All the Things We Need Read online

  “But you went out with him, after?”

  “Yeah. Just…nothing happened,” I said, disgruntled to be getting the third degree. “We went to The Slaughtered Lamb for a bit to hang out with some friends I’d made plans to meet. It was chill. Stop being such an old lady about it.”

  My brother grumbled and poured sugar into his coffee. “He works with me. It just seems weird. You’re my sister, for fuck’s sake.”

  “Maybe he won’t hang it up in his cubicle,” I teased. “Jesus, Evan. You act like you’re worried he’s going to try to make a suit out of my skin.”

  That got him, finally, and he laughed. “Gross.”

  We both ate in silence for another few minutes. He polished off his whole plate and, typically, stole some of my potatoes.

  “Hey, so, you want to talk about what’s going on at home?” I asked when we’d both sat back with replete sighs, fresh cups of coffee on the table and the clock ticking its way toward noon.

  “Nope.”

  “Fair enough.” I sipped coffee. There was no point in badgering Evan about anything. My brother would tell me anything and everything, but only when he was ready to.

  Our conversation turned to William’s Bar Mitzvah and the headaches it was causing. This time from Jill, who’d apparently called Evan to have a talk about his wife’s “lack of respect” for our mother. Jill had always been a bit of a diva, that deadly combination of self-absorbed and totally not self-aware. She was seven years older than Evan and I, and her nose had been out of joint about the pair of us since my parents had lugged us home from the hospital. Some people grew out of their sibling rivalries; some people grew up. Our sister had not. I figured it was only a matter of time before Jill and our mom went toe-to-toe with Susan, and I was sure Evan’s wife was going to come out on top of that fight, no matter what Jill and Mom thought.

  “Jill also cried about how if only Susan had waited for the planning meeting, she could’ve been there. Planning meeting. Like it’s a fucking committee thing, like one of those boards she sits on.”

  “What did you tell her?” I asked.

  Evan shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing? Why didn’t you tell her to back off?”

  “It’s a fucking hassle,” my brother said. “You know how they are anyway. Just let them talk, and it blows over.”

  I frowned. “They’re trying to steamroll Susan about all kinds of things.”

  “I told her to just ignore them. The way I do. It’s not worth the argument, you know? Smile and nod and go on and do your thing, whatever you want to do, that’s what I told Sue.”

  Somehow I doubted that was the answer his wife wanted to hear. “The shit storm, she has begun. Hopefully, it won’t be a repeat of your wedding.”

  My brother didn’t look amused. For a second, he looked drawn and weary, and I wanted to hug him across the table the way I used to when we were small, and he’d fallen down and scraped up both his knees. I settled for squeezing his hand for a second.

  “I just want my kid to do well and have a good time at his party,” Evan said. “I don’t really care what Mom and Jill want.”

  “So maybe you should tell them that.”

  He shrugged. The waitress came with more coffee, but we both declined. I was already about to float away.

  Evan hugged me hard in the parking lot, which surprised me. I let him as long as he needed to.

  “I got your back,” I said into his ear. His arms tightened for a moment before he let go and stepped away. “You know that, right?”

  “Yeah. Get out of here.” He punched my arm lightly, and for a moment his smile looked genuine and not strained.

  “Oh, hey, by the way, can you ask Susan if she needs me to get William from Wednesday school?”

  Evan looked confused. “Huh?”

  “She has that yoga class or whatever it is on Wednesdays. I guess it runs late? I told her I’d help out…?” Clearly, my brother hadn’t received the memo. I sighed. “I’ll call her.”

  “Since when does Sue take yoga?”

  “Dude, I don’t know. She’s your wife, not mine.” Once, I’d overheard my sister-in-law complaining to one of her friends on the phone that her husband never listened to her. Never paid attention. I’d been annoyed at the time, taking my brother’s side, but now I thought maybe she had a point.

  Evan frowned. I punched him on the arm. He tried to grab me around the neck and knuckle-rub my head, but a quick jab to the stomach with my elbow got him to release me, fast.

