Aerial Pasar

Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Information
Table of Contents
Summary
The Trailer
The Prelude
The First Chapter
The Second Chapter
The Third Chapter
The Fourth Chapter
The Fifth Chapter
The Sixth Chapter
The Seventh Chapter
The Eighth Chapter
The Ninth Chapter
The Tenth Chapter
The Eleventh Chapter
The Twelfth Chapter
The Thirteenth Chapter
The Fourteenth Chapter
The Fifteenth Chapter
The Sixteenth Chapter
The Seventeenth Chapter
The Eighteenth Chapter
The Nineteenth Chapter
The Twentieth Chapter
The Twenty-First Chapter
The Twenty-Second Chapter
The Twenty-Third Chapter
The Twenty-Fourth Chapter
The Twenty-Fifth Chapter
The Twenty-Sixth Chapter
The Twenty-Seventh Chapter
The Twenty-Eighth Chapter
The Twenty-Ninth Chapter
The Thirtieth Chapter
The Thirty-First Chapter
The Thirty-Second Chapter
The Thirty-Third Chapter
The Thirty-Fourth Chapter
The Thirty-Fifth Chapter
The Thirty-Sixth Chapter
The Thirty-Seventh Chapter
The Finale // Part One
The Finale // Part Two
The Pink Envelope
The Encore
The Double Encore
Here Comes the Sun // Aerial Magazine
Aerial
birdie
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This story was first published on October 6th, 2018, and was last updated on March 25th, 2021.
FicLab ID: f4E7TxoO/kuefpavi/do70M6

Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Table of Contents
Summary
The Trailer
The Prelude
The First Chapter
The Second Chapter
The Third Chapter
The Fourth Chapter
The Fifth Chapter
The Sixth Chapter
The Seventh Chapter
The Eighth Chapter
The Ninth Chapter
The Tenth Chapter
The Twelfth Chapter

The Pink Envelope
The Encore
The Double Encore

Summary
titleAerial
authorbirdie
source https://www.wattpad.com/story/160109196
publishe
October 6th, 2018
d
updatedMarch 25th, 2021
words467,575
chapters45
statusComplete
rating Unknown
60s, Action, Circus, Comedy, Complete, Conflict, Dancing, Dating, Dirtydancing, Drama, Fantasy,
tags Featured, Harry, Harrystyles, Hate, Love, Lovetohate, Rollerskating, Romance, Skateboarding,
Smutwarning, Surfing
Description
✼ In Malibu, California in 1965, a surfer and world-famous aerialist undergoes a chain of comedic and not-so-
comedic mishaps that force him to re-evaluate who he is. ✼
Most impressive rankings // #2 in Conflict and #62 in Comedy!
✼ Voted #1 in the 2019 VA Awards for both Alternate Universe and Fan Favorite! ✼
Please read with discretion.

The Trailer
New adventure coming to you lovely people on October 13th, 2018!
This work of visual art is brought to you by the one and only
FatBottomedGirls. Thank you so much, my loves.
This is the Grease/Endless Summer/Dirty Dancing/Ringling Brothers story of

your dreams with a few sweet twists (don’t you know me by now?) bruh 🤙🏻
Welcome to Birdie’s fantasy world of pure, whimsical fiction. It includes an

intentionally dubious pathological situation, amusing old chestnuts, as well as
objects and bearings of my own invention. And of course, the best smut you’ve
ever read. I’m so excited to tug on your heart and kitty strings again. Let’s have
some fun with this one!
I credit this story to several people. chanmapan for planting the seed ages ago
and FatBottomedGirls, harryslovehandles_ and confessionharry for helping it
blossom. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: it takes a village! This includes you,
all of my favorite readers, for encouraging me along with voting and commenting
on each chapter.
I hope you guys enjoy it. I’ve been working on this creation for quite some
time now, so I’ve got chapters lined up in order to cut down on your wait period.
Let’s do this!
Love you all! Missed you. Xx Birdie

The Prelude
Cheers.
A sweep of freedom.
Her hands grip mine tightly, blood rushes to my head, blinding stage lights
create a flicker of disorientation.
Her hands are sweaty, the backs of my knees ache, the crowd is agape in
anticipation.
A plea tumbles from her lips in the form of a shriek that echoes off of the
canvas of the big top.
My curse splinters into a desperate shout of helplessness.
Our fingers lapse, my ears ring with the thunk of a boneless body, a rippling
domino effect of gasps fragments the crowd.
Twisted, mangled, gnarled, contorted, deformed, tortured.
A blanket of crimson.
Silence.
The First Chapter
Malibu, California Late spring 1965
Tits.
Quite possibly Harry’s favorite type of jellyfish that washes ashore. It’s even
better that they come in pairs, in hundreds of different shapes, colors and sizes,
all covered by an array of revealing fabrics as the sun beats down on them at high
noon.
His legs tread through the chilled water where he sits at the tail of his beloved
surfboard. His toes are pruning from the amount of time that he’s killed in the
ocean this morning, the salt water shriveling his skin and sunshine staining his
forearms and the tip of his nose a dark, golden honey. He scans the crowded
beach from his perch deep offshore as he waits for a new set to ride, waves
gently rocking him side to side as he works a piece of gum between his molars.
He’s several confident feet behind where the row of gremmies paddle around
on their stomachs, his years of practice and skill placing him in an advanced
degree ahead of the others. It’s always been important to Harry to hold the
highest aptitude in whatever faculty he attempts, whether it be surfing or the
caliber of women he sleeps with. The word ’competitive’ comes to mind, but
Harry doesn’t see it as a negative aspect of his personality. His recreational drive
and natural instincts have always set him apart from those around him.
There isn’t much thought passing by about how his day has transpired thus far
and what he plans to do for the rest, just a short-sighted trill as his eyes land on
stretches of exposed skin.
He can just make out movement beside the arch of a red-and-white striped
umbrella with fringe on the ends, an outstretched arm waving in his direction
and causing the swells from underneath her avocado green swimsuit to jiggle in
the process. One corner of his mouth perks in a devilish smirk as he returns the
gesture with a flirtatious ripple of his fingertips, the coaxing suction of the water
beneath him indicating the arrival of another strong wave.
Harry swings his legs around and positions himself on his stomach as his
heart rate accelerates with adrenaline; he loves the feeling of physical prowess
and of performance. He loves the notion of impressing those around him, of
drawing jealousy to the crust of other people’s skin, of being gawked at while
they quietly think to themselves that they will never be able to achieve what
comes so easily for him. The word ’arrogant’ comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t
see it as a negative aspect of his personality. He can’t help it if he was gifted the
extraordinary capacity of quick-wittedness and smooth adaptation.
His fingertips push through the choppy saline water as he paddles with all his
might, fighting against the current that works so diligently to suck him
backwards with the force of the tide. Once he’s caught a good lead on the nature
of the rough ocean, his palms flatten on the board to hoist his body into a push
up, his feet popping up underneath him for purchase as his stomach muscles
burn with the vigor needed to hoist himself into a crouch. He rises to standing;
arms comfortably loose and legs bent as the thrill of his surfboard slicing
perpendicular to the intimidatingly hefty wave coerces virility to each of his
nerve endings.
Harry leans into the surfboard with his body, keeping his center of gravity
stabilized as one hand drags down against the foamy crest as if to steer him
through the sea like a sailboat. The clap and smack of the break against his digits
makes him feel alive and purposeful, adept and in control. As if the ocean is his
board game and he is the hand that rolls the dice, controlling the fate of the
scheme and all of the player’s fortunes around him.
He catches air and puckers his lips in concentration to stay balanced while
elevated above the brine, his stomach flipping in success when he lands in a
smooth glide. His board carves and meanders in a perfectly controlled zig-zag as
he makes his way to the beach through the curl of the wave, the water naturally
splintering against the sand as he jumps from his equipment and breaks his
momentum with a couple jogging steps.
Another flawless ride.
A loud and enthusiastic whistle cuts through the breeze and the hefty inhales
and exhales clearing out his lungs, his lips twisting into a grin at the external
appreciation of his talent. He assumes it’s come from the chick who was checking
him out several minutes ago, but the sunlight is so blinding that he’s having
difficulty pinpointing it’s origin. He unstraps the leash from his ankle and unzips
the back of his wetsuit, his fingers digging into the rubbery neoprene to peel the
fabric away from his elbows and neck. His muscles ripple as he guides the
skintight suit down his torso, allowing it to dangle at his hips and reveling in the
sensation of drawing in a full breath for the first time in hours.
“Go on.”
Your hand shields the sun from your eyes as you take in the scene of the
surfers sitting like ducks in the ocean, the plastic of the beach ball tucked under
your arm sticking to your sweaty skin. You haven’t realized that you’ve been
distracted from your makeshift volleyball game by the free show, your head
snapping back towards your roommate as you take in her pompous grin, “what
are you talking about?”
The rainbow colored stripes on the beach ball blur when you toss it back in
her direction, a loud curse bursting past her lips when the wind carries it just out
of her reach, “You heard me!” She digs her bikini bottoms out of the crack in her
ass before taking off after the ball and calling over her shoulder, “go talk to him,
dummy. What’s the worst thing that can happen?”
Malibu has very recently become the place that you call home. You’ve moved
here from the Midwest region of the United States a mere six weeks ago, making
sure to give yourself plenty of time to find a suitable place to live and familiarize
yourself with the city and the culture before the audition for your dream job
materializes. This is the first time you’ve ever been on your own aside from the
three and a half years spent away at college. But that hardly felt as adult as
moving clear across the country to pursue a career, in comparison to same-sex
dormitory style living off of your parent’s dime and meals provided in the
school’s cafeteria.
You considered yourself lucky to find a cute duplex just a few blocks off of the
beach, with a girl named Wynette, better known as Nettie, who is close in age and
harbors a similar time schedule as you. At least most of the time. When she isn’t
bringing boys home on the weekends or staying up late studying in the living
room with the vibration of loud, foreign rock ’n roll music blaring from her
speakers. You’ve convinced yourself that the perfect roommate is impossible to
find anyway, especially for someone like you with such rigid self-discipline and
anal retentive cleaning habits. For the most part the two of you get along and as
far as you’ve heard, that’s something that is tricky to come by.
You peruse the beach for clarification on who exactly she’s referring to, but
with dozens upon dozens of bodies lying and running around it seems impossible
to pinpoint without another clue, “oh, please. I wasn’t looking at anyone in
particular.” You glance back in her direction to find her standing with her hip
popped in presumption, the beach ball balancing against the strap of her tiny
swimsuit.
You’d never be caught dead in something so small and revealing, which is why
you opted for a sensible mango-hued one-piece that covers your entire torso. It’s
not that you’re self conscious of your body, because you’re not. It’s just that girls
who dress like your roommate are giving a clear message of easiness to men and
that’s not something you’ve ever been interested in, “toss it back.” Nettie stands
with her large, white cat-eye sunglasses shielding her face and an even bigger
grin that conveys something cunning in the works, “Jesus….. don’t do anything to
embarrass me, okay? Just toss it back.”
Nettie takes a couple steps backwards before tossing the ball into the air, her
foot making contact with the soft plastic to send it sailing far over your head and
towards the shore. You watch it soar, your head following its trajectory before it
lands in the sand and rolls to a stop near a lone surfer taking a break next to his
board. You narrow your eyes at her cocky expression and cross your arms over
your chest in annoyance, her shoulders meeting her ears in a shrug when she
quips in a cheerfully remorseless tone, “whoops! Be a dear and fetch that?”
“I hate you.”
Her laugh propels you forward with begrudging steps, your feet trudging
through the burning sand as you make your way towards the person that she’s
set on humiliating you in front of. The closer you get the clearer the view of him
is; broad tanned shoulders and a sharp clavicle that protrudes against his skin, a
littering of intimidating tattoos down his arm and across his chest and a chiseled
side profile that makes you more nervous with each step. He doesn’t seem to
have noticed the beach ball laying just behind the arch of his back possibly due to
the dark, soppy hair veiling his peripheral vision and a single wet spiral laying
against the cusp of his cheekbone.
A red transistor radio sits tucked into his side, the antenna stretched towards
the sky and the speaker crackling with an invasive toothpaste advertisement.
The surfer reaches a hand down to fumble the knobs, the radio stations cutting
through several different genres of music until it lands on a clear station playing
loud, instrumental surf rock.
The ball is frozen just close enough to him that it would be awkward to grab it
without acknowledging your proximity, so when you’re near enough to address
him you clear your throat and point to it, “hi. Little help?” Nettie whoops loudly
in a holler of encouragement and your cheeks burn when he flicks his head
towards you first before peering over your shoulder at the obnoxious and
unwanted support of your friend, “she’s always like that.”
You are torn between staring at his eyes or his mouth. His irises are bright,
strikingly wolffish, in comparison to the smoky walnut of his brow and soaked
waves. They warn you not to trust him but at the same time dare you to explore,
the impression similar to being caught in the high beams of a speeding vehicle.
His mouth is shapely, plump and enslaving; a glossy, shiny cherry that glazes in
the sunshine after its been freshly burnished against the collar of your shirt. The
corners curl upwards into his cheeks until they disappear into a becoming crease
on either end, which only draws your attention back to his eyes and you feel
absolutely disoriented in the blurring cycle of clear beauty staring back at you. A
wild tiger stalking you up top, a glossy apple begging for a taste down below. The
hunt and the chase over and over again.
He seems chafed or perhaps contemplative with the way his eyebrows pull
together and crease a contour above his sharp nose. It crosses your mind that
your opening line may not have been insightful enough, but then your thought
process screeches to a halt when the tip of his tongue slips out to wet his lips. He
drags his sight up and down your body in a slow pull of curiosity before the low
rasp of his voice scratches his vocal chords and simmers past his pearly teeth,
“yeah? What are you like?”
His brass catches you off guard and your surprise must be evident by the way
he breaks into a simper at your discomfort. You don’t find the situation that
Nettie has tossed you into the least bit entertaining and now it feels as though
they’re in cahoots on an exclusive joke being played at your expense, “right now?
Unamused.” You take a step forward and bend at the waist to grab the ball, but
before your fingertips can make contact with it, the surfer is flipping to his hands
and knees and swatting it away. You watch it fly away from you for the second
time today with your jaw dropped, “why did—”
“Hand me the sex wax, babe?”
Your eyelids shutter in slow motion as you wait for your brain to process his
question, the freedom of his words ping-ponging back and forth in unfounded
gumption. He sits back on his haunches and traces the outside of his mouth with
his thumb and forefinger before pointing at your feet, “for my stick?”
You don’t even bother to glance at where he’s pointing, much too caught up in
the strange twists and turns that this interaction has bounded through, “excuse
me?”
The surfer tilts his head in curiosity and his amusement is downright
mortifying. He’s making it extremely difficult to try to understand why he won’t
just give you your fucking ball back and why he’s intent on flustering a stranger,
“it’s for grip. So I don’t eat shit while I surf. It’s called sex wax. Scratch my back
and I’ll scratch yours, ya dig?”
His surfboard is short and a shade of warm, brilliant strawberry pink. From
your limited knowledge of surfing, you happen to know that the shorter the
board, the more strenuous the ride. It crosses your mind that not only is riding
waves a hobby of his, but he also seems pretty well-versed in healthy flirtation.
You lower your gaze to your feet to find a jar half sunken into the sand, the
label ebony in color with the words “surf wax” written across the center. You
return your attention to his waiting position, the look in his eye one of pure
delight over your soreness of this whole situation. A scoff tickles your throat,
your foot tapping in annoyance as you perk an eyebrow at him, “why should I
help you with the exact same thing you’ve made inconvenient for me?” You kick a
mound of sand over the jar of sex wax and glare at him with challenging affect,
“my back is too itchy. Sorry.”
His eyebrows shoot up along his forehead as he settles back down onto his
bottom and it seems as though he’s thoroughly enjoying your confrontation. He
reaches across his board for a pack of smokes decorated in holographic hearts
poking out of a heap of sand, striking the box against the heel of his hand to tap a
single cigarette out. He lights a match and burns the tip of his smoke, the end
illuminating a fulgent tint of molten raspberry. Plumes of lovely baby pink smoke
curl around his mouth and fingertips as he sucks tobacco into his lungs, the
striking scent of pungent, freshly spun cotton candy filling the salty air around
you when he exhales.
The aroma and color of his romantic cigarette only highlight the recklessness
of his eyes and hair, the knuckle of his thumb scratching against his temple when
he dares you, “go ahead and get your ball then.” He settles between you and the
object that you want to retrieve as if he were some type of ruthless guard dog,
images of him springing up and grabbing your ankles keeping you locked in
place.
“One soft serve swirl in a waffle cone for the sexiest surfer this beach has ever
seen!”
You glance in the direction of your interruption to find a girl skirting by you
without even an acknowledgement of your presence. Her skin is the color of
warm caramel and the soft green of her swimsuit perfectly offsets her natural
tone, her breasts practically popping out of her top as she flops down into his lap
with an ice cream cone in either hand. She giggles when he groans at her harsh
landing, the butt of his cigarette tossed aside as he collects her body and the
sugary, frozen treat in his arms with a provocative murmur of gratitude.
A drop of ice cream sticks to the corner of her lip after she swipes her tongue
along the edge of her cone. The surfer hums at the sight, cupping the back of her
neck to tug her closer as he sucks the morsel from her mouth. Her girlish
laughter mingling with his hoarse chuckle cuts through your ear drums and
slices your brain, your presence abandoned by both parties as you tut and stomp
past them to gather your ball and run back towards your roommate in sheer
anguish.
The word ’provocative’ comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative
aspect of his personality. Women have always been drawn to him and he’s never
been one to pass up an opportunity that falls into his lap. Literally.
Nettie perches herself up on her elbows and tosses her copy of Mode
magazine aside, pushing her sunglasses up on her forehead for a better view of
your uncharacteristically clumsy return. You toss the ball at her face but she
catches it as you flop onto your blanket beside her, stuffing your face into your
discarded sundress and grumbling into the fabric. She laughs and jostles your
shoulder, “what happened?” You swat her away but it only eggs her on, “what did
he say?”
“I made a total dipstick of myself, he has a gorgeous girlfriend and I still hate
you.”
Nettie sits up entirely and watches the two of them crudely making out with
ice cream melting down their forearms. She cups her mouth and leans forward
when she shouts “get a room!” but is interrupted by a resonant shush as you tug
on her arm and peal loudly in surprise at her nerve. You smash your face back
into your dress before she looks back at you with a flippant shrug, “well, I guess
we learned the worst thing that could’ve happened.”
You laugh and swing your dress at her in rebuttal. Her good natured humor
bursts out in the form of mockery of their public display of affection; eyes
crossed and tongue overtly licking her lips for your benefit. You roll onto your
back and try to contain your laughter, a boorish snort vibrating your nose as
your hands fly up to cover your mouth. She joins you in amusement and flips
onto her stomach to resume indulging in her fashion magazine, your discomfort
fading with the only saving grace of this whole situation; at least you’ll never
have to see him again.
OH HIIIIIIIIII!!!
Something new and completely different from Kismet for you! How are you
guys? You with me? What are your thoughts so far on this Harry, hmm?
I missed you all so much!
New chapter on the way! I have a couple written and stored up and the entire
book is outlined through the epilogue. I plan on posting one chapter weekly so that
I’m not drowning in guilt and doubt and giving myself the worst writer’s block of
all time because I’m making you wait 2-3 weeks like I did with Kismet.
Thank you all for the constant support! I fucking love you! Xx Birdie
Please remember to vote and comment for ya girl. Tapping the star takes little
to no effort and it’s like, super cool of you. 😘
The Second Chapter
“Focus.”
The word hisses past your clenched teeth when you give yourself a stern
reminder to stay calm and collected. To overcome the tremble in your fingertips
that is making it impossible to buckle your metal roller skates to the sole of your
almond-toe patent loafers. To breathe past the paralyzing malady of anticipation,
“Christ’s sake, melvin. Focus.”
“Did I just hear you call yourself a ’melvin?’” Nettie pokes her head out of the
kitchen, a spatula in one hand and her lengthy hair wound up in empty orange
juice cans to give the ends their trademark flirtatious flip, “go easy on yourself.
I’ve seen you practice. I can’t imagine anyone getting this part over you.”
She watches you lean against the wall in the foyer as you fumble with your
skate attachment, the burnt orange leather strap that loops around your ankle
giving you some difficulty as you try several times to shake out your hand and
ground yourself. Nettie tosses the egg-coated spatula onto the counter before
pacing towards you and dropping to her knee, swatting you away in protest as
she slips the tail end of the strap through the frame of the buckle. She rises to her
feet once your skates are secured and smiles in an effort to calm you, your
appreciation slipping out in a quiet “thank you” as you tuck a stray hair behind
your ear.
Nettie licks her fingertips and slicks back a couple flyaways from your
forehead before brushing off your peter pan collared blouse. She takes two steps
back and admires how put-together and adorable you look with your pleated
mini skirt grazing your bare thighs, “that skirt is choice. You look like sex on
wheels.”
You blush when you gather your lime green shopper bag from the ground
before slinging it over your shoulder and digging around for your habitual sweet
treat from the front pocket. Inside the bag you’ve neatly packed and double
checked all of the necessary items for your audition; your resume and
photographs, a bodysuit and tights, a pair of soft-soled ballet slippers, warm ups,
bobby pins and about a half dozen lollipops. The hard candy nestles in past your
teeth as you twirl the stick between your fingers, the flavor of artificial cherry
soaking your tongue and aiding in reducing your stress with a breath of
familiarity, “it’s not too much?”
Your roommate shakes her head and decides not to add any more information
to your already whirling thoughts, “nope, it’s perfect. You sure you don’t want a
ride? Or a cheerleader?”
You consider her offer for a moment before pushing it to the back of your
mind. You need space to mentally review your choreography and the points you
plan to express in the interview in order to win over the famed aerialist with a
notorious and impressive reputation in just a matter of minutes, “nah, I need the
time to clear my head.” You roll your lips into your mouth and pause, powerless
in stopping the waterfall of doubt from trickling out, “Nettie, what if I uprooted
my entire life and moved here only to be rejected—”
“Don’t. If you’re rejected then a better opportunity will present itself because
that’s how life works. But that’s not gonna happen because you’re outta sight.
You’re getting this role. Okay?”
You try to forget how you tossed and turned the entire night, how you could
hardly keep any breakfast down this morning and remind yourself that you’ve
performed under similar dire circumstances in the past. Without waiting for a
response, Nettie springs forward and wraps you in a hug, the cold tin cans in her
hair pressing against your cheek before she backs off again with a soft squeeze to
your shoulders.
You spin on your wheels and crack the front door open before taking one last
look at your newfangled living space, “okay.” You want to have faith, but at the
same time it feels dangerous to get your hopes up, “root beer floats on me if I
make it.”
“I can already taste them.”
The wheels under your feet repetitively click over the wooden slats of the
boardwalk as you careen a path towards the location of your upcoming audition;
a static circus building that includes the theatre and rehearsal space just two
miles north of your duplex. The sun is risen and people are out enjoying the
perpetual sunshine of the coastal California city, dog leashes wrapped around
their wrists or their hands entangled with loved ones.
Most other modern circuses have taken on a touring caravan model since the
nineteenth century thanks to the likes of Barnum & Bailey, where the entirety of
the circus, including the buildings, performers and animals are packed up and
reallocated from city to city. You were immediately drawn to Rusty Buchanan’s
Circus Extravaganza the moment you read about it in the newspaper for its
assimilation of a commitment to timeless standards as well as a new take on
tradition, wherein the performance conveys a holistic story or theme. It reminds
you of something you’re extremely well-versed in; a fantasy narrated by the
perfectly rehearsed sway of dozens of bodies to invoke emotion from a crowd of
curious onlookers.
The ringleader Russell, or Rusty, has concocted a groundbreaking idea to tell a

fable by merging established ballet performance with that of circus exhibition.
Music, costume and light design are being reimagined and he’s diminished most
of the former animal involvement, as activists were beginning to give traveling
circuses well-deserved heat for the mistreatment of their zoological performers.
The role that you’re auditioning for in particular is the famed trapeze act,
rumored to be a spectacular culmination of all of the acts preceding it. A sought
after position in the circus, one in which only the most prestigious athletes are
awarded and the prize is to be the center of the climax that stuns and dazzles the
audience. There have been murmurings of Rusty’s ingenious reinvention of this
final scene, all created with one particular aerialist in mind who is now in need of
a female counterpart with a reliable dance pedigree.
It was being publicized in the media as the first of its kind, plus it was
receiving worldwide attention for the resurgence of the infamously renowned
trapeze artist who mysteriously disappeared for a year following a season finale
back in 1963. Rumor has it that he packed up his belongings and fell off the grid
when he skipped town without a single trace left behind, only to re-emerge here
in Malibu with a grand announcement of his long-awaited return.
You had considered your career as a ballet dancer long departed when you
were forced to drop out of college with only a few months remaining of your
program. It’s not something that you like to mentally trudge through very often;
it was traumatic enough to lose several prospective opportunities at esteemed
ballet companies as well as the one thing you spent years upon years pouring
your heart and soul into. It was a helpless situation that nearly drove your
determined and industrious personality mad with scrutiny, until a lightbulb
flickered to life with the happenstance conception of translating your expertise
to a different but similar field.
After you left college, you took a couple depressing months living at home
with your parents until you came across this newspaper article on a whim. It
made sense to you to construct the wrecked shambles of your life into something
completely different. A sunny change of scenery, a place where everyone seemed
carefree and content. Far away from anyone you’d ever known. It was a bold
move for someone like you who takes comfort in ritual and consistency, but if
you were ever going to break the shackles of your conservative upbringing, it
would have to be far away from the small town where your roots were beginning
to tangle and cluster into a pot-bound knot that halted your growth.
You can feel the circus building before you actually see it, it’s wild energy
mixed with salty air wafting under your chin and through your hair. Much like an
invisible cartoon hand manifesting from the breeze, unfurling to curl a beckoning
finger towards you and gliding your wheels to an abrupt stop where the cement
pathway meets the boardwalk. You crane your neck to take in the grandiose
setting; it’s built in the style of the classic big top tents from the turn of the
century, except it is everlasting and extravagant with steadfast promise of sheer
beguilement.
The facade is circular and oblong, nearly the size of a full race track from end
to end with a wooden tower that ascends into a keen peak towards the clouds.
The crown is finished off with several flags fluttering like an exaltation of larks in
the harsh sea breeze, each representing different countries of the performer’s
origins and punctuated by prideful rainbows. Large pillars of marble decorate
the front entrance and above several sets of double doors, an unlit fluorescent
sign with the words Circus Extravaganza written in whimsical cursive.
The building sucks you in on your wheels, your head falling back as you crane
your chin towards the sky for a comprehensive view from where you now stand
close up. The details must have been imagined by an illustrator of children’s fairy
tales or the pastry chef of elegantly frosted three-tiered wedding cakes; fluffy
pipings of vanilla and chocolate from corner to corner, fondant promises of
caprice and impulse, a scattering of toothsome flower petals, a gingerbread
house that provides sanctuary for witches and wayward youngsters.
Your fingertips first tentatively brush, then dig for a response into the ornate
carvings along the nearest column, your psyche lost in a cyclone of fantasy for
half a moment as you inhale the ghostly healing elixir of baited breath squeezed
from the throbbing heart of a crowd.
The perfect job. A final, desperate opportunity to possess the art of dance. A
chance to emend. The start of a promising and life-changing career.
Labor and kismet; you own them both.
You shrink a couple inches but gain grounding once the skate attachments are
removed from your loafers, your rubber soles carrying you down a long and
equally as remarkable hallway. The ceilings are tall but have a cozy, tented feel
with their adornment of hundreds of overturned, pastel umbrellas hanging by
their curved handles. Typically the sight of so many open canopies would bring a
cloak of unease to most, but you get the sense that so many of one thing cancels
out their former superstition. As if nailing the notion into the ground creates
something different entirely; hope where there was once fear. An aisle of airy
opportunity and open arms. Beating the odds by simply stampeding them.
Hand painted signs with curled arrows direct you further into the building
where auditions are being held. A few twists and turns lead you to a set of tall
double doors, your fingers gripping around an extravagantly large door handle
that seems to be leading you to the Wizard of Oz himself. The giant barricade
creaks as it peels open and the moment your feet cross the threshold, dozens of
quiet murmurings from behind the door zip to an unnatural halt.
Rows of chairs line three walls in a u-shaped formation, all but one filled with
a different pair of stunning legs bouncing with anxiety and a pursed mouth to top
it off. Every woman in the room silently judges your talent based on sight alone
and it pains you to admit that you’re doing the same exact thing. You roll your
shoulders back and struggle to push the notion down in order to keep it from
staining your self-confidence and your perceived capacity. Hard work and
destiny; you own them.
Each set of eyes follows you into the only available chair as you sink in
without a sound, in the way that a mechanical arm in a factory line-up would fill
in a blank space with its product. You glance over your right then left shoulder,
nodding to your contenders with a tight-lipped smile that goes unreturned. It
feels like a test of emotional strength, imagining that they are all decoys with the
purpose of making you even more nervous than you already are. Your legs begin
to join the bout of tense bobbing as women are called back into the other room
one by one, the door slamming shut to protect an open-ended shroud of mystery
as to what’s happening behind the overt and blank, sealed vestibule.
Ten, twenty, thirty minutes pass and women continue to disappear through
the cryptic aperture, yet never return, which makes it impossible to gauge the
progress of the try-outs. The waiting room empties out and with the removal of
each body your heartbeat becomes more and more palpable. You imagine them
being funneled through a narrow and seedy back exit, blinded by sunlight when
the door is kicked open to deposit them back to the real world. Either that or
they’re just being consumed whole, but neither option feels very enjoyable to
explore.
This time when the door opens up you know that it’s your turn before the
agent clutching a teal plexiglass clipboard can call out the first syllable of your
name. You’re wishing now that Nettie was here to send you off with one final
wish of good luck, but the taste of root beer floats bubbling in the back of your
throat provides you with enough fortitude to propel yourself out of your seat.
A handful of footsteps down a short, echoing hallway and you’re deposited

into your final location; a space that clearly doubles as a practice area with mats
sprawled on the floor, ballet barres lining the mirrored walls and a few knotted
ropes hanging from the ceiling. All of the air is sucked out of the space when you
step inside, the walls and flooring absorbing any sound and creating such a
muffled atmosphere that your ears begin to ring.
At the far end of the room are two men sitting behind a table in folding chairs,
one of them clearly much older than the other and the former instantly much
friendlier as well.
“Come in, come in!”
It only takes three rapid blinks to recognize the younger of the two.
The man with a full head of snow white hair and a bushy mustache to match
stands to his feet with his hand outstretched, “I’m Russell Buchanan and this is
—”
You complete his sentence for him, but your throat is so tight that you’re
unsure if anyone besides you hears when you squeak, “Harry Styles.” The world
famous trapeze artist. The world famous surf troll.
The grainy headshot from the newspaper article that announced auditions
over two months ago, the maliciously flirtatious interaction from the beach just
yesterday afternoon and the man in front of you all coalesce violently, your
internal organs scooped clean like the inside of a vulnerable jack-o-lantern. Your
stringy, pulpy insides are haphazardly tossed to the ground, the hot pink molten
lava from the tip of Harry’s cigarette lights your empty shell from the inside out.
You shake Rusty’s hand but your gaze is focused on the brooding stunner to
your right, dressed in a simple, black collared button-down with his hair
shadowing his luminous eyes in the way a leafy tree blocks sunlight from the
grass below. The chase and the hunt is immediately reawakened as though the
original impression was seared into your eyelids: a bloodthirsty bird of prey
tracking you up top, a poisonous lupine berry down below. Deceptively lush; one
forbidden taste would destroy you.
His sight is suctioned daringly to your face and pulling a crimson stain to your
cheeks, one of his arms crossed over his chest as he picks at the skin around his
fingernails in perturbed resistance, the other elbow resting casually and
surrounding him in a veil of pink smoke. He doesn’t extend his hand for a
greeting and you swallow his detectable cue of indifference, instead dragging
your sweaty palm down the front of your skirt to smooth out any invisible
wrinkles there.
The room falls silent with tension and the luscious scent of warm cotton
candy.
You’re reduced to embarrassed shreds about the way you spoke to him when
you first met yesterday. Prior to today, you’d only seen one photo of him in a
newspaper and your encounter on the beach was out of context, so you didn’t
connect the dots. You’re typically well-prepared and researched for any situation
you put yourself in. You feel beyond daft for not recognizing him upon your
initial meeting, but you chalk it up to situational confusion.
Harry reaches across the table and stubs the butt of his cigarette into an
ashtray, then slips a stick of gum from his shirt pocket and pops it into his mouth.
You take note of his soft pack of smokes laying on the table, reading the title of
the brand dubbed ’Crush’ scrawled across the label. The filters of his cigarettes
lay in a heap in the small receptacle, a tiny red heart carved from the center of
each one that mocks the stillness of your own life muscle and the very lack of
love that you’re presently experiencing. His gaze flicks down to your shiny,
patent loafers and very slowly crawls upward, his jaw working the sweet morsel
that he inflates into a perfectly taut, coral bubble that’s precisely two shades
lighter than his lips.
You try to smooth the feathers that you had unintentionally ruffled during
your impromptu meeting at the beach with a defenseless, exposed nod and timid
smile, “hi again—”
As soon as Harry is addressed, his eyes narrow and his eyebrows pull together
into a frown, his hardened stare finally landing on your face when the bubble
pops loudly and a scoff leaks through the resin, “can’t exactly do much physical
activity in an outfit like that.”
You can’t even think quickly enough to formulate a defense, you’re forcibly
thrown off guard by his immediate adjournment and the stinging awareness that
you may have ruined your opportunity at this position due to your blissful
ignorance on the beach yesterday. He must assume after that dreadful
interaction that you would be a pill to work with and you acknowledge that you
were a bit snarky, but so was he.
Usually your air of hard-working diligence and confidence comes across quite
clearly to most and it angers you that there is a shaky hint of trepidation in your
voice that you can’t wash down, “I don’t have a ton experience in the circus —
just a few aerial classes — but I’m a proficiently trained ballet dancer and ex-
gymnast. I catch on quickly and I’m a really strong, professional performer—”
Your chest pinches painfully and your intuition told you to dress more
professionally, but you’d decided to ignore it. Again. You had taken the advice
from Nettie and although it was unlike you, you assumed since you were trying
out with a male partner that perhaps it wouldn’t hurt if he were instantly
attracted to you in order to assist in acquiring the role. But now it’s obvious that
this outfit has achieved the opposite effect. Or worse yet, perhaps it’s not even
the outfit at all, but rather your hellcat demeanor yesterday afternoon, “I’m sorry
— um….. I thought this was just an initial interview and then the audition would
be afterwards.”
“You thought wrong. Don’t bother coming back for auditions.” Your skirt is too
pleated and polished, your hair too tidy, your ankles too delicate, your makeup
too perfect. It was wrong, it was all wrong, “next!”
The word ’dismissive’ comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative
aspect of his personality. In this line of work, one has to be cutthroat in order to
carry out the caliber of this job properly. Regardless of the prospective’s delicate
sensibilities.
Rusty tries to intervene with a quiet, personal directive, “Harry, not again—”
He should have known that something was wrong this morning when Harry
walked into auditions in head-to-toe black, in lieu of his usual warm, fiery, sunny,
floral, sparkling, magnetic attire, with a permanent frown and a puckered lip
marring his otherwise handsome features.
“I didn’t come here to teach anyone the ropes of the circus, Rusty. No.” He
leans back in his chair and folds his hands when his gaze burns into yours and his
harsh banishment rumbles right through you, “next.”
You narrow your eyes and dig the manila folder from your bag containing
your resume and several photographs including headshots and some taken from
your stage performances. You take one step forward and toss it onto the table in
front of Harry and Rusty, spinning on your heel with your ponytail whipping
around and storming towards the exit with tears strangling your chest. You
absolutely will not allow either of them to see tears fall down your cheeks,
because the only thing worse than a woman being brutally rejected is her
showing pathetic weakness by crying about it.
Whoa, happy weekend everyone! Please vote and comment and all that great
stuff that you guys do. Love you. Xx B
The Third Chapter
“Next!”
You clamp your eyes tighter even though they’re already closed, but it doesn’t
manage to block out the raspy, disdainful voice swirling like a sickening pea
green funnel cloud in your mind.
“Can’t exactly do much physical activity in an outfit like that.”
Your fingers dig into the soft silk of your pillowcase before you gather the
whole cushion and sandwich your head between its feathery, makeshift shield
and your springy mattress.
A more distinct thunderclap this time, its finality pronounced within the slow,
heartless decline of a single syllable, “next.”
Following the shock of your exile that frayed each vulnerable fragment of rope
hanging from your bones, the memory of Harry’s pink wildfire licked the ends
until your entire nervous system was consumed in flames. At first you were in
denial that your opportunity for this position ended before it even began. It
didn’t feel possible that you’d flipped your entire life on its side for absolutely
nothing but a shattered heart, but it started to take shape as soon as you swung
the emergency exit door of the theatre open and collapsed into the grass outside.
After the fog of denial began to evaporate, anger set in and the thick, velvet
curtain of red has refused to lift since. It now sits heavily on your polished stage,
its taciturn golden tassels much too high for you to reach to begin to clear the
scene for new thoughts or a plan of action. How dare he be so righteously bloated
and contemptuous, sending off women who had frozen their entire lives for that
audition left and right without so much as a two-minute conversation. You were
beginning to feel sorry for the person who eventually is chosen to work beside
him, forced to breathe in his snide air and trust their fragile life in his hands. Or
maybe that was just your defensive method of self-preservation talking.
If Nettie had been there, she would have had some choice words to toss in his
direction. She would have hugged you and told you that it was okay to cry, she
would have helped you strap your skates to your loafers for a clean getaway, but
instead you were left completely alone. Deposited into the freshly watered lawn
with moisture wicking your skirt and underwear, the shade from the palm tree
above your only comfort as you dug your fingers into the grass and pulled out
two large chunks in frustration. The soil seeped under your fingernails and stunk
of fresh sod, but it felt satisfying to hear the muffled tear of the blades and see the
bald spots in the otherwise perfectly manicured landscaping.
You’ve never been one to cry during moments of difficulty; you were much too
determined and persistent to allow your emotions to knock you off-balance.
However, this situation was just thwarting enough to make you wonder if the
universe was attempting to present you with a sign to reconsider your career as
a dancer all together, and that notion alone was enough to draw a cluster of
discouraged, unwanted tears down your cheeks.
War flashbacks of your last and possibly final performance slowly flooded
your mind until you found it troublesome to breathe, your back meeting the
soaking wet grass next as you slowly blinked at the bits of visible clear, blue sky
through the fan-like branches of the towering palm. For a place that looked like
paradise, it sure felt a lot more like purgatory in that fateful moment.
You stayed for a while until your hands pacified enough to reattach your
skates for the second time that day, needing two breaks to ease your frustration
and repress your discouraged screams. You cruised home at your leisure and
wondered exactly how you were going to break the news to your roommate and
then worse yet, your parents. They had been against the idea of you moving so
far from home on your own, to follow through with such a risky and audacious
statement as to completely abolish everything you’ve ever known on a radical
whim and turgid hope.
If anyone had happened to look at or address you the wrong way on that ride
back to your duplex, it would have been severely damaging for the both of you
with your emotions teetering at the edge of a skyscraper and your heart sitting as
a heap of dust ready to waft away with a single outside breath.
It’s a shame that you hadn’t recognized him earlier on the beach and even
worse that you challenged his ego. It’s hard enough for someone like you to
attain a position of power in today’s working environment. The last thing a
woman should be doing when attempting to move up in their career is piss off
their potential employer after failing miserably at flirting with them. Everything
was all wrong; a ticking time bomb of defeat after defeat. A checkmate that has
flung you straight off the checkerboard. An opportunity that’s slipped through
your fingers like the beads from a snapped bracelet before you’d even had a
chance to contend. It was helpless and infuriating and a situation that you were
powerless to change, it felt only natural to want to curl up into the tightest ball
you could imagine and never wake up.
You took the long way home, carefully unwrapping and sucking every lollipop
from the front pocket of your bag until each one slowly dissolved in your mouth
like a cruel similitude of your struggle. You were ready to start fresh, shiny and
perfectly molded in your carefully prepared wrapper then as soon as it was
peeled back, you were reduced to nothing but a soggy, frail stick bending
backwards as you tried to make sense of how you’d gotten here.
If only you’d truly known just how deeply his stunning features were going to
carve you open.
You had half a mind to flee to the airport with nothing but the clothing on your
back without even bothering to retreat to your duplex, actually considering if
there was anything worth returning to salvage before booking a one-way flight
back to your parent’s house. You passed a milkshake shop amongst the strip of
boutiques and restaurants on the boardwalk, your empty, nauseous stomach
turning at the flavor of root beer floats and abandoned victory.
When you got home you were grateful to find that you had the place to
yourself, ripping off your skates and toeing your feet from your loafers as you
jogged down the hallway and locking yourself in the bathroom. You huddled over
the carnation-hued sink and flicked the brass handle molded into the shape of a
swan’s head, collecting tepid water in your palms that spewed from the mouth of
the matching swan faucet to wash your face of tears and splotchy redness. The
water collected and funneled down the drain as it poured in an endless stream
from the lifeless bird’s beak, the sight reminiscent of the wretched sickness that
swam in your guts and begged for release.
You climbed into your bed and curled up on your side, hugging your comforter
to your chest and falling into a deep, furious sleep. Nettie arrived home several
hours later with her boyfriend in tow, your eyes peeling open to reveal pitch
darkness in your bedroom followed by the muffled sounds of voices in the
hallway. Your roommate called to you, but when she didn’t hear an answer, she
knocked on your door twice before taking it upon herself to swing it open.
The moonlight poured into your window and illuminated your deathly, inert
frame below the covers, her heart squeezing painfully in her chest as she tip-toed
towards you and wordlessly joined you in bed. She hugged you as speechless
tears streaked your cheeks and stained your pillow and she knew; it was
unnecessary to explain a thing, there was no use in justifying the silence that
filled the space of a forecasted celebration. Instead she tucked your hair behind
your ear and slept curled up against your back, allowing your nightmares to
process and decide what you were supposed to do with the remaining shreds of
your course of action.
You groan and toss the pillow from your head as the images and voices insist
on repeating and driving you mad, the volume shrinking and rising over and over
again like the demented siren of a speeding ambulance. You flip onto your back
to stare at the ceiling and beg the universe for an answer; a forewarning or an
omen, a pointer finger in some sort of drift to urge you onward. You hate feeling
stagnant and you hate feeling defeated. You had thought that you’d paid your
dues months ago after your life was brought to an abrupt halt, but it was
becoming increasingly apparent that you are still on an unknown, indebted
journey. A road filled with destructive speed bumps and slippery mud patches,
and you would give almost anything for a traffic signal illuminated in fluorescent
lightbulbs to direct you towards your designated exit.
You’ve yet to leave your bed since returning from your disastrous interview;
you felt the dips and heard the squeaks of the springs in your mattress when
Nettie rose from your bed along with the hallmark of the rising sun. You
pretended to be asleep when she slinked back in soon after and deposited two
objects onto your nightstand with a soft clatter before slipping back out again.
You loathe the untamable weakness displayed in the past twenty-four hours. It’s
unlike you and maddening in its existence, but you try to convince yourself that a
bit of healthy mourning is permissible as long as it doesn’t become your new
reality.
Of course you’re going to ache over the loss of your life as you’d known it, but
the more you consider it, the more you understand that even though you had
previously regarded that role as yours and yours alone, the heavens had a
different plan for you in mind. That’s the argument of the philosophical concept
of determinism versus free will in the works; do we ever have true discretion or
an actual choice in our outcomes? Or are we simply existing and making choices
within the realm of what’s already fated for us? Or better yet, is that just
something we tell ourselves when situations don’t unroll in our favor?
Fuck Harry and his stupid, beautiful face.
The jarring laceration of the ringing telephone from the kitchen slices first
through your heart and then the grey matter of your brain, pricking pins and
needles against your skin just before it tumbles through another astringent
chime. You reach for your pillow to cover your face and block the sound but it’s
too far away, instead choosing to curl onto your side to finally focus on what
Nettie’s left for you on your nightstand.
A ceramic Pyrex plate, milky and lime in color, harboring two pieces of
charred toast with butter and a glass of water sit in silence, dried up and
collecting dust with burnt crumbs scattering the plate. The water is half empty,
or so your temporarily pessimistic mind perceives it that way, and the reminder
of how you’ve consumed little other than a dozen cherry lollipops in the course
of a day makes your lips feel parched and your throat uncomfortably arid. But it’s
still not enough to force you to sit up and take a sip of sustenance.
Three soft knocks on your bedroom door go unanswered. They persist, louder
this time, forcing you to clear the cobwebs from your lungs when you grumble
soft permission to enter from a voice that rattles so uncharacteristically that you
have a hard time recognizing it. Nettie steps inside with the coiled phone cord
stretched to capacity as she seals her palm over the mouthpiece on the receiver
and whispers, “it’s for you.”
You assume it’s your parents wondering how the audition went and your eyes
widen in horror as you mouth, “tell them I’m not here.”
She shakes her head in response, her elbows locked and arms stretched
towards you as she wiggles the receiver and whispers louder this time, “take it
—” You smash your lips together in determination and shake your head furiously
again, but she continues to fight you in a whisper-shout, “yes— yes. Yes!” She
holds the phone to her ear, “yep, she’s right here!” You sit up and toss a small
throw pillow at her which she deflects with a swift kick, “here she comes, just a
minute. Hang on—”
You gasp at her audacity and fly out of bed, stomping towards her and
attempting to wrestle the earpiece from her hands in order to unplug the cord
and disconnect the call. Nettie shrieks quietly in rebuttal to your physical attack,
simultaneously trying to put you in a headlock and keep the phone out of your
reach. You both get a couple good smacks, kicks and pinches in and she somehow
manages to maintain a suctioned palm over the mouthpiece, “I can’t let you lay in
bed for another minute, you’re bumming me out. It’s not like you. Just take the
phone, damn it!”
You groan in defeat before throwing her off and standing tall, breathing a huff
of air to clear your hair from your eyes and collecting the phone from her hands.
You mouth ’thank you’ and there’s a palpable hint of sincerity in your sarcastic
grimace that Nettie is acutely aware of. She blows you a kiss and shuts the door
behind her, the telephone cord kinked in the closed threshold. You huff and lean
up against the wood for balance, the receiver slick with sweat when you bring it
to your ear, “hello?”
“Russell Buchanan here.”
Your eyes widen and your posture quickly corrects, “yes— hi.”
“I wanted to first start by apologizing for my colleague and the outcome of

your interview yesterday. Harry is fantastic, you see. Just a smidge picky. He
wants this job done right, as do I.”
The tiny bit of allotted phone cord coils around your index finger as you clear
your throat and nod before remembering he can’t see your gesture, “makes
sense.” It doesn’t excuse his behavior and it doesn’t make you any less upset, but
the possibility of the direction of this conversation is much too intriguing to
dwell on it now.
You imagine Rusty twirling the end of his mustache between his index finger
and thumb as he speaks, “we hope you’re not deterred. You were the only person
to leave your resume after the, uh, sour treatment. We’d like to give you and a
small handful of girls another opportunity. How does today at three o’clock work
for you? Same place as yesterday.”
“I don’t know if Harry—”
“We sat down and reviewed your resume together and we both agree.”
There’s a click of silence between your invisible conversation that

authenticates your hesitance. You’d been ready to let this role go, it had felt
completely helpless and the number of things you told yourself to back you from
the edge of the cliff seemed unending. At the same time, you were begging the
universe for a fluorescent, illuminated sign and this just may be it. However, the
very real possibility of being rejected not only once, but twice, is just agonizing
enough to keep your answer locked away inside of your throat for safety’s sake.
Rusty picks up on your reluctance and decides to sweeten the deal, “I — we —

were very drawn to your choreography studies at The Annex. As you may well
know, we plan to fashion dazzling feats that have yet to be attempted in the
Circus. A strong history like yours would be supremely useful. We could put our
heads together to come up with some groundbreaking ideas. We are extremely
interested in you and…..” He clears his throat and attempts one final plea, “Harry
will not be in attendance today.”
You have several reasons to be excited, but you decide that the main incentive
for trying again has now become to prove to Harry that you’re perfect for the role
and that he was wrong to dismiss you that way. Profoundly wrong.
This time you’ve come prepared, dressed in your favorite mock neck bodysuit
with tights pulled over top, a pair of warm ups to keep your legs nimble and
primed, your hair pulled off of your face and neck with two coiled braids that
wrap around your head. The waiting room is mostly empty this time, much like
your water glass from this morning. There are nine girls in attendance aside from
you, all but one pair of legs hopping and trembling to quell their nerves. You on
the other hand feel you have nothing to lose; you’ve already endured the sting of
elimination and loss, so you can only gain from here. Whether it be perspective
or a career, there is only accumulation.
When your name is called it’s almost as if your skates were attached to your
ballet shoes in an invisible force that glides you forward on air. The beating of
your heart and the rushing of your blood is palpable through each one of your
pulse points, your ears filled to the brim with foggy, intoxicating self-motivation.
The hallway and the rehearsal space are humid, your sights narrowing in on a
sturdy, knotted rope that hangs from the ceiling to brush the floor and behind
that, the blurry and familiar figure of a man with a white cumulus cloud for hair.
Your greeting is short and clipped before you flex your foot and then point
your toe, the tendons in your ankle creaking as the tip of your shoe makes
contact with the floor. Your arms rise above your head, wrists kissing and
shoulders relaxed, your neck long and graceful as you breathe in deeply and take
three running leaps towards the rope. Rusty is stunned by your initiation of lack
of outside prodding or supervision, his body swaying backwards in an
observable stumble as he cranes his neck to watch you grip the line and ignore
the burn against your palms when you climb as high as you can.
Each line and sinew in your body is stretched to flawless precision when you
balance with one foot clinched to a knot, your back arched and your free leg
extended long behind you in an arabesque that can only be achieved by years of
intensive ballet training. From the corner of your eye, you take notice of the same
emergency exit door that you were cast out of yesterday slowly groan open,
followed by a figure dressed as though he were nothing but a murky shadow
stepping into the room chased by a trail of flamingo pink, sugary smoke.
Harry’s probable intention of showing up unannounced was to either

figuratively or literally throw you from the air, but the vision of beauty cloaked in
contempt only spurs you forward. He’s a savage wolf draped in a façade of the
finest silks and you’ve already decided that you’re not afraid of him anymore.
You’re not a sheep and you never have been. There is a mutual grimace from
both parties when your eyes fall on one another before his back meets the wall
behind him, his foot kicking up for purchase on the surface as he raises his
cigarette to his lips and disappears behind his blush curtain.
You crane your neck and angle your chin towards the ceiling, subduing the
image of Harry grieving in the corner of the room to an inconsequential speck as
you gather momentum and induce the cord in a dizzying spiral. The aversion you
feel for him is your stimulus for excellence, the desire you have for this role is
your execution. Your body is reduced to liquid as you both thaw and seize every
profusely-rehearsed position, a routine that you’ve run into the ground so many
times that you could perform it in your sleep.
In all of his years in the circus, Harry has never seen anything like you before.
An unprecedented classically trained ballerina delicately holding onto a thread
several feet in the sky; like a crystalline star on a string or a prismatic Christmas
ornament wrapped in tinsel. Perfect form and unmatched dedication fuel every
flex and point of your muscles. You move like a nimble dancer who is not strictly
a gymnast or an aerialist, but a show girl swimming in the sky, smooth as silk and
as fluid as the ocean at twilight. A sight to behold; a white peacock, a winter
aurora, a rare opal.
A tornado cast from the darkest cloud in the eerily painted sky. A whirlpool
funneling every nearby living thing into its funnel. A warm piece of tie-dyed,
saltwater taffy.
Spinning, spinning, spinning.
It pains him to admit that you are undeniably the balance to his lopsided scale
because he knows that Rusty is making a terrible mistake. Decisions are best left
to be made by Harry, the one who will be working by your side day in and day
out, with his hands on your body and his talent shrouded by your presence. He’s
so irked at your skill that he begins to refuse to see it, nitpicking nonexistent
sickled feet in his mind as your routine thaws to a natural halt and you lower
yourself to the ground below.
Your dismount is met by a single echoing, enthusiastic applause from Rusty

when your feet make contact with the mat and your dizzy brain sobers. You
pause for a breath without even bothering to persuade your fearless smile back
into hibernation, your budding confidence about having likely received the role
quickly blotted by the slam of the emergency exit door and the sight of a
deserted, vacant spot where Harry was once standing.
Oh hiiiiii baby loves! Happy Saturday to you! Happy Harry dressed in head-to-
toe Elton John glitter and ducking from a Halloween party by 11 pm to go eat
chicken tenders at a diner! We love a sleepy queen!
Please tap the star and comment. Next chapter we get to be with Harry in full
effect and from now on. Who’s ready? What do you think he’s like? I think y’all are
in for it.
Thank you for all of the love, you guys are the shit. Love, B
The Fourth Chapter
“And down the hallway to your left are the dance and gymnastics studios. We
have four in total and are mostly used by our ballet dancers and aerialists for
strength training, so of course you and Harry will be taking advantage of them in
the beginning for stretching, warm ups, tumbling and choreography, that sort of
thing. You’ll be in there for the bulk of time before working up to the ’giants’ —
the trapeze exercises.”
You’ve been enamored with the circus for as long as you can remember. Your
parents would often take you and your siblings to visit whenever the trains
would come to town and unload their canvas tents, the smell of cotton candy and
roasted peanuts filling the air with burnt sugar and adventure. It came as no
surprise to you to receive the phone call validating your position as the other half
of The Flying Marvels following Rusty’s reaction to your audition. After Harry
slithered out of the room in a storm cloud of anger and you paced your way
across the floor for a verifying handshake, Rusty’s eye dropping in a wink when
he muttered the clinching words, “you’ll be hearing from us very soon. I can
guarantee it.”
You rushed to stuff your warm-ups in your bag before jogging out of the
emergency exit in Harry’s path with the hope of finding him, but a thorough
glance left and right informed you that he’d run off in order to avoid any sort of
confrontation with you or Rusty. Your intention was to try to smooth things over
between the two of you, not wanting any bad blood whether or not you should
find yourself as work partners. You were dying to know what he was truly like
under the thick veneer of his strict professionalism and pungent conceit, but it
was also becoming increasingly clear that he wasn’t going to make it the least bit
palatable.
There has to be more to him; for someone who has the determination to work
his way from the ground up to be the most well-known aerialist in the world and
who seemingly has an array of endless talents, there just absolutely has to be a
hundred layers to peel back and discover. You groaned and tossed your bag into
the grass and flopped beside it to pull your skates on, knowing that he must be
somewhere close by, but was going out of his way to avoid speaking to you for a
bevy of reasons that are still unknown to you.
He had probably gotten the sense that the role was undoubtedly yours by
Rusty’s staggering applause. Or better yet, he also agreed that you were a shoe-in
for the position and needed some time to process his very-near future and what
that means for him. You two would be partners whether he liked it or not. You
were good enough for him. You were deserving of performing beside him as an
equal in front of thousands of onlookers and that is most definitely a bruise to
the soft peach that comprises his ego.
“Down that hall straightaway is the circus ring and theatre space where you
will be doing your trapeze practice and rehearsals, as well as performing.”
Nettie bowled you over onto your red vinyl, sectional couch with hugs and
kisses when you received the validating phone call from Rusty the very next day,
demanding that you call your parents and rub their lack of confidence in their
faces. The two of you skated to the closest malt shop on the boardwalk and
drowned yourself in milkshakes until your stomach ached and you grumbled
about having over-celebrated until you’d made yourself sick.
You went to bed at ten o’clock sharp each night until the weekend passed and
the first day of practice began the following Monday, making sure to rest your
body and your mind to prepare to blow Harry out of the water once again. You
were able to get your much needed rest save for Friday and Saturday nights,
when Nettie arrived home well after midnight trying to contain the childish
giggles that her boyfriend was drawing from her. You made a mental note to buy
earplugs and a face mask to block out her near-constant inability to keep her
voice down while you’re sleeping, in order to rescue your friendship before it
was ruined over differences in schedules and lifestyles.
“And finally, this is your dressing room.” Rusty comes to a stop and gestures
towards a door marked ’Trapeze’ in finely-spun golden cursive to delineate the
ownership of the room. Every detail of this building has been painstakingly
designed, even the backstage areas creating an atmosphere of theatrics and
drama as if you’ve stumbled into the real-life pages of a Dr. Seuss book. “This is
where you will store your belongings and do your costume changes and makeup.
Are we ready to have a glimpse inside?”
Your nerves about seeing Harry and being alone with him for the entirety of
the day have only skyrocketed since you’ve step foot in this building and Rusty
seems to be aware by the way he wraps an arm and your shoulders and squeezes
jovially. A smile finally breaks free before your head falls forward to stare at your
shoes, your teeth sinking into your lip when you finally draw your attention back
to him and nod, “yep. Born ready.”
You are anxious to cozy up in your new secluded meditation space that is for
you and you only, a retreat which allows you to catch your breath between
rehearsals and performances. In your bag you’ve come prepared with a framed
photo of your family and a couple cherry-scented candles to decorate your
vanity, equipped to prepare yourself in solitude before it’s time to face the wolf.
“Alright, here we are.” Rusty pushes open the door and flicks on the light,
illuminating a small room painted a vibrant green reminiscent of a buttery
Castelvetrano olive and designed in the style of a classic Vaudeville burlesque
theme. Black velvet curtains drape around a large floor-to-ceiling mirror above
the vanity stand, a black curly metal chair with a floral cushion sitting tucked
underneath the clean table. A cognac, tufted leather couch lines the opposing wall
and beside that, an ornate standing screen to change your clothing behind. “That
door on the far side of the room is your private restroom. It has a standing
shower and plenty of towels that we will be in charge of washing.”
You’re absolutely itching to unpack your bag and change into comfortable
clothing for practice, memories of your flying trapeze dreams last night flushing
to the surface. You don’t have much experience aside from basic swinging, but
you’re hoping that Harry will be willing to jump right into the daring feats as
early as today. You drop your bag on the couch and spin towards Rusty with a
smile dragging across your features, “it’s perfect. Thank you.” You glance around
the room again as your smile grows even wider at the comprehension that this is
all real, “for everything.”
“My pleasure, dear. I’m going to go down the hall and check in with of the
technical directors and then I’ll show you to one of the studios for warming up.
Can I get you anything else at the moment?” You shake your head and he smiles
in return, “fantastic. Take ten and I’ll be right back.”
Rusty softly closes the door behind him when he leaves and the moment it’s
clicked shut, you release a long, happy sigh and flop onto the couch to take
everything in. Your attempt at extending your career has proved successful. Just
forty-eight hours ago you had been ready to shelve the entire notion and now
here you are, ready to take on a new life with the gorgeous bird of prey who is
circling somewhere closely above, waiting for you to expire so that he can peck
the flesh from your bones.
You make your way over to the vanity to spread out your candles and makeup
across the surface. Your reflection dares you to be brave and loyal to your
convictions, no matter how fiercely Harry may approach you today. You pour
yourself a glass of water from the full porcelain pitcher, downing most of its
contents in three hefty swigs before turning your back to the door and pulling off
your shirt. You unclasp your bra and toss it aside, eyeing the placement of the
standing screen and wondering why it’s there aside from being beautiful to look
at. Just as the thought enters your mind, the door to your dressing room swings
open with a heavy thunk, your surprised scream echoing off of the walls and
drowning the sound of wood meeting wood.
You scoop your shirt from the ground and suction it to your chest in an effort
to cover your bare breasts, but you know a bit of private skin is still visible as you
spin on your heel and stare directly into the face of two steely, frostbitten eyes
and a mouth as red as blood.
“That’s a set of fuckin’ lungs, Jesus.”

You glance down at your chest and readjust your shirt to cover yourself up
more, your fingers digging into your skin in embarrassment and anger when you
realize Harry’s probably making an innuendo about your tits, “what are you
doing in here?”
You don’t know the first thing about Harry aside from his career, but you
know that him being dressed in all black this past week is unlike him. His
unzipped leather jacket creaks when he raises his cigarette to his mouth, a
skateboard with wheels that match his magically chameleon-colored lips tucked
under his other arm. He either doesn’t hear your question or simply chooses to
ignore it, “you’re early. Why am I not surprised?”
Your foot stomps against the carpet, but the muffled sound you get in return is
supremely unsatisfying, “I said, ’what are you—”
Rusty pokes his head into the room above Harry’s shoulder and now you’re
even more aware of your half-naked appearance than before, “is everything okay
in here? Have you two officially—” Rusty notices your predicament and averts
his eyes to the far wall, “oh, dear.”
You’ve learned the importance of the standing screen in a matter of twenty

seconds or less.
Harry’s smug chuckle drags irate goosebumps across your skin as you march
off and disappear behind the screen to pull your shirt back on. You can hear them
muttering to each other and you can feel Harry’s stare burning a hole through the
fabric stretched across the frame. You close your eyes and wish the floor would
open up and swallow you whole, your hands lifting to fan your face and drain the
blood from your cheeks before you step back out into the room to face them.
“I’m sorry, it seems I forgot to mention that you and Harry share a dressing
room. All partnered acts do.” Harry and Rusty exchange glances as Rusty clears
his throat and steps forward in an effort to break the ever-mounting tension
between you, “let’s make this official, shall we? Harry, this is your new partner
and the second half of the brilliant Flying Marvels.”
You glance at Harry’s hands, busy with bringing his cigarette to his mouth and
white-knuckling his board in the other. Neither of you make an effort to shake
hands, your fingers twitching at your sides before placing them on your hips to
also seem engaged. Harry nods in a greeting after a cloud of sweet pink is freed
from a small part in his lips, his digits weaving through his curls to push them off
of his forehead except for one single tress that’s determined to litter his skin and
brush his eyebrow. You glance at Rusty before bringing your attention back to
Harry’s persistent stare, “glad to meet you.”
Harry seems to understand that the two of you will have to put in effort to
play nice in front of your boss, because his answer comes unnaturally quickly
and as flat as a pancake, “pleasure’s all mine.”
Rusty speaks through the beat of silence with a stilted, perky tone and
arrhythmic, awkward timing, “yes— well, then. I’ll leave you two to get
acquainted and then Harry, can you show our new recruit to studio number two
for some stretching?” Harry nods and finally pries his eyes from your figure to
regard Rusty, your chest relaxing for the first time in a full minute as you take
this opportunity to suck in a satisfying breath.
As soon as Rusty leaves the room, you are brisk in addressing the second
avoided handshake that you’ve experienced with Harry thus far, “you do realize
that you’re going to have to touch me at some point.”
Harry drops his cigarette butt into your nearly-empty glass of water, the singe
of the fire extinguishing tickling your ear drums as he scrapes by you, “I’m
aware.” He slips into the bathroom and locks the door shut behind him, plopping
down onto the closed toilet seat and rubbing the pads of his fingers against his
aching temples.
The heart-shaped filter swims in a slow circle inside of your water glass, a thin
slip of smoke disappearing into the air as it takes its final gasp of breath. You
gather your bodysuit and leggings from your bag and decide to find a place to
change elsewhere, pausing when you realize that you haven’t heard a sound from
the bathroom since he’s barricaded himself inside. You pad across the carpet and
rap quietly on the door to give him the courtesy of knowing that you’re providing
him some space, “so, I’ll just—”
He clears his throat before interrupting you softly, “yeah.”
It turns out that you don’t need Harry’s help to find studio number two and
after watching the red second hand on the clock slowly scroll through twenty
minutes of nerve-wracking waiting, it’s clear he never plans to show up.
You tap the soles of your feet together and butterfly your legs apart, stretching
your arms in front of you and gliding your palms across the floor as you lean
forward as far as you can. Harry’s lack of trust in your ability and an absent
interest in partnership is troubling; the most important aspect of working
together in a pair is going to be your achievement in creating a foundation of
confidence and dependence. If he continues to keep you at a literal and figurative
arm’s length, it could be the very thing stopping you from reaching excellence or
worse, the very thing causing you to fall several feet from the air. But you push
the second thought away with a huff, not wanting to imagine the brutality of an
injury before you’ve even begun.
You bow your head and allow the tip of your nose to tap your toes, your
meditative breathing and concentration interrupted by the plinking of toe nails
on the hardwood floor followed by a wet, wide tongue lapping against your hair.
You flick your gaze up and are met face-to-face with the heavy panting and joyful
expression of a big, white and black dog, a dark patch of fur adorning one of his
eyes before his tongue extends out to leave a trail of slobber across your entire
face.
You groan and squeal, a chortle breaking free as you blindly search the ground
for your discarded t-shirt to wipe the slime from your skin. The dog flops over
onto his back with his paws kicked up and dangling relaxed in the air, his eyes
searching yours as he silently begs for a belly rub. A soft grin pulls across your
features when you spoil him with exactly what he wants, “hey pup. Who are
you?” You scratch his belly and search his neck for a collar with a name tag,
finding only a blue paisley bandana and apparently a sweet spot that sends his
leg into a frenzy.
He’s so bulky that you could imagine him pulling you down and dragging you
across the ground if you were attempting to walk him and he spotted a squirrel
and took off. On your thorough tour earlier this morning, you remember Rusty
mentioning that he had adopted a bunch of dogs from the local shelter, saving
them from euthanasia and simultaneously indoctrinating them into a life
pampered by dozens of people who love them and feed them scraps from the hot
dog and popcorn stands. A sweet gesture and one paradoxical from most other
modern circus organizations, yet another aspect of this company that you find
endearing and aligning with your own personal values.
Upon hearing a certain voice from the hallway, the dog flips back over onto all
fours and runs away without another glimpse in your direction, knowing that
he’s likely to receive a decent amount of warm attention if he follows the sound
of recognizable drumfire. You scramble to your feet and chase behind him,
screeching to a halt when you find Harry having a friendly conversation with
someone that you haven’t yet been introduced to.
This is first time that you’re seeing Harry dressed in something other than a
wetsuit or funeral garb. Form-fitting and high-waisted gray sweatpants that
cinch just above the ankle, a white wifebeater tucked in at the waistband with a
thin leather belt looped and pulled tightly around his middle, polished off with a
pair of attractive and large, bare feet. The same tattoos and muscles that you got
a glimpse of on the beach flex and undulate when he squats down to greet the
dog, without breaking the stride of his conversation with the mysterious person.
The dog licks and licks, rearing back onto his haunches to balance his paws
against Harry’s shoulder as his fingernails scratch a path up and down the dog’s
furry belly. It’s clear that they have a relationship, one in which a great deal of
admiration and faith has been developed and you swallow your budding jealousy
over a slobbery creature as you make your way over to their exclusive huddle.
“No worries, stud. Just go in there and do what you do best—”
Three sets of eyes land on you before the person who is speaking abruptly
shuts his mouth with your arrival, him and Harry burning their sights on one
another before Harry returns his attention to the dog and you’re left awkwardly
hovering and expecting an introduction, “hi.” You reach your hand towards him
for a greeting, “I’m—”
“That’s Tex.”
Both you and Tex glance at Harry who, aside from a two-word assistance,
insists on keeping himself occupied elsewhere as you follow through with your
formal handshake. Tex seems gentle and kind, his eyes so dark that it’s hard to
tell where the color of his iris stops and his pupil begins.
“I take it you’re Harry’s new partner.” You nod and his smile perks before
dissolving, “I ride the unicycle and breathe fire. Kinda like Harry.” His gentle dig
and attempt to comfort you through Harry’s obvious difficult exterior courses it’s
way through your muscles and eases in relaxing them for the time being. Harry’s
mouth pulls into a tight-lipped smirk and a puff of soft laughter bursts through
his nose in recognition of Tex’s quip, his head bowed down as he stays fully
engrossed in scratching and rubbing his fingers through coarse fur. Tex goes on
to explain his part and technique in the circus and you try your hardest to focus,
but you’re distracted by movement in the corner of your eye.
Harry rises to standing and wraps a single arm around the large dog’s torso,
his paws flopping through the air to gain a sense of traction and his tongue
attempting to make contact with any bit of Harry’s skin that he can. He hoists the
animal from the ground and you swear you can see the dog smile when Harry
kisses his head, rubbing his knuckles behind his ears and whispering quiet,
loving anecdotes into his fur.
Tex’s voice re-enters your cognition like the appearance of a butterfly flitting
through your field of vision, “so yeah, Harry and I go way back. I worked with
him in the other circus company a couple years ago—”
The dog is deposited back onto the ground before Harry’s elbow digs into
Tex’s ribcage as an indication for him to stop talking, “fuckin’ alright, flake.
Thanks for the run down. Catch ya later.” Harry flicks his chin up at you and spins
on his heel before padding off down the hallway, his wordless action a signal for
you to follow.
You wave goodbye to Tex before running off behind Harry and he makes no
effort to slow down and match your pace, your feet reminding you of a set of tiny
wheels on a toy car stuck in mud or an ambling toddler that’s playing a game of
chase with their mother, “what’s his name?”
“I already told you. Tex.”
You shake your head at the obvious misunderstanding and attempt to keep up
as you meander through the winding hallways, “I mean the dog.”
“Beau.”
You catch a glimpse inside of a studio to find a group of ballet dancers

stretching at the barre, their reflections mirroring back at you and drawing a
deep sense of longing for the life you once led, “did you name him?”
“Yeah.”
Harry turns a corner and enters a room filled with gymnastics equipment;
mats and uneven bars, a foam pit and trampolines, rings and springboards, a
balance beam and a wall of mirrors, “can we start on trapeze today?”
“Absolutely not.”
For the next couple of hours, Harry puts you through a series of skill tests. He
hasn’t explained himself but you gather that, in order to safely move forward, he
needs to gauge the level of your strength and extent of your current ability. He
knows from watching your audition that you’re a secure, graceful and skilled
dancer, but he also wants to be certain of your weaknesses to pinpoint exactly
what needs to be focused on for improvement’s sake. He doesn’t offer any words
of encouragement, which makes it impossible for you to know where you stand
and what he perceives. Instead he hovers at a short distance, watching with his
arms crossed over his chest as he bites the skin around his fingernails, only
taking a break from chewing on his digits when he barks commands at you such
as “again”, “higher” or “tighter.”
Harry starts you off with simple tumbling on mats and with springboards,
stepping in every so often to lend an arm behind your back to guide the arch in
your spine or pinching your shoulders as a reminder to keep them dropped. You
switch gears and follow him across the room to practice on the low bar, him
urging you over and over again to make sure your grip is strong and your legs are
leaving the ground at the same time before you rotate yourself over the bar in a
simple pullover. He grumbles to himself about having to practice leg lifts and
push ups in order for you to build the strength for more solid and complicated
tricks, even becoming frustrated enough to step in at one point to physically
show you how it’s meant to be done.
Seeing him in action is a lot like ducking in the bushes and witnessing a wild
animal do a simple yet compulsory task such as catching prey or bathing its
young. As if it were something he were solely put on this planet to achieve, with
no signs of hesitation present when he chalks his hands and claps them together
to remove excess dust. You try to pick your jaw up off the ground when he
brushes by you and takes three quick paces followed by a leap straight to the
high bar, his long physique and sinewy muscles seamlessly swinging back and
forth before he kips himself up onto the bar in a flawless pullover. He rests his
hips against the wood for a moment of pause, before spiraling forward in a few
flips that are executed so quickly that the only impression left in your mind is a
blur of trails and skin. He drops to the ground in a smooth dismount, quirking an
eyebrow at you as if daring you to prove yourself before delivering another
short, pruned order, “trampoline.”
Your arms were beginning to feel a bit like jello so you’re grateful for the
break, although he doesn’t go any easier on you on the trampoline. He spots you
on back and front tucks, stepping forward to offer an arm across your back to
guide the tumble in a bigger arc before jumping away. You don’t fail to notice
how his hands spring apart from your body as soon as the trick is completed as
though your skin were on fire and his palms were melting from his bones from
your agitated blaze.
The truncated conversation and blatant distance that you’ve shared

throughout the course of the day is beginning to drive your perfectionist nature
insane with analytical bewilderment. You always find yourself as the one to
blame in these sorts of situations, maddeningly playing and replaying the same
events over in your head as you try to pinpoint exactly where you’ve gone wrong
and what you could have done differently to avoid it. The meeting on the beach
continues to rear its ugly head; your arms crossed over your bathing suit in
annoyance and your feet kicking sand over his jar of surf wax. If only you had
known who he was at the time would you have approached the situation
differently. But in the same vein, should you have to change your natural
instincts to cater to someone in order to achieve what you want? Can’t you put
your foot down and stand up for yourself while also manifesting your dream
career?
Harry offers you next to nothing whenever you ask a question, whether it be
personal or pertinent. It’s almost as if he can sense your deep desire to be
accepted and polished and he’s choosing to act in complete opposition; a real-life
devil’s advocate taking cover behind a face and body carved from golden marble.
You still have no idea what he thinks of your capabilities and it’s starting to force
you to question them yourself; is your position as his partner set in stone or will
he continue to push you so hard that you’re forced to retreat from this building
entirely? He may be the big, bad wolf and you may be weathering out the storm,
but your house is made of bricks, not straw or sticks. He’s going to have to retreat
at some point.
Harry mumbles something about taking a ten minute break before he steps
away to light a cigarette, a fog of pink trailing off behind him as he hurries across
the floor towards Tex and a group of people huddled by the exit door. The clear
difference between how many words he offers Tex versus how many words he
offers you irks you beyond belief because it’s apparent that he’s going out of his
way to treat you with disdain. At the same time it urges you to try harder to
develop a relationship with him, to shatter his glass walls, to strengthen your
grip on one another so that he would never allow you to tumble from the sky. In
addition to being a rooted work partner, you’re determined to make him like you.
To placate the situation you’ve both been placed in to make your days and your
lives not only tolerable, but enjoyable. Possibly even fun.
He can obviously speak and relate to people and maintain friendships, made
evident by the recognition he receives by every single person who passes him
and greets him with a pat on the shoulder and the way he returns their gestures
with smiles and genuine regard. You hate feeling singled out and you hate that he
seems to be a pillar in this community because if he doesn’t like you, then his
attitude will begin to trickle down to everyone around him and poison your
ability to make your own impression on the company. The beach interaction
crackles to life and begins to singe in your mind as you watch him jest with and
shove his friends good-naturedly, his widespread smile etching a dimple into his
cheek that makes you both tender and affronted all at once.
Before you know it, you’re leaving the empty solitude of the trampoline and
stomping towards him, squeaking a tight, unconvincing smile through a huff of
anger at all of his friends before tapping him on the shoulder. He glances at you
and somehow manages to stop his eyes mid-roll, casting an annoyed grimace to
Tex before spinning around to face you, “it hasn’t been ten minutes.”
You’re nodding through his excuse because you were already prepared for it,
“yeah, I know. Can we talk?”
He exhales his smoke directly into your face and normally that type of
disrespect would make you so angry that each hair on your body would curl, but
this is different. He is different. His cigarettes smell and taste like authentic hot
spun cotton candy after it has turned to liquid and been sucked from your
fingertips. His mouth has a sparkly sheen on the bottom left corner that makes
you wonder how smooth his lips are, the tip of his tongue making an appearance
as he waits for you to ask your burning question. You’re so caught up in the curve
and perception of his mouth that you’re starting to wonder if his cigarettes are
filled with mind-numbing, hypnotic toxins and subliminal messages, but you
shake your head and allow the sounds in the room to return to you, “alone.”
Your heart thumps out of your chest with each footstep that leads the two of
you into the hallway for privacy. Arguments make you feel sick, but you’ve never
been one to shy away from confrontation because the alternative is equally as
nauseating. You’re not sure how Harry handles disagreements but you’re not
registering any signs of discomfort from him. In fact, his face is perfectly relaxed
and neutral aside from a single curious wrinkle between his eyebrows.
A deep exhale empties your lungs and increases your dizziness, “why don’t
you like me?” You hate how childish that sounds, but there is really no other
simple way of phrasing it. You fill in the uncomfortable beat of silence with an
anecdote that’s been irritating you since your failed interview, “is it because of
what happened on the beach?”
Harry’s eyebrows pull together to further exaggerate the existing line slicing
his skin there, “the beach? What happened on the beach?”
He doesn’t recognize you from the beach because to him, women are all the
same. Soft skin and hair. Bouncy tits. A wet pussy. A warm body. Nothing else.
You’re violently thrown off guard by his genuine confusion and the stinging
awareness that he doesn’t even recall your face after your first interaction. An
interaction that was noteworthy and humiliating in your eyes, an interaction that
isn’t even worth remembering to him. The fact that he can be involved in
something like that without feeling anything is cruel, as if you were both
experiencing two completely different events. For you, a strange flirtation that
stuck with you well past dinner and rekindled just before breakfast. For him,
nothing.
“The beachball. The sex wax—”
You jump when he explodes into loud, thunderous laughter at your expense,
“holy fuck, that was you?” He’s thrilled to easily shift the blame of your rocky and
tense practice session away from himself, “wow. I didn’t recognize you without
the thick veneer of unnecessary feistiness.” Harry recalls your demure yellow
one-piece bathing suit, “maybe if you showed more skin it would give me
something to remember.”
Harry never apologizes because it’s rare for him to feel sorry in the first place.
In fact, he’s relieved that you’re taking responsibility for the crappy attitude he’s
been flexing all day so that he doesn’t have to. The word ’proud’ comes to mind,
but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative aspect of his personality. He figures he will
recognize his culpability and know to apologize when the situation truly calls for
it.
For a moment, his words force you to reconsider your worth and distinction
as a human being, your pride swallowed thickly down your tight throat as you
attempt to keep yourself from spiraling on the very first day of a hopefully
prolific career in the circus. It’s a gross feeling to be reduced to how little or how
much skin you choose to expose and you want to be able to stand up for yourself,
but your mind refuses to delineate an appropriately brave response. The notion
of you and all women being merely an object of pleasure to him gurgles your
stomach in dumbfounded queasiness. You start to reconsider if this is your
dream job at all, with a coworker who is hellbent on never allowing you to
become his colleague or worse yet, driving you from this position entirely.
You mull and flip through several retorts, all varying from extreme emotion to
pure apathy, deciding to fall somewhere in between when you narrow your eyes
and spit, “dipstick.”
“Dork. Lighten up. Meet you back on the trampoline in five.”
Now that the interaction on the beach has been officially squashed, you find
yourself still tied up at first base with the perplexity of why he is treating you so
coldly. A hot fire has been lit under your ass and the rest of practice proved so;
your jumps higher and your tucks tighter, your feet quicker and your grip
stronger. Perhaps that was his intention with his immature, sibling-like response
to your questioning, but it did nothing to answer your burning inquiry. Harry
was pleased that you kept your mouth shut for the rest of the day aside from a
few snide remarks tossed back and forth. He would much rather work with
animosity than awkwardness. Ease just doesn’t seem like an option right now.
Harry walked off the floor and disappeared as soon as you landed your final
flip. You had decided to change somewhere other than your shared dressing
room, not having the courage to face him again after your shameful and
erroneous dispute. There was nothing that you could do for now aside from
hoping that tomorrow would be different, but something deep down warned you
that this was your reality now and it won’t be making much sense anytime soon.
On your way out of the studio for the day, you’re forced to walk through a
tunnel of cigarette smoke as you hold your breath and wave the harsh air from
your face. The scent of warm sugar catches your attention and you decide to put
in one final drop of effort to relax the charred nerves between the two of you.
Harry stands just a few feet away, surrounded by his typical cloud of scrappy
energy and rose petals, a cluster of people worming their way closer to him for a
minute of his consideration.
A loud and repugnant wolf-whistle splits your eardrums with a dull ring,
followed by Harry shouting a wicked cat call to a group of women passing
through his periphery, “shake it, don’t break it!”
One of them takes the bait without hesitation the moment she locks eyes on
him, “hey, daddy-o.”
All of his friends laugh at his expertise and efficiency, grunts of arousal
echoing through a couple of them as Harry blatantly stares at her legs and ass
when she spins around and continues her journey onward. He starts to run after
her, but you grab his arm and stop him in his tracks with clear disdain and
annoyance gripping your muscles, “what about your girlfriend?”
A collective chuckle rolls through the onlookers behind you as Harry’s face
twists in perplexity, “who?”
“The girl on the beach. Green bathing suit. Olive skin, brown hair. I saw you
kissing her—”
Harry laughs cynically at your naïveté, “she’s not my girlfriend, nerd. None of
them are and never will be. They’re burners.” The last sentence of his speech is
spoken with a hint of sarcastic disdain, “mum absolutely loves it.” His sentiment
trails off when he peers over your shoulder and sees his prospective lay
vanishing with each footstep. He doesn’t mind too much, he could find another
one in ten minutes or less if he remained in this spot near the boardwalk and
continued to cruise for chicks.
You despise how it’s beginning to feel like you’re an outsider to this whole
company. The west coast is a lot different than the small town you were raised in
two thousand miles away, or perhaps it’s just Harry and his gaggle of friends that
are making you feel this unwelcome, “burners?”
Another round of laughter trills from the group standing at Harry’s back, “sex.
One night stands.” He turns to them for a burst of encouragement before facing
you again, “you’re such a fuckin’ square. A Clyde. Probably a virgin.” All of his
friends snicker and you can feel red hot, angry embarrassment crawling up your
neck to heat your cheeks. It’s obvious that Harry notices because he uses the
evidence as the answer he’s looking for, “oh my god. You are, aren’t you? That
explains everything. Tighter than a parking space. Loosen up, Clyde. Life is meant
to be enjoyed.”
“That’s not my name!”
“’Kay, Clyde!” A groan strangles your throat as you sigh forcefully and spin
away from him, his crude dismissal drowned by the rumble of your roller skates
on the boardwalk, “later!”
Happy Aerial Saturday! And thank you to RubySlippers_ for answering a

thousand gymnastics questions while I wrote this chapter.
What do we think of Harry now, hmm?
I’m getting strep throat, so I’m gonna go lay down and die now, k bye love you.
Xx B
The Fifth Chapter
“Higher!”
There are a couple mysteries that you still have yet to uncover from the two
and a half weeks that you’ve been diligently training and practicing for the circus.
One — any and everything about Harry, including what lies below his hardened
exterior, what his personal life looks like outside of this theatre, why he’s yet to
accept the reality of a closeness outside of your working relationship and why
there is such a stark contrast between his treatment of you versus his treatment
of every other person.
Two — where the phantom breeze is coming from in your dressing room that
extinguishes your favorite juicy, cherry-scented candles. Typically you light them
before taking a shower because you enjoy entering into a sweet smelling room
after bathing, but the flame is always choked by the time you step out of the
bathroom. Not only does it happen when you’re not looking, but you swear the
fire has blotted out right in front of your eyes on more than one occasion and
you’ve actually considered asking around to see if anyone else is having ghostly
experiences.
At first you were worried about creating connections with your coworkers
considering how difficult it’s been with Harry, but it seems to have come pretty
easily for you so long as you avoid Harry’s quite extensive circle of friends.
Luckily you’ve made acquaintances with some ballet dancers, choosing to do
gentle warm-ups and partake in enjoyable conversation with them each morning
before having to face your trapeze partner. He’s militant and unrelenting in his
training methods, demanding at least an hour of calisthenics before moving on to
anything circus, gymnastics or dance-related; push ups, sit ups, pull ups, leg lifts,
jumping jacks, jumping rope, weight lifting and jogging in place just to name a
few.
No matter what the exercise is, Harry can do twice as many repetitions as you
can in about half the time. At first you had thought that maybe he was showing
off, but the more you get the know him, the more it seems as though he is
pushing himself to beat his own record each day. He is seemingly in constant
competition with himself to prove something; to prove that he is in control and
constantly developing, that he is a better version of himself than he was
yesterday. That if he keeps moving forward and striving for greatness, he could
never possibly be bored or lonely. That if he always has a goal that he is striving
for, he could never be considered a failure.
Three days ago, he finally deemed you ready for practicing on trapeze. On day
one, you started off with simple trust falls on the ground. Since then you’ve been
doing about a dozen trust falls each day to remind the both of you that you are
capable, you are reliable, you are strong. You are working partners and the proof
is in the fall and the catch. You had been worried about the level of required
professional, physical intimacy that comes along with this line of work, but Harry
has proved himself to be nothing sort of virtuous. His values are in place and he’s
shockingly competent and honorable, if only he could loosen up a bit and crack a
smile when he’s within fifty feet of your presence.
On day two, you began by swinging side-by-side first, before quickly moving
on to swinging alone. Harry strapped you into a harness and followed behind you
as you climbed the rope ladder high up into the air, noticing the tremble in your
hands when you looked down and saw just how far up you were. You’d had a
substantial amount of practice in the few aerial courses you took in college, but
nothing was quite this elevated or grand. He ignored the fear that you struggled
to hide, gripping the fly bar and encouraging you to join him before counting
down from three and pushing off of the platform with your hips, legs and arms
pressed up against one another.
The initial feeling of soaring through the air was exquisite. You’d always loved
the notion of playground swings and carnival rides as a child, but the sensation of
being this alpine and liberated was unmatched and incomparable. Your stomach
flipped and flipped as you moved forward and backward, pumping your legs to
propel the motion into an even more exaggerated swing. With swinging comes
falling, so right away Harry wanted you to get used to the innervation of letting
go and dropping into the safety net. He did it along with you each time, helping to
solidify the faith that you had in him as a reliable partner as well as building an
alliance around any apprehension you may have had regarding physical safety.
Once you both felt comfortable in your expertise, he pushed you to do it on your
own and ever since your first solo swing and drop, you’ve become an addict for
the air and each firework that comes along with it.
“Higher, Clyde!”
Today is day three and although you had been excited beyond belief to finally
let go of the fly bar and practice some simple catching, it’s proving to be a bit
more difficult that you had anticipated. Coercing yourself to let go of the bar and
abandon all ingrained human safety measures as you hurl yourself through space
in the hope of being caught seemed impossible at first, but with each try, the
mental aspect of it seems to get easier and easier.
You haven’t had a successful catch yet and Harry is blaming it on your inability
to swing high enough. His knees are hooked on the fly bar across from you as he
hangs upside down with his arms suspended below his head, his ribs expanding
each time he barks at you to jump from the platform harder and rock your legs
forward with as much gusto as you can manage. Part of it is lack of necessary
muscle but most of it is trepidation and he knows it, which is why he continues to
shout at you in an effort to keep you motivated.
Harry gives the signal that you’ve agreed upon when he deems your swing
strong enough and when he’s ready for you to fly, sticking his fingers into his
mouth and whistling loud enough for the sound to echo off of the surrounding
bleachers. You suck air into your lungs and fill them to capacity as you reach the
apex of your swing and let go of the fly bar, your heartbeat frozen and your body
weightless and suspended in the air for an excruciating cluster of seconds until
Harry’s merciless and apparently saliva-tainted hands are clutching yours and
wrapping around your wrists.
The feeling of his slimy fingers touching yours causes an involuntary shriek of
disgust to ripple up your throat, your digits slipping through his as you untangle
from him and go soaring through the air towards the safety net. Your body
bounces with the residual impact of your fall as the net cradles you, your gaze
craning upwards towards Harry who hovers above you and shakes his head in
disappointment. His bar continues to swing to and fro as he stares down at you
and laments in the spoiling of your first successful catch, “you’d rather break
your neck than come in contact with my saliva?”
You lay on your back within the hammock of the secure netting as you try to
camouflage your guilt and focus up at him dangling several feet above you, “it’s
looking that way, isn’t it?”
“Okay, let’s take a fuckin’ break.”
Harry’s always loved the satisfying crunch of his teeth sinking through the
flesh of an apple. Just after turning the fruit over and over in his palm until
finding the perfect juncture to break through, the astringent juice tickling his
tongue and seeping from the corner of his mouth. He’s partial to the type with
green skin because the flavor is predictable; tart, acidic, dry, crisp and just the
slightest hint of sweet. It’s familiar and dependable. It’s reminiscent of
something, but he can’t quite place it.
He closes his eyes to bathe himself in this moment of quiet solitude that he
rarely allows himself to experience. The sun heats his face and the metal rim of
his sunglasses as his eyes gently lull shut, the sound of the rough ocean winds
combing through the palms above him. Beau’s belly that doubles as a pillow rises
and falls with breath and rocks Harry’s head with each sleepy drag of air in and
out. His legs extend long in front of him through the plush and emerald green
grass, unnatural in its perfection with each blade the same height as the one
beside it. Everything about this building, interior and exterior, is manicured
down to its final minutiae and it reminds him of you. Which he finds terribly
irritating considering this is supposed to be his hour of freedom.
“You’re particularly quiet today. More so than usual.” Harry tenses at the
sound of your voice cutting through his moment of peace, the vibration of your
energy sending uncomfortable pricks of thumbtacks protruding down every inch
of his skin as he slowly drags his eyelids open from behind the shield of his
sunglasses. “Are you tired too? I didn’t really sleep well last night either. Nettie
came home late and—”
He’d rather not relive the last few hours of practice or rehash the broken
slumber that shook him within a tangle of drenched sheets last night, “no.”
“No what?”
“No everything.”
’No’ to your questions, ’no’ to your presence, ’no’ to your proximity, ’no’ to
your existence. He pulls his eyes closed again to block out his surroundings,
hoping that his rigid body language and subtle cues are enough to send you on
your way and out of his sun.
You widen your eyes in exasperation and the evident annoyance dripping
from the corners of his tight grimace, your lips forming the silent word ’okay’
before shutting your mouth and plopping down a few feet away. Harry lays still
aside from his jaw working a piece of fresh bubblegum, a tight muscle in the
hinge of his cheek popping and hollowing as his tongue maneuvers under his
skin. A discarded banana peel and a pack of his Crush cigarettes settle by his side,
two discarded filters bent and extinguished into the grass. His fingers hold the
spent core of an apple softly against his belly, his tank top untucked from the
waistband of his joggers to reveal a serene sweep of skin sullied with black ink
on either hipbone. A track of bristly hair travels down from his bellybutton,
pointing in the direction of a considerable bump pushing against the fabric
between his legs before your gaze falls down to his bare feet; one planted flat in
the thick, green blades and the other stretched long and relaxed.
Harry clears his throat and adjusts his shirt to cover the exposed skin and it’s
in that moment that you realize you’re staring and that you’ve been caught doing
so. Your cheeks flame when you drop your sight to your lunch bag, shifting your
attention to pull out a napkin and lay it on the ground to neatly arrange your
meal. Cucumber, apple and carrot slices, lined up from shortest to tallest, so that
you can eat them in order and save the largest pieces for last. Your water bottle
and a pristinely wrapped lollipop are removed from your bag in finality, placing
them just to the right of your napkin as you pick at the smallest piece of carrot in
the lineup and pop it into your mouth.
Harry pushes his shades up and tilts his head to the side to watch your
obsessive routine. He half expects you to make another napkin appear from your
orderly and seemingly never-ending bag of stringency to tuck into the neck of
your bodysuit in order to keep crumbs from littering your chest, “do you always
have to be so fuckin’ meticulous?”
You don’t bother to make eye contact with him, “if it annoys you, yes.” Harry
flicks his sunglasses back down against the bridge of his nose, a waxy bubble
appearing from between his lips as Beau sucks in a loud, sleepy snore. A handful
of seconds pass before you wonder about something aloud, “is the bandana
yours?”
He realizes that this break isn’t going to be relaxing at all, “yeah.”
You piece together a backstory since Harry is intent on keeping you in the
dark, imagining Rusty arriving at the theatre with a truckload full of rescued dogs
from the shelter and allowing them all to run free like a swarm of insane,
freedom-starved bees. You can picture Beau galloping straight towards Harry
with his tongue hanging from his mouth, mowing Harry down onto the ground
and licking his face incessantly before he removes the blue bandana from his hair
and replaces it around Beau’s neck to claim him as his own.
Over the last couple weeks that you’ve been working together day in and day
out, Harry’s been communicating with you a bit more, but none of his banter is
friendly or particularly nice. It tends to be a slew of nonstop vexing digs back and
forth, but you suppose that relationship is better than utter hate. It’s emotionally
sapping to keep burrowing for information or at least for a hint of the charisma
that everyone seems to receive a dose of aside from you, but you haven’t given
up hope. You view him as a dirt-caked rock filled with clusters of shiny and
jagged amethyst; enough poking and prodding will eventually crack his exterior
and allow the sparkling gem to surface. Either that or you’ll draw blood in the
process, your mangled hands leaving sad puddles and trails as a reminder of
failure after agitated failure.
Nettie has become your unofficial therapist about the entire situation, sitting
across from you on your large, u-shaped couch at home, nodding and humming
along with each one of your grievances depending on the day. She suggested
persistent adjacency and gentle questioning, something to get the blood flowing
to the crystalline honey that’s formed a shield around his heart in order to melt
the buffer and wake up his affection. Too much rambling about yourself would be
extremely off-putting to someone who is otherwise uninterested in you, but
maybe with enough inquiry you could find some common ground to work with.
Even if you have to wade through a murky river of cheap insults in order to
achieve it.
Harry keeps his eyes lulled shut and his face angled towards the sky, “your
teeth are gonna rot from all those lollipops.”
“Not before your lungs turn black from all those cigarettes.”
The core of his apple is tossed in your direction and you don’t have enough
time to react before it lands on your napkin and scatters your exquisitely
organized meal into the grass all around you. Your jaw drops at his skillful
pestering before you pick up a carrot stick and haul it back towards him, his
mouth opening to catch it with ease and crunching loudly in victory without even
a hint of amusement.
It takes every ounce of willpower you have not to laugh at his ridiculous
aloofness.
The moment of harassment is put on pause by the tiniest voice you could
imagine squeaking from beside you, “hi.”
You turn to find a small child around the age of four standing with her mother
at a safe distance, the quick movement of Harry sitting up at attention and
pushing his hair back with his sunglasses flitting in the corner of your eye. His
speedy regard and response to the unexpected visitors does make you feel
jealous — it feels as though he treats every single person that he encounters,
aside from you, with honesty and appeal and you swear to yourself that you’re
going to figure out why. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
“Hi.” A smile starts in the center of Harry’s lips before billowing outwards
towards the corners, his eyes and cheeks lagging just behind to amplify the sense
of warmth, “I really like your dress.”
You know that you should be paying attention to the child, but you simply
can’t.
The child thaws and takes a brave step forward upon Harry’s gentle luring,
her fingers held nervously against her mouth as she chews on her skin, “it’s about
birds.” It’s navy blue and printed with multicolored hummingbirds, “I love the
circus. I love the trapeze and the tightrope and cotton candy. The pink kind.
You’re my favorite.” Her hands finally drop but continue to toy anxiously with the
hem of her skirt as she looks at her mother for help or reassurance.
The child’s mother finally speaks up, “sorry to bother you. Mitzi here noticed
you as we were walking on the boardwalk and she wanted to say hello. We have
tickets to see you in a couple months. We got them as soon as they went on sale.”
Harry unfolds himself from the ground and brushes his pants off before
walking closer and dropping to a squat to frame himself at eye level with Mitzi,
“thank you. I hope you have a great time.”
Mitzi seems to light up with his proximity and regard, her comfort level having
risen exponentially from just a minute ago, “guess what?” Harry raises his chin
and eyebrows to convey his attention and she jumps forward to whisper
information to him. Except she doesn’t quite understand that you’re supposed to
mutter secrets directly into someone’s ear, instead she speaks into his mouth, “I
saw sharks and they were golden and—” Her whisper grows louder to emphasize
her enthusiasm, “some of them were spiky!”
Harry gathers that they’ve recently made a trip to the aquarium by her non-
sequitur excitement. He tries diligently not to laugh, but remains steadfast in his
demeanor and positioning, not backing away or showing the slightest bit of
discomfort. He lowers the volume of his voice to match hers, “what else?”
You can’t help but wonder which side of Harry is an act; the face that you see
or the face that the rest of the world receives.
Mitzi steps closer and cups her hands around her mouth as she continues to
whisper against his lips, “one time when I was a tiny, old baby, this big furry man
scratched me on the forehead with his tricky spaghetti ice cream cone.”
Harry speaks through genuine belly laughter that he strives to contain for her
sake, his eyes crinkling at the corners and a dimple taking over most of the
acreage of his cheek, “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
Mitzi’s mother produces a piece of paper and pen from her purse, asking
Harry for an autograph first before requesting a photograph next. You stand to
your feet and offer to take the picture so that all three of them can be involved.
When you raise the viewfinder to your eye and see them all huddled together
and smiling within the frame, your chest tightens at just how poignant this whole
scenario feels. Being on this side of the picture is an accurate metaphor; watching
Harry enjoy playful interactions with others as you simply observe and create an
image in your mind of who he actually is. Your sigh is dejected but you hope they
don’t notice as you count to three and snap the photo, the shutter snapping black
and blotting them from sight at the same moment your heart stutters in pain.
His parting embrace is devastatingly endearing, his limbs reaching clear

around the child’s body in a tight hold, his face scrunching up when he presses
his cheek against hers. You can hear Mitzi squeal in excitement as she runs off
ahead of her mother, your weak grin slipping clear off of your face when you turn
to Harry and find that his expression has returned to indignation. You shake your
head and sit down in the grass to scratch behind Beau’s ears, “I don’t trust
charming men. You’re all murderers.”
Harry swipes his pack of cigarettes from the ground before tapping one out
with the heel of his hand, “God. What is it with chicks’ fascination in psychotic
men?”
The scent of cotton candy soaks into your hair as he strikes a match and lights
a smoke, “self-preservation? I dunno, you tell me. You have quite the fan club.”
He flops back into the grass and flicks his sunglasses back into place when he
resumes his position of resting on Beau, “aw, fuck off, Clyde. I am not psychotic.”
You hate to admit the thrill you feel from him voluntarily choosing to be this
close to you even if he is obstinate, “that’s exactly something a psychopath would
say.”
He chooses to ignore you as he brings his cigarette between his lips again, his
exhale followed by his jaw stretching open into a wide yawn. There’s a level of
vulnerability to Harry’s positioning, lying low beside you with his eyes slipped
shut behind his shades and you wonder if he’s aware of that dynamic or not. You
decide to take advantage of the situation and stifle his yawn by sticking your
finger into his open mouth, the corners of his lips twitching into a hint of humor
before it’s wiped clean by a sharp pinch of annoyance when his satisfying
expression of drowse is cut short, “fink.”
A group of women all flashing long stretches of exposed leg and stomach
saunter by on the boardwalk, the colors of their bathing suits reminding you of a
bouquet of tropical flowers. Harry’s head perks up at the sound of female
chattering, his sunglasses pushing up on his forehead for a clearer view of their
bodies once he realizes they have lots of skin to share.
“Harry….. we have to be back on the trapeze in twenty five minutes—”
Harry scrambles to his feet and propels himself forward by using the top of
your head for balance, your tight ponytail ruffled out of its constraint as his palm
fumbles against your hair. He hasn’t heard your warning and he doesn’t care very
much, his feet kicking up over your crossed legs and accidentally banging your
knee as he hurries towards the tanned flesh giggling past like a flock of geese
with delicately pruned feathers, “ow, germ!”
He does manage to hear your insult as he spins towards you for a fast rebuttal,
“fuckface!” His arm slinks around one of the women who giggles and nuzzles into
his side immediately upon receiving his careful diligence, “where ya headed,
gorgeous?”
You call after him, “twenty four minutes, Harry!” You don’t receive a response
and you hadn’t exactly expected to. Instead you unwrap your lollipop and suck it
into your mouth before making eye contact with Beau and slumping back down
into the grass, testing out what it feels like to use his soft belly as a pillow.
After several more hours of trapeze practice and yet even more calisthenics,
Harry dismisses the both of you for the day to return home for some rest. You
run off to your shared dressing room to shower first, locking the bathroom door
behind you for privacy and washing off as fast as you can so that you can enjoy
what’s left of the sunshine today. You’ve become accustomed to changing in the
bathroom after your mishap on the first day, still unsure and too scared to ask if
Harry got a comprehensive view of your tits or not.
Harry showers while you sit at the vanity and adjust your makeup in the
mirror, your cherry-scented candle burning as you keep your eyes blown open as
far as you can to swipe mascara on your lashes. Harry bursts from the bathroom
with a cloud of steam behind him, the wet heat of his body entering your
consciousness when you catch a glimpse of him in the mirror. He stands
completely naked beside you aside from the towel he uses to dry off his junk, his
soaking wet hair clinging to his cheekbones and droplets of water running down
his shoulders and chest. Before you realize what you’re doing, you flit your vision
down to his center and are shocked by the sight of his modesty almost making an
appearance below the movement of his towel.
“Harry!” You drop your mascara and cup your hands as blinders around your
eyes, squeezing them shut to make extra sure that you don’t accidentally see
something that you don’t want to, “oh….. my god. Can you please put some pants
on?”
“What? No.”
You groan and bravely peel your eyes open but still refuse to look at him, “I’m
right here and I don’t wanna see that.”
Harry reaches for your deodorant, “then leave.”
You try to grab it out of his hands, but he’s too quick for you and you realize
that having your eyes covered is more important to you right now, “no! I have
every right to be there.”
He shrugs and pops the cap from the stick of deodorant, “so do I. This is my
space to be naked. It’s a dressing room.” He lifts it to his nose for a sniff and
hums, “rose? Interesting choice.”
You groan and keep your hands firmly planted against your cheeks and
temples as a makeshift shield, “ugh. Fine. At least go behind the screen?”
“What’s the difference between my dick bein’ here or there? Just don’t fuckin’
look at it if it bothers you.”
“Because I can see it here and I can’t see there, Einstein. Get it out of my face.”
Harry holds up three fingers beside your head, but you can’t see them due to
your self-imposed obstruction, “how many fingers am I holdin’ up?”
“One. And please get it away. It probably has scabies or something.”
Harry takes his time applying your deodorant to his underarms before
flipping his towel over his shoulder and checking once again to see if you’re
watching. He waves his hand at you and when he gets no reaction, he sucks his
fingertips into his mouth to wet them before closing them around the wick of
your candle and extinguishing the flame.
Once you hear him retreat and you’re certain he’s making his way behind the
screen, you remove your hands and sigh in relief. You flick your gaze over your
shoulder for a glimpse of his bare bottom just before he disappears behind the
divider, your heartbeat speeding up behind your ribs at the vision of a perfectly
plump peach held up by a set of sturdy, toned thighs.
“Saw that.”
You pick up your mascara and resume applying your makeup, working to keep
your tone even and calm, “saw what?”
“Worth a try.”
You both shout “come in!” in unison when three knocks echo through your
dressing room, followed by the appearance of one of the technical director’s faces
slipping in through a small space in the threshold, “Rusty needs to chat with one
of you for a minute.”
Harry sticks his arm out from behind the screen and you respond with a
similar gesture, the two of you engaging in an unspoken game of Rock Paper
Scissors in order to fairly decide who will be the one to meet with Rusty. You
both shake your fists before throwing your respective shapes on your
outstretched hands. Harry tosses scissors and you form a piece of paper with a
level palm, your head throwing back with a grunt and dramatic disapproval of
your loss, “you cheated.”
“It’s only cheating if I can read your mind, Clyde. Now go find Rusty.”
You gather all of your belongings and rise to standing, leaning forward to
instinctively blow out the flame of your candle before you leave. When you
pucker your lips and discover that it’s already gone out right in front of your eyes
yet again, you tut and curse in confusion, mumbling something about your
dressing room being haunted. Harry tilts his head back behind the screen and
covers his face to silence his laughter, finally letting a soft chuckle escape once
you bid him a good evening and shut the door behind you upon your exit.
Hiiiiii! Happy Aerial Saturday, everyone! Sorry this was a bit late today. I was
behind after having been sick last weekend and having kind of a difficult week!
I hope you enjoyed the chapter and as always, please vote and leave me some
comments to let me know how you’re feeling about the story so far. I loooove you.
Xx B
The Sixth Chapter
“Harry.”
Four weeks, five days and three hours into rehearsals and this is the third
hour today that marks Harry’s inability to hear a single word that you’re saying.
Tex explained to you that the morning prior Harry had gone surfing and was
pulled under by a strong wave, causing him to tumble through the foamy crest
and manage to get an earful of salt water that is affecting his hearing.
He arrived this morning loudly interrupting you whenever you opened your
mouth to shout each of his horribly snippy phrases, digging his finger into his ear
canal and announcing that he would be completely unavailable for conversation
today. After a few attempts of questioning and receiving a blank stare in
response, it became abundantly clear that you and Harry would be having limited
instances of friendly small talk until further notice. Which is a shame because it
was starting to seem like you were making headway on that front.
Regardless of the stagnancy of today, you’ve catalogued plenty of information

throughout the past month. You’ve discovered that his frequency of smoking
depends on how rotten his mood is, that he will smoke half a pack throughout
the course of practice if he comes into work with his lips puckered considerably
in sour annoyance. He flosses his teeth before taking a shower, shirtless up top
and joggers down below, with his hips pressed against the vanity and his face so
close to the mirror that his nose practically depresses on the glass.
You’ve observed that he eats one banana, a couple handfuls of peanuts in the
shell, two hard boiled eggs and one green apple for lunch every day. In that
order. Even though he has plenty of friends who want to be around him at all
hours of the day, he eats quickly and he eats alone, but he will allow you to join
him if only you promise to ask no more than two questions per session. On the
day that you packed your lunch to perfectly replicate his in an effort to spark a
reaction, he snarled and reduced your allotted daily question to one before
leaning over and eating half of your freshly peeled banana in one enormous bite.
Just as you’d suspected, the head-to-toe black clothing was either a

subconscious or fully cognizant method of protesting your presence and since it’s
now understood that you’re not going anywhere, he’s slowly begun adding color
back into his wardrobe. After he’s showered, he typically builds each outfit with a
creamy, form-fitting tank top first, tucked into a pair of high-waisted trousers
and layering flowy and unbuttoned shirts on top. Sherbet pinks and lemon drop
yellow, honey gold and apricot orange. All warm shades of pastel rainbow that
make you wonder if his closet looks like a candy necklace or an untarnished,
tightly wrapped roll of sugary confection. Mouthwatering saltwater taffy on the
outside and tooth-shattering jawbreaker on the inside. Or so it seems.
His preferred flavor of chewing gum is orange creamsicle that comes wrapped
in white wax paper. Unfortunately, you got a whiff of it the hard way when you
stuck your finger into one of his bubbles to pop it, but the plan backfired when he
spit it out into your palm and said that he’d rather choke than put it back in his
mouth. Finally, you’ve learned through eavesdropping that him, Tex and a solid
group of guys all meet up to play pool together several nights a week. It seems to
be a sacred time for them to unwind from a day of physical activity, most likely
standing around and shooting the shit while they smoke cigarettes and drink
beers.
Harry still isn’t being particularly friendly when he gives in to your prying
digs, but you’d rather him call you a Clyde at the end of each retort than call you
nothing at all. You’re getting a dose of what that feels like right now and it is the
opposite of spectacular.
“Harry!”
Tex grasps your wrist and lowers your cupped hands from your mouth, “he
can’t hear you. Don’t even try. Maybe you should just do strength training and
practice some of your static, solo choreography today and he will be in tip-top
shape mañ ana.”
Harry has his back to you as he reaches up and stretches out his shoulder
blades by grasping his opposite elbows, the muscles in his back flexing when he
glances over his shoulder and locks eyes on Tex. You swear there is a knowing
exchange taking place, your arms crossing over your chest as you huff air out
through your nose, “oh? So, spontaneous deafness just cures itself in forty-eight
hours? How convenient.”
Tex nods and shrugs, “totally.”
You aren’t sure if he’s answering the part about spontaneous deafness or
convenience, but either way having him blindly on Harry’s side is nothing short
of frustrating.
The fourth hour of suffocating hush also coincidences with your lunch break
and the discovery of an all-you-can-eat waffle bar in the community kitchen. One
of the dog trainers brought them as a treat for all of the circus staff, a jovial way
of kicking off the week with a bit of morale building and fraternization. You load
up a plate with a high stack of sweet decadence, skipping the maple syrup for a
mountain of whipped cream, chocolate syrup and a handful of saccharine
maraschino cherries.
Instead of rubbing elbows in the kitchen you opt to continue your mission to
break through Harry’s dubious affliction, bumping open the exit door with your
hip to find him in his usual grassy spot in the sun. His sunglasses are heart-
shaped with reflective lenses that hide his eyes, so you have no idea if they’re
opened or closed. His hair is particularly curly and fluffy today, as though it had
been saturated with salt water and dried with a luscious ocean breeze, a single
ringlet resting against his brow bone and his aura shrouded in plumes of
carnation. Beau yawns before adjusting and sinking comfortably into the ground,
Harry’s head bobbing with the movement and his belly softly rising with breath.
You can smell the cotton candy essence of his cigarettes before you even come
within twenty feet of him and your tummy grumbles to beg for a bite of the
delicacy in your hands.
You decide in his moment of serenity that the best method of truth excavation
is through gentle manipulation. You tip-toe behind him and crouch down beside
his ear, whispering in the lowest volume of voice that could only be distinguished
by someone with perfect hearing, “free waffles in the kitchen.”
Harry sits up like a roaring bolt of lightning and whips his head around to
focus on your plate of gluttony, his sunglasses pushed up so quickly that you
almost didn’t see it happen, “what! Bitchin’!”
You’re not sure if he realizes his mistake in blowing his cover or if he’s just
given up all together for the sake of waffles, “really?” You smack his shoulder and
scoff, “jerk! You’ve been faking it this whole time? And for what, Harry? We only
have a month left until dress rehearsals and—”
A gasp tears through your chest and up your throat when Harry sucks his
entire index finger in his mouth and suctions his cheeks tight around his digit
before sticking it straight into your peak of whipped cream. Your jaw hangs open
but you’re not quick enough to defend your dessert before he leans over to lick
your pile of waffles, “are you gonna eat that?”
He completely ignores the subsequent slap to the back of his head as he

gathers your plate and tears off a bite with his fingers to eat it. His jaw chews
proudly as he points to your chest, “you got chocolate syrup all over your
bodysuit.”
You tut and look down, expecting to see a mess on your clothing but finding
nothing aside from Harry’s sticky finger right before he runs it all the way up
your chest, past your chin and flicks the end of your nose, “clod. That was too
easy.”
You half groan and half shout before rising to your feet, throwing your hands
up in the air in frustration and then dropping them to your hips, “you owe me
another one.”
Harry holds his fist in the air and you hesitate at first before reluctantly
partaking in a game of Rock Paper Scissors. He throws his palm flat in the shape
of paper that you smash with your fist curled into a defeated rock, “I hate your
stupid, rude fucking face!”
Harry’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead in a visage of surprise that almost

looks delighted, a high-pitched burst of laughter exploding from his throat, “she
cusses! Better repent, Clyde. They don’t let you past the pearly gates with that
sort of language.”
It’s impossible to see how gorgeous he looks with his face split open in a smile
when your vision is blurred in anger, “fuck you. Fucker. Brat.”
“Don’t come between Clyde and her sugar.”
“Exactly. Let that be a lesson to you.” You chew on the inside of your cheek as
you watch him blissfully eat the waffles you had spent the last five minutes
drooling over. He gathers a dollop of whipped cream and feeds it to Beau before
sucking his fingers into his mouth and spending extra time nibbling a bit of syrup
from his thumb, “best two out of three?”
“Nope.”
“Fine, but I get an extra question at lunch time today.” Harry groans and drops
his face into his palm and you’re wishing you had a clear view of his eyes without
the obstruction of his flamboyant sunglasses because they’re so unwittingly
expressive. His eyes tell you more about him than any of his one-line answers do;
a varying array of stony gravel and vibrant sea foam, wet pavement and crashing
waves. There aren’t enough words crafted by humans to define the burdened
sentiments brewing just below his furrowed brow. If he ever lets you stare into
them long enough.
Harry speaks through a giant mouth full of sweet pastry, “definitely not. Move
your ass.” You brush his hair into his face before spinning on your heel and trying
to ignore how soft his nebula of hazelnut curls are as you stomp back towards
the building. You can hear him groan behind you but you don’t bother to look,
imagining him trying to recreate his perfectly tousled quiff as he gripes, “square.”
You grip the door handle as you shout over your shoulder, “fatso!”
His raspy cackle is so loud that it travels through the salty air before whipping
around your head and snuffing to silence when the door slams shut behind you,
but mostly Harry is reveling in the victory of buying a few extra minutes of peace.
Regardless of the delightful stagnancy of this morning, Harry has catalogued

plenty of information throughout the past month. He’s noticed that you hum
when you concentrate; whether it be while you’re stretching your muscles or
eating your obsessively-planned lunch. You snort when you laugh hard enough
and leave soggy lollipop sticks in his ashtrays. You’re easily flustered and he
knows when it’s time to call a break because you get particularly snippy when
you’re hungry. You arrive fifteen minutes early, ask him about a hundred
questions a day and leave much later than he does. Your candles smell like shit
and you take long ass showers. Your persistent interrogation is a transparent
tactic to keep him from learning too much about you, but he likes it that way. And
you absolutely suck at Rock Paper Scissors.
The only thing that Harry is pleased about are the strides that you’ve made
together as work partners. You’ve gained enough confidence to fly and catch on
the high trapeze without the aid of a harness. After your first mishap due to slimy
fingers that sent you careening into the safety net, you agreed upon changing the
signal to two bellowing claps. He still demands an hour of calisthenics both at the
beginning and end of your practices, urging you to spend extra effort on building
strength and nailing simple pullovers and dismounts on the uneven bars. Simple
exercises that must be mastered with flawless skill in order to compile fortitude
and certainty for all the tricks in between.
In order to start digging deep into your choreography, the two of you have
been allotting most of your time together on a low hanging bar that dangles
about eight feet from a mat on the floor, with a mirror on the adjacent wall so
that you can watch your progress. Harry spends a good chunk of the day upside
down with his knees locked across the fly bar, both of your wrists bandaged for
support as he grips your hands and forearms to support you in aerial ballet
moves. He can feel blood rushing to his head now as he concentrates on his
breath and not getting kicked in the face as the long lines of your legs stretch on
either side of his head in an impressive split.
“Tighten up.” You nod and exhale the nerves out through your lungs, locking
your fingers around his wrists and taking his direction straight into the belly of
your heart as you rock your hips and drop your legs down. Your skin burns when
he readjusts and assists you into an attitude derrière with your working leg bent
and turned out behind you, your fingertips brushing your shoulder and chest
before your arm extends in front of your face as gracefully as you can manage,
“relax your fingers.” You grumble a defense about your fingers being as relaxed
as possible but are interrupted by another order, “lengthen your neck. Pull in
your stomach. Jesus, Clyde. Chin up.”
“You try looking like a delicate swan while your limbs are burning and a
doorknob yells at you!”
Harry can tell that you’re hungry, “I fuckin’ am!”
When your body goes limp as a signal of wanting to descend, Harry gently
lowers you to the mat first before jumping down beside you. He doesn’t feel like
mentioning your innumerable argument for the day, instead he gathers his pack
of smokes from the ground and perches himself on a nearby balance beam to
light the tip in a small blaze of luminescent strawberry.
That’s his ninth cigarette of the day, but you don’t need to be keeping count to
know that he’s in a markedly crabby mood.
You unwrap one of your lollipops and suck the hard cherry sphere into your
mouth, deciding to bravely approach him and address something that’s been on
your mind since your first day at the circus, “hey, Harry?”
He sighs and rubs the pads of his fingers into his closed eyes before pinching
the bridge of his nose. He takes another drag of his cigarette, the pink smoke
surging around his digits as he prepares himself for the unavoidable question
that’s coming, “yeah.”
“That first day in the dressing room. Did you….. see anything?”
He continues to rub his eye as he squints and scrunches his nose, a memory
flitting through his mind of when he burst into the dressing room and was
greeted by skin. Lots of skin, “mmm….. no?”
It’s possible that he’s purposely hiding his gaze from you so that you can’t see
past the veil of emerald straight into his soul, “is that a yes?”
He swipes his fingers around the outside of his mouth and shrugs, finally
glancing at you for a moment before he uses the need to ash his cigarette as a
distraction, “beats me.”
Your heart drops into your stomach and all the lies you told yourself to make
you feel better about the embarrassing intrusion crumble to the floor and slip
through the cracks in the hardwood, “that’s a yes.”
“Bag it and go eat something, Clyde.”
You’re silently grateful for Harry’s timing of ten minute breaks seeming to
align with your blood sugar crashing. It takes every ounce of willpower you have
to skip a third visit to the waffle bar, instead opting for quick protein as you lean
up against the kitchen counter and peel a hardboiled egg over the sink. You can’t
think of a single time over the course of the past month that Harry has sought
you out for conversation. In fact, he usually swerves pretty hard out of his way to
avoid you outside of actual practice and rehearsal time. So when he comes
jogging into the kitchen and rests his shoulder on the doorframe, his gaze locked
on your face and his mouth curling into a smile, you simply stare at him with a
blank, hesitant expression, “…..what?”
His voice is soft, “hey….. there’s a guy over here askin’ about you.” He gestures
over his shoulder with his thumb, “I think he wants to ask you out on a date.”
It makes sense now where the tender sense of urgency is coming from. Any
excuse he has to pawn you off onto another person is one that Harry would never
sleep on. You shake your head and can hear him tsk in disappointment, the
sponge in your hand disappearing inside of the coffee mug you used for drinking
water, “who? Actually….. just no. Everyone leave me alone.”
Your body tenses and freezes when he paces towards you and wraps his
fingers around your forearm. You’ve touched each other all day every day for
weeks now, but this feels notably different. There’s a level of regard and
closeness, a willingness and a decisive shattering of emotional barrier. Not to
mention an unpredictable swell of goosebumps and electricity slowly crawling
up your arm. When you glance up at him, his eyes are already locked on yours
and flicking back and forth, the sweet and speckled halved kiwis coaxing you to
trust him, “he doesn’t have cooties….. I don’t think.”
His receptiveness is becoming. Of course you’d always viewed him as

attractive, but it was never anything that you put much emphasis on because his
sour apple inclination keeps you from seeing the whole picture. Similar to how a
beautiful silken scarf may be used to cover the stains on an otherwise flawless
coffee table, his fascinating features are a tactic to hide the impurities just below
the masquerade. As far as you know, you’re the only person who catches a
glimpse of his imperfections and now you’re beginning to wonder if you’ve had it
backwards this entire time. Originally you thought that everyone around you was
receiving Harry in his entirety and you were shielded from it, but perhaps you’re
closer to him than you think.
At this point you’d follow him into the crater of an active volcano, “okay. Sure.”
Harry grins and tugs you into the empty dining area, circles of tables scattered
around the room with sage green, velveteen chairs neatly nestled into their
places. Harry freezes in his tracks and you scan the room for the person he’s
brought you in here for, the onset of confusion brewing within the twitch of your
agitated fingers. Your eyes fall on a discarded banana peel in the center of one of
the tables, the brown-speckled skin churning your guts and making you sick to
your stomach. You absolutely hate overripe bananas, typically considering them
rotten once they start to collect brown dots on their skin, “gross. Please don’t tell
me you dragged me in here to look at that vomit peel.”
“Uh oh, skunked again.”
Your groan echoes off of the ceiling in frustration at his constant ribbing and
the precision at which he knows exactly how to push your buttons. At the fact
that his only effort at interactions with you are at your expense and that he is just
hellbent on wasting your time today. Not to mention the disappointment you feel
at his one second of earnestness being a complete act, “I think I’m officially out of
patience for you today.”
Harry picks up three oranges from a bowl of fruit and tosses them into the air
to juggle as he backs up towards the exit door, “enjoy your new boyfriend and
don’t be too discouraged that he’s limp, just turn off the lights next time.”
You stomp your foot which only seems to egg him on as he tosses the citrus
aside and spins on his heel to present his back to you. The muscles in his
shoulders and back ripple when he folds his arms across his chest and his
stomach, gripping his hip and shoulder to give off the illusion of making out with
another person, “mmm, oh, Clyde.” A soft moan billows past his lips, “mmm…..
that’s it, can’t wait to pop your cherry. Hand me the sex wax—”
You pick up one of the oranges and toss it at him but in maddening Harry
fashion, he turns just in time to catch it and dig his thumbnail into the rind to
peel it back, “better luck next time, hot rod.”
“I hope that orange is poisoned!”
His retort is simply popping a segment from the fruit and slipping it into his
mouth, his lips pulling into a tight smile just before he disappears from the room
to leave you alone with the hollow feeling of rejection painfully squeezing your
heart.
Practice is running late today because of all the shenanigans Harry had
decided to pull this morning. You know that the piano player can’t possibly be
happy about it, especially because you’ve caught her checking her watch several
times from your perch on the high trapeze. Her job is to help you and Harry with
musical timing for rehearsals, playing the same stripped down rock and roll
renditions that the orchestra is meant to execute for dress rehearsals and
performances. You hardly recognize any of the songs but Harry seems to know
them all, often humming the tunes while you practice and long after in the
shower as well. The upbeat and current music was part of Rusty’s vision for
reinventing the circus and although it’s not exactly what you’re drawn to, you are
able to see the mass appeal behind the notion.
You’ve been practicing somersault catches on the trapeze and Harry is really
pushing you to nail a triple. It’s something that you’ve been working on for
several days now and haven’t been able to accomplish. Catching isn’t the issue so
much as the completion of a third rotation and you’re beginning to feel an
inability to pull it together in the final month of rehearsals that you have left.
Harry is yelling at you from his upside down dangling position on the opposite
bar to pump your legs harder, to swing your body higher, to spin your body into
a tighter tuck. You’re exhausted from the long day and the anticipated hour of
calisthenics that you know you still have left to complete. On top of all of the
teasing he’s done today, you’re ready to throw in the towel and skate home to
hide under your covers until tomorrow morning. It’s simply too much
inadequacy and dejection for one person to handle in a short period of time.
Instead of curling your body into a ball like he’s asking, you hook your knees
over the bar and spin yourself up to sitting, hugging your knees to your chest and
gripping the rope on either side of you as if you were trying to make yourself as
small and distant as possible, “I can’t do it. I’m done. You’re too mean today.”
Harry swings over to the rope ladder and climbs down to the ground, his
hands resting on his hips as he stares up at you, “fine. Come here. A couple more
tucks and we can stop.” You shake your head from your post high above the
ground, like a frightened kitten in a tree being coaxed down by a fireman, “Clyde.
Get down here right now. Stop fuckin’ around.”
There’s no way of avoiding what needs to happen next, so you push your pride
aside and descend to join him on the ground. He bends his knees and presents his
open palms to you at his waist, “I’ll help you. Jump.”
Your mind is full of epsom salt bubble baths and that one perfect, freeing
moment where you push off on your skates and the wind combs through your
hair. You ignore the fussy creak in your right ankle as you take two steps forward
and jump into his hands, using his shoulders and his push as leverage to do a
back tuck before landing on your feet. As usual, he provides no positive
reinforcement but rather snaps another command, “again. Tighter.” You do it
again and are met with the same response, “hug your chest. Tighter. Come on,
don’t you want this? Again.”
You smash your lips together and do it again, except this time when you land,
a shooting pain stabs your ankle before zipping up the back of your leg to leave
fire in its wake. You hiss and stumble forward, not realizing that Harry is acutely
attuned to your body and has reacted a thousand times faster than you, steadying
your balance with the pads of his fingers stinging your elbows, “you good?” He’s
trying to get a decent look at your face to gauge what’s happened, but your eyes
are pinched too tightly for you to notice.
With the discomfort in your leg comes the memory of your final ballet
performance sizzling like slow crawling, molten lava. The routine and
unsuspecting grand jeté that ended in a snapped Achilles’ tendon that coiled up
your leg and successfully ended your career with a single pop. The sound was so
loud that your instructors and fellow dancers could hear the injury in the
curtains. You were the last to understand what was happening, because at first it
felt like you were still in the air when really your feet were planted firmly on the
ground. It wasn’t until your body crumpled to the stage, the spotlight cut to black
and a sympathetic gasp dominoed through the audience that you realized your
entire life was over.
The flashback is much more agonizing than the scar tissue in your ankle and
when you return to your senses, you realize first that you and Harry are holding
onto each other for dear life. It’s hard to tell which one of you is squeezing the
other harder and when you finally garner the courage to look at his eyes, you
wish you hadn’t, “I’m okay. Sometimes I have to take it slow because of—”
Harry peels his hands away from you, “because of?”
“My injury.” Your eyebrows pull into a confused frown, “my bad Achilles’
tendon.”
It was devastating and at first you didn’t want to believe it until you were
forced to the ground a handful of times when you attempted to walk on your
own, clutching your feet in pain and feral heartbreak. Now your range of motion
is limited and you can’t put your full weight on your right ankle for the extended
periods of time that being a baller dancer requires, so your next option was to
take to the air to keep you off of your feet. You can still dance and make use of
your training as an aerialist, but without the physical demand on your weak right
limb. It may have been deceptive to try out for this position knowing that you
have an injury that could flare up at any time, but you couldn’t let performance or
dancing go. You need it in your life.
You wince and in lieu of asking about your well-being, he simply furrows his
eyebrows at your feet, “you’re injured? What the fuck?”
“It’s still sore and tight from time to time, especially if I haven’t warmed up
properly. It’s in my resume.” He tilts his head and quirks an eyebrow in confused
curiosity, “I thought you read it.”
There’s a pregnant pause where you swear you can see a wet shimmer in
Harry’s eye before he whips his head away and sniffs dryly, “well, I didn’t fuckin’
read it.”
“But….. Rusty said—”
“Rusty is a fuckin’ liar. He’s great at tellin’ you what you wanna hear.” His
jawline cuts like a knife when he licks his teeth behind his closed lips in
annoyance and you’re getting the feeling that Harry has been a victim of his
manipulation as well.
“Are….. you okay—”
He interrupts you, “you know what? Suddenly I have a splitting headache.” He

starts backing up to the exit door that leads towards Rusty’s office, “I think I have
a long queue to wait in at the post office or perhaps an unnecessary meeting or
bumper to bumper traffic to sit in. If you’ll excuse me.”
“We still have another hour—”
“Later.”
Harry never makes an appearance in the dressing room, sending his level of
avoidance to an all-time high. You take your time showering and applying your
makeup, wrapping your ankle in a bandage for some added pressure before you
attach your skates to your loafers and skulk off towards the grand exit. You don’t
expect Harry to be an emotional support, but you do expect a level of
understanding, even if it’s strictly from a professional standpoint. You’re trying
to wrap your head around his reaction, the betrayal and grappling in his eyes, his
comments about Rusty and his expedited departure. You know that you’ll never
get a straight answer out of him and now you’re worried that your injury is
something that Harry will refuse to carry on with.
When you push open the exit door and are met with the transparency of a
conversation abruptly clipping short, you’re surprised to find Harry and Tex on
your right with both of their hard gazes cutting through your skin. You bow your
head in shame before skating past them and then changing your mind, skidding
to a stall before spinning around to face them, “everything just comes so easy for
you.” Harry couldn’t possibly understand the devastation of working for one
thing only to have it ripped to shreds before his eyes and you just wish he had a
single drop of empathy buried inside of him somewhere.
Tex fades into the background as Harry’s facial expression hardens, “you have
no fuckin’ idea what you’re talkin’ about.”
He’s perfect at everything without even trying. He looks like a movie star, he’s
in flawless shape, his body moves with ease, everyone hangs onto his every
word. Everything has been handed to him on a silver platter and he couldn’t
possibly relate to having to claw his way up and out of any situation. He surely
just glides on a magic carpet through life while people hum and haw and trip
over themselves for a closer glimpse.
Tex tries to ease the tension with a mindless invitation, “we’re going to Hound
Dogs for a game of pool. You can come if—”
Harry smacks Tex’s chest with the back of his hand to stop him in his tracks.
Under normal circumstances you would be beyond thrilled for the invitation and
would probably accept it, but there’s nothing you want more than to run home
and dig deep into your therapy session with Nettie. But at least now you know
the name of the mysterious bar where they play pool several nights a week.
Harry is praying to the universe that you decline. He needs to go drink beer,
play pool and pick up burners. He needs to lay on top of someone for awhile and
rebuild his walls. He needs you to not follow him and let his mind breathe. He
needs escape. He needs air. He needs to forget about your literal Achilles’ heel for
the rest of the night if at all possible.
You shake your head and Harry exhales a sigh of relief, neither of you offering
a courteous parting phrase as you whirl around and skate home, the
unmistakable sensation of his confounded stare burning a hole in your back.
Hey, thank you for being so understanding about this chapter being a day late. I
thought I could get it done in time, but writing this plus parent-teacher conferences
just proved to be too much! Happy Thanksgiving week to Americans and see y’all
again on Saturday. Love you! Xx B
The Seventh Chapter
“Earthquake…..?”
Whenever you feel the urge to self-soothe, your first instinct is to change into
comfortable clothing and your second is to cook nostalgic food. Last night when
you’d returned home from practice with the image of Harry’s disturbed
expression stained to the back of your eyelids, you stalked straight through your
apartment to your bedroom and stripped completely bare. Although the balmy
weather here is nothing like your frigid midwestern hometown, you forced your
feet into a thick pair of woolen socks and curled into your high school varsity
sweater for a sense of alleviation.
No matter how much you have churned his countenance in your mind, you
simply can’t formulate an answer without his direct input.
Since your kitchen cabinets were embarrassingly bare and you couldn’t
possibly muster the courage needed to run to the supermarket, you settled on
mashing potatoes with extra butter and standing at the stove to eat straight from
the pot with a wooden spoon. Nettie peeked out of her bedroom and you could
tell that she wanted to remark on how unusual and chaotic it was for you to stare
with glassy eyes at the flicking tail of the cat clock hanging on the wall, but
instead she decided to provide you with a bit of space to return back to your
mind at your own pace.
You fell asleep at sunset on the couch by the patio window without washing
your dishes or removing your makeup, your knees curled into your chest and a
shiver racking your spine each time a rogue ocean breeze rolled through your
curtains and the cotton sleeves of your cardigan. You couldn’t have possibly
predicted the following seven hours of dappled, intermittent sleep and just how
maddening it would be, but the results now lay in a shattered mess of pink at
your feet.
Cotton candy and creamsicle. What are you doing wrong and what else are
you expected to sacrifice in order to fix it? When you reach a place of balance,
how long before you start to fall over again?
Blurred images of Harry’s pensive focus meeting yours before dropping to the
background behind his wet, messy locks. His fingers curling around your forearm
softly and then him snapping at you to jump higher, accusing you of not wanting
what you want most badly enough. Your mother’s face disappearing behind
disappointed palms the moment your body tumbled and made contact with the
cold stage. Crying in a hospital and taking out your anger on loved ones as you
shout at them to leave you alone, that you’d rather not live if dancing were no
longer an option for you, that you wished you’d never felt the mental liberation
of losing yourself in music only to have it stolen right out from underneath you.
Harry’s fingertips slipping through the sleeve of his leather jacket before it drops
from his sinewy shoulders, the heavy weight of it landing on the couch when it’s
flung across the dressing room.
Cherry and banana. What secrets are Harry keeping and how is it going to
affect you? How does it affect himself? Which one of you is he protecting? And at
what cost?
Doomed practice and ruined sleep are vacuumed from the pockets of your
brain once the pink plate slips from your hands and explodes upon impact with
the kitchen floor. It’s still too early for the sun to rise, although it’s impending
fiery energy is vibrating somewhere close on the horizon. Poor Nettie seems so
confused about her time and place when she stumbles from her bedroom with
her hair in curlers, eyeing the mess around your sock-clad feet and then
squinting at your face in the darkness to clarify, “was there an earthquake?”
For some reason your chest feels tight, consumed by an overwhelming

sensation of struggling in all areas of your life and being burdened by mistake
after flimsy mistake that seem to be negatively influencing those around you, “no.
I’m tired and my socks are slippery. I’m so sorry to wake you.”
Nettie blinks down at the floor again and seems to finally focus on what’s
happening, “cool scene, but I’m gonna jet….. back to bed.” You watch Nettie
retreat back into her bedroom and you can’t blame her for being tired of your
perpetual blunder and turmoil, angry enough with yourself for the sting of pitiful
tears behind your eyes that you whisper into the broken air of the kitchen to pull
yourself together. You stare at the crumbled porcelain around your feet and wish
you could freeze Harry’s camouflage of sugar smoke and shatter it in the exact
same way, exposing every last bit of him to you and flooding your senses with
confession after stolen confession.
The knots in your stomach make it impossible to hold down any food and you
still have a couple hours before practice, so you opt to slip your feet into sandals
and venture off for a walk on the boardwalk with a lollipop in tow. Perhaps the
saline air and the squawk of seagulls will replenish you before you’re forced to
spend another painstaking day by Harry’s side, attempting to piece together
information by the sheen of his stony gaze and the blank spaces in between his
one-word answers.
You’re not sure what to expect when you show up for work later today. After a
month of assiduous leeway, the brick walls and plaster that you’d begun to chip
away from Harry’s exterior rebuilt themselves with the time that it took for a
splinter of pain to shoot up your leg. Him going out of his way to tease you in the
kitchen feels galaxies away now and it wasn’t until he slinked out of the practice
room in search of Rusty that you realized the progress you had made, even
though just yesterday it had felt like you were barely treading angry water. You
begin to feel fearful of what fate lies ahead of you, if Harry somehow convinced
Rusty that he was incapable of working with someone so broken and acutely his
opposite, with damaged tendons and a weak psyche.
The soft trickle of rainwater makes you feel at home for a second until you
remember that it doesn’t readily rain here, nor are you anywhere near the
comforting patterns of familiar asylum. The sound is distinguishable from the
dull roar of the ocean, but then the satiny glow of manmade light several yards
away on the beach forces all watery resonance to the back of your mind. You
wrap your cardigan around your waist and push your free-flowing hair from
your face, braving a handful of treacherous steps forward to allow your eyes to
adjust in the darkness on the figure before you. The very nude, soaking wet
figure.
The first thing you recognize are black stains littering his entire left arm and
you’re definitely not prepared to have a conversation with him right now and in
this manner, but you also can’t seem to stop yourself, “Harry? What are you
doing?”
Harry fills his mouth with water from the free beach shower before spitting it
out to the wooden planks below his feet, not even bothering to peel his eyes open
to look at you. He knows exactly who it is because he’d recognize that irritating
delivery anywhere. Something questionable and frightening began to tingle
somewhere inside of him yesterday, but upon hearing your voice, the anger of
betrayal returns to the surface, “the fuck does it look like, Clyde?”
“Why are you using this shower, naked, in the middle of a public beach at six-
thirty in the morning?”
“’Cause I’m usually able to do it uninterrupted.” He looks over his shoulder at

you and your blazing red cheeks as your eyes dart around to avoid his muscular
back and bare naked ass, as well as the object that you can sense dangling on the
other side, “can I help you with something? It’s too early to chew me out. I doubt
you’ve even had breakfast.”
In predictable Harry pattern, he’s professionally circumnavigated your

vexatious imploring, “you didn’t answer my question.”
He turns to face you and your hand claps over your eyes but if you were still
watching, you’d be able to see the grin carving into his cheeks at your prude
discomfort, the trails of invisible water meandering down the ripples in his torso,
“I surf every morning before work.”
You’re taken aback by the understanding that he loves something enough to
wake up early for it. It’s surprising that there is a meditative drive in him that
you were never aware of before, a solo activity that he is willing to sacrifice time
and sleep for. You had incorrectly assumed that he was the type of person who
did everything for the purpose of external recognition and praise, but it’s simply
just another one of his layers that is peeling away at glacial speed. To you he had
originally seemed like the kind of person to roll out of bed and have every
opportunity simply fall into his lap, but the simple notion of him bathing in a
freezing cold, public shower at daybreak now has you second guessing your
apparently poorly structured ideas of him.
It doesn’t stop your typical biting remarks from pouring out though, “no
sharks in the water this morning? Or just you?”
He narrows his eyes at you and couples it with a saccharine smile to convey
his annoyance, “just me.” His head tilts in curiosity, waiting for you to break free
from your awkwardly frosty stance on the other side of the boardwalk’s railing,
“you can look. I don’t mind.”
There’s a pause when you pry your hand away and shake your head slowly in
disgust, “no thank you, I’d rather maintain my eyesight.” Your gaze is glued to
your shoes to avoid eye contact with something you’d rather not see as the
burning questions begin to bubble up, “why don’t you just shower at home?”
Harry clears his throat and you squint up at him for a better idea of what he’s
trying to communicate, finding his arm outstretched and a finger pointed toward
the beach. You follow his nod towards the source of light that grabbed your
attention earlier, discovering a bubblegum pink Volkswagen camper van parked
in the sand. The rear and side doors are popped open for optimum air flow, his
surfboard and a guitar are propped up against the passenger door and a
collection of his boxed belongings are strapped to a cage on the roof. You can just
make out the inside of his home from the muted, tubed luminosity that weaves
under the seats and around his simple camping stove, everything appearing red
and pink from the suffused rosy lighting.
You didn’t quite know what to expect about his living situation, but this is
something that never crossed your mind, “you live in your van?”
“Yeah, so technically you’re trespassing. Are we done here? I thought I was

safe ’til lunch.”
You brave one more glare at his face with your crimson cheeks slowly fading
back to their typical color, your eyebrow darting once in acrimony, “I thought
shrinkage was only a problem in cold water.”
“Last time I checked the ocean’s not hot, smart ass.”
You ignore his correct jab and stuff your lollipop back into your mouth,
suctioning your cheeks around the hard, cherry flavored candy, “see you at
rehearsals.”
Just as you begin to back away from him, the moving silhouette of a woman
rising from the bed inside of his van catches your attention. She searches around
for something in the sheets before pulling a slinky dress over head, fluffing her
hair around her cheeks and then crawling forward to check her reflection in the
tea kettle on his stove.
Harry follows your line of sight and then looks back at you, drilling holes into
the side of your face as your jaw snaps shut. You aren’t exactly surprised to learn
that he spent the night with a random woman because that is something you
discovered about him upon your initial meeting. But seeing her in his bed inside
of his van, safely and easily nestled inside of his fortress-like walls makes you feel
sick with an indistinguishable emotion.
You and Harry lock eyes, his expression hard and neutral as you search for the
sentiment behind the surface.
You brush your hair from your face and shake out your shoulders, managing
the nauseating twist in your stomach throughout the awkward standstill. You’re
shocked speechless and drowning in doubt, lifting your hand in merely a meek
wave before you take a couple steps backwards and spin around to leave.
“Y’know you had lots of opportunities to mention your injury.”
You’re surprised that he’s confronting you here and now and you’re surprised
that it seems difficult for him, considering he has made a habit of engaging you
with ridicule each day. But true, direct confrontation as a means of analysis is the
opposite of repelling another person. It takes facing who you are at your core and
owning up to your mistakes, it takes authentic and neutral observation of self
and how you function in a relationship. It’s both the flourishing and beating
down of pride, it’s squashing your ego for the sake of acceptance, it’s discovering
what you like least about yourself and admitting it. There’s a reason why it’s one
of the hardest things on the planet to do and why most people avoid it. It’s much
easier to annex the icky parts of ourselves and blame others and validate our
egos. It’s a lot harder to pry open another person’s perception and allow it to be
precise.
Yes, you should have mentioned your injury and yes, Harry should have read
your resume before tossing you into the air. Both are true because the opposite
of profound truth is just another profound truth. If you keep digging, you will
continue to find validity because cooperation is both constant work and constant
charity.
Name calling and teasing are nothing but a barrier against coming to terms
with and absolving a perception of hate toward someone. Taunting each other
has become the spark of conflict in itself, rubbing the both of you raw and
keeping the very precious bubble of your dark self-reflections tucked deep inside
of you where you won’t have to access it.
You’re such a perfectionist that it’s easier to shrink the weight of your flaws in
order to grow and move beyond them. Plus the memory of your injury is
traumatic to relive, the only way you could possibly start fresh and focused is by
healing and working through it, tilling your soil to prepare it for a more
spectacular germinating season than the one prior.
You want to claw through his wax coating so badly but now isn’t the time, with
his burner from the night before stepping out of his van and slinking toward him
with quiet toes in the sand. You watch her before allowing yourself to bathe in
the hurricane of his silvery stare, enjoying the fact that there’s an easy lay less
than ten feet from him but he’s much more interested in you this time, “you’re
right. But I don’t like having to accept that part of myself. I’m sure you can
relate.”
One wave crashes to shore and slowly gets sucked back to sea before you turn
on the ball of your foot and begin to retreat from the pull of Harry’s tide.
“Clyde.” You catch his gaze over your shoulder and grant him silent
permission to continue, “relying on your body as your only means of identity isn’t
safe. It’s too unpredictable.”
A muscle in Harry’s cheek ticks as an indication of his jaw clenching, his gaze
directing off to the right when the girl approaching makes herself known with a
soft greeting. He doesn’t verbally respond to her yet, instead he tilts his head and
allows you the vulnerable secrets within his eye contact once more. Harry
without his bulletproof shield of lovingly-shaped sunglasses or the smokescreen
of cotton candy, his hair and skin saturated and smoothed down to reveal and
outline a bit more of himself than you’d expected, especially at seven in the
morning. And lord, it’s easy to forget that he has that many tattoos.
As soon as the other girl’s fingers dance across his shoulder, you’re pushed
past a line of tolerance as you turn away and continue your thoughtful sunrise
journey down the boardwalk, harboring an intuitive, unfounded sense of peace
over the possibility of him going a little easier on you today.
.
Over the following month of rehearsals, Harry has structured a new course of
action for how your days together pan out. In lieu of morning calisthenics, he has
replaced that hour with ankle stretching and gentle full body warm-ups before
taking to the air. He never directly addressed the change and he didn’t
necessarily have to. It was obvious in the way he approached you the morning
after you ran into him showering on the beach. He knocked gently on the
dressing room door before slipping inside, his eyes focused on the butt of his
cigarette as he stubbed it into the ashtray alongside your lollipop stick,
announcing that he would meet you in dance studio number two instead of the
weight room.
On several occasions, you’ve tried your best to siphon any follow-up

information regarding what he let slip about Rusty being a liar, but he stays as
tight-lipped as possible about it. His responses vary anywhere from, “let it go,
Clyde,” to a particularly enraging, “is someone talking? Who said that?” whenever
you attempt to bring it to his attention. You view whatever secret information he
may have about your boss as your rightful real estate because it may affect you
too.
At first you were wary about your interactions with Rusty, but as time passes,
it seems more and more likely that whatever Harry spilled was in reference to a
very personal vendetta and maybe it’s best if you keep your nose out of it. It
doesn’t stop you from hawk-eyeing the shit out of Rusty whenever he is in the
room, especially if him and Harry are having a private conversation nearby.
After an hour of stretching and ballet warm ups at the barre, Harry continues
to be just as diligent about mastering basic gymnastics moves on the uneven
bars. You can tell that your strength has built exponentially when you reflect
upon doing pullovers and dismounts now versus two months ago, but you have
yet to hear an encouraging peep from Harry. You’re beginning to learn that
positive reinforcement from him is just as simple as not being yelled at. So when
you jump from the high bar to the low bar or absolutely nail a catch and return
on the trapeze and glance over at him for approval, you’ve accepted that silence
or maybe even just a firm nod is equivalent to a slow clap in his language.
The pianist joins the two of you in the circus ring for hours each day after
lunch, playing music in order to help you keep time for your solo routines.
Harry’s low hanging fly bar dangles next to your knotted rope, the two of you
sweating profusely as you work to iron out the kinks in the movements between
your positions. You’ve learned from years of scrutinizing professional ballet that
the fluidity can be the trickiest part; making the spaces and pauses throughout
the choreography appear just as graceful as the tricks themselves.
Harry doesn’t have very much classical ballet training, if any at all, and it’s
been extremely interesting to witness him getting frustrated with himself. It’s
almost as if he’s ashamed for you to see his anger or maybe he thinks since he’s
the veteran that he’s not allowed to be making mistakes, but you never fail to
notice when he slips on the bar and breathes a curse or curls his fists in
exasperation over something so trivial that you hadn’t even noticed it in the first
place.
Harry pinches the bridge of his nose each time you ask him what the song is
that the pianist is playing that he’s humming along to, sometimes flatly
responding with the artist’s name such as “Jefferson Airplane” or “James Brown”.
When he’s smoked a lot of cigarettes that day, your answers are always a bit
more pierced and exhausted, “good god Clyde, this is fuckin’ Elvis,” or, “how can
you be alive on this planet for as long as you have and not know The Beatles?”
When he’s mad at himself though, he likes to use the music as an excuse
before storming out of the room, “if I hear The Mamas and The Papas one more
time today I’m goin’ to wig the fuck out.”
As explained to you by Rusty, the main draw of choosing you for the role of
Harry’s partner was your background and study of choreography in college.
Through putting yours and Harry’s minds together over the past two months,
you’ve constructed a routine that you’re both proud of and feel highlights both of
your strengths. You’re both given an opportunity to perform solo static acts in
the air before meeting on the trapeze to execute the finale of the entire circus; big
and breathtaking stunts with flying, catching and returning before taking your
final bow with your arms wrapped around each other in unity. Another act,
another face to show the crowd that you enjoy one another’s presence when you
both know it’s a bald-faced lie.
The one unexpected thing that’s helped you keep your sanity throughout any
thwarting bits of rehearsal are the competitive games that you and Harry have
begun engaging in. It seems like a natural build up from the scrupulous teasing
that has taken place since your very first day working together, and you’re not
even exactly sure how the activities started, but it’s become the mystery that you
look forward to unraveling each day as you skate to work.
There was the time that Harry challenged you to a saltine-eating contest in the
kitchen on your ten minute break. The claim was that he would be able to eat six
saltine crackers in sixty seconds and you wouldn’t, which seemed like such an
easy trial that you were certain there must have been some sort of trick involved.
But once Tex laid out six crackers in front of each of you, kept his eyes on the
clock and counted down the second hand until it struck the twelve, you learned
that it would be nearly impossible by the time you stuffed the fourth cracker past
your teeth.
Harry’s tactic was completely different; he has such a big mouth that he opted
to stack all of his crackers and shove them into his mouth all at once, which
turned out to be a massive mistake when he laughed and dry crumbs went flying
into the air. His laughter spurred yours on and by the time your sixty seconds
were up, both of you had failed miserably as you choked on salt and fought over
who would fill their water glass up under the faucet first.
Then there was the time that Harry arrived fifteen minutes late for work, his
hair wet and tickling his eyes and a half-smoked cigarette tucked behind his ear.
He blamed his reason for being late on his skateboard to which you shot down
instantly, claiming that you also skate to work every day and have absolutely no
problem getting here on time. If glares could talk, his would have launched a
thousand angry curses at you, but instead he landed on a mild, “that’s probably
because you leave an hour early and take your time smellin’ the fuckin’ roses.”
You two continued to bring his late arrival up in conversation throughout the
morning, knowing that there was another hidden reason as to why he strolled in
whenever he felt like it today, but was keeping the cause hidden. He finally
jumped up and demanded a race on wheels around the circumference of the
building, to which you responded with grabbing your skates and storming
outside. His claims of it being impossible for a woman to be faster on skates
drove you insane, mostly because you weren’t sure if he was saying it to push
your buttons or if he truly believed it.
Your race drew a lot of attention, with every single one of his circus friends
and your dancer acquaintances crowding outside and cheering you on. Beau
acted as the finish line where he snoozed in the grass with his tongue hanging
out and his bandana appearing particularly clean, Tex once again being the man
to count down and start you off. Harry raised a fist at you and curled his lip into a
snarl in an effort to intimidate you, and you didn’t fail to notice the smile that
sparkled behind his eyes when you stuck your tongue out at him and refused to
back down.
As soon as the word “go!” passed Tex’s lips, you and Harry took off like bats
out of hell, elbowing each other and trying desperately to knock the other one
down before the other could get a head start. You managed to escape his grimy
fingers and glided past him with ease, keeping a tiny distance on him for the
majority of the race. He passed you twice but you saved your energy for the last
few feet of the course, using a hefty burst of your muscles to fly by him and spin
around to face him as you skated backwards across the finish line with your arms
in the air.
Harry hopped off his board and sunk to his knees in defeat, shouting that you
cheated and demanding a game of Rock Paper Scissors to see if a rematch was in
his future. He lost that too but handled it pretty well in your opinion, collapsing
into the grass beside Beau and pretending to wail into his fur about being beaten
by a girl who was mostly likely an actual witch.
You’re leaving practice now, two full weeks before opening night, feeling
proud of the fact that you successfully managed every single triple somersault
with ease today and as you scan your memory over the course of the day, you
can’t remember being barked at a single time.
Harry had left your dressing room nearly an hour ago, leaving behind the
scent of his cigarettes mixed with your deodorant as he quietly shut the door
behind him to give you privacy. You’re grateful for the time he leaves you to
process and unwind on your own, most likely in a hurry to meet up with Tex and
his buddies at Hound Dogs for a few rounds of pool.
“It’s a slam dunk, believe me. You’re good lookin’, man! You just have to trust
yourself.” Harry ashes his cigarette and brings his beer to his lips before scanning
the boardwalk for an easy-looking chick to prove his point, “Clyde!”
Tex leans over and mumbles quietly when he sees the suspicious frown you
flash in Harry’s direction, “man, you’re gettin’ one hell of a hairy eyeball. I don’t
think this is such a solid move—”
“Can it, clown.” Harry sticks his fingers in his mouth and whistles loudly,
“Clyde! Step to it. C’mon, bounce. We need you.”
You glance in the direction of your house and are so close to freedom that you
can taste it, but instead you go against your better judgment to skate over toward
the group of boys taking up a large chunk of territory around the fountain in
front of the circus building. You let Harry know how unhappy you are about his
interruption as soon as you are within earshot, “make it quick, please. My dinner
needs me.”
“Tex is an attractive man, yeah? Anyone would be lucky to kiss him?” You can
feel heat burning in your cheeks and confusion boiling in your stomach as you
nod and shrug. Harry continues with his point, “mind proving it to us?” He can
sense your urge to recoil even through the haze of two beers, “come on, square.
He’s had a hard day.” He decides to drag in your religious upbringing that you’ve
hinted at a couple times in the past, “god never said virgins can’t kiss. Rock Paper
Scissors?”
You refuse to kiss anyone that you don’t trust and have a deep emotional
connection to. You certainly would never kiss someone with an audience of
rowdy, scrappy boys in the background and you’re not the least bit ashamed by
it. You cross your arms over your chest to punctuate that you’re not in the mood
to engage in any games with him right now, even if it’s a benign game like Rock
Paper Scissors, “pig. If you’re so passionate about Tex getting some action, why
don’t you give it to him?”
Without hesitation, Harry cradles the back of Tex’s neck and pulls him close, a
moment of pause ticking by that feels like a lifetime as they look into each other’s
eyes and stop breathing. Harry makes the move the fill in the gap between their
mouths, their lips slotting together for three ferocious pounds of your beating
heart before Harry slips his tongue past Tex’s teeth. Your gaze is drawn to the
sharp line of his jaw and that one curl that brushes his forehead, the tip of his
nose depressing against Tex’s cheek and the way his pillowy lips seem to cradle
Tex’s in complete nonchalant lust.
Tex shoves Harry away the moment their tongues meet, pulling back with a
thin thread of saliva before Harry takes a long drag of his cigarette as if it were
acting as a soothing chaser to his burning shot. Everyone around you groans and
laughs at the ridiculous display of affection and blurring of gender sexual roles,
but what strikes you most is that the only person, including yourself, who seems
the least bit affected by the kiss is Harry.
Tex wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and rolls his eyes as he takes a
long swig of his beer, but your attention is glued to your trapeze partner. A smile
so big that his eyes crinkle on both sides, a dimple popping a divot into his cheek
around his mouth that’s pulled wide as if he were laughing, but no sound is
leaking out. He’s the complete and utter stark reverse of you when it comes to
sex, love and freedom with his body in general. Most people in California seem to
fall into a similar vein with Harry and it’s miles different than how you were
raised and what you grew up understanding. At first it made you uncomfortable
and while it still kind of does, there is an inkling of a spark of a flame inside the
very center of your chest that begs you to recognize the attraction of informality
and lightness with love. Harry seems to enjoy his life very much after all.
The swelter of Harry’s gaze falls on you as he takes another sip of his beer and
watches you slowly back away from him and his friends. The both of you are lost
in your own thoughts but your stares are locked and it isn’t until Tex taps Harry’s
thigh that Harry snaps free from his trance, “make sure you go home and get
exactly eight hours of sleep after a well-balanced meal tonight, Clyde. Don’t trip!”
“I will. Oh and Harry? Acting like a dick won’t make yours any bigger.”
Harry’s friends burst into surprised laughter and a couple of them smack his
shoulder in jest, but you don’t stick around long enough to watch the astonished
expression wipe clean from his face.
HAPPY AERIAL SATURDAY MY LOVES!!! Enjoy the rest of your weekend,

wherever you are. Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate every single one of
you! Till next week! Xx B
The Eighth Chapter
“Move.”
What started as yours and Harry’s arms accidentally brushing against each
other while you both hover over the tiny dressing room bathroom sink is
beginning to slowly escalate into war. Foamy, white bubbles are seeping out of
the corners of Harry’s mouth as he brushes his teeth, his fingers curled around
his toothbrush as he raises his eyebrows at your soft command. He’s trying his
best to take the edge off of his nerves before your first performance, but the
orchestral fanfare echoing down the hallway from the circus ring is only making
his heart pound louder each passing second.
Harry hasn’t said a word for several minutes and it’s not only because his
mouth is occupied. You are quite certain that you heard a soft retching noise
while he was locked in the bathroom with the shower water running, but when
you knocked on the door to ask if he was okay, his response was simply a grunt
followed by the sound of the bar of soap hitting the laminate flooring. You
chalked it up to pre-show jitters and tried your best to wipe the scene you saw
from the evening before from your mind, accidentally poking your eye with the
wand of your mascara and yelping into the mirror when several tiny black lines
smeared across your perfectly made up cheek.
The last thing that Harry said to you was in that moment from behind the
bathroom door, when he muttered a soft, “smooth as ever, Clyde,” correctly
knowing that you had most likely blundered in some way.
Now he insists on hogging both the sink and the mirror, the reflection of him
in his performance attire much too spectacular to ignore. His costume is
complementary and understated compared to yours, but he somehow manages
to upstage you by a landslide; a sheer flamingo pink tank top that molds to every
divot of muscle and bone in his torso, his clavicles pressing against the straps and
the arc of sparrows wings peeking from the low-dipping neckline. His cross
necklace is swung back behind his shoulder blades and tucked into the fabric of
his top, the four points of the charm each making an appearance as they push
against the stretchy material. All of his tattoos are visible albeit muted, the dark
ink of the Comedy and Tragedy theatre masks piquing your curiosity and
drawing your attention just below his underarm.
The tank top is seamlessly tucked into a pair of eggshell white, high-waisted
spandex pants, his toned thighs and legs gripping every inch fiber all the way
down to his ankles. A golden sequined belt cinches tightly around his waist,
drawing your skittish gaze directly to his center each time a glint of blonde light
flickers in your peripheral vision. His feet are bare and his toes curl against the
tile flooring because it’s proved to be how he’s most comfortable, but you know
that when the time comes, he will perform in a pair of white soft-soled dance
slippers because that is how he practiced in dress rehearsal yesterday afternoon.
Harry’s arm bumps against yours again when he tilts his head and shuffles
closer for a better look at his face in the mirror, his expression pinching into a
frown when you wordlessly nudge him back. This time he uses his hand to push
you away gently but you don’t hesitate to return the action, your hip joining the
movement for a little bit of extra force. He checks you back and the two of you
struggle against one another with soft elbow jabs and hip whacks, until he
enforces his strength and shoves you out of the way to step completely in front of
the mirror.
Now your mouth is filled with warm, frothy toothpaste and you have nowhere
to spit it out. Your voice is muffled when you try to speak without accidentally
dribbling on yourself, “Harry, you’re a child! Move!” He remains oblivious and
uncaring towards your predicament when he spits into the sink and turns the tap
on to cup his hand and fill it with water, your motions becoming desperate when
you lift your leg and kick the flawless peach of his butt.
Harry rises intimidatingly and deliberately as he glares at you in the mirror,

his face straight and neutral except for the lift of his eyebrows as if silently daring
you to a challenge. He spins on his heel quickly and you throw your hands in
front of your face in defense, his fingers wrapping around both of your wrists to
hold you in place as he begins to slowly lower his wet, soggy toothbrush towards
your nose.
“No!” You can’t stop the giggles brewing in your throat and threatening to pop
your toothbrush from your mouth, “no, no, no!”
Harry decides to finally speak and lands on, “an’ I just barfed, too.”
You vacuum your lips tight and squeal in the back of your throat, buried
laughter burning in your lungs as you try to wiggle from his grasp. He’s
unrelenting though, so you’re left with the only option of swinging your foot at
his crotch which he quickly dodges with a swift jump backwards. You run from
the bathroom but Harry’s hot on your heels with his toothbrush extended
towards you, your quick instance of bickering brought to a snapping halt when
he returns your motion and kicks your butt, the small sequined skirt wrapped
around your waist getting tangled around his toes and pulled to your knees.
One loose, hand-sewn golden bead from your costume pops off and rolls
across the floor and you groan with your mouth clamped shut to keep from
spitting. Harry clamps his hand over his gaping mouth in transparent culpability,
the first of its kind in your experience, and in that moment the technical director
raps on your door and announces through the wooden barrier, “thirty minutes,
Marvels!”
Harry moves his hand away just long enough to squeak out, “groovy,” before
returning his palm to its guilty position as he watches your facial expression lose
its humor and slip into a pout. The vapor pressure of an apology bubbles in the
warm teapot of his stomach but never reaches a boiling point. Instead he places
his hands on his hips and shrugs, “I’d help you, but then I’d have to touch you.”
You narrow your eyes at him and scrunch your nose, repeating his statement
in a childish, mocking sneer as you kick your skirt off into the air to catch it in
your hand. The heated scent of cherry pie licked flames and lingering cotton
candy swirl through the tense space of your dressing room as you pad to the
bathroom to finally rinse your mouth in what feels like an eternity, “thanks for
nothing, worm!”
Harry busies himself with swiping your candle from the vanity to light his
cigarette, catching you pacing from the bathroom in a form-fitting bodysuit and
tights before disappearing behind the screen. Typically you opt to change or fuss
with your clothing in the bathroom ever since Harry barged in and saw your bare
tits, but you’re much too flustered to worry about where or how you fix your
damaged costume thirty minutes before curtain call of your first performance.
“It’s been real, but I’m gonna go wait outside.”
You sink to your knees and shuffle through your sewing kit, sucking a piece of
thread into your mouth before maneuvering it through the eye of a needle, “don’t
go too far, I wanna practice that gazelle hold once more before we—”
“Fuck’s sake. Give it a rest, Clyde. I’m not gonna fuckin’ drop you. I’ll be right
outside.”
With the click of the door and the remaining vacuum of silence you’re
reminded once again of the confusing discovery in the circus ring yesterday
evening, several hours later than what your typical practice runs. Harry called it
quits around eight or nine in the evening, claiming that rest was more important
than reaching an imaginary level of perfection that the both of you seem to
constantly be striving for. He left the dressing room while you were still applying
your makeup, turning back as if he wanted to say one last thing but instead he
rapped his knuckles on the doorframe twice before dropping his focus to the
floor and stepping from the room.
You were surprised to find Tex on your way out, looking lost as if his
ringleader were nowhere to be found. He asked if you’d seen Harry and when
you glanced at your watch, the numbers only led to more confusion. He’d
disappeared nearly an hour before and you were under the impression he was on
his way to unwind with a round of pool before heading to bed, but it had become
clear that he didn’t want anyone to learn of his whereabouts. You’d hardly
considered him a private person, save for the single hour a day that he retreats
during lunch, but Tex’s bewilderment began to stoke the fire of truth that you
weren’t the only person who Harry had a habit of keeping secrets from.
He left with a shrug but you stayed behind in the dim lighting of the quiet
hallway, studying a splotch of uncharacteristically chipped paint in the wall
before you allowed your intuition to lead you on a secret journey toward the
performance space.
The theatre looked eerie at night; dead and dark, the complete and utter
opposite of how it feels at its dynamic climax, with thousands of vacant seats and
motionless equipment. No humans, animals, glitter or neon lights in sight and
rather than seeing a room full of ghosts and shadows, you were shocked
speechless at the vision of a single figure hunched over in the very center of the
room. Your eyes were drawn to him as if his muscles were filled with magnets
and your gaze were a hunk of rose gold, a nonexistent spotlight illuminating the
shadows of his profile and his hands as he sat with his knees pulled into his chest
and his skateboard tucked into his body, his vision cast toward the ground and
his energy as hushed as the enormous room swallowing him.
You tip-toed backwards and remained at a hover in the doorway as you

observed him, knowing that he must have retired there after his parting and
chose to be alone with his mysterious contemplation. His back slowly rose and
fell with breath as if his heart was stuffed with coagulated blood and slowing the
muscle to a pause, his body melting into limp lifelessness. The fact that he wasn’t
admiring the space or taking in very much of his surroundings felt a bit alarming
and gloomy, as if he were more focused on the past than he was on the present or
the future.
Hundreds of questions bubbled up and have remained ever since, but you had
the wherewithal to keep them forced down until after your important debut
together, knowing that he hates prying of any kind and that it wasn’t astute to
bombard someone who was already spending their free time bombarding
themselves.
Mostly you wanted to know what it was that he keeps so close to his heart that
he doesn’t want other people to see, but the more you get to know tiny slivers of
him, the more it seemed that time would be your only accomplice.
With your costume repaired and your makeup and every hair in place, you
gather your dance slippers and set out in search of your trapeze partner. You
can’t pinpoint exactly why he’s hesitant on a final, last minute practice, but you
hope with enough pouting and begging he will give in to your pre-stage anxieties.
Even if it is just to shut you up.
He’s not outside of your dressing room as he’d promised he would be and now
the slipping of time is making you even more anxious than you were with a
trembling sewing needle weaving it’s way through a single golden bead. You
glance down the hallway in either direction before following the warmth of the
chiming orchestra, weaving your way through various performers sighing in
relief upon their exit from the stage and pulling bobby pins from their tight buns,
“Harry!” You lower your voice to a mumble and direct your request more
towards yourself than anyone else, “we’re on in twenty and I really need to
practice one more time…..”
From beyond the curtain, the wail of horns and the thunder of drums clash
violently with the sound of not one but a couple different alien female giggles.
Your heart starts pounding with a sickening thud that you can only attribute to
nervousness as you round a final corner, “Harry?”
You screech to a halt when you find him leaning an elbow on the barricade
and flirting with two girls who are eating massive puffs of pink cotton candy,
your eyes narrowing in anger at his flippant dismissal of imminent
responsibilities. The man who teased you with his toothbrush just a few minutes
ago is long gone, presently replaced by the extremely frustrating version of Harry
who seems to use female attention as an escape from whatever growling demons
force him to retreat on his own to sulk in the darkness of barren theaters. That
juxtaposition of the smallness of his body in comparison to the screaming
enormity of the arena will never stop haunting you, at least until he’s coughed up
an answer that you deem feasible enough to let your mind rest. For the time
being.
You stomp over and cross your arms over your chest with your toes tapping
the ground, but he doesn’t notice as he feeds one of them a big pinch of fluffy
sugar, humming in delight when she sucks on the tip of his finger. You clear your
throat and he either doesn’t hear you or chooses to ignore you, so you decide to
talk through the charade of lust and ditzy giggles, “hey, Harry? I’ve just gotten off
the phone with your physician, he said your gonorrhea results came back
positive—”
It suddenly seems as if he can hear you when he spins on his heel and paces
the two small steps towards you, clapping a hand over your mouth which you
peel away in order to squeak one more insult out, “they also said the anal
discharge is normal—”
Your sentence is cut short when he hushes you loudly and flashes a bright grin
to the group of girls who are now scowling and backing away slowly, “ha….. she’s
joking.” He clears his throat and coughs awkwardly, “I don’t have— um, ’scuse
me a minute.” He stares daggers into your skin and searches for a private space
before dragging you away with his large, sticky hand clinging to your face and
making it hard to draw in a full breath.
He pulls you around the corner towards the loud backstage entrance and
growls in anger, his contrived sense of charm dropping as soon as he checks the
scene to make sure you’re alone. You pry his fingers away from your face before
tossing his arm away, “don’t touch me! Could you get your brain out of your
crotch for two seconds? We’re on soon and we have to sharpen that hold that
we’re a bit shaky on before we get up there.”
“Jesus. We practiced it a hundred times last night and this morning. You’re just
paranoid. We’re not shaky and I’m not gonna fuckin’ drop you.” He gestures
towards where he was wasting his time shooting the shit with burners, “why did
you say all that shit?”
You roll your eyes at the notion of him placing more importance on his sex life
than his career and spin on the ball of your foot to walk away from him, but he
grabs your hand and pulls you back. You slip your arm away and push his
shoulder in annoyance, his eyes honing in on you as he squints in suspicion, “are
you jealous?”
Your arm stings where his hand just was and it’s almost unbearable for him to
touch you as much as he does, but you don’t have another choice if you want to
maintain your lead role in the aerial portion of the circus. Women don’t typically
get opportunities like this and they have even less command over their choices
once the role has been awarded. They’re just supposed to stay quiet, be thankful
and let men dictate their fates. Any woman who has too much or too little to say
will be silenced by a swift relinquishing with zero explanation. Both Harry and
historical patterns have made it clear that women like you are replaceable.
Disposable. Just like the fallen dominoes of your dropped prospects to the top
ballet academies in the country.
You’ve yet to figure out exactly why Harry dislikes you so much, but your only
logical conclusion is because of your big mouth, your shameless opinions and
your intolerance to rudeness. It would bother you a lot more if the sentiment
wasn’t so deeply shared, “yup, you’ve got me. I’m drowning in jealousy. It’s just
festering, eating me alive. When, oh when, will it be my turn to be on a round of
antibiotics to make my pee stop burning?”
He can’t remember the last time he’s despised someone so much; he wishes he
could smack the sneer from your face and the sarcastic tone from your voice. He
chews a piece of citrusy gum slowly, his jaw popping as he cracks an air bubble
between his molars. His eyebrows raise in indignation as his forefinger and
thumb swipe the outside of his mouth, “get laid, Clyde.”
“Get bent, Harry.”

A waxen pastel bubble inflates past his lips before exploding and you can see a
tender and almost imperceptible shift loosen the muscles in his face, “listen,
you’re nervous. Let’s do it once more and then I need to pace around and do flips
off the wall an’ shit. C’mon.”
Your breathing is heavy, but it’s not doing much to calm the frazzled ends of
your nerves. It’s really easy to feel like you can completely lose yourself in the
bloodcurdling anticipation before a performance; the final minute and then
absolute torturous cluster of seconds before the music you’ve rehearsed to
countless times flows through the orchestra. You clench your jaw shut and direct
your airflow in and out of your nose, the sound echoing in your eardrums as time
slows to a near halt.
Your eyes are pinched shut, but it’s not necessary for darkness or silence. The
theatre surrounding every side of you is dimmed and the audience is hushed
with baited breath, knowing that the climatic portion of the circus is at their
fingertips and the tips of their tongues. The pressure you put on yourself far
surmounts any that a single person in this room could suppress you with,
including your trapeze partner to your right. You have no idea what he looks like
right now because you’re much too busy watching psychedelic patterns undulate
behind your eyelids, but considering the way he was literally running up the wall
and doing backflips a mere four minutes ago, you imagine he’s just as riveted.
Your arm tingles with the soft sweep of fingertips, followed by dusty chalked
hands wrapped in tape fumbling with yours through the murkiness of the large
room. Harry’s fingers slip through yours and pause just before squeezing hard,
his need for closeness and stability in this moment seeming to dip much farther
than a bid of good luck or a final push of morale. When his thumb brushes the
back of your hand you finally tear your eyes open to focus on his faint features,
the corners of his mouth pulling into the very hint of a taut smile just as the
guitar from the orchestra plucks the first few chords of “California Dreamin’” and
the crowd is pulled into submission.
When the spotlights in the rafters illuminate yours and Harry’s figures, your
vision takes a profound shift as everything directly in front of you becomes
visible and the audience completely disappears. They burst into applause and
hollers at the sight of Harry, their long-awaited hero standing before them in the
flesh and you know that you have approximately three seconds to kill, so you
sneak a glimpse in his direction for a taste of what the rest of the world actually
sees.
His chest rises with a single, proud breath and his eyes reflect the light and
love from every corner of the room. He’s unable to shrink the smile that grows on
his face from the level of adoration that saturates every trembling pore and it’s in
that moment that his skin visibly sheds like a molting snake. The fragile house of
cards around him crumbles, his heavy velvet curtains drop, the painful fires that
torched his skin and his ego are extinguished and his gaze moves from one side
of the theatre to the other as he bathes in the warm waters of admiration.
He is relieved. He is revealed. He is high. He is home.
Right on cue the audience recesses and allows you to continue with your
performance, the two of you making your way over to a vertical rope that hangs
from ceiling to floor. Harry nods once and stands close to spot you as you climb
as high as possible, using the knots to guide you as you make your way above the
crowd. You signal to him that you’re secured and he begins to spin you, around
and around, your bearings divinely numbed when your solo static routine flows
from your fingertips to the tips of your toes. The pounding of onlooker’s hearts
spurs yours on, the long lines of your body fluidly moving through various poses
that you’ve practiced into the ground for months now.
Based on the counts of the music you know that Harry must be climbing the
rope ladder across the ring, pulling himself into position on his fly bar to
flawlessly execute his solo routine in unison with yours. You would have done
almost anything for more than thirty seconds of pure limelight but Rusty would
never allow it, claiming that the main draw and the flushing of ticket sales was
more than fifty percent Harry and that he was uninterested in diminishing his
publicity for the sake of the success of the circus.
Small gasps and giggles of enjoyment echo through the seats, the both of you
curling and twisting and swaying and stretching and dancing to the music that
you’ve come to know so well. You can’t see Harry, but you trust that he’s
drowning in achievement and most likely surpassing anything he’s showed you
in rehearsals thus far.
Your solo routines draw to a close along with the song, the tempo of the music
picking up to fast-paced rock and roll as Harry assumes his catching position
across the fly bar. One of the performers on the ground swings your rope
towards the platform to aid you in transitioning to the next segment, the portion
of the performance that makes your stomach flip and your heart pound; the giant
trapeze. Harry claps twice to relay his readiness and you’re off without a hitch,
pumping your legs as hard as possible before releasing into tumbles and twists
that Harry catches with ease before returning you back to your bar on each trick.
He’s incredibly professional and makes sure to focus on your eyes when you’re in
the air and when he’s holding you, the two of you falling into a pit of physical
closeness that most people don’t even achieve with their best friends over years
of acquaintance.
Your mind is completely absorbed by your body although little anxious

snippets do break through; Nettie in the crowd with her boyfriend, children
agape clutching their toys or their parent’s hands, trained dogs running in circles
around the ring and through the audience, men selling cigarettes and peanuts in
the aisles, the heat of spotlights on you and the sweat that prickles on your
hairline. The juxtaposition of Harry as spicy, fiery cinnamon and you as refined
gooey sugar, spinning and flipping as the crowd stays silent aside from their
heartbeats and moments of exalts and gasps.
The music changing one final time gives you just enough space to take several
deep breaths on the platform, knowing that the last portion of your routine is
also what makes you most nervous. The part that Harry promised would go off
without a hitch but still gave in and pandered to your insecurities, holding you
upside down in calm and deadlocked fists in the practice room just moments
before you stood in the center of the ring and he took it upon himself to weave
your fingers together. Your hand still tingles at the thought and you shake your
head to rid yourself of the memory, not wanting to be distracted by the
bottomless fountain of whiplash that Harry seems to impart on a day-to-day
basis.
Two claps fill through the air and snuff in your eardrums, your stomach filling
with butterflies as you jump and swing to Harry. He catches you but instead of
returning you, he holds on to your wrists tightly to prepare for your duo static
routine. The segment that most of the world has never seen before, where Harry
effortlessly supports you in a sparkling aerial ballet performance, his hands
locking around your wrists and ankles as he dangles upside down, tossing you in
circles and guiding you through graceful, delicate beauty. He is the sugar cookie
in the shape of a star and you are the toothsome frosting making its glittery mark
and filling in all the delicious gaps to paint a cohesive picture, neither one of you
would be as ambrosial without the other.
Your limbs and muscles are pulled long and stretched to capacity and the two
of you work to give off the impression of fluency, expertise and poise even
though you are both burning from the inside out. The kind of pain that comes
along with dance and incredible stunts always seems to get lost in the shuffle;
yes, it hurts and that pain never fully subsides, but the adrenaline from the crowd
and the inner drive for impeccable accomplishment only turns the fire of your
muscles into a desire for fulfillment. Yes, it hurts and yes, you wouldn’t trade it
for anything else in the world.
In rehearsals it had been standard for eye contact to drift in and out as you
focused on your choreography, but now as you hang in the vastness of space
surrounded by a thousand onlookers, you are both finding solace and loyalty in
one another’s gazes. Harry looks truly beautiful with his hair swept to the side
and framing his forehead, his eyes awake with emotion and his face relaxed as if
communicating to you that you’re okay, your debut is almost finished and you’ve
made less than zero mistakes, he’s got a firm grip of you and would never, ever
let you plummet.
Your final hold of the evening comes when Harry swings you back and forth
with your legs in a split, finally hoisting you up and over his shoulder to perch in
the nook of his underarm. Your world is suddenly righted and as you find balance
and finally pull your hand away from the rope for a concluding pose, you realize
that neither of you have broken eye contact for the entirety of the routine.
Whether it be because he was reading your anxious cues or perhaps it’s just how
he prefers to perform, you feel an ache in your chest when you drag your gaze
from him to connect with the audience. You both have an arm raised in finality,
the roar of the crowd painting your skin like raindrops as you catch your breath
and allow yourself to be praised.
The fly bar is lowered to the ground and Harry helps you down first before
dismounting himself, both of you stepping forward with your arms raised before
taking your final bow. It’s clear by the way Harry’s face relaxes and spreads open
into a smile as cheers and applause wash over him, his eyelids lulling shut while
he breathes in deeply and allows the vibrations of the room to saturate him with
tinsel that he is a born performer. The man beside you who you’ve tried
desperately to understand thrives off of positive reinforcement and you’ve been
giving him the exact opposite since the second you met. No wonder he hates you.
You’ve never seen someone’s demeanor shift in such a palpable way directly
in front of your eyes, to see someone melt and relax and feel so completely
comfortable in his own skin. And in front of thousands of pairs of eyes no less.
This is his drug. This is what he’s worked so hard for the past couple months; the
sweat, the gripes, the tantrums. This present and all-encompassing moment has
rushed vitality through his veins and the lights in the room have shed a brand
new glow on Harry, one that you wish would never darken or dull. He deserves
this.
After you’ve retreated backstage with the thunderclap and lightning bolts of
energy behind you, your whole body sparkling with the adrenaline rush of a
successful first performance, Harry turns to you and hesitates at first before
making a snap decision to speak, “are we havin’ fun yet?” You smile in response
to his cheeky question and although he doesn’t actually smile in return, you can
see the corners of his mouth twitch and the flicker of amusement behind his eyes.
Rusty, Tex and a group of dancers approach you and Harry all at once,
showering you in compliments and hugs and kisses, effectively pulling the both
of you apart for separate reflections of your achievement. You glance over your
shoulder at Harry, finding him with his lips rolled into his mouth as he embraces
Rusty, the message of his body language and facial expression not completely
transparent.
Nettie had waited patiently in the lobby for you to clean up after your
performance, swinging an arm around your neck and singing your praises loudly
as ushers swept loose kernels of popcorn into dustpans. You stayed in your
dressing room quietly lacing your skates and blowing out your candles with the
dull ring of music and cheering in your ears, enjoying your moment of peace
before being swept away by your faithful friend for a round of milkshakes and
french fries at your favorite diner.
Nettie pushes open the exit door and follows you into the courtyard where a
few groups of people still loiter about, “how cool was that? I had no idea that you
were basically a magician. I don’t think I could even somersault like that if
someone pushed me out of an airplane—”
“Clyde! Make yourself useful!”
Your head snaps away from Nettie to find Harry struggling with removing his
leather jacket, one unlaced oxford discarded by his pack of Crush cigarettes and
his skateboard idle except for one spinning wheel. A group of his friends are
overpowering him and lifting him into the air as he tries his best to fight for
autonomy, but it’s clear that he’s losing the battle and that his perfectly styled
quiff is about to be drenched when they hurl him into the giant fountain in the
center of plaza.
A slice of his stomach appears as he fishes into his back pocket and pulls out
his wallet, throwing it to you with the hope that you’ll catch it and keep it safe
while his friends toss him in what looks like a good-natured, victorious tradition.
The worn, black leather hits your palm at the same moment that his body
splashes into the water and when his possession flips open in your hand upon
impact, your attention is drawn away from the ridiculous scene before you to the
even more confusing scene at your fingertips.
You hear shouts and laughter when he resurfaces, but you’re much too
focused on the sight in your palm to tear your gaze away. You recognize the
picture immediately but the context of its placement makes no sense; your
headshot from a past playbill that you’d included in your resume that Harry said
he never saw, trimmed down with scissors and stuffed into the clear plastic slot
on top of his identification. You check and double check in your mind that this is
in fact Harry’s wallet — you watched him pull it from his trousers and you’ve
seen it laying around your dressing room several times. Your eyes in the
photograph stare back at you in barbaric disorientation as you pull your
eyebrows into a frown and try to understand why he’s apparently wedged a
picture of you into this private space for safekeeping.
All sounds dissolve when Harry pulls himself from the fountain with a
breathtaking grin pulled across his face, his head flipping forward to shake out
his hair before sweeping it from his face. His white t-shirt clings to every hollow
depression and ridged muscle in his torso as his eyes lock on you and begins to
slowly make his way over. You snap his wallet shut and his smile slips an
increment with each footstep closer as he notices your stiff body language.
He comes to a stop in front of you and you simply spend a few burning
seconds wildly searching each other’s eyes, little droplets of water dropping from
the tip of his nose and the end of his hair. Time is frozen and everyone around
you has disintegrated as your stares catch and meld, darting left and right, your
hearts about to beat out of your mouths. It feels like you have an enthralled
audience of onlookers as Harry tries to write a novel based solely on your
expression, but you only seem to be focused on each other. Questions and
insecurities choke the both of you into silent surrender, both of your white flags
tattered and torn as they fly in the violent and altered winds around you.
Tex whistles and shouts a command of “Hound Dogs!” loudly from behind
Harry, breaking his concentration long enough to glance over his shoulder before
looking back at you. You open your mouth to speak but he slips the wallet from
your hands and gives you a hard, unreadable expression before mumbling a flat
utterance of thanks. He backs up a couple steps before spinning on the ball of his
foot to leave, the memory of your manicured headshot nestled safely in a flap of
leather clouding every other landmark event that has occurred tonight.
Hmmmm…... hello! Whatcha thinkin’? If you didn’t receive my announcement

about switching my posting day — just gonna reiterate here that I will be posting
Sundays instead of Saturdays from now on. Except next week! I’m going out of
town with friends, so next chapter will be on December 16th. And it’s a fuckin’ big
one that you couldn’t possibly ever expect. So be ready. Happy Hanukkah to all
who celebrate! Much love Xx B
The Ninth Chapter
“Make sure you sew every fuckin’ bead in place so that earth doesn’t drop off
its axis.”
Harry’s sixteenth cigarette of the day teeters in the divot of the ashtray just
below his bare navel, a coiled spring of smoke twisting before disappearing into
the stagnant air of your dressing room. He’s barely been smoking them though;
he lights them compulsorily and takes a few drags before dropping them in the
closest receptacle or balancing them on the edge of a table, only to curse when he
remembers to return to them and finds a pile of dusty rose ash in their place
several minutes later.
In contrast to a mere twenty four hours ago when his eyes were drilling holes
straight to the back of your head beside the fountain, with the exchange of his
worn, buttery leather wallet slipping from your fingertips to his, he’s only made
the effort to look at you while performing stunts tonight inside of the circus ring
for an audience of thousands. He arrived to rehearsal half an hour late this
morning, unshaven face and briny waves of cocoa crashing around his
cheekbones. His hands were more fidgety than usual as they toyed with his
clothing, tugged on his bottom lip, combed through his hair and showed hours of
physical evidence of restlessness by the layer of grime underneath his nails.
You knew better than to confront him about what you saw in his wallet from
the evening prior before your performance, so instead you’ve been quietly
stewing and waiting for the right moment to pounce. Although the more hours
that pass only lead to self-consciousness and doubt, as if practicing the wording
of your questions only make you more fearful to confront him in the first place.
With each mindful run-through comes a new possibility for his reaction, each one
more terrifying than the one before it.
There is an enigma bubbling madly and it seems as though it’s about to spill
over, all of the possible outcomes sitting underneath a sheet and forming shapes
upon shapes of mystery against the flimsy fabric. The moment that layer is torn
away, you’re going to be blindsided by the colorful discovery and now you’re
wishing you could backtrack and plug up every hole you’ve punctured. You’re not
ready for the dam to burst just yet, but you’ve never been able to let things go
either.
Considering the craggy lump you’ve both been acclimating on for the entirety
of today, your second performance went off without a hitch. You suppose it’s a
positive quality that you can both shove aside your personal needs for the sake of
professionalism and appearance, but you’re not sure what that says about the
care-taking of your mental health. Nettie is as patient as ever with your nightly
gripes and burning questions, but you know her well will be tapped soon and
once that resource is dry, you’ll be left to your own devices and that’s when
things will surely become complicated.
The tattered leather of his wallet practically vibrates on the seat of the couch
beside you along with a pack of Crush cigarettes and a box of matches, the two
halves parted as if waiting with baited breath for the moment where you can
steal another glimpse at your snipped headshot.
Harry wiggles a piece of waxed dental floss between his molars and flicks his
gaze to you but you don’t notice. You seem to have noticed hardly anything
today, your usual barrage of questions brought to an unusually muffled standstill
and your eyes focused on every single object in the room but him. The lack of
attention is driving him insane with anticipation and anger, knowing that there is
something you need to ask him but instead you choose to punish him with
silence like a typical chick. Nearly each one of his lines today has been avoided,
save for the handful of orders he barked about needing a more powerful swing
upon kick-off from the trapeze platform. He wouldn’t say he misses your terrible
comebacks and snappy retorts, he simply notices that they’re gone.
He watches the fine, sharp needle dip into the fabric of your hand-sewn
costume as you sit on the floor to repair some beading the way only a trained
dancer would; one leg bent and the other stretched long with your toes
gracefully and unconsciously pointed, the pink thread making its way to your
mouth every so often to keep the ends from fraying. Everything about you is so
fucking graceful and unconscious that it must be an act to portray a disguise of
composure for onlookers. He often wonders what would happen if he grabbed
that sewing needle from your hands and poked your skin, if all of your hot air
would burst out and you’d go soaring across the room completely shriveled and
drained of cherry-flavored substance.
Rage bubbles and his vision dots black when you pretend not to hear him for
the hundredth time today, his hands lowering to his sides and curling into fists in
an effort to contain his markedly sour mood. He’s not in control of his actions or
his words when he tosses the floss into the small waste basket at his feet and
spins to face you, gathering his nearly fizzled cigarette and bringing it to his lips,
“perfect fuckin’ angel with perfect fuckin’ ears, I know you hear me.”
All you register is a cluster of curses that tighten around your heart, your sight
lifting from the bodysuit in your hands to his toes first, then traveling up his legs
and stomach before landing on his face. If he were any more emotional, pink
smoke would be leaking from his nostrils and his ears and you feel almost guilty
for having missed what he’s just said, but it’s not in your nature to pretend for
the shallow sake of dignity, “I’m sorry, what—”
“Man, you don’t know jack shit. I’m showerin’ and then I’m jammin’. Real
fuckin’ glad I don’t have to see your face tomorrow.” Or hear you laugh so hard at
an embarrassingly stupid joke that you snort, or see the crease fold between your
eyebrows when you’re frustrated with him.
The contrast between his particularly malicious words today and his cluttered
actions from last night is whipping you up into a dizzying funnel cloud. You
narrow your eyes at him and wish you could just pick up his wallet and tear it
open, hold it in his face and demand answers, but you know better. You know
damn well that he fights fire with fire and any crumbs of sincerity that have
begun to exhibit in the last couple months are swept up and discarded in this
moment, “can it, Harry.”
Your retort is lost within the slam of the bathroom door, followed by the metal
lock clicking into place and the shower nozzle coming to life. You stay frozen as
you glance at his wallet and back to the bathroom, waiting until you hear the
rings sliding across the rod to indicate the shower curtain pulling closed before
you climb to your hands and knees and swipe his wallet from the couch. Your
fingers tremble when you flip it open in search of the evidence that you dreamed
of last night and drowned in anxious thought over all day, knowing for sure that
you indeed saw it but needing another glimpse to quell the acid in your stomach.
Except it’s gone.
You flip the wallet closed and pop it back open again hoping it’ll magically
appear, but it’s gone. You tear the cash out of its pocket and shuffle through the
small stack of bills, allowing them to scatter all over the floor in your search
before tugging out his identification and peeking in all of the empty slots and
crevices again and again, but it’s gone. Your eyes travel over to his bag and
without another thought you’re crawling towards it, ruffling through his change
of clothing and packs of half-smoked cigarettes, pieces of gum and a stray guitar
pick, stuffing your fingers into every corner and pouch, digging through his
trouser pockets and turning the whole thing upside-down to allow all of its
contents to drop to the floor.
It’s gone.
That wallet has sat in front of you like a carrot dangling in front of a horse’s
mouth for hours upon hours on purpose.
His attitude and his behavior either violently clash or perfectly align and you
can’t quite figure out which makes the most sense. Nothing about him makes a
single shred of sense.
When the water from the shower clicks off and you blink a couple of times to
clear the dry sting from your eyes, it only takes two strong pounds of your heart
to realize you’ll never be able to put everything back in order before he emerges
from the bathroom. You mutter a curse as you start to grab his clothing and
shove it back into his bag, the surrounding mess seeming much like a picture of
your relationship thus far. You try and try to pull what you can from him, but
what he provides is minimal and cryptic and now that you’ve overstepped your
boundaries, you can’t possibly put all of the pieces into place before the entire
approach explodes in your face. With this realization, the bathroom door slams
open and Harry steps out in a pair of trousers as he towel dries his soppy mane,
his eyes widening in horrified confusion when he takes in the sight of his cash
and belongings strewn all across the floor at your feet.
Your chest rises with panicked breath as you stare at his face and wait for his
eyes to catch yours, his undershirt slipping from your fingertips when you
understand you’re caught red-handed and there’s no backing down now. The
dam is crumbling all around you, the force of the accumulation pushing on both
yours and Harry’s insecurities and soft spots, “where is it?”
Harry wasn’t sure if you’d seen the photo or not yesterday, but now he has a
very clear answer. He’s can’t decide if he’s glad that he tore it up and threw it
away in the trash can at Hound Dogs immediately following the dubious
interaction, but he’s positive that he feels extremely violated and ticked off right
now, “it’s gone.”
“I see that.” Your heartbeat can be felt in every cell of your body, in the
restriction of your throat, in the throbbing of your skull, “why was it there in the
first place?”
When he went into Rusty’s office to confront him about keeping your injury
hidden from him, he demanded to see your portfolio and saw the photo in a copy
of a playbill from The Annex in which you performed the lead in Swan Lake. He
liked it and he had no idea why, so he tore it out and kept it without another
thought. After he had the sneaking suspicion that you saw it by the fountain, he
got rid of it in exactly the same way. Without another thought.
“I dunno.”
“Bullshit, Harry. Why would you go out of your way—”
“I don’t know!” His anger manifests in his toes before slowly swelling upward
into his chest and when it reaches his life muscle, he crouches to the ground and
starts gathering all of his items as quickly as he can so he can get the fuck out of
here. You step forward and squat beside him in a gesture of help, but he growls
and rips his shirt from your fingertips before springing to his feet, “fuck off,
Clyde!”
Frustrated tears are pooling in your throat and sinuses and you really, really
don’t want to cry right now, but this is everything to you whether he wants that
to be true or not. He warned you about the circus, your career and the limitations
of your body replacing the blood in your veins, but you just couldn’t hear him,
“just tell me why!”
“I said I don’t know! I felt like it was my job to protect you, keep you safe. I
didn’t think real fuckin’ hard about it.”
He’s darting across the room and pulling a shirt on in a hurry, stuffing all of his
stray cash into his pockets as he pops a cigarette in his mouth and swipes his box
of matches from the vanity. Your open window to receive closure is slowly
creaking shut and you know that as soon as he walks out of the door, things are
going to be very different between the two of you. He’s going to go to his van and
contemplate the past twenty four hours with a deep frown etched into his
forehead, possibly going as far as deciding that this breach of faith will be the
straw that broke the camel’s back.
It’s now or never and there is an invisible crack in the surface of his skin that
tells you he’s just disturbed enough to fill in the blanks on the connect-the-dot
puzzle that you’ve been toiling over for months. You wish that you could control
the broken pieces in your voice as they fall apart, but you simply can’t, “why do
you act like this towards me? I know you’re keeping something from me and I
don’t know what it is. Something about my place here with you and it is driving
me absolutely insane. You keep me pushed so far away from you.” You tilt your
head for a look at his face, for an attempt at that burning eye contact that you’re
beginning to crave because it’s the only part of him that can’t help but be honest,
“your eyes. They don’t match your words or your actions. You have secrets.”
The headshot, the tenderness he showed surrounding your injury, the snide
remarks and hurtful teasing about your personal life. None of it adds up and the
prospect of you uprooting your life to be treated like a rag doll pulls a single
streak of tears down your right cheek, “what have I ever done to you to deserve
this constant back-and-forth and rude rejection?” Is it ever going to stop? Will it
become worse? Is this the beginning of the end?
Harry swings his bag over his shoulder and stops in his tracks when he hears
you sniffle, not able to recollect a time where he’s been so harsh that you’ve
showed your upset to him in this way and now on top of all of the anger that was
pumping the blood in his veins, he’s starting to choke on a lump of guilt. He
glances over his shoulder and squeezes his eyes shut, his middle finger and
thumb pinching the bridge of his nose when he swallows an apology and instead
mumbles, “god….. please stop. Plea… e... don’t.”
You stomp your foot against the floor much like a petulant child would in the
midst of a tantrum, practically shouting the last word in your demand for
emphasis, “tell me something!”
Harry snaps towards you and raises his voice to match yours, his nostrils
flaring in anger and his words compressed through clenched teeth, “fine.” The
time for modesty is long gone, “I don’t want a partner, okay? I never wanted one
ever again! Rusty hunted me down and promised me a solo act if I agreed to join
his circus, but he’s a fuckin’ liar. I found out I would be working with someone in
the exact same way the rest of the world did, through that fuckin’ newspaper
article. He sprung it on me after I’d signed all my contracts and it was too late to
back out. I was so fuckin’ pissed I couldn’t look any of you in the face during
interviews or auditions. It doesn’t matter that it was you.”
He’s not ready to be here and he may never be, but if he hadn’t started to step
out of his current stagnation, then the person he used to be would surely be lost
forever. And the circus is all he knows.
You’re even more frustrated now because it seemed fairly obvious that he
never wanted you or anyone else to be here with the way he handled the
audition process, needing Rusty to hand feed him options as he sat there with his
arms crossed over his chest and a pout that rivaled the saddest toddler on earth.
Harry has a spectacular way of circumnavigating answers and responsibility, of
keeping the parts of himself that have any true marrow protected, of making you
feel like his distaste for you is all your fault.
“Why?” Harry shakes his head and grabs the doorknob but you refuse to let
him leave like this, in the midst of your biggest and heaviest argument yet,
without at least coming to a conclusion or hopefully caulking some of the dents
and damage to your partnership so that you can both find a flake of peace
tonight. You jog the couple steps towards him and grab his wrist to stop his
departure, knowing there is a splinter buried somewhere that’s poisoning the
both of you, “why don’t you want a partner? What happened!”
His fingers wrap around your forearm and he tosses your arm away in the
same breath that his face contorts in pain and rage, his hair sweeping across his
forehead when he points a digit directly at your chest in accusation. His voice is a
gunshot, his words a series of three hysterical bullets that hit your heart one
right after the other, “I killed her!”
All noise is suctioned from the room when his truth is snuffed by the walls and
your skin, replaced by the slow escalation of ringing in your ears and the single
blink of your eyelids as you stare at him in the dead silence of shock and horror.
“I killed her.”
Cheers.
“My best friend and the person who taught me everything I know.”
A sweep of freedom.
“I killed her.”
Her hands grip mine tightly, blood rushes to my head, blinding stage lights
create a flicker of disorientation.
“I didn’t notice her cues. She slipped.”
Her hands are sweaty, the backs of my knees ache, the crowd is agape in
anticipation.
“Right between my fingers.”
A plea tumbles from her lips in the form of a shriek that echoes off of the canvas
of the big top.
“And now every time I see your face, I’m reminded of my big, fat fucking
mistake!”
My curse splinters into a desperate shout of helplessness.
“I should’ve never come back to the circus. I was lied to. I wasn’t ready.”
Our fingers lapse, my ears ring with the thunk of a boneless body, a rippling
domino effect of gasps fragments the crowd.
“I may never be.”
Twisted, mangled, gnarled, contorted, deformed, tortured.
“You being here just proves that she’s never, ever coming back and it’s all my
fault.”
A blanket of crimson.
“Happy now?”
Silence.
The dam that you were slowly picking at with your fingernails has sprung a
leak that has exploded with the force of an angry ocean behind it, your mind
robbed of words when you finally receive the honesty that you’ve been seeking
this whole time. Harry rolls his lips into his mouth and his eyes glaze over with
tears as he watches you with a ticking clock in the hollow spot where his heart
should be, his breath forced from his lungs when you step forward and wrap
your arms around his shoulders in the most soldering hug you can muster.
Upon contact, Harry immediately sags into your body and clings tight in a
suffocating embrace that takes you by complete surprise. He nuzzles his face into
your neck, his stomach violently palpitating against yours when wretched, wet
sobs that have been stacking up over the course of a year all release at once and
ooze into your skin. His tears stain your throat and sink to your collarbone like
raindrops on a slick plane of glass, the tips of his fingers digging painfully into
your ribcage every time a new memory resurfaces and he’s forced to relive the
night that changed his life forever.
It all clicks into place; his visceral reaction to your injury and the reason Rusty
kept that information tucked away from him. How he wore all black to rehearsals
and for two weeks afterward as if in mourning. All this time that he’s kept you at
arm’s length because he was terrified of forming a relationship with the one
person who turned out to be devastatingly impermanent in his past. Why he
insisted defensively time and time again that he wouldn’t drop you, why he
drowns himself in heaps women, why he was opposed to training you, why he
stays so active and surrounded by people, why Tex dramatically celebrated his
victorious return by tossing him into the fountain. He’s beyond damaged and has
been trudging through the roughest of oceans this entire time and you’ve had no
idea.
Arrhythmic and restless, the gushing of thick, sad blood through weakened
fist-shaped tissue. His heart sorrowfully thumps against your chest to the
demented tune of a plucked musical box.
You drag your fingertips up his back and sink them into his wet hair, finally
allowing a soft shush to scrape past your teeth when he sniffles and draws your
hips flush with his. You imagine the crumbled porcelain that broke at your feet in
your kitchen weeks ago and wish you’d never frozen Harry’s camouflage of sugar
smoke and shattered this way, exposing every last bit of him to you and flooding
your senses with confession after stolen confession. The haze of opaque smoke is
blinding, deafening. Oppressive. It’s almost too overwhelming to bear and it feels
so heavy that you’re not even sure how Harry is surviving it.
His lips form a single word bookended by a vowel on either side, the delicate
skin of his mouth brushing against the damp spot of your neck. The word would
be beautiful if it weren’t splintered with trauma, tiny pieces of broken glass so
small that they’ve been imperceptible this entire time, lodged underneath
Harry’s skin and sealed closed with scarred flesh.
All at once he pushes away from you and wipes his nose with the back of his
hand before tugging his matches from his pocket to light the cigarette he’s kept
tucked behind his ear. A cloud of cotton candy fog whips around you as he flings
the door open to leave, your hands burying into his shirt as you try to get him to
stay. He shouldn’t be alone right now or losing himself in alcohol or sex, but you
know that you are quite possibly the last person on the planet he would choose
to process this anguish with.
His gaze is ominous, “don’t.”
“Harry—”
“Do not fuckin’ follow me, Clyde.”
“Please— where are you going?” You’re horribly worried about his wellbeing,
but you also know that there is less than nothing you can do to stop him. He
stomps off down the hallway and hoists the exit door open with his shoulder to
reveal a sliver of tangerine light as the sun slips past the denim horizon. Your feet
itch to chase him so badly that they flare, but you can’t force help on anyone who
doesn’t want it. Your last-ditch effort to shout his name is coupled with the bang
of the door, your palm meeting your forehead for a necessary, grounding sting of
pain.
A group of coworkers watch him leave in silence before turning their

disheartened stares towards you, your hand waving them off in dismissal before
retreating back into your dressing room. There are no extraordinary thoughts
stringing together in your brain, only the rattling of his murderous declaration
and the agony in his eyes. You find yourself in front of the vanity shuffling
through Harry’s ash tray, plucking a half smoked Crush cigarette from the
receptacle and bringing it to your lips. Sucking on the end tastes how you
imagine Harry’s mouth must; flecked vanilla bean and creamy strawberry sugar,
the struck match in your other hand bringing the smoke to life with a choking
burst of potency. Once the haze broils down your throat, you cough and gag on
the exhaust, your nose and mouth and heart and everything inside of you on fire.
It burns and stings and hurts like all hell, but you expected it to.
Harry blows past Tex and all of his friends who wait for him at their usual spot
at the fountain, not bothering to meet their gazes or heed their calls as he picks
his feet up to a jog and drops his skateboard on the ground to disappear at full
speed down the boardwalk. He needs to get away, as far away from anyone as he
possibly can and the only place he can think of where he won’t be found is the
ocean. His former partner haunts him every single conscious hour of every single
day, but right now the images are brutalizing and defiling his brain so rabidly
that he wishes he could bash his head in and allow them to leak out and never
return.
As soon as his van comes into sight, he’s dismounting his board and ripping off
his shoes, kicking up sand as he runs to his home and haphazardly dropping all of
his belongings on the floor of his car. He strips down to his underwear and
doesn’t bother with a wet suit or an ankle leash when he grabs his surfboard and
takes off towards the rough, dusky waters, the brisk chill of saline ocean nipping
his skin as he paddles out to sea on his stomach. He needs space to feel the depth
of his turmoil; expansive night skies above and reflected in the watery blanket
below, small waves lapping the edges of his board when he flips onto his back
and breathes in the enormity of the milky way surrounding him.
Each drop of water that pinches from his eyes and streaks his cheeks is a tiny
ocean in itself, filled to the brim with grief and longing for the uncomplicated and
sunny life he bounced through before her fingertips slipped through his. The type
of guilt that he feels is unquantifiable and lost on most, the truth behind the
accident so devastating that it’s excruciating to even consider at times. He
worries that he will never be the same, that joy is deceased to him and that he no
longer deserves it, that he’s entitled to a life of misery as retribution for his
mistake. He goes through a cycle of sadness and always ends up in a pit of anger
for taking pity on himself, but then he remembers that there is no correct way to
mourn her loss or understand what’s become of his life because it just is. This is
it. And he’s living it. No one has any fucking answers.
Harry has no idea how long his body rocks in the moonlit sea, but when his
fingers and toes prune and the bitter cold has sunken to his bones, he decides to
make his way back to shore. The swell of an upcoming wave draws him
backwards and he prepares to ride it, not noticing just how large and threatening
the current actually is. He gets a taste of it when he pulls himself to standing and
wobbles a bit on his board, his chest tightening in discomfort when he makes the
mistake of looking over his shoulder for an idea of what’s to come, only to be met
with three of the longest seconds of his lifetime when he watches the ocean creep
towards him like a fluid mountain of murder.
The crest grows higher and higher and Harry is in denial of his fate up until
the very moment that he’s crushed by a wall of sea salt, his back slapping against
the water so harshly that it knocks the air from his lungs and his board slinks out
and abandons him just as quickly as his breath.
The water around him is murky with bloodthirsty, foamy bubbles and kicked
up sand and sediment. All he can see are his hands in front of his face as he
tumbles through the brutal water, the water that he once considered himself the
omnipotent master of that now has him flailing around like a brittle leaf in a
tornado.
For a moment he’s trapped inside of her body; weightless as he free falls from
space with stage lights blinding him and the moment he realizes his fatality and
fragility and opens his mouth to scream for help, he receives a lungful of water
that burns his insides like acid.
Pictures flash through his mind at high speed; football tryouts and concussion-
inducing injuries, kissing his mum on the cheek and reading books with his dad
as a child, crawling into his sister’s bed when he’s had a nightmare and sleeping
on Beau’s stomach, knocking an eight ball into its rightful hole and skateboarding
across the wooden plackets of the boardwalk before the wheels smooth over
cement, tossing you into the air and pinching his wet fingertips around the wick
of one of your candles.
Your eyes.
Her eyes.
Your eyes just before your eyelids flutter closed and your head turns away
from him to direct your gaze elsewhere.
Her eyes right as her fingertips lapse through his and her skull makes contact
with the ground.
Harry opens his mouth to scream again in frustration when his body refuses
to right itself. His head viciously makes contact with a sharp rock to bring the
dire sensation of his cranium splitting open, followed by the water around him
turning from thin and frigid to thick and warm, oozing with scarlet red life
leaking from his skull before he’s consumed in ashes and everything turns to
black, his life as he knows it dead and gone.
Hi….....
😬I love you. Xx B
The Tenth Chapter
“Tex. What are you doing here?”
Everything that has occurred between last night and this morning has been
spattered with little freckles of Harry’s heartbreaking face. Not much has
happened today considering the sun has just barely risen and your eyes are so
tired that it hurts to move them around too quickly. But yet, Harry’s glassy eyes
and flared nostrils and little flecks of saliva have stained every single bit of
thought you’ve kindled.
Pushing your sheets from your legs and hearing his confession echoing off the
boundaries of your skull, washing your face in water from the golden swan faucet
and remembering the death grip of his fingers when he tossed your arm away,
brushing your teeth and feeling his hip bump against yours in jest, drinking a
glass of water and hallucinating his cigarette butt swirling in the bottom of the
receptacle, brewing a pot of tea and watching his apple core land on your lunch
to scatter it into the grass, pushing softly scrambled eggs around in a pan and
imagining the tears that saturated your neck as if begging for retribution.
I killed her. My best friend and the person who taught me everything I know.
Happy now?
Your breakfast sat cold and untouched on the coffee table just out of arm’s
reach. Everything was just out of arm’s reach; Harry, the truth, the final drippy
and pointy icicle that needed to fall in order to make room for everything to melt
around you. The snowy and white world that comprised of your surroundings
had disintegrated so quickly that you hadn’t even stopped to realize just how
picturesque and blanketed everything was until it’s been maliciously absorbed
back into the atmosphere and the earth.
Harry wasn’t hiding a secret. He was hiding entire catacombs.
You pulled your legs into your chest and hovered your cup of tea just below
your nose, allowing the steam from the herbal brew to open up your pores and
swim inside of your mind. The moment you had deemed it an acceptable time to
show up at someone’s doorstep, you had planned to throw on whatever clothing
you could find and knock on the door of his van in an attempt to make amends
between the two of you. It didn’t matter if you were the last person he’d wanted
to see, your conscience was on fire with the weight of his admittance and if your
conscience was on fire, his must have been smoldered to fine, black dust.
You’re not immune to your share of trauma. Your upbringing was filled with a
controlling, dominant father and an equally religious and timid mother. You
promised yourself to do your part in revolutionizing the female stereotype and
gender role by rising somewhere above the institution and focusing on your
career and what makes you most happy. One too many women have chosen the
route of suffocation-by-housewife, raising children and getting drunk on
chardonnay by four in the afternoon because they were tired of doing what they
were told. The pressure to have babies and provide a home for a man was
extraordinary and one that your parents couldn’t agree to stop harassing you
about, so when you chose the path of professional dancer only to meet the cold,
wooden floor with a decimated ankle, you could’ve sworn that you saw your life
flicker to ashes before your eyes as the curtains slammed shut around you.
It was bad enough that the system of misogyny has been driven into the
ground so deeply that the only way to fight it is by holding your breath and
slowly digging your way out from underground, all the while ignoring ridicule
and judgment, snickers and harsh words, snide comments and doubt. Now to
find that the one person you’ve been fighting so hard against could care less
about your struggles, but not because he’s a self-centered egotistical prick like
you’d always assumed, but because your trauma in no way compares to the
absolute cryptic rubble of his life. There doesn’t seem to be enough room for
everyone’s widespread and personal battles; The Civil Rights Movement, The
Vietnam War. Everything is just so oppressive, deadly and costly. But not many
things on earth can hold a candle to accidental murder.
Of a loved one. Who trusted you. With their life.
Do not fuckin’ follow me, Clyde.
Just as you’d pulled your college cardigan over your shoulders and untucked
your hair from the collar, wood-splintering knocks echoed from the front door of
your duplex to the same rhythm of your anxious heartbeat. You glanced at the
Kit-Cat clock rolling it’s creepy eyes in your kitchen and frowned in curiosity at
the early hour, hoping for a split second that it was Harry showing up to
apologize or even scream at you some more, just so you could take the brunt of
his pain if only for five minutes.
You wanted to soak up some of his sorrow so that he wasn’t the only one
carrying it anymore, but mostly you hoped that this would be the beginning of a
more honest exchange between you and not simply the beginning of the end.
The knocks persisted without a pause for breath and they were so incredulous
that it seemed likely whoever was on the other side of the door would have
bruised and bleeding knuckles by the time you got there. You shushed into the
open air, directed at no one in particular, but hoping you could scurry into the
foyer fast enough that your visitor wouldn’t wake your roommate.
You were stunned to silence when you swung the door open, finding Tex on
the other side with the quivering sun straining to push its way up past the
shadowy hills. His hair fell into his face much like Harry’s always does, except the
only difference was that it was uncharacteristic for Tex to look so unkempt. In
fact, the closer you looked the more his charisma fell away and you began to
notice detail after chilling detail that didn’t seem to add up; dark, puffy circles
under his eyes, mouth downturned into a hateful pout, fingertips stained with
nicotine, torn and bloody hangnails and knuckles, a tremble in his hand as he
pushed his fingers through his oily hair and off his forehead to finally pierce your
stare with his own.
He’s been through a hailstorm, pummeled by tiny glaciers and hung to dry, his
clothing just as crumpled as his dejected posture. His fingertips drum against the
doorframe as your breathy question hovers just above you in the air, his gaze
flicking to his hand as if needing an additional moment to formulate his
execution. He licks his lips before pressing them together, his voice breaking
through a throat choking to death on salted emotion, “wanna tell me why my best
friend nearly died?”
Harry.
The wind of his accusation rushes through your memories and scatters them
all along the sidewalk like a heap of runaway flyers.
The possibilities are endless.
“What—” Tex pushes past you and stomps through your entryway to carve a
path in the carpet of your living room, not giving a single shit that his energy and
the volume of his voice is loud enough to wake your entire duplex, “what do you
mean? What’s going on?”
Tex freezes and spins to point a chiding finger in your direction, “tell me
exactly why Harry stormed out of your dressing room last night and immediately
wiped out on his fuckin’ board.”
Tex has always tried to be polite to you even when Harry wasn’t because he
knows how damaged his best friend is, he knows that the news of having a
partner was akin to giving him a death sentence but that wasn’t technically your
fault. He knows that Harry did everything in his power to get you retreat, but
you’re such a tightly coiled spring that it’s impossible to push you away without a
bit of ricochet.
He also knows that Harry was doing his damndest to be nothing but a
professional partner to you, but you just couldn’t let it go. You sunk your claws
into his best friend and refused to relent until your venom rushed through his
veins and grappled his heart. He assumes that Harry had reached a breaking
point last night by the way he blew past all of his buddies at the fountain and it
was likely all your fault.
Harry may seem like a prickly cactus now, but before the accident over a year
ago, his insides were filled with nothing but butterscotch pudding and a deep,
contagious thirst for life. Tex misses that person and even though he gets
glimpses of him every now and again, he knows that the person who misses him
most is Harry. Once you walk a tightrope to the edge of the earth and slip,
hanging on to the rocky cliff by the pads of your fingers, it takes an enormous
amount of strength to hoist yourself back up to the surface. And he may never
find steady footing again, especially now that whatever scraps were left of him
have bled out at the bottom of the ocean. No one can be certain if he will even
have a desire to return to the melee of mental survival when he gains
consciousness. The fate of the galaxy balances on Harry’s shoulders and the frigid
pace of the clock now.
You can hear Tex’s accusations and feel the sting of his projected pain, but you
know deep down that he is only hurt and uninformed and right now the number
one priority is Harry’s condition, “he wiped out? Is he gonna be okay? Where is
he?” You know you’re asking too many questions, but it’s simply unlike you to do
anything but put on a helmet and barrel through mudslides and forest fires to
gain deeper understanding of situations, “Tex, I know you’re mad at me, but I
have to go see him. We can talk about this later—”
Just hearing his name is like a poisonous dart to your heart, your stomach
absorbing the cancerous, toxic reminder of the way Harry revealed information
to you only to leave you all alone to process it. For the past twelve hours, you’ve
done nothing but blame yourself for the strain on yours and Harry’s private life
behind the curtain even though you know that can’t possibly be accurate. He’s
been just as powerful a force in this hateful relationship as you have, if not more,
but your nagging guilt makes you feel ill with accountability.
There have been numerous times where you could have let things go or
smoothed things over, but the slap of his button-pushing was too much to ignore.
You’d fallen into his trap each and every time. Perhaps it’s your needling desire
to be perfect and well-liked, but now you feel as though you’d stop at nothing to
smooth things over between you two and just exist in an easy working
relationship. If only he had been honest with you from the beginning, then things
could have had the opportunity to be different. If only you’d asked about his past
and tried harder to understand him. But thinking in what-ifs is never helpful or
successful. Plus some of the acid that dripped from his tongue was so astringent
that it would have burned you had you not been armed with a proper shield.
“No. No, no, no. Listen to me.” He grips your shoulders and you’re sure he’s
spent hours crying by the apparent redness rimming his eyes. Except he’s not the
type to admit it, “he’s in ICU at Mercy Valley Medical. He’s in a drug-induced
coma for a couple days because of the possible brain trauma—”
The air is sucked out of the room by a vacuum and your peripheral vision
blurs and turns to a haze of spider webs. You can see Tex’s mouth moving, but
everything sounds like your head is trapped inside of a fish bowl until his words
finally snap back to your awareness like a blast of hot air to your face, “are you
hearing me?”
A single, scalding tear rolls from your chin and plops against your collarbone
to warn you of the public emotion being shed. Your jaw snaps shut when you
suck in a wet sniffle, your knuckles wiping away the damp spot on your chest,
“what?” You’re suddenly very aware of your breathing or lack there of, your
heart pounding in the empty cavern of your chest, your ear canals vibrating with
a hollow ring of confusion. A mental image of Harry laying in a hospital bed
strapped to various tubes and machines blinds you and makes you feel
lightheaded, “yeah, I— yeah.”
Tex’s anger begins to fizzle when he comprehends raw emotion from you for
the first time ever and the fact that it’s birthed for Harry, “you….. look kinda pale.
Do you need to sit down or something?”
His question goes right over your head, “what happened?”

