JENNIE
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"Should you answer that?" I asked.
"No."
Her tongue slid against mine. I savored the kiss, aware it would end sooner than I liked. The steel ball incited memories of the previous night, the events of which had played out in my head all day. Our first time together had been intense, the second infinitely more so. Unsure whether she would let it happen again before we started the tattoo, I'd abandoned my inhibitions. I'd been demanding and aggressive. A small part of me felt like I should be embarrassed, but it had been liberating. Lisa made me feel sexy and desirable. It wasn't something I was accustomed to, and I wanted to experience that with her again.
I was afraid to go home to my apartment. Even when I wasn't in her presence, Lisa dominated my thoughts. I worried that in those hours between now and Lisa coming over, the guilt clawing at the edge of my consciousness would seep in and take over.
Despite the confined quarters of the car, her hands found their way under my shirt and glided over bare skin. Her phone stopped ringing and I skimmed over her belt buckle, palming her through her pants. She was blissfully hard. I fumbled with the zipper on her jeans, heedless of the public venue. Unlike last night, she was wearing boxer briefs, a serious impediment. I searched blindly for the convenience flap, slipping a finger underneath to find hot, smooth skin. She made a deep, throaty sound, and her arm tightened around my waist, drawing me closer.
Lisa's phone rang again.
"Fuck!" she cursed. Bracing one hand on the seat, she rooted around in her pocket until she found the offending device. She silenced it, but before she could put it back, it rang again. She punched a button viciously. "What?"
There was a brief hesitation on Lisa's part during which I heard Rosé's voice on the line before Lisa said, "I'm with Jennie." Her mouth hovered dangerously close to mine. I resisted the urge to suck on her bottom lip. After another pause she passed the phone to me. "Rosé wants to talk to you."
"Hello?" I said as Lisa dipped down and kissed my neck.
"Hi, Jennie. Can you tell Lisa her client is waiting?"
Lisa nosed my shirt out of the way and bit my collarbone. It made it hard to concentrate on forming words. "Why can't you tell her?"
"Because if I tell her, she'll hang up on me. If you tell her, she'll get her ass here and do her job."
"I'm so sorry, she said she would rearrange her appointments." I put my hand on her chest and pushed, giving her the evil eye. She sighed and backed off.
"No need to apologize, it's not your fault."
"She picked me up from a meeting and we had an early dinner. We're just parking." I felt the need to justify her lateness even if the excuse was only somewhat true.
"I know. I saw the car blow by five minutes ago." Rosé sounded like she was stifling a laugh.
"We'll be right up," I promised.
Lisa was busy zipping her pants. I held out the phone, and she slipped it in her pocket. Judging from her grimace, I assumed it hurt when it brushed up against that thick head.
"What did she say?" she asked, making no effort at discretion as she rearranged herself.
I tried not to stare. "Your client is waiting for you."
"I figured as much. I'm coming by after work."
"To hang out?"
"Among other things."
..
Lisa came over just after ten thirty, freshly showered. I waited for her to pick up where we left off in her car, but she kept things infuriatingly chaste. She had a lot of questions, though.
"You didn't say much about your meeting with your advisor." She pulled my legs into her lap, running her hands down my shins and back up to my knees. I slouched down, helping them go higher on the next pass.
"There's not much to say. I have plenty of time to work on my thesis before the next meeting." I left out the part where Professor Calder requested the meeting take place after hours, off campus. Lisa wouldn't be very happy, and I couldn't blame her. The idea of meeting Professor Calder outside of office hours made me uncomfortable, and I'd said as much. He hadn't been pleased, but he'd managed to find time to squeeze me in during regular hours. He'd made it quite clear how much it inconvenienced him to work around my schedule. I'd come into this program thinking it would be something positive to focus on. So far it hadn't been what I expected. I left the meeting more anxious than I arrived.
"You want to talk about what happened this morning?"
"Not really." I toyed with the open collar of her button-down. She was wearing a band shirt underneath.
"You were pretty upset." She picked up a lock of my hair, twisting it around her fingers as she waited expectantly. She wasn't going to let it go.
"I overreacted. The last time I met with him, he told me if I didn't get my research together, I could lose my place in the program. I worked hard to get here. I don't want all that effort to go to waste because I didn't have the foresight to set my alarm."
