Page 90 of Dirty Ink

“Normal,” I said, scratching nervously at the back of my neck. “I mean normal for a couple. Normal for like…committed people.”

Rachel laughed again.

“Let me guess,” she said, “you never let your Miss Last Nights brush their teeth?”

“How did you—”

“You hide your toothbrush,” she answered. “You weirdo.”

I laughed myself. For some reason that was the line for me: brushing your teeth together. That meant something even more than fucking meant something. I could circle my tongue around a girl’s clit while she moaned my name, and that was less intimate than circling my toothbrush around my mouth while she did the same. With her toothbrush. With her mouth. In my bathroom. Together. Side by side.

“Get in here,” Rachel said and stepped back up to the sink.

She spit some of the foam down the drain as I inched hesitantly inside.

“Boo!” she suddenly shouted, and my back collided painfully with the towel rack inside the bathroom.

“That’s not funny,” I said, slowly inserting the toothbrush into my mouth.

Had she poisoned it? Was that what this was? Had Rachel spiked my toothpaste? With what? Probably not with anything deadly, I didn’t think. She needed me alive to sign the divorce papers she still didn’t know were already signed, all ready to go just inches from where she laid her head to sleep at night. No, not anything like arsenic. Probably. Maybe a relaxing agent. Something to make me pliable to her will. Something that would kill any resistance to signing…

Rachel watched me in the mirror as she scrubbed at her tongue. Her hair was drawn up into a bun atop her head with a neon scrunchy. On the little shelf above the sink was a bottle of her makeup remover. I could point it out in the shop now, when I walked down that aisle. It was Rachel’s makeup remover now. If she one day asked me to pick some up, she wouldn’t even have to tell me which one. Because I knew.

I kind of liked that. Being the one who knew her.

I began to brush my teeth and Rachel grinned.

“See? Not so bad, huh?” Rachel leaned back over to wash out her mouth.

I listened to her gargle water. It was with a strange fascination that I heard her swish it from side to side. If we had stayed together, if Rachel hadn’t left, I would know that noise by heart. I would have her whole routine memorised. We probably would have fought a dozen times about how loudly she cleared her throat. She would get on my case for how much water I was wasting.

I stepped forward and leaned over the sink next to Rachel. She lifted her head just enough for our eyes to meet. This wasn’t the closeness of sex. The closeness of her on top of me, hips bucking against mine. And it wasn’t the closeness of fighting. Of getting into each other’s faces and yelling at the top of our lungs. It was a quieter closeness. A simpler closeness.

My eyes followed the faint freckles on her nose. I noticed the way some toothpaste remained in the hollow above her cupid’s bow even after she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. And I could feel Rachel’s eyes trailing over my face with just as much attention. She laughed when I let the foam slip from my mouth slowly.

She shoved at my shoulders and stood to wipe her hands on the towel.

“You’re gross,” she said.

“You asked for it,” I answered.

I finished myself and followed Rachel back into the bedroom. We stood on opposite sides of the bed and changed into our pyjamas. For Rachel that meant carefully removing her clothes. Folding them nicely on the mattress. Slipping into flannel pants. Buttoning up a flannel shirt. Stretching her arms overhead. Leaning from side to side. For me that meant yanking my shirt over my head, jumping out of my jeans, throwing it all across the room, and standing butt-ass naked with my hands on my hips, rocking back and forth on my heels, cracking my back.

Taking her hair down from its scrunchie, Rachel looked at me from across the bed.

“Ready?”

“For what?” I asked.

“For bed.”

I frowned slightly. I’d never had someone ask me that before. If I was by myself, I just passed out when I was good and ready. If I was with Miss Last Night, I…also just passed out when I was good and ready.

“I guess,” I said slowly, almost warily.

“Grab your side.”

Together Rachel and I tugged down the comforter. This was also not something I usually did, as making my bed in the morning was definitely not something that I ever did.

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