“You should sit down—”
You’re dizzy with insufferable regret, your voice raising in volume as you
begin to process the heavy gravity of your new reality, “what’s happening to
Harry, Tex? Is he gonna be okay?”
Harry being injured and out of work is enough to put a sharp cease and desist
on the entire operation of the circus. He’s the most famous aerialist in the world,
the main draw to Rusty Buchanan’s Circus Extravaganza. Well-loved and the
center of attention every single time he steps into the room. Any room. Harry not
being present is like the moon eclipsing and the ocean freezing over; all life
behind the crashing waves gasping for air in the absence of their satellite pulling
the tide to shore.
Tex mutters ’come on’ before steering you towards your red vinyl couch,
plopping you down on the edge and kneeling in front of you with his palms
heating warm patches on your knee caps, “he fell off of his surfboard last night
and was pulled under by a strong rip tide. He wasn’t wearing his leash or wetsuit.
He knows to avoid the ocean at that time due to high tide, but he must not have
been thinking straight. He wiped out and cracked his head open on a rock. I went
to his van to go check on him and found a group of people all around him on the
beach, someone giving him mouth-to-mouth, another person holding a shredded
t-shirt to the side of his head.” Tex swallows the memory of the grisly scene and
shakes his head, his eyes pinching shut to keep his thoughts as streamlined as
possible, “the doctors think he’ll be okay, but….. he’s in the hospital for a couple
weeks and can’t perform for even longer than that. A couple months.”
A full-body shudder racks your shoulders and without thinking twice, you’re
standing to your feet and rushing to the foyer to gather your skates.
“What are you doing?” He reaches for you but you bat him away, “hey— hey,
listen. He’s asleep, alright? His brain was swelling like a balloon, they had to put
him to sleep to protect him. You won’t get any answers—”
Much like the church services you grew up attending, it feels as though you
must visit him in order to confess your sins. Whether he hears you or not, “I’m
going.” He grabs your elbow but you turn and brush him off again, “Tex, I have to
see him. This is my fault. I—” You suck your lips into your mouth to keep from
crying, your explanation falling short when your brain races with images of him
flailing wildly underneath a breaking wave, “I need to see him. Excuse me—”
He stands in between you and the doorway, “dude, no. He hates you. You’re
gonna make his heart monitor explode or turn him into a vegetable or something.
C’mon, please just wait until he’s back to make yourself feel better about this.
This isn’t your opportunity for confession. He needs rest. His brain is bulging!”
Your face pinches up in bitter disdain, “stop touching me and stop telling me
what to do. I’m going. Move.”
Tex exhales deeply through his nose, understanding now that you’re just as
stubborn as his best friend and there is next to nothing he can do to keep you
from doing what you want. He steps aside and begrudgingly lifts his arm as a
gesture of passage, your body slipping by and out the door as you take off
running for the nearest bus stop.
Hospitals have always made you feel uneasy. For every baby being born or
patient being sewn back together in the emergency room, there is another who is
sick and dying. It’s almost as if you can feel the fear and sadness leaving
everyone’s souls and convening in the stark white hallways, their loved ones
trying their best to keep their tears trapped inside or just completely losing their
wits as their lives crumble before their eyes.
You’ve been pacing at the end of Harry’s floor for nearly five minutes now,
lacking the necessary courage to walk the final steps to his room that’s so close
you can make out the number 223 written on the open door. The same nurse has
passed by you twice now, her warm smile thawing your muscles a bit, but what
finally eggs you down the squeaky linoleum flooring is the embarrassment of her
passing by a third time. Without putting too much thought into it, you’re crossing
the threshold of his doorway on a forced exhale and stopping cold once your eyes
roam over his sleeping figure from head-to-toe.
His body seems much more slight tucked underneath the feeble white sheet,
all virility and character zapped from every corner of his skin. There are tubes
everywhere; one tucked into his nose and another disappearing into his hair, one
sunken into the pit of his elbow as an IV drips clear liquid into his vein. His heart
monitor beeps steadily and a small patch of curls is shaved away just above his
left ear, angry black stitches chiseling a zig-zag into the shorn plot. Once your
gaze lands on his face and the curve of his nose and the peaceful arch of his
mouth, you’re spinning on your toe and retreating out of the room for several
deep breaths. You’d give anything to have a brown paper bag to manage your
panic into. Or Nettie’s shoulder to sob on.
The same nurse approaches a third time and says nothing when she reaches
into the wall-mounted pocket on the wall to check Harry’s medical chart. She’s
truly beautiful in such a simple and timeless way, as if her allure started from
inside of her heart and seeped onto her facial features, chiseling her cheekbones
and the curvature of her eyebrows.
Whenever Harry wakes up, he’s going to be beyond thrilled to have her as his
caretaker. That thought alone somehow gives you a spot of hope for his well-
being and it must’ve pulled a smile onto your face because when you refocus on
the nurse again, she’s smiling and nodding her head towards the door, “I know
it’s difficult, but you’ve made it all the way here. The hardest part is over.” She
glances into the room and then hesitates before adding, “I’ll bet he hears more
than you think.”
Her high heels clack on the impossibly shiny floor when she retreats to give
you privacy, her words carrying a bit more gravity than either of you may realize.
This time when you enter his room you’re careful to tip-toe, even though he
wouldn’t wake up if his body were being sucked up into a devastating tornado.
Your eyes stay trained on him when you sink into the chair at his bedside,
frowning at the sensation of something wedged between your bottom and the
cushion. You tug out a pack of cigarettes and you instantly decide that they must
belong to Tex.
There’s an ashtray on a small, plastic rolling table to your left, filled to the
brim with green filters that give off the faint and pleasant scent of cucumbers.
The distinct brands seem to fit the two very different boys; cool as a cucumber
and sweetly unique as cotton candy. The evidence of Tex anxiously spending the
night here without a lick of sleep is apparent by how many cigarette butts are
disposed and the heaviness of this entire situation is slowly beginning to drown
you.
You scoot your chair a little closer and keep your gaze focused on his sheets,
finding it almost invasive to be this close to him without his permission. Your
fingers twitch before they curl into a fist, wanting so badly to touch him and feel
the warmth of his life, but Tex’s confirmation about Harry hating you keeps your
hands tucked into your lap. You remember the nurse’s little push about the
importance of him hearing outside voices and finally gain bravery to look at his
face; the stubble on his upper lip, his eyelashes fanning his cheeks, the trademark
curl that sweeps his eyebrow and choke, “I’m so sorry, Harry.”
With your single confession, your hands are prying apart and gripping his
tightly, your digits weaving through his and squeezing tight, “I’m so sorry about
your partner. You deserve much better than this.” Your hand feels really good
tucked inside of his, “I wish we could start over. I wish I’d tried harder to look at
all of your shortcomings with a sense of wonder rather than annoyance. I wish—
I wish we weren’t so alike and maybe things would’ve been smoother.” All of
your thoughts are bubbling and swirling like the uncontrollable wave that pulled
him under; your history and being raised in a society that has made you angry
and short-sighted, every single interaction you’ve had with Harry that you could
have just left alone rather than poked.
Nothing is coming out right — that wasn’t what you meant to say and through
all of the grace that you and Harry have during rehearsals and performances, it
doesn’t seem to translate to your personal interactions. Your legs bounce
anxiously and after you close your eyes and inhale three calming breaths, you
begin to actually register the heaviness of his hand, his knuckles pressing against
yours, the smoothness of his fingernails and the sheer size of his palms in
comparison to yours. These hands have held you and kept you safe for months
regardless of every scrap you’ve had. These hands have taught you and guided
you through amazing feats. These hands are sculpted and beautiful, capable and
strong, quirky and busy. There’s a whole person that controls these hands that,
as far as you’re concerned, you’ve never met. And you really, really want to.
“I was intimidated by your social graces with everyone else but me, how
everything seemed to come so easy for you. I was taken off guard by your rash
hatred for me and the magnitude of your talent.” His mouth is so distracting and
perfectly pink, like a box of nestled strawberry macaroons all in a row, “in a
different universe I could see myself falling for you and I think that’s why your
unfounded distaste for me hurt so much.”
He’s your opposite in every irritating and lovable way. Ways that you wish you
could be if only you had the self-confidence; naturally gorgeous, popular,
magnetic, charismatic, silly at times. Everything seems so simple for him, not in
the sense that he doesn’t have to work for it or that he doesn’t face struggles, but
that he was born with an innate understanding of things as if it weren’t his first
time on earth. It draws you to him, but it also scares the shit out of you. Your
differences in personality create a bit of jealous tension; he’s able to let go and
fully embrace himself while still being accepted, and that’s something that you’ve
never been able to accomplish through all of the careful building of your life.
You brush his hair from his face and trace your fingertips down his cheek, “I’d
give anything for another chance.”
The rapid incline of his heart monitor speeding up tears your focus from his
face to the machine hovering just above his bed, the green electronic spikes
occurring closer and closer together. The sound of the beeps seem to increase in
volume and pitch along with their acceleration, but you know that can’t possibly
be correct. You gape at the monitor and when it doesn’t settle on its own, you
spring to your feet and back away from his bed, terrified that he’s going to
flatline and that it’ll be all your fault. Again.
You panic and search for the button to call the nurse, but before you have a
chance to survey the room, she’s filing in and laying a cold, wet cloth across his
forehead and pressing three fingers to his neck to check his carotid pulse.
You want to run out of the room and take all of your energy along with it, but
the train wreck in front of you is too terrifying to pull away from. She watches
the clock on the wall with a neutral and pleasant expression that calms your
singed nerve endings. When the heart monitor begins to take on a normal pace, it
feels as though you can finally drag in a full breath.
The nurse spins to face you and smiles again, the frequency and brightness of
the soft gesture instantly calming you time and time again. You glance at Harry
and when the relief finally settles in, your eyes lower to the name tag on her
dress, “Bunny? Is that your real name?”
The nurse grins from ear to ear, “it’s what my husband calls me and it just
kinda stuck.” A beautiful, rosy blush stains her cheeks as she relives a secret
memory between her and the man she’s just mentioned. Something either so
romantic or so salacious that she’s powerless to the blood pooling her skin. She
clears her throat to shake the reflection from the air and you’re left with the
envious craving of a love like hers. She hasn’t even uttered a word, but you can
feel that her love is unending, unshakable and deeply mutual.
Bunny nods her head towards Harry to refocus the conversation, “is he your
boyfriend?”
You shake your head and start backing up towards the exit, “no, just a friend
—” You stop your explanation because you know that he’s not even a friend. He’s
actually closer to an enemy, “no, um.” You shake your head again, “we work
together. I just….. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him.”
“He’ll be okay, honey. We’re taking him off the Propofol the day after
tomorrow. You should come back then if you’d like a heart-to-heart. Won’t get
much out of him until then.”
You know better than to come back and visit him when he’s in this vulnerable
of a position and consciously strapped to a bed with no escape. Tex is right; he
hates you and you’re more likely to make his heart explode or put him in a
vegetative state than to ease him towards any semblance of healing. Instead of
explaining this, you opt for a close-lipped smile and a nod, clutching your
cardigan closed across your chest before you spin on your heel and leave.
When the elevator doors open to release you into the lobby, you’re greeted by
the sight of Tex tugging a cigarette out from behind his ear to tuck between his
lips and light the tip. He locks eyes on you and you consider rushing past him
without a word, but your plan is halted short when he grabs your bicep and
drags you to a quiet corner. The smell of cool, fresh cucumbers wraps you up in a
fog of lime green smoke, “how is he?”
Your stomach sloshes at the physical evidence of how deeply Harry is cared
for and you decide not to mention how Tex was accurate in assuming that you
would make Harry’s heart monitor explode, “he’s okay. Bunny said he’ll be awake
in two days—”
“Yeah, Bunny also told me that all elements of stress should be removed from
his environment while he’s healing.” Tex sucks on the filter of his cigarette to
produce a glow of cloverleaf at the end, “that’s you, Clyde.”
You hate how the nickname Harry gave you sounds much more hateful when
anyone else spews it, “fine. I’ll stay away while he’s here.” Tex is shocked at your
easy retreat but knows from experience that there’s probably a catch when it
comes to you, “can you tell me about her? His other partner?”
Suddenly Harry’s rage from yesterday makes a lot more sense when Tex
understands the nature of your argument. He lifts his hand to scratch his
forehead with his thumb, “he told you?” You nod and Tex’s cheeks puff out with a
strong exhale, “do you need to sit down?” You shake your head and he groans
before swiping his palms down his face, “alright— listen, it wasn’t his fault. She
was injured, she had weak wrists from carpal tunnel syndrome and Harry begged
the ringleader to let her rest for a couple weeks but he refused. She wasn’t
wrapped or chalked properly and she slipped. It was a fucking accident. He
blames himself. Anyone in his position would.”
She was injured.
“What about safety nets?”
A mist of calming cucumber surrounds you, “our old circus worked without
them.”
You can tell that this is difficult for Tex and the timing doesn’t help much, but
you deserve to have these answers and you plan on pushing him until his
discomfort leaks through you by osmosis, “does everyone in Rusty’s circus know
this but me?” Tex shrugs and nods, lifting his hand flat in the air in a stinging,
wobbly gesture that signals ’sort of’. “Okay. One more. How could this have been
kept a secret from the public?”
“The circus paid off her family and the papers. They told Harry to disappear
for awhile until it all blew over, so he left the country and came here and I
followed him for support. He didn’t wanna come back, but Rusty lured him with a
solo act that turned out to be a giant fucking lie. Hence the acrimony. Harry tried
to pull out, but Rusty threatened to go to the media. It’s not so much that Harry is
in denial of what’s happened, it’s just that….. he can’t bear the thought of the
entire world thinking he’s a murderer. He couldn’t survive that scrutiny.” Tex
steps away to blot his cigarette out in an ashtray before refocusing on you,
“anything else?”
The processing of all of this information may take an entire lifetime. You gulp
and shake your head, dropping your attention to the ugly carpeting at your feet
when Tex’s soft voice burrows into your eardrum, “Indy.”
His lips form a single word bookended by a vowel on either side, the delicate skin
of his mouth brushing against the damp spot of your neck. The word would be
beautiful if it weren’t splintered with trauma, tiny pieces of broken glass so small
that they’ve been imperceptible this entire time, lodged underneath Harry’s skin
and sealed closed with scarred flesh.
Your eyes lock on Tex’s as he shrugs and quirks the corner of his mouth in a
tender smile, “her name was Indy.” He lifts his hand in a wave of dismissal before
backing up towards the elevators, “I’ll keep you posted, alright?”
It must be a special form of hell to speculate about someone’s well-being from

a blind distance. Tex keeps you updated on Harry’s progress every day at work,
letting you know when he is awake, little anecdotes from conversations they
have, his shameless flirting with a married nurse which you expected. In two
weeks Harry is released from the hospital into Tex’s care, his body physically
able and his brain seemingly okay aside from how trapped he feels while forced
away from physical activity of any kind. Tex relays information from his doctors
to you; that he isn’t to push conversations or topics of any kind unless promoted
by Harry and aside from abstaining from action, he can live a fairly normal life
until he returns back to practice in eight weeks.
You don’t have the brass to admit that you visited Harry in the hospital once
regardless of Tex’s warning to stay away, but he happened to be asleep when you
arrived. You waited around for an hour and decided it was probably a sign that
you shouldn’t have been there in the first place, deciding to leave the gift of a
brown paper bag filled with his favorite creamsicle gum and some green apples
at his bedside, asking Bunny if she could keep your presence a mystery to which
she agreed.
Weeks upon weeks go by without even so much as a glimpse at the person you
had gotten used to seeing day in and day out for months. The circus is much
duller without him there, the umbrellas filling the ceiling of the entryway
seeming to lose their rainbow luster bit-by-bit while he’s gone. Your dressing
room is empty and calm, but you hate it.
It’s not even necessary for you to be here considering Rusty suspended The
Flying Marvels act as soon as he found out about Harry’s accident, dismissing you
each and every time you suggested a solo performance until he returned. Rusty
told you that the draw of your act was Harry and Harry alone, his fame casting a
shadow across your entire existence. Still you show up for work every day,
practicing harder than you ever had with Harry breathing down your neck just to
prove to Rusty that in the very least, you’re capable of holding a space until the
star returns back to the stage. It never happens though, because in Rusty’s words
“a woman is only as good as her partner” and the ultra-charming line of “don’t
start with that nonsense” when you suggested his financial drive and fear of
putting a woman in a position of power.
It’s a surprise to you when, precisely six weeks after his accident, you spot him
sitting at the fountain with a cigarette dangling between his lips, the reflective
heart-shaped sunglasses framing his eyes and his hair a long, hot chocolate wild
mop crawling around his ears, cheeks and the back of his neck. Tex had told you
just a couple days ago that his doctor reinforced eight weeks minimum of rest, so
the sight of him apparently so healthy and jovial with sunshine pouring onto his
skin nearly throws you off of your skates. You weren’t prepared in the least to
see him today and you wished that you had a warning beforehand to look at
yourself in the mirror and promise to handle your reunion with grace and
kindness.
“You know what? I’m not mad at Rusty anymore.”
Tex laughs and ashes his cigarette before bringing it to his lips, “you sure,
buddy?”
Harry leans back to soak up the glorious rays of the brilliant star above,
breathing in a whole new lease on life, “yeah. Life is too short to hold grudges,
y’know? I’m ready for auditions to start.”
Tex narrows his eyes at his friend and traces his sight over his wifebeater and
peach trousers, “yeah….. um— you keep saying auditions, but it’s practice—”
“Who’s that?”
Tex follows his line of sight to see you arriving and groans before slapping his
palm against his forehead. Harry sits up slowly with his eyebrows pulled up on
his forehead as he stares and watches you approach on skates, your fingers
twirling a lollipop stick between your puckered lips. He taps Tex’s chest with his
knuckles before pointing and emphasizing the second word in his curious,
reiterated question, “who’s that?”
Tex frowns in confusion, his mouth opening and closing before he sputters, “y-
you mean….. Clyde?”
“Hey man, don’t call her that. That’s not nice. She’s a honey. ’Mm gonna go ask
her out—” He takes two steps away before he’s tugged back by the strap of his
shirt, his friend searching his face for a clue as to whether or not Harry has
completely lost his mind.
“You’re serious? You don’t know who she is? You’ve never seen her before?”
Harry shakes his head and tries to walk away again, as if he were no longer the
one in control of his legs but groans in irritation when he’s pulled back yet again,
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Hang on a second, we should really talk about
this—”
“Cut the gas, man! We’ll talk later. I’ve gotta catch her before she leaves.”
Before his friend can stop him, Harry’s taking off in a jog towards you, his hand
reaching up to smooth his hair from his face as he comes to a stop at the edge of
the grass. From just beyond the sharp jut of his shoulder, he can hear his friend
shout, ’look, but don’t touch, man!’
You slow when you reach the sidewalk leading to the entrance of the rehearsal
building and look up just in time to see him drawing near, your chest inflating on
a nervous breath as you nod at him and back up towards a tree to lean on as you
unlock your skates from your soft-soled sneakers. On a normal day before his
accident you would greet him with animosity, but regardless of how much guilt
you feel and how much you pity him, you never want anyone you know and
especially someone you work closely with to be injured or hurt, “hey Harry,
feeling better?”
Harry takes three long-legged paces towards you and before you can properly
react he’s crowding your space, his sturdy fingers and warm palms engulfing
yours so abruptly that you drop one of your skates and your lollipop to the
ground. His face surges close to yours and you snap your head to the side in
avoidance, but he just follows your movement in a daring pursuit, “hey, babe. You
new here?”
“Ew, Harry. Stop!” You shove him away but he’s like a mosquito; buzzing to be
near you, blindly and incessantly knocking up against the glass surrounding your
lightbulb, “is your brain leaking? Get off of me!”
His broad, confident smile is enduring and he acts as though he doesn’t

recognize your aversion, “have we met, honeybunny?”
Your jaw hangs open in surprise, “what—”
Tex jogs over and pries Harry away from you, lodging himself as a barrier
between your bodies and laughing nervously, “he’s joking—” Harry’s shaking his
head in dispute to Tex’s justification for his behavior and craning his neck over
his friend’s shoulder to keep his eyes set on you, “we were just heading inside,
right? Come on, hotrod.”
He turns and backs Harry up towards the rehearsal studio, but Harry keeps
his sights locked on you with a big, handsome smile, mouthing ’I love you’ while
pressing both of his hands to his heart. He stands on his toes and shifts his head
to the other side when Tex attempts to block his view again, stretching his thumb
and pinky apart as if it were a telephone and holding them to his ear and mouth
as he enunciates ’call me’. His fingertips meet his mouth in a kiss when he’s
forced through the threshold of the vestibule, his lips puckering to blow the
romantic salute towards you before the doors slam shut behind him.
You stand frozen against the tree with one skate dangling from your
fingertips, your jaw dropped in bewilderment when you address the invisible
breeze, “what….. the fuck just happened?”
Happy Aerial Sunday! Happy Christmas Eve eve to those who celebrate! Aerial
Harry has officially arrived!!!!! 😈 I love you! Xx Birdie
“—and it was like he had never even seen me before—”
“Hey Rusty, I think we gotta problem—”
Yours and Tex’s explanations catch and mold together in the air like a baseball
and a catcher’s mitt, Rusty’s concentration lost for a moment in the invisible
airwaves of the toss. His head seems to follow the motion of yours and Tex’s
accusations as well, his fingers twirling the end of his mustache and his presence
like that of a duck in water; calm on the surface, but tiny little nervous legs
treading a mile a minute underneath the ripples.
As soon as Tex propelled Harry through the doorway and into the lobby, he
plopped him down onto the nearest bench and began pacing in front of him with
a freshly lit cigarette dangling from his lips. His mind was working faster than a
woodpecker’s beak, but through all the persistent drilling of holes he was unable
to produce a single rational thought. He had spent the last six weeks with Harry
and saw little to no signs of memory loss, aside from small hiccups here and
there when Harry would ask questions pertaining specifically to the accident and
the events directly thereafter, but the doctor promised him that was all typical
and completely normal for patients experiencing trauma. He may never get those
memories back, so it had been Tex’s duty to fill him in as gently as possible.
Harry sat on the bench with his pupils in the shapes of black sparkling hearts,
his head knocked back against the wall and his mouth pulled into a lovesick grin,
blissfully unaware of the anxiety rolling off of Tex’s back in cascading waves. His
hand remained pressed up against his chest to quell the weak thump resonating
there while Tex stomped back and forth in front of him through a tense fog of
green, asking Harry a series of questions about events and emotions in an effort
to pinpoint exactly how much information he had accidentally misplaced.
Harry heard nothing but birds chirping and Smokey Robinson crooning in his
ear drums, his silent musings centered solely around how and when he could see
you again. Your soft pouty lips and the perfect slope of your nose. The shine of
your hair as the sun kissed it and the stretch of your calves with your feet
strapped into skates. The skirt that brushed your thighs and the lollipop that
stained your mouth red. The sharp and rounded edges of your body. His mystery
woman and brand new obsession.
When your deranged intoxication waned even the slightest bit, you collected
your skates and marched through a different entrance straight into Rusty’s office
following two rapid courtesy knocks. You tried to explain the interaction that had
just occurred through a series of rambles punctuated by rhetorical questions, but
you could tell by the skeptical quirk of his eyebrow that he wasn’t believing a
word you had to say. Harry wasn’t meant to be back to practice for two more
weeks after all and he was silently chalking your hysterics up to hormones. It
wasn’t until a fellow man such as Tex emotionally intruded mid-conversation
that Rusty’s facial expression began to drop, his cigarette burning black like hot
charcoal at the tip before he stubbed it out and immediately lit a new one.
Tex somehow managed to convince Harry to stay sitting on the bench in the
lobby for five minutes while he went off in search of Rusty, his chest squeezing
painfully in worry as his oxfords clacked against the linoleum flooring. He knew
that Harry’s doctors had warned him against prodding for information, but this
just couldn’t wait. He had listed off a bunch of names to Harry and asked him to
simply nod if he remembered them; Russell Buchanan, Beau, Indy, his mom, his
sister, burners he’s fucked, coworkers from The Extravaganza and coworkers
from the circus in England. Harry nodded along in reassurance to each one, but
Tex can’t even be sure if he was listening properly. Tex mumbled your name last
and when Harry steadied his head, blinking and narrowing his eyes in genuine
confusion, Tex gripped his shoulders and stared deep into his pupils before
sucking in a nervous gust of air and making him promise to stay put.
“Um,” Tex hadn’t expected you to rush here so quickly and he feels awkward
talking about you while you’re in the room, “Harry begged me to come in and
hang around today to get out of the house and um….. well, he doesn’t seem to
recognize his partner. Like, at all. He thinks auditions are today. Fuck—” You’re
somehow assuaged by his shared level of upset and confusion, “I think
everything about the last two months with Clyde has been wiped out.” You and
Tex exchange glances, hard on your end and timid on his, before you peel your
gazes away from one another and hone in on Rusty for leadership or further
development.
Rusty ashes his cigarette and shakes his head, “I don’t understand. Tex, you’ve
spent the last six weeks with him. This is the first unusual speed bump you’ve
noticed? You mean to say he simply doesn’t remember—”
“It’s been five— Honeycomb!” Everyone’s attention is drawn to the door with
the loud saccharine intrusion, the sight of Harry’s disheveled presence rattling
through the ozone like a radio caught between two signals. His fingers peel away
from the doorframe before he charges towards you, but doesn’t seem hampered
by Tex’s immediate interference when his hands press firmly against Harry’s
chest as if he were your newly appointed bodyguard, “haven’t stopped thinkin’
about you for a fuckin’ second.” Harry tries to pry Tex’s hands away with minimal
effort all while maintaining a healthy fixation on you, “whatcha doin’ in here?” He
gasps in surprise, “d’you work here?”
Rusty glares at you as if this were somehow your fault before rising to his feet
and gesturing to the closest chair beside his desk, “Harry, have a seat.” His sight
flickers around the room before his patience suddenly wears thin, “everyone sit
down. Now.”
Harry pushes past Tex and flops into the chair beside you before dragging it
along the hardwood close enough that your knees are touching. His legs bounce
with untamed excitement as he keeps a steady focus on you, his eyes roving from
your face to your neck and shoulders, your tits and your bare legs before your
stares finally snag again. You shift uncomfortably in your seat, crossing your legs
and angling away from him before he pats his lap as a signal for you to sit there.
Your nose scrunches in disgust at the same moment that Rusty lowers into his
seat, “may I have your full name?” You nod your head towards Rusty to relieve
yourself of Harry’s hawk-like spotlight, his eyelids fluttering in a confounded
blink before he peers over his boss’s desk and points to his own chest in
question. Rusty nods and reiterates his inquiry through the exhale of black,
licorice-scented smoke, “what’s your name, son?”
“Harry….. Edward Styles?”
Rusty nods, “when is your birthday?”
Harry glances around the room in bewilderment, finally sensing the palpable
concern of everyone surrounding him but himself before settling back into his
chair and steadying the gallop of his limbs, “the first of February, 1940.”
“Where do you live?”
“What’s with the interrogation—”
Tex reaches from his chair to tap Harry’s chest in support and a desire for
expedition of the topic. He can’t help but feel irked about Rusty’s righteous and
authoritative method considering he’s already watched Harry go through this
same process with his doctor several times, coupled with the fact that he was
instructed explicitly not to meddle around with his memory, “just answer so we
can get the fuck outta here, mate.”
Harry darts his sight to Tex and then back to Rusty, “Malibu, California, USA.”
“What’s seven times seven?”
Harry’s eyes glaze over before dropping to the ground as if the answer lied in
the cracks of the floor, “uh….. for… y... six?”
You scoff at both Rusty’s choice in irrelevant questioning and Harry’s
mathematical error, unsure if his accident knocked the recollection of the answer
out of his brain or if he never learned it properly in the first place. This is too
reminiscent of his selective hearing episode months ago that he used as an
excuse to ignore you, yet another cruel joke regarding Harry that you find
yourself on the outside of.
Harry’s leg begins hopping again when he leans forward and clasps his hands
together, your chair vibrating from the friction of his overactive, anxious knee.
You can feel his sticky stare glued to you and you can just make out the ear-to-
ear grin splitting his features from the corner of your eye, but you’re too afraid of
what will happen if he’s given your regard, so you choose to continue looking
straight ahead. Rusty’s voice crackles through the awkward and contemplative
pause, “and who’s she, Harry?”
Harry’s reply is so quick that Rusty doesn’t even need to finish his question
before his voice is cutting through; light and lofty, fervent and pining. A thick and
unyielding stark contrast to how you’ve been addressed by him up until this
point. His word catches the ribbon of a pink balloon and drifts towards the
ceiling before halting without a sound, his chin dropping into the palm of his
hand as he drills holes into the side of your face and awaits your limelight,
“Honeysuckle.”
The eye contact that you would have plunged head-first into hot lava for prior
to his accident is clawing it’s way down your throat now, but it doesn’t feel right.
It doesn’t feel genuine. It feels like a hot, clingy mess that you weren’t prepared
for in the least and it is impossible for you to even begin to wrap your head
around it. You’d thought about the possibilities surrounding his return every
single day since you held his hand in the hospital, but the scenario of every shred
of you being erased hadn’t crossed your mind. You squeeze your arms around
your torso tighter and drop your gaze to your lap to reiterate a defense from the
beginning of your partnership, “that’s not my name.”
Harry’s brain fizzles like a staticky television screen upon your response, one
eye squinting in distress as he attempts to straighten out his antennas and reach
a proper signal. He can sense familiarity in your tone and your wording, but he
can’t place it and a little bubble of frustration pops inside of his stomach at the
disconnection. He wishes you would uncross your arms so that he could have an
unhindered view of your entire body, or at least some semblance of an idea of
what you would look like when relaxed and happy in his presence. Come to think
of it, you’ve been put off since the moment you met and that’s not exactly the
reaction he’s used to from some women. All women. And most men.
The word ’pompous’ comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative
aspect of his personality. He was born to have eyes on him and he will stop at
nothing to have yours next.
You raise your chin just in time to see Rusty and Tex exchanging a concerned
look. The submission that you’ve been forced to accept in regards to a situation
that directly affects you more than anyone else in this entire circus is gravely
baffling. Why does it seem like you’re always on the outside of your own life?
“Can someone please make him stop? Can anyone explain what’s happening right
now? Am I dreaming?”
Harry’s studious position remains unchanged as he repeats your final

question with ignorant ardor and a much different inflection, “I dunno, am I
dreamin’?”
There has to be some underlying theme that you’ve missed completely. The
silence in the room is both deafening and shrill, the men surrounding you all
damp with a bevy of varying thoughts that you’re dying to get to the bottom of.
You hitch your thumb towards Harry with your jaw hung upon and a frown
marring your pretty features, “see?” Although Rusty was not around very often
during practice and rehearsals to know just how volatile your partnership was at
times, he does know Harry and he has to understand that this is extremely
unnatural and possibly bordering on severely grim.
This new reality is absolutely shattering to you. All of the events that have led
up to this moment; hours of grueling effort with only two successful
performances of payoff, a still-unexplained clipped photo of you stuffed into his
wallet, a blow out argument that led to insufferable information about his past, a
near-death experience and now….. he doesn’t even remember you? It’s as if
you’ve never even existed to him and worse yet, he is wearing a set of blinders
and rose-colored lenses that are convincing him of a forlorn attraction. It’s like
you’ve wandered from your comfortable universe into a psychedelic alternate;
from cotton candy hate to starry eyed lust, rejection versus ratification, all of
your past sins sitting at the bottom of the ocean along with Harry’s forgotten
memories. You begged the sky for a second chance and you’ve gotten it, except
both of the times that you’ve met Harry, he’s steered the vessel of your
relationship and it appears you should have been more specific with your wish.
It’s as though you’re telling him lie after lie without even breathing a word and
it just doesn’t seem possible for your partnership to continue this way. If he’s
truly forgotten you, he must have forgotten your choreography and everything
you’ve worked so hard to accomplish these past few months. Your hard-earned
trust, your flawless routines and every subconscious quirk you share. You shake
your head and drop your face into your palms to hold off frustrated tears; you
are sad for him but mostly you feel awful about the entire situation. What a mess
this has come to be. Your entire move to Malibu is proving to be one terrible
surprise after another.
Rusty breaks up the tense pea soup of the room with a clammy gurgle of his
throat, “Harry, son…..”. He coughs into his fist when his attempt to gather Harry’s
attention falls short, “Styles. Eyes on me.”
The only movement of Harry’s body is the shift of his eyes. Whether or not his
brain has switched focus is a delicate riddle.
There’s no caution to Rusty’s approach, “listen, it seems as though your

memory is more compromised than we originally thought. Auditions have
already happened and this is your partner. You’ve been practicing together since
May and you’ve put on two spectacular performances already. The world has
been waiting with baited breath for your recovery.”
In complete opposition to the reaction you would expect from the Harry you
once knew, his features liquify into brilliant diamonds before exploding in
shimmering glitter and dispersing all across his face. His body is motionless
while all the blood works to storm his smile first, his fingers picking at the skin
around his thumbnail as he allows the gorgeously impossible information to sink
in. He lifts his hands to cup his cheeks in sheer opulent surprise before slipping
down to cover his gaping mouth, his distracted stare wandering around the room
at the three sets of eyes awaiting the backlash that never comes.
“No….. fucki…’... way.” Harry turns to you abruptly and grabs your hand before
squeezing tight, his finger lifting into the air between your bodies to gesture back
and forth between the two of you in ecstatic enchantment as he mouths, “you and
me, babe!”
Your jaw has dropped but you’re not even aware of it, all you can feel are his
digits strangling yours as you try to tug your hand away and address Rusty at the
same time, “I don’t think this is a good idea, Mr. Buchanan.” Rusty is already
shaking his head in dismissal of your concerns, “listen to me— Harry, please let
go— this is too risky! He needs more time or….. brain surgery or something,
doesn’t he?” You finally rip your limb away but his fingers chase you like a rabid
animal or a hundred clingy burrs, “doesn’t he? Tex!”
Tex is already on his third cigarette since he’s stepped into Rusty’s office, his
shoulders meeting his ears in a shrug as he mutters, “I swear this is the first time
I’m seeing this, Clyde. I don’t know what to make of it either.”
Harry snaps his head over his shoulder and narrows his eyes at Tex, “quit
callin’ her that, dick.”
Your mind curls and weaves around a hundred memories and even more
possible future predicaments all at once before snapping like a rubber band
that’s been stretched too thin, the first and foremost blurt regarding your own
safety, “how is this okay? I can’t share a dressing room with him anymore. It was
bad enough in the first place, but this is just dicey—”
“We share a dressing room?” Harry finally peels his hand away from you long
enough to pump his fist into the air, “just us? Alone? Far out. Can we go there
now?”
Your whole body swivels in your chair to directly confront him for the first
time since he cornered you against the tree in the courtyard, “you’re not the least
bit concerned that your brain is damaged and that you’ve lost whole chunks of
place and time? That you have to re-learn choreography and re-build everything
we’ve worked so hard to establish and then go fly through the air with all of your
loose brain cells rattling around? You hate me! How can you not remember?”
His face dissolves into a disturbed frown at your accusation of a hatred that he
can’t possibly understand, “I— what? Hate you? I dunno— we did it once we can
do it again. It’ll be even better this time. Promise. I can’t wait to get to know you
— how could I ever hate you? You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen—”
“Oh my god. Is this a joke? This has to be a joke. I can’t believe this is real. I
don’t even know what to feel.”
Harry ignores your floundering and you’re much too flustered to notice, but
Tex is picking up on a major role reversal transforming before his eyes. Rusty
rises from his chair and maneuvers around his desk to plant himself in the thick
of your argument as Harry rambles about unimportant details. His only burden
seems to be how quickly the two of you can be alone, “so, what do we start with?
Pull ups and sit ups? Or maybe we can just dance a bit. Get reacquainted?”
You shake your head, “I can’t believe this. There’s no way this will work. He
has severe amnesia! He’s forgotten an entire human being! Mr. Buchanan—”
Rusty seems nonplussed as he takes in Harry’s newfound jovial and easygoing
nature in your presence, a demeanor that he’d experienced and witnessed
firsthand many times, but seemed to translate to everyone but you. He feels sorry
that Harry has spent time in the hospital, but mostly he feels sorry that his show
has lost some business for the weeks that Harry is out of commission. Secretly
he’s maliciously glad about the shift, hoping it’ll bring a new spark of chemistry
to the ring, “you’re exaggerating. It’s not that severe. He remembers plenty and
he’s a professional; he’ll learn everything in just a couple weeks. Why don’t you
two take the afternoon to reintroduce yourselves to each other? Go for a walk on
the beach or have a malt on me and just relax. See if anything pops up. Tomorrow
you can dig into the heavy lifting.”
Harry lifts his fists into the air by his shoulders with a soft hiss of victory, “a
date!” His arms drop and his palms slap the arms of his chair on the descent,
“fuck yes.”
You stand to your feet and Harry’s at your side in less than a full blink, his
fingers pinching his lush bottom lip until it fades white and a single twist of hair
grazes his cheekbone. Your tone is harsh and it’s not directed at or because of
Harry per se, the harshness is building from the injustice of Rusty’s unnecessary
pressure on Harry and the crass disregard of the importance of your opinion, “I
think he needs to be reevaluated. His neurons aren’t firing properly. He’s not
even supposed to be here yet and—”
Rusty’s stare is rough and challenging, “and neither are you, yet here you are.
He’s been evaluated several times. It would appear he has some mild retrograde
amnesia. The doctors warned us that it is likely, common, and may or may not
clear up, but it doesn’t affect his physical functioning. The only person he has an
issue with is you, as per usual. I expect you to go sort this and come back here
tomorrow morning ready to work or I’ll find someone else who will.”
It is well beyond irritating to listen to Rusty speak about Harry as if he weren’t

in the room or as though he were a carved statue of a perfect saint with
flawlessly sculpted edges and intentions. Your face flushes with anger and your
fists curl at your sides, your vision crawling with black at the corners and
reducing Rusty to a worthless speck in the distance. You want to defend yourself,
your potential and your career. You want to defend Harry’s mental and physical
health. You want to speak on behalf of yours and Harry’s history which, as it now
stands, only exists within your own lonely memory. But you know if you try to
argue and are perceived as obstinate, you will lose everything. Rusty’s already
proved on more than one occasion that he’s a snake and will stop at nothing to
further the growth of his business and his reputation, including squashing
whoever steps in his path. Colleagues or not.
Harry’s eager stare is registered when you begin to settle back into your body,
your frazzled nerve endings smoothed when you snap your head to the right to
find him scrutinizing every inch of your profile with his eyebrows pulled
together in a concentrated frown. The instant your eyes connect, a light turns on
underneath his skin and his mouth splits into a heart-stopping grin as if he were
a puppy begging for whatever treat you’re willing to offer him and you’ve just
balanced it on the end of his nose. The unspoken sentiment causes your heart to
stutter, but you ignore it for the sake of your career and task-oriented priorities.
You’re so livid that you just need to get out of Rusty’s office immediately, “let’s
go.”
“Yeah?” Harry doesn’t even bother to address Rusty as he follows you out of
the room, tripping over the leg of a chair and mumbling a soft ’oop’ before
righting himself and combing his hair from his face, “where we goin’?”
“No idea. Grab your board.”
“Can I hold your hand?”
You tap Tex’s shoulder and flick your head as a signal to leave with you before
slipping through the door, “absolutely not.”
The three of you file out into the hallway and slip around the corner to be met
with the sight of Beau galloping toward you. Harry gasps and his eyebrows shoot
up his forehead in surprise as he watches him approach, an arm wrapping
around his ribcage to scoop the large dog from the ground for a greeting. He
scratches his cheek and then kisses him in the same spot, “Beau buddy. You
cool?” Beau licks and licks Harry’s entire face, his tail wagging a mile a minute as
he spreads as much love and appreciation as he can for his special human.
They’ve been separated for weeks now and you’ve done your best to give him
extra attention; hand washing his bandana in your bathroom sink and feeding
him half of your banana as a treat here and there. You tried once to rest your
head on his belly like Harry used to but he wouldn’t allow it. Instead he’d slink
away and curl up in the smallest ball he could muster, shooting you dirty looks as
if you were responsible for the disappearance of his favorite person.
Harry scrunches his nose and pinches his eyes closed as he scratches his blunt
nails up and down Beau’s belly, “hey, daredevil. Missed you. Let it all hang out,
my man.”
While Harry is occupied you take a moment to whisper your rushed

tribulations to Tex, “help me. What am I supposed to do?”
Tex shrugs, “go to the beach with him.” He glances over his shoulder before
lowering his voice to a whisper, “this is Harry….. this is how we all knew him
before— you know. He’s been talking nonstop about starting over because he
had a near death experience. He’s been scared sweet or something, I think.”
Harry lowers Beau to the ground and starts pacing toward you, so Tex rushes his
final sentiment, “listen. Your relationship was a shit show. This is your chance to
get to know him and— hey, Harry.”
“Can we go to the beach now?” You keep your gaze attached to Tex who shifts
his attention to Harry, “I’ll buy you ice cream, Honeycomb.”
Harry widens his eyes and nods his head down the hallway as a gesture for
Tex to leave, his mouth forming the word ’jam’ just as you catch on to their silent
communication. The boys both simultaneously snag a cigarette from behind their
ears and tilt their heads to light them in an effort to appear innocent, sweet
cotton candy and cucumber mist spiraling and swirling around your heads. Tex
spins on the ball of his foot and starts backing up towards the rehearsal spaces,
“rock on, kids.”
The brush of fingertips against yours pulls you from a deep contemplation as
you watch Tex disappear around the corner. Harry’s pinky hooks yours and you
pull your hand away in response, his expression slouching to a pout at the
rejection, “Harry? Our last conversation was—”
His dismissal is delicate, a tender shake of his head left and right, “dunno. I
don’t remember, I don’t care. C’mon, I wanna take you to the beach.”
Sadness glazes across his eyes and you remember Tex’s many warnings about
not pushing topics, but it just feels too important to ignore, “it was a big fight. The
night that you went surfing.”
“Okay, so now all secrets are out and let’s go to the beach.”
You sigh and crouch down to attach your skates to your shoes, accepting his
gentle nudge at not wanting to unearth any upsetting details pertaining to his
accident, “fine. To be continued.” You rise to standing before skating in a circle
around him, his head following your every move, “oh and Harry? We’ve
established that I’m much, much faster on wheels than you are.” His jaw drops
when you take off down the hallway and push open the exit door, his feet taking
off in a jog after you before he throws his board down and flies like a bird of prey
towards the soft ripple of your skirt.
Hey love bunnies, how are you? Happy Aerial Sunday! Please remember to vote
and leave me some lovely comments if you’re having a good time. Much love to you.
Xx B
The Twelfth Chapter
SURPRISE DOUBLE UPDATE!
Harry has never been the kind of person to ignore his instincts or the guidance
of his body’s desires. Luckily he has thick skin and a set of oily feathers with as
much slick resilience as a penguin, otherwise the countless denial of you wanting
to be close to him would have withered him hours ago. He watches you watch
your bare feet kick sand as you walk a safe distance from the lap of the shore to a
hidden cut out where Harry remembers spending a lot of his free time. He would
often park his van there because it felt sheltered and private, allowing him to be
naked at his leisure and to sleep without feeling exposed.
He has exactly two goals to apprehend by sundown today; seeing at least a

sliver of your bare skin and convincing you to go on a date with him. The word
’determined’ comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative aspect of his
personality. He never rests until he accomplishes exactly what he wants and he is
anything but proficient.
If Harry could shoot laser beams from his eyes, your skin would have melted
off within the first ten seconds of being in his presence.
You draw your sight from your feet to bare the burden of his everlasting stare,
your attention dropping to the dazzling smile that’s been permanently etched
into his features, “what?” He doesn’t respond, his smile only growing bigger
which is so ridiculous that it only causes yours to spark as well, “Harry. What?”
He shakes his head but keeps his gaze glued to you, “you’re so cute. Dunno.
Really want you to like me.” He rolls both of his lips into his mouth in a coy pause
to gauge your reaction. His earnest simplicity is endearing, but you simply can’t
bring yourself to fully believe the authenticity of it. His vulnerability shines
through the uncomplicated statement, his confidence a contradiction to his
sincere expression.
You roll your eyes and study the sand again, “do you always just say the first
thing that pops into your head?”
“Yeah.”
Your delivery is not very convincing due to the laugh blistering your words,
“well, stop it.” You can see his fingers reaching for your hand in your peripheral
vision, so you use the opportunity to toy with the strap on your skate, hoping
that he will just take the hint so that you don’t have to bark at him your need for
space, “where are you taking me?”
“Little date spot.”
“This isn’t a date.”
Harry shrugs with no conviction behind the action. He figures if he keeps

saying the word ’date’ that it will eventually seep into your subconscious and get
him what he wants, “’kay. What does your hair look like when you wear it
down?”
“I don’t wear it down often—”
Harry laughs and tries to tug on the cornflower blue ribbon wrapped in a bow
around your hair to keep it from your face, “that’s not what I asked.” He holds his
palms up in mercy when you gently swat his hands away. He was so close to
tugging it loose and seeing it tickle your neck and shoulders, “tell me somethin’
you wouldn’t have easily let me know before. I’ll start. I like cold showers.”
You remember running into him the morning he was showering at the beach
and for a moment, you’re sad that you’re the only one who has a memory of it.
Even if you were well beyond embarrassed to see his personal bits hanging and
dripping along with the watery sunrise. His advice about not relying on your
body as your only means of identity suddenly makes much more sense now that
you know more about his damaged history. You wish that you could somehow
have the best of both worlds with Harry; the cognizance of your history along
with the sweet doting that he’s laying on thicker than buttercream frosting on a
birthday cake.
The hitch in your throat conveys some sort of hesitance that he doesn’t quite
understand, but he navigates your silence and continues to push anyway, “’kay…..
what’s your favorite smell?”
“A candle being snuffed.” Harry stares at you and tries to decipher the sting in
his gut at your musing, “after a party that your parents have thrown and they’re
cleaning up plates with half eaten desserts and empty coffee cups. When all the
guests have left and you’re falling asleep on the couch with the radio playing
softly in the living room.”
“That’s more than just a scent.”
You shake your nostalgic memory and look at him, “what’s yours?”
“Rose. Cherry.”
You laugh and study the small and admittedly dishy smile on his face, the flash
of his teeth and the warmth shining from his pores, as you try to decipher his
honesty and if he saw your lollipops, deodorant or the candles in your dressing
room, “no, it’s not….. you like artificial sweetness. Cotton candy. Sweet orange
and vanilla gum.” Stolen waffles. Big tits spilling out of lime green bathing suits.
Navel oranges that have nearly missed smacking into his head. Saccharine
sarcasm.
Harry’s tongue smooths out against his bottom lip as velvety as molasses, his
words just as sticky sweet, “and how do you know?”
You shrug, “you made it obvious.”
“I know myself and I wouldn’t make anything that I like obvious to someone
I’m trying to distance.”
“You’re louder than you think.”
“You’re more fuckin’ observant than you think.”
You eye his hair, the same fat curl that historically tickles his eyebrow and
glance at the peach fuzzy patch on the side of his head above his ear that the
doctor had to shave for stitches. The angry black lines have disappeared and
made way for raw scarring, perhaps the only patch of unsightly skin on his entire
body as far as you know. And you’ve seen it all. You want to reach out and touch
it, to feel the mowed bristle against your fingertips but you restrain yourself.
Harry notices your scrutiny and rasps, “chicks dig scars, yeah?”
His heart flutters when you press your lips together in a soft smile and shift
your gaze to the sun making its way to the ocean for a kiss, “your hair will cover
it up.”
In a moment of blind susceptibility, Harry peels off his tank top and peach
trousers to reveal a pair of black cotton briefs, his hands grabbing your skates
from your grip and tossing them into the sand with his clothes before he takes off
running for the water. You shout after him to stop, flashes of his head cracking
open against a rock flickering before your eyes as he makes his way out past the
surf and dives into a crashing wave. You stand at the edge of the water with
fearful, panting breaths leaving your lungs, counting the seconds until he finally
resurfaces with a grin peeling across his face. He spits out a mouthful of water
and smooths his hair back, “come on! I bet you’re not faster in the water than I
am. I got you beat there.”
Just looking at him paddling in the lapping waves makes goosebumps crawl
across your skin, “no way. It’s freezing and you’re totally insane to not be scared
of the ocean.”
“I’m not afraid of the circus either, am I?” Honestly, now that you reflect back
on his behavior from the beginning, he kind of was, “five minutes, Honeybunny.
Just a dip. You need to cool off.” Harry gnaws on his bottom lip before a bright
idea sparks a mischievous glint in his eye, “can you swim?” You nod before
correcting your admission with a stern shake of your head, his body drawing
closer and closer as he begins to emerge from the water, “five minutes? Okay,
four. Three?”
As he makes his way from the sea your eyes are drawn to the ferns tattooed
on his hips, the way they pull and stretch with the movement of his stomach
muscles and perfectly anchored belly button. Streams and drips of water ripple
down his thighs, his bare feet appearing last as he reaches towards you with an
outstretched hand. Just before he makes contact with your skin, you spin and run
in the opposite direction, your toes sinking into the sand and making it more
difficult to escape than you’d expect.
Before you can manage to get very far, two strong arms loop around your
waist and grip tightly, your back meeting his soaking wet chest with a squeal as
your feet leave the ground, “Harry, don’t even think about it!” He takes this
opportunity to bury the tip of his nose into your hair for a whiff of your shampoo,
his arms squeezing your middle before he makes his way back to the water with
your limbs flailing, “this is a good skirt and I just washed my hair this morning, I
swear to god—” but your protesting is cut short as soon as he tosses you into the
water and dives in behind you.
You resurface with a surprised and angry shriek about the coldness seeping
straight to your bones, your proverbial claws extended as you swim towards him
and greet him with a hefty splash, hoping to permanently blind him with
saltwater for ruining one of your favorite skirts. He doesn’t mind though, he
hardly minds anything that you do at all and in fact, his ploy to get you to touch
him obviously has worked when you wrap your arms around his shoulders and
try to push him down under the saline break. His cheeks hurt from smiling so
wide and constantly, his large hands spanning your ribcage and thighs as he
effortlessly scoops you out of the water bridal style and heaves you back under
the current.
This time you stay below the water and go for a more demure attack, pinching
the skin of his inner thigh when he least expects it. His response is a half shout
and half astonished cackle as he jumps back and watches just your head re-
emerge, taking note of the loud thump of his heart when your grin lights up your
expression. He’s certain he’s never seen anyone as breathtakingly pretty as you
are; so natural and vivid regardless of your mood. Graceful with a dash of
unsuspecting, firm confidence.
He’s witnessed a large array of emotion from you today, confusion and upset,
frustration and joy and he knows that his attraction must dig far deeper than
what he’s experienced under the sun this afternoon. It’s been brewing for months
whether or not he’s had an awareness of it, kind of like the germination process
that happens with a seed below the surface of the soil. Roots have been laid and
rainwater has been shed, his accident spurring a thick ray of sunshine to push
the sprout past the crumbling dirt.
Harry leaps forward and you both laugh so hard that your stomachs hurt
when you attempt to wrestle and fight the other one off. You circle your arms
around his neck and pull but he doesn’t budge, instead he takes this opportunity
to wrap his arms around your waist and pull you close, his gaze falling to your
mouth as he pants in the now tiny gap between your noses. The brakes have
been slammed hard, the shift of energy palpable on your tongues when his
thumbs stroke your back through the wet cling of your blouse. His eyes flick to
meet yours when he hitches your hips flush with his, “can I?”
As soon as your noses bump, you suck in a lungful of air and sink under the
water, leaving Harry alone and completely flustered. His mouth falls open and he
laughs softly when he realizes how close he thought he was and how
magnificently apprehensive you are. It would seem as though he has a lot to learn
and discover when it comes to you and compared to all of the women he’s been
with, this is going to be a lot harder than he originally thought. But he’s anything
but proficient.
“Were you scared?”
Harry watches the smoke from his cigarette coil around his fingertips before
he brings it to his lips and sucks in a mouthful of melted sugar, “when?”
“When you wiped out.”
You keep trying to tug on the tank top that Harry loaned you in an effort to
cover your underwear, your soaked clothes sitting on a rock just a few steps
away from where you both sit in the sand. The sky has mollified into a gentle
baby blue with steaks of brilliant orange and pink, the sun having retracted its
rays to strengthen its fiery appearance as it slips behind the horizon.
Harry’s heart beats once loudly in his sternum, rushing a spurt of blood
throughout his veins as he tries as hard as he can to comprehend that fateful
night, “probably. All I remember are loud cracking sounds and flashes of pain,
explosions of red. Shadows. Unconsciousness.” He pauses before adding quietly,
“were you?”
You nod and gather a shell from the sand, using its scalloped edges to comb
through the granules. He can tell that you’re hiding something or maybe a lot of
things and that you would rather not reminisce about his accident, but for some
reason there is a cryptic element about you that pushes you to learn more.
Whether the information is something you would like to know or not, “what did
it feel like to wake up from a coma?”
“Ever like….. remember a blip from a dream for half a second and then poof,
it’s gone? The image has disappeared and it’s left you with nothing but a
lingering feeling.……r... when clouds change shape and remind you of things, first
a rabbit and then a dragon? It was like that. It’s— it’s only a feeling an… …hen...
it’s gone.” He shrugs and smiles but sadness is shining through the cracks, “it was
all there, but it wasn’t. Dissolving on the tip of my tongue before I’d even
pinpointed the flavor. It was maddening. Everything came back in a day or two
though.” He registers your skeptical glare,… “fuck... almost everything.”
It’s unbelievable to feel him open up this way, to readily offer you information,
to want you to explore him and each of his cavities. The questions you have for
him are plentiful and colorful and it’s hard to know exactly where to start or
when exactly to stop, “surfing and the circus seem like two very different
hobbies. What made you want to be a trapeze artist?”
He can’t figure out why your question subconsciously irks him so much but he
thinks you’re smoking hot so he ignores the needling pinch in his sternum,
instead reaching into his back pocket for his crushed pack of cigarettes to slip
another one from the box and light it with a match, “I’m a performer. A thrill
seeker.” He turns his head to look at you, his usual quiff soaked and drying in a
perfect curl around his temple and forehead, “pops was real pissed when I didn’t
get the football scholarship. I got injured halfway through senior year and I
fucked off in high school too much to earn the proper grades for college. So….. I
joined the circus. Athletics were always easy for me, it was a quick ticket out of
my parent’s house and a way to make money and travel Europe. I started off
sweepin’ up elephant shit and loading food on trains. I’d use the equipment when
no one was around and Indy caught me fuckin’ around one night, took me under
her wing and here I am.”
His story is so similar to yours it’s scary. Having a promising future and having
it swept away due to injury, leaving home against the wishes of your parents to
join the circus. You pledge to warn him of your injury in the near future
considering how much it disturbed him in the past, but it feels like too much
information for him to handle right now.
He takes a drag of his cigarette and allows the smoke to curl around his
fingertips, mouth and nose in a thick fog, “what about you? You don’t exactly
seem like the daredevil type.”
For some reason you don’t feel as comfortable opening up with him as he has
for you, and you can see the future and how long it could possibly take you to
shed all of the mistrust and dishonor that has built up over the past few months.
But you feel obligated to give him something, so you shoot for an abbreviated
history in the hope that he will accept it for the time being, “I also left home to
join the circus. My parents are religious and were horrified when they’d read a
synopsis of Rusty’s vision. My dad said if I moved away to join the devil and his
music, he would never support it. I hadn’t really heard rock and roll until I’d
arrived here.”
Harry smiles and takes a drag of his cigarette, speaking through a smoky
exhale, “and Jesus wept.”
His gentle broadcasting makes you feel drawn to him, for the first time it’s
possible for you to see the attraction that so many other women have felt before.
With his sarcasm and biting remarks having withered to allow space for sincerity
to swell. His face is perfectly structured, like a watercolor painting of a sunset
over the ocean; pink salt water taffy skies for a mouth and citrine sea foam for
eyes, a cloud of stormy waves flourishing around the entire scene to fill in each
and every gusset of space as if each tendril was perfectly placed to complete the
landscape. He watches you watch him and he wonders what you’re thinking and
if your distaste for him has shed enough for him to make a move, but he doesn’t
want to scare you away. He’s never had to work so hard to win someone’s heart
before and he really loves the challenge and the chase, almost as much as he’d
love to kiss you right now.
Your palms suddenly feel really sweaty when you snap your head away from
him and stare into the blades of a patch of grass jutting out of the sand that
reflect the color of his irises that you were just lost in, your fingers wrapping
around a substantial blade to pull it from its roots. Even though his charm is
appealing and harmless, it seems impossible to forget all of the times he’d teased
you and your upbringing, weaponizing your naïveté in general and used
everything that he finds quaint now as a weak spot to victimize you.
You can see his fingers tip toeing towards you from the corner of your eye and
you scoot out of his reach in response, “you don’t really know what I’m like at all.
You’ve never given me a chance.” You’re determined to keep him away from your
heart for the sake of sanity and the importance of your job. Plus you just can’t
imagine ever trusting him with the way he flippantly treated you for so many
months, even if he appears to be a completely different person from the one you
originally met.
You glance up at him in just enough time to see his face crumple in dejection,
his shoulders lifting in a shrug before he flicks his cigarette into the dry sand,
“I’m tryin’.”
All at once your senses are filled with the familiar distaste you harbor for him,
all of his mean-spirited quips flipping by like a slideshow as you shake your head
and start to pull yourself to standing. He may have forgotten who you are but you
haven’t forgotten who he is, how he uses and discards women, how he’d made a
hobby of making you uncomfortable or making you cry, “it shouldn’t be this
hard.”
“Says who?”
His questioning begins to annoy you when you recognize that you don’t
actually have an answer for him. Your chest squeezes in frustration, your mind
fumbling over a series of retorts until you end up blurting, “what do you know
about relationships anyway?”
Harry licks his bottom lip and leaves behind a sheen when his exhale carries
off, “I know that I’ve never wanted one before I saw you.”
He reaches for you again but you tug your arm away, crossing your limbs
across your chest as you frown and step back, “I’m getting cold. We should go
back.”
He scrambles to his feet and tries to pry your arms away from your torso but
you slink back again and are surprised to be met with a wicked grin molding into
his features, “c’mon babe, what’s it gonna take?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
Harry sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and nibbles on the pink skin,
grasping at straws to keep you near him and talking to him, “tell me another
thing?”
Whether or not anyone else sees it this way, you’re in charge now. You will be
training him until he’s ready to perform again, you’re guiding what he will
remember and what he won’t, you are guarding the territory of your personal
lives in order to keep your professional lives in check. It would seem if he were
left to his own devices without the guidance of you and Tex, he would have
sabotaged himself hours ago. He’s made it obvious that he needs your help to
stay within the bounds of decency and suitability inside the walls of the circus
building. And he’s making it abundantly clear that he needs your help to reform
and reshape the structure of your formerly nonexistent personal relationship
into something workable now.
The striking level of willpower that he used to exhibit has retreated into the
recesses of his mind for better or worse and for reasons unbeknownst to you. But
this is your situation now and this is still your job and truthfully, he’s kind of
endearing. Like a fiercely loyal puppy who’s just been picked up from the pound
or a melted ball of wax that begs to be sculpted by your hands and yours only.
He’s new and he’s sweet, he’s tender and he’s disarmed. He’s precious. He
deserves honesty on your end, but it’s important to remember that he’s still
Harry.
“I like you. As a person. I tried really hard to get to know you. The last
interaction we had was a fight.” You glance up at him and pause, both of your
breaths hitching in your throat in anticipation of your story, “you wouldn’t tell
me why you carried a picture of me in your wallet. You told me about Indy and
admitted that you took your frustrations out on me and then you were gone.”
His eyes glass over at the mention of Indy but he sniffles the sheen away and
rubs the belly of his nose with his knuckle. A small smile ripples across his face,
“wait. I carried around a photo of you in my wallet?” You shrug as the flash of a
memory appears and disappears in the same moment, his wallet snapping open
in your palm and your silvery photograph staring back at you and then the image
is gone. “Come on….. do you hear yourself? I didn’t hate you, Honeycomb. I never
fuckin’ hated you. There’s no way. This feeling I have inside of me is way too
strong. I know you and I know exactly how I feel about you, even if I don’t
remember talking to you or touching you.”
You don’t have an answer for him because everything that you knew and
everything that you’re learning is clashing too violently to form a coherent
thought or sentence.
“You goin’ steady with anyone?”
You laugh at his non-sequitur, but suppose that it makes sense considering
he’s already tried to hold your hand and kiss you several times today, “no.”
Harry’s stomach flips with the small headway he’s gained, “got your eye on
any fuckin’ lucky dudes?” You shake your head and he inches a bit closer, dying
to know the answer to his next question ever since you told him you were raised
religiously and without rock and roll, “you a virgin?”
“Harry!”
His voices raises in pitch to mock your reaction, “Honey!” He pinches his lip
between his fingers before pointing at you in accusation, “pleadin’ the fifth
always means yes.”
You laugh and reach out to shove his shoulder, but he grabs your hand and
presses a plush kiss to your knuckles that awakens butterflies in your stomach,
“you have no filter.” You pull your hand away and hold it into the air in a fist to
initiate a game of Rock Paper Scissors, “let’s leave it up to fate.”
“What are you doing? Ya gonna hit me?”
In your moment of playfulness you’d completely forgotten that he wouldn’t

understand the silent reference to your game. It stings a bit because it was one of
the few memories you have of him that was pleasant and it’s one of those things
that makes you wish you could have a little bit of Harry from the past and Harry
from the present, “we used to do that.”
He thinks you’re referring to sex and his whole face lights up, “yeah?”
“No dummy, not that. Rock Paper Scissors.”
“We had a thing? I didn’t know people who hated each other had a thing.” He
lifts his fist to play you, but frowns when he registers your forlorn expression,
“you look sad.”
“Harry?” He nods and slinks his tongue out to lick his bottom lip, his chest
slowly rising and falling to the rhythm of the ocean as he pours every ounce of
regard into you, “I think my existence upset you so much that you’ve blocked me
to protect yourself and it does make me really sad because….. the way you feel
about me now couldn’t possibly be correct.”
Harry shakes his head, “I remember you here.” He presses his palm to his
heart, “I think my brain is just opening pathways an’ shit for me that I was
sheltering before. Trust me. You trusted me before, yeah? Even though you hated
me?”
The eye contact that you had struggled for a glimpse of many times in the past
comes flooding towards you like a constant and unexpected swelling wave, “I had
to.”
“Well, you technically still have to.” The corners of his mouth perk into a smile,
“I may have forgotten you, but I haven’t completely forgotten you.” He holds his
fist up again for Rock Paper Scissors, “now let’s do our thing.”
Harry tosses a pair of scissors to beat your paper, his fingers reaching forward
to playfully snip at your knuckles. His heart flutters when you smile and push it
away by rolling your lips together, your arms crossing over your chest to make
them inaccessible. Pink flushes your cheeks with color when you realize you’re in
a position to fess up your personal life, but you also know that he surely wouldn’t
force you if you refused. Part of you is extremely curious as to how the new
Harry would handle such a blow anyway, “I am. I’ve had boyfriends, but….. we
just nev… r... got that far.”
Harry thinks his heart has beat so loudly that he’s surely just missed the word
’not’, “fuckin’ kidding me, Cherry.”
You shake your head but Harry can see the fucking adorable little smile that
wants to break through, “that’s not my name, Harry.”
“It is now. Mint. Virginal. Sweet. Chrome. Hot as fuck.” He takes a drag of his
cigarette, electric raspberry and sizzling candy, before flicking the butt over his
shoulder and into the sand, “Cherry. I’m gonna win you over.”
He sinks a fang into his bottom lip and takes another step towards you, your
bodies tangoing against and away from each other until your back meets the
splintered leg of a lifeguard stand and you’ve been successfully cornered, “okay,
I’ll bring you back. But I’d like to take you out again tomorrow.” He hovers over
you and ticks his head upward in a stirring nod that strengthens his jawline, “we
can cruise around. Share a milkshake. Whatever you want. What d’ya say?” You
shake your head and tear your eyes away from his burning and persuasive gaze,
his index finger hooking under your chin to align your faces again, “’kay, how
about this. I’ll come to your place tomorrow at seven and wait outside. Then you
can decide if you wanna hop in my van or not. No hard feelings.”
You brain is screaming at you to shove your knee into his groin and throw him
off, to tell him that he will never have a shot in hell and that you’d rather have a
cavity filled then go on a date with him. But your heart keeps wafting those
thoughts away with the soft flick of a hand fan, the pulsing of your brainless love
muscle is much more convincing than the alarm from your mind. There’s just
something about the way his brows frame the almond-shape of his large, slightly
hooded eyes that is so cunning and disabling, “I’ll think about it.”
Hi everybody! This is my way of saying thank you for being wildly awesome
readers. I hope you all have a fantastic week! Xx Birdie
“I can’t accept these.”
At precisely three minutes before seven o’clock on the evening following the
magnificent disorientation on the beach, you pulled your bedroom curtain aside
an inch or two to peek down and find Harry’s van idling outside of your duplex.
He had made it a point to casually toss the word ’date’ at you several times before
you’d parted ways the evening prior, his proposition still lingering heavily
around your head like an anchor rooted in thick cherry pie filling as you skated
home with the stars burning six-point holes in your back.
While he waited for you to either reveal yourself or break his heart
completely, his lanky frame remained coolly perched against his passenger door
clad in an open leather jacket with an eerie aura of calm relaxing his shoulders
and liquefying his muscles. You could just make out the tips of his curls as they
met the blue moonlight, the paint on his car providing a backdrop of a thousand
blushing rose petals. Flirtatious cigarette smoke snaked around his shadowed
face and the confident echo of pink wisps were visible in the nearby streetlight.
Your fingernails were nearly chewed off. The delicate chain of your necklace
became tangled from the constant toiling. The bobby pins holding your hair from
your face summoned a gripping headache.
You had spent the hour or so beforehand carefully preparing yourself; a

pleated emerald green skirt and a white cardigan closed demurely with delicate
pearl buttons, a pout highlighted in sheer baby pink and a subtle sweep of
mascara defining your lashes. The sight of his mystical and intimidating shadow
pulsed your heart to smack against your ribcage, your hands thinking faster than
your brain when you snapped the curtain shut to block out the image. It didn’t
work though, the remnants of his blueprint were scorched into the backs of your
eyelids. Cotton candy smoke choked your mouth when you opened it to scream.
The rolling of dreaded thoughts went something like this: on one hand, going
on a date with Harry could be a disastrous calamity and the impetus he might
need to give up this demented mating call. But on the other hand, the massive
and explosive shattering of his metallic walls have paved way for a more alluring
and honest version of the person you struggled so hard to understand. The date
could possibly go well and then your confounded feelings about him and this
entire situation would continue to disarm you. Both your personal and
professional lives would develop lumps of complications and you’re not sure if
it’s a mess you want to be involved in. Not to mention that you don’t like what
he’s capable of; his sardonic attitude when he doesn’t get his way or when he’s
angry about something. His distractibility and how easily he wrote you off in the
first five minutes of meeting. His temper, his arrogance, his coldness. His
addiction to women and sex and how he used it as merely an escape from any
bona fide feelings or self-reflection. However you swing it, it’s only a matter of
time before your heart is broken.
The word ’Clyde’ inflated inside of a creamsicle bubble as it scraped past his
teeth and lips, his tongue working to suck it back into his mouth to chew on the
relics.
You checked the time on your watch and found that ten minutes had passed
while you lost yourself in debate. The dull rumble of his engine reminded you
with cool allegiance of his persistence and patience, but instead you shook your
head and strolled away from the window to disrobe and change back into your
pajamas. It was better off this way. A relationship founded on hatred is sure to
end in the same exact manner.
Luckily for the sanctity of your working relationship, he expertly side-stepped

any awkwardness and showed up to practice the next day in spectacular spirits.
The corners of his mouth nearly tapped his ears when you entered your shared
dressing room, surprised to find him already there, blinding you with a sunny
dimple and greeting you with a soft line of ’don’t worry. I’ll get you one day,
Cherry.’
The word ’ambitious’ comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative
aspect of his personality. He is an artist and you are his blank canvas. He is armed
with a palette of rainbow sherbet and he intends to stroke and blot until you’ve
become his masterpiece.
There are several noticeable ways that your work routine has completely
changed since Harry has prematurely wormed his way back in following his
surfing accident. He swore up and down that he was ready to be back and
practicing in full swing, but he was still under strict doctor’s orders to rest and
has been forced to watch from the sidelines much to his and Rusty’s dismay. And
yet every day for the past two weeks, he’s continued to show up at the theatre
punctually at eight o’clock in the morning and refused to leave until you’ve also
step foot from the building.
As each overhead light in the theatre slowly clicked off one by one, Harry
would chase you out the exit door with his skateboard and jacket in tow and
insist to walk you home. You refused the first five or six proposals, but decided
after a week of tenacity that he wouldn’t be throwing in the towel anytime soon.
It was hard to resist the sparkle in his eye and the sad click of his disappointed
tongue, his optimism happily wiping away the possibility of this pursuit being a
dead-end road. After a week of due diligence on his end, you finally agreed and
were met with him falling to his knees in victory, his fists reaching towards the
sky as his smile glowed orange in the electric light of the setting sun. And thus
began a new tradition of avoiding the brush of his hand as you plodded down the
boardwalk with the sea breeze wrapping you in tension and ignoring the flick of
his gaze to your mouth by the time you’d reached your doorstep. He has made a
habit of waiting on the sidewalk to make sure you’re safely inside your duplex
and you can’t say that you object to his protectiveness much at all. You’d always
hated walking home alone in the dark anyway.
Harry’s lax daily schedule within the theatre is typically the same. He spends
his mornings at work following you from your dressing room to the warm up
studio to the practice rooms as if he were a floppy golden retriever attached to an
invisible leash, not yet fully grown into his hands and feet, asking if you need any
help stretching out your hips or shoulders and kindly offering an eager hand
whenever you need a spot for tumbling. Whether you’ve asked for it or not.
Little blips and dots of the old Harry flicker like dappled sunbeams through
ghostly rain clouds; how he manages to sneak a curse into almost every uttered
phrase regardless of whether or not his sentiment is meant to be crass, that one
perfect spiral that bounces against his temple when he narrows his eyes at you in
vigilant intrusiveness, the way he wastes time goofing off with friends, shoving
and wrestling each other in jest and diverting them from their important tasks.
Except now when he fools around across the room, you catch him watching you
more often than not, completely shameless in his infatuation as he claps or
whistles loudly in encouragement when you manage an extraordinary feat or nail
a particularly difficult transition. Sometimes he will just lay quietly on his side in
close proximity to soak up your practice and watch you improve on your once
shared performance routine, his body perched up on his elbow as he flips
through shabby novels, eats handfuls of peanuts or scratches Beau’s belly.
He joins you outside for lunch each afternoon, his sprawled position in the
grass and endless appetite for hand fruits similar to how he’d always conducted
himself in the past. It’s not so much the items that go into, but the ones that now
come out of his mouth that have undergone a transformation. That and the fact
that he willingly offers up half of his banana to share or volunteers to jog down to
the drugstore to pick you up a soda pop while you rest.
You have learned to suppress all of your inquisitive instincts for the most part,
heeding Tex’s daily reminders to not be your maddening self in Harry’s presence.
As each day passes it’s become perfectly clear that your past is nothing but an
apparition to him, his genuine reactions of confusion and candor similar to a
kitten prodding a stuffed mouse to see if its alive. A gentle stroke of his paw, his
claws retracted and his ears pert in attention. Although you did make the mistake
on the first day of asking him in vain if he remembers having lunch with you
before his accident, to which he responded with a shake of his head and an
exaggerated pout. His body inched towards yours through the thick blades of
green, hoping that you would pity his curse and offer your lap as a replacement
for Beau’s stomach as a cushy pillow for his sunny nap.
Although his curt manner of speaking is the same, the nature of it is different.
Where there was once fire is now the docile lick of a hundred sugar-scented
candles, his curls that sprawled out against his dog’s belly now taking on the
image of milk chocolate truffles versus brown garter snakes. His demeanor is
light and not exactly inoffensive, but you wouldn’t say that you mind having him
around. And you probably never have. In fact, without you even realizing, he’d
become such a bright fixture in your daily life that you’ve begun to feel dull when
he’s off messing around with his friends or quickly escapes to the bathroom with
an airborne kiss on his way out of the loud, metal door.
Another stark contrast is his desire for excavating information. He asks so

many questions that it’s safe to say you and him have switched roles and you’re
beginning to understand where his prior irritation stemmed from. The
interrogation usually begins the moment you’ve stepped foot into the dressing
room; his leather jacket already flung across the couch or draped over the back of
the chair, the ashtray carrying two or three heart filters and the scent of burnt
sugar dowsing your lungs when you part your lips to greet him. Typically he
begins by asking what you’ve eaten for breakfast even though you always have
the same response and then goes on to even more benign topics: ’how old is your
mom?’ or ’do you have any pets? Did you?’ or ’what is the last book you read?’ or
’do you wear a skirt every single fuckin’ day?’
Possibly the boldest and more delightful element that has changed is that each
morning, Harry has showed up with an enormous bouquet of five fluffy, golden,
teddy bear sunflowers.
“Harry, this is the thirteenth bouquet. I can’t accept these.”
The familiar sight of the precious honey flowers forces the strawberry of his
lips to pop in the background, the tangled forest of his eyes brimming with life
against the dark curl that brushes his eyebrow. The elegant stems are stretched
out in your direction, his head nearly hidden behind their plentiful florets. His
facial expression and the humming radiance of his skin resembles the large
blossoms clutched easily in his palm; hopeful and beautiful, a stunning marvel of
nature, a breathtaking sight of prestige. A view that makes you pause and feel
glad to be alive. A view that both kindles your heartbeat and begs it to slow
down. A view that you are reluctantly growing quite fond of.
His buoyant energy beams as brightly as the bouquet itself, a halo of gold
illuminating his spectacular face. Behind him lies your vanity with several vases
and mason jars filled with arrangements from the past two weeks, both your
dressing room and your kitchen at home taking on the appearance of a
neighborhood florist shop.
“Thirteen? Lucky you. And yeah, you can. Just put ’em in your hand. Boom.
Accepted.” Harry reaches for your wrist and places the bouquet in your hand,
grinning proudly at the sight of you holding quite possibly the happiest flowers
in existence as you look at him the way you always do, trying your hardest to
pretend that he hadn’t just made your whole fucking morning, “I fuckin’ love
waiting for you and workin’ for you. You know?” You shake your head in
wordless inquisition for him to continue. Why would he ever want the hunt and
the chase to end if he likes it so much? What happens when he gets what he
wants? “Okay. Y’know how the good part of the song is only good if you’ve
listened to the whole thing and allowed the build-up to happen naturally, to
create an atmosphere to cushion the emotion behind that sacred minute or two?”
You lick your lips and laugh, needing a moment to process his sober insight.
Sometimes it feels like he’s been awake for hours before arriving to work,
contemplating everything he needs to tell or ask you that day and reciting it from
scribbles on the back of his wrist. It’s impossible to ignore his moments of
splendid lucidity and you’re not sure you ever want to, “yes, I know exactly.”
“That’s you.” Harry’s heart melts into his stomach and dissolves in acid at your
adorably honest, silent smile, “what’d you have for breakfast, Cherry?”
You busy yourself with stepping across the room to unpack your belongings,
his eyes scorching holes in your sweater as he silently grieves for a single lick of
attention. This is the final day of solo practice before Harry returns back to work
tomorrow, your anxiety about his health as well as being in forced into close
proximity with him at an all-time, sky-scraping high. He’s made it obvious that
he’s absolutely crawling out of his skin to get his hands on you and there’s no
escaping the inevitable reality that it’s his job to be touching every inch of your
body in a day’s time. It’s not so much that you are feeling worried about your
physical safety, it’s more an issue of whether or not your former superb
chemistry will be negatively affected or if he will need more than two additional
weeks to be comfortable with the routines. Or what it will mean for his
passionate attraction to you once he gets a taste of the intense craving he’s been
starving for.
He’s been studying your practices like a hawk day in and day out, but it’s
impossible to know how else the accident may have hindered his mental or
physical capabilities until he pushes himself into the unknown. You don’t think
it’s possible to handle another disastrous emotional upset, but you’re doing your
best not to theoretically unravel a situation before it’s even begun. There’s an
intense pressure riding on the upcoming events within the next twenty-four
hours and it will be a miracle if you get a moment of sleep tonight.
“Same thing I have every day. Eggs and toast. What did you have?”
Harry paces across the room towards you and leans against the vanity, his
shortage of distress for his career and your questionable partnership thoroughly
absent. He tilts his head to light a fresh cigarette with his hair falling into his face,
“Honeycomb and milk, a banana, an avocado, two hardboiled eggs,” he exhales a
plume of sweet baby pink, “Tang and two brown sugar Pop-Tarts.”
You can’t help the surprised laughter each time he recounts his gigantic meals
for you, “where do you keep it all? You’re a string bean.” He shrugs and his eyes
glitter like an early morning pond greeting the sunrise when you finally offer him
your regard, “okay. Turn around.” His mouth parts in wonderment as he watches
you cross the room towards the standing screen to get changed for warm ups, “I
mean it. No ogling. You used to be respectful of this.” Your voice lowers to a
mumble when you slip off your cardigan and hang it over the edge of the divider,
“except for that one time.”
Through the flit of your memory, an image of the door slamming open while
you stood in the center of the dressing room topless glows around the edges, the
corners smoldering with a hint of embarrassing fire as the old Harry appears in
the center of the mirage with a complete lack of concern for your predicament.
The heat of humiliation broils a blush to your cheeks that you try but fail to hide,
your teeth sinking into your bottom lip as you lift your finger into the air and
gesture for him to spin away from you. You trust that he will be respectful of
your boundaries because he’s done a remarkable job until now considering his
evident internal torment, but you’ve yet to change in the same space as him
without the aid of a locked door since your first run-in due to your demure
nature and the still-healing wound of your snafu.
“Dunno how.”
“What? Just move your body in a half circle and face the other wall—”
“No, not that. I dunno how I was ever respectful of your privacy and space. I
wanna touch you all over. Everywhere. I can’t keep my hands off you. My belly is
constantly full of fuckin’ butterflies and stuff. I’m goin’ apeshit, Honeydew.” His
expression darkens, “wait— except for what time?”
Your nose scrunches in annoyance at your obvious oversight of recounting old

memories without his prompt, your face dropping into your palms at the same
moment that he takes three large sweeps across the room and tries to pry your
hands away. Harry’s heart feels like it’s about to explode from his chest at the
disastrous answer that he knows is coming, “what fuckin’ time?”
“You walked in on me. It’s nothing, you told me you didn’t even see anything.”
It isn’t exactly a lie considering that is what he told you, you’re simply leaving out
the fact that he was clearly fibbing for your sake.
It’s as if he hasn’t bothered to listen to a single word of your weak explanation,

“I’ve seen the two sexiest tits in the entire circus and don’t even remember?
Fuck!” He pinches his eyes shut and bends backwards dramatically, his face
angled towards the ceiling as he laments, “son-of-a-bitch. Pisser. Can I have
another glimpse—” His attention snaps back to you upon the chime of your light,
teasing giggle, “just one of ’em?” He gauges the slow shake of your head left and
right and decides to push just once more, “some cleavage?” He reluctantly but
diligently obeys when your finger twirls in the air again as a reminder for him to
turn around, his bottom lip pushing into a pout with the added bonus of his
palms covering his eyes before you slip behind the screen to change.
Practice today is the same as any other, his body never far from arm’s reach
and his fingers starving for even a simple taste of your elusive skin. You imagine
the first moment that he finally has proper permission to hold you in his arms
and what exactly that would feel like for the both of you, the imaginative
dramatization akin to a vampire that bursts into flames before turning to dust as
soon as a deviant draws back the nearest curtain to flood the room with blinding
sunlight.
In all honesty, you miss the cradle of his hands, the contradiction of the
scarred callouses from the trapeze bar that brandish his palm creases and the
softness of his fingertips when they wrap around your wrists. His hands are
mesmerizing and have always caught your regard, mainly because he spends a
good deal of time fidgeting with them and drawing attention to his mouth and
hair with his constant fussing. The only time of day that you see him laying
perfectly still is his mid-afternoon nap, an entire mysterious encyclopedia of life-
altering events and guilt flitting by page-by-page behind the reflective shield of
his heart-shaped sunglasses. For the longest time you’d assumed those images
were merely a narcissistic photo album or the mental image of Playboy
magazine. Regardless of his callous treatment, you’re ashamed to admit that you
had reduced him to such a one-dimensional speck. But fortunately for you, he
doesn’t seem to remember that.
As you pace down the empty hallway on your way out the door for the
evening, there’s no trace of Harry anywhere and you’re trying your hardest to
recall the exact time and place that you saw him last. It’s not that you miss the
distance or abrupt lack of doting, it’s simply that you notice it’s gone. You haven’t
bothered to attach your skates to your loafers because you’d unconsciously
become accustomed to your new routine of walking side-by-side with Harry, his
skateboard tucked under his arm and an unlit cigarette pinched behind his ear,
his side profile alive and voluptuous from the sharp angle of his nose to the
arched bow of his pulpy, pink mouth. It hasn’t been a pattern for very long but
now that it seems as though it might not be happening today and without
explanation, there’s an ache inside of your chest that’s hard to resolve.
You love watching the way his mouth shapes around words and sounds as
they labor to leak, how animated his facial expressions are whether he’s
indicating happiness or lust or curiosity, the unexpected retorts he delivers and
the way his pointer finger and thumb catch his bottom lip when he’s
concentrating. He’s an endless stage of entertainment, his personality compiled
of a cast of extremely varied and well-rehearsed characters and it’s hard to
imagine a time where you wouldn’t be anything but captured by him. Even at his
climax of antagonism, he compelled you into his spider web and balled you up in
silk, preserving you for little sips of life whenever he felt the desire. And you
were always more than willing to sacrifice yourself.
The teddy bear sunflowers that officially overgrew their welcome on your
dressing room vanity are juggled in your hands along with your bag and skates,
the lollipop in your mouth finally reaching that sweet spot when it begins to melt
and saturate your tongue with syrupy crimson. You use your hip to pop open the
exit door, lamenting the fact that Harry has chosen to shine his light elsewhere
and trying to drown the voice inside that tells you that he probably got wrapped
up in a burner while you were showering and that he’s back to his old self
without even so much as a wiggle of his fingertips goodbye.
“There’s my girl!”
Nevermind.
Harry and Tex are obviously in the midst of a serious conversation by the way
Tex’s eyebrows pull together to form a wrinkle above the bridge of his nose, his
hands tossing up into the air in frustration when Harry flings himself from the
edge of the fountain and jogs towards you, “hey Cherry pie, let me carry this shit
for you.”
Tex rises to standing and calls after his wayward friend in impatience, “Hound
Dogs, man!”
You glance from Tex to Harry, not knowing which of them you should address
since it seems Harry hasn’t even heard Tex’s plea, “no, it’s alright, Harry. I’ve got
it.” One of your skates nearly slips from your fingertips and you catch it before it
hits the ground, but not before one of your sunflowers takes a tumble and lands
beside Harry’s leather oxford, “sorry— I thought that maybe you’d left, so— um,
do you have plans?” Tex looks beyond agitated behind the lean jut of Harry’s
shoulder, “what I mean is, you don’t have to walk me home if Tex is waiting on
you.”
Harry gathers your bag from your shoulder and scoops the sunflower from the
ground, slipping your skates and cardigan from your fingertips with ease and
somehow managing to hold everything in one, large hand, “huh?” Harry looks
over at Tex and cuts his fingertips across his neck to silently clip his protest,
“nah, he’s cool. Let’s jam, babe.” He plucks a cigarette out from behind his ear and
perches it between his lips, “little help first?”
He gestures to the book of matches poking from his trouser pocket, his raw
stare broiling hunger in your stomach and causing it to quiver with the stroke of
a wild dove’s wings. You suppose you should begin acclimating to having your
hands on him considering you have less than twenty-four hours until your job
requires it and so ignoring the tremble in your fingertips, you reach forward and
pluck the small pack from its resting place.
It takes a couple swipes to get flint angry enough for a spark, but with a quick
whiff of air the fire bursts to life in your palm to cast dancing shadows around
Harry’s face. He leans forward and puckers his lips to suck the sweet smoke
when the tip smolders a fiery blood orange, his devilish eyes connecting with
yours just before he draws back and his jaw cuts like glass to exhale his fog
towards the sky to join the peachy, sleepy clouds.
Harry waits until the fire extinguishes in your fingertips before he takes a leap
of faith and dives forward to plant a plush kiss to your knuckles, “outta sight.
Thank you.”
You don’t recognize the surge in the very pit of your stomach, but suddenly
you’re drowning in it.
“Careful— just….. that’s a nice cardigan.”
Harry nods his head at it as though he were silently asking if you’re referring
to the one in his hand, his cigarette pinched between his lips as he maneuvers
your bag over his shoulder. You nod in response and begin to explain that it was
a gift from your grandmother when you graduated from high school, but his next
sentiment spoken through fuchsia fog startles you into silence, “I’m not gonna
fuckin’ drop it.”
“Give it a rest, Clyde. I’m not gonna fuckin’ drop you.”
Harry registers your forlorn and spooked expression as a connect-the-dots

puzzle explodes and scatters throughout his brain like radar struggling to detect
a stray airplane, an imaginary pencil struggling to move from fleck to fleck in
order to draw a cohesive picture. His eyebrows pull together as he searches your
face, your heart in your throat and your stomach stuffed with thorns as you wait
to see if the memory is loud enough for him to begin to lay the framework for the
strewed, thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle that has become your history.
You have a strong desire to leap forward and pull him in for a hug, begging
him to remember who you are and who you were together because it feels like
torture waiting to see if his memory will ever come back and what will happen if
it does. If he will revert back to hating you and feeling the fury of your little
annoyances, if your face will suddenly regress from a sight of beauty to an image
that purely reminds him of all of his grave errors of the past.
Instead Harry seems to work through whatever internal turmoil has just
happened, his heart weak with the feeling of helplessness when his memories
slip through his fingertips like warm, despondent sand. He’s learning to live with
the feeling of being just on the outside of his own recollections, warped images
and shadowy figures that are screaming at him to untangle the knots and smooth
out the months he’s lost. He shakes his head and decides to let it go instead of
basking in frustration as he does when he’s all alone, your cardigan purposely
slipping from his fingers to land on the ground in a soft heap as he spouts
sarcastically, “fuck, man. Lost control.”
Laughter bursts from your chest that alleviates the sadness that had just been
stewing there, your arm reaching out to swat at him as you bend down to
retrieve your sweater, “egghead. You’re full of it.”
Harry grins when a plume of smoke is freed from his lips, his arm hooking
around your neck to steer you in the direction of your home, “tell me somethin’ I
don’t know, Cherrybomb.”
HIIIIIIIIIIIII! I missed you and just love you all so much! I’m already halfway
through chapter fourteen, I’d meant to include everything in this chapter but it was
just getting much too long. So I’ll let you know when that will be up, hopefully
before next Sunday! Leave me your beautiful comments and I’ll be sure to get back
to you and please please please vote and spread the word of Aerial if you’re
enjoying it. There is so much action and excitement to come. I feel like we’re just
getting started.
I know I say this all the time, but I just need to tell you again how much your
genuine love and kindness towards me shines. I feel it and I’m so appreciative and I
just fucking love you back. So much.
Till next time!
Xx Birdie
The two of you set off shoulder-to-shoulder after you wiggle from his clutch to
his candid dismay, the same old chestnut of his fingers sweeping against yours
and attempting to curl around your pinky seeming to carry a lot more weight this
time with the lingering footprint of where his lips just were. A circus romance is
not something that you’re keen on and you’re unsure if you ever will be, with the
burden of the company’s success weighing heavily on your professionalism as a
partnership and you wish more than anything that your skirt had pockets that
you could hide your hands inside, “so, where’d you go?”
His stare is already trained on you, “when? After practice?” You nod and he
shrugs a single shoulder in nonchalance, “you said I needed to be respectful of
your privacy, so I was givin’ you space while you showered.” His sentence trails a
little bit as he further considers your question, his feet picking up the pace a bit
to jog in front of you and turning around to walk backwards in your path, “wait,
did’ya miss me?”
His glitzy grin battles every heavenly body in the galaxy.
You don’t really know what to say because you do like privacy but you did
notice his absence, so instead you choose to stay quiet. He teases you again about
missing him, his accusation a humorous badger with just a hint of cunning
smugness layered underneath. You blush and shake your head, not yet tapped
into whatever it is you’re feeling when your body resonates to his persistent
touch and how or why it appears to be leagues different than before, “just
curious.” Suddenly you feel silly about the possibility of him slinking off with a
burner because it seems impossible for him to take interest in anyone besides
you, including his best friend and let alone a fleeting love interest. You lift your
chin just in time to see the corner of his mouth pull into a cavalier smile, his
thumb scratching across forehead before he brushes his hair from his face, “drop
it, Harry.”
His palms meet the air in surrender, his half-smoked cigarette burning at full
steam between his fingertips to swamp you with smoldering pink, vanilla candy
before he makes his way to your side again. His gaze drops to his feet as he
admires them strolling alongside yours, taking advantage of the beat of silence to
gather courage to ask a question that has been keeping him awake most nights,
“so how come that photo of you isn’t in my wallet anymore? I looked for it
everywhere. I can’t fuckin’ find it.”
His inquest catches you off-guard and trudges up muddy, scary memories of
the fight that ensued when you lost control and confronted him about the clipped
headshot, how thoroughly icky it felt to be caught standing in the rubble of his
belongings strewn across the ground when he emerged from his shower, “I don’t
know. You just told me it was gone when I asked about it. I don’t even know why
it was there in the first place.”
“Probably because it was a secret way to keep you close.” He shrugs, “or
something. Dunno. I think I must’ve always had a thing for you and didn’t know
how to act around you. I still don’t. My defenses must’ve up. I’ve got all my cards
laid out now, babe. Want you to be my main squeeze. I won’t stop until you say
yes.” He clears his throat and kicks a pebble into the cracks of the boardwalk,
“how’d you even know it was there?”
You try to pretend as if his nonchalant, sincere revelation didn’t just make
your knees nearly buckle, “um….. you tossed me your wallet when the boys threw
you into the fountain after our first performance. It popped open in my hand and
my picture was right the… e... staring back at me.”
Harry can tell that you are choosing to withhold information so he chooses the
route of sailing confection-colored seas to urge you to dive further, “hey um, you
ever wake up and not know where you are? It’s like that every time I see you,
y’know? A pleasant disorientation. Sun fighting through lacy curtains. I wanna be
familiar with you. My brain is struggling real fuckin’ hard to know you. My body
and heart have you memorized, but it’s just big, dumb rocks upstairs. Memory is
the only truth we have and I’m beggin’ for gospel. Can you please tell me
somethin’?”
You stop in your tracks and grab his wrist to tug him towards you, his jaw
falling slack at your determination and sudden displacement of aloofness, “I feel
guilty. Okay?” He should understand that feeling of culpability better than
anyone else, “I can’t shake the blame for you getting hurt. Tex wouldn’t even
allow me to visit you in the hospital because my presence was so upsetting to
you, especially after the last time we spoke. It was horrible. I feel somewhat
responsible for everything; your accident, your memory loss. I’m not surprised
your brain has erased me.”
Harry has an extremely difficult time hearing anything negative that you
recount about your history and he usually walks to the edge of the earth to avoid
conversations like this, so it surprises you that he’s willing to voluntarily explore
in this way. Regardless of where he thought the conversation might have ended
up when he started it.
His eyes ice over but he sniffles the sorrow back, “I couldn’t have possibly
hated you. I don’t think it was even about you. I was tryin’ to self-destruct. It
doesn’t surprise me that I sabotaged our relationship.” You can see the slow burn
of something familiar in the subtle shift of his expression, “when Indy died, the
circus suggested I leave the country to avoid backlash and I had no fucking idea
what to do with my life, so that’s why I chose to live in a van on the beach like a
useless junkie. I have nightmares every night. I was fucking random women in an
effort to feel somethin’. Anything. So I wasn’t alone. Now I finally feel somethin’
that’s real and I’m flippin’ out over it. I don’t care about all that shit before.”
His candor is making you second guess every single crude interaction that you
had before his accident, whether or not it was really as bad as your memory
makes it out to be and if you’re just such a perfectionist that the thought of
anyone trying to hold you at arm’s length was too much for your faultless ego to
handle. You can feel his anger bubbling and boiling underneath his flawless skin,
his cheeks pooling with a soft flush that’s frankly quite intimidating, “but I care
about all that stuff before because I remember it and you don’t.”
He pauses for a moment to inspect the sadness in your eyes and the
downturned pout of your beautiful mouth before clearing his throat to allow for
a tiny bit of flame that you haven’t seen since before his surfing accident, “son-of-
a-bitch, Honeybun. Get real. That’s over, okay? I appreciate you wantin’ to not
keep any secrets, but please stop fuckin’ bringing that fight up. I get it. You think
you’re the reason I wiped out.” A fleeting thought passes through his fractured
mind that maybe this is actually all Rusty’s fault — drawing him back to the
circus before he was ready and pushing him into the same position that got him
injured in the first place — but Harry’s trying really hard not to hold grudges or
let others infect his mood anymore, “I’m in control of my actions. If the fight was
really that bad, then I shouldn’t have gone surfing so upset. Tex said I forgot my
leash and my wetsuit. It’s not your fuckin’ fault! Alright? It’s mine.”
This is the first time he’s ever allowed you to bring up and actually dwell on
something so unpleasant to consider when it comes to your history and you
weren’t prepared for the topic to continue in this way and in such an abrupt
manner, but you can’t help but be reminded of when he screamed that seeing
your face only reminds him that Indy would never come back and it’s all his fault.
He certainly holds a lot of blame in his soft heart. His eyes are so glassy that
you’re worried tears are going to spill and you already miss the cloudless and
happy sunflower Harry, so you shed your hesitancy and take one step forward to
wrap him up in a warm hug.
If this was the way he was before the accident with Indy, so pliable and tender
and exposed, it’s possible to see the frenzied tracks of self-protection that he’d
traveled to end up such a grumpy and avoidant person. He’s much too brittle for
all of this abrasive discord, “I’m sorry.” You can feel him sigh and then hum into
your hair, his body melting against yours and his one free arm so bound around
your waist that you feel instant comfort from his affectionate squeeze, “I won’t
bring it up again. It’s pointless. It only hurts you.” Tex was right, you have a need
for confession and it seems to stem from only wanting to relieve some guilt from
your own congested chest, the evidence lying in the reminder of how much
you’re able to work Harry up with just a few words, “I’m really sorry, Harry. That
was bad timing and….. just stupid. Forget it. You’re right.” His arm grips you
tighter, his claws sinking into your skin, “light suits you much better than dark.”
Harry pulls back but stays unnaturally close, the tip of his nose brushing your
cheekbone before his breath meets the shell of your ear, “did you feel that?”
There’s a distinct pause as his heartbeat sends electrical currents all the way to
his toes, his stomach swaying and sloshing when his lips brush your skin to
mutter under his breath, “felt so fuckin’ good.” He tries hard to stifle the shudder
that rocks his shoulders and forces air from his lungs with a tremble, his teeth
piercing his bottom lip to leave a pale indentation before he puffs a silent curse in
punctuation.
You shake your head and your voice is a cracked whisper retreating into the
heated air when you deny the same pull of your core that happened when you lit
his cigarette, “feel what?” You felt it, the goosebumps chilling your spine and the
clinch of your insides, your heart and your stomach having switched places, but
the rollercoaster of fluctuating emotions won’t allow you to trek very far into
that realm.
Harry recovers quickly with a soft shake of his head in dismissal, an absolute
expert of burial and avoidance when it comes to gloominess. He steps back and
sniffles, swiping his nose with the back of his wrist before he decides to bravely
cap off your discussion rather than allowing it to dawdle, “look, don’t do that to
yourself. I used to do that with Indy. I dreamed about her a lot when I was out.
She wouldn’t want me to keep hating the fuck outta myself like I had been.” The
usual bout of distraction takes over as he reaches behind your head and tries to
tug the ribbon from your ponytail to break your hair free, “can you tell me
somethin’ else about us? Somethin’ sexy?”
Harry’s charm is historically accompanied by an asterisk.
It’s really quite becoming the way he hangs onto your every word as you
recount the most benign history you can muster, pouring endless amounts of
wistful gazes into your eyes, asking every few blocks if you have any more of
those cuddles left to give or claiming he has a splinter in his finger just so you’ll
take a second to clutch his hand to inspect for invisible ailments. You know that
he was deeply affected by your embrace by the way his pupils dilated to saucers
and his blunt fingernails dug five crescent moons into your back before traveling
up to your neck, his smile growing lopsided and his eyelids narrowing to slits as
he allowed your honey to intoxicate his hive.
A feeling of unfounded dread sinks in when your duplex comes into view, its
teal shutters boldly framing the windows and popping fearlessly against the
coconut cream paint of the façade. You consider asking him to come inside for a
drink of water or a cup of tea or any excuse under the sun really, but then you
remember the constraints forced upon you by your workplace and the external
pressures reminding you that he should be the last person you become too close
to. Nettie hasn’t been quiet in her opinion of the matter either, claiming that
underneath his mushy heart and raging hard-on that he’s still the same person.
He’s still the Harry that made you frustrated with your job and made you
question your life choices, he still made you feel self-conscious about your body
and about being a woman, he still mocked your upbringing and naiveté, he still
blamed you for the misery and oppression he was cursed with, he still dismissed
your experiences and your emotions on a daily basis. You tried your best to
explain how he’s changed but it didn’t matter, halfway through your discussion
you began wondering who you were trying to convince in the first place; her or
yourself.
Apparently ’but he brings me five sunflowers every morning’ doesn’t exactly

cut it when it comes to Nettie.
Perhaps if you keep the conversation going it’ll buy you a few extra minutes of
cotton candy sunbeams and coarse curses delivered through sparkling smiles,
“so, are you still staying with Tex? Please don’t tell me you’re sleeping off a head
injury in your van.” If his answer is no, you have a fleeting, crazy notion to offer
him a couch to stay on in your apartment, but quickly squash it into submission
when you imagine him standing shirtless in your kitchen, drinking orange juice
straight from the carton while he waits for Pop-Tarts to toast in the dim light cast
from the refrigerator.
“You know where I live?” He perks an eyebrow then curls a slow grin across
his face, “have you ever been inside?” His face lights up before his jaw drops in
hopeful surprise, “in my bed?”
His van perched in the sand like a plump pink marshmallow crosses your
mind, followed by the menacing rumble of its engine as it idled outside of your
window. You can’t help but laugh at his hopeful stamina of the two of you sharing
intimate history, no matter how many times you faithfully deny it. Whatever he’s
feeling now or possibly whatever he felt in the past and just covered up with
frightened soil must be much stronger than you realize, “no. We weren’t ever that
close. I just happened to see you one morning while I was walking.” He raises an
eyebrow before narrowing his eyes in suspicion, your flourishing giggle forcing
his heart into swift beats that makes his palms sweat, “really. Don’t look at me
like that.”
Harry sucks on his bottom lip, his tone dropping to a hoarse lure with you
agape on the hook, “like what? Mmm?” He takes a step closer and paws at your
hips before digging his thumbs into your stomach in a provoking tickle, “you
don’t like my face?” Your laughter peels loudly enough that a sudden snort
erupts, quickly slamming your defenses down when you struggle between
fighting his hands away or covering your mouth in embarrassment. A high-
pitched cackle bellows past his teeth as he bends back and rests his hand on his
belly to quell his laughter, the echo of your adorable faux pas treading water
inside of his mind over and over again, “she fuckin’ snorts, too! You are sweet as
shit, Cherry. What else don’t I know?”
It’s hard to ignore the tinge of your cheeks and you’re grateful that Harry also
doesn’t mention it, “you don’t know what I’m thinking right now.”
Harry tilts his head in challenge, “yeah, I do.”
“Oh yeah?” You laugh at his decisive nod, suddenly very curious and wary
about what his answer possibly will be, “what am I thinking?”
“You’re nervous ’bout tomorrow.”

You raise your eyebrows in surprise, not expecting him to pick up on your
body language and mood so easily, but then you realize how preposterous that is.
Because of your job and partnership, he’s trained to read your physical cues
whether he remembers you or not and it makes you wonder what he possibly
could have detected before his accident that you weren’t aware of at the time or
that he never went through the effort of pointing out to you. That skill and his
cat-like reflexes put him in a deadly, unique class of his own that forces you to
slow down and carefully monitor your output around him, something that you
should have been doing since day one. You’ve never had very good self-control
around him which may explain how he was able to read you like the back of his
own hand and push your buttons so easily.
Before his brain injury you may have found yourself skirting his question or
embalming your true emotions, but he is so sincere that it sparks a desire of
honesty inside of you, “yeah. I guess I am.” You lick your lips and look at him,
your breath momentarily stolen by his discernible, concerned regard, “we had
supernatural chemistry in the ring and I’m worried it’s going to be compromised
or just….. different now.”
“Well….. it is gonna be different now, Cherry.” His words are vague and his
sentiment sparks a hundred analytical questions that are washed away when he
takes one small step closer, brushing his knuckles down the inside of your arm
and wrapping his fingers around your wrist to kindle a red-hot fever. A slow,
spongy kiss to your forehead engulfs you in flames, the tip of his nose brushing
your hairline just before he draws back and croaks, “I feel like there’s a ton of shit
you wanna say, but you’re not.”
It’s not so much the feeling of his kiss, but the genuine adoration behind the
expression that nearly sweeps you off your feet.
All of the blood in your body seems to rush to your core, splashing up against
the walls of your stomach and tightening your belly button into a harsh knot.
Your mouth parts for simply a taste of air as you glance up at him, his focus
skimming over every angle and curve of your face. You’re met with the familiar
baffling appearance of when you first spoke to him on the beach with Nettie
before you had gotten a chance to really know him; a pair of unripened
blueberries up top, a carved-open, juicy watermelon below. The hunt and the
chase over and over again.
You want to tell him that not a day goes by where you don’t think about how
he looked laying helpless in a hospital bed connected to tubes and wires while
you waited to see what would become of his delicate brain, only to find that he’d
essentially stepped back in time to recount the person who Tex had always
described as long gone. The person that you never imagined you’d have a chance
to meet, let alone a version of him that is so carelessly head-over-heels for you
that it’s not even clear how he’s standing on his own two feet.
The past couple weeks have been nothing short of a whirlwind and you’re still
coming to terms with it, not yet qualified to feel a single ounce of readiness
towards anything romantic for him. Sometimes you wish your brain would
hiccup like his has and allow you to forget the tumultuous mountain you’d
attempted to climb for months, only to slip when you’d nearly reached the top
and sent you plummeting over rocks and ice all the way back down to the
bottom. You’re standing at the base now, with tattered supplies and torn
clothing, bruises and bumps and a broken heart, looking at the peak with a boa
constrictor wrapped around your lungs, wondering exactly how you’re going to
manage yet another daunting hike into the sky.
“Honeysuckle?” Your eyes find his and you’re astonished to see a glossy sheen
across his pretty stare as he waits calmly for you to say something, your chest
tightening around your own tears when you’re floored yet again by how liberal
he is with his emotions now. It seems uncharacteristic when he hesitates, his
teeth scraping along his bottom lip before his tongue skims out to dampen it, “I’m
gonna dream about you tonight.”
And how delicate he is with yours.
Your mind kicks up a dust storm of Harry tossing and turning in his van
drenched in sweat, hugging his pillows and blankets, his dream a psychedelic trip
of you doing The Twist on exaggerated, teal and flamingo-colored floating water
lilies.
You spring forward and throw your arms around his neck, squeezing his
shoulders tight in the heartiest hug you can muster. Harry moans softly before
lowering your belongings into the grass and wrapping his arms around your
waist, hoisting you from the ground to swamp you with a taste of the tangible
desire that he’s been keeping trapped and locked inside for your comfort and
benefit. His little hum picks up volume to stave the reaction in his guts, one large
hand traveling up to cup the back of your head in utmost care. His heart skips a
beat when you murmur into his hair, realizing now that he hasn’t seen very much
honest substance from you up until this point and he wonders if he ever had
before or if you’re always the type of person to mummify your love and shame
and sorrow in order to barrel straight through to your goals. Or maybe that is a
side of yourself that you’ve solely hidden from him and him alone.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” your voice is so, so small that Harry can feel it on his
tongue and dripping down his throat, “you’ve been through so much.”
The horrific surfing accident and malicious head injury is beginning to seem
like a twisted blessing in disguise; a necessary shedding of his skin to obtain a
new outlook on life, to crumble his walls so that he could feel emotions again. He
was miserable and considered himself doomed to be that way forever, but now it
appears his optimism is shining a bright light straight into the eyes of all of his
former antagonistic behavior, permanently blinding and disabling it to send it
running off into the shadows where it belongs.
Harry lowers you to the ground but keeps you close, his palm shifting to your
jaw and his thumb stroking across your cheekbone. For once you’re not worried
that he’s going to make a move, instead this feels much more sober. Not exactly
cautious in the sense of being guarded, but just simply….. present. And now
you’re starting to ponder which one of you has actually been distracted this
whole time, you or him, “yeah? We… l... I guess that’s my fuckin’ life, isn’t it?”
Your nose wrinkles in humor as the tiniest snort breaks free, his face opening
up in a shimmering smile just before he shifts his hand to the back of your head
again and gently presses your cheek to his shoulder.
Harry pulls a lock of hair from your ponytail across his top lip and pouts to
wedge it under his nose like a mustache, his voice dripping with a fake
pretentious French accent, “oui? Life is shit.” You smack his shoulder in jest and
he gasps and cups his cheeks in faux alarm, his terrible accent slipping away as
he finds himself shifting gears again, “oh no, your precious fuckin’ cardigan has
touched grass!”
“Hey, kids.”
Upon hearing Nettie’s voice, your first reaction is to jump away from Harry
and smooth your hands down your skirt, your eyes flitting in guilt between the
two people in front of you who are eyeballing one another in skepticism, “oh hey,
Nettie. Um….. this is Harry.” Your finger seesaws between the two of them,
“Harry, this is my roommate Nettie.”
Harry notices that unlike the introduction of your roommate, you don’t feel
the need to clarify who he is in your life and his heart soars in elation. That must
mean that you’ve discussed him with her and most likely at length, his
imagination running free with mental polaroids of you sitting on your couch as
you paint your toenails and wax poetic about his captivating good looks. He takes
a step forward with his arm extended in the typical charismatic pleasantry that
you’d seen dozens of times in your past, but never quite seemed to advance to
you until now, “what’s up, Natalie?”
Nettie uncrosses her arms and glances at your blushing cheeks before
reaching out to shake his hand, “it’s Nettie. Glad to finally meet you.”
Harry’s never been one to apologize for his mistakes and he’s not about to
start now. In fact, you’re not even sure if he caught his blunder and the only thing
Harry hears is her use of the word ’finally’, “right back atcha.” He gathers your
things and the bouquet of sunflowers from the ground and hands them over to
you, his chance of scoring a kiss from you today quickly deflating his heart like a
sad balloon, “tomorrow is gonna be gravy. Don’t sweat it, alright?” He waits for
your nod before flashing his teeth in a seductive smile, “Check you later, Cherry.”
You mutter a quiet parting and he feels no shame when he takes this opportunity
to plant a spongy, warm kiss to your cheek. He connects with your gaze one last
time before waving goodbye to Nettie, retreating in three long strides and taking
off down the boardwalk in full speed on his skateboard.
“’Cherry’?”
You shrug as you both stand in the ensuing wave of silence, the wheels of his
skateboard growing more faint and drowning in the crash of the nearby ocean as
he shrinks into the distance. For some reason, the nickname sounds cheap
dripping from her sarcastic, chiding tongue. You much prefer to hear it exhaled in
a cloud of spun sugar, ballooning out from between two soft pink buttermints, “I
suppose so.”
“So that’s the elusive Harry, huh?” Nettie shrugs as she considers her own
question before finally taking her eyes off of the horizon, her body spinning
towards yours to heed your stolen attention, “he’s definitely a Casanova. Can’t
even bother to remember my name though.”
“Maybe he was just preoccupied and didn’t hear it properly. We were in the
middle of a pretty heavy conversation.”
“Maybe he’s just a jelly brain.” Nettie can hear your defensiveness even if you
are a bit absent and she’s surprised that you’ve just automatically and naturally
defended him, “are you nervous about tomorrow?”
“If one more person asks me that I’m going to play hooky tomorrow.”
Nettie laughs and adjusts her book bag over her shoulder, slinging her free
arm around your neck as you walk up the steps to your duplex together, “he
seems exactly like the Harry you’ve always described to me. He’s not different,
you know.” She wouldn’t admit this to you because she can sense your
apprehension about the exchange that took place as she walked up and
interrupted your flirty little bubble, but she could smell his air of contrition upon
her unwanted appearance, the splash of annoyance and protection that crossed
his features and the notion worries her a little bit. You had described the switch
in his behavior after his accident, but she always assumed that you were
exaggerating his uninhibited infatuation to a degree only because the notion
seemed unbelievable considering his past, “please be careful—”
“Alright, alright I know. I’m not going to allow anything to happen between us.
Trust me. It’s a terrible idea. Let me just put my things down and we can go to
Susie Q’s for a milkshake, okay? My blood sugar is crashing.”
Nettie watches you toss your belongings down on the couch, your fingers
scratching into your scalp as a way to ease your nerves, “I mean it. I’m just
looking out for you. You came home upset nearly every night. We would sit on
the couch for hours while you worked through all the nonsensical possibilities
for his harsh treatment. Don’t you have amnesia too.”
Heyyy, please remember to vote and comment and give me all the love because I
love you too! And don’t go too far because I think I have something else sitting
around here for ya…..
xx Birdie
SURPRISE DOUBLE UPDATE! AGAIN!
Just as you suspected, your night was more like a fever dream than anything
resembling actual, restful sleep. You climbed out of bed before the sun did,
standing under the heat of the shower-head with your gaze focused on nothing in
particular on the blush-tiled wall. It felt impossible to stomach your usual
breakfast and it made you mildly nauseous when you considered the volume of
food that Harry was probably consuming in that moment, so instead you swiped
a banana from the bowl of fruit on the kitchen counter and decided to skate to
work an hour early to give yourself some quiet time for grounding before he
arrived.
The theatre is marvelously peaceful this early in the morning, the halls dark
and quiet and most of the overhead lights still asleep to give off an even more
profound feeling of enormity than usual. You flick a few on as you walk towards
your dressing room, your palms sweaty and your heart ready to leap out of your
chest as you pass the practice space that you and Harry will be occupying in just
a couple hours. Your mind is shrink-wrapped in suffocating plastic by the time
you swing open the door with the word ’Trapeze’ scrawled in glitzy golden
cursive, the sight of a tall, shadowy figure just beyond the other side of the door
bubbling a strangled scream up your throat.
Obviously Harry wasn’t expecting anyone to be there either because his first
reaction is to fall to the ground on his back in full-on theatrics, his arms and legs
hanging in the air like a stunned, dying beetle with an unlit cigarette dangling
between his lips.
You clutch your palm to your heart and laugh at his exaggerated performance
through the soreness of your throat, your hand reaching down to help him up
from the ground, “you enormous idiot, get up.”
Harry wraps his fingers around your wrist and halfheartedly attempts to tug
you down on top of him, his dimple sinking into his cheek when you giggle and
struggle against his playful haul. He uses your leverage to pop himself up off the
floor, crossing the room in two steps to snag yet another bouquet of cheery
sunflowers from the vanity. He pads towards you, sweeping his hair from his
eyes and appearing deceitfully innocent when he chews on his bottom lip, “didn’t
expect you so fuckin’ early. You usually don’t get here ’til eight. G’morning.” This
time he is prepared for you to try to refuse his gift, so when you close your eyes
and shake your head softly, he takes another step closer and breathes out a
fragile plea, “c’mon. I’d give anything for another chance.” The weight of your
conversation last night had left residual emotional film on the lining of his
stomach, having gotten a glimpse of exactly how painful this whole partnership
and accident has been for you as well. He did dream of you just like he had
promised, but it wasn’t as sexy as he was hoping it would be. The sound of
distant ocean waves breaking against sand kept him in a light, fitful sleep, finally
deciding to drag himself out of bed around four this morning to surf and then
spring for an uncharacteristically warm shower at work.
I’d give anything for another chance.
His words spark an uncomfortable memory, except they aren’t words that
you’d ever heard him say before. They’re your words. Words that you had
uttered to him in the comfort of his powerless unconsciousness while he laid to
rest in a drug-induced coma with dried blood still clinging to his ear. You know
for a fact that he was in a deep sleep because Bunny told you so, and now you’re
wondering if he’s articulating a coincidence or if he’s reciting something from the
tangle of his subconscious. Perhaps Bunny was right about him being able to hear
you, your little speech spoken through the haze of swampy and marshy oblivion
having a hand in shaping his current adoration. Either way, the sunflowers held
in the air between the two of you seem to glow to life with his confession, his grin
matching their illumination when you pinch them from his fingertips with a
tender expression of gratitude.
“What’d you have for breakfast, Cherry?”

You exhale a huge breath of air as you drop your belongings into a sloppy,
atypical heap on your vanity before plopping the bouquet of sunflowers on top
and then resting your hip beside them, “um, nothing really. I just brought a
banana along with me. I didn’t have much of an appetite this morning.” You tend
to babble when you’re nervous about something, but Harry doesn’t seem to
mind, he’s much too busy eyeing the spot where your skirt brushes your bare
legs. You can hear yourself rambling and the habit irks the ever-living crap out of
you, but you also can’t seem to stop, “I took a long shower and then skated the
roundabout way to work. I’ve already had two lollipops. I chewed them before
they got soft enough and now my jaw hurts a little and my teeth feel scuzzy.
What’d you have for breakfast?”
“That’s it? You gotta eat, babe. Wanna go to the diner? We have a buncha time.
I’ll buy you waffles.” Your cheeks puff out at the thought of swallowing
something so heavy and sugary and he wants to laugh at your adorable
chipmunk face, but he decides to answer your question instead, “’kay. I scarfed
like, half a bag of granola and a couple glasses of Carnation Instant Break—”
“Okay, I can’t hear this right now. I’m sorry. I think I’m going to yak.”
Harry grins and flops down in the small vanity chair beside you, his knee
brushing yours and his proximity an instant swell of soothing sensibility, “d’ya
need me to split so you can get your shit together?”
You shake your head and watch him tilt his head to light his cigarette, the
familiar ambrosial scent working to further ease your nerves, “no. Stay.” It feels
like his heart physically grows in size at your request followed by the coy nibble
on your bottom lip, “I had all these nightmares about you losing your grip or
forgetting everything as soon as you’d learned it or realizing you could find a
million better partners than me and then firing me in front of an entire
audience.” You decide to leave out the part about him regaining his memory and
reverting back to all of his old habits, making your current situation nothing but a
brittle leaf in the wind.
“Man, quit talkin’ all that static. We’re gonna be fine. Better than fine. I got
you.” He rests his elbow on his thigh and reaches a hopeful hand out to you, “I
can’t fuckin’ wait to get my hands on you.”
It’s unexpected to feel so much comfort from his company and candor, the
source of all of your current frustration and turbulence simultaneously beaming
a steady stream of light straight into your heart. Nettie’s warnings dissolve into
the mirror at your back as you reach through his cloud of pink sugar to curl your
fingertips around his. Harry chokes on his smoke, his digits squeezing yours
tightly in recognition of your advance as he hunches forward and presses your
knuckles to his forehead first and then his lips, “so, can I jump your bones now?”
His delighted smile rivals your unamused frown, “cop a quick feel then?”
He laughs when you playfully smack the back of his head and move away from
him all at once, rifling through your bag of clothing to pull out your warm ups,
“nope, turn around.”
There never seems to be a perfect moment to break the news to Harry of your
Achille’s injury. Considering his betrayed reaction when you’d told him the first
time, you’re forecasting the same circumstance happening all over again, even
though he seems to be taking information with a grain of salt these days. It hurts
to even imagine purposely disturbing his genial mood for a whiplashing trigger.
You’re hoping the opportunity will present itself naturally so that you’re not
forced into the awkward position of sitting him down and staring into his faithful
eyes while you brace yourself for the heat of his biting anger.
Harry asks a ton of questions during your long, slow warm up. Whether or not
this was your typical procedure before his accident, if he could put music on and
dance with you a bit instead of boring himself to sleep on the ballet barre, if you
could hold his ankles while he does his round of sit ups, if he could lay you down
and help you stretch out your hips, how much longer you have until it’s time to
take your sunny break outside, how much longer you have until it’s time to
practice on the fly bar together.
Due to his surfing, skating and general restlessness, he’s maintained a nearly
perfectly fit physique while on sabbatical from the circus. You project that he will
probably be ready for the giants in just a few days’ time, so long as his brain can
withstand retaining information and routines, but so far that hasn’t proven to be
an issue either. He swears up and down that he’s already got your performance
choreography locked by how much time he’s spent watching you practice, that he
lives and breathes his role in the circus, that his muscle memory is impeccably
strong enough to withstand even a life-threatening head injury and that he’s a
natural born athlete.
All of the time that he spent observing you with his fingers wrapped around a
worn novel or buried in Beau’s fur, he’s been multitasking as he tried to fit
himself in with you, imagining the yin to your yang, picturing himself curled
around you and vice versa as you worked and tweaked your static routine on the
low-hanging fly bar and knotted rope.
Even though it’s clear that you’re the one in charge of scheduling your day
now, the two of you find yourselves in a stand-off as you try to decide what to do
first now that your bodies are limber and prepared for more serious activity.
Harry moans and groans about the tedium of calisthenics on the uneven bars and
how he doesn’t need to do them, holding his fist up in the air for a quick duel of
Rock Paper Scissors. You snip his losing paper in half, his fingers fumbling to
grab yours as you laugh and swat him away, “let’s start with ice cream makers
and some strengthening on the uneven bars, then we can work our way to the
trampoline for an easy reintroduction into tumbling.”
He groans and emphasizes the first word of his startled inquiry, “start with ice
cream makers? Ouch. Indy used to make me do those.”
“You used to make me do those.”

He laughs and surveys your expression before glancing to the bars, “alright.
That makes sense then, Honeyboss. I was pretty mean, huh? Taste of my own
medicine, I guess.”
“Mean but effective. I was in shape for the giants in a couple weeks.”
“I’m in perfect shape for the giants.” He untucks his wifebeater from his belted
gray sweats and pats his stomach carved with soft, effortless sinewy plateaus and
valleys, streaks of black ink shrouded in mysterious history, “wanna feel?”
“Nope. I believe you.”
“Worth a shot.”
He’s not wrong about being ready for the flying trapeze, with the way he so
painlessly plows through dozens of ice cream makers with only a couple grunts
and frowns towards the end. He nails his pullovers and dismounts, a couple
beads of sweat collecting on his forehead when you push him to do several
repetitions of hanging leg lifts. He proves the trampoline exercises to be nothing
but a cakewalk, your regimented training derailing steadily when he grabs you
by the waist and tosses you onto the bouncy mat with a shout of “popcorn!” and
jumps so fiercely that you become breathless from laughing as you try to regain
your balance.
Several hours into practice, Harry takes note of your irritability and how it’s
mostly aimed at the pressure you put on yourself to perform flawlessly. He’s
never been one to take harebrained procedures too seriously, having strong
enough faith in himself and his ability to accomplish his goals when the situation
calls for it. Of course there are times when he becomes frustrated with himself
when his body refuses to do what he’s asking of it, like when he’s trying to
remember who his partner is for example or when he’s attempting to perfect
dance choreography that he’s never had specialized training for. But watching
you pout over your own form and efficiency is honestly breaking his heart a little
bit because you’re easily the most talented and beautiful dancer he’s ever met in
his entire life.
When you snap at him for his simple suggestion to take ten for a snack, he
rolls his eyes and swipes his pack of cigarettes from the ground, tapping one out
with the heel of his hand before he points at you with his book of matches, “you
turn into a real crab when you’re hungry, you know that?” You shake your head
in defense and he nods as he brings his cigarette to life, “please eat before you
bite my head off. My face is way too pretty for that.”
“Wow, it’s nice to hear you being so humble for a change.”
“I know, right? Go eat, babe. M’serious. I’ll hang with you outside and we’ll trip
out on vitamin D before we hit the trapeze. I can run to the drugstore for you if
you need somethin’. Just take a chill pill.”
After a much-needed meal and reboot in the sunshine proves Harry right, you
find yourself standing on the edge of the mat much like he would always do when
roles were reversed and he was nit-picking your rehearsals. Harry hangs from
the low fly bar that hovers a mere eight feet from the safety mat below, his eyes
flicking between your anxious form and the mirror on the wall as he slowly and
carefully twists and maneuvers his way through what he’s observed of the
performance choreography. You help him with fluidity by providing verbal cues
of what position comes next, your fingers snapping at your side to help him keep
time as a substitute metronome.
The door to the rehearsal space swings open to reveal Rusty behind a cloud of
sooty, licorice-stained smoke, his unwanted and unexpected appearance an
instant damper on the energy of the space around you. He says nothing as he
keeps his eyes trained on the wounded star of his show, his back meeting the
cold wall as he sucks another drag of his cigarette and takes stock of the future
success of his business. Harry doesn’t seem to be affected by Rusty’s presence
but he does take note of your disturbance, his body hanging in a wringing one-
armed side planche as he awaits your next instruction which never comes.
He clears his throat to snap your attention back to him, “hey Honeybear, if I
stay like this too long my shoulder might pop outta the socket.” His smirk curls
into his cheeks before he hoists himself into a barrel roll and bends his knees
over the bar to float upside-down, his voice dropping to a whisper with a dash of
provocation, “c’mere.” He reaches his hands towards you and nods away your
hesitation, “yeah. Trust me. I’m fuckin’ buzzin’. Let me just get a feel for you an’
see what we’re workin’ with.”
You would hate to seem obstinate in front of your boss and it’s possible that
Harry knows that and is using Rusty’s company to his advantage, but you’ve also
been itching to revive your configuration with your partner just to see how it
feels now. Part of you understands that you’ve been evading it due to nerves and
the tension between you, but you accept that you can’t avoid it forever. Your eyes
fall closed when you breathe deeply through your nose, sweat breaking out from
each pore of your body as you cross the mat and reach up to slip your hands into
his.
Harry lifts you into the air with ease and perches you on the bar between his
knees, “roll forward.” He continues to speak to disrupt your hesitance before it
begins, “I got you. Drop.”
Your gaze snaps to the distant ceiling before falling on the mirror displaying
your reflection, the sight of Harry’s brawny and determined physique finally
pitching you forward into a graceful tumble that lands you straight into his arms.
He wraps the rope around his foot as he spirals your joined figures into an
impressive pike in the same moment, his knee catching yours and locking your
thighs and hips tightly together as you both hang in unwavering suspension in an
intimate, confronting embrace. His arm sweeps between your shoulder blades
and along your spine, his hefty palm supporting your neck and shoulders as you
both suck in a gasp and gawk at one another through the explosion and
reestablishment of your parallel universes.
His pupils dilate and saturate like a dry sponge dropped into a bucket of hot
water, an entire Christmas tree lighting up with colored bulbs and shining tinsel
the moment its plugged into its socket. You can feel his fingers inch upwards to
cradle the back of your head, the tips of his digits tangled into the underbelly of
your ponytail as your gazes smolder and you both pant softly into the heated gap
between your mouths. His nails dig into your hair, your bellies expanding with
shaking breaths to surge goosebumps down your back and across your limbs. If
Harry had any less dignity, he’d moan into your mouth and rut your hips
together, begging you once and for all to end his suffering and make him yours.
For the first time since you’ve met this new version of Harry, he’s stunned into
speechlessness, his mouth vacuumed dry and his heart beating in his throat and
temples. Lust drips across his features and you can’t help but feel like a quaking
rabbit caught in the teeth of a hungry, cunning fox while the room and the whole
world around you fades into obscurity. His desire seeps from his skin right to
your bones, chilling you from the inside out when you muster a choked,
uncharacteristic curse, “holy shit, Harry.”
The reason for his attraction to you now is obvious. It’s the chemistry. His
body remembers it. And suddenly yours does too.
Rusty peels himself from the wall and saunters towards you, his hands
slamming together into slow, stunned applause, “now that’s the Harry Styles I
remember!”
Harry lowers you to the ground gently before releasing himself, the two of you
simultaneously staggering away from each other with the force of your reeling
magnetism. Rusty approaches and you can feel Harry’s gaze oozing into you from
the corner of your eye, his chest heaving as he catches his breath and tries to
comprehend what the fuck just happened.
It’s wholly validating to feel the jolt of wonder paralyze him as it has you, the
bewilderment of unsuspecting fireworks deafening you both into submission. It’s
as if a key element that you were unaware of for your entire working
relationship has finally clicked into place, making it feel as though there was no
boundary between where he ended and you began. Every fear that kept you
awake last night vaporizes, your mind turning black and filling with a burst of
shooting stars, your toes curling into the safety mat where you stand frozen in
place. You have become true, uninhibited and faithful partners and it’s the most
absorbing feeling you can ever imagine.
Rusty speaks but it sounds like he’s talking into an empty coffee can attached
to a string held to your ear, “that was spectacular and it’s only the beginning.” His
voice becomes more and more muffled when your eardrums start to ring from
the intensity of Harry’s all-consuming stare, “I can see the headlines now, ’Harry
Styles Comeback a Victory for Russell Buchanan’s Circus Extravaganza’.”
It’s as if you and Harry are both gaping straight through Rusty’s skull at one
another, your hearts attempting to jump out and collide mid-air to perform
breathtaking feats. Harry’s lips form around a silent question, your head slipping
into a slow-motion nod in response without your awareness, “feel that?”
“So, I need help with somethin’ tonight and you’re just the girl.”
You had practically run off to shower after your rekindling with Harry, his
heart left in a cloud of dust as you disappeared from his sight while he was stuck
barely listening to Rusty talk his ear off about matters of bureaucracy. He waited
respectfully for you to bathe and change before taking his turn, his jaw falling
slack when he emerged shirtless from the bathroom to find you combing your
hair and allowing it to dry naturally around your neck and shoulders. You had
decided to wear it down for a change of pace, not because he’s been begging you
to do it and trying to pull the ribbon from your ponytail or anything desperate
like that. Although your heart did skip a beat when he crossed the room and
squeezed between you and the vanity, his fingers tangling into your hair and
damp heat radiating from his chest as he muttered, “so pretty with your hair
down. Cool. Such a sweet, ripe Cherry.”
The walk home seemed to soar by today much to your dismay, with your
reflections of the day seeming to swallow time with each step forward. The
journey is quieter than usual, likely because Harry hasn’t been filling the air with
his typical crude quips and endless questioning for the same reason. Instead each
time his hand brushes against yours, you have a strong undeniable urge to cling
tightly to his fingers but lingering anxieties and Nettie’s cautioning keeps you just
out of reach. Harry can feel the switch in energy and he has a feeling your strides
for the day aren’t going to start and stop on the trapeze bar, so he decides he isn’t
going to give up easily.
“Tonight? I’m not going on a date with you, Harry.”
A flock of seagulls passes overhead and Harry uses your moment of

distraction to tickle the inside of your wrist before gripping your hand, your
defenses melting into your loafers and falling behind in heavy footprints when he
weaves your digits together in utmost trepidation. You watch your hands
enmesh before squeezing, his heart sending a jolt of bloodlust to his stomach
when you don’t brush him away for once. He’s been working on a new tactic
since pushing you with the word ’date’ has proved to be too strong, so he lets it
fall wayside for the sake of subtlety. His eyelids flutter closed before drawing in a
breath and humming on the exhale, “it’s not a date. Just a little road trip.”
You come to a stop on the sidewalk outside of your duplex, the feeling of his
warm, large hand flipping your stomach and thoroughly scrambling your brain,
“road trip?” He nods but you narrow your eyes in hesitation, “where?”
“Down the coast a bit. I’ll have you home by midnight. Please say yes.” Harry
compresses your hand once and raises it into the air for a kiss to your knuckles,
“please. I promise you’ll have fun.” He sucks air into his lungs and waits with
baited breath as you study his face and take your time formulating an answer, his
heart quivering and ready to either burst with happiness or implode in
frustration.
“Okay. Fine.” Harry gasps and beams like a lighthouse, sponging several more
kisses into the back of your hand and the inside of your wrist. You laugh and try
to push him off but he seems to be adhered to you like superglue, “not a second
after midnight though.” He nods and nods, much too elated to verbally respond
as he tugs on your arm and pulls you in for a warm cuddle. You hum as you
return his embrace, his velocity rocking you back and forth before he peels away
and has to physically restrain himself from kissing your supple mouth, “thanks
for walking me.”
“It’s cool. Far out, babe. I’ll swing by at nine.” Harry feels too excited to stand
in one spot, so instead he passes your belongings to you and begins backing up
towards the street, “you won’t regret it.”
You smile and wave goodbye as you try to quell the brewing sickness in your
stomach, your feet pulling you away from him in the exact same manner, “okay. I
trust you.” After the way he cushioned you today at practice, it seems impossible
not to.
Harry waits for you to let yourself in, a hundred butterfly’s wings flapping in
his guts when you unlock the door and signal your safety. He nibbles on his
bottom lip and cups his hands over his mouth to shout after you, “it’s a date!” You
can tell by his cheeky smile that he’s just teasing you, although you know deep
down that part of him wants to believe it. You don’t respond because he never
seems to hear your negative answers anyway, instead he fills in the hiccup of
silence just before the door slams shut, “oh and Cherry?” You poke your head
through the threshold to find him swimming in cotton candy ripples, “wear
trousers.”
OH MY GOD I JUST LOVE SPOILING YOU SO MUCH!
The next chapter is epic, so I might need a little bit of time to write it for it to be
perfect. I’ve been looking forward to it for MONTHS. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s
ready. Any predictions on where he’s taking her?!
I love you so much! See you all very soon.
xx Birdie
“How’s it hangin’, Nicole? Cherry decent?”
As soon as your door slammed shut, the heavy breaths exerted from your
chest drowned the echo of your footsteps trudging up the staircase. You’d just
agreed to follow Harry to god-knows-where to do god-knows-what, the faded
souvenir mask of his slushy dimple and raw eyes pounding rocks into your skull
to convince you to let your guard down for an evening of mystery.
It was thoroughly unlike you in every way, consenting to be picked up from

your home at a time when you’re typically slipping into a nightgown for the
evening, settling all of your trust and safety into the hands of a person that you
would have much rather leapt from a window to avoid just weeks ago. You could
still feel the prickle of his palm print in yours as you jogged down the hallway
past your kitchen and banged Nettie’s bedroom door wide open, your hair falling
in natural feathers around your cheekbones as you whined about having just
made a huge mistake.
What you didn’t know is that in that exact same moment, Harry had escaped a
single block away and tumbled into the first patch of grass he saw, allowing his
eyelids to fall shut with the setting sun flushing against the smile sculpted into
his handsome features. He was well beyond the point of feeling nervous or
apologetic for his feelings. He wasn’t even sure if the term ’excitement’ quite cut
it, but he knew that there wouldn’t be many diverse thoughts passing through his
mind for the next couple of hours, aside from lucid abstractions of what was to
come and the reflection of how it felt to have your hips nestled against his as you
hung upside-down in a hammock of gooey, caramelized heaven from the swaying
trapeze bar.
To him your body felt a lot like dipping your big toe into perfectly tempered,
foamy bath water; when it was neither too hot nor too cold, the luscious puffs of
cherry-scented bubbles consuming him straight to the bone, the line of where
your honeyed skin ended and his began unidentifiable.
Cupid’s arrow had been honing in on his heart for months, but now it was so
deeply lodged into his chest that he had begun to accept the permanent ache as
an infinite growing pain. And fuck, it hurt so good to be punctured by venomous
infatuation.
The lightness of the clouds had nothing on him.
Nettie didn’t try very hard to hide her discouragement of the predicament,
suggesting that perhaps you could feign illness or turn all of the lights off inside
of your apartment while you hid under the bed and pretended you weren’t home
when he returned to pick you up. She was understandably worried about his
intentions, pointing out how little you truly know about him and how he chooses
to spend his free time on the weekends. You don’t know any of his friends
outside of the circus or much about his social history aside from the handful of
burners you’d seen him unabashedly flaunting around the courtyard of your
workplace. It’s possible that you’d find yourself in an uncomfortable situation
with no escape, trapped however many miles away from home in a town you’d
never even step foot in before, mascara dripping down your cheeks as you
shivered and searched the desolate streets for a payphone.
You knew better though. You knew in the very pit of your heart that Harry
would voluntarily walk straight off of the edge of a cliff to avoid inflicting any
amount of pain on you. That much was explicitly clear in the streak-free mirror of
his eyes, the tweak of his sensible smile, the stability of his warm hands. There
was no use in attempting to convince her of this though, Nettie was less than
impressed by a sprinkling of bewitching flattery and cursory doting. She’d seen it
all before and didn’t trust such a snap twist in behavior, regardless of how many
head injuries or life-altering near-death experiences were involved.
Human beings are as dynamic and static as the ocean. The tide rises and falls
with the phase of the moon but the substance under the surface is always the
same; a groundwork of haunted, empty shells and polished sea glass. We all have
shadowy ghosts and lustrous treasures, but it’s the strength of the swell that
determines our characters. Harry was riding a crest of desire right now, but what
happens when the wave crashes to shore? What will be exposed, phantoms or
gemstones?
Regardless of Nettie’s disapproval of the mysterious adventure that you were

coerced into, she agreed to help you make yourself look presentable based on
Harry’s minimal, vague guidelines. She allowed you to sift through her closet in
search of acceptable trousers since you personally had a count of less than three
in your dresser, finally landing on a pair stained a color of faded periwinkle that
were hemmed at the ankle and which zipped up the back. You opted for one of
your favorite buttoned, sleeveless blouses, which you originally intended to tuck
into the waistband of your slim pants until Nettie tugged it loose and tied it in a
scandalous knot just above your bellybutton.
Nettie has always felt the urge to be protective of you and your delicate
sensibilities, but she’s always been the one coaxing you to live a little as well.
Maybe if you showed more skin it would give me something to remember.
Your cheeks flamed a dramatic color of red that you didn’t even know was
possible until you saw your own reflection, covering your bare skin with your
arms and squealing about feeling naked and easy. She scoffed and rolled her
eyes, claiming that you were a brick house and demanding that if you were going
to be stupid enough to agree to a date, that you needed to at least act like you
were going to enjoy it. You claimed once and for all that it wasn’t a date, but
instead she laughed it off and ignored your denial, lowering a wand of mascara to
your bottom lashes and muttering, “whatever you say, baby. Look up, breathe
deep and think of beaches.”
Nettie wrapped your hair up in empty orange juice cans for a bit of volume
and wedged a thick headband into your locks, finally painting a sleek, sooty cat-
eye atop your eyelids before stepping back and nodding in approval, “I hope
you’re on birth control.”
You whined and fussed and tugged at your clothing, wondering why on earth
she had decided to help you further dig a hole into this whole dirty mess that was
Harry, but deciding instead to unwrap a fresh lollipop and flop defeatedly into
her sheets, “he’s gonna be here any minute because he has a terrible habit of
being early these days. Can you answer the door and stall a bit?” You popped the
candy into your mouth and pressed your palm to your burning forehead, “I think
my nerves are shot.”
“When he gets here, I’m tempted to drag him out into the hall by the ear like
my father did with all of my dates in high school and threaten him with
castration, y’know? Think he’ll dig that? Did you remember to put Ash’s number
in your purse?”
Nettie was bummed that she already had plans to spend the night with her
boyfriend, but she wrote down the phone number of his place so that you could
call if you found yourself in a hairy situation. She promised she would drive to
wherever you were if you needed rescuing and that she’d pack an ice pick and
duct tape in her trunk, claiming that no one would miss him if he so much as
fucked with you. You knew that she was joking, but you’d be lying if you said you
didn’t get a chill up your spine with her humorous bluff.
When the doorbell rang followed by six rhythmic, gentle drums of a knuckle,
your eyes widened in panic before you scampered into the bathroom and threw
the door shut behind you. With the water turned on full blast and your hand
forming a cup under the swan faucet, you could barely make out the smooth
rumble of Harry’s voice slipping under the crack and bouncing off of the pink
tiles as he greeted your roommate. You imagined how he was likely positioned;
cool and collected, one shoulder perched on the doorframe, his head tilted in
curiosity as the infamous arced curl tapped his eyebrow, his jaw popping as he
worked a piece of candied clementine gum.
Your artistry ended when you tried to guess what he could be wearing. What
you have observed is that Harry is both perfectly predictable and bafflingly
capricious at the same time and you know the moment you lay eyes on him, he’ll
astound you and reassure you all at once. Like a drizzle of hot fudge, you can
picture exactly how it might taste when you close your eyes and envision it, but
having it melt on your tongue is a much more conscious experience.
You creak the faucet off and press your ear up against the door for a second of
healthy eavesdropping, his initial hello drowned in the drain but Nettie’s
response is perfectly audible, “for the third time, it’s Nettie. It’s short for
Wynette. Nettie.” There’s a moment of pause where your brain fills in the tick
with Harry unapologetically raising his eyebrows and puckering his lips in faux
interest, followed by Nettie’s dubious, “she’ll be out in a minute. What’s the plan
for tonight anyway?”
“Little road trip. Nice pad. Mind if I—”
Your history, your coworkers, your roommate, your straight-laced parents,

your suppositions. They all swirl in a climactic frenzy behind your eyelids —
their heeds of caution and your checklist of projected fears — before you pop
your eyes open and shake it all away. Your life has been carefully examined and
dormant for much too long. A handful of hours with Harry isn’t going to build or
destroy anything, and it’s with that realization that you pinch your cheeks and
fluff your hair, deciding to prove everyone around you wrong but most
importantly, yourself.
Get laid, Clyde.
It’s nearly unbearable to hear Nettie give him a hard time before your evening
has even begun, so with a final glance in the mirror, you’re pushing the bathroom
door open and stepping out into the hallway in his direct line of sight to ease his
fervid expectations.
The room floods with a tidal wave of cherry-flavored lust that fills Harry’s
mouth, relativity freezing in its tracks and your roommate halting into a
mannequin as her voice, energy and body withdraw from his peripheral vision.
His nonchalant stance against the jamb stiffens when he pushes the door aside
and steps into the foyer, a single radiating sunflower pinched in his studded
hands and his jaw falling slack in shock before lazily curling into a wicked grin.
His casual, lounge-inspired suit is either perfectly tailored to his frame or his
figure just effortlessly flaunts anything he displays. In any case he looks as
though he’s just stepped off of a glossy page; thick strokes of black dabbled with
pinstripes of pink lemonade, a matching sherbet-painted wifebeater underneath.
His choice of coloring precisely matches his personality; pastel tones fighting
furiously to break free from the shadows, all masked by a face of dreams.
“Fuck me.”
“Harry.” Your soft giggle snaps him from his trance as he gestures you near
with two curls of his index finger, his heartrate speeding up when you obey him
and step within arm’s reach, “hi. For me?”
“I should be askin’ you the same thing. You can have it all. Everything.” He
hands you the sunflower and brushes his fingertips against yours as he plants a
kiss on your forehead, “you look fuckin’ unreal. Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” His knuckle
taps your brow where your skin still thrums from his kiss, his eyes roaming
across your face in liquid appreciation, “killer. I missed you.”
Nettie rolls her eyes and gathers the sunflower from your hands, “I’ll put this
in water with all the other ones. Behave, kids.” Behind Harry’s back, Nettie holds
her thumb and pinky to her cheek to signal the notion of a telephone as she
mouths the words ’call me if you need me’.
Harry doesn’t take his steaming gaze off of you, “she’ll be home by midnight,
mum. Ready, Honeyfox?” He whistles when he watches you take a step back to
grab your cardigan from its hook, his verbal gratitude not yet ready to wane as
his typical preoccupation swamps him, “givin’ me chest pains, for fuck’s sake.”
His doting is admittedly flustering as you juggle your keys from the bowl on
the console table and slink into the hallway with his feet chasing your heels, his
hands reaching up to paw at your hips the moment you close the door and
fumble with the lock, “okay, okay. Give me a second.” You swat at him and nearly
drop the keys, “Harry, stop—”
Harry crowds your back and presses his palm against the door beside your
head, the heat of his proximity drying out your mouth and now you’re wishing
you’d remembered to bring more lollipops with you in case this pattern happens
to repeat itself throughout the evening. He stays quiet as the lock clicks into place
before he licks his lip and sighs into your hair, his fingertips curling against the
wooden barrier as he attempts to check his libido, “I’m not lettin’ you outta my
fuckin’ sight tonight. You’re gonna flood the joint.”
You spin in his grasp and breathe in his brazen anguish, gaining courage to lift
your chin and challenge his stare, “and which joint are you referring to exactly?”
“You wouldn’t know it.” He peels his hand from the door to cup your jaw, his
teeth piercing and then freeing his bottom lip as he zeroes in on your pout and
lowers his voice to a trace of a rolling, distant thunderstorm, “can I?”
Your vision bounces from his mouth and back to his eyes, your stomach a nest
of viable butterflies, “this isn’t a date.”
His smile grows so wide that it eventually fractures with peachy laughter, “oh
shit, that’s right. I almost forgot. Let’s boogie.” He flips his hand over between
your bodies and you don’t waver to knit your fingers together, reveling in that
familiar sensation of your insides twisting up when his spirit zips up your limb
and dwells inside of your chest.
“And even then, I wouldn’t kiss you until afterwards.”

Harry pauses his descent down the stairs and narrows his eyes at you in
playful cynicism, “you’re just a tease.” He backs up against the railing and
gestures for you to take the lead for the rest of the steps. He’s trying hard to be a
gentleman, but he also really wants to see how good your ass looks in a pair of
trousers, “you outclass me, Cherry. Shit. I’m fuckin’ intimidated, if I’m honest. I
didn’t know what to expect, but this wasn’t it.” To him you surpass his abilities in
every area that he wishes were more of a priority for him; drive, willpower,
virtue. If only he knew that you felt the same way, just about other capacities. His
clarity, his certainty, his strength.
He recognizes that you’ve made an effort to please him with your looks, with
your hair down and a sliver of bare skin exposed just above the waistband of
your pants and he doesn’t take it for granted. If you don’t consider this a date,
then he cannot fucking wait to see what you would consider a date.
When you reach the bottom of the staircase, he slips in front of you and rests
his hand on the doorknob to halt your exit, “got anything to add to that?” His jaw
works his gum as he studies your beautifully illustrated face, his insides
shriveling up for just a dose of honesty from you. It crosses his mind that if
you’ve always been this closed off to him, then it makes sense that he would have
been constantly trying to get a rise out of you before, “how do I look? Any words
of encouragement?”
It feels impossible at times to chip away at your own layer of protective icicles,
but the heat of Harry’s perpetual sunbeam is beginning to thaw out a slow and
steady drip, “you look really great.”
“And how about you?”
You frown and glance down at your outfit, “I guess I look—”
“No, Honeypot.” His fingertips tickle up your arm before brushing over your
chest where your heartbeat thumps to greet him, “how do you feel?”
“Good.” He shakes his head to indicate that you’ve said the wrong thing and to
try again, “um…..” Your palms begin to sweat and you wish that he would just
open the door and take you wherever he plans to take you and bring you home
so that this night can be over already. He’s trying hard to bend a piece of scrap
metal with his bare hands and you suppose it’s pretty commendable, “I’m
nervous.”
“Nah, you babble when you’re nervous. Try again. Lay it on me.”
You scoff at his mistrust and peel your eyes away from his busy stare, a
budding realization rearing its ugly head that all of your questioning and insults
throughout the course of your relationship may have been nothing but a
deflection from your innermost self. He doesn’t need to explicitly say it for you to
understand that he also thinks this, his opinions are exposed in skeptical glances,
blunt confrontation and fluid expletives, “okay, fine….. I’m a little scared.”
“Why?”
Your instinct is to retort with a sardonic quip about not needing a shrink, but
then you remember that you don’t have to, that the person standing in front of
you seems willing to accept whatever you lay out for him, that his concerns and
interest seem to spread a lot wider than frivolous, air-headed passion, “well…..
what if I hate it? What……f... I love it? What if something bad or uncomfortable
happens?”
“Either way you’re gonna grow a little bit, y’know?”
His insights continue to bowl you over onto a freshly waxed, glistening floor.
You’re just wishing the soles of your shoes had a little more tread.
You’re brought back to the moment by his fingers slotting through yours
again, “c’mon, sweet cheeks. I cleaned up my van for you.”
For some reason you kind of enjoy that he hasn’t promised you the time of
your life or expressed how he expects the evening to pan out. You’re so highly-
regimented and disciplined that it feels like a breath of fresh air to allow another
person to take the reins on where you end up tonight, both physically and
emotionally. He has carefully taken action to prepare the scene and give you
freedom to interact with the variables however you wish. Maybe if his heated
palms can work to soften the iron gates surrounding your fortress, you’ll begin to
warp and melt in exactly the way you were always meant to.
Either way you’re gonna grow a little bit.
Harry’s plump van sits just outside of your duplex, a flavor of silky pink,
strawberry shortcake that you’ve only tasted in dreams. He pops the side doors
open for you to poke your curious head in; you had a distant glance just once
when you ran into him at the beach at dawn, but have been wildly intrigued for a
closer look into how he organizes his belongings and chooses to decorate his
space. You can discover so much about a person by the way they establish their
territory and the items they choose to keep, much more than you can just by
looking at or talking to them. Or studying their sherbet-toned clothing.
You remember a time when you imagined his closet, filled with rolls of classic
Necco wafers and pastel powdered sugar, until you’d seen his actual
accommodations and were forced to reframe your mental image of him. But now
with your nose buried into his cramped personal space, you’re realizing yet again
that your assumptions of him were a bit skewed and biased, with the way his
cabin appears both perfectly catalogued and intentionally rumpled. Like an
expensive, worn-in suit that was hand-selected and has been lovingly cared for,
all sharp shoulders and shiny cufflinks with a few shiny buttons hanging from
their threads. Charming, complex yet simple. Effortlessly hip. Very Harry.
Tubed lighting the color of pixie dust runs along the perimeter of the floor
boards, bound patterned curtains line the vast number of windows, two bench
seats face inward with a divot in the ground for a makeshift table to be screwed
into, a pop top houses a loft bed with a view of the unsuppressed night sky above,
every inch of it a shade of muted, gourmet salt water taffy. Along one side of the
van is a modest, utilitarian kitchen space with a sink, a single stovetop burner
and a couple small exposed cabinets with easily-prepared foods; Ritz crackers
and Cheez-Whiz, peanut butter, Pop-Tarts, cereal, tea and powdered drinks, tons
of fresh fruit. You feel sorry that he’s forced to eat simple, packaged foods and
have half a mind to offer to cook meals for him, but that somehow seems like
something you would do for someone you’re dating, so you swallow your
suggestion before it grows too bold and mighty.
He doesn’t take ownership of very many belongings. His surfboard is strapped

to the roof, his skateboard pinned to the wall in order to keep it from rolling
around, an acoustic guitar and his weathered leather jacket lay at rest across one
of the bench seats. Latched cabinets underneath the seating are likely used for
clothing storage. There are built-in shelves attached to the opened doors stuffed
with books, vinyl records, half burned candles and a few loose packs of Crush
cigarettes. It’s not difficult to admit to yourself that his home is exceptionally
lovely considering the circumstances and it makes the little spark of fondness
that you had begun to recognize crackle with a burst of oxygen. For a fleeting
moment you imagine what it would be like to wake up here surrounded by a
flood of sunshine from every angle, the rubber tires softly sunken into the sand,
the sound of the ocean pulling you from sleep, his body tucked cozily behind
yours.
Harry can’t handle the silent scrutiny much longer. He’d spent about an hour
brushing sand from the floor and fluffing his pillows, rearranging his records into
alphabetical order, emptying his ashtrays and scrubbing something gummy out
of his sink, “what do you think?”
“I like it. A lot. I love it actually. It’s very you, Harry. Straightforward and
dreamy and pink.”
Every time you say his name his heart skips a beat, “you think I’m dreamy?”
Did you say that? Had you meant to? “Um…..” You realize that you have just
been caught in a daydream of cuddling with Harry in his bed at daybreak and you
don’t really know where to go from there, with the apparition still lingering in
the back of your mind and unwilling to fade upon its long-awaited discovery, “I
was just talking about your van. It’s groovy. It’s not really what I expected. I’m
impressed.”
Now Harry is imagining you folded into his sheets with the moon casting a
blue, haunting glow across your bare curves, the rubber tires softly sunken into
the sand, the sound of the ocean lulling you to sleep, hands roaming every inch of
your sinful skin, his body cozily tucked behind yours. He wants to kiss you so
badly that his lips begin to tickle, “fuckin’ rad. Hop in, Honeybunny.”
Harry pulls open the passenger door and gestures you inside with a flick of his
chin, tilting his head for a better look at the cinch of your waist as you pile in and
take note of the front seats. Empty ashtrays aside from dusty rose, ember relics,
fabric elastic pouches near the driver’s seat stuffed with roadmaps and a photo of
Frank Sinatra’s famous mugshot dangling from his rear-view mirror.
There are so many questions that you want to ask, specifically about his choice
to display a crime of morals from such a conspicuous spot in his car but instead
you land on, “hey….. have you ever been arrested?”
“In the United States?”
“Um—”
“Hey Queen of Rock and Roll, what do you wanna listen to?”
The side doors slam closed behind Harry before he reaches into the front seat,
flicking a switch on the dash with his knuckle that urges a mechanism from the
wall to lower; a minimal spindle to load a record into, the tonearm releasing
when he taps the power button. He shrinks in the main cabin to shuffle through
his vinyl collection and you point to one that he passes by with this thumb, the
simple white font spelling out the words Roy Orbison catching your eye. You’ve
never heard of him before, but it seems like a safe decision based on the benign
name.
“Perfect choice, babe.” Whether or not his words are sincere doesn’t matter,
his encouragement feels like being wrapped in a wool blanket and hugged as
tightly as possible, as though you had a promising bubble of protection in case
you happened to take a tumble.
The music crackles to life so abruptly through his speakers that your ears
prick and tingle with the harmonic massage, the sensation of falling tempting you
to reach out and grip the door handle. It’s loud. Louder than how you usually
listen to your folk or classical records in the privacy of your living room and as
soon as you push the discomfort aside, you’re ready to immediately admit to
yourself that you like the way the notes burrow a soulful hole into your chest. He
folds his body into the driver’s seat and does a double-take over his shoulder,
tapping the electronic cigarette lighter with his thumb before the corners of his
mouth pull into a grin as you begin to sway with the burst of the chorus, “like it?”
You nod and shout over the volume of the drums beating in the same rhythm
of your heart, “I love it.” And when he growls in sync with the vocalist, the snort
that rips from your nose pulls laughter from deep inside both of your stomachs.
The entire road trip out of Malibu is bound to the winding precipice of the
Pacific Coast Highway, the eerie and moonlit waves breaking against boulders of
rock and turning foamy white upon impact. Each time you ask where Harry is
taking you, he responds with a coy shrug and a long drag of his cigarette, tactfully
changing the subject by asking if you’re wearing a new perfume, attempting to
tip toe his fingertips onto your thigh or offering you his jacket in case you’re too
cold with the windows down. The air is crisp and fat as it percusses against your
palm, your fingers curling around the thick, passing air as if trying to catch a
fistful of the sparkly heavens in your embrace.
Harry watches your simple nature from the corner of his eye, your chin
resting in your palm and your hair blowing in wisps around your face. He revels
in the sensation of slowness and ease, the rare moment of quietude between the
two of you and imagining your reaction to the scene he’s about to toss you in less
than an hour’s time. He realizes that it’s not the kind of place to bring a girl like
you, but he kind of enjoys the prospect of seeing you out of your element and
thrown into his. It’s a world that he visits weekly and one that he feels defines a
big part of his character; raucous, unruly and perhaps a bit sleazy. He loves your
unabashed attitude towards who you are at your core and how contradictory it is
to himself; posh and refined, principled bordering on austere, wildly
unattainable.
It drives him absolutely mad with thirst for most hours of most days, his
insides cramping for just a sample of what no one else has had the pleasure of
exploring. He dreams of chipping away at you until you finally cave, trusting him
enough to melt into his arms and shed each papery layer of bark that maintains
your stringency. There’s also something unruly and perhaps a bit sleazy inside of
you as well, whether you’re aware of it or not, and he plans to tap into it and
savor each morsel that you allow him to taste. There is something that is so
provocative about the concept of you being dirty for him alone; a picture-perfect
princess to the rest of the world, a lacy pin-up in the privacy of his devilish linens.
He may be the only person who sees it, but maybe that’s because his lust-tinted
sunglasses make him more observant than most.
Cherry and honey under his tongue. Silk and velvet in his palms. For his eyes
and his eyes only.
The word ’corruption’ comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative
aspect of his personality. We are all teachers and we teach by either living or
slowly dying. Your body language is begging for a new lesson on existing and he
gathers that you could guide him along with a thing or two as well. If anyone
could teach him anything, it’s you.
Harry’s van veers from the PCH and makes its way through a fairly large town,
the street name of Speedway catching your eye before you take note of the
crowds lining the streets. Beatniks and hippies, passing joints to one another or
crouched in doorways. Spray-painted peace signs on homes and garage doors,
surfboards perched against porches and old Mercury Woodies, faded Coca-Cola
and Coppertone advertisements on brick facades, dirty and frayed awnings over
corner drug stores and finally a sign strung across the middle of the main drag
that simply reads: Venice.
Your eyes lock on one another and to his surprise, you toss your head back in
laughter before sliding your palms down your face, “this place has a reputation,
doesn’t it?” You’re trying really, really hard to squash your fears and grow a little
bit, “what are we doing here?”
“Scopin’ out the scene.” He pulls his van to a stop and shifts the gear into park
before turning to face you, knowing that you’re going to find out sooner rather
than later and it honestly makes him a little jittery. It may be a tad evil that he’s
brought you so far from home that you’re left with no other option but to rely on
him, but he supposes that type of possessive nature has always been a part of
him. It just seems to be exceptionally heightened around you, “I’ll take care of
you. Still trust me?”
You nod and he smiles before poking his tongue into the corner of his mouth,
his fingertip reaching out to tap the end of your nose, “that’s my girl. We got a bit
of a walk. Want my jacket?”
“I’m okay.” Harry hops out of the car and jogs to the passenger door, swinging
the door open and reaching out a warm palm to help you down. This time you’re
careful to welcome your body’s response when your hand slips into his, his
thumb immediately stroking the back of your hand as he tugs you close and
wraps an arm around your neck to steer you down the uncongested side-street,
“why did we park so far away?”
Harry shrugs and then nods in a silent gesture for you to follow him, “don’t
worry about it. Just trust me.”
Hey sweet babes! Happy Aerial Weekend! I hope you liked this one and I’ll see
you tomorrow for seventeen! ♥️Xx B
The source of the drips that fall from the overhead balconies is a complete
mystery. It hasn’t rained in this area of California for weeks upon parched weeks,
and with side-stepping the puddles around your feet in the vain hope of keeping
your stark white sneakers dry, you pray to anyone who will listen that you
haven’t just accidentally traipsed through traces of human fluids. Harry doesn’t
seem to mind where he walks at all, the pointed toe of his wingtip oxfords
bending at the ball as he happily bounces through the dank gravel of moon-
checkered alleyways.
You lost track of your direction by the fourth or fifth turn, the north star
overhead beckoning you onward and promising to keep an eye on you as it
continues to make itself known at the end of each dimly-lit passageway. Harry
does a flawless job of keeping you entertained as you wander past colorful
buildings in the backstreets of Venice, his nimble fingers slipping around your
wrist as he spins you away from and then back towards him, humming haunting
melodies from the car ride into the dingy streets. You have no idea that he’s
already intentionally picking at your threads to loosen the fabric for what’s to
come, the pink smoke from his cigarettes creating an ethereal glow around your
heart under the one-off, flickering streetlights.
He asks you again and again to admit that you’ve worn a new perfume to
impress him and to beckon the tip of his nose closer to your neck, but you would
never confess that you indeed swiped a bottle from Nettie’s dresser when she
wasn’t looking and spritzed a single scattering of her powdery scent at your
pulse point. It was an action that was more for you than it was for him anyhow; it
somehow seemed to fill in the fissures of your atypical outfit and hair style, as if
you were trying out for a role tonight to see if it’s something that you could get
into the habit of. Allowing yourself to be whisked away far past sunset, lacking
concern for your destination, playing the part of the kind of girl who is secure
enough for someone like Harry.
A sharp fingernail begins to prod your little bubble the moment you hear
muffled live music creaking out from a nearby unknown affiliation, the heart-
thumping sound of basement-snuffed drums and muted vocals stirring
something deep inside of your chest. Harry follows your lead and slows to a
pause before stepping in your path, his fingers splaying across your jaw and into
your hair as he directs your gaze from the obscure to the familiar, “Cherry baby.”
Your soul softens at the sight of light reflecting off of his irises, “I was scared
shitless the first time I saw you after I cracked my head open. But I dove in hard
and I dove in fast. Can you do that for me?”
You’re unsure if he’s talking about tonight or eternally, but you nod anyway.
“Good, ’cause you’re about to rock and roll.”
Just as his words funnel into your stomach, a nameless door bangs open
behind him to bleach you with abrasive, lawless funky music, followed by a
group of people all suiting a fashionable subculture to a T. It pops into your
awareness that Harry is a healthy combination of rocker and mod, with an illicit
mindset and a chic wardrobe, never boxing himself to any one specific
classification but leaving that duty to the beholder. You can imagine him in a
variety of situations; the crescendo of a salty ocean wave, the center of a lively
circus ring, the back alleys of Venice, the chic streets of London, the backseat of
his van with his fingertips slipping over the strings of a guitar, shirtless in your
kitchen with a dribble of orange juice running down his chin.
He belongs to a category all his own; sculpted by his unique, wary hands. Not
so much a dead-end cave, but a clearly paved tunnel. An endless highway of
possibilities.
Before you have a chance to respond, his fingers are slotting through yours as
he weaves you through the crowd of boisterous cigarette smokers, a respectful
greeting shot their way in the form of a quick flick of his chin. On the other side of
the door is a bouncer sitting on a barstool beside a pub table that houses a green
desk lamp, a fatigued cigar box and a beer bottle, but it’s particularly difficult to
concentrate on his and Harry’s interaction through the deafening volume of
music.
The bouncer lights up when his focus lands on Harry, their affable handshake
molding into an even friendlier hug before Harry starts speaking into his ear. You
step closer for a chance to catch a snippet of their conversation and just as you
do, the song ends and covers you in a blanket of relief for a few seconds. The two
of them focus their attention on you before the bouncer nods as if to grant the
both of you access into the unknown.
Your fixation shifts to the narrow hallway before you lined with months or
possibly years of scruffy musical event posters, each one of them prefaced with a
persisting word that you gather as the name of the club.
Chubby’s Club.
Harry’s mouth meets your cheek and vibrates your ear drum, “say hi, babe.”
The music rolls to a start again as you step closer with your arm outstretched,
the bouncer’s hand practically swallowing yours with his firm grip before
obviously admiring you from head-to-toe, “she’s a fucking fox.”
You’re stunned by his outward advance and in front of Harry no less, but you
suppose that you shouldn’t be too surprised considering all of the shameless
indulgence you’ve received from your partner for the past couple weeks. You
snap your glare to Harry for help but he’s already reacting, the back of his hand
slapping the bouncer’s shoulder before he points a finger to his chest, “back off,
chump. She’s mine. I mean—” He glances at you before sucking the inside of his
cheek, mentally searching for a proper way to backpedal, “she’s a person too,
man. Have some respect.”
The bouncer’s chummy demeanor drops like a ton of bricks, “don’t touch me
unless you wanna get bounced faster than a shitty mattress, Styles.” He looks at
you and shifts his gaze to your chest before refocusing on Harry, “one buck each.”
Harry pats both of his back pockets before digging his entire palm into the one
on the right, his cigarette dropping ash as it dangles from his puffy lips. He
squints one eye to protect it from smoke as he fishes for cash from his wallet, his
cheeks hollowing out when he sucks in a puff then plucks it from his teeth.
You peer over his shoulder to watch the work of his hands, “there’s a cover?”
The bouncer deposits the cash into a cigar box stuffed with more dollar bills and
counts a couple to hand back to Harry.
“Mhm.” He takes his change and tucks it away with a nod of regard to the
bouncer, “it gets pooled for the prize.” Harry leans down to speak one final
thought into the bouncer’s ear, to which the other man responds with a peace
sign and a pat on Harry’s back.
Harry tosses an arm around your neck and guides you down the narrow brick-
lined hallway that descends further into a muggy basement, the resonance of the
music swelling with each step forward and drowning the beat of your heart in
your own chest. Groups of people squeeze past you as they head outside for some
air; men with their arms around either their girlfriends or their burners for the
evening and girls tripping over their own feet due to the amount of alcohol
they’ve consumed.
The hallway opens up into a humidly packed and smoke-filled room, the tips
of everyone’s individual brands of cigarette’s lit with an electric rainbow of burnt
paper and matching colored smoke in the darkness. There are a dozen different
smells to match the gradation; watermelon, clementine, lemon, blueberry,
lavender, chocolate, meringue. But nothing compares to Harry’s loving cotton
candy Crush cigarettes and how both the smoke and the fiery tip perfectly match
his lips. Broiled sweetheart sugar and burnt blushing vanilla; another quality that
seems to trademark his blossoming character. It makes sense that he wraps his
lips around luscious hearts whenever he pauses his affection long enough to
inhale.
Through the river of a hundred moving bodies you catch glimpses of the live
band; five or six pieces including horns and a keyboardist, the volume of their
performance so loud that attendees lining the walls or perched in small booths
are forced to lean close to shout at one another in order to be heard. There is a
cramped, modest bar off to the right, the bartenders working like two ships in
the night as they weave and bob around one another to help patrons in what
must be a synchronized swim.
Your focus on the outskirts only lasts for a second or two before you’re forced
to gawk at the main attraction — the dance floor. It seems as though there isn’t
even a breath of air between couples as they sweat all over themselves and their
partners, their hair clinging to their cheeks and their chests glistening with effort.
Women’s slinky dresses are hiked up around their thighs and hips and men’s
drool practically makes the floor slick with secretion. You’ve never seen anything
so openly sexual in your life; it feels awkward to stare, as if you were impeding
on a private moment, but there is no way that’s possible considering how many
people are jammed like sardines into this dank room. Plus it seems absolutely
inconceivable to voluntarily look away.
You can feel yourself being jostled around by people dancing or trying to pass
by, but you’re so captivated that it may be one of the first times that you can
recall not feeling annoyed by people impeding on your personal space. Is this
how the audience feels during a Flying Marvels performance: floating through
the farthest reaches of the universe and coated by snowflakes of fat, chunky
glitter?
Harry presses himself up against your back and pinches your shoulders to
steer you towards the bar, one arm slinking around your shoulders to spread his
palm out across your chest in a gesture of shelter and responsibility. You finally
rip your gaze away from one particularly sensual couple, the man’s face buried in
her neck and her leg clinched tightly around his waist with their hips suctioned
together in tight snaps and slow, smooth drags, “um…..” You turn in his grasp and
eye his lips quirked into a one-sided smirk as you mentally make your way back
to the clue he mentioned earlier, “prize for what exactly?”
“The dance contest, babe.” You follow his finger pointed towards a flyer before
he curls his finger and taps his knuckle against the tip of your nose, “keep up.”
Someone moves out of your line of sight just long enough to read the
contemporary scripture on the poster with today’s date that he’s referring to.
Chubby Club’s Monthly Chubby Hustle.
“Is this legal?”
Harry puckers his lips before sucking air in through the side of his cheek, “not
exactly.”
In complete opposition to how you would normally expect to react to that

information, your toes tingle with a thrill that climbs all the way to your scalp in
less than a full second.
Harry watches your facial expression change from confusion, to

comprehension, to captivation and the tips of his fingers itch to untie the bashful
knot in your blouse to smooth up the skin of your stomach in the hopes of
discovering a film of aroused perspiration there. He’s certain his obsession is at a
dangerously all-time high, “what’s your drink?” You shake your head and hold up
your palms to deny his instigation, but he simply laughs it off. There’s no way in
hell he’s going to convince you to mill your hips against his without a little
lubrication, “fuck off. I’m getting you somethin’ and if you don’t speak up, it’ll be
cheap beer.”
“How romantic.”
You can only recall enjoying alcohol a handful of times in your life; at a fancy
dinner after you were accepted into your college of choice and at a couple parties
before you got the spins and had to lie down. Harry waits patiently for your
answer and when you choose to remain quiet with your arms adorably folded
over your chest, he raises a fist into the air to propose a game of Rock Paper
Scissors. You’re feeling lucky so you accept his offer willingly, but instead you
lose with a pair of feeble scissors and in the next instant, Harry bangs his
victorious rock-fist onto the bar top while shouting with a loud whoop and a
hand cupped around his mouth, “two ice cold Pearls!”
Harry tosses cash onto the bar then slips you a spherical, clear bottle with a
faint pink hue to the glass, a short neck and a flip top that you dig your thumb
into to pop the stopper from its mouth. You recognize it as the same beer that
him and Tex would drink in the courtyard outside the theatre after a grueling
rehearsal or a successful performance, the label a lacy cream with a large
opalescent pink circle surrounded by lines that make it appear as if it were
gleaming. The word ’Pearl’ is written in horizontal, seductive cursive across the
center of the circle and below in smaller lettering, a catchphrase that reads, ’a
shining treasure!’
The bottle sweats cold condensation against your palm, forcing you to wipe
your hand on your trousers before gripping the back of his shirt and following
him through the crowd towards the dance floor to ogle some more. A sensation
stirs your stomach when you watch someone dip their partner, his palm cupping
the back of her neck before their mouths close in on a heated kiss.
Harry is more interested in your reaction than the scene before him if that’s at
all possible. When you finally peel your eyes away from the glow of electric sex
before you, you’re surprised to find his yearning eyes imprinting blushing hearts
into your cheeks. You signal him closer with a curl of your finger, “do you come
here every Friday night?” He nods in response, but keeps his ear close knowing
that you’ll probably follow that up with more questions, “alone?”
“Alone.”
“You love dancing that much?”
“Yep.”
A feminine hand reaches over Harry’s shoulder to offer him a joint which he
dismisses with a shake of his head, the person then squeezing her fingertips into
the meat of his shoulder for the attention she was actually seeking in the first
place. Her painted lips speak lowly into his ear and you suddenly feel small and
on the outside of your own conversation when he tilts his head closer for a better
understanding of what she has to say. You’re reminded of all the times he quickly
ditched your company for a burner and you’re surprised to find that the feeling
that decides to resurface is one of jealousy.
He may show up for the main course alone, but he always takes dessert to go.
When Harry plucks her hand from his shoulder, shooing her off and turning to
face you again, he can see the sour pucker of your expression and fills in the
blank with a stern explanation, “c’mon babe, who gives a right shit? Every time I
look up, there’s some fuckin’ horndog undressing you with their eyes too. We’re
hot. It happens. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s only one cherry I’m after and
I’m pretty sure yours is the only intact one in the room.” He leans his head down
to cast hot breath into your ear, “I only want your hands on me. I only see you.
Hear me?”
A lightning bolt zips up your spine before you nod at his reassurance, his
mouth curling into a smug grin when he pulls back and lifts his beer in the air,
“besides….. it’s not a date anyway, right?”
Somehow hearing your own line thrown back at you stings worse than you
imagined, but you suppose he’s said that on purpose for that exact reason and it
might be working a little bit.
“Dance with me.” You open your mouth to protest, but instead he knocks the
spout of his beer against yours and grabs your hand to drag you towards the
stormy sea of sex and sweat.
“Harry—” He doesn’t hear you because he’s too caught up in pushing through
couples to make his way to the center of the dance floor, “Harry!” He looks at you
and raises his eyebrows to signal his attention, his head craning down to supply
you his ear, “I don’t know the first thing about this.”
He sips his beer and rolls his eyes, “bullshit. It’s dancing. You’re a trained
dancer. A fuckin’ good one.” He registers your skeptical grimace and pinches your
chin between his fingertips, “come on. Don’t you ever move in a way that isn’t
reinforced by highly regimented, classical training?” You shake your head and he
takes a step closer, “all alone in your apartment?” You shake your head again, but
this time with a frown muddling your pretty features, “well, I bet you’d be
amazing at it.”
“But I don’t know any of this music.”
“I don’t have to teach you how to keep time, babe. You know what to do.
Follow my lead. And drink your fuckin‘ beer.”
Your cheeks puff out with a hearty exhale before you tilt your head back and
chug half of the bottle, Harry’s hoarse cackle piercing through the instruments
and all of the loud chatter in the room. The beer has a surprising flavor, unlike
any that you’ve tried in the past; carbonated and tropical, almond and black
currant, toasty maple syrup and green apple and your eyebrows pop up along
your forehead before taking another long sip and then eyeing the bottle as if it
would give you an explanation as to why it’s so delicious, “this is really good!”
“Slow down, cowgirl. Those Pearls are rowdy. I don’t want you fallin’ on your
ass.”
You’re not sure if it’s the beer or lack of oxygen in the room that is making
your head spin, but without thinking you’re taking a single step closer to saturate
his space, the people all around you pushing your bodies up against one another,
“can I ask you something?”
His mouth is drawn to your cheek, his lips brushing the skin there before he
grips the back of your shirt and bunches the fabric in his fist, “yes.” He breathes
out a shudder, his nose sinking into your hair for a moment before he pulls back
to look at your flushed face, “anything.”
“What were you arrested for?”
“Aw, come—”
“Last thing I’ll bug you with and then I promise I’ll dance with you.”
He shrugs and pulls a long taste from his beer before swiping the back of his
wrist across his mouth, then dipping down to talk into your ear, “does it matter?”
“Yes. And were you convicted?”
Harry chuckles and brushes his hair from his face but it’s always a fruitless
endeavor, it always ends up right back in the same spot, “Cherry-in-charge. Okay,
fine….. it was petty theft. I wasn’t convicted. Would you like me better if I was?”
The mental image of Harry in handcuffs coils your stomach into a knot and for
some reason it’s difficult to decipher the core emotion taking place, “what’d you
steal?” Please don’t be sunflowers.
“A car.”
There’s a moment of stand-off between the two of you where your eyes hop
and skip over one another’s cryptic expressions, “was it your….. van?”
He smiles into the muzzle of his beer, “no, babe. They don’t let you keep stolen
vans. That’s kinda the whole point. I bought that shit fair and square. Can we
drop it now? I was a dumb-as-fuck kid, that’s all. Joyridin’.” His fingers wrap
around your wrist, cold and dewy from his beer bottle, “now I wanna take you for
a spin.”
Harry lets you warm up a little on your own, not wanting to push you into
anything that would make you physically uncomfortable with another person
and cause you to recoil suddenly and drastically. He thinks it’s much sexier if you
come to him on your own free will, on your own time, when you’re ready to feel
the full embrace of his palms and fingertips. He imagines this type of foreplay like
cleaning up a spill with a sponge; it may seem backwards, but a sponge that’s
already wet soaks up its environment much more efficiently than one that’s bone
dry.
You’re a quick learner, especially when it comes to dancing. It only takes a

couple songs, a few glances around the room and just as many beers for your
shoulders to relax, for your hair to swing across your face and for your hips to
circle in sexy little ringlets. Harry finds himself fixated on the strip of skin just
above your belly button and the bit of exposed chest where your buttons are
popped open, the sheen of sweat forming on your neck and highlighting your
cheekbones.
He chainsmokes in an effort to tame his desire to hitch your hips against his
and span his palm over the curve of your ass, attempting to use humor here and
there to earn your trust in dancing with a partner. He ditches his jacket in a
nearby booth to expose his clavicles and brawny shoulders in his peachy
wifebeater, swirls and dots of black ink advertised under a thin layer of
perspiration. He moves closer and closer to your agreeably dancing figure,
mouthing the word ’boogaloo’ along with the boisterous salsa music, raising his
eyebrows up and down to pull a giggle from your throat. A grin spreads across
his lips before his dimple sinks and his smile eventually grows large enough that
a silent laugh undulates his adam’s apple.
The moment your hand reaches up to playfully smack his shoulder, he seizes
the opportunity to wrap his fingers around your wrist to tug you against him.
Your breath is knocked from your lungs when you realize your noses are just
inches apart and his other hand is carefully tickling up your back to settle
between your shoulder blades, his darkened eyes burning holes straight through
yours to the back of your skull. He presses your palm to his chest before he starts
swaying the both of you side-to-side slowly at first, until you gain control of your
hand and smooth it around his shoulder to the back of his neck. You’ve been this
close to him more times than you can count during rehearsals, but this is
unquestionably much more intimate, your muscles loosening with each sharp
snare drum and roll of the bass.
Harry comes alive with the newfound consensual proximity, his teeth sinking
into his bottom lip and his gaze trained steadily on your face. His hands grip
tighter and begin to roam south, testing the waters of your threshold as you
pendulate and rock together with your centers aligned and sparking like flint;
teeny tiny little fireworks that bubble up in your stomach again and again. It’s as
if he’s feasting with his eyes and his hands, his body malnourished for whatever
it is you emit that’s driven him completely mad with rapture. You’ve never
danced with a man like this before, your thighs locked and pelvis’s moving in a
single motion, your cheeks on fire and your lungs panting for air. But you’re a
born performer just as much as Harry is, and you know how to hide your
creeping reserve from him and every onlooker in the room.
Harry knows that you’re easily the most beautiful dancer he’s ever had the
honor of witnessing, but he hadn’t given the thought of bringing you here very
much credibility because of how rigid you are normally. On time, disciplined,
rehearsed. A thick veneer of formal perfection when you’re in front of strangers
and coworkers that slides off into sweet apprehension as soon as you walk into
your dressing room and kick off your soft-soled shoes. It wasn’t until you literally
and metaphorically let your hair down this afternoon that the idea had popped
into his head and he’s certainly glad it did. He didn’t exactly expect you to give
this much of yourself to him, but he does know that he can’t recall a time in his
life that he’s ever felt quite so lovesick and ravenous for a single person’s
attention.
He swings his arm behind the small of your back and keeps his hips flushed
with yours before he goes out on a limb, snapping you backwards in a quick dip
once as if to effectively test you; gliding you in a half circle before lifting you back
up to melt your spine and your limbs. Your jaw is slack and you’re focused on his
mouth when your world is recalibrated, his stomach tossing with commotion
when it’s clear that you didn’t mind his lead at all. Harry sees you as one of those
types of people that is so controlled that the eventual complete absence of self-
management is thrilling; a baby bird that’s been constrained to the limits of its
tiny handmade nest, finally strong enough to feel the relief of wild abandon when
its wings are fully developed.
Coupled with the musical break in the song, you finally get soft and pliable
enough to allow your head to fall back on your own accord, his fingertips grazing
the skin of your throat down to your collarbone in appreciation of your ease. He
dips you down slow and deep this time, your back arched so dramatically that
your hair brushes the ground and your blouse strains against your ribcage, his
mouth filling with saliva with the notion of you nestled so confidently in his
palms. Harry slowly reels you up and back towards him, the tip of his nose and
his swollen lips dragging a seductive line from your throat down the line of your
chest, past each one of your popped buttons to your cleavage where the first
closed placket halts his exploration.
You’re both so high on endorphins that you’re unphased by the feeling of his
lips vibrating as he hums against your skin in arousal, his desire to lap your
sweat with his tongue pulsing his blood and making each one of his hairs stand
on end. He locks eyes on you from his position of worship, your eyelids falling
shut and your head rocking back when he gains the courage to leave a trail of
tender, light kisses, followed by one fat, open-mouthed kiss in the supple spot
where your neck fades into your collarbone.
Harry cradles your head and snakes his fingers into your hair, his mouth
meeting your ear to speak for the first time in several painstaking minutes, “I
want you so much. I’ve never wanted anything this fuckin’ much, Cherry.”
The only reaction you’re capable of is to choke on air and mouth his name in
return, his eyes rolling back in his head and a small whimper sneaking out as his
forehead drops to your shoulder in vulnerability.
You’ve heard of spontaneous combustion, but you were certain it was nothing
but a myth up until this point.
The drums roll through a break to signal a shift of energy in the room, Harry
sighing in both unexpected relief and shriveling disappointment as your private
bubble bursts. He steadies you and runs his fingers through your hair to smooth
it back into place, ticking his head towards the stage to indicate that it’s time to
follow the direction of the veering crowd, “you alright?” You blink a couple times
to clear the bleariness from your eyes and the fog from your mind before
nodding, his nose wrinkling in adoration before his tongue clicks against his
teeth, “you sure? Turkey’s done.”
You glance down at your chest and gasp before swatting at him which he
dodges with ease and a throaty cackle, your arms swinging around his neck as
you pretend to choke him for his perverted dig. His palm lands on your ass with a
loud thwack before he maneuvers you towards the stage for a view of the
impending dance contest, his mouth pulled into a lopsided grin and his eyes
alight with that familiar mischievous glow as the first couple takes the floor for
their routine.
The bouncer from the door is simultaneously acting as the emcee, announcing
the arrival of Chubby’s Monthly Chubby Hustle and introducing the first pair to
take the stage. The music speeds up to what you imagine as the seedy rock and
roll that Harry loves the most, the spotlighted partners spinning and twirling
around each other in a heavily-choreographed routine. It appears that this isn’t
their first time participating in this challenge, with the way the audience is so
enthralled and tuned into their every movement, cheering them on and hollering
when they perform a particularly exciting trick.
You tug on Harry’s shirt and he presents you his ear without peeling his eyes
from the scene before him, “have you ever participated in this before?”
He shakes his head and tugs a waiting cigarette from behind his ear to pop
between his teeth, his lips forming around the heart-shaped filter, “I’ve never had
a good enough partner. I don’t play to lose, babe.”
You get the feeling that he’s referring to more than just Chubby’s Monthly
Chubby Hustle.
The first couple’s performance draws to a close and is met by cheerful

applause and a few whistles as the bouncer raises his hands in the air and eggs
the audience on to give them more feedback. You search the room and take note
of how many onlookers there are and judging by just the faces that you can see,
you venture to guess there are nearly a hundred and fifty people crammed into
this small basement. Harry’s mouth meets the shell of your ear and breaks you
from your concentration, “we could do better.”
“Isn’t that kind of like cheating since we are professional dance partners—”
Harry shrugs and his words are softened by the loud declaration of the next
set of partners, “if we’re the best dancers, then we’re the best dancers.”
The word ’cavalier‘ comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative
aspect of his personality. He hasn’t achieved everything in his life by being
benevolent or fair.
It finally dawns on you that Harry is likely planning for the two of you to take
part in Chubby’s Hustle, “wait a minute. We haven’t talked about or rehearsed
anything—”
“Life isn’t rehearsed, babe. I promise you’ll be just fine.” He is suddenly serious
when he turns to face you, bending down a bit to mutter into your ear, “you felt it
at practice today. I know you did. And I know you felt it when we were dancing
too.”
You ignore the swell of your core and the mercy in his eyes, suddenly feeling
much too saturated with anxiety to start nitpicking emotions that you’re not even
close to having a handle on yet, “I’m not getting up there and embarrassing
myself in front of all of these people. I’ll choke.” Flashbacks from your Achille’s
injury clap and explode behind your eyelids, but it’s still not the right time to
mention it to him, so instead you bury it down with everything else that confuses
you, “couldn’t we just watch and—”
“Chill out, Honeysuckle. I’ll take care of you. You trust me.” He plucks his
cigarette from his mouth and pulls you in front of him, one arm wrapping around
your waist and his chin dropping to your shoulder to watch the competition in an
intimate embrace with you, “enjoy the show.”
You learn two things about Chubby’s Hustle in the following several minutes:
the dance contest songs are truncated to about two minutes or less and include
an instrumental riff to keep the audience engaged. And everyone who
participates is really good.
The music switches once again with a heart-thumping drumbeat, another duo
hopping off the stage as their routine comes to a close and a new one gets ready
to begin. The bouncer steps onto the low stage, making eye contact with Harry
and you know that your time has come before either one of them has spoken a
single word. Your body stiffens as Harry moves in front of you and gathers your
hands into his palm with a wicked grin twisting into his cheeks, “Harry, no.
Harry, no, no, no—”
“Everybody give it up for The Marvels!”

Your jaw slowly drops to the floor when you process that the inevitable is
happening and everyone in the room is scanning the crowd to find the set of
newcomers who are claiming the spotlight, “Harry. Harry, please—”
You’re digging your toes into the beer-soaked floor in a useless effort to
disappear completely, but he just tugs your protesting body to the hedonistically-
lit stage. He takes a couple steps backwards with a grin that almost erases your
anger before he spins on his heel and pulls you the rest of the way behind him,
his feet stepping onto the platform first before he hoists you up beside him.
One thing Harry loves most about you is how you switch on as soon as it’s
time to perform, almost as if you’re constantly anticipating the moment that
someone lifts the curtain on your awaiting audience. He has complete confidence
that as soon as you start dancing the crowd around you will dissolve into the
background and every single person in this room will see you just as he sees you:
fucking perfect.
A couple girls in the crowd screech in excitement when they see Harry in all of
his magnetic, beautiful glory and you’re tempted to cover your face with your
hands and hide behind one of the dusty curtains on the side of the stage. The
song that the band chooses for you is easily twice as fast as anything else they’ve
performed tonight, but you don’t have much time to consider it before Harry’s
doing The Twist in circles around you with his teeth embossing his bottom lip.
His whole body is relaxed and naturally hypnotic as he tosses his head and arms
around to get a rise from the onlookers but most importantly from you, a smile
finally lighting up your face from ear-to-ear as you admire his ability to raise hell
without the fear of judgement.
Dancing on stage like this without the promise of choreography in the back of
your mind is beyond nerve-wracking, especially in a room full of peers that
you’re attempting to impress versus a crowd of paying customers who are
watching something that you’ve rehearsed into the ground and feel confident in.
Harry’s exaggerating his sense of freedom in the hope that it’ll rub off on you and
without a conscious thought otherwise, it does.
He grabs your forearm and pulls you close just as he did when no one was
watching, hooking an arm across your lower back and dipping you low to the
ground. You’re just caught off guard enough this time to allow your arms to fall
back along with your head, a shout of encouragement from the room helping to
simultaneously make everyone around you vanish and remind you of your
natural-born abilities.
Your body is immediately loose and ready to be tossed around on his

command, but with an atmosphere of grace that is untouched by most of the
population. You’re quick and alert, a paradox of controlled and abandoned, the
upper crust of your echelon, ready to bend to his demands at the drop of a hat
and Harry can’t stop his mind from digging up curiosities of your sexuality. He
stuffs the thoughts back down as soon as they rise, not wanting to fumble his
stride and lose the chance at impressing you with his rebellious skill and a fistful
of verboten cash.
You whip your head up and your noses are close, your spirit bouncing back
and forth from your communicating heartbeats and you don’t notice that people
are pushing their way to the stage for a closer look of your conduct. Harry takes
this moment of susceptibility to chase you for a kiss assuming you’re less likely
to reject him with people watching, which you deny with your fingers pressed to
his lips and a soft push in denial. The crowd groans and then laughs at your quick
veto, Harry’s smile both playful and enormous at your constantly teasing display.
He lets it roll off his back and grabs your hands, slipping you between his legs
and back again, popping you to your feet and gripping your biceps on your return
to hoist you into the air and over his head to land on the other side. He runs
towards you and slides on his knees to a soft halt, your momentum propelling
him between your legs as you’re forced to shimmy over him so that you won’t
crash.
When you look down at his submissive position on the ground, his expression
of bare innocence with his teeth sunken into his plush bottom lip, your stomach
flips with a spark of recognition. Recognition of his beauty, recognition of his
finesse, recognition of your budding infatuation. That one nagging lock of hair
that has a persistent bounce against his forehead reminds you of his tenacity;
how he won’t back off no matter how many times you’ve attempted to brush him
away, as if he can smell the glint of a fire that hasn’t fully wafted in your direction
yet. That tendril is irritating and at first it may have seemed like it was out of
place, but the more you study it, the more alluring and perfect it becomes. Harry
would be completely wrong without his trademark twists and kinks.
Harry pops to his feet and extends his hand towards you, wrapping his fingers
around your wrist when you comply and tugs you into his body, bowing the two
of you away from and back into one another before he lifts you into the air bridal
style. You brace yourself when he tosses you behind his back and hooks his arms
around your knees to drop you to the ground on the other side. He pauses for a
breath and you’re spontaneous and tranquil enough to throw your arms in the
air and shimmy your hips during the brief pause between your tricks.
He nods once at your flawless filler, his chest exploding with fondness before
he mouths ’flip me’ and dances closer to you once more. You lock arms around
each other’s waists, your other hands clutched into a tight fist at your sides for
immobile stability when he flips you first, your soft-soled sneakers planting on
the ground solidly enough to provide enough purchase for him to flip next. You
take turns flipping two then three more times each the moment your feet are
hitting the ground until he perceives your fatigue, his fingers gripping around
your wrist to spin you away from him and back into his arms to break the
momentous tumble with grace. He’s amazingly intuitive and smooth, his
charisma drawing each set of eyes in the room to gawk at your impromptu
performance. The entire audience whistles and cheers and grunts in second-hand
arousal and intrigue at your unmatched chemistry, the room feeling as though
it’s filling with smoke and fire as you burn the rest of the competition to ashes.
The band brings the song to a noisy, strumming pause and the bouncer hops
up on the stage beside you, his voice drowned by hooting and wailing from every
corner of the basement. You don’t seem to have much cognizance of your
surroundings with the way Harry’s chest heaves in elated fatigue, his mouth
perked into a wide, open-mouthed smile and his pupils in the shapes of cherries
with hearts reflecting off of their glassy burnish.
The bouncer is attempting to calm the crowd and announce the next set of
now-irrelevant dancers when Harry ducks to declare in your ear, “fuckin’ proud
of you, Cherry bomb.” He chuckles and catches you when you respond by
jumping and wraping your arms and legs around him in an appreciative hug. You
feel grateful for everything that you’ve been through with him tonight; the sharp
push into the unknown that turned out to be wildly eye-opening, the gleam of a
feeling towards another person that has been unrivaled thus far and perhaps
most importantly, the burgeoning awareness of yourself.
And at first you register the croon of police sirens as part of the music.
You realize that your glory is falling to pieces the moment that Harry drops
you to your feet and snaps his head away from you, someone in the audience
clamoring onto a barstool to cup his hands around his mouth and shout, “the
fuzz!”
Harry reacts first when he grabs your hand and weaves your fingers together,
“fuck, c’mon!”
The teabag of urgency has been dipped into your veins and is infusing your
bloodstream, blurring your vision and coaxing a strong urge of fight or flight
from your head to your toes. The band upheaves their instruments and tosses
them aside carelessly as they join the mob of people swarming the only exit out
of the basement. You rip your fingers away from Harry’s grip to push your way
through the crowd, dropping to your knees when you find a clearing and
reaching underneath a table to grab your purse and his jacket from its hiding
spot underneath the booth. You don’t want your things to get lost, stolen or left
behind and you certainly don’t want them lying around as evidence when this
establishment is swarmed by police officers in a handful of seconds.
Within the chaos and your considerate distraction, Harry takes this
opportunity to swipe the forgotten, shabby cigar box from its pub table. The lid
refuses to stay shut because of all the cash crammed inside, but nobody notices
him clumsily trying to close it as a couple bills fall out and scatter onto the
ground. He glances around the room before deciding to stuff his pockets with the
reward, then tossing the empty box over his shoulder and scanning the floor to
see where you’ve gone. His feet come storming up behind you to lift you off the
ground by the waist and pull you away from the direction of flowing stampede,
“nah, fuck that. This way. Follow me.”
You don’t have time or a compulsion to argue with him as you both run
against the flow of traffic towards the back window, weaving in and out of people
scrambling and girls crying as they search for their boyfriends or missing
earrings. When Harry pinches your waist and lifts you first to guide you out of
the window and into the alleyway, it crosses your mind how skilled he is at
fleeing and that this must not be the first time that he’s run away from authority.
He grips the ledge and hoists himself up next, pulling himself onto the ground on
his belly behind you before jumping up and helping you to your feet. He shakes
his head when you reach into your purse for your skate attachments, whispering,
“too loud. Come on.”
Your footsteps echo in the alleyway in the same manner that your breath
reverberates in your eardrums, a cop car pulling up and nearly blocking the exit
as you get closer. You’re both running too fast to screech to a halt or discuss an
alternate move, and in the same moment that you slip between the car’s bumper
and the brick wall, Harry jumps and slides across the hood of the vehicle on his
hip. You freeze in your tracks and your jaw drops when he lands like a cat on his
feet on the opposite side, his voice brimming with arrogance when he spouts,
“take a picture, it’ll last longer.” His laugh is halted when he sees a police officer
making his way towards you, Harry’s hand reaching out to grab your arm and
pull, “don’t stop!”
A tall chain-link fence comes into view and you scan the area for a way around
it, but it seems like you’re trapped. Harry doesn’t hesitate to fall to his knee to
hoist you up by the feet first, your fingers coiling around the abrasive, bonded
metal as you climb to the top and jump down on the other side. Harry goes next,
the chain-link rattling under his weight before he gracefully drops to his feet and
turns your body around to keep running, your skin still tingling in every spot that
he’s managed to grab tonight.
You’re suddenly pulled backwards by a strong heave, your body slammed into
the recessed doorway of a building and suddenly crowded by Harry’s in a gesture
of security and shelter. All you can see is the chiseled profile of Harry’s face and
his sweaty chest rising and falling with gulps of air, the fabric of his wifebeater
practically clinging to his muscles from exertion. You can still hear police sirens
and shouting, your breathing labored with adrenaline and exhausted stress when
you finally choke out, “Harry….. are they gone?”
Your stomachs touch with every anxious synchronized inhale, his eyes
engaging yours when he peers down at you, “dunno yet. Maybe we should make
out and pretend we’re just innocent teenagers in case they find us. Cover our
tracks. Y’know?” You smack his chest at his awfully timed joke and he smiles
wide in response, “should I take off my shirt?” You smack him again and he sighs
in faux disappointment, “fine, you take yours off then.” You open your mouth to
hiss his name in warning but he hushes you with an index finger to your lips as
he peers out around the corner for any signs of a scuffle, one hand running
through his hair to push it from his forehead before glancing back at you, “coast’s
clear. Let’s book it. We’re almost to the van.”
Now it makes perfect sense as to why he wanted to park so far away. The
questions that pop up are innumerable, but you have enough wherewithal to
swallow them until another day.
This time instead of merely grabbing your hand in the dominating action he’s
enforced for most of the night, Harry takes a step back and reaches his fingertips
towards you, a hint of a smile poking the corners of his mouth in silent hopeful
appeal. You slip your hand into his and he immediately entwines your digits,
giving you one solid tug before you take off running again until you make it to his
car.
You’re so relieved to see the pink heavenly cloud sitting like a lonely beacon
on the dimly-lit street that you almost burst into tears, your pace slowing to a
halt as you double over and rest your palms on your thighs for a couple deep
breaths. Harry digs for his car keys in his jacket that you’re still carrying, his
dimple slicing his cheek in half when he finds them and pokes his tongue out in
relief, his head falling back as he takes a moment to appreciate the fact that he
didn’t get the both of you thrown into jail tonight.
He pops open the passenger door for you and gestures you inside with his
hand, “get the fuck in before you get us arrested.”
Your tone is incredulous when you point to your chest, “me?”
“I don’t see any other sexy Cherries around here, do you? You’re cute. But
seriously, stop fuckin’ around.”
It’s hard to be angry with him when both rows of his teeth are displayed in
alleviated humor. You both pile into the car as fast as you can, the heel of his
hand controlling the wheel as dust spews from the tires to form a cloud in the
aftermath of your narrow disappearance, “I cannot believe we just got away with
that!”
Harry lights a cigarette and cranks his window open, “I can, babe.” He laughs
and glances at you once before looking back at the road, “you’re Honeygold.”
You kick your feet up and relax into the passenger seat, the echoes of lights
from police cars still flickering off of buildings and their windows as you revel in
your escape. The volume of the music in his van is just as loud as before, but after
tonight you have a new appreciation for it, “who is this?”
“The Who!”
“No — I mean, what band is this?”
Harry laughs and shakes his head before muttering to himself, “fuckin’
adorable.” He looks over at you and admires your feet kicked up on his
dashboard, “this isn’t some ’Who’s On First’ shit, babe. This band is called The
Who.”
The smell of cotton candy is hypnotizing and much more mouth-watering than
usual, with the lingering taste of Pearl beer on your tongue and the buzz of loud,
live music still tingling in your ears. You study him for a moment, his thighs
tucked into his slim trousers and his curls framing his eyes before you lean over
and pluck the cigarette from his mouth, settling back into your seat and sucking a
long drag into your lungs. It tastes like shoving a thick clump of strawberry
cotton candy in your mouth, the flavor instantly dissolving on your tongue and
making you crave more. You take another puff, imagining the aroma as Harry
himself; authentic and nostalgic. Timeless. Unique. Impossible to pinpoint.
There’s only one thing on earth that tastes like cotton candy and that’s Harry.
This time when you ask Harry a question, it’s not so much a personal dig, but a
simple inquiry that feels good enough to share, “you ever notice that the drive
home is always much faster than the drive to your destination?”
When you look over your shoulder you find that Harry is already watching
you, the expression on his face impossible to decipher, “yeah, I know exactly
what you mean. It always goes by in a heartbeat.” His hand falls onto your thigh
and squeezes before cupping the inside of your knee, his thumb stroking in
loving little circles. It feels so cozy that after a two-second falter, you allow your
hand to drop to his, gently curling your fingers around his palm.
Harry walks you to your door when you arrive home, the air clearly heavy
with tension and his expectation of a kiss or possibly more. He backs you up into
the doorframe, leaning against the jamb and playing with the ends of your hair as
you fish around in your purse for your keys. His jacket is still draped over your
shoulders since he insisted that you wear it to protect you from the ocean breeze
on the drive, the warm weight of it floating comforting hints of his muted musk
every now and again. He takes a final drag of his blazing cotton candy cigarette,
the cherry sizzling fuchsia, sweet pink smoke vanishing around your faces before
he flicks the butt over his shoulder, “lemme take you out again.”
You smile and his heart melts and sloshes around in his stomach, “again? You
promised this wasn’t a date.”
His hand lays flat on your door beside your head, “you still believe that?” He
nuzzles his face into your neck, the tip of his nose tracing a line up your throat to
your jaw, goosebumps zipping along your skin when his mouth brushes the
sensitive spot just below your ear, his fingers sweeping your hair from your
shoulder as he murmurs, “got a few minutes before midnight, pumpkin.”
You try to swallow each roused pant that your lungs produce, a new
complication about dating your coworker arising each time you stuff the former
one down. You’re now aware of your feelings for Harry, but this just doesn’t seem
like it could possibly be a painless or uncomplicated endeavor. It’s possible that
you may have already flung yourself far too deep into the abyss, but without the
proper tools or support, this could very well be life-altering for the both of you.
He doesn’t realize that you’ve twisted the knob to let yourself in until your
heat is escaping his reach. He hisses through a wide, good-natured smile and
clenched teeth before muttering, “slick as grease.” You stay positioned towards
him as you cross the threshold and start to close the barrier between you, his
body stationary and challenging as he follows you with his eyes, “you sure…..?”
You nod but you’re actually not sure at all. You’re thoroughly clueless, “thank
you. For everything. I had the best time….. goodnight Harry.” He waves with his
fingertips just before the door closes in his face and the lovesick expression that
you imagine is not nearly as devastating as the one that he drips into the hard
wood.
Each footstep up your stairs is met with a trembling breath, your hands
shaking when you unlock your door and let yourself into your empty apartment.
You wish more than anything that Nettie were home so that you could fall into
her bed and squeal into her pillow, but you suppose the next best thing is to fling
Harry’s jacket onto your couch and furiously flip through her record collection.
You grab the first one that looks appealing, a worn copy from a band called
Jefferson Airplane before you load it onto the turntable and crank it at full
volume.
Don’t you ever move in a way that isn’t reinforced by highly regimented,
classical training? All alone in your apartment? Well, I bet you’d be amazing at it.
Harry hears music leaking from your apartment as he’s walking back to his
van and spins on his heel to look up at your window, noticing your dancing
silhouette through your transparent, flimsy curtains. He backs up flush with his
van and lights another cigarette as he settles against it, the neon pink tip the only
visible light in the darkness, pressing his palm to his heart to quell the ache there
as he watches.
The night rewinds through your mind in reverse as you dance with reckless
impulse; the car ride home and running through the alleyway, hopping a fence,
jumping from the basement window, remembering the weight of his hips and the
pinch of his fingers on your waist, his hand spreading across your back, his
waves framing his temples when he showed up at your door with a single
sunflower. Your heart pumps with adrenaline and savage love, your hair
swinging in your face, your curves and limbs a perfect picture of grace and sex.
Harry’s witnessing your first major breakthrough and it’s a shame that you
choose to keep it private, but he hopes you’ll expose him soon enough. He wants
so badly to burst through your door and grab your wrists, to push you into the
nearest wall, to pin your arms above your head and fix your lips together. He
would slide his hands down your limbs and shoulders, to your waist and hips as
he sunk to his knees and to bury his face into that tender spot where your
breasts and stomach meet. If only you really knew that, if only you trusted how
much he adored you with your inhibitions expelled, if only you prioritized the
exotic over homespun familiarity.
He smiles and presses his fingertips to his mouth before blowing you a kiss, a
trail of technicolor, neon magenta hearts winding a path behind his gesture and
slapping against your window before he climbs into his van to start the engine
with a rumble.
After you’re thoroughly exhausted and the song winds to an end, you toss
yourself onto your couch on top of Harry’s jacket. The crinkling sound of paper
seizes your regard as you frown and sit up, digging your fingers into all of his
pockets until you find the source of the noise. Your fingertips graze against a
thick bundle of bills before you tug them free, your jaw slowly falling slack when
you unfold the stack and spread them out on the cushion before you. It’s well
over a hundred dollars and it dawns on you where the money has come from
when an image of the cigar box glows to life in your memory.
A grin stretches across your face at how the events of the evening unfolded,
your eyes falling closed as you melt into the couch and cover your face with the
sleeve of his jacket, the enticing scent of his sappy Crush cigarettes still lingering
in your hair.
Fucking phew, y’all. I can’t tell you how long that took me to write and how
much I’ve been looking forward to it. I hope you loved it. I’ll see you soon! Have the
best week. Much love, B
“Where in the hell did all of this cash come from?”
You don’t remember falling asleep on the couch, with Harry’s jacket balled up
as a makeshift pillow underneath your head and dollar bills spilling out from the
cushion and onto the floor. But judging by Nettie’s humorously horrified
expression, you must have done just that.
The entire scene is completely oppositional to your character in every which

way; an abundance of makeup still plastered to your face and smeared across
your eyelids, your hair down and crumpled in the spot where it was smashed
against your cheek throughout the night, borrowed trousers now wrinkled at the
knees and hips, a psychedelic rock and roll record sleeping on the turntable, a
hangover that battles even the mightiest of lovesick anguish.
A hundred and fifty-six dollars of stolen cash littering the living room as if a
burglar had tossed it up like confetti and then frolicked in their proud glory.
Annoying streaks of sun the color of hot lightning and lemon meringue pie
scorch the high pile rug and straight through your eyelids, bleaching your vision
a bloody red that matches your headache and the memory of the dim lighting
inside of Chubby’s last night. The reminder of Chubby’s floods your mind with
Harry, his palm gripping your thigh and his thumb drawing mystery letters into
your skin on the car ride home. That one sizzling kiss that he sponged in the dip
of your neck just above your clavicle, the tip of his tongue peeking out to send an
electrical current to your stomach. It feels as though so many lines were crossed
last night that there’s no way in hell the two of you could ever backtrack now,
and all the mysterious forks and dead ends that lie ahead start to make you
homesick with turbulence.
You’ve never been someone who moves forward without a solid list of plans
and detailed roadmaps of destinations and it would seem like Harry is the exact
opposite, following the sea breeze wherever it may lead him next. A true
hedonist, a blood hound for whichever avenue feels the best in his guts. A surfer
both of the ocean tide and of life.
And the compass of his hands and the compassion of his mouth are much too
seductive to ignore.
“This is like, over a hundred bucks. What did you do last night?” Nettie slams
the door behind her, tossing her keys onto the console table and laughs when you
flinch and gripe at the loud sounds, “are you hungover, young lady?”
You whine and smack your palm against your face before curling back up on
the couch, catching a familiar faded whiff of cotton candy frenzy from Harry’s
jacket before you hug a pillow against your chest, “I don’t have the capacity to
answer any questions right now.”
Another flash of Harry’s mouth sucking a salty patch of skin past his teeth, his
curls tickling your chest, his breath hitting your cheek in eager pants and you
groan again as your stomach turns in passionate nausea. Your mind immediately
floats away to curiosity about his current whereabouts, if he woke up early to go
surfing as he normally does or if he slept in and waited for the sun to thaw him. Is
he thinking about you in this exact moment too, curled up shirtless in his sheets
and journeying into the vast sky of powder blue through his pop top sunroof,
wondering if you’re regretting denying his kiss at the end of the night? You have
a crushing desire to see him right now, to rinse the night away and show up at
the door of his van with your hair drying around your cheeks just as he likes,
pounding on the glass and begging him to recreate the entire evening, down to
the very last detail of hiding in the vestibule from the police with his body
pressed up against yours.
“Hello? Are you even hearing me?”

