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Then she went up to the main level, to the couch where Jonathan had taken her last night. She lay back against the pillows and drew up her knees.
She still could not bear to think of Harris and, although she tried to imagine some nameless, silent, faceless stranger punishing her for her need, her mind kept returning to one face, one body, one man.
She slid the toy inside herself, fast and deep, and turned it on.
In her imagination, his breathing hitched when he discovered how wet she was, and he slapped her ass with leather when she asked him to punish her. She pumped the toy in and out, angling so she could reach her mound too, then plunged it in when she imagined him grunt and moan, thrust, and come.
With her free hand, she reached under her t-shirt and squeezed her nipple, digging her fingernail into the hardened flesh. Spreading her legs wider, she tilted her pelvis and imagined his quivering length slide even deeper inside her until it set her off too.
* * *
In front of The Bistro,Leigh waved as Quinn emerged from the throng of early rush-hour pedestrians. She waved back, hoping the gesture would help her summon from within a degree of enthusiasm she did not possess.
They hugged and Leigh pulled back, still holding both her hands, a quick strategic huddle. “Just be open to their ideas,” she said. “Assure them you’re ramping up to your usual stride, and you’re excited—” She let go of one hand to shake a rah-rah fist low in the air—“to get this next book written.”
Inside the restaurant, blinding-white small plates held finicky starters. In the past, she would have appreciated the creativity, the effort. Now? So what?
For the next couple of hours, Quinn listened to Nely, two of her editors, and Leigh, nodding—convincingly, she hoped—at their thoughts about the next book.
The ideas were all over the place. Irony, melancholy, wit, a woman on a journey, a man on a journey—were they serious?
Quinn uncrossed and re-crossed her legs and stifled an exhausted yawn, quickly covering her mouth with her napkin.
In all the years she’d worked with this imprint, they wanted original,pridedthemselves on publishing original. That’s why they had signed her.
But what were they tossing around over shot glasses of cold soup and grilled exotic fruits? One cliché after another, heightened only by how excited they seemed with their concepts.
As with the food, she couldn’t get herself to feel a single damn thing.
It went on in the same vein until Nely said she needed to get to another engagement.
The check was brought to the table and paid and a conference call scheduled in two weeks’ time. Smiles, handshakes, stilted hugs.Looking forward to seeing your work.
Outside the restaurant on the busy street, Leigh put her hand on Quinn’s back. “How about we find somewhere to sit?” She pointed across the asphalt toward the park, as pairs of women power-walked after work and a rollerblader wove among them in the rosy-gold dusk.
They found a bench and sat, and Leigh turned to her. “So. What do you think about all the promising ideas?”
By Leigh’s and the others’ measures, it had gone well. Excellent discussion, a proposed direction, a nice, clean narrative structure.
She picked at a chip of paint flaking from the bench, trying to form a response, but Leigh wasn’t done. “Do you think you have something to work with now?”
A sharp paint chip pierced the skin between her fingertip and nail. What was the point of continuing this way?
“Honestly? No, if you want to know the truth.”
Leigh’s mouth moved as if forming words, but none came out. She looked as though she were trying on sentences in a cramped dressing room, but nothing fit quite right.
Finally, she found two sentences that did, and her beaded earrings bobbed as she shot them at Quinn: “Are you ready to throw away your career? Because, if you do not make more of an effort to get back at it, that’s what you’ll be doing.”
“I realize that.”
Leigh’s shoulders dropped. “Why? I mean, how . . . How can you let it all go, just like that?”
Just like that?
Anger squeezed Quinn’s windpipe, tightened her voice. “Jesus, Leigh, I didn’t take a year off on some whim and disappear to Fiji for a little break.”
“I know.” Leigh touched Quinn’s forearm and rubbed, trying to soothe but looking more like she wanted to remove a stubborn spot. “It was a horrible, horrible tragedy. I hate to be the one to say this, but . . .”
