With all the kindness that Tom shows me every day, I feel like shit that I've been considering breaking up with him.
I excuse myself to go to the bathroom to hide a tear that threatens to roll down my cheek.
He's almost everything that I need.
Chapter 7
Tom has always been a huge Chris Isaak fan. I never have understood the fascination myself. I mean he's pretty and brooding, but the music doesn't reach me. I'm a little too metal, I guess.
Tom's kindness at the restaurant has completely flipped my mood, though, and when Tom sings the songs, I grab his hand and sing along with him. Having them on frequent loop at the house has drilled the lyrics subconsciously into my head.
I haven't felt this loose in weeks. Screaming the lyrics to the choruses feels like it's clearing out bad shit that has been stuck deep down in my soul. I'm swaying with the crowd, feeling part of something larger than myself. I'm not looking for some dark place and random stranger to fulfill some urge. I'm not thinking about leaving Tom. I'm having one of the moments where you really believe that you are made of atoms that have been bouncing from sun to sun over billions of years, atoms that are shared with your neighbor, and that everything in the universe is good.
"Hey, I thought you didn't like Chris," Tom shouts in my ear.
"Guess he's grown on me. He's cute, too. You better keep an eye on me," I joke playfully.
He squeezes my hand and lifts it to give it a kiss.
I want this man more than anything right now. I grab his cheek to pull him toward me for a kiss. He must be feeling my mood, too. He bends towards me, taking charge. I close my eyes, purse my lips and wait for him.
Instead, he plants a kiss on my forehead and returns to singing.
The song ends with a dramatic sudden silence. The crowd screams. I scream, too, but not for the song.
My frustration threatens to ruin our evening. I'm about to slap Tom if I stay, so I slide past him, heading toward the aisle.
"Where you going?"
"Piss and a beer."
"Can you grab me one?"
I nod and sprint up the stairs.
The bathroom is empty. I splash cold water from the sink onto my face to flush away the tears.
"Fuck," I shout.
A large, drunk man stumbles in through the door and nearly falls against the urinal. He's wearing a flannel with the sleeves torn off. His bicep is covered with tattoos. They look familiar, but I can't place them.
He glances over at me when he starts peeing.
"Hey, you," he says. "I remember you. You suck dick like a champ. Let's head into a stall when I'm done here and you can do it again?"
It comes to me in a rush. I've fucked this man in a bathroom stall before. Well, gave him a blowjob at least. I don't remember all the details because of how much I must have been drinking that night.
The tattoo that I recognized is a ship. There are a ton of others covering the rest of his body. I remember asking him if he had been in the Navy. He hadn't. He just got the tattoo because it made other sailors think he had which, he claimed, made it much easier to get laid by sailors.
Despite being a piece of shit as a human, he hits so many of my buttons that I find myself wanting to join him for another round of bathroom stall sex. His tattoos, his cocky attitude, his ability to tell me exactly what he wants and willingness to do the nasty shit practically in public.
I actually take a step toward the stall before stopping myself.
What's wrong with me?
"Sorry, not tonight. I'm seeing someone now."
The guy dramatically looks around the bathroom.
"I'm not seeing anyone but you. Are you dating yourself tonight? If so, you can do that while you blow me. If I remember right, you like a good spanking. I can help you out there while we're at it."
I blush, remembering him taking me over his knee in the stall that night. He's right, though. I do like a good spanking, despite barely remembering what a spanking feels like these days.
"Not tonight, dude."
All I want tonight is Tom. He's the rock that can help me through my darker moments. He's the one that will stay around when things get tough. He's the stability that I crave more than the random encounters with men who only want me when their dicks are hard.
I ignore the man's shouts for me to come back as I run out of the bathroom. I collide into a security guard.
"Whoa, slow down there," he say, catching me by the shoulders to prevent the two of us from falling. "Everything okay?"
I glance back over my shoulder just as the man exits the bathroom. He gives me a small nod but passes without a word.