Spun sugar fog disintegrates around you and makes way for the sensation of
your brain shriveling inside of your skull, “mmm….. not really.”
Nettie hangs up her cardigan and slips off her shoes, crossing the room in a
few greedy steps before plopping down next to you to keep your attention. She
loves you and wants to protect you as much as any good friend should, but she
also loves to hear the nitty gritty when it comes to dramatic dirty details. And a
shrapnel shower of loose cash sprawled across a room is never without dramatic
dirty details, “I asked if he crashed here?” You widen your eyes at the audacity of
her insinuation and shake your head in stern denial as she curiously taps her
chin and eyes the recognizable jacket that you keep hugged under your temple,
“did you mess around?”
Got a few minutes before midnight, pumpkin.
A shiver racks your spine and you swear you can feel the end of his nose paint
your throat in a delicate stroke of pink, “no.”
“No? Wow. Poor guy. You’re layin’ a trip. Where’d he take you?”
“What’d I say about the questions, Net?”
“That you were more than happy to answer every single one of them as long
as I made you a cup of Swiss Miss and scrambled eggs with toast.”
As much as Nettie has a supportive and loyal concern towards Harry on your
behalf, she admittedly kind of likes the guy. It’s not hard to recognize that he’s
one of the more attractive people she’s ever met, and the fact that he brings you
sunflowers and showers you with compliments as if he were getting paid to do so
is diligent and enchanting. She’s not the type of person to hold indignant grudges,
but she keeps a healthy handle on the past, knowing from experience that
although people don’t completely change, they can learn from their mistakes and
work at chiseling the rough edges of their characters over time. It would seem to
her that there has been a reversal of sorts, that Harry was insistent on covering
up the tracks of the person that is currently shining through, but he failed.
Sunshine can’t be buried for long, even by the densest of cloud cover. And so long
as that grumpy, shit-eating version of him disappears for good, he’s okay in her
book.
The only thing that annoys the shit out of her is that he can’t seem to find the
importance of learning her correct name, but maybe that has more to do with his
brain damage than his blind one-track mind for cherries. Or maybe he just really
is that bloated of a person. It’s hard to tell which one is the less alarming option.
And also if he hurts you, she wasn’t kidding about the ice pick and the duct
tape.
Nettie drags you from the couch and steers you into the kitchen, beginning
first with pouring you a big glass of water from the tap before filling the tea kettle
next. You plop yourself on the barstool and grumble the most appreciative thank
you that you can muster, unwrapping a lollipop and tossing the crushed wrapper
onto the counter before folding your hands into your hair. When you look up and
squint through the abrasive daylight of your kitchen, that same perplexing image
of a shirtless Harry taking a long sip of orange juice straight from the carton
swells to life and you wonder if those kinds of fantasies are normal and if Harry
happens to have any of his own. And if he does, what they consist of exactly.
You figure the best segue into this conversation is by deflection, “how’s Ash?”
“Righteous. How’s Harry?” The sound of eggs cracking open and sizzling in the
pan makes your stomach turn again, but you manage to quell it by drinking the
entire glass of water that’s been laid out before you. Nettie points at you with the
spatula in her hand, a bit of runny yolk dripping from the end, “start by telling me
where you went and then we can go from there.”
“Some underground dance club in Venice called Chubby’s. It got broken up by

the cops. Did you know that he’s stolen a car before?”
Nettie adds that to the list of history that she plans to keep track of, “how
would I know that? You’re not selling this, baby. Where did the cash come from?”
You’re realizing how bad this all sounds as it molds together in your brain and
funnels out of your mouth, but you swear that somehow hidden underneath all of
this illicit conduct is a satisfactory human being. Bright, compassionate, pink and
sexy, “I think he stole that too.”
“Alright, why don’t you start with your favorite part of the night?”
Out of every image that breathes life into you from the night before, the one
that you land on is also perhaps the most innocent, “the car ride home.” The taste
of his cigarettes, the warmth of his palm, the muted pipeline of rosy lighting, the
moon-saturated breeze and the clang of his records. All hedged by the residual
hum of live music and a mixture of yours and Harry’s sweat drying on your skin.
Your roommate places a plate of dry eggs and burnt toast in front of you and
watches as you politely shuffle them around with your fork before diving into
your hot cocoa. Although you’re clearly aching from alcohol and your hair is kind
of a rumpled mess, you’re still cute and in need of gentle guidance, “you’re in
trouble, little one.”
You narrow your eyes at her correct observation and sigh before shoveling an
unbecoming heap of eggs into your mouth, “I know. This is exactly what I was
trying to avoid.”
“Once that suggestion of romance is introduced into the atmosphere, it doesn’t

just go away. Whether you make out, go steady or try to pretend it’s not
happening, something will have to suffer now. You, Harry, or your job. Take your
pick. You’re in charge; master of your domain, that kinda thing. Although he’s
really not making it easy for you.”
You pause for several heartbreaking seconds as her sentiment tumbles and
rings truer and truer on each bumpy rotation, “I’m fucked.”
“I sure hope so. By the looks of that stacked daddy, he’d have no problem in
the sack.”
You drop your fork onto your plate and shove it away from you, your stomach
shrinking with a sudden lack of appetite, “Wynette.”
“It burns a bit, but I think he would take real stellar care of you—”
“Wynette!”
She shrugs and glances at the ticking tail of the Kit-Cat clock hanging on the
wall, “we have milkshake plans with a few girlfriends at Susie Q’s in an hour. Can
you make yourself presentable by then?” You start to protest, but she points to
the bathroom and contends, “french fries will cure you. We’ll leave in forty-five.
Punch it.”
When you make your way down the hall and to the bathroom, half of Nettie’s
sentence is muffled by the slam of the bathroom door, “give the gentleman what
he wants!”
You lean up against the closed barrier and rip a towel from the rack, your lip
snagged by your teeth as you take a moment to pause and lean your head against
the hard wood. Your smile grows in ticking increments when you suddenly
understand that you’re going to be seeing him again in just two days and then
your smile carves a nearly painful sunbeam when you realize that you’re really,
really excited about it.
.
The sound of your neatly trimmed fingernails drumming the watermelon pink,
plexiglass tabletop drowns your friends’ mindless chatter, the condensation on
your milkshake glass rolling in slow beads down to the whittled base. You’ve
already eaten all but one of the extra maraschino cherries you requested, their
discarded stems laying on a lacerated paper napkin next to your untouched
french fries. Each time you suck one past your lips, popping the shiny, innocent
globule with your teeth to flood your tongue with syrupy sacrilege, you can hear
his voice ricocheting inside of your mouth as his words tickle your ear.
I’ve never wanted anything this fuckin’ much, Cherry.
It has turned out to be a mistake in coming here just as you suspected, with
your stomach rejecting sustenance and your mind caught in a selfish, confounded
haze. You’ve never wanted the weekend to fade so quickly before and you find
yourself glancing at the clock every five minutes or so hoping that the next time
you check, it’ll be Monday morning.
I only want your hands on me. I only see you. Hear me?
Is this what it feels like to fall for someone, the clean heartbreak and the
sloppy patching all at once? Every cell in your body steadily realigning to
enhance and recreate itself, making space for another person and what they may
or may not do next? Constant suffering and a perpetual thrill within the confines
of your brain tissue and your hollow sternum. A dream within a dream; a house
of mirrors except your reflection is not your own, it’s just an endless speculum of
Harry’s face in every direction you look, over and over again as it shrinks into
oblivion. Is this what Harry has been feeling the whole time, an all-consuming
infatuation so powerful that it zaps you of reality and steals chunks of your
spirit? Cotton balls and thumbtacks where your throat should be, budding
sunflowers and brittle seeds flowing through your bloodstream. Rewriting love
poems with your own blood and bones and then burning them to dust to dull the
wheezing rattle in your lungs. A sensation so strong that if you didn’t know what
to make of it, you might have the urge to store a keepsake of it in your wallet
while simultaneously begging it to stop, using denial and oblivion as your only
means of self-preservation.
One of Nettie’s friends pinches her straw between her fingers and stabs the ice
in her soda pop a couple times, her eyes glued to the door that’s just clanged
against the shopkeeper’s bells hanging from the ceiling to alert the hostess of an
incoming customer, “wow, don’t look. A really choice hunk just walked in. Really,
really sexy and tall and fit— oh my god. He’s coming this way. Oh god, don’t look
—”
Nettie is seated beside you and she’s the first person at the table to take a
gamble and daringly glance over her shoulder, “oh, shit.”
The intrusive slap against the tabletop is enough to garner your audible
attention, but not quite enough to lift your chin from your palm. You’re grateful
to be tucked into the farthest corner of the booth, with the safety screen of Nettie
and the rest of your company shielding you from any awkward social pests you’d
otherwise be forced to interact with.
“Cherry pie.”
You flick your sight to the palms splayed against the pink, translucent acrylic,
fingers spread and showcasing a bold, honorable cross etched into the tender
space between the forefinger and thumb. Your gaze travels up the arms that
widen into a set of steady shoulders, then even further up to find a pair of
buttery, olive green eyes dripping into yours. It’s so surprising that he’s here that
at first it seems like a fragmented mirage caused by a refraction of light from the
sky by heated air. You’re left speechless as three remaining sets of eyes slowly
peel away from you to focus on him, your milkshake curdling in your stomach
when you finally manage two choked syllables, “Harry.”
“I’m so fuckin’ happy to see you. Can’t believe my luck. I almost showed up at
your spot this morning. God— fuck—” He reaches across the table and folds his
fingers around your palm, a soft hiss sucking past his teeth at the feeling of your
skin electrifying his to the touch, “look at you with your hair down. Your lips are
stained kinda pink. Are you wearin’ cherry chapstick?” He finally notices that
Nettie is staring holes into his profile and shoots her a glib, “oh. Hey, Nina.”
“Seriously? My name is Nettie.”
He remains honed in on you and doesn’t hear her response or notice the other
hard stares as he’s garnered attention of the whole table, all of your friends quiet
and now solely invested in your interaction with the handsome stranger.
“I haven’t stopped thinking of how you looked in my passenger seat with my

cigarette between your lips—”
Nettie butts in at the shocking revelation and addresses you with a loose jaw,
“pardon me?”
You shake your head in an attempt at feeble denial, “um—”
“—the smell of sweat and faded perfume on your chest—”
Without hearing another word, you’re shuffling Nettie out of the booth and
digging your fingers into his shirt to maneuver him across the checkerboard tiles,
through the narrow aisle between the tables and red swivel bar stools until
you’re met with warm sunshine and ocean air. You steer him around the corner
and back him up against the brick wall as he allows you to move him about as
you wish, his body boneless and weakened with flimsy yearning as he finishes
his long-winded fervor, “-and dancing. Your dancing. Your fuckin’ hips and your
sexy little waist.” He lifts his demanding hands into the air and then curls them
into fists as though he were struggling to keep them off of you, “chillin’ in my
passenger seat with my jacket draped over your shoulders and the window
down. Fuck, Honeymoon. Is it haunting you too? I barely slept.”
He catches his breath just long enough to digest your smile as you tuck a lock
of hair behind your ear and placate him with composure, “hi. How did you know I
was here?”
Harry adjusts his skateboard under his arm, the pack of cigarettes rolled up in
the sleeve of his simple white t-shirt protruding against the fabric. He looks just
as attractive or maybe even more-so in casual attire, his shirt lazily tucked into a
pair of slim-fitting, banana cream trousers, and his feet nestled into a pair of
worn, white leather loafers, “I didn’t. I had no fuckin’ idea. I just saw you through
the window and suffered a mild heart attack tryin’ to get the door open.” His
shoulders loosen when he finally starts to relax and takes comfort in your
outwardly serene presence, your hair softly blowing in the breeze and your lips
rolling together as you study him, “hi. I just lost my fuckin’ cool.”
Your soft laughter is diffused when he weaves his fingers into your hair and
drops his forehead against yours with his eyes pinched shut, “Harry…..” His heart
starts to thump when you try to stifle a reckless smile with your teeth, “I—”
“Say somethin’ honest. Somethin’ scary. Please.”
A cloud of speculation fills the space between your ears as you try to translate
a single sentence to disclose through the feral distraction of his mouth this close
to yours.
You wish that you’d granted his wish of a kiss, but you were worried that if
you started, you’d never be able to stop.
Your dreams were phantom limbs of his hands on your hips and his stomach
breathing against yours.
You woke up with the taste of cotton candy on your tongue and you loved it.
You have recurring fantasies about finding him shirtless in your kitchen in the
wee hours of the morning.
You’ve already run away from home to join the circus, but you’d gladly do it
again.
A hangover has never felt so good.
Your cheeks flame before you lean closer and slip your hand into his, your
mouth brushing his stubbly cheek as you murmur into his ear, “I wanted to show
up at your van this morning too, but I wouldn’t have known what to say or do.”
The hum in his eardrums starts off as a low, sacred hymn, but then gains so
much force that he can’t hear his own fuzzy contemplation, “yeah? Fuck. Don’t
even worry about that. I’d do all the thinkin’ and all the talkin’. All you’d have to
do is tell me what feels good and when to stop.”
“Jesus Christ.” You look over your shoulder to find the entire table staring at
you, their heads quickly diverting as soon as your eyes land on them.
He’s not really making it easy for you.
Harry pinches your chin between his fingers and collects your focus again,
“can I steal you away for a little bit?” You shake your head and he sighs,
interrupting your excuse before you even have a chance to speak with another
ploy for attention, “then can I walk you to work on Monday morning? I’ll be on
your doorstep at seven or whatever fuckin’ time you want. I’ll carry all your shit
for you. Please, I—” he licks his lips quickly, “I’m kind of a fuckin’ mess.”
At this point it feels like there isn’t much that you would deny him, especially
since you had just been pining over Monday morning the moment before he
hovered over yours and your friend’s milkshakes, “yeah….. okay. Seven. I’ll be
ready.” You lower your voice to denote the importance of your next statement, “I
don’t think I can keep that money.” Harry raises a single eyebrow and opens his
mouth to protest, but you speak through it, “no— truly. It makes me
uncomfortable.”
“That money is yours. You were the best dancer in the room. If I didn’t take it,
some undeserving, drunk clown or a crooked rozzer would’ve. Buy yourself
somethin’ real fuckin’ nice. Make me proud.” He clicks his tongue and runs the
pad of his finger across your jaw, “pretty please? Cherry on top?” Harry shudders
at the double meaning of his last question, forcing the illusion of you straddling
his waist in the driver’s seat of his van away so that he can focus on your mouth
as you speak.
He has a way of justifying his perspective in such a nonchalant, plausible way

that it makes you question your values and beliefs and also maybe it would be a
good idea to have a couple new pairs of trousers just in case, “fine.” Both of your
stomachs sizzle when your smiles mirror one another, “thanks, Harry. I should
get back.”
Because he can’t bear to be in your vicinity and not directly beside you, he
volunteers his company for another minute longer, “I’ll walk you.”
It’s utterly transparent the way your friends pretend to look everywhere else
in the diner but you when you approach the table with Harry glued to your hip.
They all welcome you with bright, artless smiles, Harry as captivating as ever
when he shakes each one of their hands and introduces himself, finally poised
enough to be his typically hypnotic self. He collects your hand after you’ve cozied
back into the booth, promising to be at your duplex the second the sun pushes
past the horizon on Monday morning, then silently promising himself that one
day he won’t need to because you’ll be waking up in his arms. His lips mold
around your knuckles for a wet kiss, “you’re sweet, Cherry.”
Nettie rolls her eyes before maneuvering her straw into her mouth, “so is
cyanide.”
“Is it?”
“Wanna find out?”
You kick her under the table and she kicks you back without hesitation, her
ever-present security blanket laying more like a thinly veiled threat, “bye Harry.”
His fingers squeeze yours and he couldn’t make it any more obvious that he
doesn’t want to leave, “take care.”
Harry plucks the last cherry from the top of your melted milkshake, popping it
from its stem and bursting the fruit open with his teeth. His lips pucker into a
becoming pout as he chews and backs up towards the exit, “s’been real.”
The action has sweat pressing against your pores and you know that was
intentional on his part, you know that absolutely everything he does has a
lingering, erotic motive. He meanders his way through the diner, stopping to
quickly chat with the waitress and lighting a cigarette before he’s even made it
outside to leave behind a trail of pink clouds in his wake.
As soon as the door trills shut behind him, all of your friends are talking at
once both to each other and to you, asking you questions of who he is and if
you’ve gone all the way with him yet. One of them has the gall to ask if he’s single
which is so offensive that you’re left with your jaw hanging open, but luckily
Nettie picks up the slack for you and inserts benign information to keep them
quenched. The babbling brook is laid to ease when the waitress appears with a
bowl of picture perfect, glossy, maraschino cherries, their stems all poking up
toward the ceiling in a pert, enticing challenge, “the gentleman said he’s got his
sweet cherry taken care of.”
You reach your hand out to pause her retreat, “wait a minute, did he buy my
milkshake?”
The waitress tucks her note pad and pen into her apron pocket, “no, he paid
the tab for the entire table. And he tips like a Rockefeller. He’s a keeper, hun.”
Slick as grease.
On Monday morning your brain is a scrambled mess as you tear through your
apartment, scooping up your cardigan and your keys in the dusty, early morning
light. You dash past your kitchen and do a double-take, trying to decide if you
should pause to grab a piece of fruit on your way out the door. You’re
uncharacteristically running a few minutes late and you know that Harry is most
likely waiting on your doorstep with his curls in his face, but that information
doesn’t halt that irritating image of him spinning around to face you with his long
fingers clutching a carton of orange juice against his chest. You narrow your eyes
in the duskiness and huff before swiping an apple from the large, ceramic bowl,
trying one final time to get your hair to lay perfectly against your shoulders
before swinging your door open.
“Honeyface!”
The gasp that sucks through your throat quickly escalates into a scream.
“Shh, Christ—” Harry clamps a hand over your mouth and shushes you until
you start to calm down, his fingers brushing through your hair in an attempt to
soothe your frazzled nerves, “my sweet jumpy girl, you’re okay. Got my heart
goin’. You remembered I was comin’, right? Who knew you could scream like
that.”
That’s a set of fuckin’ lungs, Jesus.

A dry lump is forced down your throat as you knock your head back against
the door and press your hand to your heart, “how’d you get in here?”
“Your neighbor let me in on their way out. You were late and you’re never late
so I thought somethin’ happened. I was just ’bout to knock, honest.” His gaze
roams from your reddened cheeks down to your toes, slowing down at the sight
of your madras A-line skirt brushing your thighs before manifesting a bouquet of
puffy, golden sunflowers from behind his back, “what’d you have for breakfast,
Cherry?”
Harry’s dependable, light conversation surrounded by a halo of yellow is

consistently a source of comfort. It’s as if he understands your need for
meticulous organization and routine in order to function and he’s customizing
his behavior for the sake of serving you. It’s even more adorable that your
answer is predictable, but yet he never gets tired of any information you may
have to share with him, “the usual, eggs and toast. Thank you…..” You press your
lips together and unconsciously decide to not only readily accept his gift, but add
a supplement of praise, “they’re beautiful. Perfect. I’m going to run these inside
really quick before we go.”
“Can I come in?”
That same irritating, sticky hallucination breathes to life and dares itself to
become reality, “I’ll just be a second.”
Harry waits patiently at your door with the heel of his hand pressed to the
frame and this time when you open it, you’re expecting him to be there but not
exactly this close. He makes no effort to move when you slip through the small
space, turning your back on him to lock the door and virtually coerced into
tucking your body against his. The hum that spirals up from his throat and twists
into your ear causes something mushy to spark inside of your core, your lips
parting for a breath of thick air when you feel the pads of his fingers sweep up
your thigh and lift the hem of your skirt in the process, “y’know a hundred bucks
could buy you a nice pair of trousers. Or several pairs.”
His ears tingle when the tiniest pant pushes past your teeth, his fingertips
slowly tip-toeing their way higher when you sigh quietly, “I didn’t exactly expect
anyone’s hands up my skirt before I’d even left my apartment.”
Harry hisses in defeat when you brush him away, his hand retreating to your
neck to skim your hair away from your ear. He knows for certain that you’ve
driven his digits away from your bare leg, but you’ve made no effort to retreat
from his proximity, “if you don’t want me to reach up your skirt, then you’ll need
to start wearing pants, Honeybrain.”
You’ve yet to notice that you’re still frozen, holding the key in the lock and that
your head is tilting the slightest bit to the left to expose the bit of skin on your
neck that Harry revealed. Harry caught it though, he became aware of it in an
instant and his mouth is so close to the bare stretch that he begins to salivate.
You glance over your shoulder to brave his eye contact, your lips practically
squaring off, “should we go?”
“Don’t you want somebody to love?”
The rock and roll record that you danced to all alone in your apartment whirls
to life on the turntable of your memory, your eyes widening as you spin on your
heel to face him, “don’t tell me…..”
“I knew you’d be amazing at it.” You’re expecting him to ask for a kiss and
you’re prepared to flippantly reject him, but he doesn’t. Harry is consistent as
you’ve observed, but he’s not insane. If one tactic isn’t working, he will switch to
another one without any notice to optimize his likelihood and keep everyone
around him on their toes. Instead he offers you his hand and backs away, the
distance between you brisk and undesirable compared to the fever that was
developing just a second ago, “ready when you are.”
The walk to the theatre and the subsequent hours of practice are just as
strained and humid as you suspected them to be. Harry takes every opportunity
to paw at your hips when you’re close enough, begging to skip calisthenics and
the trampoline to rush into static trapeze work just so that he can hold you in his
hands and feel the softness of your body against his. Ever since the night at
Chubby’s, your ankle has been feeling tight and you’re still petrified to mention it
to him based on how he reacted the first time he received that information. For
once it feels like a robust working relationship and you would hate to weaken it
with an even weaker tendon, especially this early on in practice. You’re rightfully
hesitant to jump into grand feats on his second day back to work due to his own
injuries, but mostly you’re afraid of what will happen once the two of you are
forced into a routine schedule of intimacy.
Just as you’d feared, the lines between your professional and personal lives
are heavily blurred now, as if someone had licked their thumb and smudged the
fat stripe of charcoal that ran between you into a splotch of perplexing gray
across your faces. It almost seems as though it would just be easier if you were
actually dating at this point, to cut the tension and dissolve the mystique of not
knowing what could possibly come next. This purgatory feels more like a
personal hell, each corner of every room you step into smoldering with bits of
fire that you leap and skip around in a twisted struggle to avoid any leaking
passion.
Even the lunch break that Harry managed to emotionally swerve and dodge
before his accident is elevated to a level of affection so heavy that it feels as
though it carries actual, physical weight. He lays beside you now, close enough
that his bent leg teeters and knocks against your knee every so often, with his
head resting on Beau’s sleeping stomach and slice of cucumber pinched between
his fingers as he hovers it in the air above his nose, “’kay, ready?” You nod and
pop your mouth open as he launches it towards your face, the sliver bouncing off
the end of your nose when you fail to catch it. Harry wheezes out a dry, raspy
laugh at your honest, continued effort and lovable defeat, “fuckin’ hell, babe. You
almost had that one. Good thing you didn’t take up softball.”
You stick your tongue out in response to his playful dig, your hand pausing in
the air when you hold up your piece of cucumber next to find him wiggling his
way closer to you. You lick your lips nervously as he mutters about Beau’s
ribcage being uncomfortable, his knuckle reaching up to tap your shin before he
pushes his sunglasses up on his forehead and douses you with a rugged sea of
emerald green, “maybe we’d have a better shot if I moved closer.” He pinches his
bottom lip between his index finger and thumb before letting it loose, “your lap
looks so fuckin’ cozy an’ nice. Wanna cuddle?”
Harry’s heart starts to pound violently against his ribcage when you consider
his suggestion and then slowly nod in response. He shuffles closer through the
grass, his head nestling into a sweet spot in your lap as he rocks back and forth to
make himself as snug as possible. A moan whittles his throat and his eyes fall
shut at the feeling of closeness, a sudden and spellbinding need for more physical
contact revealing itself as soon the heat from your thighs warms him from the
inside out. His fingers sweep through the grass to pinch your kneecap and then
grip your thigh, his cheeks splitting into a satiated smile as he settles and hums in
appreciation.
You hesitate for a neat bundle of seconds before your hand drops into his hair
and combs through the lush curls, his scalp tingling at your affectionate gesture
and the colossal stride you’ve taken on your own accord to push another
boundary of closeness. It’s quiet aside from the blood rushing in your ears and
the distant ocean waves breaking against the beach, the both of you startled into
a hush at how fucking good and delectable this flourishing blaze feels.
Harry reaches for your hand and slips your fingers together, sponging a kiss to
your thumb before dropping your joined palms to his rest on his stomach. His
mouth falls open and he ticks his chin towards the sky to expertly break the
ruddy tension, “hit me.”
It takes a beat for you to realize what he’s referring to, but then you remember
the chunk of cucumber in your hand, “oh, right.” Little glints of lightning and
goosebumps are crawling up your arm, but you try your best to ignore it when
you toss the vegetable towards his mouth to continue your silly game. It
rebounds off of his sunglasses and plops into the grass, your entwined hands
vibrating on his belly when he laughs at your terrible aim.
“Special kinda negligent to miss that close up, Cherry.”
“You’re right. I don’t know how I missed your mouth, it’s practically the size of
the Great Barrier Reef.”
Harry springs up and pushes you down into the grass as rebuttal, his teeth
playfully piercing his bottom lip when you laugh and struggle against him for
leverage. He tugs the ribbon from your ponytail to allow your hair to spread out
among the soft blades, the velocity between the two of you slowing to a crawl
when he dips forward and breathes against your mouth, his voice a husky
whisper that shines light on every seedling inside of you, “and you have no idea
what it’s capable of.”
Your stomachs rise and fall against one another through the thick pressure of
your adjacency, his eyes cutting paths across your face to gauge your reaction
before honing in on your lips. A single wave crashes to shore, the sparkling sound
of the suction back to sea. A slice of cucumber bounces off of his forehead, the
only reactionary defense you can muster to keep him at bay. His face flattens in
annoyance before he flicks his sunglasses back down to cover his eyes, the
warmth of his body leaving yours when he rolls away and plays dead with his
tongue hanging out of his mouth and his eyelids painfully pinched closed. You
giggle so hard that a snort tickles your nose and he’s powerless in joining you in
laughter, his fingers digging into his hair and tugging at his scalp when his fervor
dissolves and he gripes towards the sun, “buzz off, Honeychump.”
Luckily for you he hardly minds your teasing or anything that you do at all, his
lighthearted smile never straying very far from his pink, heart-shaped lips.
It feels as though it’s been ages since you reconnected with your solo static
routine on the knotted rope, even though realistically it’s only been a weekend
and some change. While Harry was hospitalized and then at Tex’s house resting
for weeks, you would spend hours upon hours perfecting and modifying the
choreography. Since technically you weren’t even supposed to be at work while
Harry was out, you would have endless stretches of free time and open gym
space to do as you pleased. It was satisfying to spend so much duration on
yourself and on something that you love to do; perfecting the lines and curves of
your body with no one to bark at you or force you to switch gears into another
facet of responsibility. But now that Harry is back it would seem as though most
of the focus has again shifted to him, except this time you don’t mind nearly as
much as you did the first time around. This time you’re happy to split your
obligations with a sappy puppy who can’t seem to unglue his vision from you.
A record player spins in the corner of the room to filter one of your
performance tracks into the air, your back arched and your hair cascading down
your back as your toes grip the knot in the rope. Harry confiscated your ribbon
when he slipped it from your hair at lunch, tucking it into the pocket of his fitted
sweatpants and daring you to come get it if you wanted it back. You took one
glance at his pocket and then at the bump between his thighs, shaking your head
and telling him that he could keep it if he wanted it that badly. He got one of his
wishes which was to allow your hair to be set free, but the other aspiration of
having your hands on him would have to wait until another day.
Harry is supposed to be working on his solo routine as well but he can’t seem
to stop his gaze from magnetizing in your direction; the arch of your spine and
the bend in your knee, the long stretch of neck that he’s dying to sink his teeth
into. You’re so fucking natural and raw with your body in motion and your hair
wild, your mind lost in the clouds somewhere up above as you practice what you
were put on this earth to do. Aside from loving him with every shred and fiber of
your soul.
He pretends to be busy on his trapeze bar when you make your way down
from the rope for a drink of water. You flick your sight to him in the hope that
he’ll be watching you and you’ll have a moment of flirtatious eye contact, but
when you find him purposefully occupied, you pout your lips in disappointment
before dismounting a couple feet from the air to the mat below. It takes you by
surprise when you land on the side of your foot and your ankle buckles, and the
ensuing wail that bleeds from your heart in the following moment nearly knocks
Harry off of his post.
He’s already disembarked from the trapeze and crossing the room by the time
you cry out again and fall to the ground, your hands trembling as they hover over
your shin at a loss of how to proceed, your whole leg tense with rigid pain. Harry
rushes to your side and drops to his knees, cupping your face in his palms and
hushing through the sick trouncing in his chest, “I’m here. Shh, s’okay.” He’s
trying so fucking hard not to think of Indy and to ignore the vomit creeping up
his esophagus, “are you okay, baby? What’s happened? Is it your foot?”
A single tear pinches out of the corner of your eye when you finally sputter,
“my ankle— my foot— oh my god, my whole leg is on fire. I can’t move my toes
without it cramping. Harry, help. I didn’t want this to happen.”
“No one does, babe. Probably just a charley horse. You’re dehydrated. Here…..
shh, s’okay.” He settles onto his bottom and his warm palms smooth up your
shin, the pads of his fingers swiping the underbelly of your calf until you sob and
throw your head back when he’s found your tender achille’s heel, “that it?”
You look at him with a deep frown and your mouth puckered to stave the pain
dominating your leg and your brain, unable to speak with how overpowering the
sensation is. It dawns on you through the haze of your wretched malaise that he
is only going to be blissfully unaware of your impaired situation for a few more
blessed seconds. The realization of his accidental honesty soothes you, even
though it’s upsetting to justify the severity of his brain injury for your own
comfort. He reminds you to breathe, but everything is so tense that you couldn’t
possibly begin to relax. Instead your toes curl and your head falls back again, the
burn in your leg unbearable as you wait for it to pass.
You swallow the excruciating torment and finally croak an explanation, “it’s
not— it’s my bad ankle.” His heart twists when your face pinches in discomfort,
“oh god, Harry. It hurts.”
Harry digs his fingers into your tendon and you shriek in response, a soft hush
pressing past his teeth as he does it again and urges you to breathe through the
discomfort, “it’s in spasm. M’gonna make it better, but you gotta breathe. ’Kay?
Look at me?”
Your eyes fall on his striking stare, both of your stomachs flipping at the
intense emotional contact. Harry breathes the word ’hi‘ as a means of distraction,
your mouth pulling into a smile for a split second before you’re reminded of the
thunder shooting up your leg. His eyes sparkle as he notices his body’s reaction
to your physical touch and revels in it, having come to expect that sort of
response from any speck of regard from you. You try your best to ignore the
onslaught of contradicting feelings, not realizing that your nervous system is
beginning to replace your pain with candied attraction. Without much physical
work to your contracted heel, Harry has begun to pacify your ailment with mere
proximity and his organic, sunny self.
He can feel your leg relaxing in his hands, but assumes it’s from his massage
rather than the bleeding love in your heart, “s’good.” The rasp in his voice calms
you further, the way the crackle of a smoky campfire or the crash of the frigid
ocean on a rocky beach would, “breathe deep.” He sucks in a lungful of air
through his nose to model what you should be doing, nodding with a dose of
pride when you start to mimic him, “it’s loosening up. Can you tell?”
The size and strength of his hands feels divine, his intuitive ability to locate
just the right spot and ease you back to health is extremely impressive but for
now, you’re lost in the pine forest of his eyes. Your leg has fallen limp in his
clutch and normally he would take pride in his successful manipulation to soften
you, but he hadn’t intended it this time. His only priority was to take your pain
away.
His question finally registers in your mind and he thinks you look stunning
with a hint of pink to your cheeks and a casted net of complacency arresting your
facial features, “mhm. Yeah.”
Harry sucks on his bottom lip before digging his teeth there. For once he’s
thinking before he speaks out loud, although the contemplation doesn’t dally his
quiet compliment, “skin’s so soft…..” He imagines your fingers curling into the
fabric of his wife beater and pulling him on top of you, your lips slotting together
and his tongue sneaking in past your teeth. He thinks about fucking you often, a
dozen times a day at the very minimum, but what is most surprising is that he
also thinks about your laugh, your questions, your lollipops, your habits that you
are blissfully unaware of. He wants your body but he also wants your time, your
regard, your secrets. Your past and your future. Your wisdom and your mistakes.
Your fury.
You tear your gaze away from his and glance down at your leg, his fingers
having forgone their healing massage and taken on a new motion of rubbing up
and down your calf in a tender caress, “thank you…..”
“Welcome.”
He loves how docile and submissive you’ve fallen in his clutch, similar to how
you finally allowed yourself to dance with him in the underground club after
you’d completely let your guard down. You hadn’t noticed, but you were so
enticing that the whole club had stopped what they were doing to watch your
hips roll and your back arch. He knows you would be a successful soloist as you
wish you were and he feels guilty working beside you, as if stealing the spotlight
and shadowing your talents, but it seems as if nothing can change Rusty’s sexist
perspective about giving a woman the lead. Not that he’s tried very hard to
motivate him in the other direction.
There’s something so intriguing about you with your mask peeled away and
your gates unlocked, like your eyes have physically grown in size and someone
turned a light on underneath your skin. He wants to kiss you so fucking badly
right now, with your mouth parted just enough for even air flow and your
atypically messy hair framing your elegant features. Your eyelashes are long and
innocent, your collarbone piercing the elasticity of your skin with each expansion
of your lungs.
His blunt nails drag along your shin as you pull your leg away and clear your
throat as if to dispel the sexuality in the air, his fingers curling into fists against
the cushioned mat to ward his lust off. He wonders how he can work so hard to
control himself around you, but simultaneously be so recklessly in love. His eyes
find yours and the pain in them resembles the kind of mourning only reserved
for sacrifices of the heart, “bad ankle?”
You nod, impressed by his control of will and a doting healing capacity that
you’ve only ever experienced from women and professional caretakers. This is
the moment that you’ve been dreading and there’s absolutely no way around it
now, but you only falter for a few ticks of the clock before you spew your long-
awaited explanation, “yeah. I tore my Achilles‘ tendon my final year at The
Annex.” He frowns in sympathy and wraps his fingers around your ankle, the
corner of your mouth twitching into a smile before you drop your hand to rest on
top of his, “you knew this before your accident.” His eyes search yours in blank
commotion before he drops his sight to the mat, “it’s why I worked my butt off to
join the circus and perform in aerial arts. To take the physical pressure off of my
leg in order to extend my career. It was my final — and only — option. I only had
a few months left to graduate with several prospective companies interested in
recruiting me, but the injury destroyed it. It destroyed everything.”
He nods slowly and it almost seems as though you can see himself digging
inside of his own brain, “that’s smart. Hard, but smart. Smart as fuck, pretty
Honey. I’m glad I gave you another chance.”
“You really, really didn’t want to.”
“Didn’t want anyone to have the part, I reckon. M’so fuckin‘ happy that it’s
you.”
Your gaze locks with his when you finally discover the bravery needed for
another trickle of honesty, “I purposely kept it from you because I was scared to
tell you. I was scared of how you’d react.”
Harry shakes his head and reaches for his packs of smokes to tap one out with
the heel of his hand, “damn it, Cherry. Don’t fuckin’ keep shit from me, alright?
Fuck. It’s okay that you have a weak ankle.” He strikes a match and surrounds
himself with protective cotton candy haze, “I can take care of you, but not if
you’re lyin’ to me. And yourself.”
Tex intrudes on your private, strained moment through a fog of heavy,

impenetrable green smoke, “Rusty would like a word.”
Both of your heads snap in his direction and you have no idea where he came
from or how long he’s been standing there for, but from the side of Harry’s face
you can see just how deep the frown is that angrily chisels his forehead, “right
now?”
Tex nods and you start to collect yourself to standing, but Harry shakes his
head and holds a protective palm out towards you, “nah, hang tight. I’ll handle
this.”
When Harry leaves the room you expect Tex to follow behind him except he
doesn’t. He glances over his shoulder before joining you on the ground, offering
you a puff of his cigarette which you deny with a stiff shake of your head. Having
him this close somehow feels uncomfortable and wrong and you find yourself
pulling your knees into your chest for safety, wishing Harry would hurry up and
relieve you of this awkward interaction.
“He does this, y’know.”
Green smoke curls around his hands and face, sinking into his hair and his
clothes, “no, I don’t know. Who does what?”
“Harry. This is his game. This is his pattern and I’ve seen it a hundred times,
I’ve heard him say all of this shit before to dozens of burners. It’s not special or
sincere. You’re too smart for all of this, I wouldn’t want you to fall for it and wind
up getting hurt.” Tex brings his cigarette to his lips and hollows his cheeks out
with a sharp inhale, “I’m just looking out for you.” He shrugs before ashing his
cigarette at your feet, his eye contact leeching and discouraging, a stark contrast
to the eyes that just sucked pain straight of your ankle for the sake of loving
altruism, “but I might have an idea to help you out.”
Harry’s bare feet pad quietly down the hall, his knees bending when he jumps
to tap the door jamb before nodding at a coworker and slipping into Rusty’s
office with two knocks to the wooden frame, “what’s cookin’, boss?”
Rusty is sat coolly behind his desk covered by a shroud of black, sooty smoke,
his position unchanging when he points to the chair across from him and
demands, “have a seat, son.” Harry’s eyebrows pull into a frown and he falters for
a moment upon comprehending Rusty’s tone. He lowers himself into the
designated spot slowly, his fingers gripping the armrests as he stares at his
ringleader from across the wooden divider, “I’ve been alerted to some risky
fraternization between you and a coworker.”
Harry freezes up and grits his teeth, wondering who dropped the ball on his
romantic endeavor. He can’t imagine any of his friends or coworkers ratting him
out and now his mind feels stuffed with threats and deceit. Sure, he wasn’t being
discreet, but it didn’t cross his mind to be because it’s never been a problem in
the past. Although he’s personally never done it, he’s seen several coworkers
hook up in the years that he’s been a part of the circus and mostly everyone turns
a blind eye, considering it natural to have personal involvements now and again
when working so intimately and physically with others.
Rusty continues, “the dynamic between the two of you on stage is spectacular.
Unmatched. Tickets are sold out for the entire rest of the season in anticipation
of your return and I won’t have it jeopardized for frivolous, fleeting lust. You
have a very thin reputation to protect and so do we. This is a civilized business,
not your personal brothel. Keep your rod in your pants, Styles.”
Harry’s glare is hard and intimidating and if Rusty weren’t providing him
paychecks or withholding information about Harry’s past that could completely
ruin him, he might be slightly worried for his safety. Harry swallows his livid
burning anger, the adrenaline-filled tremble of his hands hidden below Rusty’s
desk. He leans back in his chair and swipes his nose with his knuckle to steady
his fingers, “and if I don’t?”
“Then you can kiss your precious partner goodbye.”
The threat hangs heavy in the air like coastal fog. Harry couldn’t possibly do
that to you, tear away everything that you’ve worked so hard for and dug
through with bleeding fingernails to get to where you are because of his stupid
infatuation that doesn’t even seem to even be going anywhere. He can’t take your
job away from you, the job that he knows means more than anything in the world
to you because it’s your last, gasping hope at a career that involves dancing
without the stress on your bum ankle.
Now he’s torn between getting what he wants and giving you what you want.
His passion or your passion.
Harry rises to his feet with his hands clasped behind his back in order to keep
from lashing out. He widens his eyes, raising his eyebrows in furious annoyance
as he spins away from Rusty to collect his thoughts. Rage the color of coagulated
blood and burnt rubber fills every crevice of his brain and his sternum as paces
back towards his boss, spreading his palms across his desk and hunching down
to an equally threatening eye level when he delivers his menacing warning, “if
you fire her, I quit.”
Tex scrambles to finish your conversation when Harry returns with a ring of
fire burning around his feet, a fresh cigarette held between his teeth and his eyes
narrowed in annoyance. Your tongue has turned fat and sour in the past five
minutes, so his standoffish attitude doesn’t particularly irk or comb you like it
normally would. In fact, the shaky barricade that Tex has wedged between you
feels like a relieving validation of what you’ve had a fear of all along; being just
another product of Harry’s sexual prowess. You’re still unsure of how much
endorsement to give Tex’s speech and subsequent set-up, considering how much
faith you put into your own intuition, but with Harry sometimes it’s just so hard
to know what he’s truly capable of and what his intentions are. Tex just
happened to jump in and confuse a situation in which you are already at your
most vulnerable and a topic where you lose every ounce of confidence that
otherwise shines brightly in every other area of your life.
Maybe it’s better off this way. Maybe this was the push you both needed to
give up the lustful dance and move on with your careers. Maybe Tex’s suggestion
of a date with another person isn’t such a bad idea. Maybe you’re just at a point in
your life where you’re ready for love and Harry just happened to be the first
person to breathe energy into that realization.
Harry mutters the single order of ’Hound Dogs‘ to Tex before pausing and
drilling his sight into you. He’s so blinded with anger that he needs a moment to
sort through his thoughts and figure out how to navigate this speedbump in a
way where you can both get what you want; the gratification of each other and
the safety of your jobs. He waits and deliberates, trying hard to formulate
something tender enough to relay to you through the blazing fire of his agony,
but he simply can’t see straight. He raises a lit match to his cigarette and tilts his
head to light it, a plume of ambrosial smoke twisting around his features before
barging out the back door with Tex on his heels and leaving you with the smell of
hot sugar soaking into the walls.
You’re left wishing that you had mentioned your injury sooner, thinking
undoubtedly that was the reason he’s decided to storm out and leave you in the
dust. You’ve ruined any closeness you’ve built with Harry by choosing to keep
your truth and your feelings tucked deep inside and you suppose you’re getting
exactly what you deserve, a cold shoulder and an empty room that still smells
like his pink delirium. But hopefully Nettie will be willing to help you dress up for
a date with a different man tonight to take your mind away from the awful
shambles you’ve created.
Oh, Cherry. Oh, Harry. These two. This chapter ended up being hella longer than
I’d planned, but who’s complaining? I’ll keep you updated on when the next one will
be here. A bit of action to come. Hang tight. Love you so much and see you soon.
Have a lovely week! Xx B
PS: there’s a link on my conversation wall to the VA awards where you can vote
for AERIAL and INCLINATION in the fan favorites category. Inclination had over 50
votes but they all got deleted somehow :(. If you don’t mind taking the time to
comment an emoji to support the stories there, I’d appreciate it so so so much!
Wish You Were Here by RubySlippers_ and Goldie by FatBottomedGirls are also in
the running! As well as ones by Ilvhes many other talented writers. Thank you all
so much for everything.
The rack clatters and breaks apart upon the strike of the cue ball dotted with
fading scuffs of blue chalk, the drab rainbow of solids and stripes darting in a
dozen different ways as the balls bounce against the green felted rails and sink
into pockets with muted clacks. Harry has no outward reaction when he unfolds
himself to standing and eyes the pool table, a single twist of hair brushing his
eyelashes when his cheeks sink upon a harsh drag of his cigarette. He bangs the
bumper of his pool cue against the worn hardwood floor and grumbles, “stripes,”
before aligning himself up for another shot, a lump of blushing rosy ash snapping
from the end of his smoke and falling noiselessly to the table below.
Oh god, Harry. It hurts.
Harry feels endless guilt for the manner in which he left you. Your small,
dejected and helpless posture on the mat, in the center of the high-ceilinged
practice room with your beautifully tragic hair framing your cheekbones. It was
so much fucking information for him to digest in such a short period of time;
your tendon flare-up and only detectable flaw that he can see, followed by
Rusty’s malicious threat that backed him into a snaring cul-de-sac. Two punches
to the gut, a set of deflated balloons replacing his lungs.
He meant it when he said that he could work around your weak ankle. You’re
an entire castle built of bricks and honey. Your injury simply adds a layer of
beautiful vulnerability to your foundation and he’s armed with more than
enough fortitude to help you raise your flags high. As far as he’s concerned, every
single part of you down to your literal achille’s heel and deflective questioning is
stone-cold perfection and he just wishes you would creak your iron gates open
the slightest bit for him to slip through the fortress style doors. To him, your
reluctance is a paradox of reasonable and irrational. He can understand the
fallbacks of losing your head over the one person who bleeds into every area of
your life, but the temptation is so strong that it seems like a cowardly waste not
to explore it.
What’s the point of falling in love if it doesn’t destroy your life a little bit?
He imagines that if you so much as heard a breath of Rusty’s intentions, it

could cause you to violently backtrack, not even giving a second thought to the
idea of risking your dream career for Harry’s idiotic shenanigans. Any sort of
leeway that he’d made over the weekend would be completely crumbled to
fluorescent dust, your lips puckering into a gorgeously mournful pout as you
blew the pile of love glitter from your palm to set it free.
Harry’s brain has been working on overdrive for the past six hours to try to
come up with a rationale on how to convince you to proceed with the staggering
passion sparking between you. He could risk your reaction with a heavy dose of
honesty in the vain hope that you would throw caution to the wind and agree to
date him in secret. Or he could brush it under the rug and pretend he’s none-the-
wiser, acting in pure shock when you’re caught and both subsequently fired from
your posts. Except he’s a shit liar and he knows it. He would never be able to pull
off a hoax that tangled and long-winded for his own benefit and in the bitter end,
you would absolutely hate him for everything he’s put you through.
Then of course, there’s always the option of backing down completely, but
that’s not fucking happening.
He was so close this afternoon, with your body tucked underneath his in the
grass and his lips a mere lollipop stick away from yours, but he blew it. It was the
wrong place and the wrong time for a girl as classy as you. You’d never dream of
giving away a first kiss in such a public, spontaneous setting, but he struggles
every single second he’s around you to contain his instincts. It feels as though
they’re constantly pressing against the seams of his clothing, begging and
whining for a sip of fresh air and sweet cherry syrup.
Keep your rod in your pants, Styles.

Harry grits his teeth and sucks in the final drag of his Crush cigarette, the
paper burning to give way to the filter, before stubbing it out into an ashtray full
of squashed hearts and burnt flower petals, “’mm gonna strangle the skuzz fuck
who ratted us out.”
Tex almost chokes on his beer before gulping it down his dry, tight throat. He
chooses to stay quiet as his friend rants for an innumerable time tonight,
knowing that giving any sort of explanation would only make him appear
culpable.
“I’m not givin’ up. Just gonna try an’ convince her to keep this shit real quiet at
work to get Rusty off my case. Let’s keep this between us, yeah? Gotta drive off all
the suspicious, back-stabbing narcs.”
Without realizing it, putting Tex is the awkward position of being the only
person hip to the attempted and ongoing affair forces him to stay tight-lipped if
he wants to maintain his friendship with Harry. At this point if you and Harry
aren’t showing any obvious signs of romance at work, and Rusty ’mysteriously’
happened to hear another peep about the situation, it would be completely
transparent who the snitch is. Tex shakes off his rumination and decides to save
any future scheming for a later date, “no prob, man. Another Pearl?”
The only pearl Harry wants is the one hidden up your forbidden skirt.
Tex wobbles his empty bottle in the air and starts backing up towards the bar
with his eyebrows raised in question. Harry eyes his own half-empty, lukewarm
bottle of beer on the metal pub table and shakes his head, but Tex simply
counters with, “a shot of Murky Lagoon then.”
It’s getting hard for Harry to keep his thoughts straight through all of the
alcohol that Tex has been pushing tonight, “nah, mate. No rum. I gotta get my
Honeyfix after this an’ I can’t be blitzed. She’s too posh for that shit.”
If Tex hears Harry call you another version of a nickname with the word
’honey’ in it, he’s going to bug out. He has attempted to change the subject every
single time you or Rusty are mentioned, mainly because he doesn’t want to
accidentally trip up and spill the truth that he’s the one who outed Harry’s
feverish crusade in the hope that it would be the antidote to this twisted love
spell.
In the brief conversation between you and Tex, he made you pinky swear that
you’d never tell Harry about yours and Tex’s little secret because he told you he
was effectually risking his friendship with Harry to help you out. Granted, the
“favor” that he had come up with was more for him than it was for you, but he’d
never spin it like that to an outside ear. Truthfully, he just wanted you out of the
picture for the night and possibly forever so that he could reconnect with his best
friend. But he didn’t think about it really fucking hard; all he knew was that his
vision split when he saw the two of you nearly make out in the courtyard outside
of the theatre this afternoon. He wishes he’d never encouraged you to rebuild
your relationship with your partner, but he never dreamed it would get to this
point. Harry doesn’t typically chase women for longer than a handful of petty
hours.
Tex could tell that something was brewing way back when Harry found out
about your injury for the first time, when he whined and complained about how
you were winding your way through his brain and festering among the delicate
tissue. Harry began sleeping with twice as many women once you were
introduced into the picture, and at first Tex figured it was a phase or simply a
means of escape, but now it’s clear that Harry was attempting to quench an
addiction with a shitty fix. He’d never quite seen Harry affected so much by a
woman, but he chalked it up to situational frustration and that rare quality that
Harry has in a human, wherein he focuses on personal blotches until they’re
beaten to a bloody pulp in his head.
Harry’s the kind of person who strives for fulfillment in every aspect of his life
whether it’s healthy or not, obsessively picking apart each and every strand until
he’s taken ownership over whatever endeavor is rawest at the moment. He can’t
stand negative circumstances and emotions or when things don’t work out in his
favor; he is skilled in the realm of self-benefiting manipulation and intentional
finesse. He nearly lost himself in turmoil when Indy died and he throws himself
headfirst into hobbies, unable to merely be generally enlightened by them, but
containing a strong inner drive to gain mastery over them. He’s an addict at his
core, codependent on the world and its feedback. It’s the thing that makes him
captivating, but also makes him conceited. A show-stopping sunflower, intense
and advantageous, growing taller than everything around it, but it’s simply
because he needs to feel the warmth of the sun on his face at all times.
And at the moment, the topic that he is beating to a bloody pulp is you. Tex’s
inquiry about more alcohol is lost in the distant, glassy, lovelorn luster in Harry’s
eyes, “I don’t know how I’m ever gonna convince her now, mate. She would never
risk her career for anybody else, especially me. It’s too important to her. I dunno
what the fuck I’m gonna do. I felt like I was so close. And after I stormed out like
that — after she’d just hurt her ankle — she’s not gonna understand and I can’t
tell her about Rusty. I feel like I need to just show up at her spot and talk to her.
Maybe just grab her and fuckin’ kiss her and just show her, so she can see what I
feel. See what’s real. Y’know? Figure out all the political shit later.”
The idea of Harry leaving here and accidentally intercepting your scene causes
Tex a bit of frenzy. His plan was to keep Harry occupied and drunk enough that
he would just stumble home and pass out so that you could have an opportunity
to move on. But he knows that if Harry found you at the wrong place and time,
there’s no telling what he would do. Harry can be level-headed and tolerant at
times, but mostly he’s an extremely emotional being with a short temper and a
scrappy nature. And Tex has yet to see the potential tornado of Harry’s
resentment mixed with a dash of unresolved obsession.
“Right. So….. another Pearl then?”
The trickiest part about this whole situation is that Harry has no idea that
you’re across town at a screening of ’Village of the Giants’ even though you’re not
one for action films, with a red ribbon in your hair and a pleated skirt to match.
The boy who Tex set you up with tonight sits to your right, his cigarettes smelling
of brash and bold cinnamon and the scarlet smoke spinning like steam from the
slits of hot apple pie.
His name is Riff and he picked you up about twenty minutes later than Tex
had promised, beeping the horn of his car from the street and waiting for you to
make your way down from your duplex to meet him at the curb. You suppose
he’s attractive enough; clad in jeans and boots, a denim jacket with scruffy hair
and a heavy brow. Exactly the kind of boy your parents hid you from for your
entire upbringing. He seems to have a real interest in your legs, considering
you’ve pushed his hand away from your knee six or seven times already tonight,
but it somehow feels too impolite to verbally tell him to stop. It’s just that his
hands feel nothing like Harry’s; they’re rough and clammy, greedy and
plundering and if you didn’t have so much internal pressure to break from the
rigid mold of your naïveté, you would’ve snuck off in search of a payphone to call
Nettie for a ride home over an hour ago.
Tighter than a parking space. Loosen up, Clyde. Life is meant to be enjoyed.
Tex is finally getting what he wants from his wayward friend who has been
recently sapped dry by a walking human leech, the one person that he helped
Harry navigate circles around for months before he wiped out and cracked his
head open. A tsunami of relief and satisfaction nearly bowled him to the ground
when Harry barked the order of ’Hound Dogs’ at him and left you confused and
wary in the rehearsal space, just like Harry had gotten into the routine of doing
before his injury when he forgot all of his core values and beliefs. He hates the
way Harry puts you on some kind of pedestal now like you’re this rare orchid
that blooms once in a lifetime, as if you didn’t drive him to the brink of insanity
and death by your incessant need for answers and excavation.
Tex missed his friend terribly after Indy died and now, he misses him all over
again but in a different way; he was so close to having him back until you
swooped in and grabbed him with your toxic talons, scrambling his brains and
wreaking havoc on his logic. He wants his wing man back, the Harry that picks up
burners and can out-drink or out-smoke anyone in the room. The Harry who
loves grungy underground garage rock shows and instigating debauchery. The
Harry who he left England with to make a new home in Malibu and would do
absolutely anything for. The Harry who spins a fresh stick of cotton candy twenty
times a day and speaks like a vulgar, whimsical poet. His best fucking friend that
wouldn’t know what’s good for him if it slapped him upside the head.
Harry has an uncanny ability to miss everything Tex is saying and weave it
right back to you, “you just should’ve fuckin’ seen her dancin’ at Chubby’s, man. I
knew she had it in her.” For a moment he’s lost in that dank basement with your
hips tucked against his. His fingers curl into fists around his pool cue as he leans
back and groans in frustration, “I’ve never wanted to protect someone, to make
someone feel so good before—”
Tex keeps breaching any other topic under the sun in order to circumnavigate
this looping conversation, “hey, did you see that the first commercial
communications satellite was just launched into orbit—”
“I think she’s been wearin’ her hair down just for me.”
“Do you need another pack of ciggies, my man?”
“I swear she called me ’dreamy’ when she saw the inside of my van. D’ya know
how fuckin’ good she’d look climbing out of my bed at dawn and pullin’ one of my
wifebeaters on?”
Tex sighs and keeps his mouth shut as he makes his way to the bar for another
round of drinks regardless of Harry’s disinterest. He can tell that Harry is itching
to leave and once his focus is set, it’s nearly impossible to talk him out of it. His
fingers drum against the bar top as he waits for the bartender to deliver his
beers, his gaze flicking over his shoulder just in time to see Harry pulling on his
leather jacket and plucking a cigarette out from behind his ear. Tex curses and
throws a heap of crumpled cash down, swiping the bottles as soon as they’re
placed on the bar and jogging back over to his friend with one extended in
Harry’s direction, “stepping out for a smoke?”
Harry needs to see you. He can’t stop thinking about you, your naturally
cherry stained lips and cheeks. Your hesitant charity towards his wishes and
preferences. Your alluring innocence and intimidating strength. Fuck, you’re so
perfect and you have no clue, but he supposes that’s got everything to do with it.
He shakes his head and gathers his skateboard from its perch against the wall,
“mm’gonna jam.”
“Sacking out?”
Harry diverts his gaze to his feet first before squinting off into the distance,
“um….. yeah?”
He imagines what will happen when he shows up at your door, his curls a wild
bird’s nest and his eyes a pack of starved tigers, his fingers knitting into your hair
to press you up against the door and suction your mouths together. Mumbling
how much he needs you to ease the nausea in his stomach and the ache in his
chest, torn between telling you everything and nothing all at once as he kisses
you with the moonlight illuminating each of your broken hearts and blushing
cheekbones.
Refusal to make eye contact only means one thing and Tex has seen it a
hundred times before, “fuck, man. Don’t do it. Give her some space. C’mon, you
know the broad. She’s not gonna like you showing up at her pad this late.”
“Don’t call her that. You don’t know her like I know her.” Tex reaches for the
arm of Harry’s jacket for a final attempt at keeping him here, but Harry shoves
his hand away and narrows his eyes at his friend, “kiss off, Tex.”
“You don’t know her like you think you do! She’s no good for you. She’s uptight
and naïve. And majorly controlling.” That last part may not be true, but it feels
like it from the outside, “listen to yourself. You hate women like that. This isn’t
you — you’re manic and infatuated. It’s not healthy. Maybe the boss is right…..
you don’t want your career and personal life to collide. You need to get a grip.”
“Fuck right off. I know her better than she knows herself. I see shit she hasn’t
seen yet. I’m helpin’ her get that baseline gunk out of the way to pave space for
more spectacular thinking. She’s got fuckin’ chops, she’s a far out Cherry fox and
she’s exactly right for me. I’m crazy about her and I know it. I can see all of the
possibilities, I’ve slept with them and dreamed about them. I swallow them every
time I eat. I don’t need you to explain that to me. Stop talkin’ shit about my girl
unless you wanna get clocked. Dig?”
“Don’t flip your wig, Harry. I’m just looking out.”
“You’re bein’ a sponge. Lemme breathe, for fuck’s sake.”
One of the letters from the neon tangerine ’Hound Dogs’ sign is flickering
against the backdrop of night sky as Harry straightens his jacket and slaps the
exit door open, breathing in a lungful of pink smoke and brisk air as he throws
his skateboard onto the ground and clatters down the boardwalk towards your
duplex.
Hi everyone! I hope you’re doing well. I love you dearly. Have snacks ready for
tomorrow, just sayin’. It’s another long one. See you again very soon!
Xx Birdie
Harry has been waiting on the steps of your building for over an hour now,
actively pushing Rusty’s threats and Tex’s warnings to the back of his mind as he
spins the thick, fuzzy stem of a single sunflower between his fingers. Neither of
them has any fucking idea how he suffers, how the depth of importance
regarding you winds much deeper than either of them can even begin to
comprehend. This is a force beyond him or beyond you; gravity is what holds the
fiery ball of gas which we call the sun together and this isn’t much different at all.
We can’t explain why stars exist, so there is so point in piecing together all of the
fragments and reasons behind your attraction, it just is and it must be. So fuck
Rusty and fuck Tex and fuck everyone. This romance is for your eyes only.
This isn’t about his rod or his career or his friendships or his brain injury, this
is about learning to fly with clipped wings. This is about finding satisfaction in
the midst of a struggle, opposing heartbeats begging for a merciful opportunity to
interlock, soothing the angry roar of confounded demands in his stomach, the
vindication of hearing you hum against his lips that he’s right and he’s pure and
he’s yours. This is about everything that has happened and has yet to happen.
This is about a love that’s teetering somewhere between forbidden and
explosive, and no one besides you and him have any fucking idea the sway of its
unrelenting power.
Rusty’s plan backfired anyway. There’s nothing that Harry loves more than
something that’s prohibited and difficult to attain, a dirty and naughty little
secret to keep tucked away inside of the chambers of his heart. A red lipstick
stain folded up inside of a silken handkerchief and nestled into his shirt pocket
right next to his tender love muscle. The very nature of it is a romance for the
ages, a weathered novel about a love affair with the divine princess of an exotic
land, sharing stolen kisses in cold, echoing hallways when no one is watching and
loving each other regardless of what anyone says. Regardless of how much it
aches every second that you’re apart.
Harry knew it was inappropriately late by the time he left Hound Dogs and
stopped at his van to throw on something more presentable, more respectable
for your sake. Cuffed denim jeans, broken-in high tops and a clean wifebeater
covered up by heavy leather, a hunk of fresh gum and a couple swipes of his
fingers through his hair. But he didn’t give a fuck when he showed up at your
place, he knocked on your door and rang the bell until your roommate answered
in her bathrobe and sent him away with a vague explanation of you being out for
the night.
Her summary didn’t feel right, her eyes conveyed a short story of obstacle
courses and perhaps a dash of pity for his sake, but he couldn’t place exactly why
because it would seem that she is just as evasive as he is when it comes to shitty
feelings. Maybe you’d come home and cried on her shoulder about how he’d left
you hurt and exposed in the practice room and she was merely being protective,
but it was unlike you to be out this close to midnight, especially when you were
meant to be up for work in a few hours.
Harry had considered the possibility that you were actually home and she was
just covering for you, so he asked if he could come inside and wait on your couch,
but her horrified expression made his insides bleed. He begged for more
information, but she simply said that it needed to be a conversation between you
and him. He tried once more to cross your threshold, with the excuse of leaving
the sunflower on your kitchen counter or needing a drink of water from the tap,
but she sadly mumbled an apology and shook her head.
Apologies are the fucking worst. They don’t mean shit unless they’re trudged
up from the churning, bona fide wrench of your guts and he has a feeling that he
might have to dust off his dormant atonement and toss you one tonight to win
you back. To win you once and for all.
Your roommate’s dismissal wouldn’t send him far away though and they both
knew it. He flung his weak body down your steps and plopped himself on the
front stoop outside, checking his watch every thirty seconds or so and glancing
up and down your street each time he heard the ghostly melody of your roller
skates on the pavement. His stomach swirled and swirled with dread and it drove
him nuts that he couldn’t place why, but his intuition is healthy and distinct, and
he had a feeling that something was about to disintegrate in his hands.
I’m sorry I left you like that today. Someone at the circus is a snake in the grass
and Rusty endangered your job—
No. That has to stay a secret.
Where the fuck have you been?
Definitely not.
I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. Please kiss me, even if it’s just one time, so that I can
properly wither into the sand below the rocks and shells and crashing waves.
Maybe?
I’m sorry, my sweet Cherry tart. Love me.
That’s a solid start.
This entire date from beginning to end has been nothing but one big, skeevy
mistake and you’re beginning to loathe the smell of cinnamon. Riff smokes even
more than Harry does if that’s at all possible, except it’s not nearly as charming.
And the amount of times you’ve pushed his hands away from your knee has
become so exponential that you’ve stopped counting.
You’ve found yourself battling between civility and a distinct urge to flee for
the whole evening, which irritates the ever-living crap out of you. Why are
women trained to be polite and reserved in situations that make them
uncomfortable, especially when it comes to men and their urges? It’s unjust and
it’s terrifying and what’s worse is that when women do stand up for themselves,
they’re name called and wounded in the face of their courage, always a victim to
physical force and the fear of harm. Just like that, you’re reminded of why you’ve
chosen not to date or show very much interest in sharing your time with
someone who would likely end up hurting you at some point or another.
After the film, Riff tried once to kiss you when he unlocked the passenger door
of his ruby red Dodge Charger, which you eluded with artless precision when you
slipped into the leather seat. But you didn’t notice that he’d locked your door
from the outside before slinking in behind the steering wheel.
You miss Harry terribly. If anything, this date has shone a light on just how
special Harry is, how pink and plummy his company and juicy heart-shaped lips
are, how he’s a walking paradox of brassy and effortlessly chivalrous. He’s an
endless explosion of slowly raining, sparkling confetti from a lighted, neon tower.
There is never a dull moment or an awkward pause. He makes you feel safe, he
makes you feel wanted, he makes you feel awake. Riff has less than half the
amount of appeal that Harry possesses in a single fingernail and you’re kicking
yourself for the way the afternoon at practice panned out and has rapidly
declined into this wreck.
Nothing can or will ever compare to the sheer precision of Harry’s warmth.
He’s a bed of roses. A field of clover. Milk and honey. Velveteen. Perfection. Home.
And you are so far gone for him that it’s no longer scary to admit. It just has to
prevail.
Cherry. I’m gonna win you over.
He did promise after all and as long as you’ve known him, he hasn’t said a
single word he doesn’t mean.
If only you had told Harry about your injury in any of the bevy of available
opportunities that presented themselves. There were plenty of quiet and present
moments where you could have slipped it in and the outcome may have been
completely different. You should’ve known better, you should’ve learned the first
time that the news landed with extreme difficulty for him. Especially now that
you know more about his past and what he’s struggling to cope with on a daily
basis with extreme grace and captivating, fierce fragility. He’s done nothing but
pine over and dote on you for weeks and this is the exact opposite of the way you
treat someone who shows nothing but loving patience and affection through
thoughtful conversation, careful, consensual touches and radiant sunflowers.
You wish more than anything that Harry were here right now; that you were
inside of his strawberry lemonade van with unknown courageous rock and roll
blaring through the speakers, the mugshot of Frank Sinatra tap dancing from his
rear view mirror in gentle clicks, his adam’s apple popping when he exhales a
plume of pink smoke against the windshield, a fiery and unashamed quip about
his reciprocal obsession rolling from the tip of his tongue.
This entire day has been nothing short of a mess and when Riff’s car makes a
turn down your street and the glow of the streetlight in front of your duplex
comes into view, a soft sigh of relief lessens the weight on your chest. In less than
two minutes you’ll be upstairs in the safety of your bedroom, slipping into a
nightgown and falling asleep the moment your cheek hits the pillow.
And in less than eight hours, you’ll be tumbling into Harry for a cuddle in your
dressing room and begging for his forgiveness for your shortsighted omission,
pretending as if this night never happened and that you knew he was right all
along. That you feel it, you feel everything, that it was a mistake not to kiss him
after he pried your eyes and ears open at Chubby’s and that you trust each brush
of his fingertips and every word that comes out of his mouth.
Something inside of Harry compels him to rise to his feet when he sees the
unfamiliar red Charger grumbling down the street, his eyes narrowing into
suspicion as he backs into the shadows of your doorway to remain invisible and
allows the sunflower to droop at his side. At first, he has no idea that you are
inside of the car until the flicker of a red houndstooth ribbon tied around a
ponytail catches his attention, his cigarette dangling from his lip as his heart
slows to a standstill and then erupts into a sickening thud upon the discovery of a
mysterious man’s silhouette beside you. His mouth slowly and silently forms
around a single word, the only word he’s capable of thinking and feeling in this
moment.
“Ouch.”
Pain, anger, betrayal, confusion. Knives, steam, blood, circles.
Riff turns in the driver’s seat to face you, smashing the butt of his cigarette
into the collapsible ashtray in his dash before watching your hand fumble for the
door handle, “where ya goin’ so fast? Thought we could rap for a bit.”
“It’s late and my job is kind of a nightmare when I’m tired.” And he’s not Harry.
“Thank you for the movie and um…..” You finally locate the handle and wrap your
fingers around it as he starts to lean closer with his gaze trained on your mouth,
his advance a bit flustering and unexpected, “and the popcorn, so— that was
thoughtful of you. I should—”
“No sweat. So, you’re a dancer, huh?” Riff’s voice drops to a grunt when his
fingers tickle the inside of your knee, “I bet you’re real flexible.”
The tightly coiled tendon that travels up the back of your ankle begins to throb
and if you were any more fearless in the face of men, you’d slap him with your
hand rather than your words, “right now I’m feeling pretty rigid. If you’ll excuse
me.”
“Lemme come upstairs with you. You can show me around, show me your
bedroom.” You shake your head and start to use Nettie being asleep as an excuse,
but he interrupts before you can proceed, “wanna go back to my place instead?”
The audacity of his insinuations and his disinterest in hearing a single word
you’re saying is utterly maddening. You’re torn between giving him an earful or
just getting out and slamming the door in his face. But true to your proper form,
your big mouth takes over when it probably shouldn’t, “I don’t know. Will two
people fit under a rock?”
Riff chuckles at your weak attempt at bravery as he draws closer and to the
outside eye, it would seem as if you were just a friendly couple bidding each
other farewell for the night. Your heart starts to pound when his palm glides up
your thigh and squeezes tight, “stop—”
But your nervous ramble is cut short when his lips lock with yours and his
tongue pushes into your mouth, your strife slammed to the back of your throat
when you attempt to squeak and curl your fingers around his shirt in distress.
You muster the wherewithal to tug on the door handle except it doesn’t budge,
and you can’t see through the thick haze of red when you try to push him back
enough to attempt to yelp out a request for him to unlock it.
The instant your mouths connect, Harry’s vision crosses and blurs in red-hot
wrath, his heart shattering at his feet like cheap, flimsy glass. He had been
watching and waiting for this exact moment, knowing on instinct that it was
inevitably just around the corner, but he simply couldn’t peel his stare away. He
wishes more than anything that he possessed the willpower to leave, that he’d
turned and walked away the second he realized you were on a date with another
man, but he’s a cave man in that sense. He has to view the train wreck in slow
motion as it crashes and disintegrates before his eyes, leaving behind a trail of
burning bodies and mangled electrical wires that sets his soul on fire.
Fever, rage, treachery, turmoil. Red, black, green, pink.
The word ’masochist’ comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative
aspect of his personality. He simply has a need to know every gory detail of any
situation in order to properly bleed out and shrivel inside of his own skin.
Everything that Harry was deliberating to say to you for the past hour rushes
from his lungs and carries him out into the salty sea. He remembers scattered
blips of drowning during his surfing accident, of tumbling through the malicious
waters as he fought for stability and struggled for his life before his head cracked
open against the sharp rock. This feels identical. You’re giving this person exactly
what Harry’s been going fucking insane for and he’s lost in perilous thought as
your fingers curl around this fucker’s shirt to pull him closer; is this a first date?
Have you been keeping shit from him? Who the fuck is this person and what has
he done that’s so deserving of you — his perfect Cherry pie, his sticky Honey
pudding?
His girl.
His.
He thought that you were finally on the same wavelength, but through the
cloudy haze of his jealous animosity and torment, it now all seems like sick
delusions that he’d conjured up in order to match the reckless passion eating him
from the inside out. Every shared moment of undeniable chemistry and flirtation
is scrambled like a faulty television signal, grayscale and rainbow smears mixing
violently to confuse the malady inside of his brain as he fights the antennae for a
clear signal.
This is all his fault. He shouldn’t have stormed out on you this afternoon and
subsequently drove you straight into the arms of another person, but he
supposes this is the damage he’s left with. His flame is extinguished, all that’s left
is a smoldering charred wick.
The sunflower slips from his fingertips and tumbles onto your steps, a couple
petals shedding upon the strike against the cement. He’s aware that when you
see it, you’ll know that he’s been there and he hopes that when you find it, it
hurts you as much as he’s hurting right now.
Harry deliberates about whether or not to interrupt this charade before he
decides he’s well beyond pissed for a confrontation. He grits his teeth so hard
they feel like they could crack under the intense pressure, before throwing his
skateboard down to make a clean getaway. And now what? After so many hours
of deliberating over your past, present and future together, it seems as though
you’ve already made a decision for the both of you.
Tex was right, it was a mistake to come here. Maybe his only option now is to
go drink more in order to drown his suffering. Maybe Tex is still at Hound Dogs,
willing to buy another round or two of Pearls, ready to offer his advice and happy
to absorb Harry’s blunder. The promise that they’ve reiterated to one another
throughout the years of friendship echoes in the vibrating pain of his skull as he
pumps his leg down the street towards the boardwalk, ’no chicks. No girlfriends,
man.’
When Riff’s eager hand shoves its way up your skirt, gripping the inside of
your thigh and brushing against the hem of your panties, a horrified shriek burns
your throat before you gain enough space to protest between your mouths.
Claustrophobia and fear wash over the small interior of his car, your limbs
flailing when you’re torn between fighting and finding a means of escape.
Reasoning madly transforms into black and white, suddenly minimizing any
room for gray area and rationalization when all you can register is a virile and
urgent need for freedom.
Your scream resonates through the glass and bounces off of the streetlight,
cutting through the roar of Harry’s wheels and the nearby whitewash of the
ocean before funneling into his ears. He pauses his departure and the roll of his
skateboard to see if he’s heard properly, frowning deeply over his shoulder into
the darkness and focusing on the softly rocking car.
Through the muffled din of darkness, “stop it! Please let me out!”
Possessed with the reflexes of a cat and the vindication of a shark, zero
rationale moving in or out through the hum in his empty cranium, Harry stomps
his heel into the tail of his skateboard and catches it in a fist when it’s hauled into
the air. He backtracks towards the scarlet heinous vehicle, his stare glued to the
car as he blows towards you. His neck is tight and his hair is flung wildly back to
one side, his bangs spilling down over his right cheek. Anger and hurt mount
higher and higher inside of him with every step, every breath, his cigarette
gritted between his teeth as he tries to jimmy the driver’s side handle just once.
His nostrils flare in frustration at this fucker’s careless arrogance and the fact
that his princess his being held hostage in an enemy’s fortress, the wind of his
rage funneling his vision into a narrow, black dot.
Upon finding the door locked, he takes one impatient stride backwards and
raises his skateboard into an arc above his head, slicing it through the darkness
and smashing it into the glass of the back window once, twice, then three times.
The shattering of the glass is an exact jarring replica of his madness and it’s just
loud enough to mask it. Each inflation of his lungs stings more than the one
before it and no thoughts are swimming in his brain, just the color red, until his
board pummels through the barrier and shards of the window scatter inside of
the car and across Harry’s feet on the ground.
Harry can hear your frightened screams and he wants to get to you so badly,
he wants to drag you from the nightmare of this muscle machine and carry you
upstairs and hush you and hold you and let you cry and then make you laugh, but
first he needs to destroy the thing that’s hurting you. Both of you. Right now, he
doesn’t care how you got here or what’s going to happen when this is over, all he
cares about is revenge and justice. There’s no fucking chance in hell that this
asshole is leaving without a broken nose in the very least and Harry is so
saturated with fury that he doesn’t even feel the shards of glass cutting his hand
and wrist when he reaches into the demolished aperture and pops open the lock
on the driver’s door.
Two voices fracture through the broken glass and mix together in
contradiction of Harry’s furious silence.
The sniveling toad, “what the fuck!”
And his honey-coated damsel, “Harry!”

Harry flings the door open and pulls your attacker away from you, swinging a
single, solid jab into his eye socket, the sickening crack of his nose breaking
causing your stomach to lurch. Harry digs both of his hands into his shirt and
drags him from the driver’s seat onto the ground littered with particles of busted
window, pinning him to the pavement and unleashing a hailstorm of punches to
his annoyingly handsome face.
The passenger door still won’t budge and the resonance of Harry beating Riff
to a pulp is making you feel nauseous and even more terrified than before, your
voice frantic and shrill as you rush and scurry to bring this to an end, “Harry,
stop! Please! Please stop!” You climb into the backseat and throw your shoulder
into the door to pry it open, your partly-buttoned cardigan slipping down your
arm as you free yourself and scramble around the front of the car, the headlights
painting your figure as you pass.
Harry’s cigarette is still dangling from his mouth as he takes out every ounce
of damage from today on your sordid date, your fingers twisting into the back of
his jacket as you scream and beg for him to stop. Somehow and in some way,
your pleas for mercy worm into his ear drums. He stops hitting him and shakes
out his raw fist, but doesn’t retreat from his dominating hover until you dig your
feet into the ground and haul him off of Riff.
You press your palms against his chest to calm him, the reckless beating of his
wildly dismantled heart singing the blues into your hands. His eyes are burning
holes into Riff’s groaning body as you try your best to compose yourself enough
to soothe the devastatingly marred person in front of you, “Harry—” Your voice
is wrapped tightly around unshed tears; you feel awful about what’s just
happened to you and Riff even though he may have deserved it. And maybe even
worse that Harry was here to witness it, “look at me. Cherry. Honeysuckle. Focus
right here. Please.”
His chest is heaving when his eyes lock with yours and send a chill from your
head to your toes.
Your shaky fingertips press against your mouth when you take in the sight of
his upset and damage, a fat streak of blood dripping from his nose, the entire
chaotic scene around you vibrating with destruction, “I’m so sorry.” For
everything. This is all your fault, “oh god, what have I done?”
Your date slowly rises to his feet and approaches behind you so that he’s face-
to-face with Harry, immediately curling his hand into a fist and pulling a mock
right hook that freezes to a halt a mere inch away from Harry’s cheekbone. You
shriek and duck, your hands covering your face as you wait in horror for the hit
that never comes.
Harry doesn’t even flinch. He barely squints a single eye, his stare hard and
steely as he breathes deeply in and out of his nose and silently vents a stream of
threats and curses with his venomous glare that eventually dissolves Riff’s fist.
The eerily quiet and chaotic scene is rattling with three sets of breathing lungs
and the crash of the distant ocean, your gaze darting back and forth between the
two steaming men.
There is a palpably tense stare-off disintegrated by Riff growling, “fucking

hero.”
Harry’s jaw is tight when his lips carefully form around his animosity, “fuckin‘
raunchy twat. So tough pickin’ on a woman—”
You interrupt him with a hiss of his name, just wanting this entire evening to
end and maybe even never have happened in the first place, “Harry, please go
wait on my porch.”
Riff’s voice is husky as he swallows a couple times to speak with as much

bravado as he can muster, his face dripping with blood and one of his eyes
swelling shut, “clue me in on why she’s out on a date with me if she means so
goddamn much to you?”
Harry’s wondering the exact same thing, but he’d never admit it to this piece
of shit, “real nice date, moby fuckin’ idiot. Assaulting a woman and leaving with a
busted ass hot rod and a mangled face. Beat it before I kill you.”
“Harry, stop it!”
His pupils diminish from obstinate, dark and focused to pacific and gentle as
soon as your warm palms steady his chest once again and your gazes connect to
steal the breath from both of your lungs. He continues to talk over you, but is
tender enough to allow you to push him backwards a few steps towards your
duplex, “go home and apologize to your old lady. Fuckin’ candyass. Wish I
pounded your teeth down your throat. Fuckin’ kill you with my bare hands—”
“Harry, please!”
His thorny eyes finally see yours, “don’t sweat it, Honeyfox.” Harry takes one
final drag of his cigarette then flicks the butt at Riff’s feet behind a tail of pink
smoke, backing up towards your steps in order to keep his gaze locked on you
and thoroughly untrusting of anything this asshole is capable of. He watches
from the stoop of your building with his jaw clenched, the muscle in his cheek
tensing and his hands curled into fists.
You swipe Harry’s skateboard from the ground and grab your purse from
Riff’s car, surveying the absolute shambles that have manifested in the past five
minutes before narrowing your eyes at your awful date, “fuck you, asshole.”
You try your best to keep your chin elevated as you slink away from the street
and cower towards Harry, Riff glaring at the both of you before he spits blood
onto the pavement and hops into his car to speed away, his tires cracking and
popping over broken glass in his retreat. You scan the block for any nosy
neighbors that may have been woken before gathering the sunflower that
Harry’s brought you off of the steps, holding it carelessly at your side with the
petals raining onto the ground before stomping towards him with a quivering
bottom lip, “Harry! That was a bit of an overreaction, don’t you think?”
Harry is barely processing anything, instead he’s realizing just how terribly
that actually could’ve gone if he wasn’t there. You were assaulted in his presence;
he’s certain that you were grabbed where you didn’t want to be or that guy’s
hands made their way up your skirt and the idea drives him feral with jealous,
dark resentment, a deep temptation to hunt him down and take action against
him again. If Harry had been allowed just two more minutes of thrashing, he
would’ve broken his fucking eye socket and choked him out. Men like that
shouldn’t be allowed to freely roam and spread their toxic masculinity to women,
especially not his woman.
His words climb through rusted, jagged scorching metal as he points towards
the rubble of your forsaken date, “who the fuck was that guy?”
Tex has put you in several sloppy situations tonight; one in which your date
got a little handsy when you didn’t want him to and the more critical one, where
you’ve been lodged into the middle of a friendship harboring confidential
information about a failed romantic set-up that could destroy their years-long
bond. It would make working with the both of them at the circus unbearably
uncomfortable and you’ve already created a big enough disaster as it is.
Harry’s accusation makes you feel defensive, as if you wanted to be in that

position in the first place and as if he didn’t just destruct personal property and
attack someone with little or no insight into the situation. He probably heard you
trying to fight Riff off, but more likely than not, he was acting out of blind envy, “I
don’t get it. Are you worried about me or jealous that I went on a date with
someone else?”
“Both. Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me? Isn’t that shit obvious? I’m scared shitless
for you and fuckin’ devastated you went on a date with someone else. Does that
surprise you? Aren’t you devastated too? That should’ve been me. I’d never hurt
you. Ever.” He swipes blood from the underbelly of his nose with the back of his
grisly wrist, indifferent to his injuries and consumed by an uncomfortable thorn
bush of profuse, dreadful emotions, “why him? Huh? Why not me? I’m not good
enough for you?”
Every sunny affection you’d just been feeling for him is being buried by his
backlash, your thoughts resembling the shards of glass and drops of blood in the
street as you try to make sense of everything that violently unraveled in the past
several moments. Whenever you get upset you tend to forget anything positive
and worthwhile and dip straight into a pool of negativity, your heart reverting
back to the way he treated you for so long before he flipped a coin and changed
personalities completely, “I don’t know! Because! Because you have a long,
intimidating history with women. Because I’m not so sure if it’s a good idea for us
to get involved. I’m afraid to ruin our careers by getting tangled up with my
partner. It would destroy everything for me — for us — if—”
“If what?”
“If something went wrong. When something goes wrong.” You decide with a
boost of truth serum to simultaneously give him a splash of brave, golden
honesty mixed in with your anxious rumination, “I like you. You make me feel
like a rose that’s just about to bloom after a really hard winter and I don’t have to
guess how you feel about me. You’re….. hot and exciting and special and,” neither
you or Harry know exactly what you mean when you say, “I’m scared.”
Harry grabs your biceps and hushes you, his eyes drilling into yours and his
heart pounding with all of the simple authenticity you’ve finally laid out, “hey.
Hey, hey, hey. Listen to me.” Sincerity pools his pupils and drips outward, “are
you okay? Jesus fuck, babe. I’m really fuckin’ glad I was here.”
You wrap your arms around your midsection and rub your arms as if you
were chilled, except it’s not actually that cold outside, “yeah. I am.” You nod, but
Harry narrows his eyes as he tries to gauge the validity in your words and body
language. You laugh softly at his nonverbal inquisition and struggle to bury your
admittance of how racy he looked when you were holding him back from a
fistfight, “yes. I promise. I’m okay. I’m just shaken up.”
He shakes his head, “you’re too innocent, babe. He was takin‘ advantage of
you. You could’ve gotten really hurt just then.”
You’ve felt pressure to ’get laid’ ever since Harry made fun of you for being a
virgin and you thought that was just how sex happened, that it was this
uncomfortable thing that you had to convince yourself to want in order to crack
through the ice of sexual freedom and grow up. Being surrounded by all of those
people in Chubby’s who were your age and have broken free of their parent’s
conservative holds and religious backgrounds and broken homes made you feel
inadequate and immature, behind, not living life to its full capacity, too rigid. Just
as Harry has always correctly surmised about you.
“You’re magnifying this—”
“No. Cherry blossom, you don’t realize how serious that was. He was gonna go
all the way with you.”
“I didn’t want to go all the way.”
“I don’t think that would’ve mattered. Catch my drift?”
You don’t currently possess the cognizance to dismantle and make sense of
every single event that violently transpired tonight, so you settle on nodding and
agreeing with him in order to move on from this unpleasant topic. A few clouds
lift to make way for another realization, “why were you here anyway? Were you
stalking me?”
“What? No….. I was ju… t... unexpectedly waitin‘ for you in the shadows
outside of your place until you came home.”
The corners of your lips pull into a smile before a soft laugh breaks free at his
unintentional and innocent admission, Harry’s earnest expression faltering into
humor when he mutters a sullen ’what?‘ at your reaction. He sucks his bottom lip
into his mouth, frowning and wiping his nose with the back of his hand to smear
blood across his cheek and conceal the cross tattooed there below a streak of
angry crimson, then inspecting it to determine where the taste of rust is
originating from.
“I’m actually really glad that you’re here right now.”
“Yeah? Fuck.” Another trickle of blood beads from his nose and he blots his
upper lip with the pad of his thumb to catch it, “I think I’m bleedin’. Can I get a
tissue or somethin’?”
You wrap your fingers around his wrist and lift his arm into the air to
investigate for pieces of glass and the depth of his injuries before your gaze lands
on his face, “he hit you.” Harry nods and shrugs, wiping his nose again and
spreading blood onto his jacket sleeve. You tut at the sad sight in front of you,
how Harry is literally and metaphorically bleeding out right in front of your eyes,
trying to wrap your head around how it feels for someone to have such a
powerful reaction to you and your pitfalls, “come on. I’ll take care of you.” He
stays frozen with widened eyes at the thought of traipsing through your
apartment in this ghastly state, but you tug on his arm and urge him again, “come
on, it’s okay. I’ll be nice.”
Your fingers weave together as you lead him upstairs and quietly click your
lock open, toeing your shoes off in the entryway and then turning to him to
wordlessly signal for him to do the same as you whisper, “go into my room, I’ll be
right there.”
Harry’s much too busy studying and memorizing every inch of your personal
space to hear you or notice your gesture. He’s been imagining and wanting this
for so long that it feels surreal that it’s finally happening, except not exactly in the
way he would prefer; dripping with blood and flustered beyond any shred of
rational or salacious thinking. A red, vinyl sectional couch wraps around your
living room to frame a patterned rug, a hanging and extinguished swag lamp is
suspended in the corner aside glass French doors that open up onto a deck. Dim
lighting from the light above the oven in the kitchen just barely illuminates the
darkened space and a single eyebrow flicks upward as he turns to address you in
thoughtless volume, “nice pad.”
“Shhh—” You point to your bedroom door at the end of the hallway and his
sight draws an imaginary dotted line to the tip of your finger before looking back
at you, “Nettie is sleeping. Go. Quietly. Tip toe. And take your shoes off. I’m going
to get you some cloths and bandages.”
He continues to speak at a normal level as if he’s never learned how to

whisper, “don’t you complain about her keepin’ you up all the time? It’s her turn
to get woken up late—” You shush him harshly again but this time he finally
listens, pretending to zip his mouth shut and throw away the key over his
shoulder.
Harry lowers his skateboard quietly and props it up against the wall, bending
down to untie his shoes and unceremoniously toss them aside. He peels his
leather jacket from his shoulders next and carefully maneuvers the sleeves over
his cuts before hanging it on a hook beside your flawlessly cherished cardigan,
the muscles in his shoulders, back and arms somehow looking a lot more
distinctive in the tight space of your foyer.
“Can I get a drink—”
Your reoccurring kitchen fantasy sizzles to life before you slam it closed with a
bleak whisper, “no!”
Harry’s face melts into confusion and dazed annoyance, “the fuck? I just took a
punch for you.”
“I’m sorry.” You cover your face with your palms, “of course you can. I’m
sorry.” He swanks towards your kitchen and you grab his arm to pull him back,
“No, let me. I’ll get it. Just wait in my bedroom, okay? Last door on the left.”
Harry obeys and pads down the clean and muted hallway, pausing in the
doorway of your bedroom to take in the meticulous and tidy décor. Everything is
pale yellow and cornflower blue, frilly and feminine, elegant and pure and he
sinks his teeth into his bottom lip to push away blossoming thoughts of ripping
your shirt off and shoving you backwards onto your innocent bed before they
devour him whole. He crosses the threshold and noses around a bit, swiping his
fingers across framed photos of you with friends and family, tugging on the leaf
of a potted plant, picking up a candle for a sniff and sinking his toes into your
plush carpet before approaching your vanity. He hums as he surveys the items
there; a hairbrush and containers of miscellaneous products before picking up a
bottle of perfume and spritzing it into the air.
“Harry!”
He jumps in alarm and slams the perfume down, waving the particles away as
if it would dissipate his faux pas, his nose burning with the bright scent of
powdery florals. He spins on his heel to find you standing across the room with
water, ice and cloths gripped in your fingers, his palms raising in surrender as he
whispers, “cool it, Honeybunny. It was just a harmless whiff.”
You sigh and nod, feeling bad about getting frustrated with him but then
realizing it has more to do with his actions of the entire night rather than in this
exact moment. You cross the room and nod towards the stool tucked under your
vanity, “sit down. I have a bunch of stuff for you. Here.” You hand him the glass of
water and he swipes it with a soft thank you, pointing towards your bed in
hopeful question, but you shake your head and nod to the stool again, “nice try.”
Harry chugs the entire glass of water before perching himself down and
watching you from his lowered position, how you carefully click the door shut
behind you before approaching with a damp cloth extended towards him, “here.
Tilt your head back.”
Harry gathers the flannel and haphazardly wipes blood from his hands and his
face, “you’d make a sexy nurse, y’know?” He winces when you press the
dishtowel filled with ice to his nose and guide his head backwards, “ow, fuck.
Nevermind. Easy.” You hush him as a reminder to keep his voice down, his
resonance echoing off of the walls in your bedroom as if your roommate is of no
concern to him, “what? Are you worried she’s gonna think we’re havin’ sex?” He
reaches a foot out and presses his toes against the end of your bed to make the
mattress squeak, a soft moan tumbling from his lips, “oh, Cherry.”
“Harry, don’t you dare mess with me right now.”
He springs to his feet and jumps on your perfectly spruced bed covered in pin-
tucked throw pillows and gossamer threads, the sheets pulling from the corners
and items tumbling onto the ground upon his intrusion. Your smooth,
unwrinkled comforter gets tangled up with each bounce, his weight making the
mattress creak and the headboard bang against the wall as he pinches his eyes
closed and moans in exaggerated, drawn out cries of pleasure, “oh yeah, baby.” It
feels filthy to admit that his groans are burrowing straight into your core the
moment they leave his throat, his voice raising in volume, fever and pitch, “oh
fuck, baby. Yes.” He sucks a hiss in past his teeth over the sound of the springs
rocking below his feet, “give it to me. Just like that. Oh god, don’t stop, that’s it—”
A huge, annoyingly attractive smile spreads across his face and dips his dimple
into his cheek, his eyes squeezed shut into a look of duly tormented and pained
pleasure that hatches baby butterflies open in your stomach.
Nettie flicks a light on in the hallway that catches Harry’s attention, his feet
meeting your soft rug when he jumps down off of the bed and flings your
bedroom door open to poke his head out, “hey Noelle, got a stogie?”
She huffs in frustration and pulls her robe closed across her chest, “my name
is fucking Nettie, sleazeball. And no. Pipe down, would ya? Some of us have shit
to do tomorrow morning.”
Harry shrugs just before you yank him back into the room by the fabric of his
wifebeater, muttering a rushed apology to your roommate before shutting the
door closed in his face. His hair and clothes are all disheveled, his fingers pulling
on the crotch of his jeans as he takes a couple bow-legged steps, “shit, I gave
myself a chubby.”
You pinch the bridge of your nose in off-the-charts irritation, attempting to

ward off the impending headache as you shush him for the hundredth time
tonight, “good god, Harry! I owe her a massive apology now. And you still have
blood on your face. Please just sit down before I get really grouchy and kick you
out.”
He plops down on the corner of your bed this time, regardless of your earlier
direction not to, “you’re the boss. Just a little razz, babe. Chill.” You ignore his
obstinate disobedience of your wishes and the clear fact that he wouldn’t know
how to whisper right now if it were slapping him in the face. You approach again
with the cloth and wipe some blood from his cheek, his hands reaching out to
paw at your hips as he attempts to pull you into his lap. You slap his shoulder and
he groans and flops backwards onto your bed with his hands clutching his heart
and his mouth perked into an angelic smile.
“Sit up, you’re gonna get blood everywhere.”
Harry does as he’s told as he bounces back up, grabbing the cloth from your
hand and his speech muffled and nasally with the fabric pinching his nose and
covering his mouth, “I forgot. The only blood we want on your sheets is yours.”
He winces even though he thoroughly expects your slap this time, but hardly
seems bothered by it. When he speaks now, it’s as if he’s suddenly much more
aware of the volume of his voice, “’m like a bull in a china shop in here.” His face
contorts in disgust when he tastes rust in the back of his throat, “y’know I was
just tryin‘ to protect you.”
“Why does everybody feel the need to protect me all the time?”
“You make dumb ass decisions sometimes.”
“Oh. Wow, that’s rich coming from you. I think you’re just bummed that I went
on a date with another person, so now you’re acting like a child to force any icky
feelings away because you can’t stand when things don’t go your way. You’re
smart, you know. You’re very emotionally intelligent, but you have a really hard
time handling negative things when they’re thrown at you.”
He stays silent with the physical weight of your correct analysis hovering in
the air. He takes the cloth away from his face, a thick lock of his hair swept across
his forehead and tapping his eyebrow, “I’d never treat you like that guy did. I’d
never force you to do anythin‘ you didn’t want to do. I could hear you sayin’ ’stop‘
from outside the car—”
Hearing his perspective of the incident is making you cringe in

embarrassment, “you’re really going to shame me for trying to get some dating
experience after also mocking me for being prude?”
“Is that why you did it? Because of the things I’d said in the past? I don’t even
remember any of the shit I said to you. I was an asshole, okay? You don’t deserve
that.”
You cross your arms over your chest as if to shield his questioning, a timid
shrug lifting your shoulders before you gnaw on your bottom lip, “just because
you don’t remember doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten too.”
Harry feels like a fucking idiot. He thought that you were beyond digging up
his behavior from before his surfing accident, the obvious evidence of his lapsed,
crude teasing from months ago driving you out of your comfort zone and eating
him alive with guilt. He is notorious for never apologizing and he’s not about to
start now, instead his culpability manifests in the form of projected exasperation,
“well, that was stupid. Anyone can see that guy is fuckin‘ scum.”
His displeased insinuation stings and reminds you of being reprimanded by
your conservative parents for your entire upbringing, no matter how hard you
tried to please them over and over again. Your attitude snaps back just as quickly
as his does, the aftertaste of your few moments of amicability washed away with
a chilly draft, “remind me why I’m helping you again?”
Apologies are mashing up in his stomach, but he can’t seem to swallow his
pride enough to cough them up. He wants to stay and he wants to kiss you and
show you that not all men are evil, that he’s different and if you give him a chance
he would treat you like a china doll, but his ego is much too strong. His
stubbornness is innate and doesn’t seem to be shifting anytime soon, “dunno.” He
tosses the bloody cloth onto your vanity before rising to his feet and everything
inside of him is screaming at him to take it all back and beg you to allow him to
stay, but he’s so angry that he just can’t. He hates it, but he just can’t, “guess I’ll
leave you alone.”
There’s a tingle with an unknown source deep in your guts that wants to beg
him not to leave, but it seems impossible to go against your intuition of mistrust,
“fine.”
Without hesitation he echoes your retort in a similar tone, “fine.”
You move out of his way as he scrapes by, your shoulders brushing with his
haste as he swings your door open and glances over his shoulder. He wants to
say more, something and anything, but he stops himself. He has no idea what to
do in this situation or what he could possibly utter to get you to love him and it’s
driving him absolutely insane because he can’t recall ever having this much
difficulty with anything in the past. Your gazes burn and catch fire before he
blurts out without giving it very much thought, “fuck. Son-of-a-bitch. Sometimes
you irritate the fuck outta me, Cherry.”
Neither of you are properly representing your true emotions in this moment.
You can both see it and hear it and taste it, but for some reason you can’t stop
either.
“So I’ve been told, Harry. Many times. By you.” You choke back tears of
grievance and failure, the whole disastrous night flashing before your eyes as you
release your bottom lip from the hold of your teeth, “goodnight.”
For some reason his declaration sounds more like a confession of his internal
struggle than an insult on your character this time. His hesitation is palpable in
his heavy stare before he groans in defeat and trudges away with his socks
plodding against the hardwood. You stay frozen and leaned up against your bed
post with your arms tightly wound across your chest, the sound of your
apartment door slamming closed before the wheels of his skateboard hit the
pavement outside and roll off into the distance.
Hi everyone. You feel okay? I’m here if you need to scream or anything, lol. I
know how frustrating this is, believe me. I just want to slam their crotches together
too. I love you and I’ll see you soon. I hope that you all have a great week. Please
don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to talk. Much love, Xx B PS thank you to
esmeralik1D for the pink smoke edit!
You make dumb ass decisions sometimes.
Harry’s fingers twirl around a lock of your hair, whipping it into a downy
ringlet between his heavily studded digits in the same way that a carnival worker
would twist fine threads of pink into a cloud of spun sugar. He raises a crackling
cigarette to his lips to suck sweet smoke past his teeth, his mouth skimming
yours when he forms a perfect ring and exhales the heavenly, swirling cloud
straight to the back of your throat.
Please don’t go, Harry.
Your tongue sweeps out for a more effective taste, the tip of it tickling the very
center of his bottom lip and leaving a blot of ruby behind, a sheen of cherry-
tinted watercolor that bleeds into the cracks and crevices of his mouth. Harry
hums and rubs the pad of his thumb against the tingling spot before gently
sucking on it for a taste; the peacock-feathered setting sun and the rainbow-
sprinkled rising sun, the lemony crescent moon and the jeweled stars all
brilliantly displayed en masse in the wrinkled drop curtain behind him. His eyes
and his lips scintillate with the aid of the otherworldly scene, your vision blurring
with psychedelic discord much like droplets of oil in water, leaving you with the
burning wonder of his mysterious intoxication.
Just because you don’t remember doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten too.
Your hands smooth up the front of Harry’s chest to pin him down in the patch
of soaring sunflowers, your fingers drifting to the back of his neck before
weaving into his hair. His head rolls back and his ribs expand for a full breath of
air, his fingertips tickling up your thighs to disappear below the hem of your
skirt. The blue sky above slowly morphs into tenderly lapping ocean waves, the
reflection of the burning sun rippling like a crystalline lightbulb surrounded by
twinkling diamonds when the sea surges as though it were a free-falling
parachute in slow motion.
Beeswax candles flicker inside of the surrounding room graphed with

iridescent mirrors, melted toothsome honey giving way for bare, shadowy
silhouettes and begging, pleading breaths.
Please don’t let me go, Cherry.
Unbeknownst to the both of you, yours and Harry’s vulnerable positions and
thoughts reflect one another’s the whole night through. Flashbacks of harsh
tones and unintended words soar like a colony of blind fruit bats, sending out
desperate chirps into the pitch black in the hope for echoing feedback, their
bodies dropping to the ground clumsily in their search for scraps of sweet flower
nectar. So keen in one sense and so blind in another, their aptitude just barely
compensating for their pitfalls.
You both dream in real blips of angry conflict dotted with surreal, phantom
passions; sweaty tangled sheets and ideological attempts of repossessing the
past into a more desirable outcome. Reality versus fantasy, disappointed frowns
where delicate kisses should be. Words that detonated and words that should’ve
been.
Half-conscious emotional fever nightmares are the absolute worst.
The first tear to roll down your cheek opposes the sun stretching its arms
above the horizon as it yawns itself into existence, every callow and impulsive
quip that you and Harry bounced off of each other juicing your brain dry and
sending the burning sap down your spine to smother your heart. The number of
mistakes in both of your buckets aren’t enough to tip the scale in either faulty
direction, but the secrets and wishes are overflowing so profusely that it would
seem the entire mechanism is buckling under the weight of its own stupidity.
Over time, Harry has wordlessly brought awareness to your tendency towards
deflection as a means of self-protection and a fear of excavating inwards, scared
of what you might find below the surface if you dig too deeply. You have a nasty
habit of shifting blame and neglecting your own destructive habits, your level of
perfectionism capping at a point that leaves you just on the outskirts of your own
truth at all times. The events of this past weekend at Chubby’s and last night
regarding your date with Riff in particular have carved you open, leaving bits of
jagged bone and spurting arteries that need spiritual mending of the soul in
order to heal.
Several questions beg to be answered: should you believe Tex’s warnings

about Harry’s intentions? Why would Harry fight for you if you were nothing but
a burner to him? How would Harry have reacted if you’d told him about your
achille’s injury sooner? Does it even bother him as much as you think it does?
What would have transpired if Harry hadn’t been waiting for you to come home
last night? Was it as bad as Harry made it out to be? And most importantly,
would that date have even occurred in the first place if you’d kissed Harry when
he begged you with his eyes? What are you waiting for? And what are you afraid
of? Or have you ruined everything?
You want Harry. In every sense of the word. Every net of safety and every
word of wisdom, every haze of pink and every squeeze of his hands.
The only problem is, you can’t pin those queries on anyone else but yourself.
Your actions or inactions are your responsibility alone and that realization of
burden in itself is enough to force you onto your side as a sob explodes from your
chest, your lungs aching when you cry into your pillow and hug it against your
stomach.
You want Harry. So why is it so hard? Are you thinking too much or not
enough?
Harry went straight home to his van when he left your duplex, his fingers
clenching into fists in order to keep them from smashing straight through his
windshield. He threw his skateboard as far as he could possibly muster, the
sound of it hitting wet sand not nearly as satisfying as he’d imagined it to be. He
had just saved you from harm with little to no thanks on your end, his only
expression of gratitude was maybe a glass of water and a cluster of ice smashed
against his sore nose, followed by an amateur and coarse psychological
evaluation of his behavior.
Sure, he could see how his conduct may be spun as macho, jealous, panicked
or stubborn, but he’s never claimed to be very good at dampening his
impulsivity, especially when it comes to matters of fixation and ownership.
Granted, the element of ownership has never extended towards another human
being before, but he supposes you have a lot to teach him about relationships
whether you’re aware of it or not.
Harry hates your recounting of how he treated you before his surfing accident
and he hates that he doesn’t remember it, he hates that you had promised to let it
go but you’re obviously so affected by it that you can’t.
He stripped naked and then shook his head and threw his clothes back on,
repeating this process three full times before deciding that showing back up at
your house would only make things worse. He climbed into his loft bed and
drifted in and out of the starry sky, wondering just how badly your meager
foundations have collapsed, if you’d ever be able to forgive him and yourself, if
you’re frightened from your shitty dating experience and if you wished he
would’ve stayed afterwards instead of leaving you alone like a fucking jackass.
But you both require time and space apart to think, to inhale serenity and
exhale agitation, to beat the evening and the last few weeks to death so that
details are squashed and perspective is kindled, to undergo very precise
figurative brain surgery in order to not allow any more mistakes to happen.
The situation that you both face is delicate enough as it is and the last thing
Harry wanted to do was bully you with his demanding presence. He has utmost
faith in your recovery and he knows that he’s impatient and relentless as fuck,
but you are worth the wait and the fight. This love is going to massacre and save
him all at once and he knows better than anyone that his favorite past time is
deep, probing rumination. You are his abyss and he’s going to find the bottom,
but not before memorizing every freckle and divot on the way.
This is his favorite fucking part about life; discovery.
And admittedly, this is the first time since his surfing accident that he’s feeling
apprehensive about showing up to work in the morning. The myriad of ways in
which you may greet him is countless and cryptic and if he’s honest with himself,
he’s still fucking pissed that you went on a date with that lowlife fucker in the
midst of Harry’s pining and your slowly unfolding leeway. Seeing you in the car
with him was akin to having his heart ripped from his chest with your bare
hands, and he wasn’t looking forward to a night filled with hallucinated horrors
of you tossing your head back in laughter at one of his ding-bat jokes or hearing
the haunting echo of shattering glass over and over again.
Who knew that betrayal could come in the form of sweet Cherry lollipops, doe
eyes and innocent roller skates? Had you even stopped to think for one fucking
second how you would have felt if the situations were reversed? A chill ran up
his spine as the sudden doubtful answer to that last question wormed its way
through his brain — he was certain that you would be destroyed to find him on a
date with another woman….. wouldn’t you?
Through the traffic jam of his gridlocked thoughts, Harry found himself
resentful of Tex’s correct assumption to stay away from your duplex. But at the
same time, Tex was also very wrong. Harry’s feelings were smashed to pieces just
as badly as that fucker’s window, but he shudders to think what would have
happened if he weren’t an accidental martyr with his emotions in the exact right
time and place. If he wasn’t there waiting on your stoop, if you hadn’t screamed
in that precise moment, if he wasn’t armed with a weapon, if he didn’t love you so
much that every aspect of that encounter down to that fucker’s broken teeth
were completely inconsequential.
Why can’t you just understand that if you want something magnificent, the
risk that you take to get it has to be just as daring?
Greatness doesn’t just fall into anyone’s lap and winning lottery tickets are
nothing but the devil in disguise. Everything worth fighting for is exactly that; a
struggle.
A struggle against his past and your past, a struggle against your differences
and similarities, a struggle against Tex and Rusty, a struggle against his certainty
and your apprehensions. But the second your lips enmesh, you’ll both fall into a
hole so deep that the current darkness and bounds will be of no significance.
Whenever that time may come.
Between the stubborn cracks of his gritted teeth and the swell of his heartsick
tongue, Harry plans to consciously revert back to his stringent post-Indy persona
in order to self-soothe, ready to avoid contact with any and every one when he
arrives at the theatre in the morning. Including you. He’s not ready for conflict or
resolution because he doesn’t trust the geyser of sorrow pressing its way up
from his broken ribcage and knocking on his teeth for deliverance. With
miserable hours of fragmented sleep under his belt and under-eye bags to show
for it, Harry climbs his way down from his bed with the sun quivering just below
the horizon to pull on his wet suit for a long, uninterrupted surfing session.
And just a couple dozen blocks away, your eyes are dry and tight by the time
your tears retreat back into your sinuses. You lay in bed completely still aside
from a slow blink every few breaths, your eyes glued to the clock on your bedside
table as the minutes flip by in slow motion.
The alarm screams in your face at its usual timely command and you have
nothing to offer except for a blank stare, your palm reaching out to slap the
snooze button as you roll onto your back and disappear into the ceiling for
another hour or two or three. You have less than no desire to arrive to work on
time, if at all. You’re dying to see Harry, but not in the way you suspect reality to
play out. You want happy sunflower Harry to swoop in and be waiting outside of
your door with a dozen questions delivered through a shiny smile, not the bitter
Harry who skulked out of your bedroom last night with blood leaking from his
veins.
Chubby’s Hustle and the perfect, pink car ride home seem so distant now that
it surely must have been another lifetime. Or perhaps you completely imagined
it.
When you hear Nettie click on the radio in the kitchen at around ten o’clock,
you finally pull yourself from the snag of your sheets before shuffling out to greet
her. She does a double take and slowly puts down her mug of coffee, her
eyebrows pulling into a frown when she takes a step towards you and starts
carefully, “morning….. sleep in?”
You want to scoff at the word ’sleep’ and you swear that you felt mildly okay
until you were face-to-face with another person, a person who knows you well
enough to understand that you’re acting completely out of character without
even having to discuss a single topic. You want to cry, but it somehow doesn’t feel
acceptable because this whole entire catastrophe lays on your shoulders. You
want Harry, but right now he doesn’t want you, “on purpose. I’m not in a hurry
today. I’m so sorry that Harry was being obnoxious last night and woke you up.”
All Nettie knows was that you had left the house to go on a date with someone
named Riff and then she was being woken up several hours later to the squeak of
your mattress springs and Harry moaning like a porn star, “no sweat. Did you
and Harry go all the way?”
“No. Not even close, Nettie.”
She nods and backs up against the counter when the toaster pops up a piece of
charred bread, “okay…..” You can smell her hesitation and cautiousness through
the potency of overcooked crust, “and how was your date with Riff?”
“I’m sure there’s still some broken glass in the street.” You plop down onto a
barstool and bury your face in your hands, “he was really pushy and Harry saw
and it got really bad. We were snippy with each other like we used to be and then
he stormed out and left me.”
“Well, thank fuck Harry was there then.” The chivalry of his actions begins to
shine through the dark, hazy clouds of your hazardous experience thanks to an
outside perspective. Another slow and unfolding realization to add to the pile
that have been peeling themselves back for hours upon hours and you don’t
expect them to stop anytime soon. You try hard to think back on every word you
mustered to him last night within the sludge of what you were battling, but not a
single utterance of appreciation pops up. Nettie is quiet as she watches you, her
hands cupped around her warm mug, “broken glass sounds pretty damn serious.
Do you wanna tell me what happened? Riff was ’pushy’ enough that Harry
punked out on him?” You keep your stare glued to the countertop and nod,
Nettie’s jaw clenching in anger at this whole unfair situation that you’ve been
thrown into, “you need to tell Tex what he created.”
“And say what? ’Hey, thanks but no thanks’?”
“Uh, yeah? And also, ’fuck you and all of your slimy friends. You’re a reject for
setting me up on a grotty date behind your best friend’s back. I’m gonna go boink
Harry now and you don’t get to have an opinion about it.’ And then you’re gonna
go boink Harry.”
It’s hard not to laugh at her sardonic delivery, “if he even still wants me.”
“He still wants you. There’s no way he doesn’t want you. Just go apologize and
bat your eyelashes and call him a big, sexy Paul Newman-esque cowboy hero and
you’ll be playing backseat bingo in his shaggin’ wagon in no time. That’s all he
wants to hear, you know that, right? ’I’m sorry and I think you’re sexy.’ It’s
simple. And true. God….. he’d get the biggest woody if you said that.”
“Wynette.” You pinch the bridge of your nose before you burst out laughing
again, knowing that she’s absolutely right and that you’re going to have to work
to gain the affection back that you’ve been effectively denying for weeks. Harry
wants you to fight for him a little bit now. He wants to feel chased. He wants to
see that you need him as much as he needs you, that his feelings are real and
reciprocated. A one-sided battle will only last for so long before it’s exhausted,
“you’re right. Thank you. I think I’ll be a little more tactful with my language
though.”
“I mean….. I don’t think you need to be with Harry, but godspeed.”
You don’t expect Harry to be outside of your apartment door when you swing
it open, but it doesn’t hurt any less to find your hallway as empty as a barren
desert. An emotional tumbleweed crosses your path as you cut past it to fly down
the steps, attaching your skates to your loafers and taking off down the
boardwalk at full speed to arrive at the theatre. It’s well past the hour that you
and Harry would be taking your lunch break together, and you despise that
you’ve purposely avoided being here at that time due to cowardice and nostalgic-
trudging discomfort. You can’t bear to consider what Harry must be thinking
right now; if he’s worried about you or even worse, if he’s not worried about you
at all.
With Nettie’s encouragement under your belt, your first mission is to confront
Tex about his crappy set-up before finding Harry and pouring every bit of
yourself into him. He must be feeling so dejected in this moment, physically sore
from his altercation and metaphorically bruised from everything you’ve put him
through.
The first place you check when you push past the theatre entrance doors is
your dressing room, but it’s as vacant as your duplex corridor. Spent sunflowers
are wilting in their vases, the couch, the bathroom and the vanity are quiet, your
cherry-scented candles standing as frozen as wintry lakes in their typical spots.
With another more thoughtful glance around the small space, you notice that
none of Harry’s belongings are here either and your heart sinks when you realize
that he may not have even come in today in the hope of completely skirting you.
Or perhaps it took you so long to show up that he gave up and retreated home
with a broken heart and a nauseous stomach, his own missteps rattling around in
the noisy cave of his skull.
After you change into your warm-ups, if only to give off the illusion of putting
any effort into practicing, the following twenty minutes are spent storming
through the building and peering behind every shadowy corner. The backstage
area and practice spaces, the weight room, the gymnastics studios, the courtyard,
the theatre, the kitchen, administrative offices. There are a hundred faces but
none of them are Harry’s and each minute that you invest in searching for him
and coming up short liquidates your intentions and confidence, every word that
you’d practiced saying to both him and Tex shriveling like a dying flower in your
sweaty palms.
Everything comes flooding back when you see the first object of your anger,
however.
Tex stands in a far-off corner of the theatre, surrounded by a typical haze of

filthy green smoke and a group of coworkers, your eyes darting left and right for
a head of curls and strong shoulders unfolding from the straps of a wifebeater,
but none of them are perfect enough to be Harry. You half-run and half-walk
towards him, jamming your fingers into his bicep for a rough pinch which he
rebounds with a sharp yelp, “what the fuck was that for?”
You could care less if that hurt him or not, “I need to talk to you.”
“Jesus—” He hisses when you release his skin, his fingers rubbing the sore
spot as you start to drag him away from any nosy eavesdroppers, “alright, I’m
coming! Cut it. What’s coming off here?”
You try your hardest to keep your voice at a whisper and as unemotional as
possible so that he will take you seriously. You know from experience that
agitated women are often dismissed by men faster than they can blink, “your
friend Riff is a real piece of work. He tried to feel me up.” You’re softening your
language in order to keep Tex from shutting down and also part of you doesn’t
want him to know just how affected you were by his arrangement. Plus, you don’t
know what he knows and what Harry’s told him, if anything, and how much of it
Harry feels comfortable with Tex knowing. You don’t want this asshole to have
any leverage in this situation. As far as you’re concerned, this is now between
you and Harry and you want Tex out of it as soon as you’ve said your final piece.
“Shit. Sorry, man.” In the split second that he interacted with a supremely
irritated version of Harry this morning, he noticed the faint bruise purpling the
skin under his eye, but Harry artfully avoided any questioning. Tex assumed that
something had gone sour between the three of you considering he knew exactly
what Harry would be stumbling upon when he got to your place, but Harry
bounced from the room and went into hiding before Tex had the opportunity to
dig any further. Tex also decides to leave out the fact that he told Riff that you
were a virgin looking to score, knowing that Riff burns through women just as
fast as Harry used to.
Sweat presses up against his skin when he realizes that his selfish intentions
are close to being discovered by his best friend unless he silences you, so he does
what he does best by shaping the situation in his favor with gentle manipulation,
“listen, if Harry finds out that I tried to do you a solid and it went poorly, he’s
gonna be so fucking pissed at the both of us that he’d never speak to either of us
again. Trust me.” At least he knows for certain that Harry would kick the living
shit out of him if Harry knew that he knowingly put you in danger, he has
absolutely no idea if he’d be upset with you or not, “let’s keep this a secret, yeah?
It’s better for this to just quietly go away and not make a big fuss over it. What’s
done is done. No sense in dwelling.”
You hate that his apology sounds like complete bullshit and that he doesn’t
bother to ask if you’re okay. It doesn’t feel right to keep the fact that Tex is a
terrible friend from Harry, but it also doesn’t feel like your place to lodge yourself
between them against Tex’s wishes. He’s doing a supreme job of confusing and
belittling your experience and involvement, as if this has nothing to do with you
at all but it’s purely between the men in the picture, “If I can’t tell him what
you’ve done, then you need to tell him. I can’t carry this. And by the way, I’m
never listening to you again. That was horrible and you’re both dicks.”
“Fine, I’ll tell him.” He has absolutely no intention of telling him, “but don’t you
open your mouth, you have an excellent way of pissing him off. I’ll handle it.”
“Whatever. Where is he?”
Harry was much too angry to tell anyone where he’d planned on spending his
day, but Tex is too proud to admit that. Instead he exhales a plume of green
smoke directly into your face, “oh, can’t find him? He must be laying low from
you. Not surprising.”
His words are exactly what you didn’t want to hear and that’s exactly why you
believe him, “sit on it. Thanks for nothing, jerk.”
Another twenty minutes are occupied by asking every single person that you
encounter where Harry is and if anyone has seen him, until you finally approach
a group of ballet dancers and try to keep your attitude as even and genial as
possible in your last-ditch effort of finding him before you head out in search of
his van.
“Oh….. Harry?” One of the dancers speaks up before looking around at her
friends for reassurance, “I saw him in dance studio number two a few hours ago.
I doubt he’s still there, but worth a shot?”
The one place you hadn’t thought to look. Of course that’s where he is.
This time your pace is much slower as you shuffle down the hallway, your
swollen heart pounding inside of your mouth and a dull ring trilling through your
eardrums. The door to studio two is slightly ajar, soft soul music fluttering
through the speakers and slipping through the crack at your feet. You knock
twice before stepping inside, the volume of the impassioned music swelling in
the same instant that you find Harry sitting with his legs crossed in the center of
the room. His bag and leather jacket are strewn across a folding chair beside an
ashtray brimming with sugar-coated cigarette butts, his back hunched and
shoulder blades slowly surging with breath as he wraps a cotton gauze around
his wrist and palm. The room has a slight tinge of candied pink in the air from all
of the cigarettes he’s burned through today, reminiscent of the supernatural
reflections cast from the iridescent mirrors in your fever dream. You know from
experience that he chainsmokes when he’s in a considerably horrible mood or
perhaps an extremely heartbroken one. Maybe you’ve had it wrong all this time.
He flicks his gaze to you before looking away just as quickly, his hair falling
into his face to hide any emotion in his eyes.
His heart skips a beat when you step into the room with flushed cheeks and
your hair falling softly around your shoulders, a velvet ribbon tied into a bow on
the crown of your head.
His heart skips a beat when you step into the room as it’s done a hundred
times before his surfing accident, except you didn’t know it then and there’s no
way of knowing it now.
His heart skips a beat when you walk into the room as it’s done a hundred
times before his surfing accident, except he doesn’t remember any of those times
and it makes his brain feel like a bruised peach whenever he tries. His index
finger pressing against a tender, squishy spot that makes him feel weak and
damaged.
times after his surfing accident, except unlike any of those times, he’s clueless on
how to interact with you now.
You just wish you knew what he was thinking. And honestly, his personality
had flipped so drastically after his accident that you thought you’d never have to
wonder that again, but now it’s clear that every version of Harry that you’ve met
has always been a very real, authentic part of himself. A sensitive, aching, radiant
sunbeam that’s begrudgingly overshadowed by repeated defeats.
Harry’s lips part to greet you flatly with a low croak, “hey.” His eyes flash at
you once more so quickly that you’re not even sure if it’s happened before he’s
looking back at the bandage wrapping around his wounded hand.
No sunflowers. No breakfast inquiries. No nicknames. No honey. No sunshine.
You miss him so much even though he’s right in front of you. His fingertips are
slipping through yours and he feels so cold right now that you’re afraid you’ll
never get his warmth back.
“They told me you were in here.”
“I am.”
The most stubborn part of him doesn’t want to check in, but the big squishy
part of him that loves every shred of you just has to ask about your well-being.
The two sides of himself battle and they both win when he refuses to look at you
and also chooses a benign inquiry over the malice of last night. Always a master
at burial and avoidance, “how’s your ankle?”
You nod and tuck a lock of hair behind your ear, devastated that he won’t look
at you or jump right into the thick of things or be near you or touch you or even
notice that you’ve worn your hair down for his blessing, “um….. it’s tight. How’s
your hand?”
“S’okay.”
“Do you some want help wrapping it?”
Through the wavy curtain of his hazelnut locks, you can just make out the hint
of a black eye marring his flawless features.
The fuck? I just took a punch for you.
Harry shrugs and suddenly realizes he’s fumbling with his bandage a bit, but
it’s mostly because of your scrambling presence rather than his physical
capabilities. He finally nods and you pad carefully towards him to sit on the floor
in front of his knees, your legs splayed open in a straddle on either side of his
waist. You tilt your head for some eye contact but he won’t give it to you, instead
he stares at his hands and ignores the trounce in his chest at your proximity and
scrutiny, his skin sizzling when you push his fingers out of the way and wrap the
gauze around his wrist, “what did you have for breakfast, Harry?”
One corner of his mouth tugs into the tiniest hint of a smile, “green apple and
peanut butter.”
“That’s it?”
“Wasn’t very hungry.”
Your stares finally lock together and it feels like the earth has slammed on its
brakes and completely stopped rotating. The abrupt and massive halt knocks you
both off balance, all of the objects in the room flying from the walls and shelves in
a blustery hurricane around you. But that one second of regard feels too good to
notice anything else.
Harry bravely shuffles closer when you finish tucking the bandage into place,
his legs unraveling from their closed-off position to hike one on top of yours, “…..I
need a cuddle.”
You’re so relieved by his ice breaking vocalization that you scramble to your
knees and toss your arms around his neck for a tight hug, his fingers gripping
your back in desperation as he breathes you in deeply and sighs into your hair,
allowing the peaceful silence between you and the sincere music feeding the
room to embrace you as fervently as your bodies do.
“They should start callin’ us The Flyin’ Assholes.”
You burst out laughing so hard that your head rolls back and a snort rips
through your nose, Harry’s explosive cackle joining yours as he presses his
forehead against your collarbone and hums to calm himself. He cradles the back
of your head and aligns your feeble gazes, “I don’t like how that shit ended last
night. I don’t like how any of it came off. It wasn’t what I was imaginin’ when I
showed up at your place….. at all.”
“What did you imagine?”
He lifts a single eyebrow at your curiosity, “honestly?” You nod and he pinches
his bottom lip between his fingers, “I imagined you’d open your door and I’d just
fuckin’ grab you and kiss you before either of us could talk. Maybe you’d cry a
little and I’d ask to sleep over and you’d say no even though you kinda wanted
me to. No funny business though. Just snugglin’.”
It’s hard to conceptualize a time where you’d ever get sick of his honesty and
how easily it relaxes you. It’s so difficult for you to speak your truth, to allow
yourself to expose the rawest bits of your heart to another person, but he
somehow makes it seem possible.
After a beat of silence, you both explode with apologies at the same time.
“I should have told you about my ankle—”

“I shouldn’t have stormed outta here—”
You both laugh, you shake your head and whisper an apology as you both
pause and then start to apologize at the same time again.
“I should have never gone on that date—”
“I shoulda been more sensitive about what’d just happened to you—”
The softest and raspiest chuckle blows past Harry’s teeth as he shakes his
head at how ridiculous this is and gestures for you to come closer, “shut up.
C’mere.”
You crawl into his lap, your legs straddling his waist with your knees digging
into the hardwood floor and wrap your arms around his neck again, resting your
cheek against his temple as you hum and suffocate him in a loving embrace. You
both know it’s for his comfort as much as it is for yours.
Harry sucks in a slow and low gasp, not expecting you to offer yourself to him
so fully and willingly and passionately. His arms circle your waist before pinning
you tightly against his chest, your tummies softly breathing together and your
centers heating upon contact, his hands splaying across your back before one
smooths up your spine, tickling the back of your neck and sinking into your hair.
He swallows a couple times before pinching his eyes shut, apologies that haven’t
leaked out since Indy’s funeral whispering against your neck, “I’m sorry. I’m so
fuckin’ sorry for every nasty thing I ever said or did to you in the past. I wish I
remember what they were so I could properly take it all back. I hate that it ruined
you. I’m sorry about what happened to you last night and that I behaved like a
caveman when you needed someone to comfort you. I shoulda been nicer. I get so
caught up sometimes.” He licks his lips and adds another impulsive fragment, not
understanding the pull that it has on your unsuspecting, mushy guts, “I never
expected love to catch me. I thought I was immune. I don’t know how to handle it.
I want you to teach me. I wanna be good for you.”
Hearing Harry use the word ’love’ so freely quickly dismisses any evil seeds
that Tex tried to plant about you not being special at all, that you were merely
another game to Harry, that backing off is the correct move for the two of you.
You’ve never been one to cry very much, but it seems as though Harry is the only
person who can paint a thick sheen of lacquer across your eyes this frequently,
both out of sheer frustration and berry-flavored bliss.
Your fingers curl around his characteristic lock of hair to push it from his face,
the shine of his bruise hitting the light and making your stomach turn with the
reminder of where it came from.
Harry hums at your soft doting, his need to have your weight on him and your
regard plastered to every inch of his face perfectly sated in this moment. He
needs to clear the air about less important things once and for all, “listen, your
ankle doesn’t bother me. You crumblin’ to the ground unexpectedly and then
admittin’ you were fulla shit this whole time did, though.”
You laugh at his crass honesty even though you should expect it by now,
“okay. I’m sorry. I’m not full of shit.” Harry’s eyebrows bump up at your
surprising cuss, but he doesn’t interrupt, “I was going to tell you, I promise. I
didn’t want you to find out like that. No more secrets?” Except the whole tangled
Riff and Tex situation, but you’re hoping that’ll just go away on its own if you
drop it. You hold up your pinky and he threads his around yours, kissing the
inked cross on his hand to solidify the promise before slipping the rest of your
fingers together and dropping them to your thigh, “is that why you left here
angrily then? My ankle?”
Rusty’s threat squirted behind a cloud of black smoke glows to life, but Harry
puckers his lips and then sucks air in through the side of his cheek, still under the
impression that it’s better off for you to not know about that, “um….. no. I flaked
off ’cause Rusty was tryin’ to hassle me about some bullshit as usual.” And he
honestly believes he isn’t lying when he says, “nothin’ to worry about.” Harry
leans back for a better view of you and holds his weight up with his palms spread
out across the floor, “I shouldn’t have done that to you, I shouldn’t have walked
out. You’re right. I have a hard time handlin’ shit in the moment. I walked out on
you twice yesterday. I’m a proper dickhead.”
You shrug, “we all have a hard time handling shit in the moment. I actually
think you’re pretty good at it most of the time, I mean….. you also saved me twice
yesterday. You saved my ankle and my night all in one day.”
“Oh? Now you think so? Where’s my thank you then? My face fuckin’ hurts.”
You tap his cheek right below the mulberry pearl of a bruise under his bottom
row of eyelashes, “where does it hurt? Right here?”
Harry tugs on the waistband of his joggers, “right here.”
You roll your eyes and push off his shoulders to climb from his lap, “Melvin!”
Harry whines and grabs at your hips to pull you back down into his lap, “just
takin’ the piss. Come on, Cherry tart. You were so warm. Don’t leave.”
Your tone is level and serene as you pause and reach a hand out to try to help
him to his feet, your inflection suddenly sober to exude the sentiment you know
he needs to hear, “thank you, Harry. I understand now how bad it was and how
amazingly heroic you were. I’m so relieved you were there and that you came to
my rescue without a second thought. I owe you one.”
Harry wraps his fingers around your wrist and tugs you back down towards
him with his teeth stabbing his bottom lip to stifle his smile, “that’s the sexiest
thing you’ve ever said to me, hands down. I’ll remember that forever.” His facial
expression softens when his eyes roam your pretty features, “are you okay? That
was scary, babe. Real fuckin’ scary. You don’t deserve that. Not a single stitch of
that shit was your fault. You did a good job screamin’ for help. Still wish I’d killed
him though.”
For some reason you feel like crying, either due to unprocessed fear or
reliving that horrifying impression of a nightmare come to life; trying your best
to fight however you can, but nothing that you attempt works. Your punches
don’t land, you open your mouth to scream and no sound comes out. Riff is a
devil and Tex is no better to knowingly deposit you into his hands.
You nod to ease Harry’s worrying regardless of your own feelings and for the
pure fact that you’d rather not talk about it right now, but Harry knows this. He
can read it through the layer of moisture in your eyes and the suction of your
bottom lip. He knows better than to push a woman who’s been crushed into
silence. Instead he cups your cheeks and bows your head towards his, puckering
his lips to leave a soft, slow and loving kiss to your forehead.
He’s so fucking happy that you came to him to fix this and that the fog of
malaise is slowly clearing out between you that he can’t help but push away any
crustiness, his beams of light bursting through the darkened cloud cover, “don’t
think I didn’t notice your beautiful hair and groovy little bow. Can I stretch you
out? You been practicin’ cold today, punk?” You don’t have the heart to tell him
that you haven’t been practicing at all today because instead you were lying in
bed, too scared to face him for dastardly fear of the unknown. “Don’t lie to me,”
he holds three fingers into the air, “we’re Boy Scouts now, remember?”
Honestly you don’t feel much like warming up or practicing, but you wouldn’t
mind the physical closeness and affection. Even if it’s in the form of partner
stretches, “I haven’t been practicing cold, but you can stretch me a little if you
don’t mind.”
He clears his throat and the brass of his personality starts to rekindle once the
sensual moment has passed, “lay back.” Your eyes widen and he laughs quietly,
“yeah. Listen to me. I’ll loosen you up, it’ll feel good. Lay down.” You stay frozen
in place and he laughs louder this time, “don’t look at me like that.”
“Why do I have to lie down for you to stretch my ankle?”
“Everything is connected babe.” His fingertips trace over your hip before
tickling down your thigh, “your psoas connects to your quads, your quads
connect to your IT bands and your IT bands are connected to your achille’s
tendon. I’ll relax you from top to bottom. You trust me, remember? Lay the fuck
down and let someone take care of you for once.”
Phew. Is it just me or do things feel a little lighter around here? Love you and see
you on Sunday! Please remember to vote and comment. Y’all make me so happy. Xx
B
Not in the mood for arguing or convincing, Harry crosses the room to collect a
mat and spread it out across the center of the floor, his hands perched on his hips
as he watches you fill up very little space with your knees tucked into your chest
like a concerned, wide-eyed kitten. He tries to gesture you closer with a flick of
his head and a single teasingly perturbed curl of his fingertips, the notion of a
dimple tinging his cheek, “hop to it, Honeybunny. I don’t bite.” His lips pucker as
he toils over his last sentiment, his head cocking to the side with a little shrug
when he addresses himself more than you per se, “well—”
You get the sense that beyond the realm of your tight ankle, he’s purely
wanting to care for you, to prove to you that he’s in a completely different
ballpark than Riff when it comes to human beings, to attempt to heal you — the
both of you — after everything that happened last night and in your past. That
he’s innocuous, knowledgeable and worthy of someone as unattainable as you
are in his eyes, that he can make you feel safe in the midst of a storm and maybe
just maybe, this is his clever way of getting his hands back on you. Every part of
you.
After a baited breath, you surrender to his command with a slow crawl
towards him on your hands and knees and Harry has to close his eyes and count
backwards from ten in order to keep the blood in his brain from flushing
elsewhere. He can’t help that he’s imagining you perched at his feet and sucking
his fingers into your mouth, his blunt nails scraping against the roof of your
mouth when you seal your lips around his knuckles. You really have no fucking
clue how unintentionally sexy you are, both in your words and actions, and it
makes Harry feel like some sort of fucking interplanetary astronaut, discovering
other worlds and moons where no one else has been brave enough to explore. It
crosses his mind that maybe the attraction that you have to one another is simply
unique, as though everyone on earth were half of a heart and he’s just lucky
enough to find the person who locks into the intricacies of his muscles so
gracefully.
You’re a sprawling, shimmering nebula of surprises; gorgeous comet tails,
rocky asteroid belts and blinding light and Harry has plenty of grit and oxygen to
navigate every corner. But that doesn’t make him any less impatient to unearth
your secrets.
Physical closeness has never made him anxious before. He craves it, it’s one of
his love languages to feel the spread of a body underneath his palms and without
sounding like a cocky piece of shit, he thinks he’s pretty gifted at it. But right now,
with your fragile and uncharted curves laid out on a squishy mat at his feet, his
heart is sunken into his stomach and swimming for its life to stay intact to
survive from dissolving in lovelorn acid. He flounders for a second as he tries to
choose where to begin with stretching, deciding that it’s probably least
aggressive to start with your feet and work up to your hips. You honestly
intimidate the ever-living shit out of him and he fucking loves that you’re the
only woman who can make him feel that way, that has ever made him feel that
way.
He loves pushing boundaries, both his own and those of others, just to see
what he can learn and master next. Virginity is never something that anyone has
trusted him with before and because of that, you make him feel like a virgin at
times too. A virgin of the body and the mind.
Harry squats beside you and wraps his hands around your shoulders for a soft
squeeze, trailing the pads of his fingers down your arms and to your wrists. He
doesn’t fail to notice your lungs inhale with breath before you lick your lips
nervously, your body fighting to keep still against its wishes to squirm under his
devilish stare and tender touch. He offers you his eye contact in the hope that it’ll
help soothe you, a smile pulling on one side of his mouth when you visibly
mellow before his gaze is averted to where your hands and his are gently
touching.
His eyebrows pull together into a harsh and tight frown the instant he notices
fingerprint-sized splotches of green and blue on your wrists, however.
Harry grabs your arm and sits on his haunches as he runs his fingers through
his hair and puts in effort to sound cool for your sake. But it doesn’t matter
because he doesn’t sound cool, he sounds absolutely exasperated and outraged,
“Cherry, fuck— what is this? What did he do to you? Huh? God, I shoulda fuckin’
killed him! I knew he was bein’ too rough. Look at this! What a fuckin’
meathead!”
He turns your wrist over to inspect further, but you don’t need or want to look
because you had already noticed the marks in the shower this morning although
they have worsened with time, the sting of embarrassment souring your stomach
when you’d realized just how right Harry was, “I know.” You pull your hand away
and suck your lips into your mouth when you find him staring at your arm with a
deep grimace creased into his features, “I’m okay. It was because I was pushing
him away and trying to pull on the door handle and he didn’t want me to, so he
held my arms down.” A flash of the incident plays in the background of your mind
as you try to focus enough to explain, “I was trying to pull them out of his grip,
so….. that’s how I got bruised, I think. I… m... glad you stopped him.”
He shakes his head and finally finds your face again, “it’s not okay! You’re hurt.
He damaged my mint fuckin’ Cherry. What’s his full name and address? I bet
Nancy would help me bury him with her sweet cyanide or whatever-the-fuck.”
“Shh…..” You sit up and press a palm to his chest, your jaw falling slack when
you register how severely his heart is pounding against his ribcage, “hey,
could’ve been so much worse, remember? But you were there for me.” A slow
smile pulls across your face when it takes you a moment to comprehend his
recurring name slip, “my roommate’s name is Nettie, Harry. And she’s starting to
get angry that you can’t remember it.”
“Shit, I know that. God, why are women so tough all the time?”
You laugh and push on his chest gently before laying back down on the mat,
“that has to be sarcasm.”
“Are you serious? You think anything about you is easy? Have you looked in
the mirror lately?”
“I think that’s a compliment?”
“Babe, it’s a rave review.” Harry sighs and taps your ankle bone with his
knuckle, hoping that the distraction of having your body in his hands will be
enough to take his mind off of what he just saw, “gimme that pretty little foot
before I break somethin’ in this room.”
You slip your foot into his smooth, large palms and suck in a flurry of air,
expecting his hands to be cold but pleasantly surprised to find them perfectly
tempered to your skin. You relax into his grip, melting into the mat below you
and lulling your head to the side to watch what he does next.
Harry gathers himself to his knees and hoists your leg in the air by his
shoulder, pressing the heel of his hand into the ball of your foot and reminding
you to stay present when he pushes your toes back as far as your scarred tendon
will allow, “s’good. Good, babe….. breathe through it. Point your toes into my
hand?” He fucking loves that you obey him without a single flicker of hesitation,
“good girl. Should be stretchin’ like this every day. Don’t want you to pop.” He
raises his eyebrows up and down in succession, “at least not like that.” You laugh
and swat at him but he ducks out of the way before you make contact, “careful
slugger, I’m operatin’ dangerous machinery.”
You wonder if the limited experience you have with men outside of holding
hands and kissing can be seen in your body language or the rosy, childish blush
of your cheeks. You’re trying your very best to not let the uncharted concept of
sex cover your brain in a dirty cloak from back to front, but it seems impossible
not to think about it with an object of lustful curiosity hovering over you, his eyes
splashing into yours and a twist of hazelnut hair forming a perfect arch to brush
his eyebrow.
“Ready for the big stuff?”

Harry’s already butterflying your legs apart and poising himself above you,
drawing a set of invisible claw marks up your shin to your kneecaps and pushing
you out of prim silence, “answer me.”
“Yeah, go ahead. My hips are super flexible.”
His vision splits and then reconvenes, “yeah?” He rests his hands just above
your knees and slowly starts pressing them into the mat to stretch out your hip
flexors, hissing in empathy when he can feel the strained pull on your pelvis,
“breathe in for four and out for seven.” His mouth pools with saliva when your
lips immediately part to slowly exhale on his command, “fuck.” Are you someone
who would be submissive in the sheets, allowing him to push as many
boundaries as you’re both comfortable with? Most of the time you’re headstrong
and confident, but that could simply mean you’re seeking control, even if it’s
being obtained from an outside source. Maybe you’re looking for an opportunity
to turn your brain off and have someone make decisions for you, to encourage
and praise you. If you want someone to take the reigns, he’s more than happy to
do that for you. But of course, if you pinned him down and demanded something,
anything, he’d crawl to the edge of the earth to give it to you.
While your eyes are squeezed shut, Harry takes this opportunity to glance at
your tits, the soft breathing of your chest, the flush of your cheeks, the flinch of
your face when he pushes hard enough. He wonders if you’re feeling heat
anywhere besides your leg muscles and when Harry glances down at his hands to
notice that his thumbs are a mere six inches from your center, a creamy, loving
praise oozes from his stomach, “so good for me…..”
A small whimper siphons up your throat and prickles his scalp, “I’m trying…..
didn’t realize how tight I was. We don’t do this enough.”
“No shit.” Harry lays your left leg flat and hooks it to the ground with his ankle,
floating his weight on top of you when he raises your other leg towards the
ceiling, “gonna push you. You gotta bend my ear though, because sometimes I
don’t know my own strength, yeah? I like talkin’. I like hearin’ you talk to me. So
rabbit on.”
“It’s okay.” You nod with as much certainty as you can muster and swallow
harshly when he leans against your limb and starts urging your leg back towards
your shoulder, “I can handle it.”
Harry’s stomach swirls and squeezes into a clenched fist, a rush of blood
dashing to his center, his chin ticking into the air and his eyebrow perking in
challenge, “you like it rough?”
“Harry…..”
“It’s cool, I’m up for anything. I can go soft or hard, slow or fast. It’s up to you,
Honeyfuck.” His teeth scrape his bottom lip and his eyelids fall into a slow,
intoxicated blink, “although I can’t promise I’ll listen now that I’ve got my hands
on you, but I’ll do my best.”
No one has ever made your insides bubble quite like Harry has before. The
sensation is foreign and new and you’re obsessed with it, you want him to whip
everything inside of you into a frenzy only to comb it back down with his
fingertips, leaving behind an even bigger disaster than what was there in the first
place. The noiseless word “Christ” slips out on the tail end of a sigh, both of your
eyes trained on the other’s mouth, “um…..”
His supplement is hushed, his gaze traveling upwards to pour into yours, “I
just want you to feel so fuckin’ good. All the time.”
You don’t even realize that you’ve fallen into his trance, but you love the
sticky, warm suffocation all the same. His heavenly, swirling cloud seeps to the
back of your throat, leaving you with the burning wonder of his mysterious
intoxication, “I want that. I want that for you too.”
“I can give you that. Zone out and breathe. This is my specialty.”
His list of specialties is on a scroll so long that if you began to unroll it, it might
unravel across the floor and clear across the Pacific Ocean.
Your head rocks back to suck a deep breath into your lungs, the burn in your
leg muscles pulling on your core as if his hands were tugging on your heart and
your enchantment as well as your ankle. It’s like everything connecting to Harry
is attached to a string that runs from your head to your toes, one simple yank
coiling every organ and bundle of nerves within you into a cluster of pining,
stinging jellyfish and thick chocolate milkshakes, “mmm…...” Your moan drills a
hole through Harry’s core, the subsequent hiss leaking into his veins, “easy.” He
can feel his ears physically twitch when you whine and tilt your head back, “your
hands are really strong.”
Harry rolls his head towards the ceiling and breathes out a silent laugh of
disbelief, mouthing the rhetorical sentiment of ’you’ve gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’
me’ before addressing you, “like that?” He eases off just the slightest bit until he
sees your chest rise with a full inhale followed by a lazy nod when you start to
slacken in his grip. He’s reminded of your trust in him and how you let yourself
go in his hands at Chubby’s and he can’t stop his mind from wandering to your
sexual preferences and secrets, what it would take to unlace you completely, if it
would be more like the swift drop of a curtain or the slow peel and burst of an
orange, how your body would feel and move once you’ve surrendered yourself to
him and your own lust.
He anchors his weight against you once more to extend your leg even farther,
his other hand falling to your hip for a toiling pinch to keep you glued against the
mat, his thumb drawing circles on your inner thigh. He’s nearly lying on top of
you now, your centers aligned and close enough that you can both feel the gentle
humidity radiating there. His head cocks to the side to breathe hot air against the
flesh of your neck, his hair raising when goosebumps blossom across your chest
and arms. All it would take is one dip to suction his mouth to your throat and he
feels like he would do absolutely anything to hear you moan again, but that
absolutely cannot happen here. Not with Rusty and Tex and whoever the gum-
flapping rat fink is lurking in the halls. He knows that once his lips connect with
any part of your body, it would take a pack of starving, wild animals to rip him
off. He wouldn’t be able to stop kissing you until you’ve come on his fingers and
that absolutely cannot happen here.
And as if an invisible wand has cast a cloak of black magic upon the room, a
group of dancers scatter past the open door through your practice space like a
flock of geese giggling and squawking their nonsense into this atmosphere,
forcing a reluctantly dampening Harry to sober up in a snap and back off to lower
your leg to the mat. Clouds roll in to mottle your love bubble, pupils of coal
swallowing his irises and a shaky hand running through his hair to sweep his
vicious curls from his face. That felt too close for comfort and his self-control is
faltering and that absolutely cannot happen here.
Then you can kiss your precious partner goodbye.
Normally Harry is under utmost control and command during anything

sexually related, but you make him feel just as inexperienced as your innocent
self, his self-restraint shrunken to an invisible blip, the sway of his miserable
rapture leaving him in a daze so thick that it’s like an honest acid trip he never
wants to leave, “I’m trippin’ so hard right now.” He digs the heel of his hand into
the peak of his thigh to ease the sensation in his pith, humming at the alleviation
when he smooths his palm down his leg. He wishes he could dip his hand into the
band of his sweatpants and run his thumb over his slit, just once, and he
supposes that’s exactly what he’ll do when he has a moment alone, “that was
hotter than any sex I’ve ever had. Fuckin’ ever. You are so erotic and you have no
goddamn clue.” You sit up slowly as the tingling all over your body begins to
dissolve, Harry’s sight caught on your rosy cheeks and bee-stung mouth before
quickly darting to your tits and back again, “you have no fuckin’ idea how hot you
are.”
Longing is leaking from every single one of your pores and you wonder if
Harry can smell the shift, that palpable instant when the air goes from being
ordinary to doused in streusel and syrupy cherry filling. You’ve never
experienced anything similar before, but now it feels like you can’t go a single
day without it. He’s effectively created a fiend. A fiend for his energy, his words,
his sunshine, his body. His hands.
Harry falls onto his bottom and swipes his smokes from the floor, bringing one
to his lips for a spark of fiery strawberry sugar to calm his nerves, “dunno if I feel
like I just came or died, but I think I need to either run a marathon or take a
fuckin’ nap.”
The music crackles through a hiccup of silence before the needle hops to the
next track, the pace and feel of the room invigorating glossy stamina through
your veins, slowly at first before gushing to the farthest scope of your body. You
feel like you’d try almost anything to keep him from drifting too far away again,
“how about a little dancing?”
Harry blinks once, “pardon moi? What’d you just say? You wanna what?” This
isn’t going to be good for his measly restraint and he knows it and he wishes
more than anything that you weren’t at work because he’s certain you’d both be
topless by now, but he also would never, ever turn down your wishes. As long as
he can keep his hands above the waist and his tongue inside of his mouth
through whatever is about to occur, everything will be just fine. He can rub one
out later. But absolutely nothing can happen here.
You’ve batted around your experience at Chubby’s for so many hours since it’s
transpired that you can’t help your decisive demand when it rolls off of your
tongue again, “I want to dance with you.”
The tilt of his head and the coy glint in his eye reminds you of a hungry red fox
and you suddenly feel like a docile rabbit caught in his snare. Something must
have happened to you or the thick atmosphere of the room during that stretching
session because before you know it, you’re back on your hands and knees again
in a slow crawl towards him, his heart thumping louder with each inch of ground
you cover and his body incapable of moving a muscle except for the dart of his
eyes all over your loyal figure, “whatcha—”
“I have to tell you something.”
This absolutely cannot happen here, “’kay…..”
“I didn’t actually come into work this morning. I just got here. I was avoiding
you because you kind of frighten me.”
Harry surveys your face and your shoulders, the arch of your back and the
perch of your ass before slowly grinning at your unexpected confession, “shit. I
thought I was just doin’ a really top-notch job at hiding from you.” He feels like he
can finally breathe again when you sit back on your heels and grant him an inch
of space, “you frighten me, too.”
“We should dance.”
Gathering his wits and washing away pesky qualms, Harry unfurls a hand
towards you and drags the both of you to your feet, attempting to keep the air
around you light and easy in order to avoid any accidental trouble. He finds
comfort in knowing that you’re not risky enough to make a move on him,
especially here and now. So long as he keeps some distance and humor in his
movements, you’ll both walk out of here today with your careers and pride
intact. He twirls you away from and back towards him to loosen you up, flashing
hitchhiker thumbs with his teeth chewing his bottom lip and rolling his head
around on lax shoulders. You feel silly to admit that you’d borrowed Nettie’s
records to practice dancing in your bedroom while you were home alone, honing
in on what it means to relax and let yourself go, to wipe any rehearsed
choreography and rigid échappés from your routine and to fully escape the
confines of your disciplined body.
Harry brings his shoulder to his ear to the rhythm of the music, the fabric of
his wifebeater perfectly draping and hugging the ridges of his torso, the delicate
chain of his necklace nestled into the neck of his shirt. You bend your knees and
pop your heels from the ground to match the pace of his shoulder, your wrist and
arm limp as you slowly take steps closer towards each other, the tense space
between you caving closed and growing heavy despite both of your attempts to
keep the frolic as casual as possible.
His eyebrows raise and he seems unaffected when spins you away again,
except this time when he reels you back in, his eyes are crossed with his cheeks
sucked in and lips puckered like a cartoon electrocuted fish, X’s for eyes and
animated stars circling his cranium. Your surprised snicker rolls into laughter
before ending on a thunderclap of a rumbling snort, your hands whipping away
from his to cover your mouth in charmingly precious quandary.
Harry doubles over in laughter, “I forget that you’re a snorter every single
time.”
You peel your hands away just long enough to mumble, “only at the most
embarrassing times possible.”
“That’s fuckin’ adorable.” He circles his fingers around your wrists and pries
them away from your face, your hips drawing closer together as he coolly sways
to the music, “you’re clean, Cherry. Real fuckin’ boss. What other secrets d’ya
have, hmm?”
“More than you think.”
Just as Harry suspected, your little charade that had started off as innocent
and fluffy quickly slips to sultry as soon as your nimble hips begin to roll into
sensual curves with his, your naturally fresh cheeks glowing with rose-colored
affection at his deliberately silly and dissociative moves that have rapidly fallen
to the wayside. Without making a cognizant decision otherwise, his blunt
fingernails make their way up your arms to leave goosebumps in their trail, one
of his hands gripping the back of your neck before he gathers his wits and quickly
drops his arms away.
The pining croon of the music boors through his ears and sparks passion that
he’s urgently working to ward off, air sucking past his teeth when the echo of
your sly retort bounces through his brain. He drops his forehead against yours
with his curls tickling your cheeks as he pinches his eyes up as if to channel a
headstrong melancholy ache, his voice soft and raspy when he quietly sings the
grieving line from the song an inch from your mouth, “and I’m just about to lose
my mind, honey, honey.”
He’s too overwhelmed by your proximity to behave himself and he mentally

dismisses Rusty’s warning when his hand splays across your lower back to
finally hitch your hips together. He doesn’t know why it’s so fucking hard to
admit to himself that he couldn’t possibly abstain with you this close, but he
supposes it has everything to do with his sprawling need to protect you from the
lurking evil actively working to keep you apart, in complete opposition of his
wishes. His palms roam down your hips and smooth over your ass to press your
pelvises together in languid, lazy but calculated gyrations. Your panting breaths
slave to quell the turbulent commotion inside of your stomachs and groins, the
volume of your respiration swamping the music to a muffled drone.
This absolutely cannot happen here.
Your slinky dancing slows bit-by-bit to an eventual deafening halt, Harry’s

mouth hovering just over yours and the pads of his fingers burning hot coals
through your bodysuit. If your face were as delicate as the cold, shiny mirrors
surrounding you, Harry’s breath would have fogged up every tiny glimmer of
light that you cast upon him, the tip of his finger drawing a delicate heart into the
film of your surface.
Both of your chests rise and fall to match the racing of your hearts, your lips
parted to swallow the air rushing from his lungs. Your fingertips smooth up his
stomach and chest, his face falling to bury into your neck as he mumbles a single
cracked plea of, “please.”
And there’s no way of knowing if he’s asking you to please stop or please
continue.
He’s very violently torn into two pieces and he’s not sure how he’s supposed
to withstand such brutality, with Rusty’s cautionary phantom footsteps trudging
down the hallway, his claws and your claws sinking into either side of him to rip
him apart. Periwinkle and licorice smoke slowly fill him until he’s shrouded in
unwanted blackness, his head lifting again just in time to feel the brush of your
nose against his chin.
You drive forward and nuzzle your head close, your mouth dusting over his
scratchy jawline and beauty mark before puffing a breath of heat against his lips.
The tip of your nose tickles his cheek and your bottom lip brushes and catches
his and his brain turns to quivering cherry Jell-O, his lips parting to mindlessly
mutter a desperate request, “Cherry…..” His eyes snap to the open door and the
echoing hallway and the conversations just past the barrier that are muffled by
his Marvin Gaye record before his eyelids squeeze shut when he remembers with
a flood of intrepid disdain where you are.
“We….. can’t do th… s...”
His stomach balls into a knot and flips, his eyes squeezing closed to block out
the words he didn’t want to hear regardless of whether or not he’s the one who’s
spoken them. He knows that you shouldn’t. Everyone is telling him that he
shouldn’t, but everything inside of him is aching for even the smallest bit of you.
You back off in a violent snap and cover your face with your palms in
embarrassment. You hardly ever make the first move and you hadn’t planned on
doing it just now, but you blame it on the mysterious intoxication he inhaled
straight to the back of your throat, “oh. My god—”
He tries to pry your hands away, driven to the brink of insanity with
immediate regret and wishing that he’d just fucking kissed you regardless of any
consequences, “Cherry! No! No, no, no— I want to so fuckin’ bad. Stop, stop,
stop.” He can’t tell you about Rusty’s threat. He can’t. It will ruin everything that’s
rapidly reestablished in the past few minutes and possibly your entire loving
future that he’s had planned out since the moment he saw you, “listen to me!”
You’re much too embarrassed to be standing here and looking at his imploring
sloping eyes and lovingly-shaped mouth that you’ve finally had a tiny sample of,
“I shouldn’t have come here today.”
“You can’t be serious. Yes, you fuckin’ should’ve! We needed this.” His voice
cracks under the sharp pressure of his hysterical, bleeding emotions, his guts still
tangled into a malicious knot at what could’ve been and the wickedly fast missed
opportunity. There’s no way in hell he could possibly think straight and he’s not
even sure how he’s still standing on his feet. He follows you with his eyes, his
voice chilly with an unwanted quiver that he tries to swallow back, “I just— I’m
just— it’s not a good idea to—”
But you’re already gathering your things from the ground and heading
towards the door, “I know. I’ve been saying this since day one.”
Harry stomps and scrambles closer to you, his fingers wrapping around your
elbow to spin you towards him, trying to surge close again and regain everything
he’s just lost in half a second, “that’s not what I was tryin’ to say!”
Your jaw falls slack at his sudden conviction and sobriety, his fingertips
compressing painfully into your joint, “Harry, you’re kind of hurting me—”
He curses and drops your arm so fast that it may as well have been on fire
before stepping back, gulping at the sight of you rubbing the spot that he just had
gripped between his fingers, “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I— I don’t know my own
strength sometimes. I’m not like him. I’m sorry. Please.” For a moment he can see
an aerial view of himself from the ceiling and how unreasonable he’s being, how
quickly this passionate moment has dissolved and how out of hand this entire
situation is. Now he really feels like he’s losing his fucking mind. He’s never
touched a woman that way before. Better yet, he’s never felt passionate enough
to, “I feel possessed.”
You push him back as you race to the door and he growls through clenched
teeth, his stomach sick with frustration and desire, “fuckin’ no!” His fingers
uncurl from fists to slap against the nearest wall, but he doesn’t feel the sting of
unforgiving cement through the vivid, psychedelic adrenaline saturating his
organs. You can hear the melee tightening the hectic noose around his throat and
see it heaving his quaking chest and it’s only driving you out of this room faster,
“V— just listen to me for two fuckin’ seconds, please!”
You turn around and clear your throat to announce with vigilant clarity,
“you’re right. It should’ve been you that I was on a date with yesterday. It
should’ve been you that I was kissing goodbye. It never should’ve been Riff or
anyone else. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me, but I need to go drown
in my own awkwardness for the rest of the day.” The stress of your miss-kiss
breeds honesty at the speed of light and for once you don’t care how you sound
to him or anyone else and you hope it lessens the blow and residual sting for him.
Your cork has been freed and your voice is amplified and this must be how Harry
feels all the time, raw and vulnerable and exposed to a point where you’re
encouraged by the fact that you have nothing to lose, “I hear you, Harry. I
misread the situation just now and really embarrassed myself and I gotta go.
Please understand. I’ll see you tomorrow….. if I’m still alive.” Nettie’s simple
words of advice flash to life and your mouth curls into a sad, pining smile at the
crucial memory, “I’m sor… y... and I think you’re sexy.” You eye him from his
steady bare feet to his messy, salted caramel crashing waves, “really fucking sexy.
There’s no competition. Perfect actually. And I’ve always thought so.” You laugh
when you register how much you sound like him and how little you mind it, your
palms swiping down your face to erase some of the unease there and just allow
yourself to be torn open in this moment, “we’re fine. I just have to leave. I’m so
sorry,…but... see ya.”
You allow your long-winded declaration to ping pong off of the walls before
bouncing out of the room with you on its coattails, your regret trailing off behind
you in waves. It hurts to take a risk with honesty only to have it fall on lost ears,
but now you suppose you know exactly how Harry feels.
Harry stands as dumbfounded and quiet as a pile of pointless, idiotic boulders,

his mouth flopping open and closed as he battles with a very rare instance of
speechlessness. He hesitates for one second or maybe a whole lifetime before
chasing after you, flinging the door open wider to barrel through and slipping by
groups of circus performers crowded together in the corridor, his height giving
him an advantage when he quickly scans the halls for a flash of your shiny hair
and velveteen bow.
“Fuck. Pisser. Shit, fuckin’ mother—” He needs you and absolutely everyone in
the entire world is in his goddamn way and is he going to cry right now? “Bitchin’
jive ass fuckin’ shit fuck. Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
This is ridiculously difficult, but it only makes Harry want it even more.
Through the quick slam of the exit door he can just make out the sound of
your skates rolling across the sidewalk. His bare feet smack against the ground as
he weaves and runs, throwing his shoulder into the door to follow behind you,
the bottoms of his feet burning when they scratch against the sun-scorched
pavement. Your legs pump to take you down the boardwalk and as far away from
the theatre as possible, except in the opposite direction of your duplex where he
could easily find you. Harry glances north and then south, picking up into
another sprint that brings him to the edge of the grass with his toes scraping
against the sandy wooden planks that separate him from the ocean. He wonders
where in the fuck you’re going, his hands cupping his mouth as he breathes air
into his lungs and expels sweet fire, “Cherry!”
The word ’relentless’ comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative
aspect of his personality. Fuck waiting. Good things come to those who persist.
His sight darts to the right to find a group of girls giggling and staring at him,
his hair feral and his shirt partly untucked and his dick shrinking back to normal,
“the fuck you lookin’ at?”
Nettie’s lips form the shape of a perfect ’O’ to blow air on her toenails, the
polish brush held delicately in her fingertips before she squints one eye and
patches up a spot on her big toe, “how about if you just let me paint your toes
instead of your fingers? Or just one foot? Or one toe? I swear I won’t tell your
mom.”
You’ve had your phone sitting in your lap in your bed for the past hour or so,
the coiled cord wrapped around your ankle as you glance at it every so often in
the hope that it’ll ring. When you left the theatre this afternoon, you were certain
that you didn’t want to be found. But now that the veil of your chagrin is lifted,
you’re wishing more than anything that Harry would find a payphone and call
you to tell you you’re not an idiot and that you didn’t misread his signals. There
has to be some other explanation for his hesitance and the only thing you can
think of is that he felt wary about making a move on you at work. It makes sense,
but it doesn’t drown the bite of the wildly ill-timed advance on your part.
“My mom always says that only easy girls wear nail polish.”
“Your old lady’s a real bummer, baby.”
You’re half-listening when you gnaw on your bottom lip and dig your fingers
into the numbers on the rotary dial, “I know.”
Nettie adjusts one of the curlers in her hair before lifting her gaze to you, “I’m
proud of you.” She nods enthusiastically when you look at her, “for trying to kiss
him. That takes chops. Maybe his woody just got filled with so much blood that
his brain stopped working.” She shrugs and screws the cap back into place before
tossing the bottle aside, “crazier things have happened. He’s probably kicking
himself.”
“I know he’s kicking himself. I am too. One step forward, two steps back.
That’s us.”
Nettie hears the sound of a guitar strumming about half a second before you
do, your sights locking on one another as you both frown and glance around your
bedroom as you try to decipher where the sound is coming from. It’s possible
that it could be one of the neighbors in your duplex, except someone practicing
guitar is not something that either one of you have heard before through your
thin apartment walls. An image of Harry’s guitar perched inside of his van is
breathed to life in your memory and as soon as you recognize the progression of
chords as a song that you listened to on the road trip to Chubby’s, both you and
Nettie are scrambling off of the bed like a pair of uncoordinated puppies to race
towards your window.
You trip over one another and attempt to shove the other out of the way as
you both grab a panel of curtain and rip them apart, the familiar Roy Orbison
song brought to life before your very eyes in the form of Harry standing below
your window with a shirt unbuttoned to his pecs and a guitar strapped around
his neck, his nimble fingers tweaking the strings and a blindingly handsome
smile carved from ear-to-ear.
It’s possible that Nettie is enjoying this almost as much as you are, “oh my
fucking god, I love this dude.”
Your elbow jabs into her ribcage before you twist the lock on your window
and push the pane up and out of the way, the smooth melody and deep tone of
his instrument drifting into your bedroom on peachy clouds of raspy cotton
candy, the delicate sugar pushed past a pair of pouty, pink lips, the vibrations
raucous from the way the pads of his bare fingers strike the strings without a
pick. Harry’s hair is styled away from his forehead and his biceps flex against the
sleeves of his button-down shirt with each stroke of his fingertips, his customary
air of confidence that was momentarily swept away this afternoon shining
through with unrelenting strength. His eyebrows perk up when he notices your
attention, but he doesn’t skip a beat as he begins to sing the lyrics, his feet pacing
a bit closer to your building as he keeps his eyes trained on your window.
One by one passersby pick up on his impromptu performance, a small crowd

pooling around to watch his conspicuous romantic gesture. You rest your chin in
your hand and regard him with bubbles bursting in your chest, waiting for him to
break his stride or break a sweat, but he’s as cool as a cucumber. This
performance is thought out and rehearsed and he has less than no shame
revealing his vulnerabilities to you like he’s serving his raw, still-palpitating
heart on a silver platter. Little smiles break through as he effortlessly breezes
through the song, his tongue seeping out to lick his lips every few lines. The cool,
nighttime summer air blows a lock of hair in your face that makes Harry’s
stomach twist, his fingers adjusting on the frets as he skillfully plays.
Your downstairs neighbor opens his window a bit and yells at Harry to be
quiet which Harry completely ignores without a hiccup to his presentation, only
taking a step closer as he continues to sing and watch the myriad of your ever-
changing reactions as you attempt to put your rocky past behind you and
appreciate the man crooning to you just a couple yards away.
Nettie plants a fat, wet kiss on your cheek before muttering into your
distracted ear, “I’ll go try to calm our neighbor down.”
You barely register what she’s saying as you find yourself leaning on the pane,
fully enamored with the sight before you, your mouth curled into a soft smile as
he sings with a large, attractive grin spread across his face. His voice is beautiful;
like a throaty bird with a special story to tell, one-of-a-kind and engrossing,
perfectly shabby and exquisite feathers, a mating call that’s projected into nature
with only one partner in mind.
The song dwindles to a stop but he keeps his eyes trained on your captivated
figure as he continues to tenderly strum his guitar, his sight bouncing to his
fingers for a moment when he noodles around a bit before finding his stride
again, singing in a voice that’s a pitch too high for his range but still sounds
adorable and extra raspy due to its feminine timbre, “r-e-s-p-e-c-t, find out what
it means to me, r-e-s-p-e-c-t, take care, TCB.” His voice cracks when it reaches
just a bit higher, his shoulders shimmying and his feet shuffling from side to side,
“sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me—”
The same grouchy neighbor opens their window to capacity this time to lean
completely out, “fucks sake, nosebleed. Shut the fuck up before I call the cops!”
Your smile erupts into laughter and Harry doesn’t even realize that he’s lost
track of his tune until your giggle cuts through his concentration, his vision
flipping back and forth between you, your neighbor, his guitar and back to you
again as you try to tame your grin, “come on up.”
Harry allows the guitar to hang from the strap circling his neck, “come up? To
your bedroom? With you like that — in your fuckin’ nightie and no bra?”
“God—” You look down at your chest and pull the sides of your sweater closed
over your nightgown, “do you always have to say the first thing that pops into
your head?” Your neighbor mutters something before slamming the window
shut, but you’re both too focused on one another to hear him, “yeah. Come on, I’ll
let you—”
Before you can finish your sentence, Harry swings his guitar over his shoulder
and jogs a few paces across the yard before jumping and grabbing onto the trellis
tightly to begin his ascent.
“Harry!” You remember your unhappy neighbor and his threat to call the
police as you lower your voice and cringe at the rattling of the weakened wood
under Harry’s leather oxfords, “you can use the door, you know.” He neglects
your advice and keeps climbing, his fingers clutching your window pane when he
draws nearer, “really? Okay. Unbelievable.” You hook your fingers under his arms
and haul him into your bedroom, the neck of his guitar banging against the frame
as you curse and look over his shoulder into the street for the possible threat of
red and blue lights from a police officer’s car.
Harry lands on his feet and brushes his pants off before pushing his hair from
his forehead, “hey, babe. You totally dug that, didn’t ya? I would’ve played all
night until you let me in or until the fuzz dragged me away, whichever came first.
I had like, twenty songs queued up.”
You keep your cardigan pulled tightly across your chest as you fight the urge
to giggle like a schoolgirl with a crush, eyeballing his suave outfit with his
undershirt tucked into his trousers underneath his loosely buttoned shirt, “that
would’ve lasted you an hour, tops.”
He shrugs and pulls his guitar off and over his head before leaning it up
against your vanity, “I could sing ’em more than once.” He hones in on you and
saunters a bit closer, his chin ticking upwards in an expression of interest,
“what’s that nightgown look like up top?”
Your miss-kiss from practice today sits like dust in the beam from a movie
projector, cutting across the atmosphere of the room and stifling the air between
you when you attempt to draw in a full breath, “why do you wanna know?”
“Childlike curiosity.”
You smirk and take a step away from him, but he either dismisses your need
for distance or doesn’t notice it in the first place. You continue your flirtatious
dance until your back meets the wood of your bedpost with him hot on your toes.
You can still taste his mouth after it brushed yours in the dance studio, the
lingering scent of cotton candy laced with warm tobacco and the memory urges a
bit of bravery to the surface of your skin. You dig your fingers into the placket of
your cardigan and slowly pull the sides away from each other to reveal your
slinky nightwear; sheer lace on the top edging into small cap sleeves of robin’s
egg blue, finished off with a delicate ribbon spanning across your nipples to meet
in the middle of your chest with a bow.
Harry freezes in his tracks and stares at what you offer him, his eyes glued to
your breasts even after you’ve closed your cardigan back up and swept your hair
from your burning red face.
“Fuck.” He drags his vision to meet yours before drawing out the vowel sound
of his tormented repetitive curse, “fuck!” He clutches his chest and doubles over
before resting his palms on his knees, “oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I’ve seen the
light and that’s why my heart sings. Fuck, I can fuckin’ die happy now. Sweet
baby Jesus.”
You snicker and push his shoulder in jest at his dramatic reaction to your
sultry sleepwear, “is that what you came here for?”
He stands tall again, his cheeks flushed as if to convey that he wasn’t

exaggerating his reaction in the slightest, “no.” He shakes his head and steps
closer, your chests nearly meeting as he cranes his head towards you so close
that you can taste his sweet exhales, “I was kinda hopin’ we could finish what we
started earlier.” He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and nibbles, “can’t stop
thinkin’ ’bout the way you looked at me while we were dancin’.” He sighs and
swallows before wetting his lips to make them shine like a piece of waxy
strawberry taffy. They look like they taste just as spectacular or maybe even
better, “your hips pressed against mine…..” He reaches for your hips and tugs you
closer until they brush and flint like the first breath of autumn fire, “your hands
on the back of my ne… k...” He reaches for your hands and guides them around
his neck until they’ve got a life of their own, your fingers tangling into his hair
and rolling a shiver down his spine as he leans close enough that he could seal
your lips together by simply puckering, “beggin’ me to kiss you with your……yes...
I can still taste you. Can’t you, Honeybee? Do you remember what you said to me?
You called me ’sexy’. Remember?”
He impatiently grunts through your beat of confounded silence as he drops his

forehead against yours, shifting his hands around to your ass for two heaping
handfuls before hauling your centers together, a fervent throb suffocating your
core that both excites and frightens you. You try to hold him back, sparks
radiating from your stomach to your fingertips, “of course I remember. I meant it.
Every word.”
“I’m losin’ my mind here. What’s it gonna take to be your steady, huh? I’ll do
anything. Anything.” He falls to his knees and gathers your hand in his before
pressing it to his forehead, “please. I’ll buy you milkshakes and pick you flowers,
hold your hand during scary movies, bring you little chocolates in heart-shaped
boxes and tell you how fuckin’ pretty you are every damn day. Let me kiss those
beautiful lips and call you mine. Please.” He stares up at you like you’re his life
source; his air, food, water, and shelter, “one date. One real, actual fuckin’ date so
that I can prove myself. Please.” He rises to his feet for emphasis and grounding,
“do I let too many cusses fly? Do I smoke too many cigarettes? I’ll quit. I’ll toss
’em in the trash right now. I’ll bet you taste better anyway. Sweeter than any
candy, juicier than any cherry.” If all those lollipops have anything to do with it.
You try to cover your face from his intensity, but he pulls your hands away to
keep your eyes locked, “no….. it’s not the cigarettes. I like them actual… y... a lot.”
“Yeah? Fuck. That’s hot.” He pinches your chin between his fingers before
blindly searching for your hand and lacing your fingers together, “c’mon. Let’s
end this shit and start somethin’ new. Take work and coworkers and nagging
thoughts out of the equation. We’re finally on the same page. There’s nothing to
be scared of anymore. D’ya have any idea what’s gonna happen?” You shake your
head and he grins wide before sucking it back in, “me neither. Can you think of
anything better than that?”
You breathe in a cleansing breath of air and start to agree with him, but he
interrupts you before you can get too far, “Harry—”
He couldn’t possibly survive another rejection, “just an hour of your time. If

it’s horrible you can go home. We can do anything you want. No starfishes up
your ass or underground clubs where you almost get arrested this time. I’ll dress
nice. I’ll dress however you want me to.” He licks his lips and attempts to smile
through the cracking of his heart, his fate nestled in your delicate palms.
Harry’s palms begin to sweat against your hand that he’s holding hostage,
your other hand lifting to cover your face as you whine quietly, “okay.”
He pulls your hand from your face and steps closer, his presence completely
invading your personal space, “’okay’? ’Okay’ as in ’yes’? You’ll go on a proper
date with me?”
You fall and tumble deep into his eyes for half a second before you inhale
deeply and throw all of your inhibitions and needling inner turmoil to the wind
for his sake, your chin angling down in a single, gentle nod, “okay, yes. I’ll go on a
proper date with you. No work, no coworkers, no nagging thoughts. Same page.
Me and you.”
Harry squeezes your hand and jumps up on the bench at the end of your bed,
tapping your ceiling once and then landing on his feet in front of you once again.
He pulls you close and hugs you tight, grabbing your face and kissing your
forehead before he picks up his guitar and starts playing a line from the chorus of
Under The Boardwalk. You shush him and try to stop his hands from playing but
he just paces away from you and perches one foot on your vanity stool as he
plays even more dramatically, his head tilted back as he sings towards the ceiling
in fully professional theatrics with the tinkling melody melting from his
fingertips when he belts, “we’ll be makin’ love under the boardwalk! Board—”
but his concert is cut short by your palm clamping down over his mouth.
“Shh!” He grins at you like a naughty child who’s just shoved a dozen cookies
in his mouth straight from the jar when his mum wasn’t looking, that one same
pesky strand of hair tickling his forehead, “Harry, you have to leave before my
neighbor picks another fight with you.”
“You’re the boss. I’m dust. Where we goin’ tomorrow, Honeycake?” You press
your hands to his chest and back him up towards your window. He obeys but
keeps his sights glued to you, stepping one foot out into the chilly air and then
the next as he perches himself on your trellis and waits patiently for your
answer.
“Tomorrow? How about Saturday instead?”
“Can’t wait that long.”
You both wordlessly hold your fists up in the air for a game of Rock Paper
Scissors to settle the debate, his paper defeating your rock with an expression of
ecstatic success, “tomorrow.”
You run the pad of her finger under his chin before turning his head to the side
to sponge a kiss to his stubbly cheek. You whisper into his ear, popping the T in
the very word Harry’s been battling with for weeks, “it’s a date.”
Harry moans into the tense space between you, his eyelids drooping when he
suddenly focuses on your mouth, “say it again, I’m close.”
You laugh and lightly tap his cheek, “don’t be a pig.” Your voice drops to a
whisper to cast him a line for a hint of what you would like to do with him
tomorrow, “I like cherry banana milkshakes with lots of whipped cream and
extra cherries on top.”
The sensual neon signage of a popular malt shop and diner in town flickers to
life before glowing steadily in his mind, his volume and energy finally sinking to
match yours for the first time tonight, “what d’ya think, cherries just grow on
trees?” He tugs on a strand of your hair that’s fallen from your headscarf, “I know
just the place.” His eyes very obviously flick to your mouth, “cherry banana is an
unusual flavor.”
“Yeah?” You lean a little closer and you can hear his breath hitch in his throat,
“what’s your favorite flavor?”
“I’m partial to hot fudge sundaes.” He peels his gaze from your mouth, but digs
his fingernails into your windowsill when he finds your stare lowered to where
his words push past his swollen lips, “with chocolate sprinkles….. kiss me.”
That same sensation that rockets through your stomach each time he makes
an advance strikes again, your core squeezing tight as you consider his
suggestion. He can feel your emotional teetering but he doesn’t move as if to dare
you to dip closer, his fingertips walking towards your hand and brushing against
your knuckles, “you sure seemed like you wanted to kiss me earlier.”
He’s a beautiful disaster. A man driven wild by a fixation. A heat-seeking

missile for a euphoria that only you can provide.
The slow singe of a flame burns up your arm and snuffs at your shoulder, the
heavy silence between the two of you loaded and oppressive, your heart and
mind wimpy with a sudden lack of confidence due to the expectant nature and
heady atmosphere between you in this moment, “lost my head….. why didn’t you
want to kiss me back?”
He thinks it’s probably better to just be as vague as possible so that he doesn’t

come off as attempting to hide anything, “wrong place, Honeysuckle. So, I gotta
wait all night and all day tomorrow and then all the way ’til the end of the date
for one little kiss? Stickin’ to your guns, huh? Just one little cheat? Come on. I
won’t tell a soul.” He zeroes in on your mouth, “I bet you’re a real good kisser.
Sweet little mouth. Sweet Cherry lips. What do they taste like, mm?” He breathes
a soft laugh through his nose when he realizes how much he’s working himself
up, “I won’t be sleepin’ again tonight.”
Harry groans when you back off and reach up as a signal that you’re ready to
close your window and end this conversation, his fingers winding into a fist and
rapping twice on your window frame in dismissal, “I’ll dream of cherry banana
milkshakes with extra whipped cream and cherries on top.”
You smile and start to slide the window shut before changing your mind at the
last minute, “wait. What was the next song you were going to play for me?”
Harry’s eyes sparkle with all the slack you’ve allotted him tonight, easily the
most substantial bit of rope you’ve cast him since he’s begun pursuing you, “my
lips are sealed.”
The standoff between the two of you is enough to make Harry want to crawl
back through your window and kiss you whether you like it or not. You narrow
your eyes but it’s playful, his guts twisting when you mutter a quiet ’goodnight,
Harry’ before closing your window and swiping your curtains closed in his face.
On either side of the glass, Harry’s clutching his syrupy heart with tense fingers,
while you spin away from him and acknowledge to yourself that you’ll most
definitely sleep with images of gooey hot fudge sundaes melting and dripping all
over your fingers and clinging to the corners of his strawberry bubblegum lips.
All I can say with complete confidence is you won’t be waiting much longer for
that kiss. And more. You’ve done a great job sticking with this story for twenty two
chapters and I’m so grateful for every single one of you. Love you. See you all soon.
Please remember to vote on your way out. Xx B
“Just makin’ up for yesterday.”
There was an inventory of things that you had expected when you opened
your apartment door early the following morning after Harry’s very public and
very resolute performance outside of your window, but finding Harry sitting on
your front stoop with a tattered copy of Franny and Zooey clutched in his
fingertips and a bouquet of ten teddy bear sunflowers by his side wasn’t exactly
it. It’s hard to know what Harry is going to bring to the table next, but it’s
comforting to realize that it will almost always be unpredictable and stunning.
You’ve never been a person who’d enjoyed surprises very much before you met
him, but now that you’re forced into a daily ritual of them, they’re starting to
become your most favorite thing in the world. Besides the smell of cotton candy,
the color pink, sailor-level cursing, lo-fi rock and roll, creamsicle chewing gum,
worn oxford loafers and heart-shaped sunglasses to match a pair of raspberry
punchbowl lips.
Your parents would be absolutely terrified of Harry; the leather, a myriad of

cryptic tattoos, his smoking, where he rests his head at night, his criminal history,
the opaque slang, the reckless free love, the all-around nonchalant and self-
justified air of trouble. He’s not exactly someone you bring home to mother. And
that may just be another major reason why you’re drawn to him so much.
And Jesus wept.
An odd, spontaneous feeling of déjà vu wraps you up in smooth silk when you
find him coolly stretched out on your steps, dividing and multiplying your vision
before reorienting, your feet nearly swept out from underneath you when a taste
of your dream from last night soaks your tongue and dissolves away before you
can properly savor it. This must be how Harry feels at all times when he’s around
you, like peering up into the sky and wondering how the puffy buttercream
clouds would feel to hold in your palms before realizing that if you actually got
too close, you’d simply slip right through them and disappear into their divine
vapor.
Based on observation you know that Harry is driven to the verge of insanity
by his wayward memory, but he’s so offended by negativity that he works extra
hard to keep gloomy thoughts at bay. Especially in your presence. For your sake.
You wonder if he goes home alone to his van at night and drives a fist into his
pillow when he becomes overwhelmed with resentment for what he’s lost, if he
wishes that your history wasn’t so one-sided, if he harbors any bitterness
towards his former self who, for now, only exists within fairy tales and spoken
fables. You have to remind yourself that the person in front of you is in fact
Harry’s former self and the person that had you met months ago in auditions was
simply an imposter, a dark shadow cast upon the very real and very tender
human who has run circles around you for weeks in order to obtain the one thing
that is finally occurring tonight.
A proper date with you. No work, no coworkers, no nagging thoughts. Same

page. You and him.
And you’re not even sure how you’re going to withstand the next several
hours of practice laid out ahead of you and even worse, how Harry is going to
survive them. You’ve been feeling an enormous relief of pressure ever since you
agreed to his date, but suspense for the event itself has begun to replace the
former anxiety of the unknown. But unsurprisingly, he’s in spectacular spirits
this morning. A halo of golden dust spins threads around his crawling damp curls
likely still wet from a cold shower this morning, a waxy piece of gum beaten to
death between his molars, a haphazard pile of pink cigarette butts on your top
step, a creamy white, buttoned-down long-sleeved shirt donning his torso with
the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
He must be reflecting the same smile that’s conquering every inch of your
features including the sparkle in your eye, because he’s practically gazing into a
glistening mirror with a similar expression, “I didn’t bring you any sunflowers
yesterday, so I figured I needed to double down today.”
And he looks absolutely devastating with the early morning light flooding into
this eyes, a rare and radiant marble of seafoam and hunter green that you’re
certain you’ve only seen in surrealistic paintings.
He doesn’t plan on telling you that he watched the sun rise from your steps,
completely stuffed to the brim with an intense, unmanageable craving to see you
again. He tried his best to lose himself in this particular book that he’s been
toiling over for weeks, but there’s just one too many commas jammed into a
sentence for him to focus properly. The sappy, slushy wavelength of Harry’s
thoughts doesn’t quite match the choppy cadence of the author’s. That and every
time he gets halfway through a paragraph, little sun-dappled blips of you roller
skating in a skirt with a lollipop sucked between your puckered lips distracts him
from the words on the page and that fantasy alone is much more thrilling than
anything he could harness from someone else’s imagination.
Harry jumps to his feet, sauntering a single step closer and braces your bicep,
sponging a lush kiss to your cheek and then pausing with a quick lick of his lips
before kissing you with a dewy mouth again, slower this time, right in the
sensitive spot where your lips fold and melt into your cheek.
He only backs off an inch at the most when you suck air past your teeth and
embrace the heat of a blush washing your skin, your gazes locking together when
you smile and speak against his lips, “thank you. You’re gorgeous— I mean…..
they’re gorgeous.”
Christ, it’s only going to get worse from here.
Harry laughs and curls his hand into a fist, his nose scrunching up to join his
grin before softly pumping his clenched knuckles in victory, “nice, compliment by
distraction. I’ll take it. You’re gorgeous, too, y’know. Ringin’. Happy to see me,
then? What’d you have for breakfast, sweet Cherry?”
He may or may not have brought flowers for the sole purpose of having an
excuse to follow you into your apartment and he doesn’t even bother to ask if he
can. Instead he grabs at your hips as he chases you upstairs, his gaze trained on
the perfect curve of your ass and the whittle of your waist. Your skirt is almost
short enough that if he hung back a bit, he could maybe see up it, and he wonders
what color panties you wear and if you’ve matched them to your bra just in case
you planned on letting him see them today. A thought bubbles up that perhaps
you’re not even wearing any and he starts to crane his head to the side for a
glimpse just to make sure, but snaps it back into place with a guilty, tight-lipped
smile when you glance over your shoulder at him.
He knows you’re much too chic to give too much up before or maybe even
after a first date, but that unforeseen, promising flash of your tits through the
lace of your nightgown last night practically stopped his heart dead in its tracks.
He’d be lying to himself and the whole fucking universe if he said he didn’t go
home and wrap his fingers around his cock the moment his back hit the sheets.
And everybody knows he’s a shit liar, so there’s no point in even trying.
If you agreeing to a date and showing him your scantily-clad lungs is enough
to make him come on his knuckles, he’s honestly a little worried about how long
his performance will last when the time arrives. All he wants is to impress you
and make you feel choice every waking moment, is that too much to ask?
The rosy blush in your cheeks and the coy attempt at covering your face, loose
tendrils of hair tumbling from your headscarf, your sharp canine sinking into
your cherry frosted bottom lip, the sensuality in your voice when you dropped it
a note to ask him his favorite flavor of milkshake.
You’re so fucking tough and you have no fucking idea.
You bat each one of his pinches and pawing hands away, but instead he just
chuckles and finds different spots to handle, his arms wrapping around your
waist when you pause to fumble with your lock. A satisfied vibration rattles the
back of his throat at the feeling of your body tucked into his, the pleased smile on
your face elicited from his doting evident by the lift of your cheeks. His palm
spreads out across your stomach and you’re suddenly bowled over by that same
sensation of your insides balling up and rolling through a pile of cinnamon sugar,
the recognizable contentment in this moment too plum to interrupt.
His breath is warm against the shell of your ear, “was it somethin’ sweet or
savory?”
“If you guess it right, I’ll give you a kiss.”
Harry is so beyond elated that you’ve offered yourself up so easily that he

doesn’t bother to think before he speaks. Instead he spins you in his grasp and
pins you against the door, his tongue slipping out to wet his ripe lips before he
practically rockets off, “fuckin’ eggs and toast, now kiss me.”
Your smile is slow to make an appearance but once it has, it spreads across
your face like a cotton cloth soaking up hot water. Harry’s eyes are trained to
your mouth when he dives forward, a sharp whine etching a frown into his
forehead when you hold him back with two fingers against his lips, “oatmeal and
brown sugar. So close, though.”
His pouty lips grumble against your fingertips, his eyes twinkling and a soft,
lighthearted groan wedged through clenched teeth, “the one fuckin’ time you-!
Get bent, Honeybadger.”
You’re real fucking lucky you’re cute.
He presses a kiss to the pads of your fingers just before you pull them away to
let you both into your apartment and Harry hasn’t neglected to notice that you’re
allowing him inside without putting up a single fist. In fact, it seems that you
want him here and the blood flow to his heart thickens when he remembers to
kick off his shoes and rushes to follow you into the kitchen, “aren’t you gonna ask
me what I had?” Is it too forward to say that he hopes you’re in this exact same
position tomorrow morning, except you’ll have woken up in his arms with the
sun still pushing the horizon and you’d both be standing here wearing nothing
but underwear and hard nipples? He’s dying to see what’s on the other side of
your threshold; what types of night-blooming, rare flowers you keep tucked
inside of your immaculately-wallpapered closet, the first husky words you utter
when you awaken from a nap, the quiet moments when you think no one is
watching and you look so beautiful that it hurts.
“What did you have, Harry?”
The salacious fantasy pops and makes a slow exit as he raises his eyebrows to
buy an extra second to comprehend your question, “Honeycomb and milk, Pop-
Tarts, a banana and an apple. Ritz crackers. And like, half a jar of peanut butter.”
The muscles in your calves are distracting as you pace across your kitchen and
trim the stems of your flowers, “can I smoke in here? Should I be whisperin’ or
some shit? Nellie sleepin’?”
“Nettie. You can smoke and yes, please whisper.”
The only reason you agree to him smoking is that you secretly hope that your
apartment will still smell like lingering caramelized sugar wisps when you return
home after work this afternoon.
Harry lowers his voice a single notch, “got it, boss.” He studies every inch of
your kitchen, the radio on the countertop and the Kit-Cat clock clicking back and
forth on the wall, the patterned curtains framing the window and the rainbow
sherbet sky just beyond the sill, your well-loved tea kettle and the dishes
dripping dry in the rack beside the sink. He makes it a point to brush against you
and pinch your waist before he turns the gas stove on, bringing his candied
cigarette to his lips to bend down and singe the end on fire. He perches his hip
against the oven, pointing at you first before scratching his forehead with his
thumb and then sucking pink smoke into his lungs, “nervous about tonight?”
Harry isn’t that massive of a person but his energy and aura make it seem so,
his spirit radiates in circles and hypnotic twists all around him and begs eyes to
land on his figure for further study. He was destined to be famous whether he
liked it or not. Sometimes that magnetic, exceptional, peculiar glow inside of a
person simply speaks for itself.
He always looks impossibly cool; his posture and his clothing, his shapely
facial profile and every haphazard curl that seems to have been carved from
marble and laid with purpose. He’s so ferociously and accidentally enigmatic that
it goes beyond attractive into the territory of enviable, and the fact that he has so
many unique quirks on top of it only make him more fascinating. He’s miles upon
miles of ornamentally tiled underground tunnels, unlocking one door just leads
to a hundred more rooms that were more beautiful than the last and they’re all
presented and tucked neatly into one, pristine package. An old soul with a raw
heart, he could say nothing at all and it would be the most brilliantly sensible
thing you’ve ever heard. Either that or it would be stupid as all hell, but both
options are highly intriguing.
Thick, creamy bubblegum haze curls around his fingertips and nose and
you’re uncertain of what’s possessing you when you pad towards him to pluck
the cigarette from his fingers and draw the luscious flavor of cotton candy to the
back of your throat. Harry groans at the sight and rocks his head back, his knees
feeling weak when you exhale then lick your lips to savor every drip, “yes….. but
I’m also looking forward to it. I don’t know what’s going to happen and that’s
kind of exciting, I guess. I can’t wait.”
He’s too startled by your candor and the sight of his mischievous smoke
blurring past your teeth to answer right away. Instead he grips the back of your
neck and tugs you closer, his legs kicking apart to wedge you between them,
“hang it on me again? Shit, keep talkin’ like that and you won’t get to choose
when I kiss you.”
Maybe that’s exactly what you need.

You laugh at the way he puckers his lips after the delivery of his playful threat,
as if he’s tacked on a mental sentiment that he chose not to say out loud, “what?”
He steals his cigarette back from you, tiny rose petals of ash falling in the tight
space between your bodies, “just up to no good.”
“Shocking. Are you nervous?”
“Fuck off. ’Mm buzzin’, Honeybee, you can’t believe. Shit’s gonna be majorly
decent from now on, trust me.” Harry still doesn’t know how he got lucky enough
to nail a date with someone as posh and so far out of his league as you, but the
notion is positively thrilling. Exploring you in more exclusive than walking on the
fucking moon. He’ll be damned if he’s going to fuck this opportunity up.
He tugs on his bottom lip a couple times before sucking more sugar-smoke
down his throat and speaking with a croak, “should we go get waffles or
somethin’ before practice? We’re hittin’ the giants today, might need more than a
measly bowl of mushy, disgusting oats to satisfy you.” He could think of at least a
hundred other ways to nourish you, but he won’t frighten you with those yet.
You pick up on his gentle attempt at coercing you into more one-on-one time
with him, but decide that it’s more endearing than it is shrewd, “nice try, Harry.
We should go. I have lost time to make up for yesterday.”
“I have lost time to make up for too, y’know.” And not just on the flying
trapeze. He’s wasted months upon months pushing you away and now he
supposes he’s dealing with the consequences, his grip on the line tighter than
ever as he struggles to reel you back in.
In this instance his double meaning isn’t lost on you and you crane your head
to the side to examine the slope of his nose and how it points perfectly like an
arrow straight into the cupid’s bow of his top lip. Everything on the inside and
the outside of Harry really is nothing but piles and piles of hearts and passion.
Passion for himself and for you, for all the decisive entities he loves, for every
positive and warm vibration that passes through him.
The person that the rest of the world saw who you always felt alienated from
is present, dripping and zealously loyal and you finally feel open to receive it. It’s
scary and you don’t know why, but maybe that’s what love is. Flying through the
air on a magic carpet made of paper-thin glass, your fingers gripping the sharp
edges as the air whips around you like a tornado and shouts to hang on, hoping it
doesn’t crack and send you spiraling towards the great big ocean below. It
doesn’t seem like you could handle a rough tumble through an unforgiving crest,
but you have a distinct feeling that Harry’s flying just below you in a pink
hammock, ready to catch you when your frail device glitches.
In another bout of soupy bewitchment, your fingertips tip-toe up his stomach

and you can feel his muscles tense upon your touch, your mind reveling in the
easy impression you have on his physical state. You peel your gaze away from
your hand to find his jaw hanging slack, his bottom lip shiny, his determination in
keeping a frown from pulling his eyebrows together. He’s so precious; and not in
the way you would describe something that’s perceived as appearing cute, but in
the true definition of the word. He’s highly esteemed, delicate, rare and holds
great value. To you and everyone else he comes in contact with and you want
nothing more than to hold him in your palms like a robin’s egg coated with sky
blue brû léed sugar for a shell, “you’re doing so much more than that, Harry. I’m
really happy….. and I hope you are, too. Thank you.”
He may just be the best teacher you’ve ever had.
All he is capable of through the fumes of intensity is to span his hands across
your waist and tether you against him, his chest scooped hollow when he drops
his forehead to yours and closes his eyes as he drags the tip of his nose back and
forth across yours to whisper, “I’m completely obsessed with you, Cherry.”
And he’s honestly okay with your demure reaction, your arms slipping around
his neck to pull him in for a saturating hug, pausing first to soak a kiss into his
cheek. He hums into your hair and wraps his arms clear around your waist, his
thumbs rubbing soothing circles into your back when he mumbles, “can’t wait to
toss you around in the sack.” He dryly corrects his deliberate mistake, “whoops. I
meant ’air’.”
Two can play at that game.
You pause and lean back to survey his smug expression with an air of
neutrality before countering just as keenly, “I also can’t wait for that.” Your feet
carry you a couple steps away with a soft smile pulling at the corners of your
mouth before you turn on the ball of your foot and make your way towards the
front door.
Harry stands dumbfounded in the wake of your mysterious response, his

expression transforming through a series of slow realizations before stumbling
after you in a hurried, bumbling chase with the necessity of whispering falling
through the cracks, “which one? Wait up, Honey fox! Can’t wait for which one?”
When you arrived at the theatre together, Harry pried your hands apart the
instant he saw Tex with a group of coworkers standing off by the fountain in the
center of the courtyard. He passed you your bag that he was carrying and urged
you to run along inside ahead of him. He didn’t want to risk any narcs seeing the
two of you arriving together or even worse, being affectionate with one another.
He used the necessity of greeting Tex as an excuse for your separation, but in all
honesty, he was still too pissed off to talk to him after their foretelling tiff at
Hound Dogs.
Tex saw the two of you right away and nodded to Harry after you’d gone
inside, his heart sinking upon the correct assumption that you have settled your
differences and likely revived your pathetic attempts at romance. He takes pity
on himself for his argument with Harry, for the corner he’s been backed into
regarding Harry’s secrets, for the shiner on Harry’s eye and for ruffling feathers
at work, but he wished that his plan with Riff had at least wedged a stronger fault
line between you after so much effort had been put into place. Harry returned
Tex’s civil gesture from a distance before stubbing his cigarette out on a nearby
light post, he hands curling into fists as he stomped inside in search of you; the
only person who could undoubtedly lift his spirits back up and through the
clouds.
How things had changed.
After another round of cheeky, tense stretches in a private dance studio

followed by a couple hours of calisthenics coupled with flirtatious smiles and
smoldering stares across the room, Harry suggested that you take your lunch
break on the beach rather than your usual spot below the tree in the courtyard.
The proposal appeared romantic which Harry wanted and harbored a sense of
privacy which he also deemed necessary, though you only needed to know about
the former. He whistled for Beau to join you, Harry swiping a couple towels from
your dressing room and glancing over his shoulder for any nosy colleagues
before escaping out the quiet back exit with your hands interlocked as the three
of you took off running for the waterfront with the curious wind at your backs.
Harry juggled the primary colored, sand-filled balls that he brought along with
him as you walked side-by-side at the water’s edge at high noon, tossing one for
Beau to fetch every so often. You found a small, private cut-out to lay your towels
and lunches down on and Harry tried his absolute damndest to get you to take
your cardigan off “for even sunbathing.”
His wifebeater, on the other hand, peeled off as soon as his toes hit the sand or
maybe even a couple moments before, regardless of how windy it was that close
to the water. You’d be lying to yourself if you said you didn’t have difficulty
ripping your gaze away from the richly tanned pull of his back muscles, the
spread of his tattoos, the perfect sink of his bellybutton and the bristle of hair
that faded into his joggers. And he’d be lying if he said he didn’t notice and had to
work extra hard to bite his tongue from scaring you off.
As soon as he was finished scarfing his routine heap of food, his head found its
way into your lap and he tugged at your cardigan with a pouty lip, claiming that
the sun was in his eyes and that he’d forgotten his sunglasses in the dressing
room. He stuck his fingers into his mouth and whistled loudly in victory when
you agreed to let him hide inside of your loose sweater, a small laugh and even
smaller squeal snaking out when he curled onto his side and slipped his head
under the hem to press a damp kiss against your stomach with his arms wrapped
around your hips. The heat of his breath and the brush of his nose, his curls
tickling against your skin as he remarked about the mint of your bellybutton with
the pad of his finger poking into its divot.
You discovered that he gets adorably delirious when he’s tired. He started to
mumble something into your tummy about warm cherry pie with melted vanilla
ice cream and apple seeds being poisonous if you eat too many and asking if
you’ve ever tried doing yoga and how you’re blue and gold just like the sky
before he was swept away by sleep. It was almost as if he didn’t need a verbal
response from you, like the final hiss of air from a punctured tire right before it
falls flat. It didn’t matter whether you responded or not, as soon as his thoughts
poured from his lungs, impending squishiness was inevitable. It only took him a
couple minutes to fall asleep like that and to you that showed utmost comfort
and confidence; you could only imagine the level of self-assuredness that comes
with napping in public and napping so intimately with a person who you claim to
be obsessed with.
While he was gently snoozing in your lap with your fingernails nimbly
scratching up and down his back, he left you with several radiating thoughts; he
already acts like your boyfriend. What will it be like if you kiss? If he actually
becomes your boyfriend? If you make love? What took you so long to agree to
such Candyland bliss? It feels so good to be loved. It feels so good to be loved by
Harry. Especially when you had convinced yourself that you weren’t in a place in
your life where you were ready for such a thing, notably from the one person
who drove you straight up the wall daily, but you suppose that’s exactly when
love hits you the hardest. At this point in time, you wouldn’t trade the life that
you’ve made for yourself in Malibu for anything.
Beau interrupted your reverie with four excited, wet paws and a soaking wet
belly, his body traipsing all over Harry’s sleeping figure with charged licks before
he paused to shake out his soaking fur all over the both of you. Your shout mixed
with Harry’s sleepy, annoyed groan and an exclamation of “son-of-a-bitch, Beau
man!” his covered face surely twisted up in an equally irritated and amusing
grimace.
Back at work, Harry finally had another excuse to rub his hands all over you
from your shoulders down to your toes. Being cradled in his arms felt better than
ever, with his eyes constantly seeking yours and soft murmurs of approval and
praise humming past his lips to replace the callous hisses he’d elicited hundreds
of times in the past. Each time you’d catch a glimpse of his hands splayed out
across your stomach or gripping your wrists in affectionate safety, paired with
quiet whispers of ’good girl, tighten up’ or just a simple hiss of ’yes, perfect’, you
swore that your heart was being swallowed whole by your hollow stomach.
Your affinity was so in sync it was as though your bodies were a secure rope
woven together with threads of love, and it was admittedly startling how ready
you both felt even though you still had several more days of practice before
taking to the stage again. You drilled your partner static routine several times on
the low-hanging trapeze before moving onto the giants, using the exact method
to transition him back into the world of free-falling that he used with you when
you were first hired. In fact, you were grateful for the extra training considering
you hadn’t been swinging much since his surfing accident.
You both held onto the trapeze bar and swung next to each other, allowing
yourselves to tumble into the safety net below to get used to the sensation of
dropping. Harry was diligent in keeping his hands to himself, even though he
would have done almost anything in those moments of rolling around in the net
to flop on top of you and bury his nose in your neck for a tender nibble of your
skin. You directed him to swing alone for a bit until he felt ready enough to work
with you, gradually moving on to simple catches and returns which seemed to
live in his muscle memory from all of the years that he’d spent doing this exact
activity in the circus before your introduction.
Whistling must have been the signal for preparedness that he used with Indy
because that was the first place his mind went when he was ready for your
swing, until you reminded him that your established indication had been
changed to two claps.
You’d rather break your neck than come in contact with my saliva?
Everything felt at its pinnacle; your safety and his safety, your regard for one
another, your tenacious chemistry, the vibrating tension for your looming date
that never left the back of either of your minds for even a single minute.
You supposed you can’t fully understand something until you’d experienced
the exact opposite.
The only time Harry felt off was when Rusty was lingering in the room. He
didn’t say anything to either of you, rather he paced in the corner surrounded by
a veil of black smoke, his eyes trained on you with a neutral expression before
nodding in approval at your performance and leaving with the polarizing scent of
licorice in his wake.
You assumed Harry was agitated by his presence because of his spirited
distaste for Rusty and his greedy, misogynistic habits, but you pushed the
thought aside and made a mental note to bring it up to him later. Harry’s shift
was so minute that you were certain you’d been the only person to sense it, but
you supposed the only reason it stuck with you was because he immediately
dropped his teasing and pawing as soon as Rusty appeared and you missed it the
instant it was gone. But it was probably for the better, everybody knows it’s not
professional to flirt with your coworker in the peripheral vision of your boss.
Any sense of respect that Harry had been practicing regarding privacy had
flown straight out the window, his questioning shameless as he begged for a peek
behind the screen in your dressing room. He tried to follow you into the
bathroom when it was your turn to shower, and the subsequent groan and thud
echoing through the bathroom indicated either his forehead or the heel of his
hand thumping against the door at your rejection.
He had his palm clamped down over his eyes when you reemerged with steam
at your back, his shirtless body stretched across the couch with his book splayed
open across his bare stomach. He spread his fingers apart for a hopeful glimpse,
his dimple sinking innocently into his cheek with a mumble of “you owe me one,
remember?” when he found you staring at him with your arms crossed over your
chest and your foot tapping against the hardwood floor in silent accusation of his
snooping. You knew better than to be naked in the same room as him unless you
wanted to be pinned against a wall, but luckily for him, a glance at your bare
shoulders just above the line of your towel was enough to tide him over until
your date. It was a far cry from how he used to haul ass from the dressing room
to drink beers in the courtyard with his friends right after practice and you didn’t
take the considerable lifestyle shift lightly.
The second time that Harry dropped your joined hands that day, just before
exiting your dressing room together, you couldn’t ignore the sinking feeling in
your stomach as to why he was being so tentative about you all of a sudden. It’s
not like he had ever tried to hide his passion for you around anyone, at least after
his surfing accident, and it began to make you wonder if he was second-guessing
your date or if he suddenly felt disreputable in front of colleagues about
shamelessly chasing you.
Old, needling thoughts about his past treatment dared to poke at the balloon
of your heart with a dull thumbtack, until you reminded yourself that he’d just
napped inside of your sweater only a handful of hours ago. The whiplashing
confidence and apprehension didn’t go unnoticed and perhaps you were just
being sensitive and overly self-conscious, but his behavior didn’t exactly match
his words or his character. You were forced to swallow a lump when he shoved
his hands into his pockets and followed you into the grand corridor towards the
exit, his pace slightly dawdling behind you.
Wrong place, Honeysuckle.
Just before you reached the double doors he skidded to a halt, his eyes
anxiously darting away from you as he mumbled a justification of needing to
hang back to chat with Rusty. You started to offer to wait for him but he
interrupted with a flick of his gaze over his shoulder and a quick pinch to your
hip, his heart clinching painfully at how much he wanted to just toss his arm
around your neck and kiss your pretty mouth, but that absolutely cannot happen
here. He told you to start walking home without him and he’d catch up on his
skateboard, and he was absolutely determined to, except he couldn’t risk
someone spotting you leaving together and he found it in both of your best
interests to stagger your exits to remain inconspicuous.
He found you halfway down the boardwalk no less than ten minutes later,
dismounting from his rolling skateboard as he charged up behind you and
pinched your ass before flinging his arms around your waist to scoop you from
your feet with a surprised yelp and an ensuing smack. His mouth met your ear
when he muttered “jinkies, Cherry bomb. Killer ass, spotted it a mile away,”
perfectly quelling all of your rising doubts when he slipped your bag from your
shoulder and immediately intertwined your hands for the rest of the walk to
your duplex.
When you reached your doorstep, he hovered close with his hand pressed
against the door beside your head, the two of you going back and forth about
what time he should pick you up tonight. You played Rock Paper Scissors and lost
as per usual, but somehow ended up negotiating on nine o’clock. You didn’t want
to admit that you needed a little extra time to go shopping for trousers with the
illicit Chubby’s cash and although he was ready to take you out right this second,
he agreed to give you a few hours to prepare.
You asked where he was taking you and he cheekily responded with “you’ll
have the best fuckin’ milkshake of your life,” his heart both soaring into his throat
and sinking into his stomach when you leaned forward to press a kiss to his
cheek. He tried to turn his head at the last second in order to steal a brush of your
lips, but you were too quick for him. The small, pained whimper that rattled in
his throat tightened a knot in your stomach, your eyes not leaving one another
until the closing door intercepted their hypnotism.
Oops, did I forget to tell you I had two chapters for you? ;)
The neon sign hanging above the sensually lit diner illuminates one letter at a
time in succession until the whole name of the establishment is displayed in
glorious electric violet cursive, blinking once in unison as if to announce its
magnificence before it bleaches to start the process all over again.
Temptations.
Harry was tight-lipped about your destination for the entire working day and
the whole drive here, his lips rolling into his mouth each time you would ask or
attempt to slyly make him slip. You had missed being inside of his van; the warm
glow and the warmhearted mileage, each corner of the interior smelling
positively of his cotton candy cigarettes and his essence, records spinning and
the windows down as Frank Sinatra’s mugshot tapped back and forth in the
ocean breeze, his hand tucked into the sensitive spot between your thighs
following each gear shift. And you had a feeling it’ll be something you fondly
revisit in your mind for years and years to come.
When he picked you up from your duplex, you both stood star-struck in your
doorway as your gazes locked and then slipped into a leaden head-to-toe crawl.
You had originally assumed that he would dress up and wear another suit like he
had to Chubby’s, but in all of his characteristic glory, he’d managed once again to
surprise you with the obvious. A casual, loose-fitting white button down tucked
into high-waisted plaid trousers, all cinched to perfection with a pair of black
suspenders and polished off with his leather jacket, his trademark curl swept to
the side and winding around his temple.
Nettie had agreed to take you shopping when you got home from work, so
long as you swore that you would blindly trust her and you’re glad that you did.
As soon as Harry made contact with your tight, taffy pink trousers and matching
thin, cropped angora sweater, he ducked his head and sank his teeth into your
neck, his stomach tossing and tossing and tossing when you lamented about his
rough handling. His fingertips brushed the modest strip of bare skin across your
stomach before tip-toeing under the hem of your top, each baby step of his hand
pulling on your core as he muttered, “pink? For me? I’m gonna be a wreck all
fuckin’ night, Cherrywood. No way I’m keepin’ my hands to myself.” And you
swore you could taste his mellow exhale when he slowly whispered against your
lips, “you’re all mine now. And I think that’s jus’ what you wanted.”
The parking lot sprawls and unfurls like a red carpet towards the entrance of
Temptations, jam-packed with a medley of hot rods neatly slipped into spots
side-by-side like a living art gallery. A cacophony of music plays from their open
windows; girls dolled up in bright patterns perched on top of their hoods and
boys talking loudly with one another, couples kissing and couples shamelessly
flirting. Punchy, pigmented rainbow smoke corkscrews into the air above
everyone’s heads and gracefully evaporates into the unflinching sky.
The scene laid out before you seems to mushroom as you take it all in, Harry’s
arm draping around your neck in a protective clasp as he navigates you through
the throng of people to the door that’s adorned with more neon signage. A lusty
mouth with teeth sinking into the bottom lip, a vinyl sticker adhered to the glass
below it that reads, “don’t worry, it only seems kinky the first time.”
“Get with the words.”
His prompt snakes into your ear and suddenly you realize just how much the
words on the door affected you, how much they sound like something that would
flick off the end of Harry’s tongue, how he’s managed to immerse himself in a
world that perfectly suits his personality trait of one big, double entendre. Or
maybe you’ve just been sheltered from reality for much too long. One corner of
Harry’s mouth pulls into a simper when he finally pulls you from your rapt
thoughts, your attention drawn from the perfect lips on the door to the perfect
lips on your date, “I’m sorry, what?”
“Let’s hear some lingo. How’s it hangin’? You look foxy as shit.” He spins you in
his grasp and weaves his fingers into your hair at the nape of your neck, his palm
cradling the back of your head as he holds your eye contact with diligence. His
insulating need to comfort you at all times fills the space between his fingers and
your mouths, “you want me to start?” You nod and he doesn’t skip a beat, “’kay.
Mm’gonna treat you so fuckin’ good, Cherry baby. Gonna make you feel as
bitchin’ as you look. Be clean with me, yeah? Promise you won’t hold anythin’
back?”
“I promise.” The blush in your cheeks is drowning the volume of your voice,
but you decide in this moment that the chafe of vulnerability actually feels fine
for once, much like the thrill you get from flashing your breasts to a lovesick
maverick who has just climbed through your bedroom window, “this place looks
neat and…..” Your gaze dives to his torso and back again, “I like the suspenders. A
lot.” The pad of your finger traces down the length of the elastic fabric, “they’re a
nice touch. I’m ready, let’s go in.”
Harry’s stomach whittles into a single particle, “brilliant.”
The door swings open and you’re immediately bombarded with stimuli; dim
overhead lighting that seems even more muted due to all of the meticulously-
placed, dynamic magenta neon luster throughout the establishment. The walls
and dividers between booths are mirrored, chrome and shiny, reflecting the
fluorescence in a way that makes you feel a bit dizzy as you attempt to process
the boisterous capacity held within the four walls. Cushy rock music drones
through the speakers, but it’s thorny and difficult to decipher through the volume
of excited, rowdy chatter. The room smells of pancakes dripping with tacky syrup
and piping french fries and fruity cigarette smoke, stuffed from end-to-end with
groups of friends and mushy couples at plexiglass tables with vinyl booth seating.
Servers wearing purple rompers and knee-high socks cruise across geometric-
patterned linoleum flooring on roller skates, trays stacked with food held high
above their heads.
Harry takes your moment of investigation to admire the dually chaste and
brazen strip of skin above the waistband of your slim trousers, the little peek of
your prime belly button that begs to meet the tip of his tongue, your hair
naturally on display without a single ribbon or barrette to hinder its movement.
You’ve had just the slightest tinge of pink to your cheeks since the moment he
picked you up from your place and he can’t help but wonder if it’s heat that’s
coming from inside of you or if it’s been applied with a big, fluffy brush and a
compact mirror. Your lips are pigmented a candy apple pink and he’s dying to
know if the tint has a flavor, if it would mark his skin with the thrum of your kiss,
and what exactly it would look like puckering around his index and middle
fingers.
He loves the escapade of immersing you into his environments and observing
how you interact with its elements, knowing that your former experiences leave
you a virgin in more ways than one. But it’s far out that you’re willing to push the
limits of your comfort zone for the purpose of growth and for his satisfaction and
he promises himself he will make every instant worth your while. He’s never
doubted for a second that you’re plucky, that you’ve probably never jived with
your religious upbringing but rather went along with it simply because you’re
polite, that you have lots of mysteries inside of you that may end up coming as a
surprise to even yourself. He can’t shake the fixation he has on exhuming the
naughty skeleton within you, punctured and raspy whispers spoken into the tiny
gap between your mouths at dawn. Secrets for him and the blue moon and the
deafening sea.
He pinches the back of your neck before trailing his fingertips down your arm
to lace your fingers together, “let’s mellow out first. C’mere.”
You follow him to the free-standing jukebox in the center of the restaurant, a
beckoning beacon of light and amusement much like Harry himself. Harry
crowds behind you and loops an arm across your collarbones, his fingers
spreading wide over your chest in a gesture of possession and sanctuary. He
hums at the feeling of your body tucked into his and nuzzles his face into your
neck, porcupine quills poking against his skin when you giggle and tilt your head
away, “your hair tickles.”
“I know. S’wild.” He braces himself for the expected and deserved smack that
follows his next cheeky sentiment, “imagine what it would feel like between your
legs.”
“Harry! Don’t start—”
“Okay, okay, don’t be mad at me. Gimme your hand.” You flip your palm and
form a cup for him to deposit a single nickel, “you choose some. That’ll hook you
up with three.”
You flip the coin over between your fingers as you deliberate over the choices
laid out before you, “I don’t know what any of these songs are.”
His hands fall to pinch your hips and tug you closer, his arms winding around
your waist for a cozy cuddle as he perches his chin on your shoulder to watch
what you do next, “mmm….. but you can read, right? Just pick your favorite
words. C’mon then, don’t be shy. Cherries first.”
You deposit the coin into the slot and browse the names laid out before you,
mulling over each foreign artist and their accompanying song title before finally
depressing your finger into the sturdy divots of the chunky plastic buttons. There
is a pressure to choose decent music since it’ll be playing for a crowded room of
strangers but on the other hand, you can’t possibly be blamed for a wrong
decision since you’re bravely striking out at something new. You don’t have
much of a system or plan in place, so you go with your gut and choose the song
titles that sound like how Harry’s words would be spelled if written verbatim on
paper.
F1 Connie Francis “Fallin’”
The first record is promptly selected by a mechanical arm, the vinyl forty-five
flipping over like a pancake as the needle makes contact and crackles to life
through the speakers to make space for the loud, brassy pluck of guitar strings.
Harry starts dancing behind you with your hips locked together through the
force of his palms, his mouth brushing your ear when he sings along with a line
meant for you alone.
Without hesitation, your hips gently pendulate with his and he chuckles at
your contradicting coy spunk, another item to check off your list of sexy-as-hell
and surprising traits. Harry knows his own love languages like the back of his
hand, but he’s finally starting to understand one of yours; physical touch through
the cool sway of dance. You had practically spelled it out for him at Chubby’s and
in the practice studio yesterday. And it makes complete sense.
“Sweet, wild Cherry. Jus’ for me, hmm?”
You drop your head back against his shoulder as you both lose track of
yourselves in this moment together, the four walls of the room simultaneously
falling away from one another in a loud, rattling thunk that neither one of you
could possibly notice through your undeniably shaken snow globe of chemistry,
“mhm, I love dancing with you.”
Harry’s hands take alternate routes, one traveling up your stomach with his
thumb slipping through your cleavage and the other careening down past your
belly button. He translates your quip sexually, of course. He just can’t help it,
“feels so fuckin’ good to have your body snugglin’ against mine. Keep goin’,
Honeysuckle.”
S5 Nancy Sinatra “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’”
He hisses at your second selection and bellows a good-natured cackle, “ouch.

