Heather Lewis: Notice

“He doesn’t know where I am.”

She was slow to say anything to this. And I knew he could’ve found me without her. This didn’t trouble me, even him coming after me didn’t. What troubled me was knowing she’d given him the map.

I realized this wasn’t new knowledge, so it hurting so much surprised me. The wrong things always seemed to be hurting me. Stealing too much of my attention so I could never focus on protection.

Finally she said, “Nina, if he wants to he’ll find you.”

And with you there to help him – this was what I felt like saying but what actually came from my mouth turned me full circle. I said, “I want to see you. Ingrid, I need to see you.”

“Darling, that’s the worst thing we could do.”

“I could come there,” I said. “He wouldn’t expect that.”

I didn’t know why I was saying these things. I didn’t know where they were coming from except that maybe these days nothing could scare me more than the things Beth gave rise to. And if those things lived inside me all the time anyway, how could anything else ever actually hurt me?

“It’s too dangerous,” she said flatly. “It’d only make things so much worse.”

“But…” I started and then trailed off. I knew I’d likely never see her again. That if I was too dumb or desperate to protect myself she didn’t share this. She’d protect herself. She’d always been better at that than me.

I pulled the robe closer around me. I said, “Don’t worry. I know you’re right.” Then, without saying anything more, without saying goodbye, I hung up.

The phone didn’t ring again and I didn’t know why I wanted it to. I went into the bedroom, into the drawer with her money. There was still plenty there, enough maybe even to leave, except I knew I wouldn’t do this.

What I did instead was get dressed. If I left soon, I could go by the bar before I saw Beth. I did this but I didn’t find Burt and Jeremy. I settled for buying a bag off a guy at the bar and smoking it there in the bathroom. I thought this might get me further than snorting. It didn’t. Not very. Though it did get me to Beth’s. Late again and not exactly well put together.

I tried to remember where she and I had last been. Could only remember her driving me home. Now that I was with her I couldn’t place what had come before. But somewhere I must’ve known because I couldn’t sit down for the longest time. It’d been quite a while since I’d felt the true need for this game. It had become only a habit.

When I finally sat down and looked at her, what I saw was genuine concern and a tenderness that made me want to spill out all the things going on inside and around me. Make use of her the way I should’ve all along. But my skills for taking care of myself were so misaligned I stayed wary.

What occurred to me instead was trying to use her place to hide. That if I could keep spending my nights there he might not find me so easily.

Something about her made this seem impossible. I couldn’t quite discern what it was. The drug emboldened me enough to ignore it. But it wasn’t doing much of anything else. And even though I knew this wasn’t about the way I’d put it into my body, that didn’t mean I wouldn’t go back to get more.

I waited for her, waited for her to say anything. She looked tired in a way that made me wonder if she’d really spent the day here working. Or if like me she’d spent the day somewhere else and had only recently arrived.

I kept looking for a way in – a way to ask could we go to her place. Not finding it made me think beyond her reasons, and clear through to my own. I couldn’t drag her into this. I couldn’t put her at risk because what if he found me there? This led to the new problem of then where would we go? I sure couldn’t take her to my place, and I couldn’t tell her why, and staying here seemed too uncomfortable.

I muddled this over while she continued not to speak. I got so lost inside my own skull that when she did finally say something I didn’t hear her. I didn’t even know she’d leaned toward me. Not until she was jostling my knee. And then I noticed how close our chairs were again. I stayed with this thought, wondering when she’d moved them. Then she took my hand and said, “Hey, are you there? Are you there at all?”

“Huh,” I said, which I’m sure sounded convincing.

“Are you on something?”

I thought this a ridiculous question. She hadn’t exactly worried about this yesterday. Yesterday, she’d liked me on junk. She’d liked the way I’d fucked her.

I pulled my hand away from hers and crossed my arms against my chest. I said, “Sweetheart, I’m always on something. Hell, you like it that way.”

She pulled back, too. She looked stung and disappointed and I was disappointed, too – in myself and this childish game I still couldn’t let go of.

She was staring out the window, though not really since the shade was drawn. As if without meaning to, I’d gotten up. Not to get away from her, but to go to her. I was kneeling in front of her. I’d taken her hand. “I’m sorry,” I was saying. “I didn’t mean that.”

My other hand was on her thigh, first over her skirt and then slipping underneath it. I was stroking her, pushing her skirt up a little.

I slid my hand between her legs, trying very hard to keep as gentle as she would’ve. She still wasn’t looking at me and so I stopped looking at her. I pushed her skirt up farther and undid just the one stocking. Pulled it a little ways down and began kissing her thigh. I felt better about this when she put her hands in my hair. When she leaned back and let go some, opened her legs more.

I took off her underwear. Put my arms around her and pulled her closer. Began to kiss her and lick her until she started making sounds. And from this, I stopped worrying.

When I’d finished her, I stayed on my knees and held on. She didn’t move. She stayed quiet and kept her legs wrapped around me. This felt comforting before it began feeling that same too close way. But then she took my hands and pulled me on to her lap, facing her. Now it seemed she knew more of what happened inside me than I did, or could ever.

She held my face in her hands. Looked at me in a way I didn’t know. Saw me as someone I didn’t know. I stayed with her eyes before I closed mine. Did this when she kissed me, first near her hands and then on my throat. Finally kissing my mouth and me opening mine, tipping my head back into her hands, feeling them stroking my neck, one of them opening my shirt.

My body went taut before it went loose, and then she was trying to get up. At first I didn’t know what it meant. She was saying, “Come on, sweetheart.”

She’d taken my hand, was leading me out of there and into the waiting room, to that big wide couch where I lay down.

She lay down beside me and was stroking my chest. She let the whole of her hand rest between my breasts, staying there long enough that all those same feelings settled underneath it. I took a breath that spread me out. It left me shaking and needing way too much.

She’d unbuttoned the rest of my shirt. Had begun on my pants. She did all this so slowly. It seemed wherever her hand went it found more of my need. And then she followed her hand with her mouth, and nothing had felt so soft to me as that couch. It took in my body and so I lay there, letting my breaths come in this deep, faltering way that made me afraid of what else they’d uncover.

I wanted to touch her but couldn’t move my arms. I just let them lay there beside me while she did these things to me. While she kept stroking me, my stomach, and then between my legs – stroking me in this soothing, soft way that left me dumbstruck. And when her fingers went into me they stayed soft and didn’t stay long and then went back inside me. I knew I’d never known this before, not in this way. That if I could’ve asked, could’ve spoken at all, it would’ve been to make her stop this.