"It's my fault you were tired," she said.
"Oh? I think I'm the one who started it the first time, so if I have anyone to blame, it's myself."
I thought the aftermath of our night together would be different. But here we were, cozied up on my couch. Based on what she said in the car, Lisa planned to continue to utilize the loophole, at least until she started the tattoo. She could set boundaries if it made her feel better. It didn't mean I wouldn't push them, though. In the past few weeks I'd learned that with Lisa, everything was subject to change.
"So you admit to seducing me?" she said.
"I'll admit no such thing. I only provided the loophole, and that was after all your flirting."
In one swift motion she pulled me into her lap. Straddled over her legs, I was a few inches back from where friction would be possible. I tried to shift closer, but she ran her hand up the outside of my thigh to my waist and held me in place.
"Will you tell me about these?" She ran a gentle palm from my right shoulder to my waist, across the scars on my back.
I hesitated. "It's a burn." It was part of the truth.
"How did it happen?"
"I wasn't fully conscious, so I don't really remember. I think I was in shock because my pelvis was broken, so the pain didn't register right away." I traced the circumference of each button on her shirt. I didn't want to talk about this. I didn't want my past bleeding into my present.
"Christ. What kind of accident were you in?"
I closed my eyes; the memories came back in flashes. It was a lie that I didn't remember. After I'd found Kai, I'd lost the ability to feel anything but horror and fear. Wading through the dead, the live wires above my head had sparked and sprayed, searing my back. In those moments, I'd been terrified the fire would reach me before I found a way out.
"Can we—" I struggled to get a handle on my emotions.
Lisa's hands smoothed over my hair and down my back. "Is this why you want the back piece, to cover the scars?"
"No. It wasn't ever a factor in the design or the placement."
"Can I take a look?"
"The scars are ugly."
"Everyone has scars, Jennie. If we're lucky, they're only on the outside."
Her reply carried so much sadness, like she understood what it meant to have them on the inside.
"I'll show you if I don't have to talk about it."
Lisa pursed her lips and stared at me. "Why are you so intent on keeping this from me?"
"I like what we have right now. I don't want anything to change how you see me."
"Just because something fucked up happened to you? I don't think so," Lisa said with vehemence.
"I just want a little more time with you like this, without the past to bog things down. Okay?"
I caressed her cheek with the back of my hand, disarming her with tenderness. I got the impression it was something she wasn't used to, and it made my heart break for her. For all her hard edges, she had just as many soft ones. I leaned in to kiss her. Her fingers drifted up my sides. She gave a gentle tug and I sat back, allowing her to pull my shirt over my head. She cupped my breasts, her thumb slipping under the satin of my bra to skim a nipple. Her hands, her mouth, and her body drowned out the less welcome thoughts that emerged after last night.
She lifted me carefully from her lap, and I settled on the cushion beside her. Better to let her see what she wanted than to give her more reason to question my reluctance. Her fingertips swept from my shoulder to my waist, and I shivered at the contact.
"Are you cold?" she asked, her concern genuine.
I shook my head. On the contrary—I was too warm, afraid she would want explanations from me I wasn't ready to give. Lisa didn't do well with constraints. She remained silent for a long time, inspecting the damage, looking for answers in the ugliness I wore on my skin. It didn't remotely reflect the darkness on the inside, but the tattoo would. I hoped it would eventually help exorcise it.
"These don't look very old. How long ago was the accident?" she asked.
"You said I didn't have to answer any more questions," I said weakly.
"That's not—" She stopped and sighed. Her arms came around my waist and she pulled me into her, my back against her chest. She rested her chin on my shoulder. "Tattooing over scars is difficult. Sometimes the ink won't take, and the skin is far more sensitive because of nerve damage." She pushed up her sleeve to expose the bleeding heart. "Feel here."
I did as instructed and felt not just the slightly raised skin of the tattoo but a much more prominent series of lines traveling beneath the heart. I looked closer and noticed the red ink was slightly pinker in those areas. They were scars that showed something sharp had been raked across her forearm.
"What happened?"
"My mom's cat."
"It must have hurt," I said, shifting the focus away from me.