Let’s hope not. But I’d let you walk all over me if that’s what you wanted.”
You rest your chin on your shoulder and study his pretty curved and angular
facial features, reveling in the closeness and stability of your bodies, “I didn’t
mean to pick a rude one.”
The volume of his voice is just for you, “you couldn’t pick a dud if you tried.
One more, babe.”
C4 Lou Christie “Lightnin‘ Strikes”
“Oh my god!” Harry points to his chest with a giant, open-mouthed smile and
his dimple depressing a dramatic crease into his cheek, “those are the ones I was
gonna pick!”
“Really?”
He shakes his head and remarks flatly, “no.” A smirk lifts the corner of his
mouth when you swat at his shoulder, a few more nickels sinking into the slot as
he reaches around your hip to expertly choose his songs as if on autopilot,
without much rumination happening in direct contrast to your painstaking
method.
The process happens in reverse this time, you watch his heavily jeweled
knuckles punching the buttons before quickly flitting your gaze to search for the
selections he’s making.
S8 The Sonics “Have Love Will Travel”
S2 The Seeds “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine”
K3 The Kinks “This Strange Effect”
“Were these some of the other songs you were going to sing for me
yesterday?”
Harry stays focused on the jukebox before flicking his eyes to you for a single
second. His face peels into a moseying grin with the lights from the machine
illuminating his cheekbones and the tip of his nose before he mumbles, “Honey
detective.” And that’s the only answer you need.
N5 Neil Diamond “Cherry, Cherry”
L7 Lee Fields & The Expressions “Honey Dove”
M6 The Monks “Oh, How to Do Now”
B2 The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations”
“Maybe we shouldn’t hog it—”
Harry scoffs, “jump back. As if any of these fuckers’ dates are as important as
ours?”
You spin in his grasp and happily allow him to pin you against the cool glass
and vibrating speakers and bulky buttons of the lively machine behind you. He
always has a way of bolstering his opinion in a crude yet credible way, as if he
were saddling you up in a boat with a life vest and oar, silently signaling for you
to push off from the shore with his avid counseling. Harry is exactly the person
you would want to have on your side in a pinch, “how many songs do you know
on the guitar?”
He runs his fingers through your hair, twisting a lock between his digits as he
delights in your easy compliancy. He’s enamored with your slow pace, your
steady regard, how very little you have to do to make him feel as though he’s
made of confetti and feathers, “dunno. Name one and we’ll figure it out.”
You laugh at his self-assurance that borders on arrogance, “I hate how
talented you are.”
Harry blinks once, slowly, “I love how talented you are.”
Both of your stares are locked on one another’s lips, your fingers tugging on
his suspenders as you try to backtrack and match his sweetness, “that’s what I
meant.”
“I know. Maybe you should start sayin’ what you mean.”
Your oar is digging into the coastline for a gentle nudge out to sea.
Harry gathers your hand in both of his, taking a step back before spinning on
his heel and steering you confidently to a booth in a far-off corner. You scan the
crowded diner on your journey to find several girls eyeing Harry; someone
sipping their milkshake past the bottom of their glass as they stare
unapologetically, girls tapping one another to bring their friend’s attention to
him. You scoot into the booth while he peels off his jacket and tosses it onto the
bench, your settled space immediately crowded against the wall with the heavy
smush of his body. His arm rests on the back of the seat behind you, his knuckles
gently rubbing against your shoulder, “oh— you’re going to sit right next to me?”
Harry scoffs and scoops a dollop of biting sarcasm into your sugar bowl, “nah,
I’m gonna sit across the whole fuckin’ table from you. Hello?”
He has the most deafening way of painting a clear picture with bluntness, of
highlighting the obvious and sharpening hindsight with only a handful of words.
Of course Harry would sit right next to you and you shouldn’t have expected
anything less. You’ve never had a stronger urge to kiss someone. And when is it
too early to say I love you?
“Did ya see all those clods checkin’ you out?”
“No— me? No.” You laugh at the fact that you had noticed the exact opposite,
“I didn’t see that.”
Harry glances around the room and grumbles to himself as he sticks a

cigarette between his lips and lights the end, “fuckin’ lightweight juicer shitbag
pricks.” He turns back to you, admiring your loose, natural hair framing your
face, a small cloud of pink smoke disappearing down his throat before he combs
his fingers through your locks. He hums as he watches it fall to your shoulders
before gathering it all into a fist and maneuvering it away from your neck in a
makeshift ponytail, “skin looks nice. You been wearin’ your hair down just for
me, Cherry?”
You had been so flushed as you were preparing for your date that Nettie was
forced to continually powder your face and remind you to take deep breaths. She
had remarked that you weren’t this nervous before going with him to Chubby’s,
to which you replied with your typical kneejerk response of that not being a date
and as soon as the words left your mouth and you examined Nettie’s skeptical
facial expression, you’d realized just how wrong you’d been. That had most
definitely been a date and a little flower blossomed inside of your stomach when
you recognized that Harry just allowed you to label it in a way that made you
comfortable.
Maybe you should start saying what you mean.
“Yes.”
Harry slips your hands together and scoots closer before ashing his cigarette
in the heart-shaped dish on the table, his feet playing footsie with yours under
the table and his eyes softening at your admittance, “my sweet girl.” He can feel
the tension between you tightening your shoulders and sending your leg into a
nervous bounce, “loosen up, sticky Honeybun. It’s just me. Toss me one of those
menus.”
The listed flavors of ice cream follow the salacious theme of the diner. My
Cherie Amour, chocolate ice cream with dark, pitted cherries; Red Hot Lover,
banana ice cream with cinnamon Red Hots; Little Kisses, vanilla ice cream with
peppermint and pink meringues; Between-The-Sheets, honeycomb ice cream
with ribbons of caramel; and Guilty Pleasure, strawberry ice cream with
marshmallows and crunchy peanut butter. Before you’ve had a chance to get past
the names and focus on a decision of what to order, your server rolls up to the
table with a small notepad in hand, “hey lovers. What’ll you have?”
Luckily Harry speaks up before you have a chance to embarrass yourself, “the
gorgeous fox will have um…..” His eyes roam the menu in deliberation with his
lips puckered as he concentrates before he sucks air in through the side of his
cheek, “a hamburger.” He looks at you and narrows his eyes as if reading your
purposely blank expression would clue him into your taste preferences, “…o...
tomato?” He pumps his fist when you nod in agreement before he runs his fingers
around the outside of his mouth in a failed effort to hide his cocky smile, “with
french fries… and....” He flicks his gaze from you to her, “a cherry and banana
milkshake with extra whipped cream and extra cherries.”
Harry holds his hands in the air, palms towards the ceiling and fingers
wiggling in silent beckoning of some recognition for his good work. His fingers
ball into a fist and rap twice on the table when you nod and let just the smallest
giggle loose.
“And the gentleman would like a double cheeseburger. No onions ’cause I’m
gonna be gettin’ lucky later and french fries.” He hands her the menus and then
pops his finger into the air, “oh! And a small fuckin’ stack of pancakes with extra
butter and extra syrup. Oh, and a coke! Cherry,” he winks at you, “please. Thank
you. Um—” He reaches his hand out to pause her retreat, “d’you have any like,
peanut butter for the pancakes?” She nods and starts to walk away again but he
stops her, “and I’m gonna get a hot fudge sundae, too. But later.”
When the server leaves, Harry brings his water to his mouth and observes
your quirked eyebrow over the rim of the glass, “what?”
“Honestly, where do you put all of that food?”
“My belly, Honeysuckle. I’m a growin’ boy. Pass me one of those straws?” You
reach into the jar of straws wrapped in swirling lines of pink paper, plucking one
out and handing it over. He peels the end off and puckers his lips around the tip,
blowing the wrapper into your cheek and grinning to himself when it gets caught
in your hair, “busted a load right on your cute little face.”
“Harry!” The uncontrollable snort that slips out with your laughter eases the
suspense between the two of you a bit, his hand landing on his belly to curb his
cackle when the sound strikes his ears. You cover your face and groan when he
untangles the paper from your hair and wraps it around his fingertip, “can you
stop messing with me for two seconds, please?”
“Fuckin’ nope, never. You’re so fun to mess with.” Harry tugs on one of his
rings, sliding it up and down his finger a couple times as if in consideration of
something before it slips from his hand and tumbles onto the table. You catch it
from rolling off of the edge of the plexiglass and pass it to him, his nonchalance as
vibrant as ever, “oops, I made a boo-boo. I have a Y chromosome, Honey tits. I
can’t multitask.”
You look so fucking pretty when you smile, “that’s a definite lie. I’ve yet to find
something you can’t do.”
Once Harry embraces the fact that he actually feels nervous for what he’s
about to do, his heart starts to hammer in his chest at the admittance and he likes
it. His knuckle taps against yours and he revels in how much thrill and
uncertainty you manage to rush through his veins, “open up.”
When you flip your hand over, he drops the warm metal of his square-cut ruby
ring right into the center of your palm.
“It’s red like cherries. Thread’ll make it fit.”
You must have gotten lost in your scrutiny of the jewelry and its meaning, the
very clear symbolism of a boy giving a girl his ring as an announcement of your
romance, because Harry clears his throat and tucks his finger under your chin to
look into your eyes, “why do you look so surprised? You’re definitely my
girlfriend now.”
Your smile spreads slowly before you sink your teeth into your bottom lip,
“Harry….. you’re supposed to ask.”
He fucking loves your prim and proper, quaint principles and beliefs and how
you always seem to playfully put him in his place when he pushes your limits. He
supposes some people would call that ’pussy whipped’, but he likes his
description better, “right, shit. Will you be my main squeeze, Cherry pie?”
You pry your eyes away from his to look at the sturdy hunk of jewelry that has
caught your attention on several occasions, finally beginning to accept what this
means for the two of your going forward as you slip it onto your middle finger,
“yeah.” You nod with loyal conviction and direct your attention back to him, “I
will. Of course….. even though we haven’t kissed yet?”
Harry’s not really thinking when he taps his cheek as a signal for a kiss, his
heart soaring straight into his stomach when you lean forward and fall for his
trick for the second time today. He pivots his head when your nose pokes his
skin, your lips brushing before he puckers and catches your bottom lip in a
trembling, gentle suck.
Everything flips and tightens. One thousand sunflowers bloom all at once.
Passion trickles south.
Your breath hitches in your throat followed by a short pause as sensations
flood your nervous system, the second slotting of your lips rudely interrupted by
the server placing your milkshake and cherry Coke down on the table with a loud
clamor, “food’s coming, lovebirds.”
Harry whines at the fleeting furor that slipped away before he could properly
absorb it and the subsequent chill of abrupt distance. He gouges his fingers into
the table, the pathetic sound curling up into a moan; his heart, stomach and cock
all throbbing in unison, “baby.” His hot breath pants out against your mouth
when he leans forward again for another kiss, but you’re pulling back in an
overwhelming force beyond you without a single word to add.
Both of your fingers are digging into the bench and the table and your thighs
and your skin, anywhere they can find purchase, your stomachs suddenly
shrinking and lacking appetite. It’s quiet and your ears are ringing as you try to
find your proverbial footing, your eyes and Harry’s eyes finally bolting to surge
lightning bolts between you and straight to your cores.
And he’s certainly not expecting it when you aim your straw directly at his
face and blow the wrapper straight into his nose.
Harry stays frozen and acts completely unaffected before growling and diving
into your neck for a tender bite to your skin, absorbing the sweet ring of your
laughter, “you’re fresh, Honeyfuck. Hey.” He guides your attention away from
your milkshake and back to him, his fingertips skimming over your blushing lips,
“fuckin’ outta sight. My heart is poundin’.”
“Mine too. I don’t think I can eat.”
“Oh, that’s no prob for me. I can always eat. I’ll eat yours, too. No fake, Cherry
babe.”
You laugh and poke at his teasing dimple, “fatso! You will not. I love crinkle
fries and you’ll get an earful if you steal any.”
Harry wasn’t kidding when he said he would eat your food. As soon as your
meals arrived, he watched as you arranged your fries by twos from longest to
shortest, his eyebrows pulling together in concentration when you used a knife
to cut your hamburger in half. He picked up the bottle of ketchup and squirted it
all over your organized fries before pinching a handful, grinning evilly when you
barked at him about ruining your meticulous planning. He was clearly trying to
loosen you up, to ease your rigidity and need for routine that he picked up on
right away during practice.
He knows how hard you are on yourself and he can relate to that feeling that
comes with frustration and mastery, the limits of your body, trying your best to
be perfect at something but only wanting more once each level is achieved. It’s
greed, perhaps, except the end result is an empty desire for additional
proficiency. He didn’t really know how he was going to solve your control issues
through squirting ketchup all over your french fries, but he figured it couldn’t
hurt.
Your toes tapped one another for the duration of your meal, his pinky hooking
together with yours whenever you’d suck your milkshake through your straw
and hum at the flavor. You were actually quite impressed with how much food he
joyfully put away, including dipping his fries into your milkshake and then
making you try the combination when he gasped happily at the remarkable taste.
Harry has an incredibly sweet, adventurous palette and a big appetite, and you
suppose he has made that obvious to you in several facets of his life, but that
doesn’t make it any less entertaining to watch it unravel before your eyes.
The server swings by on her roller skates when you start to slow down and
push food around on your nearly-empty plates. She clears as much as she can
carry before pointing to Harry’s pancakes that he didn’t quite finish, “signed,
sealed and delivered, hun?”
“Yeah, thanks.” She collects his plate and Harry leans forward with his fork for
one more bite, “oh, hang on.” When she hovers the plate under his nose, he stabs
his utensil into the fluffy treat, picking up a whole pancake and folding the entire
thing into his mouth.
You burst out laughing with a snort at his ridiculous and idiotic sense of
humor, his cheeks puffing out like a chipmunk as he attempts to contain his
laughter and chew without choking at the same time.
Harry saddles up the bill by tossing a wad of cash on the table, unfolding
himself from the table and slipping his arms into his leather jacket. He pauses to
watch you touch up your lipstick in your compact mirror, the blood from his
brain emptying out when he leans down and cups your neck, stroking your cheek
with his thumb to garner your awareness.
You lower your mirror and your lipstick to find his dark eyes, his palm shifting
to your throat and his thumb tilting your head to the side when he slots your lips
together.
Harry hums against your mouth and the vibration sends a ripple straight
through your stomach to your toes. He sucks softly on your bottom lip before
pecking your top, his thumb tugging on your jaw to cause it to fall slack enough
for his tongue to dip in. It slips in an expert circle around yours, your tummy a
troupe of synchronized swimmers as he punctuates each soft sip with a wickedly
slow, tender embrace. As if his lips were nurturing and molding with yours like a
singular lock and key, the pads of his fingers hot and demanding against the
ridges of your neck.
An explosion of fresh ripe cherries and sugary maraschino juice, a swirl of

cotton candy, a swipe of oranges and cream.
You know that realistically the kiss can’t be more than ten seconds long but it
feels more like a slow tumble in outer space, like the difference between jumping
on earth and jumping on the moon. He pulls back and gravity finally finds you,
first your feet and then the weak slosh of your brain. Your eyelids don’t dare to
peel open yet. Everything sedates except for your heartbeat and the unexpected
appetite rushing blood through your veins, the flush of your cheeks echoed in the
smear of lipstick on his tingling lips, the muted spin of the jukebox and the
clanging of forks and knives slowly whizzing back to life past your eardrums.
The pads of his fingers burn your throat, he squeezes a bit for traction to catch
his feet from slipping out underneath him. He’s never felt anything quite like that
in his entire life and when you finally find the courage to open your eyes, you’re
surprised to find his oozing like two pools of thick, black ink. Your heart is
beating so fast it’s almost as if there are no pauses in between each thump, your
stares sinking together and blurring your surroundings into insignificance.
You’re hooked now.
He’s hooked now.
Time drowns, the last two minutes are absorbed by bottomless quick sand.
You think you remember him helping you from the booth, his hands intertwining
with yours, the flex of his back muscles as he adjusted his jacket, a hundred
stares as you wound through the diner towards the exit, heavy footsteps and the
swing of a door that splashed cool air across your face as his final musical
selection on the jukebox whisked you outside.
But all you register now is your back being slammed up against the passenger
door of Harry’s van, your fingers disappearing into his hair when you tug him
against you and seal your lips together with a quivering hum. Harry is frantic;
one hand glued to your throat and the other slipping up the front of your soft,
thin sweater. Your hands dip into the opening of his jacket, pushing the cool,
bulky material from his shoulders as it meets the pavement with a heavy thud of
metal zippers and black leather.
He moans into your mouth at the pace and fervor and unexpected confidence
of your passion, his hips rutting against yours when he pinches your knee and
guides your leg around his waist. Inside he’s an endless geyser of dirty, reckless
speech but it’s trapped within a hundred bubbles in his throat. All he can think
about is the silkiness of your skin in his palm and the way your tongue perfectly
flicks against his, the cinch of your leg keeping your humid centers nestled
together, firework after exploding firework in his queasy stomach.
He can’t believe this is finally actually happening. His acidic Cherry bomb, his
sweet Honey pie, a devilish tart for him and only him, exactly how he’d always
fantasized.
Your fingers scratch and fumble with his shirt, desperately tugging the hem
from his trousers for a breath of skin and then slowly smoothing both of your
palms up his warm stomach, the astounded moan raining from his lips causing a
surge of lust straight into your panties in an immediate reflection of the salacious
sound.
He pulls back an inch to mumble against your lips; pouty and pink, slippery
and rabid, filthy and sugared, “fuckin’ me up, baby. Shit. You’re so sexy.” You have
nothing articulate to return, instead you cup the back of his neck and slip your
lips together as he sucks on your tongue, molding his mouth around your bottom
lip before tugging and nibbling gently on your skin with his teeth, “fuckin’ unreal.
You actually want me. Please tell me this is for real.” His fingers fumble with the
buttons on your sweater, undoing just the first few before slipping a hand into
the placket and palming your breast with a sharp cry, “Cherry,” a quick pinch of
your darting nipple and his breath hitching in his throat, “I’m gone. I’m so gone
for you.”
You can feel his hard length pressing against your core, the sensations in your
guts leading you towards an unknown goal. All you know is you want his bare
skin and his weight crushing you, his tongue and his expertise and you trust that
he will steer the both of you until you raise a white flag, palms and skin and
tongues and teeth and breath, all until you raise a white flag. You sigh against his
lips and he hums in response as if the reverberation of it would somehow soften
the swirling of his stomach, the mumble of you singing ’Harry’ against his lips
might have been inaudible if he didn’t feel the sensation of it.
Harry pops open the door of his van and shuffles you inside, gathering his
jacket from the ground before clamoring in behind you and tugging you quickly
into his lap. He turns a record on with a punch of his knuckle against the button
on his dash, his plush kisses showering your throat and neck and chin, all
punctuated with pleading, hoarse demands.
“Kiss me.”
“Touch me.”
“Look at me.”
“Stay with me.”
Your gasp funnels into a moan, “mmm….. Harry, please take me home.”
“To drop you off or…..?” Your chin is angled up to offer him as much of your
neck as possible as he roughly sucks your skin past his teeth and pools blood to
the surface; his hands roaming, his hips rocking, his lips humming into your
throat. You sigh and rest your cheek against his head as he floods every inch of
you that he can reach in kisses, his fingertips pinching your nipple through the
fabric of your thin shirt. He licks a bold stripe from your collarbone to your ear,
tugging the lobe between his teeth with hot, humid breath, “I can’t stop.” He
whimpers and repeats himself in a softer voice, his hips rutting upward to
punctuate his anguish, “I can’t stop.”
You aren’t sure if you want him to drop you off or stay with you. All you know
is that this is fast and you’re confused but also extremely turned on, so instead
you shrug and gnaw on your bottom lip. You cup his jaw and lift his head,
planting a kiss to his cheek and then wiping your lipstick stains from his skin,
“can we decide when we get there?”
.
The tension at the door outside of your duplex is thicker than ever. You
haven’t had a breath of space since your lips locked at Temptations and you
wonder if it’s going to be like this forever since this barricade has been
stampeded or if the novelty will wear off into something more manageable soon.
But right now, you are more than content to drown in his ocean over and over
and over again.
You dig your fingers into his suspenders to tug him against you once more,
your lips sweeping together when you whisper an attempt to part ways,
“goodnight, Harry—”
He shakes his head and kisses you again, “mmm….. stay? Or can I come up?”
“You can walk me upstairs.”
“I was gonna do that anyway. Stay with me. Please. I don’t wanna be alone.”
You think you know the answer, but it’s still important for you to hear the
distinction and see the answer form on his uncontrollably honest face, “you don’t
want be alone or you want to be with me?”
“Mmm….. don’t be a dip, Honeytrick. I’d rather be alone than be with anyone
else but you. What d’ya say? Little snugglin’ and makin’ out? I’ll whisper. I’ll let
you sleep. Please? M… m...” He pushes your sweater from your shoulder before
sinking his teeth into your sensitive skin, his lips puckering to suck and his
tongue slinking out every so often to soothe the blood he continues to draw to
the surface, “don’t leave me.”
Stop being afraid. Pink hammock. He’ll catch you.
You hope that you’ll be able to make up your mind by the time you get to the
top of your stairs. You weave your fingers through his and drop your voice to
prepare him for the quiet of your apartment corridor, “come on.”
Harry follows you upstairs and delights in the ruddy flush of your cheeks from
his stubble and your excitement, the pouty rouse of your lips, the soft muss of
your hair from his restless hands. He imagines that he would absolutely wither
and die if you sent him away now, and he’s prepared to utilize every tool in his
belt to get you to drag him across your threshold tonight. He never wants to be
apart from you again if he can help it.
He hasn’t yet processed the boundaries that have been crossed and the
intensity of the change that’s occurred, but he imagines after a rock-hard sleep
that things will be a little clearer in the morning. All he wants now is your tits in
his palms and your bare legs wrapped around his waist but a little, burning flame
of annoyance kindles to life and he reminds himself that he has to make
something clear before anything else happens. If the two of you are going to
move forward properly, he can’t keep lying to you about what’s happening at the
circus and he knows that if he waits too long, it’ll only be harder to get you on his
side, “you like secrets, Cherry tart? Can you keep one?”
You perk an eyebrow in curiosity and lean against your door, “I love secrets.”
You hold up your hand in scout’s honor with an assuring nod, “I can keep one
better than anybody.”
He has absolutely no reason not to trust you and he fucking loves that about
you. Instead of revealing the whole truth, he chickens out at the last minute and
decides that he can’t tell you the entire narrative because if you knew your job
was in jeopardy, you’d never proceed. Instead he utilizes a little white lie,
walking the fine line between truth and deception, just a bit of omission so as not
to send you running in the other direction. He will give you just enough
information to keep your relationship and your jobs secured.
“Good girl.” He teeters his finger between your chests, “you an’ me. Little quiet
affair….. just from assholes at the circus. Well, not little. Fuckin’ massive and
spectacular. Life altering. B… t... let’s fly low. Yeah? If Rusty heard abou… it...
wouldn’t be good. Not a word to anyone. I’ve seen this kinda shit go sour at the
circus before.” He cups your cheek and kisses your cherry sweet lips, purring in
the back of his throat at the flavor before kissing you once more and muttering,
“be my girl. I’ll be so good to you. So good. We’re gonna have a fuckin’ blast.”
Suddenly his behavior at the theatre makes perfect sense. He had already been
putting his idea into action and it feels like a thousand bricks have been lifted
from your chest.
You nod, awash with relief, gripping the placket of his shirt in a fist to tug him
close, the ends of your noses tapping and his lips catching against yours, “I want
that. You’re mine, Harry.” He’s never had the desire to hear that before and now
that it’s been formed by you swollen lips, his heart grows so big it feels like it’s
pressing on his ribcage and lungs. You hate to bring this up right now, but it
seems pertinent and you’d rather get it out of the way since you’re on the topic,
“what about Tex?”
You don’t want that little shit to know anything about you and you especially
don’t want harry confiding in him about your relationship. You don’t trust him at
all but he has been such a good loyal friend through so much difficulty in Harry’s
life that it would feel controlling on your end to tell Harry who he should be
friends with or trust for your sake. You know less than half of their story and it’s
not your place to make that type of decision for him.
“What about Tex?”
“Well….. he’s a coworker but he’s also your friend,……o... would you tell him?”
Harry can tell that you’re hesitant about sharing information with Tex and it’s
probably a good intuition considering Tex seems to be more on Rusty’s team
than Harry’s these days. Tex already knows a little bit about what’s going on
between you, but he doesn’t know the full extent of everything dire that’s
happened the last couple days. They haven’t spoken much at all since Harry
knocked Riff’s lights out. The topic of you could be something that Harry just
drops and avoids completely with Tex from now on. But he predicts it would be
troublesome to keep it a secret from Tex because Tex historically tends to pry
into and be a star player in his personal life. Except it’s never been a problem
before now, “do you want me to?”
“I don’t know. It seems hard not to since you’re so close, but….. he’s also at the
circus,……o...” You want Harry to be in full control of this situation because it’s his
relationship and his life, and if you pressured him into making a judgement that
he regretted, he would hold it against you in the future. But the tricky part is it
involves your relationship and your life now. Plus, you wouldn’t want Tex to have
any more disdain towards you than he already does. There doesn’t need to be a
single extra drop of gasoline added to that fire, “what do you think?”
“I think it’s just me and you, Cherry. I’ll keep my mouth shut.” Harry’s a shitty
liar and he knows it, but he promises himself that he will do his best if and when
Tex confronts him about the situation. It would be too suspicious to completely
drop the subject of you out of the blue and he knows it’s bound to pop back up
again, but he’d rather not think about it right now. There’s something much more
thrilling popping up right now.
You hold your pinky up in the air and he loops his around yours, kissing the
cross on his hand and smiling against his skin when you announce with lucidity,
“me and you, Harry.”
His gaze flicks from your mouth to your eyes, his eyelids drooping in euphoria
when you say the words that he’s being going fucking nuts for in his dreams and
waking life, “how did we wait this long, mm?”
Your response surprises him, “why did we wait this long?”

“That’s on you, Honey.”
Your smiles quickly bloom together, your teeth and his dimple winking at one
another to convey the wrench of your hearts, “you’re right. I’m an idiot. More
please.”
His weight pins you against the door as he seals your lips together, his fingers
combing through your hair before brushing against the bare strip of skin on your
stomach. The embrace that was meant to be a farewell quickly turns into another
make out session, his mouth dropping to your neck and your jaw and your chest,
his teeth nibbling your ear as he murmurs little praises to you between pecks.
You manage to get your door unlocked and to back up into your apartment
with Harry trying his hardest to follow you, but you kiss him one final time in the
crack of the threshold just before you close it, “I can’t wait to see you again. I
can’t wait to kiss you again.”
Harry’s shamelessly desperate, “we don’t have to wait. Lemme stay the night.”
You’re worried that it’ll go too far and you’re not ready for that or even close
to wanting that type of pressure, so you shake your head and gnaw on your
bottom lip, “I’m not ready to have sex—”
“I know, babe. There’s no way I’d try to fuck you, c’mon. I just don’t wanna be
apart. I wanna hold you. Why sleep alone if you don’t have to?”
“I’m— sorry. I don’t think I can yet. I’m sorry, I— um….. goodnight, Harry.”
You kiss him one final time before reluctantly clicking the door shut, spinning
on your heel to rest against it and simply feel the trouncing of your heart. You
wait a handful of seconds to catch your breath, his sensually crass words and his
heart-shaped lips and his chocolate hair whirling madly in your mind before you
realize in a split-second that you’re making the wrong decision.
When you open your door again, he’s still standing there with his arms
splaying the threshold and the eyes of a shark, his palms gripping the doorframe
as you grab him by his suspenders and pull him close for another kiss. He backs
you up into your apartment and kicks the door closed behind him, your lips and
tongues glued together as you stumble over stray shoes and rugs in the darkness
until your back is meeting another wall. You’re swamped so far into Harry that
you don’t even have an instinctual awareness of where you are in your living
room, all you know is that his kiss is thoroughly unmatched.
You unclip his suspenders, unbuttoning his shirt next and tossing it aside
before pulling his wifebeater up and over his head, his fingers simultaneously
working to unhook your buttons before he slips your sweater off and allows it to
fall quietly to the ground below.
“Fuck— Harry…..”
He draws back with a quiet gasp, your curse sending his stomach on an
absolute rollercoaster, “dirty girl.” He hisses and traces his fingers down your
chest, his middle finger carrying on down the valley of your breasts and tapping
the tiny twin cherries embroidered there before hooking his finger into the
center of your bra strap and pressing his thumb against the sweet little fruits,
“filthy mouth. This for me?” You nod and he groans before whispering, “I bet your
panties are soaked.” He breathes in deep through his nose at the fantasy of
pressing his fingertips to the humid spot in between your legs, your heady scent,
his eyelids fluttering shut at the likely truth behind his sentiment and how he
knows he’s likely pushing it too far for your comfort, “Jesus. That thought almost
knocked my fuckin’ lights out.”
Harry grips your ribcage and backs you up into the kitchen, bending to suck a
hickey into the spot between your cleavage right above the cherries, “mmm…..
panties match?”
You whimper at the sensation of his teeth grazing your skin and spout with
honesty, “yes.”
He lifts you up onto the counter top and pushes your legs apart and around his
waist to wedge his hips between them, the tip of his nose depressing into your
cheek, “just for me?”
“Just for you.”
Asher comes strolling out of Nettie’s bedroom and flicks on the light in the
kitchen before his eyebrows shoot up on his forehead at the abrasive sight in
front of him, “whoa!” He covers his eyes with his palm and starts backing away,
“sorry, I— whoa. Just….. water? Bibi, I didn’t know you had it in you, sister.”
Harry covers your tits and tries to tuck you behind his body for safekeeping,
“fuck.”
You whine and cower behind Harry, resting your forehead against the center
of his back in the hope that you’ll disappear completely, “shit.”
Nettie comes stumbling out of her room, her hair in curlers and squinting to
block out the bright, yellow light from the kitchen, “everything okay?” Her eyes
fall on your body barely shielded by Harry’s hands and slim waist, smiling to
herself when you peer out from over his shoulder at her, “goddamn.” She grips
Ash’s shirt and starts tugging him away, “sorry, kids. We were just leaving.”
Asher mumbles, “but— water…..?”
“Here, man.” Harry swings open the refrigerator door and grabs the carton of
orange juice, “heads up.”
You suck in a gust of air at the sight of him shirtless and clutching the carton to
his chest in your kitchen, your toes curling in the air as you dig your nails into his
stomach and scratch up towards his chest. He hisses in response and tosses the
orange juice to Ash, his hand dropping on top of yours to halt your movement as
he looks at you with a frown cutting his features, the shadows from the
refrigerator deepening the folds, “ouch, little Honey. You do like it rough, mm?”
“Come on.” You grab his hand as soon as they retreat and jump from the
counter to pull him into your bedroom, Harry quietly flicking the lock behind you
before he grips your waist and tosses you onto your innocently tidy bed with a
resounding bounce.
You squeal in surprise before he’s climbing on top of you and swallowing your
sweet giggle in another kiss, his hands blindly searching for the zipper on your
trousers, “shit— fuck— how do you—”
“Mmm…..” Your fingers loop into the chain dangling from his neck, tugging
gently to draw him closer, “it’s on the side.” He pants against your lips as his
fingers trace over your left hipbone, “other side, jelly brain.”
His grin is too wide to properly kiss you again. He wasn’t expecting you to be
so playful, but considering how much you tease one another, he supposes it’s just
another one of those things that makes complete sense now that it’s happening in
front of his eyes, “you little—”
He knows better than to push you too far, instead he strips the both of you
down to your underwear and curls up on his side next to you, your hands
roaming and your legs woven into a knot with your centers sparking and
swelling and rolling together for hours. You share heavy kisses that wane into
delicate pecks and strokes, before naturally dissolving into tender secrets and
confessions, your skin marked with half a dozen love bites and his hair a wild
bird’s nest of curls.
Harry tip-toes back out into the living room and swipes all of your discarded
clothing from the ground, insisting that you sleep in his silky button-down shirt.
He lays you back and leaves a path of kisses from your jawline, past all of the
open buttons to the delicate gap between your breasts, the pads of his fingers
slinking up under the fabric to shape an arch into your back.
Somewhere between night and morning, the pressure of Harry’s fingertips

weakens with each upward and downward stroke along your thigh, his eyelids
struggling to stay open as he croaks in a voice that sounds like scratchy
sandpaper covered in warm dirt. His drowsy words ebb and flow in broken
strength, his English accent as drippy as thick, sludgy maple syrup, “innit crazy
that there’s like, sounds that are too ’igh-pitched for us to hear? Y’know, like…..
even sounds dogs can’t hear.” His next question fades out of the tail end of a
yawn, “and colors we can’t see?” He nudges the tip of his nose against yours and
slips his hand up the back of your bloomers, feebly digging his fingers into your
curves, “mm’can you even imagine another color?”
You’re certain Harry has shown you sounds and colors that you never knew
existed before, and this nagging sensation in the pith of your stomach seems to
be a constant throb now, “no….. it seems impossible. There’s already too many to
fathom.”
“Mmm…..” His sleepy hand cups your cheek before sinking back into your hair,
his thumb lazily caressing your lips, “did this really ’appen, baby?”
You kiss the pad of his finger and nestle a bit closer to fold your lips together
once more, his mouth devilishly passive and supple in his embrace as he draws
nearer to unconsciousness, “yes.” You mutter against his pink, tender heart, “it
really did. And I’m so glad it did.”
“Right on.” He holds his palm up in the tight space between you, “gimme some
skin.” The tiniest smile curls into his cheeks when you give him a high five, his
fingers slotting through yours before dropping them to the sheets as he
whispers, “we did it, ’oneybear. M’tummy’s haulin’.”
The instant Harry’s breath falls into a rhythmic measure you’re already
missing him. His energy is quiet and his sunshine is dozing behind the clouds, the
hues of his dreams surely manifesting the unattainable colors he had just been
reflecting upon. The pads of your fingers trace down the slope of his nose and
into the dip above his top lip, his bulky ring twisting around your middle digit
and your heart and every organ inside of you vibrating with too much stamina to
lose yourself to sleep just yet. Everything between the two of you and everything
in your life as you know it has flipped so quickly that it’s impossible to
understand it all right now and you’re not ready to part with him yet. Instead you
fill the void by sponging another soft kiss to his docile lips, your forehead resting
against his as you breathe in each one of his heated exhales and wonder what
new surprises he’ll dazzle you with tomorrow.
We did it.
SIGHHHHHH AND BREATHE. Fun stuff coming, y’all. I’m going to the beach with
some friends next weekend, so I’ll let you know when the next chapter will be
posted. WE DID IT!!!! Love you! Xx B
If love were a tangible object, Harry imagines it as something he could sink his
teeth into. Tasting of cherry pie filling, gooey and sugary, tacky and habit-
forming. Amorphous and pink in shape and color; covered in soft, squishy and
billowing spikes that curl on the ends. The tips of each plume would fade into a
transparent flamingo color that quivers when he taps it with the pad of his finger,
the entire shapeless entity sighing and thawing as he cradles it in the palms of his
hands. It would have an incredibly sturdy center; a quickly swirling cloud
trapped inside of a glass marble, the nebula of the love-object creating an
obscure scaffolding to keep the entire cryptic phenomenon in place.
If pain were a tangible object, Harry imagines it as his morning wood.
It only takes one single flash of recall for Harry to remember where he is upon
waking; that life-changing moment when your body crashed into the passenger
door of his pink van, his hands disappearing inside of your sweater, your lips
shaping a silent rendition of his name as soon as your palms touched his bare
stomach. His eyes peel open followed by the rest of the evening gradually
flickering to life, like the switch of a heavy lever that activates a hundred
staggered, struggling overhead stage lights one-by-one to illuminate a dark
theatre.
The supple first kiss, the feverish second kiss, skin and sighs and moans and
tongues and fingers and grins so wide that making out is futile but that’s
perfectly okay because fuck, you are so, so sexy and you have no fucking idea.
Mint. Virginal. Sweet. Chrome. Hot as fuck. Cherry.
He’s won you over. And he can still hardly fucking believe it.
Harry doesn’t even bother to take in his surroundings. He doesn’t need to. He’s
an addict and he can feel his fix right beside him, curled up in one of his favorite
button-down shirts, your hair spread out across your pillow and a thousand
more layers of secrets to peel back. And the single promise that he makes to
himself this morning is that he will unearth at least one, something that he can
fixate on and obsess over in the spare seconds today where his mind wanders
from his catcher’s lock on the trapeze to the magnificent clasp you have on his
haunted heart.
His hands swipe down his face as if to revive his muscles, his eyes focusing on
the stucco ceiling of your bedroom to sketch imaginary rabbits and dragons in
the painted molding. He guides one hand further, down his chest and stomach,
straight past the elastic of his underwear for a swipe across his drippy slit and a
quick adjustment to his aching length, his teeth bitten into his bottom lip to stifle
any whimpers of arousal.
He rolls onto his side to survey your sleeping form curled on your side away
from him; your waist dipping inward and your hip swelling outward, the curve of
your ass, the blink of smooth skin peeking out from your mint green bloomers.
He traces his fingertips down your side before tossing his arm across your
stomach to tuck your slack body into his, shaping a fitted cocoon against your
back and threading your legs together into a close, loving knot. A soft moan skids
out of his scratchy throat at the comforting warmth, the impression of your
figure coming to life and melting with his, a heaping forkful of fluffy, spellbound
pancakes and yearning maple syrup dripping from the corners of his lips.
Harry was hoping that the gravity of your violently shaken worlds would
make more sense through the process of his dreams, but everything still feels so
inconceivable that he’s certain he’s stepped into an alternate universe. For a
moment, he fears that you’ll recoil and change your mind when you’re met with
the rippling tide of daybreak, but then he remembers the effort that you went
through to prepare yourself for your date. Hair down, just for him. Trousers, a
hue of cotton candy pink, just for him. Those two salacious embroidered cherries
nestled right in between your sacred tits, just for him. The warm declarative
metal of his ruby ring bundled onto your finger, the way it felt swiveling down
his chest. Just for him.
A tenderly husky, instinctive line that nearly strikes him straight back to
unconsciousness for eternity, “mmm….. Harry?” And a soft sigh, a tickle of your
fingertips across his forearm that melts every weak organ and vein and nerve
ending that composes him, “missed your sunbeams.”
The pads of his fingers draw undulating circles across the span of your
ribcage, his heart aching and his breath casting hot air against the shell of your
ear, “missed me? Mmm…..” He brushes your hair aside and sucks on your neck,
his words hitching in his throat when you sleepily swivel your hips against his
throbbing center, “Christ— ’cause I was sleepin’? Shit, m… m... fuck.” His palm
spreads across your stomach to keep you pinned against him as he rocks forward
into your peachy ass, the soft contour only making him thicker, “you’re so sweet.
I missed you, too.” He props himself up onto his elbow and rolls you onto your
back, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip when he gazes at your sleepy face and
your breathing chest, his eyelids drooping in adoration, “hi, baby. Que pasta?”
You swear his eyes are so pretty that you must have imagined them. Two lush
meadows framed by long dark lashes, the thunderstorm of devotion compelling
them to flourish.
He doesn’t skip a beat before he’s slipping your lips together and sealing them
in a supple kiss to swallow your giggling reply to his purposely doltish question,
bursts of electricity shocking both of your stomachs when you bury your fingers
into his hair and roll him on top of you for another taste of his luring weight. He
kicks the twisted sheets apart before tossing them over your bodies and your
heads, wanting nothing more than your hush-hush love spell to soldier on
through the inevitable sunrise. His curls tickle when his kisses meander down
your neck and plunge into the dip of your collarbone, his tongue slinking out for a
kitten lick in the same moment that his palm squeezes your breast.
Your hips roll together, your palms smoothing down his back as you exhale a
pant into the humid space of your sheltered love nest, “it’s so early. Are you going
surfing?”
It hurts to think of him leaving you in this moment, that revered and romantic
instant just before the sun has peeked out over the apex of the Santa Monica
Mountains, but that can’t possibly be healthy. You know him well enough to
understand his routines and habits, and you haven’t been together long enough
to form a type of attachment where you would expect him to choose spending
time with you over his favorite meditative hobbies and necessary energy
releases. All of his big meals and even bigger thoughts have to burn off somehow.
Unless of course you found yourself willing to provide some action for him in the
interim.
“Fuckin’ kiddin’ me? When I could ride your sweet wave instead?” He
whispers against your lips, “wipe me out, babe.” Your satisfied giggle is drowned
by another kiss as Harry breathes in deeply through his nose to manage the
arousal kicking around in his guts. His inevitable laugh mixes with yours as your
teeth click together, his eyes crinkling at the edges to intensify his smile, “hang
ten, Cherrytits.”
He catches your playful swat before it can land, threading your fingers and
pressing them down into the sheets. He laces your other hand together and
slowly slides your arms above your head and into your pillows, his stomach
flipping and flipping at the ease in which you allow him to guide you. And when
you’re fully stretched out below him, your back arching and your nipples perked,
the ring that he gifted you pressing into his knuckles, his cock jumps and it forces
him to swallow a thick lump to keep himself from rutting forward into your
center.
Just for him.
Your core throbs at his action and how much being in this position reminds
you of practicing with him, except now the lines between professionalism and
sex are heavily blurred. Maybe this is what he’d been feeling all this time and
why he never wanted to keep his hands on you for a second longer than he had
to, with untamed and peculiar lust running through his veins. You tug on your
hands for freedom but it only causes him to tighten his grip and honestly, you
don’t mind. In fact, you rather like it and you surprise yourself when you relax
into his coercion. It feels so good to be subdued by someone you’re beginning to
blindly and wholly trust, “do you always wake this early?”
Harry shudders when your feet smooth down his bristly calves, “yep. Can’t
help it, it’s in my blood and my muscles.” He dips forward to deliver his
supplemental phrase in a low rattle like a rain stick flipped upside to lavish you
with worship, his thumbs polishing circles into your skin to cushion his
dominance, “kinda like you. My regimen.” He locks your lips together again, his
tongue poking out for a quick flick and then a slow, succulent caress coupled with
a slushy thrum, “lunch nap helps. You’ll zonk out with me today, mm?”
The fantasy of dozing with him in the shade on the beach, with the droning
roar of the ocean just beyond your toes is enough to make you wish you could
rub your legs together for alleviation if only his hips weren’t lodged between
them, “yes, without a doubt.” He turns your hands loose and trails down your
arms, your fingernails lazily meandering up his back with the newfound
independence, “did you dream?”
Kisses and licks and teeth dotting and wetting your neck and chest as he stalks
south, “yeah.”
Your breathing picks up when he ducks lower to dote on your stomach next,
“what about?”
“Mmm?” His tongue sinks into your belly button, your core a melted, gooey
glob of honeycomb when he punctuates his affection with a bunch of adjectives
that you suppose is meant to be his answer, “spikey, squishy, pink loveball puff.”
If sensuality were a tangible object, Harry imagines it as honey-coated,

foraged cherries dipped in a thick layer of taboo femininity. Provocative tits
hidden by lily white with decorative cherries in the heart, the sweet dip of a belly
button just a skip away, a scattered legacy of purple love bites etched by his own
teeth into the silkiest, petal-soft forbidden nooks of skin.
You laugh at his remark and decide it’s probably best not to question his
nonsense as he kisses further down your stomach, the heat of his breath washing
over your center before he careens down your legs and to your toes, finally
slipping off the edge of the bed to tread towards your humble record collection.
It seems as if there is music within ten feet of him, he can’t help but play it.
The sound of his nails lazily dragging across his chest and stomach make you
wish they were yours instead, his back muscles flexing in the shadows of dawn
and his skin appearing just as smooth as you know it feels. His tattoos carry the
embodiment of sin but you know they were born from a heartbeat that thumps
glitter, his fingers sinking into his hair to push his curls from his face as he
scrutinizes your musical selection.
“Your mouth is a heart.”
He peers over his shoulder at your cozy figure from his crouched position in
front of your crate of records, already missing the warmth of your body but
needing to fill the space with even another ounce of you before you’re both
thrown into the reality of the circus in just a couple hours’ time, “groovy. Tryin’
to make me croak?”
“Just trying to get you to come back.”
Harry holds a single finger up into the air as if to request your patience, “Nina
Simone, Peggy Lee….. Françoise Hardy, Jacqueline Taieb. Ria Bartok. What’s all
this? I didn’t know you were into this. This is gnarly as fuck. How come you never
told me? Where’d you find out about it?”
“The French records? You’ve never asked. I just found them in a record shop
back home and bought one because I thought the girls on the covers were pretty.
I ended up liking it a lot, so I went back and bought all of them. My parents
couldn’t translate it, so they couldn’t forbid it.”
A single eyebrow perks along his forehead in contemplation as the worn,

buttery spines of the record sleeves pass underneath his fingertips. It’s intriguing
that there’s always been a spark of disobedience inside of you, no matter how
benign and insignificant and he loves the thought of you discovering something
new and distinctive just for the hell of it. He supposes he’s just hacked into the
secret he promised himself, but now that he’s had one, he just wants a hundred
more. He imagines you lying on your bed in your underwear and writing in a
diary or whatever the fuck you did in your spare time before he tumbled into
your life, smooth French poppy jazz crackling through your speakers and filling
the room around you. The whole fantasy of you browsing albums and swaying
alone to cool, poised records in your bedroom is so fucking sexy and you have no
idea, “do you speak any French?”
“My accent is terrible, but I learned in school.”
Harry flips one of your records onto your turntable and expertly flicks a few
knobs to turn it on quietly, “yeah? Teach me some. Tell me a secret.”
Whether he realizes it or not, he’s providing you with a sanctuary to be

intimate when you’d normally shy away from it and as soon as you free your
teeth from their hold on your lip, you’re placidly muttering with pink-tinged
cheeks, “j’aimerais vraiment que tu reviennes au lit et que tu m’embrasses
maintenant.”
“Oh, fuckin’ et voilà ! Je parle aussi Français, ma cerise d’amour. Tes désirs sont
des ordres.”
You slap your palms over your face, your groan blooming into embarrassed
laughter at how easily he tricked you into sensual honesty, “Harry!”
The bed dips with the weight of his advancing body, his palms gliding up your
shins and thighs before the tips of his fingers plunge below the hem of your
bloomers, “silence, vient ici que jet e flatte la chatte.”
You groan into the sweaty skin of your sheltering hands, “oh my god— what
are you saying?” He pries your hands away from your face and sucks on your
bottom lip before sealing your lips in the kiss you had unwittingly demanded. His
grin is huge and obnoxious, his nose wrinkling in colossal humor at your
adorable distress when you mumble against his mouth, “I didn’t know you’d
understand me.”
“There were lots of French performers in my last circus. I’m worldly as fuck,
babe. Don’t act so surprised. Now, s’il te plait aime moi.” His mouth hovers over
yours, his breath candied and coy as he cocks his head to the side, “tes levres sont
comes des cerises et j’ai envie de sucré.”
“Je vais. Je fais.”
“Good girl.”
You close your eyes and imagine each stamp of his lips leaving behind a
distinct, bubble gum heart-shaped smudge, imperfectly perfect crackles and
lines, a hollow spot in the center of the pout-stain where the tip of his tongue had
snuck out to dampen your skin. Your core pulses and flutters when he finds the
spot where your ribcage intersects and nudges his nose against the embroidered
cherries on your bra, your breathing picking up just enough to alert him to your
body’s reception.
It’s quiet, subtle, discrete. So discrete that most men in their furor would miss
it. But not Harry, your physical cues have been living inside of him much longer
than he consciously remembers. The repressed memory of your body language
far precedes any spoken word and he envisions that they show themselves when
he is in a deep sleep; those little splices of dreams in between dreams that bear
no recognition in waking life, but simply glint before blackening into oblivion
once again. A forgotten caress down your leg, a wayward grip of your wrist, the
dizzy clinch of your hands, a lapsed brush of your hair. All before they’re stolen
away and whisked back into the universe by something much weightier. The last
gasp of breath from a dying fire, the final croak of the bravest bullfrog at dawn.
Sometimes things just move too quickly for us to appreciate.
Harry watches your head fall back when he unbuttons his silky shirt that
you’ve slept in. He sweeps the sides apart to reveal stretches and stretches of
bare skin, the pop of your ribcage when you suck in a gasp of air, before leaving
another kiss and dragging his tongue down to your belly button. The moan that
funnels through the pucker of your lips startles the both of you, Harry’s cock
pulsating in tandem with your pith as he pinches your hips, “mmm…..” His hum
rattles your bones and sends another shockwave through your tight, furtive
muscles and you want more but you don’t know of what exactly or how to ask,
especially with the sobriety of daylight threatening to penetrate your curtains,
“you like that, Cherry baby?”
You’re afraid to tell him how good it feels for some reason, as if that much
vulnerability would leave you susceptible to his will or force unprepared self-
reflection upon you. It’s impossible to explain really; that pesky fear of the
unknown and that impenetrable wall of self-protection that seems dangerous to
let anyone through. Whether it’s because you’re worried about getting hurt or
concerned about what you would both find in the very center of your guts or
consumed with trepidation for your own uninhibited rawness, it all comes down
to fear. That filthy liar. When had her voice gotten so loud? It seemed to have
happened when you weren’t looking and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe it’s
time to peel your eyes to new colors and perk your ears to higher-pitched
sounds.
Harry displays every single one of his innermost burdens that he owns on an
ornately carved tray, balancing it gracefully on the top of his head for the world
to see and asking everyone to take a glimpse. All of those eyes seem to only aid in
shrinking his weaknesses, as if everyone watching had laser beams to zap the
power from his transparency and make him stronger by simply saying, “us too.
And thank you.”
He’s wildly unapologetic for both his shortcomings and his strengths and that
type of self-acceptance is a quality that most of us can only dream of.
You know that he honors and respects your boundaries, kind of, at least
enough to have waited until now to rip the bandage off of your sex life that began
with a single stolen kiss over creamy milkshakes. You were correct to assume
that once you started kissing you would never stop, and now you’re curious as to
how being beside him in a professional setting for ten hours a day will play out,
with the looming secret of your affair hanging over both of your heads and
violently wringing your hearts. Perhaps instead of smoke breaks you’ll find
yourselves in dark corners and private dance studios and dressing rooms,
pilfered kisses and slinking fingers, imploring whispers and rascally secrets. And
honestly, you can’t think of anything more exciting.
“Yes—”
His teeth catch the cup of your bra and start to slowly peel the fabric away for
a glimpse of what you’ve been diligently hiding from him, mumbling a demure
sentiment of “and what’s under here, mm?” Your hand darts up to halt his
exploration, a groan sprouting through clenched teeth and a handsome smile,
“c’mon. Lemme get a load of your tits. Just one?” He points to your left breast
before circling his mouth with his fingertips, “this one? Please? She’s practically
beggin’ me. I’ll be so nice to her.”
Kind of.
“I think….. we’re going to be late if we don’t—”
“I think that’s an excuse. Say what you mean, yeah? Just see what it feels like to
be raw. I’ll hear you.”
You try to peel your eyes away from his fierce stare, his fingertips tracing the
strap of your bra, his tongue leeching out to wet his lips. You’ve never
experienced this level of intimacy before and although it feels inexplicably
natural with Harry regardless of how much he intimidates you, you still wish that
you had just the tiniest sliver of recklessness to match him, “okay….. it feels like
you’re prying me open. And I want you to, it’s just—”
“Fast?”
“Um….. powerful?”
“I feel that too, babe. My heart is beatin’ so fuckin’ fast. Kiss me. I’ll be like one
of your mysterious French records. You won’t be able to translate every single
word, but it doesn’t matter because once you open it and play with it and see
how much you like it, you’ll want all of ’em.”
Either way you’re gonna grow a little bit.
Your fingers coil around the chain dangling from his neck to tug him into a
close hover, your lips slotting with his in appreciation of his unrelenting faith and
tenacity to help you flourish. Both for your sake and for his, “smooth.”
Harry chuckles against your lips, “cheers.” He kisses you once more before
muttering, “you’ll show me when you’re ready.” He figures that since you’re
feeling too vulnerable to bear yourself, it might be easier and less sinister for you
to simply see unfolding lust on another person. Validating almost. Yes, intimacy
can be scary and yes, it can be the best fucking thing in the entire world and he
only wants you to feel good every second of every day.
The word lascivious comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative
aspect of his personality. He wasn’t born with a big dick, perfect hands and a
brain pumping geysers of testosterone to farm corn.
His middle and ring fingers tap against your bottom lip, peeling it back a bit to
glide them onto your tongue and into your mouth. Lightning rushes to his
stomach when you intuitively obey without a hiccup, sucking on his knuckles and
then freeing his hand to allow him to drag his wet fingers down your neck. The
rhythm of his blood surging to his cock matches your dulcet panting, the wet trail
on your chest pulling a shiver up your spine, “Harry….. we should—”
“Don’t give a fuck, babe.” He ducks to catch a hunk of your skin between his
teeth, nibbling gently on your throat before swirling his tongue there. He
breathes out a request through fumes of discomfort sighed from his tailpipe,
“touch me?”
“…..where?”
He weaves your fingers together and presses them against his wildly beating
heart, allowing you to feel the flapping wings of love as his gaze sears into yours.
He guides your joined hands on a path down his heated chest and stomach,
slowing his trajectory when your fingertips brush over his happy trail and skid
against the waistband of his briefs. You can feel the pressure of his roused length
straining against the fabric, the humidity and restlessness vibrating with
abandonment just an inch away, “here. ’Mm hurtin’. Just a touch.”
The mingling of shaky breaths through the tense pause feels like enough
friction to set the bed on fire.
You want him. You want to show him that you want him and this feels a lot
less menacing than exposing yourself. And with a sharp intake of air and a
complete cessation of your heartbeat, you decide in a split second to lower your
hand and cup his thickness over the fabric of his briefs, your fingers wrapping
around him to feel the suction of how hard and agitated he is. Once you’ve got
your hands on him, your curiosity blooms and takes charge, your fingertips
slinking into the elastic of his underwear for apprehensive further discovery
laced with sheer bravery.
Just for him.
Harry cries out and hunches over, his forehead dropping to your collarbone
and his hips rolling forward into your palm, a moan piercing the sex-potent air,
“Cherr— Jesus Christ—”
The effect you have on him causes your core to clench and drip into your
panties and when your thumb swipes over his slippery, silky tip, you can feel a
single spot of moisture wicking into his briefs as well, “Harry…..”
“Fuck. Stop. You gotta stop or this is gonna get real fuckin’ heavy.”
You pull your hand away as if his underwear were filled with burning coals,
“was that okay—”
Harry grips your throat and your jaw with one large hand, growling a single
response of “fuck yes” before sponging a fat kiss to your mouth and then pulling
back to his haunches. His hair is a savage, frenzied mess, his lips as dark as blood
and his pupils blown and you swear you can see a ghostly sheen of sweat begging
to burst through his pores. He drags his blunt nails down your stomach before
clinging to the waist of your bloomers as if he were trying to keep his hands in
check, “I— I’ll be right back.”
You imagine that you look just the same and he does, and your only accessible
reaction is simply a nod of your head.
Harry untangles himself from your sheets, stumbling from your bed and
through the darkness of the hallway to lock himself in your unlit, pink bathroom.
The imprinted memory of your hand innocently exploring him is still fresh in his
mind when he dips his palm into his briefs and wraps his fingers around his
throbbing length, his back meeting the door for balance. He can’t believe how
fucking easy it was for you to unravel him to that degree, as if you were some
goddamn sex sorceress who has cast a spell on every living cell in his body,
turning each life-bearing ring into a palpitating heart with a single caress.
He tries to keep his panting to a suffocating minimum as he strokes in frantic

upward sweeps, his body hunching forward and the muscles in his shoulders
flexing as he digs his fingers into the porcelain sink. He imagines your mouth
brushing over his, the breeze of his nose over your breast, the heat of your center
when your hips lock together. The way you’re slowly unfolding yourself for him;
an inch of skin here, a private secret there. Your lips suctioning around his
fingers and your tongue swirling across his knuckles.
Just for him.
The phantom echo of your sweet, fruity resonance within his hazy skull. Your
sweet, innocently aroused breaths.
Harry.
He hisses a curse, a whisper of your name in retort and spits into the palm of
his hand. He flips his wrist to stroke his tip, his thumb gathering a dollop of
precome to spread it down his thickness. His tongue mentally plays a game of
connect-the-dots to each one of the love bites he’d left on your body like a field of
hidden Easter eggs, his teeth gnawing on his bottom lip so roughly that it loses its
color. His hips move in tandem with his stride, his stomach tossing and
everything tingling, his tummy quivering as his muscles tense and seek
deliverance.
So many hectic, flashing, filthy fucking images like a projector spinning off of
its reel: his lips puckering around your nipple, two of his fingers disappearing
into your soaking wet cunt, you straddling his lap and bouncing on his dick,
moans and cries and whimpers and sobs, ten fingernails scratching red lines
down his back.
Harry.
But all it takes to send him careening over the edge is a lone fantasy of his
tongue compressing against your bundle of nerves through the heat of your
virginal panties, your back arching to press your folds against his mouth, a single
muffled sob absorbed into his rigid bicep when streaks of sizzling white pass
below his eyelids.
His lips and teeth form your name once again, swaddling three silent syllables
and three gratifying, thrumming consonants, his passion leaving his body with
buckling knees and his eyes pinched shut to feel each residual, succulent
vibration that racks his spine.
As his breathing slows and his skeleton reforms, he finds himself wishing
more than anything that he could have shared that with you, but he knows it’s
too soon without the necessity of asking. When the time comes and you’re ready,
the intimacy is going to be a thousand times more intense, his hips rocking into
your fist as you turn his guts inside out and unleash a technicolor beast that he’s
not sure if he’s even met before.
But the last thing he expects to find when he pries his eyelids open now is the
sobering sight of his release dripping from the beak of the swan faucet that
hovers into your pink sink.
“Holy….. shit.” Harry’s sharp cackle bounces off each of the four walls of the
small, tiled room when he discovers the humor in his lingering, melodramatic
hysteria, “fuckin’ winner.”
It’s not exactly his most prideful moment as he cleans your sink with a wad of
toilet paper before washing his hands, using the moisture from his fingers to
smooth his hair away from his forehead to gather some semblance of dignity. He
returns to you with ruddy cheeks and glistening skin, his eyes falling on your
body and the sight of your bare legs twisted among your sheets has his dick
fattening up in his briefs again.
“What was so funny?”
“Danglin’ swan spunk.”
You roll onto your stomach and squash your face into one of your pillows to
watch him slowly approach, but you have absolutely no idea how adorable you
look, “what?”
Harry shakes his head to avoid further explanation and swipes his pack of
Crush cigarettes from your vanity, his weight sinking the mattress beside you as
the match breathes coral clouds of smoke to life in his palms. Dawn has filled
your bedroom with greyscale tones, making it appear as if the only color in the
bedroom were the cotton candy wisps that curl around your lover’s perfect
profile. You’re still reeling from the revolutionary nerve that you’d mustered to
wander into his briefs that way and you’re wondering if it was as emotional for
him as it was for you, considering his history with women, but you’re too
nervous to ask. Instead you interrupt his atypical tranquility by smoothing your
hand down his thigh to gather his attention, both of your eyes crinkling at the
corners when your gazes fall on one another.
His hand sneaks under your shirt and glides up your back, “It’s a fuckin’
miracle I didn’t just keel over to my death. Mm’completely tattered. Do you have
any idea how sexy you are?” He tuts when you shake your head, flicking his chin
up into the air in a beckoning nod. You toe the line and straddle his lap, realizing
all at once that you want to be near him and constantly touching him just as
much as he’s been dreaming of for quite some time now, “mmm….. Cherry on
top.” His palm hugs your curve then squeezes your ass tightly, a pink plume of
smoke exhaled toward the ceiling before he sucks on your lip with the taste of
cotton candy leeching from his tongue.
The urgency from his kiss is absent, replaced by burning, languid euphoria,
“let’s do that again, Honeyslick.” He grips your hand and half-heartedly attempts
to navigate you back to his center, chuckling when you tug it away and tap his
shoulder in a gentle scold, “I think you dipped your hands in love potion or
somethin’.”
Your gentle defense is slowly losing efficacy the more you repeat it. You know
it and he knows it, “you’re going to make us late—”
“Yeah, you keep sayin’ that, but I do not give a single flyin’ fuck.”
You pluck the cigarette from his fingers and swallow a steaming heap of
melted sugar. His heavenly, swirling cloud seeps to the back of your throat,
leaving you with the burning wonder of his mysterious intoxication, “wouldn’t it
be suspicious if we both showed up late?”
Harry groans at the ridiculously sexual sight of you smoking and rests his
forehead on your collarbone, “but, Cherry—”
“Harry.”
Slow, sensual kisses traipse up your throat, mixed with irresistible begging,
“but I didn’t get enough quality time with you. Please. Everybody needs a bit of
oblivion, yeah?” He’s grateful he’s clued you in about the situation at the circus,
because now at least someone with brains is making sure his behavior is in
check. But that doesn’t stop him from pushing boundaries, something that he’s
always been pretty gifted at no matter how formidable it is for the other person
involved, “I think I’m corruptin’ you.”
“I think I don’t mind.”

“Stop. I’m gonna come in my pants.” The look you give him is a lot like the one
he’s received from his mother and several teachers throughout his adolescence,
except it’s much cuter on your face, “I don’t wanna go to work. I won’t be able to
kiss you whenever I want and it’s gonna be fuckin’ torture. How am I supposed to
look at you and pretend like this never happened?”
“Supernatural willpower.”
“I’d like to see you try an’ make me leave this bed.” His eyebrows shoot up
along his forehead when your stomach squeaks with an angry signal of hunger,
“oh no. You need some grindage, babe. Can you cook?”
“Mildly. Can you?”
“Mildly. How about some of your famous eggs and toast?”
It dawns on you that whenever the two of you sleep together that he won’t
need to ask you what you’ve eaten for breakfast. For some reason, that
realization drops like a heavy, weighted blanket and you already miss that
depleted aspect of your relationship. You suppose that is just part of grappling
with change even if the change is justified and joyful, “this means that you won’t
have to ask me what I’ve had for breakfast anymore, doesn’t it?”
Harry pouts out his bottom lip at your endearing observation, “sweet
Cherry…..”
You stroke his lip before sealing it in a kiss, “I’ll miss it.”
“Relationships change, Honey bee. Which would you rather have, a breakfast
inquiry or breakfast in bed with your sex hunk?”
Your giggle rings through his ears and you don’t think you could ever possibly
tire of how his explanations and rationale always strike with profound truth, “the
sex hunk one.”
“Bonne fille.”
There’s a huge palm tree about two or three blocks away from the theatre, one
in which Harry has lovingly dubbed “Banana Split” since you both agreed that
you would need a location to separate from in order to stagger your arrivals to
work and remain inconspicuous with your affair. He pinned you up against the
scratchy bark, endlessly griping about the ghostly pains in his chest as he
attempted to unbutton your little sleeveless blouse. He lifted your hand into the
air and sponged a kiss to your palm, nudging the band of his ring wrapped
around your finger and murmuring a cautionary sentiment of, “might wanna hide
this, yeah?”
The concept of physically removing something from your body didn’t sit well
with you, as if it were some type of metaphor for the rocky start to your romance.
On again, off again; Harry’s possessive hunk of precious stone the deciding factor
to whether or not this relationship was authentic. But you knew deep down that
you were calling the shots as much as he was. You knew deep down that he didn’t
need to symbolize the depth of his feelings for you. You knew deep down that
you may as well swallow the ring whole and allow it to strangle your heart in a
whittled clasp. Hiding your relationship at work has never been an option and
you recognized that whether or not Harry needed to vocalize it, but you suppose
the secrecy perfectly falls in line with the feelings you and Harry have always had
for each other. Obscure, subliminal, mysterious. Until now, at least.
You wish you were back in your bed or at least pinned against Banana Split
right now, instead of striding angrily towards Tex and his impolite group of
friends.
It’s just minutes before you’re meant to wrap up for the day and practice felt
more successful than ever. It’s almost as if the sexual tension between you and
Harry has heightened both of your six senses, crossing thresholds of appropriate
hand placement and grips, your bodies coiling around one another in utmost
comfort as if you were two swans on a placid lake threading your necks to bear
your secret love for all to see. To most, your rehearsal seems nothing more than
flawless performance. But you and Harry know that if no one were watching
you’d be behaving very similarly, except stripped down to your underwear with
wicked hands and naughty grins, his teeth nipping at the tender skin of your
stomach. His fingertips curving an arch into your back in exactly the same
manner, your legs lacing with his in exactly the same manner. Whether a dance in
the air or a dance in the sheets, your pantomime is nothing short of
showstopping.
Aside from your cuddled-up nap on the beach, Harry stole you away from the
whirlwind of practice exactly three times. Once behind a clothing rack for a
simple kiss, the second time was in a dark janitor’s closet with a single lightbulb
swaying overhead, his hands fumbling with your bodysuit for a taste of forbidden
skin. By the time the third rendezvous rolled around, it had escalated behind the
standing screen in your dressing room, Harry falling to his knees to drag your
skin-tight warm ups to your shins, his mouth attaching to the delicate skin of
your inner thigh for a rough suck that resulted in a deep, purple bruise to add to
your collection. He rose to his feet just a moment later with eyes as black as coal,
his fingers dipping into his sweatpants when he shamelessly broadcasted, “call
the morgue. We’ve got a stiff one, Cherry pie.”
As soon as Harry declared that he was running off for a shower, you took it
upon yourself to confront Tex about his sneaky set-up and whether he had
planned on admitting his indiscretion regarding Riff to his best friend. He
promised you that he would tell Harry but you haven’t heard a peep, and it feels a
lot like dishonor to continue traipsing through your freshly established
relationship with such a heavy lie hanging over your head.
Before you even have a chance to open your mouth, Tex is grinning at you
with a presumptuous air around him, his greeting exhaled behind a brassy cloud
of green smoke, “what’s poppin’, Clyde?”
“Don’t call me that. I need to talk to you for a minute.”
“Whatever you need to say to me you can say it right here.”
It feels as though all of his friend’s eyes fall on you and you hate that he’s put
you on the spot this way, but if he can do it then you suppose you can as well,
“fine. Have you told Harry about your conspiracy with Riff—”
Tex barks at you to keep your mouth shut before glancing over both of his
shoulders, his fingers gripping around your bicep to drag you away from any
snooping ears, “Jesus, you have such a big mouth.”
“You literally told me to—”
“No, I haven’t told him yet. But I will, alright? When the time is right.”
Tex knows that when this information leaks, it’ll likely be the demise of their
friendship. Harry is loyal to his convictions of both hate and love and Tex should
have known better than to directly involve you with something so deceitful,
considering your staunch prude values and that irritating characteristic of never
being able to let anything go. But he felt like he was completely wrung out and
brought to his wit’s end with Harry’s incessant digressive speech; the way he
worships you and fawns over every word you say, the way he practically trips
over his own two feet to chase you from a room. Harry was a much better friend
before the shackling anchor of his new ball-and-chain, back when he would
spend all of his time and share all of his distinctive thoughts with the boys. Back
when he was the ringleader of their crew with his sunbeams streaking across
their insensitive, clingy vines to cut a path of strategy and logic whenever it was
lacking. Which was often.
You can’t let Tex know exactly why this information is so pertinent to you, so
instead you keep your voice down and point out the obvious in the hope that it
resonates with him, “Harry deserves to know. It directly effects your friendship
and our working partnership. You know that the truth always has a way of
leaking out and I would hate for it to be exposed crudely and inappropriately.
What if it was revealed right before a performance and he had to go do his job
with all of that anger inside of him? You’re putting our jobs, his safety and my
safety at risk. This is your doing and you have to fix it.” You cross your arms over
your chest in a gesture of guardianship as you reclaim your threat from your
earlier conversation, “you tell him or I tell him. I’m giving you until next
weekend, three days after we return to the stage. You don’t get to play god.
You’re not smart enough.”
If you weren’t a woman, Tex would have slapped you right across the mouth
by now.
Harry can feel the tension from all the way across the room, his wet locks
sticking to his forehead and the nape of his neck as he stampedes towards you
like a white knight cloaked in pink smoke. He doesn’t know what the fuck is
going on, but he can tell by the way you’re gesturing with a red lollipop in hand
and nervously rambling that Tex is making you uncomfortable. He doesn’t like
that Tex is making you feel this way, but he also doesn’t understand what you
could be discussing that makes you so anxious.
He locks eyes with Tex first, the angry frown that severs his normally beautiful
features forcing Tex to shush you without a second thought. Harry catches it
because he catches everything and when he’s standing directly beside you and
noticing that you need to be consoled, it burns a hole in his heart that he’s not
able to touch you in this moment, “what’s the buzz?”
You suck your words back inside of your throat along with your lollipop, your
gaze falling to your feet as you allow Tex to handle this awkward situation. As far
as you’re concerned, it’s all his doing anyway.
Tex decides that the best way to navigate the confrontation is to pretend that
it isn’t happening. Instead he unleashes an invitation that he knows will jam a
splinter between you and Harry, “hey man. Wanna head to Hound Dogs and pick
up some burners? I’ll buy you some Pearls. Been awhile.”
Your stomach vacuums shut with unprecedented queasiness.
Harry knows two things for certain: he knows that he wants to Banana Split
right this very instant, but he also knows that you asked him to proceed as usual
with his friendship so that Tex wouldn’t suspect any further developments in
your relationship. So, he does what most men do in tricky circumstances and
defaults to idiocy, “sure. Rad.”
There’s either way too much gravity in this room or not nearly enough.
You somehow manage to mumble a parting phrase to both of them before

dashing off to your dressing room, your hand cupping your mouth to hold back
either frustrated tears or churning vomit, Nettie’s warnings about stepping
lightly through this liaison slowly filling your mind like a heralding fog.
Don’t you have amnesia too.
Could it be that he’s finally gotten what he’s wanted and quickly lost interest?
Like a cat that stalks a toy mouse for hours or even days, his fascination
cheapened once he’d gotten his teeth and his claws thoroughly sunken into you?
Luckily Harry doesn’t give you very much time to stew in the mess of your
own introspection, because in less than a full minute he’s storming into the room
and throwing the lock closed on the knob behind him, “Cherry—” His face and his
heart twist in anguish when he finds you with your hand pressed to your
stomach as if to quell the ache there, “baby, I was just—”
It’s almost as if the past handful of weeks, Chubby’s, Temptations, dozens of
sunflowers, this morning and the following hours of practice didn’t even happen
and you absolutely despise how easily everything has slipped away from you,
“this is going to be harder than I thought.”
Harry marches across the room and cups your neck before tugging on your
hands to keep your regard glued to him, “say what? Cherry! I’m savin’ face. This
is what you wanted. There’s no fucking way I’d pick up a burner. You have to
believe me—”
“You’re going to hang out all night and not mention once that we’re together?
Even if he asks? You’re going to turn away women with his prying eyes on you
without a reason? It doesn’t seem possible.”
“It’s fuckin’ possible because there’s no way in hell I’m gonna mess this up.”
Harry feels absolutely sick with distress, but a single requited kiss helps soften
the boiling of his insides, “just an hour or two to keep him off my back and then
I’ll swing by your place, yeah? Promise. You know I’d never hurt you like that,
right?” His eyes dart back and forth across your face as he attempts to read the
thoughts swirling in your brain, “…..right?”
It seems that there’s more mistrust between you than you had originally
realized. You hate it and you want it to end, you don’t want to keep punishing
him for his history with women, his history with callousness. He’s different now
and he shouldn’t have to keep proving himself to assuage the lingering suffering
that only survives in your own memory.
Harry lowers his voice to a whisper when you don’t respond, but the
seriousness of his passion is still curled around each word, “fuck! It’s been one
day. One. Fuckin’ less than one. You need to give this shit more time before you
decide it’s too hard. You’re not a pansy, Cherry. And I’m not a lightweight. We’re
doin’ this shit right, so just mellow out. You’re trippin’ out for no reason—”
“There’s a major reason—”

“Get real. Don’t ruin this before it’s even started. It’s too good. It feels way too
fuckin’ good and you know it. You knew exactly what it meant with us gettin’
involved, so don’t just blank out every killer thing that’s happened between us
whenever somethin’ uncomfortable happens. ’Cause it’s gonna keep happening.”
He gestures between your chests, “we’re gravy, so just be cool and don’t allow
shit to get wedged between us. I’m not gonna flap my gums and I’m not gonna
even look at another woman. You have to trust me. You have to. Or we’re fucked.”
You shake your head and drop your face into your palms, his truth seeping
through your veins to patch up each little hole of uncertainty. You’re
disappointed in how effortlessly you backslid and the power in which one
negative interaction can negate a hundred positive ones, “I’m sorry. I feel so
stupid. You’re right. I’ll try harder.”
Harry peels your hands away from your face to peer into your discouraged
eyes, “you feel remorseful.”
In more ways than one, “I do.”
“Damn it. Don’t. It’s gonna eat you alive. Swallow that shit and focus on you,
me, the trapeze bar, your bed, fuckin’ lollipops. All the shit you love. Everything
else can get bent.”
You cup his cheeks and kiss his lips, his fingers threading through your hair to
keep you close when he presses your foreheads together and taps the end of his
nose against yours, “we make each other feel powerful, remember? You said it
yourself this morning.”
“I know. I won’t forget.”

He kisses you again and sucks your tongue into his mouth, massaging in
passionate sweeps before drawing back with a soft gasp, “I’ll be at your place by
ten. I fuckin’ swear on my granny’s grave. If I’m not, feel free to hunt me down
and castrate me. You’ve got me the balls anyway. How could you fuckin’ forget
that? Don’t forget me.”
The imprint that Harry is leaving on you will last a lifetime. That much you’re
completely certain about, “I’ll make sure my knives are sharpened.”
Thank you bambismiths for the exquisite French translations and

FatBottomedGirls for the pink smoke! Team work makes the dream work. I’m
gonna go back and answer some of your comments from the last couple chapters.
I’m sorry I’ve dropped the ball on that. Life is tough, kids. I hope you know that I
read every single one, though. I hope things are going well for all of you. Kisses.
Missed you. Love you. See you soon! Xx B
“Shh.”
Hiccup.
“Fuckin’—”
“I’m sorry,” the tiniest, organic snort ripples through your nose, “I haven’t had
champagne in like….. a year. Or more.” Harry hushes you again and you think you
lower your voice this time, but you actually end up whispering just as loudly,
“Harry! It tickles my insides—”
Harry cups his hand over your mouth, the leaves from the bushes that you’re
hiding in clinging to his curls and the crescent moon glimmering in the bend of
his iris like a shiny balloon, “hey, do me a favor, Honeybunny?”
Your voice is muffled against his palm, “hmm?”
He peels his hand away to speak against your lips, his adorably frisky tendril
of hair teasing your forehead, “you’re so fuckin’ far out, but remind me not to give
you bubbles before covert gigs in the future.”
Your spongy kiss is punctuated with one, delightful word of agreement that
tugs on his tummy, “Roger.”
It was Harry’s idea to celebrate the closure of your first full week of successful
and grueling practice by guzzling expensive champagne straight from the bottle,
then heading up into the Santa Monica Mountains to find a pool to swim in. Harry
doesn’t own any champagne glasses, but you were both feeling so accomplished
on a radiantly hot and sunny Friday afternoon that you didn’t even bother to
return home after work for proper glassware.
It had become your daily routine for Harry to run off from the theatre in a
hurry to return to your secret, cozy life by leaning against Banana Split to await
your arrival. You’d made a mutual decision to time your exits each day in order
to remain undercover, with Harry following his historical, pre-surfing-accident
pattern of jetting out as soon as he possibly could. About twenty minutes later,
you would come jogging around the tree after he’d burned through two or three
cigarettes, your grins enormous and delectable as he cupped the back of your
neck and pulled you close for the most relieving, stomach-flipping kiss of the
entire day. After all the tension from practice had heaped on top of itself for
hours; the flirtatious touches and pinches, the silly teasing and funny faces, the
forbidden, smoldering stares from across the room that curled your toes. That
was what you both looked forward to each and every day. That first permissible
kiss behind Banana Split, which you knew would likely slowly snowball for the
rest of the evening until you’d both fallen asleep, cuddled up in your soft sheets.
Although you still have your clandestine beach lunch break each day,
rendezvousing at Banana Split was exceptionally more satisfying than having the
dread of returning to work looming on the horizon. Plus, Harry was usually
asleep in about five minutes flat, after his food had been digested and he
mumbled several lines of nonsense into your neck or the mercy of your stomach.
He had great terminology for this evening’s plan, and in your sober brain it
suspiciously sounded a lot like breaking and entering into someone’s multi-
million-dollar Malibu mansion for a stolen dip. But in your slightly intoxicated
mind, it sounds more like borrowing someone’s pool who doesn’t need it as
badly as you do. Harry is really good at decisive interpretations, but one thing
you do remember him saying is “loaded folks are never home, Honeycomb.
You’re hot. Let’s get you wet.”
You trust me, remember?

You’ve never had this much champagne in one night before and you swear the
bubbles are popping inside of your stomach and making it impossible to stop
giggling or something. Harry is being exceedingly patient with you as usual, even
though he doesn’t see it that way. He doesn’t view you as a tenderfoot or thorny
obligation. In fact, he hardly seems bothered by anything you do; your daily
gunfire of questions, your naiveté, your reluctance to be forthcoming with
emotions. You’re aware of his tolerance and composure anyhow and you
appreciate it beyond all rational measure; the way he doesn’t force you into
anything of sexual nature even though he’s literally and metaphorically bursting
at the seams for a taste. The way he defaults to tender kisses when you’re
anxious or upset. The way he wields determination and natural humor to cushion
almost any tense occasion. The way he supports your maddeningly
perfectionistic drive for dancing and trapeze. The way his continual,
nonjudgmental insights and empathy enhance resiliency and promote
mindfulness in everyone who comes in contact with him.
The way his lips blow heart-shaped bubbles of vulgar profanity just before
they burst with sappy passion.
Sometimes you have the urge to pinch yourself to make sure you didn’t
completely dream him up.
Plus, he’s a really, really good snuggler. Your closest comparison is how it
would feel to sleep among head-spinning wisps of cotton candy, little flecks and
droplets of rain sprinkling against your face as a golden streak of sunshine casts
upon your figure to illustrate each blood vessel and nerve ending. A rainbow
sparking in a puffy cloud in the corner of your vision, shooting from one eyelid to
the next before settling into a cloud on the other side. There can’t possibly be
anything more compassionate than the way your bodies melt into one another;
his arm draped across your stomach so tightly that his fingers curl around your
ribcage, his kneecaps locking into the backs of your thighs, his satiny-soft lips
tracing a ribbon up your spine.
Better yet, he never makes you guess what he’s thinking. And your goal is to
be able to provide the same for him.
It had been established that Harry intended to be a steady fixture in your bed
ever since your very first sleepover and he’s only become a better cuddler with
practice and shared contentment. You haven’t spent very much time apart since
the two of you had made your relationship official, aside from your shopping or
milkshake trips with Nettie and his early surfing or the couple jaunts to Hound
Dogs in order for Harry to maintain appearances. He’s careful to come back to
you by ten o’clock with a couple minutes to spare, a bit shiny and sleepy and doe-
eyed from one-too-many Pearls, wandering hands and drowsy slurs before he
falls asleep curled around you like a tuckered-out pet tiger.
After your little fight in the dressing room at work when he’d mindlessly
agreed to spend time with Tex, he jogged up the steps of your duplex afterward
and pounded on your apartment door, his fingers winding into your hair as soon
as you flung it open to greet him. He mumbled little sentiments into your mouth
of “fuck, my baby” and “tell me you missed me” before inhaling a sharp suction of
air through his nose in devout relief, his mouth pressing to yours again, longer
and sappier the second time. He pulled back with a quiet hiss and a low
articulation of “god help me”, his watery eyes darting across your face when he
inquired, “you like to spoon, Honeysuckle?” And when you responded with
positivity, he couldn’t help but hit you with a dirty pun, “mm’me too. But I prefer
to fork.”
He promised you that he had been on his best behavior that first night and you
had made the conscious decision not to pry or think too deeply about it. Mostly
because it was obvious how badly the knife-wound to his heart ached when you
revealed your lack in trust by the way the gloomy solar eclipse darkened his
expression. He had been trying to prove you and his entire problematic history
wrong and as far as you could tell, this whole experience was new and different
for him too, so you weren’t about to enter it with both ammunition and a shield
of protective armor. You were through with being the reason for his fire
extinguishing, so instead you threaded your hands together and took him to bed,
his drowsy folly of questions paving way for muffled snores in your neck when
you successfully put him to sleep by scratching your nails up and down his back.
He was modifying his questionable behavior and risky habits just for you.
Making amends with his salty former self just for you. Creating space and time
for you to completely dwell inside of his heart and muscles and subconscious.
Just for you.
You don’t know this but Tex was absolutely relentless in his approach to get
his best friend back. He fed Harry Pearls and Murky Lagoon shots and unleashed
a bevy of burners in his direction, watching with skeptical curiosity as Harry
would gracefully ricochet each one and escape to the bathroom when he thought
no one was looking. Tex could just sense the secrecy no matter how hard Harry
deflected his questions, until Harry finally snapped and hit him with a very
prudent threat of keeping his mouth shut or he’d knock his fucking lights out. If
Rusty so much as breathed a word of savviness to the situation, Harry was
prepared to lunge at Tex’s neck whether or not he was the reason behind the
spillage. Lucky for Harry, that exact ultimatum was what Tex needed to hear in
order to stay quiet, regardless of how much or how little he knew of your
relationship. His best friend was much too important to him to lose in such a
careless manner. But that didn’t mean he’d totally give up on curating alternate
methods of taking first place again.
Finally, Harry had to fake a stomachache in order to escape the endless

barrage, his feet taking off into a sprint as he threw his board down and skated to
your duplex in order to return to you on time. He’d worked his fucking ass off
picking sunflowers from some poor sap’s garden for weeks in order to prove
himself and establish a romance with you and he would never stop kicking
himself if he ruined it with something as stupid as time wasted at Hound Dogs.
He may be a lunatic in love, but he’s not a fucking idiot with luck.
Once Harry has thoroughly surveyed the massive, sprawling Malibu property
for a second time and established that no one is home, he perches his cigarette
between his lips to cradle your foot in his hands and hike you over the tall, stone
stucco wall. You surprise yourself when you land on your feet on the other side
like a skilled cat burglar, the breathtaking backyard opening up to display a large
in-ground swimming pool so unruffled it resembles a solid pane of glass. Lavish
outdoor furniture is sprinkled around the sizable stone deck complete with large,
fringed umbrellas and a tidy row of palm trees overlooking a steep cliff that
drops off into the rumbling Pacific Ocean. Above, the night sky is radiantly clear
with a plethora of electric blue stars, a slim sea breeze rushing by to blow your
hair from your face and raise a trail of goosebumps down your arms.
Harry drops down beside you and brushes his palms off on his blush trousers,
his eyes widening in pleased amazement at the view laid out before him as a low,
staggering whistle scoots past his teeth, “bitchin’.” He pulls in a final drag of his
cigarette, exhaling the smoke from his mouth and sucking thick clouds of pink up
his nose before tossing the butt aside. In opposition to how you would have
viewed this exact action before, the recklessness of disposing his smoke on
someone else’s affluent property is mouthwatering and reeking of hypnotic
attraction.
His arms circle your waist to pull you against him, his chin resting on the top
of your head for a hum that vibrates your back before he spins you in his grasp.
He cups your jaw, brushing his left thumb and then his right over your bottom lip
like a two-step tango, as if he were honoring your skin and setting the scene for
his mouth to settle. His mouth hovers over yours as one hand lowers to grip your
throat with a familiar, notable pressure that you’re beginning to crave, “don’t I
get some kudos? Kiss, please.”
You kiss the pad of his thumb first before sealing your lips together, your
fingers itching to peel the shirt from his back when your tongues mingle and
mesh like perfect strokes from heavily-saturated paint brushes tasting of
effervescent honeysuckle and cotton candy, “mind-blowing work. I dig.” Your
synchronized smiles bloom and fade with a swell and subsequent wash of lust,
“more?”
His beautiful steaming cherry pie, crumbling crust with little sticky dribbles of
exposed, thick, ambrosial filling, swallowing heavily against his palm and rushing
blood to his center, “mmm….. good girl for me?”
It hasn’t taken very long for the two of you to establish a comfortable quid pro
quo dynamic, as if you had known your roles all along and all it took was a little
romance to simply gravitate into them without a spoken formal word, “always
for you, Sunbeam.”
Harry sucks in a hiss of air at your effortless yielding and the precious
nickname that’s been rolling off your tongue as of late, his lips molding with
yours for another kiss before he slowly draws away. He swipes the open bottle of
champagne from its resting spot on the wall, bringing it to his lips for a swig and
then wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist before passing it to you, “you
got a tight head?”
“What?”
Harry already knows the answer, but he would do anything to get you to share
your profoundly guarded perceptions at all times, “you buzzed, Cherry? What’ll it
take to get you naked? Let’s hear some lingo.”
You turn the champagne bottle upside down for another sip before setting it
down, your fingers digging into the hem of his wifebeater to pull it up and over
his head, “maybe. I dunno. You make me feel….. naughty.” One of your new
favorite past-times is spreading your palm across his bare stomach, then
smoothing your hand up to his chest to feel the rush of blood bursting through
his fluttering heartbeat. It’s an action that you’ve always held intrigue for, but
never felt right mentally exploring with the way he held you so staunchly at
arm’s length. Of course, now that your consent aligns, it’s become an unshakable
attachment. But maybe the best part of adventuring across his soft muscles and
velvety ink is the impact it has on him; pupils permeating his irises, trembling
exhales and lewd fingernails digging into your hips. And usually a fistful of curses
tossed and sticking into the tight air between you.
“Yeah?” He gathers his shirt from your hands and tosses it aside before
unbuttoning your cardigan and slipping it from your shoulders, “well, you make
me feel real fuckin’ innocent. I love it. I love— I’m timid, like a shrinkin’ violet.”
Harry navigates your palms to his chest and moans when you battle with
dragging them up or down before finally deciding on both. One thumb circles his
bellybutton and drags across his happy trail, the other brushes over his nipple,
“this is you being shy? Breaking into someone’s bougie backyard and trying to
get me naked?”
His fingers comb through your hair before gathering it from your neck to
make space for his juicy mouth, “yeah, well…..” His tongue laps your throat, his
teeth nip your jaw when he croaks, “reserved.”
You’d hate to see him at his most assertive. Either that or you’d fall utterly in
love with it, “and you’re absolutely sure no one’s home?”
“Mmm…..” His fingers toil with the tiny buttons on your sweater vest next,
“yep. Checked the driveway, every window and the garage. Everything’s dark.
Mailbox is full of shit. We’re mint, babe. Get this thing off—”
“Oh, no, no, no. We’re not skinny dipping—” A laugh bursts forth when his
hand boldly dips into your shirt for a stolen, full grasp of your breast, your hands
fumbling with his to remove him from your intimate space. He’s restless in his
intentions though, his teeth pressing into his bottom lip in a blatant display of
mischief when his fingers immediately drop to the zipper on the back of your
teeny shorts for a slow and brave untangle downwards.
Since he’d given you his ring at Temptations, he’s gotten painfully close to a
glimpse of your bare tits exactly twice: once when he sprung up behind the
standing screen in your dressing room while you were changing, to which he was
met with a well-deserved shriek and a swift smack to his arm. The second
occurrence was early this morning just before he’d gone surfing, your heavy
make-out session ending quickly when the tips of his fingers crept up your
stomach to peel the fabric of your bra away just in time to be met with a bullying
pinch that blocked his view of the holy mountain. He’s been carefully walking a
tightrope of gentle tenacity and angelic understanding, which you suppose is just
two sides of the same coin considering his goal. Either way, he’s proficient in
both realms.
“No fuckin’ duh, Cherry tart.” He slips your shorts from your hips and guides
them from your legs before finally tugging your shirt off next, a trail of clothing
and shoes leading you from the wall as he edges you closer to the water,
“unbutton my trousers.”
Harry puffs a hot breath of air against your mouth when you obey on
command, your fingertips brushing his center as you draw his zipper down. Your
gaze falls to where his pants tumble open to reveal the waistband of his briefs
before catching his potent stare again, “well….. drop ’em.”
His nose nudges yours, a hint of amusement glinting in his dark eyes, “the fuck
did you just say to me?”
But before he has the satisfaction of an answer, you’re taking a single step
backwards and spinning on the ball of your foot, your figure disappearing in a
split second when you dive into the water without so much as a single ripple.
The paralleling imagery of you seamlessly slipping past the impermeable

sheet of ice as you did with Harry’s heart nearly knocks him off of his feet.
Harry fumbles and kicks his trousers from his feet before diving in after you,
your legs tangling together under the smooth, glossy water as you surface at the
same time. He slicks his hair out of his face, his lips rolling together to quell the
aching recognition of your natural beauty and the way little droplets of water
cling to your eyelashes. He is truthfully surprised by your brass more and more
each day, the distinctive way you continue to stupefy him and keep him on his
toes. Not many things can hold his attention quite like you can. You remind him
of his guitar, both in shape and vibration. You’re his emotional outlet; you
connect him to the world around him, occupy him to his core and saturate him
with song, except the melody is never quite the same. You keep him guessing,
you keep him intrigued, you keep him wanting to build verse after verse. Like a
never-ending love ballad with a powerful refrain, the chorus and the bridge are
yet to come.
“Who’s chasing who now?”
His eyebrows jerk into a humorously melodramatic frown at your random

question, his fingers clinging to your waist to pull you closer, “what d’ya mean?”
Your palms press against his chest before folding around his neck and
shoulders, “in a relationship. Someone is always chasing the other, right?”
Both of his eyebrows pull upward and his lips pucker in contemplation, his
mind circling like hungry vultures for a morsel of your intended meaning, “are
you sayin’ you’re as psyched about this as I am? Or maybe even more?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
Your smooth honesty forces his heart to splash into his stomach and drown, “I
like you with ticklish insides.” He ducks close for a wet and slippery kiss, the
unusual sensation so overpowering that his tongue instinctually dips into your
mouth in the very next instant for a stronger sip. Your little moan triggers a
reciprocal whimper from his throat, both of your wide grins making it difficult
for him to nibble your lip like he wants to, “I think I’ll always be the cat and you’ll
always be the mouse. You’re too tough. More secrets, please? Just one?”
You comb your fingers through his hair to sweep your favorite pesky strand
from his forehead, “I know for a fact that I’d kick your ass in an underwater
handstand contest.”
Harry narrows his eyes and growls at your shocking cuss and sweet
derailment, “fuck off, Honey tease. That’s not what I meant. I oughta ream you for
that shit.”
Your smile is too perfect for him to stay mad for very long, “but you wouldn’t.
You like to pretend that you’re bad, but you’re actually just a candy button.”
His chin meets his shoulder in a coy shrug as he hitches your hips together
and cocks his head to the side, a bead of water dripping from the end of his nose
to pill on his pouty lip. For a moment you’re reminded of when he tossed his
wallet to you before his friends threw him into the fountain outside of the
theatre; his kneejerk trust in your safekeeping, the way he sauntered towards
you with his wet shirt clinging to his stomach, the pieces of damp hair cutting
across his skin. Followed by the burning glare crafted from guilt, embarrassment,
denial and confusion. You had tried so hard for hours a day, for months in a row
to search his eyes for a single sliver of what was buried and he would never let
you. Now he offers it willingly. Like an open book, a spread romance novel with
filthy, lovelorn tattered pages. Not only does he avidly draw you in whenever
you’re so much as in the same building, but he encourages it and thrives on it. He
begs for it, he breathes it. After the dilemma at the fountain, you lost the old
Harry for good the very next day only to gain a pink marshmallow cloaked in
fearless leather in return, and you can’t say this journey has been anything short
of remarkable.
“I’m pretty bad, Honey.” He pinches his lip before pointing a finger at you, “I’ve
a secret I want you to spill.”
“Alright….. should I be scared?”
“Mmm….. no.” Harry tilts your chin up with the tip of his nose before latching
onto your neck with his teeth, “you feel so fuckin’ good all wet an’ silky.” The
pads of his fingers curve down your back and grab onto the fullest parts of your
ass with a supple hiss, “shit— distractin’ me?”
Your sweet little giggle never fails to make his heart flutter, “you’re doing this
to yourself. Go ahead. Ask me.”
“’Kay….. why does Tex hassle you so much?”
You’ve been careful not to speak about Tex in either a dark or attentive light in
order to avoid any sort of confrontation about him that might reveal sensitive
information before you’re ready. Harry’s question is much more loaded than he
realizes, but Harry is intuitive and sharp, so there must be some undetectable
nerves bubbling below the surface of his inquiry.
You can think of a hundred reasons as to why you don’t like Tex aside from
the hyper-obvious horrible date-trap. He completely disregards your feelings and
experiences as a person and it’s most likely due to the fact that you’re a woman.
He had nasty things to say about Harry and his love life behind his back, fitting
you into that tiny burner-box in order to either satisfy his own jealousy or keep
you away from his best friend. He’s conniving, ruthless, selfish, dishonest,
envious. Green. And the worst part about it as that upon meeting him, he came
off as the exact opposite. He tended toward the “good guy” persona when Harry
was on his worst behavior, but that might also have something to do with the fact
that you’re a woman and possibly could have been viewed as an object for
conquering. But you have a feeling that Harry isn’t going to stop pushing once
you give your answer, so you lose yourself in his pretty turquoise eyes for a
heavy moment in order to buy yourself more time, “um…..” You nod and then
shrug to soften your delivery, “he’s got a one-track mind.”
Harry narrows his eyes in an effort to study you better, his irises scorching
right through yours and you realize in this instant that he’s not nearly as
intimidating to you as he used to be, even if he is attempting to read your mind,
“why do you say that?” He has a gut-feeling that there’s something that he doesn’t
know and he hopes it has nothing to do with his shitty memory and even shittier
past, “pussy fiend?”
“Harry!”
“Uh, just jive talkin’—”
“Ew, don’t say that word to me like that.”
He trails his fingertip down your neck and chest, through the center of your
cleavage, “can I say it to you another way?”
You really, really don’t want to answer his original question because you can’t
think of a single thing to say that wouldn’t blow the lid off of the Riff conspiracy
or make you appear suspicious, so instead you bounce for a little omission, “he
still treats me like you used to.”
“Is that my fault?”
His question is profound and forces you to pause and contemplate; would Tex
treat you this way if Harry hadn’t paved the path of cruelty in the first place?
No. Screw that. Tex is a grown man. He’s in control of his actions just as much
as any of us are. Harry carries enough weight with the pressure of his career and
his troublesome history, his accident with Indy, his brain injury and his all-
consuming love. Tex can grow up, “no. It’s not your fault.”
A strand of hair falls into Harry’s eyes but he immediately rakes it back, “I’ll
tell him to back off.”
“You already have, Harry. Tex can afford to take some responsibility. You
always do — even if you don’t need to. It’s amazing, actually. You’re so….. awake.”
“Yeah? You awake?” His playful smile curls in harmony with your confused
frown, “you a screamer?”
“No—” Harry wraps his arms around your ribcage and hips as he scoops you
up bridal style with the tepid, chlorinated water trickling down his muscles,
“don’t you dare!”
And suddenly you’re in the air, your arms and legs flailing when you take the
single second you have to grapple with your flying position. You do your best to
suck in a breath of oxygen and keep your shriek locked inside of your chest, your
fingers pinching your nose when you’re met with the hard slap and subsequent
plunge of his exuberant launch across the pool.
As soon as you come up for a gasp of air, Harry is already in your space and
grabbing at any limb he can reach, his hands catching your legs to circle them
around his waist. Your back meets the cool stone siding when he wedges you
between the barrier and his body, his fingers gripping the edge on either side of
you to keep you locked in place. Your tolerant giggle rings through his ears like a
pentatonic wind chime and his heart launches into his throat when your nose
scrunches in sweet disposition, but he manages to choke out a slick retort
through his fondness, “gotcha.”
You swear you can make out a hundred stars shimmering in his eyes and the
beads of water on his skin, the weight and luster of his figure relaxing you into a
pool of wax in his arms. You dip your fingertips into the water and flick a couple
droplets at his face for revenge, but Harry isn’t in the mood for your adorable
diversions. He wants your wounded rawness, he wants what’s buried
underneath your skin, he wants parts of you that others might consider
worthless but he finds it to be of utmost gold. He wants dregs. The sediment is
what makes you gritty; without it, we’re all just diluted.
He grips your wrist and guides it around his neck, a tender moan vibrating his
adam’s apple when you pull him in tighter with your legs, “tell me somethin’.”
Your mouths are drawn together like carved magnets snapping into place, his
next little push whispered against your lips, “or show me somethin’?”
The two of you manage a benign back-and-forth through kisses that start off
light and slowly gain force and heat, his body suddenly feeling much heavier
against yours than before, “what’s your favorite word?”
Harry’s hands make their way up your back, plunging below the strap of your
bra and resting against the hook-and-eye closure with agitated energy,
“’birthday’. Can I guess yours?”
“Um— ’birthday’?” You giggle against his lips as his precisely squared-off
bunny teeth make a lighthearted appearance, “okay, yeah. Give it a whirl.”
“Harry.”
Your head falls back in laughter, not because his guess is daft but simply
because he said it to make you laugh and you know that about him and you love
that about him, “close, that’s my second favorite word. It’s ’verbatim’.”
“Yeah, that makes more sense.” His fingertips trace a delicate line around the
strap of your bra to the front, his knuckle pressing against the embroidered
cherries nestled in your cleavage and his thumb swiping across the rise of your
breast, “un coup d’oeil?”
Your hand falls on top of his, your palms spreading together over your chest
and your fingers entwining, “mmm….. I’m still embarrassed that you tricked me
into declaring secrets in French.”
“Aw, c’mon. That turkey ’secret’ of wanting a kiss? You could’ve said somethin’
much more primo, y’know. I gotta get you to talk somehow.” He taps your temple
as if to convey his transparency of hiding in plain sight, “and my dog’s name is
Beau, Honey detective. Thought you woulda picked that up.”
You laugh at your own obvious oversight and how much sense it makes now
that you have a more cohesive understanding of the very complex person before
you, “I hate you.”
Harry brushes his mouth over yours and delivers a loaded sentiment before
folding your lips in a slow, passionate kiss, “say what you mean.” His brain rattles
three words around when your tongues massage together, hoping that if he
thinks them hard enough that you’ll have the courage to say it out loud before he
does.
And when is it too early to say I love you?
“Okay….. I’m sorry, I’m trying.” You relax back into the wall behind you, your
legs squeezing his hips when you clasp your centers together, “I don’t hate you. I
never did and I never will.” Your fingers loop through the chain dangling around
his neck to crane him close, “I like the way you make me feel. A… d... I like the
way you feel against me.” Sunbeams and seduction, risk and romance, prohibited
and passionate. Fun and games, fire and smoke, cookies and milk. Opposites that
pair together with resilient fragility and glass-shattering fortitude. Rock and roll.
Bra and panties. Heaven and hell.
A spurt of lust from your unexpected honesty thickens his length against your
core, the barriers of your soaking wet underwear not providing very much
boundary at all. It surprises you when you feel his tip pushing on an extra
sensitive spot that you’ve never discovered before, the bubbles inside of your
stomach assisting you when you roll your hips for a stronger sensation. You’ve
done this exact kneading dance with him at least half a dozen different times in
different places; your bed, your dressing room, your kitchen counter, his van,
Banana Split. But none of those experiences have felt quite this responsive. At
least on your end. And none of those experiences have delved any further.
Harry’s entire face pinches up in what looks like agony, his hips aching to
squirm for more and his cock swelling inch by inch in unruly fever, but he tries
with absolute strength to be respectful of your limits. You remind him of a cat
begging for a tender massage, but the only problem is that he doesn’t want to rub
your belly before you’re ready and get two sets of claws slicing away at his skin.
When he realizes he can’t remember the last time he’s taken a full breath, his
nostrils flare for a deep suck of sweet air that quivers outward, “good girl….. fuck.
Makin’ me lose my fuckin’ head.” He pinches your hip in an effort to slow your
deadly drag against him, “you know how I feel ’bout you, yeah? You know how
crazy you make me? How I’d do absolutely anythin’ for you?” You nod and he
swallows a thick lump to calm the violent swirling in his stomach, hoping that a
little flirtation in your favorite love language will boost your confidence, “ma
Ceri… e... laisse moi explorer ton corps et découvrir toutes tes vallées et tes
montagne.”
Both of your fists raise into the heated gap between your chests for a single
round of Rock Paper Scissors but it doesn’t matter who wins, because you’re
about to make his entire night and he has no clue yet.
Your paper covers his rock. Your scissors slice his paper in half. Your rock
pounds his scissors straight to the ground.
“Oui, s’il vous plaît.” You pull one bra strap down followed by the next and
allow them to fall to your elbows, your heartbeat ringing so quickly that it almost
feels like one intense, steady stroke, “chaque centimètre.”
All of the moisture from Harry’s mouth vacuums dry, his cock pulsing against
your core to relay his fierce, deranged suspense. His adrenaline and blood
pressure are skyrocketing straight to the moon and making him dizzy with each
drop of fervor that avalanches to his guts.
This can’t be happening. This cannot be fucking happening. There’s no way

this is actually happening.
Harry watches each strap drop in slow motion before your fingertips
gracefully nestle into the flimsy cups of your bra, his lock of hair falling into his
face and tapping his eyebrow, his fingers white-knuckling the edge of the pool.
He pulls his lip between his teeth and holds it there in anticipation as the fabric
peels down, really slowly down and now he’s salivating, his pupils darkening
more and more with each inch and as soon as your nipples are exposed and hit
the air, they pull tighter than everything he’s carrying in his briefs.
Harry is woozy, his vision violently splitting and reforming on the one sight he
would’ve gladly sacrificed a limb for. He battles between kissing you or feeling
you or simply sobbing into your shoulder before he ducks and puckers his lips
around your pleading nipple, his heated breath and tickling droplets of water
from his hair provoking goosebumps and a taut strain of skin. His teeth graze
your peak first before the tip of his tongue circles your sensitive breast, your
head lolling back and your cores sealing together tightly as you whine into the
burning hot and freezing cold air, “oh—”
“My fuckin’ good, holy god. Fuck. Cherry—” He pauses his blubbering to suck
with an appreciative hum, his face crumpling in agitated desire when your
fingernails slice red marks up his back, “mmm….. have my fuckin’ babies.” His
mouth switches to your other breast, his hand peeling away from the edge of the
pool to massage your chest and ensure full coverage, “you’re perfect. I didn’t
know someone could be this fuckin’ perfect.”
Your confounded moan gushes louder with each soaking wet kiss that he
leaves in a path up your chest, his palm kneading your breast and pinching your
nipple between his fingers when his mouth floats over yours, “feel me.” Harry
presses his cock against your clothed folds and ruts forward in little, rhythmic
ticks into that same sensitive spot that makes you wish you were bare for more
profound friction, “touch me jus’ once, baby.”
You fumble with the waistband of his briefs in a hectic fit for a brush of his
vulnerable skin and a flavor of that intoxicating stupor that scrubs him whenever
you put your hands anywhere near him. Things haven’t gotten this heavy
between you yet and ever since that first morning in your bed, you’ve been
secretly pining for another bold opportunity to explore him further. You palm his
rigid length over his briefs first, both of your panting breaths mixing like a stiff
drink with clinking ice and blistering liquor, your thumb dipping in past the
elastic next and as soon as you polish his slit once, a vivid light illuminates the
backyard to shine a blinding lantern on your filthy private moment.
Harry’s pupils constrict just as quickly as a virile leaf crumbling to dust and
whipped away by a tornado.
“Hey! What the fuck is going on out here? Who the fuck are you?”
It’s Harry’s automatic reflex to cover you up as much as he can while you
fumble your bra back into place and hide behind his broad shoulders. Your heart
is beating so fast that its echo is making you feel nauseous, your head and Harry’s
head still swimming with lust as if you’ve both stumbled outside from a burning
building and now you’re attempting to catch your breaths, choking and
sputtering on hot ashes in the blaring sun.
Harry guides you behind his body and digs his blunt fingernails into your hips
as he mumbles, “fuck. Busted.” He glances over his shoulder to whisper to you,
“be cool, Cherry. Book it when I say ’split’. Run straight towards that wall.”
A man in a white robe steps from the sliding glass door of his Malibu mansion
with a baseball bat in hand, pointing the end of it right at your cowering figure
tucked behind Harry’s heroic one, “I said ’who the fuck are you?’ and ’what the
fuck is going on here?’”
“It’s copasectic, man. We’re decent, we were just leavin’. Don’t call the fuzz—”
“The police are already on their way. Get out of my swimming pool
immediately, before I bash you and your girlfriend’s skulls straight in.”
“Split!”
For some reason unbeknownst to you, you burst out into explosive laughter as
you pull yourself up and over the edge and stumble from the pool, picking up
your discarded clothing as you run as fast as you can towards your point of entry.
Harry is hot on your heels, hissing loudly in error when you accidentally kick
over the empty champagne bottle and cause it clang against the ground in a
reverberating rattle that makes you cackle so hard that a snort tears through
your nose.
Harry shushes you, but you can barely hear it over the homeowner chasing
after you and shouting threats, “we’re already caught, Harry!”
“He’s probably got a shotgun, please just fuckin’ scoot your pretty ass right
now!”
His palm makes contact with the wet skin of your ass for a resounding smack
before he hoists you up and over the wall, playfully pawing and pinching at your
exposed skin in a torrent of passion that he couldn’t possibly shake with the way
you’re handling this entire scenario like a sexy, skilled criminal. You laugh and
swat him away before you jump down on the other side, and fuck, you look so
fucking beautiful when you don’t give a shit what anyone thinks.
Just as Harry drags his figure onto the wall, he waves to the angry homeowner
who stands a stone’s throw away with his baseball bat raised above his head, “far
out splash, brother!” and then very elegantly slips and tumbles to his side on the
ground before rolling in the bushes with a groan.
You pause the motion of pulling the sleeves of your cardigan over your arms
to toss your head back in windswept, smitten, utter stomach-clenching laughter,
“oh my god, are you okay?”
“Spiffy.”
“Come on, Sunshine.” You drag Harry to his feet and brush some dried leaves
from his hair with another soft snort, “I’ve never seen you this disheveled
before.”
“My heart and my dick are broken, Honey peach. You try lookin’ at god’s tits
and then have your skull’s integrity threatened fuckin’ two seconds later.”
“I did.”
Harry laughs and roughs up your hair before weaving your fingers together
and gathering all of the clothes from your hands that you managed to collect,
“run before we get arrested, please.”
Rain, thunder, lightning.
An entire forest on fire, wood splintering and crackling, leaves disintegrating

before turning into rainbow glitter and floating up towards the sun.
Broken glass shattering a hundred times per second, beautiful neon green
glass made of radioactive uranium that releases head-spinning toxicity into the
air.
In complete opposition to your very first performance with Harry when the
audience was so hushed in anticipation that you could hear a cricket flap it’s
timid wings, now the whole theatre of thousands is on their feet in unified
support for the return of their wounded, flying hero.
Harry Styles. Sunshine on Earth. The sole reason cherry blossoms bloom in
spring. A climactic, luminary lionheart both in the circus ring and in your life.
A single tear rolls down your cheek at the unprecedented advocacy of the
crowd. They love him and they want him but most importantly, they want him to
thrive with the sheer power of a starving colony of bats storming from their dark
cave to feel the wind on their face. And so do you.
It’s clear to everyone on this planet that Harry is a force to be reckoned with.
Wandering stage lights travel across the dark room and Harry’s immaculately
costumed and serene figure, his head bowed and his eyes closed as he ruminates
over your choreography and breathes through the intense amount of pressure
and encouragement vibrating through the walls of the theatre. It rains upon his
skin, it absorbs into his veins, it nourishes him from the inside out. There are
many things that he was born to do and within the flurry of your secluded and
ardent personal lives, sometimes it’s easy to forget just how much he transforms
under the eyes of an audience.
Your chalked and taped hands are clasped together in a tight fist and when
you peel your eyelids open to brave a glimpse in his direction, you’re pleased to
see that he’s already watching you. A single spotlight lands on your joined figures
and the sea of onlookers explodes at the first look of their superstar existing and
breathing before them, cloaked from head-to-toe in skin-tight spandex threaded
with pink sequins, his wild hair styled from his face and his perfect appearance,
but the only person Harry is looking at is you.
The pluck of guitar strings resounds through the theatre and the crowd thinks
it’s part of the performance when he raises your joined hands to his mouth for a
loving kiss on your knuckles. He mutters against your skin so that only you can
hear him and honestly, the audience is so loud that if you couldn’t see his lips
move, you might’ve missed his delivery entirely, “you’re bitchin’, Cherry bomb.
The best dancer and trapeze artist to walk the Earth.” His grin is brighter than
every hot light in the circus ring and also somehow kind of rascally, “let’s fuckin’
roll.”
You dip close and your smile is just as luminous as his, “let’s fuckin’ roll,
Harry.”
He makes a mental note to slap your ass hard after your performance for that
surprise he wasn’t ready for.
Your practices and dress rehearsals over the past two weeks have pounded
you both into boneless submission, your choreography more challenging and
more sensational than anything you’d ever accomplished in the past. With your
trust, love and sexual tension at an all-time high, the two of you have been able to
strengthen both your solo acts as well as your trapeze tricks, making your
routine and Russell Buchanan’s Circus Extravaganza easily one of the most
sought-after theatre performances on the globe. The entire rest of the season is
sold to capacity with a stacked wait list due to Rusty’s strong public relations and
promises, with people traveling from several continents just for a glimpse of
their talented victor.
The theatre quiets down and seats themselves to soak up your clean expertise,
you and Harry taking off towards your rope like comets with tails of fire. He
waits for you to ascend high and lock yourself in before starting you off with a
tug and spin of the knotted cord, watching for a moment to ensure your safety
before he sets off for his trapeze. Compared to your other performances, the
crowd tilts their head in shocking revelation as you twirl with flawless long lines
and confidence, their attention just as much glued to you as it is to Harry, if not
more.
Your fame is rising and Harry can feel it and it makes him fill with pride, as
though he helped to simply polish your shine and you’re finally getting the
recognition you deserve. The recognition he’s always had.
The Invincible Flying Marvels. The two of you are unstoppable now.
The audience roars with each astonishing, startling stunt; your simultaneous
solo acts, your proficient ballet training and Harry’s naturally athletic instincts on
his trapeze bar, your nailed triple tucks and seamless catches and returns,
constant eye contact and pounding hearts. When you finally come together for
your supported dance routine where Harry hangs upside-down to aid you in
transitioning from one sparkling move to the next, the entire theatre’s jaws are in
their laps.
This isn’t the work of you or him. It’s the work of both of you together and it
couldn’t have been achieved unless every single element of the past several
months weren’t perfectly in place. This entire charade from beginning to end
may have started off as a painful endeavor, but it’s clear now that every element
of tumult has carved you into the performers you were meant to be. This must be
what it feels like to be high on brain-melting drugs; bewildering, paralyzing, life-
altering, deliriously brilliant. A beautiful, fuzzy acid trip that never ends.
When Harry hoists you up to sitting on the trapeze bar and pulls himself up to
sit beside you to hallmark the end of your performance, both of your arms raise
into the air to drown in well-deserved, long-awaited praise. There’s a stalled
moment of realization before the audience rises to their feet all together, the
clamor and applause enough to make you go temporarily deaf.
A dull ember sparks and flounders, beams of sunshine and vibrations of

pleasure suddenly reaching to every stretch of your bodies before immediately
sucking inward and bursting in the same instant, molecules of light and love and
radiance and solace and everything holy crawl over each hair and fiber in your
being, leaving you both covered in glimmer and frosted in melted powdered
sugar.
You can’t feel your feet when you float backstage with acclamation and
stamping feet at your back, Harry’s arm looped around your neck from such a
strong impact of adrenaline that he doesn’t give a fuck if Rusty or anyone else
sees. He’s allowed to be close to his work partner and he’ll be damned if someone
tells him not to be, the level of closeness that the two of you actually have is for
his eyes only. He glances up and down the temporarily empty hallway before
turning to face you, his hands cupping your jaw and his facial expression
saturated with sweat and passion, “you did that. We did that. I don’t have the
right words to tell you how fuckin’ killer you are. That was revolutionary, y’know
that, right? This is just the beginning, Miss Sur—”
“There they are!”
Your wandering, shaky hands fly away from one another just in time for Harry
to be lifted off of his feet and carried away by a swarm of coworkers, your head
spinning when you’re also pulled away by friends touching your costume and
complimenting your showing. The narrow hallway floods with photographers,
colleagues and hangers-on and although being showered with congratulations is
consuming and glorious, you can’t help but frantically search for Harry to share
this moment with as well. Someone from the kitchen swings by with a tray
spread with tiny glasses, little shots of Murky Lagoon rum mixed with pineapple
and orange juice. A coworker stands up on a chair and sticks their fingers in their
mouth for a sharp, ear-splitting whistle, the hoard of people falling silent in the
next instant.
“To the Marvels!”
Two shots are forced into either of your hands and your mouth falls open in
protest, but when you glance down the hall and find Harry staring at you with
two similar glasses raised in the air in both of his hands, you both grin and
simultaneously and down one shot right after the other to evoke another happy
cheer from your teammates.
You can’t seem to keep your eyes off of each other as you both fake excited
conversations. Each time you glance in his direction, his gaze is burning through
you or you just happen to meet in that moment and each time you glance in his
direction, a little grin curls into both of your lips to match the swirl of your
heartbeats. Rusty appears and pulls Harry in for a hug, patting his back in
accolade and not once approaching you for a commendation. Harry notices long
before you do and it makes his lips curl in anger, but with Rusty’s threat hanging
over his head, there isn’t much he could do in terms of vouching for you. It would
only make him seem culpable in your secret affair and his patience is beginning
to wear very thin.
The next time Harry searches the room for your dazzling figure, he’s unable to
find you anywhere and he interrupts the person he’s talking to with a vague
excuse of needing to find something. He can’t remember the last time he spotted
you with the endless barrage of individuals wanting a spare moment of his time
and he starts to panic when he thinks you might have gotten fed up and left. He
meanders through the crowd, nodding and greeting people, but his heart isn’t in
it. He wants you beside him, he wants to lift your arms in victory and pin you
against the wall for a smoldering kiss. He doesn’t want to go through the motions
of celebration without you glued to his side and it’s in that instant that he realizes
where you’ve disappeared to.
Harry looks back at the throng of company and when he finds an opportunity
to slip away, he skids around the corner and takes off in a jog towards your
dressing room. He slams the door open and finds you standing there in a change
of clothing with a cherry-scented candle burning on the vanity, a coy smile
carved into your beautiful face, your hair released from its constraint of bobby
pins and his red ruby ring nestled onto your finger.
“Congratulations, Sunbeam. You deserve every drop of praise and every ounce
of satisfaction. You’re an idol. I’m in awe of you.”
His stare stays fixed on you when he lifts his foot to kick the door shut before
swiping the lock closed, his stomach tossing around the honesty you so willingly
delivered, “and I owe you a smack for that little cuss you blurted out right before
I was meant to concentrate on not dropping you.” Your giggle softens his heart,
“c’mere, my pretty Cherry.”
Your fingers thread together and he pulls you close for a relieving kiss that
melts you into one another, “how do you feel?”
“Stoked. My ears are ringin’. But I’m here with you now, so I’m mint. Can I
bitch?” You nod and he cups the back of your head to tilt your chin for another
kiss, “mmm….. my shoulder is achin’.” Harry had been complaining of his old high
school injury flaring up every now again during practice, but he’s been diligent in
icing it each day after work, “and I gotta brush my teeth. They’re scuzzy from the
rum.”
“Nettie calls that ’sweater teeth’.”
Harry lets his tongue hang out a bit like a plump slug in disgust before
chuckling softly, “ugh. Fuckin’ grody, Honeymoon.” He digs his fingers into his
sheer tank top to pull it over his head, revealing lines and muscles and ink as his
cross pendant falls and settles into the dip between his pecs, before tossing his
shirt into the corner of the room, “I need a cold shower—”
“Can I massage it for you?”
He freezes and pokes his tongue into his cheek, his eyes roaming up and down
your figure, “yes…..”
You nod towards the couch and he glances there before adhering his gaze back
on you and slowly backing up towards the cognac, tufted leather. He flops down
onto his stomach and groans when his heated skin stings from the cool fabric,
then groans again when you straddle his hips and let your weight rest on his
back. You dig your knuckles into the tender spot between his left shoulder blade
and his spine, a sharp wail muffled by the pillow below him, “shh….. I know it
hurts, but breathe, remember?”
“10-4, Honeyboss.”
You can feel him start to relax in your grip and allow you to smooth your
thumbs into his sore muscle, “how did this happen again?”
“Some fucker grabbed my arm and pulled me down in footy. Got a red card
though. Pansy ass.” He cries out when you find a particularly soft spot, “right
there. Easy, yeah? But also hard, y’know?”
“Slow and hard?”
Harry pinches his eyes shut and smashes his face farther into the pillow, his
cock swelling and pressing into the cushion below his hips at your unintentional
suggestion, “um….. yeah.”
After a few minutes of your hands working him into oblivion, his shoulder
loosening up with that type of pain that hurts so much it actually feels good, his
body starts to liquefy into the leather below him. His hisses and whines turn into
moans that are punctuated by sensual little dribblings of adoration, his fingertips
walking up your thigh and pinching your skin tight. And before you have a
chance to ask if he’s feeling any better, he flips onto his back and grips your hips
tight, that same dark veil of black storming his irises that you saw in the
swimming pool.
His length strains the seams of his spandex tights and it’s no mystery that he’s
well beyond the point of being turned on when he sits up and rests against the
back of the couch with you hedged in his lap. You lean forward and lose yourself
to the taste of cotton candy and orange creamsicle, dissolving into his cloud of
hot, sugary, blunt love. His hands slip into the back of your trousers and grip your
ass tightly; your hands are running up his stomach, over his nipples, up his neck,
tangling into his hair.
“Fuck, I’m ragin’.” He whimpers and slides his hand into his tights between
your bodies before sucking his bottom lip into his mouth, “hurts. My shoulder’s
not the only thing achin’, Honeysuckle.”
You grind your pelvis down against his center in little circles, your insides
gushing towards your core as his panting starts to rival his heartbeat, “what else
aches?” You trace your finger down his shoulders to his chest, “here?” Your
knuckles sweep over his stomach, his bellybutton, his hipbone, “here?”
His hips are rolling, rolling, rolling with yours, anything he can possibly do to
get you to inch your hands farther to his center which is screaming at the both of
you like an electric red flag, “fuck, baby. It all aches.” He mumbles into your cheek
and your hair, a soft little utterance that has your core tightening like a fist,
“touch me….. touch……e...”
Your palm falls on top of his wedged inside of his tights, a soft gasp paving
way for a type of heavy, desperate breathing that you’ve never heard from him
before, “I’m not….. even sure what I’m doing—”
“Doesn’t….. matt… r...”
You dig your fingers into his tights and pull them down just enough to free his
briefs, your hand dipping into his underwear to feel his hard, silky, dripping skin.
You look at him to find him already fixated on you, his hands maneuvering the
fabric from his hips to reveal himself completely. You glance down at his center
for a peek of his arousal; a perfect, rich, long bell curve that aligns with his happy
trail and bounces against his bellybutton, a glossy mushroom cap that blurts
upon your scrutiny, a shade of pink that matches his mouth after you’ve sunken
your teeth into it. And you’ve never quite wanted to taste something so badly
before.
Harry wraps his fingers around himself, swirling his precome around his tip as
lubricant and starts to slowly stroke up and down, his other hand gripping your
chin and affixing your gazes once again, “s’okay…..” He swaddles his hand around
yours and guides you around his length, both of your palms working him in a
steady drag that causes his eyelids to droop, “your hand feels so good on me,
baby. Tha’s it.”
You start to pull your hand away to slide his bulky ring from your finger for
his comfort, but he grabs your wrist with a quiet growl, “no. Keep it on.” He pulls
your hand back and leads you in a quicker motion this time, the tip of his nose
pressed up against yours and your eyes searching one another’s for constant
approval, “speak.”
“Harry…..” He moans at his name rolling from your tongue and how that’s the
first thing that comes to your mind when you’re in the midst of passion, “I want
you to feel as amazing as you make me feel.”
Harry cries out and then whispers against your mouth, his fingers clutching
the arm of the couch and your hip in an unflinching squeeze, “lookit wha’ you’ve
done. Just for me. Makin’ me feel so fuckin’ blitzed.” His nipples are hard and
straining, his skin smooth and covered in a sheen of sweat. The thrill he gets from
being on stage could easily match what he’s feeling right now, with his orgasm
creeping up his tailbone and your tight clasp on his cock. He peels one hand away
from the arm of the couch to tug your shirt and then one cup of your bra down,
moaning at the sight of your perked nipple before he suctions his mouth around
it and hums against your skin.
With his release peeking around the corner, he’s powerless in his filth and
intoxication, a wild combination of melted wax and white knuckles. He pulls you
down towards him so your noses are bumping, his hips rolling his cock into your
hand as he’s mumbles against your lips. His tongue stumbles over a sloshy and
languid brogue, his words rabid and fumbled through harsh panting, “mm’fuck…..
y’gonna make me come, Honeybunny?”
“Am I?”
A lazy grin pulls across his features just before losing the battle with ecstasy,
“yeh….. mm’almo… t... don’t stop. Christ, I’m done for.” His hand falls on top of
yours again to egg you on in pumping him faster, “Cherry— baby, I’m comin’—”
His eyes squeeze shut and his jaw falls open before he gnaws on his bottom lip so
hard that it turns white. His head drops back against the couch and white-hot
lightning takes over his field of vision, an escalating moan climbs from his guts
and crests outward when he releases in several, hot spurts. He cries out loudly at
first, followed by numerous varied wails and sobs, your name mixed in with each
of his curses and praises.
He lays in a panting puddle dissolved into the back of the couch, his hands
limp at his sides and his cock spent against his hipbone. His cheeks are an
attractive hue of pink, his skin dewy, his mouth wet and shiny, his hair falling is
handsome curtains around his forehead and cheeks. He swallows a couple times
before finally breaking the heated silence with a croak, “holy….. livi… g... shit. This
is the best night of my life. I came so hard. Jesus fuckin’ Christ. I saw god.”
You giggle before dipping forward for a kiss, swallowing his enduring
vibrating hums, your core squeezing itself uncomfortably at the residual echo of
his pleasure melting your eardrums. The power of making him come undone like
that is surging through your veins, giving you an adrenaline high that battles the
one that you just walked away from on stage. His fingers dig into your thighs,
your heart beats down low in your stomach, “wow…..…I...” His liberation and his
desire, the sheer ecstasy and the subsequent unravel. He makes it seem as if
there is nothing else on the planet that could possibly be that consuming, “I
wanna feel that too.”
“Yeah?”
His eyes pop open, his hands traveling between your legs and thumbs swiping
your center but you giggle and swat him away, “soon. Not yet.”
“I’ll make you feel like hot fudge. Lemme.” You shake your head and his eyes
flutter shut when he sucks in a sharp gust of air and ruts against you, “shower
with me.”
You laugh and shake your head as you suddenly feel awash with inhibition
again, “no way.”
“Rock Paper Scissors.” You entertain his notion of him trying to get you
completely naked, but he loses anyhow when your paper covers his rock. Not
that it would have mattered anyway, you both know that he wouldn’t force you
to do something that you were uncomfortable with, “you gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’
me.”
You lick your thumb and wipe a lipstick stain from his cheek, “go shower so
we can get out of here.”
When Harry emerges from shower in five minutes flat and quickly changes
into an effortlessly chic outfit, he ticks his head up at you for a suggestion to keep
the wild energy of the night going, “I know a bitchin’ spot to play pool.”
“I’m not going to your dude bar, Hound Dog’s—”
“Nah, it’s a different spot.” He wedges himself between where you apply
mascara in the mirror and the vanity table, grabbing your hips and pulling you
between his legs. His eyebrows raise up and down a couple times before
grinning, “you look beautiful. Mmm…..” His lips always form around yours in the
most lush, heartfelt way, “it’s called Cat’s Paw. Let’s go break some balls, babe.”
You kiss him again and smile against his lips, “you’ll have to teach me.”
“You’re a fast learner, aren’t you?” You shrug and he nods towards the door,
“go on. I’ll meet you at Banana Split in two shakes.”
You swipe your purse from the vanity and search the dressing room for
anything you may have left behind before sauntering towards the door in your
same routine of staggered exits. It’s probably not necessary at this time of night,
but with so many fans and employees crowding around the theatre, it’s too risky
for anyone to suspect anything remotely incriminating. You glance over your
shoulder just in time to find him licking his fingers and extinguishing your cherry
candle then frowning at the wet, charred wick.
The smell of smoked maraschino juice picks at the corners of a memory that
doesn’t quite unravel. A piece of paper folded into eights, singed on the edges to
show its age, nothing but blinding white, crumpled blankness on the inside.
“Are you coming?”
Harry’s moment of discomfort soars away at the opportunity for a dirty pun,
“again? Already? It’s your turn, Cherry fudge.”
“Banana Split, Sunny.”
Happy hot fudge Sunday! If you think I’m not over the MET Gala, you’re
absolutely right! Please remember to vote and all that good stuff, let me know what
you think. See y’all very soon. Love you! Xx Birdie #SundaysAreForAerial
“Aim for the three, sweet Cherry. The solid red. She’s lookin’ right at you,
callin’ your name, winkin’ at you an’ shit, beggin’ for a kiss and a little dip in the
pocket. Give it to her.”
The last three days have been an anomalous blur of daring flips and catches,
deliciously forbidden kisses and wicked trailing hands laced with racy sweet
nothings, the deafening roar of packed audience after packed audience, skating to
The Sweet Hereafter soda fountain on the edge of town for root beer floats,
dripping with sweat and glitter under piping hot stage lights, bonfires on the
breezy beach at night while Harry quietly strums his guitar, draining practices
with blistered hands and arduous schmoozing with the press, cuddling and
making out in your soft sheets with your even softer boyfriend. But by far your
absolute favorite activity has been learning how to play pool under Harry’s
tutelage at the swanky pool hall just a quick pink van ride away, dubbed The
Cat’s Paw.
And three days from your first performance also marks the end of Tex’s silent
grace period, meaning if he doesn’t grow some balls and own up to his cowardly
deed by tomorrow evening, it’ll be on your shoulders to break the very unsettling
news to Harry yourself. At least he will have some processing time afterward to
manage his inevitable rage with Sunday looming on the horizon, the one day a
week in which you are liberated from both stage performances or practices. It’s
hard to know how much resentment he’ll carry towards you upon hearing the
information about Riff’s set-up; if he will be compassionate about your
involvement or if the news will act as a fault line in your recently seamless
relationship. Truthfully, you’ve been on edge all day long about the confrontation
and subsequent probable shift and of course Harry’s picked up on it, but you’re
trying your absolute best to love him as boldly as you can in the vain hope that
he’ll take pity on you when the time comes. Because you know deep down in
your stomach, no matter how much you were hoping for the contrary, this will all
come crashing down on you. However, the weight of the avalanche still remains
to be seen.
The timing is truly a shame, considering how well things have been going
between you two and how hard you’ve worked to open yourself up to Harry.
You’ve navigated a lot of obstacles thus far in your relationship and you know
that you’ll be able to handle another one, but it just doesn’t seem fair to either of
you. You’re both just trying to catch your breath, but no one around you is giving
you very much space or air, forcing you to wheeze your way through your liaison
with your palms over your mouths and eyes in order to keep toxins out.
It’s hard to know if it would have been better for him to find out about Riff
sooner rather than later. It doesn’t do very much good to ruminate about it now,
but your anxiety doesn’t let your mind rest as you wish it would. Your kneejerk
response is to think that if he’d known about your compliance too early in his
pursuit, it might have sent him running in the other direction with his bubble of
patience bursting under the heartsick pressure of your deflections. But finding
out now, after so much time and opportunity for disclosure has passed, is just
downright hurtful and you know it. You’re prepared for his array of emotions;
deceit, annoyance, humiliation, anger, distress. And your all-time least favorite
reaction that he has a habit of reverting to: avoidance.
Part of you understands that withholding the information from him may have
had a tinge of selfishness attached to it, but mostly it came from a fear of
confrontation. Facing him by way of facing yourself and the objective, stony truth
of the entire, stupid situation: you’re a naïve, perfectionistic and guarded person.
Harry has never been shy in telling you this, in begging you to peer inward and
scrutinize your patterns and behaviors for your own sake. Sometimes he’s so
accepting of you that it’s easy to forget that you have emotional work to do. But
at the same time, you know that his composure and sympathy have a limit and
when that runs out, you must be able to stand on your own in order to maintain
your share of the scaffolding of your newly remodeled relationship or the entire
thing will cave in once his weakness begins to buckle. Harry’s strong, but he’s not
fire-proof. No one is. Even superheroes armed with the vitality of the sun need
rescuing too.
Zippy reflections manage to keep you sane and fervid; rapid blinding shocks of
sunshine reflected in a mirror, the light bouncing across the ceiling before they
disappear. Poking your head around Banana Split’s fuzzy bark and the ensuing
grin that electrifies Harry’s beautiful face when his gaze lands on you, a stolen
wink across the practice room that’s meant to be shared by the two of you only,
Harry protectively brushing clingy sand from your bottom after your lunch
break, the way he deflects the attention of the press’s microphones from himself
post-performance by simply pointing a finger towards you, his fingertips
ghosting over your panties when he sighs a plea against your mouth, a tumble in
bed coming to a pause when you land in a straddle across his hips, his jaw
popping as he scarfs a peanut butter sandwich over your kitchen sink at dawn,
the sappy, non-sequitur questions he asks right before he falls asleep, the way he
twirls the chunky, possessive ring around your finger when he holds your hand.
Your fierce sexual escapade in the dressing room hasn’t left yours or Harry’s
minds and it was silly of you to think that it would help quell Harry’s inner beast
for the time being, but the exact opposite has happened. He’s been attempting to
get into your pants non-stop, both physically and verbally, with almost
continuous innuendos and brave dips past your waistband. He came close last
night while you were making out and you thought that you were almost ready for
further expedition, but you chickened out at the last minute and you’re not
exactly sure why. There’s just something about the level of courage needed for
another person to see you at your most vulnerable, to see you at your peak when
you’ve truthfully never even seen it or felt it yourself. As Nettie said, you know
that he would take proper care of you in regard to anything sexually-related.
More than most men. But it doesn’t make that susceptibility any easier.
His moans haunt you in waking life and in dreams. If someone as acquainted
and comfortable with sex could crumble in your hands like that, you’re terrified
to see what will happen to you when you allow him to have his way.
Fuck, baby. It all aches. Touch me….. touch……e...
Zippy reflections manage to keep Harry sane and fervid; rapid blinding shocks
of sunshine reflected in a mirror, the light bouncing across the ceiling before they
disappear. The way you idly stand with your feet in a ballet fourth position as
though the dedication and practice lived inside of your muscles, your fingertips
unwrapping the wax paper from a shiny red lollipop, the curve of your ass when
you lean over the vanity to apply your mascara in the mirror, your hips bumping
together as you brush your teeth side-by-side before a performance, how your
snorts always seem to come as a surprise to you no matter how frequently they
occur, making him eggs and toast each morning before he goes surfing, the way
you bashfully close your eyes and press your chin into your shoulder every time
he surprises you from behind with an infatuated cuddle, how easily your skin
bruises once he’s sunken his teeth into it, the maudlin and crestfallen look on
your face as you watch him pull his trousers on after he’s climbed from your bed
at five in the morning to go surfing.
Your moans haunt him in waking life and in dreams. If someone as wide-eyed
and innocent about sex could get aroused from caresses and kissing alone, he’s
ecstatic to see what will happen to you when you allow him to have his way.
Harry….. I want you to feel as amazing as you make me feel.
With your rising fame due to newspaper articles, radio commercials and local
news programs as well as Harry’s established and prominent, recognizably
handsome features, you’ve discussed and agreed upon only openly dating in
places that are outside Malibu’s city limits. You’ve always been accustomed to
Harry being stopped for autographs and photographs, but it’s a new
development to be asked for yours as well. It’s unlikely that anyone on the
outside of the circus would see you two together at an establishment and think of
your vague personal relationship as unprofessional, but the chance of being
spotted by one of Harry’s friends or one of your coworkers within a couple mile
radius of the theatre is much too high and a risk you’re both wanting to
completely avoid.
Besides, there’s something wildly thrilling about your little secret. It adds a
special element to your relationship that most don’t have, as if the pull and
magnetism of your attraction knows no bounds and would relent for no one. An
unstoppable love that has so much power it just must be, regardless of
consequence or struggle. Knowing that your affair is off-limits only makes it
more delectable, like a beckoning, ceramic cookie jar on the counter in your
parent’s kitchen. You know that the treats inside of it taste like heaven, but they
taste even better when you’ve stolen a handful when no one is looking. Sneaking
off into your bedroom to savor them underneath your sheets, grinning at the fact
that you’ve outsmarted everyone and have gotten exactly what you wanted,
despite the risk of being caught or sinful gluttony involved. Rules are only fun to
break because they exist in the first place. And cookies are always delicious.
“Mmm…..” Harry’s breath hitches in his throat when your ass wriggles up
against his perpetual, three-days-long, half-mast chub, his tummy slowly
breathing into your back as he helps you align the pool cue in your hands. Your
lollipop clicks against your molars as you suck on its juicy saccharine sweetness,
the red felt of the pool table below your fingertips dimly lit by the low-hanging
swag lamp a couple feet about your heads.
You squint one eye to focus on your shot, pausing for a tick to rest your chin
on your shoulder to gaze into Harry’s mushy and brilliantly shiny emerald lights
with an innocent inquiry, “are you sure I shouldn’t aim for the blue ball?”
“Unbelievable.” Harry shakes his head at your unintentional prod as his hands
glide up your arms, over the rise of your tits for a soft pet and then further down
to pinch your hips, “mmm….. no. Red.” His arms wrap clear around your waist for
a squeeze, his chin resting on your shoulder as he sways your hips back and forth
to the Nina Simone record playing on the jukebox, “trust me. She’s ripe.”
“Okay.” You pull your cue back and laugh when it accidentally bumps Harry’s
shoulder, his exaggerated, dramatic wail making it even harder to concentrate
than his constant touches do, “watch out, Sunshine.”
Harry steps back with his palms surrendered in the air before swiping his
bottle of Pearl beer from the edge of the pool table for a sip, “she’s all yours,
Cherrywood. Make me proud.”
You blow him a kiss which he catches and stuffs into the waistband of his
trousers, finally removing his delirious, lusty energy enough for you to take your
shot. The white cue ball strikes against the red, sinking it into the corner pocket
with a satisfying clack followed by a dissolving burial.
Harry tucks his middle finger and thumb into his cheeks for an obnoxious
whistle that echoes off of the walls of the crowded pool hall, “that’s my good
fuckin’ girl!” He spins you around with a beaming smile, your arms flinging
around his neck to pull him in for an embrace. His response is immediate,
pinning you against the edge of the pool table with his arms around your waist
and his face burying into your neck, “nothin’ sexier than a pool shark.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be my opposer?” You pluck his burning cigarette from
the nearby ashtray balancing on the table and suck cotton candy mist into your
lungs, “you’re not just letting me win because I’m a girl, are you?”
Harry narrows his eyes at your insinuation before nodding his head at the
cigarette smoldering between your digits. You hover the filter over his mouth, his
pouty lips kissing your fingertips when he helps himself to a drag and then
exhales pink clouds towards the ceiling to skirt your eye contact, “absolutely
not.” He is absolutely letting you win, “I’m your partner, Honeydream.
Remember?” He clicks his tongue in satisfaction when you nod with that heart-
stopping smile, “kiss.” You connect your mouths for a taste of his candied tongue,
his lips sucking on your muscle before he draws back just enough to trace your
dewy bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, “another.” Your grins flash together
and then wilt to make way for another kiss, his voice huskier this time when he
suggests, “another. But lower…..”
“Harry!”
“Or I can go down if you’ll lemme. I’m more than willing to taste your—”
“Harry!” You squeal and smack his shoulders before covering your face with
your palms, “oh my god, you’re embarrassing me.”
Harry grabs your wrists and pries your hands away, “petit a petit, l’oiseau fait
son nid. That’s not embarrassment, sweet thing. That’s lust. It stings like a
motherfucker, I know. But I can make it stop. D’ya know how?” You shake your
head and he holds up his hands to wiggle his fingers in the air, “these. Also…..” He
sticks his tongue out and slowly licks the tip of his index finger, “and—” Both of
his eyebrows pull up along his forehead when he points to his crotch, “each have
their perks, Cherry bomb. Just say when. I’ll fuck you straight into that squeaky
mattress and the last thing you’ll feel is embarrassment.”
You tilt your head and decide to ride this horse in the direction it’s going,
“what’s the first thing I’d feel?”
Harry clenches his teeth and groans through a smile at your unexpected
cheekiness, “toffee. Jelly. Fireworks.”
Your fingers tangle into the hair at the nape of his neck, “try again. I already
feel all of those things.”
“Fuck…..” He doesn’t know whether to look at your eyes or your mouth or

maybe even brave a glance at your tits. Or perhaps he could just simply toss you
onto the pool table and crawl on top of you, ripping your little blouse off and
blossoming purple blood to the surface of your skin without a care of who sees.
Guiding your legs around his waist and tracking wet kisses down your stomach
before he pulls your underwear off with his teeth. What did you ask? “…m...
mudslides—”
“You’re lying about not letting me win, aren’t you?”
Harry starts backing up towards the bar with his hand wrapped around the
neck of his empty beer bottle and his index finger pointed at your chest, “need
another drink, Honey?” He accidentally stumbles into the big, red couch shaped
like a pair of salacious lips in a clumsy effort to hide his shitty attempt at lying
and his raging libidinous appetite, “whoa— fuckin’….. came outta nowhere.”
You toss your head back in laughter before chasing after him and tossing your
arms around his shoulders, deciding to drop the teasing and change the subject
as you two paw at one another through the ritzy, affluent crowd and to the bar.
You catch eyes with a couple middle-aged women who metaphorically clutch
their pearls as they scan the fearless yarn of tattoos up and down Harry’s arms
and across his clavicles that peek out from the collar his button-down shirt. You
are completely unashamed of your lover and in fact, their judgment amuses you
because you know deep down, they want to jump his bones just as much as you
do. There’s no way anybody walking this planet with functioning sexual organs
wouldn’t want to see what a naughtier version of James Dean’s good looks are
capable of. Perhaps the best part of the whole display is that you’re convinced
without speaking a word to anyone else in your proximity that he has the
classiest heart in the room.
A chalkboard hangs above the shelves of liquor, scrawled fetching

handwriting that announces “$1 French 75 Fridays.”
You’re covetous in your action when you sling your arm around his neck and
he laces your fingers together without hesitation, “French 75 Fridays? What’s
that?”
Harry hums a damp kiss into your knuckles, “French 75 is a cocktail. Gin,
lemon, champagne. It’s a special on Fridays because, y’know….. alliteration. Want
one?”
Your fingernails scratch up his back and ravel into his hair, twisting his curls
and dragging against his scalp to make his spine shudder. Harry’s eyelids slip
shut as he inhales a deep drag of calming air, his mind immediately escaping to
your soft bed or your beachy lunch break or the shade of Banana Split. Any
possible opportunity for him to disappear inside of his fantasies is one he’ll take
in a heartbeat, but he would much rather have the real thing.
“Oui, s’il vous plaît. Guess what?”

“Chestnut.”
“Clod!” Harry’s grin is so large that he has to run his fingers around his mouth
to subdue it while he leans on the bar to order your drinks. You wait until he’s
finished and he bathes you with his sparkling, neon green lightning again, his
bottom perching on a nearby barstool before he pops you between his legs, “my
mother called me this morning after you left to go surfing.”
“No shit? And?”
Harry knows that you have a rocky relationship with your parents, the
realization having dawned especially heavily as you stepped further away from
your bubble-like, Midwestern upbringing and gained a more comprehensive
perspective around your feelings towards them and your childhood. He knows
that you’re too polite and sweet to ever harbor resentment for their protective
sheltering, but he also knows that you deserve to feel exasperation for their
narrow-mindedness and he reminds you of this all the time. Yes, you can love
your family while still disagreeing with them and yes, it’s completely maddening
to discover cracks in a relationship that you never saw before. Particularly as you
go through the work of carefully caulking them all by yourself and then
attempting to splash a new, shiny coat of paint on top. But you’re smart as fuck
and he’s supportive of your process, knowing from experience that it’s healthy to
explore and ask existential questions that our parents have never even
considered. Otherwise we’d all just be moving backwards or standing stuck in
archaic mud like idiots.
“She saw us in the paper yesterday. She actually congratulated me….. but my
father refused to get on the phone. I could hear him muttering something about a
pair of degenerate devil’s children in the background.”
Harry cups your jaw before walking his fingertips down your throat, “you
deserve every little drop of praise and more. You’re the best dancer on god’s
green earth and it’s really sad that you can’t dance the way you want to. Don’t
hear him. I know it’s hard to remember acclaim and forget backlash, but there
are a shit-ton of more positive highlights for you than negative. And it’s fuckin’
awesome that you flipped ’em the bird and did what makes you happy, despite
their opinions. You’re a tough bitch and you have no fuckin’ clue. Kiss, please.”
The pads of his fingers grip your neck tightly when you indulge him in his
request, your tongues meeting for a split second before he kisses you once again
with another deliberate squeeze, “mmm….. your pops can bite it. And your old
lady kinda sounds like a drag, too.”
Your mouth parts in shock and you cock your head to the side in the most
adorable expression of mental connect-the-dots when you remember a
conversation over nail polish from a couple weeks ago, “that’s exactly what
Nettie said! Thank you, Harry….. for saying all of that.” It’s amazing to him that
you still blush whenever this much emotional content is dumped on you, but he
supposes it makes sense considering how little time you’ve spent delving
inwards. His thumbs trace over your ruddy cheeks in the same moment that your
drinks are placed on the bar, but you’re both too focused on one another to really
notice, “what’s your mom like?”
“She’s beautiful, wise. An Earthbound angel. She tries really hard to be

optimistic. I wasn’t the easiest kid to raise, y’know.”
You giggle at the sweet love he has for his mother. Your mom always told you
that you can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats his mother, that the
respect they have for their mom deeply represents how they’d conduct
themselves in a relationship with a woman, “really? Shocking.”
“Get bent, Honeydope.”
“She did a good job though. I’m sure you had lots and lots of shiny, blissful
moments.”
Harry shrugs as nasty memories from adolescence that make his stomach
churn start to resurface, “she’d love you and your influence….. your hold over me.
She’d think you’re cute as hell. My dad’s a shitty prick. My mum’s tried to leave
him a buncha times ’cause he drinks. A lot.” Harry holds up his bottle of beer in
the air and clinks the neck against the coupe martini glass pinched between your
fingers, “cheers.”
If Harry could bury every little thing that doesn’t feel good, he would. Because
everything that doesn’t feel good just feels bad.
“You can talk to me.”
It’s hard to read his expression with the way his hair has fallen into his face,
his fingers fidgeting with his coaster as he shreds the edges through his wicked
contemplation. In reality, Harry hasn’t opened up to as many people as you’d
once suspected. You were always jealous of the women he chose to let through
his grumpy walls, but now you’re starting to wonder if they were ever inside in
the first place or if he was simply using sex as a detached escape from all the
rottenness that he was hiding inside of his tightly-guarded stronghold. Sure, you
know as much about Harry’s present existence as you possibly can since that’s
where he prefers to reside, but you don’t actually know very much about how
he’s ended up where he is today. Why he feels the need for such a strong
rebellion, why he genuinely felt the urge to join the circus. Tex knows a lot about
him and not through verbal recounting, but mainly because he happened to be
adjacent during some of the occurrences when they took place.
Harry perches a cigarette between his lips and brings it to life with the strike
of a match, the tip of his nose disappearing in a haze of pale pink before he
refocuses on you. A forlorn, wilted tropical leaf up top, a plump, freshly sliced
strawberry down below. The hunt and the chase over and over again. He shrugs
as memories of pissing off crusty old teachers whirl through his brain, their bony
fingers pointing to the exit door as he strode out and slammed it closed behind
him. Calling his sister trite, immature names because he was always jealous of
how smart and courteous she was.
A million images surface and he surprises himself when he jumps right into
the thick of it without a second thought, “I stole my dad’s car to pick my mum up
from her double shift at the restaurant because my dad was too drunk to do it
himself. I couldn’t stand the thought of her standing there, upset and waitin’ for a
cab in the dark with sore feet. He was so pissed that he called the fuzz on me as
soon as he noticed. My only savin’ grace in his eyes was that I was athletic.
Teachers would fudge my grades to keep me on the football team, until that
fucker popped my shoulder and tore my rotator cuff during a match. Lost my
scholarship after that and gave up on school. My dad kicked me out just before I
turned eighteen.”
I was a dumb-as-fuck kid, that’s all. Joyridin’.
You open your mouth to reply without even knowing how to properly
respond, but he interrupts with a disdainful scoff projected into the bar top
below his hands, “he’d get rough with me. And mum sometimes.” Harry swipes
his palms down his face and takes a long swig of his beer, his adam’s apple
bobbing with each swallow. He shakes his head and chuckles before drilling
miserable holes into your face, “I’ve….. never told anyone that before.” And he’s
never wanted to.
Your fingertips tip-toe across the bar to land on top of his hand, “thank you for
trusting me, Harry.” Your eyes search one another’s while he mentally begs you
to tell him that you love him, “you’re a loving, sentient, altruistic person and you
never should’ve had to deal with that maturity at such a young age. And no one
ever deserves abuse. Your dad made his demons your own. You carry a lot and
somehow still manage to be considerate and productive. That’s the definition of
strength. I admire you.” Your smile unfurls very slowly as you prop your elbow
on the bar to cup his chin in your hand, “and I love how gallant you are towards
your mother. It speaks volumes. It shouts them. You’re good, really good. Bright,
blinding rays of sunshine.”
Harry’s kittenish smile and soft dimple melts into his cheek as he nuzzles his
face into your palm and sponges a couple kisses into the delicate skin of your
wrist, “you feel so fuckin’ good, Cherry. You make me feel so goddamn good.”
The way Harry observes you with a tender, fond expression of contentment,
with his cheek resting harmlessly in the palm your hand and his mouth pulled
into a gooey smile, his hair curled around his forehead and his eyes glazed over
with a display of devotion towards you compels you to pause and appreciate him.
The type of level-headed grounding he possesses is infectious, his stunning
features are palpable, his sparkle is enchanting. You idolize him; you want to be
just like him and you can’t imagine a better attribute in a partner, both
romantically and professionally. The level of candidacy he requires forces you
out of your protective shell and begs you to be a better person, for yourself and
for him, and the amount of growth you’ve sprouted in such a short period of time
is tremendous. It may not be the type of growth you’re your parents had wanted
for you, but it’s exactly what you want for yourself. And you have him to thank.
Your vulgar, cotton candy dreamboat.
He may just be the best teacher you’ve ever had.
“How do I make you feel, mm? Tell me a secret?”
Harry lifts his head and weaves your fingers together, toying with his
threaded ruby ring wrapped around your middle finger and sucking in a breath
of air when you dive forward to speak against his lips, your noses nested up side-
by-side, his hair tickling your temple, “you make me feel like no one ever has
before or ever will again. Satisfied and starving all at once.”
“Fuck me. God.” Your little chuckle is drowned in one of his absorbing kisses
that may be considered inappropriate for such posh company, with one hand
dropping to the back of your neck and the other to the fullest part of your ass for
an unabashed grope. The sounds of The Cat’s Paw slowly dissolve around you as
you suffocate in one another, the only importance in this moment lying in your
deep regard for each other and the unbreakable swish of your tongues, the teeny
breaks that Harry takes to mumble little scattered sentiments of “my good girl”
and “my sweet Cherry” into your mouth.
And when you pull away with a quiet mutter of “just for you”, his pupils
stretch like a drop of iodine in water.
“’Kay, time to blow this taco stand.” Harry stubs out his cigarette, rising to his
feet and mindlessly shuffling a stack of bills from his wallet before tossing it onto
the bar top. The fact that Harry always leaves a hefty tip at bars and restaurants
suddenly makes more sense knowing that his mother has worked or maybe even
still works in the service industry. His loyalty and convictions know no bounds
and you mentally add that to his ever-growing list of sexy, superior traits.
He paid the tab for the entire table. And he tips like a Rockefeller. He’s a keeper,
hun.
“No, but— my fancy French martini!” You try to gulp it down before Harry can
tug you away, his hands clutching your waist and yanking as you grip the bar for
anchorage, “quit it! You’re so pushy.”
His mouth meets the shell of your ear with hot breath and an even hotter
correction, “mm’forward. You’re pretty fuckin’ pushy yourself, but I dig it. I’ll give
you my best French when we get home.” You can feel his lips pull into a smile
against your skin, “come an’ love your daddy all night long.” He swipes your
cardigan from the back of the tall, crimson velveteen chair where you left it,
holding it up in the air for you to slip your arms into and then tucking your purse
into his underarm. You lock eyes with one of the disapproving women from
earlier, her surprised expression at his chivalrous gesture pulling a boastful, sly
smirk into your cheek. He definitely has the classiest heart in the room and
maybe even the entire world, but the true depth of it is a secret for your eyes
only.
The neon signage spelling out the name Cat’s Paw hanging above the awning
of the building is comparable to a melting candy apple liquefying into the black
scrim of night. And the smell of a nearby joint curling dank, skunky clouds under
your nose is just as toothsome and delectable. You somehow manage to slip out
of Harry’s arm and towards the two men passing the smoke back-and-forth to
each other, their eyes illuminating when you approach with an endearing
request, “got any extra?”
“Whoa, zappy alert!” Harry intercepts the joint hand-off mid-air and returns it
to its owner with a respectful nod of his head, “cool it, Smokey the Bear. Dream
career is calling, remember? Sleep and all that? Your most important, staunch-ass
rule? Since when did I become your babysitter? Seems backwards.”
With a stomp of your Mary Jane heel against the sidewalk and a petulant
whine, Harry can’t help but grin at your adorably buzzed tantrum, “but I wanna
try it.”
“You’ll get the spins, babe.”
“What’s that? One puff can’t hurt.”
Sarcasm drips from the tip of his tongue as he declares a line he’s probably
heard from a hundred disparaging adults in his lifetime, “that’s what they all say.
Next thing you know, you’re lyin’ in a ditch somewhere, strung out on heroin. It’s
a classic crash and burn, Honeysin.” He clutches your neck in the crook of his
elbow and steers you towards his van, perching you against the pink passenger
door and crowding you for a bit of heat, “the spins happen when you mix booze
with doobies. Seedy territory.” His mouth nestles into the sweet spot of your
neck, your skin tingling from where his teeth delicately scrape, “I’ll smoke
with….. and then maybe you’ll let me go down on you.” You gasp at his candor
and slap your palm over his mouth, but he merely pries your fingers away and
pokes the tip of his nose into your cheek with cool, unruffled feathers, “it’ll feel
outta sight. Believe me.”
A single eyebrow perks at his potent guarantee, “promise?”
Explicit images flashes in the empty space between his eyelids and his
reptilian brain; your head falling back as your body arcs away from your
mattress, your juices flooding his tongue, your toes curling into your sheets,
“swear to god.”
“Do you smoke weed?”
Harry’s expression twists into lighthearted contempt as he points to his chest,

“this angel? No….. yes. But I’m not a jell head. S’nice to get loose sometimes.”
“Do you do other drugs?”
“What is this, dig-up-all-of-Harry’s-shit day? You’re my drug. I’m completely

addicted to Cherrytits. It’s fryin’ my brain. Now get in the fuckin’ car.”
“Can we dance when we get home?”
The limits of Harry’s composure are gradually peeling back from the corners,
but when he slows down and takes the time to regard the innocent gloss across
your eyes, the ribbon tied into a bow at the crown of your head with its pointed
ends twisting into your loose hair, the way you watch him with a small smile as if
attempting to seep into every fiber of his clothing, he understands that you’re
simply trying to value every hairpin turn of his soul. A muffled growl slips
through a smile, his lips sealing with yours before mumbling, “fine. One French
song. But then we’re sackin’ out. I gotta be up at dawn to beat the gremmies,
Cherry.”
His dedication is non-violent, but somehow still firm and a big part of you
loves how his personal priorities will relent for no one. Even you. But he does a
good job of compromising.
A hushed cheer of victory spirals up your throat and fills the tiny gap between
your mouths while his smile widens and he kisses you again, his mouth traipsing
across your jaw to whisper in your ear, “gotta cut out before you turn into a
pumpkin, yeah? Big day tomorrow….. early show.” He has no idea exactly how big
tomorrow will be and that same nagging fear of the unknown picks at your
insides, “quoi de neuf, hmm? You keep makin’ that fuckin’ face. Gotta tell me
somethin’?”
Damn it, Cherry. Don’t fuckin’ keep shit from me, alright?
You had no idea that you were even making a face, “what? No, I just….. maybe
one-too-many French 75’s?”
“That or you’re fulla shit.”
“I’m not! Je suis sage comme une image.”
“No duh.” He narrows his eyes in playful scrutiny as he pops the passenger
door open for you before letting himself in as he always does. Another list-
topping action of courtesy, “let’s get your pretty ass home.”
Hi! Don’t go too far! There’s more on the way. This chapter got so long (shocker)
that I had to split it up, so consider it a little double-update, Memorial Day
Weekend treat. Get ready for what’s next….. any predictions? I love you! See you
very, very soon! Just hang tight. Xx B
HOW ABOUT THAT INSANE ASS FLYER BY NONE OTHER THAN

FatBottomedGirls ? Have I expressed how much I absolutely ADMIRE AND ADORE
THEM? I mean, just look at it!!!!!
Each sweeping ascent towards the heavens is saturated in blazing hot

sunshine. Rays of precious life, glowing streaks the color of linen, parchment and
bone, depositing kisses of color upon your shoulders and the tip of your nose.
You’re barely swinging your legs and it’s a mystery as to how your momentum
remains with such serene ease, but for once you don’t think to question it.
Each sweeping descent towards the ocean is saturated in a refreshing brisk

breeze. Wisps of beloved freedom, invisible gusts the scent of salt, cotton candy
and maraschino cherries, accumulating prickles of devotion against your back
and the ends of your hair. You’re barely grazing the water below your toes and
it’s a mystery as to why there’s a swing set in the middle of the ocean, but for
once you don’t think to question it.
“Higher!”
The rope below your sweaty palms burns and begs you to let go, but for some
reason it seems impossible regardless of the near-constant, needling torture that
aches more with each passing second. The swing that carries you is
uncomfortable, although somehow safe and manageable, the roots of galvanized
steel on either end digging deep into the sand in an effort to keep you lodged in
place. You know that if you just put in a little effort and pump your legs that you
could be soaring straight into the sun, but it’s frightening to be all alone out here
in the middle of the sea with a thousand possible outcomes for a landing spot.
When your eyes pinch shut to effectively block out the cawing seagulls and the
roar of the unshakable waves around you, you can feel yourself floating closer
towards the warmth above and it feels so good that you never want it to stop.
“Jump!”
Harry stands below your swing set waist deep in the perpetual ocean,
composed with his arms outstretched towards you in a soothing promise to catch
you as soon as you’re ready. And since you trust him, you don’t even bother to
take in a full breath before you’re letting go as soon as the swing reaches its apex,
your limbs flailing as you soar through the air with nothing but butterflies in
your stomach and blind, lusty faith in your heart.
Somewhere between your release from the swing set and a crash into the
never-ending sea, your silky sleeping mask is drawn away from one of your
cheeks for a sudden glimpse of shadows outlined by the threat of dusk, a head of
moppy waves and a set of languid, half-lidded eyes hovering over you. One
corner of Harry’s mouth pulls into soft smile before he rolls his lips together and
slinks his tongue out to moisten them, his fingers pulling the mask off of your
head and slipping it onto his own to shield his eyes from you.
Your immediate, involuntary reaction is to giggle and melt into his chest, his
heartbeat stuttered and muffled by the dull roar of deep affection. He loves
teasing you just as much as he loves kissing you, but he thinks what he loves
most is how effortlessly his goading rolls off your back. It would never seem that
way to outside eyes or even to him when he was begging for mercy for weeks,
but you’re so easy and graceful with love that it forces him to sink deeper and
deeper into your endless stretch of quicksand in the hope that so long as he
sinks, he’ll suffocate and happily perish in cherry-flavored rapture.
With his keenly pointed nose and heart-shaped lips peering out from below
the thick layer of silk, it seems as though he’s practically begging for a kiss. Your
fingers weave into his hair to pull him closer, your mouths brushing together just
once before you tenderly nip at his bottom lip, “I was having a dream.”
Usually when he wakes you up like this, he’s impatient to peel your mask off
and feel his stomach flutter at the sight of your sleepy, adoring eyes, fully
absorbing the notion of how you trust him enough to dream beside him each
night. However, this morning he’s feeling particularly raunchy, with residual
drippings of your sensual slow dance before bed floating through his drowsy
mind. Or perhaps it’s because last night you bravely played with the notion of
sleeping topless admittedly for the first time ever. Harry had a wickedly difficult
time falling asleep and using his palms as a makeshift bra at the same time, and
after a bit of tossing and turning, he was finally able to wrestle himself into
unconsciousness. But today, he’s going to draw you a little farther out of your
shell and he knows it, he can just feel the impending lure vibrating in the air and
his cock is aching at the thrill of possible culminations.
Harry uses the pad of his thumb to blindly pinpoint your mouth before
pecking your lips once, then kissing you again without bothering to pull away for
a breath, longer and sultrier this time, “mmm?” He rips the mask off and lowers it
back down over your eyes to veil you in darkness before connecting your mouths
again, the blindness sharpening your other senses so that you can feel every little
delicate brush of his fingertips and hear his excited breathing whooshing through
his nose.
It’s suddenly very hard to pull in a full breath, “you were about to catch me.”
His fingers tangle with yours to pin your hands into the mattress above your
head, his weight rolling on top of you as he nudges your legs apart with his knee
to make space for his hips, “were you fallin’ for me?”
You wish you could answer but the burn in your muscles is much too
consuming, the drip in your panties is much too distracting, and your mouth
parting to allow a single exhale to escape is the only retort he needs. Harry
cranes his head back to admire the stretch of your limbs, the pert of your bare
chest, the palpitation of your lungs inside of your ribcage before he releases you
to continue his seductive journey south.
The tip of his nose and his lips draw a ribbon of lust down your neck and
chest, pausing for a moment to suck your nipple past his teeth before continuing
to your bellybutton, his tongue dipping into the crevice to siphon a pinch in your
core. In contrast to other people he’s been with, he’s found that a lot of the time
women use moans as a means of communication when they don’t feel explicit
enough to verbally correspond. Harry always double checks to be certain before
any type of sexual act, but mostly because he’s drawn to dirty talk fortified with a
heavy dose of eye contact. In his experience, little signals of ’mhm’ or soft hums
from partners typically indicate permission and enjoyment, but with you it’s
different. You’re extraordinarily connected with every inch of your body and so is
he. He hears every little exhale. He notices every goosebump. He salivates when
your nipples harden. Because you feel. You feel deeply and sometimes it seems
that no matter how hard you try to keep your arousal locked away for whatever
guarded, shameful reason, you can’t help but let those little noises slip. With this
sudden realization, his cock throbs in candid conversation with your pith, a soft
whine panning through his eardrums when you nudge your tummy closer in
silent beckoning for another taste from his tongue.
It’s impelling versus succumbing. Slowly picking a dam apart brick by brick
versus an inability to plug an inevitable leak. You’re so fucking sensual and you
have no clue.
After another wet splurge in your bellybutton, his kisses dive further, one
bravely stamping right on your sparking knot with his fingertips skimming the
humid lap of your panties on his descent down your legs. His fingertips tickle the
underbelly of your knees, fluorescent with worship, before drawing back to his
haunches and lifting your leg in the air to kiss the inside of your ankle bone,
“g’mornin’, Honeylove.”
He takes pride in your reaction when you strip your sleeping mask from your
face and toss it aside, your cheeks flushed with arousal, “I need air.”
His blunt fingernails carve down your bare back as you saunter towards your
window, pulling the curtains aside and leaning your elbows on the sill to feel the
ocean breeze on your face. The sheets are cool and soft against Harry’s skin when
he flops down to observe the curve of your back, your hair tickling your shoulder
blades, the coy pull of your mouth when you glance over your shoulder to
appreciate the way the rising sun bathes Harry in filtered light. You look like the
mysterious dream woman he’s always imagined; periwinkle and charcoal
daybreak highlighting your edges, a tight little figure with lines and curves and
softness and ease, liberal with your body but only for him, lost in your own
thoughts, but also completely present if he called for it. Exactly like his favorite
novels; filled to the brim with brilliance whether he’s looking at them or not, but
coming alive with a peel of his fingertips and attentive doting. Cool, serene.
Tough, smart. Sexy, natural. A secret. His secret. A hidden lagoon; deep, cleansing,
refreshing water overgrown with gorgeous, tangled growth.
The husky croak of his tired morning voice, the frothing crash of a wave
nipping your toes; coffee grounds and caramel, corduroy and wool, jagged
seashells and warm sand produced from an even warmer chest, “knock out. Just
for me?”
You nod and gather your hair from your neck, the floor-dragging curtains
brushing the smooth skin of your calves when you turn to face him, completely
nude aside from a pair of high-waisted, black panties, “I love that you wake so
early. It’s surprising, but it makes sense in hindsight; big appetite, wide eyes,
vivid thoughts, restless hands, sunbeams pushing on your pores. Fidgety and all
that. It’s like you’re too precious and sentient to not be conscious for the entire
spread of daylight….. except your nap. But your fierce mind needs the short
replenishment.”
The ability you carry in complimenting him in such a natural, mellow manner
makes his toes curl under the sheets. You always seem to point out his habits
from a heightened, admiring way, as if they’re something that you’ve always
noticed but simply kept quiet and decided in a very calculated manner to reveal
the information when the timing is right. He loves that about you; that you cling
to details and swallow them and digest them, but don’t necessarily feel the need
to gridlock space with them in the moment. You stew over them, using them as
tiny building blocks that create the comprehensive view you have of your lover,
slowly releasing the nuts and bolts bit-by-bit to let him know that yes, you’re
paying sharp attention and yes, you’re really fucking romantic. He’s romantic too,
but his observations tend to leak the instant he spots them. He doesn’t quite have
the self-control that you were graced with, especially when it comes to love. And
Cherries.
Gritty sugar cubes dissolve in hot tea in his throat when he swallows the thick
emotion that your flattery has left him with, “you’re— I— c’mere. I’m droolin’…..
gimme a sip before I go shreddin.’ Good luck an’ all that.”
“Wow, did I hush you?”
He hums through a tight-lipped grin when your hips sway as you make your
way back towards him, a gust of air whipping through his nose as he welcomes
your lavish and bold warmth, pushing the sheets out of the way so that you can
straddle his lap and smooth your palms up his bare stomach. He sits up just long
enough to wind his fingers into your hair and pull you down on top of him, your
centers magnetizing together, your lips connecting and the tips of your tongues
poking out for a sweet taste. This is how your time together is spent, this is the
comforting pattern of your relationship. Stoic, erotic mornings, followed by hours
upon hours of forbidden foreplay during practice and performance, a little
decompression with milkshakes or pool after work before stealthily sinking back
into bed together. He can only imagine the type of closeness that sex would bring,
but he can tell that you’re not ready to go all the way yet without even having to
ask. And he knows better than to dog you about it, because sex with the added
element of pressure, regardless of how innocent that pressure is, will never be as
pleasurable as when you’re begging for it. For him. But that doesn’t stop him
from cracking jokes about it as often as humanly possible. He just wants to keep
it in the foreground of your mind….. that’s all.
Harry trails his fingertips up your thighs and pinches your hips, flipping your
body underneath his and kissing you deeply with a creamy, heated moan that
urges you to polish your hips in half moon against his. Somehow and in some
way, he has you already panting out against his lips, “skip it today, Sunbaby? It’s
so warm right here and the ocean is freezing.”
“Mmm….. why? You gotta better idea?”
“Can’t think of a single—”
Your sentence is shocked short by a gasp when Harry grasps one of your
breasts in his hand and guides your nipple past his teeth, “love your tits. Can I
take a peek? At somethin’ new?”
A slow, pilling drip of honey from a decorative silver spoon. Your mouth
salivates in forecast.
“At…..?”
“Your cookie jar. I wanna see you. Touch you….. smell you. I wanna be thinkin’
about your cunt while I’m surfin’ and I wanna hear the way you moan when I
thaw out on the beach afterwards. Bet it’s so pret… y... so, so fuckin’ pretty.
Strawberries and rose petals and honeycomb.” His tongue skates out to wet his
lips, his chest slowly inflating with tonic breath and exhaling with husky lust, “a
soft peach with a cherry pit. I want you for breakfast, Cherry.”
Which would you rather have, a breakfast inquiry or breakfast in bed with your
sex hunk?
Gliding his fingertips down your chest and stomach, Harry pauses over your
mound with his eyes drilling into yours when he slowly, very slowly begins to
add steady pressure to that same, unfamiliar sensitive spot with the heel of his
hand.
Your hips begin to squirm at the swell of tension in your core, your head
rolling back for a deep whiff of air and space from his intense eye contact. Even
though he’s the one bringing the profound bloom of pleasure to your pelvis, it
somehow feels like you need to close your eyes to concentrate on the sensation
in order to make it flourish.
But he doesn’t like that. One bit. In opposition to you, Harry needs your regard
and your presence to let go, to know that he’s not alone in the frolic through
euphoria. Even now with you on the receiving end, he requires constant
attendance and praise in order to do his best work. He clicks his tongue once to
collect your attention, his lips pulling into a lopsided smirk when you obey
without a hitch, “good girl. Hi.”
A little sheen of sweat is starting to collect on your palpitating chest, “bad
boy….. hey.”
“Oooh….. unexpected.” The sturdy heel of his palm starts buffing little coercive
circles that urge your core to flutter all over. He pays very close attention to the
speed of your breath, the push of sweat on your pores, every twist of your
features. Very close attention, “what’s that feel like?”
“Little earthquakes. Candyland.”
“Mmm. Shit….. that’s hot.”
“You can look.”
His breath lodges in his throat, “no fuckin’ way. Yeah?” Distant bells ring in his
eardrums, “you jivin’’?”
“No.” Your fingertips whittle your way down his back and dip into the elastic
of his briefs, guiding his hips into a rut against yours, “I want you to see me. It’s
okay, I’m ready….. please.”
“Mmm….. can I also make you come?”
“Um,” a little huff of nervous laughter makes his stomach twist. You’re so
fucking cute, you’re so fucking tough. The sweetest little bunny, happily sitting
inside a patch of thorny blackberry bushes. Bathing in the sun, completely
unaware of how you’d gotten so far into the weeds with seemingly no knowledge
of it, but you guided yourself there expertly and now Harry needs fucking
surgical tools to tussle you out. You lick your lips and sink your teeth into your
skin. Your voice is so sexy when it’s all soft and vulnerable, “dunno….. I’ve never
—”
“It’ll change your life. I’ll change your life.”
You prop yourself up on your elbows and raise a single incredulous eyebrow
at his certainty, “it’s that good?”
“Um, yes. You think I chase your pussy to the ends of the earth for a mediocre
fuckin’ feeling?”
Your expression darkens in the most carnal way that Harry could have ever
imagined possible, your chin angling down to drop your hair in your face as you
nibble on your bottom lip and fight to keep your limbs from melting, “please.” He
cups your center and presses the pad of his middle finger against your entrance
to feel your humidity, “oh god…..” You nod once before your head falls back
between your shoulders again, “please? I want you to change my life.” More than
he already has.
“Take your off panties for me.”
It takes all of the bravery you can muster to sit up and shimmy your
underwear down your legs, with Harry’s gaze trained steadily on the fabric
careening past each inch of skin. You both know that he could easily do it himself
and that he really wants to, but he wants you to be in charge of your sexual
exploration as much as possible and wants you to strip yourself bare, literally
and metaphorically. He untangles the flimsy garment from your feet before
victoriously spinning it in the air on his index finger above his head, your sweet
and complacent giggle knocked to the back of your throat as soon as he flings
them across the room and lays you down to speak against your lips, “killer. Don’t
hold back. Words, moans….. scratches. I want it all, yeah?” You nod and his
fingers wrap around your throat as he narrows his eyes, “speak.”
“I won’t— I won’t hold back.”

“Good, sexy girl.” Harry takes his time meandering down your body behind a
bouquet of kisses, licks and nibbles, his heart beating into his throat and his
length pining for a single touch. A swipe across his leaky slit, even a single rock
into your thigh, but it’s easy for him to push that aside for your sake. He slithers
onto his belly and hums, guiding your legs apart and locking eyes with you first
before gazing down at your oozing center. Your ears perk at his faint, drawn-out
curse, his teeth gnawing on his bottom lip as he spreads his fingers into a V-
shape to span your folds and blow a puff of air to watch you clench in response,
“god. Oh god. You drive me fuckin’ crazy. Fuck.” His mouth attaches to the crux of
your inner thigh to suck a dark hickey into the sensitive skin there, your heady
scent making him delirious with hunger when he peels back to slur, “I need a
taste. Please.”
You’re so intoxicated with his proximity and inquisition that you blurt out the
first thing that comes to mind, “do whatever you want, just don’t stop.”
Harry licks his lips before diving in to leave a single, open-mouthed kiss upon
your heat, groaning desperately at the electrifying taste before doing it again,
smaller this time, right on your tender bundle of nerves that has your thighs
instinctively snapping shut and squeezing around his ears. Your giggling is
muffled by your palms when he grips your knees and pries your legs apart, “I’m
sorry. That tickled.”
His mouth is flatlined in unamusement, “ow….. I think you rattled my brain

cells around.”
“I’m sorry, Sunny. Keep going. I’ll behave.” Your fingers tangle into his hair, “or
maybe you need to try harder to supervise me.”
Cocking his head slowly with a charmed fascination slicing his eyebrows, he
presses the pad of his thumb just alongside your knot and waits, steadily adding
more and more tension until your legs flinch and your head lolls back. You
manage to huff out a single breath before he makes his way back to you, dragging
his nose along your jawline and rewarding you with a supple, drawn-out kiss,
“s’good?”
You nod and chase him for another kiss, but he reels back and tucks his
bottom lip under his teeth, angling your hips towards him and dipping his middle
finger back and forth between your entrance and your sensitivity, over and over,
bottom to top, spreading your excitement through your folds with his eyes
trained heavily on your face. Everything feels so intense and nuanced that you
swear you can make out his fingerprint and imagine him spelling out letters of
the alphabet, but that can’t possibly be accurate.
Jelly.
Harry taps the end of his nose against yours, “yeah? Say it.”
“Yeah…..” Toffee. “Go… d...”
Just when you think he’s going to do one thing he ends up maneuvering a
different way to keep you on your toes. Each stride of his pastel and vibrant
fingertips has your knees jerking beside his hips and each jerk of your knees
yanks the corners of his mouth into a flirty smile, knowing the effect he’s having
on you and knowing that when you meet your impending end in just a few ticks
of the clock, you’re going to be so gone for him that you may not want to leave
this bed ever again. He imagines a world where you’re just as handsy and
naughty and wanton as he is, where your libidos match and align and you end up
astounding him with your salacious demands. He would love the feeling of racing
beside you, the both of you elbowing each other for the forefront as you flee
towards the same exact goal, tumbling on top of one another into the grass on the
other side of the finish line. Heavy breaths, pounding hearts, boneless limbs. A
juicy cherry on top of his dripping hot fudge sundae.
Your hips rock against his palm and he hisses at your advance, circling your
moisture around your most sensitive spot before nestling just the tip of his finger
into your entrance with a pause, “drenchin’ me, Cherry.”
You start to fuss and whine when he removes the warmth of his hand as he
was about to dip further, a soft hush pushing past his teeth when he hovers his
fingers at your lips. You obey on command, sucking his digits into your mouth
and whimpering at the taste, but before long he’s taken it away to savor it
himself, his tongue swirling around his knuckles before his fingers plunge into
his mouth.
He draws a line down the center of your chest, straight over your belly button
and back to your core, holding his sopping wet fingertips against your entrance
and murmuring a praise of “mm’dig your sweet flavor” against the shell of your
ear. Everything inside of you is vibrating and through the fog of your lust you can
just make out a blip of appreciative awareness for him taking his time, but you’re
so worked up and ready for more that you’re unable to express it with
comprehensive words.
So when you take it upon yourself to slowly roll your hips forward to sink his
middle finger steadily and bravely through your tight passage, both of your jaws
are gaping at the filling sensation and brass of your movement. A cascading pile
of falling bricks, a growing mountain of fluffy whipped cream; Harry presses his
thumb against your bud and moans, “fuck. Oh, fuck,” in the same heated breath
that you cry, “oh my god,” your head falling back to expose a full strip of humid
skin straining across your ridged throat.
Fireworks.
Harry groans in empathy at the stretch you must be feeling, unsure if you’ve
ever been penetrated by anything before or if you’ve ever taken the risk of gentle
self-exploration this way. Now with the blaze of shared intimacy, it’s too much
for him to consider in this moment and he makes a mental note to ask you later,
“you good?” You nod and he cranes his head back to study your features, keeping
his finger still except for a soft flick against a sacred spot on your front wall every
couple seconds, “god….. Snug. Wet. Can I fuck you with my fingers? I’ll go ea… y...
an’ so will you. Promise.” His eyes pinch closed before he draws one open,
followed by the next, “god, fuckin— grippin’ me.…Shh... breathe. Kiss me, baby.”
You hadn’t realized you were holding your breath until he guided you with a
suck of air through his nose. As soon as a gush of sweet, cool air hits the back of
your throat, you’re rushing forward to seal your lips together in the same instant
that he starts to move his digit in and out. All the way in and all the way out,
“please.”
Your hips join the cadence of his finger after a few leisurely strokes, his mouth
busily bouncing back and forth between sucking on your tits and sucking on your
tongue, leaving wet, open-mouthed kisses on your throat. You allow instinct to
guide you as you wrap your legs around his waist and feel the bump of his
thickness poking your thigh, wishing that you were working him up and bringing
him relief just as he is for you, but the sensation in your belly is much too
powerful. His movements seem to gather intensity every few thrusts as he works
to both match your fervid pace and stir the commotion in your body, never
ceasing to graze his teeth on your neck and whisper effortless quips about your
beautiful, plucky evolution.
Just for him.
Harry brushes your hair from your face and swallows your sinful little moans,
your lips slipping and skidding together when he sighs into your mouth, “do
somethin’ for me.” You nod and cry out, arching your back when he sinks another
finger inside of you and curls them against your front wall with a fervent clasp,
his voice quiet, decisive and demanding, “call me daddy.”
Your eyebrows shoot up and you chuckle softly in astounded sheepishness,

biting your lip when you find the lust brimming in his eyes, “Harry, I….. I can…
t....?”
His panting breaths taste like caramel pudding; gooey, earthy and richer than
burnt sugar, “yes, you can. If you wrapped your fist around me right now, I’d
come all over your hand like a little fuckin’ pansy.” He flicks his thumb over your
taut nipple, “this is the most erotic thing I’ve ever experienced. You’re so fuckin’
foxy.” And he can hardly believe that it’s happening, but that realization will just
have to wait, “say it.”
A gasp fills your lungs when he gathers your wrists in one large palm and
stakes them to the bed above your head, your ribcage popping as you attempt to
suck in a full breath. Tingles and sparks and electricity spread from your groin,
your limbs burning, your floodgates irrepressible. Without much forethought
aside from a taste of curiosity, his potent action forces you to whisper, “daddy—”
The moment the word hits the air Harry’s expression crumples, an
exasperated moan withering out when his pace falters for a second. He hunches
forward and ruts against you, a sharp mewl fattening your tongue when you see
the effect it has on him. Your back arches and you whisper it again a little louder
this time, your savvy regard snapping him back to reality and urging him to
stroke you faster, “I’ll take such good care of you, my sweet girl.”
He had no idea what color your petals were going to be once your bud
blossomed, but he never would’ve guessed they’d be a firecracker of glittering
fractals, a stunning light show that he can’t peel his eyes away from even though
it’s burning permanent scars into his retinas.
His voice drops to a low, dominating tone meant to be heard by your ears only.
He’s firmly egging you on, dragging out your first orgasm with each curl of his
tongue, his mouth brushing yours as he begins to speak incessantly and not
planning to stop until you’ve released, “makin’ me rock hard. Fuck, I love your
cunt. One day you’ll let me spread your legs wide and put my mouth on you. Suck
your clit past my teeth, dip my tongue deep inside of you. Work you until you’re
pantin’ sweet little breaths, begging for me, askin’ for my fingers. Your thighs
trembling. I want you. Want you so much, Cherry. Gonna make you come for me.
Like how I fuck you with my fingers, Honeyfuck? Whisper my name. Come on,
babe. Lose yourself with me.” His tone drops to a sludgy whisper as if he were
struggling to push each word out through each punch of his beating heart, “let
yourself go. I’ll take you. Sweet Cherry. My beautiful girl.”
You sigh between your mouths as something intense starts to stir in your
stomach, “daddy—”
“Jesus. Jesus fuckin’ Christ, shit. Say it again.”
“Daddy.”
“Yes. God, yes. Come on my fingers, baby Honey.”
“Am I…..?”
“Yes. Yes.” Harry puckers his lips and exhales, the veins in his neck popping
and his brow furrowed in concentration, his voice picking up the slightest bit in
pitch as he drawls, “good girl. Lose yourself. That’s it. That’s—”
Mudslides.
The feeling in your pith explodes into a thousand sparkling, tiny shards of
glass and glitter, crawling down your legs to curl your toes and turn your
muscles to mush, before hammering up your spine and pummeling your brain
with tremors of static electricity. You can feel your fingernails digging crescent-
shaped rainbows into Harry’s sweaty back as the car of your rollercoaster
violently plunges downhill; wind on your face and sunlight glowing behind your
eyelids, your stomach tossing and tossing and tossing with shuddering throbs. It
comes in waves of intensity; strong, stronger, less strong, violent, before it slowly
starts to wane like the moon revolving and reflecting the sun at high-speed
across the night sky. And when your body starts to remember where it is, you
can feel Harry’s fingers still sunken inside of you as he cups your groin to hug
your delicate heart against his palm, savoring each pulse of your muscles around
his digits. His other hand is covering your mouth and his lips are pressed against
his knuckles with his eyes squeezed shut in a semblance of pain, shushing your
comedown softly into the air, mumbling lewd praises into his skin and
punctuating his ramble with, “…..obsessed. Haunted. M’done for.”
Through the thick haze of your fading orgasm, you immediately sink your
hand into his briefs and wrap his length in a fist, pulling upwards in steady, lazy
strokes. He cries out as softly as he can manage, “Cherr— you’re a fuckin’
incredible lover. God….. so giving. So generous. M… m... baby, yes. You’re perfect.
’Mm so close already. You get me there.”
You manage to shimmy his underwear down his thighs a bit before hooking
your foot into the elastic to draw them down past his knees, his thumb polishing
little circles on your swell again in an effort to draw out another climax. It
already feels like you’re on the edge again with how sensitive you are and how
close Harry is to his own end, but when his mouth starts running again, you both
speed up the work of your hands to complement one another’s eager rhythms,
“now imagine what you would feel like with my cock pulsin’ inside of you. Go on.
Je vous défie. Hard. Thick. Mmm….. fuck, your orgasm sucking on mine. Fuck,
baby. Gonna come again? Gonna come with me?”
“Jesus—” This is the first time you’ve imagined having sex with him and not
felt the sting of anticipated pain from his intrusion, “yes— I think so. I just want
you to feel good too, Sunny. Mmm….. please, love me.”
A razor-edged, heated whine scrapes past Harry’s teeth before he pitches

down to connect your mouths, your tongues smoothing together as frantically as
the pace of your hands. As soon as Harry’s release starts to tiptoe from the
ground up, he draws back an inch, his eyes nipped so tightly that little creases
form around the edges, “I do— I….. I’m comin’.” His length is throbbing in your
fist, “fuck, don’t stop. Come with me. Please. I’m there—”
Two sets of wings expand one right after the other, the stretch of a hundred
feathers, the attempt at reaching an incomparable crest in as much courteous
silence as you can possibly muster. Followed by a gush of hot release on your
belly button and then the weight of your sweaty loverboy dropping down on top
of you.
Your stomachs breathe in tandem, your highs are stubborn to dissolve. The
heat of the sunshine peeking in through your window is an iceberg in
comparison to the sunshine laying in a puddle in your arms.
“Est-ce la mort?”
Your response is merely a soft chuckle, “oui? Thank you for changing my life.”
Harry has begun leaving stray items around your apartment; squashed packs
of Crush cigarettes on your vanity and spent cigarette butts in your sink,
wifebeaters and socks balled up in the corners of your bedroom, crumpled up
love notes on your kitchen counter when you were too sleepy for a proper
goodbye, a pair of worn leather loafers at your entryway, piles of records in your
living room and on top of your turntable, half empty jars of peanut butter and
boxes of Pop-Tarts in your kitchen. Each and every time you find something it
makes you giddy. You’ve been known to hold the heart shaped filters of his
smokes up to your nose for a whiff of burnt sugar, going as far as lighting one and
smoking half of it while he was off surfing.
He convinced you to shower with him after your romp in the sheets this
morning and in opposition to how you would have expected his wandering hands
to prowl your naked, wet body, he was so gushy and soft from passing a mile
marker in your relationship that it was difficult for him to even keep his head
from squashing into your neck. You kissed for what felt like hours in your bed
before eventually stumbling from your room and down the hall, giggling each
time his lock of hair would brush your cheek or his hands would dive down for a
full grope of your curves. Under the cool spray of water, he washed your hair and
you massaged his tight shoulder, but every spoken word was peppered with
loving kisses and a deep sense of longing. You both understood without explicitly
expressing it yet that you were on fire with love and the burn was tremendous.
Harry has been replaying every little moan and scattering of goosebumps in
his head for the past hour. It’s a surreal experience to wish and hope and claw at
something for months and then finally be rewarded with its reality, but he never
would have guessed just how much of an honor it is. You aren’t something that
he’s conquered, but rather earned, and better yet it’s so heavily reciprocal that
the crash of falling for you has felt completely opposite. Like he’s been breaking
off his fingernails as he climbed from the bottom of a murky well, his palms
mindlessly shuffling through wet grass until you grasped his wrists and hoisted
him into the fresh, lush atmosphere. He can finally breathe now. And air has
never tasted so clean.
When you emerge from the bathroom a few minutes after Harry, you peek
into your bedroom first only to find it empty. The sound of the refrigerator door
opening down the hall pulls your attention to the kitchen, your fingers digging
into the threshold of the doorway to find him standing in the shadows, his
shirtless torso illuminated by the weak light from the fridge and his bottom-half
clad in a pair of tight, flamingo pink trousers. He pops open the mouth on a
carton of orange juice and brings it to his lips, the muscles in his neck and
shoulders spotlighted in a delicate yellow luster, wet hair clinging to his
prominent cheekbones, his chiseled, sprawling hand resting easily on the open
door.
Your feet pad quietly across the linoleum until you’re cuddled up behind him,
sponging a kiss to his shoulder in the same moment that your palms smooth up
his warm stomach. He moans softly and spins in your grasp, suctioning your
mouths together and sucking your tongue into his mouth. His lips are wet and
cool and taste like sunshine and sun soaked orange zest, beaches and permanent
vacations, sun-bleached beach umbrellas and the warmth of a toasted blanket
that’s been baking in the heat. Your nails dig into his chest and reach around his
neck, your fingers sinking into his locks as he cups the back of your head in one
hand and angles your face to deepen the kiss, “can’t keep my hands off you.” He
sucks on your bottom lip before pecking the top, “need you even more now.”
And he nearly suffocates when you mutter, “have me.”
Blindly, Harry puts the orange juice on top of the fridge and hoists you up by
your thighs, your legs wrapping around his waist as he carries you to the closest
counter and settles you down with his hips locked between your legs. He kisses
your neck, hot patches of breath and the tip of his nose skimming your skin as he
sucks and laps with his tongue, your voice finally catching enough grounding to
splinter the air, “are those my pants?”
“Mhm….. d’ya mind?”
“Oh my god.” Your sweet little giggle and your gentle composure always
makes his tummy flip, “I thought they looked familiar. I hate that you can fit into
my trousers.”
“Bit snug up front.”
You laugh so hard that you snort, your nose scrunched up as you nod and rub
your noses together, “yep. But your butt looks great.”
He hums deep in the barrel of his chest as his blunt fingernails trace down
your thighs, “thanks, babe.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
A single eyebrow rallies in interest, “did you really just ask me that?”
“Mmm…..”
“Please.” He reaches for the carton of orange juice again, knocking his head
back for a long swill, but never peeling his eyes from you.
“I used to have this reoccurring flashing image….. before I ever let you in, I
me… n... of you drinking orange juice straight from the carton, shirtless, in my
kitchen. Just like this. It was like this pesky romantic image that represented
passing boundaries. It used to make me really anxious. I don’t know… why...
maybe because I didn’t know what was going to happen. Or I was scared of the
unknown.” You wrap your legs around his waist to lock him against your center,
your arms spooling around his neck next to hover over your mouth over his.
His lips are cold, sweet, juicy, “but now?”
“Now I want to eat you up.”
Harry moans and gently molds his mouth to yours, caressing your tongue to
leave little droplets of citrusy sugar just before he draws back an inch, “lot
different than my fantasies, Honeymoon.”
“What’s yours?”
Harry chuckles and swipes a palm down his face, “you don’t wanna—”
“Yes, I do.”
Your breaths kiss before your lips do, his palms gliding down your leg to pinch
your knee and lock him tighter in your clutch. His eyes graze from your stare to
your mouth and back again, his tongue wetting his lips before he rasps, “makin’ a
mess of your cunt and then licking you clean. Spoonin’ you all night and wakin’
you up with a slow, nasty fuck on your stomach.” You can feel his cock growing
against your dewy center as he continues to mumble against your lips with a
shaky sigh, “my cock in your mouth as you peer up at me through those innocent
eyelashes. You moanin’ my name so loud the neighbors get jealous. Should I keep
goin’?”
Delicate butterfly wings are drowned by waterfalls in your stomach, “I can’t

feel my fingers.”
“I can feel ’em.” He hums when you trace down his chest and stomach, “they
feel so good. Everything you do feels so fuckin’ good, ma Cerise d’amour.” His
hand lands on yours to draw you further down, your palm brushing over his
feverish thickness to peel a whimper from his throat, “see what you do to me?”
“Peace, kids.”
Harry whips his head around, his face lighting up in a typical display of charm
when Nettie stumbles into the kitchen in her nightgown and rollers, “’ey, Nova’s
up!”
Out of respect for your roommate, you hop down off of the counter and
straighten the wifebeater you’ve borrowed from Harry, running your fingers
through your damp hair and then shuffling through the cabinets for fixings to
make your lover a peanut butter sandwich before he goes surfing.
“Morning, Henry.”
You glance over your shoulder to view Harry’s reaction to Nettie’s intentional
poke at the fact that he can never seem to get her name right. Except one corner
of Harry’s mouth curls into a discerning, perspective smile. The same smile
you’ve seen on his face dozens of times whenever he teases you. A knowing,
clever grin that makes you realize he’s been letting this go on for the sake of a
good joke, “rise an’ shine. OJ?”
Nettie shakes her head at his offer, “same to you. But I can see you’ve already
risen.” Harry glances down and covers his crotch with both of his hands as Nettie
steps forward to press a kiss to your cheek, “is he gonna start paying rent? Or
maybe we can just put a swear jar on the counter to collect coins for our
depleting orange juice supply.”
“Shit’s way better than Tang.”

“There’s a nickel right there.”
Harry disappears into your bedroom to pull on a shirt and grab his
skateboard, your heart dropping into your stomach as it always does when he
reappears with the intention of leaving you. Except now it feels a lot stronger
considering what you shared this morning, but there’s something boiling inside
that you need to get off your chest to Nettie, so maybe the moments of amnesty
would be better for the both of you.
The cigarette dangling between Harry’s lips bobs up and down when he
inquires, “walk me out, Honeybunny?” He gasps in delighted surprise when you
hand him a sandwich wrapped up in a paper towel, plucking the smoke from his
mouth and tucking it behind his ear to sponge a kiss to your cheek, “you’re so
fuckin’ far out. How’d I get so lucky?”
“Dork.”
Harry’s face twists up in offense, “tighten up, goon—”
“Nettie!” You scoff and thread your fingers through his to walk him to your
front door and by the time you get there, he’s already eaten half of the sandwich,
“sorry. See you at the theatre? Can we stretch out a bit and practice beforehand?
I’m kind of sore from the week.”
His jaw pops as he works the sandwich between his molars, “from the week?
Is that what you’re callin’ my fingers now?”
“Okay, you know what? This was cute for maybe four seconds.”
Harry laughs and grips your throat before sealing your lips in a kiss, humming
at the slip of your tongue and drawing away just enough to rest his forehead
against yours, “I won’t be able to kiss you again for hours, but I still have to be
’round you all day. S’gonna be torture.”
He looks so beautiful with his hair drying in wavy curls around his forehead,
his eyes light and present, his mouth supple and radiantly pink. You tug on the
waistband of his trousers and drop your hand down to sweep his center, “you
could stay?”
Harry groans through a clenched, tortured smile, “devil woman….. you’re the
ultimate complication. Can’t stay. But you’re really fuckin’ temptin’. I’ll be at the
theatre by eleven. Gives us enough time, yeah?”
You nod and he kisses your forehead, muttering a pained goodbye into your
skin before calling over the top of your head, “peace out, Nessie!”
“So long, Hector. Don’t crack your goddamn head open again.”
“Hey!”
“Okay, just go.” You open the door for him and kiss him one final time in the
crack of the threshold before swinging it closed, your back meeting the wooden
barrier as you collect yourself and then traipse back into the kitchen, “I had an
orgasm.”
Nettie slowly cranes her head towards you before her gaze travels over your
body from head-to-toe, “just now?”
Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether or not she’s dense or just messing with
you to get a rise or force you to speak more in the same way Harry does, “Melvin.
No. This morning….. in my bed. Two actually.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so proud of you! You deserve one every day from now on. Or
three. Loosen you up a bit. You can tell him I said that.”
You take a long gulp from the container of orange juice that Harry left out on
the counter, “I’m sure he’d be happy to oblige.”
“How’d he do it? Just gazing deep into your eyes for ten minutes straight?”
Some pulp from your juice gets lodged in your throat when you choke on
stunned laughter, “no, he—”
“Gave you head?”
“No, he tried, but—”
“You came before he could get his tongue on you?”
“Wynette!” Her question rattles in your brain as you narrow your eyes at
nothing in particular, “well….. yeah. Kinda? It tickled too much. But,……o... h… …
ust... used his fingers.”
Nettie nods steadily and deliberately with a closed-mouth grin stretched

across her face, “tight. His insatiability just skyrocketed, ya know.”
“I don’t think that’s possible. Hey, um….. I’m going to tell him today. After our
performan… e... about how Tex set me up on that date with Riff. It’s going to be
terrible, isn’t it?”
You can see her shoulders tense up upon your conveyance, but she manages to
keep her composure as she spins to face you, “want my advice?”
“Yes. Always.”
“No alcohol. Be vulnerable as all hell because he thrives on that shit. Make sure
you let him know that you were giving Tex the chance to break the news, but his
pansy ass never did. And be honest, you were confused about your feelings at
that time and you made a mistake and you were so glad that he was there to help
you fix it.” Nettie grips your shoulders and hesitates before swallowing a lump,
“he’s gonna be mad, Bibi. Are you gonna be able to handle that? You can’t chicken
out. You have to tell him and you shouldn’t wait much longer.”
You nod as you slowly ingest her guidance, “yes. I’ve dealt with an angry Harry
a hundred times before. This can’t possibly be any worse, right?”
Heyyyyy….. So, how are you doing? What are you thinking? I wanted to let y’all
know that I’m going out of town with friends this coming weekend, so there won’t
be a chapter. Which is why I wanted to get this part out for you today. But I’ll have
one for you the following weekend. A… d... yeah, we’ll see what happens. Thanks to
everyone who’s been staying up and waiting patiently for this chapter. I see you
and appreciate you!…lso... there are probably less than ten chapters left. I WANT
TO DIE! Love you all so much! Xx B
And how about this amazing edit by the sweet, darling harrykilledmoi ? SO
GOOD!!!!
“Harry! Get bent!”
If an outsider happened to overhear your squeaks, groans, giggles and shrieks,

they would likely suspect that you were either having your wisdom teeth
removed under a heavy dose of laughing gas or getting your ass tickled with a
peacock feather. Lucky for you, the flirtatious squawks were nothing of the sort,
but rather Harry testing out new methods of stretching your legs and ankles with
resistance bands. Except he can’t seem to keep his hands from trouncing where
they absolutely should not trounce in such a public setting. Sure, you’re tucked
away in his preferred, private practice room a couple hours before you’re meant
to take the stage, but that wouldn’t stop someone from poking their head in if
they thought you were being pummeled or maybe even sexually harassed.
All of your little kitten cries and sultry giggles are an erotic, mewling orchestra
to Harry’s ears. Through the tunnel of his eardrums and across the electrical
sheathing of his brain, they translate as flirtatious beckoning; pleas for his
mouth, imploring for his fingers, dares for more and dares to stop. A static drone
of love-tied mood swings that make his stomach swim with lots of soupy, goopy
numbers: perched atop cloud nine, amongst seventh heaven, only five hours and
counting until freedom for an entire two days, the constant reminder of two
orgasms brought on by two fingers just six hours ago, and zero fucking patience
for the need to keep your sexual prowess a secret in this moment.
Three stirs of his jaw chaperone a raspy melody of your name, two vibrations
of his front teeth raking against his bottom lip, one echo of the final consonant
burrowing a hole into his chest.
No one could have ever prepared him for the shadowy, sublime feeling of
lovesickness. Responsive serene nostalgia, a puzzlingly clashing tight and light
chest, ghostly tears clogging his windpipe, a perpetual ache in his center that
radiates out to numb his entire torso. Everything around him glitters with
reminders of what has been and what’s yet to come, every step of the odyssey
seemingly more ethereal than the last. As if every second he was turning a corner
to head towards the beach in the plucky, late afternoon; the big sun sizzling as it
dips into the ocean, the water glistening forever until it drops off the edge of the
earth.
Harry had thought that he was already in love, as if love were some type of
pinnacled destination to land upon, except he’s learning that it’s more akin to a
perpetual nosedive and the fall feels really, really good in the pit of his stomach.
It’s addicting, it’s profound, it’s devastating. He never thought it possible to be in
much deeper than he previously was, but it turns out that the sweet
reciprocation is unlike anything he’s ever experienced before.
Delightfully caving in; he finally understands it now. Perhaps the best part of
this discovery is the novelty of the realization itself, followed by a slow, divine
suffocation by an unknown substance. A rainbow sherbet, dripping sky reflecting
into an opalescent, oil-slick-coated, sticky ground. But he’s so, so beyond content
with that. Fuck, this must be what all of those love songs, poems and books are
going on about. The message is always one of two things, an evenly split
consensus of either, “stop, it hurts” or “never stop, it tickles.” Those sappy
assholes have had it right all along and he just never knew it. What a fucking
bombshell.
Surfing this morning is nothing but a watery memory now. His board cutting
through waves and his sopping hair sticking to his face, a ball of fire rising over
the shrub-freckled mountains and the morning haze burning off to make way for
midsummer heat, salt water stinging his lips and pruned fingers unzipping his
wet suit. It’s all been overshadowed by that one blissful moment that his digit
was siphoned by slick, tight muscle. Your seeping, breathing pleats. Your head
colliding with the pillows, your cresting gasp suctioning his palm to your mouth
as he attempted to keep your reaction hushed, your feet raveling with his as you
grappled with unfamiliar, euphoric sensation. Those teeny, tiny whimpers of the
pet name he begged you to utter. Who knew that being smothered could be so
liberating?
Everything about you whittles him to a shadow; a blackened, flat projection of
his meaty lust onto the wet pavement. Scorched skin, a glowing heart. Reducing
him to merely a fleck of narrow residue. Which is humorous considering you
view him as nothing short of the entire morning sky. In his poetic mind, he
translates this into you labeling him as a type of life source or a rationale for
swarms of self-creation. Although it seems opposite in his experience, with the
way your innocent, unfolding passion for him is so extraordinarily vivid that he
feels the need for shaded refuge in order to properly absorb it. But he supposes
he can exist as a silhouette with a deranged heartbeat for now, so long as you
continue to cast heat upon his face and consume him alive with each and every
secret beam of light.
Just for him. The human Sunflower.
Quite possibly your favorite thing about Harry is his varying methods of caring
for you. Throughout the time you’ve known him, his disposition wavers between
exasperated and disgruntled, blunt and crass, soft and gentle, reckless and silly,
stern and urgent, humorous and cheeky, seething and impulsive, patient and
sympathetic, warm and passionate, lewd and racy. Sometimes he mixes and
mingles from contrasting categories, but one detail is consistently true: he is
always caring for you.
And right now, he’s a very appealing combination of reckless, sympathetic,

cheeky and lewd, which is easily your chosen blend of Harry.
His teeth sink into your neck for a split second before he pushes himself back
up to a hover above you, his fingers wrapped around your shin as he pushes your
knee into your stomach and stretches your other leg out long and flush with the
mat below for a pleasing burn in your tight hip flexor. His articulation is awfully
quiet, his pretty eyes wide and calm, the only facial movement is the curl of his
lips around sinful mush, “no. ’M crawlin’ out of my fuckin’ skin. What’ll you show
me next, mm? Love your secrets.” Not all of them. But he doesn’t know that quite
yet, “how’s your ankle feelin’ today?”
You’re lost in his sparkly eyes and cushy mouth for a moment. Pupils zipped
tight to allow space for a plume of emerald tranquility, the corners of his smile
ticked the slightest upward in amusement. He looks and feels exactly like home
and it’s just distracting enough to momentarily steal your mind away from your
inevitable Tex revelation later this evening, “good….. little tight. My hip is achy on
the right side. Like a dull, burning throb that goes all the way down to my knee
—”
“Had you ever jimmied yourself before?”
Pink splashes your cheeks and Harry thinks you look so beautiful with a
wickedly innocent flush of desire, “Harry!”
“Only if you’re comfortable sharin’—”
Your hands peel from the sweaty mat to shield your face, “yes, I’ve….. kinda
tried.” Harry pries your palms away for a first-hand look at your raw confession,
his heart bobbing up and down in his stomach acid, “b… t... you’re the f… rst... boy
and that was my… first...” He raises an eyebrow in silent encouragement for you
to continue. He wants to hear you say it out loud, to his face, all by you… self,
“...orgasm.”
His cheeks puff out when he exhales a slow and low breath, unfettered passion
attached to molecules of carbon dioxide, “unreal. Hearin’ you claim that…..
provocative. I’m hooked so bad. So, so fuckin’ bad, Cherrybomb. Are you?”
“Yes. Plagued. Totally saturated in stunning, bright pink sunshine.”
There are a few numbers rolling through your head as well. One; the exact
number of people that pointed you in the direction of Harry’s whereabouts at the
theatre this morning. Eight; the exact number of minutes that you hovered in the
doorway of the large practice space filled with gymnastics equipment after you’d
located him. Three; the exact number of irregular heartbeats that ice-cream-
scooped your chest clean. Zero; the exact number of times you blinked.
Your eyes remained glued to Harry as he stood with two steady feet and one
arm outstretched, his sturdy limb acting as a makeshift parallel bar for one of the
child acrobats of the circus to playfully kip on and swing from. His back muscles
surged through the thin material of his wifebeater, his sharp collarbones and
shoulders akin to a brick of crystallized honey that you would have loved to sink
your teeth into. If you happened to be forced into sharing his shiny-eyed grin
with anyone, it would gladly be his small friend. Her scrawny legs kicking as she
laughed into the wide-open air of the giant room, their fingers intertwining when
he supported her in a handstand and then tossed her around in a little
impromptu throw sequence. You’ve never had a desire to have any children of
your own, but you’re starting to learn that there are lots of former values that
you’d gladly sweep under the rug for Harry.
Maybe the best part of the entire playdate was when Harry glanced over his
shoulder to find you loitering close by with a fond smile pulling at your cheeks,
his heart visibly liquefying to paint his skin with contentment, his fingertips
lifting to wiggle a small wave in your direction as he mouthed a simple greeting
of “my Cherry.”
Just for you. The human Honeysuckle.
“Beau, I swear to fuck—”
Twenty-nine; the exact number of times you’ve laughed since you’ve woken
up this morning. It’s hard to forget advice that your mother has shelled out
throughout the course of your time together, but there is one thing that she’d
shared with you that seems to stick out a little pointier than the rest: find a man
who can make you laugh every single day, regardless of what else is happening in
your life. Aside from the obvious benefits of making things fun, it’s a sign of
intelligence, it dissolves anger, it creates a world of badinage that strengthens
your connection. Out of every uncertain and complicated aspect of weathering,
funny is the one thing that doesn’t fade.
One hundred; the exact number of predicted curses that are going to be hurled
at you after this performance. Except when you’re reminded of it this time, Harry
is too distracted by his dog to notice the wave of nausea creeping across your
face.
Periodically throughout your stretching session, Beau has brought over his
favorite rainbow-striped juggling ball and plopped it at Harry’s feet in silent
pleading for a game of fetch. A toss of the ball will keep him occupied for a few
minutes and oftentimes he will get distracted by something else long enough to
allow the two of you some space to concentrate. But it’s clear that he’s feeling
particularly neglected or perhaps even jealous today, with the way he clings to
his owner and licks his face in an attempt for more singular attention. All floppy
paws and floppy ears and soggy tongue and soggy toys. It’s adorable to see their
playful and rather guileful dynamic; Harry would claim that he was the master in
their relationship, but it appears to be just the contrary to you. And that parallel
sounds quite familiar.
Harry rocks back onto his heels with clenched teeth and a pocketful of
harmless resentment for his poor, sweet pup, his fingers digging into the blue
paisley bandana around Beau’s neck to tug him close for a kiss on his forehead
and a little pep talk, “not now, boss. Can’t ya see I’m busy?” He glances over his
shoulder at you for a second before peeling Beau’s ear back to whisper a secret
that you can’t hear aside from the rumbling bass of his rich breath, his eyes
purposely bouncing back to yours over-and-over to make it clear that he’s
discussing you in private with his pet.
“Are you two having a lover’s spat? Should I give you a moment?”
“Now she’s mad at me, fink. Solid move.” Your laughter is pure bliss to his ears,
like shuffling around a dozen staticky radio signals and finally falling on one that
cuts through with perfect clarity, “hang tight. He’s buggin’ out. Lemme hit ’em
with a snack to keep him off our backs for a bit. Don’t move.”
One detail is consistently true: Harry is always caring for something.
Your two-finger salute sends Harry across the room and digging through his
bag, plucking out a green apple and tossing it into the air with a sharp,
commanding whistle. He slices the fruit in half with his pocket knife, holding it
above Beau’s nose and ordering him to sit with merely a stoic glance and a peace
sign shaped into his fingers. Beau’s bottom hits the floor and his tail sweeps
back-and-forth in determined excitement, the anticipation of his treat causing a
slip of drool to dangle from his jowls. Harry throws the hunk of apple into the air
for him to catch before returning to you with a chocolate swirl brushing his
eyebrow and a hoarse line tangled through spider webs that makes your stomach
pull tight, “where were we?”
“I think you were lying on top of me and asking about….. the weather?”
“Oh, right. Dog days of summer. Sunny with a chance of Cherry mudslides.” He
falls to his knees and shuffles towards you, eyeing your comfortable lounging
position as you keep yourself propped up on your elbows with an equally
challenging stare in his direction, “did you say somethin’ about your hip aching?”
You nod and he tosses you a resistance band to wrap around your foot, “lay back,
hang onto that and stretch your leg back as far as it’ll go without straining. I’m
gonna push you. Make your thighs like butter, easy to spread—”
“Is this just your new baseline appetite that I have to put up with now?”
“—an’ we can make sandwiches.” A gently insulted scoff derails his train of
thought, “new? More like consistent as shit.”
The left corner of his mouth quirks into a grin at your little muted snort before
piling on top of you, his palm spreading across the width of your non-working
thigh to rub soothing circles into your skin. A wounded moan slips out before you
can stop it, Harry’s heartbeat battering his breastbone when he perches your
ankle on his shoulder and very slowly uses his body’s leverage to lower your leg
all the way to your chest. Your muscles singe and lengthen, your hips nestled
together like a golden, sparking lock and key, the dawn of his hunger pressing
perfectly against that one sensitive spot in your core that he’s proved to know
exactly how to kindle.
A hiss sucks past your teeth and he echoes a similar hiss in empathic response,
then easing up a bit to lessen the pressure on your limb, “too much?”
Your eyes are bolted on one another, your suppressed breath finally
shuddering on a painful exhale, “a bit.”
He relents even more, “that better?” You nod and there’s a pause of tension
between you before he smiles and drops his voice to a rolling whisper, “wanna
kiss you so fuckin’ bad right now. Your lips are all shiny red from your lollipop. I
bet you taste outta sight.”
A second splash of crimson colors your cheeks at yet another example of his
intrepid candor, your aimless warning a perfect hushed match to his quietude,
“Harry…..”
He groans and sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, “fuck. Stop it. I’m dyin’.”
You’re both suddenly aware of his stiff seams weighing heavily against your
center, his eyes darting towards the door to scope the scene for clearance before
gripping your ankle and guiding your leg around his waist to pin you together.
His necklace swings within the gasp of air between you, your digits tangling into
the chain to draw him close enough that his pesky tendril of hair brushes your
forehead, “this is a bad idea, Sunny.”
He pants out a breath and pinches his eyes closed to block out the noise inside
of his head as he growls out a curse under his breath, “I’d rip your clothes
straight off right now if you’d let me, piece by piece.”
But in typical fashion, you don’t have much time to process his lechery
because his fingers are digging into your ribcage to sidetrack you with a
wounding, rough tickle. The instant you burst out into snorting laughter and
attempt to shove him away, he dives forward to steal a hasty, high-risk kiss from
your adorable pout. He suckles on your bottom lip for half a second, his gaze
flicking to the door once again as he breathes out a hearty sigh of relief through
his nose. Drawing back, Harry finds you staring at him with your jaw dropped
and promptly mimics your horrified expression, the pad of his finger patronizing
when he taps the end of your nose, “got one.” His skin beams along with his
chuckle, “d’ya see your face right now?”
“Bad boy. You are a serious troublemaker—”
But once he’s had a taste of your simple cherry honey, he can’t stop himself,
not even a little bit, and his body is melting and his fingers wind into your hair
and tug at the scalp, a whimper creeping up his throat and colliding with your
helpless, sinful whine. The tip of his tongue slinks out and makes contact with
yours, the sensation rocketing straight to the pits of your stomachs as you
abandon your right mind, boldening your flow and sucking his muscle into your
mouth. Another sweep of blood rushes to Harry’s center, the notion of your
arousal and his arousal and the illicitness and risk of your activity all colliding
together when his palm drops for a full handful of your breast.
You pull back with a gasp, your fingers twist the neck of his wifebeater as you
try your damndest to hold him back, “please stop. We’re gonna get caught.”
Harry lurches forward into your center, his lips are strawberry pink and bee-
stung, his cheeks dewy and succulent and convincing, “can’t….. I think that’s why
it feels so good—”
“Harry, someone will see—”
“—like how your bed always feels so fuckin’ off the hook cuddly real early in
the morning.” He licks his lips and speaks into your mouth, all feathers and
flames, the same thing he always says when your shrill alarm barks at him just
before dawn. He has a way of asking for permission for things that you both
know has already been decided, “five more minutes, Honeybear?”
“Oh, so you can do this now, but not when you could’ve saved me from
embarrassment when we were dancing in this exact spot a few weeks ago? What
happened to your self-imposed rule about keeping us a secret?”
It’s not exactly a self-imposed rule, but rather a harsh external one, “I did what
I did, sister.”
“You sure did, Daddy.”
Harry’s heart-shaped mouth forms a perfect, surprised “O” as he fumbles and

drops your leg, both of your stomachs hurting from explosive laughter at his
unconscious feverish reaction, “fuck you! Fuck off, oh my god. Holy shit. Wild
Cherry.” He rolls onto his back on the mat beside you and hides his perfectly
handsome, dimpled smile with his palms before lulling his head to face you, “my
bitch’s got ammo. Guess what?”
You tick your chin up in confrontation, “hmm?”
The way he clicks his tongue on the final word of his sentence makes your
core seize, “if you’re not a good girl, I’ll come for your throat.”
But unlike men, women are much better at controlling their sexual impulses.
You roll your eyes and sit up before dropping your hand for a snide pat on his
springy stomach, “whatever you say, Harry.”
He swipes a single, large palm down his face before glaring at you with
playfully narrowed eyes, “wanna play, mm?” Harry pulls himself to sitting and
circles his fingers around your throat before you can answer, his fingertips
pressing against your windpipe to feel your heartbeat pulsing through your
veins, just enough to force you to suck in a lungful of air to stave the gentle burn,
“behave, sweet girl. Or I’ll steal you away and leave a lightweight red mark on
that pretty ass.” His volume drops significantly, “five little stingin’ secrets.”
It’s much easier for you to slip into his game than you’d have ever expected. In
fact, it comes as a surprise to neither of you. It just fits, “I’m sorry. Please don’t.”
Harry tilts his head slowly and analytically, picking up on your prompt
surrender as though the strong scent of it had wafted right under his nose,
“dressing room. Now. Two shakes.”
With your heart in your throat and muscles made of half-baked pancake
batter, you scramble to your feet with Harry’s eyes burning holes through your
bodysuit and his fingertips nipping at your ankles. The two of you race for the
door, elbowing your way through the threshold before making your way down
the hallway side-by-side. The childish flirtation briefly reminds you of the
painstaking bonding moments before Harry’s surfing accident; your saltine-
eating-contest and the time you raced on skates around the theatre. Slowly but
surely, he had begun to creak himself open to you, but would often backpedal
with harshness or crude jokes at your expense, and the little wounds that you
were reserved about stitching up would reopen from the sheer impact of his
whiplash. You may have never seen this side of him if he hadn’t endured the bad
fortune of head trauma for better or worse and you’re ashamed to admit that
you’re grateful it happened. Both for his sake and for yours.
Arbitrary circus members clear a path for the stars of the show on one of your
typical frisky journeys down the corridor, pinches and paws and pokes and
dodged blows until you get sick of his chiding and stick your foot into his path.
His bare feet pinwheel as he stumbles and nearly falls, but catches himself last
minute with a soft cushion of air and sheer blind luck.
A potent, crowing laugh framed by two sets of enticing teeth and a sharp
dimple gun down the ceiling. One hand quells his belly and the other slaps
against his thigh, “grotty! Nearly ate it! You’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’, Honeyflop.”
He cinches your neck in the crook of his elbow, taking you prisoner in his arms as
he storms down your dressing room door with his foot and hauls you inside.
And when he’s like this, so convincingly free-spirited and easy-going and
good-natured, it’s easy to forget how complicated the blurry lines outside of your
ideal bubble truly are. You’ve just passed through a gauntlet of possible traitors
in the hallway with little to no concern, but then again if Tex had been lurking in
the corners, you’d have a completely different sensation in your stomach right
now.
As soon as the door slams shut with an ensuing flick of the lock, Harry’s
backing you up against the vanity, his fingertips smacking the strip of exposed
skin on your hip that ushers towards your ass before scooting you onto the small
countertop. He’s testing your limits; you have a sense of that, but he knows it for
certain, “kiss, please. A solid one. Can’t remember what it feels like. S’all I think
about. Swear it, nothin’ else.”
The hair on the back of his neck is soft and thick laced between your fingers,
your tongues sweeping together one blissful second before your mouths fold
with a relieving whoosh of air inhaled through your noses. Harry blindly fishes
for your squirmy limbs, decisively escorting your legs around his waist and
sighing at the uproar of his body at home against yours, in solitude and peace as
you both deserve to be.
He tries to reach into your bodysuit but can’t seem to gain access through the
tight seams; you’re untucking his wifebeater from the elastic waistband of his
joggers with mindless ease.
You hiss, “your hands are cold.”
He hums into your neck, “your tits are on fire.”

“Harry…..” The closed door keeps drawing your attention away from the wet,
spongy kisses traveling towards your collarbone, “I’m not sure this is such a good
idea.”
“It’s copacetic, Cherry.” He gathers your hair into a ponytail and tugs your
head back to trace the tip of his nose up your throat, “your little moans are
drivin’ me up the fuckin’ wall. Want you all alone again. Jus’ me and you.
Mm’gonna make you come a hundred times when we get home. Remember how
good that felt?”
“Dunno….. maybe you can give me a reminder?”
“Fuck.”
Harry sinks to his knees and plants a kiss over the thin strip of bodysuit that
covers your center, his hot, wet tongue stamping a glob of cherry syrup to your
tender knot. The small room fills with a whimper that spirals into a sensual
giggle, your legs springing into action at the existing reminder of how plush his
mouth feels and the shock of how much less it tickles this time. Instead it feels
much, much more pleasing knowing what can be produced on the other end,
imagining the way his muscle would feel dipping through your bare groove and
flicking against that one spot that he somehow knows to add just the perfect
amount of pressure to. If he could read your thoughts right now, he might feel as
though he were looking into a mirror or editing a novel he’s been working on for
months and suddenly, you really want him to have a glimpse, “feels….. so go… d...
do that again? But slower… Or... or more?”
“Yeah?” If Harry were a campfire, you’d be able to spot his spark from a mile
down the beach, “like this?” He keeps his eyes trained on you as he presses his
thumb to your entrance this time, groaning at the humidity wicking the fabric
there before lapping his tongue over your clad sensitivity. The dramatic crease
between your eyebrows, your hasty panting, your fingers twisting into his
crawling waves. It all says “yes”, but not quite loudly enough for him. “Want a
little kiss? Can you be quiet, my Honeysecret?”
Your head knocks back against the mirror and he pinches your wriggling hips
in an effort to steady them, “I’ll be whatever you want.”
“God. Jesus.”
He curls his fingers into the band of material covering your center, swiping it
off to the side and attempting to catch his breath at the view of your stark folds. It
was intense to see you this way in your bed this morning and even more so now,
with a sight both brand new and memorized to perfection, an avalanche of
memories burying him to the nose when the ghostly ring of your puling cries
come flooding back all-at-once.
His tongue flicks out and sweeps over your vulnerable bud exactly once before
three demanding knocks ring through your dressing room, followed by a quick
twist of the unlocked door knob, “one hour to curtain, Marvels!”
One of the technical directors of the circus pokes his head into your dressing
room, eyes wide and then growing wider when he absorbs the energy around
him. At the exact moment that his fingers curl around the doorframe to intrude
on your space, your toes dig into Harry’s shoulder to abruptly kick him away
from you. He falls onto his ass and then quickly flips to all-fours on the hunt for
an imaginary, loose button in the carpet at the same time that you slide from the
vanity and smooth your hair from your face, the both of you pretending as if he
wasn’t just about to test the waters of going down on you in your dressing room,
at work, one hour before curtain call when you still have practice to execute.
“Um, pardon me—”
“Well, I just don’t see it anywhere, V.” Harry sits back on his knees with a stoic
expression that veils the sensation of his stomach on fire and his chest up in
smoke as he nods at the technical director, “what’s up, boss?”
He glances from your burning cheeks to Harry’s outwardly icy demeanor, “you
have one hour until curtain. Do you need anything?”
Perfume bottles and a tube of lipstick are tumbled over onto their sides like
spent dominoes, a fluffy makeup puff and container of loose face powder
sprawled out on the narrow countertop. The instant that you turn around and
attempt to casually distract yourself by double checking the flush of your chest in
the mirror, Harry delivers a simple threat with a slice of his finger across his neck
in a cutthroat gesture, mouthing a seething warning of “not a word” before
addressing him out loud, “nah, we’re cool. Thanks, mate.” Your coworker shakes
his head as if to convey that he hadn’t seen anything or he’s not square enough to
be a snitch, and Harry feels adequately placated in that moment to flick his chin
towards the door in dismissal, “tight. Cheers.”
As soon as the director is gone, your lover curls his fingers around your ankle
before dropping his forehead to the back of your knee, a heavy exhale breezing
past your skin when he empties his lungs in a combination of dread and relief,
“baby, fuck. Close call. You alright?”
Your voice is muffled through your sweaty palms clinging to your face, “I’m
okay.”
“Actually okay or female okay? Meaning not okay at all.”
As soon as your heartbeat regains a hint of normalcy, you nod your head and
drop your fingers to watch his reflection in the mirror, “actually okay.” You’ve
never been one to break rules or get caught doing so, but it seems to be an
irritating recurring theme in your relationship. Which only proves how much
navigation is required to keep your love up and running, and the fact that it’s
thriving at all should be celebrated in the very least, “oh, god. You have some
lipstick on your cheek.”
The two of you stare in horror through the glass before his mouth perks at the
corner and then your mouth perks at the corner and then you both dissolve into
yielding laughter, “they don’t call me Slick Daddy Boss for nothin’.”
“Nobody calls you that.”
Harry’s lips shape around a soft chuckle and a soft sentiment at the same time,
“well, they should.” He climbs to his knees and presses a kiss to the back of your
thigh before swiping his pack of Crush cigarettes from the vanity and lighting
one. Harry watches you closely as you lean on the small counter, your regard
heavily focused as you wait for him to escort you through any lingering feelings
of guilt or alarm. A thick cloud of pink smoke surrounds you in a cotton candy
hug; Harry frowns at the door handle, “I locked that. You saw me lock it — right?”
Second-guessing yourself, you shake your head, now unsure if you saw him
lock it or not. He rolls back onto his seat, trying really hard to keep the concern in
his heart from crawling onto his cheeks, but his face is much too expressive to
conceal something that profound. He keeps his gaze downcast as he pulls himself
to standing and crosses the room, holding his cigarette between his lips as he
tinkers with the knob to discover that the lock is faulty and appears to have been
tampered with. Circles of paint form a ring around the fixture, as if it has been
loosened and retightened out of place. Has it always been like this? Did it happen
naturally with continued use? Did someone try to break in? Did someone
purposely break the lock with the hope of this exact interaction taking place? Is
Rusty attempting to keep you two exposed? Or was that walk-in sheer bad luck?
Instead of sharing his fears out loud, Harry decides to keep his trifling panic
hidden from you, because somehow this seems like his fault and his
responsibility and he’d rather not worry you with technicalities, “I’ll put in a
maintenance request ASAP so this never happens again, alright? You’re entitled
to privacy. I don’t want anyone just fuckin’ waltzing in here. Shit’s not cool. You
sure you’re okay?” He hates that you were both violated just now, especially
since this is all so new and delicate to you, but mostly he hates how you had tried
to warn him repeatedly about him acting too risky and he chose to ignore it.
“I’m sure. He probably didn’t even see anything.”
Harry nods but he can’t help but feel framed, either by Rusty or The Rat
themselves, but maybe that’s just his paranoia talking or the universe warning
him he should be much more suspicious of those around him than he already is.
This incident merely highlights how careless he was with you today and he
scrawls a sharp mental note to back off hard and fast when on theatre grounds
from now on. Banana Split and beyond will be a harsh concrete limit when it
comes to anything personal between you. He trusts that you will abide by this
without him having to lecture you on it, since it seems that any naughtiness that
needs to be reeled in is heavily on his end anyway.
And you would never, ever forgive him if he cost you your dream career.
This situation feels out of control and Harry hates feeling out of control. Even
when he’s reckless, there’s an element of controlled choice to it, and he can’t help
but think there’s a snake in the grass trying to sink venom into the empire he’s
built. Someone who is jealous of him or possibly jealous of you or the two of you
together. Nothing about this feels haphazard at all. He just wants this early
Saturday performance to be over and done with so that the two of you can go
home and roll around in your sheets unsupervised until you have to be here
again on Monday morning. Unless of course he has to get up to flip the record or
grab something to eat or take a shower, but that hardly seems as important as
loving you. Besides, peanut butter is one of two items he craves that are perfectly
acceptable to eat in bed.
He approaches with a typical attempt at alleviation through purposeful

humor, tucking your hair behind your ear before cupping the back of your head,
“I’ll just cut off my blood supply so we don’t have to worry about this in the
future. Or maybe you can put on some fuckin’ pants, Jesus.”
“But it’s too hot for pants. My knees get sweaty.”

