gonna be mad at her for the way she blew off the wedding.
I’m not.
Seeing her, seeing the changes in her, blew that away. It’s not important now anyway. There wasn’t gonna be a wedding whether she was gonna come to it or not, and maybe she knew that before I did. God knows I wasn’t listening to her then, so she might have been tryin’ to tell me, and the message just never came through my pigheadedness.
So I’m not angry with mom anymore and I’m gettin’ used to bein’ here. So what do I do?
I go out and find trouble.
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Did you ever do something, anything, and in the beginning, before you even do it, you know it’s the wrong thing to do? Like cuttin’ something with a sharp knife and not takin’ the time to hold the knife right, just KNOWING that you’re gonna cut yourself, but you go ahead anyway, and you cut yourself.
I’m doin’ that right now.
I’m in my ex-girlfriend Amanda’s apartment, well, okay, I’m in her bed and this is so completely wrong I can’t believe that I’m doin’ this, or tryin’ to do something, and that she’s even going along with me.
I came by to say hello.
I had heard through friends that Amanda was back in Orlando. She had a recording deal with J Records, which she signed right after we split up, and she’s been living between Florida and Los Angeles. When she signed, my mouth wished her well, but in my heart I wanted her to fail; to fail and come back to me. Well, she didn’t fail. At least not then. She didn’t really fail now, but she doesn’t have a contract with J anymore and she’s back in Florida tryin’ to work another angle.
So I came by to say hello.
Liar.
I came by to see if there’s still anything ‘there’, if there’s even a shred of feelings between us that aren’t bad.
When I went into rehab I was with Sarah. Not hot and heavy, it was a road thing; she came with me while we toured, she partied with me on the road, we fucked and had some good times until I fell apart. No one was real happy with Sarah and me bein’ together then ‘cause she never tried to stop me from doin’ what I was doin’, shit, she was right there with me when I was gettin’ high and drunk. She was gettin’ high and drunk with me. They sent her home right before the guys laid the law down to me, and at the time I was pretty sure that Sarah was gonna be outta my life from then on.
Anyway, I was ‘with’ Sarah, but in rehab I wanted Amanda. She came. And she was here in Florida when I got out. I got my chance to apologize, to make an amends, but Amanda made it real clear that it was over. Just friends. Didn’t matter how sorry I was, or how much I tried to prove myself at that point. I even drew this picture in therapy, a sort of self-portrait thing where half of it was me and half of it was Manda and it didn’t matter. What we’d had, I killed.
So I got in touch with Sarah again, went to LA and latched onto her for dear life. ‘Cause that’s what I do. And now I’m here, ‘cause I do dumb shit like this, too.
It started out okay. Amanda seemed glad to see me. We went out for some coffee and talked for a while. Caught up on each other’s news. She pretty much knows my business, and I pretty much know hers. I know that she had been seein’ someone and that it didn’t work out. I know that she’s been too busy to be with anyone since then. I gotta give her a lotta credit, she’s a fighter and a survivor. She’s still full of plans, still focused on her singing and everything. She’s gonna go to Europe later in the year and see if she can’t make some inroads over there. She’s shoppin’ her CD, most of which was recorded. And J Records let her take all that, plus a lot of her promotional shit, so she’s good to go.
And I told her what was goin’ on with me, which was basically nothing.
Then we came back here.
I shoulda left. I shoulda left when she asked me if I wanted to come in. But I didn’t. Instead, as soon as she shut the door, I came up behind her and held on.
“I miss you, Manda,” I told her. That’s the truth. I do miss her, like I miss a lotta things in my life. Like I miss drinking, coke, hangin’ out in bars and strip clubs. She was another addiction. She was the only girl, woman, person, that I ever really trusted. I never trusted Sarah like I trusted Amanda.
“A.J., we’re not about this anymore,” she said. But she didn’t pull away. She didn’t pull away when I buried my face in her hair, or when I kissed her neck. Not when I held her closer and touched her breasts. Nothin’ nasty, just let my hands glide over them. My hands remember them. And she didn’t pull away when I took her hand in mine and held it.
“I know,” I told her. Nothing else. Not that I loved her, needed her, wanted her, nothing like that. Just ‘I know’, ‘cause I do know. I don’t really love her, not the way she wanted me to love her. And I don’t want her the way you’re supposed to want someone you love. I just wanted the moment again, that feelin’ I had when we were together and everything was fine. When I was on top of the world and she was by my side and life was good.
