Leave the Night On Pt. 03

He uses it against her. Obviously. That prick hangs her regret and her shame over her head.

"We all make bad choices, Pearl," I say. My voice doesn't betray my jealousy or my hostility towards that guy. I don't let her notice how bothered I am that she met me under the same circumstances she met him and Lord knows who else.

But before I get sucked into a black hole of toxic thoughts, I tell myself that I am the one who's here. I'm the man she's trusting with this. Me. And it's not like I don't have my fair share of mistakes to regret.

"A few months after I met him, Mel brought him home and introduced him as her boyfriend," Pearl says, getting on with her story. "I told her once, you know. About what happened. I thought I was being a good friend, because I was afraid she might've been dating him already when I... Anyway, that's why she hates me so much now. They got engaged four months ago."

And now he's constantly in her life. Orbiting her. Abusing her through their shared history. I make up my mind. I'm getting him alone one of these days. She won't ever have to know about it.

I let out the heavy breath I'd been keeping in. "Thanks for trusting me, Pearl. Thanks for telling me," I say.

"Thanks for listening," she says. And a solitary tear falls down her cheek.

I rise from my place and sit down beside her. "I still think you're amazing. Brave too. Crazy fucking brave, you know."

She lays her head on my shoulder. "You have to stop doing this, Julian."

"What?"

"Making me like you this much. It's dangerous."

I know. It is. But I can't stop. "It's all your fault. Things would be different if you weren't so hot." I kiss the smile I drag out of her.

"I still have to show you my room," she says, trying at a joking mood that is in contradiction with the current climate.

"Are you sure you want to go back?"

"It's my house," she says.

I nod. "Okay."

I leave a generous tip for Suzy before we leave Joe's. Inside the car, Pearl tunes to a radio station she likes. As I drive back to her place, she sings in perfect Spanish.

***

PEARL

I CAN'T CALL THAT FUCKING.

What Julian did to me tonight. Fucking isn't what that was.

I should know.

He's fast asleep beside me. On my bed. Naked. Beautiful. It's been a long time since I allowed a man to be in my bedroom. I can't help but feeling a line has been crossed. There was a clear delineation to what we were doing. Everything was contained to Friday nights. Platonic dinners, relentless teasing, enthralling conversation. Until the sex. We never stopped to discuss what would come afterwards. This is it now. This confusion inside me because I'm not sure I'm allowed to feel the way I do watching Julian sleep on my bed.

I'm half tempted to wake him up for another dose of him. His chest, an infinite plane of golden velvet, is rising and falling with the slow rhythm of his exhales. Unable to resist the itch, I reach over to lightly skim my fingers over his skin. He's such a beautiful contrast of hardness and softness. I love to be under the weight of his body, luxuriating on the full puissance of man over me.

No one has ever touched me the way he did tonight. Not even Julian himself any of the other times we were together.

This was different.

The gentleness he showed me tonight disarmed me. He was never this sweet, never not dominant. He lay me down on my bed. He removed my clothes with such attentiveness, touching every inch of skin with awe as if, underneath my dress, he'd uncover a secret, new and mysterious, and not the body he already knows.

While he fucked me, his eyes held on to mine. He watched me the whole time, using my face as a map to guide his movements. He was slow and gentle. He was fast and rough. As he moved inside me, a supernova burst within me. I tightened my thighs around his waist. I begged and gripped him because I never wanted him to leave my body. I clung to him, clamoring for more, for him to stay. Even when he finished, I kept him in me until I felt him stir, hardening again. And I was ready to give him more.

My body was renewed in the sensations he drew out of it, like those feelings were always there, but no one was able to discover them before. It came to me like a punch, hard and unexpected. It swirled around me, inside me, until I cried out, filled with an ecstasy beyond consciousness.

Julian fucked me through my first orgasm unrelentingly, never giving me time to recover as he kept on, torturing me with too much pleasure, driving himself deeper and deeper inside me until I was almost on the verge of passing out when the second orgasm hit me.

When it was over, he lay between my legs, with his face pressed to my belly, and would've fallen asleep there if I'd let him.

"I need to ride you," I said.