His eyelids fall shut, his nose tucking into your cheek as he chuckles against
your mouth, “no such thing, funny Honey. C’mon. We’ve got shit to do.”
DOUBLE FUCKING UPDATE FOR MY LOVES.
The downpour of applause from the packed audience is still audible over your
heavy breathing and the dull ring in your eardrums from the orchestral volume,
Harry’s arm wrapped around your neck in unity as you jog off backstage
immediately following another flawless performance. In fact, each one seems to
be better than the last, with the way your connection and trust are reaching
unspeakable heights. Before your eyes can even properly hitch with your
partner’s, you’re being torn away from one another by coworkers complimenting
your execution, by fans asking for autographs and photographs, by kitchen staff
offering you water and shots of Murky Lagoon.
The adrenaline high makes it hard to concentrate on conversation or feel the

full impact of sweat covering your skin, let alone fully comprehend the chill that
pulls up your spine when you search the room for Harry and find him tucked into
a corner talking to Tex. You’re overcome with a necessity to see the expression
on Harry’s face, wondering if Tex has chosen this moment to spill the news about
what he’s done and the impact it’ll have on the both of you and if you are truly
ready for the repercussions that will come along with that disclosure. But when
you see Harry’s head toss back in a fit of laughter, you’re not surprised by the
wave of solace that accompanies his ignorance. And that realization only
frightens you even more.
It’s always been an easy task for you to put your personal life and tribulations
behind you when it comes to performance. You have done in a hundred times in
your past and you imagine with a career as an entertainer, you’ll do it a hundred
times again in the future. Today has been no different, but now that all of your
professional responsibilities are stripped down and elapsed, you’re left with
nothing but the chafed and authentic reality of facing your obstacles fair and
square. Self-reflection and confrontation in the name of confessing your mishaps
has never been your strong suit as a diligent perfectionist, but at the same time,
you’ve never been one to shy away from standing up for what you believe in.
You don’t want this. You don’t want to reveal that his closest friendship is a
scam, that you conspired behind his back to break his heart and maybe most
gravely, that you’ve kept it a secret from him for this long. You don’t want to
burst his bubble in any way, shape or form, but like Nettie said, you have to.
There’s a hurricane coming and it’s going to demolish anything that isn’t secured,
but you’re holding on tight to the thing that matters most: your partner. You can
count the number of things that you’ve fought for tooth-and-nail in your lifetime
on one hand and as it stands, Harry is shooting right up to the top of that list
along with your career as a dancer. Since those two things go hand-in-hand, it
would appear as though you don’t really have a choice but to be brutally honest.
No alcohol. Be vulnerable as all hell because he thrives on that shit.
Fuck. It’s supremely hard to swallow when your stomach is jammed in your
throat.
When you realize that you haven’t heard a single word of the past few
sentences that the person in front of you has spoken, you politely smile and nod
before excusing yourself to your dressing room. The upcoming conversation
plays in your head as you meander around the tight space, lighting candles and
slowly stripping yourself bare for a shower.
Harry, I have to tell you something about my date with Riff. But please don’t be
mad at me, okay?
No. You can feel his boiling rage just from mulling Riff’s name around in your
mind.
Your friend Tex is a rat.

Definitely not.
If I told you that I’ve made a giant mistake, but would do absolutely anything in
order to salvage this beautiful sticky world we’ve built, would you forgive me?
Maybe?
I’m sorry, my sweet Sunbaby. Love me.
That’s a solid start.
On the other hand, this whole situation could easily manifest into nothing.
Harry could subdue his impulsive reaction to fly off the handle, receive the
information with a grain of understanding and choose to peacefully put up firm,
honest boundaries with Tex from now on and you’re simply blowing this entire
thing out of proportion in your head. Except it’s always been your habit to
prepare for the worst, likely because all of the times in your history that you
weren’t prepared, the circumstances have spiraled wildly out of control.
Especially when it comes to Harry.
Emptying out the contents of his bag and his wallet on your dressing room
floor on a wild goose chase for your headshot is one concrete example.
Besides, it’s not that big of a deal, right? Tex merely spoke ill of his best friend,
he made you second-guess your importance to Harry, he made you question
Harry’s sincerity, you were assaulted and almost raped, Harry broke a window
and a nose and a took a couple punches in return. The two of you had a nerve-
wracking falling out that shook your foundation because of it, tension at work
between the three of you has been high and will likely skyrocket, Tex made you
promise to keep your mouth shut against your wishes and then continued to
spend time with Harry at Hound Dogs as if nothing had happened at all, likely
filling his head with reasons to kick you to the curb, with little-to-no remorse for
the dilemma he’d caused.
Scratch that. There are no saving graces. Tex is a bona fide rat. Whatever
happens next is out of your hands and that type of chaos nearly drives you to the
very brink of insanity with a faulty parachute strapped to your back.
With a glance over your shoulder at the malfunctioning lock to yours and
Harry’s private space, you boldly peel the final layer of underwear away from
your legs and step into a blistering hot shower in the hope that the scorching
water will melt your sins and worries straight down the drain where they belong.
Minutes upon quiet minutes tick by and you do very little to clean yourself or
the makeup from your face, instead obsessing over a scenario that has yet to
unfold as your skin blooms pink from the mildly uncomfortable spray from
above. Harry would absolutely hate the temperature inside of this tiny fiberglass
cocoon, pretending to cup his throat in suffocating pain as the water beats down
on him as he did this morning before you compromised on a cooler climate. He’s
gotten so used to the public shower on the beach that he now prefers to bathe in
subzero conditions, claiming that it’s better for circulation and the environment,
that it eases stress and aids in muscle recovery, that it wakes him up and sends
his brain on a creative cycle. He wasn’t interested in hearing your explanation of
that simply being hypothermic psychosis, instead he sealed your lips in a
placating kiss and muttered something about you being a stiff cherry before
flicking one of your freezing cold nipples.
Would those moments be gone forever? Before you could properly savor them
and allow them to blossom? Is this it?
“Cherry bomb, cut your shit down to five more minutes. I smell like…..
somethin’ you’d never wanna kiss again. An’ I want you to kiss me forever,
y’know. Or maybe I could join you as long as you don’t insist on boilin’ me alive.”
Harry glances around the room in search for a heavy object before dragging an
armchair across the carpet to wedge the door closed. He wouldn’t dare risk
another walk-in, especially now that so many people are milling about in the
hallways with a little bit of rum running through their veins.
It’s silently contemplative on your end and he frowns before twisting the knob
on the bathroom door, but stopping himself in a reevaluated instance of
politeness with two taps on the wood with his knuckle, “you alright?” Now that
he thinks of it, you skipped out on the post-performance festivities a lot faster
than usual and his heartrate is speeding up and drying out his mouth, “hey, I’m
worried. Can I come in? Did I do somethin’ to tick you off?” Another hiccup of
hesitation and now his knock is a little more desperate as he imagines you
passed out on the bathroom floor or crying about something mysterious like
chicks sometimes do, “Cherry, please say somethin’.”
“Come in!”
His eyebrows cave in to form a divot above the bridge of his nose, mumbling
to himself, “the fuck is this shit about, for Christ’s—” He bursts into the room and
dramatically chokes on a thick cloud of steam with his eyes bulging out of his
head, “my fuckin’ lungs!”
“You can’t be serious, you smoke nearly two packs of cigarettes a day.”
“I need those. Hey, baby. Whatcha doin’ in there? You mad at me?” Harry’s
facial expression softens when you pull the curtain back, but keep your body
tucked behind the fabric, still articulating moments of coy and sexy modesty that
drives him wild with plum lust. You can’t possibly understand just how much he
appreciates the challenge of sweetening you, with the way your delicacy
naturally unfurls like a seedling seeking sunshine, “I didn’t get a chance to tell
you how powerful you were today. Did you hear the crowd lose their shit on your
triple twist? M’so honored to know you.”
You curl your finger as an invitation for him to come closer, “it wouldn’t be
nearly as great if you weren’t there catching me. You nailed your static routine, I
saw the smile on your face from the corner of my eye. I’m proud of you for
returning with such a dependable vengeance. It’s really admirable.”
A hiss sucks past his teeth before he cups your cheek and tugs you near for a
heartfelt kiss, “mmm….. always know how to make me feel so good.” He sucks on
your wet bottom lip and flicks your tongues together, drawing back an inch but
remaining intimate, “you kinda look like a raccoon.”
“Like a dumpster diver or just a cunning thief?”
Harry’s teeth and dimple flash in appreciation of your ease when it comes to
being teased, “like a cute, mascara-coated trash panda.”
You laugh before returning under the stream of water, scrubbing the heavy
coat of stage makeup away from your eyes, “still wanna pop my cherry?”
“I’d pop your cherry even if you were covered in dog shit.”
“Harry!”
“Too far. Take your time but also hurry the fuck up, I wanna split. I’m starvin’.”
The shower-stalling tactic only lasts so long, especially when you have a
hungry boyfriend as fidgety and overactive as Harry.
After you’ve both taken turns showering, Harry sits shirtless on the leather
couch behind you with an ice pack wrapped in gauze around his shoulder as a
prevention to injury. Every so often, he takes a drag of his cigarette or picks at his
bottom lip or chews on the skin around his nails as he flips through his worn
copy of Franny and Zooey, softly muttering passages out loud to himself. You had
caught him doing that on your beach lunch break a few days ago and find it both
absolutely endearing and fitting that he needs to hear words spoken in order to
thoroughly comprehend them. Except right now, the tone of the passages that
he’s choosing to voice are an abrupt clash to the quivering anxiety oscillating
through your bloodstream.
“’…..anyway I just got your beautiful letter and I love you to pieces, distraction,
e… c...’”
The wand of mascara hovers above your eyelashes when you and Harry
quickly catch eyes in the mirror before he breaks away and returns to the page.
This time he keeps his attention on his book when he addresses you, “you
gotta tell me somethin’?” He’s been noticing on-and-off for a few days now that
every so often you’ll pull inside of yourself or make a peculiar sour face out of the
blue, but now you seem particularly agitated. Usually he tries his hardest to let it
go, but he can’t help but ask every once in a while, since curiosity is his nature
and he knows from experience that French strikes you quite deeply, “ça va,
meuf?”
“Fine.” Harry tosses his book aside and crowds your space, his palms
smoothing up your thighs, over your pleated skirt before cuddling you into his
warm, bare stomach, “mmm….. hi.” He volleys a mumbled greeting into your hair
before brushing it aside and gently sucking on the sensitive spot where your
neck dips into your shoulder, “you can go ahead if you want. I’m almost ready.”
“You’re takin’ for-fucking-ever today.”
You swivel in his grasp and hum at the sensation of his hips pitching against
yours, his hair drying in wavy drapes around his cheekbones, his light and
present starry gaze, “I only need a couple more minutes. Go on. I’ll meet you.”
His eyelids taper in suspicion before he lifts one hand into the air, his
countenance flattening in impatience as he lays his palm flat and wiggles his
fingers in a gesture for you to give it up, “alright, lay it on me.”
“I love that you sleep with one leg in and one leg out of the covers. Like you
want to taste it all, the warm and cool. A perfect balance. It’s so you. I feel like
everything you do makes sense and connects-the-dots of what I subconsciously
already knew, but just hadn’t made the connection or named it yet. Predictably
dumbfounded. All the time. And it feels really good. I like being kept on my toes, I
like not knowing what may come next. I never thought that I liked that before,
but you give it such a nice spin.”
Harry takes note of your ramble and even though it’s sweet as cherry pie, he
can smell the underlying nervousness. He wants to tell you that his heart may
explode, but he can’t seem to find the right words, “I think there’s a term for
that.”
“What is it?”
“Fine as wine. Solid hunk.”
“At least you’re not stuck up.”
His next sentiment is splintered by quiet and slow, wildly attractive, dimpled
laughter, “good thing, huh?” He dips the tips of his fingers into your damp hair,
swiping the end of his nose back-and-forth over yours before gently folding your
lips together with a vivid hum, “thank you. Now Banana Split, baby. I’m fuckin’
dyin’. Please. Please, please. It’s almost seven already. I need a cheeseburger and
tits and your soft-ass sheets. Couple blanket drills maybe, and a hard fuckin’
sleep.”
You remain locked in place as he crosses the room and tugs on a wifebeater,
tucking the hem into his trousers and then pulling his leather jacket over his
shoulders. He drags the chair away from the door and is cautious to put it back
into its rightful spot, his skateboard tucked under his arm and his bag slung over
his shoulder when he approaches you once more. You gather his hand and pull
him close, your fingers sinking into his hair to crane him down for one last kiss,
“you got it. See ya, Sunshine. I’m right behind you.”
“Honeyfox. Be zippy, yeah?” He happily clicks his tongue when you nod,
pinching your cheek and then tapping your chin with his knuckle before
sauntering out the door with a whirlwind of cool air behind him.
In typical midsummer fashion, the sun is still fairly high in the sky when Harry
shoulders his way through the exit doors and strolls out into the open courtyard.
It’s long enough after the performance that most of the circus crew and hangers-
on have cleared out. Which makes the dark, familiar figure leaning up against a
red Dodge Charger in the nearby parking lot a stark, murderous contrast to the
sunshine and the crashing ocean waves and the errant caw of seagulls and the
violet petals still swirling around in Harry’s stomach.
Everything in Harry’s peripheral visual blurs when he hones in on the man

who took you out on a date weeks ago, who left a snail trail of fingerprints all
over your immaculate skin, who ignored your cries and screams in his selfish
effort to get lucky. The man who Harry should’ve fucking left for dead instead of
sending him off with a broken window and a battered face. The man who locks
eyes on Harry from across the courtyard and merely allows a smug smile to curl
onto his repulsive mouth.
Breath moves through the empty tunnel of Harry’s ears and nose and throat
and the tremor of his abandoned brain, his fingers curling into fists as he
relinquishes the belongings in his hands and barrels towards Riff without a
single thought or concern except for keeping you out of harm’s way.
“Aw, pretty limey boy is also a circus fruit! How cute. I was hoping we’d see
each other again.”
“Cut the fuck out unless you wanna shit out your teeth tomorrow, twat!
Fuckface, son-of-a-bitch motherfucker. You’re a miserable, perverted, abusive
shit-show!” As soon as he’s within a couple feet of his enemy, Harry launches
himself at his sniveling face, curling his fingers into the collar of his jacket and
slamming Riff back into the door of his car as hard as he possibly can, the echo of
bone meeting metal resounding off of the adjacent vehicles as a pained groan
whittles up his boneheaded throat, “I’m gonna demolish your glass fuckin’ jaw,
scumbag.”
Riff cinches Harry’s neck in a tight fist, his lips curling in anger and resentment
when he seethes past crooked teeth, “keep your hands off me, you fucking
asshole. What, you still scared I’m gonna steal your prude girlfriend away? You
know I’d put that pretty pussy on a fucking pedestal the second you blinked your
eyes. Already had my hands in her panties anyway. Probably before you did.”
Harry’s teeth practically crack under the tension in his clenched jaw, a growl
spiraling into a sharp cry when he smashes a bruising jab right into Riff’s left eye
socket.
Immediately the two men begin wrestling for control, Riff’s arms wrapping
around Harry’s waist as punches land with sickening thuds and fists curl into
clothing and leather soles scuff against pavement. Harry manages to dip and get
ahold of Riff’s legs, hauling him onto the hood of his car and pinning him in a
choking headlock. He waits until Riff is struggling to pull in a breath before
dragging him back to his feet in a weakened position, with his back pressed up
against Harry’s chest and his windpipe sealed shut with the force of his attacker’s
solid forearm. Riff grapples between hauling Harry’s arm away or inflicting hits
as his brain slowly starts to be deprived of oxygen, a final nasty blow of his elbow
sinking into Harry’s stomach which nearly causes the both of them to lose their
footing.
“What the fuck? Hey!” Tex rushes from the exit door of the theatre in a
confused haze of curses and frenetic energy, dodging the flail of arms as he
weaves himself into the middle of the scuffle and hauls Harry off of his friend. For
the first time in weeks, Harry is relieved to hear his best friend’s voice and hopes
in the very least that Tex can keep his Cherry pie at bay so you’re not forced to
face this piece-of-shit cunt, “stop! What the fuck is going on?”
Giving the two scrappy men a moment to catch their breaths in the midst of
heated air, blood-stained clothing and a couple more dents added to Riff’s hotrod,
Tex opens his mouth to speak again but is interrupted by Riff’s horrifyingly-
revealing line, “what, are you an idiot or you just got a cheap watch? I said Hound
Dogs at six, man.”
Harry slaps Tex in the back of his head, “don’t tell me you know this fucker.”
Each of them gets a single shove in before the guilt-ridden expression on Tex’s
face sends Harry pouncing on him in a death-grip chokehold, the velocity of his
charge tumbling them both onto the hot gravel with a loud, wind-knocking thud.
Harry easily piles on top of him with the strength of adrenaline on his side,
lodging his forearm underneath Tex’s chin and barking questions at him, only
relenting for Tex to suck in enough breath to squeak out his pathetic answers,
except he’s not listening to anything he has to say, “how the fuck do you know
him, huh? Why didn’t you fuckin’ tell me? D’ya know he beats on women? How
could you let this happen!”
You can feel the intensity of violence the instant you breeze outside on your
roller skates. At first, the sound of shouts and cusses filter through the hot ozone
and burrow straight into your eardrums. Harry’s skateboard and bag lay
deserted on the ground at your feet and there are a couple coworkers huddled in
the courtyard, all with their stares funneled into one direction. You follow the
trajectory of their gazes to find a heap of bodies in the parking lot, giving yourself
a handful of seconds to recognize each face within the brawl. Tex; laying on the
pavement, Harry; on top of him with his hands wrapped around his neck, and
Riff; fingers digging into Harry’s leather jacket as he works to heave him off of
Tex.
You’re too late. Through all of the planning and conceptualizing of how this
disclosure would go, this chain of events never, ever crossed your mind. And this
is by far the worst framework imaginable.
With tears in your throat and your organs imploded into a single, thorny ball,
you skate through the group of onlookers towards the scuffle, trying to decide
exactly how to make it all stop before the decision is brutally made for you. As
soon as you approach, Harry manages to throw Riff off of him and send him
spiraling in your direction, the two of you flailing as your wheels kick up from
underneath you and propel you onto the ground with a pained scream.
Upon feeling the agony of your shriek feeding into his ears, Harry freezes his
action to glance over his shoulder, his stomach tugging on itself in horror when
he scrambles from Tex with a couple running steps to kneel beside you. His
quaking fingers drag through your hair as he scans your body at full speed and
manages to keep his volume low but the tremble in his voice is impossible to
hide, “Cherry— I’m so sorry. Oh, fuck— are you okay? Alright? Can you sit—”
Riff repulses into the middle of Harry’s final shred of restraint, “there’s the
broad. Just like I remember: skirt around her waist, sucking off a lollipop.
Innocently slutty. Should’ve expected to get felt up looking like that, practically
begging for it.”
Outrage presses against your pores and you’re instantly sick to your stomach
as memories from that night come flooding back at full-steam; vomit rising to
your throat, ghostly fingertips pressing up against your center where you didn’t
want them, bruises etching into your elbows as you fought to get a door or
window open, your heart slamming against your ribcage before taking off in a
stomach-churning gallop. Suddenly you’re dizzy and you want every second of
this torture to end, that is until you see Harry. His eyes are burning holes through
your expression for a better read, trying to decipher exactly how much you know
and how much you don’t know, but the look of horror on your face when your
eyes connect tells him everything he needs to know.
Tex knows Riff. You know Riff. Tex knows you. Riff knows you. Tex looks
criminal. You look traumatized. Riff looks like a fucking asshole. The swirling
hurricane finally all clicks and Tex is the eye of the storm and there’s only one
thought going through Harry’s head, except instead of words, it’s merely a
combination of two grisly colors.
Red and green.
Danger and envy.
Harry deserts you and beelines for Tex again through his blinding veil of
raging crimson, unleashing as many punches as he can possibly sink before a
small group of coworkers intervene, two of them struggling to barely hold an
unmanageable Harry back as one of them helps Tex to his feet.
Suddenly it feels like everyone Harry loves has turned on him all at once, his
world crumbling and caving down on him, asphyxiating him underneath a pile of
debris as he struggles for air. The structure of his home is compromised; his
naked body lying in the rubble of heavy bricks and splintered plywood, choking
on granular plaster and toxic lead paint. Everyone’s fucking hands are on him
and he can’t breathe, so he does what he always does when he’s feeling
overwhelmed and helpless. He explodes.
Harry savagely rips his coworker’s hands away; his hair strewn in his face, his
wifebeater stretched and askew, smudges of thick blood on his lip, nose and
knuckles. His voice is hoarse, hysterical and unhinged through the surging
uproar of his blazing emotions, “nobody fuckin’ touch me! I’ll strangle the next
person who lays a goddamn hand on me. Fuckin’ try me!” He turns to Tex, “why!
Why!” Tex raises a single finger to point in your direction and Harry’s face
collapses in madness, “don’t you point your fuckin’ finger at her. You knew
exactly what you were doin’! He beat on her, you piece of shit!”
It doesn’t surprise you when his anger targets you next. Harry points a rigid,
livid finger that blackens your chest before hauling a thumb over his shoulder in
dismissal. His voice crackles much like the lick of an angry flame; a shivering
snap at first, followed by a growling sizzle, “you! Banana Split. Je vais y être dans
dix minutes.” Your chin-quivering, pleading head shake is interrupted with a
ferocious bark, “vas-y! Fuck’s sake, Cerise.” His words splinter under the intense
duress of his grieving fury, “comment as-tu pu me faire ça? Fuck! Merde! Fuck!
Casse-toi! Maintenant!”
Riff mumbles a sentiment of stupidity and it would be humorous in the kernel

of a different situation, “is he talking Spanish or some shit?” Harry pops a
narrow-eyed sneer over his shoulder to be met with an even more infuriating
line that sends him spiraling straight into the depths of rage again, “maybe if she
didn’t wear skirts that show so much fucking stem, she wouldn’t get felt up on
dates.”
Harry lunges at him once more, but the steadfast crew of coworkers intervene
before he can get his hands on him. He rolls his eyes so hard that he can hear his
mother telling him to stop or else they’ll get stuck, “fucker! Don’t flaunt your
bunk, shit-eating grin here ever again!”
The word ’belligerent’ comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative
aspect of his personality. He will jump down the throat of anyone who crosses
him without a second thought to the contrary. When it comes to anger and his
notoriously pungent backlash, he’d rather beg for forgiveness than beg for
permission.
And for a moment, neither of you seem to pay very much mind to the growing,
curious and silent crowd.
You pull yourself to standing, meeting Harry’s glare, blinking slowly with eyes
equally tight and dry as they are brimming with heartbroken moisture. It would
be absolutely impossible for him to process anything that you have to say right
now, so you choose to stay quiet. There’s a grief-stricken clump of fiercely
shredded seconds as you stare at one another, slippery eyes and murky breaths,
before Harry tears his sight away to snort mucus into the back of his throat and
spit a wad of blood onto the ground. The tragic spot stains the cement with a
cherry-red outburst of sorrow; lines radiating from the edges to spread the
margins of his shattered heart, from the depths of his guts, directly onto the hot
pavement. His sweet Cherry; a deceptive, sultry double agent. He never fucking
saw it coming.
A string of scratchy twine is untied, a piece of butcher paper unfolds. Harry’s

still-beating heart lays limp in a puddle of its own blood.
He honestly, truly believed that he never had a reason not to trust you. He
knew his impulsivity would get him into big trouble one day, but he didn’t quite
imagine his intuition to be so amiss.
You scan the small cluster of spectators, their eyes bouncing around all of the
members involved in the brawl. A constant circling of vultures nose-bombing for
a nibble of what you have left clinging to your bones. You slink away from the
hellish scene, trying to keep your chin raised as high as humanly possible while
simultaneously choking back tears, your ears and chest physically stinging at
overhead mumblings from the firing squad lineup of coworkers:
“…..relationship has always been if… y...”
“…..it’s just like their fight before he wiped o… t...”
“…..poor Harry deserv… s...”
“…..maybe if she loosened……p...”
“…..he should find a n… w...”
Your exit is accompanied by a brick wall of Flying Marvel posters with yours
and Harry’s smiling faces plastered all over it, forcing you to wonder if this is the
end of your partnership as you know it, while simultaneously trying to interpret
the situation to yourself so that you can explain it to him when he arrives at
Banana Split. If he even shows up. You can’t even comprehend the level of misery
you’d feel if he didn’t even bother to lay this relationship to rest before
disappearing from your life completely. It’s not exactly something that you would
imagine him to do, but you wouldn’t put it past him either. It wouldn’t be the first
time that he completely vanished in order to sort out and run away from his
problems, but you’d like to give him a little more credit than that.
“Fuck off!” Your coworkers freeze at Harry’s order before they slowly begin to
dissipate, but not quite fast enough for Harry’s liking, “I said leave! Fun’s over!
Fuck off and goodnight.”
A mere glare in Riff’s direction from both Tex and Harry send him piling into
his car and peeling out of the parking lot behind a dust storm of frustrated curses
and dried blood. Once Harry and Tex are completely alone, Harry begins pacing
in an attempt to break free from his viciously loud thoughts, his fingers sinking
into his hair as he struggles to pull a single thought loose from the tangled lattice
in his brain.
“Listen, man—”
“Shut the fuck up.” Harry storms Tex and winds his fingers into the open
plackets of his shirt, giving him one firm shake before unchaining his still-
burning exasperation, “what the fuck were you thinkin’, huh? You put her in
serious fuckin’ danger. That guy made her scream and cry, he fuckin’ touched
her! He had his slimy, grody, weasel hands all over her! He left bruises on her
arm and he would have done much worse if I didn’t bust his goddamn window
and his stupid fuckin’ face. An’ you knew how badly I was goin’ after her. Why
would you want to ruin that for me? What kind of fuckin’ friend are you?”
“It was all her idea, man. I swear on my Nan. She told me she couldn’t get you
to back off, so she thought you seeing her on a date with someone else would
turn you off. I didn’t wanna go behind your back, but she wouldn’t stop ’til I
agreed. You know how pushy she is. She’s a snake, trust me. You should back far
away if you haven’t already. You don’t remember her like I do. You two had a
volatile relationship for a reason. You never trusted her. Your head is fucked up,
mate. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
Fingers crossed.
I don’t get it. Are you worried about me or jealous that I went on a date with
someone else?
Harry’s bottom row of eyelashes brim with tears, the tip of nose red with the
threat of upset pushing his anger aside. His hard gaze is trained on Tex as he
clenches his teeth and shakes his head back and forth slowly, trying to sort out
the very subjective and ever-changing tidal wave of human condition. He’s
confused now as to the validity of his broken, injured brain; if his surfing accident
merely flipped an invisible switch and involuntarily threw him into the hands of
a crafty femme. He knows you, he swears to fucking god that he knows you, but
now he’s questioning what’s real and what’s been molded and shaped to simply
fit the reality that he was wishing for. Do you even want him?
Doesn’t he know you?
Pride urges him to stand up for your passion and convince Tex that he’s
wrong, to scream in his face that he loves you and you’ve given him parts of
yourself that you’ve never shared with anyone before. You’ve said it yourself;
he’s your goddamn sunshine and as far as he can tell, sometimes you say shit you
don’t mean, but it’s never shit that’s hard to say. Opening yourself up with raw
honesty is extremely difficult for you, but you’ve done it for him. Just for him.
But Tex is right, you did willingly go on that date behind his back and it would
make sense that you asked one of the only people you knew that had a large
circle of male friends at his disposal. However, he also knows that conspiracy
theories are dangerous because they can whittle and sink into the crevices of
anyone’s insecurities so long as they take the time to listen. Is Tex, one of his
oldest friends, telling him the truth with Harry’s well-being in mind or is Tex, one
of his oldest friends, merely trying to push you out of the picture so that he can
have Harry all to himself like before? Is Tex a solid friend or is Tex in mourning
and lashing out with immaturity?
Harry is able to rationalize enough through the sturdy wall of rage to shut his
fucking mouth and keep your relationship a secret, regardless of his obstinance,
no matter what happens from this point forward. For you.
You’d never, ever forgive him if he cost you your career.
Except his shitty memory is congealing the blood flow inside of his brain,
unsure now if Tex is being reliable about the history of your partnership and the
true wound of his memories. He’s questioning if you’ve maybe met Riff before
and particularly had him in mind when and if you approached Tex for help. Has
he exaggerated this entire flirtation between you? Is it lopsided? Has he forced
himself into your bed? Are you keeping dangerous secrets from him?
You’re clean, Cherry. Real fuckin’ boss. What other secrets d’ya have, hmm?
More than you think.
If Tex had superhuman hearing he might be able to hear the beginning of

Harry’s teeth cracking under their constrained pressure as he weakly spits, “fuck
you.”
Tex can sense Harry’s confusion and apprehension and he’s glad for it because
it means he hasn’t lost yet, “you’re not so sure anymore, are you? I’ve been your
friend for eight years, mate. You’ve known her for maybe a couple months.
You’ve forgotten everything else before that. Don’t lose yourself. This isn’t you.
You don’t want a girlfriend. They complicate shit. You said it yourself a hundred
times. No chicks. No girlfriends, man.”
Had Harry dismissed all of your warnings too soon? Had you tried to caution
him? Are his impulsive, aggressively decisive feelings unfounded?
Harry loosens his grip on Tex’s shirt and shoves him away, stumbling
backwards while trying to listen to his brain, his heart, the ghosts of your voice
and his present friend all at once, “listen, I was rooting for you two to get along
the whole fucking time, but you took it to a sick extreme, man—”
“I can’t— couldn’t fuckin’ help it!”
“Can’t or couldn’t? Are you still going after her?”
No. Technically he’s not still going after you since he’s already gotten you, but
Tex doesn’t miss his pause as Harry labors to navigate a lie with his stare glued
to the horizon, “I dunno.”
The bloated, ensuing stare-off is laden with lead and poison and Harry decides
in a split-second that he’s not going to hear anything else that he needs to hear
from Tex. Harry hates backpedaling; he’d been moving in a backwards trajectory
since the day he dropped Indy, orbiting around and around in his own lonely
skull and those toxic thoughts, those risky behaviors and those miserable habits
stopped dead in their tracks the instant he saw you roll up on your skates that
fateful day outside of the theatre.
He knows one tenacious thing for certain: his brain steadily submerges into a
familiar squishy spot whenever he thinks of you and he needs to see you, the
only person who has made him feel consistently good since the day Indy died.
Good and progressive. Not stagnant and dormant. You’ve shown him patience
and support regardless of outside circumstances, both in your personal lives and
towards his career, and he can’t remember the last time someone has done that
for him. If ever.
And you did it simply by being you. His golden key. His syrupy Honeysuckle.
His crumbling Cherry tart.
He’s never wanted someone in the way that he wants you and that must mean
something. It just has to.
His brain is an overripe apple and Tex is a worm channeling through it,
stealing massive bites and chunks along the way. Whereas you’ve been quite the
opposite, filling holes and patching up pieces of dead and lifeless tissue that he’d
previously considered long gone. He needs your side. He needs you. Right fucking
now, “don’t drag innocent people, especially women, into your dumpster fire of
emotions. You’ve destroyed this, you’ve destroyed everything. Don’t fuckin’
speak another word to me for a long, long time. Go back to England for all I care,
boss. Spread this kinda filth somewhere else. I’ve fuckin’ had it with you.”
“You’ve got it all wrong—”
“Stop. Talking.”
With that, Harry leaves Tex in the dust and saunters off, sweeping his
belongings from the ground and circling around the theatre in order to throw
Tex off his track in the hope that he doesn’t suspect Harry leaving in the same
direction you did. He knows that he’s late to meet you and that you’re probably
shredding your insides to shit with anxiety, but he’s still fucking pissed that you
let this mess get so far out of hand when you had hundreds of opportunities to
discuss it with him. In private, in the comfort of your bed or over milkshakes at
The Sweet Hereafter, or fucking absolutely anywhere else but here with an
audience and your bad date’s disgusting words breathing sludge straight into the
back of Harry’s throat.
Doors slam in his wake as Harry flits into the theatre and into the nearest
restroom to wash his face and rinse his mouth out. He hovers over the sink for a
while with droplets of water pilling from the tip of his nose and plinking into the
porcelain sink, before lifting his gaze to study his marred face in the mirror. His
mind is on a constant, hyperactive orbit, trying to reason with himself and calm
himself down, rehearsing what he will say to you when he sees you, tapping into
as much rationale as his mutilated emotions will allow.
He tries his damndest to milk memories of your bed this morning and
evaporate into that comfortable, passionate mindset in order to get his point
across to you as kindly as possible. He’s fuming, but he recognizes your position
of victimization in this situation as well. He just can’t possibly understand why
you would keep imperative details from him. You’ve been stewing over this
knowledge for weeks, allowing him to spend time with Tex at Hound Dogs,
willingly sending him off into the arms of a traitor and for what? Because you’re
so fucking polite that you’d rather not ruffle anyone’s feathers?
It’s obvious that being well-mannered has its fallbacks just as rebellion does,
except when you’re civil to the point of being avoidant and omissive, sometimes
the fire that you were attempting to smother with detachment rages twice as
brightly. Perhaps those with the most diplomatic tactics aren’t passive at all, but
rather find the perfect balance in being authoritative in body and spirit; high-
warmth and high-control. Confrontation of oneself and others, replacing
frivolous fear with mindful good intentions. This is what Harry strives for most of
the time, but sometimes his anger snaps and gets the best of his control. And his
warmth. But he’s pretty good at reeling himself back in and covering up his
tracks, even if it takes longer than he’d optimally wish for.
The ruby red stone set into the ring that Harry gifted you presses into your
palm again and again as you squeeze your sweaty hands into fists. Every so often,
the break of the ocean or the rustle of the palm leaves overhead will mimic the
sound of skateboard wheels, tricking you into peering around the trunk of
Banana Split in the hope of seeing your lover approaching. He never does though,
or at least he hasn’t yet, and each time you glance at your watch you swear your
battery must be faulty or something.
Maybe if she didn’t wear skirts that show so much fucking stem, she wouldn’t get
felt up on dates.
Your hands clap over your ears and your eyes pinch shut, but that could never
stop the scorch of inner turmoil.
Comment as-tu pu me faire ça?
Honestly, you would understand if he never forgave you. But the thought
tumbles by like a golden leaf; flickering once in the sunshine just before turning a
corner. Predictably, Harry appears when you least expect him to, suddenly and
gradually all-at-once.
The clouds part at the mere sight of him returning to you on his own accord;
his skateboard tucked under his arm to express that he chose to walk here,
unhurried to reunite with you. A cigarette rests coolly in his mouth, breathing
cotton candy fire like a raging dragon cloaked in a pink cape. Normally he is your
hero, but now you suppose you need to be his.
And right now, he’s a very unappealing combination of exasperated, seething,

impulsive and crass which is easily your most objectionable blend of Harry.
Like a true philosopher, Harry needs to know every angle before making any
decisions and he’s always been a fantastic listener. Although right now, his
patience has pretty much disintegrated. He paces in front of you with his gaze
trained on his feet, snapping his fingers once and pointing in your direction with
a hoarse demand, “speak. Tell me your side. Now.”
Seeing him like this — the putrid shining essence of who he once was, a stun-
gun reminder of how he would besiege all of his confusion and anger around you
— is a lot like catching a glimpse of two red wolfish eyes glaring at you through
your kitchen window. You stare and stare and gawk and gawk, waiting for your
split vision to jell, waiting for blurry lines to cut through the mirage on the
horizon to assemble something real. It takes time, but you finally realize it’s not
the evil hallucination you thought it actually was. It’s merely two blistering, shiny
reflections from hubcaps on the street taking on the form of an evil apparition
you hoped to never see again. It’s Sunny, it’s blindingly Sunny and it always has
been, except right now he’s burning from the inside out. Compared to the benign
burst of sunbeams that has helped you bloom for weeks now; his star is slowly
expanding outward and in danger of exploding into a thousand shards of glassy
debris unless you can do something quick.
Your back is glued to the scratchy bark of Banana Split, your mouth only opens
and closes like a dying fish for a couple gasping breaths before you start
blathering like a glitching Chatty Cathy doll, “I wanted Tex to tell you, Harry. He
promised me he was going to tell you. I didn’t feel like it was my place to wedge
myself between you with—”
“But this is about you! I want to know every single thing about you! Why the
fuck wouldn’t I want to know this? Of all things? Why the fuck are you tryin’ to
protect me from a broken fuckin’ friendship? You think I want this shit? You
think I’d ever choose savin’ him over you, especially after all that shit he’s pulled?
Come the fuck on, Cherry! Think! Haven’t I made it clear? You are my number
one priority. You. What do I have to do to get you to trust that?”
“Harry, please! I was assaulted and could’ve been raped that night, I wasn’t
exactly thinking straight—”
He swarms your space and hovers his face dangerously close to yours. The
whites of his eyes are tinged with pink lemonade, the skin that you love scattered
with molding bruises that as far as you’re concerned, are completely your fault, “I
fuckin’ know that and I’m so fuckin’ sorry that happened to you. But you weren’t,
and can you tell me why not? Huh?”
“Don’t pry me open like this and then leave me—”
“Say it!”
A scalding tear rips down your cheek, “because of you.”

Harry growls, his hands flying up to cover his ears as if that would block out
the static in his brain, “say it again.”
You swallow a barbed, metallic prickly ball of sorrow that stings your eyes and
your throat and Harry hates it so much when you cry, but right now, he selfishly
wants you to hurt as much as he does. You know what he’s trying to do — to
separate himself from the men who wronged you, to place himself on a pedestal
through your own admittance — but he doesn’t need to. You’ve already done that
all by yourself. You did that the moment you saw a photo of him in the
newspaper before you’d ever considered auditioning for the circus. You did that
throughout the rocky kick-off to your partnership. You do that every single day,
except the pedestal keeps raising higher and higher. You had no idea the stony
eyes in that grainy headshot were about to change your life forever and why
can’t he understand that? What are you doing wrong? Haven’t you expressed and
displayed his importance enough? You’re giving him your body, you’ve given him
your heart, you trust him with your life. What else does he need?
You dig your fingers into his blood-stained wifebeater and choke back your
emotion, your eyes glassy with the sheen of awareness over your major mishap,
“because of you! You’re everything to me, Harry. You’ve set my heart on fire and I
never want you to put it out, can’t you see that? I only want you to feel good, I
don’t ever want your sunshine to set.”
“Then why the fuck would you hurt me? Lie to me? Deceive me? Huh? You
knew exactly how this would make me feel and that’s why you kept it from me.
You were scared. I feel like a sideswiped, blind fuckin’ idiot. I need a better
explanation than your supposedly ’good’ intentions. Be honest with me. Be
honest with yourself. Or we have nothing.”
He has absolutely no reason not to trust you and he fucking loves that about you.
Or so he thought.
“Are you breaking up with me?” Harry clenches his jaw, honing in on your
fingers nervously spinning his ruby ring on your middle finger but he doesn’t
answer right away, which causes your stomach to lurch with unfiltered, strewn
anxiety, “Harry?”
“How could you even ask me that?”
“Because you turning on me is a fear of mine.”
“Jesus fuck—” With a hard shove off of the palm tree, Harry paces away from
you and digs his fingers into his scalp, “say somethin’ that will make me feel
good. Please. Right now. I beg you. Before I lose my fuckin’ shit.”
“Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Please— just—” The inside of your brain is nothing
but deeply carved wrinkles and orange static electricity, but you don’t have any
time to smooth it out before you start rambling an explanation, “when you
stormed out of the theatre, I thought you were angry that I hadn’t told you about
my ankle and I thought you didn’t want to have anything to do with me anymore.
Tex told me he’d seen you treat tons of burners the same exact way that you had
been treating me, that I wasn’t special to you and to be careful. That I was just a
game to you. He told me it was my fault you wiped out. He told me you hated me
while you were in a coma and to stay away or I’d turn you into a vegetable. You
used to be so cruel to me that it was an easy deception for me to fall into. He said
he could help me move on and I thought that was what I needed, because I didn’t
know how I felt about getting involved with my trapeze partner. I made a huge
mistake. I should have never listened to him. It was stupid and callow, self-
conscious and weak. I should have known better, I should have thought about
your feelings. I should have thanked you for being there that night and saving me
even after I’d just broken your heart. I should’ve told you right away what Tex
had done. I get it. I get it. I’m so, so devastated and remorseful….. I get it. I’ve been
choking on this for weeks now. And I understand if you’re going to be angry with
me for a little while, but please come back when you’re ready.” Desperation stuffs
you from your toes to your teeth, but for some reason you think that him seeing
that will only push him away, so you try your best to be as collected as possible
even though your entire body is nothing short of taut chaos right now. Except
Harry knows you well enough to spot it before you’ve even become aware of its
possession yourself, “I don’t want you to hurt. I don’t wanna lose you. Please.”
Harry’s entire face is downturned into a miserable frown when he grips the
back of your neck and sponges a heated, charged kiss to your forehead. The
kindling of your story and Tex’s story burn together and begin to burst with
sense in his mind; of course you were tossed into a situation that your naïveté
couldn’t navigate. Of course Tex immediately saw that weakness in you and took
advantage of it. Of course Harry can trust his strong sense of intuition. This is all
completely fucked, but one specific, underlying detail of this entire predicament
stands a little taller than the rest, and he knows he must address it before you
part ways.
His other hand cups your jaw to tilt your chin up, your eyes darting back and
forth with his in a precarious dance for more answers. But there aren’t any.
You’ve both made mistakes and you’ve both loved with bravery. All either of you
want is for your hearts to beat in the same tender rhythm, but it seems the world
has contrasting, rehearsed tempos most of the time.
Your relationship with Harry has never existed without passion in both
directions. Intense hostility and intense love. Fire and fire. Tidal waves and
tsunamis. Volcanos and earthquakes. Two queen bees with their own set of fierce
swarming workers. A lion and a tiger, territorial and valiant, but in your own
unique ways. And sometimes it’s hard to get a word in when one’s roar is so
ferocious and vehement.
“I think that’s the most honest I’ve ever heard you be.” Harry shuts his eyes
and clenches his teeth, “look—” His eyelids draw open slowly like the heavy drag
of a velvet curtain to display a set stage of sensitive capillaries of pain and
suffering, “you are enough. You are abundant. You’ve been absolute since you
took your very first breath. I want every single speck of you. You don’t have to
hide anything from me, Cherry. The mistakes, the blemishes, the weaknesses. I
want those. But baby, you have to forgive me. You have to let that old part of me
go. He’s gone. He should’ve never existed in the first place. Trust that, trust me.
I’ll be your sunshine, but only if you let me. Understand that you sayin’ you have
a fear of me turning on you and you stayin’ closed off like this is because of the
past. Our past and your own personal past. And it fuckin’ hurts. Please, for fuckin’
fuck’s sake, let that shit go. Stop projecting. Drop the trigger. I’m not him
anymore. I’m not your father. I’m not my father. I’m not Riff. I’m not Tex. I’m not
Rusty. Haven’t I proved myself enough? Haven’t I stomped the shit out of that
pattern? You have to forgive me. You have to.” His forehead submits with a gentle
nudge against yours, the very tips of your noses brushing, “you have to forgive
me.”
His wisdom is outstanding. Sometimes it feels like he can truly never, ever be
wrong. Even when you think he is. In the face of adversity, in the face of fear, in
the face of established laws and rules that tell him otherwise. He’s premeditated
everything in life before it’s even happened, now and in history, and he’s so
enigmatic that at times you’re not sure how he hasn’t conquered the world yet.
The saddest part of his whole spiel is that he’s right and you’re trying to let the
past go, to let all the men who have wronged you go, but those wooden splinters
and shards of broken glass don’t get covered up by thickened skin as quickly as
you wish they would. They’re all around you, reminding you every single day that
women’s voices are less than half as strong as a man’s, but you keeping
everything at arm’s length isn’t going to work to loosen the rusted, sealed gears
of your mind. Harry’s right; he’s nothing like the men who continually squash
and mistreat you and you need to let him love you before the flames of his
agitated passion burn him to a crisp, “I’m trying. I’m trying so hard for you,
Harry. It’s just going to take time.”
“Fine. I’ll keep proving myself every single fuckin’ day because you deserve
that. What we have is good. Really, really fuckin’ good, Honeypeach. But nothing
can become great without courage. Hear me?” You nod and drop your gaze, his
index finger hooking your chin to lock your eyes, “be tough for me.” Something
flips inside of him and you can see the evidence as it crosses his features. He
pinches the bridge of his nose and staggers away from you when the lightning of
mistrust strikes again, “and fuck Tex! You’re so much more than a fuckin’ burner.
No one is anything compared to you—”
“You don’t have to explain. I know.”

A whoosh of air sighs heavily from his nose before he pops his eyes open
again, the redness and darkness recessed for the time being. Harry gathers your
hand and spreads your palm over his chest to share the vicious thump of his
heart, his gaze leaking into yours to bleed you dry, “run away with me. Cabo.
Tulum. Panama. The Amazon Rainforest. Can’t we just disappear?”
The weight of his question is so severe that it feels like an ax splitting you in
two. Your rational mind screams, “no, no, no, less risks,” warning you that it’s
perilous and illogical, that you’ll starve to death, that you’ll drive each other
insane. Your heart screams, “yes, yes, yes, more adventures,” convincing you that
it’s romantic and chivalrous, that you’ll never be hungry again, that you’ll drive
each other lucid. You have no doubt that his charms would float the both of you
through any hardship and you can’t help but notice how his first reaction to
turmoil is always to disappear.
The spontaneous idea of melting away with him is profoundly intriguing, but
you’re forced to push it back as quickly as it came because his digression is
almost too perfectly sweet. Recklessly, wildly, idealistically sweet, “Harry, you
can’t run away from your problems—”
“Grow up. Yes, you can. We’ll run straight into them and tear them apart and
then fuck off on a beach somewhere.”
A chuckle cuts through your tears just once before inhaling with a snort, “are
you not mad at me anymore?”
The shake of his head is more sad than it is frustrating, “I’m furious. But I’ll be
alright. Just keep sayin’ cute shit and treatin’ me right. Lemme pop that cherry
and I’ll be yours forever.”
“Only then?”
His head stays still as his eyes wander up to the sky to buy a moment of time
to properly shape his next sentiment, “well, no. But couldn’t hurt…..?”
“It’s yours.” His forehead pegs against yours with droopy, exhausted eyes, the
tip of his nose swiping back and forth across your skin, “didn’t work, did it?”
“What didn’t?”
“Tex’s plan. To drive us apart. I was afraid it might….. after I realized what it
was.”
“The only thing that can keep me away from you is you, Honeyshark. Bold ass
bitch. Tougher than nails. Kiss me, please. We’ll prove ’em all wrong. All of ’em.
Fuckers.”
You rush forward to suction your lips together for that dashing, zip of
tranquility that his mouth always brings. He emits a churning hum of relief that
bores directly into your stomach; your tongues slinking out for a taste of what
you’ve been hungering for, your cushy, relaxed devotion slipping right back into
place where it belongs. Inside of your hearts only.
Harry’s heart-shaped lips tickle yours when he whispers, “no more secrets.
Just us.”
“Okay. I promise.” You tug his undershirt from the waistband of his trousers to
feel the warmth of his stomach, “and you’re not hiding anything from me either?”
And if I don’t?
Harry’s mouth falls open and his eyes shift nervously to the ground. You
mistake his silence as an annoyed reaction to your prying and backpedal as fast
as you can, “I’m sorry—”
“No. I—” His eyes taper as he studies you to see if you’re testing him or simply
asking an honest question before expertly skirting your question without having
to lie, a skill he’s gotten very good at through the years of being raised by an
abusive alcoholic, “don’t be. It’s okay. We’re gonna be okay.” He licks his lips and
tacks on a requirement that pokes at your pre-existing soreness, “I need to be
alone.” He interrupts you before you can even start to beg him otherwise, “yeah.
Please understand.”
“What are you gonna do? Will you come back to me?”
Harry can see through the cracks of insecurity in your cheeks and it makes his
skin crawl with anger, wondering how exactly you’d gotten to be this scared and
who’s hurt you in the past, “haven’t you ever had a fuckin’ fight before? I just
need some space—”
“I feel sick.”
“Goddamnit, Cherry. I’ll call you.”
“Please don’t leave me. I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know
what’s going to happen.”
It makes sense to him that an uncertain future worries you. He should have
known better. And he hates that apologies work this way, when he’s in the
position of being hurt and suddenly he’s the one dishing out all the comfort
because he feels guilty that the other person is ravaged with remorse. Apologies
are the fucking worst. Harry would much rather dive head-first past the
blossoms of weak I’m sorries and straight into the dirt and roots, nipping all of
the dead, toxic weeds before they start to spoil his beautifully cultivated garden.
“I’m going home to punch shit in my van like a caveman and maybe throw a
couple pairs of shoes into the ocean before I drink beer, chainsmoke and pass the
fuck out. I’m not picking up burners or anythin’ fucked up. Who hurt you, huh?”
You laugh and cry at the same time, “I don’t even know.” He did many times in
the past, but that was before your relationship and you’re still trying so, so hard
to let that go.
“I’ll see you in the morning, at your goddamn door at nine A.M. and then I’ll
take you to get waffles. You’re really fuckin’ cute and perfect an’ shit, but right
now I’m so mad I can’t see straight. One night. It’s not all your fault, but it kinda
is. Dig?”
It’s clear that he isn’t asking for your permission, but rather your obedience.
“Last time you stormed off after a fight, you forgot who I was.”
Ouch.
It takes every ounce of composure he possesses to continue to nurture you

through his own anguish, “no. I can’t go home with you tonight. I’m still ragin’. I
need to go and let this wrath fizzle so I can come back and be your man. The man
you deserve.”
You hadn’t expected him to continue to push you away after everything he’d
just said. It feels like you’ve hopped back to square one regardless of all the
compassion he’s piled on in the last several minutes and you hate that about
yourself. You recognize your hideous gauche, but can’t seem to make it stop and
that feeling in itself is maddening to the point of wanting to scream and tantrum
at his feet, clinging to his legs like a child and begging him to stay, “please…..”
“You still don’t trust me.”
You shake your head in disagreement and his eyes glass over with the
misunderstood thought of your concurrence. You start to fumble over an
explanation to clear up the hole of miscommunication that you’re unintentionally
digging, “No. Harry, I trust you. That’s not it. I’m just disappointed in myself and
heartbroken over the mess I’ve made. I need the comfort of your company, but I
understand that you need comfort too and yours looks different than mine. It’s
okay. I promise. I’ll be okay. Just please, please come back to me.”
Be vulnerable as all hell because he thrives on that shit.
“Listen, everything you’re feeling about me is valid, and it’s also not real. Does
that make sense?” You nod and he continues, “except what I’m feeling right now
is valid, but also real and so I have to go get my head straight.”
“Get straight by getting twisted?”
“Healing isn’t a straight line, babe.”
You pause for a quick sniffle to pull yourself together, your eyes innocent and
wide as ever when you ask with uncertainty, “can I please have a hug?”
“Yes, fuck. Course. Sweet Honey. Proud of you for askin’. Proud of you for
seein’ my side. Thank you.” His arms wrap you up in a soothing, heated bed of
roses that allows you to melt together, “do you think we ever fully let shit go?”
Your pause is bloated and turgid, “no. I think the tiny particles of pain live
inside of us forever. They stack all the way up from our toes and take the shape of
our bodies. They just get coated with a thin, polished tinsel of understanding that
help keep us afloat and happy from time-to-time….. when we’re lucky.”
You have a brief thought about how different he truly was before you ever met
and before Indy’s accident. You wonder if he misses that person just as much as
he misses his dear friend, if he’s mourned both himself and her. If like you, he
projects emotion outward in order to avoid digging into himself too deeply.
Fingertips fumble your wrist, a pinky loops around yours, your hands lift into
the air and Harry’s lips pucker to stamp a kiss upon his inked cross, “you’re
learnin’.” His father and Indy and his surfing accident and Rusty and Tex and Riff
all roll around, shedding dirt and debris, polishing jagged, filthy rocks. Your head
drops forward, your gaze focusing on his scuffed-up loafers through a blurred
screen of tears as he sponges a kiss to your hairline with a final, decisive line, “it’s
not so much a graceful balance as it as a tug of war, hm?” He kisses your lips,
tenderly and slowly just before backing away with the same, measured pace,
“peace, Cherry.”
Hi everyone. Thank you, thank you, FUCKING THANK YOU FOR YOUR STRONG
OUTPOURING OF SUPPORT. I swear I couldn’t do half of this without you. I love you
so much. Please leave me lots of pretty comments to sift through! You’re all my
favorites. Xx Birdie
Do you think we ever fully let shit go?
Add that to the extensive list of questions for your death bed. After the course
of today’s events, you’ve got a brand new stock-pile of them. And throughout the
past hour that you’ve spent sweeping your apartment with a frayed corn whisk
broom with your hair wrapped up in a silken headscarf, the one piece of
stubborn dust that you can’t seem to scrub is the unsettling concern for your
sunny boyfriend’s well-being at the moment. The tragic morning that Tex
showed up at your door to break the news of Harry wiping out on his surfboard
is stuck at the very forefront of your irrational, traumatized brain. Every so often
you find yourself pausing your manic cleaning session to open the front door,
expecting to see a heartbroken Tex there, waiting to deliver another round of
unbearable pain that you’re not equipped to handle again.
Harry said that he would call you and since he never says things that he
doesn’t mean, you’ve been dragging your telephone all around your apartment
tonight waiting for the jarring ring to slice through your gloomy, persistent
jitters. It never does, but that doesn’t stop you from glancing over at its lifeless
receiver every ten minutes or so.
Listen, everything you’re feeling about me is valid, and it’s also not real. Does
that make sense?
The sensation of fear that you’re experiencing is valid, the fear itself is not
real. You’re worried that Harry is going to hurt you again, but he’s not going to
hurt you again. This is probably the most succinct, engaging, mirror-flashing
breakdown of anxiety you’ve ever heard and sometimes you truly wonder if you
would’ve grown this intensely and this suddenly without the sharp beam of light
poking holes in your curtains tremendously early each morning.
All you can hope now is that he proves your valid sense of fear wrong.
Each new sunrise leads to a new discovery; one about yourself and one about
the person whom you’ve become so heavily involved with. The fuzzy little details
are the ones that tend to soothe you most: how he flosses his teeth with his hips
pressed up against the sink before bed, the way he nuzzles his cheek into your
palm whenever you touch his face, the taste of his mouth after a cotton candy
puff and the taste of his mouth after a bite of green apple, the peel of your
sleeping mask at dawn followed by an immediate hoarse hello, how he plays air
drums with a cigarette pinched between his lips when discordant rock records
spin circles in his van, initiating Rock Paper Scissors to score things that are
already his, the jump of his adam’s apple when he tosses his head back in
generous laughter, the pop of his cheek when he scarfs an enormous bite of food,
how he dances when no one is watching and how it’s exactly the same as when
the world is watching, the smell of his golden neck after he’s swam in the ocean
and bathed in the sun. The feeling of his sculpted back against your stomach
when you press up against it, slipping your hands under his warm shoulders and
sponging a kiss into the top notch of his spine. The weight of his head after he
drops it back to rest on your collarbone. The perfect way that he teases you. The
perfect way that he pleases you. His lips on your throat. His hands. Him.
It’s just after one o’clock in the morning, on your first night apart since your
lips locked at Temptations, and you miss him.
His energy just takes up so much space in a room that when it’s gone, it feels
like someone has sucked the air out along with it. There are a lot of shadows in
your small apartment without sunshine in every corner and your kitchen counter
looks all wrong without a tepid carton of orange juice and a half-eaten sleeve of
Ritz crackers resting on it. You’ve scooped up and washed all of his stray socks
and undershirts. Six heart-shaped cigarette filters lay crushed in the ashtray on
your coffee table. Cherry-scented candles burn in every corner for some
semblance of light. Your bed sheets have eternally been steeped in caramelized
strawberry-vanilla sugar tea. You have managed to survive your entire life
sleeping alone, but now it feels as though you couldn’t possibly bear it.
It has crossed your mind to show up at his van and knock on his door, but
somehow that kind of thing is much cuter when Harry does it.
In hindsight, the nerves you’d been experiencing made sense. It’s almost as if
you instinctually knew what was going to happen, that the entire scenario was
about to blow up in your face like a bomb that keeps on exploding. And in the
midst of it all the frantic emotion, you had forgotten to ask Harry if he was
physically okay after that brawl. But you suppose it doesn’t matter, you knew the
answer. No. He’s not okay. And wherever he is right now, he’s probably still not
okay. Or maybe even feeling worse than before, which makes you anxious
beyond belief. You want to search for him so badly that your feet itch, but he
distinctly asked for space and Harry doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean.
It’s either perfect or rotten that Nettie is spending the night with Asher
tonight, leaving you with an apartment so quiet that you could hear a pin drop in
your pink-tiled bathroom all the way from the dimly-lit kitchen. The space to
spastically act upon each reflex of panic has an element of private comfort that
you enjoy, but the solitude of going through the motions without springing one of
your hundreds of questions on another living soul just makes you sink deeper
into loneliness. Are you depressed or just isolated? What are you supposed to do
when distractions aren’t doing their job?
You make a conscious effort to convince yourself that you haven’t been
completely deserted by everyone you love tonight, considering that is most likely
your fear of abandonment chipping away at the intricate molding of your fragile
mind. You’ll never quite understand why fear has to be so loud in the first place,
acting as a brick wall that stacks from the ground to the sky, curling a taunting
finger in your direction and daring you to climb. That nosy, permeating fibber. No
one ever invites fear along, but natural selection has placed it as the front-lines of
all of their wars. Everything that you want seems to be just on the other side of
fear and it would be a much easier fight if it didn’t morph and move so quickly. It
meets each one of your fresh navigation tactics with an even mightier shield,
proving to you over and over again that it’s your work to constantly outsmart it
in order to move forward with anything in life. And it’s exhausting.
The spiky little details are the ones that tend to cut you deepest: the pokes and
prods and jabs interspersed with brutal silence when you and Harry had first
met, the arctic blast of truth that breezed through your dressing room when he
unveiled his horrific past, the unnatural hush of his injured body and brain as he
lay motionless in a hospital bed, the defeated-but-hopeful tick of his mouth each
time he’d hand you a cluster of sunflowers and ask about your breakfast, a plane
of glass across his eyes when he recounted how it felt to be raised by a
disparaging parent, the way his fingers wrapped around Tex’s strained neck in
desperate anger, the flail of his frantic limbs as people tried to subdue his wild
turbulence with all their might, the curl of his lips as he scorched you alive with
heartbroken French, spatters of blood on his clothes and his face and the sizzling
pavement, his stolen confessions and his voluntary ones, the rawness of forming
bruises on his eye socket and jaw once his skin had been wiped clean. The feeling
of his lips sealing a resolute kiss into your forehead when he told you that he
needed freedom tonight. The slip of his hands through yours as he backed away.
The sorrowful way he navigates his emotional and physical pain. The sorrowful
way he navigates yours. His secure grasp on your heart. His eyes. Him.
Dark chocolate bonbons. Key lime saltwater taffy. Cotton candy. Hearts.
Sunshine.
How does anyone exist without him?
Wherever Harry is, you know that he’s thought himself in and out of so many
circles that he’s likely a dizzy, head-spun mess. A consideration flits by and you
force it out before it can gain too much speed; Riff did mention that him and Tex
were meant to meet at Hound Dogs. Would Harry go so far as to knock back a few
beers with the steam of anger rising under his shoes and show up there in search
for them with the intention of continuing their brawl or even worse, ending it all
together? Is he all alone in his van like he said he would be, slugging Pearl after
Pearl, playing intoxicated versions of his favorite songs on his guitar and cursing
the idiotic position you’ve put him in — after laying out the rawest possible
version of himself for so many weeks?
You finally understand that it hasn’t been as easy as he made it seem to be this
vulnerable with you all along and the biased film reel of your history starts to
rewind and pause on various scenes throughout his pursuit of you, shining a light
on them now with a completely different lens than your scarred mind would
have allowed before. Each time he handed you a bouquet of sunflowers and you
begrudgingly accepted them, each time you turned him down for a date, each
time you denied him a touch or a kiss, each time you refused to meet him with
honesty or open yourself up even the slightest nudge.
Where there was previously a beaming ray of sunshine in your memory, vying
for the smallest bit of your side-tracked attention, there is now a cloud cover of
cracked hope replaced by uncertainty, rejection, critical doubt. Once crinkled
noses, flirtatious lip nibbles, belly-shaking laughter. Now downturned eyes, soft
frowns, the curl of shunned fingertips. He tried so hard for so long for even a
scrap of you, a piece of you that you both knew wanted him, and you took his
efforts for granted. The moment that you had begun to reciprocate his feelings,
you break his heart by unintentionally communicating a disregard for his
struggles by silent omission. And the guilt is eating you alive.
You can see your mistreatment towards someone who has verbally and
physically demonstrated their devotion towards you. Repeatedly.
You can see your rigidity and stubbornness, your lack of self-awareness and
the disregard of his experience and feelings.
You can see your naïveté and your inexperience and it bothers you to death,
you understand the impact it has on yourself and others.
Jesus Christ, you must irritate the holy hell out of him. It’s a surprise that he
even still has a drive to be with you. And for that, you must show your gratitude.
It’s time to let everything go. Right now. This isn’t working for him or your
relationship and easily most importantly, it’s not working for you.
He doesn’t deserve this. You don’t deserve this.

You keep using words to tell him that you want him to feel as good as he
makes you feel, but you can see now that he requires more action. He requires
more conversation, more touch, more pursuit, more reckoning. He has practically
spelled it out for you in a dozen different languages in a dozen different scenarios
and although it’s clear to the both of you that you have made some strides in all
of those departments, it isn’t quite enough for him to feel satiated. He wants your
courage but most importantly, you want it too. You want the crush of complete
and utter mutual worship and allegiance. Life-altering love. Beautiful destruction.
Growth.
You have to believe me.
You have to trust me.
You have to forgive me.
Kiss me.
Touch me.
Look at me.
Stay with me.
I’ll be your sunshine, but only if you let me.
For the first time since his surfing accident, his love for you doesn’t feel
unshakably unconditional and that realization of peril scares the daylights out of
you, which must mean something remarkable. The thought of losing him makes
your stomach twist in agony and that just has to mean something utterly
remarkable.
He has been pointing to the final layer of your fleshy, complicated, calcified
archives with a neon arrow, screaming “here it is, it’s right fuckin’ here, please
get rid of it so that I can love you with every single part of me,” for months and
you’re finally fed up with yourself enough to dig your fingers into that dismal
inner core, the hottest and deepest parts of your being, and turn it inside out to
discover what exactly you’re capable of without that pesky protective coating
stopping you anymore.
That veneer smelled like shit anyway.
Sure, nothing can become great without courage, but he failed to mention that
love doesn’t grow without passion either. Eager, hopeful, blind, determined,
faithful passion. If he were here right now, you’d kiss him and tell him that you
missed him. If he were here right now, you’d push him down into your sheets and
crawl into his lap. If he were here right now, you’d gift him this precious chain
that’s been burning a hole in your jewelry box for days and feel the metal warm
up against his summery chest. If he were here right now, you’d love him like he
never would have expected and that’s possibly the best gift that you could offer.
And this pillow just won’t sit right, no matter how many times you fluff it and
pinch the corners and maneuver the left side up an inch or down an inch and
punch your fist into the center of the fluffy feathers. It just won’t sit right.
This limp, shapeless blob is a complete eyesore and a perfect metaphor for the
predicament you’ve found yourself in: whether or not you manipulate the hell
out of it or leave it completely alone, it isn’t going to end in a way that leaves you
satisfied. You can never seem to get anything to settle just right, no matter how
much you poke it and no matter how much you think you’re approaching it with
the correct procedure, and maybe that’s just the lesson you’re meant to learn
tonight. And now you suppose you’ll have to sleep with this imperfect, feathery
smudge, alone, until you’ve unlocked the secrets to exactly what it is that’s
creating your dissatisfaction in the first place.
After all, any negative reactions we’re having to a situation are simply an
indicator for what we need to change. Your polished refinement, your modest
diffidence, your stubborn stone wall, your skeptical hurdles. It’s all merely a
bandage for self-criticism, self-blame and a lack of self-awareness.
You’ll never be able to control anything aside from your own consciousness
and your own actions. Which is somehow both comforting and exasperating.
Which is why when a cluster of rhythmic knocks hammer against your

bedroom window, you have no one to blame but yourself when you trip over
your telephone cord in shock and catch yourself two seconds before tumbling to
your hands and knees.
When you’ve relocated your balance and whip your head towards the
direction of the prickly sound, you can make out the imprint of Harry’s palm
pressed up against the glass and just beyond that, his bottom lip captured by his
teeth as he tries to stifle laughter for your sake. The sight of the streetlight
casting dancing shadows across his handsome face, curtained by messy curls and
fading into a backdrop of nightfall is so brilliantly sparkling and devastatingly
relieving that you can barely feel any shreds of embarrassment. Instead you
spring for your beam of light obstructed by parted, gauzy curtains, whipping
them aside and sliding the window open as fast as humanly possible.
And without hesitation, your lover is leaning through the threshold with the
cool sea breeze at his back, tossing his bag onto your floor and tucking a cigarette
between his lips, his eyes fizzy with mischief when he goes straight for the throat,
“hey Honeyklutz, how was the trip? See you next fall?” A flame sparks to life in
his palms, his cheeks hollowing and his hair falling into his eyes as pink smoke
bundles you up in candied comfort. He exhales pink towards the stars, his gaze
finally locking on yours to tie your stomach into a pretty, fond bow, “workin’ on
some new choreography or just performin’ a random gravity check?”
“Yes, and gravity is working just fine in case you were wondering.” Harry
playfully mocks you with a short round of applause, his cheeks splitting into
appreciative humor when you curtsey once, “I’ll be here all week.” And then his
expression dissolves into obsessive lust at your sudden heated proximity, his
half-lidded eyes flicking from your mouth to your stare when you lean on the sill
between his arms with your noses brushing, all shimmer and affection, plucking
the cigarette from his mouth and breathing in his sunny sugar, “grace like that
can’t be taught, you know.”
His voice is a tangy brush against fine cactus spines, “hey baby—”
“I’m so fucking happy to see you, Harry. I’m so grateful you came back to me.”
A quick scan of his figure informs you that he’s changed out of his bloody
clothes and showered again, but everything else that he’s done to occupy his time
tonight is a complete mystery. You don’t care what trouble he might have gotten
into or why he’s decided to show up at your place this late. You only care that
he’s here, on his own accord, with a giant smile on his sweet, amazing face. It
must be a hopeful mirage that he’s elected to come and end your misery when
you were certain you’d be a ball of panic all night. You’re suffocating on relief, so
you make a conscious decision to squash both of your miseries before it can
fester. After every single thing you’ve trudged through together for months upon
endless months, you’ve earned your corner of peace and love.
You cup his cheeks and stir a rampant ensemble of butterflies in his tummy
when you kiss each of his cheeks, his forehead, his nose — all before slowing to a
snail’s pace to fold your lips together with a consoling hum. A whine of surprise
curls from his tongue and around your noses as does the soft smoke from his
romantic cigarette pinched between your fingers, framing the portrait of your
much-deserved reunion with an affectionate curtain of protective pink vanilla,
your kiss quickly melting into another. And then another. And another. Slow,
slower, slowest.
The tip of Harry’s tongue circles yours before pecking your top lip and then
your bottom, your core clinching tighter and tighter with each nuanced spark of
his mouth before he pulls back a pinch to rasp, “mmm….. if you win, I stay. I win, I
don’t leave.”
You draw away just enough to see his fist hovering between your chests to
initiate a game of Rock Paper Scissors, his perky suggestion ringing with clarity
when you realize that he’s gambling on something that he’s already achieved yet
again. A shiny-eyed laugh laced with relief bursts through clogged-up tears,
“okay, you’re on.”
With three shakes, his scissors butcher your paper, your rapture nukes his
heart, “I tried, but I couldn’t sleep alone. I never wanna sleep without you,
y’know.” He grips your hand, leaning further into your window for a taste of your
honeyed air, “I’m kinda buzzed and I know you’re way too posh to have a
caveman around. But I’m also really fuckin’ selfish, so what’s up, girl—”
But it suddenly becomes perfectly clear that he’s leaned too far when he
tumbles into your open window with a shocked yelp. He gives up fighting
halfway through his short plummet and lands flat on his back at your feet, before
rolling onto his side with one knee bent and his temple resting casually on his
fist, “Slick Daddy Boss reportin’ for duty. Gravity is fine, just like you said.” His
eyes travel up and down your body, fast at first and then slowing to a crawl with
a low wolf-whistle at the awareness of your short babydoll nightgown. Bright
pink with matching bloomers, which must be just for him, “mmm….. damn.
Whose girlfriend is that? C’mere.”
You’re a flurry of sweet giggles peppered with a couple snorts as you drop his
burning cigarette into the ashtray on your vanity and collapse to your knees
beside him. You lay your palm out flat, his chin immediately sinking into its home
and nestling softly into your warmth with a hum. You squeeze his cheeks and
kiss his heart-shaped lips, “I missed you. I missed you so much.” He grips your
hips tight when you push him onto his back and climb into his lap, mumbling
everything that he wants to hear against his mouth with such furor that if he
were to strike a match, this entire duplex may burst into flames, “I want you here.
I need you here. Please tell me you’ll stay. For me, for us.”
You dive headfirst into honesty without a second thought, because it feels like
it just has to be released or it’ll fester in your organs forever. Plus, Harry needs it
and most importantly, Harry deserves it.
His grin is ferociously wide with calm contentment when he unties the scarf in
your hair and lets it float to the ground. He weaves his fingers to loosen your
tresses and wedges you in place with his thighs, his nose resting beside yours,
the tip of it squishing up against your cheek, “mmm….. this is the fuckin’ greatest.
Course I’m stayin’. You’re making my heart go bananas. Keep goin’, please.”
Except you’re too distracted to heed his command when your fingertips
traipse over the fresh bruises splashed across his eye socket and the bridge of his
nose, the healing cut above his lip, the scratch on his neck, his raw knuckles, “oh
my god….. I’m so, so sorry that this happened to you. This is bad. Are you going to
be okay—” You must have touched his nose or some other sore spot that you
were unaware of, because he suddenly flinches away and hisses when he rolls his
head back with a deep frown, “no— sorry— do you want some ice? This is all my
fault.”
He shakes his head and sits up carefully, his hand splaying wide to cradle your
back and keep you pinned to his lap, “no, it’s not, babe. This is Tex’s fault. And my
fault for losin’ my temper like a savage. I really wish you’d told me, but nothin’
that happened to you is your fault. You’re a victim, plain and simple.” It’s evident
that regardless of taking some space, he’s still caught up in processing this whole
distressing event and most crucially, the betrayal from and subsequent loss of his
long-time best friend, “but I asked you. I fuckin’ asked you right to your pretty
face, after our first date, why Tex bothered you so much and what did you say?”
He does a pretty good job of mimicking your high-pitched feminine voice, except
with a dash of smooth accent, “’he’s got a one-track mind.’ Vague-ass. I oughta
cream you for that shit.”
“I know, I know. I explained to you that I was giving him the chance to do the
right thing and come clean on his own. I know what I did was wrong. I told him
he wasn’t smart enough to play god, though.”
Harry’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, “you stood up to him for me?”
“Of course.”
“My sweet Cherry. Ow— go easy on me, yeah? I’m kinda hurtin’.” He sucks air
past his clenched teeth when you settle your full weight into his lap and chokes
out a quiet, “mm— ribs.” A soft groan propels his fingertips under your top and
up the ridges of your bare spine when you push off of his shoulders and ease up
on his torso, “fucker got me right in the spleen. D’ya know if we can live without a
spleen?” He starts to tug at the hem of your nightgown, “can we take this thing off
—”
“Will you be too sore for performance on Monday? Your face looks like it
hurts.”
He nips at your pouting bottom lip, “I’ll be okay, promise. I’ve got two days ’til
then. It’s nothin’ serious. And I heal faster than most.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
Harry frowns and drags out his weak retort, “hey.” His demeanor sobers up
once again, his volume dropping just the slightest bit to impart severity as he
pinches his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger, “I realized somethin’,
y’know.”
“Hmm? What’d you realize?”
One of the many incredible facets of Harry is that he’s able to turn his humor
on and off to make space for what matters most. A true humanitarian with
excellent timing, blanketed in iron magnetic charm no matter what he’s trying to
express, “you were honest enough to admit to me that you have a fear of me
abandonin’ you….. and then I abandoned you.”
A wretched, wilting memory gallops through Harry’s subconscious and leaves
with a gut-wrenching shriek in his skull. Six years old and cowering in a doorway
with his palm slapped across his mouth to keep silent, his mother in hysterics as
she weakly smacks his drunken father’s chest over and over again, “what the hell
is the matter with you? Get out of this house! Get out! Now!”
His recollection fades to dust for your sake and leaves behind a frightened
pint-sized version of Harry watching in the doorway, wiping hot streaks of tears,
wishing he understood why we treat the people we’re supposed to love this way.
Better him than you. Men are always ruining women’s lives.
“No, you didn’t. You were amazing, Harry. It took me awhile to push past my
own grief and understand your view, but you were well aware of what you
needed and you put up a necessary boundary. You needed time. It’s okay. I
respect that. I deserved the suffering anyway.”
“No. Quit that. You only deserve to feel good. Suffering is just growing pains
and growth spurts and shit that we have to feel to gain perspective. That we’re
fortune enough to feel. And so, what? Some shit feels good and some shit feels
bad. You don’t get to feel your tummy flip on a rollercoaster until you’ve climbed.
Be glad you feel anything at all, sweet Honey pie.”
It feels cowardly that one specific clip from today has been playing on repeat,
but you’re learning that sharing your pain with Harry hurts significantly less than
keeping it trapped inside and besides, he’s begged for your honesty more times
than you can count. The haunting of your coworkers’ shrewdness following the
brawl plays like a record slowed down to half speed. It’s an emotional endeavor,
but Harry’s proved again and again to be resolutely on your team.
Your chin starts to quiver when you open up, Harry’s fingers tangle into your
hair beside both of your ears in anticipation and solidarity, his expression a
painfully lovely combination of concern and compassion, “everyone was saying
horrible things about me when you sent me away.”
“Nah. What? In the courtyard?” He momentarily gets distracted, “please don’t

cry, I can’t stand seein’ it. It gives me bubble guts.” He bows your head forward
and devotes a lush kiss to your forehead before sizzling his gaze through yours,
“they were talkin’ shit about me too. I think your perfectionistic filter only caught
the Cherry-specific trash talk. I heard someone call me an unhinged asshole.
Which, to be fair, is kind of a funny visual if you take it literally.”
His hands form the shape of door on a hinge, swinging back and forth in the
breeze and you don’t want to giggle, but when it comes to pure Sunshine, you just
can’t help it.
Harry joins you in oozy laughter as he rakes his hair from his eyes, “that’s
what happens when people mismanage their own anxiety, babe. They judge and
they talk shit. Fuck ’em. When you internalize other people’s opinions of you, it’ll
become your opinion of you too. They don’t know what we just went through.
That was supremely rough, for the both of us. Tex is the unhinged asshole. And
what’s that sludgy fuck’s name?”
“Riff?” As soon as the word leaves your mouth, you prepare yourself for the
overlord of grimaces.
Harry mouths his name is disgust then grits his teeth at the bitter irony,
deciding instantly that it must be an earned nickname that he’s picked up
through his years of being a complete slime-ball. Once again, he’s so angry with
Tex’s conduct that his vision blurs, but he knows that addressing your unease is
much more important right now, “you can’t be serious. Riff? Walkin’ red flag,
Cherry. I need you to pay closer attention to the people around you, yeah? Don’t
just fuckin’ trust people, okay? I don’t think I know enough cusses for that trash
bag.”
Nodding in agreement, the pad of your middle finger presses into the center of
his bottom lip before you replace it with your mouth. Harry’s claws dig into your
skin as he starts to restlessly yank at your nightgown again, knowing that now
isn’t the best time to remove it, but sometimes he just can’t help the intensity of
cravings for you. You draw back and are met with a collapsed whimper that pulls
on your core, “if you don’t, then they must not exist.”
Harry happens to take pride in his trademark, expert finesse of cursing-

dialect, “thanks, babe.”
Quiet settles around your bubble when you both get lost in thought for a
moment, your hands mindlessly playing together, his fingertips swirling the ruby
red ring around your finger, “do you think anyone suspects us of being together
romantically after witnessing that?”
Only The Rat and Rusty as far as he can tell, “nah. I think they thought Tex and
I were havin’ it out and that I was defending your honor against a potential
rapist. Which is exactly what happened, yeah?” You nod and he shrugs, “fuck ’em.
They don’t have any hard evidence. They don’t know shit and they’re not gonna
say shit. Most of ’em are scared of me. May the bridges we burn light the way. It’s
just us, remember?” You nod and he kisses you once, licking his lips before
kissing you twice with spongy, damp skin on the return, “we just have to be all
business at work from now on. I’ll pretend like I don’t even know you.”
“Perfect. You have lots of experience with that.”
Harry unintentionally softens his retort by laughing through the whole thing,
“fuck off, Honeytack. Those are fightin’ words.” His tongue slips out to lick his
bottom lip, his palms traveling down your hips to sweep soothing strokes up and
down your thighs, “listen. I need you to keep telling yourself that you deserve
good things. Okay? Say it to yourself over and over again until you fuckin’ drown
in it. Every kiss, every cute-ass smile, every milkshake. Every orgasm. ’I deserve
this. I deserve this. I deserve this.’ Be easy on yourself. We’re all living this life
together. We’re all just people with unique pasts and histories and experiences
and preferences and difficulties, coming together and tryin’ to figure this shit out.
You deserve this. You deserve this. You deserve everything good. And I’m so
fuckin’ lucky that all that shit aligns for us; the good and the bad. We fit. Don’t
you think so?” You nod and the size of his voice falters a bit when his nose taps
against yours, “we fit.”
This speech, just like all of his speeches, is so moving that you can feel the
sting of tears in your skull and for once you don’t feel ashamed if they choose to
make an appearance, “your sunshine is burning me up today.” Your lips find each
other for an easy kiss. Simple and perfect, like two ripe cherries plunging from a
tree in broad daylight in unison, their fall cushioned by thick, freshly-watered
grass, “we definitely fit.”
“While we’re at it, y’know what I’m fucked up over? I told you off in French.
That’s supposed to be our spongy love language.”
You don’t fail to notice how easily he’s apologized and how he’s labeled your
exclusive foreign banter in the same way that you have as well. It’s also
extremely rewarding to have him spout so many truths in such a short period of
time; his midnight reflections slowly bubbling up to the surface one-by-one and
you see now why he wanted this so much from you. Because among many
reasons, it means it’s a lot easier for him to do it as well, “I didn’t see it that way.
It was still love because you knew to use it to keep our relationship a secret
without even thinking twice. You had every right to be mad, Harry.” You shrug,
“besides, I like the way you talk. I love it. I never have to guess what you’re
thinking. It’s sexy. But it’s also scary, because….. it seems like when you make up
your mind about something, there’s no convincing you otherwise.”
Harry is swept with curiosity about your observations, “black-and-white

thinking, you mean?”
“I guess so. But that also doesn’t exactly fit, because you explore gray area
more bravely than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“The word ’adamant’ comes to mind, but I don’t see it as a negative aspect of
my personality.”
You shake your head, “no. You haven’t navigated your life this purposefully
without having a very firm idea of who you are, underneath all the pink haze and
unfair obstacles.”
Another effortless kiss, a rainbow materializing within the perfect conditions

of rain and sunshine, “you get me.” Your skin stings when he slaps you on the
bottom once, hard, as a signal to get up, “I got some presents for you. Up.”
“Ow—” He raises his hand to smack you again but you’re too quick this time,
rolling off of his lap in half a second and barking out a panicked laugh, “I’m up!”
You watch him reach for his bag and rifle through its contents before
remembering the object in your vanity, “I have something for you, too.” By the
time you scrounge through your red velvet-lined jewelry box, hiding the gift in
your palms behind your back and spinning back around to face him, he’s doing
the exact same thing but with a smile pulling at one corner of his mouth.
This feels a lot like a wild west showdown from each side of your bedroom,
“’kay, count of three, Honeysuckle. One, two, three—”
The revelation happens all-at-once; a voluptuous bottle of pink Provençal rosé

nuzzled in two hedonistically-sculpted hands and a long chain dangling from the
tip of a bijou finger, two jaws dropping in delight and two mouths blurting in
unison.
“French wine!”
“Holy shit, that’s for me?”

Harry blindly sets the bottle of wine down before approaching in three broad
steps, his hands fumbling for the tempting jewelry swaying with grace from your
fingertip and glinting light from your bedside lamp, “whoa. Fuck.” He glances up
at you and back down to the heart-shaped and glossy, flat and sleek, cherry red
locket in his palm, flipping it over a couple times prior to popping it open with his
thumb.
Before Harry has the time to properly process what is staring back at him, an
uncomfortable physical sensation moves across his brain like an ocean wave,
swirling and crashing before it’s wrenching again with the insistence of a rip tide.
A rubber band stretching and ricocheting around gray matter plasma nerve-
endings tissue blood bone and all he can do is pinch his eyes closed in an effort to
make it stop. He can feel your hand on his shoulder and a quiet questioning
murmur on your end, but he doesn’t comprehend what you say and he doesn’t
want to startle you, so instead he just nods. He waits until the feeling passes to
slowly peel his eyes and hand open and peer more closely at the photograph
inside; a black-and-white headshot clipped down to size, your hair brushing your
collarbone as you peek over your shoulder, your gaze tropical and doe-eyed,
your mouth dewy and chaste.
For someone who is so harmless, you certainly know how to work a camera, a
man, a room, an audience, an army. And you have no fucking clue and that’s
exactly the reason why it’s so sexy, “it’s a heart. With my sweet baby inside.” Your
eyes connect with a punch and you spring forward to cup his jaw, swiping your
thumb over his cheekbone once and then twice before molding your mouths
together in a smooth, sedated kiss. He breaks away to unbutton his shirt and pull
his wifebeater off before bowing forward in compliancy, his hair falling across his
eyes in a motion of atypical submission. You lower the chain over his head,
pressing the pendant against his warm chest with an even warmer palm. His
hand lands atop yours to further heat the exchange and he speaks slowly, with
lucidity and earnestness, “I’m so stoked. It’s just right for me. I love this. I love it
to the bone, Cherry love. I’ll never take it off.”
You knew that he would appreciate it because he’s just that type of person, but
you can’t help but notice that his first instinct was to have it resting against his
bare skin, as close to his pulsing heart as possible.
Harry cools his stunned senses, clenching his teeth and wrapping his palm
around your throat. His thumb drags over your windpipe as he pulls you in and
tilts your chin up to meet him for another kiss, a grateful kiss that whizzes
straight to your guts. A kiss that speaks complete sentences to you.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
It’s hard to articulate when someone is kissing your mouth, your chin, your
jaw, your neck, “It was mine….. I wore it for years. I want you to have it.”
His voice funnels directly into your eardrum with a heated puff of breath, “you
carry around a picture of yourself inside of a heart? Kinda egomaniacal, don’t you
think?”
“Clod.” You laugh and push his shoulder lightly, “no, I used to have a picture of
my mother inside. I switched it out for you. It matches your mouth.”
The locket swings gently in the air as Harry sinks back onto your vanity stool
to examine your gift, the charm passing far down between his clavicles and pecs
on its long, slinky chain. Your shiny, red heart laying directly beside his
tormented one upon his sun-kissed skin, his eyes and mouth and new necklace
all glowing electric in color when he peers up at you, “thank you so fuckin’ much.
It’s far out and I totally love it. It means a lot to me. Blew my wine right outta the
fuckin’ water.” He beckons you close with a curl of his finger, “I’ve got more for
you though, just gettin’ started.” His tongue clicks once against the roof of his
mouth to heed your attention before presenting you the back of his arm.
Without a word of explanation, you know exactly what you’re looking at.
Banana Split, in ink. Permanent ink. Its palm leaves spread out to accept the
warmth of the sun, casting an umbrella of protection over anything that may
happen to stand below it.
“Harry—”
“Mine’s a little more intense, but makes sense ’cause so am I.”
Impulsive, loyal, meaningful. Makes sense, because so is he. Just like that,
another element of his evasive evening unfolds.
“I have no idea what to say aside from ’holy shit.’”
It’s for you and your partnership and your affair, the pure magnitude of it and
the impact on Harry’s life, but also a reminder to stay within reasonable limits
whenever possible. One thing that Harry has a need to do is to understand things
and attach meaning to them, to express pain with art, to decipher the lessons that
life throws at him. This tattoo is a reminder to keep himself in check, to follow
through with self-imposed boundaries, to protect what he finds sacred by all
means and compartmentalize it. His feelings regarding love, anger, upset; they’re
all extreme and that’s okay because they’re valid and real, but his impulsivity has
always been something that he’s needed to work on. And he sees that. You’re the
opposite of him when it comes to impulse, and perhaps you’re a little too rigid
and controlled and anxious for your own good, but that balance between the two
of you is perfect really. Two people who are exactly alike wouldn’t have much to
talk about anyway.
Banana Split indeed. With all the fucking fixings. Nuts and hot fudge and sweet
cream, with a big, juicy cherry on top.
His devout smile and that one particular laugh that’s so quiet you can barely
hear it may just be the most attractive quality on earth, “you’re gettin’ dirty. Kiss,
please.”
Your fingers drag through his hair as you rock into his lap, your eyes locked
and breaths stolen when you zip your lips together with such bruising passion
that air audibly sucks through both of your noses. Harry moans at the pure fervor
of your shock and gratitude, the kiss breaking for less than half a moment when
he slips your nightgown up and over your hair in one graceful sweep; a knife
unsheathed from its scabbard, a flash of light on mineral. He’s rewarded with the
sight of your natural tits, your breathing chest, the dig of your fingernails into his
scalp and shoulder, but he can’t stop himself from kissing you long enough to
fully swallow the sight.
“I’m possessed.” His jaw is sharp as he gazes up at you with his hair tickling
his eyelashes, “want you all over me.” He hisses when he palms your breast, his
cock pressing against the zipper of his trousers as your nipple hardens in his
hand, “I was fuckin’ crazy to think I could stay away from you all night. Kiss again.
Gimme your tongue. Please.” You lock your lips again, your tongue sweeping out
just enough to gather his and suck it into your mouth. His busy hands are
everywhere at once, from your thighs to your neck, each one of his emphatic
moans spur one from you in return. A chuckle and a hum spin past his teeth at
the same time when he draws back just enough to murmur, wet and hot, “good
girl for me.”
The pad of your finger traces a line down his neck and chest that makes him
physically shudder, “I’m selfishly very glad you couldn’t stay away.” You nod your
head towards his arm, “so, this is what you do when you’re feeling betrayed?”
He shrugs, “they’re cathartic. You sit through pain and bleed out, float high on
adrenaline. The injury seeps and stews for a couple days and then it starts to
scab. The scabs protect the fresh wound until it peels to reveal new, raw shiny
skin. And then it sinks in and settles and heals. It’s a part of you.” His fingertips
dip past the elastic of your bloomers as he rolls his hips against yours to prod
your sensitivity, his gaze bouncing back and forth between your breasts and your
face, “you’re part of me. Y’know I analyze everything because I hate the idea of
stuff goin’ on in my subconscious that I don’t even understand. How many times
have you shed your skin, Cherry?”
“I dunno….. I think this,” your finger see-saws between your chests, “might be
the first time.”
“That’s impossible. This is a big obvious one, but just think about it harder.
Your childhood, your ankle injury, your cross-country move. It’ll all make more
sense one day. And this,” he mimics your back-and-forth motion with his own
finger, “isn’t about me. You’re havin’ your own experience that’s colliding with
mine.” You toy with the chain around his neck, sitting in warmth and comfortable
silence to allow him to continue his contemplation out loud as you bake in yours
soundlessly, “even after all this shit today, for once I like who I’m becoming. You
can always see it happen in slow motion, y’know? This time it feels good. So, so
good. Even the stinging parts.”
Three inhales and exhales each; your breaths move in opposing primary
colors, “you’re so much.”
“I’m no more than you, Honey. Got you somethin’ else. Last thing. Maybe.”
“Should I maybe drink that entire bottle of wine first? Because I don’t know
what you could possibly have that would top a permanent Banana Split.”
Harry flicks his head towards his bag on the ground, “nah, be cool. Check my
jacket pocket.” Your eyes follow the direction of his gesture before you peel
yourself away from him, but not before landing another smack on his shoulder
when he adds, “and shake it for me when you cross the room.”
Although he is pleasantly surprised, and expresses it with a sunburst of

pealing laughter, when you pace towards his bag but pause to do a cool, carefree
rendition of The Pony for a few counts before sinking to your knees to shuffle
through his belongings. You are a walking paradox of confidence and modesty
when it comes to your body and it’s logical seeing as you’re a trained dancer and
born performer, raised along with strict, externally-imposed morals. But the best
part about it is that he is the only person you’ve shown this side of yourself to,
whether or not he helped prompt it, and that alone makes him feel outstanding.
A sickening memory resurfaces of being in this exact position in your dressing
room months ago, searching for your headshot that he was holding prisoner in
his wallet for unknown reasons at the time. Except now he’s willingly wearing an
exact version of it inside of a cherry heart against his chest.
How things have changed.
You locate his jacket pocket easily, your brow furrowing when you slip your
fingers into the worn leather to pull out a modest object; tissue-thin, cone-
shaped, iridescent pink paper that’s stuffed full with green flower and expertly
twisted closed at the top, tapering into a shiny golden end with the word
“paradise” scrawled on it in holographic cursive. You stare at it for a while,
spinning it between your fingertips before you spring to your feet with it held
dubiously in the air.
I’ll smoke with….. and then maybe you’ll let me go down on you. It’ll feel outta
sight. Believe me.
Promise?
Swear to god.
“Stingin’ Nettle home?”
Your jaw drops before your mouth curls into a delighted grin, “no….. she’s
with Asher tonight. How’d you get this?”
At your reaction and shared information, his grin pulls just as wide as yours or
maybe even wider, “relentless charm.”
“So—”
Leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, Harry’s eyes never once
stray from grazing over your half-nude figure, “I wouldn’t be a proper surfer
without some jazz cabbage. It’s Cherry Thunder Fuck.”
“It’s what?” You finally pry your stare away from the joint long enough to
study his confident body language, your mouth drying out in a sudden wave of
nerves.
“That’s what he called it. It’s tastes like cherries. And thunder fuck….. just like
you.”
“Who’s he?”
“Can it and c’mere, sweet girl. Let’s get you baked like you’ve been wantin’.”
Harry reaches into his trouser pocket, tugging out a small box of matches before
patting his thigh as a signal for you to sit, “we have fuck-all to do tomorrow.”
Before he can protest your distance again, you’re climbing back into his lap
and perching the joint between his curvy lips, watching with the curiosity of a
newborn baby when he lights the tip with fire. The paper sparks to life and
smolders back in fluorescent taffy as it burns, making way for dark pink fuchsia
smoke, much darker than Harry’s cotton candy cigarette puffs and matching
strawberry lips. The smoke pooling from the joint itself forms hearts in the air
before dissipating in intoxicating curls all around you, big bubbly exhales of
magenta pour from his mouth toward the ceiling that smell like baking cherry pie
laced with pine cones, sweet berries and wet earth.
You can’t remember the last time you’ve been so curiously excited about
something before, “my turn!” So far, everything about Harry seems exactly the
same. He hasn’t turned into the devil or participated in an orgy or assassinated
anyone, and it feels like you’re burning just as fiercely as the grass itself for an
inside look. Harry raises both of his eyebrows before taking another unhurried,
teasing drag, his whole body tingling when you lean forward with your bare tits
pressing up against his chest and whisper into his ear, “please, Sunbaby?”
“Fuckin’ hell, I’d lick a toilet seat if you asked me like that. I’m gonna shotgun
you, yeah?” You aren’t even sure what that means, but you trust him and nod in
agreement anyway, “good girl. Inhale and hold it in your lungs ’til you count to
five, then breathe out.” His fingers tangle into your hair, tugging you close for a
kiss before he flips the joint around and sinks the burning end into his mouth
with his lips sealed tightly around it. He blows out a thick plume of smoke from
the filter directly onto your tongue, nodding happily when you suck it deep into
your chest.
Tart pink lemonade, lemon cream pie with basil, raw brownie batter and rose
petals. Heaven in a rainbow sherbet cloud.
The taste and the billow of fruit punch melt away in a sea of tongue-caressing
sweet vapor on the exhale and you instantly want more, “another?”
This time Harry pulls another drag the proper way, cupping your neck and
sweeping your lips together before breathing the heavenly cloud straight to the
back of your throat. This puff must be much larger than the first, because a tickle
deep in your chest forces you to pull away and embark on a coughing fit into your
fist.
“Whoopsie.”
You manage to sputter out between choking hacks, “whoopsie?”
“You’re gonna be stoney baloney. That was a killer toke. Champ status. You’ll
be all shiny mermaid tails and smooth-as-fuck sea glass in a sec.”
Your lungs burn and now your stomach kind of aches, but having Harry gaze
at you as cool as a cucumber with his fingertips rolling up and down your spine
helps ease your malady, “that makes me nervous.”
“Hang tight, Honeyhead. I got you. You got you.” You try to pluck the joint from
his fingertips, but he holds it high above your head and out of reach, “nah uh.
Trust me, you’ll feel it—” Harry bursts out laughing when you try to swipe it
from him again, the heel of his hand meeting your forehead to physically hold
you back, “pump the brakes, burn out. Give it a minute.”
“You must be a really annoying little brother.”
He’s quick to agree, “oh, absolutely incorrigible.”
And then all of a sudden, your head feels really, really heavy. Way too heavy to
hold up all on its own and you’re abruptly aware of your hands and how sweaty
they are and how your heart feels like it’s grown in both strength and size,
pumping maple syrup through your veins to crystallize the process of all of your
internal organs. Or are they speeding up? No, they’re definitely slowing down.
Are they?
Slow, slower, slowest.
Before you have too much time to get trapped inside of your head, Harry’s soft
lips are interlocking with yours, that little hum that he always exudes — either
because he can’t help it or because he wants you to know how good you make
him feel — trickles down your throat and melts into your stomach and then just
a second later, into your panties.
Are you breathing too loudly?
“Harry…..”
Big fat wet kisses mix with delicate pecks mix with sharp bites in a path down
your neck, the fingertips that were once soothing your spine are now brushing
your belly button and tickling your ribs and squeezing your breast, “mmm?”
“That feels really good.”
“Major head rush. Je suis défoncé a mort.”
“Moi aussi.” You roll your head back and smooth your palms down his chest
and you’ve never realized how snug your bedroom really is with its walls and
ceiling and furniture caving in on you like this, “your hair tickles.”
Harry grips the back of your neck and draws your head back to him, his glassy
eyes half-lidded, his face relaxed and beautiful, his tongue slipping out to lick his
lips a little more often than normal, “hi, my baby. You good? Tell me somethin’.”
“You know, it’s kinda hard to think of things to say when I’m put on the spot
like this.”
“Fuck outta here, you’re real choice at it.”
Cozying further into his lap, the tip of your nose nestles into Harry’s
collarbone and his head lulls back in response, making space for you to drag your
tongue up his throat in a ribbon of cherry frosting, your journey ending with a
quick nibble of his earlobe. Harry’s breath immediately picks up with your
fearless exploration, his chest rising and falling and his length throbbing when
you circle your arms around his shoulders and smile against his mouth, “I’ve
always wanted to do that. Especially right when you get out of the shower and
you’ve just shaved and your skin is damp.”
“Oh my god….. what did I fuckin’ tell you?”
Harry’s heavy panting breaths slowly rearrange into fizzy giggles and you
follow suit, your foreheads and minds floating together and apart at the same
time, sparks of static electricity following his hands wherever they go. You’re
both very aware of how hotly and heavily you flipped, but you can’t seem to form
the words to give it the right amount of credit. He makes his distaste for you
rising to your feet obvious by the long, disappointed whine, his fingers locking
with yours when you take a step back towards your door and insist, “come on.”
“Can’t move, your tits are speakin’ to me.” And the slope of your neck curving
into your shoulder and the sweep of your hips, the way your bellybutton carves a
peephole that he’s dying to poke around inside, “what’s under those teeny
shorts?”
“Your dreams.”
“Holy—” His mouth opens wide with a flammable cackle, “solid. Give her
doobies more often.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” It’s amazing how vibrant Harry looks
against the backdrop of your equally vivid bedroom, as if he is either perfectly
camouflaged and simulated to be here or perfectly exposed and parading your
space like the dream lover you’ve always imagined. Nonetheless, he is your
favorite exhibit of all time, somehow always changing and staying exactly the
same, all comfort and surprises and mouthfuls of sugar. It’s divine how soft your
carpet is against the soles of your feet and you kind of want to lay down and roll
around on it, but you have a much better idea brewing as you dig in your heels
and heave on his wrists as hard as you can, “I said come on, Sunshine—”
His favorite playful shriek of yours nuzzles in his ears when he bounces up
and easily sweeps you off the ground, tossing you over his shoulder with a loud
smack to your bottom that forces your feet to kick in the air. He knows exactly
what you want and he’s more than willing to always give it to you, especially
when you’re as gooey and frisky as you are now, “which record d’ya wanna dance
to, Honeytits?”
“Nina, duh!” Harry blindly retraces his steps to swipe your request from the
floor where he left it, “and don’t forget the wine!” And then he laughs so hard that
he almost drops you when you gasp dramatically with a sudden recollection,
“wait! What about your disabled, shriveled spleen?”
“It’s hangin’ tough. No sweat, babe. Nothin’ about me is shriveled.”
Priorities first; Harry drops you to your feet in the living room and starts up
your favorite See-Line Woman forty-five, pushing the coffee table and arm chair
aside to clear space for a dance floor before grabbing a corkscrew from the
kitchen. A sharp double-take over his shoulder distracts him on the return, his
arms full of bubblegum pink wine and a pair of daintily-stemmed glasses that fall
to his sides as he watches you cut loose in a way that he’s never had the pleasure
of seeing before. Your striking barely-clothed figure, melted boneless by potent,
sensual smoke, painted by light from the dull glow of your hanging swag lamp,
toes sinking into shag carpeting as your hair swings across your face and your
ribs pop with every arch of your back. It’s as if you don’t need him there at all and
normally that notion would fluster him, but based purely on the peacock mating
call that he’s receiving right now, he could fucking care less.
I think I’ll always be the cat and you’ll always be the mouse.
For an apprentice, you sure have a lot to flaunt.
In this moment, you’re almost too precious to touch. Harry has had the honor
of dancing with you before bed almost every night for weeks now, with him
teaching you how to completely let go, and you teaching him how to assimilate
more classic dance moves with a modern, sharp and graceful spin on them,
mixing up current crazes with your extensive traditional knowledge and
background. He’s surprised each and every time, but then he remembers your
academic emphasis on choreography at The Annex and why Rusty hired you to
be his equal in the first place: you are startlingly inventive and unique. Sure,
you’re a flawless ballerina and quick to pick up on the hip dance moves of
underground seedy clubs, but the type of movement that your body is capable of
producing just falls short for others. You’re unrivaled, exceptional, and right now,
you’re just for him.
Harry bounds into the living room and meets your playful Dog with a little
Watusi, followed by a retort of a quick Swim and from him, a quicker Skate, his
fingers wrapping around your wrist and spinning you into his arms before
handing you a full glass of wine, “santé, Cerise.”
Your glasses clink together and then empty down your throats, your mouths
locking to share the tastes on your tongues and it feels so, so good to kiss him
and have his skin pressed up against yours, even better than it feels to move your
muscles to an impromptu choreography with your sunny lover to your favorite
record.
The next hour passes as a blurry pink haze; flipping records and putting on
new ones, dancing, kissing, laughing, refilling your wine glasses, backing up into
furniture and walls to pause for heavy make-out sessions, dancing, kissing,
laughing, more stripping, burning the rest of the joint down to the filter, spinning,
the room filling up with pink from the thick cotton candy clouds of Crush
cigarette smoke, pawing, the heart-shaped locket rocking against his chest as he
moves, dancing, kissing, laughing. Dancing.
Two smiles that are so bright that you probably should have worn your
sunglasses.
It’s uncertain how you’ve both ended up breathless on the vinyl-littered floor
in your underwear with your head in Harry’s lap, reminiscent of your beach
lunch breaks at work, except now with the added element of privacy and minus a
few layers of clothing. Crimson and Clover plays on the turntable nearby, the
oozy melody of the song matching your current physical sedation. Harry slowly
knots his fingers into your hair, scratching his nails into your scalp and triggering
waves of goosebumps down your legs. He leans coolly back on one hand, his feet
rubbing together, a cigarette burning in the ashtray beside him and pauses every
so often for a smooth drag, “Harry?”
“Cherry.”
As opposed to how your incessant questioning used to rub him the wrong
way, mainly because it was maddening to attempt to hold back a flood gate with
nothing but a snarl and cheap insults, now he would toss himself in front of a
speeding train just for just a chance to hear what you’re curious about.
“Would you ever eat food that’s fallen on the ground?”
“Did you really just ask me that?” He changes his reckoning upon visualizing
some grody bathroom floors in dive bars he’s been in, “scratch that. Depends on
the floor. I would eat peanut butter out of a butthole though.”
You have to roll onto your side in order for your laughter to explode in the
way it requires, and then it takes you about a full minute to recover enough to
ask, “any butthole?”
“Mmm…..” One eye squints closed in contemplation, “is it the last scoop of
peanut butter on earth?”
“You’re the one who’s made this about peanut butter and ass, I was asking
about something completely different.”
“What don’t I make about peanut butter and ass?” Harry still isn’t used to the
amount of cussing you’ve set free tonight and he can’t say that he minds it very
much at all. He shows his appreciation through soft laughter, gently weaving
your fingers together when you hold your palms up in the air for a spot of
attention. Your joined hands drop to your shoulders as he hunches over to fold
your lips in an upside-down kiss, moaning and slipping his tongue into your
mouth when you cup the back of his neck to hold him in place, “mmm….. sexy.
That zipped straight to my tummy.”
“Come here, please.” He flops down beside you with your temples touching,
your gazes fixed on the ceiling, your highs swimming through your bloodstreams,
your fingernails scratching up and down the inside of his arm, “if you could have
any pet….. besides a dog I mean, what would it be? Like, absolutely anything.”
“Oh, like….. probably a duck.” You split open with laughter again at how
quickly he’s produced an answer and how surprisingly benign it is. He combs his
fingers through his hair but it ends up falling right back in his face, his other hand
holding his belly as he tries to talk through his raspy chuckling, “yeah, man.
Ducks are so sick. He could ride on my skateboard with me.”
Tears squeak out of the corners of your eyes and your cheeks ache from
smiling so wide, “you’ve thought about this before, haven’t you?”
“Yeah. And he’s even got a name.”
You gasp and prop yourself up on your elbow to gaze down at him, your hair
falling around your face in the most breathtaking, carefree frame around your
cheekbones, “no! What is it?”
He can’t help but tug on the end of a lock dangling down towards him and his
dimple is just lovely enough to call home, “don’t laugh.”
“I’m already laughing, how can you expect me to just stop after you tell me
your imaginary pet duck’s name?”
Harry struggles to get the word out through his feral crackles of amusement,
“…..Minnow.”
You’re both laughing so hard that no sound is coming out aside from some
wheezing and a couple errant snorts, “Minnow! Oh my god…..” You wipe a hot
and wet streak of salt from your cheek, “I’m crying. Actual tears.”
He pulls you back down with him and it’s your first instinct to cuddle into the
nook of his shoulder while you both try to ease the stretch of pain in your jaws,
“fuck, mm’crackin’ up. What would yours be?”
“A bunny, I think.”
“What?” He seems genuinely concerned with your choice, “they shit

everywhere.”
“And ducks don’t?”
“Mmm…..” Harry rolls onto his side and spreads his fingers over your tummy,
inching his fingertips closer and closer to your tiny bloomers that you insisted
stay on, “I’ll be your bunny.”
“You are. Sunnybunny.” His eyes are a little bloodshot from fatigue and
everything else that swirled by in a sloshy hurricane tonight, but he looks even
more adorable than ever with his mouth relaxed into a candy pout and his
typically fidgety hands moving in long, slow motion sweeps across your belly like
they do in the mornings, “you ever notice how all strangers are men? And it’s
always like, nighttime when you see them?”
Harry’s beautiful hoarse laugh reaches towards the sky, parting the clouds and
spinning the moon into orbit, “I see your point, and I also think you’re speaking
to somethin’ a little more rooted here.” He paws at you until you take the hint
and face him, cozying up close, regarding the flecks in his irises marbling like the
earth and his hand landing at the base of your throat for a little squeeze, “have I
ever made you feel that way?”
“I don’t know, really. It was a different kind of nerves with you. I look up to
you and just wanted you to like me. I think it was more a fear of the unknown,
honestly. Suspense. Good suspense. Until it was bad suspense.”
“Mmm? Am I scary?”
It’s been so long that his chronicled sneers seem more like a dream than
reality, and that sudden realization makes your heart start to flutter with the
understanding that without looking, you’ve begun to take the necessary steps out
of the past and into the present, “not anymore.”
“Was I ever?”
“Intimidating. I didn’t think I’d ever be secure enough to be intimate with

you.”
“You intimidate me, too. But I fuckin’ love it, because not many people do.”
You know for certain that the ages-long war on women exists simply because
men are terrified of being controlled and of losing control, that they think
emotions weaken them as humans because they’ve been taught to demonize and
squash them. Women are the embodiment of those emotions, that sentiment,
that passion, those demons that must be squashed. The evidence of war lies in
the brutal history of mankind itself, in its current political state and possible
future. All of those men shrink to a useless speck in comparison to Harry. A man
that accepts and admits intimidation and vulnerability upfront is the bravest of
them all, because he welcomes himself for who he is, every single part of himself,
and works with his own internal dialogue on psychological challenges without
hurling his insecurities onto others. He assumes his own responsibility. Like he’s
told you a hundred times before, he truly believes that his only intention is to
make you feel good and you’ve yet to see any proof of the contrary.
And you don’t even need to get started on the topnotch level of support that
he withholds for your drive, your career and your personal struggles.
“So….. you’re saying that you saw me, I made you feel nervous and frightened,
and your reflex was to dive headfirst into doing every single thing you possibly
could in order to go on a date with me?”
He listens to your whole analysis with a pause before nodding once in

agreement, “yep. I had to be in your life. I had to.”
“Slick Daddy Boss.” He chuckles against your lips, humming when you slide
them together and mumble into his mouth, “thank you for being so brave.” He
doesn’t answer and he doesn’t need to, instead he threads your legs together and
kisses you again, his hand floating down to squeeze your hip and palm the
curviest part of your bottom.
The kiss dissolves to cut a path for a moment to regard one another; your
gazes traveling over each other’s faces and your fingertips painting stripes on
every inch of bare skin. The pad of your finger grazes his bottom lip before your
palm acts as a little nest for him to burrow his cheek into. When his eyes fall on
you again, the hunt and the chase are immediately reawakened: chartreuse
clouds snowing matching velveteen hearts up top, a layer cake with raspberry
frosting down below. Sincerely succulent; one coveted taste will evolve you.
“You wanna say somethin’, Honeycream.”
Before you have too much time to reconsider, the sentence is blurting out with
such candied tenacity that it might as well be dipped in milk chocolate and
coated in sprinkles, “you are so pretty. I think you’re the prettiest person I’ve
ever seen. I could look at your face forever.” You hear how raw and ridiculous
you sound and your hands fly up to cover your face in an attempt to erase the
vulnerable moment, “oh my god, sorry.”
“Aw, cmon. You can’t be serious. I say that shit to you seven hundred times a
day. Do you think I sound stupid too then?”
Your voice is muffled, “no, you sound perfect.”
His fingers wrap around your wrists, peeling your hands away for a look at
your naturally stunning features, “so do you. Psychedelic. An’ you’re the foxiest
chick I’ve ever laid eyes on. I get butterflies in my stomach every single time you
look at me. See? Gravy. Tell me somethin’ else, go on.”
It’s almost as if Harry already knows what you’re going to say before you say
it, “I really wanna make out with you.”
But it doesn’t stop his reaction from being any more visceral. Because he
knows, he just knows, that what you actually mean is, “I’m ready to go farther
with you,” and he is always ready for that.
“Fuck, my baby. C’mere right now, lemme spoil the shit outta you.” The
passion in your kiss knocks his moan straight to the back of his throat, his skin
burning against the rug when you push him onto his back with one leg kicked
across his hips. He kisses you slowly, each nuance of his mouth and tongue
precise and deliberate, because he can feel absolutely everything right now and
he knows that you can too. Your tummies are jellyfish and your limbs are
stinging electric tentacles, your palm has a mind of its own as it squeezes into the
tight space between your bodies to cup his solid length.
His lips are dark pink and swollen when your head lulls to the side, his mouth
trailing down your neck and collarbone, his eardrums throbbing when you
slowly ooze a keen whine and exaggerate your words with a weak pull,
“everything feels so good.”
He loves your determination and outward lust, mostly because desire is
equally as important to him as orgasms are, but you seem to have momentarily
forgotten his preference for taking the lead.
And your punishment is a hard, stinging smack to the strip of bare skin
peeking out from underneath your tiny shorts.
Your gasp is met with a wicked, evaluating grin, your eye contact snapping
together as you watch him nibble on his bottom lip while he waits for you to
voice your opinion, “what’d that feel like, sweet girl?”
“Like a spank that’s still burning—”
“No shit.” Harry pinches your nipple between his fingers then soothes the nip
with his tongue, your head falling back as the residual smolder from his strike
melts to glitter in your pores, “what’d your rosebud feel?”
“Dunno—”
His fingertips pacify the red mark before leaving another one, harder this
time, in the same moment that his lips suck a hunk of your neck past his teeth.
With the added cerebral attention he’s brought to the connection between
spanking and pleasure, your core clamps down on itself in response before a
gentle rush tickles your panties and spreads all the way to your toes. The gentle
cry mixed with a sharp moan is the only answer he thinks he needs, that is until
his fingers push past the back of your shorts and underwear, straight between
your cheeks to ghost your dripping folds, “Jesus Christ, Cherry. I knew it. You like
it kinda rough, don’t you? Hmm?”
“I….. don’t know. I think—” A gentle growl from him communicates his need
for more intentional language, “do it again?”
The third spank leaves a damp mark from your excitement on his fingertips,
the lingering pricking sensation pacified when the tense air in the room breezes
against your hot, humid skin. Your agreement snakes out in the form of a
whimpered “yes”, your face dropping into the crook of his neck when his fingers
find their way back into your underwear again to nestle the pad of his finger
against your soaking entrance, “I want you to think about something for me,
yeah?” You nod into his skin, whining and rocking your hips in the hope that
you’ll urge him further inside you, “I want you to think about gettin’ spanked
with my cock inside of you.” His finger dips in just an inch and swims in a golden
halo, “all filled up with me.”
Always watering and casting sunlight on the seedlings.
“Harry—”
“Gives you somethin’ to squeeze on.” Your core seizes upon his suggestion and
he knows because he can feel you cinching down on the tip of his finger, “shit—
catch my drift?” And then it’s as if his domination were skating on thin ice, his
control faltering for a moment when he sinks his middle finger all the way into
you, slowly, as far as you’ll take him, “mmm…..” He checks in quickly, “okay?” And
sighs when you murmur a speedy ’yes’ in response, “I wanna fuck you so bad,
Cherry.” After a couple pumps, his ring finger joins for sedated strokes that seem
to get wetter and wetter with each pass, his underwear dampening with a little
dribble of precome, “wanna feel you huggin’ me, comin’ with me. God, I want you
so fuckin’ much. I need you.” His other palm spreads out across your stomach
before dragging up to your neck to angle your face towards his for that searing,
irresistible eye contact that you both crave, “and what do you want from me?
What do you need? What can I give you?”
It’s nearly impossible to concentrate with his fingers alternating between

rubbing circles on your sensitivity and diving back into your core, over and over
again, “I don’t….. oh my god— wait.” He pauses his hand, but doesn’t remove it;
he devours each of your sweet panting breaths, “I wa… t... your heart-shaped
mouth. Can you? Like before?”
Your mouth is practically the size of the Great Barrier Reef.
And you have no idea what it’s capable of.
His resolute promise from weeks ago has permanently stuck with you, but at
times like these, it’s almost as if your brain becomes so saturated with a
smokescreen of filth that you’d do almost anything that yours or his libido
suggested.
“No fuckin’ way. You wanna come all over my tongue?” His fingers plunge
through your muscles again, their movement a little hastier than before, “you
gonna squash my brain?”
“No, I’ll be good. I’ll love every second. I promise. Please, Harry?”
Your compliance may just be the sexiest thing he’s ever witnessed, mostly
because it’s such a dramatic contrast from the face that you show the rest of the
world and he loves that only he gets to see it. He fucking loves sharing secrets
with you, “good girl for me.” Harry sits up, distracting you with a wind-knocking
kiss and guiding your legs around his waist before mumbling, “hang tight,” and
hauling himself to his feet to carry you into the kitchen.
The countertop is cold against your back, but that feeling melts away as soon
as he starts to leave wet kisses along your body, heated patches that turn to ice in
his advance, his dragging locks tickling down your stomach.
“Does this sound right…..” His lips tickle the delicate skin below your belly
button, “you’re so controlled and particular in every other area of your life that it
feels real fuckin’ good to succumb to someone else? Someone who you trust with
your life? And then know you’ll feel the best you’ve ever felt as a result? Just
disappear on a cloud for a bit?”
Control; the requirement for flawless movement, impulsive rigidity with food,
your frustrations with your body and your endless questioning in order to root
around in other people’s lives. The turmoil that comes when it’s lost. Something
that you feel you have too much of, and at the same time, are lacking. Harry
promises to take all of that away, even if it’s for just a short amount of time, and
that escape is intriguing to say the least.
You’re still trying to remember a time when he’s been wrong, “yes.”
“I’m gonna give you that. Wait ’til that cherry’s popped. You won’t fuckin’
believe what you’re capable of.” He knows but at the same time, he has no idea.
Because you’re still figuring it out yourself.
He slips your shorts and underwear off in one fell swoop, hooking his hands
under your thighs to scoot you to the edge of the counter before dropping to his
knees before you. Your intrigue takes over when you prop yourself up to watch,
but it proves challenging when he keeps his eyes glued to yours and dives in with
a fat, broad lick from bottom to top. This time he’s learned to keep your legs
spread with his fingertips burning into your skin and he’s glad, because he can
feel your muscles working in an attempt to slam them back together.
“Mmm….. score. Get a load of my dreams. Pretty cunt. God, I love it.”
“I think you’re the only person who can make that word—” The last bit of your
sentence is obstructed by a soft whimper when he blows a puff of air against
your bundle of nerves and then sucks it into his mouth, “…..attractive.”
Your legs tremble in his palms and you’re just weak enough to fall onto your
back, your arms stretching up above your head for something to grasp onto
before settling on your breasts. Harry’s tongue flicks and flicks in rapid little
movements that spread thrill to the farthest reaches of your body, your core
throbbing and pulsing and liquefying when he pauses for a sweep of cold air that
vanishes with a big, soggy kiss.
“Would you like me to put my hands on you? Say it.”
There’s a daze snowing down on your brain, but you still manage to brace
yourself on your elbows and fixate on his shiny mouth, “mhm—”
His fingers tip-toe up your stomach and then grip your throat, tightly, “yes?”
“Yes— Daddy. Please.”
“Oh, really?” One stringent smack to your bottom, five little stinging secrets, “is
that what good girls like?”
You practically sob, “yes. Please. Yes.”
Harry pinches his eyes shut and rests his forehead against your thigh as all the
blood in his body drains to his cock and forces it to pulse, “good, fuckin’ sweet,
sweet girl.” He sinks his teeth into your skin and sucks to pool a deep red mark,
his eyes connecting with yours again when he demands, “I want you to come
even though you’re struggling not to.”
And all that you’re capable of in response is a defeated whimper. You already
know it’s not going to take much.
Harry uses his thumb to draw circle after circle around your bud, never once
directly applying pressure to it, but rather using it as a tactic to make all the hair
on your arms stand on end. He traces lines around your folds with his tongue in a
similar fashion before gradually, devastatingly, plunging and curling it all the
way inside of you with his nose pressing against your sparkling sensitivity.
There really aren’t enough places for your restrained moans to leak from.
Once you’ve become comfortable with the fact that he’s doing this all for you;
the work of his fingers and his mouth, the brush of his hair against your thighs,
the filthy language, the curl of his fingertips as he drags his blunt nails through
the valley of your tits and down your stomach, you’re finally able to lose yourself
in the sensations much like you would during practice or a performance. But this
is much, much better.
And when he replaces his tongue with his thumb, coolly sinking it into your
heat and finally presses his tongue flat against your swollen bud just where
you’ve been craving, waiting and waiting as your legs quiver on either side of his
head, you can’t help but gaze down at him and blurt, “you look really pretty with
your mouth on me.”
Harry pulls away with his glossy mouth shaped into an astounded circle
before scoffing softly, “what the fuck did you just say? You just talked dirty to me!
Holy fuck and shit, I should start callin’ you ’Daddy’.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Okay, shut up.” A whiplash grin slaps across his handsome face as you run
your fingers through his hair and tug on his locks in a playful warning, “ow— I’m
completely kiddin’. Keep rattlin’.”
Your nose-scrunching laughter is cut short with a fat, open-mouthed kiss, his
tongue slipping out between his lips for a kitten lick to your slippery knot. His
mouth is everywhere, swallowing and devouring you whole, swapping between
tiny, blistering movements and massive, sloshy ones, your juices dripping onto
the countertop without a second qualm from either of you. His thumb pumps in
and out before it bravely drops to your rim, carefully and steadily adding
pressure there in a realized effort to sensitize everything below your navel.
With a harsh suck, Harry draws your clit into his mouth and hums so loudly
that your entire core vibrates, breaking your blissful concentration as you moan
out a soft laugh at his pure joy in making you feel good and the resulting
overwhelm of sensation it brings you. You cover your face before reminding
yourself not to be embarrassed, your hands returning to tangle into his hair for
stability. His empathetic moans match yours to keep you with him, together, to
let you know that he wants you to come as badly as you do. Possibly even more.
And he fucking loves watching your face alternate between giggles, coy lip
bites and hard, painful pleasure, because what’s the point of making someone
come if you also can’t make them laugh?
“Oh my god, oh my god, Harry— it’s happening again.”
He doesn’t want to, but he pulls back just enough to spout some
encouragement in a growl through heavy breathing, “shit. Good girl. I can feel
you pulsin’. You’re about to wipeout.” His next sentiment spirals past his teeth on
the tail of a whimper, his middle and ring fingers siphoning your release as they
drag against your front wall, “you’re all mine, sweet girl. All mine. And you’re not
goin’ anywhere ’til I’m done with you. Let it go. C’mon. You’re right there, fuck.
Right there.” He knew it before you did, but he loves the perceptible self-
awareness on your end.
He’s right, you couldn’t hold this feeling back even if you tried and your bones
and muscles stiffen when it hits you like a hard slap, all the moans that you were
trying to curb before detonate with a shocked gasp and then unravel and unravel
and unravel along with your mental and physical liberation. Every cell and nerve
ending in your body is gushing glitter, your brain trapped somewhere in the
atmosphere between radio signals, your control handed over and cradled gently
in Harry’s palms. The first two orgasms that you had yesterday pale in
comparison to this, maybe because now you know what to expect before, during
and after and are capable of cerebral navigation to heighten your body’s reaction.
Or maybe you’re just finally ready to completely relinquish yourself to this
relationship.
Or maybe you’re just so in love with Harry that it’s exploding from the inside
out.
Or maybe it’s the weed.
This time, with your apartment empty aside from maybe a couple nosy
neighbors, Harry has no need to help you subdue the reaction to your
overpowering orgasm. Through his feverish efforts to push you over the apex of
the rollercoaster, he has just enough wherewithal to fuck you with his fingers as
sincerely as he can, helping you ride out the intensity of your ambitious climb
and zealous crash in the way that he knows you need. He keeps his mouth and
tongue on you until he can’t stand it anymore and breaks away to talk you
through your towering peak, egging you on the draw out the passion as long as
possible. And it works.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, you make me so hard. You’re so beautiful. You’re so

fuckin’ drop dead gorgeous, baby. It’s all for you, all of me, all of me. God. Feel me,
feel it. Sweet, perfect angel.”
That same smokescreen of filth speaks for you in the shape of a snaking
whine, “mmm….. I need you, Daddy—”
You aren’t in the room enough to experience this, but Harry’s entire face
crumbles and one hand surrenders the hold on your leg to squeeze his length
through his briefs, “fuck!”
Shockwave after shockwave roll through you, your back arching away from
the countertop and your toes curling in the air, your fingernails digging into his
scalp to keep him from pulling away too soon. Harry almost wishes he had
another set of arms to properly coddle your impressive release, but watching you
completely lose your shit because of him might even be more rewarding.
He always knew that, given the courage, you’d forfeit everything for pleasure
because you are an innately sensual person. But he never would have guessed
the magnitude of the earthquake and subsequent aftershocks. And the best part
about it is that it will only intensify from here. Perfect love and perfect trust,
obliteration of fear and shame.
Loud, louder, loudest.
The sensation of breath burns and cools your lungs over and over again as you
settle back to earth, this city, this kitchen. There’s a fleeting moment of silence
through heaving panting and then the trickle of an astonished opinion, “damn,
girl. That almost made me come, too. I’m not kiddin’. How long have you been
holdin’ that in?”
“My whole life?” A snort rolls through your nose, but you’re not surprised to
hear it and you don’t even care that it’s happened, “I deserved that.”
“Yes, you fuckin’ did.” Harry swipes his saturated knuckles on your thigh and
his grin accounts for half of his face, “you’re not doin’ it right ’til your hands get
wet.”
“You did everything right, Sunbaby. I can’t feel my toes. Can we still get waffles
at nine A.M.?”
Sitting back on his heels, Harry eyes your panting bare figure and oozing,
throbbing core like an artist would admire a newly-finished masterpiece, “make
it noon, but it’s the only time we’re leaving our bed until Monday morning.”
Our bed.
Harry strokes your touchy, reeling sensitivity with his thumb and you push
him away, except he does it again and your legs jerk before you burst into loud,
snorting laughter. Sitting up, you gather his wrists to make the stirring barrage
stop, “stop! Oh my god, oh my god. Stop, that is the worst tickle I’ve ever felt. It’s
inside my kidneys, please stop.” He sticks his tongue out, taunting you with
another lick as you shriek and kick him away with a smile pulled from one ear to
the other, “you’re such a dip, that was the most confusing feeling I’ve ever had.
Right after the best feeling I’ve ever had.”
“Coulda had another orgasm if you didn’t push me away. Still can—”
“No way. I’m way too sensitive.”
“That’s the point?”
You sink your teeth into your bottom lip to hold back a curious, glowing smile,
“you little shit. Not this time. I don’t think I can handle it.” Your back meets the
cool countertop again, but now your skin is slick with sweat and you welcome
the relief as you stare at the ceiling and nothing at all, “that was unreal.”
“You’re unreal. Kinda sleazy though, hmm?” Harry rises to his feet and doubles
over on top of your melted giggly body, humming and smiling against your
mouth, “that’s all I wanna see ’til the day I croak— mmm…..” You’re a pile of
pliable, sweet mush when you wrap your arms and legs around him, your lips
folding together and your tongues caressing with a sharp flavor, “whose girl are
you?”
Your fingertips brush his mouth, “yours. All yours.”
“All mine. Now go and take a wee.”

Searching his face for a trace of jesting, you laugh awkwardly and sweep your
hair away from your burning cheeks, “what? Really? Why?”
“Don’t you and your girlfriends talk about this shit at sleepovers? You’ll get a
yeast infection or somethin’. Go wee. I’ll be here.”
“That’s kind of humiliating.”
“How so?” Harry steps away and adjusts himself with a grimace, watching as
you slip from the counter and pull your panties on. He grabs your wrist to stop
your retreat to the bathroom, tugging you close for a quick kiss and declaring in a
throaty murmur, “I love that you just called me Daddy and came in my mouth,
but blush at the word ’wee.’ You surprise me every fuckin’ day. More secrets
please, I want them all ’til you run out and I own you.”
The subsequent stare-off only lasts a couple seconds, but feels more like a
lifetime, “sometimes it feels like I’m not in control of myself around you, Sunny.
And I like it. Which is very unlike me, if you haven’t noticed.”
“Just for me?”
“Only you.”
“Can’t get peanut butter in England, y’know.”
It’s just after three o’clock in the morning, and struck with a wicked case of the
munchies, you and Harry are now sitting in your underwear on your tiled kitchen
floor with your legs woven together, surrounded by a spread of snacks. Anything
that you could possibly find in your cabinet raid; two different kinds of cereal,
brown sugar Pop-Tarts, a jar of peanut butter, green apples, a sleeve of Ritz
Crackers, a carton of orange juice, bananas, a jar of sliced pickles, a canister of
Easy Cheese and one stolen can of Spaghetti-O’s, but you’re sure Nettie won’t
mind.
In another example of Harry’s endless rare appeal, his special term for the
hunger that hits after smoking grass is “pot belly” and honestly, you still giggle to
yourself whenever it crosses your mind.
“What? What do parents even feed their children then?”
You just absolutely love watching his mouth and strong jaw work food as he
chews it, but now that you know exactly what his mouth is capable of, it’s kind of
hard to think of anything else, “shit. I love American food, although…..” His gaze
drops to the food in his hands and his lap and your hands and your lap and all
over floor, “it’s kinda shit, too.”
Harry’s jaw drops when he watches you devise the genius idea of making little
Easy Cheese, Ritz Cracker and pickle sandwiches, “what’s your favorite food?”
“Peanut—”
“Okay, I get it. We all get it. You’d eat peanut butter out of Satan’s butthole.”
Harry shoves your shoulder and laughs with a mouthful of banana, “fuck off,
Honeyfink. I miss proper tea and my mum’s Yorkshire pudding, alright? What’s
yours? Can I have one of those little bombers?”
You make sure to prepare Harry’s sandwich with extra cheese before passing
it over, “probably mashed potatoes with lots of butter. Or my Aunt Cleo’s
ambrosia salad.”
Harry’s eyes widen as he sucks some gooey cheese from his thumb and his
tummy grumbles at the mention of butter, “what the fuck is that?”
“It’s Cool Whip and sour cream with chunks of canned pineapple, mandarin
slices, little baby marshmallows, shredded coconut and maraschino cherries.
Aunt Cleo adds walnuts and sliced grapes, too.”
His facial expression goes through a series of humorous metamorphism as you

list each ingredient, before landing on an acknowledgement of interest with his
mouth downturned into an overstated pout, “…..damn.” The cracker sandwich
disappears in one giant bite, “gnarly. That sounds bitchin’. Can you make me
some one day?”
“Yeah, actually. I’ll get the recipe from my mom. Hey, Harry?”
“Cherry.”
“Where’d you learn to surf?”
“Mm….. Spain, Portugal, South of France. By the locals. When Indy died, I
bounced around Europe aimlessly before jumpin’ ship, landing in Malibu, buyin’
a camper van and living to surf until Rusty found me. I just decided I was going to
learn h… w... and then I learned how. I had fuck-all to do with my time
otherwise.”
Hearing a snippet of the story of where he disappeared during his year of

reclusive isolation is beyond intriguing. You know there’s got to be a hundred
layers to his story, to his emotional anguish, the level of burial and subsequent
work of processing he went through to emerge this enlightened on the other
side. He has done and changed so much in an incredibly short amount of time.
More than you have in an entire lifetime.
It does cross your mind that there is some validity to Tex’s warning about you
being dispensable to Harry. Not to the degree that his burners are — but hearing
how much ground he’s covered in just over a year’s time leaves a needling,
hollow pit in your stomach. Is it possible that you’re just another learning
experience in his eyes? You haven’t known him very long at all in the grand
scheme of things, and it’s conceivable that Malibu is merely one of the bridges
that he plans or hasn’t yet planned to cross to get to his next destination. His
impulsive temptation to flee is much too strong to bury and you’re uncertain of
his own awareness about his nomadic habits in the first place. Or the level of his
path of destruction. Or just how many partners he’s been with throughout his
travels, how many people have seen this honest side of him. You know that he’s
asked you repeatedly to stop doubting him, yourself and your relationship, but
you just can’t help but periodically contemplate it. You’ve already made the
decision to not allow it to interfere with your romance, but it’s healthy to
consider all possibilities to a certain degree, isn’t it?
You do believe that he would never intentionally hurt you, but you also
wouldn’t be completely surprised to end up accidentally damaged by a stroke of
inadvertent undertaking. Honestly, it makes you feel intimidated and sort of
nervous, comprehending his world view and how it’s much different than the
bubble of the small-minded hometown that you were raised in. It inspires an
urge to travel and peel open your eyes much, much further than he already has.
Clearly, you’re just scratching the surface of self-exploration and the treasures
that the universe has to offer. But hopefully the beginning steps are the trickiest
and everything will snowball from there. With some nasty speed bumps along
the way, of course.
“Your diverse drive is inspiring. I used to envy it, I used to think that
everything came naturally for you and that you didn’t have to struggle for things
because of how attractive you are.”
“Okay….. except a pretty face doesn’t move your muscles. Or respect people’s
difficulties. Or make healthy choices. I can’t think of much that’s come easily for
me, babe. I’ve always fought.”
“But you have to admit that life is little easier for pretty people. It just is.”
“Speakin’ from experience?” You look at him and pause, forcing away your
instinct of defensiveness for a taste of his wisdom, “d’ya think Rusty still
would’ve hired you if you had zero experience in the circus and you were injured
and ugly?”
“Um…..”
“Answer is ’no’, sweet cheeks. Yeah, you’re the best dancer on the planet, and
you were also born with privilege; with good looks and tenacity, with a body
that’s capable of bending without breaking. With parents who were willing to
send you off to arts school. But guess what? You know how to fuckin’ use ’em.
Even if you think you don’t. And you’re gonna learn how far you can take it.
You’re gonna be big. Trust me. This is just the beginning.”
“Just me?”
Harry pauses his chewing to eye your features, his gaze never securing with
yours before he shoves another stack of cheese and crackers into his mouth. He’s
had the misfortune of losing too many people, emotionally and physically, to
conclusively promise any type of foolproof security. It’s just realistic. But also,
he’s really excellent at avoiding questions, “you’re so incredible and you have no
fuckin’ clue.”
You climb into his lap, brushing your favorite lock of hair from his eyes and
greeting him with a kiss that stirs up your guts. Harry paws at your breasts as his
tongue slips out to slowly trace your bottom lip, his hands dropping to cradle the
small of your back and lock your hips in place. Your gazes fasten together with a
click, the end of your nose nudging against his when your foreheads meet, “I’m
starting to get an idea….. because of you.”
If Harry’s heart were any weaker, it would likely topple and go for a swim in
his stomach, “hey….. d’ya know how miserable I was before we met? I mean
really met — when I was able to receive you.” He cups your cheek and his breath
tastes like orange juice and sunshine, “there were times that I didn’t want to
breathe anymore and I think there were times that I actually didn’t. I don’t
remember much of what I did or thought about right after Indy died. I dreamed
about her constantly while I was unconscious. She spoke to me. She begged me to
try harder and to try less. You were such a shock to see cruisin’ up on your skates
that day in the courtyard. It was like I just knew that you were exactly right for
me. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy and calm before. A big part of you
makes the biggest part of me feel this way. I’ve never wanted to stick around
before. Ever. You saved me, Cherry.”
Blinking rapidly to control your tears, your previous fears about your
withstanding wilt away as you sniffle and shake your head, “no….. you saved
yourself.”
“Sure, but….. sometimes we need a push. I’m not sunshine to everyone,

y’know. I piss a lot of people off. I kinda think you see me through heart-shaped,
rose-colored lenses. And I’m grateful for it. No one’s ever really fought for me like
you do.”
In a way, you did. In the beginning, you fought him. You fought Tex. You fought
yourself; pushing away your miserable history with him, pushing aside your
upbringing and values and morals, pushing aside all of the risk that comes along
with romantic involvement with a high-stakes performance career. Pushing away
Nettie’s warnings and your parent’s warnings. Pushing hard on the discomfort
that comes along with being vulnerable for the sake of open communication, for
another person’s joy and their well-being. For your own spiritual burgeoning. It
has all been a struggle. And it has all been worth it. But it’s not over yet. It’s just
the beginning.
His fights for you have been a little more obvious, and the evidence of one of
them is currently etching a bruise into his eye socket. Harry fights for your
growth, your safety, your love, and the most remarkable thing about it is that he
merely acts as a sunbeam to awaken the seeds you’d already planted. As if all you
needed was one bright, final push of trust to illuminate the path, “no one’s ever
fought for me either.”
“I’ll never stop. You feel way too good.”
“I don’t want you to.” Your palm rests upon his heart-shaped locket, his palm
rests upon your ruby ring, “one more slow dance and then snuggle time?”
Peculiarly for Harry, his response is a simple nod with his eyes glued to your
pout. He’s thinking, except this time, he keeps his thoughts to himself. And you let
him.
He’s awarded with a kiss before you make your way to the living room, “You
Showed Me” by The Turtles floating in smooth circles on the turntable, your
bodies floating in smooth circles across the floor. The dance is punctuated with a
mutual plummet onto your red sectional couch, the needle hopping over the
paper of the record before it automatically retreats to click itself off. Harry’s
eyelids droop very similarly, your limbs tangled together into a heart, your lips
brushing when he rasps quietly, “Honeybunny…..”
“Sunnybunny?”
“Mm, fuck yes.” He whimpers, “you’re a daydream.” Harry slurring himself to

sleep with your nails scratching up and down his back may just be your favorite
thing ever, “s’fucked up, but we needed that fight, yeah?” His palm cups your
cheek, his fingertips in your hair, all sludge and sleep as his words start to thread
together like a string of crumbly sugar-filled pearls, “tell me m’good enough for
you, baby.”
“You’re the best fucking person that’s ever happened to me, Harry.”
He slaps your ass lightly as soon as the curse leaves your mouth. His eyes fall
shut, “bad girl.”
“Good boy.”
The curtains billow in the ocean breeze, Harry sucks in a lungful of the cooling
air through his nose, “mmm….. fuck. Tha’ hit me real ha… d... you’re so much,
Cherry.”
“You’re so much too, Harry.”
Congratulations, you’ve just read the longest chapter in the history of chapters
(17k words, pat on the back y’all) (they won’t all be like this lmao) and I hope you
loved every single word. I love how holistically and healthfully intimate they are,
it’s truly a beautiful thing to experience.
There are a couple things I want to say to you: thanks so much for your hysteria
when Aerial disappeared for the squirmiest twenty-four hours of my life. It was cool
to see how many of you care about it and care about me. And also, I want you all to
know that I don’t feel pressure from you to update. Deadlines are an internal
motivator that I put in place to keep myself driven and they usually work, but I just
get frustrated with myself when it doesn’t because hey, turns out, creativity doesn’t
ride the deadline wave like we want it too. I hate saying something and then not
being able to follow through with my promise. I know you see that I’m hard on
myself, it’s a good and a bad thing and I actively work on speaking kindly to myself
so that writer’s block doesn’t completely destroy me when it occurs. So thank you
for your support, your love, your nice words, your understanding. You’re all so
great.
A little more to transpire between these two, so hang tight! Working on the next
chapter now and will always announce when it’s on it’s way, so if you aren’t
following me, you might want to so you don’t miss those announcements.
AAAAAAAND if this is something you’re interested in, the songs that I imagine
for their dancing scene (Nina Simone, Classics IV, The Human Beinz, Jefferson
Airplane, The Box Tops, Lee Fields, The Turtles etc) can all be found on the Aerial
Spotify playlist (link in my bio if you want to follow. I updated it a bit for those who
already do!). As well as Cherry’s French pop records (France Gall, François Hardy,
Jacqueline Taieb) and Harry’s lo-fi garage/surf rock tunes (The Kinks, The Seeds,
Link Wray, The Monks, Los Shakers) and a plethora of all the fun 60’s jams
sprinkled throughout.
KLOVEUBYE TILL NEXT TIME XX B (Also pretty sure Harry is photographed in

the back of a 60’s VW van with a lock of hair brushing his eyebrow in trousers and
loafers for the new Gucci fragrance campaign sooooo….... my funeral will be held
the day the campaign drops bye)
“If you bitches ate all the apples, someone’s gettin’ a wet willy— oh, fuck,
quelle surprise. Ma belle chatte. Mon cœur. J’ai de la chance. Score, fuckton of
fruit left.”
Once Harry’s declaration reaches the abrupt splinter into French, his typical
ostentatious entrance trails off to everyone else in the room except for you, but
not before tunneling through your eardrums and cozying with a splash in the
very center of your chest.
The religious spot that only sunshine can reach.
His chin ticks up once in a jovial greeting to another circus member who is
also surveying the craft service table in the now extremely thick air of the
community kitchen, “what’s shakin’, man?”
It may be one of the most difficult feats on the planet to continue a

conversation as if a volcano hasn’t just erupted in your stomach, but throughout
the past three weeks following the brawl that led to yours and Harry’s pledge to
be stealthier at work, you’ve both developed some new necessary seafaring
tactics. You’ve gotten used to expertly side-stepping one another while at the
theatre, only coming in businesslike physical contact during practice and on
stage and only participating in public chatting if it involves matters of the circus.
Whenever there is a lull and you find yourselves in the same crowded room
together, you tend to default to playing with an imaginary run in your tights or
busying yourself with unwrapping a fresh lollipop, and Harry usually overexerts
himself socially, chainsmokes a couple Crush cigarettes, scarfs hand fruits or
turns to Beau for an exclusive heart-to-heart.
Come to think of it, that was exactly how he treated you before his surfing
accident as well.
We just have to be all business at work from now on. I’ll pretend like I don’t even
know you.
And over the span of nearly a month since yours and Harry’s pledge to be
stealthier at work, the proverbial and literal dust around you has settled. The
brawl with Riff and Tex and all of the quiet gossip that came along with it, the
intentional embrace of the vulnerability holding you back from true intimacy
with your partner, the comforting routine of practice and dazzling performances,
the smell of his soap on your sheets, the sugary sludge of a dozen milkshakes in
your stomach. Tranquil, harmonious. Sunny.
Everything is sailing effortlessly well in and around you and Harry, both
behind closed doors and on stage. So well, in fact, that your romantic esteem has
begun to seep into playful games at work, which to the outside eye, appear to be
nothing more than a strong build of rapport. Push up, chin up, and handstand
contests with coworkers that end in fits of laughter, switching roles on the static
trapeze and taking your shot at supporting his agile dance moves only to drop
him cackling down into the cushy foam pit below, including fellow circus
members in impromptu rock and roll dance parties as a show of morale.
There was also the time that you felt brave enough to bring your pointe shoes
out of retirement early one morning while Harry was off surfing, ignoring the
stiffness in your ankle as you danced The Dying Swan one more time. But that
was just for you.
Harry hasn’t told you this yet, but he also happened to show up to the theatre
early that morning to ice his shoulder and froze in his tracks when he passed by
the dimly lit practice room that emitted a recording of quiet, forlorn violin on the
record player. He hovered in the doorway with a gloss of sadness across his eyes,
watching you lose yourself to possibly one of the most devastating ballet routines
in existence, completely blown away by your fluent skill and then immediately
squashed into sorrow when he remembered that you’ll never be able to dance
the way that every bone and muscle in your body wishes that you could. His
gooey Honeycomb, his melting Cherry sundae. So tough and you have no fucking
clue.
It’s Saturday afternoon, the tightest notch on the belt of dog days of summer,
just over an hour before The Circus Extravaganza’s early weekend performance
begins. Better known in yours and Harry’s eyes as merely a few tumbles away
from forty-eight hours of pure, blissful solace. Each and every weekend your
boyfriend has a new plan of action in store for your days off, but the exception to
this evening’s adventure is that he’s hellbent on keeping it a mystery. He woke
you up at dawn with his fingertips disappearing past the waistband of your tiny
bloomers, catching your earlobe between his teeth in the same moment that the
pad of his finger pressed against your sleepy bud, making a promise that if you
came for him in less than two minutes, he would treat you to something special
tonight. You easily followed through with his challenge and soon, it’ll be his turn
to follow through with his end of the agreement as well.
But for now, you’re sitting at a table with four of your fellow dancer friends,
taking a short breather from practice before you’re meant to be on stage. And
whether or not Harry has purposely discovered you here remains to be seen. And
maybe one of your favorite things about Harry is that you may never know.
Either way, blinding sunbeams are supremely hard to ignore when they
bounce into the room with a floppy, cheerful dog in tow, clad in a thin wifebeater
and slim joggers belted at the waist, polished off with two happy, bare feet. You
both spot each other immediately, you both avert your eyes immediately, you
both swallow your hearts immediately. Although you keep your gaze directed at
the girls seated around you, you can see still his fingers twitch in desperation to
touch you as he also feigns interest in his own chatting just a stone’s throw away.
Harry scrounges around on the crafty table, plucking a couple pieces of fruit
from the bowl as his friend waxes on about his plans for the weekend. Harry
nods and glances at him a couple times to save face, but he’s barely listening to
the one-sided conversation. He’s much too busy trying to eavesdrop on yours.
When he just can’t stand the tension anymore, he stuffs a banana into the
pocket of his joggers and pats his coworker on the shoulder twice in distracted
dismissal, “wherever you go, there you are, man. I hope you find your zen.” As he
strides across the room, weaving through tables and tossing an apple back-and-
forth between his palms, you peer up through your eyelashes just enough to be
aware of his approaching, but not enough to feel the full inferno of his eye
contact. The conversation is interrupted when he props his foot on the bench
across from you between your friend’s Tracy and Camila’s thighs, leaning his
elbow on the top of Tracy’s head for balance and clicking his tongue in a rascally
greeting while his sunshine pours all over the table, “what’s all this honkin’
around? Don’t you girls have somethin’ to do aside from flappin’ your gums and
lookin’ cute?”
For someone who is an absolutely horrific liar, Harry does the best he can to
act natural around you at work. The one aspect that he has difficulty with is
keeping his distance at times when you don’t necessarily need to be around one
another, but you’re certain those little instances are much more profound to you
and Harry than anyone else involved. The two people whose hearts are speared
any time one of you walks into a room that the other happens to be occupying, or
feel a stare cut through a crowd for a lick of blazing eye contact.
“Harry!” Tracy swats his arm away and smooths her hair down, her cheeks
pink with either anger or embarrassment. But by the half-perturbed, half-
amused pull of her lips you can tell that she doesn’t mind too much, “I should say
the same to you. Quit bogarting all the fruit.” She points to the banana carving a
bump in his pocket, “happy to see us or something?”
Two shiny emerald pools lock on yours for a shattering split second,
“seulement toi.” And he does his best to ignore the punch in his ribcage when you
grin and pull a lollipop from your bag, “of course. Or somethin’. Always happy to
be criticized for my healthy appetite. Especially by a bunch of boney-ass
ballerinas.”
One of your friends pipes up in regard to his French interjections, “Harry, no

one understands that drivel—”
“I feel like someone somewhere would be offended by you callin’ an entire
language ’drivel’.”
Yours and Harry’s gazes fall on one another continually with an almost sticky
residue left behind that you can’t help but want to touch. A smear of honey drips
from your fingertips, a wisp of sizzling pink sugar dissolves on his tongue. Your
heartbeats syncopate.
The daily reunion in the cool shade of Banana Split has never been so hot.
Harry reaches over Camila’s shoulder and swipes a slice of her orange, only to
receive another swat which he expertly deflects before tossing the stolen fruit
into his mouth, “snooze you lose, sister.” Camila’s pout quickly rubs out once
Harry softens his naturally flirtatious teasing with a heartfelt compliment, “just
razzin’. Mint work on your choreography last night, Cam. Caught a bit from the
sidelines. Real tight….. ya know, pirouettes.”
You stay quiet during their exchange, but judging by the slowly waxing pull on
the corners of your mouth in his peripheral vision, Harry knows you’re just as
thrilled to be in his presence as he is to be in yours. You both realize the only
reason he’s here is to be within arm’s reach of you, even if it’s for a short amount
of time and through the guise of friendly rapport with your girlfriends. And you
absolutely love watching him interact with your girlfriends. A dash of charm, a
sprinkle of curiosity, a big fat dollop of goading, all topped off with a candy
dimple and a thick swirl of milk chocolate ice cream sweeping his temple. It’s so
riveting to ogle that you’d be willing to spend cash on first-row tickets.
A shower of colors; red hot love and blush pink longing. There’s just
something indescribable about the unattainable, prominent half of him that
appears now versus the discreet, enchanting other half that’s reserved for you in
private. The drag of his fingertips drifting up your bare back when you sit up in
bed in the mornings, the knot of his digits through your tangled locks, the tired
smile that tightens his cheeks when you glance at him over your shoulder and
sink back into the sheets for another kiss, just before he swaps your slow bed for
the speedy ocean. Warm, golden. Sunny.
Your forbidden liaison bounces off of one another in such palpable heat waves
that you can almost make out a mirage of a melted, neon pink heart throbbing in
the space between your bodies.
Harry is fond of these little moments of classified, tactful navigation and works
extra hard to commit them to memory, specifically the flipping feeling in his guts
from merely being in your proximity. But mostly what he loves is the secret you
share; the ongoing affair that thrives with raging appetite behind closed doors no
matter how many people say it shouldn’t. The classified knowledge of the
winding, hidden cave below your feet that only you’ve explored. It only makes
him want it more, but he’s always been that kind of person. When someone
pushes him, he pushes back twice as hard, except in the opposite direction.
A romantic entanglement of this magnitude has proved that it will relent for
no one. Rules and warnings and contracts and threats shrink to nothing but
invisible static electricity. Harry fails to dwell on the past or the future since he
can’t change or predict events anyway, and he’d much rather use his profound
brain power to focus on the curve of your mouth, the curve of your tits, the curve
of your ass, the curve of your wit. No one can possibly understand how fucking
good you feel in his arms at sunrise with your toes brushing together, in his arms
hanging from a trapeze twenty feet above the ground with thousands of eyes
trained on you, in his arms as he perches his chin on your shoulder to watch you
choose a song on the jukebox. In his arms when your eyes roll back in your head
just as you’ve climaxed on his tongue.
“’Kay, I’m gonna slide and let you foxy chicks rattle on ’bout sexual revolution
or Beatlemania or….. leotards or whatever-the-fuck.”
He’s such a beautiful mishap; like the clasp on a necklace that has spun around
from the back of your neck to lay beside the charm. He’s lovely in his benign
disarray. Clumsy, elegant, classy and eye-catching all in the same chain.
Harry keeps his stare aimed at you as he backs away from the table, everyone
except you vocalizing friendly goodbyes because you’re too caught up on his
razor-edged clavicles and finely-carved shoulders. When he’s confident you’re
the only one in the dining area with eyes still on him, he cups his hands around
his mouth to shield the quick pucker of his lips in a silent, illicit kiss across the
room. The cherry-on-top is the mouthing of a single, heart-stopping phrase of “so
fuckin’ beautiful” before biting his knuckle for pained emphasis and then
pressing his palm to his chest. And when you blush and sink your teeth into your
bottom lip to halt a growing smile, he starts counting down the hours until
Banana Split and ultimately, The Holy Mountain.
Tracy’s next statement is even more shrill than the thumbtack of her voice
bursting your love bubble, “there goes a man who will never go steady. Ever. I’m
convinced he’s completely girlfriend-immune.”
Camila wolfs the rest of her fruit as if Harry’s ghostly hand were hovering
nearby for another swoop, “totally. No one is that lucky. Or tough. Or pretty, even.
He’s like a hunky, psyched-up unicorn. No one can nail him down.”
The rest of your friends chime in agreement and you can’t help but chuckle
softly at how both wildly correct and incorrect they are. The way that they view
him is exactly how you used to, but since then he’s nestled you into a soft, special
pocket that is only big enough for your two restless, pounding hearts. And you
love it there. It’s your favorite place on earth, “you never know. Also, can we
stop? I don’t want to think about my partner’s….. stuff right now.”
“How could you not?”
You wish you knew the answer.
Tracy interrupts your mulling with a little kick under the table, “hey, wasn’t he
sweet on you for a hot minute?”
The lie manifests as rosy cheeks and one slow glance around the table at four
hard stares, but unlike your sunshine, you don’t struggle with harmless bluffs
every once in a while. Luckily for you, he’s taught you a thing or two about gentle
prevention with a harmless dusting of omission and deflection, “turns out it was
just brain damage. And who isn’t he sweet on for a hot minute?”
This time, you don’t even notice where the voice is coming from as you keep
your stare fixed on the table. Their utterance fades and sinks deeper and deeper
under water as they speak, their voice filling with boggy muck that starts to
coagulate in your ears. Or maybe it’s you that’s sinking, “you’re smart. That
would have been a complete mess. I couldn’t give it up to someone I’d have to
face every day.” Boggy. “It’s way too complicated.” Gunky. “Could you imagine the
fall out?” Muck. “Torrential.”
The clatter of a rack of billiard balls split apart at the Cat’s Paw while couture-
clad, middle-aged women peer over the rim of their martini glass at your fearless
boyfriend. Sweaty milkshake glasses leave rings on the table at the Sweet
Hereafter, your feet in Harry’s lap as the shop closes around you. The buzz of
electricity as each light in the theatre flickers off, one by one, leaving the spotlight
for last.
Your stomach suddenly shrinks to half the size, the small amount of food
you’ve consumed sitting like a sweating brick and pushing up your throat, “yeah.
A disaster.”
The first person that Harry sees when he rounds the corner on his way out to
the courtyard is Tex, perched up against a wall and bowing his head as he brings
life to the cigarette in his palms. Harry breathes a curse past his front teeth,
pulling his mouth into a flat line as he returns Tex’s friendly gesture of a curt nod.
Tex has been trying to get back on Harry’s good side with pathetic nudges here
and there, knowing that Harry is such a star player in the world of the circus that
being an enemy will eventually shun Tex into the position of outcast. But Harry
has managed to put a hard boundary on their dead friendship through the finely-
tuned craft of indifference. Anything is better than hatred and turmoil, especially
when forced to work alongside a rival and in constant labor of keeping your boss
off your back because you have secrets to hide.
Tex tries to ignore the sinking feeling of loss in his stomach as Harry breezes
past, that is until Harry comes to a screeching halt and spins on his heel to
address him about something that’s been bothering him since its discovery, “hey.
You been fuckin’ with our hardware?”
Harry’s been trying to figure out why his maintenance request to have the lock
fixed on your dressing room door was ignored three times. He had to make up an
excuse to you about meeting a friend for a couple hours of skateboarding one
evening, making a quick pit-stop to show up at the theatre after hours with a
screwdriver and a new knob to repair it himself.
Tex shakes his head and shrugs in genuine confusion, “search me. What
hardware?”
Narrowing his eyes to gauge dishonesty, Harry shakes his head, plucking a
cigarette from behind his ear and clinching it between his teeth, his cheeks
hollowing out when his pink smoke overpowers Tex’s green smog, “dunno, forget
it. Peace, man. Take care of yourself, yeah?”
“Hey mate, can I buy you a couple Pearls and properly apologize—”
“Been real.”
Harry’s open wounds have only begun to fade, the scars never will.
In order to avoid suspicion, you wait about twenty minutes before excusing
yourself from the community kitchen in search of Harry, trying to push your
friends’ brainless gossiping and the residual icky feeling its left you with to the
back of your mind. The truth of the matter lies within Harry; his words, his
actions. All of the times he’s proved over and over again that you are his priority
and his main source of warmth. You won’t find any accuracy within the clatter of
a gaggle of geese.
You find him in the very first place you look, all alone in the courtyard, lying
on the ledge of the fountain with Beau at his feet and a spent apple core resting
on his belly. Ticket holders mill about in anticipation for this afternoon’s show;
mothers attempting to corral their sugar-hyped children and cotton candy
vendors shouting for a bit of recognition. The sun covers everyone, the palm
trees look sublimely happy to be in the ocean breeze’s company.
Even through closed eyelids and the veil of his heart-shaped sunglasses, Harry
can still feel the shade of his precious sun being blocked. He holds a palm up to
shield the halo of rays peeking out all around your glorious figure, his grin
spreading like wildfire as he props his sunglasses on his forehead and squints up
at you, “there she is. You look real fuckin’ picturesque today, girl. God, look at
you. You better take those tits somewhere else unless you wanna get wrecked in
front of all these people. What’s that lip gloss taste like?”
You are so fucking painfully gorgeous cloaked in careful, disciplined modesty,

“hi, Harry. The show starts in an hour, I was just checking to see if you wanted to
stretch or drill anything—”
“Besides you?”
Laughter cuts through the rest of your question, “-before we hit the stage. Hey,
cut that out.”
“Or what?” Harry groans and bumps his sunglasses back onto the bridge of his
nose to hide his eyes, “I’m dyin’. Just leave me here to burn to a crisp, it’ll hurt
less.”
“You’re so dramatic. You sure you don’t need anything?”

His teeth and dimple flash in tempo with a broad smile to highlight his
amusement. He just loves how fucking easy you are with him, how professional,
how goddamn sweet, “I’m solid, babe. Thank you. You alright?” You nod and he
clicks his tongue, “that’s my girl. I’ll stretch you in ten. Sit down for a sec. Take a
load off.”
Goosebumps flare up and down Harry’s arm when you brush his shoulder
with the tip of your finger and settle in beside him, peering down at the mouth
that you would give anything to taste right now, “didn’t you chastise me just a
few minutes ago for relaxing?”
“Me? Wrong guy, I don’t chastise.”
“For sure. I must have imagined it.”
“Excuse me?” The voice is small and compels Harry to flick his sunglasses up
and sit up faster than a whip, “hi….. I’m sorry to bother you. I’m your biggest fan
and I ju… t... was wondering if I could ask for your autograph? And maybe a
picture if you’re not very busy?”
A slow grin bends across Harry’s face when he realizes that the young fan with
a Flying Marvels poster and a pen stretched out in the air is holding it towards
you.
The girl must be about nine or ten years old and as you do a quick scan of the
courtyard, you can see a woman with a bag of roasted peanuts watching and you
surmise that she must be the girl’s mother. Harry rests his chin in his palm with a
fond, close-lipped smile, his gaze glued to you to observe the type of interaction
taking place that is usually directed towards him. You’re predictably natural and
polite, signing her poster and asking her questions about this afternoon’s
performance. He loves that you’re finally receiving the recognition that you
deserve, if only to shove Rusty’s tired ideologies down his wretched throat.
Selfishly, he also hopes that your climb up the clout ladder would negate any
possibilities of you losing your job if your relationship ever happened to rear its
shocking head.
His contemplation is cut short by a Holga camera being shoved under his nose,
“can you please take our picture?”
Harry looks at you with a humorously offended expression just to make you
laugh, and you know that about him and you love that about him. For someone
who normally lives in the realm somewhere between arrogance and immodesty,
he sure has a healthy handle on who he is, what makes him tick, what he despises
and where exactly the earth lies under his feet.
He pops to his feet and wipes his countenance clean to make way for a proud,
dimpled smile as he brings the viewfinder to his eye, “everybody say, ’chickpeas
please!’”
The young fan thanks the both of you for sparing your time just after the
shutter clicks, leaving you with one final thought before she departs in search of
her waiting mother in the crowd, “I wanna be in the circus too when I grow up.
Just like you. The trapeze star. But not like him, because he’s a boy and boys are
gross.”
Harry’s jaw drops in indignation, “what the f—”
You interrupt him before he has a chance to teach a new swear to someone
else’s child, “sometimes that might be true. Harry is an exception though, don’t
you think?”
She sneers at his tattoos before turning her attention back to you and the
instant she’s not looking, Harry sticks his tongue out at the back of her head in an
equally childish manner, “I guess you’re right. Thank you. And good luck.”
As she retreats, you peer over at your partner-turned-lover, with his hands on
his hips and his hair in his face. He waits until she’s far enough away before
maintaining his stance and clicking his eyes towards you, “what a bitch.”
“Harry! You cannot call a child a bitch. Sometimes people say weird things
when they’re nervous. She’s just at that age where she’s unnerved by boys. Let it
go if you can. She’ll have a new obsession in six months. Everyone knows you’re
anything but gross.”
“Oh, yeah?” He flicks his shades back down with the tip of his finger, “then
what am I?”
You take one step closer, just enough that when you peer up at him, he
salivates at the sight of your shiny sweet, cherry lip balm catching the sun’s light,
“hot.”
“Don’t do this to me right now. I already told you I’m weak.”
Your lips part for a single breath, “sensual.”
His voice is a whisper, laden with heavy warning that you completely ignore,
“Cherry.”
“All mine.”
“Oh, fuckin’ shit. Felt that one in my winkie.”
A snort rolls through your nose before your pealing laughter does, “oh my god,
you didn’t just call it that.”
“I’m tryin’ to be cool and you’ve got carnage drippin’ from your tongue.
There’s kids present. Mellow out before I crack a fat and scar them all for life.
These pants show everything, y’know? Thin fabric. Mum’s the word.”
“Okay, okay, sorry. So….. where are we going tonight, Sunny?”
Harry flops back down on the ledge of the fountain, unwrapping a piece of
creamsicle gum before popping it past his teeth and assuming his sun-soaking
position, “nice try. Studio two in five and don’t make me wait, Honeymuffin.”
“The ’59 Cyclone!”
The disclosure of Harry’s mystery date tonight hung in the balance for the rest
of practice, straight on through your performance and subsequent hot and cold
showers. The only hints that you managed to squeak out of him through some
shameless groping in your dressing room were: “wear somethin’ cute as fuck”
and “we’ll have to take a little cruise in The Pink to get there.”
You swiped on a bold dash of black eyeliner and pink lipstick in order to
strengthen your plea deal, but all that managed to do was wrap the both of you
up in such a heated make-out session on the vanity that Harry ended up wearing
your lipstick instead. He’s an advocate for your natural beauty anyway; always
tugging the ribbons from your hair, preferring to kiss you when the sunshine
plays with your hair on the beach or when you’re cooking breakfast for him in
one of his shirts. But the occasional doll-up resonates through him in such an
intense way that whenever it happens, it takes you twice the amount of time to
get through the door. Not that either of you are complaining. And not like he
would ever find himself in a position where he wouldn’t want to kiss you.
The reunion at Banana Split was explosive with potent relief, naughty fingers
slipping into tight spaces and hot lungfuls of air driving your kisses, cotton candy
dissolving on your lips when you muttered, “can I have another hint?” Harry
simply raised one conceited eyebrow before giving your throat a little squeeze,
the both of you skating off hand-in-hand to his van, with Harry flinging you off
ahead of him to watch you spin, his eyes trailing over the whirl of your skirt
before the fabric settled back down against your thighs.
Honey-glazed pineapple and fuzzy, sliced peaches painted the sky at sundown
as you cruised just less than an hour south, down the Pacific Coast Highway to
the still-unrevealed destination. Harry’s pink surfboard strapped to the roof of
his car seemed to add another layer of protection to your private bubble, with
Frank Sinatra’s headshot dangling and dancing from his rear-view mirror and his
favorite psych rock album by The Seeds slowly whirling on the foldaway
turntable.
It was your idea to play along with his tightly-coveted scheme by taking it one
step further and laying down with your head in his lap as he drove, claiming that
it would aid in keeping your eyes off the road to avoid the danger of spoilers.
Mostly, you wanted to stare up at him with the heat of his thighs on the back of
your neck and mostly, he would have willingly walked straight off of the Malibu
pier for it.
Happy, comfortable. Sunny.
The next hour was a melting bowl of fudgy Rocky Road ice cream; Harry’s
large, warm palms rubbing your teasingly busy, bare legs, constantly chasing you
with his fingers in order to catch your feet long enough to squeeze them. Your
hand snaking up to snatch his cotton candy Crush cigarettes from between his
lips, the pad of his middle finger swiveling in rings around your belly button,
stolen kisses with a hint of tongue at stop lights, your fingers weaving and
unweaving together in the air. Popping open the heart-shaped locket that rested
against his stomach every so often to peek at your photo inside. The breeze
passing through and escaping each one of his open windows, blowing his hair in
his eyes and twirling the sweet clouds of pink into candied tornados. Palm trees
stretched up, high, high up into the cloudless, pastel-stained heavens.
You could feel impressions being made. Not exactly full memories, but just
swatches of beauty that will splice back together in your dreams.
Two moments almost got you into trouble, however: when you reached up
past the hem of his shorts to pinch his thigh, sending him into the air with a jump
as he barked, “sois sage.” And then laughing so hard that you snorted when you
casually pulled the low-dipping neck of your dress down to flash him. He jerked
the steering wheel in a fake-out swerve, pinching your ass hard and griping,
“whoa, drivin’ a whole-ass vehicle, Cherry! What do you think this is, a fuckin’
obstacle course? Va te faire foutre.”
But as far as you can tell, when it comes to you, his bark is much bigger than
his bite.
Harry found it impossible to ignore the tangible carefree demeanor that has
been rolling off of you in lighthearted waves ever since that bonding evening of
Cherry Thunder Fuck and dancing, but there seems to be a notable culmination
of comfort and nonchalance as of late that has him broiling in thick, hothouse
love. You look and feel different, but somehow exactly the same; a short, low-cut
and laced-up yellow dress, no bra so that your tits can breathe, hair at ease aside
from a single barrette. Still coy, still regimented, still ambitious. Small enough to
fit in his pocket, big enough to take over the world. Just as paradoxically
intimidating and sweet as ever, but inching closer and closer to devouring his
heart whole.
Fuck it, that’s already happened. It’s just hard to pinpoint exactly when.
The best part about it is that you’re not doing it for him. You’re doing it
because it feels amazing. Because you finally have the courage to discover who
has been there all along, because learning about yourself teaches you more about
the world, because doors slam closed and creak open when we start to get what
we want.
Because Sunshine feels perfect.
The final hint that you managed to slide from him was that he wanted to
arrive at the secret location early, “for primo real estate.” Whatever that means.
When you finally materialized on the beach in Santa Monica, Harry made it a
point to park at least ten blocks from your final destination just for the sake of
added suspense. He pulled you up to straddle his lap, plucking a joint from an
open compartment on his dashboard and holding you hostage until you’d both
smoked it all the way down to the filter. You emerged from the pink, hotboxed
van wearing Harry’s heart-shaped sunglasses, bursting from every single pore
and admittedly a little wobbly on your feet, dragging Harry along the sidewalks
without even really knowing where you were going. He thought that you looked
really fucking adorable this excited and full of life, so he allowed you to take the
lead this time. Plus, he loved watching the way your skirt hugged your ass and
would ride up in the back as you walked, giving him just a taste of your panties if
the wind blew just right.
Illuminated neon lights look exceptionally bright at dusk, particularly that

moment right after the sun has buried itself beyond the vista and all hints of
warmth smolder with hope just before surrendering. The natural world falls
asleep as the man-made world comes to life, like passing the electric torch across
an impossibly navy-blue sky.
And when you were just shy of two blocks away from your destination, you
began to squeal with excitement. The towering, car-shaped sign popped boldly
amongst the strip of diners, drug stores, milkshake shops, bars and pool halls;
more majestic and opulent than every other establishment as far as the eye could
see. Waving flags and buzzing neon filament, a marquee that displayed all of
tonight’s feature films and a sunny, yellow arrow that pointed you in the
direction of your now-leaked date spot for the evening.
The Streamline Cinema Drive-Inn.

The theatre itself is built adjacent to the beach from the ground up with an art
deco motif; curving forms and smooth, polished surfaces, a black and chrome
color scheme for sconces and signage, and a circular frame around the movie
screen that cheekily resembles a hubcap. The screen is bookended with palm
trees and has its back to the ocean, which feeds the constant reminder of your
location and creates a tranquil atmosphere surrounding the films themselves.
Films on Saturday nights are played one right after the other in succession,
better known as Grindhouse style, and each film is exploitative in nature.
Tonight’s theme? Summer Bummer of Terror, featuring: “The Brain That Wouldn’t
Die”, “Teenagers from Outer Space”, “Village of the Damned” and aptly, “Circus of
Horrors.”
Unlike the phenomenon of other, typical drive-in theatres that have swept the
country as of late, The Streamline Cinema boasts one particular variation that
distinguishes it from all the rest: stationary cars that are permanently parked
and lined up in curved rows in a sprawling field of crisp, green AstroTurf —
impeccably maintained, futuristic Concept Cars all designed between the 1930’s
and today where couples can make their choice to take residence in for the
evening. It’s a fun twist on the notion of a simple drive-in theatre, where the
drive-in part comes provided by the theatre itself, making it accessible for
anyone with a pair of feet.
Concept Cars are a special breed of vehicle; engineering meets visionary

aesthetics, more art than function, made simply to showcase new styling and
new technology directly to the potential consumer. They’re mostly flaunted at
motor shows to gauge reaction, an experiment in finding how the public
responds to the bold statements as a barometer for proceeding to mass
production or not. That’s where The Streamline Cinema comes into play; the
prototypes from motor shows are typically nonfunctional due to safety,
regulatory compliance or cost, so they get a second chance at a long life through
taking on the form of innovative, revolutionary seating at the cutting-edge
theatre unique to Santa Monica.
Poppy reds, powder blues, bullet silvers, forest greens, watermelon pinks,
sherbet oranges, lemon yellows, bone whites, licorice blacks. Luscious curves and
velvety leather interiors. Sparkling paint and glossy windshields. Shiny wheels
and firm rubber. Some of them are convertibles, but those models tend to get
chosen last as people snatch up the ones that are closed for obvious, private
make-out reasons. Each car has an intercom system for ordering food, candy, ice
cream and cigarettes, which is then delivered on roller skates by a carhop. The
movie audio plays through the speakers in the car and is controlled by the
volume knob on the radio, giving each couple or group of friends their own,
private experience.
You’ve never had the pleasure of viewing a film from a drive-in theatre before,
because your parents didn’t trust you enough to allow you to be alone in a car
with a boy. But you trust yourself and you trust Harry, so your parents can bite it.
Now if only you can pry Harry’s wandering hands from your hips and clear the
grassy smoke in your head long enough to agree on a vehicle to watch the movie
marathon from.
Not so much agree, but at least get Harry to stop playing his extremely
adorable-yet-irritating game of Devil’s Advocate.
“Nah, what? Total birth control seats. We’re cuddlin’ up tonight. And,
seriously? The Cadillac? I expected more from you, Cherry tart. What a meathead
choice.” With a duck and a dodge, he narrowly diverts the smack that he knew
was coming, but that doesn’t stop him from continuing to pester you, “hey Reefer
Madness, you can take those shades off. Unless you’re tryin’ to hide from the FBI.
Then in that case, party on. But I gotta tell you, they make you look like a major
narc.”
“Harry?” His responsive, unsuspecting hum triggers the playful little fire
inside of you as you prop his sunglasses on the top of your head and tug on his
hand, drawing him close with a mere slip of air between your chests. Harry’s jaw
slackens and his attention is instantly frozen on your face due to the apparent
serious shift, although it does dip a couple times to your cleavage, “if you don’t
zip it and help me choose a car to sit in, I’ll be in the driver’s seat of that ’59
Cyclone and you’ll be in the back, sitting on your restless hands the whole night.”
The sportive threat delivered behind a sweet, menacing force slowly cranes
his eyebrows up his forehead and he’s much too distracted by the sexy power
play to properly return your saccharine kiss. His lips stay puckered when you
pull back and his gaze is off somewhere in the distance, “I’m….. terrified. And
hard.”
“Great. Cyclone it is—”
Harry suddenly grips your arm and stares at your face with his eyes popped
open wide and skimming your features as if he were trying to interpret
hieroglyphics, “oh, holy shit, there’s a seagull squawkin’ and I thought the sound
was comin’ outta your mouth for a sec. Holy shit.” He loosens his grip and starts
giggling, “’kay, that was scary.”
You explode into laughter which only causes him to laugh harder, which then
wrings a volatile snort from your nose that sends him doubling over with his
palms on his knees as he cackles that bright, wheezy, childish cackle that makes
your insides hurt.
The two of you are nothing short of a mess, really. But it’s beautiful.
A shriek cuts your laughter short when Harry snaps out of his trance long
enough to seize you by the waist, clinging on tight and snuggling you into his
warm torso. The two of you stumble along a couple steps with the false hope of
continuing your search, but Harry seems determined, and frankly spellbound, in
his need for seduction. He kisses your hair and your neck, sinking his teeth into
your shoulder as he paws and spreads his hands out across your belly. Muttering
a string of feedback without having deliberated very hard, his lips feel a lot like
freshly piped buttercream frosting or warm pillowy meringues just below the
shell of your ear, “’63 Chevy Corvair Testudo. Or the ’55 Ghia Gilda….. or the ’53
Manta Ray, or the ’41 LeBaron Thunderbolt. Or maybe the ’56 Buick Centurion.”
You whine with the onslaught of choices which only leads you in a frustrating
circle to absolutely nowhere and he groans in reply, “baby, I don’t really give a
shit. But at least pick one with bench seats so you can put your face in my lap
again.”
“Sunny…..” He’s much too aware of any slight shift in your body to ignore the
soft panting of your voice, you’re much too aware of any slight shift in his body to
ignore the rise and fall of his stomach against your back, “I need you to focus for
just one, single solitary minute.”
A puff of hot air against the shell of your ear, “it was so fuckin’ foxy when you
winked at me durin’ our performance today. We’d fuck so pretty, yeah?” And
with that, your body melts into his and your head rolls back onto his shoulder
with discernible yielding, just how he likes. Guiding you, relieving you of your
tightly-wound anxiety, softening you with just the right amount of suggestive
filth, but leaving enough room for your own curious imagination to fill in the
blanks. His arms tighten around your waist, knowing that he’s finally balled you
up in his irresistible silk, “mmm….. good girl.” He clicks his tongue against the
roof of his mouth and taps his chin up an inch, swaying your hips together back-
and-forth in a proud dance, “bingo. Two o’clock.”
Blurriness snaps to vivid clarity as if someone has just cleansed your vision
with a squeaky streak of tart vinegar and crumpled-up newspaper. Suddenly
your body is cold and alone as Harry draws away, spinning in a half circle to face
you and walking backwards towards his selection, his fingers snapping in the air
with a goofy grin as he begins to hum the theme to The Pink Panther television
series.
Just beyond the edge of his shoulder, a hot pink car that resembles a space
ship with the whittled nose of an anteater curls a hopeful, slinky finger of
invitation in your direction. The side canopy doors are propped open towards
the sky and the ground, displaying a cushy, alluring interior filled with matching
pink pillows, pink shag carpeting, pink tufted walls and a matching ceiling. There
are mirrors on the back window and console surfaces, complete with a couple
empty ashtrays. And zero seats. Just one, big, plush, pink bed. Which is exactly
how you imagine the inside of Harry’s brain to look when his hands start
prowling up your shirt. Maybe with the addition of a couple jars of peanut butter
and a few dozen sunflowers strewn about.
“The Panthermobile?”
“Did I stutter?” Harry dives into the side door and lays with his cheek propped
on his fist as he eyes with you a comically enthusiastic expression, “jump in,
Honey pop. It’s soft-city. Let’s sit crooked and talk straight.”
A tropical-themed button-down shirt, a pure but worn wifebeater clinging to

his chest underneath, creamy white shorts exposing sturdy thighs. Shiny jewels
on his hands and a soft nest of wavy hair crawling around his cheeks, a pleasing
shapely pair of lips, all burrowed in a den of lavish bubblegum. He’s everything
you want in a person. He’s absolutely lovely. He’s absolutely home.
Harry pats his palm against the carpeting twice as you skip towards the car
and hop in beside him, ogling the details of the interior before mirroring his
position and his squinty, inebriated smile. You’re relieved that he spearheaded
the decision-making process and wordlessly put the kibosh on your benign
squabble, proving himself yet again to be resolute, purposeful and influential
without force or tyranny. Which is exactly what your buzzing, anxious mind
needs most of the time, “alright, I’ll admit it. This choice makes no sense and
perfect sense at the same time. Just like you, Sunbaby.”
“We’re all just sacks of blood, guts and nerves. Of course we make no sense. I
feel everything and nothing all at once. And hey, why be your baby when I can be
your daddy?”
Wiggling your way closer, a tiny little snort ruffles your nose and Harry’s hand
cups your cheek before you slot your lips together, “mmm….. was that grass laced
with acid or something?”
Harry laughs and swipes his fingers around the outside of his mouth, “I’m
parched. Can I get one of those lollipops? Hey, you know what would be hot as
fuck?”
“You mean…..” Your gaze bounces around the interior of the fuzzy pink vehicle
before landing back on him, slipping one of your back-up lollipops into his hand,
“hotter than the inside of a cotton candy hearse?”
The hard shell of sweet, tart cherry candy clacks against Harry’s teeth when he
talks, his lips puckering around the paper stick as he toys with the wrapper,
“yeah, if you can fuckin’ believe it.”
The jingle from the Coming Attractions reel quietly drones through the
speakers in the car as you tap a finger against your chin and pucker your lips in
thought, “shutting the canopy doors and—”
“You ordering dinner for the both of us.”
“That’s not at all where I thought you were going, but I appreciate the bait-
and-switch.”
“Damn, not everything I say is an innuendo, babe.” Harry snaps his fingers and
points to the menu perched on the rear dash, beside a small intercom system for
beckoning the carhop, “go on. Do your dirty work. You’ll ace it, promise.”
You crawl to your hands and knees and reach across him for the menu,
squealing loudly when your ass gets slapped hard just as you predicted it would,
“ow! Dork! Don’t start—”
But you’re interrupted when your legs and Harry’s legs tangle together in a
heap as he tackles you into the soft pile of pillows, his dimple poking a pit into his
cheek as he admires your face. He pins you down into the pink fluff, tossing his
half-eaten lollipop into the ashtray before his fingers wrap around your wrists to
stretch your arms above your head, “gotcha. Literally everything I say is an
innuendo, sweet girl.” His knee wedges itself between your legs, his lips brushing
against yours as he speaks through a very proud, engaging smile, “actually, let’s
skip dinner. I’m ready for some sugar.”
Perhaps it would be more accurate to describe him as an easily distracted,
resolute, purposeful and influential person.
You try to cover the stalled breathing in your cheeky question, “Harry Styles?
Skipping dinner? Did hell just freeze over?”
Except he picks up on it right away, “I’d eat you for every meal if you’d let me.”
“Harry.”
His bottom lip is held captive by his teeth before slowly releasing its grip as he
feels your pulse throbbing below your skin, “can’t help it.” Harry is mindful of
your gentle warning and the morals behind it; how you would never let your
hidden naughty side get in the way of your rooted sensibilities in such a public
setting, but he can’t help his nature to push the limits of wickedness whenever he
sees an opportunity. Plus, the torment of being around you at work and staying
on his best behavior for hours on end has tested the frontier of his patience to an
unnatural degree, forcing all of his lust to brew around in his veins until he has
no choice but to nail you down inside of a strawberry frosted doughnut with
strangers milling about. He soothes your wrists with his thumbs, weaving your
fingers into a tapestry of soft, sentimental love with his, “kisses, please. Haven’t
had a proper, slow, gushy one for hours now. Stolen measly pecks on the sly at
work don’t count.”
A sensation whizzes from the pit of your stomach to the tips of your fingers
upon his utterance of the word gushy, “but we made out right after we shared
that joint.”
“Not enough. Not like this. I’m thirsty. Please, Honeybee? Please. Just one
minute. Miss our bed, miss your body so much.”
His hands relent enough for you to tug yours free and slink into his hair, your
bodies melting together in the same instant that your lips slip into place, your
tongues fusing to complete the construction of your cocoon as this theatre, this
city, this world, drift into obscurity. He’s the sun and you’re the continuous
bursting flares, striking heat from his surface that seems to only be curbed by
deep, throaty hums that ripple up his throat and dissolve into your mouth.
Harry knows he’s pushing it when he palms your breast and draws back to
launch an uncharacteristic whine, “mmm….. s’good. Miss her.”
“She hasn’t gone anywhere.”
“What’s she look like? I don’t remember.” His hips circle against yours with
the same cadence of a sunny afternoon, “she happy? Cruisin’?”
Your smiles flash in tandem before giving way for another kiss, “drifting. Is he
happy?”
“Mmm….. you’re like a human secret decoder ring.”
“Does that make you the secret?” You’re well aware of the fact that Harry’s
stomach is probably on fire with hunger, but since his libido is yelling diversions
at him, you take it upon yourself to blindly reach for the menu behind your head
while appeasing him at the same time. The last thing you want is for him to start
getting grumpy because he can’t center himself long enough to nourish his body.
And the weed probably isn’t helping, “want me to check and see if they have any
peanut butter, Sunnybunny?”
“See? Couldn’t be a glitzier angel if you tried.”
As if on cue, the sinister music from the opening credits of the first film begins
to filter through your chosen vehicle and although neither of you are paying
much attention to the screen, you can sense the atmosphere of the entire theatre
taking its hair-raising shape as everyone settles in for the program. Crackling,
stern dialogue, the cone-shaped bright slice of the projection filled with flying
dust bunnies cutting through the air, the perception of black-and-white film
scrolling in the periphery of your presence, “I can always be better.” Harry
watches your eyelashes flit as you study the menu with your lips pursed, “okay.
I’m ready. Call her over.”
“That zippy?” His fingertips switch between toying with the bottom of your
dress and drawing circles on your inner thigh, “they have any Starbursts?” Your
core squeezes when his hand drifts a little further up your skirt, “or Cherry
Sours?”
“You’re making my tummy flip—” Harry attaches his teeth to your throat the
moment he brushes your heat, humming into your skin and adding just the
slightest bit of teasing pressure, “I can— I’ll ask—”
“Remember how hard an’ fast you came this morning? Had to cover your
mouth so your roomie wouldn’t hear. You were wigglin’ all over the fuckin’
place.” The tip of his nose leaves behind a film of lace on your jawbone, the tip of
his finger leaves behind a tangle of ribbon on your sensitivity, “I bet we could
smash your previous record right now.”
The movie theatre starts to slowly dissolve around you when that same lusty
fog takes precedence, sweeping all of your manners straight out the open canopy
doors when you puff air against his lips, “won’t someone see?”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” All of the humidity from your skirt disappears
when he removes his hand to punch the call button on the intercom, “whoops.
You’re a bit flushed, Honeycunt. Tighten up. Here she comes.”
The scent of cotton candy swamps the inside of the car as you prop yourself
up on your elbows and watch him with narrowed eyes and your jaw hanging in a
draft of spontaneous flurry, except his only response is to exhale a burst of pink
smoke and paint on a snide smile.
The carhop arrives with an empty food tray in hand and an extremely
annoying joyful demeanor, yours and Harry’s silent stares speaking volumes to
one another before she perks up with her interruption, “hey, you two!” She clips
the tray to the side door then leans in through the window, “whatcha munching
on?”
“’What do we wish we were munchin’ on?’ is probably a more accurate

question. Right, babe?” Harry lays back and crosses his feet at the ankles, resting
his head in the crook of his bent elbow as he takes another thick drag of his
cigarette and nods towards the server, “go on.”
Yanking the menu away and smacking him in the shoulder with teasing
malice, you’re forced to stretch yourself across his body to order due to the way
he insists on taking up way more space than he needs. He shamelessly checks out
the curve of your ass and the skin of your thighs where your skirt ends, before
visually dipping into your cleavage. The server notices and scrunches her face up
in contempt at your boyfriend, which merely causes him to unabashedly shrug
his shoulders. Harry could give a fuck less what she thinks; as far as he’s
concerned, he’ll never see her again after tonight and you’re way too hot to not
check out whenever there is an opportunity.
But what they both don’t know is that you also caught the entire exchange,
“don’t mind him.” A little pinch on your bottom has you squealing the first couple
words of your statement, “he’ll have the cheeseburger without onions. And I’ll
have a hamburger, please. No tomatoes.” You look at him and he’s already staring
at you with a purposefully blank expression that he dares you to read. You keep
your eyes on him for the rest of the order, “two Cherry Cokes, a big basket of
onion rings and….. a box of Cherry Sours and some Starburst.” She nods and
starts to peel off but you stop her by leaning further out the window, “oh, wait!
And a banana split, please! With lots of peanuts and cherries on top, please and
thank you!” Your gazes catch when she finally retreats, but Harry hasn’t moved a
muscle, “how’d I do?”
He shoots you two thumbs up, “that was heavy. Not sure what I’m hungrier for
now, onion rings or your sugar scoop.”
“I’d go with sugar scoop.” You kick off your Mary Janes and prop your bare feet
in his lap, he replies with a happy hum and a warm squeeze of your toes.
“Yeah, I hear that.” Harry nods to the server when she swings back around
with your Cherry Cokes and candy in tow, dropping them off on the tray and
promising the arrival of your food shortly, “hey, slide me one of those, my sweet,
baby girl?”
“Are you broken or something?” His palm lands on your thigh and glides in
gentle sweeps up and down your smooth skin, his bottom lip pouting pathetically
before you cave and hand him one of the sodas.
Harry insists on staying reclined as he puckers his lips for a sip, causing it to
spill out of his mouth and roll down his cheek. He laughs and wipes the sugary
dribble away with the back of his wrist, “aren’t I precious? You think it was this
hard for Cleopatra?”
“Somehow I imagine she never spilled a drop.” You unwrap a pink Starburst
and hover the candy over his mouth but just slightly out of reach, “come and get
it.” He puts in very little effort as he tries to bite it, but you pull it back before he
can catch it between his teeth, “aw, so close.”
This teasing dance happens again and again before Harry gets fed up, growling
and wrestling you a bit, until he finally grabs hold of your wrist to keep your
hand steady. He pops the pink sweet between his teeth and lays back down with
both hands propped behind his head while chewing victoriously, “more,
Cherrywench. Pink or red only. Fuck the yellow ones.”
“Oh my god. We’re perfect. The yellow and orange ones are my favorite.” You
unwrap a red one next, leaning back on your palm and tossing it into his open
mouth, “and ’wench’? Who are you, Henry VIII?”
Harry smiles and chews at the same time, “why, you wanna make a half dozen
babies?”
“Will you chop my head off if they’re not boys?” One eye squints as if he were
actually considering it, “Melvin! Sit on it. Sperm determines the sex anyway. It
was all that loser’s fault the whole time. But you know, it’s easier to just blame
women, right?”
“Yeah, I can genuinely blame you for all this woodage I’ve been draggin’
around for the last few months.”
“We successfully changed the topic about four times just now, I think.” You
hold your palm in the air for a high five that he enthusiastically returns, “hey,
isn’t there a film we should be watching?”
Harry sits up just enough to peer out through the window at the giant screen
and then around the lawn brimming with a whole gumball machine of rainbow-
colored candy cars, “say what? Fake me out. Must be too busy talkin’ trash and
checkin’ you out. How about you zip it and let me concentrate?” He artfully
deflects your swat with a benevolent block, “too slow, nerd herd. Shit’s boring
anyway. I’m ready for Teenagers from Outer Space.”
“I feel sorry for your sister growing up.”
Somehow he manages to take a mouthful of his soda without spilling any this
time, chewing on a piece of ice between his molars as he quips, “same here.” It’s a
scene straight out of a cartoon when Harry’s eyes sidetrack over your shoulder
and get comically huge, signifying the arrival of your dinner without you even
having to double check. Harry scrambles to his hands and knees, swiping his
basket of food from the tray before sitting cross-legged facing you, his face
collapsing into relieved satiety upon his first massive bite, “mmm….. twitchin’.”
Three big onion rings disappear inside of his mouth all at once, “I’m gonna scarf
this in two seconds.” His eyebrows tug into a frown when he catches you eating
lettuce and pickles that have fallen out of your hamburger with a fork, “I think
you’re supposed to eat it like a burger.”
Your sweet little nose scrunches up with humor when you go in for another
bite, “but it’s less messy this way.”
“Don’t you think like, forks make food taste not as boss?”
“What about spaghetti and meatballs?”
“Touché.” He’s quiet for a moment as his chewing slows down and he begins to
gnaw on his bottom lip, “Cherry?”
“Harry.”
“Tell me somethin’? Where would you be if you didn’t get the role in the
circus?”
You can’t place your finger on it exactly, because it isn’t the question that
makes your stomach queasy, but rather his uncharacteristic delivery. You push a
couple onion rings around as you examine his face for deeper understanding,
“honestly, I have no idea. I thought about school for nursing or maybe journalism,
but they’re not artistically fulfilling enough. I have to dance. I just have to. I would
have figured out a way. Why do you ask? What about you?”
This is a topic that Harry thought about quite a lot after Indy died and before
Rusty sunk his claws into him, when he was trying to work through his fog of
depression to figure out what the fuck he was supposed to do with his life after
that traumatic event. Honestly, he still thinks about his trajectory often. Daily.
Except he’s never had the nerve to mention it to you before, because then that
would mean he’d be forced into a position of possible negative confrontation and
he tries to avoid disapproval at all costs, “that answer was very you, Cherry. I dig.
You were born to perform. I’m glad you’re gettin’ what you want.” Harry shrugs,
his eyes searching your collarbones and neck and the food in his lap and the
interior of the car, but not quite falling on yours when he speaks, “I’d try and hot
dog it, y’know….. push for pro-surfing. Travel the world’s beaches and compete in
tournaments. That’s why I moved to Malibu. That’s what I was tryin’ to do before
Rusty dug me up.”
A lightbulb flickers to life and shines light on some shadowy thoughts you’ve
had for a while now; for Harry, the circus was an afterthought. A fallback.
Something familiar and easy to tide him over, perhaps. A rickety bridge, not
necessarily a strong overpass, and yet another explanation to his indifference in
the beginning of your partnership. Which makes perfect sense considering
everything he’s been through; he’s much too heartbroken to fully trust not being
smashed again.
You wonder if it was fear that held him back from pursuing his actual goal of
professional surfing and then on top of it, he found himself in a position within
the circus that was a thousand times worse than he could have ever imagined:
working with a partner again. He deceived himself and then was deceived again
on top of it by Rusty. Two stabs to the heart, a slowly-bleeding wound that
became infected with every second you were forced to be in one another’s
company. Every prying question you asked, every sarcastic retort you delivered,
all picking away at a scab that was trying to heal but never had a proper chance.
He was angry with himself and projected his festering self-pity right onto you;
too weak and damaged to step outside of himself enough to sew a cushion of
what he really needed. Which was love, comfort, real human connection,
guidance and most importantly, faith. He had lost his way for an incredibly sad,
seemingly endless stretch of months. And from the way he’s opened up about
traveling Europe following Indy’s accident, it seems that he was on that bleak,
impoverished path all on his own. He truly has been a green apple this entire
time; golden, soft and sweet on the inside, tart and taut on the outside. Begging
the heavens to allow him to ripen and drop from the rotting tree from which he
manifested.
There’s an emotion wreaking havoc on your insides, but you can’t quite
pinpoint what it is, so instead you push it aside for the sake of unconditional
support, “you’d succeed at absolutely anything you attempted, Sunshine. You’re
driven, talented and smart and I want you to be happy. I’ll always support your
choices. I think you’re in touch with yourself to know what you want and how to
get it.” But the elusive feeling lingers, dragging its heels on the way out the door
and leaving it open a crack for chilled air to spill in.
Harry pushes his food aside and climbs to his knees, pulling the canopy doors
on the car closed for more privacy before cupping your cheek and slotting your
lips together for a kiss. He moans into your mouth and blindly scoots the basket
from your lap as well, pulling you down to lay beside him in the odd comfort of
the fuzzy pink car. You snuggle up into the nook of his underarm and wind your
legs together, Harry’s fingers tracing little circles into your shoulder, “I want you
to be happy, too, babe. All the fuckin’ time. I need you to be.”
“Harry?”
“Cher.”
Flat, murmured dialogue from the movie quietly drones through the car,
reminding you of where you are, “did you mean it?”
Run away with me. Cabo. Tulum. Panama. The Amazon Rainforest. Can’t we just
disappear?
“Mmm?”
“When you asked me to run away with you.”

Another cotton candy Crush cigarette flashes to life and fills the space with
burning sugar, “I don’t say shit I don’t mean, remember?”
After he takes a couple drags, you snip the smoke from his hand for a pull of
your own, “it surprised me is all….. is it something you’d already thought about?”
Harry reflects back on the conversation you had at Banana Split following the
brawl with Riff and Tex. He hadn’t actually considered escaping with you before
the words flew out of his mouth. When things get overwhelming, his reaction is
always to flee. But that doesn’t imply that he didn’t mean what he said, because
sometimes things said impulsively and passionately have just as much truth
behind them as well-thought-out decisions, like they’ve been brewing inside of a
subconscious tornado and the storm flung the idea from the angry clouds, “no,
but that doesn’t suggest I was bein’ insincere. Why, you feelin’ like burnin’ all
your bras and skippin’ town?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Harry zips up his lips and throws away the key before reaching for the bag of
Cherry Sours and popping a handful past his teeth, his lips pulling into a close-
mouthed smile to hide his answer as he chews.
“Question quitter.”
“Honey bunny.” His adam’s apple bobs and he waits until you’re looking at him
to continue, “no snub, but if I answered every single one of your questions, my
throat would be bloody raw by now.”
Your smile and your disposition are so fucking beautiful and easy that it hurts,
“no harm done.”
Harry sits up and steals his cigarette back, sucking in another hearty draw
before stubbing it out and hovering over you. He grasps the back of your neck,
this thumb pressing on your windpipe for a suggestive squeeze, “kiss, please.”
There’s no hesitation in gratifying his demand and he shows his appreciation
with that same racy hum that you can feel all the way to your toes, “another?”
It doesn’t take long for you to get worked up enough to slink your fingers into
his hair and hitch your legs around his waist, his hips settling between yours and
his heart hammering away in his chest as your kisses slow down and sink into
pliable quicksand. Not losing heat, but simply savoring it.
Your lips slip against his as you murmur, “everything reminds me of you. I
don’t even know how that’s possible, but. Yeah….. things you like and things I’m
unsure if you like and things you despise. Everything.”
“I know what you mean, Honeybrain.”
“Harry?”
“Cherry.”
“How much time do you spend thinking about me in a day?” Harry cocks his
head at you, but doesn’t answer quite yet, “I’m just trying to figure out what’s
normal.”
“I don’t spend a normal amount of time thinkin’ about you, Cherry. I like
thinkin’ about the things I love. It distracts me from everything that sucks.” Your
gazes roll together and Harry only falters for a second when he glances at your
mouth.
“I like thinking about things I love, too.”