  “Shit,” he complained. “Where’d you learn that?”

  “Self-defense class. I took a course.” It had been offered by one of Cubby’s friends especially for people in the BDSM community. Too many people assumed all women were submissive, or all sub guys liked getting beaten up. Stuff like that. After one of our friends had been severely beaten into a coma after some unsafe play with someone she’d met through a mutual friend, I’d opted to spend an afternoon in a stinky gym learning how to toss people around.

  “Well, you’re not supposed to use it on me!”

  I laughed and poked at him. “You can dish it out, but you can’t take it, baby bro.”

  “Whatever. Hey.” Evan jerked a thumb at me. “Listen. About Niall…”

  I gave him a wary glance. “What about him?”

  “He’s a nice guy, Elise.”

  “Yeah? And?”

  “Just that he’s a nice guy. That’s it.” Evan looked away.

  I stepped back. “So…I shouldn’t go out with him again? Is that what you’re saying? Because he’s too nice for me?”

  “That’s not what I meant.” My brother squirmed a little, rubbing at his mouth, though he didn’t have any food on his face.

  I poked him. “So what did you mean?”

  “He’s maybe not your type, that’s all.”

  “Uh-huh.” Frowning, I crossed my arms. “Maybe that’s my business. Or maybe you should tell him that. I mean, he’s the one who chose the picture of me, after all. Did you have this conversation with him?”

  Evan looked at me. “Not yet, but I guess I’ll have to.”

  “You’re not the boss of me,” I blurted. Ridiculous. Childish. Yet true.

  One side of my brother’s mouth quirked up. I didn’t want to laugh but I did, though I still felt the sting of his words. Evan shook his head.

  “It’s just a picture,” I told him. “He’ll probably donate it to a thrift store, if he even bothers to take it out of the wrapping. I’ll be in his garage until he has a yard sale, that’s all.”

  “I shouldn’t have taken him to that art show,” Evan said sourly.

  “Shoulda coulda woulda.”

  He sighed. “You’re not even interested in him, are you? That way?”

  “I don’t know.” I scuffed the gravel with my toe, eyeing him. Evan had met George, of course. We’d been together a year, after all. Evan knew it had ended badly. He’d also known, vaguely, about the other men who came after, the ones who let me tie them up and blindfold them. “Would you rather I date a guy who isn’t nice?”

  “I want you to be happy, how’s that?”

  I grinned. “Aww, garsh, how sweet.”

  My brother scowled. “Well, it’s true.”

  This touched me. I’d have hugged him, if we hadn’t already reached our annual hugging limit earlier. Instead, I settled for a fist bump. “I don’t have any designs on Niall Black, Evan. Okay? Does that make you feel better?”

  “Marginally.”

  I laughed. “And I doubt he has any on me.”

  “He’d better not,” my brother grumbled.

  CHAPTER 16

  George had made me fifteen again, yearning and desperate and lit up with the knowledge I wa
s wanted; and like I was fifteen again, desperate and yearning, my light had dimmed when he’d stopped wanting.

  I should’ve been over it by now. Nearly four years later, not a word from him in all that time. Not since the last time, when he’d said good-night and I’d said goodbye.

  I was stupid with this love. Not so stupid that I didn’t understand that he’d become something else to me. A symbol, maybe. An ideal. Something to yearn for but never have, in some twisted self-denial kind of thing I’d need years of therapy for to untangle my reasons for craving it.

  But it wasn’t like I thought about him every second of the day. I had the rabbit tattooed on the inside of my wrist to make sure I didn’t forget him, but there were long stretches of time, sometimes days, when he barely crossed my mind. There were many times, too, when thinking of him felt like something I’d read in a book or had seen in a movie. Something that had happened to someone else. Something not real. It was only in the dark when I was alone and unable to sleep that the memories churned up like some kind of monster that normally stayed hidden in the bottom of a lake among the mateless tennis shoes and broken beer bottles from 1978.