I know that we fought a lot, even before I had serious problems. I know that it was rocky for us a lot of the time, mostly ‘cause of me. But I also know that Amanda was the most beautiful woman I’d ever been with and I know that she put up with a lot of shit from me. Without bein’ real demanding, either. Yeah, she got hurt, and I’d apologize and things would go back to bein’ what they were, but she never gave me a real hard time about anything until I turned into a complete bastard.
Well, I wanted to get beyond that place tonight, once I held her again. I wanted to see if ‘it’, that thing that held us together, is still there. Even though I know, deep down, that it’s not.
I just wanted to touch her again. And I wanted her to touch me. So when she didn’t pull away, I just kept on goin’. I brought her hand behind her back, between us.
“Aje...” she said. But she didn’t move her hand away.
“Please.” I licked her ear, I kissed her neck, and I begged. “Please, Manda.” And while I was beggin’, I got hard. I held her hand and just rubbed myself against her and I actually got hard.
Now I’m in her bed, ‘cause I haven’t gotten hard with a woman in months and months. ‘Cause Amanda is the person I’m the most comfortable with; she knows all my shit, ALL of it, and it doesn’t matter to her. ‘Cause we’re both ‘between’ people right now. ‘Cause she’s gettin’ into bed with me, and ‘cause if this doesn’t happen, if I ‘can’t’, she won’t care.
‘Cause this is safe.
And as soon as she’s naked and in my arms, I know that this ain’t gonna work at all. As familiar as it all feels, it’s not.
I try.
I close my eyes and try. The kissing’s okay. Our mouths always ‘matched’. The way she feels against me is the same. Silk. She’s small, fine boned, and her skin is as soft as ever. Her nipples are like pebbles on my chest. I touch them, gentle, then harder, pinch them a little until she moans. She always liked that and I want to give her what she likes. She’s doin’ things, too. Her nails, which are way shorter than they used to be, she rakes them down my back. I used to love that, that sharp, almost painful feeling. I don’t like it anymore. Instead of sayin’ anything, though, I just roll onto my back and pull her on top of me.
She’s like a feather. Light, warm, her hair tickles me as she begins to kiss my mouth, neck, and chest. She sucks on my nipples a little and somethin’ stirs inside me for a minute. I used to like that, too, and I still do. I like the way she flicks her tongue on them.
“Nice,” I say, but so soft I really don’t even hear myself, I just know I’ve said it. But it IS nice. As nice as it ever was. And so is the way she’s lickin’ me, down, down, to where I’m still hard; my dick is actually workin’ and I can hardly believe it.
Then my mind kicks in, does that twitch, that lurch.
The room is dark, my request, and my eyes are closed, and the moment that Amanda takes me into her mouth, I see Shi. The hair my fingers are all messed in isn’t Amanda’s, it’s Shi’s. I can ‘see’ it, ‘see’ that other mouth wide around my cock, caressing it just the way Manda’s doin’, ‘see’ a different tongue, ‘see’ all those red curls all tangled in my fingers and spillin’ all over me. I ‘see’ hands, those hands that have never, ever touched me any other way than to give me a pat on the arm, I ‘see’ those hands touchin’ me now, right now. Touchin’ my legs, my belly, all over.
I’m clenched. Head to foot. My entire body is hard and I’m gonna come. It’s been so long I have the most wild ass thought that maybe I don’t remember how, maybe I won’t, but I’m past that in a heartbeat. Manda’s takin’ me to the edge and beyond. I guess she wanted this, too, ‘cause I don’t think she’d be doin’ this just because I wanted to. Her mouth is too into it, bringin’ me deeper into it. And I think that it’s too bad that I’m not even carin’ it’s her, it’s Amanda here with me, that the only person I can think of is Shi. And the closer I get to coming, the stronger that thought is. I want this to be Shi. I want to be with her, like this, just like this. I want this to be her mouth, her body, her hands, lips, fingers; I want all of her to be here with me.
Manda sneaks her thumb under my balls and teases my ass with it. That’s it. I’m done, gone, the orgasm I’m havin’ is fierce, maybe the strongest one I’ve ever had, or that I can remember, and I’m half up off the bed, grabbin’ for her, holdin’ her head to me, holdin’ tight, lettin’ go, and calling out for her.
For Shi.
Shit.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