“Yeah?” His breath trembles out against your lips, his curious sentiments
quietly bouncing off the gilded walls of a plush carpeted hallway, “you like bein’
around ’em….. kissin’ ’em?”
“Yes. Dancing with them. Seeing a film with them. Playing pool, drinking
milkshakes. Falling asleep and waking up with them. I love every single thought I
have about them.”
For one of the first times since you’ve met Harry, his frazzled nerves shine
through his skin as he tucks your hair behind your ear. You’re lost in a lush forest
as your eyes dart back and forth between his, the tense pause filling up the tight
space around you as he swallows a couple times and then licks his lips to make
way for unforgettably magnificent articulation. A perfect gift, wrapped flawlessly
in golden wrapping paper and tied off with a satiny pink ribbon, “Cerise….. je suis
fou de toi. Je t’ai dans la peu. Sans toi, je ne suis rein. I love you. Je t’aime. I love
you so fuckin’ much, Vivienne.”
Vivienne.
He’s so fucking gone for you and he always has been. Always. He doesn’t
remember this, but the first time he saw your name glittering, bundled within a
hundred others on the audition roster, he knew you were the one for him. But he
didn’t dare let you in easily, knowing how painful it was to let Indy slip through
his fingers. He swore he would never allow it to happen again, neither at work or
in his personal life. He couldn’t possibly survive another death, whether it be
physical or emotional. But this couldn’t be stopped. No matter how hard you or
him may have tried at first, you just can’t stop a storm with your bare hands.
Vivienne Surefire.
Whenever he says your name out loud or even so much as thinks about it, he
can visualize it outlined in giant lightbulbs as if on a glorious marquee. The love
of his life, illuminated in a thousand scintillating, glowing flashes in the dead of
night, dulling everything surrounding you with the power of your immense draw.
Sparkling with the force of a massive star, sucking him in like a black hole. Born
to be a twinkling starlet, the burning sun, the center of the entire fucking
universe of which he revolves around day in and day out.
Vivienne fucking Surefire.
A blossoming cherry tree. A dripping honeycomb.
Just for him.
His lips and teeth form your name again, swaddling three silent syllables and
three gratifying, thrumming consonants.
Vivienne.
Nothing has ever been more powerful.
He’s seen a hundred men crumble in your path but you never even seem to
notice. You’re too busy focusing your observations outward, absorbing
everything around you in order to saturate yourself with experience and
wisdom. He sees this and he knows this and not a day goes by where he doesn’t
count his blessings and swaddle them tightly to his chest. You chose him, you
actually fucking chose him and sometimes he still doesn’t really understand how.
There’s no possible way he’s actually good enough for you.
“Tu me rends tellement heureuse. Je t’aime plus chaque jour, Sunbaby. I love
you.”
The word ’besotted’ comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative
aspect of his personality. When he loves something, he loves it with his entire
body. But not many people have been so lucky to be on the receiving end.
A smile slowly blooms before making way for a soft, pleased chuckle.
Chocolate curls melting in his face, muddled strawberries staining his lips. “shit.
Yeah? I didn’t wanna say it ’til I made you feel it, y’know? I wanted my words to
match what you already knew. You’re my best fuckin’ friend. That I also wanna
slip it to.”
“I feel it. I definitely feel it. I also can’t believe you just told me you loved me in
The Panthermobile.”
“I love you so much.”
Your smile grows so gradually that at first, he doesn’t notice it until your teeth
are shining through, “I love you.”
“Feels fuckin’ outta sight to see that comin’ out of your pretty mouth. Say it
again.”
You grip his hair and crane him closer, the interior of the car suddenly spiking
a hundred degrees, “I fucking love you with everything I am, Harry.”
Another uncharacteristic gesture comes in the form of a pitiful whine, his lips
attaching with yours before rolling you on top of him, your legs on either side of
his hips as he unclips the barrette from your hair and tosses it into the pillows.
Harry tangles his fingers into your locks, holding your head in place with a firm
grip as your tongues mesh to send bubble after bubble to your guts. Your heavy
exchange vibrates in your skulls over and over again, throttling the heat of your
intimacy to a level that was not only intangible before, but unthinkable.
Thanks to the flimsy material of his shorts, you can feel him thickening against
your center and thanks to the flimsy material of your dress, he can feel your
nipples straining against his palm.
“Miss her.” Harry’s hands mold to your curves and grip their way down to the
bottom of your skirt, slipping the fabric aside and heading straight for your core.
His index finger spins in a wheel around your entrance over the thin fabric of
your underwear, never once landing on your bundle of nerves but rather
purposely avoiding it to make you squirm on top of him, “she miss me?” You nod,
trying to take control of your breathing as he ticks his chin up in challenge, “how
much, baby?”
“Dunno, maybe just a little?” But your plan to trick him into pleasing you with
coyness backfires when he pulls his hand away, spawning a pathetic mewl from a
tight space in your throat, “no, no, no, Daddy, please don’t stop.” You grip his
wrist and steer him back, lopping your head forward when he pushes the
material covering your center to the side and sweeps his fingertips through your
folds, “don’t stop.”
“Good girl. You’re fuckin’ soaked.” Harry curls his finger forward in teasing
little strokes, never ducking inside of you and never touching your most tender
spot, “shit. I love you, Cherry.” His eyelids droop as soon as the words leave his
mouth, “god, makes my tummy flip each time.”
“Me too—” Your mouth falls open against his when he dips his finger in the
smallest bit and then goes back to navigating lazy rings around where you need
him most, “you’re torturing me.”
“Mmm? How come? Need somethin’?” Every time you try to align yourself
with his digit, he pulls it away and it’s starting to become the most elegant
torment. Just when you think you can’t possibly handle another thwart, he does it
anyway and it’s starting to feel like you could reach your peak just by him
mumbling the perfect combination of filthy language, “aches?”
“Harry…..” His name is sucked back into your mouth by a gasp when he
pinches your nipple through your dress, the tremble of your thighs on either side
of his waist is unmistakable, “I feel like I’m gonna explode and you’ve barely done
a thing.”
Harry nibbles on your bottom lip and folds your mouths together, his stomach
flipping like a spiraling beach ball soaring across the sand and through the salty
sky. He draws back and nudges his nose against yours, “is that love?” His
eyelashes flit against the lock of hair covering his eye, “ready to jump off the cliff
any second?”
The sensation that’s brewing in your core spreads to your stomach and your
thighs, your limbs tingling with the certain negligence they’re experiencing, with
all of the blood and nerve endings in your body saturated into one, leaking
reservoir, “every second.”
Finally, Harry presses his thumb firmly to your knot and sinks his fingers
through your muscles slowly, blistering and searing you from the inside out.
Everything feels incredible, but you both know in the back of your minds that
you’re too exposed to go too far. People might see you or worse, recognize you.
But you both surprise each other constantly, so what’s the harm in following
what feels good in the moment? And also, isn’t that kind of half the fun?
Harry unlaces his shorts in the tight space between your rocking hips,
moaning down your throat when one less barrier is shed to feel the humidity of
your excitement. Bravely, you draw your underwear further aside to bare
yourself and drown in the sparks of the outline of his crown nudging your
sensitivity.
“Oh— fuck….. Honeyco… b... whatcha—” And then when you tug the elastic of
his briefs down to expose his tip and nestle it into your folds, Harry cries out,
withdrawing his fingers and dropping his head back, “oh… god... I wanna fuck
you. Jesus Christ, I wanna fuck you so bad. Feel you all around me. Everywhere.
All your little squeezes and pulses.” His fingers weave into your hair, your
foreheads propped up against one another as you swallow one another’s heavy,
panting breaths. He rocks his hips upward in slow ticks, the pressure on your
entrance and the slickness of your juices and the suction of your begging heat
dragging moan after moan from both of your burning throats.
He’s so close. You’re so close.
The eroticism of being fully clothed in a parking lot packed to the brim with
people; a little secret of something as innocent-seeming as a couple merely
making out, except the tip of his cock is almost inside of you, further than you’ve
ever gone before. Toffee jelly fireworks in both of your stomach hearts loins, the
tremble of Harry’s fingertips as his hands restlessly smooth up and down your
back in agitation and desire, the whole display so forbidden and illicit exactly like
your entire affair. It may seem innocent or maybe even slightly questionable to a
gawking outsider, but no one knows what’s truly happening below the surface.
“Want my cock inside you, baby?” Harry visibly shudders as soon as the words
leave his mouth, his eyes rolling back in his head before his head falls back
against the fuzzy pink carpeting. You’ve never heard him breathe with such
intrepid fire, his chest visibly heaving as if air could somehow extinguish the
flames in his lungs, “I love you. I love you so much, I need to feel you. We’d fuck
like bunnies. Please. Please, let me fuck you.”
“Harry—”
He presses forward another half inch, your jaws falling open at the gushy
glittering sparks and you know, you just know because you can feel the imminent
promise in your stomach, that if he were to push just one more time, a deep,
stinging pinch would blanket this entire pleasurable exchange and you’re not
sure if you’re ready for that yet. At least not here, not now.
He’s throbbing. Everything about his is pulsating, pounding, quivering, “okay?
S’okay, yeah?”
He’s stunned out of his skull and he doesn’t want to say or do anything that
could possibly break the spell if this is the moment, the moment you choose to
give it up and break down your final barrier, the moment where you both have
sex with someone that you love for the first time. Someone who trusts him
enough to pop their cherry, to cast their version of love on him and accept his
version of love in return. To open up an unpaved, brand new path in your already
profound relationship. For the both of you. He can’t even begin to fathom the
nuclear fallout. Presently, his logical brain is absent and his lust is steering the
vehicle and it’s never been this way for him. Falling into a fog of love and
pleasure is a new feeling. These moments in his past have always been incredibly
lucid and under his control, but now he’s lost in the sway of fantasy come to life
and he hopes it never, ever ends.
A sharp, audible, pained suck of air freezes you both in your tracks. Harry’s
grimace matches your own, but for different reasons, and he works in tandem
with every cell in his body to catch his breath when you drop your forehead
against his and gently shake your head, “it’s gonna sting. I can feel it. I— I don’t
know—”
Harry whimpers and pinches your hips so tightly that his fingertips burn
through your dress, “fuck. No, no—” It’s slipping away and he can feel it, he can
feel your energy retreating, he can feel the bubble bursting and he’s clinging to
any and every strand of hope left in the humid space of this plush backseat. A
keen, disappointed whine slices through his teeth, carving a deep wedge of guilt
into your backpedaling. In all fairness, you started this, you pulled your
underwear aside, you pulled his down, you guided him here, you know how
badly he’s been patiently wanting this moment for months and months, you
knew exactly what was happening, but fuck that fog is so strong, “so close…..
baby, plea… e... pl… ase... f… ck me..… please...”
And now you’re taking it all away and for what? Fear of a little pain? Fear of
little progress?
How much longer will you keep yourself from him? From experiencing
complete, utter, groundbreaking intimacy?
Above all of the physical apprehension, your morals refuse to let you lose your
virginity in public, fully clothed in the backseat of a strange vehicle before you’d
planned on it. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. But why? Why does
everything have to be so fucking perfect and meet every single one of your
requirements before even beginning to take shape? Why can’t you just get lost in
what makes you happy, what makes you tick, what makes you ooze?
And maybe the absolute worst part of this whole interaction is that Harry’s
penchant for domination and taking the lead has completely fallen through the
cracks. He’s at your complete and utter mercy and you have to be the one to stop
what you started, to pull the rug right out from underneath his quivering,
begging feet.
He was so close. You were so close.
“I’m sorry….. I’m sorry. You feel so good, I think I’m just scared—”
“Hey, hey, hey. Shh. Stop, stop.” He keeps his eyes closed, his nostrils flaring
when he pulls air into his lungs, “it’s okay. S’okay to change your mind. Don’t you
dare apologize or explain. Just….. gimme one sec to regroup.” Harry hisses when
he adjusts his briefs back into place, his eyelids prying open one at a time before
licking his lips, “holy fuckin’ shit. You are premium pussy. I can’t fuckin’ see
straight.” His cheeks puff out with a hearty exhale, “I can taste your cherry and it
tastes like paradise. Shit. That was wild. You alright, babe?”
Nodding, you cup his cheeks and seal your mouths together in a kiss, the
flavor of his tongue having taken on a different zest as if his stunted arousal were
seeping from all of his pores to leach through yours. You want him to burst from
pleasure, to abandon his wits, to come undone from the sheer gravity of your
body and your love, and maybe there’s a different way that you can blow his
mind instead, “Harry?” He hums his attention in response, his pouty lips traveling
south down your neck and chest, his hands palming your breasts, “let’s get out of
here. I wanna mess around some more but we need some privacy—”
You’re bucked off of his lap from how quickly he starts to scramble from the
backseat, ditching all of his snacks and the last half hour of the second film. He
pops the canopy doors open and glances at you over his shoulder, “well fuck’s
sake. Burn some rubber, Honeysuckle.”
Just a baby cliffhanger. Hello, hi, how are you? I’m guessing three or four
winding chapters left, depending on how they pan out. Crazy, huh? Get ready for
some quirky shit. Thank you for all the birthday wishes and stuff. Y’all are great.
Also, I’m on Twitter now @/armpitsandeggs if you wanna stay updated on story
stuff or whatever else is going on in my brain. My ig handle is the same for anyone
who wants to follow there as well. Love y’all. Xx B
“Touchez-moi. Cerise. Je souffre. Fuck, sweet Jesus. Personne m’a fait grimper
aux rideaux comme toi. Viens on, va faire des galipettes. Oui, s’il vous plait?”
Harry never thought he would find himself in a position of begging. Harry

never thought he would find himself in a position of begging for something as
small as a single touch. Harry never thought he would find himself in a position
of begging for something as small as a single touch with such ardent pizzazz.
Harry never thought he would find himself in a position of begging for something
as small as a single touch with such ardent pizzazz with his back pressed up
against the door of his own fucking van.
Yet here he is.
Incessant praying in your spongy love language has to help just a little bit,
right?
And he can’t say he minds it all that much. Although, he imagines he can only
allow this to go on for so long before he snaps and hurls you over his shoulder,
tossing you into his front seat and leaving a red smack on your ass. That flimsy
little yellow dress doesn’t stand a chance against his libido. You’re just lucky that
he knows better than to tear it in half.
Presently. You both know he doesn’t think about the future very hard.
After you’d rooted around in the fluffy pillows of The Panthermobile on a wild
goose chase for a single barrette, with Harry’s forehead glued to your shoulder
blade, his hands pawing at your hips and pulling at the straps of your dress, you
finally found it just in time to be dragged through the canopy doors. And after
Harry had flung a wad of cash at the carhop, he slowed his rush down just long
enough to weave your fingers together and bring your knuckles to his lips. But
not before reflecting every nearby flashing light in his eyes and muttering the
words “tell me somethin’” into your skin.
The last thing he expected you to say was, “I don’t think I can make it all the
way back to Malibu without fooling around a little first.”
Ten long blocks from the drive-in; Harry practically tripped over his own two
feet navigating you through the busy city streets and meandering boardwalk
traffic back to his car. What he wasn’t expecting was for you to spring on him
with your mouth folding perfectly with his once you’d arrived, the tips of your
tongues peeking out for a greeting before massaging with the force of so much
lust that he felt the need to lean against his van for stability.
Harry’s eyes are squeezed shut so tightly that little creases are folding along
the edges; he can’t see your facial expression, but he can feel your foreheads
pressed together. He can feel your noses bumping, your breath puffing against
his slack mouth, your fingers fumbling with untucking his wifebeater from his
shorts. The cold, hard metal at his back, painted in pink and slippery with his
sweat. The breeze coming off of the ocean, the sound of people milling about on
the boardwalk dangerously close by. His turning stomach, his pounding heart, his
swollen cock, his restless palms. They’re all there, talking to him, reminding him
of what it felt like to have his tip pushing into the scripture of your cunt, sucking
on him and drawing every ounce of blood from his brain.
You’re so carnal and you have no fucking clue.
Stubble as bristly as sandpaper brushes your lips when they attach to Harry’s
throat, your core clasping itself into submission when his head rocks back and
thuds against the side window with an agonizing echo. His adam’s apple hops
underneath your tongue with each fervent swallow and hum and he’s
shamelessly driven with greed when he dips his hand into your dress and grabs a
handful of your breast. There’s a thunderstorm brewing in your panties,
electricity zapping from your fingertips, a hailstorm pouring from his mouth, that
same, stirring dark cloud in your skull. It aches to want something badly but not
know exactly how to proceed, but you know your lover is cultivated enough for
the both of you to shrink any cracks that may be showing.
“Touchez-moi.” Harry hisses when you slowly, painstakingly slowly start to

loosen the knot on his shorts, “yes. No—” His fingers encircle your wrist, forcing
you to abandon the proper method of disrobing when he squeezes your hand in
past the waistband of his bottoms and sighs heavily in relief, “…..now. Fuck.”
Obeying happily, you cup his length and give him a little squeeze, a groove
slicing between his eyebrows and his jaw hanging in awe with the wanted
pressure. He can feel the mugginess of his lechery fogging up everything below
his belly button and when you use your thumb to circle his crown over the damp
fabric of his underwear, once, twice, three times, he nearly loses the self-control
to keep his hips steady. And he doesn’t like that very much.
His mouth is wet, juicy against your earlobe, “Cherry…..?”
“Harry—”
He seizes your wrists and locks them in a single fist behind your back,
spinning you around in his grasp and lifting the back of your skirt to expose your
panties to him. Just as you open your mouth to protest, his palm lands, hard,
leaving behind the stinging residue of prickly fire on your skin and a tight pull in
your core. His fingers wrap around your throat, his lips meet your ear again and
you can hear the metallic click of his passenger door creaking open behind you,
“get in the fuckin’ car, sweetheart. I’m tired of askin’ nicely.”
The leather on the bench seat cools your raw skin, but you don’t have much
time to consider it before Harry is piling on top of you and sealing you inside,
cutting off the sounds of the ocean waves and the buzzing of nearby neon signage
to make way for squeaking leather and heavy breathing. Your legs weave around
his waist to secure him in your clasp, your lips fierce against his with a novel
request, “can you take me somewhere more private?” Your hips roll together like
two spinning tops on their own agitated trajectory, “now? Like, right this
second?”
Except the idea is a lot easier than it seems, especially with Harry’s hand
smoothing up your leg to bunch your skirt around your waist, his tongue and
teeth swimming circles like a school of sharks over the ridges of your throat,
“mhm…..” Harry breathes out when he pushes on your center with his thumb,
damp and warm and slushy, wishing it were his tongue instead, “saw a couple
motels on the way on. One was called the Pop Inn.” Harry curls his finger along
the inside of his cheek and swipes to make a loud popping sound before raising
his eyebrows up and down a couple times, “bet they have color telly.”
“Is that what you want? Television?”
Clearly now isn’t the time for him to be dishing out jokes, “or maybe—”
“Drive.”
Harry narrows his eyes at you, “hey. You better fuckin’ tighten up, little girl.”
He curls your leg higher up his back to lift your bottom off the seat before
delivering another hard, resounding smack to the same burning spot, “try again.”
You cry out and melt into the leather below you, your hair spreading out over
the seat as flames liquidate and trickle down your legs, “I’m sorry.” Gathering
your wits, you comb your fingers through his hair and tilt your head, fixing your
mouths together to savor his poise while dishing out a little of your own, “I just
really want a taste and I can’t do it here, Sunshine. I wanna love on you. Do you
know somewhere close by that we can go for a little bit that’s not a sleazy
motel?”
His heart lurches up his windpipe and lodges itself in his throat at your sexual
suggestion of covering new territory, “holy—” Harry climbs off of you and swings
himself into the driver’s seat, bringing the engine to life with a roar to match the
savagery of his own heartbeat, “fuck, I’m goin’ ape. You just dump that on me and
expect me to tool around now?” He doesn’t really bother to check in with you
before he’s peeling away from the curb, and it’s evident in the fact that you have
to brace yourself against the seat so you don’t slide onto the floor, “buckle up,
Honeycup. I have a couple leads.”
With sugar cubes flickering overhead and a fat slice of lemon dripping through
black molasses, you and Harry simultaneously crank down your windows for a
bit of fresh ocean air before you’re crawling towards him and making his job of
driving very, very difficult. Again. He can hear your soft breaths in his ear the
second before your teeth attach to his earlobe and tug, your fingers messing with
the buttons on his shirt until you pop a couple and smooth your hand under his
wifebeater, down his chest and stomach, “are we there yet? Your tummy’s
warm.”
“Hey, sweet cheeks.” Harry’s hand slinks between your legs to switch gears
before rubbing your inner thigh, his stomach tumbling from somewhere far in
outer space, the rhythm of your panting falling in sync, “do me a favor?” The little
hum you emit forces him to dig his nails into your skin for some semblance of
restraint. His next demand comes from several places: of needing to concentrate
on finding the fabled make-out spot that one of his buddies at the theatre clued
him into, of reestablishing his platform of control and most importantly, some
nicotine to distract the anticipation vibrating inside of his skull, “make your
pretty self useful — light us a couple ciggies and cherry pick some hot wax. I
need you to chill for two seconds or my love bone is gonna take the wheel.”
Your whine is snipped short by a snap of his fingers and a thumb pointing to
the backseat, but you rationalize that the ride will go by quicker if you keep
yourself preoccupied anyway. Harry can’t help but chuckle at your mini tantrum
from his dismissal, your bottom lip pouting as you pop his glove compartment
and scrounge around for his smokes. You get his cigarette started and passed off
to him with little effort, but the wind rolling through his car is making the second
strike a bit more challenging.
It’s clear Harry has his heart set on a specific destination, by the way his
cigarette hangs easily from his lips, his head ducking to read faded street signs
off the beaten path he’s taken, his fingers drumming against the wheel. He does a
double-take in your direction, chuckling softly when he finds you on the verge of
a nervous breakdown as you toss another spent match out the window and reach
for the electric lighter on his dash as backup, “just butt fuck me.”
Your expression is pure stone, calcified and stoic, “excuse me?”
Your cupid takes the cigarette from your hand, piercing it like an arrow in the
center of his heart-shaped lips and using the tip of his lit smoke to ignite yours in
a slow smolder. Fresh pink fluffy clouds pour from his mouth as he sucks, “butt
fuckin’. You have such a raunchy mind, girl. Do you see your face right now?”
“World-class ding-a-ling.”
“Flap-jaw wiener chief. Here.”
He passes it back, one corner of his mouth pulling into a smile when you burst
into snorting laughter at his rambling insult and climb into the backseat with the
glowing cigarette pinched between your fingers, “and here I am thinking you’ve
changed.”
His palm whacks your ass hard as you go careening past his ear and over the
back of the bench, “only the bunk parts.”
The situation of rifling through Harry’s belongings with his permission has
only happened a handful of times, mostly in the safe dominion of his record
collection or stash of snacks and fresh fruit. You’ve yet to sleep in his van with
him, either because Harry prefers the comfort of your queen-sized bed over his
own or maybe because there is something else holding him back from inviting
you into his. You pause your search for a record with a quick glance over your
shoulder, placing yourself there with him in his curious, slippery silk sheets. For
a fleeting moment you imagine what it would be like to wake up here surrounded
by a flood of Sunshine from every angle, the rubber tires softly sunken into the
sand, the sound of the ocean pulling you from sleep, his body tucked cozily
behind yours.
Limbs twisted, hearts wound.
“Did you get lost back there, Cherry berry?”
“Still browsing.” Your attention is snapped back to the minimal shelving

attached to the side door; records, books, magazines. His guitar, his skateboard. A
sprinkling of half-burned candles amongst a small handful of selective personal
items. Harry doesn’t appear to possess a strong array of sentimental nostalgia,
but rather it’s painstakingly curated down to bare essential preferences such as
sunglasses and jewelry. It would seem that being inside of Harry’s close inner
circle is quite a fussy endeavor, leaving his lack of material possessions open to
viewer interpretation. But it makes sense considering how little time he spends
living in the past or worrying about the future. He is an emotional person, but
maybe he’s the type of emotional person to store his sensibilities inside, freely
abandoning physical items to free himself of their weight. Sacrificing them to
those who will get more use out of their ownership; leaving bits and pieces of
himself behind wherever he may go.
Your thumb smooths over the band of his ruby ring on your middle finger. The
swipe clones deep down in your throat.
“Begin Here.” Harry pays careful attention to the music that makes you sway
the hardest. He is always caring for something, after all.
“You’re just full of good ideas.”
Inhale a lungful to the brim with crackling, liquefying pink sugar. Flip through
his collection until you find the familiar cover; worn down on the edges, five hard
stares peering down at you, shiny black vinyl catching bends of light between the
pads of your fingers as it slips from its sleeve. Exhale a lungful to the end with
swirling, fleeting pink billows. The record comes to life with a sputter and a
sizzle, crooning vocals and shinnying guitar that propels you back to Harry’s side
just as he veers off down a dark and rocky winding path. Two beaming headlights
pave the way as you climb, palm trees and rocks and bushes and dirt, his fingers
dropping from the gear shift to squeeze your thigh as the van skids to a halt at
the edge of a secluded cliff. You can see the invisible wind curling through the air.
Point Dume looms in the distance and below you, the reflection of the moon
ripples a path of light down the center of the infinite black ocean.
“Wow. Where are we?”
“Bunny Hill.” His bicep flexes when he tosses his cigarette away and cranks his
window closed.
“How did you even know this was here?”
Harry shrugs, “water cooler talk. That’s all, babe.” He looks you dead in the
eye, “I asked around a bit for some leads, yeah? No name droppin’, Scout’s Honor.
Close your window and get the fuck over here. Now.”
This time his words speak to you differently, propelling you to disregard his
demand and lean against the passenger door as you reach for the cigarette
between your lips and kick your shoes off, depositing your bare feet in his lap
with a coy grin, “and if I don’t?” You exhale a wall of pink, swirling a hole with
your finger through the cloud for a better look at his hard stare. Your toes push
into his rigid center.
Maybe you’re looking for trouble.
His ears dissolve your little shriek when he grips your ankle and tugs your
body over the seamed ridges of his leather seat, tangling his fingers into your
hair and hovering his lips over yours, “I think you wanna tonsil hug my cock, but
you’re being a little fuckin’ flirt for some reason.” Plucking the cigarette from
your hand, his cheeks hollow with an eager drag just before he spins a lattice of
cotton candy towards the moon, then flicks the butt outside over your head. He
takes it upon himself to roll up your window before settling back in the driver’s
seat, “sit on my lap or else.”
“Or else—”
You’re hoisted into his lap without further protesting, his hands stripping the
thin straps of your dress down to bear your tits, sponging a trail of kisses down
your shoulder as your hips rock together. He bunches your skirt up to flash your
panties, gathering the fabric in a heap around your waist, “outta sight. Shit, look
at you. I wanna do real rude shit to you, baby. And what were you sayin’ you
wanted to do to me?”
His hair is perpetually a mop, but it seems as though each tendril has been
painstakingly styled and sculpted to lay in its chaos. A Greek statue on a sugar
cone pedestal, a creamy soft serve chocolate swirl for a crown, “the part where I
want to love on you? Or the part where I want to see what you taste like?”
“Fuck. Was that what you said? How ’bout you show me?” His middle and ring
fingers tap against your bottom lip before sliding onto your tongue, his pupils
swelling when you suction your lips tight with an enthusiastic moan, his blunt
nails scraping the back of your throat. Your instinct is to keep your eyes burning
through his, the electricity behind your stares a contrast in passion on either
side; devotion and agitation. Harry watches for a second and growls through
clenched teeth before burying his face into your neck, the tip of his nose tracing
circles before he presses a kiss inside the invisible bullseye, “that’s it, sweet girl.
You’re a fox. Suck me.”
You grip his wrist, sipping on his digits and sinking your teeth past his rings
and into his knuckles before popping them from your mouth, “peux-tu m’aider,
s’il vous plait?” The tips of your fingers slide into the open plackets of his shirt,
slipping the material away to free his shoulders and your favorite pair of arms in
the whole world; the arms that keep you safe in the air, the arms that keep you
warm at night.
A gust of lusty wind slams every door in Harry’s mind closed. He has dreamed
about advances with you day in and day out since the sunshine bounced off your
hair in the courtyard that one morning, but it’s impossible to absorb these
unfolding events as they happen. What alerts you alters you. But it takes a shiny
mirror of well-timed self-reflection to adapt to your new self.
All he knows is that the person who dug her Mary Jane heels into the ground
for so long has just willingly flung them onto the floor of his van and his cock
could really, really use some breathing room right now.
The interior of his van is much too heated for either of you to even suggest to
move to the back. Instead, Harry dips his fingers inside of your mouth again,
groaning out loud but cutting it short with a soft shush when you gag on his
ferocity, “that’s gonna happen, you alright? S’okay, sloppy sounds are hot. Take
your time, yeah?” You nod and sniffle, sucking his fingers back into your mouth
much slower this time. You can see Harry wandering around inside of a raunchy
spot in his mind, his eyelids drooping lazily and a small grin pulling on the
corners of his mouth, “mmm….. be luxurious. Watch me. If you enjoy it, so will I.
Imagine yourself in my position, lose your inhibitions. Worship it. Dance with it.
Start small, then escalate. Shake my world, sweet Cherry. You’re the only one
who can. Go ahead and percolate.”
You kiss him; slow, slushy, sultry. A promise to take care of him with the same
fervor that he cares for you, a promise to turn him inside out, a promise to send
his newly-professed love on a righteous tumble.
Squeezing into the tight space between his knees and the steering wheel, your
eyes meld together and your kneecaps burn on the worn, molded carpeting. An
uncontrollable hiss tears past his teeth as your fingernails rake a set of red lines
up his thighs, under the hem of his shorts, your palm landing on his center for a
little squeeze. His heavy breathing is bookended with a slap against the steering
wheel and another on the driver’s side window, his fingers curling into fists
before gripping the seat so roughly that the leather puckers.
The rattle of his dirty blubbering has already taken off, making all of your hair
stand on end with anticipation, his advice about luxury lingering in the air like a
vanilla-bean-flecked, ambrosial haze. There’s just something about that
particular word of “luxury” that eases your path of sexual exploration; he wants
your practice, your slowness. He wants your performance, your lavish
enthusiasm. He’s gone down on you enough times to model this very notion
himself; and what you’ve learned is that sexual pleasure is more mentally
stimulated than anything else. If you tenderly hook him with genuine passion,
remembering what makes him tick and giving yourself space for playful trial and
error, there’s no way this won’t be satisfying for the both of you.
Just like that, his confidence in you has bred your own. Again. And you imagine
sex and anything involving sensuality to be exactly the same. Confident-driven
actions, love-fueled libidos. Pictures of the body matching pictures of the mind.
I like talkin’. I like hearin’ you talk to me. So rabbit on.
“Sunny?”
“Honey.” It’s your turn to nuzzle your cheek into his soothing palm now, the
metal of his rings cool against your skin in contrast to the heat of his fingertips.
“I really want you in my mouth.” You tease the drawstring on his shorts loose,
pretending you don’t notice the twitch below the fabric of his shorts for his sake,
to wordlessly claim that you want this more than he does, “can I, please?”
He recognizes your boost in demure hunger and how it’s a bit of dilated
roleplaying, not because you’re faking it to draw him in, but simply because your
cameo of obedience comes naturally and winds him up into the tightest ball of
filth imaginable. And it’s hot as fuck.
“Fuck—” He licks his lips quickly and swallows a lump of bottled-up lechery
down his throat, “oh fuck, you’re good. Sleazy girl. Keep beggin’.”
“Please?” Your bottom lip pushes out with a hint of a pout, “please, Daddy? It’s
all I want. I’m dying to try it, to put my tongue on you and make you feel good.
Please let me.”
Harry’s eyelids fall shut and his nostrils tick when he sucks in a lungful of
cooling air, “such a good girl for me. Fuck, you’re so, so good. Whose sweet girl
are you?”
My cock in your mouth as you peer up at me through those innocent eyelashes.
He deserves this. You deserve this.
“All yours. Just for you.”
Without a drop more of coaxing, Harry pulls his shorts and briefs down to his
knees, his length springing up to tap his belly button, a soft groan falling from his
lips at the cardinal breath of relief. Your first instinct is to salivate at the
excitingly familiar sight and the second is to wrap him in a gentle fist, squeezing
from base to tip to stroke a pearl of precome from his slit. Since you pay such
close attention to every word that drips from your lover’s mouth, you remember
what he’s suggested on several occasions and you keep your eyes on him when
you take your first little sip from his head, his salt dissolving on your tongue and
his delirious whine evaporating in your eardrums, “…..shit— ’kay. Excellent
start.”
Harry’s heart leaps around in his ribcage when your nose scrunches with
laughter at his dry delivery, knowing that he’s much more affected than he’d like
to admit considering his authoritative role is forced to fall wayside for now. You
look so fucking beautifully wicked on your knees, stuffed between his thighs,
your hand gripped around him and a shiny gleam on your cherry-stained lips.
The anticipation of this exact moment had nearly whipped him up into a
deranged frenzy and he’s having difficulty keeping his sight tracked on one spot
now; your tits, your neck, your shoulders, your mouth, your hair swept off to one
side. Big, innocent doe eyes flooded with appetite and appearing black in the dim
lighting. That fucking yellow dress bundled around your middle that he wants to
shred to pieces with his teeth. It’s going to be supremely hard not to buck his
hips and leave a bruise on the back of your throat, but he doesn’t want to ruin
your first blowjob with a raspy voice hangover, so he closes his eyes and sucks in
as much air as he can. It’s his only defense.
After stroking him with a leisurely grip a couple times, you lay your tongue flat
and paint a fat line on his underbelly all the way from bottom to top, drawing a
couple circles at the apex and then backing off for a soft fish for praise, “Harry…..”
The smooth sigh that pours from his mouth makes you feel spry, sleepy,
scorching. Witnessing him start to get lost in that humid headspace is dizzying to
endure, and now you’re throbbing for the opportunity to see him completely
unwound. He absolutely loves that his name is the first thing to roll off your
tongue in erotic moments, “comme ça?” And how coquettish your voice gets
when you communicate in your spongy love language.
“Oui.” It doesn’t seem possible that he’s already sweating through his shirt and
sticking to the seat, “oui. Sérieusement, prends tout ce que tu veux.”
And so, you do. You lick him in full sweeps again and again, minding his advice
about being playful and curious, flicking your sight up to him between each pass
to discover his twisted up facial expressions and to watch his chest rise and fall.
To see a gloss of sweat forming on his chest and cheekbones. To admire the way
his lips shape around his dirty, persistent language. To gape at the tendons and
veins in his neck swelling with sexual plasma.
The first few minutes of your careful work is led by his verbal cues, his
restless hands combing through your hair and tugging at his own, squeezing your
breasts and stroking his thumb along your jawline. His mouth is fallen in a
tortuous slack with his eyebrows creased together, “oh— fuck, uh huh.” You suck
his tip into your mouth and poke your tongue into his slit, his head rolling back
as he licks his lips for a bit of moisture in his parched mouth, “shit, watch your
teeth— god, yes.” His next roundabout compliment is exhaled on a tremble, his
first utterance merely a bewildered breath of air, “…..oh. Fuck.”
The driver’s side window starts to fog up beside his head. Proving once again
that the haze that consumes your brain at moments like these isn’t necessarily
imaginary.
Bravely, you start to swallow him further down, intrigued as to what your own
limits are. But once you get a taste of how good it feels to have your mouth full
and how good it feels for him to be sheathed this way, you relax your jaw to push
yourself a little more.
“Suck your cheeks in—” It’s unsurprising that you obey in an instant and his
face crumples up at the divine pressure, the warm, wet slickness, the doting of
your tongue, “fuck yes. That’s it, sweet girl. Can you take me a bit further?” His
head rocks to the side and a deep fold makes its way between his eyebrows as
you sink lower again, his fingers knotting into your hair and gripping tight to
keep you situated as he clenches his teeth and insists with a growl, “oh my fuckin’
god. Prends-moi. More, baby.”
Your jaw aches and your eyes are tearing up and it’s hard to breathe, but you
love a challenge and you love the way his moans are high-pitched and
uncharacteristic, so you push far enough to feel him press against the back of
your throat. Harry sobs, loudly, when you bury your nose in his patch of hair and
then again even louder when you swallow and moan, both tightening yourself
around his sensitive tip and vibrating every fragile nerve ending he owns.
Harry’s face slips farther with each additional inch you take him, twitching
between agony and pleasure until his legs spasm and he lurches pitches with a
flushed weep, “yes. God, holy fuck, yes. Tellement jolie—”, a sharp cry, “just for
me.” He presses the heel of his hand to his forehead to ease the tension in his
skull, “mhm.” You can count on one hand the number of times Harry’s been
rendered speechless and this is by far the sexiest.
His eyes roll back in his head. His back slams up against the bench.
And he’s really lost control when his hips thrust once harshly, just enough to
pull a thorny gag from your throat and send you pulling back all at once. His
agitated length throbs and pulsates as soon as it hits the air, his palm squeaking
against the glass of the window as he cups your cheek with his other hand and
hushes you softly, “shh….. s’okay?” His words are wrecked by panting and hoarse
obscenity, his curls are sticking to his face. He waits for your teary eyes to
simmer, he waits for your gentle nod, “this is unreal, mmm. You’re doin’ so good.
M’gettin’ close. Don’t stop.”
You sniffle and regain some semblance of dignity, “please….. don’t hump my
face that hard again. I’m trying to concentrate. I see why they call it a ’job’ now.”
That one particular, sharp cackle laced with a bit of husky sensuality erases
any discomfort you may be feeling, “shit, you got bad pipes, baby. Does it make
you feel any better to know that you just deepthroated me and it was the hottest
fuckin’ thing that has ever happened to me?”
“Actually….. yes.” You grip him in a fist again and start pumping, “can you
please come in my mouth now, Daddy?” His moment of clarity quickly slips away
with your dirty talk, his jaw hanging wide open when you take him again and
slowly bob your head up and down, bathing him with your tongue, the pressure
of your cheeks increasing with each upward stroke. His cock is just big enough
that you need to keep your hand twisting around his base in tandem with your
mouth and when you feel him begin to pulse as his end comes into sight, your
heartrate kicks up to match his own.
Harry’s typically composed language crumbles into nonsense. He’s a puddle

on fire. Now you completely understand why he loves doing this so much. Having
your lover’s pleasure in your literal palms is beyond intoxicating. It feels
incredible to make him feel incredible. And you never want it to stop.
His fingers weave into your hair again and he keeps his eyes dead set on yours
as he guides your head in smooth pulses, his hips matching your rhythm with
charged, feral ticks. Ruddy, pink cheeks and shiny lips, sweat and disorder, his
heart-shaped locket rocking along with the little palpitations of his tummy. His
release brews like a twisting, violent tornado at the tail end of his spine, tingling
and damaging and euphoric. The fast thump of his heart echoes inside of his
ribcage, his eyes falling shut as his chin tips back towards the ceiling. There’s a
brief moment of overwhelm when Harry reaches the point just before dissolving;
he can’t place the sensation and even though he doesn’t have the past experience
or language for it, he just understands that he’s entered something so extremely
irreversible that everything else has changed for him now. A complete shift to a
brand-new phase. A new normal. And he fucking loves it here. It’s his favorite
place on earth.
And each slippery word that drips from between his teeth becomes more
ragged and breathier than the one before it, until it’s practically inaudible,
“Cherry baby— fuck…..” the kind of mewl that is only reserved for the filthiest of
erotic moments, “you’re amazin’. You’re gonna make me come, baby Honey.
Avale.” He snaps his sight back to you, his fingers wrapping around your throat,
“don’t stop. Avale moi. I’m comin’— fuck. Oh fuck.”
Lightning strikes up his spinal cord when his release hits like a clap of wet
thunder, his thighs shaking on either side of your shoulders as he lurches
forward to quell the obscene swirling in his stomach and squeezes your neck
tight. Sobs and weeps and blubbering reach a fever pitch; a single spurt of salt
followed by an ooze of more, disappearing down your throat just as he
requested. You soothe him with a few kitten licks until he softens the slightest
bit, scratching your nails up his thighs and pacifying the score with gentle
fingertips on the way down. Waiting and watching, admiring the culmination of
your efforts, appreciating how gorgeous he looks in the aftermath of his peak.
Gasping for air, Harry collapses back into the seat, his entire face pinched up
in pain before melting into ecstasy. His limbs are listless and his mouth falls open
for a breath of sweet oxygen and a breathtaking grin at the same time.
All that’s left in The Pink now is the residue of The Zombies record spinning
on the turntable, thick love and thick humidity. Harry is zapped clean. And your
jaw aches.
Any shred of cockiness, arrogance or ego is washed away when he keeps his
eyes closed and gestures you close with two flicks of his fingers.
Climbing out of the cramped space and straddling his lap, you’re surprised at
the delicacy of your lover’s fingertips softly dragging up your spine and threading
into your hair. Harry pinches your waist and carefully lowers you down across
the bench seat before piling on top of you, his eyelids finally peeling open to
focus on you with a type of tenderness that is brand new to you. He guides your
legs around his waist, tucking a lock of your hair behind your ear before sealing
your lips together in a serene kiss. Evaporating wisps of sugar, a spoonful of
honey melted by sunshine.
He’s well aware of what you’ve just done for him, the unrivaled love behind it,
the revolutionary pleasure you brought him and he’s left wondering exactly how
much deeper this hole of infatuation is supposed to get. He’s full of stars and the
hot flint from inside of a marquee bulb, from the tips of his toes to the ends of his
hair. Everything is as bright as it could possibly be.
Harry draws away but stays very close, his teeth flashing through his smile,
“hi.”
“Hi, Sunshine. Did I do okay?”
His face drops into your neck and his body softens into yours, filling up every
single gasp and slip of air, “je t’aime.” His heart is aching, “mmm….. yes. Fully
mint. A religious experience. Je t’aime.” He closes his eyes and he could probably
fall asleep right now if you would let him.
“Je t’aime.” You comb your fingers through his waves and tilt his head for a
glimpse into his watery eyes, “that was wild.”
“You’re sayin’ that as if I didn’t just get my whole soul sucked out through the
tip of my donger.”
Your stomachs surge together as you both giggle at his childish but accurate
language, “brat. I would have expected nothing less just now.”
“Good. Stinker.” He tips your chin up with his nose, trailing a path to the base
of your throat as he moves your hair aside and sucks a dark hickey into your
neck that you’ll have to strategically cover with a scarf in order to keep it hidden.
Something he can admire from across the community kitchen at work. Something
he can admire the moment he wakes up tomorrow morning. His tongue laps the
sore spot, blowing a puff of air on it to soothe the burn, “you are a marvel of
fuckin’ nature. M’gonna slap your life in the face with friendship, love and
affection.”
You groan and rub the new love bite, checking your fingertips as if there
would be a mark there, “you already did that. You need a new goal.”
“Fine, I’ll penetrate it.”
Harry catches your predictable swat mid-air and leaves a kiss on your
knuckles. He can see a dewy film take over your features, a signal that he may
have accidentally brought up a more serious topic than he meant to, “hey,
Harry….. I’m sorry about earlier at the drive-in. That I started going too far before
I was ready, then told you to stop.”
His head is shaking back and forth before you can even complete your
sentence, “stop sayin’ sorry. I hate apologies. C’mere.” First, he adjusts your
clothing and then his own, leaving his shorts undone as he settles back into his
seat and pulls you into his lap. He wants you to see every inch of his face for what
he plans to say next, he wants your bodies intimate and he wants his brain
upright so that he doesn’t screw up a single word, “listen. Don’t ever be sorry for
being honest. How many times have I asked you to be nothin’ but honest with
me? You didn’t know you weren’t ready until you tried it. That just means you’re
almost there, Cherrybomb. Don’t wrestle with yourself, yeah? That’s my job. And
I’m fine. I’m perfectly fuckin’ happy.”
“Thank you….. I think the only thing I’m left being afraid of is the pain. You’…
e... um, big?”
“Cool. Hey, thanks babe. I’ll take such good care of you, sweet Cherry. It only
hurts once. Then it’s nothin’ but Red Hots and Bavarian cream. I promise. You’ll
be so glad that bandage is ripped off once it’s gone. Hey.” His palm is warm on
your cheek, his fingers scratch gently into your scalp, “tiens, je t’aime très fort,
hmm? Est-ce que tu m’aimes?” You nod along with a soft purr of “oui” and
Harry’s breath quivers out like a kitten stretching in a patch of sunlight, “good
girl. I want this. I’m never gonna stop wanting this. I want you to want it just as
bad — not because anyone else wants you to, or because you think it’s some
fuckin’ troll-addled bridge you have to pass to earn a merit badge — but because
you’re so fuckin’ turned on when we’re fooling around that you need it. That you
need me and there’s nothing that could convince you otherwise or satisfy you in
another way. And then it’s just little pinch and boom, we’re cruisin’ and you’re
gushin’. Do you hear me? It’s gonna be hot, liquid. Hard mush. In the moment. An
erotic, split-second decision that heightens what you’re already feeling. I don’t
want this over-mulled shit, like some kinda exam you’re afraid to fail. You’re
prepared. You know what you know. And you can only learn more if you keep
diving. But you just gotta be ready to surprise yourself. I know you say you hate
surprises, but you also really love ’em. Hand that control over, Honey muffin. I’ll
take such good care of you. Before, during and after. You trust me, remember?”
It’s getting harder and harder not to jump his bones, “Harry…..” The pads of
your finger traces over his nose, his lips, down his chin before your fold your lips
together and hum at the taste of his tongue. It seems impossible to conquer what
he’s just said or even match it for that matter, “I trust you. And I’m so lucky to
know you and be your lover.”
“I’m the one who’s fuckin’ lucky. Have you seen yourself? You’re way out of my
league.” He pinches your chin to stop the shake of your head in protest, “would it
make you feel any better to know that I’m nervous as well?” Harry kisses your
pouty bottom lip and raises his eyebrows once, quickly, “I’m scared I’m gonna
come in two seconds and embarrass myself. I’m scared it’ll feel so good that I’ll
cry in your neck like a fuckin’ pansy. I’m scared, because I’ve never been this
emotional towards a sex partner before and I dunno how it’s gonna feel. I’m
honestly worried I’m gonna wig out and go soft inside of you or some shit.”
“Don’t, don’t. Harry….. If you think that way, you’re going to convince yourself
of it. There’s no way you could go soft. You get hard when you watch me put
tights on. And brush my teeth.”
“Well, that’s hot as fuck to watch. Yeah, you’re right. I revert back to my
original worry, which is comin’ in two seconds.”
You contemplate his anxieties for a moment, understanding that the two of
you haven’t delved this seriously into the topic of sex before. It’s been mentioned,
insinuated and breezily touched upon plenty. It’s been joked about more times
than you can count, but this is the first authentic, impassioned conversation that
you’ve had about it. Just hearing Harry open up about his own worries does leaps
and bounds for your own experience. The evidence of the two of you being more
on the same page than was previously understood is wildly helpful. Exciting.
Vulnerable. Sexy. Harry’s history with sex is nothing like his present and future
and that in itself puts you in a category all your own. He’s new at this, too. Maybe
not new, but at least fresh. Learning. He’s had plenty of practice and skirmish, but
this is his first match that matters. He’s never had sex like this before. His nerves
make complete sense. And they’re truthfully a bit unexpected.
Shrugging, you trace the pad of your finger over his collarbones and up his
throat, “and?”
“And….. then you’ll be unfulfilled. Or disappointed.”
“Says who?”
Harry’s mouth downturns when he contemplates and is clued into the coy
direction you’re going. You’re doing that thing again, where you’ve already
thought about something, processed it and made sense of it before bothering to
bring it up in conversation and it’s so fucking slyly smart and sexy when you do
that. So, he does it back. He plays your game. He’s extremely curious about it
after all, “says….. you?”
“I never said that. You’d just finish me off a different way, right? Because we
both know how amazing you are at that. Or….. since it only hurts the first ti… e...
we would just do it again. And again. We wouldn’t fall asleep until you were
satisfied with your work. We’d wake up and keep making love. Because that’s
what this is all about. It’s supposed to be better every time. With practice. We’re
really good at practicing. And stretching. And performing. Right, Daddy?”
“Um, what? Where the fuck did that come from? Are you sure you don’t know
what you’re talkin’ about? You could write a whole think piece on it.” Your lips
attach together and Harry makes his thrill obvious with each little rumble that
leaves his mouth or gets trapped inside of it, “you say the choicest shit
sometimes. ’Kay, I’m sproutin’ another whopper. Half-mast at the very least.”
“See? What’d I tell you?” Harry is awarded with a high five, another soft kiss
and a rake of your fingers through his hair, “no problem in that department,
Sunburst.”
“Mmm….. shit. You’re real fuckin’ good at this. Sweet Jesus.” Harry sinks his
teeth into his bottom lip, his mouth pulled into a broad smile and his hips rolling
against yours in placid pulses, tiny and slow little creek waves lapping to shore,
“’kay, how ’bout now? Ready?” His thumbs smooth up your inner thighs and head
straight for your center, “how’s she doin’? Can I give her a little kiss? Come on my
tong… e...…mmm... so thirsty for you.”
A pair of headlights whitewash the back window of Harry’s van, cutting your
conversation short with an abrupt flood of startling light. Harry watches your
expression change first before whipping his head around for clarity on the
situation, but when he recognizes the shape of the particular headlights, he
immediately starts scrambling you off of his lap, “fuck— Gum Ball Machine, six
o’clock.”
The light is so bright that you’re forced to squint as you fumble to straighten
out your dress and your hair the best that you can, “huh? What’s that?” But it
doesn’t matter really, your hair still looks like you just had a dick in your mouth.
“Piggy alert. Be cool, Cherry.” Harry presses his back up against the seat as if
flattening himself would hide his body or in the very least, pretend this whole
shitty debacle is not happening right now, “hide the weed, babe.”
It’s a cop. And he’s parking right beside you. And getting out of his car with a
flashlight. And walking up to Harry’s window.
Your jaw hangs open, catching an invisible breeze as your palms collect sweat
and a thousand questions and scenarios roll through your head. The first and
most pressing one being that Harry will absolutely be deported if he’s arrested
for having marijuana in his possession. And if for some reason he’s not, your
parents will hunt him down and murder him for getting you in trouble with the
law. But there is no sense in telling him that, mostly because you don’t want to
make him any more irritated than he is right now, but also because there simply
isn’t enough time.
“Cherry?” You can tell that he’s trying to stay as calm as possible, but there’s a
hint of anxiety in the unusual quickness of his speech, “the weed. Right fuckin’
now.”
You, on the other hand, are positively panicking.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit—” As Harry ties the drawstring on his shorts and
smooths his crumpled wifebeater down, you swipe the joints from his dashboard
and glance around the interior of his van for a place to stash them, “shit, shit, shit,
shit.” The police officer is getting closer and it’s increasing your dread to hysteria
level, crisscrossing all the pathways in your brain and forcing you to take
immediate, impulsive action. So, you do the only thing you can think of in this
dire situation, you lift your dress and stuff the joints down the front of your
panties.
Harry’s hand freezes mid-way through attempting to make his hair appear
acceptable, “uh, the glove compartment would’ve—”
Three hard knocks on the glass, the keen glare of a flashlight blinding Harry’s
peripheral vision. Harry squints at the abrasive intrusion, annoyed to high hell
that this is happening right in the midst of all of the intimate ground you’ve
covered tonight. If anything detrimental happens, it’ll throw a sopping wet
blanket over every single event, erasing all of the I Love You’s, your beautiful
blow job and the sappy conversation afterward. The love bubble that was
holding down the fort surrounding his car tonight has been violently popped, for
no other reason aside from this fucking pig sticking his snout in someone else’s
business because he’s having a slow night. Where the fuck was he when you were
being assaulted on a well-lit street and screaming for help? Aren’t there any
doughnut shops close by that are having a two for one sale?
Harry’s annoyed on your behalf, on his behalf, for the both of you, and he just
hopes that he can keep his mind clear enough to not bark in this cop’s face and
get himself arrested. He snaps his head back and forth between you and the
police officer, not able to fully comprehend that you’ve just sacrificed your own
reputation and safety for his sake, before clearing his throat and cranking the
window down.
“Good evening—”
“Bad timing, huh, son? Been drinking tonight?”
“Nope.”
Harry’s clipped answer makes you want to cringe. Maybe you should have
reminded him about deportation after all.
The police officer shines his light on you next, the blinding illumination
traveling up and down your figure, your skewed clothing, your messy hair. It
makes you feel defenseless, paralyzed, criminal. Naked. For some reason, you’re
reminded of being cornered in Riff’s car and Harry can sense it; he can discern
the look of fear on your face and he wishes more than anything that he could
hold you and promise you serenity, that he could kiss you and hide the both of
you under his sheets until this fucker moves along in search of another victim.
Harry grits his teeth so hard that they threaten to crack, his fingers curl into fists
in his lap. The cop pokes his head into the window just a bit, slowly and carefully
studying the back of Harry’s van and his dashboard, his eyes narrowing at the
mugshot of Frank Sinatra hanging from his rearview mirror. He’s doing this on
purpose — drawing out his examination as a flex of power and it’s nothing short
of gross. Nothing inside of Harry’s van is glaringly suspicious or exposed, but the
officer can tell from the smell in the air and by the frightened look on your face
that something just had been.
“May I ask what you two are doing here? You know that public lewd acts and
indecent exposure are grounds for arrest? Or are you trying to end up in federal
prison?”
“Actually, they’re misdemeanors, so I would only end up in county if that were

the case. And I’m not in public, so technically this is just an infraction.”
It’s written all over the officer’s face that he’s pissed that Harry is smarter
than he had expected and the staccato clip of his voice completes the narrative,
“get out of the car and keep your hands where I can see them.”
You spring forward with a gasp, “no—” Harry’s palm lands on your thigh with
a quick squeeze as a soothing gesture of composure before he obeys and pops the
driver’s side door open, “Harry, please! You don’t have to—”
“Keep quiet, Miss. And stay inside the vehicle.”

It’s getting really old to be told to sit down and shut up by men.
Harry widens his eyes in perturbance at another example of the cop’s power
play when he glances at you over his shoulder, mustering patience from
somewhere deep in his bowels with a long inhale, “it’s okay, Honeybunny. I got
you. Hang tight.”
The officer’s eyebrows furrow as he watches your lover climb from the
driver’s seat and slam the door shut behind him; it’s clear that he’s unhappy with
Harry’s defiance and unforeseen knowledge by the turgid stoniness in his
posture. He flicks his flashlight to Harry’s bubblegum pink van, which would
normally be a comical contrast to the situation if Harry weren’t digging himself
into a bigger hole due to his pride and obvious disgust with authority, “you’re in
public and there’s nothing stopping me from arresting you, especially if you keep
running that smart-ass mouth of yours.”
It’s very difficult to concentrate with a flashlight in Harry’s eyes, but he knows
that the cop is looking for any reason to book him, so he tries his damndest to
look as sober as possible. With the remnants of that blow job still lingering in the
back of his mind, he feels more intoxicated than if he had just guzzled a six pack
of beer, “this is my home. Knowing the law and my rights doesn’t make me a
delinquent or a smart ass.”
“I’m gonna need identification. Are you a lawful resident of The United
States?”
“Yep.”
“And California?”
Harry’s face dissolves in perplexed indignation as he loosens a thread of

unnecessary sarcasm. He can’t help it. He fucking hates cops and he’s still
working on his impulsivity. Kind of, “is California part of The United States?”
“Harry…..” Your voice is as soft as a feather and has both men pausing with
curiosity, Harry’s hard stare whipping over his shoulder and the police officer
redirecting his flashlight away from Harry’s face to yours. The lacing on your
dress is unfurled to expose the skin of your chest and just a bit of cleavage, your
fingers tugging on your bottom lip as you frown and act out a very convincing
role as an innocent, wide-eyed, guileless baby bird, “I’m feeling much better now.
Thank you for bringing me here after those scary movies to calm me down. Can
we please go home now? It’s dark and I don’t feel safe. The policeman is worrying
me, even though he’s supposed to protect me. Please?”
The two men are surprised, but for different reasons. Harry’s mouth parts in
astonishment before it curls into a wicked grin at your act of ignorance, lack of
timidity and willingness to get involved to pull him out of a potentially sticky
situation.
Both of their gazes fall to your breasts and slowly climb back up to your
pouting mouth, “I just want you to take me home.” You finally glance over at the
cop and tilt your head to strengthen your appeal, “we won’t cause any more
trouble, sir. I’m so sorry for the inconvenience. I started to panic back at The
Streamline Cinema and my boyfriend was just trying to make me feel better
before the drive all the way back to Malibu. He always takes such good care of
me, Officer. There’s no need to worry. Thank you for having our best interests in
mind. You’re really great at your job. We need more brave policemen like you.”
The butter of your feminine prowess melts into the policeman’s skin, a cloak
of realization crosses his face, “wait. You’re those Leaping Marvels, aren’t you?”
“Flyin’—”
“Shit, why didn’t you say so? My daughter loves you. She’d never forgive me if
I hassled you for no reason.” He turns to Harry and nods as an indication that he’s
clear to return back to his vehicle, acting as if the brilliant idea to turn him loose
was more his idea than it was yours, “you get her home safe, hear me? Oh, and
before you head out, do you mind signing something for my kid?”
Harry rolls his eyes so hard that his brain starts to ache. Fame, class, status,
wealth, color, gender. It’ll get you everywhere in this world and it’s fucking
beyond annoying to watch it play out so bluntly and shamelessly.
After going through the motions of placating the cop simply to avoid being
kicked out of the country, Harry waits until he clears out before gripping the top
of the doorframe and slipping in through the window, “holy fuck and shit.” He
immediately pins you down against the seat and smothering your face with
kisses, “that was sexy as fuck, Honeytits.” He mocks your girlish voice in a high-
pitched falsetto that crackles every other word, his fingers pulling the neckline of
his shirt down to reveal some skin and teasing the notion of your bared cleavage,
“we need more brave policemen like you.” Once the pounding of his heart settles
down, he finally slows enough to seal your lips together with a hum, “mmm…..”
His hand snakes between your legs and into your panties, tugging the joints free
and holding them under his nose for a whiff. You smack his shoulder and he
chuckles before tossing them back onto the dash, “fresh. You alright?”
“Yes.” You kiss him again but he’s distracted by your short answer, believing
that women only answer positively to questions sometimes because they’re
tough and because they’ve been taught that their experiences aren’t actually as
heavy as they may seem. You giggle at his dubiously raised eyebrow, shaking
your head to convince him of your honesty, “I’m actually fine. My heart’s racing,
but I’m so relieved right now that my adrenaline is soaring. Are you okay?”
“Copasetic. That wasn’t very feminist, ya know, using your ladylike wiles to get
what you want.”
“Sure, it was. I knew what I was doing and the risk involved. I had to act
dumber than he was to preserve his fragile masculinity. When women assert
themselves, they’re seen as shrill, but when men assert themselves, they’re seen
as stern. It was my only defense. It’s all patriarchal bullshit. I played a role. I did
what I felt comfortable with to get my lover out of ’trouble’ that he wasn’t even
making. What’s not feminist about that?”
“Damn. Thanks, babe. You’re tight as hell. Although it’s not exactly fair that if
my junk is out, I get threatened with arrest but as soon as your tits hit the air,
everything’s gravy. You’re such a tough bitch. American fuzz are major assholes.”
“Yeah, they’re nasty shitheads.”
Harry’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead, “whoa, take it easy. Are you talkin’
shit about your nation’s ’Few and Proud’?”
“I think that’s The Marines.”
“Shit, I know that, Honeybun. Let’s not get political.” He climbs off of you,
pawing at the fabric of your dress to smooth out any wrinkles before slipping
back into the driver’s seat.
But you’re not finished needling him, “The Vietnam War.”
“Okay—”
“Rosa Parks.”
“She’s a tough bitch, too—”
“Simone de Beauvoir.”
“Who—”
“Space Race.”
“That’s just stupid, everyone knows The U.S. will— okay, stop. You’ve
outclassed me yet again, Cherry tart.” Harry turns the key in the ignition and the
engine roars to life, “let’s get the fuck out of here before you realize how dumb I
actually am.”
“Hey, don’t you dare talk about my boyfriend like that.” You lean close and
pinch his cheeks, puffing his lips out for a rosy kiss and a golden parable, “you’re
the smartest person I know, Sunny. And talented. And sexy. And compassionate.
And motivated. And existential. Being angry about current events doesn’t make
you smart. Being thoughtful about other people’s experiences and lenient
towards their reality does, though.”
Harry leans across the bench seat, cupping the back of your head and closing
your lips in on a kiss, “je t’aime putain.”
“Je t’aime.”
“Mmm….. I’m gettin’ another chubby nubby.”
You laugh and kiss him again, pushing on his chest to guide him back into the
driver’s seat before he gets carried away, “well, take me home so that I can help
you with that.”
“Yeah? Where’s home?”
“Wherever the sun shines.”

Now Harry is imagining you folded into his sheets with the moon casting a
blue, haunting glow across your bare curves, the rubber tires softly sunken into
the sand, the sound of the ocean lulling you to sleep, hands roaming every inch of
your sinful skin, his body cozily tucked behind yours. He tuts, “sweet Cherry.
Wanna hit the beach and crash in The Pink with me tonight?”
“I should ask you the same thing.” You’re learning the art of the innuendo from
the best.
You can see his brain scramble from the outside, “Jesus—” Harry tosses his
head back in spooling laughter, his palm resting on his chest to quell his complete
adoration and shock, “you’re gonna steal my Slick Daddy Boss title soon. Was
that a yes, Honey bee?”
You’re crowding his space and humming against his lips before netting them
with yours, soft and supple and perfectly well-tailored. A royal lock and key,
“mmm….. big fat yes.”
“Sick.” And then his cheek immediately nuzzles into your palm when you cup
his jaw, stroking your thumb along his bristly cheekbone for a heap of
admiration. He blots a kiss to the inside of your wrist before lacing your fingers
together, your hands dropping to the seat as the van peels off through the
crunchy gravel, “I bet those joints tastes like your Cherry pie now. Spark one up,
bitch. And hand me a banana, please, baby? I’m fuckin’ famished.”
Climbing into the backseat and sparking a joint at the same time, you pause
for a moment to throw on Harry’s favorite Sonics album. You gather a couple
bananas and hand him one over his shoulder before dropping into the seat
beside him with your feet kicked up on the dashboard.
“Hey, who does this remind you of?”

When you glance over at Harry, he slides the banana into his mouth,
swallowing almost the entire fruit in one bite and then laughs at his own stupid
joke with his cheeks puffed out, attempting to chew as you snort and smack his
shoulder.
An analogy lies in the pattern of your romantic relationship and it’s not quite
what you would have expected, but retrospection begs for a closer analysis.
Harry hopped right into your bed and your life the moment he saw an
opportunity. He fought for it, clawed any and everything out of his way for it. But
obtaining permission to be in his life took quite a bit longer. It’s a lot easier to
back out of someone else’s manicured and inviting space. It’s much harder to
force someone to leave the shamble of yours.
A little bit of cloud cover passes through his sunshine to paint your skin in a
cold shadow before continuing on through the sky; Harry is complicated, private
and guarded, you’ve always known so. And although he’s thrown himself at you,
it is still apparent by the simple fact of how long it took him to really let his
emotions seep, to a person he loves no less, about Indy. He has communicated to
you before that you’re the only person who knows about his father’s addiction
and abuse outside of his family, the real reason for his arrest and for leaving
home to join the circus. Because in the past when things have been raw and
difficult, he flees his life and superficially clings onto other’s, he flies solo and
dives deep, he completely demolishes himself until he’s ready to lay some
foundation.
It’s been quite a while since you’ve considered the old confusion about the
face that he chooses to show the world and his close friends versus the face he
shows you. All along you’ve had a closer glimpse into his reality than those
around him, those whom you perceived as being more intimate with him than
you were. When in reality you saw it all: his escapism through sex, his drinking
and socializing, his snappy exasperation, his dry sarcasm, his floral bouquet of
curses, his silly softness.
And perhaps that is why he feared you all along. From experience, he knew
that having a partner would mean that his solo journey of self-destruction would
be held accountable at some point. When he found out just how nosy you could
be on day one with your onslaught of questions and dagger-like prying, he put his
walls up fast and he put them up hard. Unmanaged fear and aggravated pain,
confounded resentment for himself and of the projection of Indy-shaped torment
he cast upon you. He was lost at sea long before Indy died, he was simply
drowning in the repercussions of her death and then he hit his head and it scared
the nastiness straight of out him. And then he saw you again — the one person
who made him feel physically safe and emotionally heard, the one person who
wanted to know more about what was inside of his heart — and he was found.
He is so wildly, beautifully complex; a natural fractal like the inside of a freshly
chopped tree stump. Rings upon rings that shrink into his very core, giving you
clues as to how hard his winters have been and how bright his summers shine,
but never once clearly stating it. He’s an enigma to even himself. But you suppose
that’s true for all of us.
The two most important takeaways from this entire sudden recognition are
that you make him feel safe and that he is constantly working to better himself.
Aside from that, nothing else matters.
Harry is finally getting what he’s always imagined and wished for from you; an
equal match to his feral libido, a balanced and fulfilling push-and-pull that rocks
his boat, a spark to the dissatisfied tedium that lingered for well over a full year.
Maybe even a whole lifetime. He’s always known that you’ve been in there. He’s
seen you since the first time he laid eyes on you. A picture-perfect princess on the
outside, a filthy erotic jezebel on the inside. Just for him.
And you’re getting exactly the same from him, except his outsides and insides
are reversed. Just for you.
“Hi.”
Silk sheets. An extremely bold, italicized mental note to buy yourself a set of
silk sheets. You had the very best sleep of your entire life because of how they
mold and drape around your body in a layer of sheer, gossamer perfection. Or
maybe it was because Harry shaped himself in a crescent moon behind you, his
legs braided with yours and his arms holding you against the scoop of his belly.
Or maybe it was because you were finally invited here. Or maybe it was the weed.
And all without your loyal sleep mask.
It’s still dark. Though the curtains on Harry’s windows are drawn to block out
any potential light and a sunshade covers the windshield for your privacy and
protection, you can just feel that it’s still dark. It might have something to do with
the fact that you know your boyfriend and his habits and his sleep schedule, but
there’s something about the particular hush of tranquility just on the other side
of these four tiny walls. There’s something about the way the waves sound,
tiptoeing on the shoreline as if it were your roommate trying its hardest not to
wake you as it passes your bedroom on its way to the kitchen. There’s something
about the primitive smell in the air, the suggestion of the sun throbbing
underneath the sea, the ghostly chill of the wind curling through palm leaves, the
errant squawk of a hungry seagull swooping for its breakfast. It’s still dark.
It feels so good to be here right now. The blood and bones within your body
have been replaced by gold and silver. It feels so good to be here right now.
Stretching out your limbs with a squeak and then melting back into place, you
glance over your shoulder for a peek at your love at dawn, his curls poking in a
hundred directions and his eyes still half-asleep. It doesn’t seem possible, but he
appears even cozier in his own bed than he does yours. Or maybe it’s because
you’re here with him, or better yet, because he finally allowed you to be.
And then a kiss that turns into a sensual fumble against your lips, followed by
a honeyed rendition of his earlier greeting, “mmm….. hi, my sweet girl.” Harry
sucks air in past his gritted teeth, rolling you onto your back and embarking on
his loyal morning journey south with a voice that was unearthed from warm
sand, “je t’aime le matin.” His palms smooth up underneath the wifebeater that
he offered you last night, when you’d claimed that you felt too exposed in his van
to sleep topless. Personally, Harry doesn’t give a fuck about strangers on the
beach and he never has. He sleeps naked comfortably and it’s someone else’s
problem if they happen to catch a glimpse and don’t like what they see. An
unexpected puff of hot air from his mouth tightens your nipple in the palm of his
hand, “vraime… t...” A little squeeze and pinch before the outline of his knuckles
drag under the thin, ribbed fabric to attend to your other breast, “un peu plus.
Douce… ent...” Tingles radiate from your stomach to your toes, your head rolls
back to both stave and heighten the sensation, or perhaps just fully discern it. He
pants out against your jawline, his length poking into your thigh, “et
passionnément.”
Maybe his goal was to leave you gasping for air, to deplete the oxygen supply
in your brain and leave you so lightheaded that you’re grateful to be lying down,
“je t’aime, hot fudge Sundae.” You just wish that it was a little easier to keep up,
especially during the slow ascent from sleep, “you feel so good, all morning velvet
and warm bubble baths—” Your fingers twist into his hair, little waves and curls
ravel through your fingertips as you hover your mouth under his, “pretty. Your
mouth is even softer before sunrise.”
“Mmm….. kiss?” Your tongues flick together and your lips seal closed, Harry
drags in a lungful of brisk ocean air through his nose before inching back, “m…
m... a hundred more?”
The pink tube lighting that runs a border along the floor is still illuminated
from the night before, his guitar quietly sleeps strapped to the wall. You fulfill his
request for more intimacy, rubbing your toes up and down his calves as your
nails draw down his back to pull a shudder up his spine.
Harry peels your undershirt back in puckish curiosity and mumbles, “and
what do we have here? Oh—” His pupils expand at the sight of your bare breasts
before he gathers the fabric, bunching it in his fist to reveal you to him, “that’s
right. How could I possibly forget?” He sucks your nipple into his mouth and
hums when your back arches in immediate response, his lips vibrating your skin.
His fingertips trail down the back of your neck and descend the length of your
spine before he switches his mouth to the other side, “so, so warm.” Sucking
hard, teeth scraping, a little pinch of pain rolls down your body before Harry
soothes it with a cool gust of breath, “you’re so slushy and sweet. Mmm, fuck. I’m
gone, baby. Eatin’ grapes off the wallpaper.” He pursues each one of your little
moans with one of his own, the tip of his tongue drawing a line straight down to
your bellybutton and pausing with a gushy kiss, “killer.” The air chills the wet
trail and cascades a rippling pond of goosebumps to each one of your limbs, his
warm palms attempting to smooth them as they surge.
You manage to scrape out a request through your panting, “come back,
Sunny.”
“Mmm….. m’horny.”
“When are you not?”
He contemplates for a long time, his face transforming through several

hilarious and contradicting expressions before he finally lands on, “when I’m,
um…..? Dunno actually.” Your sweet giggle at his earnestness is halted short
when his fingers dive past the elastic of his briefs that you’ve borrowed, targeting
your knot and slipping in little circles, “haven’t stopped thinkin’ ’bout your sweet
rubyfruit. Dreamed about her. You’re fuckin’ outta sight. How’s she, mm? Can I
see her again?” The pads of his fingers press against your entrance, your back
arching and nipples straining against your acquired wifebeater. His mouth is arid
as a desert but his quiet hiss helps quench the thirst, “we were so close, yeah?
You thinkin’ about it, too? Or are you thinkin’ about that stellar fuckin’ blowjob?”
His closing sentiment seeps out in the jetstream of a whine, “can I make you
come? Please?”
Consent comes in the form of a conquered mewl and an eager nod, before
tugging on his arm to pull him closer to you. You wrap your fist around his length
in the same instant that his fingers plunge deep inside of you, your tongues
massaging together in a rough and fast kiss that matches the cadence of your
hands. Harry mumbles little blips of praises against your lips as you work each
other up with a sweat, at one point holding his hand still and growling a demand
for you to take control and ride his fingers. The sight of you moving your hips on
your own accord, discovering what it is that you like best and which morsels
inside of you feel particularly favorable to stimulate, nearly has him reaching his
end before you do. As soon as he feels you tightening around his digits, he rubs
vicious little circles on your sensitivity to send you over the edge with a sharp cry
of his name. And while you’re still in a state of delirium, he rolls you over onto
your stomach and tugs your underwear down your thighs, leaving a hard spank
on your ass and then pumping himself to release right on the splotchy mark.
He fucking loves you in the morning.
“Good girl.” His breath is hot against the shell of your ear, “my sweet baby.
Don’t move. I’ll clean this shit up.”
While Harry climbs down from his bed to wet a washcloth in his small bar
sink, you take a glimpse of the mess he made on your bottom before he can wash
it away, and then roll onto your side to watch him take care of you. Always taking
care of you.
The damp cloth is like ice in comparison to the burn of your skin and you
make it known with a quiet hiss which he immediately shushes, his eyes falling
on yours for a small, admiring smile that melts your heart into a puddle. Being
here with him in his personal space has given you a bit more courage than you’d
harbored even twenty-four hours prior, but it still takes him by surprise when
you break the silent reverie with a bold question, “Harry?” He hums your name
back as an indication for you to proceed, “can you tell me how your first time
was?”
“Sex?” You nod and his answer comes out fast. Faster than you had expected,
“awful, quick and embarrassing. She was sweet, but she’ll never get those three
seconds of her life back.”
His lack of shame is somehow admirable. Hilarious, but admirable, “who was
she?”
Harry shakes his head, “doesn’t matter.” He keeps his hands occupied and his
gaze directed away from you as he speaks, returning back to his sink to rinse out
the cloth and squeeze the excess water from the fabric, “she was older than me.
Kinda experienced, I guess. Just a chick. No one special. I was just dyin’ to get it
over with and she was….. persistent.”
“How old were you?”
His eyes flick to you before he drapes the cloth over the faucet to dry,
“thirteen.”
“Thirteen? Holy—”
“Like I said: awful, quick and embarrassing.”
You adjust your minimal clothing back into place, paying close attention to his
movements as he scrounges around his cabinets for a smoke and a book of
matches, “how old was she?”
“Dunno. Fifteen?” Harry punches a victorious fist in the air when he locates
what he’s been searching for, popping a heart-shaped filter between his matching
lips and lighting the end on fire.
“When did you start smoking cigarettes?”
He plops down on the bed beside you, tracing little shapes on your back before
exhaling a blurry stream of pink towards the ceiling, “right then and there.” You
laugh and swat at his shoulder but he’s too quick, catching your hand and leaving
a plush kiss to your knuckles, “can’t promise I’ll last much longer with you, but I’ll
try my fuckin’ best.” You pluck his cigarette from his fingers for a single drag
before passing it back, “ya know….. you really missed an opportunity to get your
cherry popped in The Panthermobile. Not to make you feel like shit or anything.
Just tossin’ it out there. Y’know, li… e... no one can say that. That’s bucket list
material.”
“I know.” You roll onto your back and peer up at the closed canopy top of
Harry’s van, longingly, “I’ll kick myself all the way to my grave.”
“And I coulda left a snail trail in that pink shag carpet.”
“Harry. Fucking. Styles.”
He’s already laughing by the time the cuss leaves your lips, “just sayin’. Wanna
wake and bake before I cut some sea glass?”
Again. Again, he’s letting you into his personal space. First his bed, now his
daily habits, his routines. The ways in which he typically prefers to meditate on
his own as he perfects his crafts, the building blocks and the aspects who make
him who he is. You hadn’t truly realized just how artfully he was protecting
himself, but now that you’re on the inside, the outside has just snapped into focus
with celestial clarity. He came to all of these conclusions on his own, the petals of
his rosebud finally cracking open to allow you to see just how many layers are
hidden within. And you love how soft and silky they are, you love how naturally
they connect and function together. How they wouldn’t be able to operate
without a little coaxing from the sun. His sweet Honey bee, pollinating the most
fragile, sticky stamens within him now that he’s ready to let them breathe.
“Definitely. Do you have anything I can read while I sit on the beach?”
“Yeah.” Harry nods his head towards the storage pockets on his side doors
before sucking another drag from his cigarette, “pick your poison.” Cotton candy
slowly seeps through the van, you slowly seep from bed.
Shuffling through his collection of reading material, you find a copy of Playboy
magazine and hold it up with a raised eyebrow, “great articles?”
“Spectacular. Haven’t touched it since I laid eyes on you, though. Don’t need it
to give myself the business. Got a whole fuckin’ treasure trove upstairs.”
“Oh, shucks. Thanks?” You continue to root through his books, “you own The
Feminine Mystique?”
“Stole from a library, own. Either one.” Harry laughs at your perplexed
expression, “what’s that fuckin’ face for?”
“Have you read it?”
“Course. Wanna get a leg over now?”
Your lips pucker in consideration, “mmm….. getting closer, actually.”
“Radical. I’m on jack all over again. Flag’s wavin’ just thinkin’ about it.”
The accent that you use to mock his British accent is pretty terrible. Adorable,
but terrible, “oh, I’m so afraid I won’t have a boner.”
As you keep yourself occupied with his small book collection, Harry takes this
opportunity to tug on a pair of swim trunks and pull his wetsuit out of a storage
bin below his bed. You flip through his copy of Invisible Man, your eyebrows
drawing into a confused frown when a very small handful of three or four
photographs spill out into your lap. One of them appears to be an amateur
portrait of Harry, taken by a nameless photographer on a foreign beach, his wavy
heaps of chocolate curls cascading down to his shoulders, “oh my god. Is this
you? When did you cut all your hair off?”
Harry peers over your shoulder for clarity, his posture stiffening behind you
when he realizes what you’ve accidentally discovered. He sighs long and hard,
nodding as he changes his trajectory from preparing himself for surfing to pulling
another cigarette from his pack, “dunno, um, not long before joining Rusty’s
circus. You like it?”
You keep your sight glued to the picture in your hands, “yeah, actually. I love
it. You look like a major hippie. I hardly recognized you at first.”
“Hippie at heart, babe.”
The next photograph that catches your attention is one of a girl sat all alone
with legs crossed, her chin in her hand, her pinky finger casually bitten between
her teeth. She’s absolutely stunning; her hair is neatly tucked inside of a scarf, her
eyes light and clear as she stares straight into the lens of the camera with a
composed smile pulled across her lips. Upon further scrutiny, you recognize the
exact blue paisley scarf that’s wrapped around her hair as the same one that
Beau wears around his neck.
Is the bandana yours?
Yeah.
You swallow hard, breathing through the pauses in your pounding heart when
you flash Harry the photograph and smile weakly. You’re trying to get
information without directly asking and without prying with a bunch of nosy
questions for fear of appearing trite, “she’s beautiful.”
Harry nods from where he sits on the edge of his bed and lights his second
cigarette, a pungent fog of discomfort oozing from every open pore on his body.
His lack of input or speech is unusual and that only makes your curiosity burn
brighter, “um….. what’s her name?”
A thick cloud of smoke seeps very, very slowly from his lips, “Indy.”
An invisible, red-hot fist clenches your chest so tightly that it’s impossible to
draw in a full breath. Somehow, it’s so much worse putting a face to a name,
imagining a voice that would come out of her mouth, questioning all of her hand
gestures and quirks, painting a whole backstory on someone that you’re wildly
intrigued about even though you’ve never met and will never meet, in just matter
of seconds.
“Oh. Harry…..” You can’t seem to peel your eyes away from the picture resting
in your hands and you aren’t even sure what your face looks like right now, let
alone able to control the certain wreckage pouring across your features.
When you finally look at up Harry again, his stare is directed out the rear
window and his chin quivers to release a couple loose, careening tears down his
cheek.
“Harry—” You reach for him but he evades contact before popping the handle
on the barndoor and flinging himself out into the sand, pacing far away from you
with broad steps and a trail of pink. “Shit! Shit, shit, shit.” You hate your
blindsided response, you hate your snooping that brought this upon both of you,
you hate that Harry’s hurting. You hate that this is Harry’s history, for Harry’s
sake.
And maybe it was a mistake to let you in this much after all.
This isn’t the first time your intrusive questions have gotten you into trouble
or made another person uncomfortable. You recognize it instantly and wish you
could swallow your invasive need to dig into people’s lives and experiences
before they are ready. You wish that your nosiness wasn’t ranked higher on your
own to-do list than your ability to pause and assess a situation at times.
Whatever you’ve dug through when it comes to Harry always seems to unearth
information that hasn’t fully ripened or developed yet, like tugging a mature, big
green leafy stem from the dirt only the find that the carrot below still had lots of
growth to accomplish before you’d meddled with it. But at the same time, when it
comes to personal issues, Harry is notoriously not very forthright with negative,
icky feelings and critical confrontation. You have seen him mourn, contemplate
and ponder on the inside more times than you can count, but you’re
understanding the imbalance of just how much he shares with you and how
much he stews over alone.
Typically, when he’s overcome with emotion, his snap reaction flits towards
jealousy, anger, abandonment. He’s more than happy to point out aspects of your
life that he deems problematic, but when it comes to rooting around in his own
— his apathetic father, his sorrowful mum, his late trapeze partner, his near
death surfing experience, his broken relationship with Tex, his aggressive
impulsive outrage, his aversion to failure, his lack of career-oriented faith — it
seems that he still requires some help sharing it with others. It’s not easy to spot
right away, considering how earnest, candid and sincere he is when it comes to
communicating. Particularly what he believes you deserve, what he believes
you’re capable of, what he believes you’re worthy of.
The wisest of people quiet their own needs. The most successful of people are
hardest on themselves. The most helpful of people require the most assistance in
return. The most lovable of people hate themselves. But they’ll never ask for
help. No one knows why, but it’s becoming a crystal clear, recognizable pattern of
relationships in your life. It’s as if some people’s intelligence and empathy open
their hearts so wide that it begins to burrow a small hole there which, over time,
swallows them entirely. Or perhaps it’s just easier for some to focus on solving
other people’s problems in the splash and struggle of finding harmony; a little
blip of control in a chaotic, complex and cryptic world.
And when that mirror is held in their face before they’ve rubbed the sleep
from their eyes, they’re not going to appreciate how they look.
Control. Your struggle with control has been in the realm of letting it go. It
would seem that Harry’s struggle with control is in the realm of finding it.
Sand kicks up behind him as he paces away and you’re helpless in the battle of
giving him space to process, which you know from history that he requires, or
chasing after him to shove your endless love and devotion down his throat. He
didn’t explicitly instruct you to stay behind, so when your breath fogs up the
window and dissolves in time to see him collapse into the sand, you’re escaping
through the same door that he did and approaching slowly as if he were an
injured bird with broken wings. One quick, unexpected snap in the nearby
bushes could send him flying away before he’s fully recovered.
Always on the verge of escaping what frightens him.
His weeping is audible before you’ve even gotten close enough to reach out
and touch him, his palms wiping pesky tears from his face as he keeps his
cigarette pinched between his fingers. He’s absolutely and unabashedly in
shambles; helpless and lost, a scarce moment of public exposure that he typically
does every single thing in his power to avoid. You drop to your knees in the sand
behind him, wrapping you arms around his shoulders for a tight squeeze, your
temple resting against the back of his head as you breathe deeply and feel his
pain filling your heart with thick, black dust.
If you exhale too quickly, you’re afraid you might choke to death on your own
merciful tears.
“It hurt so bad, Cherry. It still hurts. I can’t believe this happened to her. To
me. I won’t ever forget that feeling of her hands slipping, that desperation of
tryin’ to hang on.” His face crumples with his bottom lip pouting in an effort to
control his sorrow, loud sniffles crashing through his nose and splintering his
words up into little pieces, “fuckin’ hurts. We were so close. She had faith in me.
She taught me everything at a time when I was desperate for it; when I was
booking it the fuck away from home, tryin’ to figure out all the shit that was
scraping me up inside and why.” When he finally gains the strength to turn his
head and uncover your emotion, his irises are lighter than the foamy crest of an
ocean wave, the whites around them stained as red as the salty sea when he
struck his head open, “I….. wish it were me instead sometimes. Because the
aftermath is almost too much for me to handle.”
You scramble in front of him with your beautiful face etched into a menacing
frown, your nails digging blunt marks into his kneecaps, “don’t you ever think
that again. You’re the sun. The world would be frozen without you. You’re still
here for five hundred thousand reasons, Harry. You shed light on your pain and
turn it into gold. It won’t completely go away, but you’re a better person because
of it. I understand the feeling of wanting to crawl out of your own skin, but the
world has bigger plans for you than simply disappearance.”
You don’t plan on taking his extremely rare moment of vulnerability lightly or
for granted. He’s told you plain and simple that he doesn’t bare his innermost
tumult for anybody, and whether or not this exposition is voluntary or coming
from a place of raw necessity, it is nonetheless profound and it must be
protected. To teach him the assurance that his father stripped away from him at
an unjustly young age, to teach him that unmanaged pain doesn’t define him, to
teach him what he is deserving of, just as he’s done for you.
“It hurts. Death hurts. Traumatic, dreadful accidents hurt. It’s not your fault. It
hurts and it’s not your fault. Both are true. It’s completely justifiable for you to
have these dips and waves and moments of emotional suffocation, and please,
please know that underneath all of that, there is the hard fact that this is
something awful that happened to you and that happened to Indy. You’re trusted,
loved, admired and respected because of who you are at your core. I see your
difficulty. I hear it and understand it. You’re a soldier. You’re brave. You’re
everything. You don’t deserve this kind of complicated, daunting pain, and there
will come a time where you’ve made as much peace with it as you can. You’re not
there yet and no one expects you to be. It’s okay. It’s okay to feel whatever may
pass through you, even if it fucking sucks. I’m here for you, Harry. However you
may need me. Undoubtedly. Je t’aime. This will pass. It will come back again, and
it will pass again. Each tide will be weaker and weaker once you’ve wrapped your
head around the rhythm of the waves. You can do this, you have been doing this.
And you are not alone.”
A thick droplet of tears frees itself from his bottom row of lashes, slipping
down his cheek faster than a whip and pulling his mouth into the saddest,
smallest smile you’ve ever seen as the saline rains down from his chin, “sweet
Honeycomb. Goddamn. That was clean as fuck. Come here.” He collects you into
his lap and speaks with clarity, although quiet and distributed through a handful
of rusted nails, “you said so much. Real heavy shit. Dunno if I can even describe
what I’m feelin’ right now, if I’m honest.”
Perhaps healthy love is simply a streak-free rear-view mirror with a rotation

of good and bad natural lighting at your back, highlighting your strengths and
zeroing in on your flaws with a neutral observer’s eye to allow you to spot them
for yourself. Tossing you the keys to the vehicle in order to give you the choice in
departure time, the route and the destination on your own accord, with a friendly
reminder to put on your seatbelt before you take off. And a pair of sunglasses if
the weather is particularly blinding.
“You don’t have to say anything. I just want you to feel some peace.” You cup
his soggy, bristly cheek and he nuzzles into your embrace hard, kissing your
palm, grasping your wrist and kissing a path down your forearm.
“Can we change the channel? I’m starting to feel a little better and I hate livin’
in this space any longer than I have to. It’s a bum fuckin’ trip. I can only dip my
toes in and out every once in a while, or I’ll drown. Sometimes if I think about
this shit too hard, I can feel wires crossing in my brain and shuttin’ shit down.
There’s only so much I can take when it comes to her. Yeah?”
After a few seconds of studying his face; drying, settling, clearing up with
remnants of damp, clustered eyelashes and splotchy cheeks, you nod and tap the
tips of your noses together, “you did really good. That just has to happen
sometimes. I’m proud of you. I know that was hard. Thank you for letting me in.”
It hurts to admit it, because traipsing through meadows of cynical weeds for
too long is something he typically prefers to avoid, but he does it anyway, “I’m
think I’m still figurin’ myself out. Just when I think I’ve got my fingers around it
and squeeze for solid grip, it disappears. It doesn’t melt and turn into liquid and
douse me. It doesn’t puff up like a cloud of cotton and swallow me. It just
disappears, makin’ me wonder if I ever really knew in the first place or if I’m just
fulla shit.”
Even after all this shit today, for once I like who I’m becoming. You can always
see it happen in slow motion, y’know? This time it feels good. So, so good. Even the
stinging parts.
The constant, maddening ebb-and-flow of human condition; warped leggy

streaks of translucent red on the inside of a smudged wine glass, soiled cutlery
and a chip on the lip of your fine china. Sometimes feeding yourself is a
grandiose, twelve-course formal dinner and other times it’s a haphazard
combination of scraps from your bare kitchen. Regardless, everyone needs
nourishment in order to prosper, but sometimes it feels like we don’t get to
choose what’s on our plates. And sometimes the provisions are extremely
difficult to swallow.
“How can you? You haven’t had nearly enough time. And you may never. Who
honestly does? What’s the point in that journey ever ending, Harry? What would
you have to live for if all of your questions about yourself were answered, if you
had nothing to improve and no one else’s narrative to ponder and shape you?”
Your journey seems to have just begun unfurling its baby leaves. At the
moment and for some time now, Harry’s journey has been slamming up against
slippery, sharp rocks. He’s shockingly aware of his stumbling moment that he
usually likes to reserve for solitude, but this instance couldn’t be stopped. And
he’s glad for it. It feels much better to have you here, to touch him, to look at him,
to stop him from throwing his dwindling collection of shoes into the ocean. For
the template of your relationship thus far, this exchange feels backwards and it’s
honestly a little rattling; he can feel his emotions squirming underneath his skin
like an infestation of wormy parasites, and oddly, he likes it. A lot. It’s terrifying.
Being with you makes him feel like he’s a demon possessing an innocent
bystander, an incubus hovering over its next sleeping victim, a vampire sucking
on the shriveled up, bloodless bones from its dinner. But if he saw it from your
point of view, it would look a lot more like someone breathing sunlight into a
wilting flower, a slowly inflating hot air balloon, a layer of rich buttercream
frosting forming perfect peaks on a devil’s food cake. The feeling of corruption
runs far and wide through Harry’s veins, but one could hardly call a night bloom
a perversion. It’s much closer to a marvel of a nature for a small, private
audience.
Breathtaking photographs can’t develop without a little darkness and

suggestive red lighting, after all.
“I just hate that sometimes it’s this elusive, fleeting thing I’m constantly
runnin’ behind. Y’know….. I think people are turning away from the traditional
view of god and choosing their own to worship. However many they want. Who’s
your god?”
“Nina Simone, The High Priestess of Soul. One of the first black female concert
pianists. A whip-smart activist who fights for education and art. Intimidating and
talented beyond belief. Unshakably true to herself. Who’s yours?”
“Right on, Cherry. Ms. Simone is the ultimate bad ass. I haven’t found mine yet,
I don’t think.”
“You know, I think your god is too powerful to be a person. I think your god is
the ocean. I think you’re the Sun and you make your god sparkle with life when
you play with it, hide behind it when you need darkness, replenishment and
strength. Cover yourself up with clouds when you’re not able to face it.
Constantly learn from it. Almost drown in it, but not before it’s taught you a
lesson you didn’t even know you needed to learn.”
With his chin in his palm and his eyes scouring your face, he’s quiet for a while
with a seemingly blank face as he considers your loaded sentiment. His lips
shape his sharp thought of agreement when he’s finally absorbed your analogy,
“holy shit.”
“Am I right?”
“I dunno, but your respect for me is kinda challenging. You hold me

responsible for my shit. I dig it. And likewise. I revere you.”
“That’s a strong word.”
“Not nearly strong enough.”
The sad truth is that you very rarely hear that and even less so from men,
regardless of whether they’re family or colleagues. With Harry, you can taste it
without him having to speak it. Hearing it is just an outstanding bonus. Your
fingers tangle into his hair to hitch him close, your mouths squaring off, “thank
you. Are you okay, Sunbaby? For now, at least?”
His soft hum is swallowed by your kiss and he finds himself slowly sinking
into the sand below, the malleable ground cool against his back from the absence
of sunshine yet today, “for now. Thank you, my sweet girl. Speakin’ of my god, I
haven’t made shapes in her yet today. I’m startin’ to itch. You alright?”
“Yeah, go ahead. I’ll stay right here. I’d like to watch.”
“’Kay,” he sucks and nibbles on his bottom lip before adding softly, “je t’aime à
la folie.”
If he speaks one more word, your heart will surely break, “je t’aime, Sunny.”
In just a matter of minutes, the sky begins to paint itself in swirls of peacock
feathers and orange-flavored penny candy as Harry carves his way through an
ocean of liquid sugar crystals, diamond and topaz. He is really good. He is
insanely fucking good. Just as good in the sea as he is in the air, if not better,
conquering each corner of earth with a bloody gash of self-confidence and
unending determination. You can tell from your shoreline perch that there’s
barely any thought going into his flawless maneuvering, that he’s so well-
practiced that he functions on muscle memory alone. He takes to the sky a couple
times, his hand gripping the nose of his surfboard for stability before effortlessly
slipping back into the waves. And all before daybreak has even stretched its
sleepy arms. Harry is akin to beating the sun. Outshining it. Racing it. Flirting
with it. A cutting black silhouette against a backdrop of rainbow sherbet, neither
one less breathtaking than the other.
Watching him surf feels more like experiencing an extremely complicated

process of nature that is so well-rehearsed that it appears to be much simpler
than it actually is. Something that we all take for granted and that is
commonplace enough that we no longer notice it; like breathing, white blood
cells fighting off infection, a spider spinning its arduous, magnificent web.
You had noticed him surfing the first time you met on the beach, but didn’t pay
very much mind to his skill because of the awkward interaction you’d just
shared, with watching a girl fall into his lap and make out with him as if you
didn’t even exist. You have jealousy for your past experience and for this girl that
no longer matters, the recurring image of someone else kissing him making your
blood boil. Angry for the part of you that had to endure his blatant dismissal for
so long, simply because you were the one person that he couldn’t bear hurting.
Sucking as much air into your lungs as you can, you take notice of your
realization and then simply let it go. He has a history but it’s merely that, history.
And you know how little burners mean to him. If they mean anything, it’s just a
selfish route of distraction from his self-proclaimed misery. And he has every
right to process his turmoil however he sees fit. We’re all different in our desire
for escape. For healing. For whatever the fuck we need. All different and all
exactly the same.
Harry surfs for a couple hours, happily lost in his own private bubble of joyful
tradition, self-perfection and practice, until morning fully develops and
gremmies start to trickle onto the beach. When he feels satisfied with his
achievements for the day, and hungry enough that he could eat a restaurant’s
entire stash of cheeseburgers, he navigates his board to shore and takes a couple
jogging steps before taking control of his momentum. He unzips his wetsuit,
pulling his arms from the sleeves and allowing it to dangle at his waist as he
inhales a big breath of air and takes a moment to worship his god. She’s beautiful
in her watery chaos. She’s an infinite quarry of meditation. She understands him.
And without a lick of shame, you admit to yourself that your lover’s muscles
ripple just as seamlessly as the water at his feet.
As if he can hear your thoughts, Harry spins on his heel and zeroes in on you,
his mouth spreading into a heart-stopping smile before he unfastens his leash
and jogs in your direction with his toes sinking into the sand. You can tell that he
doesn’t plan on slowing down anytime soon, and when he gets close enough that
you can you can see the mischief in his eyes, you start to squeal before he even
has the chance to get his hands on you.
“Don’t get me wet!”
Harry laughs and completely disregards your warning, pinning you down into
the sand and shaking out his salty hair in your face like a wet dog. His ears perk
with your sweet little protests, his voice gravelly when he mumbles against your
mouth, “shut up. You love when I get you wet. Mmm…..” He hums and folds your
lips together, combing his damp fingers through your locks, “how’d I do?”
“Good, Sunshine. Perfect. The most talented and hottest surfer I’ve ever seen,
hands down. There’s absolutely nothing you can’t do. Those waves and that
ocean is yours. Every ocean is yours. I’m yours.”
“Fuck off. Hurtin’ me bad, baby. Ouch.” Harry tugs on the hem of your
borrowed shirt, wishing for a glimpse of your bare tits, but then remembering
another sneaky way that he can enjoy them. He slips the book that you were
barely reading out of your hands, tossing it aside and careless to your need for
dog-earing the page to pick up later, “wanna play in the water with me a bit?
Then crush a big fuckin’ stack of pancakes at The Sweet Hereafter? Or maybe
those little baby kinds you like?”
As has become habit, your fingers coil into the chain of the cherry red, heart-
shaped locket that you gifted him and that he rarely removes, your thumb
playing with the latch to tease the idea of your appearance, “silver dollar
pancakes.”
Harry hums in agreement, “yeah. Silver dollar pancakes.” He wiggles his arms
under your body to scoop you up bridal style, ignoring your adorable protesting
and kicking feet as he meanders back to the ocean, “alright, that’s it. You’re
walkin’ the plank with me, baby. Big breath.”
A reminder to breathe when you’re in Harry’s presence is always one that

you’ll be grateful for.
A shoutout to my dear friend and editor, confessionharry. This chapter would

not have gotten finished if it weren’t for her patience and willingness to answer my
ten thousand daily questions. Thank you, B. I love you.
I love you all, too. I hope you’re doing great. See you soon.
Please vote and leave me lots of pretty comments. They make my whole day. Xx
B
“Sunny?”
What began as a voice of humor and confidence starts to slowly trickle into
the suck and swish of a bloody bathtub drain; the surrounding, endless walls of
floor-to-ceiling mirrors casting your waxen fearful expression right back at you.
Taunting you, mimicking you, exploiting you. Laying you bare and frightened for
no one to witness except yourself. The glassy repeated image of your concerned
frown slips away into forever, from every single angle. Doomed red lighting
continuously hovers overhead, the audibly silent and visually deafening strobe
light dances to the opposing pulse of your heartbeat. With ample omnipresence,
the disturbing rumbling ambiance of nocturnal animals, wind, thunder, maniacal
laughter. The glint of metal being unsheathed from leather and deflecting
moonlight. Swarms of bees. Crickets. Moans. A grandfather clock clanging against
the stroke of midnight. The rainstick-rattle of bare tree branches in a frigid gale.
Condensation from your panic bleeds a foggy mask upon the glass before you,
hiding your face for a split second before you weakly call out, “…..Harry? I’m
serious. Stop messing with me.”
Two crimson eyes appear in the darkness before fading back into the oblivion
from where they came.
“Wanna play a little, Honeykitten? Yeah?” His voice rumbles out, sloshy, hushed
and deliberate against the shell of your ear and you practically beg for him to
continue with nothing but a helpless whine, “’kay….. don’t you make a fuckin’
sound.”
You’ve never been trapped inside of a burning building before, but you
imagine this to be very similar. Delirium and stunted breathing. Cul-de-sacs that
camouflage themselves as an escape, bumping into walls and outwardly
bellyaching in frustration. A type of helplessness that makes you wish you could
buckle to your knees and simply wait, cowering in fear, hoping someone will
swoop in and replenish the oxygen in the room. Your breath trapped between
your two ears, swooshing back and forth through a hollow canal. Shadows
disguised as the Grim Reaper, blips of clarity mixed with glitches of obscurity.
Seeing eternity within the confines of a shiny, persistent box. Either very similar,
or the exact opposite of burning alive. It’s hard to tell, really.
Sweet-tasting fog seeps, slowly seeps, filling every empty crevice, making you
gag on its thick suspense. Clouding your vision and daring you to explore inside
of your own mind for paranoid horrors you’d never wish to experience.
One hand tightly grips your throat, his hips pinning you to the vanity inside of
your stuffy dressing room. Fingertips snake their way up your skirt, over the fabric
of your panties. Cheek-to-cheek, two sets of volatile eyes connected in the mirror
before you, “you may ask me for permission to come.”
A shudder racks your spine so violently that your shoulders quake, “please…..”
Mirrors are miserably familiar to you. As a dancer, they always have been. A
love/hate relationship that you find yourself dependent on as a perfectionist, as a
woman struggling with today’s cultural expectations, as another victim to the
terror of perceived nightmares. On trying to accept the parts of yourself that you
are told are pretty. On trying to improve the parts of yourself that you are told
are ugly. On trying to fortify the parts of yourself that you discern as helpless.
Especially after this afternoon, especially right now.
“Can I? Please.” Your core sucks on his fingers, dangerously close to toppling
from the edge. Your speech is rushed and frantic, finding yourself genuinely
needing his permission, his guidance, his approval and his acceptance before you
let yourself go. And liking it. A lot, “please, oh god—”
Claustrophobia in a never-ending, dreary landscape. Akin to being stuck on a

deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Nothing but miles of wide-
open rolling waves and hot sky in every direction you look, and yet somehow,
you’re completely trapped. Abandoned in the infinite. Alone with nothing but a
circular bad trip of dimly-lit thoughts.
“Please what?”
“Please, Harry. This isn’t funny anymore.”
Somehow, your answer slips out along with a gasp, “daddy. Daddy, please. Can I
come? Please.”
Fumbling; fingertips gently padding along the sharp-edged corners of mirror

after mirror as if you were tapping on scalding doorknobs in an attempt to find a
clear exit. As if pushing on them too hard would cause you to tumble through,
with dizzy and frightful steps, hurling you into a downward spiral like Alice in
Wonderland. Except without the aid of numbing psychedelic mushrooms and
fluffy petticoats to parachute out and help you take flight, to guide you through
the unknown layers of earth without a single scratch to your body. No, your
flimsy little white dress belted at the waist would be of no assistance to your
clumsy plummet into hell.
The ground below you begins to shake. Maybe. But that could just be your
knees buckling.
The same two crimson eyes appear in the darkness before fading back into the
oblivion from where they came. Again. A scream as hot as lava hardens into
obsidian in your throat.
Harry sinks his digits deep inside of you, his other hand clamped down over your
mouth, his cock hard against your back. He tuts and nuzzles his lips against your
cheek. Watching him in the mirror before you, his pinched-up expression dissolves
into the same intensity of pleasure you’re feeling. His lofty, tender validation is the
sweetest thing you’ve ever heard. For several reasons, “my good girl. My sweet girl.
Come.”
With the sudden appearance of a looming, shadowed figure jumping out
behind you, your shrill horror-movie-esque, bloody battle cry is quickly snuffed
by a large, familiar palm saturated in cool metal. The same metal that pushes up
against your most sensitive spots at exactly the right moments. The same cool
metal that tenderly holds your hand inside of The Pink, cruising down the PCH
with the moon reflecting off of the ocean. The same cool metal that also wraps
around your own middle finger, except bound in thread with a large shining ruby
that throbs as consistently as your own heartbeat.
Clawing his hands away from your mouth, you spin on the ball of your foot
and smack Harry’s shoulder once, then twice, except the third hit doesn’t land
and instead, your wrists are locked in a tight fist when he spins you back around
and holds you hostage against his chest. Just the same as a couple hours earlier in
your dressing room when he made you come on his fingers, bent over your
vanity with your body tucked into his, just after your second-to-last Saturday
performance for the season and just before you left en route to yet another
mystery date.
The Golden Pier Amusement Park.
His voice crackles through the soundtrack of ominous laughter, “what’s the
matter, babe? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He growls into your neck next;
his low, rumbling purr tickling your skin, “or a werewolf.” In the same moment
that the spooky accusation pours from his lips, his fingers are digging into your
stomach like gnashing teeth amid a bloodbath during the full moon and your
squealing is lost amongst the pre-recorded, looped sound effects.
Harry wrestles against your flailing limbs and hushes your shrieks of his name
and snorting laughter, physically overpowering you with ease until you have no
choice but to melt into his warm stomach and broad shoulders. Trusting his
presence, trusting his intentions. Trusting the fact that he was merely playing a
stupid joke on you in the Hollywood Hells Haunted House’s room of mirrors. A
stupid joke that nearly brought you to the edge of insanity, which comes as a
surprise to both you and your lovably idiotic boyfriend.
Your heart buzzes like a hummingbird. The residual spike of adrenaline soars
so mightily through your veins that your brain starts to ache.
“Shh, Cherry baby. Don’t flip your wig. This is LA. Halloween vibes get totally
lost in the sunshine and palm trees here. And this shit is for kids. What did you
think would happen, I’d dissolve into a mirror and my evil twin would consume
me and take my place and start datin’ you in my absence or some shit? Like, I’m
exactly the same, except somethin’ is a little off? I have a new wonky eye with
two different-sized pupils that you’d never noticed before and I suddenly crave
raw zucchinis and dry spaghetti? But you just convince yourself it’s all in your
head and let me toss you around in the air anyway? You have a wild imagination.
Didn’t expect you to be such a fuckin’ scaredy-cat, Honeycreep.”
“Harry—”
“Invasion of the Body Snatchers? ’They’re turning into pods!’” He manages to

roll just one eye, “and you’re next!”
“Harry, can it!”
“Love that flick.” His voice falls monotone. Flat, gravelly, macabre. Like the
foreboding voiceover from a horror movie trailer, “’there’s nothing to be afraid
of. They were right. It’s painless. It’s good. Come. Sleep.’”
“Harry!” It’s obvious that you’re trying very hard to stay angry out of principle,
but the corners of your mouth curling into a smile blow your entire façade out of
the water, “get bent, clod! Murderers are literally everywhere. Especially in
California. How dare you scare me like that. I was calling your name for what felt
like an eternity. You’d never eat dry spaghetti, right? Oh my god, I’m still
terrified. How could you—”
Harry twirls you back around to face him, sending the both of you stumbling
backwards with two wide steps and pinning you against one of the cold mirrors
that you had just been lost inside. He doesn’t say another word before he’s
connecting your lips together, humming at the flavor of disintegrating fear and
cherry lollipops on your tongue until he feels your body begin to thaw between
his and the sterile Windexed glass, “you done, sweet girl?” He nibbles at your
neck, his teeth and stubble grazing your skin, “I swear I’m Harry. Now gimme all
your squashes and noodles.”
He can just make out the threatening slits of your eyes as you narrow them at
him in the darkness that’s illuminated by an eerie red light bulb, your face
disappearing and reappearing every other second through the blinking, trippy
strobe lighting.
“That’s exactly something a pod would say.” Your bottom lip is bitten between
your teeth and you look so, so fucking cute, “I’m so mad at you.”
“You’re always mad at me.” He laces your fingers together, raising them in the
air for a kiss to your knuckles before nodding his head towards the exit, “c’mon.
I’ll buy you a candy floss.”
“Sugar distractions can’t save you this time.”
His palm smacks against his chest in shock as if he’s just been shot with a
bullet, his feet slipping out from underneath him when he falls on his ass in a
display of dramatics, “the fuck did she just say? No sugar? Shit, I’m out of ideas
then. Should we just break up, or what?” Suddenly he rises to standing, squinting
through the creepily reflective room and using his hand as a visor for imaginary,
bright overhead lighting, “Vivienne! Hello? I’ve lost her.”
You have yet to budge from your post against one of the seemingly hundred
mirrors swallowing you whole in this airless room, “I think I might actually weep
a little bit.”
The sound of Harry gently tutting your malaise away is audible over the sound
effects that now seem cheesy in comparison to the walking nightmare you’d just
experienced, “shit.” His warm palms cup your cheeks and his silly act is shed in a
split second, leaving you with the rawness of your lover feeling awfully guilty for
scaring the shit out of you. In all honesty, he hadn’t been hiding from you for very
long. The moment you turned the corner and almost instantly lost your bearings,
he took the opportunity to slink behind one of the fog machines, hoping for a
little razz followed by a passionate kiss of relief. Since you’d handled yourself so
well during the horror movie marathon at The Streamline Cinema, he’d assumed
you would take a little jump scare in stride. He was wrong. But if there’s anything
that Harry is well-versed in, it’s the art of cease-fire for the sake of snuggles, “my
soft Cherry jam. Deep breath. You’re shakin’.” His forehead gently drops to yours,
the tips of your noses and petal-soft lips sweeping back and forth, “embrasse-
moi, s’il vous plaît. Let me fix it. You’re safe. How bad is it?”
“Comme ci comme ça.” You slot your lips together and tug him close, the
weight of his body and the swish of his tongue an instant comfort to your
frazzled nerves. One of his hands scoots back and ravels into your hair, combing
through your locks as his other palm presses flat against your chest to feel the
thud of your slowing heartbeat. You kiss his top lip, his bottom, his beauty mark
and the end of his nose before drawing back, “you’re lucky you’re so cute.”
“I know. I won’t make your shit your pants again, promise.”
“Thank you.”
“So….. not even a funnel cake? On the house. We’ll call it asshole tax. Did you
smell that shit when we walked past the booth? Deep-fried paradise. I haven’t
thought about anything since.”
“Kinda sounds like you’re the one who wants funnel cake.”
“Aw, what a cute word for your jellybox. Dig it, babe— ow.” He’s too distracted
by the thought of your heat and the memory of broiled sugar to dodge your blow
to his shoulder that time, “enough sucker punches, Muhammad Ali. You’re gonna
wound me.” Now he’s absolutely itching for a snack and it seems his only way to
get it at this point is by a little sugaring himself, “hey, I miss that little freckle
right by your bellybutton.” His fingertips trace over your stomach, gently, like a
little cluster of frizzy baby bird’s feathers dropping from a nest, “y’know the one.
How’s she? She was so sweet to me this mornin’. Tasted amazing.”
A group of teenagers go shrieking and stumbling past you, dampening Harry’s

tender plea deal with a cacophony of chaos. The reminder of his tongue painting
a swirl around your sunspot dissolves the noise around you and transports you
back to earlier today, your buttery sheets bathed in electricity. He keeps his laser
focus on you; two rings of blue and green with a dilated, swirling marble of black
in the center, punctuated by a ribbon of soft chocolate tickling his eyelashes and
nose. Brooding and comforting all at once. You wait for the loud group to pass
before you shrug and cushion the moment even further, “she misses you, too. But
she’s a little cross right now.”
“Mmm…..” His voice is corduroy, soft light lumpy snug, “you still make my
tummy flip, yeah? Chaque petit bisou. Gimme some, please.” Your lips stir gently
together in a hypnotic little half circle before magnetizing, the whoosh of air
through Harry’s nose audible over the obnoxious spooky effects as if you were
hearing him with your mouth rather than your ears. His tongue slips out, teasing
the end of yours and sending a shock to your stomach before he draws back with
darker pupils than before. Eskimo kiss after Eskimo kiss, a benign distraction in
order to get his way, “she’ll be okay, hmm? Let’s go before the green banana gets
silly. Agenda,” he counts off with his fingers, “funnel cake, Light of Love.”
“Okay, but I really wanted to go on The Jack Rabbit rollercoaster next—”
“I’ll be your jack rabbit.” His speech screeches to a halt as he looks at you with
a veil of horror in his eye, “nevermind. I take that back. Wouldn’t wanna blow
your back out. I’ll go tender. I’ll be your soft, gushy light of love instead. C’mon,
put ’em up.”
Harry’s fist hits the air for a round of Rock Paper Scissors. Your simultaneous
rocks are headstrong in nature. With a wordless rematch, his scissors slash
through your paper.
“So, like I said, funnel cake then the Ferris wheel. Did you really think I’d toss a
rock again?” He taps the tip of your nose and then your cheekbone with his
knuckle, “you blew that one, Honey. Tighten up.”
In all honesty, you never know what he’s going to throw at you next.
Lightly nipping at his knuckle in a playful warning, he whips his fingers away
before wrapping them around your neck. He leans close, the pads of his digits
depressing your throat with a burn that stirs your insides. His sentiment is
delivered as an afterthought, but you know for a fact that it’s his primary focus
for most of his waking hours. And maybe his sleeping hours as well, “oh, hey and
when you’re ready, I want you to fuck me.”
The past two weeks since you’d slept in Harry’s van for the first time has gone
somewhat like this. A schoolyard crush meets the drooling devil, each one with a
handle on either side of the jump rope; sometimes the loops are easy enough to
slip through and sometimes you end up a tangled mess with scraped knees.
There’s an aftertaste of Sweet’N Low in his demands, coating your throat in
saccharine aromatic glow, and it only makes you want to obey him more. But
you’re certain he’s figured out exactly that, like a practiced neurosurgeon armed
with probes, hooks, distractors and suction tubes, poking around through your
brain, extracting tumors and restructuring your nerve endings. Anticipating your
needs prior to you figuring them out yourself, or perhaps, rewiring everything
within your skull and your spine to create a craving you’ve never had before.
And there’s no chance in hell he’d let you forget for even a split second that he
wants to have sex with you.
Now thanks to your Sunny love, there’s a soft echo rippling through both of
your ears, except in different voices.
Fuck me fuck me fuck me fuck me.
Your delivery squeaks through a dry swallow, “I know—”
“Y’know your cupcakes got their party hats on.” You glance down to find hard
nipples poking through your dress and before you can secure a shoulder punch,
he’s hooking an arm around your neck and nestling you into the crook of his
elbow, “alright, chill the fuck out. I hear you loud and clear, no more lip flappin’.
Don’t lose your cool. We’re almost out of the woods.”
You should’ve known that applying your eyeliner in the bold, wing-tipped cat-
eye the way Nettie taught you would’ve riled Harry up in your dressing room
earlier this evening, but maybe that’s exactly what you wanted. His lusty
hangover that began at six A.M. has yet to wear off, mostly due to the fact that he
hasn’t met any relief today. The make-out sessions in your bed and your kitchen
this morning were both cut short and for different reasons; the first one due to
Harry rushing from waking late for his daybreak surf session and the second due
to poor Nettie’s bad timing.
It seems as though you never have any true privacy, being constantly
surrounded by clumsy roommates, nosy coworkers, rascally dogs, unlucky
strangers jogging on the beach at sunrise. Waitresses on roller skates, angry pool
owners, judgmental middle-aged women in fur coats. Children. Cops. You. Him.
But through every single intrusion, you’ve still managed to carve a tunnel of love
just big enough for the two of you. And that just has to mean something
remarkable.
As you make your way through the end of the haunted house, Harry weaves
your digits into a tight clasp and leads you through the final room draped in fake
spider webs and giant plastic insects, belting out the chorus to “Season of The
Witch” before hurling himself over the exit railing and landing on the ground like
a black cat on two nimble feet.
You’ve spent a handful of nights in his van the past couple weeks after your
initial emotional induction, but it’s clear that Harry prefers the stability and
luxury of your apartment through subtle, silent and creative actions. His
belongings complete the puzzle in the corners of your apartment that hadn’t
seemed bare until he’d filled them with undershirts and records. And in an effort
to be less of a pain in the ass to Nettie, he’s begun replacing the cartons of orange
juice in the fridge and her dwindling shampoo and mouthwash that he
sometimes uses without permission. Twice a week he shows up with five
sunflowers to brighten up your kitchen for old time’s sake, claiming that it’s too
early in the relationship for romance to die, even though your romance has
reached a such fever pitch that at times it doesn’t feel like it could possibly heat
up any further. Until, of course, it does. Daring you to insist on a limit just to be
able to prove you wrong. Even though you’ve claimed it unnecessary, he’s
chipped in a chunk for rent as well. At first you refused it, until he threatened to
send checks directly to your landlord. So, you allowed it. His bite is much bigger
than his bark after all. And his bark is pretty loud.
Along with Harry’s familiar habits, some new ones have begun to take shape.
Very interesting ones. About four or five times now, whether in your dressing
room or in The Pink or on your beach lunch break, you’ve noticed Harry
scribbling, doodling, drawing inside of books, magazines, newspapers. And every
time you’ve tried for a glimpse, he discretely tilts his book away or simply bops
you on the nose with the cap of his felt tip marker. When asked when you would
be allowed to see what he’s mindlessly jotting, his answer was merely a mumble
through flamingo pink smoke, “when the timing’s right, nosey Honey. Now jump
back.”
He’d be crazy to think that this could go on much longer without you sneaking
a peek at his artistry. He’s not very good at keeping secrets after all, and you’re
nothing short of an amateur sleuth.
It’s the little quirky facets that sculpt him so effortlessly; the way he crosses
his number sevens with perpendicular lines, his half-cursive, half-uppercase
printing that he leaves on notes around your kitchen or on your bedside table
whenever he leaves for the beach particularly early. The way he simultaneously
picks at his lip and smokes cigarettes as he reads, the way he uses strips of
fragrant Papier D’Armenie to bookmark his pages and in turn, give all of his
books the scent of worn and musky, dusted rose. The way he feeds Beau scraps
of his own food to eat, rather than buying him cans of processed, sludgy dog food.
How he eats every last bite of an apple, leaving the most stripped core you’ve
ever seen, with nothing but a stem and some seeds clinging to the bare nucleus.
The way his fingers never stop fidgeting; drumming on his steering wheel,
obsessively fussing with drink coasters, labels on beer bottles, his fingernails, the
twisted off filters of his smokes, his mouth, his hair, his rings, his locket. Using
them to gesture as he speaks, especially when he’s explaining something lengthy,
or throwing a whiplash joke in your face with a harsh snap.
He shaves twice a week, but you’re learning that you prefer him with exactly
twenty-four hours of grow-out or else his skin threatens to burn your stomach
when his kisses journey south. He flosses, brushes his teeth and showers three
times a day: after surfing, and before and after a performance. In that order.
He sleeps naked.
He is an unbelievable velvet-dream-boy after he’s had an orgasm. He knits the

most gut-wrenching, never-ending, adorable yarns when he’s half-conscious and
falling into deep sleep.
He loves telling you that he loves you.
“Mmm….. watchin’ cartoons behind my eyelids. Hey, Cher?”
“Sunshine.”
“Hey, were you one of the smart kids in high school? Like, did’ya hang out in the
library a ton?”
You laugh, combing your fingers through his hair a couple times before
resuming dragging your nails up and down his bare back to lull him to sleep, “I did
fine. I didn’t spend an unusual amount of time in the library, I guess. Why?”
“I would’ve found you and kissed you against a bookshelf in a far-off corner.
Mmm….. sounds hot. After school, tryin’ to stay quiet. Ya know? Walk you home,
holdin’ your hand, carryin’ your books. Shit, my tummy’s tossin’ just thinkin’ about
it.”
“Mine too. It doesn’t sound too far off from us.”
Harry’s sloshy brogue drips like sap, “je t’aime.”
Your slightly-more-alert prose pours like lemonade, “je t’aime, je t’aime.”
“Mmm….. tu m’aimes.”
“Tu m’aimes aussi.”
“So much. Hurts.”
“Sunbaby?”
With closed eyes and a soft tick of his right eyebrow, “mmm?”
“One more kiss before you drift away?”

His lips fumble against your mouth, his grip tightens around your waist,
“mm’gonna make love to you every single day. Shoot rainbows in ya, sweet Cherry.
Baby Honeysuckle. Want you forever, mm? Tell me somethin’.”
The vulnerability is so raw and abrasive that the gushing of blood leaves a
protective coating instead of draining you dry. You never would have spoken this
way or even heard these words before Harry, but now you solely exist for it. You
deserve it, after all. You both make constant effort to connect with each other, to
show up and really see one another, to slather cement between the bricks of trust
that have formed the skeleton within your relationship. Your fear of allowing
Sunbeams to filter through the cracks in your skin, regardless of how much pain
the flames inflict on your most delicate tissue, is nothing but a sordid memory now.
And who knew that vulnerability was actually courage in disguise? “I want to give
you anything you ask for.”
“I jus’ want your sweet Cherry. Peanut buttery apples. Ocean waves an’ all that.
Ciggies and tunes. Mmm….. m’so, so happy.”
He loves love. He loves you. He loves loving you. He loves you loving him.
Meandering through crowds is much easier with the confidence of Sunbeams

at your side, blazing the trail with cotton candy smoke while authentic cotton
candy cones from a nearby booth weave together to form pink tapestry lace
under your nose. A live band and blinking light bulbs and ticket boots and games
lined with stuffed animals and rickety rides whizz past, and somewhere in the
near-distance, the ghostly vapors from the ocean paint the sky purple. There are
only a few people in line for funnel cake ahead of you, but that doesn’t seem to
alleviate your perpetually hungry lover who pouts at the inconvenience and rolls
his head back on his shoulders, “what would happen if I shouted ’fire!’ right now
to wipe this line out?”
“You’d maybe be charged for a false alarm. And I don’t think you’d get any
funnel cake.”
“Shipwreck.” He tucks you into his arm and hums when you nestle into the
nook where his neck and collarbone meet, “you’re so paranoid.”
“Well, maybe if you didn’t make me smoke that joint beforehand—” He

shushes you and you lower your voice for the remainder of your argument, “then
I wouldn’t be so suspicious.”
“Low hangin’ fruit, babe. Nah, it’s good. You keep me on the ball. Is that why
you blew a gasket in the mirror jungle?”
You crane your chin up at him and you look so fucking sweet with your mouth
pulled into a soft, contented smile, “I wasn’t that bad.”
Harry’s quiet for a moment. Pausing before a retort is rare for him and
whenever it happens, you’ve learned to remain muted and wait patiently. You
know that whatever he lets loose will be an absolute sparkling gem of a reward,
“d’ya ever get scared that you’re gonna forget somethin’ that you’re reading
because you like it so much, so you read it over and over to try and memorize it?
Even though it seems that we don’t have very much control over what we
retain?”
“Yes. I know exactly.”
“That’s you.”
You laugh through your complete non-sequitur response, “of course you were
born dead in the center of winter. A burst of Sunshine that melts icicles off of
cold, dormant trees. You’re like the world’s collective hope for spring. You burn
everything up whether or not people are ready for it, but we’re always thankful
in the end. Your energy does all the talking. You’re perfectly predictable and
somehow a complete surprise. Je t’aime.”
The pattering of Harry’s heart wrenches with a nauseating twist, a jolt to his
stomach that forces a strained murmur from his lungs. He grips your chin
between his fingers and dives forward for a kiss, your hands slinking into the
warmth of his open button-down shirt and over his ribcage, “mmm….. fuckin’
shit.” His lips slip against yours and his voice is simply a splash of warm air, “that
hit hard. You’re so, so good at that. Lemme fuck some more cute jive outta you.”
Your breaths wobble out and meet to spin a tiny tornado. Another pause,
except this one weighs a ton.
His thumb inches up and tugs on your bottom lip, effectively dragging your
words out from the tip of your tongue, “you know I will, Harry.”
Your eyes latch and follow each serene sway back-and-forth, calm and
content, “yeah? Sex is everything after all, isn’t it? Why else do people shower,
comb their hair or brush their teeth?”
“So your teeth won’t fall out? It would be kinda hard to eat with no teeth, don’t
you think so?”
“Babies do it.”
“They survive on breast milk. And puréed carrots.”
“I could easily survive on tit milk and carrot soup. Hold on….. I think I’ve lost
the point. What were we talkin’ about again?”
“Gone with the Wind?”
“Right. Thanks for nothin’, Honeybrat.” The patrons in line before you clear
out and Harry slides up to the funnel cake booth with an infectious ear-to-ear
grin that seeps onto the booth worker’s face by invisible osmosis, “hey sweet
cheeks, is there a limit to how much powdered sugar you can toss on there? And
d’ya have any peanut butter?” The booth worker shakes their head in response to
both of his questions and Harry tuts in disappointment regarding the latter,
glancing at you with a pout to relay his grievance, “I should start walkin’ round
with some in my pocket.”
“That’s actually not a bad idea.”
He snaps before pointing a finger at you, “want somethin’?”
“I don’t know if my stomach can handle funnel cake and then rides—”
“What? Quit talkin’ shit about your tum tum. You’re gettin’ one.” Harry turns
back towards the worker and drops one elbow and one palm on the counter,
assertively leaning into her personal space. But she doesn’t seem to mind very
much by the way his gravitational charm pulls her right in towards him, as it
usually does whenever his eyes lock with another person’s. “Alright, hi. Two
funnel cakes with loads of sugar, please. Like, really make that shaker dance,
y’know? Take her for a solid spin. Or….. maybe we should get thr… e...?” He
glances at you for permission, but you’re already shaking your head no, “right,
yeah. No, no, no. My Queen Honeybee has spoken. Two’s gravy.” His knuckles rap
twice on the counter to punctuate his order, “thanks, babe.”
Unrolling the pack of smokes from his sleeve, Harry taps one out and sucks on
the toasted strawberry filter, holding it between his teeth when he notices your
distraction and pulls you out of it softly, “quoi de neuf, hmm?”
The nearby band plays a gentle rendition of “I’ll Follow the Sun” and you
clumsily trip through the lyrics for a moment before answering him, “I don’t see
what the big deal about The Beatles is.”
A sweet coil of pink smoke pursues his words, “what are you goin’ on about?
You’re kiddin’?”
Good god, Clyde….. how can you be alive on this planet for as long as you have
and not know The Beatles?
“No. Is it because everyone wants to have sex with them or something?”
“Yes. And they’re simply good. Listen, don’t think about it too hard. They’re
just good and you’re wrong about them bein’ bad. Why are you hatin’ on the Brits
anyway? Is it because we try to colonize everything? Wait, shit…..” His realization
is paired with a small gasp, “am I colonizin’ you?”
You’re so beautiful when you smile. When words crash through your teeth.
When your nose wrinkles just enough to free a tiny snort, “no, no! Don’t get me
wrong, I didn’t say they were bad. I just said I don’t understand the hype.”
“Well, understand it. People will still be listenin’ to them when there’s flyin’
cars in the air. I’ll put on Revolver and go down on you. You’ll change your tune
when you get off to ’Tomorrow Never Knows.‘ Or maybe ’Here, There and
Everywhere’ if you’re feelin‘ a bit slower that day.” He gnaws on his bottom lip,
his eyes flicking to your mouth and back again, “y’know? Look sharp.” Harry
clicks his tongue when the booth worker reappears with a paper plate in either
hand, parading coiled stacks of greasy, golden fried dough doused in a mountain
of white fluff, little vapors of steam disappearing straight up Harry’s nose like a
cartoon dog, “incoming! Fuck. We totally should’ve gotten three. You see this
shit?”
Your candor swings out with a smack and reminds Harry just how
unpredictable you can be at times, “yeah, okay. But I absolutely couldn’t orgasm
with the trumpet bridge of ’Yellow Submarine’ playing. It doesn’t matter how
baked I am.”
Neither of you notice the slow pull of confusion pucker the booth worker’s
face.
Harry throws his head back with a sparkling cackle, “fuckin’ glitch. Got me
there. Hey,” his finger teeter-totters between your chests, “did we just have a
little Beatles parley?”
“I think we did.”
He presses his forehead against yours and puckers for a sweet kiss and an
honest quip, “boner.”
It’s not hard to admit to yourself that you’re unjustifiably and comedically
jealous of a funnel cake, with the way Harry’s full attention has shifted to tearing
off tennis-ball-sized chunks and folding them into his mouth, licking sugar from
his fingertips and moaning as he saunters towards the Ferris wheel. You pick at
yours with a sudden loss of appetite and glance at the band a couple times as you
follow him through the crowd, with Harry’s recent suggestive language filling up
the spaces between your ears.
The countdown to the end of the summer season at the circus has officially
begun. Following this evening’s early Saturday performance, there are now
exactly seven shows left before tryouts and rehearsals for the winter holiday
production begins. Luckily Rusty called both you and Harry individually into his
office last week, omitting the need for bureaucracy by renewing your contracts
complete with a heavy raise and an official signature in black ink. For once, Rusty
acknowledged the hard work you’d put into your career and even complimented
your professionalism, begrudgingly admitting your importance to the company
and the growing success of his business. You used to crave a solo career just as
much as Harry did, but with the blissful triumph of your partnership, it’s hard to
imagine performing in the circus any other way. Regardless of your cemented
safety within the theatre, there’s a bittersweet swirl of salted honey that comes
along with the materialization of the end of an era. Nothing stays the same,
especially in the whimsical entertainment industry, but that doesn’t make the
constant transitions any easier to swallow. Perhaps you’re just a nostalgic
person, clinging to the last dewdrops of summer before the first frost of autumn
freezes them dead in their tracks.
Don’t flip your wig. This is LA. Halloween vibes get totally lost in the sunshine
and palm trees here.
Like Neverland, except with Sunshine instead of growing up.
You and Harry decided on an uncharacteristic, impromptu trip to The Cat’s

Paw this past Wednesday in order to celebrate your new phase of the circus with
hours of pool and too much champagne, followed by a hungover performance the
next day that sent you running off stage at the end of the show and throwing up
in the first receptacle that you could find. Harry soothed you with an evening of
cuddling in his van on the beach, the barndoor kicked open to bathe in a
thousand stars overhead while he quietly strummed your favorite Nina Simone
songs on his guitar. Fingertips tracing up the skin of your bare stomach
whenever he took a smoke break. Feeding each other little packaged cheese
crackers sandwiched with peanut butter. The death of your induction to Malibu
hanging heavily in the clouds. The death of a small fire in the sand nearby. The
life of your future in Malibu glowing on the horizon.
The line for the Ferris wheel is quite a bit longer than the line for funnel cakes,
but now that Harry’s veins are plump with sugar, he seems a lot more willing to
be waiting for his next pursuit. He folds his empty plate in half and stuffs it under
his arm, ripping off a hunk of your cake and feeding it to himself before holding a
bite under your nose. Happy to be escaping the endless barrage of mindless logic,
you suck the treat from his fingertips and scrunch up your nose like a toddler
when he licks his thumb and wipes some sugar from your cheek. He tucks your
hair behind your ear and kisses your lips, his eyebrows perking to convey that
he’s taken notice of your silence, “tell me somethin’.”
A quick survey of his outfit is all you need for some material, with the way his
sleeves cling to his biceps and the form of his stomach takes shape underneath
the fabric of his wifebeater, “you look buff in that shirt.”
“Shit. Thanks, babe. Maybe ’cause I’ve been haulin’ your fat ass around.” Your
snort explodes one moment before your laughter does. Harry’s hand is in the air
ready to catch yours before it has the chance to make contact with him, “jokin’.
You’re a shrimp. A sexy shrimp. And what’d I tell you about wearin’ skirts, hmm?”
If you don’t want me to reach up your skirt, then you’ll need to start wearing
pants, Honey brain.
“You bought this for me, Harry.”
And maybe you’re looking for trouble. Or maybe you’re waiting for Harry to
find it.
The yellow dress that you wore to The Streamline Cinema ended up in shreds
the following morning. It was the only clothing that you had with you and after
you’d gone swimming in the ocean and rinsed off in the public shower — one
thing led to another and now, the dress would make a much better scarf than
anything resembling clothing at this point. The minute Harry saw that dress
bundled up around your middle at Bunny Hill, with his cock in your fist and your
doe eyes shimmering up at him, he knew it wouldn’t last another twenty-four
hours. It was one of the rare times you’ve heard Harry apologize, but it was more
along the lines of “sorry, but.” Meaning, “sorry, but it had to happen.” Or “sorry,
but the dress made me do it.” Or “sorry, but I’ll buy you a new one.” Which he did,
that very same day. A silk, little white number with skimpy straps and a chunky
matching belt, something that battles the energy of your French records whirling
at midnight after sharing a joint with your Sunny flame. The leftover ring on the
coffee table from a sweating glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Lipstick stained cigarette
butts stubbed into an ashtray. Smears of custard and chocolate icing on an empty
dessert plate with an expended silver fork. Simple, breezy, gauzy enough to be
mistaken for a slip. Sensual.
Harry knew how much you liked the feeling of his silk sheets and so he opted
to help you carry the sensation with you all day long. The piece isn’t something
that you would have ever bought for yourself, but once it slipped down over your
torso for the first time, it felt impossible to ever want to remove it again. The
scraps of your departed yellow dress are still tucked away in the storage
underneath Harry’s bed. You haven’t seen them, but you can feel them humming
with the ghosts of their sexual energy when you’re trying to sleep. And that shit
is powerful.
“Oh, right. I’d like to go for a swim in it. Or hide in it. Or at least peek in it. Can
I?” Harry peels the neck of your dress back and is surprised when you don’t
smack him away for once. He hisses when he catches a quick glimpse of your
nipple, slapping his palm to his chest in response and tipping his chin towards
the night sky, “god bless America! I’m crocked. Major dibs. Those puppies belong
to me.”
A person standing a few feet behind you in line couldn’t possibly look more
disgusted.
Your cheeks burn, but you’re not sure if it’s from embarrassment or lust,
“actually, they belong to me.”
His flat, sometimes imperceptible sarcasm has to be another one of your

favorite building blocks about him, “to you? ’Kay, whatever you say, sweet girl.”
He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, “gonna destroy what’s mine
later.” Harry nods to the judgmental person rudely eavesdropping on his very
loud, public conversation, “totally demolish. Right, man?”
“Uh—”
“Touché.”
Focusing his attention back at you, Harry’s antagonistic, raised eyebrows pull
into a frown as he points at the eavesdropper with a loose thumb over his
shoulder, his eyes rolling and his mouth pulled at the corner with a playful scoff.
The word “cantankerous” comes to mind, but you don’t see it as a negative
aspect of his personality. Harry’s sense of humor is a dry, dirty martini; earthy
venom on the nose with a body of tart, brutal honesty, mixed with a dash of
bawdy salt that rounds out the palate on the finish. That fact that he would gladly
suck the olives right from the tips of your fingers as soon as he took his final gulp
is just the icing on the cake.
You slap his stomach with the back of your hand before covering your face,
wishing this line would move just an iota faster than melting ice so that you can
never, ever see this person again, “do you have to mess around with everyone?”
Harry’s fingers circle the outside of his mouth in an attempt to reel in his smug
smile, “yep. Unfortunately for you, huh?” He grips the back of your neck and pulls
you close, his mouth dropping to your ear and his breath hot against your skin as
he unleashes a sultry secret, “y’know I’m razzin’, right? I’ll always hear you.
You’re callin’ the shots. You’re the boss. C’est parce que je te respecte. Je t’aime,
Cerise. Me dire de la fermer.”
Tilting your head to align your mouths, your lips brush his when you whisper
back, “mmm….. tais-toi.”
Life breathes into his smile and then wilts in the next instant to make way for
seduction, “oui, madame. Kiss, please.”
You grant his wish with a soft peck and a delicate fire against his lips, “je
t’aime, Daddy,” before kissing him once more.
“Mmm. What an angel face.” He cups your cheek and keeps you close, his gaze
meandering a dizzy line around the contours of your cheekbones as his thumb
sweeps your bottom lip. Harry has never given much thought to a snooping
stranger’s comfort level when it comes to public displays of affection. But when
it’s regarding you, when anything is regarding you, the outside world simply
shrinks into a dust bunny and billows away, “might not make it to later. Your
pokies are screamin’ at me today. All fuckin’ day. Kisses. Kiss, kiss. Please.
Mm’itchin’.” A little scolding sound manifests as air sucking in through the side of
his cheek and past his teeth, “hey, eyes on me. Aime-moi. Don’t worry about
them.”
Harry’s palm is large enough to cradle your head comfortably and it’s a feeling
that you find yourself dreaming about at night, or at least it’s the stepping stone
that takes you from the cotton clouds of sleep into the periwinkle gray of dawn;
the way the pads of his fingers dig into your chin and jaw, his blunt nails
scratching gently against your scalp. The tip of his nose pressing into your cheek
one second before your lips connect, the perfect pucker and pleat as your mouths
lock into place with a rush of breath. Peach cobbler tongues and powder blue
love, a rocket-launch into outer space that takes you from the sidewalk straight
into the atmosphere, a dozen little boxes of pastel colored homes appearing
smaller and smaller until there’s suddenly thousands of them and the streets are
nothing but hairline cracks in the earth.
When you yield to his request and kiss him once, twice, three times, slower
and slower on each tether, his whine transforms into a hiss, but he makes sure
that your ears are the only receptive party, “good fuckin’ sweet girl. Good thing
those cabs are nice an’ private, yeah? Can’t wait to have you alone.”
“Is that why you wanted the Ferris wheel so badly?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, and when will I learn that you’re always right?”
“That’s what I’m fuckin’ sayin’.”
Craning your neck towards the sky, the fat, round lightbulbs that outline the
massive Ferris wheel illuminate in circular succession, a domino effect of
rainbow colors that intensify one by one before fading to black and starting over
from the beginning. The hidden background of the night sky comes into focus
with the newfound darkness; a phantom chill washes over you. Then another
noiseless discordance of color brightens your skin and kisses your cheeks with a
splash of coral, a hundred tiny sparkles reflecting off of your eyes, before the
dreamy luster is stolen for the sake of nighttime shadows once again. Behind you,
faint screams pan from your right ear to your left as the cars from The Jack
Rabbit whizz by. A bell hollers to signal a winner from a nearby boardwalk game.
The sign on the giant structure spells out romance in front of you, a giant string
of lit pearls that contour the name of the Ferris wheel in maudlin cursive.
Light of Love.
“It’s really tall. We’ll be able to see the edge of the ocean, right where it drops
off into the galaxy.”
“I’ll only be watchin’ you.” The look on his face is one of pure susceptibility. It’s
hope, spelled out in the glitter of his eyes and the pucker of his bottom lip where
his teeth sink, slicing a dip between all of the soft, coral wrinkles. With just a dash
of powdered sugar on the tip of his nose.
“You’re so sweet to me, Sunbaby.”
“Don’t tell anyone, yeah? I’ve got a surly reputation to protect.”
You have a very thin reputation to protect and so do we. This is a civilized
business, not your personal brothel. Keep your rod in your pants, Styles.
Harry isn’t quite certain what kind of demons stole the affection from his face,
but it didn’t slip by you unnoticed, “are you okay? I told you that mixing greasy
sugar and rides might not—”
“No sweat. We’re up next. Tune in.”
Harry’s ability to prioritize you while keeping the rest of the world in his
periphery makes you feel safe. And sexy. And significant. With enough patience
on his end, you’ll surely return the favor. You’re always worried that you’re not
returning the favor, after all.
The cars on the Ferris wheel follow a pattern of alternating primary colors;
yellow, blue and red enclosed, roomy carriages with two benches facing inward
shielded by modest roofs. Harry holds the little gate open and bows forward in a
gesture for you to pile in ahead of him, sneaking a peek at your cleavage when
you curtsey and then immediately crowding your space as soon as you slide into
place.
“Hey, look. What the fuck is that?”
When you glance over your shoulder for a look at what Harry’s referring to, he
steals another hunk of your funnel cake and pops it into his cheek. The ride starts
with a jolt and not seeing anything of significance, you turn back to him just in
time to find him chewing like a fat squirrel, his fingers slipping into the breast
pocket of his shirt to pull out his heart-shaped sunglasses and slip them over his
eyes. He whistles loudly with his fingers, then raises his hands in the air and
incidentally shakes the car in doing so, “should’ve gotten three!” His finger points
out again, except this time he targets a nearby, sprawling mansion that comes
into view with your added height, “check out that dump.”
Giggling and crumbling his heart all at the same time, you nod your head to
the bench across from you, “sit over there and open wide.”
“My legs? Holy shit, you gonna get down on your knees? ’Kay—”
“Your mouth, dummy.”

You can’t see his eyes but from the shape of his eyebrows, you know that the
empty-headed expression below his sunglasses is hilarious, “I know, shit.” Harry
flops onto the other bench and mirrors your position by crossing his oxfords at
the ankle on the seat beside you, his mouth gaping open and his tongue hanging
out, “you love when I eat with my face, don’t you? Hit me.”
Ignoring his persistent obscenity, the first toss of a piece of funnel cake
bounces off the lens of his sunglasses that catch and echo the lights of the Ferris
wheel. Harry tries to chase it with his head before it goes careening over the
edge, propping his shades on his forehead and watching it fall through the air.
His lips furrow as he creates the sound effect of a bomb dropping followed by a
tiny explosion, “killer aim, Cherry pie. Missed a small child by a couple inches.”
He tucks his sunglasses back into his breast pocket to give you his full attention,
“hit me again. But I gotta tell you, if this one tanks, I’m confiscatin’ that thing.
You’re burnin’ perfectly good fuel.”
“Okay, one more.” Hitting a specific target is much harder when your hand is
shaking from your sweet giggles, but you manage to land the second toss directly
onto his tongue with a victorious whoop from both of you, “you’re so talented.”
Harry’s palm drops to your crisscrossed ankles and slips your strappy sandals off
your feet, his jaw happily working his prize as he digs his thumbs into the arch of
your injured foot. The firm pressure of his hands mixes with the paradox of tight
tendons, flipping a switch inside of your stomach that has your voice trembling
out, “Harry?”
“Hun.”
“I’m kinda sad about the close of the summer season.”
“I know you are, baby. I see that shit.” His knuckles roll into your ankle with
the compression he’s perfected from stretching you every morning at work, “next
season will start so fuckin’ fast you’ll wish you could freeze your free time. D’you
ever find yourself missin’ parts of your life? Like, wanting them back so badly
that it makes you feel helpless? But then you remember how life is just made up
of small bits and they change so fast and escape you, and then you get scared for
what’s lost and you get scared for what’s comin’ next and how long that phase
will last? That’s all it is. Little scraps that keep changin’, but are all strung
together like a rusty metal chain with weak and strong links. Teeny, tiny eras.
Some shiny and some tarnished. But they’re all the same, also. It’s scary how
mysterious and predictable it all is. And how everything only makes sense
afterwards, even though you might feel like it’s makin’ sense as it happens.”
“What lasts, though? Something has to.”
“Habits, love, fear, addiction.”
“Aren’t those all the same thing?”
Harry’s instinct is to disagree, but as soon as he opens his mouth, his

argument dies on his tongue, “you’re right. So….. love then. Love lasts.”
You cast your empty plate aside and cozy up on the bench beside him, his
palm smoothing up your calf to pull your legs into his lap. You tug on his hands to
coax him even closer, your bodies tangled and snuggled up underneath the
warmth of the oversized electric lighting surrounding you, “I guess I do miss
parts of my life. I miss everything, but I’m also glad they’re gone. I’m always
wanting more. I think I spend too much time poking around in the future, which
is nothing but an anxiety-riddled waste of time, isn’t it? It’s like a weird form of
masochistic materialism, always wanting the next thing. I consume something
and then I’m immediately hungry again. The grass is always greener when you
can’t see it or even be sure if it exists. What’s your favorite era so far?”
“This one. And I relate to bein’ hungry all the time.”
“That’s exactly what I expected you to say.”

Harry is forever pushing to live in the present. What an excellent goal to strive
for.
The Ferris wheel creaks to a halt and lends you both a built-in moment to soak
in the view of the oil-slick ocean and imagine what’s lurking beneath;
bioluminescent bravery and ancient shark’s teeth. Harry drags his gaze away
from the sparkling, black movement of water and reveres your profile; a lock of
hair sticking to the pout of your cherry-stained lips thanks to the sea breeze, a
bold swing of eyeliner adding a layer of sin to your otherwise darling features.
Harry has a strong need for sensation; love, hate. Warm, cold. Rough, soft. Empty,
full. His fingertips tickle up and down your arm, he works carefully to pull you
from your thoughts and submerge you back into his, “smell so good, baby Honey.
Skin looks pretty.” A smile carves a dimple into his cheek upon your regard, he
brushes the hair from your face, “I’m sensitive and obsessive. I think you can
relate.”
“Yeah. More than anything. All of us can, I think. True and brief.”
“I’d rather be true and brave.”
“Spoken like a true Cub Scout.”
Harry holds three fingers up in Scout’s Honor before cradling your head and
pulling you close for a kiss, the car swinging back and forth gently in the air as he
draws back to lick his lips, “can I read you the signage I just peeped on a drug
store and you tell me if it’s kinky or just my dirt-shit brain?” Your wrinkled nose
and soft giggle are the only permission he needs, “’kay….. ’snacks, slushy, milk,
bread, ice, cheap cigs, hot food, lottery. Soft drinks.’ That’s like, sexual right?”
“Totally suggestive.”
His hand glides up your thigh and his voice sizzles within the promptly thick
air of the small cab, “yeah? You gotta suggestion for me?” You thread your fingers
with his, maneuvering his hand further up and watching with a melody of humor
when his eyebrows furrow and his fingertips dance across your bare hipbone,
“are you….. not wearin’ any motherfuckin’ knickers?”
You sink your teeth into your bottom lip and shrug, “oops.”
“What? ’Oops’? You had ’em on in the dressing room before we left. I
remember, because they were soakin’ wet.”
“I guess I lost them.”
Images of you shimmying your underwear down your legs and tossing them
somewhere in his van without his knowledge soar through his brain, followed by
two slow blinks and a mouth fully agape, “Jesus Christ. Jesus fuckin’ Christ.”
You’ve just been walking around this pier and this amusement park and the
haunted house and the fucking funnel cake line, casually talking trash with him,
in a skirt with no panties and he’s had no clue? “’Cause you wanna investigate my
girth certificate?”
“Harry!”
Harry tugs the neck of your dress down and immediately replaces the fabric
with his palm. He curls your leg around his waist and nudges you forward by
pressing his nose to yours, his teeth poking his bottom lip as he lowers you to the
bench. His stomach swallowing his heart in one, big gulp, “just for me?”
“Yes—”
“Vous être juste un putain de sale petite garce.” Before you can squeak out a
proper response, the pads of his fingers trace a line up your inner thigh and
immediately target your swell with his thumb, his eyelids fluttering and his
nostrils ticking at the slick silkiness, “god, dripping fuckin’ wet. Y’know how easy
it would be to fuck right now?” The breeze steals your whimper when his thumb
sinks inside of you, his skintight words offsetting the slushy rhythm of his pulsing
digit, “I’ll do anything. I’ll do absolutely anything to feel you. What’s it like, huh?”
He hisses through the bombardment of his imagination, “what’s it like to fuck
you, baby?” For the first time since you and Harry have begun fooling around, a
curtain of exasperation blankets his features, “please. Nous sommes amoureux
de l’autre. Wanna see you fall apart ’cause of me, with me. Wanna taste your
sweat, fill you up. Feel you squeezin’ on me. God, I’m fuckin’ ragin’ right now. No
panties? None? Et où sont-ils partis, ma chérie? Huh?”
Harry knows the answers, but he still can’t believe you’ve done such a thing.
Even with his thumb quickly working you towards release.
He’s said and asked too many things to even begin to reply to all of them,
especially with the tiny hurricane swirling in your stomach and your legs slowly
going numb as they squeeze around his hips, “I thought you liked my secrets?”
“I hate them until you give ’em to me.” He folds your lips together, his tongue
caressing yours in devious little circles as he adds another finger. And then
another, with his half-lidded gaze glued to your face to gauge your comfort,
“’kay?”
The Ferris wheel groans when it begins its slow drag back to earth, starting an
invisible flipping countdown to your intimate moment coming to a close whether
you’ve peaked or not, “yes—” Your head falls back to broadcast the heated skin of
your neck and chest, your fingers blindly fumbling with the buckle of his belt, “I
wish I could freeze time right this second.”
His mouth meets your ear as he croons softly in your ear, “we all live in a
yellow submarine. Yellow submarine. Yellow—”
Your hands recoil from his pants so quickly that you both split open with loud,
candid cackles, “stop! Harry! You are such a little, cheeky cow. Shut your face.
Petite vache. Arrête.”
Harry peers over the edge of the car to discover your position in space, and
when he finds that you’re about two minutes away from the ground, he
withdraws his fingers from you all-at-once before sucking them into his mouth
with a hum, “whatever you say, Cherry. You’re the boss, remember? Mmm…..
think I prefer your funnel cake.” He pulls back, drawing a damp line from your
chin, down your neck and through your bare cleavage, exploring your ruffled,
aggravated figure with his fingertips and his stormy, clouded pupils, “fuck. Look
at you. You’d look so good ridin’ me. No fuckin’ bra or panties under this dre… s...
what a bad bitch. Who are you?”
“Come back, Sunny.”
He cranes down and brushes his lips over yours, “better fix yourself up, half
the pier is about to see your knockers.”
Straightening your dress, you sit up and kick a leg over his thighs before
settling into his lap, “would that make you jealous?”
As if under arrest, Harry’s palms hit the air in shock before dropping to
squeeze your hips, “um, yes. Why?” A little groan rumbles up his throat when you
circle your hips and press your forehead to his, “you like to see me bein’ a messy
bitch, all possessive and hurt?”
Your fingertips drag down his stomach and then start slipping the tip of his
leather belt from the buckle, “I like seeing you protective.” You pop his button
and pull the zipper down next, “greedy.” His chest starts to visibly rise and fall
when you slide your hand under his wifebeater and your nails lovingly drag up
and down his stomach, “bossy.”
Harry’s breath hitches in his throat, his skin buzzing behind each pitter-patter
of your digits. He sucks his lips into his mouth before moistening them with his
tongue, his eyes darting across your face before landing on your curious smirk.
His jaw drops slowly, a single centimeter for every inch your hand travels and
when you scratch your nails into the patch of hair below his belly button, your
pinky grazing his swollen, dribbling tip, his head falls back against the edge of the
seat, “Cherry…..” The car that you’re riding in hovers dangerously close to the
ground and nearly within view of passersby and Harry is starting to think that
you might have a little kink when it comes to teasing him in public. As does he,
“don’t start somethin’ you can’t finish.” When you wrap your fingers around him
and swipe your thumb over his weepy slit a couple times, his head rocks back, his
adam’s apple hopping below the ribs of his throat, “fuck— you tryin’ to make me
come?”
“Can I? Please? You’ve had such a rough day, haven’t you?” Slow and tight
drags on his length, your nose nudging the most sensitive part of his jaw where it
hinges below his ear, “rushing out of our warm bed this morning. Rushing out of
our dressing room after the show. I bet you’re so frustrated, Daddy. I bet I could
finish you off in just a couple minutes if you wanted.”
This daringly innocent act stirs him up each and every time; the way your eyes
seem to physically grow in size and how your lips magically ooze with cherry
buttercream. The seductive roll of your hips, the mercy of your voice. He
recognizes your clean performance the instant it transforms you and how
seamlessly you fall into this role. And perhaps most importantly, how you do it
just for him, but seem to get just as much pleasure from it. Maybe even more.
Harry grips the back of your neck and connects your lips in a bruising kiss, his
hips rutting into your hand with tiny little curses fluttering down your throat.
Logically he knows there isn’t enough time for you to get him off and logically he
knows that if he tugged on your dress in any direction, a couple dozen people
would receive a free show and you’d likely spin his jaw. In the span of a single
moment he realizes your rare instance of dominance and power, but then
backpedals and mentally scratches a harsh, bloody line through that thought.
You are always in power.

And he doesn’t like that.
Because who has the most power in a relationship anyway? It must be the
person with the least amount of guilt.
With a harsh stop, Harry grips your wrists and holds them behind your back in
a single fist. Your squeak of opposition is interrupted by an unexpected growl,
“enough. Quit teasin’ me.” Amidst a couple dry swallows and panting breaths,
Harry guides you off of his lap and onto the bench beside him, adjusting his
trousers back into place, “shit. I look like a shitshow.” His eyes flit over to you and
your sad pout and your messy hair and rumpled dress. A handful of reminders
that Harry expects your compliance, “and so do you. But a hot shitshow.” A single
chocolate whorl dangles in his face; he brushes it back and drops his palm to
your knee, his rings landing heavily on your skin, “you’re a long list of delicious
and easy. And you torture the fuck outta me, babe. You’re like a livin’, breathin’
carrot dangling in front of my nose. I’m kinda losin’ it, y’know.”
Shame. It comes from within and guilt, that comes from Harry. Both of them
shape your behavior pretty vigorously.
The ride pulls to a sad conclusion and a Ferris wheel worker steps forward to
unlatch your gate. When you gather your sandals from the ground and rise to
standing, a firm grip on your wrist pulls you back and the look on Harry’s face is
a swirling paradox of emotions: desperation, discipline, desire. There is a film of
sweat on his chest and his mouth is a soft, perfect heart, one shoulder of his
button-down is awry for a peek at his collarbone. His eyes are a tangled heap of
dinner and dessert, salt and sugar, a silent quid pro quo that begs you for your
compassion and pity, “not yet?”
You glance over your shoulder at the ride worker before looking back at
Harry. You can see him visibly swallow, “are you okay, Sunshine?”
“Nope. Not yet. We’re goin’ for another spin.” He tugs you close, maneuvering
your hand to his center for a glimpse of what he’s dealing with and tilts his head
to speak quietly in your ear, “I’m packin’ too much heat to cruise right now, yeah?
Need a minute.” Regardless of what your wishes may be, Harry conveys his order
at the ride operator with a simple whirl of his index finger before clicking his
tongue at you next, “assieds-toi.”
The never-ending struggle for control. Harry hates it, he hates that he can’t
force outcomes, he hates that getting what he wants also feels a lot like
punishment. You can detect his battle for the upper hand written all over his face
and so, like the perfectionistic, performative, people-pleaser that you are, you
pull the gate shut, toss your sandals and drop down beside him. So closely that he
can taste your heartbeat and smell your oblivion.
Like a magnet that never properly affixes, the tip of his nose, his lips, his
permanent lock of rascally hair gently skim your jaw and your cheek as the ride
starts back up and sails towards the moon, “good girl.”
Even though your bodies are already touching, you scoot closer. It’s the act of
wanting to attach that matters to him anyway. You don’t say anything at first and
Harry looks at you, noticing your expression and then freezes, his gaze bouncing
from your mouth to your eyes over and over again as he waits patiently for what
you’ll say next.
“Harry?”
“Cher—”
“Can you tell me some more things you’d like to do to me?”
A lot different than my fantasies, Honeymoon.

What’s yours?
You don’t wanna—
Yes, I do.
“Fuck. You want some dirty talk now? You kiddin’?” You shake your head and
his smile pulls wide to expose his teeth, as if he were blanketed under a thick
layer of relief upon your request, rather than oppressed by apprehension,
“’kay…..” His volume and his conviction don’t falter, “want you to ride me, use my
cock how you like. I wanna fuck you so hard on your back, with your ankles on
my shoulders, that you have to take breaks to breathe. I want you to come on my
tongue and then I want you to taste it. Keep goin’?”
“Mhm….. yes.”
The softness of his voice scrapes a bit, “I wanna leave marks on you with my
mouth. With my hands. Bruises, bites, sucks. In places only I can see. Spoil you.
Worship you. Possess you. More?”
All you can do is nod and breathe in the rhythm of his words. The Ferris wheel
grinds to a stop with you and Harry on the very tippy top, exactly where you’ve
always meant to be.
His speech loses everything except for a rolling bass, “I wanna spank you with
my cock inside of you, edge you until you’re beggin’ me to come, tie you to your
bedposts, blindfold you, make you gag on my cock. Fuck you on your stomach
first thing in the morning, have your smell on me all day. Eat your ass out for
breakfast. Get you all dolled up for a date and then wreck you so badly that we
can’t leave home.”
“Whoa—”
“You told me to keep goin’. Was that too—”
“…..more?”
Harry’s eyebrows raise slowly before he cups his hand along the side of his
mouth, leaning forward and dropping an earth-shaking, whispered bomb directly
into your ear.
Your cheeks pool with red fire in the aftermath of his detonation.
“More?” Harry’s not surprised to see your jaw dropped and your head shaking
slowly, “’kay, lemme know. I’ve got a bottomless pit. That was just the crust.” He
sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and releases it slowly, his eyes looking
straight through yours to the back of your skull, “can I ask you somethin’?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me some things you wanna do to me?” He taps your temple with
his knuckle, “I know they’re in there. Just one.”
“Honestly?”
“Obviously.”
You straddle his lap again, your skirt naturally bunching up around your waist
and the strap of your dress slipping down your arm, “I want to be the best you’ve
ever had. I want to set the bar so high that you’re ruined, addicted. Hooked for
the rest of your life. I don’t want there to be anyone else that even comes close.”
“Holy shit. That’s kinda sinister. But Cherry?” He grips your hips and smooths
his hands to your bottom, squeezing tight before rocking your heat against the
bulk in his trousers, “you’ve already done that and we haven’t even fucked yet.
Haven’t you been payin’ any attention?”
“We haven’t fucked yet?” You pin your forehead to his and unbutton his pants
again, slinking your hand inside and immediately rolling him in a smooth upward
caress. Harry sucks air through his clenched teeth and shakes his head, the ends
of your noses sweeping back and forth, “oh. I almost forgot.”
The moan that sizzles from the innermost layer of his chest mimics the one
from earlier, when all he could feel and hear was warm sticky sex and the
hopeful, impending explosion of climax. The luscious sound coils your heat into a
ball so tightly that it’s on the edge of bursting. Your fingertips ripen and thrive
into a life of their own when they begin to stroke him with determined lust,
watching his murky eyes disappear behind pinched skin and heavy, dark lashes.
Your mouths seal together in a fevered, wet kiss, neither of you paying much
mind to the hectic lap of your tongues when Harry is barreling moans down the
back of your throat and straight to your core.
“Salope.” He cups the back of your head, kissing your mouth and sinking his
teeth into your bottom lip, hard, before pulling back and admiring the fresh flush
of your skin, “mmm….. doin’ so good.” Your hand feels choice and you’ve learned
quickly exactly how to work him, but he wants more and frankly, he deserves
more. His palm smacks your ass before pinching the sore spot between his
fingers; a little nip that matches his demand, “want your mouth. Bruise your
knees for me, baby. Lemme come down your throat. No one will see. I’ll go so
quick, I’ve been edgin’ all fuckin’ day.”
Your stomach flips at his vulgar honesty and the anticipation of the near
future which he’s willingly placed in your control. He hums and threads his
fingers through your hair to lower you closer, your lips and noses tapping when
he nudges his chin towards you and puckers in request of a heated kiss, in almost
complete opposition to the stringent bite you’d just received.
Without hesitation, you break away from his embrace and slide between his
legs and onto the floor of the car, making sure your eyes are glued together how
he likes when you suck his head into your mouth. His lips part at the tight,
saturated sensation that he’s been dying for, his eyelids fluttering and a myriad
of curses and praises oozing out like honey when you sink him down to the back
of your throat. Above you, the stars shroud the black sky but they’re impossible
to see with the bright lights of the Ferris wheel acting as a blinding veil to the
natural world. But just like Harry, and just like the bright lights of your very
public career, you can feel their infinite love even when you can’t touch them.
You soak him with your tongue, suctioning your cheeks for a satisfying pop as
you come up for air, twisting your fist around his length as you fall back into your
favorite little act for him, “am I making you feel good, Sunbaby? Est-ce que ça
vous va?”
The way your voice expertly and innocently ticks up a degree whenever you
coax him along in French has quickly become one of Harry’s kinks, and he feels
powerless in rutting his hips into your palm. He wants to bury his face in your
neck, bury himself in your sweet words and bury his cock in your cunt. He wants
closeness and he wants to be consumed, he wants your cherry to leach him dry
and empty his mind, he wants sweat and he wants obsession. He wants messy
beds and soft light, constant pining and abundant heartbreak. The endless nights
and the early mornings, no boundaries between where he ends and where you
begin. He wants every single brick to crumble from the patchy wall separating
you. Raveling limbs, raveling spirits. Skin and skin and skin. He wants, he wants,
he wants.
“Oui. You’re perfect. You’re always perfect. M’so close, don’t fuckin’ stop.” One
of his hands tangles into your snarled locks as he guides your mouth back to his
length, pausing his typical, incessant verbal appreciation for another pitiful plea,
“mmm, god. Fuck, Cherry. I want you to fuck me so bad. I need it. Je t’aime, I need
you so much. Ta chatte, ton coeur. Please.”
Your stomach is flipping and your core has a firm grip on itself, your throat
strained as you pull back and try to swallow enough to murmur out your reply, “I
want to. I really want to.”
Harry whines and begs and loses the strength to hold his head upright,
revealing a sweaty, tight neck and the palpable beating of his heart. He grips the
edge of the car and imagines it. That one biblical moment of the very first sated
penetration, that consuming uproar that rivals every sensation short of orgasm
and in less than a blink, he’s crying out and coming on your tongue with a
knifelike, unabashed cry that dribbles into a handful of withered moans. Your
name mixes with your nickname mixes with declarations of love, and with a
couple wicked pulses of his thickness, his limbs fall limp and his head rolls to the
side in the aftermath of his long-awaited release.
The ocean breeze filters through the car; silence and reverie, love and light,
escape from the bustle of energy on the pier below you. And in front of you,
Harry’s hand blindly fumbles for yours before he urges you back into his lap,
hissing at the feeling of your heat on his half-hard, spent length as he melts into
your body with a heavy sigh. Blinking slowly, his lips and nose nuzzle into your
collarbone to reveal your favorite velvet-dream-boy in his post-orgasm haze,
“mmm….. night night. Perfect fuckin’ angel. Gets better every single time. Nothin’
like it.” A memory reappears and Harry’s popping his head up fast, before he can
even think, “hold tight, did’ya say you’re ready to have sex with me now?”
His cheek is scratchy in your palm as you draw him close to fold your mouths
together, his puffy, bitten lips snugly embracing yours. Your favorite kisses are
the ones that happen right after one or both of you come; slow and heavy,
perfectly tempered and plush, all buttoned up with gratitude and unspoken
sentiments. Two sets of Cherry blossoms meeting in the Sunshine, bleeding
Honey that crystallizes upon contact to strengthen your bond. Tugging his shirt
up, your hands slip inside to meet his warm stomach before smoothing up his
chest, a rumbling hum communicates his value in being so heavily doted on. He
pulls away for a single breath before diving back in for another kiss, the fabric of
your dress bunching in his fist against your thigh as his tongue massages yours.
You break away with a gasp and his kisses immediately began sponging a path
down your jaw and neck, “yes, soon—” One of his hands dives into the neck of
your dress to palm your breast, the other slips between your legs, “not here,
Sunny. Please.”
Harry pulls back all-at-once as if attempting to tame the feral animal inside of
him, his fingers raking through his hair and his chest expanding with breath, “I
can’t think straight. When? Huh? When, Honey pop?”
You kiss his top lip and then his bottom, but stay close when you whisper a
vague stipulation, “win me a bunny and we’ll see.”
Claiming that he would need to refuel his energy before playing any
boardwalk games, Harry hoovered yet another funnel cake as soon as you
walked off your sea legs from the back-to-back Ferris wheel rides. He
chainsmoked about four or five cotton candy cigarettes, bought you a swirly
rainbow lollipop that was easily the size of your entire head and sarcastically
promised that it would last you at least a few minutes, with the way you suck
down lollipops as if you needed them to breathe. It was your idea to hog the coin-
operated photobooth, with you and Harry taking a couple strips of photos
together and a couple strips individually. Harry nibbled on his lip as he stared at
the four little developed photos of you all in a row — your sweet cherry-flavored
mouth and dramatic eye makeup, your coy smile and infinite love — before
tucking them into his breast pocket beside his sunglasses and kissing your lips
and neck to thank you for his new favorite bookmark. You’d suggested that
perhaps he could switch out the photo of you in his locket, but he shook his head
and simply muttered, “nah. I like the headshot there for some reason. These
belong in the heart of whatever’s bendin’ my mind at the moment. Call it
inspiration.”
And he especially loved it when you called him your inspiration in return.
A black, felt tip marker scribbling secrecy in the margins.
Like a pupil who hasn’t heard a word the teacher has spoken. Or better yet, a
pupil who uses art as a fidgety tactic to better tune in to the world inside and
around him.
The last stop before retiring to The Pink is Harry trying his hand at popping
balloons with darts in order to win you the floppy stuffed bunny you’ve
requested. He allowed you to needle him for choosing the most British game on
the pier for exactly five seconds before pinching your ass hard, then pulling you
close by the throat and whispering a steaming threat in your ear, “ream me again
and I’ll pinch you in the front next. Ya think I forgot you’re starkers under that
dress? Zip your lips or I’ll make you slime the boardwalk. Now let your hunk
concentrate.”
Harry slaps a dollar bill on the counter and is awarded eight darts, which he’s
told that popping five is the necessary number for winning a stuffed animal. He is
customarily entertaining to watch in his innate competitive state; his lip bitten
between his teeth, his hair in his face and a cigarette perched behind his ear as he
absorbs every ounce of focus into his goal. Darts soar towards the wall of
rainbow-colored balloons, and each time he pops one, he doesn’t even bother to
pause and celebrate. He refuses to celebrate until his objective is secured.
With four balloons popped and only one dart left in his hands, you can see a
sheen of sweat collecting on his forehead.
You reach for his arm, “Harry, it’s perfectly fine if—”
But he doesn’t take his eyes off of the balloons, “hey, don’t put any negative
juju in the atmosphere, yeah? I thought you trusted me. Light of Love,
Honeycomb. Light of Love.”
This may be one of the only times that you’ve been in his proximity and fallen
second in terms of priority. On second thought, he is playing this game strictly to
please you and just like that, your heart is soaring as it tries it’s hardest to
contain and comprehend all of the high regard that Harry holds and exudes for
you.
Just for you.

The bursting of a fifth balloon simultaneously bursts your thought bubble.
Harry parades away from the booth with his arms held above his head in
astounded victory, a half dozen curses flying from his mouth and forcing a
humorous snort from your nose. He breaks into a flawless rendition of The Skate
dance as he cruises away from you and then slides his way back, plucking the
cigarette out from behind his ear and lighting it before bending into your space,
“Slick Daddy Boss here. You rang? Kisses. Kiss, kiss. Praise. Love me.”
Your sweet little nose scrunches up as you cup his jaw for a kiss, your sweet
little expression melts out as you declare against his lips, “you’re the sexiest man
to ever walk the earth. I never doubted you for a second. Sunshine always wins.
Perfect execution. Your muscles are huge. You’re so smart. You have an
enormous dick. You’re basically Jesus, but hotter and more important. Thank you
for existing.”
I don’t play to lose, babe.
Harry laughs hard. That amazing, raspy, loud, ganache-coated cackle that
would shoot glitter if it were a tangible object. He simmers down enough to hum
and thank you and kiss you again, intertwining your fingers as he walks you back
to the dart game to collect your prize.
The booth worker has a small, brown teddy bear extended towards you and a
cheap cigar dangling from his lip, “here you are, Miss—”
“Whoa.” Harry’s hand intercepts the stuffed animal pass off, “what the fuck is
that?”
“Your prize, son.”

Narrowing his eyes in suspicion, Harry takes a long drag of his cigarette before
very characteristically questioning the worker’s authority, “what about that big,
pink bunny with the floppy ears that you led me to believe I was winnin’?”
The booth worker pretends that this was the plan all along, when clearly, he
had come up with it as soon as he saw how easily Harry accomplished his goal,
“ah, you gotta pop seven balloons for that one. You only popped five. That’ll be
another buck if you wanna try again.”
“How do you sleep at night, man?”
You pull on Harry’s wrist when he starts to fish his wallet from his back
pocket, his cigarette bitten between his teeth and a slip of pink smoke winding
into his trademark curl, “Harry, don’t make yourself upset over it. It’s okay. These
things are always rigged anyway, c’mon. I love the bear. It’s fine—”
“Fuckin’ scam.” Harry glances from you to the booth worker, waiting for the
moment where he turns his back and is distracted by other customers as a
brilliant idea pops into his head, “no, fuck this. Fuck him. Fuck that bear. You’re
gettin’ what you want. Hold up.”
The instant the prick with the cigar is preoccupied, Harry jumps the counter
and pulls himself up on a stool in the corner, all lanky legs and towering,
conspicuous height with the added boost from the small piece of furniture. You
cover your face and peer out over the tips of your fingers, your gaze hopping
back and forth between the two men in fearful anticipation of being caught and
banned from the boardwalk for life. Harry holds a finger to his mouth in a silent
signal for you to stay quiet before he starts to untie the ribbon from around the
bunny’s neck that affixes it to the wall.
Pink, puffy clouds of smoke billow out from between his lips, his wifebeater
coming untucked and riding up a bit to display a finespun patch of happy trail
that disappears into the waistband of his trousers. A couple girls notice his brass
behavior and start giggling, which doesn’t break Harry’s concentration but
merely causes his dimple to whittle a dip in his cheek. He looks over his shoulder
a couple times to make sure he’s in the clear, his curl bouncing on his forehead as
he finally gets the bunny untied and hops down from his perch.
Sliding back across the counter on his ass, he reappears before you with the
bunny held behind his back as if it were somehow magically a surprise. As if you
didn’t just watch him steal it in the first place, as if the pink legs and pink arms
and pink ears aren’t sticking out from behind his shoulders and hips. His smile is
proud and light with humor, “gotcha somethin’, Honeybabe.”
Bright red with embarrassment but still managing to play along with his little
game, you speak through an amused grin, “oh yeah? And what could it be?”
“Gotta gimme a kiss first.” Harry looks especially hot with an aura of
wickedness radiating from his chest, his lips strikingly pink, his arms behind his
back to accentuate the curve of his shoulders and collarbone. He cranes down a
bit to hover his mouth over yours, his lips skimming yours when he speaks, “can’t
just get handed shit for free, y’know.”
So, you kiss him right in the middle of the busy pier. A hijacked bunny in tow,
crazy neon lights swirling all around you. Giant spherical bulbs of color and the
smell of hot, sweet treats. The ocean quietly existing nearby, your kiss slow-
motion amongst all of the visual chaos. The world just somehow knows to
silently retreat when you and Harry have much-needed sunshine to bask in.
Arriving back to his van in the parking lot, Harry unlocks the passenger door
for you before propping your illegitimate prize bunny on the dashboard. One
eyebrow raises in curiosity when you hesitate to climb into your usual seat, “can
I drive your van back to Malibu?”
“Huh?” He looks genuinely offended, “no fuckin’ way. I see how you chicks
operate. You freak the fuck out over broken fingernails, but hit a curb goin’ ten
over the limit and just say ’whoopsie!’”
“Breaking a nail hurts really bad—”
“The Pink just told me to deliver you a message. She said,” he holds up his
middle finger, “no way, Speedway.”
“Butthole. One day I’m gonna steal it and do doughnuts in a parking lot behind
the supermarket.”
Harry’s jaw drops in indignation, “Queen Knob. I’ll have you arrested.” He
backs you up against the side of his van, the volume of his voice plunging right to
your stomach, “get in and buckle up or I’ll strap you in myself.”
You tilt your chin towards him to convey your obstinance, “I know you hide
your keys in the sun visor mirror.”
“But you don’t know where I hide the keys to the cuffs.”
“What?”
“What?”
Your heart is pounding away inside of your rib cage and you can’t pinpoint
exactly why, “are you serious?”
“As a heart attack.” The pad of his index finger traces a line down your throat
and stops in the divot of your clavicle, “how’s that make you feel?”
Really? “Um….. swirly?”

Licking his thumb and wiping something from your cheek, Harry holds his
finger under your chin to show you a skinny black eyelash threatening to blow
away in the wind, “make a wish.”
“I wish—”
“Not out loud, for fuck’s sake. Don’t you know the rules? Jesus. Since when are
you an external processor?”
“You must be rubbing off on me.”
“Yeah, like….. daily. And it’s hot as fuck. Now stop askin’ me stupid shit and get
your pretty ass in the van. Maintenant.” His palm lands hard on your bottom with
a clap that echoes throughout the parking lot, “j’ai dit tout de suite, jeune fille.”
On the ride home, Harry gives you free reign over the music that you want to
hear and is less than surprised when you jump on the opportunity to scour his
collection of Nina Simone vinyl. While in the spacious cab in the back, it does
cross your mind to flip open one of his books for a stolen peek at whatever he’s
been scrawling in there lately, but it doesn’t feel right. Especially considering the
photograph and following heartbreaking conversation about his former partner
that unfolded last time you’d done something like that. Besides, he did promise to
share it with you soon. And he’s yet to say something he doesn’t mean.
It also crosses your mind to snoop around for the fabled handcuffs, but you
suppose you’re not ready to see those yet.
You swipe an open box of Frosted Flakes cereal from his meager pantry before
climbing back into the front seat, his palm immediately locating your thigh as
soon as he finishes shifting gears. He interrupts his emphatic singalong to
“Feeling Good” before pointing to a sign on the side of the road that reads “free
dirt,” quietly scoffing to himself and grumbling one of his little insights that never
cease to entertain you, “oh, look. Good news for everybody.” It’s like he can’t keep
anything inside, and it makes you wonder what sorts of hilarious things were
brewing in his brain that you missed out on before his accident, when he was
forcing himself to live alone with his ghastly depression. Or if there was anything
positive happening inside of him at all during that time.
Harry does a double-take at your relaxed figure; your feet kicked up on his
dashboard and your hand buried in the box of bleak cereal resting in your lap,
“Cher?”
“Sunbeam.”
“What’s up, you got the pot belly blues or somethin’? You’re raw doggin’ Tony
the Tiger over there. Isn’t that shit dry?” He reaches over to grab a handful of
Frosted Flakes, the plastic inside of the cereal box crinkling against his knuckles
before he tips his chin back and shovels them into his mouth, “mmm….. s’actually
groovy like this. Whole new experience. It’s like sugary cat food.”
When you try to mimic the way he so effortlessly scoops his giant mouth full
of food, you end of spilling some on your dress with a whine and a pout. You pick
a couple flakes off of your chest and lick sugar from your fingertips, “what’s ’raw
dogging’?”
“Just gunnin’ it. No toolbox. Want a bowl? A spoon? Or some milk? I’ve got nut
milk if you prefer.”
You scoff and smack his shoulder, “seriously, you’re so gross sometimes.”
“Fuck off. Have we met?”
“Twice now.”
“Blue-ribbon turd burglar.”
“Big head.”
“Hey! Wait, which one?”
“Both.”
Harry flips the sun visor above his head and catches a pack of smokes that falls
into his lap, “tight. Thanks, babe. Seriously though, I do. It’s almond.” He holds the
pack to his mouth and bites a cigarette between his teeth, “I get it at the hippie
greengrocer. Lasts longer on the shelf.”
“Just admit that you are a hippie. You spread free love, you’re always barefoot,
you smoke weed, you surf, you nap with your dog. You’re a feminist, flower
power, civil rights advocate….. and you play air drums to ten-minute-long guitar
riffs and live in a van.”
“Except I wear leather. And deodorant.”
“Details. If your hair gets any longer, it’ll start to dread.”
Harry gasps in insult at your jab, “holy shit, bitch. Don’t even fuckin’ think
about me with dreads. I’m afraid your brain will start to curdle.” The electronic
lighter on his dash pops out and he uses the end to bring his cigarette to life, “I
hate when my belly sloshes around. Does yours do that? It’s like a special kinda
full, where you can feel little ocean waves movin’ back and forth, y’know? It’s
fuckin’ gross.”
“Totally. I don’t know why that happens.”
“No one fuckin’ does.”
With a sweet yawn and a little comfort-seeking wiggle in your seat, you ask a
question that you’re almost certain Harry will contend, “can we sleep in The Pink
tonight?”
“Can’t we sleep at home?”
Home. Simply “home.”
Your fingers crawl along the seat towards his thigh, “but it’s more romantic
here.”
“What exactly is more romantic here? Sleep? Makin’ out? The air? Us?”
You rock your head towards him, studying his curvy facial profile, admiring
the way his pout looks with a half-burned cigarette disposing of ribbons of pink,
admiring the way his locks twist around his forehead and cheeks. Admiring every
single detail of him, “the feeling.”
“Why’s that?”
“I dunno. I guess because it’s different, it’s unique to you and you alone. It
takes me away.”
“But your bed is like….. choice.”

“So is yours.”
Your stare-off only lasts as long as Harry can manage driving with his eyes off
of the road, “Rock Paper Scissors.”
“Can’t you just be a regular boyfriend and let me have my way because I’m a
girl?”
“I thought you wanted a boyfriend who’s feminist.”
Your smile grows slowly but broadly, “I want a boyfriend who’s you.”
Your fists hit the air before tossing your respective shapes; Harry’s paper
elegantly covers your rock up in its comforting blanket, “yes! I left a box of Oreos
there that I’m gonna fuckin’ torpedo as soon as we get back.”
“Me first?” Harry glances your way to find you with your cheek pressed to the
seat and your sleepy, watery gaze fixed on him, “I think your copy of Revolver is
in the bedroom. I’ve heard good things about ’Tomorrow Never Knows.’”
“Challenge accepted.”
You love love. You love him. You love loving him. You love him loving you.
Exactly one week later, after successfully ticking off each of your dwindling six
performances and leaving only one Monday night season finale, you shoulder
open the exit door of the theatre and step into a special shade of lavender
twilight. Your Sunny lover left as soon as he stepped from the shower, eager to
rip through a couple cigarettes at Banana Split until you were ready to meet for a
date at The Sweet Hereafter. Harry has discovered that you tend to move a little
more quickly when you know that he’s waiting on you to finish getting ready, and
that may or may not be a lesser-evil tactic on his end to get you to move your ass.
There’s nothing worse than being hungry and waiting for a perfectionist to put
on mascara that looks good no matter how many times you curl your lashes.
There is a full month break between Monday’s finale and winter rehearsals,
and Harry’s promised to take you on a weekslong road trip up and down the
west coast; Seattle, Crater Lake, The Redwoods, all the way down to New Mexico
and Arizona for some proper thawing out. The thought of spending every bit of
spare time that you have with Harry is exhilarating, but also nerve-wracking with
the knowledge that at some point your sex life is likely to reach a new height. It
won’t exactly be the summit or crowning moment of your relationship, but it’ll
surely be a kick-off into a new territory that is so foreign to you that it’s
impossible to even imagine what shades of color and what flavors exist there.
Harry’s figure is concealed, but his pink cigarette smoke coils around the bark
of Banana Split to expose his weak hiding place. You quietly pad up behind him,
finding him with his head tilted toward the pages of a book and his shoulder
resting against the sturdy trunk. Without alerting him of your presence, you
spring forward and cover his eyes with both of your palms, “guess who?”
“Marilyn Monroe? Where’d you come from? I thought you were dead.” His
cheeks push against your palms with a pleased, morbid smile, “too soon?”
You whack his chest and spin him towards you by the shoulders, “mildly
funny, goon.” The beaming smile on his face leaks onto yours, “hi.”
“Hi, my Honey baby.” Harry snaps his book closed and grips the back of your
neck, angling your face toward his, “killer lipstick. Fuck, you’re a complete dream.
Je t’aime, babe. You alright?” He hums against your lips and sucks your tongue
into his mouth, a whoosh of air exhaling from his nose as his stomach tosses and
tosses with the electricity zipping through his bloodstream, “mmm….. shit. Hi.”
“Hi.”
The pad of his finger taps your nose, “odd request.”
“Really? Okay, I’m ready for it.”
“I’m tense as fuck and I think it’s ’cause of the finale on Monday. I’m gonna go
surf for an hour and try to meditate and clear out this gunk in my head. The
waves look gnarly and my god is speakin’ to me. You cool? I’ll swing by your
place at nine?”
You wrap your arms around his waist and pull him in for a hug, your cheek
resting on his shoulder as he squeezes you tight and rocks you side to side, “of
course.” You prop your chin on his collarbone and ogle his heart-shaped mouth,
his sweet breath puffing out against your skin, “I’ll go say hi to Nettie. You did
great tonight, by the way.” Another tender kiss that swims around in your
insides, “you’re my forever inspiration, Sunny.”
“Rad. Hey, thanks, babe. Right back atcha. You looked strong as hell on the
rope. How’d I get so fuckin’ lucky?”
You shrug and brush his lips with the tip of your finger, “relentless charm?”
“Must be it.” He kisses your fingertip and then your mouth one more time,
“mmm….. nine, yeah?” You nod and back away, Harry’s eye falling into a smooth
wink before you spin on the ball of your foot and head home to kill a bit of time
before your date.
And his relentless charm is utterly shameless in leering at the curve of your
ass as you make your way down the boardwalk.
After a successful surfing session and restorative push through whatever
mental block was plaguing him, Harry tears through his van in nothing but a pair
of high-waisted, flared trousers and soaking wet hair, scrambling through his
storage bins for a wifebeater and a shirt to throw on. He pauses to pick up the
small alarm clock on the shelf beside his bed, cursing at himself when he realizes
that he’s running a couple minutes later than he’d planned to. He fucking hates
being late places, but especially when it comes to meeting you, because any
second that cuts into your alone time together can fuck right off.
Harry drops to his knees and finally finds an under shirt beneath his bed,
lifting it to his nose for a whiff and then making a mental note to do a load of
laundry as soon as he gets a chance, “score. Could be worse.” He whips his head
over his shoulder and groans when the long hand on the clock moves forward
another tick, “fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck—”
“Fuck. Fuck you, am I right?”
A chill runs up Harry’s body from his toes to his scalp. He rises to standing,
pacing toward his open door and peering out to find Tex swaying back and forth
in the sand, clearly intoxicated and unquestionably belligerent. Harry and Tex
haven’t had a proper conversation in a couple months. To say that Harry is
surprised to find Tex here, actually brave enough to confront him about god-
knows-what, is an extraordinary understatement.
The ball of stress that was already swimming in Harry’s stomach begins to
dissolve in acid, pour through his veins and grapple each one of his limbs, “the
fuck, man? I don’t have time for this shit—”
“You’re a piece-of-shit friend, mate.”
Harry groans and rolls his head back on his shoulders, tossing his shirt down
onto his bed and stepping out of his van. His feet sink into the sand and he
crowds close enough to smell a viscous cloud of rum leeching from Tex’s pores,
the green smoke from his cigarette enveloping both men in a haze of atrocious,
cucumber-scented funk. Harry invades Tex’s space, hoping to intimidate him
enough to send him on his way without any major conflicts, “you’re blitzed. Go
home, sponge. I can’t talk to you right now and you’re not even gonna fuckin’
remember it. This is thick. Leave.”
“It was me.”
Digging his fingers into the meat of his own shoulder, Harry attempts to
relieve a sudden knot of pressure building underneath his skin and between his
bones, “what was you, man? Get with the words.”
Tex wobbles and takes a couple sloppy steps before pointing the tip of his
cigarette at Harry’s chest, “the juice.”
Claps of thunder are no comparison to the storm inside of Harry’s ribcage,

“what? Tell it like it is, mate. The fuck are you on about?”
Tex is slurring his words so badly that if Harry didn’t know him any better, he
might have a difficult time understanding him. He might even be a little
frightened, “you’ll never forgive me.”
“Stop bein’ so fuckin’ daft and spit it out, piss ditz.”
“I just….. I love you, mate.” The air deadens around them, “you know?” He
seems to sober up for two ticks of the clock before taking another drag of his
smoke, “I love you.” Harry can see something else glimmering in Tex’s bloodshot
eyes. Helplessness and hope. Something lost. Something unsaid. Something very,
very sad.
Harry falters; his mouth opening and closing a couple times before he presses
the heels of his hands into his eye sockets for a moment to collect his thoughts.
But he doesn’t really have any. In an odd instance of speechlessness, Harry’s
brain seems to be completely empty. And now seems like an appropriate time to
say the one thing that Harry hates to say, “I’m sorry…..”
As if Tex’s hazy confession hadn’t just spilled out, his blitzed-out mind reverts
back to their original conversation, “it was me.” Harry’s heart is beating inside of
his mouth, but he stays quiet in the hope that Tex will begin to make more sense,
“Rusty’s threat. Your broken doorknob. The TD who walked in on you.” He makes
clumsy little air quotes around the words ’walked in’, staggering backwards at
the same time, “the whole reason he’s been trailing you. Who’s daft now, zot?”
And if I don’t?
Harry’s still clinging to the hope that his shitty lies can get him through this
conversation and preserve your career in the circus. You would never, ever
forgive him if he cost you your dream job. But at the same time, it makes
absolutely no sense. Why would Rusty go through all the trouble of re-signing
both of your contracts, with decent raises, for an entire upcoming season if he
suspected the continuation of a forbidden romance that he’d warned Harry about
months ago? He remembers reading somewhere that denial is an extremely
strong emotion, “I dunno what you’re jivin’ about, but I’m late. Piss off—”
“Last week….. and earlier. Today. Buncha times. Not just Rusty. Lotsa people.
Lotsa people know now. You’re going around. You’re fucking Clyde!”
I’m gonna strangle the scuzz fuck who ratted us out.

Luckily there is a shred of inconsistency that Harry can ride his breaking
waves of lies on, “man, who the fuck are you callin’ Clyde? I’m not fuckin’ anyone.
I haven’t gotten lucky in months. You’re wrong.”
Tex laughs so hard that he almost falls over, but he puts his arms out and grips
the open door of Harry’s van just before nearly losing his footing, “gag me with a
spoon. She’s not even putting out. You’re a fucking fruit.”
Harry gathers Tex’s shirt in his fist and pulls him close, their eyes snapping
and burning together when Harry’s lips curl over his top teeth, “back the fuck up.
You’re trippin’ out and it’s fuckin’ ratty. This is a bad fuckin’ scene. Son-of-a-
bitch. I said piss off!” Harry shoves Tex backwards and watches him teeter for
balance, “you have no idea what’s goin’ on in my life anymore. Hear me? You’re
clueless.”
“Doesn’t matter. You fucked up. Your secret’s out. It’s over. Tell Clyde to start
looking for a new gig. You’re both getting what you deserve now — a disaster.”
A low drone hums in Harry’s ears before rising increment by increment, the
high-pitched screech of his delicate future crumbling in his palms. He can’t be in
Tex’s presence anymore, allowing him to fill his mind with utter bullshit that he
isn’t even sure has any proper meaning. Tex is either drunk out of his skull and
talking a load of old trash, or Tex is absolutely right and filled to the brim with
guilt. Enough that he felt the need to drink what looks like an entire bottle of rum
before showing up here to confess all of his dirty sins.
“I told Riff to fuck her. Even if she was fighting. Especially if she was. And I
knew he would.”
Before Harry even has a chance to digest Tex’s horrific evil, Tex takes a swing
at Harry’s face, nailing him right in the eye socket and sending him stumbling
backwards with a sharp cry. Pain radiates across Harry’s entire face before
setting his eye on fire, little stars dancing behind his eyelids as he scrambles to
reorient himself. Throughout this entire verbal exchange, Harry’s been
considering how to explain his likely strange demeanor that’s bound to carry on
once he picks you up. But now he has no idea how he’s going to explain a black
eye without being the one thing he’s been dreading for months: completely
honest.
A trembling hand lifts to his face and tenderly presses against his sore cheek
before he straightens up and tangles his fingers in Tex’s hair, slamming his face,
once, hard, into the hood of his van. The fat, wet crack of bone breaking rattles
Harry’s skeleton, but the sight of Tex’s face instantly drowning in gluey, dark
blood makes him feel the slightest bit better. For the time being.
Harry would categorize the sound that Tex makes as a cowardly shriek, “you
broke my fucking nose! You’ve lost your fucking—”
Neither one of the men recognize the eerily sedated growl that comes out of
Harry’s mouth, “I’ll break your neck next.”
Harry’s trapped inside of a crowded restaurant; the volume of surrounding

conversation reaching a fever pitch until his own thoughts are drowned in the
uproar. It’s like he knows the kitchen is full of roaches, but he’s scared to turn the
lights on. What if it’s worse than he thinks? What if they all scatter into their
crevices and sink deeper into his foundation? What if it’s an unbeatable
infestation and he can’t afford an exterminator? But it doesn’t matter really, he
can feel them crawling all over his feet and ankles, ready to swarm and scavenge
for any decaying matter that’s been building between his toes for much too long.
And with that, Harry piles into his van and starts the engine with a roar,
leaving Tex behind in a cloud of proverbial dust and literal sand.
👀 Two chapters left. (Plus epilogue and extras). What are you thinking?
Please remember to vote, comment, talk to me. Thank you to everyone who
reached out the past couple weeks. I grew an abscess in my throat that I was
worried I’d have to get surgically drained, but antibiotics murdered it! Love you all.
Xx B
SHIIIIIIIIINE!!!!!!!!!
Tip, tap. Tip, tap. Tip, tap. Tip, tap.
I’m gonna go surf for an hour.
Waiting, watching. Sometimes it’s impossible to tell the difference between

the light at dusk and the light at dawn, the sting of distress and the sting of
anticipation. Your eyes don’t stray from the wall very often; a toneless Kit Cat
clock and the cold telephone hanging side-by-side against the patterned kitchen
wallpaper. The former ticks with constant life, sped up and slowed down all-at-
once. The latter is paralyzed. The vinyl upholstery of the dining chair is sticky
and pea green, smacking against your sweaty thighs as you adjust every few
minutes. Nettie sits to your left, her hair wound up in empty orange juice
concentrate cans, her eyelashes thick with mascara, her cheek smudged with a
smear of black from rubbing her face in unease. If you were feeling even the
slightest bit more vocal, you would help her wipe it off. Or at the very least, tease
her for it. Your fingernails drumming on the plexiglass tabletop reminds you of
the distant morning after the infamous Chubby’s date, when Nettie dragged you
out for milkshakes with girlfriends at Susie Q’s and Harry appeared with a harsh
slap and a pair of pining, pine tree eyes breathing oxygen into yours.
Cherry pie.
You had wished for him to appear that time and he did, except that identical
wish isn’t having quite the same impact right now.
A couple weird things happen when you stare at the same sight incessantly for
two hours straight; you become certain that the images will permanently be
burned into your eyeballs and you become certain that what you’re seeing will
have a lasting effect on your sanity. You imagine that if these objects ever
happened to appear again in your life ten years down the road, just the pure
perception of a clicking clock would be enough to trigger a panic attack.
The persistent swish of a black, hooked cat’s tail. Arrhythmic, bulging shifty
eyes, laced up with a prim, white bowtie. A small, feline pendulum that plays
tricks on your ears; little auditory hallucinations of staccato two-syllabled
phrases that both soothe and frighten you with each painstaking swing back-and-
forth.
Tip, tap. He’s, fine.
Tip, tap. Just, wait.
Tip, tap. Please, call.
Tip, tap. Rip, tide.
Tip, tap. Je, t’aime.
Tip, tap. Go, check.
Tip, tap. God, spoke.
Tip, tap. He’s, dead.
Your gooey hot fudge Sundae, your shining pink Sunbaby. Where is he?
The minute hand on the clock ticks forward once more, but it’s easily the
slowest minute of your life. It somehow defies the space-time continuum. Harry
is now nearly three hours late.
Would you have even picked up on any indicators if he were planning to skip
town? Would he tell you? Is he a better liar than you originally thought? Did he
wipe out on his surfboard again? Did he crash his van? Did he get drunk and
forget about your date? Did he abandon you?
The cat’s eyes roll. The phone is dead. Harry’s last words to you mix with the
insanity of the clock mixes with the insanity of your inner monologue.
Tip, tap. Honey, baby. Tip, tap. Odd, request. Tip, tap. Nine, yeah?
Tip, tap. What, now? Tip, tap. 11:46, 11:47. Tip, tap. What, now?
“Are you sure you don’t want some Swiss Miss? It’s the kind with the little
marshmallows in it. And I think I have some whipped cream for double the sugar
buzz.”
Your gaze shifts from the Kit Cat clock on the wall to the half-eaten jar of
peanut butter on the counter. Harry’s face appears like the rising sun in both of
them, but you don’t have anything to say to Nettie.
“Maybe he just got super-duper baked and too freaked out to drive or call you
or even move. And now he’s lying in bed with the covers pulled up to his nose,
too scared to peek out of his curtains, so instead he’s counting his heartbeat and
thinking about the purpose of eyebrows. Not like I’ve ever done anything like
that….. on Christmas day while my family was downstairs eating sugar cookies
decorated with Red Hots and green icing.”
Tip, tap. Je, t’aime.

Blinking feels like closing your eyelids over frostbite and sandpaper, “what?”
“I ate like, nine of those cookies once the high started to wear off though.”
The ensuing silence makes the kitchen throb to life like a beating heart to the
rhythm of the clock, the grout in the tiled flooring taking on the appearance of
bulging veins through your blurred vision. Breathing, thumping with heavy
spurts of blood as each second creeps by. Tip, tap. Swell, shrink. Tip, tap.
Your head pounds in unison.
“I think I should go look for him. He’s never done anything like this before,
Net. He seemed completely fine all day and after our performance, up until the
very second we parted ways. We’re so in tune with each other, I would’ve noticed
the slightest nuance in his demeanor. Something just feels off about this. It’s
disquieting. Accidental. He told me he was feeling really tense because of the
finale in two days. Do you think he could’ve gotten distracted and fallen off his
board again? Or do you think he’s just being an airhead?”
“He’s always an airhead.” Nettie presses her palms together in prayer at her
chest then opens them up towards the ceiling as if holding a big beachball-sized
bubble, “mega-Aquarius, Cherry baby. He saw this shit comin’ ages before
conception. You’re so fuckin’ foxy to finally figure it out, though. Fat city, babe.
But don’t like, harsh his fuckin’ mellow. Y’know? Fuck.”
The muscle behind your facial expression wipes the grin from her face. Maybe
her impression of Harry would have been better revealed at a different time.
Perfect fuckin’ angel with perfect fuckin’ ears, I know you hear me.
“Okay…..” The film of anxiety is so thick on your skin that Nettie can taste it. It
fills the room with pungent cherry-zest, a spiderweb of uncertainty that cakes
her tongue and tightens around her throat. Half of her thinks that you are
working yourself up more than necessary. That logically, Harry is cooking up
some sort of boneheaded surprise that will bring relief once he’s here or that
perhaps something less sinister and more unexpected or inconvenient
transpired. That logically, bad news travels faster than good news. But the other
half of her knows that you are intuitive and grounded, and if you think that foul
play may be involved, then she’s inclined to trust your instinct. “Why don’t we
hop in my car and just cruise the beach to see if we can spot him?”
It brings you relief that Nettie has suggested this before you choked under the
insecurity of your own rash decision making, “is that crazy?”
“Don’t let men’s touchy, unreasonable and vocal judgments of women’s

openhearted actions guide or label your choices here, please. He’s three hours
late. It’s not unacceptable to feel worried. If we find him and he’s fine, he’s going
to be so happy that you came looking for him. I’ve never seen him be anything
short of thrilled or clingy as hell when you’re together. He’ll probably feel like
shit that you’re upset. C’mon, it’s Harry. Remember Harry? He’s obsessed with
you and he’s fuzzy soft. He’s basically a possessed, bruised peach.”
“You’re right.” You peel yourself out of the chair and fluff your hair a couple
times, except it’s less vain than it is anxious. Your cheeks puff out and you exhale
slowly to breathe out your declaration, “alright, let’s go. I miss him. Should you…..
remove the months’ worth of breakfast from your hair first?”
“Jeez, pushy even when you’re half-mute with concern.”
You’re pretty fuckin’ pushy yourself, but I dig it.
“Pushy especially when I’m half-mute with concern. And I know. I know I do
that. Harry always points it out. Also, I guess I babble when I’m nervous.” Saying
his name out loud stings, like it somehow carries the density of something
ephemeral and powdery, “I’m sorry. I’m suddenly frantic, can you please hurry?
And what about Asher, are you just going to leave him here?”
“He slept straight through our last earthquake and woke up wondering why
the pillows were on the ground. I think he’ll be fine.”
After Nettie lets down her hair and swipes her keys from the hook in the
entryway, you find yourself dangling out of the side of her yellow Volkswagen
Thing with sea mist reddening your cheeks, squinting into the darkness as she
crawls down the length of the boardwalk much to the chagrin of other cars.
You’ve passed by the spot where Harry typically parks his van twice, the rocks
and sand and palm trees now seeming as if they have a bald spot in the absence
of their glowing pink marshmallow toasting in the fiery sand below. The
deficiency of Harry leaves a physical impression. If you stared long enough, you
might be able to see four divots in the beach where his wheels buried
themselves, like moving an old, sun-bleached couch off of a carpet after several
years of occupancy.
Nettie eyes the back of your head and your socked feet curled up underneath
your bottom, “nothing?”
“Not a thing.”
“Yelled at me to take my hair down and you didn’t even put any shoes on.”
Nettie’s remark is buried alive in your anxiety. You glance over your shoulder
at her, “should we park and look for tire marks?”
“Who are you, Sherlock Holmes? What else are you planning to do, stick your
finger in your mouth and feel for the direction of the wind? Should I get you some
whiskey and a level-headed, but easily-flustered accomplice? Or a magnifying
glass?”
“Nettie, I swear to god.”
Little do you know that if you did actually decide to get out and snoop around,
you’d probably find lumpy puddles of blood in the sand from where Tex’s face
oozed down to his toes. And that probably wouldn’t do much to ease your
splintering tension.
“Okay, okay. What about that boy’s club pool bar he always hangs out in?”
It has crossed your mind that he would possibly swing by Hound Dogs, but it’s
been ages since he’s stepped foot there and he’s been so adamant about avoiding
Tex that it seems unlikely and absurdly out of character. Maybe Nettie’s right,
maybe you’re overreacting. Maybe he just decided to surf in a different spot and
it’s taking him longer than expected to come home. Or maybe he was never going
surfing at all and he fibbed, either for an innocent reason or for something a little
more unfaithful. Or impulsive. The battle with these negative thoughts is
frustrating and each time you attempt to shake them, it seems impossible for
concern not to shadow your brain in its black haze of fear. That nosy, permeating
fibber. Always at the forefront of all of your wars.
The tail of the Kit Clock wall swishes left and right. It’s eyes roll. Harry’s face is
the sun.
“I don’t think so….. he usually takes time alone to think when things get
convoluted. If something bad did actually happen, I doubt he would go surround
himself with a bunch of drunk flakes. He needs the isolation.”
“What if it’s one of those weird phone tag moments, where as soon as we left
the duplex, he pulled up and we just missed each other?”
This seems like the least painful option, so your brain cozies up in this spot for
a pause of alleviation. And now you’re itching to return home to see if he’s there.
But you don’t have anything to say to Nettie.
“Are there any other spots you wanna check? Any regular haunts?”
“Not in Malibu, really. We tend to leave town to spend time together so that
it’s less likely we’ll be spotted by coworkers or fans.”
“You two are scandalous.”
Defeated, you flop back into your seat and spin Harry’s ruby red ring around
your finger. Your gaze is glued to the windshield, except it bounces up against the
film of glass like a trapped mosquito, seemingly incapable of penetrating the
impediment. Midnight doesn’t have many spectacles to offer aside from yellow,
hazy streetlights that pass by to wash your thighs with streaks of rumination, “I
know….. I kinda really love it. It’s very us.”
Nettie’s eyes widen and her mouth downturns into humorous, overstated
contemplation, “wow, did he change you or did you just….. open up?”
“We changed each other. We opened each other up.”
“You’re so far gone for him, aren’t you?” Your roommate loves to meet the
person you are today versus the person you were less than a year ago. It’s the
major reason that, placing all of Harry’s annoying tendencies aside, she also
harbors an ocean of respect for him. Not just because your refinement is positive
and honestly, precious, but because it seems like this version of you had always
been there. Bright and easy and velveteen. Her voice was just too small to be
heard, “it’s amazing, actually. I couldn’t have even imagined anything close to this
from either of you six months ago.”
“No kidding. I would’ve bet my entire nest egg on this relationship not
standing even a margin of a chance. And I never would’ve been more wrong.
Harry knew though, and I think part of him always did.”
“Get married. Elope and honeymoon. Have babies already.”
“I have no interest in getting married. And I’m still undecided about children.”
“Wh— really?” Nettie purses her lips in a pregnant pause, “does Harry know
that?”
“…..more?”
into your ear.
“No, I don’t think he knows, per se. Doesn’t it seem too early to discuss?”
Nettie can tell by the slip in temperature and sudden lack of breeze that she’s
breached an uncomfortable topic and she absolutely loves breaching
uncomfortable topics, “well….. have you had sex yet?”
There’s a hint of regret on your tongue and it tastes like sulfur, “no. You know
I’d tell you if we did.”
“God, how tragic would that be? Your wildly handsome, too-young-to-die lover
wipes out on his surfboard under a full moon and you never knew what his dick
felt like, so you spend the rest of your life wondering—”
“I’m going to hurl myself out of this moving vehicle if you don’t quit it, Melvin.
You’re so disturbing sometimes….. but it somehow makes me feel better.”
Reaching into the neck of your dress, you pluck the stress-emergency Crush
cigarette stolen from one of Harry’s stray packs out from your bra, depressing
the electric lighter on the dash and folding yourself back into your seat, “so, don’t
stop, I guess.”
“Oh, wow. Good thing Harry’s not actually here, you would’ve lost your
virginity the second he saw that little boob move.” Nettie steers her bulky car
towards a more active part of town to continue the search. Although at this time
of night, mostly everything except for a few dive bars and the stray after-hours
diner has their neon signage put to sleep, “can I ask you something? And I want
you to be honest.”
“Oh, god. Here we go.”
“How come?”
Yours and Nettie’s eyes lock; the stroke of silence is interrupted by a primed
click from the hot coiled lighter.
The cotton candy cigarette burns to life with a fluorescent strawberry tip and
momentary bands of bubble gum. The smoke burns your throat; Harry is the sun,
“I don’t know. Timing? Readiness? Nerves?”
“There has to be something else. What is it? Do you know?”
“I don’t. I guess I don’t know….. it just takes utmost vulnerability.”

“Keyword. And what a gift to have that realization. Take hints from Harry, he’s
pretty good at that, isn’t he? He says and does whatever he wants.”
“I’d call that more reckless and impulsive than anything.”
“Sure. Reckless, impulsive. Also: emotional, adventurous, daring. Same thing,

different spin. So, what is it, doubts? Second thoughts?”
“No.” Your answer comes out faster than you’d expected and it surprises you,
“no. I don’t doubt him, his feelings or our relationship. He’s clear and honest. His
actions match his words, he’s persistent, consensual and patient. Harry’s perfect.
I think it’s me. I think it’s all me. Is there something wrong with me?”
“No and yes. You’re overthinking it, baby. And you know he’s not actually
perfect, either. That’s dangerous thinking because then it means you think that
you’re not. You’re putting more pressure on it than necessary and it’s worming
around in your brain and making it harder than it has to be. There’s no perfect
time or perfect atmosphere. Sex is natural and decent. It’s a step up, not a drop
from a cliff. The point of doing something for the first time is that once you’ve
begun, you can start working towards a more complex realm, rather than free-
falling into a pit of conclusion. You know what I mean? You have, like, such a tight
grip on your self-control that it seems like you’re afraid to try something new just
because it’s uncharted. But you know what else was uncharted? College, Malibu,
the Circus. Harry. You rocked all that shit even though all of it was hard. I know
that ’variety is the spice of life’ is cliché as hell, but girl, you have to get that kick
or you’re not living your life in the way we’re all meant to: by connecting and
experiencing.”
Hand that control over, Honey muffin. I’ll take such good care of you. Before,
during and after. You trust me, remember?
“Seriously, it’s not that scary and it feels crazy good. Trust me.” Nettie is well
aware of your silence, but she regards it as some deep speculation rather than
opposition or tension, “like, really, really good. So long as he isn’t dead, I mean.
That would feel crazy bad.”
Is your commitment towards control really that obvious? And unattractive?
“Nettie! You’re ruthless.” The deliberation on your end is finally broken up

with a single snort as Nettie swipes the smoke from your fingers for a drag of her
own, “everything you’re saying is extremely helpful and it all makes sense. Thank
you. I do hear you. I’m trying, I really am. I have to get all this worn-down,
societal arm-twisting out of my head. It just takes time. Blame my parents.” You
catch your gaze in the side mirror and carry on, uncertain of who you’re
addressing exactly, “I want to. I do, believe me. Although….. now that I think of it,
you and Harry sound eerily similar. Have you been conspiring behind my back or
something?”
“You really think Harry and I just sit around and have heart-to-hearts behind
your back every single day? You’re being paranoid. Just loosen up the littlest bit
more. Just a little bit. Also, these ciggies taste like warm strawberry shortcakes
with vanilla ice cream and rainbow sprinkles. I totally understand why he
virtually swallows them whole.” Before ashing the cigarette out her window,
Nettie notices your hard stare in the midst of a double-take, “what?”
“Wynette…..” The corners of your mouth tick into a tiny, encouraging smile,
“do you and Harry have heart-to-hearts?”
“Nope. Harry the Hustler just sits alone and stares at walls when you’re in the
shower or practicing or sleeping in.” Nettie’s sarcasm sheds to accommodate a
slowly and silently growing smile as she passes the smoke back to you, pockets of
pink as mysterious as her startling revelation coil around your fingertips, “he
calls it ’Honey Princess Hour,’ by the way.”
Trying to imagine this scenario unraveling between the two of them feels alien
and deliciously secretive, but it makes perfect sense. Harry thrives on human
correspondence and loves covert operations, so the combination of the two are
inevitable. Sneaking into Malibu mansion pools, public acts of sex on innocent
pier rides, faking deafness to avoid conversation with the person he’s
begrudgingly falling in love with, stolen kisses when no one is watching.
Discussing you with your roommate when you’re asleep. Entire hidden
relationships first behind closed hearts and then eventually, closed doors.
Your stomach is wrapped into a tight knot and inflated like a balloon at the
same time, your brain is crammed full with questions, “since when? What else
does he say about me?”
He’s basically a possessed, bruised peach.
“Nice try.”
“Tell me. Please?”
“Listen, I don’t see his flamboyant clunker anywhere. Should we head home?
Whoa, look over there. Is that a hearse? What a treat.”
The turn signal sounds too much like the tail of the Kit Cat clock to be at all
calming. Nettie’s attempt at redirecting the conversation only circles your mind
back so far; it’s much too tangled up in replaying every single conversation that
you’ve had with your lover and roommate over the past couple months, any
alone time that they may have possibly shared while you wore naïve blinders,
furiously seeking to connect any enigmatic moments from either of them,
“anything could be a hearse if you use it right.”
Nettie’s laughter is just as pretty as her very nature, “dark! Nice one.”
“If he does come home tonight, what’s his explanation going to be? What’s he
going to say? What am I supposed to say to him?”
“Easy. If the roles were reversed, what would you want him to say to you?”
“Um….. I don’t know.” Bubbles and foam of sparkling, neon pink champagne
dance along the black pavement when you flick the cigarette butt out the
window, “maybe: ’je t’aime, I’m so relieved to see you, tu m’as tellement manqué,
thank you for coming back to me safely, are you okay, what do you need?’” Your
gaze travels north to seek comfort in the palm trees swaying overhead, your
voice as transcendent as the stars themselves, “’kiss, please.’”
“There’s your wisdom right there, Bibi. You answered your own question.”
Easy.
Even though Nettie never actually promised that Harry would be waiting to
greet you when you returned home, it’s still no less disappointing to find your
street bare aside from the streetlights casting limp, orange puddles onto the
sidewalks. The color is a warm, muted shade of what Harry would be if reduced
to a single entity; early morning sunshine mixed with a dash of broiled ruby
grapefruit.
The Kit Cat clock calls to you from the kitchen the second you step into your
apartment. Harry’s spent loafers lay haphazardly kicked into a small, reckless
pile in the entryway. Yours sit straight and polished and clean beside them.
Nettie eyes you from behind, hanging her keys on the hook and then poking her
head into your line of sight, “how about that cup of Swiss Miss now? I have a
chunk of studying to get done by Monday, but I can stay with you for another few
minutes if you’re still feeling sick to your stomach.”
Tip, tap. Cherry, baby.
You wave her off with a solemn shake of your head, “no, you’ve certainly done
more than enough. It’s past midnight. You go ahead, I’ll be fine.” It’s clear by
Nettie’s dubious expression that she’s still worried about you and possibly Harry
as well, “I promise. I’m just going to get changed and read for a while to take my
mind off things. That’ll probably put me to sleep anyhow. It always does.”
“Okay. I’ll be up for a while if you need me.”
Your gratitude is sunken behind the soft kiss deposited to your forehead,
“thanks, Net.”
“You got it.” She tosses you a final sentiment over her shoulder before slipping
into her bedroom to check on Asher, “give him a ball tap for me when he finally
decides to show up.”
Whether Nettie knows it or not, it is relieving to hear her to use the word
“when” rather than “if.” Reading between the lines, she is assuring you that you
will likely see him again and receive an explanation, whether it be now or
tomorrow. The next ten minutes or so are spent pacing the kitchen waiting for
the tea kettle to boil, swallowing thick saliva down your dry throat as you slice a
lemon in half directly onto the countertop. It is becoming less and less likely that
Harry will make an appearance tonight; eyes roll, sun burns. You’ll just have to
figure out some way to trick yourself to sleep, but the promise of inevitable
nightmares gives just the idea of bed an excruciating edge.
Since the thought of food makes your stomach swim, the only thing you can
conceptualize swallowing is hot water with honey and lemon. The floral-
designed Pyrex mug burns your palm as you pace into the living room and swipe
a book from the coffee table, steam trailing from the mouth of your cup when you
retreat into your bedroom and place your things down on the vanity to change
into a nightgown. Crossing your room and shimmying your dress over your
shoulders, a flash of bubblegum pink flickers to life in your peripheral vision
through the sheer fabric of your skirt and the split in your curtains.
The dress slips from your fingertips. Your lips part for air, but there isn’t any
left in the room.
“Shit! Oh my god.” The longer you stare with your jaw dropped, the more the
vision forms into an actual entity in your brain; a plump pink marshmallow
pierced by four dark chocolate pinwheels, reestablishing into an idling pink van
sitting on four shiny black wheels, “oh my god. Shit, shit, shit! Wynette! Shit!”
Changing directions a half dozen times in just as many seconds through the
flurry of a mental snowstorm; your socked feet and sweaty palms, a lock of hair
clinging to your cherry lip balm, a flash of your stunned reflection in the vanity
mirror, Harry’s balled up wifebeater in the corner of your bedroom. Your socks
skid on the hardwood floor as you grip the doorway to propel yourself into the
hallway, your roommate poking her half-dressed head of rollers out her door just
in time to see the blur of your body run by, “what’s the matter? Is he here? Wait,
don’t go outside in a slip— Bibi, you’re practically naked!” Nettie cups her hands
around her mouth to call after you, “the man’s gonna shit turbo bricks!”
But all you can manage is, “Harry!”
Before she can answer, you’re throwing your apartment door open and
disregarding the need for shoes while Nettie’s delayed warning falls wayside in
importance. The rumble of an engine and the roar of your heart collide violently
when you careen down the steps faster than what feels safe for your weak ankle.
Looking back on the last several years of life, you can count the number of
times that you’ve cried on two hands. And you could probably count the number
of times that you’ve cried in front of another person on just one hand. Mostly, the
elite society of cutthroat show business has taught you that women who cry
under duress are weak and not cut out for the necessary pressure of fame and
public facade, so you’ve learned to shovel heavy boulders on top of any blaring
sensitivities in order to claw your way through the system. That and most
gloomy emotions that were displayed in front of your parents were consistently
dismissed and invalidated, teaching you at a young age that your mental health is
unimportant and also, distasteful.
Vivienne, stop feeling sorry for yourself. That’s a silly thing to be upset over. It
could be worse.
Vivienne, you’ve failed because you didn’t work hard enough.
Vivienne, you’ve had enough to eat. A moment on the lips, forever on the hips.
Vivienne, I’m not having this discussion with you. Grow up.
Vivienne, don’t look so pleased with yourself.
Being with Harry is not much different, except his dislike for your tears comes
mostly from the deep sting of miserable empathy that he personally works so
hard to avoid and bury. Not because he’s an insensitive person, but rather the
exact opposite. Harry is hypersensitive. He feels everything. He bolsters your
psychological needs by constantly reframing them in a positive light; reminding
you that you are worthy, you are powerful, you are gifted. Harry’s tactic is to hold
a mirror up at all times, but instead of reflecting back the twisted image of
yourself that you and your upbringing have created in your head, he reflects the
one that he sees. Silver screen beauty. The best dancer on the planet. Darling
humor. Keen intelligence. A heart of dripping honey. An emotional undertaking
for you is one for him as well and he would just much, much rather see you laugh.
Or moan. Like you deserve.
So, it’s no surprise that when he climbs out of his van with a handful of
sunflowers and a thick lock of hair traipsing past his eye to graze the curve of his
lip, you can see his heart physically break at the shiny tears that threaten to spill
past your bottom lashes. Your quivering chin, your reddened cheeks. Your little
whimpers of protest sting like needles and maybe it was too soon for Harry to
come here and maybe he shouldn’t have come at all. But he’s here anyway. He’s
here and his eyebrows drag together into a disapproving grimace when he scans
your barely-clothed figure and your socks, his arms spreading open to catch your
predictable desire for him after his cryptic absence, “don’t cry. Please, don’t cry.
My poor bubbly guts, Honey pie.” His tongue clicks against the roof of his mouth,
“c’mere, baby. I’m here.”
The people pleaser in you effectively chokes the tears back, which makes it
impossible to speak. Instead you hurl yourself into his arms and emit the saddest
and softest sound Harry’s ever heard, right into the sensitive spot where his neck
mingles with his collarbone. Right in the exposed spot where you mingle in the
middle of the street.
Regret and guilt soar from his toes to his throat. But love, it skyrockets.
“Easy, easy. Shh….. everything’s fine. No blubberin’. I know I flaked.” His arms
wrap clear around your shoulders to draw you in firmly against his warm chest,
his fingers claw their way into your hair and grip the back of your head tightly,
goosebumps blossom like tiny blistering rosebuds over every inch of skin, his
neck smells like tropical home. Harry nibbles on his bottom lip and draws back
just enough to squeeze the bouquet of sunflowers between your chests. His voice
is small and scratchy, a hungry kitten licking at an empty food bowl, “what’d you
have for dinner, Cherry?”
His eyes stay trained on the silky yellow petals, the big fuzzy circles of brown
feathers, sandpaper green leaves, sturdy stalks. They’re so happy. They’re so
hopeful.
With his sight downcast it’s easy for you to wipe the couple tears that fall from
the corner of your eye unnoticed. A small, relieved laugh breathes free as you
grab the flowers from his hands and smack them lightly against his chest.
Knowing how much you’ve missed hearing that question from him, you’re
reacting exactly as he hoped you would: with a big heart and unconditional
acceptance. There isn’t a spot more he could ask for from a partner, after all.
You’re it for him.
“Where were you, Sunny? I thought you’d wiped out again….. I was so worried
and nervous for hours—” Nettie’s advice of saying what you would want to hear
if roles were reversed stops you mid-sentence and sends you spiraling in the
other direction like a mindful, vulnerable boomerang. It’s hard to push all the
residual stress and negativity aside for the sake of the person standing in front of
you, the very person who caused said stress and negativity, but you’re able to see
the need for his own emotional hammock right now. And sometimes that’s
simply what love is; wringing out the passion inside of you enough in order to
manifest and sponge up more from surrounding heartbeats, “are you okay? I
can’t believe how much I missed you. Je t’aime. I’m so relieved to see you.”
Harry is extremely grateful. So, so fucking grateful, “oui. Je t’aime, sweet girl.
I’m fine. You alright? Hmm?” He pinches your chin between his fingers and finally
glances up at you, his hair covering half of his face and his heart-shaped lips
supple with melancholy, “I’ll tell you everything when we get upstairs. Kiss,
please.” Your lips slot together, his teeth tug on your bottom lip and his tongue
flicks against yours just once before he decides that now is a good time to start
disciplining you. Or rather, he can’t hold the discipline in any longer, “hey,
where’s your precious fuckin’ cardigan? And shoes? It’s cuffin’ season. C’mon,
babe.” The leather of his jacket is buttery, sugary, floury, doughy when he tears it
off and drapes it over your shoulders, “gonna get nosesicles and nippy nips. Dose
of the wog. Let’s go—”
Except when the breeze shifts his hair from his face, the battered shadow
darkening his eye finally makes an appearance and stops you dead in your tracks
with a piercing gasp, “oh my god! Harry, what happened to you?” You reach
forward to brush his cheek but he jerks his head away before you can make
contact and that’s when the questions start flowing like the menacing swell of a
tsunami wrecking a small settlement. Villagers circling like decapitated chickens,
drowned buildings, garbage floating in the salty invasive sea. Your foot stomps
on the ground in frustration and pain radiates up your Achille’s tendon; Harry
flinches with the phantasmal throb. The mindful, vulnerable boomerang whips
right back around at you because unfortunately, old habits die hard, “Harry!
Please don’t do that. Answer me. What happened? I feel like a car wreck.
Everything seemed perfectly fine when you left, what changed so quickly?”
And maybe it was too soon for Harry to come here and maybe he shouldn’t
have come at all.
Rolling waves of exploding pearls and sticky tar. Icy claws nipping at his bare
toes. Hazy splotches dampening the horizon to a greyscale psychedelic trip. The
moon crackling through lambswool clouds. Brutal wind carrying the burden of wet
salt. Another pair of shoes swallowed up by the violent ocean. Thirteen cotton
candy nebulas vanishing down his throat. Unwanted toxic confessions that won’t
rot. A squeaky rag polishing blood off of pink varnish. A broken compass that offers
several ghastly directions. A sensation of devotion so viscous it could be sliced in
half with a dull knife.
“Cherry, Cherry, Cherry….. hey. Stop, stop.” He grips your shoulders tightly to
soothe your floundering and searches your face, wishing his gaze alone could
smooth the wrinkles in your forehead, “it’s Tex, alright? It was Tex. Gimme a sec,
I’m not ready to talk about it.” Persistent begging in your spongy love language
has proven powerfully efficient in the past and has become Harry’s favorite
fallback in terms of gentle persuasion. After all, he is enough of a perceptive
showboat to naturally cling to positive reinforcement as a means to modify his
behavior. He carefully observes and remembers what people like and then he
uses it to his advantage, as we all do, to a certain degree. But also, he has
experienced enough negative consequences in his life to learn what himself and
others condemn, then chooses to parade those in order to purposely irritate
people. Regardless, he knows you and himself very, very well. His lips brush your
hairline, his teeth tickle your broken heart, “tout va bien. Tu vas bien. Je vais bien.
S’il te plait, Cerise. Je vais t’expliquer. Je voudrais me cacher. Je voudrais
embrasser ton ventre. Tu as froid. Pouvons-nous rentrer à l’intérieur, s’il te plaît?
Je sais que tu es en colère contre moi. D’accord, mais pouvons nous être
mignons?”
Always a master of burial and avoidance. I’m not ready to talk about it yet.
Everything is fine. And perhaps you’ve had his evasion tactics wrong all along.
Maybe it isn’t so much the deep inner probing and swamp of internal negative
feelings that he avoids, but rather the confrontation of those emotions when it
involves another person on the receiving end. Or the other person even seeing
him experiencing something other than self-confidence, for that matter. He
thrives on positive energy and dreads the notion of grief, always working to
convince himself into an optimistic spotlight that validates his endless impulsive
actions. But historically, the truth always has a way of coming out. Whether he
wants it to or not.
Hearing Tex’s name brings up a musty basement-full of filing cabinets, all

jammed full of theory and inquiry. But you wait; for Harry’s sake and for the sake
of formulating worthwhile feedback.
Harry twirls your hair through his fingers and traces the contours of your face,
dragging his thumb over your bottom lip and then weaving your digits between
your chests. He pulls you closer for another kiss, pausing to bump your foreheads
together as he waits for your response to his plea with a final, weak nudge,
“minette? Dis quelque chose.”
Hoping that he will open up with a heavy dose of sanctuary in an environment

he trusts, you push your buzzing aside and simply nod before tasting his mouth
again. Clutching his hand and the sunflowers in your palms, gravel digs into the
soles of your feet as you begin to back up towards your duplex, “I’ll get you some
ice.”
When you make your way upstairs with Harry hot on your heels, pawing at
your hips and lightly scratching his nails up and down your thighs, you can feel
him tense at the sight of Nettie pouring herself a glass of water in the kitchen
sink. He wasn’t prepared to have to share his impotent mental state with anyone
but you, but he manages to kick his shoes off in their rightful spot and avoid her
eye contact by digging his nose into the top of your spine and wrapping his arms
around your waist.
Nettie is in the kitchen mostly because she’s nosy, but also because she wants
to make sure you’re being treated properly. You’re smart and you’re rational, but
love is blind, after all. And whether or not you realize it at the moment, you might
want another prudent pair of eyes to fall back on in case you’re looking for advice
in the future.
Harry stays hidden behind you and lifts his head speak in your ear, slipping
his jacket from your shoulders and blindly setting it on the hook alongside your
cardigan. Your hair tickles his nose and he communicates in a way that he feels
safe knowing only you would understand, “peut-on être seuls?”
“Oui.”
“Mmm…..” The delicacy of his lips travels up the back of your neck, “on peut se
faire des câ lins toute la nuit?”
“Oui. Un instant, s’il te plaît. Tu devrais aller te coucher.”
“Mais la seule chose dont j’ai besoin est ton amour.”
“J’ai compris, Harry. Moi aussi. Vas-y déjà .”
His little puffs of breath are steamy against your ear and your jaw and your
hair. His arms tighten around your middle to pin you against his stomach, “tu es
trop bien pour moi. Pourtant, je t’adore.”
In persistent disagreement to his resurfacing self-deprecation, you spin in his

arms and shake your head, brushing your thumb over his cheekbone. His lips
gently slot with yours to drink up your little declarations of “arrête ça” and “je
t’aime” and “vas-y.”
He sucks on your bottom lip softly and plants another kiss to your forehead,
then finally locks eyes with Nettie. She mouths a silent greeting and he nods his
head in curt acknowledgement before padding quietly down the hallway into
your bedroom, leaving behind the grim tick of the Kit Cat clock and the relief in
fathoming his long-awaited presence. Lingering in the foyer until you hear the
mattress springs squeak under his boneless, defeated weight, you step into the
kitchen to drop the flowers on the counter and convey everything that you need
to convey to your roommate with a single facial expression paired with a single
whispered word, “Tex.”
It consoles Nettie that Harry was immediately honest with you and in a
twisted way, that his disappearance was due to a situation of shocking
victimization that apparently sent him off running for some alone time, rather
than idiocy. She knows as much as she possibly can about Harry’s backstabbing
friend and mostly, she despises how Tex tangled himself up in your relationship
enough that it put you in physical harm’s way. Nettie matches your whisper and
equally irritated countenance, “oh my god. He’s like a cockroach on fire. Wow, I
really hate that guy.”
You busy yourself with gathering ice from the bin in the freezer and piling it
into a dish towel, “yeah, well. That makes three of us. And probably dozens
more….. somewhere.”
“Is he alright?”
Your voice hovers somewhere just below a sigh, “yeah, he’s okay. Just mentally
twisted. As far as I can tell, he’s better than he was a couple hours ago. I’m going
to figure out as much as I can without prying. Everything short of Chinese water
torture.”
“Careful with that. Trust his process. He’s pretty in tune with it himself.” Nettie
downs the last gulp of water and places the empty glass in the sink as a record
cues up from your bedroom. The room fills with the sensual vocals of Marvin
Gaye that Harry is habitually drawn to when he’s feeling defeated, as if his voice
helps to match Harry’s turbulent insides and somehow make sense of it. The
music drifts down the hall on a dismal rain cloud, which means Harry won’t be
able to hear your roommate murmur, “so….. the world’s been dying to know.
Does he speak French in the bedroom?”
Before answering, you glance over your shoulder for clearance. You’ve learned
over time that Harry has a quiet habit of appearing out of nowhere, especially
when he deems you too far away for his liking. Especially tonight, “oui. Yes. Of
course.”
She is surprised again by your quick confidence and sincerity, even if it is

brought on with a blush to your cheeks. It seems that only Harry has the ability to
draw that out of you, “what do you mean ’oui, yes, of course’? Oh my god. Wow, I
really hate that guy.”
“Be nice.”
“That was me being nice. That was a mental bouquet of roses.”
Harry whimpers from your bedroom, “où est ma Cerise d’amour?”
Both you and Nettie glance down the hall to catch the wind of his pathetic
query, but only you respond, “je suis là, Sunny. S’il te plaît, soit patient.”
His aching whine is muffled by the softness of a down pillow.
“Look, I know that tonight was rightfully stressful for you and you’re still
trying to shake those nerves. Just try to remember: say what you would want to
hear. You’ll have rewarding, productive conversations when they’re fueled by
goodwill and awareness. Which shouldn’t be too hard because he’s being
extremely pitiful right now.” Nettie sponges a kiss to your cheek, “everything’s
gonna be fine. Okay?”
After far too many minutes, Harry listens for your footsteps slowly gaining
volume, drawing the pillow away from his face just in time for your beautiful
silhouette to manifest in the doorway. All curves and blushing skin and oozing
Cherry cheesecake and sugary Honey pie, “Cherry?”
“Harry.”
“You look real pretty in that little baby dress. Can I get lost in it?”
The way you tilt your head and frown in sympathy is enough to cure deadly
ailments, but the way you cross the room, drop onto the bed and gather your
head in his lap is enough to send a grown man to his grave.
Harry pushes the ice aside and tugs on the hem of your slip before hiding his
face underneath it, his lips dropping flower petals across your bare stomach, the
tip of his nose sinking into your belly button. As you lean back onto your elbows,
heat from his mouth dips to warm your panties and just a moment later, a humid
kiss pools moisture in your center. Harry can hear your little pants over the soft
volume of the speakers and he resolves that it was the right decision to succumb
to solace in your skin. If he weren’t so fucking hotheaded, he could have come to
you sooner; straight from the cold beach to the serenity of your warmth. He
wonders how long you’ll let him stay here with his tongue polishing figure eights
on your diamond, your panties wicking a damp patch of your excitement. Mostly
he doesn’t want you to stare at his black eye and let your mind go wild with
possibilities about how his evening transpired before he has the courage to
explain it himself. But also, he just happens to take comfort in the kindness of
your tummy. And that little pocket between your thighs. And behind your
kneecaps. And the back of your neck.
And maybe, just maybe, it’ll be a little easier to tell a lie with his face hidden.
“Harry…..” You try to swallow your arousal to deflect his obvious distraction
tactic, “Sunshi… e... let me ice your eye so that it’s not swollen for our season
finale.”
Harry groans and presses his face into your stomach, his reply smothered by
your skin, “don’t wanna. You’re so fuckin’ warm.”
“Harry.”
“Cher.”
The word “piteous” comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative
aspect of his personality. Sometimes pretty, soft skin is the only true antidote to
sadness. And he fucking loves skin and he fucking hates sadness.
“You’re extremely cute right now, but please come here.”
Harry’s hair is a wild nest of salt water waves and melted chocolate when he
emerges from your slip, gathering your hand from the mattress so that he can
nuzzle his cheek into your palm. He kisses the inside of your wrist, scooting up
beside you and pulling a lock of your hair across his upper lip like a mustache,
wedging it in place with a pout, “dis moi que tu m’aimes? Même avec une
moustache?”
You press the ice to his eye and allow him to gather the cloth from your hands
to hold it in place himself, “je t’aime. Ton visage est le soleil. Même avec une
moustache.”
“I went down to Redondo Beach.”
Another pair of shoes swallowed up by the violent ocean. He really liked that
pair, too. The ones with the tassels.
“Oh.” You’re well-versed in Harry’s habit of bringing up topics of discussion

whenever he deems himself ready; meaning abruptly and all-at-once. His ill-
timed salacious comments, his off-kilter digressions. Except this confession
makes your insides curl up a little more than usual and you’re not quite sure why
yet, “that’s far away. Did you go there to surf?” Or did he originally plan on
continuing south and change his mind to return to you last minute?
He’s a stained-glass window on the surface of a sacred building, beautiful on

the inside and out, but casting different artistic light depending on where you’re
viewing it from. Inside looking out; the obvious design as you’re meant to see it,
collecting sunlight and painting colors across your skin. Outside looking in; iron
bars delineating rainbow patterns to create a fabrication that you can only
imagine if you were allowed to dance in his secrets.
Harry’s small smile barely stirs his cheeks, but you can taste the sincerity
when he cups your cheek and kisses you, drawing a line along your bottom lip
with the tip of his tongue. He withdraws and you’re pleasantly surprised to find
his eyes already searching yours, “no. I needed to filter out my rage. I surfed here
and I was gettin’ ready to pick you up, scramblin’ around my van because I was
runnin’ a little late. And I fuckin’ hate being late….. unless I’m late on purpose to
be an asshole. Tex popped up, stumblin’ wasted. Just totally fuck-faced pickled on
Murky Lagoon, cursing and threatening me. Callin’ me a piece-of-shit friend.
Talkin’ heaps of trash. I kept telling him to fuck off. I didn’t wanna fight him. I just
wanted to get to you. Felt like I fuckin’ needed you as soon as I heard his voice.
He said some shit that made me si… k...” The tossing of his stomach is written in
his features and he pauses before adding, “sucker punche… me...” He peels the ice
away from his face for a visual reminder of his affliction, “…nd so... I cracked his
head on the hood of my van. Definitely broke his nose, maybe his eye socket. It
was bad. I had to clean blood off my car.”
You can feel physical pain in the abyss of your guts from his grisly description,
“holy….. is he okay?”
“Dunno.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Harry is not surprised at all to hear that you’re worried for Tex, regardless of
the ruthless situation that he put you in with Riff just a couple months ago. That’s
just your personality though; tough, but compassionate. Concern without
judgement. A special combination of rational and perceptive. A far, far better
person than him. Which would explain all of the stories that you’ve told him
about the beginning of your partnership before his surfing accident, how you
never gave up trying to befriend him even though he’d hurt you countless times.
Teased you, cursed you out, humiliated you, belittled your talents, disregarded
your experience, ignored your needs, objectified your body. Because you just
knew. You saw him through his convincing disguise of contented self-isolation
with a sweet tooth for one-night stands and demanded more from him, to the
point where you had him sobbing into your shoulder about the demise of his ex-
partner in the middle of your fucking dressing room. His feelings about Indy
aren’t something that many people have seen or even heard about and honestly,
it wasn’t until he fell hard for you that he felt he could even say her name out
loud without choking on it.
“I’m so sorry that he turned out to be such a terrible friend, Harry. After
everything you’d been through — Indy, moving here, your surfing accident. It
seems like he has a hard time with sincerity.”
“Stop. Don’t apologize for shit that’s not your responsibility. I hate apologies.
I’m the one who’s ashamed. He made me feel so guilty, like our friendship failing
was all my fault. Those red flags were so bright. Neon. Electric. I feel like I could
taste ’em and hear ’em. I’m hacked off at myself. Livid. I feel like a fuckin’ asshole.
I should’ve come to you. I should’ve just come straight to you, because I know
that nothin’ makes me feel as good as you do, but I started tooling on the PCH and
my mind was spinnin’ and I couldn’t stop. Please understand.”
You assume that he’s referring to historical events in their friendship that
escalated to their fallout, about Indy and the circumstances leading up to his
subsequent disasters, “don’t do that. Guilt over an accident is an illusion, your
brain trying to make sense over something nonsensical. You couldn’t have
changed the things that have happened to you and you still can’t change them. I
wish I could erase that day from your memory, set it free from your body. Shrink
the image away and massage it from your skin until it’s disappeared. I wish you
didn’t have to carry that burden and I’m so sorry for you that you do. Your
sunshine should never be shadowed by thorns or big, invasive palms. You’re too
special.”
You have no idea that you’re successfully helping him feel better, even though
you’re both talking about two different things. It doesn’t matter though, your
words are magical and they are befitting of his current turmoil, “aw, up yours,
Honeybear. You’re biased. You have to say shit like that.”
“I literally don’t have to say things like that. I choose to, because you deserve
to hear them.”
He keeps his eyes trained on yours, the dimple in his cheek depressing with a
small smile, “je t’aime.” Bravery begins to build in the pit of his stomach in order
to disclose the wretched threats about your job that he’s known and denied for
months, but it dissolves in the last instant and instead, he licks his lips and goes
an ulterior route, “baby, Tex is dangerous. I don’t want you talkin’ to him. He’s
mad at me and I’m— well, he’s majorly unhinged. He’s real fuckin’ pissed about
our fallout. He can’t let it go. I don’t know how much of his bullshit to believe, but
I want you to know that I’m gonna do everything I can to protect you. Everything
about you, yeah?” Your job. Your heart. “You still trust me?”
It’s frustrating when he talks this way, just informative enough to uproot the
anchor from the bottom of the ocean and just vague enough to keep the wind
from inflating your sails. Of course you trust him. Aside from the reasonable
hiccup tonight, you have yet to see him flake out on a promise and he holds you
steadily in the sky every day and night with perfect grace. He’s Sunshine after all;
reliable, burning, lucid. Perhaps a little bit of information is leaking out now and
more will come later, or maybe this is all he’s willing to provide. But either way,
Nettie’s advice lays like sticky sap over your thoughts and you trust her and you
trust Harry, so you make the fixed decision to attempt to settle your irritating
instinct to pry. Except not completely because nature is unbelievably strong,
“okay. We hardly spoke before, but I’ll try to completely avoid him from now on.
What part of his dubious bullshit sent you all the way to Redondo Beach?”
It couldn’t be just the fact that Tex showed up drunk and called Harry a bad
friend. You know that comments like that easily roll off of his back. You hate to
pry, you really do. But you can’t stop when it seems like there’s more to reveal.
“All of it was fucked up.”
“Does any of it involve me?”
His heart beats once, loudly and bitterly, as if it were trying to flee from his
chest in order to avoid breaking. Harry swipes a single palm down his face before
combing his fingers through his hair, “yeah….. and Riff.” And your job. Your
dream job that you’ve sacrificed everything for. Your dream job that provides
you with a final-chance opportunity to do the one thing that you love more than
anything else on Earth: dancing. But he’s not ready to breach that topic yet, and
he remembers reading somewhere that denial is an extremely strong emotion,
“it’s in the past though, yeah? There’s no point in diggin’ all this dirt up. He’s not
gonna come near you again and it won’t change what’s already happened. Tex
and Riff are both pieces of shit. That’s all you need to know and that’s all I feel
right tellin’ you.”
Your body stiffens and unsurprisingly, you’re just as eager to brush off the
topic of Riff as Harry is. Which is exactly what he’d hoped by carefully choosing
his wording, considering he wouldn’t dare sow the seeds of this relationship
being a bad idea or that there’s the possibility of people currently trying to
sabotage it. He can’t lose you. And he won’t.
“You’re right, I don’t want to know.”
“Hey.” He pinches your chin between his forefinger and thumb, “it’s not your
fault. Nothing is your fault. That’s all you need to know. Okay? They’ve both got
the attitude of pocket change; loose, noisy and useless.” His tongue slips out to
wet his lips, painting them with a glossy sheen of sugar syrup. His hair has been
kissed by the sea and it looks beautiful, dripping down like ganache off the edges
of a cake to shape all of his angles and shadows, “I love you so fuckin’ much,
Vivienne. I never want you to hurt. I hate how upset you were and maybe still
are, and I want you understand that you have every right to feel those feelings.
You can say anything to me that you need to say, whatever you want me to hear. I
made a mistake and acted on my impulse to escape, but all I needed was time.
Not alienation. I need you. You never, ever left my mind and I held every
intention to be back with you. I fought myself for all the shit feelings to pass, just
so I could be back with you. I try to keep that type of behavior real fuckin’
minimum because I know that my actions effect you. You know? I put so much of
myself into you. You have to see that. If I’m not makin’ it obvious enough, then
I’m fuckin’ up big time. You feel like heaven to me. Please know that. Fuckin’
heaven.”
“No, no….. I see it. I feel it. I hope you feel it from me, too.” Even though you
can’t seem to give him that one final, nagging piece of yourself, “don’t beat
yourself up, okay? I’m alright, I just want you to be okay and for us to be okay. I’m
your safe space. I accept you as you are and for who you’ll continue to grow into.
I love you, Sunny.”
There’s a beat of silence that seals shut with the suction of your lips, your leg
kicking over his hips to settle in his lap. His blunt nails claw up your thighs and
under the hem of your slip, air deflating through his nose when your tongues lap
like a swirl of sweet caramel. Harry pulls back, the both of you ignoring the ice
melting into a puddle by your knee when his mouth brushes your jaw, “know just
how to heal me, yeah? Cure all my ailments and shit. You’re like a magic genie.”
His palm smooths up your stomach, the pads of his fingers sweeping over your
nipples before landing on your throat, “do I get three wishes?”
Your hips stir in a little circle against his, “maybe. What’s the first one?”
“First one, mmm…..” His creamy button down shirt falls open to reveal his
sharp collarbone and the meat of his shoulder peeking out from his wifebeater,
begging for you to sink your teeth in, “I wish we were cuddled up in the coziest,
softest and most private booth that The Sweet Hereafter has, picking music on
the jukebox and kissing when no one’s looking. Scarfin’ a big fuckin’ stack of
chocolate Belgian waffles with whipped cream and cherries, powdered sugar and
a pile of sausage links. The kind that crack open when you cut them with the edge
of your fork.” His description wakes up his stomach and pulls forth an audible
growl that makes the both of you giggle at how perfectly timed it is, “boofed our
date like a fuckin’ nerd, mm?”
“Really? That’s way too easy. Sweet Hereafter is closed, but we can still eat and
cuddle if that’s what you want. First wish granted, with very little effort on my
end. You’ve gotta try harder than that.”
His hand dips into the neck of your dress, but you swat him away before he
can gather a proper handful. Your hands bat at one another for dominance until
he gives up with a growl and grips the back of your neck to crane you closer,
“’kay, I fucked up. But I still get two more, yeah?” Your coy shrug is accompanied
by an even more flirtatious nod that makes his stomach flip, “can I see the little
love apples?” His index finger points to your breasts, “just one baby coconut?
Need some juice.”
You start to shake your head in disagreement considering the current glum
circumstances, “I don’t think now is the time for—”
Harry pretends to choke, his fingers wrapped around his throat as he croaks,
“anaphylaxis! Nurse!”
“Harry! Oh my god. Pipe down.” You tug the neckline of your slip down to bare
a single pert nipple for the sole purpose of concluding his loud dramatics and his
eyes widen, smiling a big, wide-mouthed, dimpled smile at the sight of his
personal holy grail.
He flattens out like a pancake on your bed, with his hands clutched to his heart
before allowing them to spread out on either side of him along the bedspread.
His fingertips tip-toe to your knee and pinch, then tickle behind your kneecap,
“patient is sedated and breathing is stable, Honeynurse. Patient is drowsy and
may require the other tit.” His eyes flick to the morsel of your panties peeking out
from your skirt before traveling back up to your face, “hey, can we play doctor?
You go first. Here’s the scenario: your patient has just been brought in with a
black eye and a broken heart. His medical files can be found in his pants. He’s
slippin’ fast. You have five minutes startin’….. now.” Harry’s head flops to the side
and his tongue hangs out, filling you with a sense of alleviation to see his silly
nature slowly reappearing. You start giggling and he opens one eye upon hearing
your little snort, pointing to his crotch as a hint of where to start before closing
his eye again.
“I’ll take care of you, Sunbaby. I’m just glad you came back to me.” Your hands
drag up his chest and into the placket of his shirt to squeeze his shoulders, “have
you eaten anything at all?” Harry shakes his head and you grab a fistful of his
hair, tugging in a gentle scold, “Harry, you have to. I know how you’re gonna get if
you don’t eat.”
“Owwie— how I get? What about you? You’re Queen Crab when you’re
hungry.”
“I am not.” You definitely are and you know it, “am I being a crab right now?”
“I dunno, let’s see. Pinch me. Just the tip, though.” Following his loose
instruction, you pinch his nipple between your fingers and then laugh so hard
that a snort scratches out when his face crushes up in pain, “no—” But then you
go for the other one and he doesn’t have enough time to argue before he’s
working to bat your hands out of the way and guard his nipples at the same time
like a hectic ninja avoiding flying objects, “no!” His cackle blurts out beyond his
control, “they’re sensitive!”
“Let me run to Susie Q’s to go pick up some waffles for us—”
His eyes look like they might explode out of his head and his protests violently
shift gears, “no!” He wraps his fingers around your wrist to halt your departure,
“what? No. Just fuck no. You’re not goin’ out there this late on your own, lookin’
hotter than Francoise Hardy on a good day. No fuckin’ way. I’d rather starve.”
“I’ll be fine—”
“It’s nearly one o’clock in the fuckin’ mornin’. There’s no way in hell I would
let you just waltz outta here, V! Have you lost your goddamned mind? The
answer’s no.”
“Shh….. I didn’t ask, Daddy. I’m going. I’ll be fine. It’ll take me thirty minutes at
the most. I want to do this for you, so just let me. I’m totally okay with it, I
promise. It’s only a few blocks away and I’ll take my skates so that I can speed
away from any big, scary men if I have to.” Your palms sweep up his stomach and
chest, landing on the back of his neck with his hair curling around your
fingertips, “my sweet, sexy man. So vigilant. Protective much, Sunshine?”
“Undoubtedly. Lemme go with.”
“No. I want you to relax, I’ll be back before you know it.”
A soft wave of calm washes over his gaze from your doting, easing both of
your anxieties as he shifts his focus to your mouth, “it’s the little ones you gotta
look out for anyway. Whole Napoleon complex. You positive?” Harry widens his
eyes in apprehension when you signal your obstinance with a surefire nod, but
keeps his mouth shut for the sake of your autonomy, “’kay, Honeybadger.” He sits
up and wedges you tightly in his lap to convey his candor, “carry your keys in
your hand and keep your head up, ouais? Notice payphones and homes with their
lights on in case you need help. I’ll be listenin’ for the phone if you need me. Walk
under the streetlights and don’t be afraid to call someone out if they’re makin’
you uncomfortable. Let ’em know you’re payin’ attention. It’s better to be rude
than dead. Je t’aime, Cherry baby. Reviens-moi, s’il te plaît. J’ai besoin de ton
amour, de ton aide. This shit makes me nervous as all hell, but you’re the fuckin’
boss.”
Harry’s pleas are much limper and thinner when they’re in French. They wash
right through you, splash up against your ribcage and drown your heartbeat,
“you’re worse than my mother.”
“It’s ’cause I’m not your mum, I’m your Daddy.”
“Petite vache! Can it.”
“Yeah, yeah.” His fingers weave into your hair as he tilts his head to kiss you
with the weight of heartbreak behind his tongue. Harry hates that you’re doing
this and he makes it perfectly obvious by the pout that wipes his features, his
slushy gaze trained on you when you slip from the bed and swipe your dress
from the ground to pull it over your head, “take my jacket. It’s cold. Maybe people
will just think you’re like, a small man or something.”
“No way….. it’s too big. Do you think I’m going to let a grape face push me
around? It’s going to look ridiculous on me.”
“Hey! Grape f— you gotta put it on before you decide you can’t pull it off. Grab
it on the way out, hear me?” He frames your face with his fingers as if aligning
you in his lens for a snapshot, “that’s it. Nice work. Loosen up your hair for me?”
Per his demand, you fluff it up at the roots and then pull some pieces down
around your cheekbones and jaw, winking at him as you back up towards your
door, “hot. Sproutin’ a solid shroom. Spin?” His head is already craning to the side
for a better view of your ass and legs when you obey him, “perfect. Now bend
over and touch the floor?”
“Get bent.”
“No, Cherry tart. Not me. That’s what I’m tellin’ you to do.”
“Do you want these waffles or not? I think they close at one-thirty.”
“Real quick, just bend—”
“I’ll be back in thirty minutes.”
“Can I come?”
“Thirty minutes.”
Harry has learned over time which floorboards to avoid in order to tread
down the hallway noiselessly, that is until his bare feet slip a bit on one
particularly perilous plank of wood, “son-of-a—” The pride he was feeling for
transforming into a semi-considerate roommate slowly bleeds out with the
thump of his heart and a residual echo of his stumble. He flattens his palm
against the wall to brace himself, and once he notices the lemony slice of light
warming the ground from underneath the crack in Nettie’s door, he only gives a
two-knock warning before poking his head into her bedroom, “you decent,
Ninny?”
Sitting cross-legged on her yellow chenille bedspread, Nettie’s hair is wound

up in spongy rollers underneath a flimsy headscarf which keeps them all aligned
and expertly tidy. Asher stirs a bit at her side, rustling the pages of her
schoolwork and nearly tipping over her open bottle of nail polish, causing Harry
to step back with a soft “oop” that Nettie disregards with a wave of her hand,
“trust me, he sleeps through literal natural disasters. I think he just incorporates
it into his dream and gets a free rollercoaster ride or something. What’s up,
reject?”
“Your hair kinda reminds me of spaghetti and meatballs all swirled up like
that.”
“Are you ever not thinking with your damn gut?”
“Yeah, when I’m thinkin’ with my tummy banana.”
“Bye.”
“Alright, just cuttin’ up. Chill out. My brain works sometimes, too.”
Nettie uses her thumbnail to scrape polish away from her cuticle, “agree to
disagree. What’s Vivienne doing?”
Swiping one of the many lit candles flickering around her bedroom, Harry
lights one of his cotton candy smokes with the flame and exhales a plume of
fragrant pink towards the ceiling, “pain-in-the-ass sugar mission complete with
leather shield and bad bitch bubble.” Out of curiosity, Harry dips his finger into
the melted wax after setting the candle back down on her dresser, reveling in the
pleasing burn, watching in awe as it hardens around his nail.
“I didn’t ask what you’ve been up to, I asked what Vivienne is doing. Come sit.
You’re making me nervous hovering over there. Cool face, by the way.”
“Bozo. Judgy ass sadist. Christ.” Harry crosses the room in two steps before
dramatically collapsing down on her bed, the ripples of his backfire rocking
Asher back-and-forth with zero disturbance on his end. Although Harry is
impressed with his dedication to sleeping, he’s much too agitated and self-
involved to think much of it right now. Instead he lays his head on your
roommate’s knee, his gaze wandering up to the ceiling as he rakes his fingers
through his hair and allows them to rest there with the heel of his hand pressed
to his forehead, “Honey Princess Hour: Midnight Edition. She’s a rough tough
cream puff, hellbent on waffles.” He glances at Nettie upside down, his voice
thawing out and opening up through curls of pink fumes, “fly right with me,
yeah? Was it really bad?”
Shrugging, Nettie hesitates before giving away too much too soon. She isn’t
sure exactly how safe you feel letting all of your weaknesses air out like dirty
laundry, but at the same time, she believes that Harry deserves honesty. Because
maybe she’s kind of on his side. And because maybe his knowledge of the truth
will help shape his behavior in the future and in turn, benefit you and your
relationship. Especially if it means keeping something he so desperately wants to
keep, “I wouldn’t exactly say she was hanging loose.” She waves the brush of her
nail polish in the air, dripping with a small viscous bead that matches the hard,
yellow gumballs from refillable machines, “want some?”
Over the past six or so weeks, Harry has found several moments of unforeseen
comfort in Nettie’s presence. In a way, she reminds him of his older sister;
sentient, observant, honest, clever, annoying. The type of love that shines
through with bitter sarcasm and unsolicited advice. It happened accidentally at
first, when Harry had woken up especially early to go surfing one Sunday
morning. Nettie had crept out of her room for a drink of water where she ran into
your lover in the kitchen, shoveling a pre-surf stack of Pop-Tarts four deep into
his mouth over the sink. It was perfect timing considering his severance with Tex
was still fresh and he was in healthy need of a confidant aside from his girlfriend
and rather mute dog, someone to provide a new voice and opinion to the
constant surge of ruckus causing an uproar in his mind. In comparison to you, he
knew that Nettie wasn’t exactly neutral ground or loyal to him by any means. But
after a solid two conversations, he began to see her dry wisdom as a welcomed
oasis. And also, it couldn’t hurt to butter up your friends and have them
understand his point of view a little bit more. Just so he wouldn’t feel so out of his
tree, in the very least.
Harry nods and wiggles his fingers in the air over his head, “really? I thought
she’d be all keyed up, y’know? Stoked on the freedom.”
The nail polish feels cool and slick on his nail bed. Nettie’s hand wraps around
his fingertips as she concentrates to keep his busy digits still while she works,
“fat chance.”
He takes his time contemplating her vague response, his eyes narrowing in on
her face as he sucks in a long drag from his cigarette, “well, at least I wasn’t the
only one with spicy armpits.”
She puckers her lips to blow the polish dry, “okay….. what happened to your
face for real? And most importantly, what did you tell Vivienne?”
Harry’s eyes tear through Nettie’s. If she didn’t know him any better, she
would be intimidated. But either way, she wouldn’t want to be on his bad side.
Flipping onto his stomach, Harry gently puffs air on the few nails she managed
to paint and peers up at her before nodding towards her side table, “holdin’ any
merry iguana?”
Nettie swipes the ashtray shaped into a plump pair of red lips from her
nightstand and holds it under Harry’s nose. Inside of it lays the half-smoked tail
of a joint wrapped up in golden leaf and Nettie announces the weed strain to
gauge his interest, “Wedding Cake.”
“I do.”
“Oh my god. Does anyone ever call you irritating?”
“Daily, thank you. Mostly your buddy Vivienne. And everyone at the circus.
And my family. And strangers sometimes.” Harry trades his smoke for the joint
from the ashtray and lights it with another one of Nettie’s candles, vanilla honey
cream and lemon pudding and powdered sugar served in a cloud of banana
yellow disappear in wisps up his nose and mouth at the same time, “mmm…..
fuckin’ A. Tastes like lovemaking.” He takes his time exhaling, his tongue melting
out to taste his lips twice before finally blurting, “I told her the truth. Tex
unexpectedly showed up at my van with the heat on, super blitzed out, talkin’
shit and lamenting about how I’m a garbage friend. He took a swing at me. I had
to clear out for a bit out before I saw her. I felt fuckin’ awfully ratty the whole
time, but I just needed to think……r... I guess, explain things to myself.”
“What really happened?”
Lotsa people. Lotsa people know now. You’re going around. You’re fucking your
partner!
He rolls onto his back and swipes his palms down his face, hiding the wound
that deepens his eye to a weak, splotchy purple and simultaneously masking any
fib that may need to spill out, “that. And some other stuff I don’t wanna tell you.”
Nettie gathers the burning joint from between his yellow fingertips and stubs
it out before he has a chance to singe the ends of his hair, “listen, you don’t have
to tell me. But if it effects your girlfriend, you have to tell her.”
I told Riff to fuck her. Even if she was fighting. Especially if she was.
“Yeah, there’s words comin’ outta your mouth I don’t wanna hear.” Harry’s
still not looking at her, “the snag is I don’t know how much of his drunken sludge
to believe. If it’s not true, I don’t wanna risk flappin’ my gums and makin’ her
anxious for nothing. And if it is true, whether or not I’m the one to tell her, she’s
gonna leave me. Dig? I’m scared shitless she’s gonna leave me.”
You fucked up. Your secret’s out. It’s over. Tell your partner to start looking for a
new gig. You’re both getting what you deserve now — a disaster.
“If it’s that bad then you absolutely have to come clean. And I also think it
would take a pack of wild dogs to drag her away from you.” The worried pout
that was glued to your face in the kitchen earlier tonight runs through Nettie’s
memory, along with the pitiful confessions of desire and love even though Harry
was driving you sick with worry, “she’s not just going to leave you. Trust me.”
Didn’t work, did it?
What didn’t?
Tex’s plan. To drive us apart. I was afraid it might….. after I realized what it was.
Harry can see that there is more than what she is revealing based on the
faraway sheen in her eyes. He pitches back onto his stomach and rests on his
elbows with some newfound bounce in his facial expression. The kind of robust
smile that can only come from adrenaline-fueled, provocative curiosity, “really?
What’s she say about me? Does she think I’m a good kisser? I’m really good at
mouth hugs. She loves wake up calls. Bubble gum breakfast, y’know?”
Nettie has to physically shake that one off, “ew— Henry, you really shouldn’t
say things like that.”
“Tell me. Just one thing. Pretty please, cherry on top? And before you say
anything, yes, it’s really that big. Huge. I could keep goin’, but it would be a long
story.”
“Nice try. So, you’ll tell her?”
Truthfully, he’s extremely disappointed that he can’t seem to crack Nettie

enough to pull more dirty information from her, “sure.”
“Tonight. Don’t make me be the one to tell her that you’re hiding something.
Because I will. Can you promise me?”
Harry looks into her eyes and then allows his head to roll forward in defeat,
“yeah, I’ll do my fuckin’ best. Alright?”
“Fine. So, why’d you really come in here? It couldn’t have been for me to
lecture you on how to conduct yourself in your relationship.”
“Um…..”
His small laugh seems to puff out of his mouth in a dollop of whipped cream.
Nettie kind of loves how readily Harry now allows his vulnerabilities to show.
The biggest caveat to his molten core is that he protects it pretty rigidly at first;
he’s perfected the art of the charismatic veneer, whether it be one made of
sunshine or lightning. She often thinks about what Harry is like with his extremes
split open — when all the corny, childish comedy or explosive anger wears thin
and removes the option for emotional burial. Or emotional projection. Does he
cry? Does he regret? Does he toss and turn at night? Does he apologize? Better
yet, does he recognize when he should? And have you ever seen it?
“Am I a good boyfriend? Am I good enough for her?”
Sometimes it truly feels like there’s no way of guessing what’s going to come
out of his mouth and Nettie is finally coming to accept the type of mindful and
necessary ad-libbing to keep up with his admittedly brilliant spirit, “day to day,
yeah. Definitely. You dote on her, respect her, spoil her. Make her laugh and make
her feel secure. Support her without pressure. Boost her confidence. Take her on
dates. You love her the way everyone wants to be loved; fiercely. You’re great.”
“And in the long run?”