"Yeah. Everything's fine. I just want to get back to the show. I don't want to miss my favorite song."
"Which one's your favorite?"
"Um...well..." I can't think of the name of a single one of Chris Isaak's songs. "The one...the fast one. Sorry, I gotta get back to my friend."
The guard lets me go. He wanders away, shaking his head. In his mind, I'm a weirdo, but a harmless one. I'm something he can ignore. Any of my problems are no longer a concern of his, just like all the other men except for Tom.
Tom slides over to my seat so I don't have to squeeze past him. He wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me tight.
I want to kiss him, maybe slide my hand down his pants and feel his dick grow larger against my hand, but Tom wants to listen to his favorite singer.
Maybe this is the compromise that I have to make.
I kiss his cheek and then shout above the music into his ear, "Let's fuck when we get home."
He turns with a start. I nearly laugh at his wide, shocked eyes.
He nods emphatically.
When the next song ends, Tom pushes me toward the aisle.
"What are you doing? He'll be back for an encore."
"Come on, let's go. I want to get out of here."
My balls start to tingle in anticipation. Tom wants to rush away from his favorite musician's concert to take me home and fuck me. Maybe he's seen me compromise and he's coming to meet me halfway. I can practically feel his hand slapping my ass already.
Very few people are leaving at this point in the concert, so we get out of the stadium very quickly. As soon as we hit the highway, though, it is a sea of red taillights from an accident somewhere up ahead.
After about twenty minutes without moving, my eyelids start to droop. I don't even fight it. It's been a long day. I could use a little cat nap before wild sex.
Chapter 8
I wake up slightly hungover in bed at home. Tom must have carried me up to bed. He's such a weirdo. Like it would have bothered me to wake up and walk into the house, knowing that we were on the way to cap off the evening.
He must be brushing his teeth. I can taste the beer on my breath. I roll out of bed to join him so that I'm not the only one with skunk breath.
The room seems too bright, bright enough that I shield my eyes from the light until I realize that it is the sun.
The morning sun.
Tom carried me to bed and let me sleep instead of bothering to wake me for the nightcap. He did it because he's a good guy. What's it going to take to make him realize that I need him to be a bad boy every now and then?
There's a note on the dining room table.
Went to store to get groceries. There's bagels on the counter and the cream cheese you love in the fridge.
I'll probably be back before you even wake up.
Love, T
I can't deal with him returning. He'll be all chipper, singing and dancing while making me coffee and putting away the groceries.
I throw on some clothes, toss a toothbrush in my backpack, and run out the door. I manage to escape before he returns. He has the car, so I just walk.
Eventually, I realize that I've wandered to a used bookstore next to a coffee shop I used to hang out at between boyfriends before I met Tom. I used to buy some old paperback with tons of pages bent down. Then, while drinking coffee, I would read the book, focusing on the pages with the bent corners, and try to imagine whether the reader had stopped there or had marked the page to read again later. I could spend hours reading, imagining some unknown reader's life and enjoying books I would have never picked up in a million years on my own.
I pick up some paperback because the cover has a sexy man without a shirt on it, and head to coffee shop.
A few hours later, I'm wondering why the reader stopped reading the trashy romance novel about a bad boy bouncer and his insecure boyfriend right when the characters were about to have sex. Had her husband--in my imagination it's a woman reading the book--come in right then? If so, had he swept her off her feet and they went on to have their own romance novel sex?
Or had the reader been someone like Tom? Someone who loved getting right up to that moment, sharing all the intimacy, getting all her nerves firing and craving sweet release, and then just wanted to pause everything to cool it down and regain control of where her desires were carrying her.
I hope she at least rubbed one out. I hadn't even had the chance for that last night since Tom hadn't woken me.
A new text makes my phone buzz. He must have heard me cursing at him.
"Miss you. Hope you're having fun. Don't forget. Wine with Mo and Frankie tonight."