The Ex

I’m dining on the patio of my favorite Mexican restaurant in Eagle Rock when I see my ex walking toward me, his stride long and low and loose—less of a stride, more of a strut, really. I haven’t seen him in half a decade, but that gait is instantly recognizable. It is one of the most unfairly attractive things about an unfairly attractive man.

I scan his appearance, struck by how much better he looks now. When I first knew him, he was still boyish, a little gangly, a little uncertain. Time has molded him with gentle, loving hands, giving him balance and confidence. He wears his hair, thick and wavy and the color of honey, closer to his head. His features are a little blunted, his shoulders broader; his torso thicker. But he still walks with a lightness that belies his height.

I’m so busy taking him in I don’t have time to be nervous or self-conscious when he stops in front of the wrought iron fence that separates diners from pedestrians and looks me right in the eye. I blink and draw back; even though I saw him coming, his being so close to me feels violent somehow, as if I’ve been punched in the gut. He crosses his forearms, tanned and sleek and corded with muscle, on the top bar of the fence.

“Hey,” he says. “Hey, you.”

“Frances,” I say, and my voice is a dry little whisper. I cough, then say more loudly, “It’s Frances.” Like an idiot, I point at my chest as I say it.

His eyes, the variegated gray of storm clouds, twinkle. “I know your name, dope,” he says, and there’s so much affection in his voice that I want to throw myself at his feet, like a cat begging to be pet. “We dated.”

I feel my face burn with embarrassment. George was and is handsome in a way that I thought only existed in fiction; he’s someone who is easy and graceful around people whereas I feel sweaty and nervous and tortured by self doubt in nearly all social settings. I was solitary; he was gregarious; I was sharp; he was kind. We were housemates for a year and half in Venice; when our lease was up, he asked if I wanted to move to Culver City with him and two of his friends, but instead I moved to the East side. Two years after that, I randomly ran into him in a bar in Santa Monica and after the bar closed, he took me joyriding in his beloved ragtop Ford Bronco, the same one he spent countless hours restoring when we shared a house. 

After thirty minutes of careening at illegal speeds around upscale suburban neighborhoods, I made him pull over before we got stopped by the cops. I was shaking with adrenaline and laughter; he was solemn-faced but his eyes were laughing with me.

“You liked that?” he asked.

I couldn’t speak. My hair was a witch’s tangle and my contact lenses were so dry they felt welded to my eyeballs. My cheeks were tingling and I couldn’t stop smiling. I replied, deadpan: “It was okay.”

There was a moment of sudden, tense silence between us.

I cleared my throat and said, “Want to get soon dubu at Tofu House? I think they’re still open.”

George shook his head. “No,” he said slowly. “I have a better idea.”

