Our relationship is easy, six days a week. The only time I get confused is Sundays.
Monday through Saturday, I'm just an assistant. I get his coffee, I grab the right color makeup for Toni, and he has me make a few calls. It's simple. He pays me, I do what I'm told, and it's all good. He's a fun guy to hang around. His brothers are pretty nice to me, his mom is…distant, but still nice enough.
I'm not too sure when the lines started to blur. I think it was my fault. I think it was when I saw him cry. Criss slipped away, and for the first time, I saw Christopher, in the lines of sloped shoulders and the sound of wracking sobs. Yeah. I saw Christopher.
It was easy to hold him. JoAnn had just left, and he needed someone to hold. I guess that was the first time the lines were blurred. It was a Sunday, anyways, and that's one of the prerequisites for our blurred days.
It isn't every Sunday. I don't know what the definition is- maybe it's because he's lonelier some days. It doesn't matter if he's with someone, or if I am. Not that I usually am. I'm never with someone…
That first Sunday was the simplest. He only crossed a few lines. I was holding him and his lips brushed my cheek, I remember the way his stubble felt across my jaw line, like velvet sandpaper.
You okay? I asked. I knew the answer.
I will be. He'd always be okay. His hand slipped down, curled around my wrist. It was…possessive. Intimate. I never noticed, but you're…beautiful. I like your perfume.
I giggled and let his head rest on my shoulder, let his hand stay around my wrist. It wasn't quite right, but this wasn't quite Criss. He wasn't as guarded right now. I could allow this…couldn't I?
It turned out to not matter anyways, because his phone rang and he reached into his pocket to grab it. He talked to Costa for a few minutes, and hung up. Our first kiss. His mouth and mine, a soft collusion of his soul and mine. I was shivering. This wasn't client-boss relationship standard issue stuff. It was blurry.
Sorry about that. He was breathless, eyes wide. Still married, too. I just nodded, mouth tingling.
The next Sunday wasn't until three months later. It was…the same, I guess. He was too tired, I suppose, for it to be something else. I was at my little flat in LV, the one I'm in now, writing this, the one he has a house key to. I heard the key in the lock, like I do sometimes when he needs a place to get away for an hour or two. Neither of us had talked about that Sunday…
Hey. His voice had a slight restlessness to it, and it had just been a very little while since he'd done his body suspension, so he was in a very loose shirt. He watched me finish up the e-mail I was sending.
What's new, Criss? He shrugged. Winced. I got up and walked to him. Want a massage? I'll work around the holes. He nodded and pulled his shirt off. Kneel facing the couch, I'll go get lotion.
'Kay. I was back a few seconds later, and rubbed the vanilla lotion into his back. He was too hot; he'd been out in the sun. Just got back from the desert. I smiled. Mind-reader.
And you didn't take me with you? He inhaled sharply. I'd been joking.
I will next time. Stacy wanted to know where you were, I told her you had Sundays off…hey, aren't you supposed to be at church?
I'm atheistic, Criss.
Oh. There was a pause, the only sound his occasional moan or sigh as some of the tension eased out of his back. There were bandages over the holes. I stood up a little while later, and he turned to sit with his back to the couch, pulling his tee shirt on over his head as he did.
Are they healing? He nodded, eyes shut. Patted the floor next to him.
Wanna watch a movie? I nodded and he somehow knew, even with his eyes shut.
Wizard of Oz, right? He opened his eyes and smiled at me. I gestured to the couch and put the movie in. He sat cross legged, having kicked his boots off by the door. He looked like a little kid, with his hair un-styled and in his face, most of his eyeliner gone. I went to the kitchen to grab a plate of cookies and some milk. He loves junk food, but doesn't indulge much.
I turned to take it back out, but he was standing there, tall and too-thin. His large hands took the glass and the plate and sat them on the counter, then slid carefully around my waist. I closed my eyes, and for the first time in three months, I knew I was whole again. He was less gentle this time, more curious.
Kissing you is a mistake…I can't help it, though. A few minutes or a small eternity had passed. I opened my eyes and looked up at him. He was looking down at me with intense, penetrating eyes, face slightly wistful.
Some mistakes are too fun not to make again…I answered, looking him in the face. He nodded, and leaned forward again, but the lion started to roar, and he was a little kid again, bouncing on the balls of his feet and grabbing the cookies from behind me. I laughed and followed him to the couch, where he was watching the screen avidly.
We started the movie out sitting side by side, but by the end, his front was pressed to my back, and our legs were slightly twined. We hadn't kissed. His hands hadn't gone anywhere they shouldn't have. We were inexorably linked, though. Or so I thought.