“You tell me. Is she a good girlfriend?”
“Kiddin’? She was made for me; we’re into the same scenes, she keeps my
mind workin’. Sweeter than Honey on fire, hotter than Satan’s house cat. She’s
priceless and valuable. She’s my Wild Cherry Lifesaver.” Harry grabs Nettie’s
wrist and flips her palm over to peer at her watch, “and she’s not back yet. Should
I be worried now or ten minutes ago?”
“Now you’re wearing her shoes. Imagine how she felt earlier.”
“Fuck. Can I have a hug?” Their bottom lips pout in unison before Nettie bows
down to squeeze him tight, his arms wrapping warmly around her waist when he
mumbles into her shoulder, “I know. I just needed time. I know myself. I’m too
impulsive to handle confrontations I’m invested in and important conversations
in the moment. I stuck around after yankin’ Riff out of his car and look at how
well that turned out. I always say the wrong shit when I’m all fired up. I need the
space, reflection, confusion….. reboundin’ and all that, before I get someone else’s
voice mixed up with my truth. Gotta untangle the web.”
“You know, I hear the both of you saying the words ’I know’ quite a bit this
evening when defects are pointed out, but not doing much to properly
communicate or change them. You easily could’ve stopped by and said you
needed some time before you ran off. Or called. Remember telephones? She
thought you were abandoning her.”
Something inside of Harry squeezes his chest hard and Nettie can see his hurt
by the way his eyebrows tug together into a frown. For someone who has
seemingly mastered the art of the veneer, his face sure is extremely expressive
against his will, “I could never. I know how scared she is of that. Plus, I don’t
fuckin’ want to. I want to be with her. I love her a whole fuckin’ lot if you couldn’t
tell.”
“It’s never going to help your cause to be inconsiderate. You’re in a

relationship, which means everything needs to be communicated. The good and
the bad, the big and the small. Putting your trust and loving susceptibility in
someone requires risk and faith. Why do you think Vivienne pushed you away for
so long? You’re not alone in that fear, I think we are all scared of that. Especially
when something feels perfect. Too good to be true. She’s clearly giving
everything to you, so don’t fuck it up, dork ass loser.”
Nettie is conscious of the grace in his step when he slides off her bed, pulling
another cigarette from behind his ear and backing up towards her door at the
same time, “no shit. No one wants love to fizzle out or just up and dissolve in
their hands. Blindsided naked in the middle of heaven? That’s the fuckin’ worst.
I’m not gonna fuck it up. I’m golden. I got a plan. TCB. I’m her little Cherry bitch.
She’s too special to not fight tooth and nail for.”
“Pure poetry. Where’s your Pulitzer?”
“Do they even give Pulitzers for poetry? And what, is biting sarcasm your nom
de plume or some shit? By the way, you got somethin’…..” Using his index finger,
Harry gestures to his hair with a look of repulsion as if to communicate that she
has a gross, questionable object stuck to her head. Since he spends so much time
with you, he’s learned to be prepared for flying objects soaring at his face
whenever he decides to be a smart ass. Nettie is no different, except she goes
right for the throat with the sharp end of her pencil careening through the air,
“hey!” Harry catches it with an overturned fist and places it on her dresser, “first
cyanide, now lead? I’m beginnin’ to think you’re a little unhinged, Nutty.”
“Can you toss that back?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Dumbo with a bigger head.”
“Lazy ass base face.”

“Perpetual little brother.”
“Incessant twat snotball.”
Nettie’s involuntarily slip of laughter crackles through her demand in a lost

effort to stay earnest, amused by the fact that Harry’s clever poetry does have a
way of shining through even in his immature, harmless insults, “toss it back.”
“’Kay, catch.” Harry fakes her out by pretending to hurl the pencil back at her,
but doesn’t actually throw it. Rather he holds it in his palm, waiting for her
startled flinch to cease before pulling out his yellow middle finger from behind
his back instead. “Boink. Hey, isn’t the water cycle crazy? Like, y’know we drink
the same exact water dinosaurs drank. Fuckin’ batty, right? It’s actually kinda
claustrophobic….. and comforting. Recycled dinosaur pee keeps us alive. They
pissed that shit out and it went back into the clouds and rained and evaporated
for millions of years and now we just drink it and feed it to our pets. Earth’s
weird.”
Nettie feels dizzy from watching Harry’s hands spin in circles as he recreated
the water cycle in the air while he spoke, “Jesus, are you always this dense when
you’re baked? I have to admit you two are a bizarre pairing. And yet, somehow
clones?”
“Yep. Cherry says I get dense when I’m sleepy, too.”
“You’re obsessed with each other.”
Harry points at her, “love is.”
“Love is what?”
“Just is.” Knowing that girls absolutely melt over any particle of vague
romance, Harry waits until Nettie smiles the dopey, heartsick smile that he was
expecting before adding the clinch to his mushy statement with a very
exaggerated, drawn-out curse, “sexy as fuck.”
“Oh my god, go wait outside and chainsmoke your baby candy cigarettes or
something before I smack your big head. She’ll be back any minute. You’re both
kind of annoying me tonight, honestly. Goodnight, weirdo. Make sure you tell her
whatever you need to tell her. She’s not going to leave you. I shouldn’t have to
remind you that I own really large kitchen knives.”
Upon imagining the phantom pain of her threat in his balls, Harry winces and
cups his crotch in her doorway, “alright, alright. Loud and clear. Bye, mum. And
thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Henry.”
Harry takes one step back before rapping on her doorframe twice to convey
the arrival of an afterthought, thumbing open and snapping shut the red-hot
locket that has been resting against his stomach since you gifted it to him, “hey,
um….. y’know, no one understands us except us. I love it that way and I know
Cherry does, too. Neither one of us commit to something without intention. She’s
my favorite conundrum. I love her. I love loving her. And I love the way she loves
me.”
We changed each other. We opened each other up.
He doesn’t need a response from Nettie and she knows it.

Whatever hardships may occur at work, if any, Harry resolves that you’ll
figure it out. Together. He never says shit he doesn’t mean, after all. Cabo. Tulum.
Panama. The Amazon Rainforest. Why can’t the two of you just disappear?
Before Harry gets too far through the threshold, he pauses to toss the pencil to
your roommate, not bothering to wait and see it land in the spine of her splayed-
open notebook on his way out the door.
Hello everyone, Thank you for your patience. Holy fuck and shit, I didn’t intend
it, but this chapter shook out to be a lot longer than expected, so I had to break it
up into pieces. The next part will be posted in the next day or two, before typical
Aerial Sunday. So we’ll be seeing each other very soon. Don’t go too far. I hope
you’re not too disappointed. I’ve been working so, so hard on this part of the book
that it’s driven me a little insane. I didn’t want you to have to wait any longer. Love
you so much. Happy Fine Line week. Xx B
“Fuckin’ bogue.”
Since Harry doesn’t own a watch, he’s gotten into the habit of using discarded
cigarette butts as a means to tell time. One cigarette takes about six minutes to
smoke, so judging by the small pile of twisted-off heart-shaped filters sitting
beside him on the curb, Harry can deduce that he must have been waiting outside
of your duplex for you to return for about twenty to thirty minutes now. Nettie’s
jerky, snide comment about now you’re wearing her shoes, imagine how she felt
earlier buzzes through his head like a hive of wasps, his lip curling into a sneer as
he quietly mumbles her remark out loud to himself in an overstated, peeved
grimace. He rubs his eye, leaning forward on his knees as he searches up and
down the street for the sound of eight small red wheels carrying through the sea
breeze.
If you get murdered tonight because Harry wanted some fucking waffles, he’s
going to lose his fucking mind.
Fortunately for him, you’re not the type to let him stew very long in his lonely
misery. Because loneliness only becomes miserable when oppressively imposed
by external circumstances and less so when it’s voluntary. Being alone versus
feeling lonely are two completely different experiences; a state of solitude as
opposed to the emotional hell of abandonment and isolation. Harry doesn’t mind
being alone at all when he chooses to be, but when he’s in dire need of having his
love buttons pushed, loneliness is akin to solitary confinement. The Iron Maiden.
Thumbscrews. A cattle prod. A far cry from slippery silk sheets brushing his feet
and lovelorn French on his tongue and the arch of your back below his palm.
Fortunately for him, those couple drags of Wedding Cake are still coursing
through his bloodstream. Which at least makes the ocean sound exceptionally
melodic and makes the gravel appear particularly interesting. Although time
does seem to move at a different pace. Maybe he just smoked his cigarettes faster
than usual?
And you look beautiful, absolutely beautiful underneath the soft spotlight of a
million laughing stars above you; your legs smooth as velvet as you effortlessly
skate around the corner upon the dotted line painted onto the street. Your hair
billowing off of your shoulders and Cherry red electricity buzzing from your skin.
And Harry looks beautiful, absolutely beautiful underneath the soft spotlight
of the streetlamp above him; his arms wrapped around his knees and his fingers
cinching his wrist. A swirl of frozen custard with ribbons of hot fudge, his hair
pushed off of his face and a pacified smile pulling at the corners of his heart-
shaped lips.
“What are ya, rollin’ up with some grease bombs right now? Lookin’ like that?”
Harry whistles with his fingers in his cheeks when he sees you cruising towards
your duplex on your roller skates, carrying a heap of pink boxes tied up with
baker’s twine that produce many delicious smells. He leans back and kicks one
leg out in front of him on the pavement to tuck his book of matches into his
trouser pocket, “the view from my office is tight. By the way, that was way more
than thirty minutes, Big Ben. You got your panties on?”
You’re not surprised to hear this question. He’s been asking you every single
day since the revelation on the Ferris wheel, after all. And just like every other
time he’s asked; you choose to ignore it.
Approaching his perch on the sidewalk, you take notice of the small heap of
cigarette butts that he’s burned through as he waited for you to return home and
immediately understand that his mood is likely leaning towards mild irritation
with a dash of rawness. So, you act upon your first instinct, which is to needle
him further, “think fast!”
You pretend to throw the boxes at his face and he ducks and grips his chest
when he realizes you’ve effectively nailed him with a jump scare. Something that
doesn’t happen to him too often, but he blames it on the trauma of suffering a
headshot earlier today, “solid fake out, fuckin’ dizzy bitch.” He laughs loudly, but
it’s mostly to release the fear balled up in his chest, “right, let’s throw some more
shit at this guy’s sore face. I’m a mess and a half and you’re over here declarin’
war. A little class, please.”
“Class? I just went out alone, in a skirt, in the dark, at midnight, to get you
waffles. That’s nobility.”
“You’re not serious. Girls are champs at spinnin’ shit. I offered to go with. In
fact, I recall beggin’ you not to go alone. Then I gave you advice on how to stay
safe from predators when you insisted on goin’ anyway. I made sure you wore
my jacket to stay warm. Did you even notice there were a couple ciggies in the
pocket for you? Hey, why don’t you put a motherfuckin’ lid on it? I’ll flick those
waffles straight up your nose if I have to.”
“Your eyelid looks like a grape and you’re upset. I wouldn’t ask you to do me
any favors right now and you know it. Besides,” you skate up closer and bend
down, your lips hovering over his, “I wanna take care of you. You deserve
pampering after the night you’ve had.”
Harry moves the boxes from your hands to the sidewalk, his fingertips rolling
up the back of your thighs in an eager search for the hem of your panties,
“mmm….. like, some heavy petting?”
“Spoiled rotten.”
A hiss of air sucks past his teeth, “zap. The woody wagon’s headin’ up to the
beach.” His index finger points towards the sky and he adds a click of his tongue
to pepper his declaration, “mornin’. You know you’re so fuckin’ good at that?”
When he squeezes the back of your neck and pulls you close, his expression
darkens just enough to let genuine concern and a bubbled-up blister of distress
to break through, “hey, what took you so fuckin’ long to get back to me, huh?” His
grip tightens for a split second to punctuate his sincerity, “I almost started to
come lookin’ for you like a lost puppy. Kisses, please. Three of ’em. My heart’s
goin’ and I need extras.”
His confession is extremely relieving of the self-pity you felt earlier, when you
were sticking with sweat to your kitchen chair and crawling out of your skin to
search for him when scenarios were reversed. You don’t bother to say this out
loud though, because an innocently greedy part of you wants him to suffer a little
for more what he chose to put you through tonight. But maybe you’ll tell him one
day, when the timing is right.
Your teeth sink into his bottom lip before nursing on the skin gently, your
tongue sweeping with his for a small taste, the little hum that rolls past his teeth
burrowing straight into your core. You draw back an inch, your eyes shining
diamonds when they meet for the next two perfect, sweet kisses before you
mutter into his mouth with a coy smile, “how was that?”
“Please never stop kissin’ me.” A puff of breath trembles against your lips,
“haunted by you. You’re a head trip.” His fingers nestle into your hair and cradle
the back of your head, not allowing for even a slip of space between you, “did you
do everything I told you to do?”
“Yes.”
“Good girl. And you lived. See? You’re welcome.”
He greedily devours another kiss from you before chasing you with his dark
eyes and his soft mouth until you’re out of his reach, rising to standing and
pointing to the pink boxes by his side for an explanation, “they overcooked the
first batch of waffles so they had to make another order. Sorry, Sunshine. I almost
called you from their phone, but I figured you’d understand.”
The pads of his fingers continue carving delicate paths up and down your legs
as he admires the way you look in your skimpy dress with his leather jacket
layered over top, your nipples poking into the fabric enough to make him
salivate, “you did? After I almost had a conniption about you goin’ in the first
place? What made you think that?”
“Your endless faith in me. My keen judgement. Sheer optimism.”
He tickles behind your kneecaps and tries for a peek beneath your skirt,
“well….. not no, I guess.”
But you keep his sight where it ought to be with a gentle finger holding up his
chin, “so….. how about a little sugary beach picnic in The Pink?”
“Solid.” As if to punctuate his dry retort, his finger hits with air with utmost
spunk, a metallic snap of his rings clicking together from the exertion behind the
gesture, “je reconnais que c’est plutô t malin.”
“Don’t be a smarty pants.” Your sweet little giggles trail off when you draw
back to standing with a helping hand extended in his direction, “come on, Sunny.
I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
His fingers wrap around your arm before tugging you back down to him, a sly
grin blooming into his cheeks, “did you get ’em smothered and covered how I
like?”
“All the fixings, whipped cream and cherries on top. Sausages. And some
French fries because I didn’t know if you were in the mood for sweet or savory.”
“Just for me?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Je t’aime, nid d’abeille.” Harry pulls his weight back just to watch you giggle
and struggle on your skates for a second before effortlessly pulling himself to
standing with a soft chuckle, “woulda just spun your wheels for ages waitin’ for
me to haul my sad, bruised ass up, yeah?”
“I probably would’ve. And maybe taken a spill for you, too.”
A glittering image of you falling to the ground with your skirt flipping up to
expose the crotch of your panties fuels his revelation, “that’s hot.”
Harry bends to gather the boxes from the sidewalk and a glimmer of yellow
nail polish on his fingertips catches your attention, your thumb rubbing over the
painted veneer in appreciation, “oh, look! You’re so pretty.”
Harry cups his cheek and taps his fingertips against his skin to show them off
with a rather fearless lack of apprehension about how effeminate it may seem to
others. He’s simply that confident in his sexuality and his identity. Or perhaps
just that narcissistic, “go on.”
“Stunning. A true pièce de résistance. How was Honey Princess Hour with
Nettie?”
“How’d you— god damn it. That was supposed to be our special time together.
Why do you women always yap their mouths behind our backs?”
“I mean, the evidence is painted right there on your nails. And because we
need solidarity in a man’s world.”
His eyes pinch shut as he sings his reply with one closed fist in the air to
channel the drama in his theatrical refrain, “but it wouldn’t be nothin’, nothin’
without a woman or a girl.”
“Okay—”
He plucks another cigarette from his pack and tucks it behind his ear to make
space for an additional line before you can put the heavy kibosh on his musical
apostrophe, “you see! Man made the cars that take us over the road, man made
the train to carry the heavy load—”
“Harry!”
He drops the soulful rendition in a split second to extend his fingers out to you
with a little wiggle, “imagine how good they’d look slidin’ in and out of your—”
“Worms for brains! Can I drive?”
A gasp rips through his throat at the audacity of your question and obvious
diversion tactic, “fuck off. I was gonna say ’your hair.’ You have such a raunchy
mind, defensive Honey.”
“You weren’t going to say that and you know it. Come on, you need to put
something in your stomach before you turn The-Blob-monster-level-hungry and
eat me alive.”
“And? You’d mind?”
The tense, narrow-eyed stare-off between the two of you is snapped clean by
you flipping on your wheels and speeding towards the driver’s side door of his
car. But when you get there, you turn to find Harry standing coolly with his car
keys dangling off the end of his index finger and the fresh cigarette now perched
between his lips, “think you’re hot shit. I mean, you’re not wrong, but—” Walking
towards you and juggling all the items in his hands, he taps his pockets in search
of the matches he’d just stowed away, but they seem to be missing, “oh— shit. I
always forget these trousers have a hole in the pocket.” He shakes his leg and the
matches pop out from the hem at his ankle and plop onto the ground, “presto.”
You lean up against his car with your palm to your chest, laughing with a
scrunched-up nose, laughing with a brave heart, “you forget every single time
without fail. Will you let me sew that pocket closed, please?”
“Here you are tryin’ to stitch my pants closed and I’m tryin’ to rip yours open.
See the snag?”
“No, not really. It sounds like a good balance to me.”
“Yeah, yeah. We remain of the same mind, appeal to peace, agree to disagree
and all that. Look, I’m literally burstin’ at the seams. Y’know an itch doesn’t stop
’til you scratch it.” Harry scoops his matches off of the ground and clicks his
tongue, lifting the hem of your dress and finally getting the peek under your skirt
that he’s been thirsting for, “oop. Privacy sign’s up. Worth a shot, though. Good
stuff, Honey pot.”
In the back of Harry’s van, your skin is illuminated by the flickering glow of a
handful of half-burned candles, your bare feet dangling out of the gaping
barndoor as you and your lover sit on the edge of his quaint and curious bed. Silk
sheets still mussed from the last time you two slept here together; pillows strewn
in each corner and the bulk of his comforter kicked to the foot of the mattress.
The moon above is a glowing vanilla wafer cookie slipping into a giant glass of
soft black milk. The sand below is a prehistoric collection of crushed seahorses
and crystal quartz mountains.
Being in his space is easily one of your favorite places on earth simply because
it’s so opposite of the life you’d constructed for yourself before Harry tumbled in.
With your queen-sized-bed-for-one that must be tidied with pillows fluffed
before even stepping into the shower, the necessity of a sleep mask in order to
doze, an average of eight to ten hours of rest a night. A nighttime routine that is
akin to a hostage situation; hot water with apple cider vinegar, lemon and honey,
fifty push-ups and sit-ups, a freshly washed nightgown, a thick lather of cold
cream, one full chapter of a novel. A place for everything and everything in its
place. His van offers a delicious sense of freedom that you’ve never allowed
yourself — with no one around for miles, an easy escape at any moment, his
castoff wifebeater and briefs as acquired pajamas, no border between inside and
outside, no border between rumpled and dapper. Harry doesn’t require a sense
of external order like you do, because his internal order is already uncluttered.
Love seems to be his only necessity. A place for Cherry and Cherry in her place.
The need for skin contact, one of the most compatible facets of your
relationship, has flourished to near-constant carnal doting from either party;
kisses please, throat squeezes, tight hugs, soft scratches, butt pinches, hard
spanks, sleepy spooning, taps and touches and tastes, pokes and prods and pets.
Which has become an impossible challenge to deal with at work, but doesn’t stop
Harry from eye-fucking you whenever you’re in the same room together. Either
that or he makes such ridiculous, immature faces at you while you’re trying to
concentrate that your friends have to ask what it is you’re laughing at. Trying
your best to both keep a straight face and save face to no avail, until you’re forced
to turn your back on him in order to put a stop to it.
Harry making you laugh for the utter hell of it might just be one of the sexiest
aspects of his personality.
And it’s no different now, with yours and Harry’s feet tangled together and
swinging easily through the salty wind, each one of his fingertips popping past
his pink lips to suck any leftover whipped cream clean. Disraeli Gears spinning
smoothly on the turntable and funneling through the speakers to further cast a
blanket of warmth on your company.
As soon as Harry parked his van on the beach, he tore open the boxes of food
so fast that you were worried the waffles would go flying into the sand like
frisbees. But after wolfing down three of them without even pausing for a breath,
his pathetically sad mood finally began to thaw. You love each and every side of
Harry, but there is something so calm about being here with him and his satiated
belly after a turbulence of feelings. His blunt fingernails scratching against his
bare stomach underneath his wifebeater. Bruises settling, organs mending,
nerves steamrolling. The waves billowing in the rhythm of an endlessly slow
metronome, his heart a healthy balance of affection and offering, the surrounding
rocks and palm trees a perfect sanctuary for your quiet relationship.
A lot of people might look at Harry, a tarnished brass figurine of the sun, and
have the urge to polish him clean of discoloration. But you prefer his filigree. He’s
much more interesting with his splotchy markings that life has left him with:
witnessing unspeakable horrors, shipping halfway across the globe, stored up in
yesterday’s newspapers, quietly sitting on a mantle place, boldly presenting as a
centerpiece. He’s had his hand at all of them.
His imperfections are exactly what make him perfect.
“This is domestic as fuck, yeah? I feel like you should say somethin’ passive-
aggressive to me now so I can insult your cooking.”
“You would say something like that.”
“Your scrambled eggs are kinda dry.” He catches your playful smack with a
spongy kiss on your knuckles, “you’re still hot, though. Truth or dare.” Harry
plucks a cherry from the stem, his jaw popping as he raises his eyebrows at your
confused expression and simply nods to persuade you, “truth or dare, Honey. I’ve
got good ones for both.”
Your brain battles with what you would choose unprovoked versus what you
think he would expect for you to choose, but then you stop and reconsider,
knowing that he is completely unpredictable and there is no point in even trying
to read his mind. Instead you weigh the two options, deciding that you don’t trust
any dares that he could possibly conjure up and resolve to stick with the safer
option, “truth.”
“What are you afraid of?”
He is lovely. With his palm heavy and warm on your inner thigh, his eyes
catching light from nearby tiny glimmering flames and distant tiny glittering
stars, his heart-shaped lips resting with composure. Every ounce of his attention
pours into you, as if he were striving to pull the answer out of you by wanting it
badly enough. He reaches into one of the take-out boxes for another cherry,
hovering it at your lips and smiling when you collect it on your tongue without
hesitation. It pops between your teeth, the saccharine juices coating your throat
as you reveal something that he may or may not have expected, “I’m terrified of
being ordinary.”
Harry pauses. He’s quiet and after a good chunk of time, he

uncharacteristically adds very little, “amen.”
“Sometimes it feels like the heinous nature of the system isn’t for everyone to
prosper, but for everyone to think they can prosper. Which is just impossible.
With my weak ankle, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to push myself much farther
than I already have. And also, it feels like what I do have could be swept right out
from underneath me at any moment without warning.”
So, you’ll tell her? Tonight. Can you promise me?
Harry’s gaze drags towards the sand and you slip your fingers through his,
worried that you’ve struck a soft spot and accidentally reminded him of Indy
when you hadn’t intended to, “sorry. I just constantly hear my father’s voice in
the back of my head, telling me that I’ve made ridiculous, dead-end life choices.
That somehow and in some way, this is all going to eventually reveal itself as a
huge mistake and then I’ll have nothing. It’s hard to forget that a woman’s place
in the entertainment industry is contingent on luck and looks and apparently
that fades for women quickly and takes their careers along with it. Sometimes it
feels like it doesn’t matter how hard I work or slave away at something. That
because of my ankle, I’ll always just be a mediocre dancer strangled by fear, time
and restraint. Sometimes it feels like I’ve taken too many wrong turns by being so
self-controlled and particular that there’s no point in even looking back on how
things could have been anyway. I hate when I get flooded with a hundred
different emotions all at once and I can’t decipher them.” You become aware of
your aimless rambling when Harry tightens his grip on your hand, “I’m sorry….. I
sound really stupid. I’m going to stop and save you from my rambling.”
“Stop. I wanna hear every dribble of tongue you have to say. All of it is
important. We’re all scared of that, y’know….. how we handled the past. Just
remember you did the best that you could with the tools you had at the time.
You’re fuckin’ drop dead gorgeous and you always will be. You’re the best fuckin’
dancer on the whole planet and no one can take that gift and drive away from
you.” He pinches your chin between his fingers and studies your face, your face
that is trying so hard to be brave because you momentarily confused
disparagement with vulnerability, “hey, careful how you talk to yourself. Would
you want someone to speak to little, five-year-old Vivienne that way? Imagine
how you would feel if you overheard someone cornering you and talkin’ to baby
you like that? Sayin’ shit to a child, like ’you sound really stupid. You’re making
ridiculous life choices. It doesn’t matter how hard you work at something; you’ll
always be a mediocre dancer.’ Ouch? Be nice to little you, because she’s still in
there and she can hear you. You’re still growin’. You’re parenting yourself now,
yeah? That mean voice that berates little you learned how to cope with shit you
were dealin’ with when you were a kid. Shit that you may not have even realized
impacted you as much as it has, and now it’s created borders of protection that
no longer suit you. She’s immature. She doesn’t know you anymore. You don’t
need her. She’s a nasty little bitch and she hasn’t caught up yet. Tell her to fuck
off. If you keep pushing, who the fuck is gonna tell you that you can’t do
somethin’ besides you? Even the most benign-seeming antagonism you say to
yourself can be toxic when you take the time to reflect on it. And I know that you
say worse things than that when you’re the only one listening. You’re the boss.
Not her. You’re in control. Don’t forget that. But don’t hate on her too much —
because of her and all of the sadness she’s produced, she’s made you a great
thinker. From now on, I want you to imagine every thought that you direct to
yourself as something you’re sayin’ to me instead. I want you to be that gentle
and in love with yourself.”
More often than not, Harry is simplistically correct. He has a unique gift for
framing the abstract into something concrete and comprehensible, of breaking
down complex thought processes into aesthetic visual impressions, of shaping
favorable reminders into easy tasks in order for you to construct a footbridge
that leads directly to self-appreciation. An ornate shiny setting, inside of it a
blank canvas for you to compose your own tour de force. An idea of an idea; a
golden egg wearing a golden crown. He states things that you already knew
somewhere deep inside of you were true if you’d only had language for it. If he
were any less rude, he could be powerful enough to start a worldwide cult one
day; complete with matching rainbow sherbet clothes, meditation over self-
affirmations and a penchant for all things sweet.
You scoot closer and tug your joined hands into in your lap, “sometimes your
little speeches feel like hot oatmeal sponge baths. They resonate with the same
exact frequency as heartbreak and it makes me wonder what those words must
feel like inside of you all the time, swimming around in your belly with so much
pluck and backbone. You have such pretty statements even if they’re littered
with trash sometimes.” His little chuckle bubbles out from the back of his throat
and sparkles in the air as soon as it passes his teeth. It’s easily one of your
favorite sounds in the world; a short, timely giggle that conveys purity and
somehow paints him in an even more handsome light, “and I appreciate them so
much. Thank you, Sunbeam.” Harry leans close and accepts your gratitude with a
loving kiss that melds like honey, his damp lips lingering over yours when you
whisper a similar question for him to explore, “truth or dare?”
“Truth.” Surprise.
“Oh?” One eyebrow perks up in curiosity, but you don’t dare back an inch
away from him, “okay….. what are you afraid of?”
Ruining your career. Losing you. Being isolated again. Destroying the one
thing that you’ve worked harder on than anything in your life to earn. Destroying
the one thing that he’s worked harder on than anything else in his life to earn.
But he settles on, “not bein’ good enough for you.”
Now is the time for a little space and Harry hates it, he hates when you’re
anywhere but on top of him with wandering hands. He pursues your distance,
gripping the back of your neck to halt your retreat, to taste your words when you
have no choice but to give him your honesty in close proximity, “Harry, I hate
when you say that.”
“Don’t you back away from me. Say what you mean.”
“I hate that you believe that.”
He’s slow. Cool and peaceful, a fat dove roosting at twilight, “why?”
“Because it’s vague. It sounds like the beginning of something else much
deeper. In my eyes, you’re ideal. Inspirational. I want to be like you and loved by
you. So, it seems absolutely impossible for there to be something that you’re not
good enough for. It’s just not true. What would five-year-old Harry think?”
“He’d think you’re a fuckin’ wet dream.”
Your nose scrunches one second before your soft giggle breaks free, “is he
right?”
“He knows a bubble gum pleasure pit when he sees it.” His fingertips traipse
over your dress in the exact spot where a freckle lies beside your belly button,
“how’s my favorite?”
“She misses you.”

Another soft laugh, “yeah? Always know what I wanna hear. You’re fuckin’
adorable.”
“Want to say hello?”
A wave washes to shore, a rush of heat on its back. Harry studies your face for
a long while before dragging his thumb over your bottom lip and pinning your
foreheads together, “I might keel the fuck over if I don’t.” The tip of his nose
nudges gently against yours to sway you down into his sheets, the tip of his
tongue dotting your skin as he patiently lingers for your affirmative signal to his
mumbled question, “can I take a little sip?”
Upon receiving a little nod from you, he folds your lips into a heart on the dip
down, his stomach as turbulent as the ocean that roars just a few dozen feet
away and even more unsettled with the stroll of your tongues. He doesn’t waste
any time with waiting to paw at your clothing; in his mind, he’s been pretty
patient in terms of peeling you down to your underwear tonight. Typically, when
you’re alone, he has you under the covers with your tits out before you’ve even
had much time to blink. But after he put you through an emotional wringer this
evening, he figured it would be chivalrous to at least let you preen your feathers
first. But it’s been hours now and fuck that. He much prefers you sullied.
Gathering your skirt around your middle, the first place his tongue dives into
is the delicate strip of skin that meets the elastic of your panties. He waits until
your sweet purr vibrates in his eardrums before painting a feathery line to your
freckle and nipping at it with his teeth, his voice oozing out with a croon, “hello.”
“Sunny—” You’re so heavenly when your laugh is the kind that ripples
through a pleading mewl, when your hands cup his cheeks for a better glimpse
into his eyes, “you’re being silly—”
“I feel like we should name her.”

The way that his fingertip circles the little beauty mark sends your insides
pooling in the same manner. And then you know that he’s intentionally seducing
you via distraction when he presses his thumb to your knot and waits for your
chest to start heaving as you attempt to speak, “hmm?” You swallow a soft pant,
“what would you name her?”
“Face de pet?”
Your head tips back in exasperated laughter and just a moment later, your
elbows give way to allow to you flop down on his bed with your hands covering
your face, “why do you always have to—”
Harry grabs your wrists and peels them away to reveal your flushed cheeks,
his chin resting on your stomach as he gazes up at you with so much mush
behind his eyes that it immediately swings your amusement, “ma raison de
vivre? Or less intense, maybe. Mon petit chou-fleur. Ma pupuce. Bulle. Chiot.
Cambuse. Pantoufle. Ou chaussettes…..?”
“How does your brain even flip flop that randomly and aggressively?”
A handful of pink peppermint marshmallows with a drizzle of chocolate

ribbons on top. A twinkling wolf in his eyes. Relief in his small, hot pink smile.
Charm in his dimple. Molten sex appeal in a crisp and soft sugar cone, “talent.
Stay sharp. Pick one or I’m goin’ with chaussettes. Raunchy ones.”
“She says you can call her whatever you want.”
His mouth is wet and sluggish when plants a second kiss to yet another object
that Harry has stricken a confidential relationship with, to yet another object that
he feels the need to ask permission for even though you both know he already
has it, “mmm….. fine. It’ll stay a secret between me and her then.” Impulsively
reaching into the takeout box beside him, he tucks the stem of a cherry between
his teeth with the perfect red, round fruit shaping a circle inside of his
bubblegum lips, exactly three tints lighter in saturation. He pulls the center of
your panties aside, pressing the cherry’s taut skin against your bud before
slowly, slowly dragging it up and down your folds and then dipping it just past
your entrance. Drawing back a couple inches, he admires the way your core
clinches around the fruit and then flicks his gaze to your stomach to find your
muscles trembling in response, your head tipped back to allow your hair to graze
his sheets.
The cherry is cool and can be felt to your toes, slick and sweet. Just like Harry.
“Speak.”
“Toffee.”
Gratified by your quick response, Harry hums, catching the fruit between his
teeth again and tapping it against your knot, once, then popping it on your skin to
make sure his teeth graze you on the little nibble. Before you have much time to
process the pleasing nip, his tongue is plunging far inside of you for a taste, his
palm spreading out over your stomach as his fingertips dig with imploring
appetite. His thumb reaches down to whirl circles on your sensitivity until your
legs flutter on either side of his head, his middle and ring fingers sinking deep to
replace his tongue when he reels back to check in on you, “feel okay?”
But he knows the answer. He knows because each one of your moans is a little
louder than the one before it. Because there’s a soft layer of sweat on your chest.
Because your cheeks are pink as if you’ve been sitting directly in front of a
campfire for the last several hours. Because your excitement is silky to the touch.
But it doesn’t hurt when you weep out a quiet, “yes, really okay. Jelly.”
And then when he pulls his fingers out and smacks them against your pulsing
center with a harsh strike, your cry catches in your throat as you try your best to
draw in a full breath of air. This pleases Harry to no end, especially when he has
the opportunity to soothe the sting with the very tip of his tongue, tracing your
throbs with lines and scribbles as if attempting to erase the ache that was
brought on by his own hand.
So, you’ll tell her?
Nettie’s plea seeps through his brain and forces him to pinch his eyes closed
for a moment, wishing the acknowledgement and the whole fucking possibility of
needing to shoulder the burden of his own stupid, selfish, hardened omission
would just disappear. But that’s historically the way that Harry prefers to
function, hoping for forgiveness rather than permission, tossing away his
undesirable responsibilities like junk mail without even peeking inside of the
envelope to see if it’s useful or important. He hates confrontation. He hates
adversity. He just wants peace and love; he just wants a situation of passion to
play out in his favor for once. Is that so much to ask?
His tongue shifts from drawing meaningless drivel to spelling out actual
words into your heat over and over again, hoping that the silent impression is
enough, carving the one sentiment that is so troublesome for him to say out loud
and even harder for him to swallow.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
When you’re nearing your end, rolling your hips against his palm and against
his mouth, squeezing your legs around his ears and mewling the words “daddy”
and “please” like a hungry kitten, he draws away and presses his forehead to
your thigh without really thinking too hard about what’s going to happen next, “I
gotta tell you somethin’, Cherry.”
Time passes in slow motion for the both of you. For you, just the notion of
understanding that he brought you this close to the edge only to rashly blurt out
something vague or senseless or ridiculous has you frustrated to near tears. For
him, just the notion of breaching this topic has his stomach on a queasy
rollercoaster, but he waits. He doesn’t know which part is making his heart
pound away at his ribcage more; the anticipation of having to speak the words
out loud or the anticipation of the backfire. He waits for your response and your
reaction, he waits because for some stupid reason, he needs you to assure him
again and again that your love is unconditional. That your love for him is more
powerful than your love for your career. That your high can be put aside for his
low.
“Not now, please. Please, please, Sunny. Why now? I’m so close—”
“No, no….. V, just listen for a sec, I just gotta say one thing—”
Unfortunately for Harry and his proclivity for digression and impulsivity, it’s
hard for you to know whether or not his confession carries actual importance
and unfortunately for Harry, he’s now the boy who cries wolf.
You whine and dig your fingers into his shoulders, rocking your hips into his
hand in a type of need that you normally don’t feel comfortable showing.
Complete vulnerability suited up with a groan that’s impossible to argue against,
“no, Daddy. Please. Not now. I want fireworks. If it’s so important you can tell me
in the morning? Please.”
So, he promises himself that he will tell you in the morning. As soon as you
wake up, when you’re tender and accepting as you often are at sunrise, when his
courage is heightened by sleepy delirium, when your comprehension is softened
by melting dreams. Because that’s your wish. Because you’re begging him not to
stop and begging is very hard for Harry to resist. And because he chooses to take
your ignorance as informed permission, since he remembers reading somewhere
that denial is a very strong emotion.
Gripping your ankles to his shoulders, Harry lowers himself down on top of
you with his length pushing against the seam of his trousers, polishing your hips
together in small seamless circles. He loves the sensation of your cadences falling
in sync, the warmth and humidity of your core leaching the fabric of his pants.
His lips fold with yours as he takes sips of your tongue, his hand brushing down
the length of your elevated leg and pausing for a painfully tight handful of your
curves, “mmm….. whose perfect girl are you?”
He needs to hear you say it out loud.
“Yours.”
A hard smack to your ass sends electricity to your toes and a satisfying yelp
through his ears and when his fingers curl inside of you again, the electricity
starts to short circuit, “just for me, Cherry baby?”
“Yes—” It’s hard to tell now as you rut your hips for friction, if you’re wanting
it from his hands or his cock more, “can I—”
Harry drops his other hand from your ankle and grasps your throat, feeling
the thrum of your pulse through his skin, “wanna come, hmm?” He doesn’t have
to wait for the nod he was expecting, “oh yeah?” The pads of his fingers press
firmly against your front wall as he continues to slowly knead his aching tip into
your thigh with a soft sigh that involuntarily slips out, “like, maybe….. now?”
Your climax is floating on the fringes and if he pressed his thumb to your clit
just once it would send the waves crashing down on you and he knows this and
that’s exactly why he won’t do it, “please—”
Another smack to your center that twists your gratification into a complicated
snarl, “nope.”
The look in your eyes is familiar to him. He hasn’t seen it in you before per se,
but he can remember personally feeling the way that your face looks many, many
times in the past. Flushed and starving, “Harry—”
Releasing your legs and withdrawing back to his haunches, Harry pinches his
bottom lip between his fingers to watch you fuss and rub your legs together in
search of relief. Your heavy breathing and hushed whispers of his name and
requests for more forge a pang deep down in his stomach and his center, urging
him to pop the button of his trousers and slip a hand in for a tight squeeze. But
that still feels too restricting and less than a moment later, he’s shimming his
pants down his legs and kicking them out of his barndoor into the sand. Yours
and Harry’s panting begin to sympathize and when he finds himself already
missing the smoothness your skin, he dips down and flicks his tongue over your
bundle of nerves again. You wind your fingers into his hair to keep him close,
mewling out in frustration when he pauses to blow a puff of air on your swollen
knot, “breathe, sweet girl. Slow down. You’re gonna ruin your orgasm. Who got
you so worked up, huh?” The tip of his nose presses against your most tense spot
when he leaves a big, wet open-mouthed kiss on your entrance that turns your
insides into the fleeting impact of an electric rainbow, “mmm, fuck….. couldn’t be
me.”
Maybe he’s prying for praise and maybe he’s not too ashamed to admit that to
himself.
His breath is knocked to the back of his throat when you suddenly sit up and
meet him with a kiss, your hands slinking past the elastic of his briefs to wrap
him in a tight fist. Harry moans air through his nose, breaking away just long
enough to mutter “yes” onto your tongue before kissing you again and absorbing
the long-awaited praise he’s been searching for. The praise that you’ve gotten
into the habit of shaping with effortless poetry, “yes, you. Just you. I’m ready for
you to make me feel how only you can. Right now.”
“Fuck. C’mere, my baby.” He drops down onto his bottom and pulls you up into
his lap, finally tugging your dress and slip over your head and tossing them
somewhere, he doesn’t really give a fuck where, especially when you’re moaning
into his mouth and clawing away at his button-down shirt with just as much
gumption. Blood rushes to his center the moment you both get your bare hands
on each other; his palms ditching their former path to squeeze both of your
breasts while your fingers disappear below his wifebeater for a cruise up his
stomach. He keeps your mouths sealed as he sits up, pulling away for less than a
second to grip his undershirt by the back of the neck and sending it to join your
dress in its mysterious resting place.
So, you’ll tell her?
Harry groans into your neck to clear the ick that’s cluttering his impeccable
mental retreat, his blunt nails scratching a path up your back to grab your hair in
a fist. As if being a little rough and maybe a little silly will somehow force the
reminder out as quickly as it came, “waffle breath.”
“Harry—” Your fingers tangle into the chain of his heart locket and tug gently,
“why do you say things like that when we’re kissing?” His lips pucker around the
bleat of a small trumpet from the bridge of “Yellow Submarine” and you smack
his chest, “get bent! Please don’t go there!”
“We’re doin’ way more than a little kissin’. But I’m afraid if you burp, you’ll
torch me with broiled sugar.”
You’re whining and giggling all together now, “Harry!”
“Mmm…..” There’s a trail of stardust behind his fingertips making their way
down to the hem of your panties, “I can’t decide if I like makin’ you laugh or come
better.”
And just when you think he’s steering the ship off course; he makes you
realize it was merely a scenic detour on the sensual route he’s already navigated
to perfection.
Hot light explodes down his spine when your fingers wind into the curls on
the back of his neck, your nails scratching against his scalp, a field of glittery
untouched snow and patches of light on the dewy grass, “I know which one I like
better.”
His slow, sultry breath burns like a toasted marshmallow, “yeah?”
“Mhm…..” Your fingertip dips into the divot in his chest, “definitely laughing.”
When Harry laughs sometimes it’s so beautiful that it’s actually painful, with
the way his eyes and nose scrunch up and actual light beams from his mouth.
Such expressive features put such stunning emotions to perfect use, “shoulda
known, Honey tease. I’ve still got two more wishes, yeah?”
Thinking back on how he jokingly referred to you as a magic genie earlier

tonight, you recall that he had only gotten around to asking for a single wish
before his easily-sidetracked mind led him astray. Your lips pucker in
amusement at the same time that a single eyebrow raises, “technically.”
Somehow his lips look extra appealing when his request leaks from them, “I
wish for a kiss.”
“Harry….. what do you keep wasting your wishes for?”
“Um? You’re the worst genie. I asked for the easiest fuckin’ thing. Be grateful
I’m not askin’ for perverse shit. Kiss, please.”
Harry stays frozen and waits for you to advance to him, curious as to how
much passion you’ll bring to his prayer when the reigns are tossed into your
hands with no leads. He’s happily appeased when you take your sweet time
closing the gap between you, your thighs squeezing around his hips as the tip of
your nose follows the strength of his scratchy jawline to his lovingly-shaped lips.
Your exhales make congruent shapes when they meet in the air and his cock is
already throbbing against your middle, leaking an agonizing drip of desperation
into his briefs. And just when he thinks you’re going to press your lips to his, you
stop for a bit of appreciation and spread your palms out over his chest, feeling
the smooth ridges and creases of his torso on your little trek south. Your thumb
swipes over his crown to feel the dampness of the fabric there, spinning once and
then twice before you catch him off-guard with a crushing kiss.
“Mmm…..” Both of his palms knead your tits as he collects your love with a
heart full of gluttony, saturated with gratitude for how effortlessly you keep his
mind awake and crowded with unsolved puzzles. A flimsy gasp stings in his lungs
when you tug on his briefs, his hips lifting into yours to let you guide the material
down under his bottom and grant his length some breathing room. One of his
hands drops to grip himself in a fist, tapping his tip against your clothed heat as a
silent signal that he wants you to remove your last layer as well, “lemme see that
pretty velvet apple. She drownin’? Bet you’re still edgin’, mm?” Plucking the
fabric from your center, his fingertips graze up and down your slippery slit
before he dips one finger all the way inside, the metal of his ring kissing your clit,
“feel good?”
In your everlasting controlled secrecy, your response is not targeted at any of

his present questions, but rather circling back to the conversation from earlier.
Always doing your best to keep him on track, no matter how much his brain
wants to ping-pong around a room, “what’s your last wish, Sunbaby?” It’s
exceedingly difficult to breathe when his digit is slowing pulling in and out of
you, pausing on each retreat to draw hearts on your slick bud, “make it good this
time.”
Atypically for Harry, his answer has already been formed and he reveals it
with a whisper against your lips, “I wish for you to take my third wish. Go on.
Take it.”
Your breaths move in opposing rhythms and seem to get heavier with the
unspoken conversation written in your dilated pupils. Harry can feel the power
in your reply before it even has the opportunity to leak, but before it does, just
the inkling of it forces his breath to catch in his throat. Because your wish sounds
just as loaded as you intend it to be. You reiterate your promise from before, in
case it wasn’t obvious enough the first time. It’s spoken on a plume of hot air, the
color of the last slip of sun before it disappears behind the impossibly blue ocean.
A celestial sunflower both in bloom and in death; orange and yellow, sandwiched
between the sky and his god. A gasp of light fighting nightfall. It’s Honey golden.
“I wish I could lose control.”
Just loosen up the littlest bit more. Just a little bit.
If gazes could act, yours and Harry’s would be fucking.
All of the air congeals in Harry’s lungs, thick enough that he can feel it slowly
start to melt and absorb into his tissue without ever actually leaving his mouth.
Your specifically vague statement leaves him lightheaded and all he can manage
is to catch your kiss, his hands smoothing up your thighs before plunging into the
back of your panties and gathering a firm grip on your ass to pin you against his
hips. Your middles pulsate together in yet another love language that can only be
translated by the two of you and Harry boosts the sensation by surging your
centers together, again and again, in languid, drowsy sweeps.
Dragging your panties aside as far as he can, he nestles his cock against your
slit and blubbers at the agitated puffy humidity. He guides his length back and
forth through your groove and past your entrance and bumping your clit, his tip
pausing every couple strokes to dip a bit inside of you. Each dip is just a little
wetter and deeper and flustered than the one before it, everything is so sensitive,
so soft and wet. Your thighs are smooth around his waist, teeny tiny little
goosebumps roll down your chest and stomach to tighten your nipples. You can
hear his attempt at controlling his breathing, the deep suck of air through his
nose, his bottom lip shiny, “you feel so fuckin’ unreal. So good for me, baby.”
You’re sucking on him with every small plunge, your limbs resolute and mush
in the same page, your sweaty bellies smoothing together. Every single kiss feels
perfect, like your mouths were feeding each other little swaps of nectar and
torched, brown butter. Pulling back and sliding forward, pulling back and sliding
forward. Soaking, hot. Hard mush. Fireworks fireworks fireworks. The windows
inside of his van become opaque from moaning, panting, hearts pounding and the
calm wind rolling off of the waves would remind you of where you were, if either
of you were paying any attention to your surroundings.
The both of you are well aware of the tremble in Harry’s hands when he
pauses to smack your bottom as a cue to sit up a bit. He doesn’t mind the shake in
his fingers when he slips your panties off and flings them aside; it’s a feeling that
doesn’t pass through him too often and it’s either sourced from adrenaline or
nerves, but it’s hard to tell. There will always be anxiety in the unknown,
especially when the unknown haunts your daydreams for months.
His heart beats inside of his skull.
Harry can feel how relaxed and supple your body is when you settle back into
his lap and he doesn’t waste any time realigning himself with your opening,
pausing with his head bundled inside of you and sucking in a gasp of air when
you don’t protest. In fact, you angle your hips toward him, swallowing him
another inch forward with a quiet, subdued hiss, “Harry.” The pinch is there, the
impending stretch of your walls, the tension from his imminent intrusion, but all
it is is a thin, imaginary barrier holding you back. That pesky barricade of fear.
You want it gone for good and replaced with something that feels much, much
better than a tattered bandage on a long-healed wound that you’ve been too
scared to peek at, “don’t stop.” Another roll of your hips that sinks him a smidge
further, another slow burn that creeps up to your belly button, but you try to
hide that for his sake. He’s had to push all along in order for anything to begin
between the two of you and now he’s going to have to push in order to end this,
after all. And you want him to, “don’t stop. Fais moi l’amour, s’il te plait. Please,
Daddy.” You nod and push on his lower back with your heels and your palms,
whining at the startling, odd combination of pain and pleasure as he pitches a
little bit further inside, “you feel amazing and I need more from you. Now. I’m
ready. Don’t stop, please. Je t’adore et je te veux. Have me.”
“Oh— god. Fuck— babe?” His spine starts to tingle when you confirm his
consensual assumption with a fearless nod and there’s zero time to process
what’s happening when he tangles his fingers into your hair, his eyes pouring
into yours and roaming all across your face as he plunges himself through your
walls inch by golden inch. Each golden inch burns more than the one before it.
And each golden inch frees you more than the one before it.
High-pitched moans whisper through cracks in his bitten lips, until he’s fully
sheathed and molded inside of you with a gooey pulse that acts as a greeting to
his intrusion, pausing to feel the sensation of you clamping down on him all slick
and wet and tight and agitated. His lewd gaze disappears under the tight squeeze
of his eyelids for a sweet second, your fingernails tearing into his back to balance
out the flood of frazzled nerve endings. Harry wrings his eyes open in order to
study your face; flushed, transforming, wilting. Maybe slightly panicky. Watery
electricity in your irises, your heart on your sleeve.
He must be able to read the pain in your expression because he answers it

with a spongy kiss that cools your forehead, followed by a puff of air so hot that it
makes you sweat.
Cupid’s arrow explodes from his brain, trailing behind it a clothing line that
needles through his heart and ends in his pith. Tiny little stars and cherries and
sunbeams and snowflakes delicately clipped along the way with miniature
clothespins, soaking wet and dripping dry on his ribcage.
His sweet Honey pot. His effervescent Cherry pop.
Officially popped.
Just for him.
“Hi.”
A little, gorgeous giggle, pleased but not surprised with how he’s checking in
on you in practically the most adorable way possible at the most vulnerable time
possible, “hi.”
His voice is uncharacteristically quiet and sedated as he tilts his head to speak
against your lips, “d’accord chéri?”
“Mhm—”
“Les bonnes filles vont au paradis.”
“Et bons garçons?”
“J’ai toujours été ici.”
He spins his hips against your threshold, your heart chases the revolution, all
of your muscles wake up and tighten. A severe sting that carries the color of fire
and resembles a fist swaddled in sandpaper swells in intensity, clinging and
clawing away at your stomach until it slowly, very slowly starts to weaken with
each splintered half-breath. And slowly, very slowly a low tide of indulgence
begins crawling its way to shore from your numb toes to your sweaty palms.
“Oh. God—” Harry cries out and drops his forehead to your shoulder, his knee
hiking up beside your hip for leverage and stability, his other foot plowing
through his pillows to send one careening off the side of the bed and into the
belly of his van below. His hand cups your cheek, then slips down to your throat.
Except he doesn’t squeeze this time, because he needs you to breathe and relax
for your sake and also so you don’t siphon his release before he’s ready, “breathe,
babe. You’re doin’ so fuckin’ good. So good for me. Holy f— I need you to loosen
up a little, yeah? Breathe.” He cries out when you obey straight away, slackening
just enough to grant him permission to roll his hips, “oh, holy shit. Yes, that’s it.
Good girl. Sweet girl. How’s she? Fuck…... real snug.”
Maybe you’d be able to appreciate the wreckage crossing his features more if
you weren’t burning from the inside out, but there’s still an acknowledgement of
his beauty tickling around inside of you somewhere. The film of sweat on his face
and chest, locks of hair clinging to his lips and eyelashes, his mouth parted just
enough to let broken oxygen through. It still feels too arduous to move, instead
you comb your fingers through his hair and off of his face, taking comfort in the
nostalgia of his soft mouth, “I just need a second, I think—” Your hiss halts his
movements all at once, “just a sec…..”
It doesn’t feel right to be anywhere but this close to you, every inch of his skin
touching every inch of yours, his hands doting as his pretty eyes flick all over
your face. And honestly, he doesn’t even know how he has the strength to be
sitting up right now, but at least his brain is regulating enough to form a couple
coherent thoughts, “look at you. You’re so fuckin’ brave and beautiful. Are you in
pain, Honeybunny? What’s it feel like?”
“Like you wrapped yourself in raw wool first.”
Harry laughs and litters your neck and jaw with kisses, his stomach muscles
quivering with the effort needed to keep himself still when all he wants to do is
feel the push and pull of his length as your muscles hug him with lust, “’kay
’cause—” He hisses when you rut your hips forward to experiment with the
sensation, “fuck, you feel like heaven.”
You cup the back of his neck and align your mouths, your eyes locking in on
one another, “hardly seems fair.”
“It’s not fair.” He meets your need of a kiss and then meets another need that
you didn’t know you had until he’s vocalizing it, “try to fully relax, yeah? You’re
clampin’ down hard. Lean into it. Worst part’s over, baby. Breathe….. close your
eyes for a sec and just feel it. Feel me. Tell me what I feel like.”
When your eyes slip shut per his advice, Harry takes this moment to ingest
your fluttering walls sinking around every ridge and vein in his cock. He clenches
his teeth over a salient whine that slices up his throat and echoes through your
stomach. Quite literally, he can’t remember the last time he’s had sex or who it
was with and that has less to do with his accident than the fact that you’ve wiped
the importance of most other things clear from his mind. That’s not to say that he
hasn’t had the urge, but rather the exact opposite. That’s also not to say that he
hasn’t felt fulfilled; with your daily doting and your stellar fucking blowjobs and
your nipples at dusk and your nipples at dawn. Your delicious mouth. Your
careful hands. Your knotted hair. Your cunt pulsing on his tongue.
But this….. he’d nearly forgotten how good it feels.
It’s not localized, it’s a full-body high that starts at the bottom of his spine and
flickers into a fireball in his brain, raining sparks all the way down to his toes.
Dirty talk is probably half of what he loves about sex, but this…..
This feels so fucking good that he can’t seem to find any at the moment.
His eardrums sparkle when you finally shake your head and exhale, “yes, it—”
Your moan yields his own, “yes…..” Your sigh yields his own, “you feel real… y...
really good.” Another moan, but Harry would describe it as more of a kittenish
mewl, one that reveals a wave of pleasure that hopefully matches his own, “you
feel so, so good.”
And when you start to loosen up and very cautiously and courageously lift
your hips and circle back down, he can empathically feel your ache dissipating to
make space for something much more rewarding.
“Shit. Jesus fuckin’ Christ. This is fuckin’ intense.”
“And you?”
“Underwhelmed.”
“Fuck you, Harry.”
“I am. Under….. you. Cherry on top. Did I say underwhelming? Fuck. Shut up.
S… h... word vomit. So tight and wet. What are words?”
Doing his damndest to concentrate through your sweet giggles, he pinches

your hips and rotates them in little chrome rings against his pelvis, his head
tipping back as he groans into the wickedly damp air. He’s felt like he could come
since the second you allowed him inside, but there’s a level of self-control in his
belly that holds his orgasm back and it mostly stems from selfishly wanting to
draw out the euphoria of this moment. He cradles the back of your neck, lying
back in his silk sheets and lowering you down on top of him. Planting his feet on
the mattress, he bends his knees and hitches you forward, slipping his middle
finger and ring fingers onto your tongue, “suck. Mhm. Get ’em nice and soakin’
wet.” His hips keep a steady, easy cadence as he observes your earnest pursuit,
hissing out whispered praises until he withdraws his digits to suck on them
himself.
The pads of his fingers bathe your spine on the journey down your back,
between your cheeks and pausing to gently press on your back entrance to tickle
everything from your bellybutton to your thighs, “oh my god, Harry—” And he’s
getting exactly the response he wants when you start to take your enjoyment
into your own hands, rocking your pelvis in smooth sweeps that perfectly
synchronize with his, sinking him all the way in and nearly all the way out.
“Yes. That’s it, Honeymoon. Ride me. Just like that. Perfect.” The tip of his
middle finger nuzzles into your rim and bursts of hot, white light shroud your
vision. With a mountain of relief and the passage of shock, Harry can feel his
control settling back into place and his cognizance wakes up every hair on his
body, “you’re a fuckin’ sweet, wild fantasy.” His breathing and his sweat and his
fascination ooze from his pores, toothsome and temping, his teeth grazing over
your neck before he connects your lips together and kisses you until his mind
turns into a ball of fuzzy, stuffy static.
Without warning, Harry flips you underneath him and absorbs your whine
with an air of satisfaction when he pulls himself free and sponges a trail of kisses
down your stomach. There’s no hesitation when he dives in to soak your core
with a fat, wide tongue, up and down, saturating every fold and savoring the
result of your love. He sinks two fingers into your heat, pulling them back again
and again in a come-hither motion as he continues to bathe your bundle of
nerves with the tip of tongue. Quietly ignoring your protests to stop, he works
you until you start pulsing, one arm swinging across your belly to keep you from
flailing and snapping his head into a vice. Your moans and your pleas and your
praises reach a fever pitch until your head falls back, your fingers knotting into
his hair and digging into his scalp as your orgasm jolts you into restless ecstasy.
Little did you know that it was unlikely for you to reach your high simply from
being penetrated for the first time and little do you know he’s not finished with
you yet.
Harry delivers a resounding spank of taut skin and heated metal to your ass
that sends your legs into a helpless vibration, the surroundings of his van quickly
joining you in consciousness as he leaves a final kiss to your cunt, “god, it’s so
fuckin’ hot when you come in my mouth. I love it. Good girl.” He pulls his red-hot
heart-shaped locket up and over his head, tossing it somewhere into the sheets
as he climbs his way back on top you, a blurt of precome dragging up your thigh.
His length skims between your folds again, his eyes as black as oil, “I’m gonna
fuck you harder now, yeah? Open fire with some neon rainbows. How’s my baby?
Ready?” He waits for your nod before he presses his forehead to yours and
inches through your slick, heated walls again with a hiss of air past his teeth,
“fuck, say so. Ask for it. Beg for me.”
You have to swallow a couple times before you can manage any sort of actual
talking, “mhm….. I’m ready. I’m past feeling ready. Please?”
His next line is spoken through an eager growl as you hug his cock from the
inside, because he’s about to feel something that he’s been dying to feel ever
since he laid eyes on you for the first time, “nope. Try again.” Lifting your ankle
onto his shoulder, he reaches down and spanks you again in the same spot but
harder than before, his eyes forced shut when you automatically squeeze around
him and come dangerously close to draining his release, “oh, fuckin’— Oh….. my
god. Shit— t… e... fuck.” He picks his head up and somehow gathers his wits, his
gaze burning into yours and his jaw clinching tight as he wraps his fingers
around your throat, “I said beg.”
“Fuck me, Daddy. Come inside me. I’m all yours. Please. I need you.”
“Perfect angel.”
It’s different now, with your body melted and sludgy from your orgasm and
your muscles accustomed to his length. With Harry this close to reaching his
highly-anticipated delirium. With his thrusts spanning all the way inside of you
before pulling all the way out, your body rocking from the force of his blitz and
friction sparking your skin while his perspiration soothes it. His lips brush yours
as he unleashes a waterfall of filth, one hand massaging your breast and rolling
your nipple between his fingertips as he works himself towards release, “am I
makin’ you feel good, hm? Like it? Gonna take me, all of me?” His eyelids droop
and his strides fall into a sloppy rhythm, your hips meeting his again and again as
you egg him on with his favorite sweet, soft praises that burrow into his guts, “oh
god, Cherry. Mm….. yours, I’m comin’. Take me, sweet girl.”
Honey drips from the sky, a single heady, euphoric blurt at first. Followed by
months of desperate yearning, a whole bucket tipped onto its side as it pumps
out a never-ending avalanche of devotion, until it’s bled and left quiet with
nothing but a dull ring through the atmosphere.
The type of cry that Harry emits is one that you’ve yet to hear from him, and
honestly, it’s so carnal and arousing that the pure vibration of it nearly has you
reaching your peak again. The sound splinters through the air and is swallowed
whole by the ocean, leaving on comet tails that are composed of little sobs and
whimpers and whines and cosmic dust.
He collapses on top of you and buries his face in your neck, his body still aside
from the violent thump of his heart that translates through your breastbone and
his sweaty belly softly breathing against yours. Harry is historically the most
perfect, slushy dreamboat after he’s had an orgasm, but now he’s nothing but a
heavy batch of raw cookie dough.
Your mind reels back to the beginning and plays the entire experience again at
full speed as you pet your fingers through his hair and scratch your nails down
his back; pausing at certain parts and rewinding over and over again. Flashes and
blips of sweat and kisses, stretching and burning, sinking and dissolving. It was a
lifetime ago; it was ten seconds ago. Just like that, everything is exactly the same
and completely different.
The moment he’s caught his breath and returned to his body, he grips your
jaw and folds your lips together with a keen hum that coils your stomach into a
knot. You kiss with roaming hands, tender tongues, melting muscles and his cock
inside of you for a long time before either of you speak. And surprising to the
both of you, you’re the first one that is able to put any emotions into words when
you gently break away with a cute, scrunched-up nose to utter, “that was really
fun.”
Harry’s face morphs through several sentiments before crashing into

appeasing laughter, “um….. at the very bare minimum.” You giggle and he groans,
his palm spreading out over your belly to loosen the tight clasp on him, “oh, fuck,
stop, you’re squishin’ me. Don’t laugh. You’re gonna pop me out. I don’t wanna
leave yet.” Harry’s pretty eyes muddled by a darkening bruise study your
features before petting his fingers through your hair, before molding your lips
together and before pumping into you again. Once. Slowly and longingly, “m… m...
fu— je t’aime, Cherry baby. Sweet fuckin’ girl. Holy shit. Took me like a total
champ. Feelings?”
“Beyond. You?”
“Killer. On fuckin’ fire. Pushin’ up daisies. I’m with god now. Nighty night,
gonna ride this rainbow to dreamyland. Can I crash out inside you?”
You whine and roll your hips together with a warm blanket of longing, “don’t
sleep, Sunshine. Je t’aime.”
“Je t’aime à la folie.”
“Can we do it again?”
“Shit. Fuck. I am so in love.” Harry laughs and pulls himself free, leaving you
empty with cool sweat drying all over every inch of your skin. He flops down
beside you, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead, breathing deeply and
nodding at the same time, “mhm, undoubtedly. Gimme two shakes to refill the
tank and then I’m all yours. Need a ciggy. Then another ciggy. And a couple
bananas for proper fuel.”
“You’re right, potassium is way more important than puss—”
“Vivienne!” Harry interrupts you by slapping his palm over your mouth and
releasing a reel of deranged, shocked laughter that crinkles through his
accusation, “how could you? Heavens to Betsy. I fucked your filter right off.
Gimme my sweet Honeysuckle back. Miss her.”
Both of your palms kiss the sky with an innocent shrug before you peel his
hand away and slip your fingers together, “gospel. I’m still here, Sunbeam.”
His eyebrows flit with unprecedented amusement and it only takes him half a
second to recognize your gentle antagonism as a means of sparking his
competitive side. And he likes that. A lot. Because it works. Harry growls and
rolls back on top of you, gathering your wrists to pin them to the mattress above
your head, “I said I’ll fuck you when I’m ready and you’ll wait. Salope. Sois
patient.”
“I think I’m going to need a cigarette, too.”

“That’s hot. Kiss.” He smiles into your kiss and cups your cheek to deepen the
embrace before drawing back to finally hum out some much-deserved accolades,
“mmm….. je t’aime. Je t’adore. Je suis obsédé par toi. Tu es une sorcière. Chatte
magique. Je t’aime, je t’aime. Better than I could have ever fuckin’ imagined and I
imagined it so much I could taste it. Holy fuck, I can’t believe that just happened.
Thank you for your cherry, I’ll guard it with my life. Another kiss.” His heart skips
a beat when you fulfill his request without a hiccup, “m… m... y’…now...
sometimes I believed it’d never happen and I’d be thinkin’ ’bout your mystery
cunt on my death bed.…… mean... I’m still gonna be thinkin’ about it on my death
bed now, too. I’m gonna be one of those senile grandpas that drinks milk extra
loud and tells inappropriate stories to teenage boys about your mantrap. Fairy-
tale shit. Christ. Do you have dope hiding up there or somethin’? Where’s that
ciggy at?”
You curl onto your side and appreciate your first moment of true afterglow,
with your fidgety and restless boyfriend ambling through the small space of his
van in search for a pack of cigarettes. Candles flicker all around you to give his
skin a beautiful honey glow, his tattoos shining black from a glistening layer of
sweat, his hair an insane bird’s nest that points in a hundred different directions.
He pumps one victorious fist in the air when he locates them, pausing first to flip
the record to the other side before he slips two from the pack and lights them
both.
“Thank you.” Harry accepts your gratitude with a nod, watching with a small
smile pulling at one corner of his mouth as you take your first drag and roll onto
your back to watch images of your first time wobbling behind your eyelids. He
perches his cigarette between his lips, coils of baby pink curling into his hair as
he dampens a cloth for you in his sink. Your bottom is burning from his spanking
and your core feels a lot like burning, melted wax, but you still somehow manage
to infiltrate your reverie with a question. As a dancer and performer, you’re quite
used to your body being in pain and actually, you kind of enjoy it. It usually
signifies growth, work, passion, “Harry?”
“Cher bear.” Pacing towards you with the wet cloth, he drops down onto the
mattress and taps your thigh with his knuckles as an indication that he’s going to
clean you up.
Humming at the feeling of the warm flannel smoothing over any painful areas
of skin, you roll your head towards him and nibble on your bottom lip, “what’s
your favorite way to do it?”
“With you.”
He’s so sweet. He’s always so sweet and attentive, even if it sometimes doesn’t
appear that way, “sweet Sunny….. I mean which position?”
“I know.”
“You won’t answer?”
“I already did. Keep up.”
“Where are your handcuffs?”
His eyes look like they’re going to burst right out of his head and your
question is enough to force him to interrupt his affectionate clean up session,
“are you out of your fuckin’ tree?”
“There?” You point your cigarette at one of the closed cabinets above his
kitchen sink, a ribbon of pink trailing behind your fingertips.
“Tepid.”
This time you point below the sink, “there?”
“Warm.”
You point to the cabinet just beside it, “that one?”
“Hot.”
But when you start to climb to your hands and knees to sneak a peek, his arms
wrap around your waist before he tosses you back down into his sheets, the butt
of his cigarette pinched between his teeth as he narrows his eyes at you, “cold.
Frigid. Ice. You’re naked in the arctic circle. Butt-ass naked. Do you really think
I’d fuckin’ tell you? You’re not ready for them yet. Walk, then run. Let your cherry
ooze a little bit before I handcuff you to my bed. I’ll make you my plaything,
promise.”
Your innocent grin isn’t so innocent anymore, especially when Harry plucks
the cigarette from your fingers and flicks it into the sand along with his own,
stretching your arms above your head and admiring the way your ribs pop when
you arch your back, “Sunshine?”
The tip of his nose is busy drawing dotted lines from your collarbone to your
jaw, resting every couple seconds to plant a kiss or nibble or soft lick to your skin
until he’s built you up to panting once again, “Honeycomb.”
“How’s the tank?”
His answer isn’t spoken, but rather, a brush of his newly-swollen length over
your heat and tapping against your slippery sensitivity, “wanna swim in your
pond all fuckin’ day. Lazy river, Cherry baby. Love you forever.”
“Please.”
Harry locks your lips together as he plunges through your pith for a second
time, taking you again in such a way that proves his versatility as a lover. It
doesn’t surprise you really, considering all of the dynamic aspects of his
personality and the extraordinary level of love he professes to you on a daily
basis. He holds off on any rough play this time, tucking away spanks and
squeezes and bites for a bouquet of freshly-cut sunflowers. Growing taller and
taller as the summer waxes on, dousing its petals in perpetual, hot sunshine that
never seems to set. Using his thumb, he rubs lazy little circles on your clit until
you’re absolutely soaking him, his nostrils ticking at the sensation of your core
sucking him dry. You reach your high together, your moans a frenzy of buzzing
honeybees because he can feel you pulsing and you can feel him pulsing and
you’re wanting to meet and match each other, in every capacity of your lives,
with such intensity that it leaves you both speechless and sleepy.
And you’re finally satisfied enough to drift away to sleep with your minds
glowing so brightly that they have no oil left to burn. Harry spoons you close,
your legs woven into an enamored, loving knot, one of his arms draped across
your stomach for a tight squeeze and the other cradling your head. He turns the
faucet on to allow his usual heartfelt drivel to slip out until it’s nothing but a gasp
of air, the fiery devotion and warm-hearted passion of your evening trapped in
the invisible nooks and crannies between your satiated bodies.
You dream of wandering the streets of a foreign city alight with neon signage
on every corner. You’re not exactly sure where you’re going but you’re not
scared or even a little bit worried. Instead, you follow your instinct toward a
building that reaches so high into the sky it breaks through the clouds, beckoning
you inside for a long elevator ride to the cascading and windy roof. As you glance
out at the horizon, you can see everything, past and present, but it’s not
necessarily a landscape that you’re looking at but rather the feeling of home and
relief. A symbiotic relationship of brilliant colors; emerald green, honey yellow,
raspberry pink, chocolate brown. And you can’t recall a time that you’ve ever felt
so nostalgic in your own skin, so satisfied with your decisions, so appreciative of
every grain of sand below your feet.
The next morning, the sun filters through the open barndoor of Harry’s van
and slips through the cracks of his curtains, splashing slices of tropical pineapple
across his well-loved books and records. Your haphazard piles of clothing,
deformed tilted candles, the perfect disarray of post-sex sheets and pillows. The
night before crawls through all of the crevices and lumps in your brain, worming
around all of your neurons and whipping you into wakefulness faster than if
someone had lit the bed on fire. You have a craving to devour more of what you
experienced last night or maybe even expand on it, considering today is Sunday
and the day that you and Harry usually spend together from sunrise until
sundown.
Harry lays curled up on his side with the sheets pulled up to his waist, slinking
around the impeccable outline of his muscles and his length and his devilish skin.
You very rarely have the opportunity to wake him as he usually sets off to go
surfing before the sun has even come up, but considering last night’s activities,
you don’t blame him for wanting to doze a little longer than usual. He worked
hard for that opportunity after all, for weeks upon determined weeks, and
exerted an enormous amount of energy and emotion in the process.
Scooting closer, you roll onto your side and tip-toe your fingertips up his bicep
and across his shoulder, your heart ballooning with adoration when he drowsily
responds with a pleasant, engaging hum and stirs to convey his consciousness.
You cup his cheek, turning his face towards you and grinning against his lips
when he peels his eyes open to reveal the shining gemstones that make you feel
alive and loved, comforted and peaceful, “morning, Sunbaby.”
But you’re not expecting to see his eyebrows pull together in a horrifically
confused frown, his energy recoiling out of his body so quickly it’s as if you can
hear it violently snap. Air sucks into his lungs like a weak, used party balloon,
bursting at its capacity and withering into a hopeless heap on the ground.
The walls that Harry thinks he needs reestablish in a single heartbeat.

And then the heart-shaped lips and corduroy-covered croak that you’ve fallen
dangerously in love with utters the one, life-threatening word that you were
certain you’d never hear again. Raspy and muddled, disorienting and
deteriorated. Alien and earth-shattering.
“Clyde?”
Clyde?
Quicksand isn’t a complication that you’ve ever encountered before. It isn’t

something that you’ve had any particular concern about in the past or future, and
in fact, you can’t recall a time when anyone you’ve met has even come close to
stumbling in or around a single morsel of it. There’s no way of knowing exactly
how swiftly or slowly one will be buried alive when and if contact finally
happens, since the immersion seems to happen based on how much or how little
one flails. Quicksand appears to be one of those types of obstacles that is fabled
in novels and Aesop’s tales, a type of fairytale-warning that is exaggerated to
children as a dilemma, simply a euphemism for drowning due to a lack of
caution. Being buried alive up to your chin and your nose and your eyes and
suddenly disappearing completely into the earth because you’ve failed to follow
the proper procedure of journeying. As if there is indeed one proper procedure of
journeying, according to the advice of sages and scholars.
Clyde?
They had told you so. Every single person within your proximity that has
awareness and a brain in their head had told you so. Nettie, your coworkers.
Ostensibly, throughout your lifetime, your parents. Harry. Even you; deep down
you knew that quicksand lay up ahead, but the oasis just beyond it was too
tempting to ignore. It was lush and deep; overgrown and thirst-quenching. It was
a perfect respite from the monotonous, dry, lumpy desert you had been trudging
through for most of your life. Sanctuaries this luxurious have to at least be
partially imaginary, because deserts are too thick and determined of a biome to
harbor the exact opposite in the heart of its marrow. Without prior realization,
you must have just been so thirsty for love that you had imagined it completely. A
mirage of a utopia that only exists in daydreams and daftly written romance
novels, a dream that feels so real that you can still taste it when your alarm goes
off, a phony pot of gold at the end of a very dazzling, but very transient rainbow.
A light switch that was flicked on with determinism and slapped off with just as
much gumption. None of which felt at all in your control.
Clyde?
You have always wondered if love was something that certain people just
practiced and got good at and can generate from anyone they wish, or of it is,
more magically, a distinctive connection between two willing parties.
Or two unwilling parties, for that matter.
Clyde?
The wheels of Harry’s van slowly sink through the heaving, fine grains below
— covering the windows, pouring into the open barndoor, blocking out all
sunlight — before you open your mouth in an attempt to scream, swallowing the
desiccated grit until you’re strangling to death on the few crumbs of reality that
you are able to comprehend.
Clyde?
There is a phrase coined by the psychologist and writer Timothy Leary called
“Reality Tunnels”, and it’s the belief that every living being perceives life
differently, that reality is subjective based on the unique brain and blood and
bones and guts and heart deciphering it. One could argue that this also means
you’ll always be wrong or always be right about your experiences based on who
you’re communicating with and how they’re interpreting the delicacy of your
circumstances, hinging on how you’re choosing to transmit towards their own
backgrounds and beliefs. We are all constantly flooded with a limitless number of
sensory input; everything you can see, hear, touch, taste and smell, grabbing with
gummy tentacles at anything within in our grasp that we can label and spot
patterns in to organize and make sense of the world around us.
On top of all this, there’s the reminder that all of the discernable input in your
immediate surroundings is being sifted through piles upon piles of conditional
emotional archives, hormonal balance, the tilt of the earth, the phase of the
moon, the pull of the tide, an empty or full stomach, an exceptional or inadequate
night’s sleep, personal significant events, scabs and open wounds, bacteria and
viruses, clouds and humidity. Whittling down into something that is manageable
at any given moment, all of us consistently existing through a unique, filtered
lens.
In a sense, if one believes in the concept of Reality Tunnels, then one also
believes that reality is easily influenced. That you can fluidly move from one
tunnel to the next if you’re willing to discern and enable it. That you can
essentially activate new awareness by consciously choosing to pay attention to
something you may typically oversee; surroundings in a different light, art taking
on new forms and new forms taking on art, other people’s myriad of emotions
and experiences.
Their realities.
Your reality, in this moment; a whole entire physical chunk of yourself is

missing, dried blood on his sheets and the clawed off shreds of infatuation,
erroneously surrendered into Harry’s hands. Your lover is gone.
Harry’s reality, in this moment; a whole entire mental chunk of himself is

missing, memories spilled into the wet sand on the ocean floor and ghostly
dribbles into his pillow overnight, but he has no idea that it’s been surrendered.
His lover was never there.
Clyde?
Perception of today’s weather all depends on whether or not the sun shone
yesterday and whether or not it matches the anticipated forecast. There’s no
mistaking the horrific, unexpected thunderstorm crossing your vanished lover’s
features; rain clouds in his eyes and lightning on his tongue, the rumble of an
earthquake crawling up the back of his throat. A hurricane in his heart. A flimsy
sheet acting as a storm shutter over his bubbling, blistered skin.
No trace of Sunshine on the horizon.
Like running water from a spigot; this relationship started full-force with
freezing cold water pouring from underground pipes. Your finger tested the
temperature and patiently awaited something agreeable, where it lingered for a
good while until the water got so excruciatingly hot that it eventually lost its
steam and froze over again. And now it’s unbearable to touch.
So, you jump back to keep it from scorching your skin.
And so does Harry.
A two-way mirror of heavy hearts and heavy stares, both unsure of who is
prey and who is the predator.
The Reality Tunnels presently being posed that you have very little time to
decide between are: do you choke back your genuine emotion, stiffening up like a
rotting piece of driftwood and allow the quicksand to take you without a fight?
Or do you kick and scream and brawl with every notch of backbone, clawing
around for any solid surface or olive branches extended in your direction, hoping
that although this quicksand is merciless, you’re even more lethal?
Or will the choice be decided for you?
In a flash, you decide to gently paw at an olive branch.

“Harry…..” Your palms are held up in submission as you both cower in
opposite corners of his bed, frozen in the same positions you landed on when you
sprung away from each other in fear, the sheets bunched up around Harry’s
middle with his fingers clinging tightly to the silken threads. The silken threads
that you’ve become irreversibly attached to, as if you and Harry had cocooned
and morphed here just long enough to begin to weave the supple tapestry with
your very fingertips. “Just listen to me, okay? We—”
It’s clear that his breathing is labored based on the odd rhythm of his heaving
chest, his flaring nostrils, the sound of air milling a hum in your eardrums. His
pupils are dilated to black saucers as they tear away from you and take in his
immediate surroundings, the interior of his home, the open barndoor, the sand,
the ocean, the sand, the open barndoor, the interior of his home, his immediate
surroundings. You.
A ferocious lion protecting its pride up top, the blood of its prey down below.
The hunt and the chase over and over again. Ferociously venomous; one
prohibited taste will poison you.
“Get out.”
Harry’s alarm clock ticks on the shelf, a black tail swishes along the wall.
“What— no, no, Harry….. just try to listen to me for one second. Please. I know
you’re feeling scared and confused, and it’s not what you think. Can you take a
deep breath and just try to soften up a little so I can get my point across without
babbling too much?” You know him. You know that he reacts to fear with anger
and aggression. You know that he acts impulsively and considers his actions
retroactively. You know he fights against confrontation when it involves a
personal learning curve. You know that he despises conflict before he’s had a
moment to process it. You know that he has a brain injury that has unpredictable
side effects. You know that a tremendous part of him truly loved you, deeply, at
one point.
You know that your concern about him turning on you was valid all along.
What you don’t know is whether or not he’s still in there.
There’s too much for him to know that he doesn’t know, too much that has
been lost for you to attempt to explain in the frantic handful of god-given allotted
seconds to salvage your tattered relationship. A mental flipbook snaps by at
neck-breaking speed; your past, your future. Your present. Your practices, your
dates, your kisses, your arguments, your laughter, your cuddles, your
performances. Your virginity. Your final performance tomorrow. It’s impossible
to know exactly how much or how little his mind has misplaced, where to even
begin explaining, how to lead a conversation with a person who apparently has
less than zero trust in you, and what he would be able to latch on to if anything.
The only conclusion that can be drawn from his single uttered clues of Clyde? and
Get out. is that he is aware of who you are, he is aware that you’re his trapeze
partner and he believes that he is supposed to detest you. You have one chance
and you use your one chance by opening your mouth and tangling through the
possibilities, before thoughtfully and quietly landing on something that you hope
will jog his memory as succinctly as possible, “nous sommes amoureux de
l’autre.”
You weren’t prepared. The storms that you brace yourself for never actually
hit. It’s always the ones whose warnings you’ve disregarded that sideswipe the
hardest.
“What the fuck did you just say to me? Did you follow me home last night or
somethin’? Why are you— y’know what, I don’t wanna know.” Disgust curls
around every inch of his face, rendering him unrecognizable and narrowing you
into a pathetic shell of yourself, “did I stutter? I said I want you the fuck out of my
van. Now.” He jabs his foot in your direction like an insect he wants to kill but is
too appalled to touch, “now!”
The olive branch snaps and so do you, suddenly overcome with a desperation
to erase this calamity from ever happening in the first place. You remember
Harry telling that you he’d read somewhere that denial is a very strong emotion,
“Harry, please don’t do this to us—”
“No.”
’No’ to your questions, ’no’ to your presence, ’no’ to your proximity, ’no’ to
your existence.
Scooting closer, you climb to your knees then sink back to your heels, your
insides churning more for every inch he shrinks away from your advance, “I
think your brain is just frazzled. I can explain everything. Just tell me the last
thing you remember.” Tentatively you extend a hand in his direction, your
fingertips barely grazing his arm, “what’s the last—”
“Don’t touch me.” He slaps your hands away like they’re an infestation of
cockroaches he’s trying to exterminate, every slap stings like a hornet, “stop
touchin’ me.”
Touch me.
Kiss me.
Look at me.
Stay with me.

With the pads of his fingers burning your biceps, he pushes your body off of
him, his typical sinfully raspy voice cracking with hysterics. A strike from the
very heavens above; broiling sun flares and blinding eclipses. A mouth where
butter wouldn’t dare melt before now breathes fire and torches everything
within the stuffy confines of his van, including your frail heart. Especially your
frail heart. The volume of his voice raises and his face twists into boiling anger as
his patience withers to a brittle speck, his eyebrows knit and his lips purl, “I said
get your fuckin’ hands off me, Clyde. Get out! Get the fuck out of my van! Right the
fuck now or I’m gonna lose my shit!”
Your stubbornness and anguish beg you to stay and put up a fight, but
logically you know that there is nothing that you could possibly say in this
moment that would be heard. His brain is swiss cheese; sliced in half and full of
holes, labeling you the enemy and projecting the face of the devil onto your
charmed features.
You’re sore. Sore from the whiplash of emotions. Sore from his hands, his
mouth and his teeth. His words. Sore from the voluntarily loss of your final and
most precious barrier, which you now wish you could recover and manifest from
thin air in the very same manner that cotton candy is produced. Except instead of
sweet and wholesome, it’s sour and bitter. It’s bloody.
You wait for the sting of tears except it never comes, your brain scooping up
scrappy patches of dignity and shedding skin as you scramble for nothing
physical to gather except for what’s left of your pride. Without much conscious
thought, your mind immediately switches to a state of flight-induced self-
preservation as you back away from your vanished lover and slink from his bed
through the barndoor, your toes sinking into the cool, elastic sand below.
Stumbling backwards with feeble resolve, you wish that the sky would open up
to pelt you with acid rain and dissolve you straight into the ground.
Even though it had felt desperate and weak at the time, you’d shamelessly
begged for him to stay with you after your fight in the courtyard months ago
surrounding Riff and Tex, but that was not the same. There was love there acting
as bumpers to keep your feelings manageable. This is simply chaos. It would be
dangerous to put yourself on the line to beg for something that, at this point in
time, only matters to you.
That’s how vulnerability works in an ironic way. It’s usually the person you’ve
opened yourself up to the deepest that you need to fiercely close yourself off
from the fastest. Emotionally, it seems easier just to accept that love is gone and
walk away. There’s no sense in hanging onto a rabbit’s hind legs when they are
trying to escape you. You’ll only end up breaking their bones and mauling your
hands. Something that you’ve learned throughout the natural wear and tear of
friendships and relationships over time; bid farewell quietly, without a fuss. Let
them find out what they no longer have a connection to when they try to
reconnect.
Vulnerability tears you down to refurbish you just to tear you down again.
So, now you’re left wondering: what’s the point?
Sunny would have told you that the whole point is just that; the cycle itself.
That the tangle of thoughts and the struggle and reward of human connection is
the point of existence, the reason we were put on this earth in the first place and
why we hold such an intense interest in both the past and the future. To hold on
to the past is to know how to exist now and how you want to exist in the future,
by having a healthy and friendly relationship with error. By knowing your
mistakes and learning from them, to consistently strive for being the best version
of yourself. For you and for those around you. To be nice to you, because you
matter most. Except Sunny’s gone and Harry’s back and his wisdom now feels
like a craggy mountain of lies, a pile of cosmopolitan postcards that are branded
with ugly, condemning “return to sender” stamps.
Harry doesn’t bother watching you exit when your weight shifts the springs in
his mattress, then disappears from his space completely. He finally feels like he
can take a breath while he stays busy patting the bed in search of his briefs — his
mind churning like a shoddily spliced film reel with torn slides and a dusty,
damaged projector — except he can’t find them anywhere. With a sinking feeling
of horror, he snaps his head up and discovers that you’re wearing them along
with his wifebeater and that’s when he spots his trousers lying in a heap in the
sand at your feet. All he can do is cry out and slap his palms to cover his face. It
stings like hell for some reason, as if there is a tender spot on his cheek or eye
socket, but his adrenaline is too high to make any sense of it.
A wave of calm seems to momentarily wash over him, but maybe it’s shock
slipping into place to keep his emotions placated long enough to navigate this
ordeal whenever he’s capable. Which is not right now, with tears brimming in his
eyes to make it painfully clear that nothing progressive will be happening now or
any time soon. Or possibly ever, “please turn around and go. I need you to leave.”
His fingertips slowly inch down in time to see you backing away, but it’s simply
not fast enough for him. He growls in annoyance when you freeze under his
scrutiny, staring at him with those big watery baby deer eyes that he fucking
hates to look at. It’s awful when you cry and he hates that it makes him whine
like a petulant, troublesome puppy.
Presently, there are no traces of grace in his demeanor when he falls back on
the only way he knows how to distance you in order to protect himself: malicious
hostility, “Clyde! I’m goin’ to physically pick your pathetic ass up and remove you
if you don’t do it yourself.” He sends you off with a sternly pointed finger, “you’re
already makin’ me want to burn all my underwear just from being forced to look
at you like that. You’re a livin’, breathin’ jinx. My worst fuckin’ nightmare. You’re
not movin’ fast enough, snail trail. Herd of fuckin’ turtles. I said split!”
With that, it surprises neither of you when you step forward and slap him
across the face.
Harry cries out in pain and blubbers out a stream of curses and insults,
reaching a trembling hand to his throbbing eye and then finding his reflection in
the teakettle on the hot plate for a clue as to why that seemed to hurt
exceptionally badly. A warped, shrunken version of his face creeps up from the
curved metallic corner, corrupted by errant spots of rust. Unrecognizable, but not
only because of the mysterious, deep purple bruise marring his eye socket.
Unrecognizable because he could have sworn he’s shaved and had a haircut more
recently than what’s staring back at him. Unrecognizable, because he can feel
that something very big and very important is missing, but he has no idea what it
is.
Unrecognizable, because he woke up naked in bed with you, Clyde, and you
woke up practically naked in bed with him.
Unrecognizable, because he doesn’t know if something has been lost or

something has been gained. But right now, it’s just nothing.
Blank.
A quiet lap of the waves on the beach, a roar of a riptide creeping up from the
center of the earth. Static in his ears fill the margins.
“You don’t get to speak to me that way, Harry.” Brain injury or not. “I don’t
know which scenario is worse; you pretending to fall in love with me for months
so that you could get laid, or you needing to get knocked in the head with a rock
in order to feel any sincere emotions. I should’ve known better.”
Harry hisses at the residual pain as he taps his lip and cheek, glancing at his
fingertips in search of blood and finds nothing but finespun cracks in his skin.
Your statement finally tumbles through him violently and his mind works
through two different actions at once; trying to piece together what he had done
the night before to end up here and trying to answer all of the questions that
you’ve just unintentionally created. Hit in the head with a rock? Getting laid?
Love?
Months?
Cobwebs and dust and tornados. Harry is just trying to get away, trying to sort
out the mess that’s swirling and falling and sticking at odd angles in his brain like
shards of broken glass, but he’s trapped. Laid out flat, naked, on a cold metal
table with disconnected puzzle pieces all jagged, misaligned and upside down.
Some colorless. Some vivid. He starts to unravel with the insanity that comes
with deep, incomprehensible confusion and then starts to panic at the
unraveling, “wait. Wait—”
Throughout all of your time together and to your bitter dismay, the root of
him hadn’t changed at all. He’s easily and frustratingly reverted back to exactly
the same person he was before his accident, just like Nettie had cautioned from
the start. A layer of film on a cold bowl of soup; it’s been scraped clean, exposing
all of his lumps and acidic watered-down anemia. Your body is cold on the early-
morning autumn beach, but you can barely feel it, “no. If your first kneejerk
reaction to turmoil wasn’t so resentful, things could be a lot easier for you.”
Because you turning on me is a fear of mine. Except he doesn’t remember that.
“Forget it.” His frustration and resentment conclude for him that he doesn’t
want your help. His mind spins and spins. His stomach knots in sickness. His
words tighten around your throat. His words sucker punch you in the gut, “look, I
don’t know how I can make this any clearer: we never were in love and never
will be. You’re delusional. This is a mistake and I don’t know how it happened.
Leave right now.”
The word “ruthless” comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative
aspect of his personality. When one is emotionally floundering, it’s healthy to set
firm boundaries in order to find steady footing.
You lose the urge to defend your relationship, the truth, yourself. Maybe it’s
shock, most likely it’s shock, but shock works in such a way that you lose the
capability to know anything about yourself, “you have no idea how big this
mistake actually is, Harry. Good luck figuring it out on your own.”
People change. People don’t change.

With his smoky glare glued to each pore on your face, there is a palpable
hesitance before he reaches up and grips the handle on his barndoor, slamming
the heavy barrier shut and concealing himself behind the patterned curtains.
Harry doesn’t give himself very much time to deliberate what he’s just
experienced. Instead he goes on an impulsive rage with a set of heavy blinders
on, throwing the sheets from his naked body and tearing through his van, pulling
on the first pair of trousers and undershirt that he can find. He has no idea if
you’re still outside or not and frankly he doesn’t give a fuck; his number one
priority now is to find the one person who has been there with him through
everything. The one person who was loyal enough to move halfway across the
globe when he realized that Harry needed a companion as he reeled from Indy’s
death. His wing man, his best fucking friend and his only hope. The one breathing
soul whom he can trust to explain how and why Harry has just woken up in bed
with his most-dreaded antagonist.
Tex.
Exactly how you’ve arrived at your duplex is a mystery. On the crusade from
the beach, your mind strained to make sense and to make excuses. You can’t
remember what you thought about or felt, how long it took, how much the cold
ocean breeze made you tremble, how many people you caught eyes with and
wondered if their life had ever torched to cinders as yours just has. All you can
recall for certain is that after Harry’s wheels spun in the sand and roared off
toward the PCH in a cloud of dust, you shook his discarded trousers clean and
tugged them on before the earth had a chance to open up and swallow them
whole. Earthquakes eat big chunks of California from time to time and even
though this upheaval was strictly personal and quaking with forsaken love, the
magnitude felt enough to melt the entire state into a puddle of hot lava.
Your bare feet scraped against the splintering boardwalk and your head was a
mouthful of squawking birds, then suddenly you were lifting up the large
sandstone rock that hides the spare key to your apartment. A moment later, you
were inside with your back leaned up against the closed door that snuffed the
sound of the ocean outside, your palm laid flat against your chest to both feel and
soothe the pounding of your heart.
Someone else walked you home, someone else found the key, someone else
climbed the stairs, someone else is counting the grains of sand between your
toes.
Wishing for things to be different can sometimes bring a sense of false hope,
since different doesn’t always mean better. But today you’re wishing for anything
to be different. Because today, anything different would have been better than
this.
The first registered swish of the tail of the Kit Kat clock in the kitchen is what
spurs the ensuing tear through your apartment; stripping Harry’s clothing from
your body as you walk towards your bedroom, balling up his undershirt, briefs
and trousers before casting the shameful bundle into the corner. You claw at
your bedsheets and comforter and pillowcases, adding them to the growing heap
on the floor, any and everything that smells of him or reminds you of him or that
he had the audacity to exist near. Next you grip his ruby ring from your finger
and start to throw it across the room but stop, slowing your aggression as you set
it on your vanity, staring at it until it’s no longer the color of shiny juicy cherries,
but grisly clotting blood. Lifting the lid of your plexiglass jewelry box, you tuck it
between two soft and tiny velveteen pillows, hoping that maybe Nettie has
learned some voodoo on her life’s journey that could one day puncture a hole in
his van’s tire or something. Or maybe you’d need a lock of hair for that.
Gathering his discarded socks, the dresses he’d bought you throughout the
course of your relationship, any sleeping gowns or bloomers that he might have
commented on, the trousers that you’ve procured to please him, the colorful
patterned shirts he’s stored in your closet, the suspenders he’d worn on your
first date, towels that either him or you used while showering together, your
sleeping mask that he loved to peek under at five o’clock in the morning, and the
rest of the shameful bundle that you’ve piled up in the corner, you stomp rather
ungracefully to the washing machine and stuff it all inside before setting the
water temperature on the hottest setting possible: sanitation.
And the spray from the showerhead is as hot as the tap will provide, knowing
damn well that Harry would have hated being suffocated in the stifling steam of
this little pink bathroom, but all you can discern is wanting to scald your skin in
order to feel a different kind of pain than you’re currently feeling. Or maybe, feel
anything at all.
You shave every inch of your skin, scour all of your edges and curves with
soap and a long exfoliating brush, shampoo your hair three times, scrub the dead
skin cells from your face. Any way that you can extradite the residue of him from
your life, any way that you can keep yourself moving so that your brain can cling
to the tasks at hand rather than the scream of emotions that are slowly
tightening around your ribcage. Having your hands on your own body now feels
alien and invasive, as if you were a garden that Harry had turned and sowed and
finally harvested after weeks of awaiting your growth. He’s ripped all of the fruit
from your land, devoured the crops and left you with wrecked piles of dirt and
dead branches. And you have no knowledge of how to prepare for next season.
No tools. No seeds.
No Sunshine.
A single, startling sob explodes out of the blue, a hot wash of tears pouring
down your face before they mingle with the water and slip down the drain. Gone
as quickly as they came.
When you emerge from the boiling restroom, you tug on your typical comfort
uniform with unsteady hands; a pair of clean underwear and a worn yellow t-
shirt with a small pocket in the corner, layered up with your precious fucking
cardigan, then dig a box from your closet and rush through your apartment to
gather the rest of his belongings. A sizable scattering of records, stray books,
shoes in your entryway, a jar of peanut butter, a box of Pop-Tarts and a box of
Oreos and a box of Ritz Crackers, the pink bunny from The Golden Pier, squashed
packs of Crush cigarettes, the bouquet of sunflowers that he brought you last
night as a show of solidarity.
You screech to a halt so violently that you nearly backfire when you spot one
of his typical love notes on the kitchen counter from yesterday morning before
he’d headed off to surf. Written coolly — half loose cursive and half capitalized
print — a scribbled, bare drawing of a flower in the corner and ink smudged a bit
by an orange juice stain. Aside from taking your virginity and then immediately
giving it back, this may just be the last declaration of love that he gifted you.
Honey endormie,
Can’t snuff my early date with the salty mistress. Find you at the theatre in a few
hours. Tu es si doux le matin, c’est dur de partir. Penser à moi. Tu sais que je pense
à toi. Tu ne quittes jamais mon esprit.
Tu es parfaite, tu es aimé.
Xpls, your Sunbabe
P.S. hi nosey Nancy, will restock OJ tonight. Left you a sip or two —
Yet another mere physical reminder of how sudden this all was. Your
apartment is positively brimming with mere physical reminders of abruptness, of
how Harry freely abandons physical possessions to purge himself of their weight
by offloading them onto other people to assume his sentient responsibilities. To
the people who get left behind; his relinquishments become their emotional
baggage. The first thought that you can unwillingly distinguish since you tumbled
out of his van this morning boils up from your heart and wedges itself in your
throat to disrupt your breathing and you hate it. You hate how it sounds, you
hate how it feels, you hate how it tastes, you hate every little thing about it:
He was stolen.
And you were robbed.

It’s hard to conceptualize how loud Harry’s energy is until you’re stewing in
your own silence.
Glancing around the kitchen, you spot a clean glass on the drying rack that
he’d used for water last night, as well as the cloth that you filled with ice to nurse
his bruised eye socket. And that’s when you decide that merely piling his leftover
items into a cardboard box isn’t good enough.
In a flash, you drop the box of his things near the front door and begin a deep
cleaning binge of your apartment; emptying out ashtrays, wiping down surfaces,
dusting cobwebs from the ceilings and light fixtures and everything, scouring the
stove, running the dishwasher, running the dryer, scrubbing the baseboards,
sweeping, vacuuming, mopping, erasing smudges from windows, beating rugs
and draping them over the railing of your balcony, folding his washed clothing
and adding them to his box of desolation.
Instead of returning the same set of sheets to your bed, the ones with large
cerulean and yellow and avocado green flowers, you opt for bone white. A set
that you typically keep tucked away as backup and a set that he had never laid
eyes on. A set that is peaceful and serene. A set that is nothing.
Blank.
As soon as you get the fitted sheet pinched around each corner of your
mattress, the front door swings open and then slams closed. Rationally, you
know that it’s not Harry but you hold your breath anyway. Both of out fear and
out of hope.
The first thing Nettie notices is a large, organized box full of clothes, records
and half-eaten food in the entryway. After she hangs her keys on the hook, the
next thing she notices is an incredibly clean and tidy apartment. It’s so quiet that
she could hear a pin drop, but she doesn’t wait around long enough for that to
happen. Even though it’s dead silent, she can just feel that you’re here
somewhere, simmering in toxic water. And following half a minute of searching,
she materializes in your doorway with a soft rap of her knuckles on the
doorframe, “hi?”
For some reason, you pretend as if you hadn’t heard every single one of her
footsteps that led her here. Instead, you finish fluffing a pillow and glance over
your shoulder with a small, tight-lipped smile, “oh, hey Net.” Your next question
is soaked in false bravado, “did you and Asher go to Susie Q’s for breakfast this
morning?”
“Sure, if you count a greasy BLT and a tulip sundae with crushed pineapple as
breakfast.” She glances around your spic and span space sparkling with bright
but melancholy angles, takes note of your comfort uniform and then steps into
your bedroom. Without a word, she grabs the opposite side of the top sheet that
you’re wrestling onto your mattress and swaddles it into a corner. She answers
your little mumble of thanks with a soft hum, tucking her hair behind her ear and
attempting to keep her voice light and approachable, “it’s always easier with
another person.”
The bite of tears that you’ve been simultaneously avoiding and awaiting
bloom like a cactus in your sinuses, but a loud sniffle holds them back. You want
to answer her but you’re afraid, afraid of showing yourself at your most
vulnerable in front of another person because of what happened the last time
you’d done that. Afraid of what will arise when you allow your emotions to start
flowing. Afraid of not being able to turn them off. Afraid of this nightmare being
real.
“You okay?”
“Uh-huh. Why?”
Nettie turns a blind eye to the extraordinarily clean apartment and jam-
packed box of stuff on its way out the door, and instead decides to comment on
your presence in the hope that other details will slowly reveal themselves. All she
knows is that Harry turned up here hours late last night with a black eye and a
secret that apparently needed exposure. Except you don’t know that she knows
that and she doesn’t know if you know that, “you’re home early.” Stuffing one of
your pillows into a fresh case, Nettie’s ear meets her shoulder in a nonchalant
shrug, “Sunday is usually the day you and Harry thaw on the beach and eat your
weight in pancakes, so I was just curious.”
Hearing his name spoken out loud exacerbates the deep hollow ache in your
chest. The echo forces you to feel the gravity of the paralyzing anchor that’s been
holding you in place, with the tidal wave swelling higher and higher around you
until your lungs are nothing but salt water. Your knees buckle and your legs give
out and with a wash of dizziness, you drop to the floor.
Something comes out of your mouth; it’s either words or vomit, but it sounds
something like, “he forgot me.”
Nettie crosses the room and lowers herself to the floor beside you, her hand
smoothing large sweeps up and down your back in comfort. She’s concerned
with your lack of emotion and how profoundly it opposes your body language,
“what do you mean?”
“He forgot me.” You’re prepared to live just an inch away from sleep for the
foreseeable future. Or for the rest of your life.
“What are you saying?”
“He forgot who I am. Again.” You’re still unable to look at your friend, even
though her stare is burning through your profile. Sadness drapes across your bed
much heavier than your sheets. In the course of just a few months, you went from
being afraid of you and Harry as a couple to being fully enraptured in you and
Harry as a couple to being afraid for you and Harry as a couple. And when you try
to pull in a full breath, grief swells like a flinty balloon, “I’m Clyde. Again.”
Smoothing your damp hair from your face, Nettie twists a lock around her
knuckles before folding it behind your ear, “who, Harry? Harry forgets who you
are? He forgot everything?” She squeezes your shoulders, trying her best to will
information from you, “talk to me, baby.”
You shrug, “I don’t know. We fucked. He finally popped my cherry. Everything

was normal and perfect and….. a dre… m... and then we woke up this morning
and he threw me off of him with a scowl. He doesn’t remember it. Or me. He
doesn’t remember a single romantic thing about us. Any of it. Nothing. He looked
at me like I’d just murdered everyone and everything he’d ever loved. He yelled
at me to leave and snapped at me, so I slapped him. Or maybe I’m still asleep. Am
I awake right now?”
Nettie’s heart sinks into her stomach for a multitude of reasons, mostly from
imagining the wretched confession of your first time, how violently the curtain
closed on it and trying to iron out how that must feel for you. But as far as she
can tell, you’re not allowing yourself to feel much of anything right now. Or
maybe you’re not capable yet. Where does she start? What do you even say to a
friend who has just told you that she’s been profoundly emotionally traumatized
in regards to something she feared in the first place when she doesn’t even seem
to be aware of it herself?
“You….. you. What— wow. You slap— oh god, ok… y... ignore that. First, you
didn’t fuck. You made love with the person you’re in love with, Bibi. And the
person who’s in love with you. You didn’t make any mistakes here, you thought
about this good and hard for a long, long time and you were majorly beyond
ready. This is just an unfair tragedy. It’s not your fault or his fault.” Since Nettie
and Harry have developed a friendship in such a short amount of time, she’s just
as distressed for him as she is for you, “his memory came back once, which
means it could come back again. It was just awful timing for it to happen when it
did. Try not to freak out, okay? Breathe. Maybe he just needs some time.”
“Will it? Or am I just gone? Or will he just keep erasing me over and over
again? How much time? What’s supposed to happen now? My career is tangled
up in this. This is my whole entire life and now it’s a total mess.” In an effort to
hide your trembling lip from your closest friend, you suck it past your teeth and
bite hard. But she notices. Because like Harry, Nettie notices most things, “I don’t
think he was meant to last, Nettie. I think he was just sent here to shake me up.
Violently. To teach me a lesson. His sunshine was too warm to be real. He burned
hot and fast and now he’s gone. A black hole. He’s a rumor. He’s pink smoke and
fuzzy marbles. Half-moon-sparkle-eyes and sharp teeth in his words when he’s
drunk, a soft tongue when he’s high. A solar eclipse.” Ethereal scenes of your
wayward lover flit by at your romantic ruminations, but they’re too quick to grab
and the first trace of breakdown is made clear by the squelch in your voice, “how
did this happen?”
“…..or maybe you’re just so good in bed that when he popped your cherry, you
popped his brain. Or Tex jostled something loose with that sucker punch. Or a
cinnamon swirl of both.”
“Or maybe he spent so much time and energy trying to repair me as a human
being that his brain put a rapid cease and desist on the whole pointless
operation.”
“Don’t talk about yourself that way. You’re not a charity case, you’re not
broken nor are you high maintenance. He’s much more of a diva than you are.
Look, you could ask ’why?’ questions all day long but I think the truth is that it’s
just the chaos of the universe unfolding before you. That’s why we’re obsessed
with finding patterns and explanations. Because there’s so much fucking chaos.
I’m so sorry his first instinct was to be an asshole to you, though. Everyone and
everything cries out when it meets the world for the first time, after all.”
It’s as if her words are ricocheting from your ribcage in a jumbled heap. Under
normal circumstances you would laugh or cry. But now, you hear none of it.
You’re looking at Harry’s beautiful face through the venetian blinds of your
sorrow; bits and pieces, a voyeuristic repetitive pattern that alternates between
hiding and peeking, “maybe I imagined it. All of it. Did I imagine it? Is this Malibu?
Am I in California? Am I real, was he real?”
“Um….. yes. He was definitely here every single day, crawling all over you and
every inch of this apartment. You’re not crazy. Do you want me to go try to talk to
him?”
“No. If he doesn’t remember me, he probably doesn’t remember you. I don’t

know what he remembers, if anything at all. And I think you frighten him a little
bit.”
Nettie puckers her lips in quiet pacification for your sake, although she knows
better. She knows that Harry has relied on her and put his full trust into her
openly for help more than once, but it’s not important to bring up right now,
“what are you gonna do about the season finale? Isn’t that tomorrow?”
“I haven’t even processed that yet. I’ll just hold my chin up and get through it.
It can’t be any worse than the beginning of our partnership and all of those…..
uncomfortable performances. Or it’ll be canceled if he doesn’t remember the
routi… e... which is what I’m hoping for.”
“And what about next season?”
“I have no clue.” Somehow and some way, you finally find the strength to lift
your head and lock in on Nettie’s discerning stare. A patina of glass shields your
eyes as if you’ve just rolled up the passenger window of a car to protect yourself
from the rain. But you hate crying and especially in front of others, so you blink
and manage to say the saddest thing Nettie’s heard in a long time in an incredibly
small voice, “I’m still sore.”
“Oh….. you mean from sleeping with him?”
“Mhm. Everything hurts.”
He’s your torn Achille’s heel. And you’ve bled from his head wound.
“No one is expecting you to be graceful right now, you know.” Nettie knows
that emotional mummification comes naturally for you, especially in moments of
stress, considering how nimbly the very notion of it rolls from your skin. This
must be one of the things about you that Harry found so irritating in the
beginning of your partnership; how his world was dark with constant tumult and
no matter how diligently he prodded you in order to spread and absolve his
misery, you remained fixed in your journey of refined determination, “you can
lose your shit. It’s okay. This is totally something to be completely unhinged
about.”
In your head you’re imagining all the things you would have said differently
had you been prepared for this living nightmare. Even worse, you’re imagining
how things could have been different if his mind remained intact; if you would be
still curled up in his arms right now or if his mouth would be carving a path to
your belly button or if you would have already made love once or twice by now.
The things he would have spoken to you in his buttery morning rasp; the praises,
the disbelief, the filth, the oozing of love. All the things you were deprived of.
“Hemingway says courage is grace under pressure.”
“Whatever. Hemingway was a writer. They perform behind smokescreens. It’s

easy to look brave and bold when you record your thoughts at the height of your
mental clarity. Writers make everything sound authoritative and scholarly just
because you’re seeing their reflections in tidy, shiny margins and perfect
typewritten font. They’re just as clueless as any of us, trust me. Do you think
Hemingway could ever be a ballet dancer in front of a live audience under bright,
hot lights? You’re the definition of grace under pressure. We don’t get to choose
how we respond to stress in the moment, that’s the whole point. I’m giving you
permission to show your true feelings right now, without judgement.”
“I can’t feel anything yet.”

“Well, hollow is a feeling, too. It’s called shock and I’m not judging you for it.
It’s completely reasonable.”
I gotta tell you somethin’, Cherry.
Something within Nettie’s spiel or the scent of salt water in the air recovers a
memory from last night, just before everything changed for the worst, “oh….. god,
he kept trying to tell me something that seems like it was important now in
retrospect and I kept telling him I didn’t want to hear it yet. He was begging me.
I’m such an idi… t... now I’ll never know.”
No, no….. V, just listen for a sec, I just gotta say one thing.
Stiffening, Nettie folds her hands into her lap.
Her body language finally forces you out of your folded-up mouse trap, “what?
What is it? Wynette….. do you know? Please tell me. Oh my god, please, please tell
me—”
“No, I don’t. I swear. He also told me that he had to tell you something, but he
didn’t say what it was or even hint what it was about. I only found out last night
while you were out getting waffles. I told him to tell you ASAP and he said he’d
try.”
And then you’re sinking back onto your heels, your knees digging into the
hardwood, “and I stopped him.”
“Do not blame yourself for any of this.”
“Death bed questions, I guess.”

“Yup.”
Picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of your cardigan, you analyze your
hangnails and callouses from the trapeze, actively working to tunnel your energy
into a present, physical entity that exists in this time and place. The pores in your
skin, the wrinkles around your knuckles that allow your fingers to bend without
breaking, the microscopic hairs, the blue veins slowly pumping blood to your
broken heart for reoxygenation, “now what? Lobotomy?”
“Want me to run you a bath?”
“I just showered.”
“Baths are way different. You need big bubbles. Candles. It might be a good
idea. Soak your muscles and meditate. Or read. Escape for a little bit….. maybe let
yourself cry. What do you think?”
And then, without a sound or even a phantom breeze from the universe, the
lifeless blob of what has just taken place begins to take shape. The elevator rises,
your stomach stays behind on the first floor. Loss works that way sometimes.
Sometimes it’s too large and unfair to comprehend, like the sheet of gray that
blankets the sky from corner to corner when it’s been raining for days. You can’t
recognize the yellow sun or the blue atmosphere or anything beyond those
fucking clouds because you simply can’t see them. But beyond our control, wind
moves. And when wind moves, things change. Whether big or small.
Anguish scratches around inside of your body like a feral animal trying to
break free. Clawing and clawing at your organs and nerves and skin and then,
you’re sobbing. Big, sloppy, wet puddles of tears. Each pear-shaped drop holds a
memory, a confession of love, a brush of his fingertips up your back in the
morning, a smile from his heart-shaped lips after a stirring confession, a bounce
of his curl against his forehead as you dance together in your living room, a puff
of smoke past his teeth when he raises the volume of the music in his car, a
supple sweep of his mouth over yours when he requests a kiss, a burst of
laughter from his belly that echoes your snort, a touchstone of wisdom from his
heart when you’re sad. Your Sunbaby. Your love line. What in the fuck just
happened?
Pain; it works in such a way that your body doesn’t accurately store the
sensation and devastation in its true articulation. If it did, women surely
wouldn’t go through the turmoil of pregnancy and childbirth more than once.
Memory dulls the impression of pain, otherwise some parts of life would not
seem worth experiencing. That being said, you don’t remember exactly the level
of physical and emotional pain when your Achille’s tendon snapped and coiled
up your leg, leaving you bed ridden with depression for months after your career
as a ballet dancer had ended. Regardless, this hurts worse. This is by far the
meanest anguish you’ve ever faced.
Nothing on earth compares to the volcanic eruption of a dying heart, nothing

compares to the overpowering, blunt ache of passionate death. It’s slow like
molasses on fire. It slithers around like a jellyfish with teeth. It takes bites of your
insides. It’s the saddest song ever written.
With a silent flap of a dove’s wings taking flight, your sadness drains down
your face and soaks your neck and your collarbone. Your hair clings to your hot,
wet cheeks, your hands tremble when they lift to hide your face. You gasp for air
to make space for devastation. Your words splinter through the cracks in your
fingers, “Nettie— I miss him, I miss him so much. He was right in front of me and
he was mine and he was perfect and he was beautiful and he loved me more than
anything and now he’s gone. A memory, my memory. I didn’t get to say goodbye.
Please help me. I’m not going to make it. Please— I didn’t get to say goodbye. He
was kidnapped in the middle of the night. How am I supposed to make peace
with this?”
Just seeing you like this has Nettie’s own sorrow ripping down her face and
that’s when she climbs to her knees and pulls you in for a tight hug, her
fingernails scratching up and down your back as she mumbles into your hair,
“you didn’t know. Shh, baby. You didn’t know. And neither did he. He would’ve
wanted to say goodbye to his Cherry pie, too. You know that. It’s okay. It hurts. It
hurts like hell to lose someone you love. Let it out. I’m here.”
Even though her sentiment was meant to be supportive and positive, you can’t
help but feel the impending sense of doom in her language. That’s what he would
have wanted.
There are no pauses in between knocks. If his knuckles rapped any louder or
more tenaciously, the blood of his panic would begin to smudge on the mint
green paint of his best friend’s door.
Sometimes Harry thinks he is a masochist. It would certainly explain some of

the reasoning or lack thereof behind his impulsive actions, it would explain why
he continues to smoke cigarettes even though once in a while he coughs up
something yellow into his sink in the mornings. It would explain why he resorts
to being alone when riding the tailspin of distress, it would explain why he likes
to dip his finger into hot wax whenever there is a burning candle around.
And it would certainly explain why he did a quick junk-scan when he veered
his van to the side of the road on his way to Tex’s place. He wanted to verify what
he already knew, but the curiosity in him needed to see the hard facts with his
own eyes so that he could be sure just how much he should hate himself. It’s not
like there was anything physical or unusual there to see, anyway. It was more or
less an action that he hoped would stir a memory. Any kind of memory.
After he had roared his van away from your miserable pout on the beach, his
hands trembled so violently on the steering well that he had difficulty lighting a
match for his smoke. He’d resorted to the electric lighter on his dash, but as soon
as he depressed the button, that’s when he noticed a few of his fingernails had
been painted yellow. He picked at the varnish with his thumb, whatever loose
memories that were appearing akin to that baffling technicolor splice of a dream
that pops up mid-conversation or when he’s washing a fork in the sink. It’s gone
before he can place it or even begin to make sense of it. Just like waking up
beside you this morning, the circumstances of his new haphazard beauty
splotches on his nails were a complete enigma.
For the rest of the drive to Tex’s place, he had to pull over a couple times to
hyperventilate and talk himself down from the verge of panicking, something
that he’s found himself doing often ever since Indy died. Ever since he was
coerced and tricked into working with a partner again. A panic that keeps him
awake most nights. Something he hides from the world and chooses to
masochistically suffer in silence with.
After about the thousandth knock, Tex’s door finally swings open but Harry
doesn’t get the opportunity to take in his friend’s presence. Because as soon as
Tex sees who is on the other side, he’s lurching the door back closed in Harry’s
face.
Harry’s anxious greeting grows wild with Tex’s action, then is lodged in his
throat by desperation as he tries to discern Tex’s behavior. But before he can
think of anything logical and respectful to say, he throws his shoulder into the
door and wrenches it open with a sob, “dude, no! What the fuck are you doin’?”
Even though Tex can admit to not being one hundred percent innocent
throughout the unraveling of their friendship, he still is uninterested in any
apologies or bullshit that Harry has to say right now. Especially when he’s being
invasive as fuck, pushing his way through Tex’s doorway with a lit cigarette
burning pink between his fingers, “man, get the fuck outta here!”
“What— stop! I need you to tell me what’s goin’ on. Please. What the fuck is
happenin—”
Tex shoves Harry’s chest, backing him up out of his house but staying close,
pitching forward with a threatening step of his own, “get the fuck out of my face
before I call five-o.”
“What? Tex— I woke up and….. and Clyde was in my bed this morning, I— I
think we had sex a… d... there was blood— I’m pretty sure we did and I don’t
know how. I don’t know how the—” Harry finally has the ability to register
something outside of himself, tempering down enough to carefully scan the dark
sizzling bruises on his friend’s nose, his eye sockets, his cheeks, “Tex— what the
fuck happened to your face, mate?”
Tex slows down and frowns, realizing in a snap second what has happened
with Harry’s struggling, lapsed memory and pushing aside their differences for a
moment to clarify. He takes in his wayward friend’s appearance; flared wrinkled
trousers and an untucked, stretched-out wifebeater, a hollow fright bouncing
around every corner of his face, “you can’t be serious.” There’s a thick, watery
film of glass over Harry’s eyes that threaten to topple into droplets, and it’s in
this moment of seeing him shocked into silent, frantic submission that Tex
comprehends the sad scene transpiring on his doorstop, “fuck….. brother, I told
y… u... I told you this would happen. Everybody warned you not to get involved.
You didn’t fucking listen, because you never fucking listen! She tried to stop you,
I tried to stop you, Rusty tried to fucking stop you. All your friends, her friends.
Everybody! Do you have a goddamn death wish?”
“Stop me from what, huh? This isn’t fuckin’ helpin’ me in the slightest, can you
please just tell me somethin’ that makes sense? Do you know what happened last
night? I don’t feel hungover, but….. but I feel weird? And my head’s poundin’.” A
blindfold of despair, confusion and rage veils Harry’s pretty eyes, a bruise that
mirrors Tex’s own shadowing his skin as if it were cast there by his wet bottom
row of lashes. There’s nothing but a pool of black tar in his gaze now, “it’s
spinni…’... my chest aches when I try to pull in a full breath. I think I fucked her. I
think we— what day is it?”
Everything inside of Tex’s head throbs as if his brain were shrinking and
trying to pull away from the shell of his skull. The last thing he wants to do after
spending an entire night in the hospital with a broken face and near alcohol
poisoning is to comfort the person who, as far as Tex is concerned, is the root of
it all, “what’s the last thing you remember before you went to sleep last night?”
Harry flicks his spent cigarette butt over his shoulder and immediately lights a
new one, pulling in a full drag and raking his fingers through his unruly, ravaged
waves, “Clyde goin’ through my wallet in our dressing room. My shit all over the
floor. Me sayin’ shit I didn’t wanna say and a big fuckin’ fight. I dunno. I don’t
fuckin’ know! Then it’s just black! Red, fiery electricity and a twisted fuckin’ braid
of nonsense!”
“Okay, and what happened after your fight?”
“I don’t….. know. It’s fuzzy. It’s a mess. Was I dosed?”
Tex rubs his temples and sighs. This information is better delivered to Harry
through a doctor or at least someone who doesn’t want to punch him in his
handsome face right now, “yeah, that definitely happened. You and Clyde had a
blowout fight in your dressing room. Four or five months ago, man.”
“Four or five….. months? Months?” There’s that word again. Months. The
hysteria and volume of his voice rise in tandem, “four or five months ago? Get
real! What the fuck are you goin’ on about, motherfucker! Say somethin’ that
makes sense! I’m scared shitless!”
“Harry, Harry…..” Tex tries to stop his rabid pacing on his doorstep, but each
time he puts his hands on him, Harry forces them away or shrugs them off.
Nothing can get through, nothing seems to be going in, nothing seems to be
coming out. Tex steps outside and grabs his shoulders tight, fighting hard for his
eye contact in the blind hope that Harry will hear him, “Harry! Listen to me. It’s
nearly November now. The season finale is tomorrow and then we’ve got the rest
of the month off before holiday performances start. You had a surfing accident
back in early summer the night you and Clyde fought. You cracked your head
open on a rock and lost consciousness. You were in a drug-induced coma in the
hospital for a few days to reduce the swelling in your brain. You had to take eight
weeks off work. You had a memory slip, okay? It didn’t become obvious until you
saw Clyde again after you’d recovered and came back to work and,” Tex snaps his
fingers, loudly, harshly, “fell hard. You dropped everything in your life for her.
We haven’t spoken since your priorities changed. I don’t know what’s going on
right now, but your brain is scrambling all over again. I’m sorry, man. I am.” A
tidal wave of sorrow washes over the two distraught men, but Harry is too
choked up in the briny, violent crests to even speak, “pretty sure she’s the only
one who can fill in the blanks now.”
I don’t know which scenario is worse; you pretending to fall in love with me for
months so that you could get laid, or you needing to get knocked in the head with a
rock in order to feel any sincere emotions.
Harry shakes his head, “that’s impossible. What accident? I don’t remember
any of this. I barely even speak to her. I purposely avoid her. She drives me
fuckin’ bananas. How—”
“Things changed. And then you cut me out of your life, so I don’t know
anything else, okay? No one does. Only Clyde.”
Good luck figuring this out on your own.
“She doesn’t wanna help me.” Like most men, Harry’s initial reaction to the
wreckage of fear and confusion is to blame everyone else around him, “how
could anyone let this happen?”
“Well, mate. You made your bed, now lie in it.”
Harry points an angry finger at Tex’s chest, unsure of where exactly to start
tackling the outright pandemonium of shitty, disgusting angry wasps buzzing in
and around him, “fuck your destructive mantra. That’s abusive, mate. I’m not
stuck with limited choices. No one is. And there’s no fuckin’ way every step of
this is purely my fault. Tighten up, clod. You’re bein’ a square.”
Tex swats Harry’s finger away and then gestures to his own bruises and
shattered, tender bones, “my face is broken and you’ve dismissed me for months.
I don’t want to help you either. I don’t even want to look at you. I lost my job
because of you.”
“What? How in the fuck?”
“Rusty fired me last night. Just before I showed up at your van to warn you
that Clyde is next. He holds no prisoners.”
“Clyde is gettin’ shit-canned?” A lick of relief burns Harry’s skin like a flame,
before the curious splash of guilt and despair snuffs it, “why? What happened?”
Tex shakes his head, thoroughly and absolutely ready to be finished with this
conversation. He needs to go upstairs and guzzle another painkiller with a big
glass of water, hopefully to put him to sleep for hours or maybe even days. He
knows that Harry is struggling and completely pitiful right now, but he still
harbors too much blame and resentment to hold his hand through this recovery.
He’s done it several times throughout their friendship without much thanks or
similar notion in return. Granted, his life hasn’t been nearly as devastating as
Harry’s, but that’s the boundary he feels comfortable putting in place right now.
And secretly, he’s glad that Harry doesn’t remember all the bullshit that Tex has
put him through the last few months.
Tex nods to Harry’s ear as a tactic of distraction, since he knows that Harry is
easily distractible. Especially right now, “you have a scar from the accident. It
was bad. Everyone was worried. But you survived.”
Harry runs his fingers through his hair and against his scalp, bumping over
knotted, jagged flesh buried beneath his curls. The wall of indigestible
information sends him staggering a couple steps backwards as he finally, slowly,
begins to mull it over; he’s had a bad accident and subsequent injury, his memory
has been impaired and has completely wiped itself clean not once but two times,
Tex is no longer his confidant and support system. He’s dropped everything
for….. you? But how? He promised himself that he would never, ever do that. No
matter how pretty and talented and maddening he thought you were. He fucking
promised himself that he would never get close to you or anyone ever again,
regardless of what that entailed. When Indy died, he took very careful, calculated
steps to keep anyone from getting tangled in his selfish net of self-destruction. He
was perfectly happy to be journeying through life alone, stacking bricks around
his skin and melting his bones into iron rods to form a fortress of protection over
his decrepit heart. The last thing he needed was to allow anyone in before he had
finished constructing his bubble of detachment. How is any of this even close to
possible?
Harry betrayed himself. And you fucking let him.
“By the way,” Tex points to his busted, black nose and black eyes, “you did this
to me. You broke my fucking nose. I spent hours in the ER last night and now
you’re here waking me up at the asscrack of dawn for what, help? Now you want
help? I don’t even know who you are anymore. I haven’t known you for months.”
Harry frowns. It’s simply too much information for him to even begin to
comprehend and honestly, Tex’s black eye is the last worry on his checklist, “that
makes two of us.”
The stare-off between the two men is so thick that they can both taste it. It’s
understood that the conversation is finished on both sides, and possibly forever.
Without another word, Tex backs up into his house and pushes the door closed in
Harry’s face.
It’s like digging a fingernail into a blister, pulling a knot in a shoelace

irreversibly tight, unraveling fat wooden beads from a necklace and watching
them scatter and jump all over the floor. It’s mayhem and it’s painful and it’s
permanent. The chaos, in all of its destruction, feels too severe to stop.
It was a blackout that lasted almost half a year. Losing a single memory is
scary enough; losing whole months of your life is one of the most terrifying
events that Harry can even begin to conceive. What did he do? What did he say?
Lie about? Be honest about? Promise? Did he perform? Did he perform well?
Who did he talk to? Curse at? Flirt with? Kiss? Fuck? Call? Fight? Touch? Betray?
Trust? Laugh with? What did he read? Eat? Drink? Smoke? Where did he walk to?
Skate? Drive? Sleep? Did he get sick? Did he take care of himself or was he
reckless? Is the Vietnam War over? Did an astronaut walk on the moon? Was
anyone assassinated? Were there any earthquakes? Is his mum okay? How do
four or five months just vanish?
This whole entire wheel of questioning feels familiar and he doesn’t know why
and he’s so frustrated and scared that he feels like he could scream.
Fuck it. He needs to scream.
Harry falls to his knees and drops his face into his palms, screaming until his
belly aches and his throat feels raw and his heart goes numb. This whole entire
situation is so fucking familiar and he doesn’t have the slightest inkling as to why.
Tears slip through the cracks in his fingers and his teeth scrape his skin, this is so
familiar and he has no fucking idea why.
Time passes this way. Time passes this way for a good, long while. Harry
crouched on the sidewalk outside of his lost friend’s house, seagulls cawing
overhead, the sun rising to the highest point in the sky that November will allow.
He isn’t sure how much time has passed in all because in his confounded misery,
he hasn’t chainsmoked enough cigarettes to use them in replacement of a clock.
It isn’t until the crying and the panic and the pounding of his heart and his vision
swelling black around the edges finally relents that he braces himself against the
ground and hauls himself to standing.
He has a few ideas of where to go next. One of them being the theatre to see if
there are any coworkers or friends who have enough patience to fill him in on
details. Another is the hospital, to nose around and ask questions of any doctors
or nurses who may have cared for him after his supposed accident. The last
would be a payphone, to call his mum and see if she could relay any advice, but
that option is a final option for a reason. Even though he doesn’t know a single
step he took or word he spoke while he was existing in a blackout for months, he
does know that his mum is likely none-the-wiser. He never did feel comfortable
leaning on her during times of stress; she has too much of her own to handle.
On his shaky walk back to his van, his eyebrows sink together into a frown
when he notices the figure of a person perched by his driver’s side door. The
figure of a woman gazing into his side mirror, with a tube of lipstick threaded
between her fingers and the pad of her ring finger dabbing the color of shiny
cherries onto her full, shapely lips. He catches her reflection in his mirror and
recognizes each feature with clarity, with ease, with comfort and relief. And when
contact is made and she notices him staring at her over his shoulder, she spins on
the ball of her foot to greet him with a warm, loving smile.
“Hi, Sunshine.”
As soon as Harry opens his mouth to speak, the figure vanishes completely.
And that’s when he starts coming apart at the seams.
He runs towards his van and rips the door open, tearing through every inch of
his space and every scrap of belonging. He peeks inside each one of his records
before tossing them aside, pushes his food around and checks underneath boxes
for clues. Pulling out the containers where he stores his clothing, he rifles
through every pair of trousers and every colorful button-down shirt, tossing
them over his shoulder until he finds a couple yellow scraps of fabric that he
deems unrecognizable. Panic pumps through his veins as he adds it to the
growing pile of chaos, swimming through remnants that are familiar yet strange,
until he claws at his sheets and heaves them off of his bed.
A red, heart-shaped locket on a long, slinky chain untangles itself from the
silky material and falls to his feet.
Harry makes the snap judgment of it belonging to a burner or maybe even to
you, but he doesn’t have a clear memory of it, nor does he have the patience to
wait for one to arise. He tosses it aside with an exasperated groan, the enamel
clinking loudly against his teakettle as it falls. When he glances over his shoulder
to see where it’s landed, he notices that it’s now lying sadly on its side, popped
open to reveal a sneakingly recognizable black-and-white photo. He picks it up
for a closer look; a headshot clipped down to size, your hair brushing your
collarbone as you peek over your shoulder, your gaze tropical and doe-eyed,
your mouth dewy and chaste.
Where did the locket come from and how the fuck is this photograph still
alive? Harry explicitly remembers tearing it up and throwing it away in the trash
can outside of Hound Dogs just two nights ago. His eyelids squeeze closed, hot
flashes of sunlight dyed red and blipping with black. Like driving at sundown in
the dead of winter, that depressing white light that seems to flash instead of
linger, flickers of blood and burning coal and hot, white light. Before Harry has
the time to properly process what is staring back at him, an uncomfortable
physical sensation moves across his brain like an ocean wave, swirling and
crashing before it’s wrenching again with the insistence of a rip tide. A rubber
band stretching and ricocheting around gray matter plasma nerve-endings tissue
blood bone and all he can do is keep his eyes pinched closed in an effort to make
it stop.
It’s a heart. With my sweet baby inside.
It matches your mouth.
A piece of paper folded into eights, singed on the edges to show its age,
nothing but blinding white, crumpled blankness on the inside.
The necklace slips from his fingertips and as if some divine spirit has
whispered for him to open his eyes and have another look around, he obeys. And
this time, there seems to be a spotlight shining on all of the objects he’d missed
on his first hectic rummage through his home. Your dress, your roller skates, a
Nina Simone record, lollipop sticks in his ashtrays, lipstick stains on discarded
cigarette butts.
A T-shirt softly billows over his head, sand clings to his bare legs. His lips
brush your belly, the sun shines hot and yellow on his shoulders. Your fingernails
drag up and down his bare back.
Tears smolder in his eyes once again, his lips form around the only word that
pokes out from his subconscious amongst the emotional and physical wreckage
around every inch of his present life. And even though he has no way of grasping
the full sentiment behind the hollow expression, he allows it to scrape up his raw
throat, just so that he can see what it tastes like.
“Cherry.”
Hello everyone. I struggled a lot writing this, for several reasons. I had intended
to keep the resolution of the book all within one chapter, but as I wrote it, I realized
that the intensity of their emotions needed more space than that. The last chapter
that I post will be the last one. I’m currently working on it and as usual, will
announce as soon as it’s ready. After the conclusion is posted, there will be two
epilogues with major, important content as well as a handful of extras that are
already written. Stay close. As always, thank you all for your support and patience.
I love you all so, so fucking much. You’re the best ever. xx Birdie
You made your bed, now lie in it.
Inside of that large, white five-story building, past the blue trim and reflective
windows, there are squeaky, polished marble floors. Shiny, pearly and reflective;
depressingly quiet and brutally loud all-at-once. High heels click and clack and
click and clack while patients lurch uncomfortably in half-drugged-out stupors,
tubes shoved up their noses as red Jell-O hardens on their bedside tables. Their
wallets scraped clean of savings. Distressed family members linger in waiting
rooms with folded newspapers in hand, a blunt pencil with a dull eraser held to
last week’s crossword, but they’re not focused on the clues. The clues are an
attempted distraction to anxiety; black-and-white boxes that contain no gray
area in their design. The only problem with anxiety is that there are no inherent
distractions for it because it vibrates just outside of you, all along every inch of
skin, trapping you inside of its cage with birds frantically pecking at your bones
for a breath of freedom.
Freedom lies within certainties and sometimes there are no certainties. So,
what happens then?
Wandering obsession?
Cherry.
Inside of that large, white five-story building, past the blue trim and reflective
windows, there are unsettling questions that pair with equally unsettling
answers. The questions of what happened to me and who am I now and what’s
next, the kinds of questions that everyone dreads but is forced to evaluate at
some point. The kinds of questions that people usually get the opportunity to ask
themselves or their friends and family with some sort of memory of how they got
where they are, armed with those inquiries.
Today, Harry doesn’t have that privilege.
The hum from the neon sign that cleanly hangs several feet over the automatic
sliding doors buzzes through Harry’s wide-open van windows, cerulean and taut,
high-pitched and hair-raising, memorable and not.
Mercy Valley Medical.
Dried, caked blood stings beside a small open wound in his cuticle. An old
habit that creeps around when Harry’s stress is at his highest; digging at tender
skin until it becomes a hangnail and then picking at the hangnail until it hurts to
touch and then tearing the hurting flesh from his finger with his teeth until it’s
even more tender than it was to begin with.
He runs his thumb over the callouses permanently etched into his palms; the
ones that he helped cultivate when he first started out in the circus by using the
secret industry technique of slipping into the bathroom after practice and pissing
on the bloody open wounds rubbed raw by the trapeze bar. The salt and acids in
urine helps to heal open blisters quicker and creates a leather quality to the skin
in order to improve grip. It was something Indy had suggested to him right off
the bat and advice that he’d shelled out to you when you’d bellyached about the
pain after your first day on the giants. He took odd pride in the fact that you
didn’t seem appalled or squeamish as he assumed you might have been, but
rather trusted his guidance and listened with perfectly unruffled feathers. With
impartial tolerance. With gratitude.
With annoying innocence.
It made sense to him in hindsight, though; he’d figured you’d seen your fair
share of atrocity each time you pulled off a pair of pointe shoes and inspected
your bloody toes after rehearsals or practice for years as a professional ballet
dancer. The result of beauty is pain, after all. More often than not.
Physically and emotionally.
Within the mayhem of his now-trashed van, Harry was unlucky in his search
for another pack of Crush cigarettes, so he stopped at a corner market for a fresh
carton on the way to the hospital. Even through his rose-tinted sunglasses, the
flickering fluorescent lightbulbs nipped at his eyes as if he were a newborn
seeing unnatural lighting for the first time. And for the first time that he could
remember, none of the snacks shelved neatly in meticulously quaint rows with
flashy labels seemed appealing. Not even the peanut butter.
He hasn’t bothered to flick the ash from his cigarette since he lit it and if he
were feeling any sense of humor in this moment, he might laugh at the inch-long
granny ash skeleton sizzling down to his knuckles, streaming a thin ribbon of
pink into the sky before it depletes into nothing but a memory of hot, wavering
sugar.
Memory. Okay, maybe this is just a bit little funny.
The red-hot heart-shaped locket lays splayed open in his palm, his eyes glued
to all the curves, angles and shadows of your face, the long chain sagging limply
between the cracks of his fingers. Even though the photograph inside is black-
and-white, Harry can still imagine the shade of lipstick you must have been
wearing that day. Tangerine or Cherry or maybe Sweet Strawberry, the kind that
would leave behind a perfect painted pout on a scruffy, kissed cheek. Or a
champagne glass. Or a cigarette butt. The shade that he wishes he could smudge
across your flawless portrait right now, to cover up that innocent baby deer gaze
that reeks of penetrating judgment. The exact gaze that you shoot him from
across the room whenever he’s fucking around with his friends on his smoke
breaks at work. The same exact fucking gaze that dissolves him when you
unintentionally remind him of his former partner; hardworking and serious,
beautiful and potent. The precise gaze that you insist upon when you trample all
over his lunch breaks in the courtyard with way too many fucking waffles for one
girl. Cherry. The very gaze you gave him when you saw the picture in his wallet in
the first place and the same one you gave him when he told you the photograph
was gone. The gaze he woke up to this morning. And somehow, that gaze has also
ended up here, supposedly months later, in a locket in his palm, under
completely muddled conditions.
He’s looked at this photograph more times than he can count. Late at night
when he’s screamed awake by a nightmare involving Indy’s blood and bones;
he’s no stranger to rolling onto his side and flipping open his wallet for a little
slice of comfort. Or when he slinks off from his mates to take a piss at Hound
Dogs, holding his cigarette in his teeth and spacing out on your face in a room
filled with nothing but the sound of water running from the faucet. He honestly
can’t explain it and that’s exactly what he tried to justify in your dressing room
argument, but when Harry is red-zone upset, words don’t exactly unpack how he
wish they would. He never imagined he would awaken from a nightmare beside
the living, breathing version of that comfort wrapped up in his sheets and kissing
his lips.
A nightmare that’s worse than a nightmare, because when he opened his eyes,
it was still there.
Pretty sure she’s the only one who can fill in the blanks now.
Judging by the pile of cigarette butts in his ash tray, Harry can deduce that he’s
been sitting in his van in the parking lot of the hospital for nearly forty minutes.
Nothing further in terms of complete, sensical pictures have surfaced since Tex
began a wild scavenger hunt rendition of connect-the-dots on his doorstep. His
brain is merely flashes of shadows and disintegrating faces, a handful of
whispered, spoken syllables cherry that cut through from ear to ear and leave
him wondering if he even heard them in the first place. A weak mist of rain
forming a tapestry of damp emotion in the air, a low-hanging cloud that allows a
burst of scorching, bleached light to blind him before it’s covered up by fog so
fast that he doesn’t even have a chance to decipher it.
And he supposes if he wants these alien signals to cling to any sort of logic or
significance, he’s going to have to walk through those automatic sliding doors
and start asking those unsettling questions. He never could stand the idea of
vague notions cherry rattling around in his own brain, taking up precious real
estate and deterring him from hindsight, the very building blocks of conscious
life. And this is by far the worst shit storm of uncool that he’s had the honor of
rummaging through, despite every impulsive wise-ass decision he’s made
throughout his lifetime. At least when Indy died, he was haunted by very vivid
but very real nightmares, ones that were cemented in fact and had discernible
outcomes when reflected upon. He didn’t have any answers then and still doesn’t,
but at least he had the applicable questions. The memories of it.
So far this morning he’s learned, but not necessarily accepted, that he’s
sustained a serious injury. He’s learned that you’re going to lose the one thing
that means more to you than anything else in existence, but he doesn’t know
whether or not you’re aware and he doesn’t know why it’s happening. He’s
learned that time has passed based on your vague screech when you exited his
van a couple hours ago, on Tex’s concise musing, and the library copy of The
Illustrated Man he found in the chaos of his home. It was a book that he doesn’t
remember ever borrowing or starting or reading three-quarters through, but a
checkout card slipped into the back envelope gave him the first small clue. It was
signed out in his own handwriting under his name, stamped with a date
indicating it was due back on October 13th, 1965. But he had no way of knowing
if it was cherry on time or past due, by days or possibly even weeks. Or if he’d
even planned on returning it or not.
Another and more alarming clue was what he’d chosen to use as his new
favorite bookmark; a photobooth strip with four tiny colorless pictures of you,
immaculate Twiggy-esque wing-tipped eyeliner, sticky lips. No date, no location,
no writing. Just the photos. As if whoever had slipped it into that book was
certain they would never need the reminder, like the impression of the events
were strong enough to withstand time and heartbreak.
They were wrong.

After stuffing the photos in his trousers pocket, the discovery further spurred
another reckless tear through his van for more pointers, landing once again on a
couple tattered yellow strips of fabric within the mess of his own clothing. This
was the second time he returned to the torn material cherry with no
understanding as to why, but he trusts his intuition and tepid always has, so he
also shoved them into his pocket in the hope that some sort of recollection would
seep through his pants as if by diffusion. He sat still for a moment, spinning the
red wheel of your roller skates with the tip of his index finger. Recalling all of the
times he watched you leave work as he sat drinking Pearls with his friends at the
fountain, wondering what clothes you’d change into when you got home and
imagining your hair loose and free, pressed up against your cheek as you slept.
Then without thinking, he then dropped to his knees and tore open the
cabinet beneath the sink warm and swiped a box with handcuffs and various toys
aside, before pulling out a stack of books, newspapers, magazines and notebooks
filled with thick expanses of black, felt tip ink. His eyebrows ruffled when he
realized he’d somehow gotten back into a lovesick poet’s habit he hadn’t seen in
ages. He’d wondered if he ever shared them with anyone hot, such as the person
who he was mentally flattering cherry when he scrawled them in the first place,
but he shoved it all out of his mind by physically returning them into a hasty pile
with an ensuing flick of the cabinet lock. Cold. Frigid. Ice. You’re naked in the
arctic circle. Butt-ass naked.
Unsurprisingly, the loudest thing about you that’s driving Harry absolutely
bloodthirsty with obsession is how the two of you woke up together this
morning. Before he left Tex’s place for the hospital, he’d tried lying back down in
bed and closing his eyes, hoping to rewind to the moment just before you kissed
him awake. To siphon up any dreams that had occurred or force a memory from
his sheets for a breath of history. Assuming it was yours, he held a slinky, white
slip in the air by the skinny straps, bringing the fabric to his nose and keeping it
there for a few moments. He groaned in annoyance when nothing was revealed,
then crumbled it up in a ball to cast aside. He even tried sniffing his pillow cases
and rolling up in his comforter like a burrito with his shoes still on, begging the
universe for even a whisper of recollection. But it just wouldn’t cooperate yet. Or
he wouldn’t cooperate yet. He couldn’t tell.
Harry remembers reading somewhere that denial is a very strong emotion.
Most humans live there quite steadily in the midst of trauma and suffering, as a
tactic of basic animal instinct, in order to protect oneself from harm. And the way
that Harry typically protects himself from harm is by not allowing anyone to be
close enough to affect him in the first place. The only people allowed in now are
the ones that he could easily dismiss with a line of “you’re the one for me” with
his eyes directed at his lap before promptly tossing their crumpled-up phone
number from his window for the wind to eat as he careens down the PCH.
Always on the verge of escaping what frightens him.
With that, Harry cranks up his windows, snaps the locket cherry closed and
stuffs it into his trouser pocket before ruffling through his piles of crumpled
clothing and assorted, skewed personal items to grab the first presentable
button-down that he can find. He tucks in his wifebeater, tosses the shirt on and
stumbles from his van with his eyes squinted behind his heart-shaped sunglasses
to keep the sun from washing out his vision. Standing apricot and plum in color
from top to bottom, the hue of his sweet smoke and the hue of his outfit blend
like a portable sunset on his jaunt across the parking lot. The metal hoods and
emblems from the rows of cars reflect blazing white light, heat rises up from the
pavement to nip at his ankles, seagulls circle overhead in an endless blue sky like
vultures for a taste of his bloody stupor. Black asphalt turns to puffy clouds of
cotton before picking up and whirling away with the wind. Palm trees rustle like
a forest of bamboo. Silence envelops him cherry and then rings back to life with a
deflated hiss of tart fruit.
Harry’s only tripped on acid once, but this is no fucking different.
Just before he arrives at the automatic sliding doors, he pauses to light a new
cigarette as he’s granted access with a smooth swish of metal and glass. The
smell of septic cleaning chemicals burns and stirs something inside of him, but he
still doesn’t have any appropriate questions. And with a cleansing inhale of
cotton candy, he sets his sights on the u-shaped front desk and marches forward
in the only way he can: one shaky foot in front of the other.
The nurse manning the desk doesn’t even bother to look up as Harry
approaches, with the receiver of a telephone pressed to her ear and her jaw
working a piece of chewing gum. He waits patiently for a little less than three
seconds before leaning his forearm on the counter and pitching forward to speak
in a private voice. Although Harry’s volume of private is much different than
most peoples; it could best be described as a mighty whisper, “hi, ’scuse me, I’m
kinda havin’ a nervous fuckin’ breakdown—”
Without even bothering to raise her head, the nurse gestures for him to wait
with her index finger. Harry swallows his bitterly sarcastic retort and instead
starts drumming his fingertips, a little fireball of irritation sparking inside of him
when he raises his eyebrow in impatience and stubs his cigarette out in the ugly
spider plant minding its own pointy business next to his elbow. The cherry hisses
upon contact with the wet soil, the crushed red heart cut out of the filter glaring
at its rebuffed owner, sadly. The little passing image seems to make sense;
squashed, defeated and murky. A pulverized heart and pink sweet smoke
slipping into nothing before snuffing in an instant. Ruining the chance at life for
no good reason at all, aside from Harry’s misfortune and carelessness.
Apparently, that was enough to collect the nurse’s attention for a moment. She
first looks at the rude cigarette butt in her favorite plant and then at Harry’s stoic
face covered up with sunglasses and promptly looks away, calmly pecking away
at her typewriter. Harry correctly assumes that his act of microaggression
worked in opposition to his motive, and instead drove her into an act of passive
contempt. Annoyed by her indifference, Harry reaches over and swipes the paper
from her typewriter and helps himself to one of her pens, flipping the sheet over
to scrawl a large, hasty message on the back. He spins it around and slides it
underneath her nose.
Brain on fire — spare straitjacket?
The nurse’s eyes flit from his face to the paper and back again. She blows a
bubble and sucks it past her teeth before slamming down a clipboard with a form
and pen attached to it, then cups her palm over the mouthpiece and leans
forward to write a return message upside down for him.
Sit down.
Harry scoffs, “far out. Oh yeah, no big deal, he’s just lost his entire fuckin’ mind
is all. Can’t beat the American healthcare system, can we? Fuckin’ major egghead
zone. Unreal.”
The conversation is finalized by a flick of her manicured fingernail towards

the waiting room.
Harry swipes the clipboard from the counter, the wood clapping against his
hip loudly enough to garner the attention of everyone else sitting in the
crammed, stuffy lobby. With a room full of eyes on him, Harry spins on his heel
and flops down in the first chair he sees, his elbows grazing the person on either
side of him when he settles into place. Someone clears their throat then sniffles
loudly, but the exact source is anonymous. The room is ushered back into silence
except for the news playing on the small black-and-white television set in the
corner, the signal cutting in and out until somebody stands to adjust the
antennae.
Anti-Vietnam war protests draw one-hundred-thousand people across eighty

U.S. cities; the six-hundred-thirty foot steel Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri
has completed construction; the Dodgers beat the Twins to take their fourth
World Series title; Pillsbury Biscuits have a new mascot, some blobby stop-
motion fuck in a chef’s hat with a pedophiliac gopher voice. All of the information
plays like a droning alarm clock slowly pulling him from the thick fog of sleep;
Harry has missed all of it, sheltered within the confines of a rebellious, months-
long fever dream.
Pulling the cap from the pen with his teeth, he holds it there as he starts to fill
out the form, his eyebrows raising over the frame of his sunglasses in
deliberation every once in a while. When everyone’s stares eventually fall away
except for one, Harry darts his sight up to find the person sitting opposite him
glaring back with a single eye, the other covered up by a dishtowel filled with ice.
Blood runs from his nose to his downturned, mean pout.
They hold stares until Harry’s shrinks and slowly floats away, his mind
struggling against the chilling, fuzzy memory of a cool compress being pressed to
his cheek by another set of hands. Hazy mental pictures from an old, burned
photo album. Singed like smoked honey, shriveling like cherry sun-ripened
summer fruit. He taps the bruise on his cheekbone. In his mind’s eye, the
apprehensive image that’s blurred of any recognizable faces curls at the corners,
then turns to ash before vanishing into thin air, forcing a loud, exasperated groan
from his stomach.
It’s like playing whack-a-mole, but with memories. But with reality. But with
sanity.
And he keeps fucking missing.
Not three seconds after his face has fallen to his palms, a gentle voice rings
down the hallway and happily hops from wall to wall, “Harry!” Harry pushes his
sunglasses onto the top of his head and springs up out of his chair in time to see a
nurse quickly approaching in her high heels from down the hall, “are you alright?
Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I was hoping I’d never see you again.”
Eyeing him from head to toe, Bunny can see no physical damage and that
brings her just a small hint of relief. Harry had been under her explicit full-time
care for two weeks after his accident until the doctor deemed him hearty enough
to continue his healing process at home with a friend. And during that time, he’d
made more than an appropriate number of cheap passes at her, considering
she’d reminded him on several occasions of being off the market. After a while,
she began to realize that the flirting seemed to come from him deriving
enjoyment out of being obnoxious above anything else, so she readily let it slide
off her back.
But aside from that and most truthfully, she looked forward to their time
together. She would talk to him often while he was under a medically-induced
coma, sensing that he needed the mental stimulation and benevolence. After he
was conscious, she would find herself visiting his room more than protocol
required to play games of tic-tac-toe and thumb wrestle or merely just converse.
Beneath his aggressive grit, there is an obvious layer of intelligence and wit,
demonstrated by how quickly he tore through four of her husband’s novels that
she’d brought from home to help keep him occupied. She could feel his buoyant,
wise, restless nature even through his weakened state, since a slathering of
charm as thick as Harry’s simply can’t be jaded by an unfortunate casualty.
What she loved most about his charm was that it easily reigned in when
necessary, that it seemed to be more of a natural tendency that helps him test the
waters of the room, rather than a sharp tool that’s turned on and off according to
selfish needs and whether or not they were attained. No; Harry’s charm was
more of a birthright. Something that wordlessly eases those in his presence
because the benign energy is palpable, something that paints him as both colorful
and effortless. Something earned and merited. A gift that was given to him by a
higher power with confidence in order for him to obtain everything that he
deserves in life, through all of his hard work and the tumultuous paths he’s
forced to walk barefoot.
But she also fears he was gifted belligerence for all of the opposite purposes,
and that one isn’t so cute to be around.
Based on this interaction alone, Harry knows and can accept a few things for
certain: he doesn’t recall who this person is even though she seems to know him
quite well. Therefore, Tex was not bullshitting about him being hospitalized and
that means he’s actually had an accident. So, that means he’s indeed missing four
or five months of his life and if he continues to follow Tex’s narrative, that means
those four or five months were definitely spent dropping everything in his life to
date you.
He dropped everything in his life to date you. For months.

How the fuck could he let you in that easily, knowing how painful it was to let
Indy slip through his fingers? He swore he would never, ever allow it to happen
again, neither at work or in his personal life. He thought that he couldn’t possibly
survive another death, whether it be physical or emotional. And yet he gave
everything up for you? How?
He knew better. He just knew that he would destroy you and himself, because
he destroys everything good.
He’s really starting to worry about the whole masochist thing now.
Bunny pulls him in for a hug and rubs his shoulders when she looks into his
icy, blank stare and frowns, knowing instantly the cause for his visit but asking
anyway to be professional, “what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Um….. hi.” Harry coughs a puff of air into his fist, then scratches the back of
his neck, “my buddy said I had an accident and I’m not remembering it. I’m
disoriented a… d... I’m shittin’ bricks.”
Bunny’s trained, cool demeanor keeps his heart from exploding out of his
chest, and also does a pretty decent job of hiding her own inner sorrow on his
behalf, “okay. So….. do you remember who I am, by chance?” Small and confused,
Harry shakes his head and the nurse tuts in response, “it’s okay, honey. You’ll be
okay. You can call me Bunny. We’ll get you checked out. Just fill out your form so
we can get you processed—”
“I started to….. but I didn’t know the date. So, I stopped.”
Her heart sinks further, “that’s fine. Just have a seat and fill out what you can.
I’ll be right back.”
He doesn’t even begin to bother. Instead, he drops back into his seat and
reaches across the person’s lap beside him, muttering a soft “’scuse me” as he
swipes a copy of Rave Magazine from the side table. Entertainment and music
articles, words blurring across pages, a Flying Marvels advertisement nestled
into a margin, more words blurring across pages. Harry freezes and flips back a
page, zooming in on the image of the two of you pictured side-by-side before
staring at your face, free falling into the grainy, black-and-white impression of
your eyes until the room starts to whirl in violent circles around him. Time is
sucked away in a vacuum and the moment he swears he sees your mouth move
with the words nous sommes amoureux de l’autre, he slams it closed.
“Okay, Harry. You can follow me.”
Harry springs up and follows Bunny with her clipboard down the glossy, stark
hallways into a small examination room, scooting back onto the starched
bedsheets and answering questions with a simple yes or no response as she
checks his vitals. She leaves in him silence while he waits for his doctor, staring
at the space between the curtain and the floor for a pair of loafers to appear.
Similar to his persona during auditions and the first couple weeks you practiced
together, he doesn’t say much. There’s simply too much uncertainty cherry and
rivaling emotions cherry moving through him to verbalize anything rational. His
head spins when he looks inside of it for too long. His stomach churns. His heart
does something unrecognizable.
When the doctor whips the curtain back several minutes later, his circular
glasses balanced on the tip of his nose and his hair swept to the side to cover up
his male-pattern baldness, his reaction to seeing Harry is quite the same as
Bunny’s and leaves Harry to wonder if all medical personnel have the same sense
of humor, “you again, huh? Not for nothing, but I was hoping our prior
interaction would be the last. My name is Dr. Wright.”
Harry pushes his hair from his face with his sunglasses, “killer, good one.
That’s way helpful. Cool if I light up?”
“No.” The doctor grabs Harry’s clipboard from the mounted wall file and flips
through a couple loose leaf pages before approaching him with a pen light
shining into his eyes to gauge the size of his pupils, “Bunny tells me that you’ve
had a slight memory set back. Follow the light?”
Light of love, Honeycomb. Light of love.
“Uh—” A resounding whisper you told me to keep goin’, was that too— sneaks
through all of the nooks and crannies of Harry’s brain, a jilted, hot memory of his
hand cupped alongside his mouth as he leans forward to whisper a secret into
soft cherry hair. The doctor’s light burns his retinas and makes his stomach toss
even more violently than before, “yeah, if you call a five-month-blackout slight.”
“Your pupils are dilated.”
“Makes sense since I can’t see shit.”
Dr. Wright turns off the small flashlight and tucks it into his breast pocket,
“you can’t see anything?”
Harry unrolls the soft pack of cigarettes from his sleeve and lights one up
anyway, correctly guessing that his doctor wouldn’t bother to condemn him
aside from a weak, stony glare, “’kay, that was an exaggeration. It stings like hell
to look directly into bright lights and I feel like a fuckin’ burn out. Am I cooked?”
Pulling up a small rolling chair, Harry’s doctor scoots close and leans his
elbows on his knees, “you’re far from broken. The resulting impact of severe
head injuries varies greatly from case to case and are, frankly, mysterious and
inexplicable. However, most seem to resolve on their own volition over time,
sometimes with a one-step-forward, two-steps-back motion in the beginning.
That’s probably not very comforting to hear, but it’s the farthest that science has
brought us thus far. You don’t remember this, but it took you the better portion
of twenty-four to forty-eight hours to recover the majority of your memories
after you rallied from your medically-induced coma. I see that you have a
contusion on your face. Have you suffered any additional severe injuries or is this
an unprovoked memory lapse?”
“Do aliens exist?”
“I….. don’t know.”
“Ditto. My memory’s shucked, remember?”
Doctors say a lot of needless shit, like “the brain is unpredictable” and “trauma
is mystifying”. They use words like “dissociative fugue” and “swollen brain
tissue” and “medically-induced coma” and “vivid hallucinations” and “terribly
sorry”, then throw other cases at you in an effort to assuage your fear, but
instead invalidate it. As if “sometimes people wake up and start speaking in non-
native accents” and “once a man thought his wife was a hat” were the slightest bit
encouraging. Suddenly remembering why he avoids doctors in the first place, he
has a strong urge to flee, convinced that he’s made the wrong decision in coming
to such a hollow setting for such heavy answers.
The doctor tugs a pen from his breast pocket and scribbles notes onto Harry’s
file, “how long have you felt disoriented?”
As easily distracted as ever, Harry’s already lost interest and is glancing

towards the exit, “couple hours, ever since I woke up. Hey, M.D. You married?”
Dr. Wright’s eyebrows tug together in curiosity as he leans back into his chair
and crosses his arms over his chest, slowly plunging the ink in and out of his pen,
“yes. Why?”
Harry exhales a thick cloud of pink before a small smile curls into one corner
of his mouth, “so, you could say your wife found Mr. Right?”
The beat of silence is crumbled by Harry’s doctor clearing his throat and then
rising from his chair, “I’m going to ask that you stay here for an hour of
monitoring.” He ignores Harry’s groan at the mention of an hour, “I’ll send Bunny
in to check on your comfort and connect you to a heart monitor for further
observation. If all is clear when the hour is up, you’ll be discharged with further
outpatient care instructions. Let’s see what a little time can’t do. In the meantime,
test your jokes out on Bunny. She’s a better audience.”
“Tough crowd.”
As soon as Harry’s left alone in silence again, he lies back on the itchy sheets
and holds his cigarette between his teeth, digging the heart-shaped locket from
his pocket and flipping it open to stare at your face. He wants to know if the
comfort is still there in your gaze. In your shiny hair. Your pouty lips. Your big
fucking baby deer eyes. He clears his throat, plucking the smoke from his teeth
and breathing out a curious word along with a thick spool of cotton candy,
“…..Cher… y...? Tell me somethin’.”
Harry.
Big, innocent eyes flooded with appetite and appearing black in the dim
lighting. That fucking yellow dress bundled around your middle that he wants to
shred to pieces with his teeth.
That he did shred to pieces with his teeth.
Holding his breath and holding on tight to whatever it is that’s creeping up

from the dirt, his eyelids fall shut, carefully untangling a single thought free from
its spell. A fever reduces in the blink of an eye, his skull cooling just enough to
allow more images to slip in. Every version of Harry wrestle with themselves.
Your neck, your shoulders, your mouth, your hair swept off to one side.
And finally, finally, whole, albeit fleeting, images accompanied with a

soundtrack of his favorite Zombies album and little plumes of feathers bloom
down his spine. And they hang on, just long enough to paint a clear picture for a
few seconds.
A tattered sign that reads Bunny Hill. The Pacific Ocean laid out below his van.
Palm trees kissing the stars. You wedged between his knees.
Little creases form at the corners of his eyes as he pinches them closed and
struggles onward; the sensation of your warm, wet tight mouth swallowing him
whole. He squeezes harder in an attempt to pull the memory back before it
leaves, like hanging onto a loved one with one sweaty hand as they dangle from
the edge of a building over a street streaked with high beams of traffic. A
pounding heart, a rush of blood. A whimper in the darkness, a cloud of
condensation on a window. A little coquettish voice sparkles in his eardrum.
Comme ça?
“Hi, Harry!” Bunny whips the curtain back and clatters into the exam room,
“how are you feeling? Dr. Wright sounded optimistic—”
“Fuck me!” Sitting up so quickly he can see stars and explosions and fireworks,
Harry takes a sweeping glance at his crotch to check if his semi is noticeable
before clearing his throat and dropping his shades back down to his nose, “Jesus.
How’s it hangin’?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You’re cool. That was a close shave though. Scared the shit outta me. I almost
caught on to somethin’….. I,” He slows down, twisting the filter of his cigarette
then tossing it into the nearby sink, “I think I’m still at the bottom of the ocean.
How am I supposed to know if I’m alive or dead?”
“If you’re dead than I am, too.”
“The fuck? That’s….. not helpin’.”
“You’re alive, I’m alive. We’re alive. I promise you. Do you want me to see if Dr.
Wright can give you a few very low-dosage Quaaludes? Just a couple days’ worth,
especially if you’re planning to sleep any time soon. It would calm your central
nervous system enough so that your mind can start to breathe, settle and
organize. Help you find your place. Can you take your shirt off for me?”
“I usually get offered a shot of rum before hearin’ that question.” The glare
that Bunny delivers is enough for him to remove his clothing without another
word, then reverting back to the suggestion of medication, “that seems
counterintuitive. Shouldn’t my brain work through its natural cycles without
bein’ subdued? What will you prescribe to clear my head next, magic
mushrooms? Who gives you people your nursin’ licenses?”
Bunny defends herself with a perfectly cool authoritarian tone while attaching
electrodes to his bare chest, “The Board of Nursing, after years of schooling, hard
work and field hours. Don’t be rude, Harry. I’m here to help you. Your stress and
emotions are like the fur on an angry cat’s back at the moment and you might
find yourself in a position of being triggered into even more alarm at any given
moment, without any tools to soothe your guard. You don’t know what it’s going
to feel like when your memories start coming back. You don’t have to take them,
but it could be relieving to know that you have them. It was just a suggestion.
And a good one that I stand by. It wouldn’t be enough to put you in an unguarded
state of mind, just enough to help guide you through an exorbitant amount of
stress in the short term. Which you have. And which could increase. Actually,
which will increase, once you go back to work.”
“Fine.” The locket starts burning a hole in his palm as if it were heat-activated
by Bunny’s supposing, “hey, d’ya know who this person is?”
Soft mechanical beeping of Harry’s heartbeat begins to fill the room. Bunny
slips the locket from his fingertips and pops it open, studying the photo in her
hand before looking at him, “do you?”
“Yep, I know exactly who she is. She’s my irritating-as-fuck trapeze partner
who I woke up in bed with this morning.”
“She’s beautiful. Stunning.”
Harry remembers your face this morning when you stirred him from the abyss
of a chromatic schizophrenic dream that he’s still trying to shake; the curve of
your lips, the velvet of your skin, the muss of your hair, the softness of your
expression that displayed serenity and regard. The sort of contentment that is
only possible with intimacy — long stretches of it — with many opportunities to
refine it. The sort of contentment that signifies severity and sprawling, lush
meadows of trust. The sort of contentment that he’s only dreamed about. Which
was then followed by the radical transformation into devastation as soon as he’d
opened his fast fucking mouth. The big watery eyes. The quivering lip that you
tried to tuck away. His fucking wifebeater, his briefs, his ghostly handprints, love
bites and dried sweat and the smell of sex all over you. All over the both of you.
Yes. Hauntingly, dreadfully beautiful. Painfully stunning.
But Harry doesn’t respond, because sometimes when things feel good, actually
feel good, he doesn’t trust them enough to regard them as true. And sometimes
when things feel good, actually feel good, he can’t even feel them. Because he’s a
murderer and shouldn’t be allowed to have them.
“And yes, I do know who she is. Vivienne Surefire.”

The fact that Bunny can recall your first and last name without hesitation
forces Harry to pause, his eyebrows perking up and his lips puckering in
curiosity. Has your level of fame risen during these last few months? As a
partnership, as individuals? What lengths did you travel to achieve that? How big
has everything grown around him, how many weeds does he have to chop down
before he can start to see any rays of light?
Did you really brain him in his van?
How can he tell the difference between memory and fantasy? Medically-
induced coma dreams? Nightmares? Psychedelic-induced flashbacks?
In an innate spurt of denial, you had told Bunny that you weren’t Harry’s
girlfriend but she could see something more there. Worry, upset, grief, guilt. A
type of distress that goes beyond that of a casual coworker, regardless of how
much you tried to deny it.
“Your friend, I can’t remember his name, mentioned that she may have been a
stressor for you and advised her not to spend too much time with you until you
were healed. Although she did visit twice against his warnings, once while you
were in a coma and then again with a bag of gum, green apples and peanut butter
which she left by your bedside while you slept. She told me not to tell you who it
was from, but I figured she would’ve fessed up to it by now. Can you remember
eating that, honey? I think you ate the entire bag in two days.”
Honey.
Honeysuckle. She’ll be home by midnight, mum. Ready, Honeyfox? I’ll buy you ice
cream, Honeycomb. Five minutes, Honeybunny. You’re fresh, Honeyfuck. Hun.
“Uh—” Harry collects the necklace from Bunny and then lays back on the stiff
bed, placing the locket on his bare chest and trying to dispute his breathing
against the accelerated pace of his heart monitor, “can I have a minute—”
“Are you okay? Dizzy? I can get you a cool compress.”
He’s having trouble hearing anything that she’s saying now, but he gently
ushers her from the room with a rickety piece of driftwood. Blanched and frail, “”
kay, yeah. Thanks. “
When something heavy and unstoppable starts to roll down a long, winding
hill towards a cliff which careens into the ocean below, it’s bound to crush
everything in its way. Grass, plants, insects, fences, trees, hills, mountains;
carving a permanent destructive path in the landscape before it heaves itself
from the precipice and spirals in curious space for a handful of breathtaking
seconds. Then it drops. Hard, dense, fast. Inarguably. And as if absorbed from the
walls of this hospital room, a sober voice permeates both of Harry’s ears at once.
I’d give anything for another chance.
The words echo back and forth violently like a rabid ping pong ball, hollow,
high pitched and aimless, no intent on settling. Harry sits up so quickly that an
electrode pops off of his chest, the heart monitor practically squealing in alarm.
But he can’t hear it over the ringing crack of thunder, the tenderness, the
repercussions. Had he said that, or had you?
In a different universe, I could see myself falling for you and I think that’s why
your unfounded distaste for me hurt so much.
Hazy yellow light from a refrigerator sweeps over him at dawn, the sweet tang
of orange juice cools the back of his throat. Your entrance is announced by soft
cherry tip toes on linoleum, your body closes in on him before a creamy kiss is
sponged to his shoulder, your palms smooth up his bare stomach. Melting him
into daylight then. Melting him into daylight now.
Have me. Fais moi l’amour, s’il te plait. You cannot call a child a bitch. Who are
you, Henry VIII? I’m terrified of being ordinary. You’re so much. The
Panthermobile? Harry, please go wait on my porch.
Memories begin to overlap from various times and places; impressions of

sensations, figments of color, whiplash emotions. A car window breaks open
from the force of his skateboard, Harry pops his head in through your bedroom
window for a kiss at midnight, his palm presses to his car window in passion as
you swallow him whole, you stand in front of your window in your underwear at
sunrise regarding him regarding him regarding him.
This will pass. It will come back again, and it will pass again. Each tide will be
weaker and weaker once you’ve wrapped your head around the rhythm of the
waves. You can do this; you have been doing this. And you are not alone.
It’s all there, you’re all there, somewhere, but it’s all too tangled to see and he
needs to leave this room and this hospital right fucking now for some clarity. He
needs more. He needs you. He needs wind. He needs sun. He needs his god, the
ocean.
Had he said that, or had you?
What alerts you alters you. When understanding occurs, you’re left with
nothing but facts.
“M.D. Wright!” Harry rips the electrodes from his chest and scrambles from
the bed, poking his head out between the curtains in search of his doctor or his
nurse or anyone, “Bunny? Where the fuck— hello?”
Maybe he’s made a terrible mistake, maybe his impulsive nature and
propensity towards reacting first and conceptualizing later has finally bitten him
in the ass. Maybe he’d gotten something he’d wanted l’amour but was always too
terrified to ask for and as soon as he got it, he fucking demolished it. Harry’s wild
thoughts breed impatience and he scrambles back into his room to buzz
repeatedly for attention, not pausing for a breath until Bunny reappears with a
damp washcloth and a frown, “Harry, you’re not supposed to—”
Harry is suddenly ravaged with impatience, “I feel mint. I just remembered I

have a….. thing. A thing? To do, so. Am I cool to cutout?”
“No. You’re not. I want you to lie back down on that bed and wait a full hour
like Dr. Wright suggested.”
Harry grabs onto both of her shoulders and exhales slowly in order to unravel
his thoughts as briefly, sanely and significantly as possible, “Bunny, listen to me. I
feel okay. There’s someone I need to see who can help me. Right now. Now. Right
fuckin’ now.” He licks his dry lips, “Bunny. Bunny? Please. Bunny. Please.”
Regardless of whether or not Harry’s fingers were digging flames into Bunny’s
shoulders, she’s well aware that the timing and intensity of his reaction isn’t one
to be tampered with. Besides, he brought himself here on his own accord under
mostly healthy conditions, so technically he can dismiss himself in the same
manner. And she’s never been the one to stand in the way of passion, “has
something popped up?”
“Oh, yeah. Big time.”
“I’ll be right back.”

Amidst his pacing from one side of the room to the other, both Dr. Wright and
Bunny return, one with an expression of concern and the latter with googly heart
eyes and an awareness of Harry’s process. She’s in love with a hopeless romantic
herself, after all. She gets it.
“Mr. Styles, I really think—”
“C’mon. Just gimme clearance to perform tomorrow and I’ll be outta your
hair.”
Dr. Wright and Bunny exchange glances before he clears his throat and
perches a hip on the table, “slow down a minute, son.” Harry pulls his wifebeater
and shirt on, checking his pockets to make sure he still has all of your reminders,
unconcerned and unhearing of his doctor’s instruction, “your health is more
important. Can’t you cancel or reschedule it?”
Harry mulls it over and logically knows that it would have to be canceled if his
doctor demands it, but it would also be a huge disappointment to thousands of
people, including himself. His last circus career ended abruptly due to an
accident and Harry decides he would feel stagnant and defeated if he allowed
something like that to happen again. Due to another accident. Of his own making.
Again.
I’m not gonna fuckin’ drop you.
Also, he needs to have a reason to see you. He can’t understand the full, heavy
weight of it just yet, and even though it leaves a fruity cherry metallic taste in the
back of his throat, he just knows that he needs to see you. Hasty as ever, Harry
makes his decision without much rumination, “nah, that’s impossible. It’s the
season finale. There’s too much ridin‘ on it. I can rest after tomorrow.”
“You haven’t had another injury, correct? This is exclusively a memory slip?”
Harry mulls it over for approximately ten seconds; he woke up in bed naked
with you this morning. Surely you wouldn’t have slept with him if he’d just
suffered a serious injury. And surely you would have warned him this morning if
he’d just suffered a serious injury. Sure, he didn’t quite give you the opportunity
to explain much of anything and sure, he has a gnarly black eye. But he’s has
plenty of those in his life and nothing on his body particularly hurts, so he opts
for likeliness, “no injury, just the slip.”
“Alright. I would advise against it, but I can’t impose my will on you. Do you
feel like you can manage it? You can recall the routine and have been actively
performing as of recently?”
“Yep. I think so, yep.”
“You think so or you know so?”
The routine that you’ve driven into the ground together flickers through his
imagination in order; the plucking of guitar strings in the first measure of
“California Dreamin’”, your solo routine on the rope, his solo routine on the
trapeze, your flying stunts, your paired static routine on the trapeze bar in the
center of the ring, your final bow, a thunderstorm of praise. Unless anything
drastic has changed in the last four or five months, aside from the obvious, the
muscle memory of the routine all seems to be in place. And if it’s not, he could
figure it out and perfect it in an hour flat. But you’re the only person who could
verify that for him. He has no idea what to expect of your interaction, but you’re
the only person who could verify anything for him, so he just has to fucking see
you right now, “I’m fuckin’ positive.”
Can’t help it, it’s in my blood and my muscles. Kinda like you. My regimen.
“Well….. break a leg, Mr. Styles.”

Merde.
“’Kay, killer. Thanks, M.D.”
“Bunny, get him discharged while I get Mr. Styles a prescription for
Methaqualone and some follow-up instructions. Harry?”
Harry’s attention flittered off as soon as his permission was granted, but he
does manage to pause long enough to cover his eyes with sunglasses and light a
new smoke, his body halfway through the curtain as he pursues escape, “what’s
up?”
“Take care of yourself and those around you with as much responsibility as
you can manage.”
“Naturally.”
Bunny’s graveyard shift must be coming to an end because on Harry’s escort

towards the exit, arms full of Quaaludes and handwritten care instructions that
he’ll never read, he catches a glimpse of Bunny’s husband there to pick her up.
Sporting long wavy hippie hair and flared corduroy trousers and a soft
demeanor, leaning on the front desk to talk to the same nurse who was an
asshole to him, making her light up with a type of joy that was lost on Harry. He
has the inexplicable desire to kiss him and stick his tongue his mouth, then
squish him like a bug under his shoe and flush him down the toilet or something.
But he doesn’t have time to think about that right now, with memories flooding
his brain with disorderly debris like the wreckage of a tsunami.
Harry scrambles through the automatic sliding doors. A green Ford bronco
idles by the sidewalk. His eyes start to burn as tears push through. Sunlight
soothes him. A flood of memories starts pouring in clips and fractions as if
squeezed through a pinhole and blown into a tangled empty lake, filling and
rolling and swimming and curling around seaweed and muck and dead branches.
His clammy palms clinging to a pink fiberglass table, leaving little breaths of
fingerprints beside discarded paper straw wrappers, his bottom lip catching yours
in an uncharacteristic, timid kiss.
His curls are sticking to his salty, wet cheeks.
His eyes lower to the slow slip of flimsy fabric, two soaking wet embroidered
cherries, a flash of light bursting to life in his peripheral vision.
He fumbles for his car keys in his pocket. They slip from his hand and splay
open like a dead starfish on the hot pavement.
He inches closer to you through the grass and rests his head in your lap, your
fingers slipping into his hair before you scratch his scalp, dragging a comet tail of
goosebumps down his back.
Swiping the keys from the cement, he piles into his car, tosses all of his
hospital vittles into the back and fishes around for the ignition.
His cheek nuzzling into your open palm, just before you squeeze his cheeks and
puff his lips out, leaving a kiss and a grin painted on his lips.
He needs to see you. He needs answers. He needs this painful hole to seal up
and stop releasing air. Or maybe the painful hole needs to be torn wide open so
that all the air can spill out. He needs to see you. He needs answers.
His biceps burn as he swings you up onto the trapeze bar before joining you for a
final hair-raising shower of applause from the audience. A blistering snowy
spotlight that bleaches the audience to black, disappearing with you behind the
backstage curtains. Checking the scene for clearance before pinning you to the wall
for a sweaty, stolen kiss.
The locket glows to life in his pocket, a faint red electric light peering through
the fabric of his trousers pocket. He tugs the necklace free and slips it over his
head, tucks the locket into his undershirt, roars the van to life and starts to drive
to your house, but stops.
Where in the fuck do you live?
But then more dominoes fall.
The locket; your headshot. The headshot; your resume. Your resume; your
address. Your address; the theatre. With a flick of his wrist he whips the sun
visor down, peeling from the parking spot with the heel of his hand on the wheel
and his free thumb between his teeth, chewing on a new hangnail. This is a wild
goose chase at best, but Harry has always loved puzzles, loved a challenge, loved
a secret, loved a chase.
He’s nothing without constant deliberation. He contemplates; therefore, he is.

He loves; therefore, he persists.
“I wish I could forget, too.”
Nettie lies beside you on the shag carpet in the living room, hovering a Margo
Guryan record sleeve over her face as she studies the art on the front and back.
She hasn’t left your side since she’s come home, pulling you out of dark spaces
when reality washes over you and also allowing you to sink, helping you fold
laundry and doing her damndest to just keep you afloat. Admittedly, it has felt
like the longest handful of hours of her life, so she can only imagine how you’re
feeling.
For some reason you can’t shake the contrast between the feeling of Harry’s
bed sheets while you were falling asleep versus how they felt when you awoke
this morning. Once a silken dream of gossamer threads and tangible sunshine
turned into starched paper-thin hell, scratchy and reeking of dejection and
failure. Every so often his angry eyes glow to life; the tug of his eyebrows and the
tight pull of his mouth. Your blood runs cold. The fire has gone out and now it’s
dark.
You’d reluctantly forfeited the one thing you’ve fought for your entire life, the
one thing you feel the need to hold on to, the one thing that acted as your tool for
anxiety stress consistency routine drive success love passion: control. You
forfeited it to Harry and he turned around and ran off with it. Losing someone
slowly, painstakingly, harrowingly versus losing someone in the blink of an eye
may seem like an easier condition to cope with. Maybe yes and maybe no; the
sensation of residual pain is the same, but the only difference is the questions
you’re left with after they’re gone.
You’re both ghosts now, both to one another and to yourselves. Whether or
not true death is involved, mourning will do that to a person.
And what do you do when you want the hunger pangs to stop, but you don’t
have the energy to feed yourself?
“No, you don’t. It might feel like that right now but trust me, Harry is suffering
a major loss right now. Think of all the amazing and wild things the two of you
have done together. How could you want to erase all of that?”
Your legs are hugged to your chest, your cheek resting on your knees. A pile of
socks that still need to be paired lay in a pile between you and your best friend,
“it’s different now. Those things don’t feel amazing or happy anymore, because
now they’re tied to a person who doesn’t want their reality to be real.”
You’d thought the tide had recessed. You’d thought there were gemstones
there. A rainbow of them, shiny and smooth. But you were wrong. It’s phantoms.
Nothing but phantoms. Lots of them, surrounded by shards of broken jagged sea
glass. They’re cutting into your feet as you attempt to navigate your way back to
an abandoned paradise. There’s blood. Carnage. Everywhere. All you can do is
stare, wondering how gemstones can turn to coal without even blinking.
“Maybe not now, but what if his memory recovers—”
“No, Nettie, we’re done. Everything about us, even if his memory recovers. It
was nearly impossible to crumble those walls we’d both had up the first time. I
can’t climb that mountain again. I can’t do this back-and-forth blind trust fall; it
feels like a pop quiz I’m not prepared for and it’s scary. And who knows if he’ll
ever come back? This is his brain trying to protect itself from me, again, because
something inside of him knows better and has known all along.”
Like a sealed envelope that someone tried to carefully weasel open and reseal
in an effort to hide their sneaking around for stolen information. The end result
isn’t fooling anyone. And it’ll never be the same.
“Yeah, I totally get it. It’s impossible to conclusively know based on current
events what’s going to hurt or what’s going to feel great in the future. But also,
nothing says things have to be a certain way. Please don’t decide this yet. It feels
pessimistic.”
“I’ve decided. It’s not pessimistic, it’s realistic. It can happen any time, any
place, again and again. It scares the crap out of me. I can’t keep going through this
same cycle or live with the fear that he might erase me at any given moment. And
our jobs? Our jobs can’t withstand that seesawing either. This is a sign. It has to
stop.”
Black-and-white. Harsh lines. Self-protection and preservation. It was hard
enough to watch your dignity squish between your toes as you ran barefoot from
his van like an escaped attempted-murder victim, your blood drying in his briefs
and phantom tears streaking your face, tangled hair from where his hands ran
through it all night, the fog of your dream mixing with crumbs of the evening
prior mixing with the twist of his betrayed features. As if you’d planned every
second of this to intentionally hurt him, instead of the other way around.
And now, you’re suddenly and overwhelmingly worried for his current well-
being. Harry with half a brain, wandering around Malibu for answers. Harry with
half a heart, wandering this lifetime with no oxygen. You’re starting to imagine
him crashing his van or getting drunk or going as far as sleeping with a burner
just to smother your scent. Sunny wouldn’t dare do something like that, but with
Harry, it’s hard to know exactly how much he’ll test the limits of his self-
destruction.
But then again, they’re the same person.
Rising to your feet with a groan of exasperation, you raise the volume of the
music with a flick of the dial, before pacing into the kitchen for a new lollipop, “I
hope he’s okay, Nettie. It’s a big world to be lost and scared in. I wish he would’ve
let me try harder this morning. He could not have gotten me out of his van any
faster.” You pop the lollipop between your teeth and lean against the wall with
your arms crossed over your chest, “is it technically cheating on me if he sleeps
with a burner and he doesn’t remember that he has a girlfriend?”
Nettie glances at you upside down, “baby….. I don’t want you to think about
that. This recuperation is on him. You can’t control his actions. And apparently,
neither can he. He’s managed himself in the past, he’ll be okay.”
“He hasn’t always. He’s suffered, a lot, in the past. Oh god…..” You drop your
face into your palms and then rejoin Nettie on the ground, remembering what
had happened the last time the two of you got into a big fight and he decided to
blow off steam by surfing, “now I’m scared. Where is he?” Nettie’s hand
squeezing your shoulder in a couple soothing pulses is enough for you to flip the
direction of your thinking, “can you tell me some Honey Princess Hour tidbits?”
“What? I don’t think that would be helpful—”
“Please. Tell me something devastating. I want to hear it all now so that this
doesn’t drag on for months and months, like a wound that keeps reopening
before it can scab. Kind of like ripping the bandage off. I want to air out all the
pain now so I can spend my time processing it and then promptly forget it.”
“Fine. He wants your babies, Vivienne. Don’t give up on him yet. And don’t act
like this is something you’ll forget.”
into your ear.
“Make love to you on the beach. Knock you up, Cherry baby. Keep you forever.”
“More?”
The lollipop in your mouth is just small and soft enough now for you to bite
into it, the hardened sugar molding to the crevices of your teeth and artificial
cherry diluting from the flavor of the paper stick, “I already knew that, Nettie. But
I don’t want his or anyone else’s for my own personal reasons. Especially not
now. He’s gone. And if by some sacred miracle he’s not completely gone….. I don’t
know how or if I can ever trust him again. I can’t help but view him differently
now.”
Nettie climbs to her knees to position her at eye level with you, silently
conveying the depth of her next statement with merely body language. Although
her speech does slow down a bit from its typical ringing, clipped dryness. She
allows her next statement to drip like hot honey, “I hear you. I really do. And
you’re saying nothing but facts. But remember there was a part of Harry that
died when Indy did. The part of him that was always happy and loved love, that
trusted others and wanted their connection. He changed after that, any of us
would, but his mind wouldn’t let him forget that it ever existed. His surfing
accident allowed it to leak back out because he felt unguarded and safe, running
a trial of forgiveness and chasing a pursuit of happiness again. A way to move
forward because he was so stagnant and heavy carrying all of that baggage
around. Let him pick up the pieces before you punt him from your life forever.
He’s a good one. He really is.”
Both you and Nettie hear the pounding of footsteps up the stairwell that leads
to your apartment at the same time. Nettie is on her feet one whole second
before you are, her jaw hanging slack as she flounders and tries to do damage
control on a situation that hasn’t even begun yet, “Vivienne, don’t—”
It’s hard to tell which sound comes first, the pounding of a fist against your
door or the raspy, frantic shout that lies somewhere between molten lava and
peppermint ice cream, “j’ai foiré! Cerise!”
Your love language and your nickname and your love language and your
nickname — what the fuck is happening?
You’re whispering. You’re whispering but it’s originating from somewhere

uncharted and strange inside your guts, “Nettie, Nettie—” Hot tears carve bloody
cuts down your cheeks and you’re just cognizant enough to feel your hands
trembling, “no, no, no. I can’t talk to him yet. I can’t see his face. I’m not ready to
hear anything he has to say. Does he remember? I don’t know what to say to him,
I’m too confused. Please—”
“I got it.”
And from the other side of your door, “-please talk to me. Please, please, please
talk to me. I’m wiggin’ the fuck out. Cherry—”
You know that Harry allowing himself to be seen during such a big emotional
moment is hard for him. Or maybe this emotional moment is just so big that he
has no control over whether or not he’s seen. And you know how much he hates
that, too.
Your surroundings are blurred by tears, by anxiety, by heartbreak. You hear

yourself ask, “what if he doesn’t remember you? What are you going to say?”
And from the other side of the door, “-just lemme see your face for two
seconds—”
“I got it. Don’t worry. You don’t have to face him and you shouldn’t yet. You’re
just going to bite each other’s heads off. He’s not calm. He hasn’t been calm since
he woke up this morning and you haven’t had enough time to shoulder this. He
won’t be able to hear anything right now because his need to be heard is too
strong. He needs neutrality. Let me talk to him.”
Nettie steps towards the door but you drag her back, trying to hear yourself
think over Harry’s tearful and desperate pleading barely muffled by the feeble
barrier of your apartment, “wait. Can you ask him if he remembers our
performance routine?” Her facial expression twists in shock and bewilderment,
“don’t look at me like that. Any little thing that could smooth even a single shred
of anxiety right now, Nettie. Please. I need a hint of how tomorrow is going to go.
It’s extremely important to me.”
And from the other side of your door, “-it hurts so fuckin’ bad—”
“Go pour yourself a massive glass of wine and take a bath. Or just drink
straight out of the bottle, whatever.” Nettie cups your cheeks and pulls your sight
away from his palm meeting the door, hard, with two loud smacks, “listen! You
take care of your own thoughts and your own body right now. Don’t psych
yourself out on what he’s doing, it’s okay to want to get your head as straight as
possible before you interact. He’ll wait. It’s inappropriate timing for him to be
here, you’re both too raw. You’re not ready and he’s just going to have to be okay
with that. I’ll be right back. Try not to worry, okay? Just be glad he’s alive and
picking up some memories. Things will be better tomorrow. Bath, now.” She
dashes into the kitchen and pulls a bottle of rosé from the fridge before guiding
you into the bathroom, “I’ll be back in an hour.”
Nettie waits. Through the tap of the Kit Cat clock and through Harry’s
miserable sobs and through the muffled whoosh of water filling the bathtub
behind the door, she waits. This isn’t exactly what she predicted may have
happened by agreeing to be your roommate, but she supposes that you never
anticipated this outcome for your life in Malibu either. One notion that she can
safely agree upon is that when someone gets involved with Harry, they’ll never
have a dull day to cross off on their calendar.
And from the other side of the door, weaker now, “-if you have any feelings for
me anymore, or not, please, just—
When she is fairly certain that you’ll keep to the bathroom, Nettie goes on a
quick little hunt through the apartment. She gathers some of your personal
items; Nina Simone and Françoise Hardy records, a fistful of cherry lollipops, one
of your half-burned candles, Harry’s love note on the kitchen counter that you
couldn’t bring yourself to clean up. A hair ribbon. Several tissues. Trying to hit all
five of his senses in order to jog the process of recovery.
She piles it all into the box of his things that you’ve left in the entryway and
with one big calming breath, she runs her fingers through her hair and pops the
door open, just a crack, “Harry, baby, I need you to take a big ol’ breath and two
small steps backwards.”
Upon hearing her calming voice, the color yellow as it pushes through clouds
and strikes the ears, Harry manages one step back but forgets to breathe. If she
were a flavor of Crush cigarettes, she would be pineapple. Harry’s second
favorite. The kind that he gets when the shop runs out of cotton candy.
He studies her face for a moment and then looks down at the splotches of
yellow nail polish on his fingers before locking eyes through the space in the
door, “Wynette. Hi.”
Nettie pities him. Nettie pities him more than she’s ever pitied another person,
including you. And the sight of him before her; undershirt partially untucked and
hair a tangled ball of yarn, face wet with tears and a shiner turning green under
his eye, bloody hangnails and trembling hands, a heartbreak so strong she can
smell it, it all forces her to step into the hallway and wrap him up in a warm,
tremendous hug.
Harry’s body sags and melts, his grip on her almost enough to squeeze every
pinch of air from her lungs and his lips stick to her hair when he bursts out a
wretched sob, “everything’s so loud.”
“Yes, you’re definitely loud. Both of you. And on a Sunday? What would Jesus
think?”
It’s clearly sarcastic, the tight-lipped hum of peeved amusement that warms
her hair next.
Pulling away, Nettie gathers his box of belongings and closes the door behind
her, “come on, let’s go for a little walk.”
Harry stares blankly at the box in her hands, instantly recognizing his clothing
and his records and his books, his half-empty packs of cigarettes. He doesn’t
exactly see anything, but rather stews over everything. Contemplates it. All the
while, hot memories from your time together continue to worm through all of the
dead parts of his brain.
The view of you through your curtain in a little cardigan and pleated emerald
skirt while his van idles outside of your duplex, smoking a cigarette in the
moonlight, waiting for you to come down but you never do.
He silently curses your self-imposed emotional suffocation, the necessary flip

of a black-and-white switch in order to protect your heart. The heart that you’d
tried to fiercely protect since the very beginning, long before he started pursuing
you. The one he promised he would take care of and preserve in a fancy jar of
sweet pink solution corked up on a high shelf, the one he begged you to hand
over until you reluctantly did, but that all ended up being an unfortunate
deception. But he supposes he can’t blame you, considering he’s done exactly the
same.
Dancing, dancing at Chubby’s, his nose tucked into the open placket of your
blouse. Dancing in your living room while he watches your shadow through the
curtains, spray painting the window with streaks of sappy pink romance.
He hadn’t thought to return your items that he found in his van; he assumed
that he would earn your favor again with his heartfelt heartbreaking declarations
spoken through heart-shaped lips, that you would still be there for him
regardless of if he’d unintentionally or maybe a little intentionally hurt you with
his words, that you would waltz right back into his life and accept his faux pas for
what it was, a faux pas. Even if it was a rather violent, abrupt and scary one. But
trust isn’t something easily gained, so once it has been disturbed, it’s messy and
dangerous to dance with. Especially when it comes to you.
Shooting pool, his cheek meeting yours as you both hover over the red felt pool
table. Chasing you in the sand, tackling you as you trip and fall into the soft,
burning dry ground.
Harry doesn’t remember every single thing from your romance yet, not even
close, but the main points have resurfaced as far as he can tell. He knows you
dated for months. He knows you had sex. He knows you speak a bit of French. He
knows who Nettie is and he remembers your duplex and he knows you spent a
lot of time dancing together just past the threshold of this door that no longer
welcomes him. He’s certain the rest would return with time and patience and a
little love if only you were present enough to provide him with that time and
patience and love.
Kissing you with his hand wrapped around your throat, shower water beating
down, wet hair clinging to his cheeks and your neck as the pink tile chills your back.
Kissing you in bed after slipping a sleep mask away from your eyes, your sleepy
smiles egging the other on as his hand disappears under the sheets.
Kissing you after checking that the coast is clear, hiding you around a backstage
corner and ignoring the small sting in his shoulder from your playful smack.
Kissing you on the back of a red vinyl couch, record spinning in the corner of the
room beneath a hanging swag lamp, empty wine glasses rest with wet rings woven
on the coffee table in his peripheral vision.
Kissing you in the front seat of his van, your legs straddling his lap as the electric
lighter on the dash pops to signal its readiness.
With a tuck of his cigarette between his teeth and a flippant flick through his
belongings, Harry pulls the box from Nettie’s hands and drops it to the ground, “I
don’t want this shit. I don’t need it. I need her!” And just like that, he’s the flipside
of calm again and squeezing past Nettie to jiggle the door handle and pound his
fist again, “Vivienne! Ne fais pas ça!”
Nettie rushes behind him and pulls on his shirt, finally gaining enough traction
to grip him by the shoulders and tug him away from your apartment. She presses
her palms to his chest, trying to see into his eyes and absorb any pain that he’s
oozing, “Harry, Harry, Harry, shh….. please try to take a breath. I know this is
awful, but we still need to try to be rational.”
“No, no, no, I remember. Nettie, I remember. Maybe not every little fuckin’
speck because I— I don’t know how to….. know. How does anyone know? I lost
her for a sec, that’s it. Trust me. I have to talk to her. Please, please, please fuckin’
god, please let me in there.” Paranoid that you’ll overhear him and be tempted to
relieve him of his suffering, Nettie grabs his hand and tries to pull him towards
the stairs while he unspools a thread of lament, “I can’t breathe! Please tell me
this isn’t happenin’. Please. Why did this happen to us? I’m gonna lose my fuckin’
mind. She’s never gonna trust me again.”
Especially not when you lose your job in twenty-four hours for reasons that
have not yet become clear to him, but the obvious answer is you’ve been caught
in your tryst and since Harry’s position is held in higher regard than yours, it
makes unjust but common sense that you’d be the one who’s punished. He has no
idea if Tex was talking out of his ass or not, but he’s got this hollow pit between
his heart and his stomach that refuses to relent. The truth, perhaps. Buried deep.
“It appears you’ve already lost it, Harry.” Nettie reaches into the box and pulls
out just a few items, shoving them into her pockets and holding the records to
her chest, “you can’t go in there right now for several reasons. You’re both
traumatized. You hate dealing with important shit in the moment, remember?
Your words. I think it would be a bad idea to try and work things out as a couple
when you’re both still working things out internally and individually, especially
for you. This just happened. This is still fresh and it’s still confused. Let your
brain smolder and then smooth out a little bit. Be gentle with it; it’s on fire and
needs to cool down. You’re going to end up fighting and making each other cry.
You can’t expect the person you’ve hurt to help you with recovery. You’ve got to
do that on your own first. It’ll be like Pangea exploding….. or the opposite?
Whatever. Smother your impulsivity for as long as you can possibly manage. You
will see her again soon, okay?” She takes his hand and weaves their fingers
together, “c’mon, let’s go to the beach.”
Harry whips his hand from her grip, “no! Why are you helpin’ me anyway?
Shouldn’t you stay with Vivienne?”
“She’ll understand. She’ll be okay on her own for a little while. She’s taking a
bath anyway, it’s okay. Come on.”
“Does she even like baths?”
“You see, that’s something Sunny would know. Let’s go try and get him back a
little bit first.” Nettie hooks her arm through his and tugs gently, “come on.”
The word “Cherry” makes it down the hallway in a gravelly shout, but the little
whimper that Harry emits doesn’t quite reach your ears.
Much like a Great Dane puppy, Harry’s feet slap on each step as he reluctantly
shadows Nettie outside, from the stairwell of rejection to the salty air and the
palm trees and the too-bright sunshine, “well, does she?”
“No, not really. She gets sweaty and restless. But don’t worry, I gave her a
bottle of rosé.”
Struggling with the force of the wind, Harry pulls the cigarette from his mouth
before he has a chance to properly light it, “what? What if she gets drunk and falls
asleep and drowns—”
“Harry, have you ever seen her drink too much or be out of control in any
way?”
I wish I could lose control.