Then he drove me home and took me to bed.

~~~

“Why exactly did we break up?” George asks. “Remind me.”

In a strange coincidence for adults in their middle-to-late thirties, neither of us have anything pressing to do that afternoon. George asked if he could join me; after a nanosecond of indecision, I said, “Sure.” To my surprise, he took the seat next to me while I prayed fervently that I wouldn’t spontaneously sweat through my shirt out of sheer nervousness.

I’ve finished my food, so we ordered drinks: sangria for me, El Tesoro for him. I’m on my second glass. He’s barely halfway through his first.

George is sitting much too close, his thigh almost pressed next to mine. I can feel his body heat reaching out toward me, just daring me to move closer to him.

I hunch my shoulders, then make a decision to sit up straight and look him in the eye. “We broke up because I was jealous and insecure,” I say slowly. “You were always talking to cute actresses.”

George laughs, his teeth gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. Everything about him—hair, skin, eyelashes—seems rich and syrupy, tinted with gold. I want to touch him so badly I have to curl my hands into fists to stop myself.

“That was work,” he points out, and this is an argument we had many times in the past, but he says it playfully, as if it were a cute little inside joke rather than the thorniest symptom of my deep-rooted fears: that there was always someone prettier, nicer, more easygoing, a better fit, just waiting for him in the wings. I’m the blunt-speaking, coupon-clipping, disaster-expecting child of immigrants; George is not just tanned and blond in his appearance, but also, I’m convinced, in his soul. “I’m a Teamster, it was my job to drive them around.”

I down the rest of my sangria and look him right in the eye. “I don’t want to fight about this,” I say, and half-rise from my seat.

Truthfully, I never had any reason to suspect that he was sleeping around, but deep in my bones I feared that he would see just how ill-suited we were and leave me. So, after six months, I broke up with him. I told myself it was the sensible thing to do; besides, I could feel it just around the corner: the moment where my cool, confident facade would dissolve and I’d start going through his pockets, snooping on his laptop and phone, both dreading and wanting proof that he couldn’t be trusted, that he was too good to be true.

But it’s also true that I could never quite figure out what I wanted from him other than all of him, body and soul. So I made myself act noncommittal and aloof when the reality was that I was a quivering, needy, lovestruck mess. I broke up with him to maintain my sanity, to keep my pride. But now, looking at him, I realize how much I lost. I suddenly feel sorry for the girl that I was, and I have to get away from him before I blurt out everything and embarrass the both of us. 

George clamps a hand down on my leg, right above the knee as he presses me back down into my seat; his hand is so big it almost covers half my thigh. He and I both hear my sharp intake of breath. I can’t stop staring at the sight of his fingers as they flex, digging a little into the soft flesh underneath the charcoal-colored denim. Something hot and soft blooms between my legs.

I know he’s staring at me, willing me to look at him, and finally I drag my gaze up to meet his. My mouth is open and I’m trying very hard not to openly pant. It’s been a long time since I’ve slept with someone, and if I’m honest, I’ve never been able to stop thinking about George: his voice, his eyes, his smile; how much he made me laugh, how good we were together, especially in bed.

“Hey,” he says. His voice is deep and rich. It sounds like it’s emanating from the center of the earth. He moves closer, the chair seat creaking under his weight. He puts his lips next to my ear, not quite touching that delicate curve of flesh, and his next words feel like they’re penetrating my soul. “Frances. Come home with me. I want you to see my place. I’ll let you make fun of my books.”

A crazy little shiver moves down my ear canal, across my shoulder blades, and down my spine. I can feel my nipples sharpening into tight little points and I regret wearing such a flimsy t-shirt and a lacy bralette; I regret that my desire for him is so visible, that it always has been. I can feel George’s gaze flicker down my body; I know he’s looking at my tits.

“I don’t care about any of your stupid comics,” I tell him, but the words sound breathless, almost flirtatious. George could never quite believe that I, a librarian-in-training obsessed with restoring antique books and organizing metadata, didn’t want to help him catalog his seventeen milk crates filled with vintage back issues of Aqua Flaming Silver Man or whatever bullshit he was currently into.

He laughs, and the sound is so dark and delightful, an oceanic ripple, a velvety burr, that I want to put my hands on his chest and press and pull and play, like a cat kneading an especially firm and appealing sofa cushion.

“I sold most of ‘em,” he confesses, and reaches up to touch my hair, pushing a strand off my face.

“You did?” I say. My voice is still unnaturally high and girlish. I’m actually surprised; George’s comic book collection was, besides that refurbished Ford Bronco, his pride and joy.

“I did,” he says, his lips still next to my ear. “I used them to make a downpayment on a house.”

I can barely understand what he’s saying; English has become my second language when every movement he’s making, every light touch of his fingers on my hair and jaw, the sensation of his breathing in the shell of my ear are all saying far more important things. Things like: come to bed, Frances and don’t worry about breaking your heart, Frances, and remember how I used to press your legs apart with my forearms while I went down on you, Frances, so wide that you thought your hips might come out of their sockets?

“Come see the house,” he says, and presses a hot, damp kiss right below my ear, and the sensation of it, fleshy and wet, makes my lower back arch, makes my pussy flutter and growl. “Come see the bed.”

I swallow. “Do you still have that old car?” I say faintly. “The Bronco?”

George’s face is in my hair; he’s nuzzling my neck. I can feel his lips curve into a grin.

~~~

George’s bed feels as wide as the ocean, the sheets and covers shockingly white. Late afternoon sun pours into the room until he snaps the curtains together, shrouding everything in half-gloom. I’m impressed at how clean everything is, how well put together: minimal but not boring, every flat surface free of dust. George was a military brat until he was twelve, and the precise corners and angles of the duvet and pillowcases remind me of that fact.