Mondays are even more hellish for me than most people, especially when he has a girlfriend. He never looks at me for the first hour or so of the day, and I try not to look at him. Costa notices, I know he does. He's never asked me, though. I hover around, mixing up coffee orders and forgetting my keys, remembering the night before, or hoping no one sees the bruises on my hips or the scratches on his back.
The Sunday after our trip to Oz was the first time he asked me to do something outside of work. I would have done it anyways, if he'd even just hinted. I'm a puppet. Always have been. I guess it's a good thing I have such a kind master.
His skin tasted…different than I thought. Not that I'd thought about it often. He was still gentle, still tried to be quiet. I remember the way he gasped and dug his not-nails into the cushion of the couch next to my hair. I pulled back and looked at him, after he'd come.
His eyes were shut; he hadn't been sleeping, there were darker circles on his olive skin. His breathing was evening out already, from all the working out he'd been doing and all, I guess. We shouldn't do this… I'm sorry.
I'm not.
I'm never sorry on Sundays. He didn't even speak to me the next day, and I went home early. I thought he'd fired me, but Tuesday morning, my phone rang at five thirty.
Where did you go yesterday? Criss.
Home. I thought I was fired.
Well, you're not. Meet everyone out at the Harley Café, we're having breakfast there.
Yeah. I hung up first.
The next Sunday was the biggest gap. Six and a half months. I was at home, just listening to music in my room, and he was there, out of the blue.
Criss?
No response but the music was off a second later and he was kissing me harder than before, hands roaming and his fingers sliding up my skirt. It was release. Heaven. He'd unbuttoned my shirt, slid it off and his hands were working on my bra when his phone buzzed against the inner part of my thigh. He stopped trying to see how hard he could bite my neck before it bruised long enough to check the caller ID and toss the phone against the wall.
Do you need this like I do? It was the first thing he said to me. His mouth found mine again, and he pulled my skirt down and off. I shuddered. Too fast. He wasn't even my boyfriends, dammit.
Should we do this?
No. We shouldn't. Every time I dream, though….he didn't need to finish the sentence, I was sliding my hand up his chest, pulling his shirt off and knocking his hat off at the same time. He gasped and tried for the bra again. I giggled.
It hooks in the front, Criss. He tilted his head, understood and cracked a grin.
Well that explains a lot. I hadn't ever done this before, but at least I was prepared. A few minutes later, he pulled his wallet out of his jeans and tossed them back to the floor. Pulled out a condom.
We don't need that… I murmured, shivering as he ran a hand over the front of my panties.
What do you mean? I pulled the drawer next to my bed open.
I use these. A little round disc, half the pills missing. He looked at it slowly.
What about…you don't have any sort of…?
Not unless I was born with it. He gasped again.
You're a…you've never…
No.
Oh. I thought…oh. His hands were gentler, his movements slower and more exaggeratedly graceful. I wonder sometimes what it would have been if I hadn't admitted that.
The pain made it all the better, I think, but it was intense enough. He showed me…oblivion. I gave him the same.
A few hours later, he was still holding me, gently wiping tears off my face. I don't remember when I started crying, but he'd held me through it, offering to stop at several points. We just laid there, watching each other and trying to prolong the inevitable. He stroked the back of his hand along the side of my face.
Never before with a virgin… He murmured, watching me closely. I shivered and lay back, still holding him. I guess I fell asleep, because I woke up and he was gone.
Monday. Sharp, defined.
Grab me some water, would ya? I scurried off, trying to ignore the way I was aching and stinging. His eyes were unsympathetic, anyways.
He isn't always gentle, now. But then again, I don't really want him to be. It was hard to keep up with in Mexico. I went with him, and it was hard to do…
We've just finished season four, anyways, and he has too many projects right now. Too much, too much…
I'm sorry if this seems a little incoherent. I can't seem to see the screen very well…I think I'm crying. I guess…I guess I should read warning labels more often, huh? See…I'm a little nervous about blurry things right now. Lines. Relationships. Days. Colors. It's not quite Sunday right now…more like Saturday and a half; it's only eleven-forty at night, and I really need to talk to Criss.
I don't mind things between us right now. How everything is blurry. It's about to come into sharp focus one way or another…
There are some Sundays that I can't…do what I'd like to with him. I am female, after all.
I thought that sometimes pills could make you miss a period. Especially if you switched between them. I didn't know…that you were supposed to wait.
And colors, too, I don't mind blurry colors, usually. But today…today, I mind. The color I want it to be is pink; nice, safe, not-pregnant pink. It isn't pink, though. But it isn't blue either, and if it was, then I'd have to worry. But it's this weird gray color…blurry, like it doesn't know either.
Sometimes, things are better on a blurry Sunday. Maybe when I wake up, it'll all just be a dream.