Heather Lewis - Notice

When she answered the phone, she behaved warily, needed coercing and cajoling. This just left me feeling sicker about all of it, and more to blame. She agreed to meet me not on this day but the next – Sunday – at her office.

By the time I got off the phone it was early evening and dark out so I could feel at least that I’d gotten through the worst of the day and partway into night. And going by me fast and unfocused was a thought about heading for that parking lot.

I went no further with this because meeting her tomorrow held me a little together, while at the same time letting me know how pulled apart I’d become. That it wasn’t really peace of mind keeping me at home, but the belief I was so fractured I could actually be in danger, or put myself there.

This wasn’t something that occurred to me often and, even now, recognizing it was only surface. Pure practicality and going no deeper and so absent of true understanding. It would keep me safe though – as in at home for this night – but could effect no lasting change or even begin it.

I had nothing in the house but booze and this situation almost sent me outdoors after all. The realization I didn’t know anyone who could get me anything better stopped me. And it let me know that if I was going to stay with Beth that would need to change.

The way all this went reminded me none of it was new. But placing its origin – placing this at my origins – tired me so much I got a tall glass and began drinking. Did this until I found a place of comfort nothing could intrude upon, though just before I slept I thought of Beth sound asleep and this troubled me until it soothed me instead.

The next morning my head hurt too much to lift but this wasn’t the drinking. Drinking never did this to me. I forced myself out of bed and through the motions of morning, though it was already a little past noon.

I had about enough time to get myself together before I’d meet her. I winced some remembering that phone call. Now, seeing her seemed a very bad idea but still impossible to resist.

I got myself dressed, and then I put on my coat. Noticing it was the one she’d loaned me, or given me – that helped not at all. So I walked over there already angry and beholden.

She’d gotten there before me so I just walked through the waiting room and into her office. It seemed odd to be back here. The room seemed too small to hold us and I couldn’t tell if she noticed any of this because she just sat there as if I’d been keeping her. As if I was late, but I knew I wasn’t.

I did my weekday thing of being unable to sit down, only it seemed worse and all about not looking at her. Still, the pressure to just get on with this was somehow even greater. I slinked, I truly did. In a very animal way I slid into that chair.

Her body let go a little once I sat down. I didn’t see this so much as feel it. I did notice she’d uncrossed her legs, let them fall just a little apart. But seeing what I was looking at made me meet her eyes.

She appeared just as wary as I was, but at the same time letting go to this unfounded faith. Or maybe this last thing was just happening to me. In any case I couldn’t hold on to my body at all anymore. My limbs fell into the chair very loose and heavy and pleasant. I rested my head and closed my eyes and then I heard her come toward me.

I kept my eyes closed because this seemed the best way to handle things. She’d knelt before me, had started with her arms around me and her head resting against my chest and then my stomach. She just sort of held on to me and I didn’t know what to do. What to do in return.

I’d had my hands on my thighs but now I put the right one, which seemed easier to lift, on her neck. I kind of rubbed her neck and I couldn’t get past thinking this should be the other way around. That I should be on my knees to her. But that was not how it was.

Soon the same panicky flight thing began in my chest and I couldn’t believe she didn’t feel it in me. But maybe she did because she started rubbing one of my thighs with one of her hands and that made it all easier.

I opened my legs more and I wanted so much to gather her into my legs and my arms, hold her with all of my body, but this sort of thing was clearly beyond me.

Instead I just kept falling backwards, loosening myself and loafing. Letting her do it all. She’d opened my shirt and my pants, had done all of this so slowly I couldn’t place when it had happened. Only knew that now her hands were on my skin and so was her mouth.

She stayed very slow, eased my pants down but left my underwear. She kept touching me so lightly I thought this by itself might kill me.

I’d become very quiet. My breathing had dropped so far down. Nothing about me was awake except the places she touched. From here I cared only for physical comfort. I kicked off my shoes and shucked my pants and underwear. I was glad I’d never put socks on because when I wrapped my legs around her I especially liked having the velvety feel of her blouse against my feet.

The sensation of this held me a little while but then her mouth took me over and I clutched her hands first and then her arms, pulled her into me and me into her.

I’d gone to that place where nothing mattered but her and how she was making me feel. With this hitting me so hard, I wanted something more than a chair underneath me. I wanted maybe to be on the floor except it would’ve involved too much movement. It maybe would’ve spoiled something and so I stayed put, recognizing that possibly what I wanted was to crawl away from her again.

What I did instead was hold her even tighter, grasp her with my hands and my legs. The pressure of this helped me in a purely physical way. It spread the shivering that had fixed in my chest through the rest of me and this let me stay with her. Stay with what she was doing to me, which was bringing me towards feelings for her I could just barely take and then bringing me off.

From there we did wind up on the floor. And me, I was weighted with all the same tangled mess – that same too strong love, turning in an instant to fury. I didn’t take her clothes off, only took down her underwear and hitched up her skirt. I did the least I could do to get my hand into her.

She made sounds as I fucked her. All of it was so fast and so rough, so the back of what she’d done to me. I feared I might actually hurt her.

But afterwards, she held on to me and was kissing me and saying those same kinds of things I couldn’t listen to. I found myself reaching for my pants and pulling them on. Seeing this as the way to be able to stay next to her and hear her.

Once I’d dressed I found myself undressing her, pulling her skirt off first and then her blouse. I still needed something to do in order to listen.

She kept on talking. It seemed to come from some dreamed place inside her I didn’t yet know and because of this feared. I stroked her body. Her belly and her thighs, her throat. I kissed her shoulders and breasts.

These were things I’d been unable to accomplish the other night. And maybe she’d missed them because she left off talking. I heard just her breathing. I felt it go low, and then I felt her lower. She sort of murmured something and I kept my hand soft. I brought my face near hers, surprising myself because I wanted to know what’d she’d said.

She didn’t say it again though, and my mouth was so near hers, still, what I did was bring my hand to it. I ran my finger along her lips and when she opened her mouth to this, I kissed her. This was where I got lost again. I caught myself lolling. I’d rolled off her a little and she on to me and so what I needed to do was regain my balance.

I shifted my weight so we were back where we’d been. I had to fight myself to stay slow. I put my hand down on her while I took my mouth away. She made those same sounds. Small cries that caught in her throat before they grew heavy, and by then she’d gone someplace she didn’t come back from.