“If you want to,” she replies, voice mostly meek.
She looks like she’s flipped out, but trying to hide it.
I lean against the door frame. “Yeah, I’m ready. You need time, or?”
“I’m good.” She heads to the closet. She returns, wearing a purple jacket, freeing her ponytail from the collar and then she grabs her bag and loops the strap over her shoulder.
I resist the urge to grab her hand.
What is it with these urges I keep getting where she’s concerned?
The inner monologue should be telling me things I don’t want it to tell me, things about how she’s been with Iadanza for three years and I shouldn’t let any emotion get in the way beyond the need to save her from him and the need to punish him for doing what I intended him to do – be indebted to me and in a way that’s reason for punishment because he knowingly fucked me over.
The inner monologue should list out the bullet points – the reasons I shouldn’t be interested in Violet Gates.
But I can’t even conjure it up. It’s like there’s a greenscreen playing a dream sequence blocking the facts - that he’s put his hands on her, that she’s broken and abused, and that she spent three fuckin’ years with that loser. What part of that would suggest I should pursue her?
Those thoughts won’t penetrate because instead I have all these urges to protect her, to be close to her, and obviously, to touch her.
It’s taking effort to keep my hands off her, to keep my mouth off her, too. I have the overwhelming urge to get lost in her like she’s only ever been mine, never his, never anyone’s. Especially never his.
I dreamt last night that old dream where I walk into that shitty apartment, even smelling that old smell of the halls and the apartment itself. Smoke. Beer. Urine. Despair. As always, in the dream I hear the water running, see it leaking over the sink and dripping down onto the kitchen floor with my mother’s body in a crumpled heap, red trickled out, her face crushed in, the grey-matter smeared across her cheek.
But when I stepped in and then sidestepped to block Willie, who wasn’t a kid like he always is, who was instead the bank teller Susanna, the heap on the floor with the grey smear on her cheek was Violet. In the dream, I knew it was Raymond, not Max, that was responsible.
***
Less than two hours after we go, we’re back at my place and my dick hurts.
We walked there and back; there are several boutiques in easy walking distance of my condo. Violet was astounded at the amenities I’ve got in my neighborhood and I told her that was one of the reasons I picked it. The view, the space, the neighborhood. And I tell her this like I’m trying to sell her on the place and that pisses me off.
I hate that how much she likes my place pleases me so much. And I’m not the type to have conflicting feelings about anything. I either like you or I don’t. I either want you or I don’t. But I wanted her from the minute I saw her and here I am denying myself – something I never do.
Her eyes lit up when she saw the used bookstore down the street and she skipped for a few paces, while she talked about how she could live there. Seeing that skip, the light in those eyes, those adorable dimples on her cheeks that only come out sometimes – like they’re a gift – reminded me of the glimpse I got of her three years ago.
That was on the way there. I would’ve offered to let her stop in on the way back and saw her bite her lip as we passed, straining to look through the window, but I said nothing. Because I was brooding over the tightness in my pants and the matching sensation in my chest.
Why does my dick hurt? Because I’ve had half a hard-on all fucking day. Instead of me sitting and answering emails like I’d planned while she shopped, only being there to pay when she was done, Violet insisted on showing me all the dresses that the salesgirl gave her to try on, so I could decide which one I wanted her to wear tonight.
And I’ve been around women playing this sort of game, looking to tempt and tease me, fishing for compliments and hard-ons. But this wasn’t a game. This girl was doing this innocently and now my nuts are turning blue.
And I could swear the dress shop girl and Violet are gonna be best friends because that salesgirl took to her like a big sister who knows just what she should wear based on not only the occasion but on what Violet looks good in.