  Like a junkie trying to distract herself from needing a fix, I tried to stop myself from messaging him. I really did. I tossed and turned and punched my pillow, flipping it to find momentary coolness. I counted back from one hundred, then again, and still, sleep eluded me. Still, my mind turned to the memory of his touch and the taste of him.

  My fingers slid between my legs. I was already wet. My hips rolled when I dipped my fingers inside my slickness and drew them up to circle on my clit.

  I thought of his mouth. His tongue. The way he’d slide his hands under my ass to lift my pussy to his mouth, and how he’d feasted on me. How once he’d made me come three times in a row with barely a break between, until I’d had to beg him—me, beg!—to stop long enough for me to catch my breath.

  I murmured his name, his real name, not George, and it caught on the emotions stuck in my throat, snagging out of me like it had been ripped by thorns. Stuttering, shuddering. I fucked my fingers inside myself, wishing they were his. Up again, over my clit, stroking, stroking, until finally my muscles tensed, and pleasure swept over me and into…

  Staring at the ceiling as the thumping of my heart slowed, I became aware of the steady, annoying bleat of a car alarm a few blocks away. And then, of course, because in the aftermath of orgasm I was even less able to resist the constant and steady urgings of my heart, I took up my phone and typed in his name.

  * * *

  If I could go back to the beginning and change it all, if I knew then what I know now, would I? Would I turn away from you instead of toward? Would I let you take me by the hand and dance with me, or would I shake my head and smile, putting you off the way I did with all those other men who tried to make me want them?

  I don’t know.

  There are days when the only thing I want in this world is to curl up beside you and listen to the sound of your breathing match the in and out of mine. Rain on the rooftop and in the leaves on the trees outside. Our fingers linked, saying nothing, no words to say because together we can be silent and still always know what the other is thinking.

  And there are days when I cannot think of you without feeling the floor tip and tilt beneath me, so that I am put to my hands and knees with the great raw gasping of my breath so loud in my ears it blocks out everything else. Because I fight not to cry, and the tears come anyway, burning and bitter. Because I am sick with love and wanting you, but you’re not there.

  You know what loving you is like? Standing on the edge of an abyss, tossing in pieces of my heart. Sure, I know I’ll never fill that pit, and eventually I’ll use up all the pieces and have nothing left for myself. But I do it anyway because I’m a fucking idiot. Because I love you. And if I’m going to tear my heart into tiny shreds and throw them into the darkness, you’re the one I want to do it for.

  If there is one thing I would change, it would be the last words I said to you. Not the texts that I’ve sent since. Not the subtext in my Connex statuses or the not-so-subtle messages in the profile pictures or the screen names I shuffle through depending on my moods. The actual words that came from my mouth. Those, I would change. I would swallow them. Take them back.

  I would say good-night, and not goodbye.

  CHAPTER 17

  My instructions to Esteban had been specific. Find what he wanted, and send me the links. I would ultimately choose which gear we used, but I wanted him to show me the ones he liked best.

  I’d been a little surprised at what he’d picked. There was a variety, but a theme. The harnesses were all invariably less utilitarian than I’d imagined, more lacy and feminine than the thick leather straps and buckles I’d expected. The dildos ranged in length and thickness, all colors, but none of them looked like a real cock. All of them were curved to hit the prostate, and seeing the choices he’d left up to me, a sudden rush of fondness for him had made me incapable for a few minutes of choosing anything at all.

  Only a few minutes, though, because after that I’d focused on the pros and cons of the different combinations and how I’d feel while using them on him. Being fucked in the ass was his thing more than mine, something he’d talked about from the start, at first hesitantly, and then when I didn’t recoil, with more longing. He told me how he’d discovered ass play while jerking off, and how he yearned to be taken like that both as what seemed to be for a lot of men an ultimate submission, and because, as he’d said, “It feels fucking delirious.”

  I wanted him to lose his mind when he was with me.

