She frowns, those lines deepening in her face, signaling her disappointment. Turning her down’ll probably cost me future jobs. It’s been a while since I’ve been with anyone, but I crave intimacy over casual sex, I’ve always needed that with a partner.
I want the weight of those words in my hand again, the stick of good leather.
Back at my apartment, I hang my jacket on a hook by the door without bothering with the entryway light. I drop my camera bag in its usual spot by the couch. Leftovers go in the microwave. Almost thirteen months after moving in here, I’m better at being single. I clean up after myself more, eat vegetables, change the sheets regularly. I at least have to try harder twice a month when I have Marissa. Kendra, my perceptive ex, would find out if I fed our daughter too much junk or had her sleeping in dirty sheets.
After today’s job, I blew off steam at the gym, then regrouped on a park bench. Did some holiday shopping. Even though the journal’s been burning a hole in my bag all day, I haven’t opened it again. It’s not right to read a stranger that way, on the fly, out in public. But as I sit in front of the TV, shoveling dry chicken in my mouth, my mind wanders. I only read two pages. The journal’s huge.
I bring it to the couch and flip through her pages. She shifts abruptly between love and sex, pain and euphoria. It’s jarring, no matter how many times she rips me out of one emotion to drown me in another. She’s wise, emotional, observant of the human condition, and yet also erratic. Angry. Indecisive. Unreliable. Her drawings are as provocative as they are messy. The beginning of one of the poems makes me stop.
Make me a woman.
Let me be your girl.
It’s simple, but I think I get it. I never feel more like a man than when I’m taking care of my girl. This one wants to be adored, to feel worthy. I can see us now, a perfect pair, her arms around my middle as she fits into my side, burrowed against me. Trusting me to read her, let me in, ease her pain. Things I never got to do with Sadie, who kept me at a distance. Or even Kendra. Our intimacy didn’t reach that kind of level.
I turn the page.
You throb and throb inside me,
until I’m nothing but a heartbeat.
a bursting beat of heart, coming apart on your cock.
My mouth goes dry. I throw the book aside, shove my hand down my pants, and make myself come in two minutes flat.
Fuck me.
I need to throb so hard inside this woman that she comes apart.
I need to find her, make her mine, and feed her her words until she’s swollen with them.
2
I have to return it.
I take the journal to the no-pistachio, no-chocolate coffee shop the next day, sit at my usual table, and wait. I set it by my coffee, not too close so I don’t spill on it. A safe distance from my cherry Danish so I don’t get it sticky.
If the owner doesn’t come looking for it, I’ll leave it at the counter. It doesn’t matter that I feel as though I’ve opened a window and let some fresh air into my life. It’s not mine to keep.
An hour passes while I wonder who she is and how she fucks. If she likes to be slow on top, in control, or if she’d prefer to be put
into any position that strikes me. I wonder if she’s written something on every page of that fat journal and why I can’t stop trying to guess what I’ll find next.
I open it—after I’ve washed my hands—and this time, I begin at the end.
And there it is. A calendar.
This is more than just a journal; it has an agenda in the back. Bare bones—there’s only one thing written down for December—but not completely blank.
On the back of the previous page is a drawing of a man and a woman. She’s in a chair by an open window, wrapped in blankets. Her feet are propped on the sill, backdropped by a fire escape and falling snow. New York in winter. Behind her, a man lies in bed, watching her stare outside.
I study the drawing. His hair is colored in, but hers isn’t. Aside from her feet and face, just one hand sticks out from the blankets, a cigarette dangling between her fingers.
Written next to the bed is a two-sentence love letter.
In my sheets.
In my head.
“Jesus,” I murmur.
The only engagement on the calendar is next week.
December 1st—City Still Life, 8 P.M.
There she is, clear as day. I don’t know what City Still Life is, but several Google searches later, I’ve figured it out. I’ve found her.
Fate has given me this one chance.
Today was the warmest day of the week, but tonight, my breath fogs like the rainclouds overhead. Exposure Art Gallery has windows all along the front so I can scan the lit room without ever stepping foot in it. Is she dark and sultry or does she look deceptively innocent? Will I recognize her by the poetry in her eyes? By the slender fingers that lend her thoughts a voice?
City Still Life is a photograph exhibit, a collection of work across several artists. The pictures are bland: cityscapes, an empty post office, a fire hydrant nobody ever found worthy of commemorating until now. I prefer people. Every person is worthy. Every person has a story, and even if they won’t share it, you can sometimes read it in their eyes.