The Space Between Us

Chapter 10

I’d embellished the story—not lying, but deliberately putting in details I might otherwise have left out because, I’ll admit it, I wanted to see what she’d do. I’d felt a little pressured by Meredith in her quest for stories. And I’d felt a little put out by her bragging that she’d kissed a girl.

But mostly, I wanted her to know that I was a woman who knew how to make another woman come. I went all the way.

“What happened?” she asked.

I laughed, rueful but not without humor. “Oh. Well. Four months into it, she dumped me.”

“For another woman?”

“Oh, hell yeah. Melissa didn’t go for guys. Not ever.”

Meredith looked sympathetic. “Why’d she dump you? What a bitch.”

I’d thought as much at the time.

Melissa had been blunt, I could give her that. “Seriously, Tesla, do you think you can imagine spending the rest of your life with me? Having kids, all that? Because when I’m in it, I want it to be for the long haul. With someone like me.”

Since she said this just after I’d finished giving her three orgasms in a row, using tricks she’d taught me, I’d been appropriately affronted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means,” was all Melissa had said, and that was that. The end of it. She took up with someone more like her, whatever that meant.

“The last I heard they were still together. Two kids,” I added. “I guess she found what she was looking for.”

“So … what did she mean?” Meredith asked. “Someone like her? Someone more … gay?”

I shrugged and lifted my glass to drink. It left a wet circle on the napkin, and when I put the glass down, I fitted it exactly to the outline, then looked up at Meredith. “I guess so.”

“Eating pussy didn’t make you gay enough?” she mused, sounding as if she didn’t really expect an answer.

“I’m not gay. I’m not straight.” I pointed this out because it was important. “And I’m not wild, either.”

“You’ve done so much,” Meredith said, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “And I’ve done … nothing.”

I laughed. “You kissed a girl. And you liked it.”

Her eyes gleamed. Did I imagine she looked at my mouth as she licked her lips? Maybe not.

“That was nothing,” she said.

“You wanted a story,” I told her with another shrug. “It’s not a secret. But it was the truth.”

“That story was worth the price of dinner.”

I hadn’t known my words could have such value.

Meredith reached across the table to cover my hand with hers, fingers squeezing. “Tesla, baby, don’t worry about it. Besides, the person who asks for the date is supposed to pay, right?”

She gave me a twinkly-eyed grin to show she wasn’t serious. Not about the date part, anyway.

She didn’t have to try too hard to convince me to go dancing. I worked the evening shift the next day, which usually sucked on Saturdays but for which I’d be thankful when I didn’t have to work Sunday morning. By the time we got to the Pharmacy, the line was already spilling out onto the sidewalk. With dollar drinks and a band downstairs, and two floors of dance music above, it was a popular spot. We showed our IDs and pushed our way inside.

Meredith wasn’t interested in the lower level. She glanced over at the bar, where a college-age guy who already looked wasted had been settled into a barber chair, a scantily clad server hovering over him, with a bottle ready to pour into his mouth, and a belt to spank him with—if he was sober enough, after, to stand up and bend over for it.

Meredith rolled her eyes and pointed to the stairs. Conversation was worthless here. I made to follow her through the crowd, but a pair of giggly bachelorette party girls in tiaras got between us. I knew where Meredith was headed; it was no big deal. But she looked back to see if I was there, and frowned at the intrusion. She reached around them, pushing them subtly to the side, and grabbed my hand. Our fingers linked, twisting as she turned toward the stairs again.

This time, I had no trouble keeping up with her.

It didn’t mean anything, that hand-holding. Nor did the way she let the contact linger when we got upstairs, where the dance floor was less crowded, when she could have easily let me go. I knew better than to expect any interest from her. Not like that, anyway, whether she’d once kissed a girl or not.

“Want a drink?” She said this directly into my ear, her breath hot, the whisper of her lips against my skin enough to make me shiver.

She smelled expensive and delicious. I shook my head. She pulled away enough to look into my eyes, her head tilted, the red and blue and green and gold lights of the dance floor dancing across her face like sunshine through stained glass. She hadn’t let go of my hand. Her fingers squeezed. She leaned in closer as someone passed behind her.

“Sure? A beer?”

“No, thanks.” I gently took my hand from hers and feigned an interest in the crowd. “You go ahead.”

Shit. I should’ve offered to buy her drink, since she’d paid for my dinner. But Meredith was already scouting the bar, and nodded toward an older guy leaning against it, a beer in his hand. He was scouting, too.

“He’ll buy it for you,” she told me. “I can get him to.”

I had to laugh at that. I had no doubts Meredith could get that stranger to buy us both whatever she wanted him to. “I’m good.”

She was gone in the next second. I watched her make magic with the guy at the bar. She was so good at it. She tipped back her head, laughing, shaking her long hair. She even held up her wedding rings and flashed them, giving the guy a playful “no-no” wag of her finger, though the look she shot me said she had him right where she wanted him. She’d be making him think the drinks were his idea.

Sure enough, she came back across the room with a mojito in one hand and a beer for me in the other. He watched her the whole way, not quite with the lolling tongue of a cartoon dog … but close. Meredith didn’t glance back, not once. She pressed the cold bottle into my palm, and her eyes gleamed when she grinned at me.

“Drink up,” she said. “And then let’s dance.”

Tonight it seemed as though all the men were interested in observing the cultural phenomenon of the bachelorette party. True, those women were making quite a scene. At least three different groups, with matching T-shirts or tiaras or penis necklaces, had sort of taken over the place. There wasn’t much room for men on the dance floor with all the cavorting and circle dancing going on.

Somehow, though, Meredith made her way in. Not into the circle. That she looked at with great disdain, rolling her eyes at me in a way that would’ve made me laugh even without that last beer. She imitated one bride-to-be’s sorority girl shuffle with a straight face. Not even the woman’s friends noticed their home-girl was being mocked.

Meredith cast another glance as the second group surged closer. This was the penis-necklace group, and they were slightly more obnoxious than the other two parties. They were playing the “buck-a-suck” game, in which they offered up candy necklaces to men who’d bite off one of the pieces for a dollar. It seemed like an easy, if sloppy, way to make a few bucks.

Meredith was clearly not amused.

“Sluts,” she said into my ear, drawing me away from them and toward one of the cages on the outer edges of the dance floor.

Her derision made me laugh again. “They’re just having a good time. Didn’t you have a bachelorette party?”

“Oh, sure, with a male stripper and everything. But that was private.” Her lip curled as she peered over her shoulder. “Christ, look at them. Now they’re fake grinding.”

I looked. Two of them were writhing to some song that was supposed to be sexy, and might’ve been, had they been dancing to the beat instead of off it. I laughed. “They’re having fun.”

“They’re being ridiculous.” Meredith scowled.