"I didn't even notice when it happened. Anyway, that's not the point. I had this tattoo put over those scars a year after the wound healed. It hurt like a son of a bitch and I had to touch up the red three times before it finally took. That's why I want to know how long the scars have been there. Even if it's been over a year, I might have to go over those areas several times before the ink holds. It will hurt, Jennie, a lot."
I didn't want to put it off, although the longer we waited to start the tattoo, the more opportunities I would have to be with her like last night. Yet part of me was aware this relationship shouldn't have happened in the first place. It was only a matter of time before Lisa started asking questions again, and when she knew how severe the losses had been, she wouldn't want to be with me anymore. And I couldn't blame her. I was full of fractures and fault lines inside. I doubted I could ever be repaired. Until the tattoo was completed, I would give her the barest details and preserve this uncertain bond.
"It's been close to a year," I said.
"How close?"
"Less than a couple of months out."
"We should postpone the start date."
"No!" I turned so we were face-to-face. "Please don't do that. Please, Lisa. Can't we modify the design so the tattoo avoids the worst of the scarring? I don't care if it's covered up, that's not the point."
"I don't know if that's possible," she hedged.
"There has to be a way. I need this. You don't understand." I tried to suppress the rising panic, aware it wasn't rational.
"Hey, relax, we'll figure it out," Lisa placated, nonplussed over my reaction. "I'll take a look at the design tomorrow and see what I can do. I just don't want to cause you unnecessary pain."
"I can handle physical pain," I said, embarrassed by my erratic emotions.
"It's not the physical part I'm worried about."
"Then what is it?"
"All the stuff in here you're not sharing." She touched my temple and followed with her lips. "The physical discomfort isn't the challenge, it's the emotional stuff that comes after that's the problem."
"I'll be fine." I reached around her to retrieve my shirt, suddenly aware of my state of semi-dress and the serious slant to our conversation.
She snatched it from the arm of the couch and shoved it between the cushions, out of reach. "You say that, but you don't really know." She shrugged out of the button-down and pulled her shirt over her head, her endless expanse of art on display. She ran a hand down her stomach. "Every single piece has a story. Just because I've put them on my body doesn't mean the emotional weight behind them is gone. Do you get what I'm saying?"
"I wouldn't be asking for the tattoo if I didn't think I could handle it." It wasn't even close to the truth. Her smile was sad as I traced the lines of the phoenix on her chest. It was a gorgeous piece of art on a stunning body. I wanted so badly to lose myself in her again.
"Everyone reacts differently. I want to figure out how to help you through it when the time comes."
"How did you deal with it?"
"Not well."
"In what capacity?"
She kissed me instead of answering, which was Lisa's way of ending a discussion she didn't want to have. I was done talking anyway.
"Why don't we take this to your bedroom? There's not enough room on the couch," Lisa said as I made to straddle her once again.
"Okay, but I don't think you should stay tonight." My stomach turned to lead as hurt passed across her face. I immediately wished I could take it back.
"Right. Yeah, of course. I should go home. It's not like I slept for shit last night anyway." She moved me off her and snatched her shirt from the back of the couch.
I gripped her wrist. "You don't have to leave right now."
"It's been a long day. It's probably better."
She tried to shake me off, so I held on tighter. "Lisa, stop. It's not that I don't want you to stay, because I do. I have these dreams most nights, and I don't have control over them. I'm lucky I didn't have any last night, but with all the talk about my scars, I'm pretty sure my subconscious isn't going to be quite so forgiving tonight. I get . . . restless. I'll keep you up."
"What if I want to stay anyway?"
When I didn't answer right away, she shoved her arms through her sleeves.
"I scream in my sleep," I blurted.
She stilled, eyes rising to meet mine.
"Jisoo can hear me when it's really bad," I said.
"Who's Jisoo?"
"My neighbor across the hall."
Lisa looked at the door and then down the hallway to my room. It didn't take her long to piece together how loud I must be for someone to hear me through two sets of walls.
"Jesus, Jennie, how long do you want to keep me in the dark? I need some fucking information here. How the hell am I supposed to fix—" She stopped abruptly and took a deep breath. "Look. We have a week before I start the tattoo. Tell me now if I'm alone in my desire to capitalize on your loophole."
"You're not alone."
Her shirt slid down her arms and pooled in her lap. "Then I don't give a shit if you sing show tunes and juggle knives in your sleep. I'm staying."
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