I turn to tell him that I like his house, a beautiful three-bedroom Arts and Crafts bungalow in Montecito Heights that I suspect he’s restored and remodeled himself, if the piles of raw lumber and power tools in the garage are anything to go by. But before I can say anything, he turns me around and pushes me so I fall face-first into the bed. I give a little mmph of surprise, then try to push myself up when I feel him reach under me to unsnap my jeans.

But I’m too slow and he’s too dextrous: within seconds, he has my pants off, and my underwear is next. My eyes go wide when I feel him grasp each of my buttocks and peel me open, the gesture almost casual, as if he were breaking a baguette in half to share. The next thing I know, his tongue, thick and probing, is in my pussy, his nose nudging and teasing my asshole.

“George!” I squeal, and try to wiggle away. I’m half-laughing, half-moaning, appalled and delighted all at once as he laves my cunt and—there’s no other way to put it—fingers my ass, but with his nose.

He pushes my hips a little higher so he can suck and feast and nibble on all the layers and folds of my sex. His tongue squirms into my back entrance and I moan louder and buck my hips, and this time, when I try to turn onto my back, he lets me. He rubs his nose against the hard little button of my clit, the gesture tender, almost sweet, even as he uses tongue and lips and teeth to ruthlessly fuck my hole.

“George—at least wipe your face off—oooh,” I say, and my pelvis juts upward involuntarily as he slides two thick, work-roughened fingers inside me, his tongue stroking my clit in slow 4/4 time. “Oh, fuck, you were always so good at that, Jesus,” I say, and I can hear his answering groan, sense from the way he’s grinding his own hips against the mattress, that he’s unbearably excited by my excitement. 

“Play with my tits,” I beg him. “Please.”

He raises his head and looks at me; his mouth and chin are slick with my arousal and I want to cover my face, simultaneously embarrassed and fascinated by what I’ve done to him, by what he’s doing to me.

“Do it yourself,” he says, and his beautiful voice is slurred and off-kilter, like he’s done three shots of bourbon. “I want to finish you off with my tongue.”

I shake my head. “You do it,” I insist. “I like it better when you do it.”

George looks at me, mock disgruntled, then crawls up over my body, the mattress squeaking and sighing as he moves. He’s much bigger than I am: taller by at least seven or eight inches and so long-limbed he could wrap his arms around me twice. I run my hands down his chest, his stomach, the long, hard lines of his flanks. I slide my hands in the back pockets of his jeans and grip his ass. I exhale.

“Kiss me first,” he demands.

I wrinkle my nose. I know what he expects me to say: another old argument. You just had your face in my ass! 

If I’m good enough to eat your ass, I’m good enough to kiss.

I squeeze my eyes shut, hard, then open them. “Fine,” I say, and pull him toward me, so close that his big, shit-eating grin looks like it belongs on the face of one of his comic book supervillains. At the last minute, I snatch up a pillow and swipe it down his face. He howls in disapproval, but before he can complain, I reach down and unzip his pants and work his cock free, grabbing it firmly at the base, then sliding my hand up-down, up-down, up-down, in a rhythm he’s always loved, until his hips are urgently moving back and forth and he’s fucking my fist. I take his balls in my other hand and grasp them gently, pulling and rubbing in counterpoint to the rhythm I’m using to work his cock until his eyes flutter close and his jaw goes slack.

“You like that, Daddy?” I coo.

One eyelid flutters open and he stares at me. “Daddy?”

I repress a grin and keep my tones soft and dulcet. “Does Daddy want to play with Frances’ asshole some more?” I whisper. “Does Daddy want Frances to play with his asshole?”

We both stop and stare at each other, and for one long, horrible moment, I wonder if I’ve gone too far. Then we both burst into laughter: wild, cackling, full-bodied laughter. George rests his full weight on top of me and I’m shaking and hooting so hard that I can feel the bones in his chest reverberating and I can’t tell whose laughter is whose. George shifts his weight and pushes his face into the crook of my neck. “I always liked that about you,” he mumbles, and with those words, the past is back with us, a shadowy but unmistakable presence in the room. 

“Liked what?” I say. I run my fingers through his hair, down his neck, along the groove of his spine. His flesh is smooth and a little damp with perspiration. I push his pants and underwear farther down his body and palm the firm globes of his ass; he hisses at the feel of my hands against his bare skin, then grunts in approval as I squeeze and knead, squeeze and knead. He nudges my legs apart and shifts upward until his cock rests in the wet notch of my sex.