He lay on his back, compliant, excited as the prospect of indulging my whims seemed to give him more pleasure than it would give me. I needed a sense of control for once. I needed something to give me the illusion of not being so raw and translucent, with my every weakness unveiled for him. I sank down onto him, marveling on the invasion of my body, the stretching accompanied by a fleeting sting of pain. Full of him, so full it was hard to move, I rode out that fear of exposure while being completely naked. Heady on this power, watching him underneath me, his fingers buried in the flesh of my thighs, the force of his hips rising to meet mine. Inside me, the flutter of pleasure began rolling and rolling over me, rippling through my body until I collapsed on top of him. I lay on his chest, waiting for the thrill inside me to subside.

He kissed me forever after that, leisurely, exploratorily, with no aim but to kiss me. His lips were reverent. The calluses on his rough hands scraped my skin as he caressed my sweaty back. We didn't talk much more. It felt like we'd said enough tonight. So, eventually, we fell asleep.

I'm awake now. Tired, but sleepless. I suspect Julian is awake too because the rhythm of his breathing has changed. My fingers continue working patterns over the honey gold of his skin. I trace a line over the cutting ridge of his cheekbone up to the softly rounded tip of his nose and further, until I reach those beautiful charcoal eyebrows of his. At this moment, he is so foreign here with me I need the tangible reality of his body to keep me from running into the coming dawn outside.

"You're tickling me," he rasps sleepily.

"Sorry. I couldn't help myself."

He smirks with his eyes closed. "I know. I'm irresistible."

I laugh. He is not wrong. "Cocky."

Julian opens his eyes. They're the color of coffee in the morning. Strong and addicting. There's this new knowledge of each other between us. He stares at me intently, challenging me, but I can't play this game. I look away. Strangely, I'm like someone else when he looks at me. It's pure stupidity. It's all in my head and yet and I can't help it. He knows me now, because I've shown myself to him, because I've told him who I am.

"I need to go," he says.

Stay, I think. "I know," I say.

I watch him dress with voyeuristic pleasure. I don't want him to leave, but I need him to. Everything around me seems to be him. My sheets smell of him. I smell of him. What will I do with him? He has a kid. I'm his teacher's kid. He's divorced. I'm a mess. We're both scared even if we're denying our fear.

"Pearl?" He stops by the door, with his hand on the knob, and turns to look at me.

"Yeah?"

It's a novelty to see something akin to insecurity in him. "You're safe with me, okay?"

I smile. "I know I am."

I watch him leave through my window. Once his car is out of sight, I change into my running clothes and step outside.

***

LIL WILL SAYI'm not a romantic person. Or she might state, as she usually does, that I'm an avoider. According to her, or anyone who knows me well, I will automatically despise any prospect of forming a romantic attachment with a man.

My argument against any of these accusations is: That's bullshit.

I love love. I love the rush of falling in love. I have been in love. The real, heart-wrenching, belly-warming, stuff of romance novels kind of love. That first time was the real deal for me. That ended, as all first loves do, in tears and bittersweet memories.

Once, there was Gael. My heart beating in my throat when his eyes found mine. A single word from him had the power to command my whole being. I was so young and so in love with that boy. Now, he's a mere memory I carry in the deepness of my heart. Everybody loves their first love forever. I'm no exception.

In my experience, falling in love gets increasingly harder as you get older and less naïve. Your priorities change as well. Still, I like to think of myself as a romantic. What I am is skeptical of romance in the modern world. Sure, people fall in love all the time. Left and right. You can find a possible love match with a swipe to the right. The issue is, everything is a game. And I can say this because I'm good at this game.

I can play the Game. Hell, I have been playing it well. In fact, I played it so well, I'm bored of it. I'm bored of men coming up with their best catch-up phrases. I'm tired of being a body in a tight dress. I'm tired of the superficial talking and the faked confidence we go showcasing in nightclubs and dating Apps. And most definitely, I'm sick of leaving before he wakes up to spare him the creation of an excuse to get rid of me. That's where Lily gets the avoidant argument from.

What I want, truly, is someone who turns my brain on. I want companionship. I want to feel free while also belonging to someone. I want fun and intelligent on top of sexy. I want to be respected for who I am, and I want to be lusted after for who I am. In my opinion that makes me more of a romantic than anyone I know. Aren't those things rarer than that mythological true love nowadays? And isn't it even rarer that I might have actually found it?

I'm in this thing with a man who enjoys listening to my ramblings. He listens with genuine interest. When he talks, I'm on the edge of my seat to know what's in that gorgeous head of his. Later, in his bed, everything is equally given and taken even if I'm the more submissive one. I never feel wrong or used around him. I catch myself being interested in being interested. I respect him to such a degree; I like him more than I lust him.

