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“Does she need it like I do?” she purred. “I can't see you being satisfied with anything less.”
My jaw tightened. “I’m satisfied.”
“Oh, but you have…needs. Very big appetites. Can she handle you like I could?”
I stood in front of the window, staring out at the snow. Her voice stirred so many fucking memories.
“She's nothing like you,” I said calmly. “She’s honest. She couldn't manipulate someone if you gave her private lessons in how to do it, you lying bitch.”
“Yesss... Keep going…” Her breath came faster. “I could give her private lessons in so many other things... How to please you best... What you need the most… But I know I was nothing to you, just a warm place to cum…”
She wanted me to dig the fuck in and go to town on her. I was giving her exactly what she’d called for.
I sucked in a lungful of wintry air. Thought about a smoke for the first time in months. Pulled myself back from the edge and pictured Christina.
“Patrick?”
I was tempted to draw out the silence, just to make her squirm.
“Hang up, Livia. Don't call me again.”
“I don't want to hang up.” Her insistence was sing-songy, pouty. “I know what you need. You need to say the most angry, humiliating, filthy things to me, like you always did, and make me feel tiny. Just tonight, and I’ll make you come so hard in return. Please, oh please…”
Always? She was wrong. Humiliating and filthy, yes. But angry — I’d never gotten angry with her, until ten minutes before I left that apartment for good.
“Did you know I was in love with you?” I asked softly. Only her inhales punctuated the silence. “Bet that just killed your mood.”
More silence. Soft breathing. Then a click.
I stretched, popped my neck, and opened the windows all the way. Since coming back from Italy, I’d always needed to keep a window open. I hated feeling contained. Livia’s apartment had been beautiful: minimalist lines, stark black and white, with an architect’s eye for structure.I’d been grateful every day to wake up on her exquisitely soft sheets.
But in the end, that apartment had become a beautiful cage.
Someone knocked on my door.
“Yeah?” I turned toward the sound.
“It’s Ulloa,” a cheery voice shouted. “You want to go out with us?”
I opened the door. James Ulloa, Christina’s friend, stood in the hall in a winter coat, his mop of hair falling over his forehead.
“Jeez.” He gestured at the windows. “It’s cold as fuck in here.”
*****
Five of us crossed the hard-packed snow and icy campus paths. James Parker and James Ulloa led the way. Chase and Rufus were goofing around. I didn’t pay attention to the conversation, didn’t even listen to where we were headed. My hand clenched Livia’s silk scarf. It had sat in my closet for too long.
“…Hear some decent music,” Chase was saying. “Right?”
He glanced at me. I shrugged, and he shook his head. Every so often, I’d catch that expression on his face:What happened to you, man? Who are you?Parker and Ulloa started arguing about which bands were playing around town tonight.
As we passed a dumpster, I pulled the scarf from my coat pocket and pitched it in. The guys stopped, hushed by the black-and-white square floating elegantly onto a pile of trash.
Chase broke the reverent silence. “Ex-girlfriend’s shit?”
“Something like that.”
He whooped. Parker let out a cheer. Rufus did a slow clap, and Ulloa smiled awkwardly. The show of solidarity was brief, but touching.