He shudders as I adjust myself so I can feel all of him, then kisses my neck. “You start out kind of uptight and hesitant.” He lifts his head and looks at me, his eyes both slumberous and assessing. “And then once you kick into gear, you really kick into gear.” He grins. He leans forward so our noses touch. “I’m into it.”

I lace my hands behind his head and kiss him: at first a soft purse of the lips, just skin meeting skin. He parts his lips a fraction of an inch and I rub my mouth against him, urging him to open more, open himself up to my greedy tongue as it presses and seeks his. This kiss: it feels so good, so familiar yet somehow new that I could cry with the pleasure and comfort of it all. God, I liked you so much, I want to tell him, and then to my surprise, I realize the words have left my lips and now hang between us, taking on mass and significance with each second that ticks by.

George rolls halfway off me, his hand between my legs. He doesn’t say anything in reply, and soon I’m too distracted by how he’s touching me to worry about what I’ve just said. Instead, I focus on how he’s touching me, with both skill and ardor. Everything between my legs feels voluptuous and rich as his fingers move and probe and sift as if he’s handling something wonderful, something precious, something rare. The look on his face—tender, lustful, serious—makes something in the vicinity of my heart ache.

He uses his other hand to drag my t-shirt and the soft, lacy cup of my bralette to one side. He stares at the mound of my breast, pale and round in the shadow-filled room, touches one fingertip to the very tip of my breast. My nipple puckers. “You have very cute tits,” he pronounces, and I laugh again.

“What?”

I shake my head. “You said the exact same thing the first time we got naked.”

He gives a one-shouldered shrug, looks up at me from under his lashes. It’s all I can do not to whimper. “You had cute tits then, too.” He drops his head and kisses my armpit, which makes me squirm and giggle. I clamp my legs together as I feel his teeth sink into my shoulder. Then he sucks my hard, pointed nipple into his mouth, pulling and dragging with his tongue and the suction of his cheeks, the sensation almost too sharp and strong in contrast to the delicacy of his fingers, still moving in my cunt.

“Oh, fuck,” I grit out, my teeth clenched. My hips rise up off the bed. “George. What are you doing? I wanted you to play with my tits—”

Without warning, he rolls to his back and drags me with him, pulling my body toward the headboard until I’m kneeling over his face and he’s yanking my thighs apart, pulling me down toward him—

“George,” I say again. He always said he loved this, having me sit on his face, and I never quite believed him no matter how many times he insisted. “How can this be fun for you? Can you even breathe?” In reply, he wraps his arms around my legs and pulls me downward again, so hard that I can feel his nose pressing up against my clit.

“Okay, okay,” I say, and wiggle until he releases me, just a little bit. I tilt my hips a little, hoping to get him some air. I feel his thumbs stroking my labia, moving them apart so he can lap and suckle and tease all those sensitive spots that might otherwise stay hidden; I feel the slight stubble on his chin rubbing against my hole. His breathing is hot and quick and agitated and after a few more moments, I stop worrying about whether I’m going to smother him and pay attention to how I feel instead; I grasp the headboard for leverage as I start to rock and gyrate, teasing him, letting his tongue slide around my clit, up and down my dripping pussy, then lifting myself out of reach. I glance behind me; his hips are jutting up off the mattress and his cock, framed by the dark cotton of his underwear and the worn denim of his jeans, is so hard it’s lying flush against his stomach. His heels press into the bed for leverage and he moans as I descend for a few seconds, letting him suck and rub and grind his face into me. I turn back to face the headboard and rise and fall, rise and fall, until maddened by my teasing, he grasps my tits in his hands and pinches both nipples, hard, bracing his elbows atop my hips to pull me down toward him. I screech loud enough to startle a flock of birds from the tree immediately outside the window. I want to laugh, but George strokes and rolls my nipples against the warm palms of his hands and all I can do is sigh God, yes and then more, more, more.

He sucks and sucks, engulfing my clit in warmth and wetness. He moves one hand away from my breast, stroking it along my back, my waist, moving it lower and lower still. I give an airless little scream as he slides a calloused finger into my asshole, the sensation rough, shocking, amazing. My pussy clenches in on itself and my back convulses; I am hollow, overloaded by sensation as everything inside me squeezes and uncoils with whiplash quickness and then I feel myself release, wetness sliding down my thighs and across my former—my current—my best—lover’s face.

Photo by Anna Alexes