Essentially, I think I need to tell Julian he's got me on the edge, and if he doesn't stop being so damn amazing, I might fall any second.

***

I'M ON MY HANDS AND KNEES, panting, sweat running down my neck. The tub's porcelain is gleaming white. There's no real necessity to clean anything in the bathroom. However, I need something to do. I need to exhaust myself so maybe I'll be able to sleep off all this anxiety.

My body's rocking back and forth with the ups and downs of my brush when I hear light footsteps behind me. "Didn't see you arrive," Lil says through a yawn.

I turn my head to see my best friend's sleepy face. "I got here an hour ago," I say.

"Why are you scrubbing the tub at this hour?"

I throw her a glance over my shoulder. "You know why."

"Why?" She insists.

"Can't sleep," I say, returning to my unnecessary scrubbing.

"Why?" She asks again.

She's my best friend. I can tell her this. Even if I don't know how to word this thing. I drop my brush. "I think I'm in a relationship. Kind of."

"Starting to believe in love again?" She offers as the smart-ass that she is.

"I don't know what's happening to me." The sound of the toilet flushing muffles my words.

"What was that, honey?"

I sigh. Exhaustion is finally catching up with me. "I can't sleep. I need sleep."

She wraps her long, freckled arms around my neck. "Do you want to cuddle with me?"

"I do." I gladly accept her offer. I can't be left alone with myself. I'll think too much and sleep too little.

"Okay. Come to bed soon. I love you."

"Love you too."

After Lil returns to bed, I finish cleaning the tub and start tidying the wet mess I've made on the floor. I'm almost finished when I hear a whistle.

"Great view."

The blood in my veins turn to ice. I rise, trying to control my breathing. I grab the bucket with the cleaning supplies and turn to leave, using all of my determination to ignore his presence. Because he knows he gets to me and he takes a sick pleasure in it, Mark's ex-jock frame blocks the doorway.

"Excuse me," I say, barely not hissing the words.

He sees the unease he brings out of me showing and smiles that smile I hate. A smug, thin-lipped smile. I ball my free hand in a tight fist. "Come on, you're not leaving already. I just got here. Stay a little," he says every word lowly, under his breath.

I'm not concerned with being quiet. "Get the fuck out of my way, Mark."

"Careful, Pearl. You don't want to punch me, do you? You're not a first offender anymore." As he speaks, he backs away from the door, walking towards me. "Do you have any idea what happens to pretty girls like you in jail?"

"Do you have any idea what I'll do to you if you don't get the fuck out of my way?" I say, feeling the cold tiled wall hit my shoulder blades. I would gladly go to jail for the satisfaction of punching him.

"What? You going to call your boyfriend to defend you?"

His words attack me just as he intended. The implication that I'd need someone else to defend me from him. A man. He pokes at my pride. A buzzing starts in my ear. It's a white blinding anger warming my guts. "Back the fuck off, Mark," I hiss again without convincing any of us of my brave front. I'm the one who's backed up against a wall. Afraid. It makes me so angry that humiliation tears sting my eyes. And yet, I can't move.

Mark leans his hip against the sink, and casually crosses his arms over his chest. He watches me like I'm a bug squirming under his thumb. "Why are you such a bitch to me, Pearl? You know," he says, pausing to let his eyes sweep over me. "We fit well together, you and I."

"I despise you," I spit.

He seems to find it funny, because his smile widens. "I hope you're not afraid you can't take it? You have a tight little cunt, but you know I fit you. Maybe that gook got you deluded with the small things in life."

My face burns hot. I feel my lower lip quivering in anger, unable to let out the words I'd like to say. I hate what his presence does to me. I hate that he knows he has this power over me and I'm backed against a wall, afraid of him. I hate that he thinks he can talk about Julian this way. All this because once I was alienated from myself enough to allow him to touch me. Tarnish me. He is a monster I created. I chose to go with him. Once, I chose to give myself away. I have to stop being such a victim of my own choices now. These hands of his I have once allowed to be on my body can't do anything to me now.

I narrow the space between us to a mere few inch. Our bodies almost touch. "You are a pathetic piece of shit, mark. You aren't even worth breathing the same air as he does," I say, then I spit on his face.

