Coyote Ugly
+Coyote Ugly+
MaeB
I wake up every Saturday morning wondering how I got here. It's always the same, but never familiar. I open my eyes because the drapes are never closed right and the sun always finds a way to peek in and sting the backs of my lids. It always burns, but not as badly as when he touches my skin. I roll over in sheets that don't conform to my skin. They repel me. They're not used to my body, they don't fall over the muscle right, they don't bend to my touch. Nothing's ever right when I'm here.
Except for him.
I wake up every Saturday morning wondering how our skin is still so moist with sweat. It happened so many hours ago, but the room still wreaks of love. It seeps into my nostrils, into my veins, like poison. I'm addicted to it, and yet I know it's hurting me. It's killing me. Every moment without it is utter pain, and every moment with it is regret. I think about it. I dream about it. I count the minutes till Friday night, where we meet again for the first time, and we smile at each other for the first time, and you buy me a drink for the first time, and we make love for the millionth time.
Sometimes I wonder if he's bored, if he's only doing this because he hasn't found anyone else. Sometimes I wonder if he has found someone else, but really doesn't want to replace me. I secretly hope it's one of those two things, and not that he really loves me. I couldn't handle that.
I roll over and face away from him to stare down the wall. Even all the way over here, across the miles of bed between us, I can smell him as if my face were still buried in his hair. He rolls over, I can hear him, and he crosses the craters of mattress just to hold me again. I would fight him off, tell him to get a life. He's a loser, a creepy old guy with a thing for young men like me. But I don't. I just pretend to sleep, and let his arms cross my chest to pull me into an embrace. I can feel his knees slip into the perfect form of the back of mine. His spine curves to fit my body neatly inside his. It's as if someone tore up a piece of paper, and taped the two least important parts back together. It doesn't make sense, but they still fit perfectly. I can feel his chest heaving. He's snoring slightly, but not enough to bother me. He told me yesterday that he had a cold, but I still kissed him. Since when did I care? I told him, if I cared what happened to my body, I wouldn't have been sleeping with him.
He smiled and told me he was glad I was so unhealthy.
I've had enough of this. I don't want to be this tiny thing, caught in his huge shadow, embraced by his superior touch. I've always been caught in his shadow. Ever since I met him I've been looking up at him from way down below.
It happened two years ago. I was in high school, only a sophomore; he was in college, a senior. He was going to school for veterinary science. I didn't know what the hell I wanted to do. He was where he belonged. I was just floating along.
A old friend of mine and I had been dating at the time. She was pretty and foreign. Her name was Julie. She grew up in Switzerland, moved to Germany, and then somehow ended up here, with me, in love. Or at least that's what she told me we were. I learned a lot from Julie. She taught me how to sit and stay, how to speak on command, how to be a properly trained man. Saying I love you became a triggered response. I never really meant it, it just was the right thing to say.
She brought me to a party, a sorority party. Her friend who had graduated a year before invited us. I didn't want to go, but Julie said, "sit and stay," and so I did.
I had been on the couch in the front room, with nothing but a cigarette in one hand and Julie's bag in the other, when I met him. Tall, blonde, brown eyes, handsome as all hell. Next to me, with my stingy black hair and dark brown eyes, he was a god. He made me look worse than I felt. I hated him instantly.
He didn't even say hi, he just sat next to me and when no one was looking, he kissed me. We walked out to his car, and drove to his apartment. The car ride was fast, not even worth mentioning. That night, he took off my clothes and told me I was beautiful. He kissed every inch of skin, touched ever cold spot and made them warm. When he said sit and stay, I obeyed willingly.
Here I am, ten years later, still believing him when he says I'm beautiful, still letting him touch every cold spot. I can't fool him anymore.
I pull myself out of the bed, letting him slump onto his chest. I walk over to the closet, pick up my clothes that had been haphazardly tossed away.
"You're leaving me for good."
I freeze. How can he know me so well? How can watch me take ten steps and know everything that I had been thinking?
"Yes. I don't want to see you anymore."
"Why?"
I begin to put my clothes on and ignore the question. He doesn't need a reason. If I give him a reason, he'll talk me out of it. I hope that he'll just drop it and let me go like he does every Saturday morning when I sneak out of bed, and he pretends to be asleep, and just as I open the door, he mutters "see you next Friday."
"Why?"
He asked again. I had hoped he would drop it, but he didn't. He can never drop anything. I slip my blazer on and move towards the bedroom door. I'm never going to come back here. Within a year, maybe two, I'll forget this place. I'll forget these drapes that betray us and let the sunlight in, and those sheets that never quite accept me, and that closet my clothes always end up in front of and never in. Maybe I can forget his name, and his voice, and his scent, and his car, and I'll forget the night I drove with him, and the way he held my hand while we fucked, and the fact that I kissed him back. Maybe I'll forget that he ever happened.
"Don't leave me."
For the first time since I started leaving here, I turn around. My hand is still on the door handle so that I can escape. He's looking right at me, rolled over on his side. His eyes don't waiver from mine. They look glassier than usual, as if he's about to cry. All that blonde hair is in the way, but those slivers of brown I see staring through the mane are breaking me in half.
It's my turn to ask. "Why."
He's silent for a moment. He's not thinking about what to say, but rather how to say it. I can see his lips open and close, letting labored air and lost words escape. I know what he's thinking, because I'm thinking it too.
"Why."
Just say it. I want you to say it.
"Because I love you."
My hand slips from the handle. My toes curl around themselves, rubbing against the carpet. I'm hoping the physical discomfort of rug burn can bring the breath back to my lungs and the blood back to my face. Before I know it I'm running back to the bed. He stands up, meeting me half way. This room isn't small enough, I can't get to him fast enough. There's not enough air for the two of us. His arms wrap around me for the first time, the first real time. I don't need to say anything, because he knows it already. I can't anyway. His mouth is over mine, and I'm falling backward, and his hands are in mine.
The sheets curl around me like they should, and his muscles form to mine. The paper was never really ripped, it was just crumpled.
Everything is right in this room.
Except for him.
But he doesn't need to be right to be with me.