Page 14 of Exit Lane
My fingers slip between my legs, tentatively touching a part of myself that feels safe. I’m trying to ignore the intruding thoughts that insist on reminding me I’m having phone sex with someone I have to see at an all-hands meeting.
“I’d pull you close enough so you could feel how much I want you. How much I’ve always wanted you.” His nostalgic tone would normally be a turnoff. Not tonight. “Marin, you wouldn’t believe how hard I am just thinking about you right now.”
I touch myself, uninclined to reach for a vibrator, focused instead on superimposing Teddy’s hand on mine. His palm bracing against my hip. His fingers teasing me, touching me everywhere but not giving me enough.
I squeeze my eyes shut, picture us, and describe what I see. “If we were together, I’d press you against me so you could feel how wet you make me.” At once, I realize all the times I’ve imagined some version of this and shoved those visions away in favor of something I deemed safer. Something that asked for less of me. It’s as if all the bottled desire has nowhere to go but here. “Fuck, Teddy, how wet you’re making me.”
“I want to go down on you for hours. I don’t want to stop until I know the taste of you so well that I can call itto mind whenever I want.” I feel my shoulders digging into the mattress, fighting for purchase against all this longing.
“Teddy.” It’s all I can get out, but I know it’s enough.
“I wanted to pull over on I-80 and rip that fucking button-down off of you. That stupid black bra.”
I bring my other hand to my breast, picturing him kissing my neck while the heat builds.
“You are the most beautiful thing.” He says it like a fact, without hesitation. “I can’t imagine wanting anyone more.”
I come, my entire torso shaking, letting myself go without concern for what I sound like or what it might mean for us. I come as a release, something pent-up unspooling from the place where my hips stretch open. It’s bigger than fear. It’s deeper than lust. My body lands me right here, breathless in my bed, desperately trying to understand how I would survive being with Teddy in real life if this is what phone sex with him does to me.
“Fuck, Marin,” he whispers. “I want to keep that sound.”
“It’s yours, Teddy. You earned it. You made me come, made me make that sound, without even putting your mouth on me.”
He gasps, my name a strained noise deep in his throat. I pull the comforter over my head. Already, there’s an awkwardness, somehow palpable in the space between us. Or maybe it’s a feeling I’m not used to. Vulnerability. I listen to our breaths, letting the sound anchor me.
“I loved talking to you, Mar.” My eyes prickle that he knows I can’t handle anything more pointed than that.I feel turned inside out, the soft belly of my longing for Teddy exposed. I don’t have the energy to make a list of the reasons why he’s not right, why our lives could never coalesce, why this warm, unthreatening man scares the shit out of me.
“I loved talking to you, too.” I wipe my eyes. “Goodnight, Teddy.” I hang up before he responds, check the time—3a.m.—and toss my phone across the bed.
X
Teddy
Physically, I’m present. I’m bantering with my favorite bartender and cheering in the general direction of the single TV behind the bar. But it took me a very long, very cold shower and two espressos to even get me to Josie’s today. My foamy Guinness is sitting neglected in front of me, and Caroline is to my left, talking with her friends about their annual summer weekend in the Ozarks. I excuse myself to the bathroom, smiling politely while my head spins.
For six days now, I’ve tried to convince myself it wasn’t cheating. That I love Caroline, just like I told her I do. That I’m in a healthy relationship, the kind I’ve always pictured for myself. So what if she doesn’t make my heart beat out of my chest? Stability and swooning are incompatible.
I look into the mirror with as much conviction as I can muster in the dim light. Sunday was a fluke. It was an accident without any ties to reality or any meaning beyond the hours in which it transpired. Pressing my forearm against the wall as if to prop me up, I run the night back, starting from the beginning, examining my case, leaning toward innocence, but willing myself to review every piece ofrelevant evidence. I focus on the letter of the law and ignore the spirit of it as I try to steady myself. Before I reach any conclusion, someone knocks on the bathroom door, and I am forced to abandon my shame spiral.
When the game’s over, Caroline suggests dinner at a cozy French spot she likes, and I don’t know how to say no.I feel like I’m on a rooftop, watching the two of us walking down the street from a great height. After settling into our corner table, Caroline reaches for both of my hands, without a hint of urgency. “You’re distant,” she says, pulling away to brush her curtain bangs off her face. She gives me a forced smile. “And I know why.”
I reel. She went through my phone. Marin said something to her. Does Marin even know her last name? Is Caroline’s email on the CorePower “Meet our Instructors” page? I can hear my favorite 1L professor loud and clear. “Let people tell you what they perceive as truth before you have the chance to ruin it for yourself by speaking too soon.” I listen, pulling my sweating palms into my lap.
“It’s about the lake weekend,” she continues. “It was sweet of Shannon to say something about you maybe coming this year—I’d love that—but I know it’s a commitment, and you want to get to Iowa and everything. I don’t want you to think there’s pressure.” She looks proud, like she can’t wait to tell her therapist about how she handled this. I want her to be right. For both of us.
I sigh into my bistro chair and nod gratefully to the waiter pouring our wine. “Lakes. So much stagnant water.” She grimaces, then tries to pass it off as a laugh. Eager tomove past this. Ideally, for me to tell her that of course I’ll come.
I look at her, really look at her. Caroline is the right woman for me, for my dreams. I can see my future with her so clearly, and it’s the one I’ve always envisioned: We’d date for another year, move in together. I’d propose with a ring from that designer she always points out when we walk past the shop on Bleecker Street. Our wedding would be at the DesMoines Art Center, and we’d be settled on Fifty-First Street in no time.
But when the waiter comes back for our order, I politely wave him off. Caroline’s face tightens. My mouth goes dry. From some place beyond my rational mind, I hear myself say, “Actually, there’s something else I need to talk to you about.” Caroline nods, draining the rest of her glass as my vision blurs into bokeh. “Caroline, you’re incredible, and what we have...”Say it.“It’s not forever for me. It’s, um...”
I stop myself before I say something dumb just to fill the air or make myself feel better. I brace for tears, maybe indignation. I realize I haven’t appropriately prepared for a reaction at all because thirty seconds ago, I was convinced I could make this relationship work, by force or by forgetting.
She laughs sharply, pushing her hair off her shoulder. Her eyes are hurt, surprised, even, but not angry. “Ok. Also, obviously, you’re in love with the girl in Sweden.” She reaches for my upper arms, gripping them like she does to her drunk girlfriends when they’re trying to text an ex and they need some sense talked into them. I’m being condescended to, and honestly, I deserve it.
“Denmark.”
An eye roll from her, an exhale from me, one that starts to rearrange something in me on a cellular level. I realize I didn’t deny it. I realize how nice it feels to not refute it.