It hits him right under his left eye. I know this is my chance to leave, and yet I stay. I watch his face contort as if he's reflecting the disgust I'm feeling. He lifts a hand to his eye and proceeds to wipe my saliva off with robotic motions. Unfeeling. Unfazed.

Out of my victory haze, I take the chance to flee and go to the door. Mark, recovered, grabs my arm and twists it painfully. My skin crawls at this touch. I drop the bucket with a thud. "Let go of me," I sneer.

"Come here, you little bitch. You know you want it. I remember how much you liked it. I remember the sounds you made." He pulls me against him. His scent invades my nostrils, evoking revulsion. I try to yank my arm off his hold but he grabs it tighter. Desperation starts to sneak in. I get flashes of him all over me and my mind goes off. Muscle memory takes over and I remember every single move I learned in my self-defense classes. My knee rises and hits him right in the balls.

He lets go of my arm and falls to his knees, hands cradling his junk. His face turns crimson as he howls in pain. I hear the sound before I realize I'm laughing. I'm laughing so hard I have to bend in half and clutch my belly.

"You fucking bitch. You're going to regret this!" He yells. And I keep on laughing.

I don't even hear Lil arriving. She is suddenly by the door. Her eyes are green saucers. "Oh fuck, Pearl!" But she's smiling too.

Then Mel is behind her the next second. "Mark?"

She rushes to him, trying to assess his condition. I've stopped laughing. I know I should go, yet I find my legs don't obey me. I don't move.

"What happened?" Mel asks him.

Mark's eyes dart to me, accusingly. Mel's gaze follows him until her eyes, red and angry, land on me. "What have you done to him, you slut?"

I draw back. "What makes you think he didn't deserve it, Melanie?" I defy her. I'm sick of these two. I'm sick of her animosity. Sick of having him around all the time because of her. I've had enough.

"Mel-" Lil tries to intervene, stepping between Mel and I.

We both ignore her.

"Your boyfriend is an abusive shit, Mel!" I voice the opinions I've always had of Mark, shouting at Mel over Lil's shoulder. "He's a pig and I'm sick and tired of being harassed by him!"

"Shut up, Pearl!" Mel screams. It rumbles out of her like a long contained thunder. She starts shaking so hard her face reddens. "Why are you always...always..." she chokes on her words as fat tears start running down her face.

Her pained expression shatters the belligerence in me. Going past Lil, I reach for Mel, the friend in me taking over, but she bats my hand away.

"I hate you!" She says, spit flying from her mouth. "I hate you!"

I stand, dumbstruck by the sheer force of her words. I stare at her face, her quivering lips, the crimson anger I know is for me. She has always made her dislike of me clear, but I could never have imagined the depths of her contempt.

It's only when I'm being dragged out the door by Lil that I feel the wetness of tears down my cheeks. We can still hear Mel's sobs and Mark cursing from the stairs when we step onto the sidewalk.

***

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, I'm tying up my classroom when there's a knock on my door. I turn to see Marnie leaning against the doorframe. Her face is framed by the seriousness she wears in school. She is good at separating her personal life from her professional life. She has an expression for each. The face she's wearing now is not inviting.

"Hey, Marns! Come in."

"Hi, Pearl. Can't. I came to get you," she says, flatly. "The witch wants you."

Usually, if principal Isherwood needs a word, she comes to me herself. Sending Marnie, the school social worker, formalizes the request. I try not to read too much into it.

"Oh. Okay." I forsake my unfinished work and exit the classroom with Marnie. "What does it look like in there?" I ask her. She always gives me a spoiler so I know what to wait for.

She sighs. "I don't know, Pearl."

"Okay." I'm trying to remain calm here, but her visit is uncommon. I don't like how stiff she looks.

She stops, abruptly, and her shoes squeak on the gleaming hallway floor. I almost bump my nose on her back. She whirls around to face me, forehand creased. "Can I ask you something, Pearl?"

I can't say no. I wish I could. "Of course you can."

"Are you involved with Hannah Song's father in any way?"

I watch her reading the answer on my wide panicked eyes. "What do you mean?"

She tilts her head, annoyed now. "Are you fucking him?"

My lips part. I try at an offended look. "What? Jesus, Marnie. Of course not!"

"Are you sure? Because he's in the principal's office right now," she says. "The principal called him in and she wants you there too."