Page 2 of Ashes to Ashes

He caught it and slid out from beneath the sheets. Unabashedly, he turned to face me, his naked body on full display. Unable to stop it from happening, my eyes roved over every ridge and plane of his chiseled abs and then lower … down, down, down until they landed on a stiff, thick cock standing at attention.

I might have licked mylips.

“That’s not the look of someone who’s had her fill,” he remarked with a cocky twang I couldn’t place.

I raised my eyes and when they met his, they were flinty. Hard. Angry.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, my voice steady, “but last night is all there is.” I shrugged. “I thought I made it clear last night that I’m a one-and-done type of girl. But even if I wasn’t that way, I have to get to work so it was nice meeting you. Takecare.”

He tilted his head and eyed me critically. There was a time I would have shifted uncomfortably under his probing gaze, but no longer. Since I couldn’t bring myself to care what my closest friends and family thought of me, the judgement of a complete stranger meant very little.

And yet, I didn’t move from where I was standing. Part of my brain screamed at me to get in the shower so I could move on to the next town, the next handsome stranger. But another part urged me to stand still, to find out what he saw when he looked at me that way, like I was a puzzle he needed to solve. Did he see a woman as empty as she felt? Did he see the shell of my former self? Did he know I hated my life but was too chicken to actually endit?

“You’re fucked up. You know that, right?”

Well, that answered that. He saw exactly the same thing I did when I looked in the mirror.

I licked my lips and nodded. “I do know that. Which is why you need to put your damn clothes on and leave …” I struggled to remember his name but came up blank.

He rolled his eyes and then scrubbed a hand over his beard. “You can’t even remember my name, canyou?”

This was the part where I should blush, where I should feel embarrassed and ashamed. My grandmother would die of mortification if she knew I couldn’t remember his name. Scratch that. Me not knowing his name would be the least of her worries. The fact that he was probably the tenth guy this month just like him would kill her first.

“I don’t need to know your name,” I told him, my chin raised defiantly high, “because the second you walk out that door, I’m going to forget all about you. If you came here last night looking for something more, I’m sorry, but I’m not thatgirl.”

Before I’d finished speaking, the man’s head was through the neck of his shirt and he was stabbing his legs into a pair of well-worn jeans. Standing to his full height, he shook his head and made his way around the bed to stand in front of me. Then, with the same sort of confidence he exhibited in the way he’d fucked me the night before, he laid his large, calloused palm on my shoulder and bent his knees so our eyes met. “I don’t know your story, but I hope you find what you’re looking for.” When he stepped away his hand slid from my skin, leaving goosebumps in itswake.

Walking backward, one step after another, he kept going but never broke eye contact. When his back hit the door, he held my gaze for several long seconds, his eyes flicking betweenmine.

What was he looking for? The truth? An olive branch? The real me? I had no fucking clue and it gnawed at me. Suddenly I wanted to tell him … everything. I wanted to explain how my life was one big lie and I didn’t know who I was anymore. I wanted to tell him that the only time I felt something was when I came and that’s why I’d brought him here last night. I wanted to explain how everything had fallen apart and that I didn’t know how much longer I could go on this way because every day a piece of me died just a little bit more. I wanted to tell him not to go, to stay and I’d tell him my whole story.

Instead I said, “I’m not looking for anything.”

“Right,” came his skeptical response. All at once, he turned and opened the door. Once over the threshold, he glanced over his shoulder one last time. “My name is Ash,” hesaid.

And then he left me standing alone in another hotel room, on another gray morning.

“Ash,” I repeated on a whisper, the word hot, black cinders on my tongue.

Needing to chase away the taste of it, I poured two fingers of Jack into a glass and threw it back, the cheap liquor burning my throat. It didn’t matter. His name was what I’d become.

I brought the bottle to my lips and chugged as I climbed back under sheets that smelled like sex and perfume.

I grabbed the pad of paper I’d abandoned earlier and drank down another huge swallow of whiskey before I started scribbling again.

Ashes to ashes, dust todust,

I hate to leave you, but now Imust.

Your love was my savior,

And then my undoing.

I thought I could surviveyou,

But who was I kidding?

I don’t know what time I eventually passed out, but when I came to, it was dark outside and I’d 20 missed calls and countless text messages.

Just another Saturday night, I thought, as I finished the bottle in one long swallow.

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