Page 65 of Wait for Him

That's when she really broke, but the frantic edge went out of it. She wasn't fighting the crying anymore, wasn't trying to shove herself back together while it was happening. She just let it come, and I held her through it.

Eventually I got us onto the couch, and after a while she started talking about Elijah in pieces. Nothing organized or dramatic. She told me about the time he almost set their kitchen on fire making pancakes, about a trip they were supposed to take and never got to, about some ridiculous nickname he'd given her that she insisted she hated while smiling every time she said it.

I listened.

That was really all there was left for me to do.

By the time she finally pulled back, her eyes were swollen and her face blotchy, but the panic had gone out of her. She looked exhausted more than anything.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"You apologize again and I'm charging you."

A tiny laugh slipped out of her.

She reached up and kissed me once, softly, nothing sexual in it, nothing asking for more. Just thank you.

I understood.

I gathered my things and headed for the door. Stacy didn't ask when she'd see me again, and I didn't insult either of us by pretending there would be a next time.

We both knew what had ended.

And for once, leaving was the decent thing to do.

Rose

I wouldn't call myself one of those women who use sex as a weapon, though I've been accused of it more than once, usually by men who confused losing with being attacked.

The truth is simpler than that. I use sex as an outlet. Physical therapy. Catharsis. When I feel myself starting to unravel at the seams, it's what re-centers me, an hour where the rules are mine, the outcome is mine, and every variable in the room answers to me. Other people run marathons, drink too much, journal, take up pottery or scream into pillows. I hold a leash. We all have our systems, and mine has the benefit of never requiring kiln space.

I have very specific needs and very specific tastes, and I've never apologized for either. Control isn't a preference for me so much as the load-bearing wall. I decide who touches me, how, for how long and what it means afterward. Inside that structure, I can let go completely.

David understood that. Or I thought he did.

He was my submissive before he was ever my boyfriend, eight months of an arrangement that ran beautifully before I made the tactical error of promoting him. He was good under my hand, obedient, eager and grateful in a way that settled something in me. More importantly, he understood the rules, and for a while I mistook that for understanding me.

Then I got greedy.

I let him become dinner reservations and weekends away. He acquired a drawer in my dresser through what I can only describe as hostile expansion, because I do not remember authorizing that much square footage. Eventually I gave him a key to my apartment, which should've been the moment someone tackled me from the side and asked whether I'd learned nothing from the previous forty years of my life.

Apparently, nobody was available.

And now here we are.

So no, sex isn't a weapon.

But tonight it's going to be medicine, and I intend to take the full fucking dose.

I hadn't planned on going out. At least that's what I told myself for most of the afternoon. In reality, I probably made the decision somewhere around the moment Jackson told me he had to get home to his wife and some deeply unreasonable part of me wanted to overturn his desk.

It would be significantly easier to resent Jackson if he'd occasionally cooperate by behaving badly. Instead, he remembers I get cold, brings me aspirin, carries me home when I'm drunk and then has the nerve to go be married to somebody else as though this arrangement wasn't specifically designed to irritate me.

That's a me problem.

I am fully aware it's a me problem.

Awareness, unfortunately, has proven to be a very poor treatment plan.