  So much of what I’d discovered that I crave and love about dominance was based not on props or outfits, but the simple, immediate and grateful acquiescence of a man devoted to pleasing me. Of one who paid attention to what I wanted and made sure to give it to me. Of being known.

  I had played with toys plenty of times. Cuffs, floggers, plugs. Some I really liked, others I did not. I liked making Esteban writhe and moan and come for me; I adored teasing him to get the biggest reaction. Yet while I’d cross-dressed in men’s suits and took what society would often consider the male role in my sexual relationships, I’d never actually fucked a man with a cock of my own.

  I couldn’t wait.

  That didn’t mean I wasn’t a little nervous. I’d finally, after a couple hours’ deliberation, chosen a pretty purple-and-black-lace harness that looked more like a garter belt. The black, smooth dildo wasn’t the biggest one he’d sent, but it wasn’t the smallest, either. The description had guaranteed “mind-blowing prostate orgasms,” which I took as catalog-copy hyperbole, but the reviews had been unfailingly five-star.

  Wearing it at home in front of my bathroom mirror, no lie, I’d felt stupid. It looked porny, and the cut of the straps squeezed me a little harder in some soft places I’d rather not have drawn attention to. I’d given the cock part of it a few exploratory strokes and burst into embarrassed giggles, and that was when I was alone.

  Standing in front of Esteban, though, all I felt was beautiful. Dominance is all about self-confidence, even if 90 percent of it has to sometimes be faked. I’d had to put my game face on in that hotel bathroom, staring myself down in the mirror, taking a few deep breaths. Reminding myself this was what he’d asked for and what he wanted, and that no matter how ridiculous it looked, if we couldn’t laugh together about it, then we shouldn’t be fucking each other at all.

  He didn’t laugh when I walked out. His eyes widened, and he put a hand over his heart, fingers curling into his bare skin. He drew in a breath. His cock actually twitched at the sight of me, and right then, I no longer had to fake any kind of confidence. I owned this, and him.

  “Hello, honey.”

  “Goddess,” he said and fell to his knees in front of me, and anyone who thinks that instant adoration would be overb
lown and awkward has never had an erect and shivering man in front of them, ready to serve.

  “Do you like it?” I stroked down to grip myself at the base much like I’d watched every lover I’d ever had do with their own cocks.

  “Yes. It’s perfect.” He sat back a little on his heels to look at me, his smile turning sly. “You’ll go slow?”

  I took him by the chin and tipped his face to me. “Yes. I’ll go slow, so slow.”

  He groaned. I leaned a little closer to lick his lips. Not a kiss, just a teasing flick of my tongue that opened him for me, and then I tucked my thumb inside his mouth to tug his face to the side for a moment so I could whisper in his ear, “Until you’re begging me to fuck you harder, harder, harder.”

  When I slapped him lightly on the cheek, it wasn’t to hurt him, even though he did give a low, hoarse cry. I looked down. His cock, so hard it tapped his belly. His hands on his thighs.

  “Get on the bed,” I told him. “Hands and knees.”

  “Facedown,” he murmured, “ass up.”

  We both laughed at that, and I loved that we could. It made me light up inside. I waited for him to do as I’d said. I admired his body, lean and tight all over. He shaved all over, too, which I was less fond of, though it was his choice and nothing I’d ever demanded he stop. The backs of his thighs were so thick with muscle I wanted to bite them, and his ass…damn, that ass.

  Smooth golden skin, pale in the places that hadn’t seen the sun. Tight, hard muscles. He jerked when I got on the bed behind him on my knees and ran my hands up the backs of his thighs and over his cheeks.

  “Shhh,” I soothed.

  I’d already laid out the bottle of lube that I’d ordered from the same website as the rest of it. It was supposed to be special, meant for anal, but didn’t have any kind of numbing stuff in it. Just thicker, I guess. Water based, so safe to use with any kind of toys. My hands were shaking when I uncapped it and let a long, thick stream of it coat the shaft. Esteban looked at me from over his shoulder when I fumbled a little, easing closer.