Page 19 of Sicken of the Calm
I shrug, looking down at mydrink. “Yeah,” I say, and I don’t know why I’m procrastinating the inevitable.
“Are you going out with him?” sheasks, and my stomach clenches. Trust her to choose the question I wanted toavoid the most.
I shake my head.
“Ok…so you’re…?” She pauses. “Mamón,please don’t make me play twenty questions with your ass,” Iva says, temperingthe complaint with a smile. I huff a breath, sharing in her exasperation withme.
“I don’t know,” I say, and holdup my hand when she opens her mouth, “No, I’m not – I honestly have no fuckingclue what the hell is going on or what the fuck I’m doing or what the fuck he’sthinking I just-” I cut myself off, surprised by the rush of frustration thatrises up in me. Iva gives me a look I’ve seen a million times before;if youhadn’t kept it in for so long it wouldn’t have gotten this bad. It’s alesson I apparently refuse to learn.
“Ok, how ‘bout you tell me whatisgoing on and we can figure out the rest together,” Iva suggests, and the rushsubsides, leaving a familiar tension behind. “I’m guessing you’re fucking?” sheasks. I look around the bar, paranoid, but the crowd is actually a good cover –there’s no way we’ll be overheard over the low music and the crowd.
“Kind of. I mean, yes – well, notlike, I mean obviously you don’t need to dothatto call it fucking-”
“Dios mío, Joaquin,” she laughs.“I get it – yes to the sexy times, no to the dick in the butt.”
“Iva,” I snort, shaking my head,and she laughs.
“Ok, so you’re like, fuckbuddies?” she asks, and her expression sobers into a frown. “Is that what’s gotyou all-” she moves her flat-palmed hands around her head. I shrug.
“Not…really. We, uh. I mean,” Itake a sip of my drink. “We’ve only had sex, kind of, three times. But it’snot…normal,” I say, phrasing it in the worst possible way. Iva sits upstraighter, eyeing me carefully.
“What does that mean?” she asks.I clench my jaw, pushing through the way my chest has tightened in an attemptto silence me.
“We…I mean. I like…oh fuck,” I say,putting my hand on my face. “I can’t talk about this.”
“Fuck that – suck it up, Joaquin!Not normal how?”
“I like it when he tells me whatto do,” I say in a rush, and have to take a deep breath to centre myself. I canfeel the heat on my face and keep it tilted down, playing with the moisture onthe glass in front of me.
“Ok, Vanilla Ice, that’s notexactlynotnormal,” Iva says.
“And I like it when he hurts me.When he’s rough with me, I mean,” although I’d like it if he did more thanthat, “and the first time he didn’t even touch me, I was on a chair and he toldme what to do and wouldn’t let me come and when he did, he didn’t let me touchhim and then he took my dirty t-shirt and put a new one on me. Hedressed me– he’s done that twice – and the second time he pulled my hair so hard for solong I thought it’d rip out of my head, and then the third time it was at thatparty with a girl and I went down on her while he told me what to do and whenshe, like, when she came we didn’t. Like, she offered and Ezra said no and I…”I’m a little breathless after the deluge. I feel overwhelmed and scared butmost of all, relieved.
When I look up, Iva has a huge,shit-eating grin on her face.
“Oh. My. God,” she says.
“Iva, don’t-”
“I’m not! You know I’m not, I’mjust…I didnotsee that coming. I mean, it makes a ridiculous amount ofsense now that I think about it-”
“What?”
“But I didnotsee thatcoming. I’m fucking embarrassed at myself, honestly, how-”
“Wait, wait, Iva, what do youmean it makes a ridiculous amount of sense?”
“Well…think about it. You don’tlike being in control. I mean, no, you do, in the sense that you want to keepyourself safe. But like, come on, you’re friends withme. I’ve draggedyou to hell and back, multiple times.” She pauses. “Damn, maybeIshouldstart giving orders in bed…”
“Iva.”
“Sorry, sorry. What I mean is –you like it when other people are in, well, no, not other people. You like itwhen people youtrustare in control. And you don’t like being thecentre of attention in public, but everybody needs to be, like,seen.Some people think you’re shy but you’re not. You’re, like, reserved aroundpeople you don’t know or trust or whatever but once you do…Well,” she wagglesher thick, perfectly made eyebrows. I roll my eyes, but I’m feeling a littleoverwhelmed with what Iva is saying.
The fact is, I’d been looking atwhat I do with Ezra as just that – something Ido.The way Iva istalking, it’s more than that. It’s who Iam. I’m not sure what to do withthat information.
“Don’t freak out,” Iva says,reading my expression.
“I’m not-”
