Work Text:
‘It just happened, really,’ I explain. James’s forearms, for a man, aren’t so hairy. The hairs are soft and thin and become sparser the further up his arm they are so that the skin isn’t darkened with the hairy cast typical of the arms of most men and lots of women, too. Still, they’re bulky, double and a half the size of mine, and my thumb is unable to meet my middle finger when I try make a ring around his wrist. They meet when I make the same ring around my own wrist, though. And there’s a bit of excess space.
‘So, it just happened that you got drunk?’ There’s something a little ridiculous about the sharp tan-lines left where his watch would usually go. James with tan-lines. ‘Something funny?’
‘Kinda, yeah. It just happened,’ I say.
‘What did?’
‘Me getting drunk.’
‘Ah, I see.’
The creases on James’s palm aren’t very dark, but feel deeper than they look. One going vertically crosses two others going horizontally to make an A shape.
‘Care to explain how it “just happened”?’
‘Mmm,’ his hand twitches when I reach the centre, and this time he doesn’t ask me if something’s funny, because this time I think he knows what’s funny. ‘I had a couple cocktails . . . they were pretty good, right? . . . then George—you know how George is—made a few toasts . . . I couldn’t even tell you what for. Just happened like that.’
‘So it was an accident?’
‘What was?’
‘You getting drunk.’
‘I s’pose. Because I didn’t mean for it to happen.’
‘Right. It just happened.’
‘That’s right.’
James’s shoulder bounces up and down, so my head bobbles up and down with it, and he makes a sort of wush sound through his nostrils as he laughs. The cotton of his t-shirt rubs against my cheek when I turn my head to study his profile. There’s a dimple at the corner of his mouth. It’s weird that I can’t feel it, even though I see it so clearly, whereas I could distinctly feel the lines on the palm of his hand, despite their being faint. Maybe it’s because I’m poking. Perhaps if I simply brush the pad of my finger—except it’s useless. His moustache is in the way, the thick bristles pricking me.
‘Teresa, I gotta say—‘
There are other places where I’d like to feel the burning scratch of his moustache.
‘—when I pictured you drunk, this was not it.’
His words sound like they’re travelling through water. They take a while to reach me.
‘How’d you think I’d be?’
‘Well . . .’
‘D’pressed?’
My voice sounds louder and slower than I think I meant it to, as if I’m trying to talk through water too.
‘No—But just a bit more—you know. Less . . . I don’t know. Just different.’
‘That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.’
‘Fine. I guess I did expect you to be a bit “depressed”.’
‘If I had two more, I prob’ly would be.’
As it is, it feels like we’re bobbing without actually moving, and the dancing shafts of light on the window, reflections from the pool outside, add to the effect. The room’s the same navy as the night sky, but there’s a silver hue from the moon and the breeze coming in through open windows whirls carefully past us.
My ass is sore—I don’t understand why we settled for the floor when my bed is right there—and the wall’s hard against my back. But even so, ‘I’m in a good mood.’
‘Yeah? Any particular reason why?’
‘I’m not always . . . so serious.’ Midway through this sentence, James shifted beside me, but it took until I finished for the panic to set it.
‘Wait!’—moving my arm takes effort and feels like I’m pushing against a heavy force, feels the same as performing a forward crawl, but I manage it and grab onto the short sleeve of his top—‘Why are you—Don’t go.’
His hands are on me in an instant. He’s leaning forward, crouching in front of me.
‘It’s okay, I’m not,’ he’s pulling me up to a half-steady stand, ‘I’m here.’
He’s tugging, trying to pry me forward, but I tug back, backing against the wall, bringing him with me.
‘Let’s get into bed, Teresa.’
And as great as that sounds, his mouth looks so much more appealing. It seems he’s read my mind since he’s bent into me, pressing his forehead to mine. Try as I might, he resists my attempts at yanking him closer. Both my fists are balled at the hem of his neckline. By rolling his forehead against mine in one direction, he moves my face in the opposite, and there’s his lips, against my cheek. There’s that scratch, also, and it burns, and it excites me. Slumping his head against my shoulder, I anticipate that same bristling, exciting scratch against my neck. Instead, he semi-squats. Before I register what’s happening, my feet are off the ground, and I’m braced by his arm.
‘Let’s go to bed.’
With every step he takes, I feel I’m buoying at my leisure over a watery surface. On the bed, it somehow happens that we assume the same position as before, only now cushions support my back against the headrest, and my ass sits on quilted blankets. Our legs are outstretched. My feet end at James’s mid-shin.
‘You were explaining your good mood . . .’ James prompts.
‘I’ve been happy lately.’
There’s a stretch of quiet. It’s peaceful; the whoosh of the wind reminds me of the sound of the sea, and it’s cold enough for me to imagine we’re outside. I close my eyes, picture the foamy waves.
‘You happy now?’
The draught stirs my hair. I’m on a beach, taking in the vast ocean, the starry sky. Though there’s a chill, I’m warmed by James beside me.
‘Yeah.’