Come To Me (Owned 3)

“No.” Lenny shook her head. “You know how you had to get senior photos done back in high school?”

“I left school to join the marines and become a super spy,” I reminded her, pressing power to the TV. The screen stayed blank, so I pressed it again. Still nothing.

“Oh, of course, how could I forget?” Lenny rolled her eyes. “Well, you do. They’re these cheesy photos that parents have as a memento or some shit. You know, knuckle under chin, weird grin, that shit. Anyway, I had a different idea.”

“Of course you did.” I banged the remote; no batteries. “What did you do with the batteries?” I asked, turning to her.

“They died for a good cause…” At my inquisitive look, she clarified: “My vagina.” I couldn’t argue with that. “Anyway,” Lenny continued, “I wanted to reenact famous suicides in history.” I turned my assault to t

he clock, other remotes, basically anything that might have a battery. Every single thing was empty.

“Should I look downstairs or did your vagina eat those batteries too?” I asked.

“I’m really horny now that I’m pregnant.” She shrugged. I set the remote down and crawled over to her on the bed.

“Well I’m here…” I kissed her belly and started pulling down her pants.

Lenny shucked me off. “I already burned through a few batteries today.” I had given her many orgasms just hours before, to celebrate the engagement. And, you know, because orgasms. When I’d tried to climb on top of her, she’d push me away then as well. When I’d tried to pin her to the wall, she’d wrestled away.

It was odd, but I wasn’t going to rock the boat. Lenny was pregnant. Non-fetus carrying Lenny was enough to handle, I was sure fetus loading Lenny was going to come with a few quirks. Giving up, I hopped off the bed and manually turned on the TV. While I was finagling to find the right app, I asked Lenny, “How did your father react?”

“What?” She looked up from her baby book.

“When you asked to kill yourself for your senior photo.”

“Okay I didn’t ask to ‘kill myself’ for my senior photo, but he reacted with as much emotion as is possible for an emotionally dead person. He said no.”

“I imagine for a person who lost a wife to suicide and nearly a daughter, it didn’t seem like a great idea.”

“The kids at school called me suicide girl; it was a tongue and cheek reaction to that.”

“You never told me that,” I said lightly, sitting back down on the bed.

Lenny shrugged, eyes in her book. “High school is dead and buried. I don’t like to live among corpses.”

“You’re marrying one,” I pointed out.

She stuck out her tongue. “Anyway…what if we did that?”

“You’re serious?”

“Please?”

I could deny her nothing.

“What is this one supposed to be?” Eli asked, a grimace on his face.

“Oh!” Lenny pointed excitedly at the proof. “That’s Hemingway, see the shotgun?”

“I guess I don’t really see how this is romantic,” Zoe said, pushing away the laptop as much as she could. We were crammed around the table outside, and only the laptop and the phone had the proofs from the photoshoot. Remarkably, no one was cramming around those.

“Well those are the solo ones,” Lenny said exasperated, as if that explained everything. “The couple ones are on this USB.” Her elbows knocked into me and Grace as she rooted around her bag, looking for the other stick.

“We did Antony and Cleopatra and Romeo and Juliet,” I added, trying to give more context. Truth was, there really wasn’t much. We’d dressed up in crazy outfits, used a lot of fake blood, and had to hire a very open-minded photographer. Lenny had been over the moon; with every photo she looked at she was one step away from clutching to her heart.

Lenny loved it, and I loved Lenny, so I guess that’s romance.

“I like them!” Lissie smiled, clicking through the pictures before reaching over the table to hand the phone to Grace.