His face falls into his palms to muffle his frustrated shout. When he looks back
up at Nettie, her eyes are wide enough to absorb the solar system, “that happens
sometimes. And I dunno, I’ve never seen her drink a bottle of wine in a bathtub
while heartbroken before. I don’t think. Have you? ’Cause of me?”
“Nice try.” Nettie removes her sandals and sinks her toes into the sand as soon
as they arrive on the beach. But Harry’s comfort near his god is a little more
natural, judging by the way he pulls his shirts off and ditches them in a pile with
his shoes, taking off in a jog and then crumbling near the water. Splayed out in
the sand, sand sticking to his sweat. To his hair. His grief. After half a minute,
Nettie joins him but in a much smoother manner, “phew. We were about to make
missing posters with your face on them. ’Have you seen the Sun?’ That kinda
thing. Do you remember that she calls you that?”
Watch out, Sunshine. Totally saturated in stunning, bright pink Sunshine. I’m
sorry, Sunny. Keep going. I’ll behave. Not here, Sunny. Please. You’re so sweet to me,
Sunbaby.
The sun frosts his skin with layers of lemon and meringue, his god laps at the
shore, “mmm….. mhm, yeah. I do now. Sunbaby.” The memory pulls a smile onto
his cheeks, “can you tell me somethin’ else? Feels good. Like the clouds are
breakin’ up.”
Carefully placing the records down, Nina Simone’s face greeting the sun,
Nettie drags her fingers through Harry’s hair and watches his pink smoke form
broken hearts in the air, “there was one night when I was supposed to be staying
at my boyfriend Asher’s place, but I wasn’t feeling well so I decided to sleep at
home instead. I came in around midnight, it was a Saturday, and you and Bibi
were slow dancing in the kitchen. Like, a proper mom-and-pop slow dance. You
dipped her and everything. I stood in the doorway watching in awe for a minute
before I even announced my entrance because it felt too perfect to interrupt. I
think you were listening to ’Goin’ Out of My Head’. She was so happy that her
cheeks were glowing pink. You were singing the back-up vocals in the chorus. I
almost turned around and left because it seemed like I was interrupting a
delicate process of nature. Romance like that is rare, ya know.”
Harry faces the sky with tears streaming off the sides of his cheeks to his ears,
“it was ’Goin’ Out of My Head’ first, then I put on ’Problems’ by Lee Fields. I
remember because we had to speed up our tempo. That’s when I dipped her. And
spun her ’round. Then your big fuckin’ mouth popped our love bubble.” He rolls
onto his side and props his wet cheek on her knee, his legs curling around hers,
“what did you say again?”
“I said it was past your bedtime.”
“Dork. Can I see her now?”
“I think you should wait.”
“Be honest, yeah? You don’t want me to see her because she’s done with me?”
Nettie doesn’t answer and his heart stutters within the tense pause, “I just tap
danced all over her biggest fuckin’ fear. I don’t blame her. Can I just see her face?”
“You’ll see it tomorrow. Utilize this,” she tugs on the chain around his neck,
“for now.”
“At work? Fuck that! It’s gonna be a disaster. We need to talk right now.”
“Oh, yeah….. are you going to be able to perform tomorrow?”
Harry frowns in accusation, knowing damn well where this question is coming
from. Both based on the shift in her tone and also because he knows how you
operate very, very well, “did she tell you to ask me that?”
“Um…..”
“Is that the only thing she told you to say to me? That and to shove a box full of
shit at my chest that means nothing to me?” Their eyes dance together for a
moment of silence before he digs his fingers into his scalp and growls, “sounds
just like her. Fuck, she drives me up the fuckin’ wall. I won’t give her the
satisfaction of an answer. She can be sick to her stomach all night just like I’ll be.”
“Harry! Did you think she wasn’t going to feel like that regardless? You’re both
childish when you’re hurt. Do you know the fucking routine or not?”
“Of course! Fuck. If I remember what her peach tastes like, I remember how to
spin in a fuckin’ circle. Besides, M.D. Wright gave me clearance.”
“You saw your doctor?” He nods and she pouts her bottom lip, returning his
nod in a gesture of surprised approval, “I’m impressed.” Nettie reaches into her
pocket and pulls out the love note that Harry left for you just a day ago, a day that
feels so long ago that everyone involved could swear that it’s been an entire
lifetime. She unfolds it and hovers it over his face, “does this ring a bell?”
Squinting at it, Harry reads the greeting first before sitting up and swiping it
from her hands, his sandy curls falling in his face as reads and mouths the words
at the same time, “when’s this from?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“Jesus. ’Tu ne quittes jamais mon esprit.’ Say what? Is that a sick joke? Fuckin’
definition of irony. I’m a walkin’ parody of my goofy-ass self.”
“I don’t know what that means.”

His attention is still drawn to the crinkled paper held tightly in his hands, “she
was a virgin last time I checked, y’know. Do you know how long we’ve been
rubbin’ bellies?” Nettie merely gives him a sad glance, little reflections of light in
her soggy eyes and her silence is the only answer Harry needs. The silence fills in
the gaps. The silence picks at that hole in his chest where everything is leaking
from until his nose burns and his eyes burn and hot streaks of salt water pour
down his splotchy cheeks, “no. Fuck no. Oh my god. That was-?” Nettie threads
their fingers together and squeezes his hand tight, his head knocking back as he
cries with fearless sympathy. For you, for him. For you, “what the fuck have I
done?”
“Nothing, Harry. It wasn’t a flippant decision. You’ve done nothing wrong by

expressing your love. It’s just awful, horrible, bad timing. For the both of you. Do
you want advice or do you just want to me to just listen?”
“Advice. Direct instructions. Please. For fuckin’ fuck’s sake.”
“Go home and write it all down.”
Carefully folding the note up and adding it into his pocket beside his little
collection of your special items, Harry chuckles at her suggestion and swipes a
palm down his face, “apparently I have been. A lot. I found a fuckton of blackout
poetry in a locked cabinet—”
“You found what? Love poems? Love poems that you wrote? Love poems that
you wrote about Bibi? And you didn’t bother to look at them….. why?”
“I couldn’t handle it yet.”
“Harry…..”
“Nettie.”
“Oh my god? Are you-?” Nettie plucks his cigarettes from the sand and wiggles
her fingers in a request for his book of matches. But like the true gentleman he is,
he lights it for her and she takes her times inhaling and exhaling before imparting
wisdom, “okay….. go home and read them all. Right now. And then grab a
notebook and write more. Write her a letter, write her a hundred pages, write
until your fingers bleed. Anything that comes to mind. Don’t question it. I know
she’s still inside of you, every bit of her. This is your process; it’s practically
spelled out for you with a neon shout. You’re a poetic speaker, in your own way,
so I know you’d be a poetic writer. And I’m not surprised at all that you hid your
true feelings from yourself and then when you found them, avoided confronting
them, by the way. And yes, that was a burn.”
“I dunno if I’ve ever showed her?” Tepid. Warm. Hot. Cold. Frigid. Ice. You’re
naked in the arctic circle. Butt-ass naked. Do you really think I’d fuckin’ tell you? At
the recollection, Harry erupts into bitter, dry laughter, “nevermind. Yeah, I
haven’t. Roasted. I’m a dumb fuckin‘ stunned fuck.”
“Well….. you make a better surfer than an undercover special agent, so at least
none of us are bewildered.”
“Sit on it, fuckface.”
“No, thanks. Listen to me. Go home, drive somewhere unusual for you and
clean and compose your van. Every time you get hit with a little slice of memory,
try to hold onto it as much as you can and write it down. As you write, it’ll help
expand on those memories and get you digging and organizing. That’s what you
need to do right now, okay? Tear apart the closet, sort it all and run it through the
wash, then tuck it all back away neatly. You can do it. It has to run its course. It’s
all there, it’s just a mess. Just start and then maybe you’ll get someone else’s
input soon and it’ll help fill in some of the empty hangers.”
Harry cups the back of Nettie’s neck and kisses her forehead, before nuzzling
his soggy cheek against the crown of her head, “thank you.”
“Welcome, Henry.”
Like beams of pale-yellow sun slipping through an impossibly dreary sky, his
dimple sinks into his cheek and the soft whisper of a chuckle spills through his
teeth, “nice one, Nettie pot.”
“See? One pair of socks already tucked away.”
“I have a feeling I’ve still got some pretty heavy winter coats and wool
trousers to fuck around with. Especially considerin’ I have to go pile drive
through the flotsam and jetsam that is my fuckin’ house right now.”
One thing that paints Nettie a little unintentionally intimidating is that she
doesn’t laugh very often, which is something that Harry has a particularly odd
relationship with, because that’s one thing he pulls out of people pretty easily
under normal circumstances. Being met with laughter is something that makes
Harry comfortable, because sometimes he finds it easier to connect with others
over feelings of deeper meaning through dark humor. But this small little
uncharacteristic giggle from your roommate has relief flooding Harry’s veins and
loosening the chokehold on his neck, “you say the most bizarre things.”
He’s succinctly beautiful when he smiles. Succinctly and infinitely, “I just find it
somehow ironically perfect that she cleaned all my shit up into a starched frenzy
and folded it into unnaturally flawless squares within the confines of a small,
contained vessel and my van looks like someone threw an atomic bomb at a junk
yard.”
“You should see our apartment.”
“There’s a metaphor in there for our brain experiences right now. Her
madness is a pristinely packaged lollipop and mine’s the chewed-up stick.”
Harry strikes a match, the flame sizzling against the tip of his pink cigarette.
“While you’re cleaning, listen to these.” She slides the Nina Simone and
Françoise Hardy records towards him, placing a half-burned, cherry-scented
candle on top. After a pregnant pause from both of them, Nettie slips a handful of
your cherry lollipops from her pocket into his open, lifeless palm, “here.”
Harry exhales a thick cloud of pink smoke; a wavy lock of chocolate scrapes
his cheekbone when he looks down.
And then after a smaller pause, she wordlessly slips a tuft of tissues on top of
the lollipops and closes his fingers around the bundle into a soft fist. Her head
rests on his shoulder and his temple rests on the top of her head, both of their
eyes downcast at his defenseless hands filled with slow, soft, sweet clues.
The Finale // Part Two is around the corner. Then an extra will be posted. Then
you have epilogues and yet another extra to look forward to. Follow me on Twitter
(armpitsandeggs) for details. Love y’all from the bottom of my heart with my whole
entire heart and heart rainbow sprinkles on top. Xx Birdie
He does this, y’know.
He’s not different.
Please be careful.
Don’t you have amnesia, too.
Boggy.
No one can nail him down.
Wasn’t he sweet on you for a hot minute?
Turns out it was just brain damage.
A complete mess.
Gunky.
I couldn’t give it up to someone I’d have to face every day.
Could you imagine the fallout?

Torrential.
Yeah, a disaster.
Muck.
Primarily, the only phrases that squirm in your mind on your walk to work
this morning are past cautions from your friends and coworkers, the very
reverberations that would have kept you out of trouble if you’d listened to the
landslide of outside advice and your own brain instead of your heart from the
beginning. It doesn’t matter now, of course, with a lollipop anxiously clicking
against your teeth as you pry open the heavy door leading to the back entrance of
the theatre at seven-thirty A.M. on Monday morning, the day of your final
performance of the season.
The hope was to get here early enough, before Harry finishes with his routine
daybreak surfing session, so that you can take the proper amount of time to
unwind and prepare yourself for whatever may be coming your way today.
Admittedly, you were half-expecting to see Harry waiting outside of your
apartment but not surprised that he wasn’t and yet, still saddened by it. Because
now that each onion layer of your past life in Malibu slowly begins to peel away
in front of your eyes, the more real it feels. And we all know how much chopping
an onion can sting.
After Nettie returned from the beach yesterday afternoon, you could tell that
she was walking on eggshells in regards to the things she chose to share with
you. Both for your protection and for Harry’s. It would seem that although her
loyalty still lies heavily in your favor, that she now harbors quite an iceberg’s
worth for Harry as well, most of it hidden below the surface of the dark, secretive
water. However, you did manage to weasel a few tidbits of information; that he
remembers you, but not all of you. That he’s extraordinarily rattled, that he
received clearance from his doctor to perform, that although he loves you with
every breath that moves in and out of his lungs, he’s upset that you couldn’t bring
yourself to talk to him.
When you started to put on your shoes and chase after him, she warned you
that it was no use. He was long gone for the evening, without a hint as to where
he was heading.
When she shuffled the box of his items that you’d so carefully cleaned and
packed away back into your apartment, she didn’t need to explain to you that
Harry had refused to take it. You could have guessed that yourself, before it even
happened. You’re only wishing that he had thought to bring your roller skates
back so that you didn’t have to walk to the theatre this morning, but that’s selfish.
You’re selfish. And sometimes, when you break your priorities down and really
think about them from all angles; from the view of the sea and the sky and the
sand, you kind of wish you could kick yourself in the stomach. Maybe this is just
the eye-opener you’ve been searching for, in a hundred different forms.
And you hate to admit it, but a big part of you wished that instead of that box
of clothes and records and food, that she’d brought Sunny back with her instead.
The Sunny who made love to you and stole you pink bunnies at Golden Pier. The
Sunny who makes you laugh for the hell of it, the Sunny who makes you come for
the thrill of it.
But he’s changed now. And when something life-altering happens and
transforms a person, they’re just different. There’s no way around it. It happens
to every single one of us throughout our time on Earth; many times, if we’re
lucky. The pain of growth is unrivaled and the euphoria of progress is
extraordinary, but you can only see it when you hold the light of a candle up to
the dark.
On your way out of your apartment, the last bouquet of sunflowers that Harry
had brought you sat loudly and proudly on your kitchen counter. The very
kitchen that you avoided for several reasons; you couldn’t bear the thought of
stomaching any food this morning and even the idea of opening your refrigerator
and stealing a glance at the carton of orange juice was too much to swallow.
Instead you swiped a single sunflower from its vase, packed your bag with a
change of clothes and then reached for your skates. Except they weren’t in the
entryway as they usually are, because they’re still in Harry’s van. And you might
never know if you’ll get them back or if he heaved them into the ocean out of
frustration along with another pair of his shoes. Kind of like your relationship
after you woke up on Sunday morning.
The theatre is eerily quiet and mostly dark, echoing your footsteps and
eclipsing the umbrellas which quietly decorate the ceiling in their sphere. Since
the performance doesn’t start until seven in the evening and all of the circus
members are exquisitely practiced, most people don’t bother to show up until
after noon. You’re always here early for several reasons; you believe that there is
no such thing as too much practice and you’d gotten into the habit of waking at
daybreak with your Sunny lover, so there was no point in sitting around at home
twiddling your thumbs. Besides, you appreciate the peace and quiet. The lack of
judgment that comes with dusting off your pointe shoes and reliving your
favorite ballet routines when no one is watching. Even if it makes your ankle feel
tight and achy, rehashing feelings of nostalgia is almost always worth the pain.
I bet those joints tastes like your Cherry pie now. Spark one up, bitch. And hand
me a banana, please, baby? I’m fuckin’ famished.
Almost always.
The first place that you visit is your dressing room and the first thing you
notice, rather viscerally, is Harry’s leather jacket strewn on the couch and his
skateboard propped up against the standing screen. You were wrong about
arriving here before he had, and now you’re wondering if he skipped surfing this
morning because he wasn’t feeling up for it or if he simply surfed early this
morning because he didn’t even bother to sleep.
It’s as if he’d come by and dropped his things and immediately left again; no
cigarette butts in the ashtrays, no hearts with ’je t’aime’ drawn on the vanity
mirror with your lipstick, no Pop-Tart wrappers in the trash bin, no half-empty
glasses of water. No flickers of sunshine in any corner. But you know Harry,
before and after his surfing accident, he tends to haunt one of three places aside
from your dressing room: the courtyard, the community kitchen.
Or practice room two.
You drop your things and change into a bodysuit and warmups, a ribbon and
bobby pins holding your hair from your face. Trembling hands apply a swipe of
cherry lip balm. Seizing the resting sunflower from your vanity, you don’t even
bother to check for Harry in the first two places that crossed your mind and
instead head directly for the practice room.
One nauseating footstep at a time.
And your discovery comes audibly at first; the navy-blue cool timbre of Nina
Simone’s rendition of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” carrying through the
crack in the slightly-ajar door. The discovery is scented next; mouthfuls of warm
cotton candy sugar mixed with the ineffable, mild trademark of Harry’s skin and
hazelnut curls. As you push open the door, the third is visual; a room tinged in
the afterglow of flamingo pink smoke, your fickle loverboy seated against the
wall of mirrors below the ballet barre. Gray fitted sweatpants, wifebeater tucked
in at the waist, belt cinched around his middle; his typical attire. His jaw pops as
he chews gum, a notebook is propped up on one bent leg as he calmly and
deliberately spells out a mystery on pink paper. Beau sits beside him chewing on
a piece of rawhide, and much like Harry, he glances up at you with his molars
grinding together, then returns right back to his work.
times before and after his surfing accident and each one of those times collect
into a tight spot behind his eye sockets, then explode, raining glitter and
shedding calloused skin from his organs. Leaving him vulnerable and mindless,
immune and cognizant. A snake that has molted and grown, over and over again,
but not without baring a new, raw layer first.
As you hover awaiting acknowledgement, his sight finally lands on your face
before falling to your flower, then lazily drags back up again, “hi.”
No Sunflowers. No breakfast inquiries. No nicknames. No honey. No Sunshine.
Your velvet-dream-boy is far from bliss. But the thing about the Sun is that no
matter how heavy the cloud cover or how dark the winter, it always comes back.
It always, always comes back.
“Hi.” Your feet move like lead under his heavy stare, a slow clumsy ship
following a lighthouse to shore. Sea sickness and lurching waves, jagged and
slippery rocks cutting into your feet on his beach. He reaches out for your flower
and accepts it with gratitude and a graceful wrap of his fingers around the thick
stem, the tips of his fingers brush yours and it sparkles and then it hurts, “what
did you have for breakfast, Harry?”
“You first.”
The truth is that you couldn’t eat. But regardless of how upset you are with
him and for him, you just can’t put him in a position of worrying about something
additional this close to your final performance of the season. Especially after
what he’s been through. After what you’ve both been through. After all, your
hope was that you would come into work and develop an appetite after a heavy
dose of physical activity. And you skipping breakfast is absolutely something that
would cause him to worry, “do you remember what I usually have?”
“Spaghetti and meatballs.”
Harry’s ability to make you laugh for the hell of it will always be your favorite
piece of him. Especially when he executes it perfectly like this, dryly and
mindfully. He’s so far off that he may as well have hit the nail directly on the
head; he knows it and you know it. The sarcastic response is so wholly relieving
that you can’t help but roll your eyes and breathe out a little laugh, “Melvin. What
did you have?”
The truth is that he couldn’t eat. But regardless of how upset he is with you
and for you, he just can’t put you in a position of worrying about something
additional this close to your final performance of the season. Especially after
what you’ve been through. After what you’ve both been through. His stare burns
right through you, biting your brain and tingling your scalp. Nina Simone’s thick
wet cement soul fills in the gaps between his eyes and his words, “your god.”
Who’s your god? “I’ve been chewing on her all morning.” Unshakably true to
herself. Who’s yours? He lets your heart beat twice, violently, before returning his
attention to his notebook, “and an avocado.”
It’s a relief that he has an appetite, albeit small, so you choose not to comment
on his tiny-in-comparison volume of food. He’s like a puppy in the sense that you
know his wounds must be subsiding, at least a little bit, if he can stomach a treat.
Any treat.
After the initial chaotic onslaught that began at Mercy Valley, Harry’s
memories soothed and then slowly and steadily trickled in all night like a leaky
faucet, keeping him just on the edge of sleep for hours upon hours. In hindsight,
he’s glad that the two of you didn’t hash out your differences while you were
both at the peak of your craggy emotional mountain yesterday. He sees and
understands that now, and he did spend a good deal of time depositing blessings
into the ocean for Nettie this morning. Sometimes he wishes you were as level-
headed as her, but then he remembers that being in love mutates a person. It
sensitizes their triggers, it bloats their grit, it deadens their formalities. For better
or worse, just as the vows preach. Till death do you part.
Embracing Nettie’s advice, Harry returned to his van yesterday afternoon and
drove it an hour and a half southward from Malibu with a cruise through Los
Angeles proper until he landed at a secluded beach just north of Laguna. He
pulled right up on the sand and opened all of his windows and barndoor, tossing
nearly all of his belongings outside until The Pink was just as much of a shell as
he was.
He lit your candle, cued up your records, tied your hair ribbon around his
wrist, swapped his cigarettes for cherry lollipop after cherry lollipop, and wrote.
When the flood of memories filtered from a tidal wave to a babbling brook, he
cleaned and organized all of his things. And then finally, after scrounging up
enough bravery, he opened up the cabinet below his sink and leafed through
every page he had scrawled over the past six months. The blackout poetry dated
back to a time prior to his surfing accident, when his feelings for you bounced
between hatred and admiration-in-denial. After he cried until he felt like his body
was shriveling from dehydration, he wrote more. He wrote a hundred pages; he
wrote until his fingers bled.
Even though he hates to admit when he’s wrong, he silently thanked Bunny for
the small stash of Quaaludes that granted him a few hours of rest. He’s unsure
whether he can possibly have every single thing back or if he ever will again, but
after a short three-or-four-hour rest dotted with drowsy scribblings, the
memories have continued to deluge all morning. Each time one would pop up, he
would write it down, but he found this particularly frustrating while he was
surfing. Which is why he cut his session short; running across the beach while
unzipping his wet suit at the same time, ditching all of his wet things into the
sand to dive into his van to try to record everything before it vanished again.
Before you vanished again.
But for the life of him, he can’t recall a single drop of anything related to how
or why you’ll supposedly be losing your job sometime in the near future. Or if
what Tex said contains any truth to begin with. And he fucking loathes it. This
position, this uncertainty. He detests it. Because he hates not knowing what to
say, he hates not knowing where to direct his anger. It’s rare.
Harry keeps his gaze tilted down at his notebook and away from your pull,
“nice ribbon.”
Smoothing your hair back in the mirror, you glance at him over your shoulder
in the reflection, “what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nice ribbon.”
Sometimes his sarcasm is so dry that it’s undetectable. And sometimes his
compliments are so arbitrary that they’re garish, “thank you. How are you
feeling? Are you okay? I was worried….. I am worried.”
“All show and no go. How d’you feel? Lay it on me, I can take it. I think.”
“I’m fine.”
A trilogy of annoyance; Harry rolls his eyes, scoffs and then scratches his
temple with his thumb, “’kay. I take it back. I’m mad at you.”
His statement doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel like it has a place. His
confession is valid of course, because he’s feeling anger and he’s allowed to feel it
and to express it. The cincher to this reunion that is slowly crumbling to shit, is
the correct assumption that Harry wasn’t mad at you until you’d said you were
fine. But based on your experience of the past forty-eight hours alone, with his
disappearance and vague explanation as to why and then promptly taking your
virginity and forgetting you and then cursing you out until you cried, it doesn’t
seem fair. Your stomach twists into a knot and your eyebrows match when you
spin on your heel to face him with your arms crossed over your chest. And no
matter how irritated Harry might be with you, he always thinks that you look
pretty fucking adorable when you’re angry. He always has, “mad at me? Why
exactly? I don’t remember kicking you out of my home and squashing your heart
to pieces yesterday.”
“Son-of-a….. you don’t? Really? Did we experience two different bogue

shindigs yesterday?” Harry tosses his journal and sunflower aside, but keeps his
body fixed in place which may even be more intimidating than him crossing the
room to scream in your face, “maybe because I spent the whole night alone,
instead of with my goddamn motherfuckin’ girlfriend, recoverin’ from brain
injury repercussions and major memory loss. And then you show up here today
sayin’ you’re just fuckin’ fine. It’s fuckin’ annoying. You’re annoying as fuck. Fuck
you. I know your heart’s broken. I know I demolished you yesterday mornin’. I
know you’re scared and sad. I know you spent all day cryin’. I know you didn’t
sleep or eat breakfast. You’re fulla shit. Nice flower though, where’d you get it,
huh?”
You don’t know whether you want to slap him or kiss him and that pretty
much sums up your entire relationship, “you’re right. I’m a terrible person. I hide
my true feelings and tend to avoid confrontation with the people who mean the
most to me. Sound familiar?”
“Is someone talkin’? I think I caught wind of a tiny waft of bullshit, but I can’t
be sure.”
“You’re acting like a child—”
But your weak retort is interrupted by Harry twisting his pinky in his ear,
pretending to clear it out for better sound quality.
Pulling strength from a source that you didn’t even know you had, you take a
deep breath and put yourself in his shoes. You’ve been doing this on and off since
your horrible wake-up call on Sunday morning, but when you’re in pain and
experiencing your experiences, sometimes the two perspectives of those
involved start to get tangled up. And they fight for dominance.
So, channeling Nettie’s honesty and openness is the best that you can do right
now. Even if your voice is kind of a lot shakier than hers, “okay, okay, back up.
How do I feel? I slept maybe two hours at the most, I’ve cried about losing you
and feeling scared for you endlessly and I don’t see it stopping for, um, a lifetime.
I couldn’t eat breakfast, and then I tripped on a broken piece of boardwalk on the
way here and almost fell on my face. I hate everything and I wish that our lives
weren’t a splintery mess right now because I miss you. I miss Sunny. But I’m
scarred and warring with myself, so I don’t know what to think or how to act
towards you. I’m worried about being perfect for the season finale and at the
same time, I just wish it were over. Which devastates me, because this was
supposed to be a culmination of everything we worked so, so hard for. Not just in
the circus ring, but behind closed doors, too. This was supposed to be a
celebration, but it feels a lot more like a funeral. I don’t know what to expect or
what’s going to happen in regards to both our partnership and our relationship
and it terrifies the living daylights out of me. I wish I could sleep and wake up
when it’s all over, or better yet, erase history and rewrite it so that we woke up in
bed together Sunday morning still madly in love with each other. Forever. Is that
better?”
“Good girl. Thank you. And ditto all around, minus the trippin’. Major bungler
alert. But thanks for the reneged half-hearted flower. Very thoughtful.”
Practice hasn’t even officially begun and you’re already yearning for a break.
The moment your heart deflates and drops like a brick into your stomach,
Harry can feel it. Even from fifty feet across the room, the sheen in your big baby
deer eyes drives a knife into his stomach and the quiver of your chin twists it and
sends blood spurting from his mouth.
He hates it. It’s beautiful. He loves it. It’s horrible.
Harry had survived Indy’s death alone, but that’s because he was alone. He
didn’t think he would have to survive your death alone while you stood idly by,
drinking cool rosé in a warm bubble bath, ignoring his shouts and his cries as his
brain melted from his ears. And somehow, he still loves you so much that he
would tear himself in half just to have you one more time.
“Et bons garçons?”
“J’ai toujours été ici.”

But that feeling doesn’t overpower his pride and anger and guilt, which keeps
him locked in his stubborn position on the floor. Wishing you would cross the
room and crawl into his lap, wishing you would twist your fingers into his hair
and whisper the word ’Sunshine’ against his lips, promising him that he’s good
enough for you and not everything terrible is his fault. And in all honesty, no
matter how strong his denial is, that will likely never happen again.
As soon as Harry drills his gaze through yours and then coolly drops it back
down to his journal to continue scribbling, you flop to the ground and pretend to
stretch out your ankle. The ache inside of your chest grows and grows until it
feels like it can’t fit inside of your body anymore, and you’re hoping with likely
unrealistic faith that he doesn’t notice you wiping your tears and glancing at his
reflection every so often. You hadn’t expected to pull honesty from the very
depths of your soul just to have it squashed. He spent months begging for your
secrets and protecting them, but now here he is, exploitative in nature and
unappreciative of your efforts.
Now you’re wishing you had pushed your own pain aside for his sake
yesterday, that your fight for him and your love didn’t end once you’d stepped
foot from his van. An extremely paltry attempt upon reflection, but at the time, it
truly felt like all you could muster through the punch-in-the-gut-rejection.
Remembering Nettie’s validation about inappropriate timing and rawness and
not psyching yourself out, you shake the remorse from your heart and decide to
manage it later. If you ever get around to it. As you always do.
Rationally you know that this is not all Harry’s fault, but it still feels like
everything is happening to you. Because of him. It makes perfect sense and no
sense at the same time. There’s no sensible explanation for it, since that’s how
emotions work a lot of the time. It just is; that’s how it feels. You’re angry with
him and you’re devastated for him and you love him and he’s crushing your heart
all at once. How do you even begin to deliberate that?
Distance, a lizard-brain voice hisses.

“Has my shoulder been actin’ up?”
His way of breaking the beat of silence is not what you expected, but you’re
grateful for any oasis of normalcy right now, “yeah…..” You know that your eyes
are red and that your mascara is clumping your eyelashes together, but maybe
he’s far enough away that he can’t tell, “you’ve been icing it before and after
shows for a couple months now.”
All of the air leaves the room during his pause, making it feel much longer than
it actually is. He digs his thumb into his sore shoulder and squeezes, rotating his
arm in a circle a couple of times before shaking it out, “’kay. Thanks. Is your ankle
alright?”
“Yes, it’s fine.”
It takes everything inside of him not to groan at your reflexive repetitive lie
that acts as a pretty frail barrier to your truth, “do you need me to—”
“No, I’ll handle it. Thank you.”
“Fuck outta here. You’re gassin’. That’s some full-on politics, V.”
“You’re right. I just don’t want help from anybody right now, okay? I’ll be fine.”
While you’re not looking, either because you can’t bear it or because you don’t
know how, Harry’s face contorts in a mocking grimace as he mouths your
impulsive, defensive word of ’fine’ to himself. Your snipped answers don’t make
him any less curious though, or maybe they do the exact opposite, “you don’t
want help from me or from anybody?”
“Anybody.”
Harry wishes he could belly-up and play dead, at least long enough to be
flushed down the drain and spit out into the ocean. Whatever happens next, well,
may god be with him.
“Will you dance with me?”
Not “do you want to?” but “will you?” A softness in his demand, proving it to
be not a demand at all this time, but a genuine wish. You’re no stranger to this
approach from Harry, from a time when things were much more loving between
you. When he would tenderly ask for things that you both knew he already had
permission for. Kiss, please. But it’s much more delicate this time. You would’ve
never said no to anything he would’ve asked if you were in this position a mere
forty-eight hours ago, but now it seems as if you can’t win; if you tell him no, he
might crumble into a pile of dust and blow away and if you tell him yes, you
might crumble into a pile of dust and blow away. Lose/lose.
Instead, you borrow his tactic of stealthy question-detouring, “I bet you’re

wishing you had that final wish still saved up, huh?”
“Why, would you grant it?”
“Do you know what I’m referring to?”
“Yes, your wish to lose control. And everything that came after it. Of course, I
fuckin’ remember.”
In opposition to how most people would interpret his response, his lack of
vulgarity towards sex is extremely jarring. But it would only be because they
don’t know him like you do. And just like that, you’re on your feet and propping
your ankle up on the ballet barre, lifting one arm into an easy fourth position as
you stretch towards your knee.
And just like that, Harry is on his feet, crowding up behind you with his chest
brushing your back and his breath on your neck, but he doesn’t dare touch you
with his hands. Rather they splay on the barre on either side of you, one right
beside your hip and the other beside your ankle. Your eyes lock in the mirror,
two bruising heartbeats, as he ducks to whisper in your ear, “y’know we’re not
done talkin’.”
You’re frozen. Your organs punch your ribcage over and over again. You wish
your request weren’t so breathless, “not now. After the show.”
“Vivienne.”
“Please, not now. We just have to get through this performance.”
“Stop buryin’ shit.”
Your leg drops and you lower your eyes from his in the mirror, staring at your
knuckles gripping the barre for dear life, “please stop breathing down my neck
and please stop telling me what to do. I can’t hear this or think about anything
right now, it’s too much. My boundary is simple and clearly communicated. Now
please, please back up, Harry.”
Harry’s eyes flick up to scan the room for any unwelcome visitors, before
glancing over his shoulder for a thorough search and then leaning back down to
meet your ear with an even more branny throat this time, “miette de biscuit. Elle
me manque.”
When you whip your head over your shoulder and frown, a deep, wounded
expression, your voice is barely audible through the soft shape of your lips. Sure,
your boundary is clear and simple but maybe it’s just the smallest bit shaky, and
maybe he can see that very, very easily, “stop it…..”
“’Kay.” His palms hit the air like two waving, white flags, “copy that. ’Mm
gonna smoke.”
“We really should—”
“Ten minutes, Sarge.”
Harry backs up slowly, before pulling the cigarette from behind his ear and
sparking the end with a match. He sits on the ground in the same spot as before,
leaned up against the mirror with one thigh acting as a surface for his writing
again.
You switch legs to stretch the other side, but you’re barely concentrating on
the burn in your muscles. Instead you’re watching his reflection in the mirror,
pink smoke ballooning from his heart-shaped lips and snaking through his curls,
and you know that there’s a possibility he could look up at any moment and catch
you staring and stare directly back into your eyes and maybe walk back over
here and demand something from you that you might not be able to turn down.
But you can’t stop. Because maybe part of you wants him to catch you staring and
to stare back and to walk over here and demand something that’s impossible to
refuse.
But that’s not healthy, so you gather yourself away from the barre and pace
towards the exit door. And it was silly to think you’d make it very far without a
sarcastic bark quipping out at your heels, “hey, where you goin’? We haven’t
heard Nina yet.” Nina Simone has been playing on the turntable since you arrived
here half an hour ago, “maybe we should stick to the metronome.”
Tip, tap.
“Ten minutes, Harry.”

“’Kay, I’m watchin’ the clock.”
“Did you know your name perfectly suits you?”
“…..Harry?”
“Look it up.”
This could maybe be one of the first times he’s ever wanted to rip open a
dictionary before. And then knowing you and your bite, likely want to rip it to
shreds.
The point of his felt tip pen is frozen mid-sweep on the pink page in his palms,
his head still angled downward but his eyes and whole somber expression are
glued to you, “hey.” His words are clipped, “cut me slack, please. Cool your chops.
I’m hurtin’, too.”
“Sorry.” There’s a hollow spot inside of your chest as heavy as concrete when
you slow and glance over your shoulder at him, eyeing the downturn of his lips
and the slouch in his shoulders. You want to tell him that he should have been
nice to you when he woke up this morning, that he should have been nice to you
since the day you met so that his brain wouldn’t automatically revert to
badmouthing the moment it slipped. You want to tell him that he hurt you, so
you’re hurting him back. Instead, you choose to entomb your anguish for the sake
of coping, vowing to unlock it when you always notoriously do. At home, alone, at
night, behind a closed door, “I’m really sorry, Harry. That was nasty.”
“Yeah, we know.”
The small smile that manages to crack is melted away by a mostly perturbed
but also slightly amused eye roll. Harry doesn’t miss it. In fact, he could have
predicted it before it even happened, “I don’t know why I’m acting like this. I
shouldn’t have spoken to you that way. I take it back and I promise to try harder
for the rest of today. Thank you for being patient. I just need some water and a
breath of air.”
“It’s casual. No rush, yeah? We’ll be alright. Fuckin’ snack on somethin’, would
ya? I’m scared you’re gonna wolf me whole.” Your gazes linger for a moment and
as soon as you turn on your heel to leave, he adds a cottony sludge, a jacket
across a puddle to keep your shoes dry, “mignonne.”
“Harry, don’t start.”
“Slipped out…..” His sentence deliberately trails off to dust as his attention flits
back down to his journal, his mumble both equally meant to be heard and equally
intended to be private, “Honeysuckle. Cherry tart.”
“What?”
“What. You only have nine minutes left. Make tracks, Speedy Gonzales. To the
kitchen. I saw a bunch of bananas in there. Can you yank me one, actually?”
“You want me to go be sad about you on a ten-minute break while also

grabbing you a piece of fruit to eat?”
“Yes. Make with the multitask.”
Alternately, you both take turns blinking once before you relent, groaning and
stomping towards the door with your arms up in the air, “fine. Be right back.”
“Two of ’em, please! And an apple, yeah?”
In all honesty, the rest of practice and dress rehearsals went better than you’d
expected. Being around others in the weight room and the circus ring made
things between you and Harry surprisingly lighter and more clear-cut, since you
were both forced to be on your well-rehearsed, stringent professional behavior.
Harry wasn’t fibbing or exaggerating when he’d told Nettie that he remembered
the entire routine, down to every minute detail, musical change and transition.
Except for one small subtlety, which was your readiness signal on the trapeze.
The very first time you had practiced on the giants together, the signal
switched from whistling to clapping because of how you willingly tossed yourself
into the net to avoid touching his spit. Today he’d reverted back to whistling, and
rather than correct him, you chose to let it be. You rationalized that his mind
went there due to years upon years of muscle memory with Indy and you both
know that, blind to any angst between you, you no longer mind being in contact
with his saliva.
In fact, now that you think about, it was probably just another way for him to
mess with you.
There were a couple instances where you could have sworn you saw other
circus members huddled in groups, their hands cupped around their mouths as
they stared up at you and your partner and whispered to one another. At a
certain point you couldn’t take it anymore and approached Harry from behind as
he was chalking his hands, mumbling an inquiry of, “have you talked to anyone
—”
And apparently, you’d surprised him, because before you could finish your
question he shouted and spun in a half circle to face you, his face twisted in shock
before sinking into respite. He gripped his palm to his chest and exhaled slowly
between two puffy pink lips, “fuck. The fuck you rattlin’ on about? Jesus, my heart
is on the goddamn moon right now.”
You couldn’t help by giggle as you carried on with your question anyway,
maybe taking comfort in the fact that his vulnerable and healthy reaction
soothed you the slightest bit, “have you talked to anyone?” And then your voice
dropped to an almost inaudible whisper, “about us?”
Glancing around the room, everyone Harry made eye contact with quickly
dropped their stares, “I haven’t spoken to a single person. What’s up?”
“Nothing…..”
“You’re lyin’ again, but okay.”
“It just feels like people are watching us. Watching me, maybe.”
“You’re trippin’ out. Get back up on the trapeze before I punt you there
myself.”
Now with thirty minutes to curtain, you and Harry lean side-by-side over the
vanity in full costume, elbowing each other for space in front of the mirror. Your
stage makeup has perfected over time; an incredible cat-eye with cherry-red lips,
dramatic lashes, peachy cheeks. Harry, on the other hand, never fucks around
with makeup on his own. Every once in a while, he will ask you to paint on some
eyeshadow or eyeliner for experimental theatrical effect, but today he’s caught in
the annoying position of attempting to cover up his black eye with industrial-
strength concealer. He curses under his breath and balls up a wad of tissues in
his fist, his pout downturned as he scrapes at his face with zero professional
experience.
You know that he’s too proud to ask for help, just as he is in the circus ring
when he has a rare moment of struggling with advanced tricks. So, instead of
allowing him to flounder, you crowd his space, one hand on his shoulder with a
soft “hey” and take the tissues from his hands. His lips puff out with an
exasperated exhale, but he lets you guide him down into the small stool beside
you. On any other day he might not have any trouble at all, but today is not any
other day. Today is hell on Earth.
Harry watches your lips move, the little lines, the curves, the natural gloss. The
softness. He can taste them, “should only use cotton, nice makeup brushes or
clean hands on your face.” Your ring finger dabs at the makeup and then gently
presses it to his skin, “you’ll give yourself premature wrinkles. Or blemishes.”
He’s sits on the stool peering up at you and not saying anything, his jaw
working a piece of chewing gum, orange vanilla hot flashes against the heel of
your hand. A smattering of scruff on his chin, cheeks and upper lip sketches his
pretty features as potent and masculine. Your favorite.
“Are you planning to shave? I’m not saying I think you need to—” It’s an
innocent question, one that would have easily slipped by with no emotion forty-
eight hours prior. You’re trying hard not to sound like you’re nagging because
you’re not, and you don’t want it to seem like you mind anything about his
appearance at all. Plus, you consider it rude to make critical remarks about
someone else’s image, unless explicitly asked. Also, because it no longer seems in
your jurisdiction, regardless of his outward display of passion and wants, simply
because your scaffolding of trust has been shaken, “I’m just wondering if I should
put more makeup on you now? Or— or if I should wait?”
“I could give a fuck less how shitty I look right now, Vivienne. I just can’t look
like a battered, heartbroken fuckin’ convict in front of thousands of women and
children. No slight on you, but I don’t trust anyone holdin’ a razor blade to my
neck right now, especially myself. They’re getting a Fuzzy Marvel today and that’s
that.”
His eyes are a vacuum, you are a trace of dust.

“Um, you don’t look shitty….. you never do. You always— nevermind. I’ll keep
quiet. So, were you going to shave?”
Harry grips the back of your thighs and drags you between his knees, his
thumbs swimming in circles on your skin, his gaze tilted up directly at you,
framing him into the perfect pitch and distance to easily dissolve yourself if you
wanted, “please kiss me.”
“Harry….. you know that’s not possible.” One kiss is impossible because his
heart-shaped lips are alien now and you don’t know how to start and if you did
suddenly remember, you’d never be able to stop. Because it would hurt more
than it would feel good.
Because it would hurt. It would hurt. It hurts.
His breath drags over your lips and for all of the rudeness he easily hauls
around, he would never be impolite enough to not take something without
permission, “please.”
“It’s not going to fix anything.”
“Pinches. Bad. Inside my chest. This is the longest I’ve gone without cryin’
since I found your locket in my bed.”
“You mean….. just these past couple hours?”
The very tip of his nose turns red and his nostrils flare in an effort to flex some
control over his facial muscles, but no amount of control can stop the film of glass
that spreads across his eyes, “yeah.”
“I haven’t been much better. Do you want to tell me what hurts most?”
“Can I be honest?”
“Yes. I expect you to be.”
“I don’t have any support. It’s my brain, my memory. It’s real fuckin’ scary. I’ve
never not trusted my mind before, um— I can’t explain it. Feels like it’s turnin’ on
me and I don’t know how to help myself or what’s gonna happen next. I feel wild
and precarious without my reality intact. Memory is all we have and I don’t…..
have it all. I’m void— I don’t have anything.” His chin quivers when the last word
of his statement scrapes out, making it painfully obvious that by “anything” he
means you.
The way he’s looking up at you — emotions bleeding down his face, hoarse
scruff and soft lips, the word “fear” spelled out in the bloody capillaries of his
eyes — propels you forward for a soft kiss. One that he clings to with every little
ragged splinter of hope left inside of him, with his fingers tangling into your hair
and a breathy inhale through his nose that gets trapped inside of his throat. You
want to comfort him, but you don’t know how. You want to comfort him and tell
him that everything is normal, but you don’t know how. You want to comfort him
and tell him everything is normal but your own heart is a pile of ash, so you don’t
know how.
It hurts.
Harry withdraws a tiny bit and tugs on your bottom lip with his thumb,
skating the tip of his tongue against the tip of yours before silently begging you
back in for another kiss. There’s something about the way he stays anchored and
draws you into his recessed tide, something about the positioning of his body
underneath you, something about the way you sink into his clutch that feels too
wistfully symbolic. The two of you are a living sculpture of heartbreak, a pause in
a figurative dance performance that pays respect to anguish.
“Harry—” He breaks away just enough to give you breathing room, but his
stride doesn’t falter on his journey down your throat. Because once he’s gotten
his hands on your skin he immediately wants more, like a hungry bear cub
scraping for honey inside of a hollowed-out tree. This is exactly what you
guessed would happen, which is where your whole concern stemmed from in the
first place, “stop.” You push at his shoulders for some space, “stop. We have to
stop.” Harry moans into your neck and slides his fingertips up your back, the
splitting sensation of his blunt nails sending you reeling from his grasp.
He doesn’t even bother to hide his panting breaths or smooth his hair out of
his face. Instead he leans forward with his elbows on his knees, eyeing you from
the ground up, “just fuckin’ tell me I’m not good enough for you, V. Say it. Just say
it.”
Your heart disintegrates, “I’ll never tell you that, Harry. You were perfect.
Better than perfect. Flawless. I told you so all of the time. And I really felt
devastated when you woke up yesterday morning.”
And so does his, “I was scared.”
“I know, of course you were. You had every right to be. It must have been
terrifying and I’m so sorry for you. But I was scared as well and I still am.”
He remembers how long it took to get you to talk to him and open up, how
many times he begged you to share your secrets or tell him anything at all. It was
so long ago. It was two days ago.
When his memory slipped the first time, he didn’t try very hard to get it back.
He didn’t struggle to remember the hatred and turmoil of your relationship. This
memory slip is polar the opposite. Now he’s been buried alive in unrequited
memory and he’s done everything in his power to get it back.
And that just must mean something remarkable.
The fact of the matter is, whether or not you have an awareness and whether
or not you’re able to attach language to the feeling, is that you are simply
traumatized. It was hard for you. This entire relationship from beginning to end
was hard for the both of you. It uprooted a lot of things about yourself and about
each other, lots of things that you were ready to face and maybe some things that
you weren’t.
This relationship dug deep, first picking the petals from your flower and
waiting for them to regrow in the middle of the night while Sunshine was laid to
rest. And they did regrow, slowly at first, one by one, until they had returned
bolder and brighter than ever. You thrived for a long while in the hot summer
Sun, sometimes dropping a silky petal in a spontaneous downpour but they
always grew back, always slowly and brighter than before. And when you were at
your most beautiful and bold, the entire flower was ripped from the ground.
Some roots still cling to the dirt in the hope that life can still take shape and they
may always be there, waiting. But it seems that your flower will likely need new
conditions if it ever wants to thrive again. New soil, new rain. New sunbeams.
You want to tell him this. You want to convey the depth of pain, the
excruciating sensation of love stolen before its time. At exactly the worst part, the
falling part. The part where everything is at its most heightened and sensitive.
The part that felt like you couldn’t possibly breathe without each other. You want
to be held by the hands that have helped cultivate and destroy you. Except there
is a magnet forcing your teeth together and holding your leaden tongue hostage,
deeming it physically impossible to open your mouth and tell any of him this. You
want to. You really want to let him in and share everything you’re thinking, but
the prospect of speaking seems too daunting and scary for some reason. You
wish you could just pry your skull open and allow him in for a swim, to root
around the catastrophic mess of feelings and thoughts and allow him to make
sense of it how he will or perhaps even decipher it for you. But you can’t. And in
lieu of candor, you stay silent. Perhaps you’re not ready and perhaps you never
will be, it’s hard to say. You sincerely lack the strength. The vocabulary. The
understanding. The courage. So, you stay silent.
Love lost but not forgotten.
Your professionalism is something he’s always been envious of, before and
after his accident, but strived to support while he was working his ass off to
make you swoon. Not that it was hollow or phony, just that it was a lot easier to
tap into when he was falling for you and would have done absolutely anything to
get you to see yourself how he sees you. Which is perfect.
Harry tore away your sleeping mask every morning for months and he wish
he could do the same right now, to lift the veil from your eyes and get you to see
him with that same early-morning starry gaze that he misses so much it aches,
where the rune of dreams still linger. Where your love for him is apparent and
brave, unafraid by outcomes and unsoiled by his clumsy mistakes.
But it’s gone and he’s terrified that it’s gone forever. Dead and lifeless, just like
Indy; slipped through his fingers and left bleeding and staring up at him with a
dejected look of accusation for what he’s stolen, except worse. Worse because
you’re here and you’re breathing, you’re physically within arm’s reach but
mentally galaxies away and he did every little thing in his power to get you to
trust him, except he steered you wrong. His maps were laid out and clearly
marked and glued right behind his eyelids, but they were upside down this entire
time and neither of you had a single clue. Everything he told you materialized
into an unintentional lie that you believed to your own detriment. He sees that
and he feels that and he’s convinced that everything is his fault, so how is he
supposed to live with himself now?
Slowly dying fruit flies buzzing around a bowl of rotting produce, dropping
like autumn leaves one by one.
“Fuck. I hate that my face looks like shit for our last performance. My jaw’s
clickin’. Did Tex punch me in the jaw, too? Or was that from your infamous face
clap?”
“I’m really sorry about that—” A shake of his head and a swat of his hand
keeps you pushing forward, “and I don’t know, you didn’t go into detail. I just
hate that you’re sad for our last performance.”
“I hate that you are, too.”
“I’m fine.”
“Fuck off. Stop sayin’ you’re fine. It doesn’t match what we had and you know
it. I’m not the only one hurtin’ here, so don’t fuckin’ act like it. You’re fulla shit.
Represent us properly, please. We were so fuckin’ much, Vivienne. We were
everything. Don’t shrink this shit in an effort to survive. It’ll eat you alive. Please,
just—”
His heart nosedives into stomach acid when you spin on the ball of your foot
and pace away, your hands held in the air in a gesture of exasperation, “I just
need to get through this performance and then we can claw our way through this
conversation, but it’s absolutely not happening twenty minutes until curtain.
Okay? I can’t do this right now; my mind is way too saturated. Please, please,
please let it go for just a couple hours—”
“Avoidin’ it is makin’ it worse—”
“Stop.”
“Still want me?”
“Harry.”
“Would you— fuck. Stop. Nevermind. I don’t wanna know. I can’t fuckin’ stand
this. I dunno how I’m breathin’. I lied. I can’t do this, pretendin’ shit’s normal. Be
fuckin’ honest with me, please. I need it for a hundred different reasons.”
Innumerable replies circle like sharks around a bloodbath, but not a single one
leaves your mouth. Mental carnage with no escape, a school of fish swim by
unscathed.
Your face drops into your palms and much like a petulant child, your ballet
slipper stomps on the ground. And for the first time possibly ever, your voice
rises in anger, “I said stop!”
The only aspect of his facial expression that changes is a flicker of the muscle
in his jaw as he clenches his teeth. He stands and takes one step forward,
smacking the flimsy vanity stool over onto its side before picking up a glass of
water and throwing it across the room, the object striking the wall and
splintering before each piece and every drop of water rains to the ground. He
stands with his chest heaving in the physical aftermath of his anger before lifting
his head and glaring at you over his shoulder, “fine.”
The technical director knocks twice before poking his head into the room,
“fifteen minutes, Marvels.” He scans the destruction first before his eyes volley
between the two of you standing on opposite ends of the strained space, “what
the hell happened in here?”
Harry pushes past the TD and hurries from the room but you’re hot on his
heels, intent on not letting him lose his mind again. Not here. Not now.
You shove and weave through crowds of people in the hallway, finally
catching up to him to grab his elbow and spin him around. Your voice soft and
light, but persuasive as fuck, “stop it right now. Come back.” He whips his arm
away but you grab it again, “no. I won’t let you do this, Harry. I won’t let you keep
sabotaging yourself. You are not going through this alone. Come with me right
now.”
Chest heaving, Harry looks everywhere in the hallway including the cracks in
the wall and the cracks in the floor and the cracks in the ceiling before he
clenches his jaw tight, the muscle pulling in his cheek before he swallows a thick
lump of angry sorrow down. He can feel people’s judgmental eyes on him and he
wonders what they know and then he remembers his promise to himself at the
hospital. He won’t demolish this performance for you; it’s the very least he can
do. But he still can’t look you in the eye, “’kay.”
You flick the lock closed as soon as you make it back to your dressing room,
“just breathe. You don’t have to talk to me or look at me. I’ll go sit in the shower
for the next fifteen minutes if I have to. You just need to stay in one place or I’m
going to go crazy worrying about you and whether or not you’ll come back. I’m so
sorry this is happening to us. I’m so, so, sorry that this is happening. It’s almost
over, okay? Just breathe.”
Harry leans on the vanity and covers his face with his palms, “most unhinged
l’chaim in fuckin’ history.”
“We can both lose our minds, Harry. It just can’t happen at the same time.” It’s
not a time to laugh. It’s really not. But that doesn’t stop the corners of your
mouth from twitching into a small, delayed smile at his l’chaim retort, “what do
you want me to do? How can I help you?”
“Stay. Just stay and don’t say anything. No disrespect, but I can’t handle it right
now.” His hands tremble as they fall to his sides, “I dunno what to do with myself
for the next fifteen minutes. I’m shakin’ like a leaf.”
And so, without a word, you rise to standing and cross the room in two steps.
Harry freezes like a block of ice when you enter his personal space, his palm
catching on fire and sizzling up to his elbow when you weave your fingers
together and tug him back towards the couch. You sit first and he joins you, the
both of you silently lying down in a tight, warm cuddle on the cool leather, your
arms and legs threaded into a braid as you take comfort in one another’s
presence. Neither of you move except for the small circles you trace into each
other’s skin.
No one speaks, because no one needs to.
The season finale of The Flying Marvels was perfect. It was perfect because
whether or not the audience knew it, they were watching a performance of
heartache in motion. Bones melted into liquid yearning, a broken couple striving
for goodness. Wishing things were better, even when you’re seemingly at your
best. A desire for what you both deserve, versus what you got. Two vines that
grew together and tangled up so uniformly that neither one can tell where one
ends and the other begins. A finale, both of the season and of love.
At the end when the audience poured every drop of their souls into a standing
ovation, Harry clasped your hands together as you both waved to your fans, his
fingers intertwining tightly with yours to tangle himself with you one last time.
It was an act. It was not an act.
As always, Harry’s post-performance clean-up follows yours. And as he

emerges now from the bathroom, shirtless with a pair of loose trousers and hot
steam at his back, your attention is pulled away from the vanity mirror and your
makeup. With the pressure of the season finale lifted, you allowed yourself to cry
for the entire span of your shower. The only thing that’s left is a giant, bold,
italicized question mark.
“Harry?” His head stays angled down but he flicks his eyes up at you as he
tightens his belt, eyelashes sticking to his wet, pesky curl, “you….. deserve so
much better than everything that’s happened to you.” You’re trying so hard to
hold back, you really, really are, but he can feel your upset by the way your chest
stutters and your words hollow out, “and so did I.”
With his gaze trained on yours in the mirror, he crosses the room in a handful
of steps and wraps one arm around your shoulders. Palm spread out over your
chest, his chin rests on your shoulder as he pulls you close for a warm, tight hug.
He slowly rocks the both of you side to side, his heart pounding against your
back, his lips dragging up your neck and resting in the soft spot behind your ear.
A puff of hot breath, a message unfolded and smoothed out from a soppy pocket
in his heart as your reflections lock eyes, “no shit, Vivienne.” You melt into his
warm and sticky grasp, desperate beyond your awareness for how necessary his
comfort is right now. His skin is tacky from the shower, your dress drinks all the
little droplets of water from the ends of his locks. He grips tighter to hum in your
ear, to suit the slack in your bones, before slowly spinning you in his grasp to face
him, “now our work is to try to make peace with it. With ourselves. With now and
whatever comes.”
The kiss from earlier hasn’t been forgotten. It’s as if your mouths themselves
hold a fossilized impression of it, by the way your lips scarcely skim together and
circle back again and again. Like the tricks on the trapeze, your gazes catch and
drop. Catch and drop. Until his fingertips cautiously brush your cheek, sink back
into your hair, tilt your chin up towards him, “I remember what you feel like, V. I
remember how you taste. The things you said. Your skin when I took your dress
off. We were in the castle. Then we were free fallin’ from the tower, dying a tiny
death. Rien n’est aussi bon ou aussi mauvais que de t’aimer. Rien n’est mieux que
nous.”
And when you breathe “you shouldn’t say things like that” into his mouth, he
doesn’t believe you. He doesn’t believe you because the pads of your fingers are
tip toeing up his arms and your knee brushes his hip once, twice. He doesn’t
believe you because when he cradles your thigh — your skirt bunching up
around your middle as he guides your leg around his waist — you wedge him
tightly against you. He doesn’t believe you because you’re perching yourself on
the vanity and keeping him close, the reflection of your mutual lure scattering
light all around the room.
“Pourquoi, hmm? Trop méchant?”

“Très coquin.”
His voice softens, “Vivienne…..”
But yours is even softer, “Harry.”
Unlike Harry’s enthusiastic and impulsive spurs of temptation throughout

your romance, he chooses not to make the first move this time. In fact, he doesn’t
even have enough breath to ask for a kiss. His remorse has swallowed everything
whole.
Instead he stays steady and fixed, the tip of his nose nudging yours every so
often, his stomach swimming in cold acid, his heart punching his ribs. This time
he needs you to tell him that he’s beautiful, valuable, exceptional. That he isn’t a
piece of shit, that he was indeed good enough for you at one point. That he cast
enough sunlight on you so that eventually, you’re going to miss the heat. Harry’s
swaggering ambition is one that can only be pioneered through an unlimited
chain of gloom; when one has reached the end of their rope, their fingers slipping
through the frayed knots in the madness of seeking redemption. He needs you to
speak to him with your own decisive action, on your own hungry accord, even if
it is the last time he’ll hear it. And he begs from inside by staying resolute in his
sweltering proximity and looping the desperate, silent phrase between his ears
over and over again;
I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. Please kiss me, even if it’s just one time, so that I can
properly wither into the sand below the rocks and shells and crashing waves.
The charged pause in the stuffy room is suffocating. It’s ten seconds, it’s a
never-ending moonless night.
And the moment you bridge the gap between your mouths and fold your lips
together with a sinful little hum, the golden key unlocks the pain in his heart and
sends it spilling out into his stomach and the floor as it floods the entire dressing
room. Echoing back your tender cry, his fingers dig into your skin, his nails bite
little pink melon rinds before trailing down your back and up your thigh all at
once.
Your hands are everywhere; clawing at misplaced shadows of love and flimsy
fabric and handfuls of hair. Your tongues peek out to sweep together again and
again, until your appetite seizes control and you’re sucking his into your mouth
with a moan, blindly fumbling with his belt and then the button on his trousers to
pop it open and pitch them down to his ankles.
Through his heavy breaths you can just make out his frantic question of
“yeah? Okay?” as he presses his thumb to your clit over the heat of your panties.
He draws back an inch just to wait for your nod, acknowledging your approval
with a slide of your underwear and a finger running through your groove. He
answers your little whimper with a purr, “good girl.”
“Are we sure?”
Coolly, he sinks his thumb inside of you, tracing your excitement all along your
folds and your sensitive knot before sinking inside of you again. Over and over,
“fuck yes. Need it, need you. Are you sure? Please—”
The moan would have been enough. But the moan mixed with your flutter of
“please” just about turns him inside out.
And as soon as your consent slips past your teeth he’s dropping to his knees,
reaching up your skirt to drag your underwear down your legs and off your feet.
He leaves a winding trail of kisses along the inside of your ankle and your calf,
your knee, a nibble on your inner thigh. His eyes meet yours from his position of
obedience just before spreading your legs and lowering his gaze. The sight before
him is met with a groan in anguish. In unfairness. In prayer, “look at you. Exactly
how I remembered. Do me a favor?”
You’re trying hard to hide the tremble in your legs but it’s no use, Harry felt it
before you did, “hm—”
Harry collects your hand from the vanity, sucking your fingers past his teeth
and bathing them with his tongue before guiding them to your swollen bud. The
breathing in the room escalates from the both of you and very little direction is
needed for you to pick up on his command, made clear when you start to rub
small circles and choke on your breath. With a small hiss of “good girl, sweet girl,
juste comme ça,” he sits back on his haunches, admiring the lewd act in front of
him and enjoying it even more because of the illicit surroundings. Your
submission. Your need. Your own hand, doing what he’s willed, permanently
tethering him to the act itself.
He wants you to remember. Each and every time you touch yourself from now
on or allow another person to touch you, that his hands were there first. Because
right now, that’s all he has.
And with a single hungry kiss to your heat, a lick inside of you and up and
down your center, he rises back to standing and maneuvers your legs around his
waist. Tipping you back to prop you up against the mirror, his hands splay hot
and sweaty against the glass on either side of your head, “don’t stop. Tap on it.”
You obey and he sucks air in through his teeth, his nostrils flaring when he
exhales against your cheek, “fuck. You’re a dream. Birdie yourself for me? Fuck
your fingers.” The tip of his nose draws a line across your cheek, his lips hovering
over yours when you sink two fingers into your heat and allow your head to fall
back, silently begging him for a taste of your skin. His face crumples in torment as
his teeth scrape against your throat, his cock throbbing in his briefs and his knees
weak, “god, tell me somethin’, V.”
“I want you to touch yourself, too.”
Harry wasn’t expecting that. He was certain that you would request for him to
take over, to take care of you, to take things further, to fuck you on this vanity.
But one thing is for certain throughout the ups and downs and unfair turmoil of
your relationship: you never fail to surprise him. And vice versa.
Plus, there aren’t many things that Harry loves more than a surprising new
kink being laid out and discovered, a new exploration in the bedroom, a new and
exciting conquest to keep his mind spinning for days. And since it’s already
spinning, he’s perfectly happy allowing it to completely fly off the handle.
Harry pitches his briefs to his ankles and kicks them aside, licking the pad of
his thumb and swiping the moisture over your pert nipple as you continue to
thread yourself into a knot underneath him. He spits in his palm and wraps
himself in a fist, slowly stroking his cock against your folds. Watching as his
precome beads out and glosses your sensitive skin, watching as his broken heart
splits open and cries for you.
You both work yourselves up into a frenzy, matching each other’s cadences
and moans and throbs and cries, your mouths finding each other again and again
for bleeding kisses. And just when you’re about to come, Harry pushes your hand
aside and takes over, plunging two fingers inside of you and rubbing your clit
with his thumb. Harsh and loving circles, your core sucking on him tightly, your
sensuality eating him alive.
With heavy, panting breaths, you reach for him and brush his hand aside,
stroking his length in a rhythm that perfectly matches his fingers. And when you
both think you can’t take it anymore and his tip is hovering dangerously close to
your center, bumping up against your sensitivity and begging for connection, you
swipe him through your folds and fix him with your entrance, “fuck me, Daddy. I
need you. J’ai besoin de toi.”
“Oh god, Cherry. J’ai besoin de toi aussi. I always have.” Both of your hands
drop away when he starts to slowly sink inside of you, his nostrils flaring and his
jaw dropped as you absorb him inch by godly inch, “oh god.” Your eyes connect
and then he’s burying his face in your neck with a sob of anguish, his fingers
tangling into your hair before dropping to your throat for a squeeze, “my sweet
fuckin’ girl. You’re everything, baby. Am I hurtin’ you?” He’s not talking about
your body, per se.
“Yes.” You’re not talking about your body, per se.
Harry pouts his bottom lip and whimpers into your collarbone, pumping into
you once with such languid misery it’s as if he were desperately memorizing the
taste, “do I stop?”
“Don’t you dare.”
Gripping your ass in both of his hands, he fucks you with a type of passion
that’s reserved for a single person in a single lifetime. His nose bumping yours
and your hips moving together, your legs cinched around his waist to keep him
locked in your embrace. As you reach the edge in solidarity, your strides get
longer and his get sloppier, his dirty talk and his praise and his pleas and moans
mix with yours until he slaps a palm over your mouth. You cry into his hand and
he blubbers into your neck, your highs mingling and coating each other in honey,
your core squeezing him tight and draining him of everything he has to offer.
A sweaty heap of melted love on the vanity, you cup his cheeks and lift his
face, your glassy eyes skimming over one another’s expressions until you both
dive forward for a kiss. For sobriety and for harmony. And each time either of
you pull back for a breath, you make sure to utter the one thing that will forever
break you and keep you together.
Je t’aime, je t’aime, je t’aime.
“You know how when you’re thinkin’ of the last place you left somethin’ after
you’ve moved or demolished a fuckin’ house. You know exactly where it would
be so long as everything was the same? That’s you. This beautiful, perfect,
untouchable, shining treasure of my past that I can’t reach because everything
around you is destroyed and changed. You’re burned on the edges. And it’s all my
fault. I’ve demolished our house and you’re buried and I’m so remorseful that I
can barely fuckin’ stand it.”
It all happened so fast. Making love, the season finale, your whole entire
relationship.
After you and Harry pulled your clothing back on and pulled yourselves
together, he carried you to the couch for an exclusive velvet-dream-boy moment.
Because in all honesty, neither of you knew what would happen after you
stepped foot from this dressing room.
You pluck the cigarette from between his teeth and suck a drag of sweet
smoke to the back of your throat, “yes, I know exactly. And I don’t know how
many times I have to tell you that this isn’t all your fault. I just….. need some time,
I think—”
Clyde is gettin’ shit-canned? Why? What happened?
Harry pinches his eyes closed and hugs you closer, nuzzling your face into his
shoulder and sweeping his fingertips up and down your arm, “nah, you don’t
understand.”
“Can you help me understand then?”
“I—” Harry half laughs and half sobs into his closed fist before running his
fingers through his sweaty hair, “can’t. I can but I can’t. ’Cause I dunno myself.
But I think I fucked up.”
“Are you being vague on purpose?”

“I dunno anymore.” Harry grips your throat and tilts your mouth towards his,
sealing your lips together in a kiss and humming on your tongue, “oh god.” It’s
not like he’s necessarily begging you for mercy, but rather whatever ghostly
entity is in charge of all of life’s pain and suffering, “please don’t make me say it.”
Inhaling another drag of his cigarette, you hold the butt of the smoke to his
lips so that he can help himself to one as well, “say what? You owe me one.”
“Vivienne—” You shake your head and Harry mentally curses your beautiful
stubborn nature; a ram butting up against his wobbly dam over and over again
until you finally manage to short circuit everything within reach. Entire cities if
you could. “’Kay. Look, I….. I dunno what I did, but I think I fucked up big time,
alright?” His heartbeat speeds up so much that he’s certain you can feel it and
hear it, “a… d... I think your job is on the line.”
“What?”
A knock on your dressing room door is followed by a verbal warning from a

technical director, “Mr. Buchanan has requested to see you both in his office
ASAP, Marvels. He told me to wait and usher you. Be ready in five or he’ll send a
guard.”
You sit up so fast that stars dot your vision, “Harry….. what’s happening?”
But he tries to pull you back for one last slice of heaven, “I miss you, baby.
Please—”
Scrambling from the couch, you glance around the dressing room for answers
but there aren’t any, “what do you mean my job is on the line? How do you know?
How long have you known? Are you sure? I mean…..” You lick your lips and
realize you’re not breathing, but the realization is useless because you couldn’t
breathe right now if you tried, “because we were together? Maybe it’s nothi… g.….
I... we just signed contracts last week, don’t you remember?” The stares and the
whispering from circus members during rehearsals starts to glow angrily on the
fringes of your memory, “maybe it’s just a warning or a slap on the wrist or
maybe it’s completely unrelated. Maybe he’s congratulating us on the season.
Right? It could be anything.”
Contrary to your movements, Harry slowly rakes his fingers through his hair.
He creeps from the couch, takes three steps across the room, sucks his fingers
into his mouth and extinguishes your candle. With a slack jaw, you raise an
eyebrow at him, but he keeps a straight face, “it’s all my fault.” The scent of
snuffed flame seeps through the room.
“What is? Please—”
“I dunno. All of it.” He gestures towards the door, “after you.”
Harry can hear his blood pumping in his ears on the escorted walk to Rusty’s
office. The walls in the hallway spin. He tries to swallow, but nothing will go
down. His hands hang by his sides, clammy and useless. Right as you reach for
the knob on Rusty’s door, Harry grabs your wrist and spins you towards him,
voice strangled to an extinguished slip of cool smoke, “please forgive me.” He
taps your bottom lip, his gaze following his fingers from your mouth as they
disappear into your hair. Regardless of who sees or hears, he asks, because this
could very well be the last time he even has an opportunity, “can I kiss you?”
“What? No. Harry—”
“Just one. You’re a real good kisser, y’know? Did I ever tell you that?”
The tips of your noses brush as you nod your assent and consent as one, his
affection breaking through your gesture when he swaps between slowly kissing
your top and bottom lip, his tongue slipping in for a sliver of worship just before
drawing back. He sponges his lips to his fingertips and presses them to yours,
flicking his gaze to the gawking TD and then kissing you once more with a soft
whine and a wet rumble on your skin, “this is gonna be fucked up.”
Your long, fixed stares are searching. For truth, lies. For answers. Instructions
on how to rewind time.
But that’s impossible.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry.
Rusty is reclined in his chair when you step into his office, pulling a black
cigarette from a matching slim case, lighting the end and whirling a cloud of thick
licorice into the room. He nods at the both of you and gestures to the chairs on
the other side of his desk, to which you obey without dispute, “Marvels. An
excellent performance to cap off the season, congratulations to the both of you. I
didn’t expect any less.”
As polite as ever, you push through your feelings of pure dread and existential
dilemma and regard him with a hesitant smile, “thank you, Mr. Buchanan.”
“Cut the shit, Rusty. Why’d you call us in here?”
“If that’s what you prefer, we’ll jump right into it then. Your friend Tex became
a bit brave and mouthy during our Saturday evening post-performance
celebration. He was so kind as to let me, as well as the entire organization, in on
the secret of an ongoing affair between the two of you.”
Harry curls his fingers into a fist and props his forehead against it, his rage
boiling from his toes and slowly creeping up his body, one hundred cells at a
time. That explains why Tex showed up at The Pink black-out drunk that night;
he had spilled classified, dangerous information that he had no ownership or
certainty of, and with nothing to lose, stumbled over to the beach to confess
everything to his long-lost friend. Drunk and spilling secrets all fucking night. Just
before punching Harry in the face and in turn, getting his own face smashed on
the hood of his van.
“To be truthful, I was so shocked to hear the news at first that I didn’t believe
it was true. You are much too classy a young woman to waste your time with
someone like Harry. His reputation far precedes him. You’re simply too good for
him, Ms. Surefire.”
You don’t have to look at Harry to know that his head has fallen, that his
stomach is in knots, that his jaw is clenching over the spoken reality that he’s
feared all along. But the truth of the matter is, this is one person’s opinion. And
an opinion that has zero knowledge, zero credibility and zero precision.
“With all due respect, Mr. Buchanan, I already have a father. And I find it to be
a shame that your sight is monopoly-driven, antiquated and skin deep. Harry
showed up for rehearsals a week earlier than medically advised after a serious
accident that left him comatose and amnesiac. Everybody here, and all around
the world, respects him with unshakable recognition for his efforts. It doesn’t
take binoculars to see integrity when it’s sitting directly across from you. We all
deserve a little oblivion. All of us. Regardless of the past and what one person
might think.”
The tense silence in the room is broken up by Harry nudging his foot against
yours, once, twice, before dropping his hand out of Rusty’s line of sight to brush
your pinkies together. Goosebumps dart up your arm, your belly twinkles with
starlight. Hopefully Rusty doesn’t notice the blush heating your cheeks, but you
know Harry does.
“I warned you there would be repercussions. I promised you I would take

action. We met more than once about this, to ensure the fact that you were falling
in line and you explicitly told me on several occasions that nothing was
transpiring. Don’t act so surprised, Styles. This is yesterday’s papers. I warned
you, clearly, that you would lose a partner if this charade ensued.”
And just like that, the memory that had been missing that Harry has been
clawing inside of his brain for twenty-four hours reappears. He doesn’t have to
even lift his head to feel your rabid, livid stare piercing his skull. And he wouldn’t
dare.
“I’m aware that we’ve just signed contracts, but if you’ll read the fine print,
you’ll find that the employer can choose to terminate a position at any given
moment if stipulations were broken.”
“Harry?”
Harry’s face falls into his palms and he speaks through the cracks in his
fingers. He doesn’t dare look at you, because he’s a liar. A fucking liar that
murders everything good, “je suis vraiment désolé. Je suis vraiment désolé. Dieu,
s’il te plait, Dieu. Pardonne-moi, Vivienne. Je suis vraiment désolé.”
“You both signed a contract promising no fraternization between employees

of the circus. It is strictly forbidden and consistently taken with grave
seriousness, regardless of your status in the company.”
And if I don’t?
“I managed to turn a blind eye for a while, considering your impeccable and
nightly sellout performances. But your friend Tex has been very adamant for
weeks about your health suffering because of all this. Turns out he was right.”
Doesn’t matter. You fucked up. Your secret’s out. It’s over. Tell Clyde to start
looking for a new gig. You’re both getting what you deserve now — a disaster.
You’re staring holes into his profile. Like speckles on an egg or seeds in a
strawberry, each word has a lump of tears dotting your flesh, “comment as-tu pu
me faire ça?!”
“And when he pickled himself on Murky Lagoon and told the entire circus
what’s actually been carrying on behind closed doors for months, I had no option
but to take swift, immediate and permanent action. As per our agreement back in
June of this year.”
Then you can kiss you precious partner goodbye.
It sounds gruesome. The shrill bleat of your voice bouncing off of every wall in
the stuffy, hot room. It’s simply gory, “Harry?!”
“Je suis horrible. S’il te plaît, pardonne-moi, Vivienne. Je t’aime, je t’aime. Je

suis un gosse. J’ai fait une erreur. Je suis désolé…... je suis désolé.”
“So, I’m sorry.” Rusty brings his cigarette to his lips, black and horrible and
offensive, the smoke snaking between his fingers and through his mustache,
“you’re fired, Harry.”
With two audible, harsh sucks of air past two equally shocked mouths, the air
turns sticky with tension. No one breathes for several seconds. With your
fingertips pressed to your lips and Harry’s palms frozen and white knuckling the
arms of his chair, a dull ring passes from your brain and through his.
“You explicitly pursued a relationship I’d warned you against, you’ve gotten
into several fights during your residency here, one of which was on theatre
grounds. I can’t trust your injuries, your motives or the stability of your brain.
You’re a walking liability. Who knows how many times this will happen in the
future? You’re erratic and unreliable. A liability. Your role is being replaced. We
will be holding tryouts for Vivienne’s new partner in two weeks.”
Harry hadn’t even bothered to consider the alternate scenario. That your
career was safe and his was the one that’s ending. Him and his filthy, narcissistic
ego had it backwards this entire time. A pariah who has become professionally
exiled and generously brought the title upon himself.
Two lovers torn in half by a thunderbolt of revelation; a mountain of lies and a

planet of oversight. A cloud cover of bad luck and a drizzle of bad timing. A
fucking mess. The dusty, leather-bound proverbial book of your love slams
closed. Your place in the story is lost, the end of the novel is left incomplete. Your
partnership, your devotion. The Flying Marvels, Sunbaby and Cherry pie. It’s
over.
The entire room turns white. It flips between television stations and catches
between radio signals. The San Andreas Fault shifts, laterally, sucking up Harry’s
chair and you and Rusty and the theatre and California itself, saving Harry for
last. He freefalls down a dark tunnel into a depression and self-hatred that seems
as though it’s bound to last permanently, a blackout which whispers to him that
his father was right and Rusty was right, Tex was right, you were right. Indy’s
dead, bloody, broken body was right. A murderer, an assassin, a criminal and a
thief. Someone who squashes harmless snails with their protective shells and
daffodils with their trusting beauty and human beings with their innocence for
the fucking hell of it, because he’s too busy telling himself that the only thing that
matters is the here and now. When in fact, the only thing that matters is the past
and the future. Because you can’t have now without the past. And you can’t have
the future without now. Now disappears every second, but the past and the
future stretch on forever in opposite directions. And he has ruined your past and
your future. He has ruined his past and his future. He has ruined Indy’s past and
Indy’s future. So why is he still allowed to roam the Earth, now?
This tunnel is savage and it’s precisely what he deserves, for everything that
he has done and will do, both in the past and the future. A massacre.
“And don’t even think about leaving in solidarity. Harry will be telling
everyone that he’s relinquishing on his own accord, or I won’t hesitate to expose
him to the world for what he truly is: a liar, a violent, abusive murderer and a
careless womanizer. Your work visa will be revoked first thing in the morning
and if I hear of you even sniffing around Malibu, I’ll call the police.” Rusty points a
finger directly at your chest, “I can guarantee that you’ll never have another job
in the entire entertainment industry if you forgo your contract here. And I’ll sue
you straight into the ground. You’re here for one more year, minimum. Any
questions?”
You manage to choke some sort of defense through the crushing pressure in
your lungs, “you can’t punish us like this. We’ve done wonders for your business
and this is how we’re treated? I’ll go directly to the press—”
“Do you really think they’d listen to your nagging? You’re a woman. Your
words and your empty threats mean less than nothing. You’re just a circus
performer. Disposable. Like Harry, but even more so. I’d love to see you even try
to bring this empire down. I suggest you keep your mouth closed if you want to
maintain this job that I’m graciously allowing you to have, throughout all of your
ignorant and blind disobedience. Don’t break your ankles before you even have
your foot in the door. They’re weak enough as it is.”
All you can do is look at Harry. All he can do is look at you.
Harry is a teakettle the iota before it boils. He extends his index finger and
pushes Rusty’s ashtray off his desk, thick black ash that smells of musky licorice
floats down in its path. Without looking at you or Rusty, Harry springs up from
his chair and out of the office, through a crowd of people celebrating the season
finale in the hallway, drinking, hugging and laughing. But he has no occasion to
celebrate. Harry’s finale looks and sounds much, much darker than this.
Again.
Two days pass. Two days spent lying in bed suffocating on misery and trying
to wrap your head around how instantaneously everything has crumbled around
you. There aren’t enough words to attach to the melee of emotions that war
against each other; the worry and the sadness, the maltreatment and the
betrayal, the heartbreak and the trauma. And above all of this, you couldn’t help
but feel ravaged into near-extinction when you tried to imagine how Harry must
be feeling.
And you can’t tell if you were shocked or struck with a deadly bolt of lightning
when you received a phone call on Thursday morning from none other than
Harry himself, rasping firmly into your ear, “meet me at Banana Split in ten. If
you’re not there, I’m breakin’ your door down. I have nothing to lose, Vivienne.”
Harry is already there when you arrive, leaning up against the bark that once
represented a mutual meeting ground, a neutral territory between your duplex
and the theatre. It started off so positive; a landmark of clean-aired respite, the
place where you could finally take a full breath after a day of rehearsing and
performing. And now it’s so dead that you’re surprised it hasn’t rotted and tipped
over with Harry’s weight propped on it. Dressed in black from head to toe, just as
he did when you’d first met him. When he was still mourning Indy’s death. When
he was mourning the prospect of having to work with a partner again. And now
here he is, mourning the product of his very accurate supposition. All those
months ago.
“We came, we saw, we dunno.”

“Hey.” Your approach is coupled with a small, stubborn chuckle, “if I didn’t
know you any better, that phone call would have been a really scary threat. Are
you okay? I’ve never felt that level of concern before, honestly.”
“Fuck off, I’m super scary.” The pink smoke from his cigarette and the dulling
light from his eyes are the only thing colorful about him. Beside his feet lie your
roller skates in the grass, along with a small pile of your records and in his hand
is a pink envelope, sealed closed and stuffed full with paper of mysterious nature.
He had thought about keeping the Nina Simone records all to himself, but then
decided that he can’t listen to them because it’s too painful. And besides, he plans
to sell his van and everything inside of it. Except for the heart-shaped locket and
the Frank Sinatra mugshot, because a reminder of the crimes of love and
unstoppable passion is one that he should never forget. “Another year, another
death. This is exactly what I was fuckin scared of, V.”
Everything that you grew to love about Malibu is standing before you and
surrounding you like a pink snow globe, a bubble of despair and sadness, shaken
up violently and settling with newly shaped debris. It appears to be a happy
contained memento, but soon it’ll be a figurine that represents a homesick point
in time as it sits on a shelf in your memory, collecting dust. The ocean off to the
west, the palm trees craning north, The Pink to the south. Your sunshine, rising in
the east, about to disappear away beyond the horizon. Malibu, California, 1965
written on the golden, scalloped-edge plaque. A whole year of your life that could
be packed away neatly once it’s been processed and you’ve moved on. But it
won’t be neat. Because you don’t want to move on. But you don’t have a choice.
“Harry?” You move closer and tap the pack of cigarettes rolled up in his sleeve.
He wordlessly honors your gesture, slipping one out and then lighting it for you
with a match, “was I….. just another one of your escapes? Something to bury
yourself from, like a mountain of sand to hide your face in until reality washed it
all away—”
His annoyance is drawn on every inch of his face, “no. Fuck you. Fuck that. No.
You’re actin’ like I orchestrated this entire thing from top to bottom.”
“Subconsciously, maybe?”
“Vivienne, I hate to break it to you, but fantasizin’ about someone every

second of every day and fallin’ head first into a cave of obsession isn’t planned
and it’s not clean. And it’s the best fuckin’ escape from reality I’ve ever felt,
because I was actually one-hundred percent drowning in hot, brazen reality. I’ve
never felt that focused or compelled before. You purified every corner of my life. I
despise that it was washed away. I despise that you can’t remember all of our
decent moments with the same sparkle because it’s tinged with pain now. Both of
our memories were stolen. I wish you still wanted my face buried in you. I wish I
could fuckin’ bury myself in you forever.”
“It was so abrupt. I started to question my own sanity. It’s just hard to believe
that it was real because everything feels so different now.”
“Look who’s talkin’. Listen….. it’s still me. Still weird. Still gross. Still me. It’s
just that now I’ve hurt you, so you’re seein’ me differently. I’m not blamin’ you. I
would too. I’m the same color just in different light. I blame myself, even though
it’s not my fault either. I’m broken and I broke you. I hate it. Just feels li… e... we
laid out every fuckin’ piece of fine china we owned and cooked a grueling,
upscale five course meal to perfection. You brought out the delicate, thin-
stemmed glasses that are only reserved for once-in-a-lifetime special occasions
and then as soon as we pop the fuckin’ cork on the champagne, I flipped the
whole goddamn table over. I hate it.”
“No, no. Please don’t do this to yourself. This isn’t all your fault, Harry. I was
with you every step of the way. Please, please, please don’t do this yourself. You
are just as much a victim in this situation as I am. I’m not angry with you for not
telling me. I was at first, but now it seems useless because I think this would have
ended the same no matter what.”
The word “penitent” comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative
aspect of his personality. He feels really fucking sad for his former, present and
future self. And for you.
He’s devastated for you.
The obstacles of his life have curiously composed him into a man of
distinguishable layers. Much like a vibrantly painted Russian nesting doll,
versions and versions of Harry lie within himself, alternating between gradations
of desperate sorrow and bloated joy. Ending on the tiniest rendition; the
mysterious nucleus of self that seems to be the only part of him that’s still intact
with nowhere left to shrink. It’s been buried deep, covered up by identical yet
larger forms, and perhaps you’re just meeting him for the first time. And maybe
he is as well.
All of his protective membranes are shed. It’s still him, but small and exposed.
It’s still him, but humbled.
It’s still him, and it’s always been him. Scattered and cohesive all within a
single entity.
It’s hard to hate him. It’s hard not to hate him. It’s hard to love him. It’s hard
not to love him.
You love him.
This whole time, you had thought that he was making you fall in love with him,
but it was a two-way street with similar mindsets in either vehicle. Neither of
you wanted this, but it happened. Because it was supposed to. Because there was
no stopping it.
Your chin quivers and you suck your bottom lip into your mouth, wishing that
pain didn’t have such an omnipresent ability to take up space. It feels much too
big for your body. For your tools. For your power. It’s a weight that capsizes your
head and sends your nerve-endings barreling off the edge of the abruptly flat
earth. Mudslides; except this time, it’s piles and piles of dirt and dirt and
suffering and suffering.
Harry anticipates and moves in sync with your anguish, pulling you in for a
hug at the same moment that your face drops into your palms, his chin resting on
top of your head. The sting starts inside of your skull, crawling around your
cavities before burning a slip of tears down your cheeks. Harry tuts and you can’t
see it, but his face scrunches up each time your back heaves and by the third
shattered cry, Harry finally breaks and joins you. Quietly enough that you’re only
aware of it when you feel hot drops of salt water on your collarbone.
“Please don’t leave me.”
“Please don’t ask me to stay.”
“You’re doing it again. You’re refusing to let love in.”
“Yeah? Maybe. Call it whatcha have to call it. But when I get burned, I have to
tear myself away from the fire. It’s not safe for me to be here, Rusty is gonna have
me drafted or some shit. By the way, y’know you do that shit, too. You do the
exact same thing. I’m not bitchin’ about a single thing that happened between us,
I’m just—” He licks his lips and shuffles his gaze in a circle around your face
before locking eyes, “I fought for you, hard. And even if I hadn’t cracked my head
open, somethin’ was gonna happen between us. I had the hots for you right away
and I think you did, too. There was so much here….. you’re so much.” He gathers
your hair into a makeshift ponytail and holds it away from your neck, “Rock
Paper Scissors? I win, I leave. You win, I don’t stay.”
You both throw the same shapes; your scissors saw one another in half.
“I’m so sorry, Vivienne.” After he calms himself down from crying the smallest
bit, he tilts his chin up and flares his nostrils, “any bats in the cave?”
You laugh and wipe a couple tears away, but only a couple, because Harry’s
pushing your hands out of the way and swiping his thumbs across your cheeks
for you, “nope.”
“Thanks, babe. How ’bout you?” He pinches your chin and tilts it towards the
sky, “you’re all clear.”
You miss him already.
With a steady hand, Harry extends the pink envelope towards you, “this is for
you.” He circles his finger around his ear like a propeller blade, “after I got a rush
of memories, other things started comin’ back slowly, y’know….. and every time I
remembered something about us, I wrote it down. After things arranged and
cleared out a bit, I started talkin’ to you. Some of it is a fuckin’ mess, all out of
order and crocked. Just like my mind. It started as a tactic meant to keep track of
shit and help me sort out my brain, but then I made it out to you. I want you to
have it. In case you forgot about us for a minute, too.” He acquaints himself with
the curve of your lips, the sad pout, the soft glisten. His eyes tear through yours
and then land back home, painful and hungry, “kiss, please.”
Your palm is warm and heavy on his chest when you lean forward and tuck
your nose beside his, your breaths stalled when he closes the gap to slip them
together. Soft and loving. A clear, sad statement wrapped up in a Cupid’s bow and
a pink little whimper. Timid on the break, a sweep of his eyelashes on your
cheek, “thank you for my kiss.”
You whisper his line back to him, “kiss, please.”
His eyes glass over with tears before he pinches them closed, “please.”
The second kiss turns hot and heavy after a few pecks, after a couple sweeps
of tongue, after he palms your breast and pushes you up against Banana Split.
Your hums and mewls mix and mingle in the salty air and the sensual tension, his
fingers wrapping around your throat as he murmurs into your mouth that you’re
good, that you’re beautiful, that you’re Cherry. His Cherry. And then he’s pushing
back and swiping the belly of his nose with the back of his wrist, “’kay. Let’s
just….. reel it in a bit so I’m not leavin’ Malibu with a pinky.”
You weave your fingers with his and walk him to his van, closing the door for
him after he piles himself in and leaning on the open window, “I miss you, Harry.”
“I miss you, baby. I never did figure it out, huh?”
“Figure what out?”
“Treat you right. Be good enough for you. C’mere.” You lean closer and his
palm is cupping your cheek as soon as you’re face to face with him, “your eyes
look real pretty when you cry. In a devastating way, y’know? Like finding one
perfectly preserved object in the rubble of a fire.” Harry clicks his tongue and
taps your chin with his knuckle, “smolders.”
“Will I ever see you again? Are you fleeing forever?”
“I gotta tell you somethin’. I saw you that time, Cherry. When you came to the
theatre early and you thought you were alone. You danced The Dying Swan and I
could see that your ankle was botherin’ you all over your face. It hurt, but you did
it because you love it and you did it because you had to. That’s what I’m doin’,
babe. Dig?”
It’s clear that he isn’t asking for your permission, but rather your obedience.
His perfectly executed roundabout answer leaves you unsatisfied, but that’s
exactly how he’s always operated and you know that about him and you love that
about him. Even if you hate it.
“’May the bridges I burn light the way.’”
You shake your head, tears burning your cheeks but there’s no use in trying to
hide or stop them, “this isn’t your fault. I just want you to know that.” A sharp sob
wrecks both of what’s left of your hearts, “I can’t do this without you. I don’t want
to. I don’t know how.” It feels like you simply can’t exist in Malibu without
Sunshine to help you fly.
“You have to.”
“Harry.”
“Vivienne.” His thumb traces your jaw, his eyes are the entire ocean, his lips
look as sweet and pink as the cotton candy smoke that pours from them, “you’re
fuckin’ tough. You always have been.”
Both of your hands cup his cheeks, “I just have to know one thing. Would you
have still pursued me like this if you’d known that it was your own career on the
line rather than mine?”
“Yep.”
His short response is clear cut, but it only opens the doors to more questions,
“so….. everything would have been the same? You’d have kept it a secret from me
and gone for what you wanted, regardless of the consequences?”
“Yep. Can I ask you somethin’?”

“Yes.”
“Would you’ve done that for me?”
“Honestly?”
“Don’t even think about fuckin’ lying.”
“In the beginning, no. But had I known it would be like this, yes. I wouldn’t
change a thing, Harry.”
“Then try to just be grateful it happened the way that it did.” His eyes flick to
your mouth and back to your sad stare, “lots to think about.”
“You’re really leaving? Right now….. like this, for good?”
“It’s better. Trust me. You’ll thank me one day, after you stop hatin’ me.
Neither of us are healthy for the other right now, yeah? We’re broken. We won’t
be able to find what we’re looking for in this landfill. Any treasures have been
ransacked by wild animals. Love yourself if you can. Reflect. Feel. Think a whole
fuckin’ lot. Think as much as you can. Think until it drives you completely insane.
Welcome it all. Then you’ll start to crawl out of this hole, you’ll start to feel better.
Surround yourself with people and gain new narratives, new experiences, new
opinions. Grow. That’s what I’m gonna do at least. I realize now that I wasn’t
done drivin’ myself crazy when we met. I wish we met at a different time….. I
would’ve sacrificed anything for you. But right now I can’t. If the truth was in my
head all along, I would’ve found it by now. I have to forgive myself and accept the
person I am, not the person I will be one day in the future. I have to learn that it’s
okay to not be okay. We both need different guidance, V. We’re changed people.
There’s no going back. I have to be selfish right now, for both of us.” He kisses
you again, slowly, memorizing your taste and your agony, “how lucky were we,
though? The few months we did have were a total dream, yeah?
The compassion isn’t in your word, but rather your eyes, your mouth, your
heart, your softness, your integrity, “yes. So much so that it doesn’t feel real.”
“Unreal. I love you forever.”
For the last time, you squeeze his cheeks and pucker his lips out for a kiss,
your eyes devouring one another as you take two steps away from his van
towards Banana Split where all of your parting gifts lay; your skates, your
records, the envelope than you somehow have to gather enough bravery to tear
open, “I love you, Sunshine. Be good.”
He taps the exterior of his door twice before starting the ignition, Marvin Gaye
coming to life on his turntable just before he slides his sunglasses onto his nose.
You watch his van rumble down the PCH, his fingers held out of the driver’s side
window in the shape of a peace sign, a puff of pink smoke trailing along beside
him. Harry’s van grows tiny like a toy car flicked into the horizon by a careless
child, pushed forward by the directionless wind. The sun, the ocean, the bleached
pavement with its yellow stripes and white stripes and invisible arrows swallow
him whole. Always following the Sunshine. Or perhaps always staying one step
ahead of it. He’s gone.
Right before Harry came to say goodbye to you, he made sure to leave a small
parting gift on Tex’s beloved ’61 sage green Thunderbird; now complete with a
gas tank full of sugar, four slashed tires, torn off windshield wipers and side
mirrors, kicked in headlights and bologna slices baking to the windshield and
eating off the exterior paint under the hot California sun. He easily jimmied the
lock on Tex’s front door while he was asleep, hiding frozen shrimp in his
hollowed-out curtain rods and then releasing half a dozen rats that were meant
to be snake food into his home. A boxcutter easily cut a giant square out of the
middle of his living room carpet, exposing the asbestos underneath. The final
touch was a quick spritz of pink spray paint on his front door, something to
concisely portray his character to any curious neighbors and passersby.
Rat fink
And then again on his mangled car.
Cunt
After nosing around some of Tex’s friends at work, he easily obtained Riff’s
address and left his red Dodge Charger with nothing except a silent set of freshly
snipped brake lines. His only regret was that he hadn’t done it sooner, but he
supposes now is an appropriate time considering he has less than nothing to
lose. Harry can’t flee a place without leaving a bit of sizzling sunbeams and fierce
sugar in his wake, after all.
Like a dandelion seed. Designed to detach and float on, wherever the wind
takes it. Gracefully, like a dancer with its arms held above its head, doing exactly
what nature intended, spreading beauty wherever it may land.
It was worth it. The pain of growth, the pleasure of growth. It was worth it.
Besides, what’s the point of falling in love if it doesn’t destroy your life a little
bit?
Fin.
Golden, golden, golden As I open my eyes Hold it, focus, hoping Take me back to
the light I know you were way too bright for me I’m hopeless, broken So you wait
for me in the sky Brown my skin just right You’re so golden
Holy fucking shit, I’m right there with you all. I’m destroyed beyond any
recognizable shred of a human being. I have tears streaming down my face as I
write this because of the utter ransacking shit of feelings coursing through me.
Writing this book was easily the most difficult thing I have ever done in my entire
life. And I thank every single one of you for your attention, your bravery, your
support, your faith in me as an artist and a person. I love you more than words can
ever say. I would have never pushed myself this hard if it weren’t for so many
people cheering me on so fiercely. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I will post an extra in two days. It’s already written, don’t worry. It’ll be here.
And after that, Aerial will have two very, very long epilogues and then an
additional extra. The story is ’over’ but it’s also far from over, ya dig?
I. Love. You. Xx your Bird

The Pink Envelope
Cherry,
Honey.Vivienne fucking Surefire.
Cherry. That was the first thing I thought when I found this red-hot heart
locket buried in my sheets. That fucking headshot changed my life. It’s like past
me knew I would need it to complete the current puzzle. It led me to you, it led
me away from you, then it led me right back to you. Thanks, past me. Thanks,
past you, for keeping it directly under my nose. Pressed up against my heart,
warm and alive. Cherry.
Memories fill my bucket. I drain it and it refills mechanically. Slosh, click, tip,
pour, fill. Slosh. Pour.
Je suis tombé amoureux.
I am mourning you like the fucking dead.
I nabbed your headshot from your portfolio the same day you first admitted
you were injured. I needed to see for myself that Rusty was a piece-of-shit liar.
He never told me about your ankle and he never planned to, you know. He kept
your portfolio under lock and key on purpose. He knows I would’ve fled the
country if I’d found out one second before I finally did — I was too invested by
then. My perception of you changed a lot after that. You became my
responsibility. Maybe if I’d treated Indy that way from the start, she would still
be alive today.
When we were thrown together, I was afraid to get close to you. I was so
fucking scared of you, of myself. The only way I could let you in was by teasing
you, by feeling the tingles in my fingertips when we touched but keeping the
sensation to myself, by hiding your headshot in my wallet. I knew the second you
saw it and then I knew I had to make it stop before it got out of control. But then I
hit my head and my heart started calling the shots. And it got out of control.
And I’ll never regret it. And I hope you don’t, either.
You snort when you laugh. I know I don’t need to tell you that, but maybe
you’d like to know that it’s extremely persuasive.
You stifle all of your sneezes and I think it’s just because you were raised to be
that polite. You stick your finger in my open mouth when I’m yawning and I think
it’s just because you were born to be that evocative.
There’s a particular way that your hair looks in the mornings. It’s not messy or
dirty, but seasoned. Backbone and ease. A protagonist in a novel settling into a
place of comfortable chaos. In your bed, you sleep in your underwear. A
nightgown. Teeny baby little fucking shorts. Sometimes topless, always with a
silk sleep mask to prevent wrinkles or some shit. But in my bed, you sleep in
nothing but my underwear. You kick the sheets onto me and make me sweat,
then the sheets usually end up on the floor and you end up curled into my
stomach like a baby kitten seeking warmth. You told me I snore, but I still don’t
believe you. I haven’t yet told you that you snore, but you do. Sometimes. Only in
the mornings. Sunday mornings usually, crashed out on your tummy with the sun
all over your legs, after a week of performances and after our dates. After a
couple glasses of champagne and a couple joints and a couple orgasms. Surprise,
snore baby.
Orange juice right from the carton. A swear jar that never materialized.
Kiss the back of your neck, cuddle you from behind. Strawberry honey scented
hair.
We had a fight at that palm tree. We loved a lot at that palm tree. I spent a lot
of time dreading our goodbyes at that palm tree. I spent a lot of time waiting for
you to show up at that palm tree. I spent a lot of time kissing you against that
palm tree. I spent a lot of time thinking about kissing you against that palm tree.
You always seem to know when my back itches. Your nails are like sorcerers.
Some things I’ve seen you get emotional about:

undefined—urnt toast-Toast that isn’t burnt enough
undefined—ow small a lizard’s eyes were-An episode of “I Dream of Jeannie”
where she started to vanish because she was sad that she didn’t know when her
birthday was
undefined—pilling hot chocolate on your skirt-Sunflower petals that were
singed by the flame of your candle
undefined—he song “Cloudy” by Simon & Garfunkel-A miniature tea set
undefined—eau eating a spider-An ambulance siren -Charlotte biting the big
one at the end of Charlotte’s Web
undefined—he last bite of cantaloupe falling off your fork-Cigarette ash on
your lounge carpet
undefined—n Ipana commercial on the radio because the song always gets
stuck in your head-Dropping and shattering a bottle of your favorite perfume
undefined—et sand in the pages of your book-The stress of sewing tiny, loose
beads on your costume ten minutes to curtain -Me, anything involving me
Some things I’ve never seen you get emotional about:

undefined—our ankle-Your parents -Your assault
You don’t cry often, hardly at all. I hate to see it. But it’s kind of beautiful. It
gives me the gnarliest bubble guts.
I hope you know and believe that you did nothing wrong with Tex and Riff.
You were a victim and you handled it with the fiercest fucking claws I’ve ever
seen in my life. I just want you to process that shit, okay? You might be scared to
get in strange people’s cars for a while and might be reluctant to be vulnerable
with someone again, and know that that’s okay. It’s my fault, too. I should’ve
known better; I should’ve picked up on more signals. I shouldn’t have walked out
on you after you’d just been attacked. Just feel that shit and try to accept it,
understand that you’re smart and tough and that you’re gonna be ready to trust
people again one day, as soon as you start to feel safe again. Tex and Riff are
psychotic scumbags and don’t deserve any of your precious brain space. Get a
restraining order against both of them if you can. Nettie will help you. Please be
safe. Remember what I taught you. Let those fuckers (all men) know you’re
paying attention. I’m so sorry that you have to live with those repercussions, that
you have to live with any of this at all. You’re too good.
Je t’aime.
The lightbulbs on the Ferris wheel were warm like honey. Your skin looked
really nice with the moon and the wind bouncing off of it. It surprised me how
fucking scared you were in the haunted house. Before that, I thought your fears
were all internal: intimacy, abandonment and failure. I didn’t tell you this, but I
was kind of embarrassed that I couldn’t pop seven of those fuckhead balloons.
But you deserved that bunny for champing the pier with no fucking knickers on.
Pink Bunny. Light of Love. Jack Rabbit. Hollywood Hells. Funnel cake. Photo
booth. Eat your ass out for breakfast.
Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Holy shit!!! I have the palm tree tattooed on me. Jesus Christ —
I just scanned for any other new fun surprise tattoos and I can’t seem to find
any. Do you know anything about this? What the fuck. Freak me the fuck out. You
should’ve seen my face just now.
“Et bons garçons?” “J’ai toujours été ici.”
I have.
I saw you dancing in your pointe shoes early that one morning. I think it was
“The Dying Swan.” You look so beautiful when you’re frowning, when you’re
doing something that you love to do, when you’re on your toes.
I saw you dancing to Jefferson Airplane in your living room after Chubby’s,
too. You kind of suck at dancing in secret. I think because it’s too perfect to hide
behind.
I should have kissed you back that time we were dancing to Marvin Gaye in
practice room two. Now you know why, you know that I was afraid we’d be
caught and we would have ended before we had a chance to start. But I should
have kissed you anyway.
The Cat’s Paw. Golden Pier. The Sweet Hereafter. Temptations. Bunny Hill.
Susie Q’s. The Streamline Cinema. Chubby’s.
Fuck. Chubby’s. That was our first date. You know that, right?
Daddy.
You told those chicks I had the clap because you were mad at me for fucking
around backstage. Fuck, you’re a warrior princess. An Amazon woman of slightly
smaller stature.
Tell me something. I love your secrets.
You get cranky when you’re hungry. You get sassy when you’re angry. You get
singsongy when you’re concentrating. You get talkative when you’re nervous.
You get quiet when you’re worried. You get real fucking sweet when you’re
comfortable.
You’re very sweet in the morning. I love you in the morning. I love us in the
morning.
Saltine eating contests. Skating contests. Licking your waffles to claim them as
my own. Spitting my gum in your palm just to feel your fingertips. Banana peel
boyfriends. Faking deafness to avoid the fall. Acting annoyed when you cut my
yawn short. Using your deodorant to keep your scent close. Stealing your food to
tick you off. Pretending I’m not madly in love with you.
Je suis fou d’amour pour toi.
You drink martinis slowly. You eat the olives first. You drink Pearls quickly.
You peel the label from the bottle. You drink milkshakes affectionately. You eat
the cherries last. Champagne makes you hiccup. Weed makes you horny. Sugar
makes you happy. Orgasms make you hungry. You’re affected by things deeply
and it shows.
My sweet girl.
Honey Princess Hour. That’s kind of me and Nettie’s thing, but I’ll let you have
it since she went blabbing behind my back like a typical squawking bird. We only
talked about you anyway. Or actually, I talked and Nettie listened.
Thousand-degree showers. A cute, mascara-coated trash panda. Kiss, please.

You let me tease the absolute shit out of you. You always do it right back.
“Empty his pockets and wreck his days, make him love her then shoo fly
away.”
That time you packed your lunch to be exactly like mine, just to fuck with me.
That made me smile for days, whenever I’d think of it.
I felt like a fucking asshole on the first day of practice when you told me we’d
met on the beach the day before and I’d forgotten for a sec. I remembered after
you reminded me. You stuck out like a sore thumb. I think that’s when you really
started to exasperate and provoke me, when it went from being nonspecific self-
loathing to a personal vendetta.
We just had a fight and you’re sitting all the way across practice room two
now, shining me on and pretending to stretch, but I can feel your broken side eye
and broken heart from here. I miss you too, baby. My drippy Cherry cheesecake,
my golden Honey truffle. I know it’s hard for you to say to me. It’s hard for me
also, it’s fucking impossible. We’re going to be okay, I think. One day. Whenever
we stop crying. Think you’ll ever let me hold you or kiss you again? I feel like I
have the charitable mindset of a child right now, not wanting any of this shit to
be real. So, I will find any way for this not to be real. I read once that denial is a
very strong emotion…..
Please let me kiss you just one more time.
I need it to wake up more memories of us, to remind me of what we’ve lost, to

help me guide the path of who I will become. We need the closure. We weren’t
ready. We weren’t ready for any of it, really. That’s why it clapped us so hard.
And then we were ripped off. Was it all my fault? I need your secrets, because
now they’re my secrets. We’re changed now, forever. There are plot twists in
every fucking corner of our lives, like we’re just walking around and around on
an ellipse. Every single footstep is different than the one before it and we’re just
trying to keep our fucking balance.
Okay
Well I’m certainly fucking remembering my conversation with Rusty now, the
one where he warned me to keep my junk filed away. And what Tex said to me
before he sucker-punched me. I had to take a break from you and write lots of
cusses down, about 8 pages worth. They kissed the ocean as soon as I shredded
them. You know why, so I’m not even going to bring that shit here. Tex told me
that he ratted us out and that you were getting shit-canned. I promised Nettie I
would tell you and then I chickened out. I made love to you instead, like a
coward. I was flirting with delusion that entire time. All I can say is I would do it
all with you again and I would do it much differently. And I’m so desperately
sorry you’re stuck with the aftermath. Just get the fuck out of there as soon as
you can. Avoid Rusty as much as possible and bounce after this next season.
You’ll be glad for it. Any organization would hire you. Don’t settle. Trust me.
You’re going to be really fucking famous one day, just like you want. Just like you
deserve.
I’m glad it’s me who got the boot instead of you. You don’t deserve to be
punished for my omissions.
I’m sorry, Vivienne. I’m sorry. What did I just do to us?
Fuck
I don’t think I’m done writing down cusses…..
Okay —
When we were in our dressing room tonight after the finale, after you allowed
me put my grubby hands all over you, there were so many things I wanted to say
to your face but I couldn’t. Not after you’d let me love you like that. I wanted to
say that I feel like I made everything about me. You being assaulted, you not
wanting to tell me that Tex was a jackass friend because you felt like it wasn’t
your place, your bum ankle, waking up scared after we made love, being your
lover in general, the circus, your career position. Your fucking job, your goddamn
reason for living. I made it all about me. I don’t know how, but I did. I took
everything that you were supposed to be, supposed to process and own and
inserted myself right into the center of it all. Didn’t I? Was I good to you? I’m a
complete fucking narcissist. Was I ever good enough for you? It feels like it’s all I
ever wanted and the only thing I’ve tried so hard to hold on to and I failed. Did I
make you happy? Did I support you? Did I tell you that you’re the best dancer and
kisser on the planet?
You are.
But no one can ever love me like you do. You’re too fucking good at it. A pro.
Five more sunflowers. What did you have for breakfast, Cherry? Kiss, please.
Slick Daddy Boss.
The mansion swimming pool. A very slow peel of that bra with the
embroidered cherries between your tits. God’s tits. You’re so responsive that it
makes my stomach flip. Did that bozo have a shotgun or did I make that up?
You’re a paradox of easy touch and impenetrable brick. It’s brilliant, it’s
maddening. It drove me bananas. It kept me sane.
Je t’aime.
You thought it would be a good idea to sneak out of your bedroom for a wee in
nothing but those knickers that go up to your belly button, but Nettie caught you.
I could hear you shriek from the hallway. I choked on my smoke.
It’s okay, Nettie saw my junk once too. Same scenario, different day. She
wasn’t as nice to me as she was to you.
I knew your roommate’s name was Nettie after the first or second correction.
You’re both just so fun to fuck with. I’m kind of scared she’s going to come
looking for me with cyanide. I won’t accept any food from her.
Nettie loves you a lot.
I love Nettie a lot. She’s so yellow, in the same way you’re a deep, warm red.
Wild cherry red.
Sunny. Sunshine. Sunbaby. Sunlight. Sunbeam. Hot Fudge Sundae. Sunburst.

Sunnybunny. Sun.
Sunburn. Sunstroke. Sunblock. Sunk.
Honeysuckle. Honeycomb. Honeymoon. Honeybunny. Honeydew. Honeyfuck.
Pretty little Honey, got me chasing a Honey fix.
My sweet Honey dreamcake, my warm Cherry pie with caramel ice cream
dripping down the edges. So delicious and you have no fucking clue. Or maybe
you know exactly.
Rough estimates of us (our sins) in numbers:

Joints smoked: 27BAC hovering: .1%
Sunflowers: 305Flying Marvels flights: 72
Stellar fucking blowjobs: 38Buttery alarms: 91
Muffdives: 56. With orgasm: 56Boom boom: 3
Cigarettes smoked: 2,500Calories ingested: 500,000? 1 million?
Children harassed: ~3 — 5 Kiss, please: Forever
Times you used my birth name in anger: minimum 800-1,000Times you
swatted at me: see above Times I cussed: ∞
I never minded our lunch breaks together. I would feel empty if you happened
to not show up some days. After my accident, we moved from the courtyard to
the beach. You’d let me nap inside of your shirt. Your tummy makes small sounds
when it digests. Your belly button is ticklish. So are your feet. So is your hot box.
Before my accident, I couldn’t nap while you were there. After my accident, I
couldn’t nap without you there.
Je t’aime.
You’re fast on those skates. Velvet legs. A foxy shag on wheels.
Sneaking around at work. Making stupid fucking faces at you across the
community kitchen until you have to put your back to me to stop laughing. The
storage closet. Our dressing room. The bathroom. The standing screen. Practice
room two. The courtyard. The beach. Fuck. You’re so sexy. It’s surreal.
You stomp your feet when you don’t get your way. You really need to work on
your mad face. It’s too cute to be convincing.
Singing “Dream Baby” at your window. Cherry banana is an unusual flavor.

I’ve seen the light and that’s why my heart sings.
You know how summer comes to an end and all the leaves start changing
color and shit and you get this dreaded feeling in your guts? Like you’re losing
something forever? Or you’re in for a really long winter…..? Months and months
of gray, snow. No turning back.
Yellow Submarine.
Just remembered the name of the palm tree: Banana Split. We never officially
carved our names into her, but I guess we didn’t need to. She saw all of our
secrets. I carved her name into me instead.
Do I still make you blush?
Riff hits hard. But I’d smash his window a thousand more times if it meant
keeping you from harm. I kinda hope he dies. I really do. I would’ve killed him if it
wouldn’t have gotten me deported. Do you think it would be suspicious if his car
rolled off a cliff…..?
Line up your French fries, eat them in order from smallest to biggest, dip them
in ketchup, eat them in twos. Line up your veggie and fruit slices, smallest to
biggest, savory first and sweet last. Carrots, then cucumbers, then apples. Then a
lollipop. Red tongue. Red lips. Exactly one shot of Murky Lagoon with pineapple
juice after each performance. Just enough to poke your adrenaline and wake up
the hungry kitten. Exactly half a joint before bed, pink smoke dying in the
ashtray. I once saw you wash down a mouthful of raw carrot sticks with a glass of
cold pineapple juice. You tasted like heaven afterwards, like the sun and the rain.
No tomatoes. No onions. Cherry sours. Hot fudge sundaes. Soft scrambled eggs.
Dark toast with butter. Orange juice straight from your refrigerator. Peanut
butter sandwiches over your kitchen sink before the sun has risen. Peanut butter
sandwiches as you rush me out the door. Cherry banana milkshakes with extra
whipped cream and extra cherries, your feet in my lap when your lips pucker
around the straw. Tiny stacks of little silver dollar pancakes. Hot chocolate from
a packet, baby marshmallows on top. Lemon and powdered sugar. Waffles and
sticky whipped cream in my bed. Peanut butter crackers when you’re hungover.
Dry Frosted Flakes straight from the box when you’re baked. Cheese and
crackers on the kitchen floor in our underwear at two in the morning. You won’t
fuck with a banana that has any brown speckles on it. You love a good lemon.
Cherries, cherries, cherries. I still want to try your Aunt Cleo’s ambrosia salad.
You can’t reach the shit at the top of the cabinet without scooting your ass
onto the counter, but I would always reach over your head and grab it for you
when I saw you struggling. You gave me a kiss whenever I asked for one. They
were always particularly sweet after I’d get you a teacup.
Here’s a secret: I would imagine you as my wife when you would make us
breakfast, when you would make me sandwiches before I went surfing, when you
let me lick you in the mornings. When you’d sleep in my clothes. I liked it. I liked
the routine. I liked the feeling of gears churning in a groove. I liked the
dependable domestic sensation of it because I’d never really had a healthy one
before.
“…..anyway I just got your beautiful letter and I love you to pieces, distraction,
e… c...”
Eating you out on your kitchen counter. You didn’t want to moan, but you
couldn’t stop it. Your mouth tastes different after you’ve come. Your body gets
soft. Your eyelids droop. Your skin shines.
Je t’aime.
The first time we kissed, I thought I was going to throw up. The first time I told
you I loved you, I thought I was going to throw up, too. I feel like I’m going to
throw up right now.
Making love to you is an out of body experience. It’s permanently engraved in

my muscles. Every couple minutes I get a new reminder — your hair falling
across your face, your brave shiny eyes, that fucking unreal feeling of you sucking
me dry. The second time, gooey and slow. My plaything. The third time on the
vanity, getting so fucking worked up that we both came as soon as I sunk inside
of you. Jesus fucking Christ. Try to guess if I have a chunker in my pants right
now or not.
Cherry Thunder Fuck.
Sunflowers over every square inch of our dressing room. The smell of a candle
going out. A broken doorknob in my palms. Your skin between my teeth.
Peeling an orange in bed, arguing over what to do with the rind.
One word: Panthermobile.
I love to imagine you as you are — this perfect fucking angel that sacrifices her
time and her sanity and her sweat to perform elegant, tidy, grueling routines for
the world and make it look so easy. So polite and gentle, diligent, tough,
dependable, creative. No wrinkles in your clothes, not a stitch of lipstick out of
place. And I also love to imagine you as you are — urging me to go down on you
with a single sizzling stare from across the community kitchen. A flick of eyeliner.
A cunning act of submission. You’re so clean. You’re so dirty. You were only dirty
for me. I hate to imagine you being dirty for someone else. It feels like it’s just for
me. (see: narcissist)
You know as soon as you get what you want, what you want changes. I guess
what I really must want is to self-sabotage. I keep finding new, exciting ways to
do it. I’m really fucking good at it, aren’t I, Cherry?
You’re stunning with smoke between your lips. With teeth in your words.
With honey on your tongue. You taste like summer. I’ll never be the same and I’m
glad.
French pop. French kiss.

That little freckle by your belly button. I did pick a name for her, by the way,
but you can’t have it. She’s my secret. I miss her.
You know you leave folded up love notes inside of all your books? Found one
that said “funhouse mirror. Thanks for the reminder.” And one that said
“confused by Catholic parents — gravitate towards freedom unlocked in the
forces of inner mysteries.” Did I say that to you? I also found a grocery list that
only had eggs, bread and marshmallow fluff written on it.
“Don’t stop. Fais moi l’amour, s’il te plait. Please, Daddy. Je t’adore et je te
veux.” You don’t know how long I waited to hear those words and then they were
gone before I could properly taste them. You were gone.
I’d never owned a Nina Simone record before we met. I started buying them
and keeping them around in The Pink just for you.
I wish for you to take my third wish. Go on. Take it.
Did you know The Pink is short for The Pink Sand Castle? My sister named it
when I called her to update her on my move to Malibu. She worries about me a
lot. Can’t wait to catch her up to speed.
Precious fucking cardigan.
Thanks for not letting me get arrested. Twice. Maybe even three times? The
mansion swimming pool, Chubby’s, Riff (twice), playing guitar outside of your
window. And the time that piggie razzed us after you gave me a jobbie at Bunny
Hill. No shit, that’s six. You’re super tight.
We never did figure out how your candles kept going out, did we?
Je t’aime.
I threatened to cut off the TD’s head who barged into our dressing room and
caught me trying to lick you.
Your knockers, my wifebeater. Your sugar bowl, my briefs.
Daddy. You know, you’re the only person I’ve asked to call me that. You’re the
only person I’ve wanted to ask to call me that. Because you don’t need me to be
and I know it and you know it, and that’s why it feels so fucking good to hear.
You never needed me. I needed you much, much more than you needed me.
Did I manifest you? I came home on a Sunday afternoon after surfing. You
were leaning against the kitchen sink in your underwear, fully laced, halfway
through one of my cigarettes, three quarters of the way through Franny and
Zooey. Bare toes and long legs. You said you liked to imagine how it made me feel
as you read it. You said you missed the taste of my mouth while I was gone. How
long will you miss the taste after I leave?
You’re the best dancer in the whole world.
Laying down with your head in my lap when I drive. Trying to catch your busy
feet. Stealing my cigarettes. Lollipop sticks in my ashtrays. I can still taste them.
You sugarcoated my insides.
Oh my god, your fucking dancing.

You think you don’t know what to say. But no one speaks to me the way you
do. I never knew I needed to hear half of that shit until it came out of your pretty
mouth.
Some things you’ve said to me that have stopped me in my tracks: the ocean is
my god. Too powerful to be a person. Almost drown in it, but not before learning
a lesson. Never doubted me for a second. Sunshine always wins. So smart. Huge
dick. Basically Jesus, but hotter and more important. Thanks for existing. Forever
inspiration. Deserve every drop of praise and every ounce of satisfaction. An idol.
In awe. Sexy, really fucking sexy. No competition. Perfect actually. And you’ve
always thought so. Big appetite, wide eyes, vivid thoughts, restless hands,
sunbeams pushing on pores. Fidgety and all that. Too precious and sentient to
not be conscious for the entire spread of daylight. Fierce mind needs the short
replenishment. Most talented and hottest surfer you’ve ever seen. Pretty, the
prettiest person you’ve ever seen. Could look at my face forever. Loving, sentient,
altruistic. Strong. Brave. A soldier. Amazingly heroic. Proud of me. Carry a lot, but
still considerate and productive. You admire me. Gallant towards my mum. Good,
really good. Bright, blinding rays of sunshine. World’s collective hope for spring.
The world would be frozen without me. Perfectly predictable and somehow a
complete surprise. I shed light on my pain and turn it into gold. The ocean is
mine. You’re mine. Pretty words that resonate with the frequency of heartbreak
swim around in my belly with pluck and backbone. Best fucking thing that’s ever
happened to you. I look pretty with my mouth on you. Bad boy. Good boy.
Petite vache.
You telling Rusty off = titillating pandemonium. Keep it fucking coming, Queen
Honeybee. Me next, I don’t give a fuck. That instantly became my new sexual
orientation. No one has ever stood up for me like that. I’ll remember it in the
afterlife. I really should start calling you Daddy.
I’ll never forget that beautiful, perfect lingo. You tell it like it is, but you wait
for the appropriate time to let it loose. Not many people do. You make me feel so
fucking good. You do such a good job of making me feel insanely fucking good.
(Note use of present tense)
Sunny was rooting you on when you slapped me in my van, you know. I think
he hollered at one point for you to go for the coin purse next. Bring me to my
knees, cripple all my future children. That sort of thing. And I didn’t tell you this
at the time, because I couldn’t, but I was so fucking proud of how you honest you
were in practice room two. I know that’s hard for you, so thank you. I heard
every word even though I didn’t act like it.
Je t’aime.
You want me to be happy. I want you to be blissful.
There were two stipulations in my agreement to join Rusty’s circus. One was
that I would be promised a solo position. The other was that in lieu of working
animals, he would adopt a bunch of dogs from the local shelter for morale and
soothing. Rusty only followed through with one of those promises. Take care of
Beau for me, bring him home with you when you leave Rusty’s circus. He likes to
be scratched in that one soft spot behind his right ear. And he loves apples, but
he loves them even more when you give him a piece of the one you’re eating.
Take care of yourself, too. Your spots that need to be scratched and your love
of fruit.
I was cruel to you, even when I thought I wasn’t. Before my accident and after.
Even while we were dating. I have so much to learn. I hope you can forgive me. I
don’t expect you to forget and I understand if you never forgive me for any of
this. I was guarded and then I was reckless. You deserved more. I’m ashamed. I
just didn’t know if it would hurt more to tell you my secrets or to keep them.
Losing you makes sense, but it’s destroying me.
I was lost. I am lost. I will be lost for a little while. The only time I wasn’t lost
was when we were together.
I miss you. I miss us.
Please.
You never completely disappeared. I could always feel you burning

somewhere in my throat. When we were going steady, it was like there was a
former version of myself watching my actions through a projector, screaming
and clawing at me with bloody knuckles. I was trying to get in, but I knew I
shouldn’t. It was like that when I first met you too, except the roles in my head
were switched. I was trying to get out, but I knew I couldn’t. My brain tossed you
up and spit you out.
I could have predicted this entire thing happening between us, from beginning
to end. I just knew it would be a disaster. And I tried so fucking hard to stop it
before it started. I lost my head. I truly lost my fucking head.
I know you won’t understand. I know you’ve hurt. I know you’re hurting and
you will be hurting for a long, long time. But I have to go right now. I have to.
Neither of us could or should do this to each other.
“I want to be the best you’ve ever had. I want to set the bar so high that you’re
ruined, addicted. Hooked for the rest of your life. I don’t want there to be anyone
else that even comes close.” You are. You did. There won’t be.
The wound, the pain, the scab, the peel, the scar, the fade. Catharsis.
Either way, we were gonna grow a little bit.
I love you so fucking much. I never stood a chance, just like that little yellow
dress of yours. Je t’aime. Tu es si intense, tu es un cadeau de dieu. Comprends que
ce n’est pas facile, mais on en valait la peine. Chaque seconde. Je te dirais d’être
bon, mais tu l’es. Tu es l’amour de ma vie, Cerise. You taught me that love is the
only thing in existence that you can give away and end up with more of in return.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
It’s hard for me to say out loud, so I spelled it out with my tongue so your body
would never forget.
Think about me. You know I’m thinking about you.
Je suis à toi pour toujours et à jamais.

Xpls, your Sunbaby
The Encore
New York, New York, USA Late Spring 1968 Two-and-a-half years later
“Focus.”
It’s nothing.
Twenty minutes from now, all you’ll have to do is follow the technical director
from this backstage green room, down the crowded CBS Studios hallways to the
well-lit sound stage where there will be a small studio audience. It certainly
won’t feel like the half dozen video cameras are even there and that those
cameras are transmitting a signal to hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of
Americans from coast to coast. Maybe you won’t even notice them. Just like
always, you’ll float across the stage on your roller skates and grip the rope, flip
yourself upside down and move your muscles to the soundtrack that matches the
volume and timbre of your level of perfection. And afterwards, Ed Sullivan will
just be a normal person asking you a few questions in front of a few spectators, a
group that shrinks significantly in size in comparison to what you’re used to
performing for.
An appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show; it’s nothing. A cherry cake walk, a

bitter lick at first with an aftertaste that rivals the sweetness of your lollipops.
Christ’s sake, Melvin. Focus.
But first, you have to get these last few swipes of mascara to cooperate
without painting any more tiny black brush strokes across your cheek. And then
you can do all of those other slightly bigger things, followed by a much-deserved
celebration in your high-rise suite in the Elysee Hotel in the heart of Midtown.
Complete with pancakes or maybe waffles, piled high with a snow-capped
mountain of whipped cream and your bare toes sinking into the plush, argyle
carpet. But this giant mirror in front of you, surrounded by bulbous and hazy
yellow lightbulbs is reflecting back a painted woman who appears much more
confident on the outside than she feels on the inside.
In the stretch of the eighteen months after fleeing Russell Buchanan’s circus,
you have become the first and most infamous female roller-skating aerialist in
the world.
Emotional suffering works in mysterious ways. It’s understood that memories

are often blocked in order to process present pain and it isn’t until you begin to
feel safe again that they start flooding back. For you, this took a couple months of
dragging yourself in and out of bed after Harry’s brain jolted, subsisting on
easily-prepared meals such as sleeves of cheese and peanut butter cracker
sandwiches and dry toast in order to keep yourself from whittling away.
The gamut of distress is strong; from denial to anger to acceptance, over and
over again in that order until you’re driven to the brink of insanity. Slowly it
wanes, the cycles lengthening and shrinking until finally they dissolve almost
completely, making space for mementos that were at one time blissful but
became agonizing to traipse through in their absence. A meadow full of tall
grasses and extraordinary flowers, hiding secret thorns that shred you to bits on
your mental journey.
You’d immersed yourself in reminders of Harry after he’d left; stockpiling

cotton-candy-flavored Crush loosies on your vanity and unpacking his box of
starched belongings to sleep in his wifebeaters that were left behind, dancing to
rock records in your living room before bed and snuggling with Beau on your
lunch breaks, long swigs of orange juice straight from the carton in the
refrigerator light, green apples and peanut butter for lunch and sea salt on your
face at dawn.
Then you flipped. And when you began to accept that he would not be coming
back to you, you began to slowly avoid these quirks until each element was
completely eradicated from your life, replaced by new favorite colors and tastes.
Things have a habit of feeling good only if you want them to, after all. And dreams
only affect you if you remember them.
The thing about the Sun is that after it burns you, you tend to stay in the shade
for a little while.
The summer solstice. The height of summer also happens to be the very same
day that the Earth starts to turn away from the Sun, heading straight through its
shedding leaves into winter. You and Harry were no different.
It becomes much easier to explain and brand events with the notion of
detachment. And that detachment can only be brought on by time, because even
after you leave something or something leaves you, there is an emotional lag that
stems from the vicious abruptness of it all. Like the wobble of a top losing its
velocity, rattling to a halt that leaves your ears ringing in the absence of its
motion.
After your mind catches up with reality, and after you’ve had the opportunity
to recognize and forgive yourself and attach language to your experiences, that’s
when understanding happens. And that’s exactly why it’s referred to as a process.
It’s long, it can’t be rushed and it can’t be forced. Any of us are lucky to gain
clarity from retrospection, to stand back and look at the pointillist painting we’d
been closely blotting away at to view the landscape we’ve created with a little
more perspective.
Your detachment throughout the last two and a half years has presented you
with dually hideous and gorgeous images; your fear of abandonment physically
hurling you away from your lover’s body with a twisted snarl, your beloved
career as you knew it crumbling before your eyes, your mistakes pointing bony
fingers in the mirror and cackling at the obvious aftermath. Harry’s whole entire
world shredded to bits in front of your eyes; his well-earned handful of warm
memories that summer in 1965, his late partner Indy taxing the lizard-like parts
of his brain, his backstabbing best friend, his untrusting girlfriend, the only
career he’d ever known after he was kicked out of his home as a teenager. It’s a
mystery how either of you survived the fallout. Or how Harry is currently
surviving it, if at all. Wherever he is.
The past can be a difficult thing to grapple with, since it relies solely on our
personally-perceived, imperfect recollected bits and pieces. The future, on the
other hand, is nothing but a bleeding heart with a throbbing lightning bolt
stabbed through it. Likely a combination of good and bad circumstances, but the
bad seems to be the scary place that most of us try to avoid and simply cannot
outrun. Fear of failure, fear of heartbreak, fear of sameness. Like kicking a rock as
you walk down the sidewalk. Cast it away as much as you like, but eventually
you’ll catch up to it.
Our collective hearts drip to the mysterious melody of dread. And seem to
only be momentarily stitched up by the fleeting and indescribable feeling of love.
Love for others, love for ourselves, love for a circumstance.
Which would explain exactly why Harry prefers to exist in the present.
In terms of the public, you were questioned nonstop by both the press and
your new partner about the whereabouts and aftermath of your former partner,
with rumors flying about your romantic entanglement due to the mouth-running
of Tex with all of your coworkers. All eyes were already on you and Harry due to
your headlining status within the company, but once the juicy gossip spilled
about what was happening behind closed doors, it felt like you couldn’t walk
down the backstage hallways without a tight stare hooking you and dragging you
underwater. A constant judgmental, uninformed reminder of what you’d lost.
In the press, you were slammed for sleeping with Harry for your own gain in
the industry, for being a seductress that caused Harry to be wrongfully punished
— a victim of your feminine prowess that ended his career. One newspaper
source even went as far as declaring you the reason for his surfing accident,
which is nothing but crystal-clear misogyny at its finest. Most of your coworkers
were a little more understanding than the press however, knowing Harry on a
personal level and having an inside look at the professionalism the two of you
exhibited for months, regardless of a secret affair.
As it turns out, all press is good press, because once yours and Harry’s names
started to circulate with the shadow of a scandal involved, lines wrapped around
the Victory Theatre for a glimpse of the notorious woman with the ability to
simultaneously hide a high-profile romance and climb the ladder of stardom
without so much as a single hair out of place.
Which, to be fair, is not inaccurate. It just wasn’t as conniving as the press

made it seem.
Rusty did follow through with one promise though, and that was to keep
Harry’s reputation and secret about Indy quiet so long as Harry made a formal
announcement of retiring from the circus on his own accord. Which he did,
perfectly timed with the height of your public scrutiny, via letter to the
Associated Press in November, 1965. With bravery and ambiguity, he took the
blame for the fall of his own career.
In perfect Harry fashion, it was rather vague. But the following day, your home
and your place of work were so quiet in comparison that you swore you could
hear static between your ears. Harry’s abrupt departure from Rusty’s circus left a
giant question mark on everyone, regardless of the official announcement he sent
to The Associated Press. The world would just have to settle for mystery for now.
Your name was mentioned exactly one time and was all the damage control it
took to sweep the rumors underneath the rug:
“The world owes my former partner, Ms. Vivienne Surefire, everything it has to
offer. Without her, I may never have flown again. Without her, none of you will fly.”
You just wish you could’ve properly thanked him.

Immediately following the destruction of your utopian life in Malibu, you’d
begun secretly practicing and preparing for a new course of action that would
navigate you from Rusty’s circus as soon as humanly possible. An edge that
would continue to set you apart from others in the industry, to keep otherwise
women-tinted blinders peeled back for you to get a leg in. For an entire year
while you were still under hostage to his contract, you spent every moment of
spare time at the theatre for hours before and after rehearsal or practice six days
a week, perfecting new aerobatic skills on your roller skates with a decimated
heart and fingers rubbed raw from the knotted rope.
Just as Mr. Buchanan had pledged, tryouts for your new partner had begun
two weeks after Harry evaporated from Malibu. And just like Harry, you wore
your finest black pieces from head to toe and refused to look anyone in the eye
during tryouts, dismissing people left and right without so much as glancing at
the talent they had to offer. And just like Harry, eventually Rusty undermined
you and recruited someone, a well-known trapeze artist named Soren who had
traveled from Denmark in search of the exclusive opportunity to work with you.
And just like Harry, you hated your new partner in the beginning. He
represented the lack of autonomy you felt by being forced to remain in Rusty’s
Circus Extravaganza, he symbolized the excitement you once had and was
eventually robbed of, he was a goofy caricature of a colleague meant to replace
an irreplaceable person. He wasn’t Harry and he never would be. No one ever
would be. The type of energy, humor, intelligence, attractiveness, charm, wit,
athleticism, restlessness, vulgarity and pink sweet smoke that your ex-lover
exuded isn’t a hole that can be so easily filled. You had always known this, but
seeing it substituted with plum cigarettes and a heavy dose of entitlement drove
the final nail into the coffin, lowered you into the ground and covered you up
with loud, banal shovelfuls of dirt.
Because like you, Soren arrived in Malibu on a blind comet-tail of naïve

optimism, thrilled with the new promise of the American dream and worldwide
fame simply by being in your proximity and expertise. But you knew it was all a
lie, that underneath the makeup and sequence and glitter and spotlights and
applause, toxic venom ran through every crevice of that circus in the form of
licorice-scented, black smoke.
After several practices, rehearsals and performances, Soren grew on you a
little bit. There came a time when you would allow him to eat lunch with you in
the community kitchen and eventually, the two of you would partake in your
favorite tradition of a single shot of Murky Lagoon Rum with a back of pineapple
juice after each performance. But unlike Harry, you did not bang your head open
and begin to let your true feelings show. Because you had no true feelings of love.
And you didn’t bang your head.
As it turns out, both you and Harry now had the exact same experience under
Rusty’s tutelage. And while Harry’s callous behavior that stemmed from injustice
made more sense to you after his accident and after he explained it several times
over, it was a much different experience to be walking in his shoes.
Greed: it benefits one person and harms countless others. Rusty will surely
end up in one of the hottest parts of hell for his sins, atop his pile of gold coins
and the innocent souls of the lives he’d stolen.
Since you’re not one to stick around in the rubble of what life has given you,
you’re prone to building habits of overworking and perpetual housecleaning to
keep your hands busy and your mind from spinning loose. Shortly after stepping
towards your new aerial technique, you’d traded in your clip-on skates for a
more laced-up modern pair. Which ended up being a win/win situation for your
tender ankle, keeping your foot securely wrapped up in a soft boot was a relief
that you didn’t even know you needed. And the moment your contract with Rusty
ended in the fall of 1966, you high-tailed it to breezy San Francisco, California the
following month to pursue an unparalleled, aerial roller-skating solo role with
the reputable Cirque Wanderlust.
You were lucky to score a two-bedroom apartment with plenty of canted bay
windows just a stone’s throw from Haight-Ashbury smack in the middle of what
came to be known as the Summer of Love. With near-constant concerts and
gatherings in Golden Gate Park, civil rights and Vietnam War protests in the
streets, guitars and paisley and weed on every corner. And that distinct smell of a
dusty record shop blowing bubbles as you passed by their open doors on a
warm, Sunny day.
And for a long time, you missed Malibu. But when everything around you
begins to feel sticky, suffocating and stale, that’s a signal that it’s time to let some
new air in.
About six months into your new career move with Cirque Wanderlust, you
landed a sponsorship with Quickies brand roller skates. Quickies designed a pair
of skates inspired by your name with red wheels, white canvas, red laces with
heart-shaped pink brakes that you’re contracted to wear for each performance,
otherwise known as The Surefire Roller. And it seems as though every girl under
the age of eighteen now owns a pair.
Just as your year-long contract with Cirque Wanderlust was coming to a close
in 1967, you were approached by a talent agent from the audience after a
performance with the offer of an entirely independent career-move, headlining
your very own touring one-woman show. After a bucketful of struggling and a
handful of stops and starts, you finally found yourself booked for an eight-month
tour across various venues in The United States. Events on the tour include
several weekly sold-out performances from coast-to-coast and a smattering of
promotion depending on the city you’re visiting; television and radio
appearances, newspaper and magazine articles and more meet-and-greet
networking opportunities than you can possibly count. Interviews with you
always come with a solid set of blacklisted questions, all of which include a
combination of Russell Buchanan’s Circus Extravaganza and Harry.
And as much as you love your new life, there are parts of it that are very
difficult to grapple with.
Fame is pressure. Fame is isolation. Fame is polarization. Fame is unnatural.

Fame is not at all what it appears to be. And most of the time, you enjoy it. But
most of the time, you wish you had a confidant who fully understands it.
You’re only a month deep into your new schedule and you’d never thought it
was possible to endure this type of exhaustion. Between struggling to accustom
yourself to a new hotel room each week, traveling, performing, practicing,
appearing, eating and sleeping, you find only mere hours to be alone with
yourself and your own thoughts. And even in those quiet moments that you
seemingly crave when everything is so loud, you always end up wishing that you
had another person to bounce your questions and ideas off of. It’s a strange
experience to be surrounded by people eighty hours a week and feel more
deserted than you’ve ever felt in your entire life, but you contribute it to the
constant change in scenery and the unnatural timing and artificial nature of your
human interactions.
It’s impossible to explain, but when you’re around others you wish for nothing
but silence. And when you have that silence, you wish for nothing but noise.
It’s lonely.
Fame strips away your autonomy and deposits it into the hands of millions of
others — people who don’t know you and never will, people who either dismiss
or cling to the tiny bits of public persona that you choose to show.
For the most part, the world views you as resolute and vigorous. Beautiful and
challenging. A bit devious as it turns out, considering the newspapers spun you
as a woman who unapologetically clawed her way to the sky, pushing the Sun out
of the way for your own stretch of ozone. Which is an exhausting reputation to
attempt to eliminate. But explaining or complaining only gives the public more
fuel, so you’ve been advised by your manager to stay quiet, surround yourself
within a bubble of support and continue pushing.
As for Harry, the world views him as a tall, dark and handsome enigma.
Harry went radio silent from the end of 1965 and throughout every single day
of 1966 until returning with an absolute vengeance in the professional surfing
world in early 1967. He’d worked his way up in the realm of surfing impressively
quickly, by pioneering the shift in popularity of using shorter surfboards in
professional competitions, continuously ranking high or thoroughly sweeping
every competition he takes part in.
Surfboard, swimsuit and suntan oil companies have been elbowing one
another out of the way for the shot at nailing him as their spokesperson, but he
almost always declines. He seems to be happy just on the outer ring of the A-
listed bright, hot spotlight, distinguished enough to be spotted on the streets by
fans wherever he goes, but just obscure enough that he can be in public without
being completely swarmed or mobbed for the most part. He’s viciously private
and from what you can tell, doesn’t stay in one place for very long. You’re in a
coincidentally similar echelon, but in the world of aerial arts and dance, and you
can’t help but credit him for helping you carve a little slice of recognition in a
man’s world.
Your manager pushes for a bit more PR than Harry seems to personally care
for in his own career, if he cares for any at all. He has become notorious for
declining formal interviews, for not selling himself to sponsored business
endeavors and rarely stopping for questions from the press or paparazzi, so he is
a complete headscratcher aside from his career and sporadic industry chatter.
Any speaking he does is restricted to brief and professional discussions at surfing
events, along with the mention of his name in surfing-related newspaper and
magazine articles. You’ve kept every newspaper clipping from when his name
shows up in the headlines for tournaments, which is often. His face has been used
on billboards and advertisements to draw attention to surfing competitions, with
wet locks of hair swept across his eyes and nose above a steely gaze and perfectly
heart-shaped lips. But even without the clamor of obligatory promotion, he’s still
managed to become a household name with his recognizable features and the
blips of captivating personality he allows people to see here and there.
Whether or not he’s intended this, the mysterious allure of Harry Styles seems
to be exactly the thing that drives his fame to the moon and back.
And each time you see a nonconsensual paparazzi photo or a mention of his
name in an article, your heart careens straight out of your chest like a caged bird
breaking free. Missing his beauty and his energy, missing his words and his
insights. Wondering what he’s thinking and who he is interacting with.
Wondering how he’s feeling and managing it all. Mostly, wondering if he’s okay.
Because the plate he was handed was gilded and abundantly packed with
heaps of delicious opportunity; plum and savory and toothachingly sweet. But as
you saw for yourself, it’s really difficult to chew and swallow everything that life
has given you with dull knives and bent forks and without a chair to rest. You can
safely say that you know him better than anyone else. Or at least you did, at one
point. To the world, Harry flashes smiles and he flashes peace signs and he
flashes gratitude, and underneath it all, he’s still bleeding.
Harry Styles; the ex-world-famous trapeze artist. The newly world-famous

surf hero.
I’m a performer. A thrill seeker.
The wheels on your roller skates are as silent as a mouse now as they sit tidily
in the corner of yet another temporary dressing room. A dressing room that has
been utilized by an innumerable number of superstars throughout the years:
Buddy Holly, Jackie Robinson, Ella Fitzgerald, Elvis Presley, Ike and Tina Turner,
Janis Joplin, Nancy Sinatra, The Mamas & The Papas and Marvin Gaye just to
name a few. The ghosts of their professional successes and personal failures
vibrate through the walls, making you feel curious enough to try to dig into their
history and experiences. Shrinking them from untouchable idols to regular, hard-
working people with a smattering of talent and luck just like yourself.
Are they lonely and exhausted too?
Success in its very essence is strange, because once you’ve made a personal
goal and met it, it still doesn’t seem good enough. It leaves you wondering what
piece of the human condition tells us that it isn’t quite time to rest and enjoy the
fruits of our labor for exactly what they are — a naturally delicious triumph, a
bite of something juicy and earned, a moment of appreciation for the sweet
nectar of your cultivation as it dribbles down your chin and wrists. Instead
you’re constantly left feeling hungry, curious as to which cuisine is meant to
satisfy you. If any at all. Or if the foraging is meant to be the entire purpose.
Sometimes it feels like that nectar is actually clotted blood in disguise. And
you’re sapped dry.
Two knocks on your dressing room door burst your thought bubble, and are
followed by the muffled voice of a technical director. “Curtain in fifteen, Miss
Surefire.”
“Thank you, fifteen.” And as soon as the words leave your mouth, anticipation
dawns on you once again, pooling sweat in the palms of your hands and creating
a heartbeat that feels more like a power drill. Another set of knocks pulls you out
of your moment of panic, recognizing the familiar pattern of the raps
immediately. “Come on in, Roach.”
The door swings open with a vengeance, bringing a hurricane of noise and
energy into a room that was stricken with murky and anxious silence. Before you
have a chance to open your mouth and greet her, Roach is already rattling off a
hyper string of encouragement mixed with a checklist of responsibilities. “How’s
it going? Do you need anything? Don’t worry, you look worried. You’re going to
get wrinkles if you keep making that face. Smile, sweetie. You’re going to be a
tempest of everything amazing, I promise you. Try not to let your nerves take
over and just focus on what you were put on this Earth to do: dazzle. You look
stunning. Now after your stage time with Mr. Sullivan, you have two little column
interviews lined up.” Roach flips open the small notebook in her hand and drags
the pad of her finger down the page. “One for Sunrise Magazine and one for Rave
Magazine. I told them to keep it brief, ten to twenty minutes at most. After that
you’ll have a short round of photos and schmoozing and then you’re finished for
tonight. I can expedite any of these if necessary. Any questions? You’re going to
be sensational; I can feel it.”
Most people are frightened by her tenacity, but it somehow makes you feel
more powerful.
Your manager’s name is Rochelle, but everyone in the entertainment industry
has deemed her with the nickname Roach. Coined for her frenetic and quick
spirit, her uncanny ability to sneak in and out of proverbial nooks and crannies
undetected, her stealthy hive mindset and a hard shell that is seemingly
indestructible even by an apocalyptic standard. She is always keeping her clients
in the forefront of her mind and their interests a priority. A fierce career-pusher
with a unique attachment to yours, almost as if she feels a need to help protect
what you’ve so carefully crafted for yourself. After being pushed around by men
with seemingly bad outcomes for years upon years in the industry, you were
decidedly finished with giving them your business and support. Roach acts as
your professional representative and advisor, creates your schedule, handles
public relations, and delegates responsibilities to a team of mostly female
designers, artists and technicians on your behalf.
And she has yet to disappoint you, in any capacity.
“Got it. I just need to make a quick phone call and then I’ll put my skates on.”
“Sweetie, I don’t—”
“It’ll be quick, I promise. I’ll come find you in three minutes. Thank you,
Roach.”
“Alright, do what you have to do. I’ll be right outside.” Roach smiles, her
fingers drawing a U around her mouth in an effort to encourage your own. And as
soon as you flash her a wide, sarcastic grin, she merely responds with a wagging
finger before seeing herself out.
Even though it pains you to admit dependence, your pride is swallowed up

when you cross the room and swipe the phone from the end table to punch in a
long-distance number. In need of the one person who has been with you, through
trauma and turmoil, through moving homes to new cities, through season
openers and season finales.
After the dust of your devastating breakup had settled and you felt yourself
reform into the shape of a girl again, you relinquished a world of trust in those
around you, both new and old. Never the girl you were before, but a brand new
starlit golden chandelier of a girl.
Dialing the number that you can recall by heart, you wait for the rings to
connect you to the person you’ve grown incredibly close to throughout the past
year or so, regardless of or perhaps because of the noteworthy difficulty you’ve
faced together. Over time, there has been a consistent and unconditional back-
and-forth of emotional support between the both of you. This is without a doubt
the healthiest relationship you can remember having the honor of being involved
in.
“Hola?”
“Hi….. I miss you. A lot.”
“Hey, baby. I miss you, too. Cold feet?”
Your finger winds through the coiled cord as you glance at the clock and
wonder why time moves so much faster when you’re not wanting it to.
“Lukewarm, I think.”
“Break a leg. I’ve got the tube on and I’ll be watching every single second, even
through all the commercials. You can call me when you’re done if you need
anything, okay? I love you, you’re amazing, you’ve done this a hundred times
before. Literally. You’re the hottest roller-skating aerialist in the world, I’m totally
convinced.”
That last statement has you smiling a genuine smile and finally exhaling a
breath of relief. “I’m the only roller-skating aerialist in the world.”
“That’s exactly why it’s so hot. Take a deep breath and think about how good
that trusty shot of Murky Lagoon and pineapple juice is going to be afterwards.
And the nighttime view of New York City from your hotel room? Talk about deluxe.
I wish I could be there with you, but you’re living your dream. There’s nothing to be
afraid of. Literally nothing. Do your thing. And maybe stay away from Central Park
at night, I’ve heard weird things.”
The phone call and re-energizing heart-to-heart proved to be exactly what you
needed, because as soon as you hung up, you marched across the room and
pulled your skates on, spinning in a half circle before skating back to the vanity
mirror. A little touch up of lipstick and a head-to-toe scan of your body cinched
your pre-show ritual before you found Roach in exactly the spot she said she’d
be. She guided you through the backstage hallways and stood within eyeshot
during your performance and interview, clapping and whistling each time you
nailed a particularly difficult trick.
As usual, your performance was reliable and professional with little dots of
blemishes that only you and your stinging perfectionism would be able to notice.
Ed Sullivan made the interview process easy and painless, asking lighthearted
questions about your process and the ins and outs of skating. The studio
audience proved their encouragement and support with several rounds of
applause, laughter and shiny starstruck eyes. And you can only hope that it
looked as good on television as it felt.
Afterwards, you rushed to change into a simple candy-red mini dress and
strappy pumps that stretch your legs, natural hair and a cool slice of eyeliner in
the crease of your eye. As per tradition, one shot of Murky Lagoon with a back of
pineapple juice waited for you on the coffee table on a tray, just as your rider
specified. And after packing up your bag with all of your belongings, you met
Roach again in the hallway for your last round of press for the evening.
As she leads you through the busy backstage corridors now, from your first
short interview with Rave Magazine through technical directors and the like, to
your next interview with Sunrise Magazine you can practically taste victory
waffles in the back of your throat. Roach is briefing you about the significance of
this interview, but you have too much adrenaline from your triumphant
performance tonight that it’s difficult to fully concentrate.
“They’re based out of the Pacific Northwest, where you will eventually make
your way towards the end of your tour. So, the timing is perfect really, because
by the time the article is published your name will be buzzing in that area.”
Roach stops in front of a green room labeled Press, knocking twice to signal her
arrival and then opening it up and allowing you to enter the room without her.
“I’ll see you in about ten minutes.”
You spin on your heel and thank her before backing up two steps into the
room and freezing upon hearing a single utterance behind you.
“’Bout time.”
The thing about the Sun is that it’s light can be seen even through closed
eyelids. And sometimes it can’t be blocked out, no matter what you try.
“I know you hate surprises.” But you also really love them. “But hi again.”
Slowly chasing the sound of his voice, you turn on the ball of your foot with
compounded bravery and shock, in utter disbelief at what you’re about to find.
Harry is leaning one shoulder on the wall, his eyes trained on you. Reckless
hair reaching his nose and cheekbones in the front, even dipping to brush his
jawbone in one spot. The one wild curl that always had a mind of its own,
presenting now with a bit more stamina and seductive serenity than before. It’s
like he’s come apart at the seams but in the best way possible, untangling and
unraveling and softening everything inside as well as outside. Growth and benign
power, maturity and self-awareness.
A subtly patterned buttoned-down shirt is popped open to his chest, brown

corduroy trousers below, an open matching jacket up top. Seemingly tacked
together from top to bottom, sound, toned and muscular, angular face and
cheekbones and jaw scattered with stubble — your beloved length of grow out.
Amber honey skin from spending so much time on the beach wherever it’s
summer in the world, wherever it’s hot and heavenly. One hand hangs at his side
with a big, happy bouquet of sunflowers in tow, the other scratches the back of
his neck. Mixed metals on each finger, pink sunshine on his nails. Shiny-bright
wolf eyes on fire, raspberry thirsty mouth.
He looks perfect.
A neon pink, slender light scribbles out the word Paradise in the air across his
chest, fiercely flickering to life with buzzes and saps and whiffs of electricity, then
fizzes out to make way for the weak pulse of your heartbeat.
“Harry Styles.”
Sunshine on Earth.
“Vivienne fuckin’ Surefire.”
Sweet Cherry Pie.
A sheen of glass slides across your eyes before you bound towards him and
toss your arms around his neck for a hug. Your feet pop off the ground when he
squeezes and leans back, humming into your ear and pinching his eyes shut to
feel the sensations of his spine shuddering. Sarcasm and a hint of truth are
grumbled into your hair. “Mm, the one who got away.”
When your feet meet the floor again, you pull back just enough that you can
still smell a hint of his familiar soap, a flash of creamsicle gum and a pink whirl of
lingering smoke, same as always. Sweet Harry. “The one who fled.”
His reaction is to chuckle through a small tight-lipped smile, his dimple taking
a small bite of his cheek. Shoving the sunflowers that he picked up at a bodega
between your chests, he waits for you to take them before inquiring, “she happy
to see me? Spooked? You kinda look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I have.”
“I think I’m more like a ghoul.”
“Is that different?”
“Dunno.” Yes. A ghost seems like a tame dead spirit, whereas a ghoul seems
more like something that would haunt you for years before finally eating your
flesh. Or maybe it’s just because he’s merely standing in front of you. Harry
thinks this, but like a lot of things these days and most things right after Indy
died, he keeps it locked inside of his achy, din heart. Even throughout all of the
horror he’s clawed his way through over the last several years, he still considers
himself one of the good ones. Even if he is a total piece of shit. “Sounds worse,
so.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Just poppin’ in.”
“Well….. okay.” Your little giggle is so soft and herbal that Harry’s heart has no
choice but to curl up under a blanket and watch. “Then how’d you find me? And
where’d you come from?” And why now? The questions are an endless scoop into
an abyss of soft ice cream, each answer velvety and indulgent, but possibly an
aftertaste of brain freeze followed by a harsh sugar crash.
“Nowhere in particular.”
“I love guessing games.”
“Liar.”
Even though your palms are sweaty and your heart is running laps, it feels as
though no time has passed, and there’s no better hallmark of a cosmic
connection. Humans just don’t get this opportunity with many people in life. And
once is spectacular, if you’re lucky.
“So, hey.” Everything you and Harry had once shared is flooding, pooling at
your feet and soaking your shoes. Filling the room slowly at first, it seems, until
the tension is in your throat and threatening to burn your eyes. With a warm
blush staining your cheeks and showcasing your unrest, you can’t help but fidget
a little, tucking your hair behind your ear and skirting eye contact as you glance
at your phantom-stained toes before finding his eyes again. “Harry. I can’t believe
it’s really you.”
“Hi. C’mere.”
It’s beyond staggering and surreal for him to be standing right in front of you
after you’d imagined your reunion throughout stretches of washed-out time,
looking like time has fed him well, twists of fudge like a candy crown on the top
of his head. Your fingertips brush his wrist and his stomach butterflies in an
obliterated way that he’s only dreamed about for years, his throat shrinking
when you step forward and wrap him up in another hug. One that warms and
squeezes the both of you. One that you don’t plan on abandoning for several
seconds or maybe even minutes and he can feel that and he can treasure that,
with every little hair standing on end from his toes to his scalp. The long flight
with the crying baby and weeks and months and years of deliberation that is so
unnatural for him finally find a place of substance, right here with you pressed
against his chest.
Rather, he’s a message in a translucent bottle washing up on shore by his god,

drawn home to its rightful owner, filled with secrets meant to be read. The tight
cork, finally ready to pop, bursting with coiled-up communication that failed to
leak before. Ready to ooze and to share and to breathe.
It’s as if your world has been balanced on a knife’s edge and just decided to
take the plunge into emotional severance. His hugs are incomparable and have
seeped into your muscle memory; tight, unrelenting, warm. Affectionate. Loving.
His chest splits open to offer you a slice of his heart, you swill him down greedily.
And when you mumble I’ve missed you so much into his neck before he’s even
had a chance to say it himself, his blunt nails dig into your back and knot into
your hair, his own words stolen from the surprising stealth of yours. A wave
bowls him over, the sandbar dissolves below his feet. Over and over again.
He missed you, too. You’ve been missing from him. A massive chunk, more
than he cared to admit at times.
You back off and brush your hair from your face, attempting to lighten the
overwhelming nerves you’re both feeling with a soft musing. “I’m starting to
think this isn’t an interview for Sunrise Magazine at all.”
“Yeah, I made that up.” He scratches his forehead with his knuckle and then
points to the television placed in front of the couch. “You’re mind-blowing, V. I
watched everything from the monitor. I’ve been watchin’ the whole time,
y’know.”
He doesn’t have to elaborate to convey that the whole time actually means
since the day he left you. Because honesty can be seen in his willing eye contact
and mostly because you’ve studied his peculiar navigation of speech
meticulously in order to keep pace, much like a violinist needs sheet music to
perform with an orchestra. Harry commands the need for a skilled interpreter.
Unless he’s being so straightforward that you might as well have his piece
memorized.
His sentiments seem a little forced and it makes you realize: he’s been
humbled. Humbled or knocked down a few pegs, but the second option somehow
seems sadder. His Sunshine is behind a thin veil of clouds and you wonder if he’s
been overcast like this for two full years or if, more plainly, he’s astounded into
hesitancy simply from seeing you again.
The word sully comes to mind, but Harry doesn’t see it as a negative aspect of
his personality. Sometimes things are so reflective that they constantly block and
bounce away any light that comes towards it. Only after the darkness cuts a
person deeply enough will they finally start to perceive the light. A little wear
and tear deepens our characters and makes us more beautiful, as if our guts
leaked through the open wounds to heal in distinguished patterns that modify
the skin. Watercolor tattoos of emotion, if you will.
“I’ve been watching you, too. I’ve followed everything the news from all of
your competitions. I have a shoebox filled with newspaper clippings. But I never
knew how to get in contact with you to tell you how proud I am of you.” He
seemed so untouchable. You guess he always has.
“Hey, I was gonna say the same thing.” Down to the very detail of the shoebox
with newspaper clippings, but Harry is not at all surprised that the public loves
you. You’re perfect to the outside eye.
And the inside eye.

His confidence in regards to intimacy has a little nibble taken out of it. Maybe
it has been suffering since his old self and new self and old self again reformed
into a mirage and evaporated when things got too hot to touch. It’s hard to know,
it’s too hard to see much of anything through the cryptic puddles of his eyes; still
painfully pretty, but where there was once a tropical oasis is a now mixture of
grass and clean water. It may seem kind of depressing to an outsider and
probably because it is kind of depressing, but Harry has figuratively already seen
the end of the film that everyone else is waiting to see. He just has to pretend that
the plot leading up to the spoiler isn’t that horrific so that everyone around him
can continue blindly enjoying themselves.
Maybe then he’ll believe it as well.
“So, are you going to tell me how you knew I’d be here?”
His chin taps his shoulder in a coy shrug. “People talk. My manager lemme
know.”
“How’d your manager know?”
The craving for a cigarette is coursing through Harry’s veins, more and more
fiercely with each question you deliver. “He keeps tabs on you per my
instruction.”
“What— excuse me?”
“I said I usually know where you are because I’ve asked my manager to keep
track of what you’re doin’ and tell me. That better?”
It’s increasingly difficult to speak through the anxious nausea in your guts.
“Oh.” Okay. “Who is your manager anyway?”
“Mose Benson.”
Benson. A wolf. Just a fierce as Roach and maybe even more bloodthirsty since
he has the very unjust advantage of being a man with slightly more years of
experience and industry connections thanks to his father. Connection by birth.
The unfair, incestual hierarchy of Hollywood at work.
Now it makes sense how Harry’s privacy has been so aggressively and
consistently protected; Mose would literally fight the press off with his bare
hands if Harry asked him to. Or he’d hire a hundred people to do it for him, one in
each country. And it also makes sense how Harry has kept tabs on you and was
allowed to walk backstage as if he owned CBS studios, because Mose’s family are
close friends with the people who do own CBS studios and not to mention, have
feelers in every corner of the industry. Like a sticky, rude, powerful octopus
squirming around on land.
“So….. how is it fair that you can easily find me whenever you wanted, but I
have no idea what’s going on with you? Ever?”
“I didn’t say it was fair, I just said I knew.”
Your eyes narrow in suspicion and a little sprinkle of detectable jest that puts
Harry at ease, because this type of exchange between the two of you is familiar
and frankly, quite amusing. “Sounds privileged to me.”
“Uh, pump the brakes. I didn’t say it wasn’t privileged either. I just said I
knew.” The hallways just beyond the door are still crawling with photographers,
press, technical directors and makeup artists, and Harry has so much to say that
the echoes of their footsteps start to chip away at his mental stack of notes. It’s
frustrating, especially because he hasn’t slept very well in the last few days
knowing what was about to happen and now that you’re here standing right in
front of him and he’s here standing right in front of you, the shape of his tongue is
making it hard for words to come out properly. “Got any plans tonight?”
You’d assumed as soon as you laid eyes on him that he was in New York just
for you and even though that intention is wordlessly pretty clear, it still feels
intense to watch Harry build himself up enough to ask you out on a date. So
different than his persistent tactics in the past, because the past didn’t work so
the present requires an alternate method in order to have a future that
transpires differently than your past.
Having history with someone will always complicate vulnerability, because

the fear of rejection is much, much stronger when you have a clear taste of what
it is you want, rather than a hunch of what you might want. There’s an extra layer
of confidence needed to claw away at scar tissue rather than chance a paper cut.
And also, it’s just way easier to be rejected by someone you’re not in love with.
Since you have an interview with the New York Times tomorrow afternoon,
your only plan tonight was to slather your face in Pond’s Cold Cream and watch
reruns of I Dream of Jeannie with a plate of sugar and a bottle of champagne at
your side. But since that somehow seems feeble to say out loud, you settle with a
cool conjecture of, “maybe. Who’s asking?” Even though your plans were lame,
they were still plans.
“Captain America. Hey, why don’t you come grab some liquids with me? I
wanna pick your brain about a couple things.”
“Um…..” The answer is obviously yes, but it’s such a loaded yes that it doesn’t
feel right to spit it out without pausing for at least a second to consider. Yes signs
you up for an unavoidable conversation that you were not planning on having
tonight or possibly ever. Yes guarantees you the choice between a difficult
acceptance or an even harder refusal. Yes means appearing at a read-through
manned with improv while the rest of the cast reads from rehearsed scripts. Yes
gives permission to journeying into the unknown, because in this instance, yes
also means yes (etc?). You know it and he knows it. “Of course. I’d love to, Harry. I
just have a couple loose ends to tie up here and then I can meet you somewhere
close by.”
“’Kay, yeah. Groovy.” Harry is wondering if the odd combination of

desperation and relief are scribbled across each pore on his face, if you can hear
the accelerated thump of his heart, if you can make out the outline of his heart-
shaped locket below the fabric of his wifebeater. He’s wondering if, to you, this
entire gesture appears to be nothing short of pathetic and inappropriate. If he’s
imagined all those moments where his hands slid up your shirt because he loves
the way you purr. If his feelings for you have both birthed and died in his own
mind and you’re just too fucking polite to tell him to get lost. But now isn’t the
time to start doubting himself, mostly because he’s jetlagged and he knows as
soon as he gets halfway through one Pearl, he’s going to start saying shit he
regrets. Whether that shit is mean or nice is yet to be determined.
Since Harry’s never been in this position before, he can’t say for certain, but
these types of obscure conversations typically have a snag or two. Or an entire
rupture; blood geysers and pain tornados, depending on the stakes involved.
“I saw a spot called Easy Street on—”
“How about The Monkey Bar in The Elysee Hotel? I can be there in a half
hour.”
Harry’s eyebrows tug into a frown and then pop up his forehead as he
registers your surprising and quick suggestion of meeting at a hotel. And he tries
not to look too deeply into it because he wouldn’t dare get his hopes up this early
into seeing you again. Mostly because he’s well aware of the fact that everything
he touches turns to shit and dies. “Are you tryin’ to ditch me so you can stand me
up?”
“Oh shoot, you caught me.” Your sarcasm is its own brand of honey.
He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth in a soft tut. “Givin’ me the
ol’ razzle dazzle? That’s not how you’re meant to treat guests.”
A courtesy knock rings through the room before Roach bursts through the
door. “That’s ten. Viv, we need you for a couple more photographs—” Nothing
seems to slow Roach down, mentally or physically, so her freezing reaction to
seeing you and Harry tucked into the corner with sunflowers is nothing short of
palatable. Especially when she screeches to a halt so loudly that the rubber of her
high heel scrapes on the linoleum flooring. It’s obvious that she recognizes him,
both from the fame he’s procured throughout the last couple of years, as well as
your clipped and impersonal recounting of once being professionally and
romantically tangled with him. But then again, most of the world knows about
that. “A few more minutes, tops and then you’re free to go….. are you alright,
sweetie?”
With a gentle nod that pleads for her dismissal, Roach keeps her eyes on Harry
as she backs up and turns the corner to give you privacy. The major takeaway
that you’ve acknowledged from your relationship with your manager is that her
respect for you is paramount to any bureaucracy or responsibility that you may
find yourselves wrapped up in. The exact opposite of working for Russell
Buchanan, or any man for that matter, and you’re galaxies beyond glad for it.
Even though Roach’s sights were glued to Harry in her retreat, he still
managed to keep his focus on you. That’s the only sightseeing he planned to do
on his visit to New York, after all. And when you glance back at him and find his
attention skimming your neck, your collarbones, your shoulders, an eruption of
goosebumps pours over your skin. You’re hoping he doesn’t notice but knowing
him, he saw it before it even happened. “I’ll definitely be there, I promise. Will
you keep my seat warm?”
“When have I not?”

What’d that feel like, sweet girl?
Unable to turn away from him, you start backing up in the direction that
Roach disappeared in with your sunflowers in tow, your hands shaky on the
thick fuzzy stalks. Even knowing that you’ll be a nervous, distracted wreck for the
next short round of press and the entire taxi ride back to the hotel, you still
manage to offer him one more round of reassurance. “Thirty minutes, Harry.
There’s an entrance through the parking garage that you can take to avoid
photographers. And thank you again for the flowers….. they’re my favorite.” And
you’ve missed them, terribly.
“Welcome.”
He waits until you’ve disappeared down the hallway with a final spin on your
heel to press a kiss to his fingertips and blow it towards your shadow, the words
oh my god I missed you painting a fluorescent streak on the floor.
Harry is in the hotel bar when you arrive, his foot propped up on the empty
barstool beside him with one busy leg bouncing, fingers picking at his coaster.
The dark room is filled with a rainbow of cigarette smoke and just as always,
Harry’s bubble of pink stands out from the rest of the crowd.
Weaving through the tight spaces between the red vinyl booths and white
tablecloths, you slink up beside him, wrapping your arm around his shoulders
and sponging a soft kiss to his cheek that surprises him and then warms his belly
with a feeling he didn’t know he missed. Harry responds by slowly coiling his
fingers into your hair, hovering his mouth over yours before rerouting and
kissing your forehead. Then rising to his feet, he pulls out your barstool and rolls
his lips together, your eyes locking inside of a pause before he clicks his tongue
as a signal for you to sit.
He very well may just be the only man who can tell you what to do.
And the reigning champion of men who can do so without even speaking.
You smooth your skirt down and obey his gentle command, taking notice of a
small pink suitcase tucked between the legs of his stool and the bar. Which could
mean one of four things: he’s just arrived in town today and hasn’t had a chance
to stop by his hotel yet, he’s been in town for a while now and is heading to the
airport tonight, or he plans to leave for his next destination within New York
after a couple drinks with you. Or the likelier, chillier option; he was planning on
staying in this hotel.
With you.
And the notion of that expectation alone has your heart crushing the inside of
your throat, your face immediately hot with sweat, your thighs sticking to the
barstool. With a choking silence, you make several attempts to catch the
bartender’s eye, suddenly furious to inhale as many martinis as possible. But it
would appear the bartender is too hellbent on sharing a flirtatious grin with a
patron just out of your line of sight, with a towel shoved inside of a wine glass,
polishing off the watermarks.
Once you’re settled, Harry perches himself on the stool beside you, the ball of
his foot resting on one of the spindles of your chair. “How’s your existential
crisis?”
And just like that, Harry is able to slightly lift the veil of your proverbial and
literal sweat by blowing a cool breeze of air conditioning across your skin. Just
like you remembered. And you show your appreciation with a moment of
processing his question, which splits into a beam of quiet laughter. “I guess I’d
label it as critical.”
“Yeah? How’d you ever stop screamin’? Did our fallout become a barometer
for everything else that happened to you after that? Like, ’this milkshake is
terrible but it’s definitely not as bad as my boyfriend forgetting who I am.’”
“Or, ’god, this fiery tendon flare-up feels so much better than my boyfriend
forgetting who I am.’”
He laughs and nods. “Right on. You get it.”
You’re grateful for Harry’s lightness. Lightness that didn’t seem to be as

heavily present in the green room at CBS studios, but maybe it has something to
do with the half of the Pearl he’s already consumed. Lightness is a tangible
hallmark of pain subsiding. Lightness, however small and fleeting, is growth. And
as usual, Harry’s lightness is shining the way for your own.
“It’s just me. Still weird, still gross. Try and relax, yeah? Still smoke?” Harry is
already reaching for his pack of Crush cigarettes before you can get through a
single nod, passing one to you and then striking a match to light the tip. Pink
smoke slowly oozes from your mouth before you quickly suck the little sugary
marshmallow into your lungs and Harry’s heart goes down right along with it.
“Ya know The Stones performed on Sullivan last week?” He shakes out the flame
on the match and tosses it into the red, heart-shaped ashtray. “You fucked up
your dates, girl.” And maybe he’s testing you a little bit and maybe he’s prying a
little bit too when he adds, “I hear Mick’s single right now. Missed opportunity.”
Taking a long drag and exhaling it towards the ceiling, your lips are a pair of
flower petals kissing a pink cloud, the candles situated around the dark bar
dance on your skin. If Harry remembers correctly, you look almost as pretty as
right after you’ve come. Almost.
“Oh, god. Ew. No way. I have no interest in dating a rock star. Too many of
them are dogs.”
“I was talkin’ about me.” Harry has no interest in blocking your swat, instead
he smiles against the mouth of his Pearl bottle and it’s so bright and lovely. He’s
so bright and lovely. “Kiddin’. And who said anything about dating? You think
you could land Jagger?”
A couple leaflets of dusty rose ash flit past your wrist as you point a finger at
him. “Is that a dare?”
“Somehow it wouldn’t surprise me if you’d try it just to spite me.” A moment

after the soft dig passes his lips, the bartender is dropping a coaster and a French
75 with two, floating Luxardo cherries in front of you. The twist of a lemon peel
curls around the lip of the champagne glass, the twist of Harry’s hair curls around
the corner of his mouth. “Still like those?”
It’s the exact drink that Harry would order for you when you skipped out of
Malibu to play pool at The Cat’s Paw on Fridays, all the way down to your
preferred garnish. You haven’t spent nearly enough time with him to know for
certain, but the intensity of his consideration seems to have grown bolder.
Burning, really. “Yes. Thank you, Harry.”
“Mhm. Cheers.” He taps the neck of his bottle against your glass. “My poison is
narcissism, but Pearls are a decent alternate.” His eyes stay trained on you as he
takes a short sip and then licks his bottom lip. “Congrats and all that. You’re cool
as fuck now. It’s kinda scary.”
But mostly, your success is the sexiest thing Harry has ever had the honor of
witnessing. Even if it has been from a distance.
“I should say the same for you. You’ve exploded this past year. I see and hear
your name everywhere. You’re incredible at what you do, I watch your
competitions on television whenever I get a chance. It’s amazing. Are you
happy?”
“With my career?” You nod and he shrugs with a pouted bottom lip. “Yeah, but
you know me. I always want more. Hey, thanks for not runnin’ the other way
when you saw me, by the way. I was wiggin’ the whole time I was waitin’.
Thought you’d be like,” he stretches his index finger across his top lip to
represent a disguise of a mustache, “’Vivienne who? Wrong chick.’”
“I thought about it.”
“What? No shit.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You…..”
Since Harry doesn’t need to have it as shorn for the circus anymore, he’s
paving the now-widespread look for surfers everywhere. Slightest bit more
grown out in the front, a couple inches at most, dripping dark honey around his
ears and cheekbones. Sweet and shaggy. Wavy mix of sea salted caramel
chocolate curls. Just barely long enough in the front that it brushes his top lip and
he can tuck your favorite lock of hair behind his ear and it’ll stay there for a
moment before it falls loose again. It somehow makes him appear more
genuinely relaxed which you had previously thought he had already achieved,
but looking at him now, you can’t help but wonder if he had been a tightly-wound
ball of anxiety before, parading as a cool cucumber. That one pesky curl that
loyally brushed his eyebrow, the one you’d mentally defined as a rascal, was
merely acting a claw reaching for more. And less.
Actually, everything he does seems to suit him. Maybe that’s just what
happens when one freely swim laps across pool of self-confidence that they
didn’t even know they’d actually been skinny dipping in the whole time.
“Talk to me about Soren.”

“Oh, god.” There must be genuine curiosity on Harry’s side but you suspect
he’s mostly looking for some juicy dirt, like a middle schooler at their neighbor’s
sleepover. And since Harry has admittedly been following your career and has
Mose Benson as a manager, he has to know at least a thing or two about his
replacement. Just like the first time he tricked you into speaking French and then
snowballing it into your little love language, he’s going to use whatever
information that you give him against you in some teasing way. Whether it be
soft or hard, you’re not quite ready to play that game with him yet. “Well, he’s
Danish.”
“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Did he ever sneak a peek?”
His question almost makes choke on your cocktail. “He’s openly gay.”
“Everyone digs tits. They’re the provider.”
Your unamused stares match and battle one another until you finally crack a
smile. “He was very respectful of my boundaries, unlike some other trapeze
artists I know.”
“Oh, okay.” Harry scratches the corner of his eye with his middle finger and
then rubs underneath his eyelashes and down along the side of his nose, making
it very clear that your acidic satire deserves an extended flipping-off.
Your next question is intentionally charged and rather broad. Since Harry is
hellbent on remaining mostly unclear on his purpose here, you figure it isn’t out
of line to be a little vague in return. Maybe it’ll open up more doorways than
you’re expecting, since direct questions seem to be a little too much for him to
handle right now. “Are you okay?”
“I dunno know how to respond to that.” It looks like he definitely tried, based
on the length of his pause. “You alright? Am I buggin’ you? I had a couple weeks
off before a competition in France, so I wanted to see what The Surefire Roller
fuss was all about. But I can fuck off. I don’t want to, but I will if I’m makin’ you
uncomfortable or messin’ with your guts, or somethin’.”
“No, don’t leave. You’re not bugging me. But I am just a little curious — where
would you go, hypothetically?” Harry’s suitcase glows with pink vitality
underneath his barstool. You probably know the answer to your next question
and you know he knows the answer. But for reasons of processing and
categorization, for reasons on how to conduct yourself this moment and in the
next moment, you need to hear him say it out loud. “Do you have a hotel?”
“I was just hopin’ it would work itself out. Or I could head home, I guess.”
His response draws the line between two imaginary dots; one that begins in a
mysterious spot that you’re dying to know about and ends in an aimless sphere
in New York. “And where’s home, Harry?”
Harry had almost forgotten what it felt like to be under the gunfire of your
incessant questioning. It’s not as if it’s inappropriate or excessive when two
people are trying to navigate a union, but it is irritating when he’s trying to be
mysterious. Your interrogation tactics did dim throughout the development of
comfort in your relationship, but now he’s getting a reminder of how you are at
your most dubious. A Honey Detective. It’s just that he’s been trying hard to
master your particular technique of communication for himself, wherein you
seem to know exactly the right time to say exactly the right things, instead of
allowing them to explode out of him and bite him in the ass. And it’s is going to be
tougher than he’d originally thought.
“Dunno, uh—” He reminds you of a kitten when he rubs his eye with his
knuckle and then puffs his cheeks out on an exhale. “Somewhere. Everywhere.
London, I guess. I have a flat, so I’m there a lot. But nothing’s felt quite right for a
while now.” He can’t hide the glassy sheen of his eyes when he laughs a cynical
laugh and shakes his head before looking you dead in the eye. “It’s weird how
two people can have so much between them and then what? Where does it all go?
I hate how awkward we both are right now.”
How do untouched works of art suddenly wind up crooked on the wall? From
Harry’s experience, he knows that a slight pinch of adjustment here and there
will instantly make everything aesthetically pleasing again.
A couple flashing images from your history glow behind Harry’s eyes; waking
up beside you, showering early in the morning and then lying on top of you all
warm and damp in a towel, mumbling a teasing gripe in your hair about being a
lazy Honey slug because you haven’t moved ever since he’d climaxed down your
throat an hour earlier. His hand slinking below the sheets and under your belly,
breathing a puff of breath into your ear when you whine and roll your hips
against his palm. A sweet ping-pong of je t’aime from the both of you, the warmth
of the bed and the warmth from your center almost strong enough to keep him
from surfing that morning.
Almost, but not quite. Because the strongest drive in Harry’s life has always
been from the force of the ocean. And that’s always something that you’ve found
undeniably sexy. And your respect has always been something that Harry has
treasured.
You’re just so responsive to everything; love, sadness, sex. It’s hard not to be
distracted by it.
And in all honesty, your awkwardness feels more like a play off of his, but
awkwardness tends to work collaboratively in that way and perhaps he’s
experiencing the same exact thing. Projection and absorption, an endless
uncomfortable cycle, the hunt and the chase over and over again.
“Hey.” You grip his wrist and squeeze once, trying with all of your might to
mentally relay some warmth and self-confidence through his skin. Maybe if you
fake it, it’ll breed his and then create yours. And now you’re curious to know if
this is precisely what he used to do for you. “I’m happy to see you. I want you to
stay. We need to talk; it’s been too long and I’m sure we both have a lot to get off
our chests. Maybe we should just have a couple drinks, release our expectations
and just relax, okay?”
Nerves start to boil you from the inside, considering all the ulterior motives
for him showing up unexpectedly after all this time. Perhaps he has some bad
news to share, like he’s been diagnosed with some type of life-threatening illness
and he only has a month to live and he’s trying to make amends with everyone
who he’s suffered a falling out with before he leaves the planet. Or maybe he’s in
Alcoholics Anonymous and you are one of his twelve steps.
Or maybe it just took him this long to feel okay with being in your presence
again.
Or maybe he never stopped loving you and he couldn’t stay away any longer.
Harry nods and lights another cigarette, feeling an immediate wash of calm
when you finish off your martini and lick your lips, flashing him a small smile
when you catch him staring.
The little pink suitcase catches your eye again and when you notice him
nervously tuck it farther under his barstool with his feet, you snap your gaze to
his face. “Do you plan on staying awhile?”
“Depends, I guess.”
“What does it depend on?”
“Yeah…..” Harry chuckles, soft and sexy as he scratches the back of his neck
and tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. “Another drink then?”
“Yes, please. I can order it—”
Harry’s already signaling the bartender. “Bullshit. Hey man, French 75 with a
couple cherries. Extra gin?” He glances at you for permission but since you can
already feel the heat of the alcohol burning your cheeks, you shake your head.
“’Kay, yeah, lots of extra gin. Or how about a dry gin martini? Or maybe just a big
pint glass of straight gin on ice. Or— what’d you say?” He leans closer to you and
cups his hand around his ear. “No ice? Just a full pint of warm gin? Jesus, read the
room.” Before you can whine his name in dispute, he smiles again and then
finally addresses the bartender, “no flashy lights, not tryin’ to get her loaded. Or
grow hair on her chest. Actually, just leave all the alcohol out. Let’s do lemon
slices and cherries with club soda this time—”
“Harry!”
“We’ll have another round. Thanks, brother.”
You wait until the bartender walks off. “You have this amazing ability to turn
the volume up when someone asks you to lower it.”
“Huh? I can’t hear you, my jokes are too boomin’. Slide me those peanuts?”
Gripping the dish and pulling it closer towards you, you decide to hold his
snack hostage for the sake of a little teasing. Teasing that you know from
experience will help lighten his self-proclaimed awkwardness, an emotion that
he must be having difficulty grappling with since it’s something he doesn’t feel
very often. You both have a habit of unintentionally making the other feel
intimidated and since his silly self has just begun to burst through the clouds, you
decide to help keep the steam rolling. “Excuse me? You didn’t even ask what kind
of drink I wanted.”
And Harry knows exactly what you’re doing. His fingers pinch the opposite
side of the dish, his eyebrow raising in challenge, the tip of his pinky grazing the
tip of yours. “Oh, did you want somethin’ else?”
You chew on the inside of your cheek and sweep your hair from your face.
“Well….. no—”
Harry slides the bowl of peanuts out of your reach and cracks one open,
funneling the nuts into his mouth. “’Kay, so then do me a solid and pipe up when
there’s an actual issue.”
The bartender places a new round of drinks on the bar in front of you and
Harry offers him a nod in gratitude. Even though neither of you have spoken for
seconds of comfortable silence, you notice him continually looking you up and
down from the corner of his eye.
“Okay, you obviously want to say something. Spit it out.”
Harry shrugs, raising the mouth of his beer to his lips and speaking into the
bottle with his eyes trained on you. “Skinny.”
“Thank you.”
He takes a sip and laughs with a closed mouth and puffy cheeks before
swallowing. Shiny lips, bulging eyes and a facetious tone. “Why’s that a
compliment?”
“Every girl knows that’s a compliment. And I don’t care how shallow that
sounds.”
“Huh?” His head whips over both of his shoulders before turning back to you,
his eyebrows pulled into a frown as he glances over the top of your head next.
“Who’s talkin’? I can’t see you, you’re too fuckin’ tiny.”
He doesn’t bother to bat your swat away. He wants you to touch him. And you
swear you can feel your fingertips tingle when they make contact with his
shoulder. “Clod. You’re so opinionated.”
“I plead the fifth.” Harry swipes his forefinger and thumb around his mouth. “I
just hope you’re takin’ proper care of yourself, drinking water and sleepin’ and
all that. I know how bellyachin’ touring is.”
“I’m fine, Dad. But thank you for your concern.”
I’m fine.
Daddy.
Both of your shoulders tense and then like clockwork or a pair of

synchronized swimmers, you both clear your throats and drop your sights to the
bar top.
The abrupt faultline that your stolen intimacy slipped through when Harry’s
memory glitched has left a tender, gaping hole inside both of you. Proper closure
can’t be obtained from wandering around a dark forest of sticky questions alone,
with doubts hiding in the shadows and wicked memories popping up like snakes
to nip at your toes when you least expect it. There was so much left uncharted
between you that your daydreams and your nightmares seem to expand into
time and space forever. But now an opportunity has presented itself that you
were starting to doubt would ever happen again: Harry is sitting directly in front
of you with milk chocolate curls, bubblegum lips and a mouth full of sugar,
seemingly eager to suck the guessing-game out of you in that peculiar way that
only he can.
And similar to how he was when you first met, Harry is allowing you to guide
the course of conversation. But dissimilar to how he was when you first met, he’s
clearly gone out of his way for it.
It does leave you curious to discover when and how and if his more dominant
side that you held in such high regard is still in there, ready to leap out of the
bushes as soon as you flicker whatever mystical signal he must be waiting for.
A stealthy panther surveying you up top, a juicy plum anticipating a taste

down below. The hunt and the chase over and over again.
“So, I’m guessing you sold The Pink?”
“Mhm, in Mexico before I left the continent. Had to. Traded her in for a bike.”
“What?” Mexico? “A motorcycle?”
“Yep.”
Imagining Harry on a motorcycle is a daydream you never knew you needed.

The flamboyant rev of an engine that can be heard miles away, the blur of his
body on wheels as he weaves through traffic in his leather jacket. Pink exhaust
pouring from the tailpipe, a type of magic that only he can produce. “Wow.
Really? What kind?”
“Oh, are you a greaser now?” He laughs, that beautiful small chuckle that
tastes like a piece of warm homemade birthday cake crumbling between your
fingers, thick buttercream frosting sticking to your knuckles. “She’s a ’67 Bultaco
Matador. Looks like a red wasp. She’s my little piggy magnet, especially when I
drop it back. Pop a wheelie. Why, you wanna go for a ride sometime?”
I’m a performer. A thrill seeker.
“Well, I’m pretty sure wheelies on the streets of London are illegal, so that
would make you the piggy magnet. Doesn’t that frighten you?”
“Exact opposite. I like the rush. I kicked a cop car once. And no, he was too
slow to catch me. The goon squad isn’t as bad there as it is in America where
they’re so brave and good at army. What’s a British cop gonna do, hit me with a
spicy marble?”
“Harry!” You allow exactly one small bubble of laughter break free before
attempting to note his reckless behavior again. The thought of Harry zipping
through busy London blocks on one wheel, the roaring zip of his engine irritating
and stirring everyone around him is somehow thrilling to you. And imagining
yourself in that scenario with him, your arms wrapped around his waist as he
expertly guides you through the unknown at recklessly high speed feels eerily
similar to how he guided your relationship. The command of attention, the
boldness of eccentricity, the flirt with peril. It’s perfectly Harry. “You wear a
helmet, right? My mom calls them ’murdercycles’.”
Harry cracks open a peanut shell between his fingers and teasingly raises his
eyebrows up and down a couple times. “Yeah? Well, I thought we already
established your old lady is a drag. Keep up.”
“That’s right, I almost forgot. So….. did you name her? Your bike?” There aren’t
many things that Harry hasn’t fondly named in his own Sunny language, after all.
“Mmm. It’s a secret.”
I did pick a name for her, by the way, but you can’t have it. She’s my secret. I miss
her.
“Can I ever know?”
Harry stares at you with wry smile for an intentionally prolonged stretch of
seconds — a stare that teases you and challenges you — before smashing his lips
together and shaking his head. “Depends how long you stick around for.”
There’s a beat a silence before you add another line, a line that concisely
insists that you’re certain of what he’s named his new beloved bike without
having to outwardly say so. “Red is not your color.”
“Maybe not, mais je suis toujours amoureux du rouge.” He allows you to study
his face and search around in his eyes for about three ticks before he laughs
softly past his front teeth and runs his fingers around the outside of his mouth.
“Red’s really pretty, so.”
“Pink is really pretty, too.”
Harry’s fingers tip toe towards you and when he’s close enough, he pauses to
brush your pinkies together. A slow wave of friction rolls from skin to skin. You
both take sips of your drinks as Harry’s legs drift open, his knee tapping yours.
He revels in the closeness as he sips his beer, then looks at you, looks at your
hands, chokes on sand in his mouth, dries his palms on his trousers. Wishing it
was your hand instead, he drops his chin into his palm and scans your figure with
sudsy eyes. His heart-shaped mouth soft, his skin shiny, his voice scratchy. “Tell
me somethin’.”
One of the first things that you noticed about him comes to mind, quietly, and
a little hesitance blooms through a small, cottony smile. Gin surges through your
veins, pooling heat to your cheeks and lubricating your confidence. But mostly,
you’re astronomically adorable. “You have lots of new freckles. On your nose and
your cheeks. Forehead.”
“Yeah? Fuck.”
And after seeing that your comment has surprised him into a proverbial
corner, you rest one forearm on the bar and drop your chin into your hand as
well, your eyes bright and affectionate. Watching and admiring his appearance
that you’ve missed dearly, realizing now with time and space apart that he’s even
more attractive in person than in photographs. Even more attractive than you
remember. Your smile grows slowly and proudly, lit up with enamor. “You’re so
admirable. I never stopped admiring you. I’ve never seen someone withstand so
much with such self-awareness, perseverance and grace. I doubt you see it that
way, but I do. And so do lots of other people. I did worry about you for a long
time when you disappeared, but when you just emerged on the beach with fire
on the tail of your surfboard, it made sense. And I knew. I knew you were on your
way to feeling mostly okay. I hope you’re as proud of you as I am.”
Vivienne fucking surefire. He somehow misses you more even though you’re
sitting directly beside him.
Kiss, please. “I feel a lot closer to okay right now.” My heart’s goin’ and I need
extras.
Dropping his hand on the bar beside yours, he flips his palm up and nudges
your finger, hoping that appearing like a turtle rocking around his back that
you’ll volunteer to steady him. And when your fingertips smooth over his wrist to
align your palms, you and Harry share a sacred moment of sweetness. Comparing
the length of his long fingers to yours, his hand a little cool and damp from the
frosted beer bottle, warm metal from his rings, smooth fingertips, callouses on
his palms. Memories from being partners. Memories from being lovers. His
fingers slip through yours but your embrace dissolves when you both mutually
retreat, slowly, unsure of where to let them rest.
But you salvage the moment by softly clearing your throat. “Your turn.”
Harry tugs on the small braid that frames your face, highlighting the jut of
your cheekbone and cinched off simply at the bottom with a small rubber band.
Over the past couple of years his eyes have somehow gotten even prettier.
They’re clear, but not just visually. In this moment, they’re thoroughly
undistracted and slowly flourishing with the kind of luster that one can only
achieve when they’re staring at the person they love with a new perspective.
Staring at the only person who makes them feel a very particular way, regardless
of time and distance.
“You look free. Which is so much bigger than lookin’ pretty, yeah?” A few pink
ashes fall from the end of his cigarette before he taps it off into the ashtray, then
without deliberation, passes it to you with a tick of his eyebrow. Always caring
for you, always caring for something. “It’s far out.” Harry’s watches carefully
when you suck the smoke through your teeth as you always do before handing it
back to him, a little ball of cotton candy dissolving on your tongue. “It’s comin’
from inside you. And I missed the sound of your voice. It tastes like basil, y’know?
Like, soft florally herbs and bubblegum. You’re hotter than fuckin’ ever, Cherry.”
And he’s never wanted something so much as your regard. Right now, its pull
is not much different than what the sun does to the grass, waking him to stretch
up from the dirt like a zombie with spindly arms and a strong appetite for
oblivion.
Harry has taught you a lot both in his presence and absence, helped shape you
into the person you are today in regards to what you want and what you don’t
want. Sometimes you wonder how things would have been different if he’d never
lovingly trampled through such a formative time in your life. Because of Harry,
and through all the whiplash of struggle and bliss, you’ve learned to set
necessary boundaries in all sorts of relationships. You’ve learned that it’s okay to
not be one thing. You’ve learned to accept and improve on the strengths and
shortcomings of your mind and body. You’ve learned that fluidity is essential and
easy once you’ve canceled out the static of other people’s opinions. You’ve
learned what makes you happiest in the whole world and also what makes you
the most miserable.
The thing about the Sun is that the marks it leaves on your skin don’t become
visible without a little time in the shade.
Most importantly, you’ve learned that the risk and transcendence of love is
worth it. It’s all worth it, because it’s everything. It’s why mothers sacrifice every
bit of themselves for someone else’s success, why the cycle of inspiration and
creativity is possible, why money becomes nothing but an inconsequential piece
of paper in the face of devastation, why artists push through blocks and pain,
why people sacrifice their time and their bodies for justice. Why a lover chooses
to walk away without a trace from an environment that is toxic for both,
regardless of how satisfying the partnership within it can feel at times. Love
sharpens and dulls everything around it.
Ultimately, when every single plausible circumstance is boiled down, love is

the essential reason to stay and it’s also the reason to leave. And when it refuses
to quiet down, it’s also the reason to come back.
Love is. Sexy as fuck.
Reaching forward, you pluck the cigarette from between his fingers again and
steal another drag, watching his face disappear and then reappear through the
haze. “Thank you, Harry. That was really lovely.”
“Mhm, that’s alright. Gospel. How’s my Beau?”
“He’s great. It took him awhile to warm up to me. He missed you a lot at first, I
think. He used to pace around the theatre restlessly, searching for you.” Which
you can relate to — even though you knew Harry was never coming back,
nothing stopped you from peeking in to practice room two every so often in the
hope that you would be blessed by a pink, smoky mirage of him. It was a cruel
existence to be forced to change in the same dressing room where you and Harry
had sex for the very last time, to perform on the same trapeze where he used to
hold you, to walk past the fountain in the courtyard where his friend’s still
gathered and past Banana Split on your way home while fighting off a fury of
sameness and despair. “I brought him with me when I moved to San Francisco
with Nettie and Ash, so I learned that he wakes up super early. He keeps me on
the same clock that you used to.”
“He sleeps in your bed then?”
It’s a bit of a layered question really, Harry’s coy attempt at discovering

whether or not you share your bed with anyone else. Since Beau is pretty large it
would be tricky for him and another human to fit on your squeaky-as-fuck
mattress. And he doesn’t exactly like that the topic hasn’t been breached yet,
since it’s a key factor in how he should conduct himself for the time being. And
can be a deal-breaker for the entire purpose of his trip. Throughout all of the
information that was passed on to him by Mose and some other covert sources,
the one thing he could never get a handle on was your romantic life. You did an
excellent job of keeping that pretty mum. Every little thing about you seems
airbrushed from far away, but Harry supposes it always had.
“Usually.”
Well, that was no help.
“Groovy. Tell me somethin’ else.”
“Nettie feeds him bowls of cereal. With milk and bananas.”
“Damn. Lucky fuckin’ dog.”
You snort and the sounds seems to physically pain Harry, with the way his
expression falls before tightening up, his forehead pitching against his closed fist
as he stares at the bar below his sweating palm.
It fucking hurts to stare at the Earth’s most precious diamond with empty
pockets.
And for some reason, maybe it’s the gin or maybe it’s thick mixture of smoke
clouds overpowering the room or maybe it’s his injured reaction, you feel the
need to breach this moment with a thorn of honesty. It may be your only shot at
it, after all. “Harry? It’s kind of difficult for me to be near you and not see your
eyes glitter. Your dimple and all that. Silly faces that change from one expression
to the next faster than I can keep up. Humor drier than a salt block and also
somehow goofier than a cartoon reel. The color pink as a boy. Your hands are still
just as busy, though. But I expected that.”
The coaster presently being shredded to bits in Harry’s hands drops to the bar
upon your keen observation. You are still a detective with quirky timing and
paradoxically soft and ironclad words. With the sweetest fucking disposition, the
sweetest sentiments pouring from even sweeter lips. Shamefully, he had almost
forgotten. Those types of memories dull for everyone but seem to still stay close,
shrunken away like a sleeping flower that needs a little nudge to remember who
they are.
Harry shakes his head, feeling as though his experiences throughout the last
few years and the courage needed to show up here aren’t being received as they
should. You have to know how difficult this is for him; you have to know how
difficult this has all been for him. “It’s not fair for you to say that to me.”
“Probably not, but I was thinking it and I know you love to know what I’m
thinking.”
“You miss me.”
“It’s hard not to when you’re right here. Anyone would.”

“I miss me, too. And you. And us.” He watches you shift in your barstool and
feels your emotional recoil. “Too much?”
“I mean…..” A laugh rolls from your tongue and it tastes kind of bitter, but
Harry thinks it sounds like wind-chimes accidentally sprayed by a hose and
drying off through the warmest shades of a rainbow, so he waits for you to finish
your sentence before passing any judgements. Both of you and himself. “You’re
sitting here after how long and I can barely believe it, so. It’s hard to know what
my threshold is.” Before you so much as step another foot in the direction this
conversation seems to be going, there’s one major thing you’re eager to know.
“How’s your memory, by the way?”
“Dynamite. I remember shit that hasn’t even happened yet.”
“You haven’t had any more—”
“Zip. You can swallow that chill pill now. Can I say somethin’?”
You’re wishing you could run away and find a payphone for another quick pep
talk from Nettie before this conversation wanders into territory that you are ill-
prepared for. But it’s much too late in San Francisco. It’s much too late here. Even
though they weren’t meant to apply to your current situation, her words from
earlier suffice, as they always do.
You’re living your dream. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Literally nothing. Do
your thing.
“I…..” The air thickens in the space between your gazes and instead of getting
too scared and backing out, you decide to keep it simple and hear him. “Yes. Go
on.”
“You’re the first and last thing I think about every single fuckin’ day, V.” Harry
notices the red flare in your cheeks before you feel it yourself, and you suddenly
become very interested in the tips of your fingers as you twirl your martini glass
between them. He soldiers on through the silence, “and you have been for years,
so I felt like I needed to do somethin’ about it. Thought you should know.” His
anxiety from your silence is starting to get the better of him and as always, he
can’t help but elbow you a little, “…..’Kay, so now pretend we’re having a
conversation and you take a turn sayin’ something.”
Your smile is striking but your smile is directed at the bar top, likely because
you’re much too overwhelmed with sensory input and information and churning
guts to aim it at the person who’s produced it. Harry waits patiently though, his
hands itching to touch yours or pinch your chin and force your attention to him
like he would have done in the past. But that’s the past, existing in its stagnant
pastdom, and this is the present, blistering in vibrating presentness. And the
future continues to be vague in its futureness.
He waits patiently, because you’re so fucking good at saying the right thing at
the right time. He trusts you. He spent months while you were together begging
you to say what you really meant, but little did he know that all he has to do is
wait.
Also, maybe Harry’s spent his fair share dabbling in the art of patience in the
space of your time apart — patience for himself and patience for the future.
Primarily, patience with the past since that is what holds the key to everything
else. And coincidentally, the piece that he historically shoved away the hardest.
Because maybe there simply are just other ways to be.
“And how.” Your gaze meets his at a coy angle, a seductive angle with all the
lights and shadows of the room cutting across your bone structure, the nearby
candle dancing across the glitter in your eyes and the glitter in your lipstick. Two
cherries that kiss when you purse your lips and glance down at his steady hands
before turning to him slowly, your noses just a cigarette’s length away from
touching. “I have dreams about you. Often. And each time, I wake up sad when I
remember you’re not there. It’s cruel. But it does give me something to look
forward to when I go to bed each night.”
Frozen in space for a few splendid broken heartbeats, Harry slides his hand
across the bar, crawling to a pause when he nears your wrist. He reaches his
pinky towards yours, brushing your knuckles together and drowning in the
feeling of a thousand tiny pieces of confetti jumping in his stomach. Then settling,
but completely rearranged from before.
Often, you’ve wondered if your residual feelings for him are so strong simply
due to lack of closure. If the course of your relationship would have eventually
fizzled to an end if it weren’t so brutally interrupted, or if it would have stacked
its building blocks so high that by now you and Harry could have been more
curious and undeniable than the Great Pyramids.
“Fuck. That’s real sexy. Hey.” Trying desperately not to stare at his heart-
shaped mouth, your eyes sting through his with defiance. Harry thinks you look
beautiful when you’re trying your best not to lose control and he always has,
because that means that you’re on the brink of progress. Your resilience may just
be his favorite thing about you. He licks his lips slowly, already craving another
cigarette. “Who the fuck still says ’and how’?”
Your teeny giggle pierces his heart like a balloon. “I’m bringing it back.”
“Good luck.”
“Maybe you could help me, since everyone in the world fawns over your every
scarce word.”
“You’re on your own. You’ll never catch me sayin’ that shit.” Without much
consideration aside from the fact that his stomach is burning and flipping and
drowning to know the answer, Harry switches pace with less grace than he
would ideally like. He draws his gaze to the bar top, rapping twice with his
knuckles as if contemplating something, but then finally lands on an impulsive
blurt. It’s something he’s still working on after all, and you’ve always been drawn
to his spontaneous nature because it’s so different from your calculated nature. It
compels you to speak and act in a way that you don’t normally do for others.
“’Kay, so, you gotta boyfriend I have to hate, V?”
You panic for a second, knowing that this moment was going to come at some
point and even though you rehearsed what you would say in the bathroom
mirror, regardless of whether or not you’d ever have to speak the words out
loud, every thought that you have dissolves into the tips of your fingers and then
escapes.
The sweetness of the conversation and physical closeness that you had just
been sharing is suddenly bitter, shredded and distant. You both know it before
anyone utters another word. Even though the distance between you has not
changed, you suddenly feel miles apart, stretched across opposite sides of this
crowded bar. And since the information had to leak eventually, sooner is likely
better than later.
Harry’s hair is beautiful a little grown out, shaggy bits framing his ears and the
back of his neck in thick hazelnut waves. And swimming through them right now
is a nice, wanted distraction. One that you just know will only last for the next
three seconds, tops. “Um….. no. Not now.”
Harry’s heart careens into his throat, the sick twist of jealousy overpowering
him from his head to his toes. His breath carries actual weight in his chest. He’s
the master of avoiding questions and can smell the same tactic on you a mile
away. Your hesitant statement is loaded; burdened by an oozing sense of guilt,
overwrought with a tangle of roots below the dirt. There’s more to it. A lot more.
Reading between the lines of your two words reveals a matted, underwater
seaweed-infested cave of unspoken, assumed revelations:
Not now, but you did.
Not now, but very recently.

Not now, but there’s pain coming.
Not now, but adding anything else will destroy him and you know it.
Not now, but there’s no time but now.
Even though there is an audible tremble in your voice, he still won’t look at
you and your gaze is so heavy that it’s chiseling holes into his profile. Harry
thought he was ready to hear your answer, but he was wrong. He was ready for
an answer that suited him, not one that would rip him in half.
“Right, so…..” His tongue slinks out to wet his bottom lip and his heartbeat is
so painful that it hurts to breathe. His stomach hurts, his head hurts. Everything
hurts. The room around him evaporates, overcome with urgency. “How long
were you with him and when’d you split?”
“Harry—”
Before remembering his surroundings, his question starts off at a high volume
before immediately dropping to a whisper after the first spurted word. A Harry-
whisper, which is still kind of loud. “Would you just answer the fuckin’ question
so we can avoid any apologies or spare minutes of heartbreak? Haven’t we
learned the truth always comes out anyway? Just say it.”
“Shh, shh….. fine, okay. We were together for a little more than a year. I broke
up with him just shy of a month ago. Right before I left for tour—” The scrape of
the barstool’s feet against the floor that hallmarks his escape is so jarring that
your skin prickles at the sound. Porcupine quills poking at every single pore.
“Harry, no. Please wait—”
Crushed little fragments of the lord’s name tumble up with broken curses
before he finally spits, “don’t. I’m not mad at you or anything. You’re cool. I just—
I’m stunned, yeah? Fuck, shit. Fuckin’ shit. Gimme a sec, alright?”
Abandoning his beer, Harry pushes through the crowd and weaves through
the lobby before slapping open the front door without bothering to wait for the
doorman’s assistance. You have to stifle the tears crawling up your nose when
the bartender asks if you’d like another round, because this severely-anticipated
rendezvous might have just ended before it even began. Exactly like your
romance. A prune before it was ever a plum.
You wait. Because Harry doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean and right now, he
needs time to let his jealousy engulf him in flames and fizzle out before he can
carry on a proper conversation without burning you alive. And you hope, both
for his sake and your own, that he doesn’t impulsively decide to hop into a
passing taxi before the flames have a chance to fizzle.
Harry paces into a dark alleyway, the only color the glow from the tip of his
cigarette, taking long drags that light up his face pink.
We were together for a little more than a year.
It doesn’t make any sense that Harry had been effectively kept in the dark
about this, that throughout the course of an entire year that no one bothered to
clue him in on your big secret. While Harry was trying to sort out the shambles of
his life, you were moving on with ease and everyone around you seemed to
support it, based on the resounding powerful silence.
He couldn’t even begin to imagine filling the space that you took up. When he
imagines the two of you together, jealousy swells inside of his heart, green and
atrocious, pumping through his veins and reaching the farthest stretches of his
body. A whole ass boyfriend for a whole fucking year. Someone named fucking
Bobby or Tom. Someone who doesn’t value your worth and talent. Someone safe
and polite. Someone your mum likes. Armed with cheesy jokes. A stiff hugger.
Khaki trousers and sweater vests. Sad in the sack. No fucking spark. No fucking
throw-down. No grit. No drive or lust.
He can hear the resentment echoing around in his skull as he tries to convince
any worth out of your ex, needling him with that old, tired insecurity of not being
good enough for you. Not being presentable enough for you. Not being grounded
and conventional enough. Not smart or practical. Not truthful or dependable. Not
the kind of person your family would willingly allow you to stand at the alter
with. And the worst part about it is that he agrees with your family and for good
reason.
Right before I left for tour—
His anger and envy has him overcome with the urge to toss you onto the
nearest surface just to prove a point. Ripping your tiny dress off, wrapping his
fingers around your neck, growling into your mouth a selfish question of whether
or not Bobby or John ever fucked you this way, if Bobby or John ever made you
come in their mouth with a spine-shuddering mewl, if Bobby or fucking John ever
bent you over their knee and left a heavy red handprint on your skin. In the way
you deserve.
But he doesn’t, because that spunk in him feels like it’s been burned out.
But he doesn’t, because for the first time, he’s uncertain of whether or not you
want him to.
But he doesn’t, because he doesn’t need to. He knows the real answer.
He knows because he speaks from experience. Your chemistry is a special

blend of oxygen and fire. You burn hot and fast together. Blue untouchable
flames and thick black, blinding smoke. But also, slow and full of trust and safety.
The perfect build up, the perfect climb and crash. The kind of climb that distorts
reality and the kind of crash that wipes that reality clean. Bobby or fucking John
can’t do that and neither can a burner. No one can.
Harry’s evidence lies in the passage of time and how even though it has
paradoxically crawled and raced by, his feelings for you have remained the same.
And since Harry can read you like his favorite memorized poems, he senses
you’re having the same experience. Except, just like always, you’re holding it just
out of his reach. Tucked away under lock and key, probably like all of your
fucking jewelry in your hotel suite safe.
Based on the cigarette butts on the ground, Harry gauges that he must have
been outside in this alleyway for nearly fifteen minutes. And knowing you, he
assumes you’re sick with dread and worry about his history with temper
tantrums and how he has allowed them to guide his actions in the past. The time
leading up to this point, the flight, the stop at the bodega for sunflowers, the
clenching of his stomach as he waited for you to appear in the green room. It
would be a crying shame to let all of his efforts, now and throughout the course
of your relationship, crumble because he’s a jealous little pansy.
With that, Harry charges back inside with another cigarette tucked behind his
ear for easy access. He takes note of the fresh round of drinks sitting on the bar
and takes comfort in the trust you held of his return. He plops down on the stool
beside you and before you even have an opportunity to speak, he’s freeing
himself of the truth to absolve him of liability. Truly, his rage and envy have far
less to do with Bobby or John or you, but everything to do with himself and the
two of you as a couple. And that’s exactly how he plans to steer the rest of this
conversation.
“Hey, so. Ya know….. we were too big for ourselves, for each other. Our love
was fuckin’ massive and we didn’t know how to handle it. We loved each other
like no one else can, even though I was shitty at times and there were a couple
times you weren’t sympathetic enough with me. Has that crossed your mind ever
or am I screamin’ into an empty fish bowl?”
This is the moment you’ve been waiting for. The moment that knocks the
alcohol buzz straight out of your bloodstream, the moment that forces you to
scrape your jaw from the floor, the moment where you’re both compelled into
shining honesty because there’s nowhere else to back up. His accusation causes
you to stumble for a second, especially because it’s not at all what you were
expecting to hear from him after the landslide of information you just released
on his frail state of mind. But in perfect Surefire fashion, it only takes a second to
regain your footing.
“Yes. Of course I recognized it. And sometimes it would pop up randomly,

while I was brushing my teeth or walking past dance studio two.” Which you
refused to set foot in ever again. “Not because I held you back at first, honestly, I
don’t regret that. I don’t regret being careful about the fragility of my career
because I earned it fair and square and it was as thin as ice. But the way I
dismissed your doting, the things I didn’t communicate when I should have, the
walls I threw up so fast when your memory slipped….. yes, I regret all of it. But I
can’t reach into the past and change it, I can only notice the warning signs in
similar dark woods in the future. That’s all I can do. And I apologize, of course.
I’m sorry I put myself first at the end. I’m sorry I wasn’t honest. I’m sorry I waited
so long to have sex with you, because I wish I could’ve tasted you just a little bit
longer. I’m sorry I didn’t chase you out of Rusty’s office when he fired you. I
didn’t appreciate you enough at times.”
The last hour, the last hundred pages, the last mile home. It seems like you
wait a lifetime to arrive there and once you do, it’s gone before you can savor it.
“Killer. Thank you. I know you fuckin’ hate when I say this, but I wasn’t good
enough for you. I was a piss baby. I filled your ears up, but I wasn’t doin’ enough
work on myself and my own shit. I didn’t have the proper tools and I couldn’t
give you what you needed. I did a lot of shit that wasn’t okay. And I’d do it a lot
differently if I could.”
“Me too.”
“Hey, babe? Don’t be so fuckin’ bad to yourself. How many times do I have to
rattle off that same lingo? You appreciated the fuck out of me and you said so all
the time, how could you forget that? Didn’t you read my letter? I never fuckin’
forgot it. Or maybe you didn’t recognize your acts of appreciation when they
happened, but I felt it, so that’s all that matters. Also, if it makes you feel any
better, I wouldn’t have heard shit from you if you chased after me when I was
fired. That was the beginning of a very deep and dark spiral. Wanna know what I
did that night?”
“Um….. do I?”
And you just know it’s much darker and abysmal than the surface statement
Harry gives you. His short statement carries the brawn of a short story.
“Went for a swim.”
Harry stays quiet and allows you to feel your feelings. Watching as your eyes
turn shiny, watching as your hands fall into your lap and your gaze follows.
Watching as your heart physically splits down the middle and stains your
clothing with dark red blood. Honestly, he has fear too. Not in the hopeless
search for pity for his past actions, but in the uncertainty of losing his only shot at
winning you back because of his biting honesty. Which is something he’s always
feared when it comes to you; that his genuine self with all of its tarnish and
mistakes and baggage isn’t something you’d choose to stick around for. And even
though he is a piece of shit, but he still thinks he’s one of the good ones.
“But I chickened out. Crawled from the water and hacked up salt for ten
minutes. Fell asleep in the sand and then tried it again as soon as the sun came
up. Chickened out again, swallowed all the ’ludes Bunny gave me. Dreamed about
you for twenty-four hours, hopin’ I wouldn’t wake up so I could dream ’bout you
for eternity. Woke up anyway. Finished off your letter and brought it to you right
after I trashed Tex’s car and house.” And maybe murdered Riff, but he’ll ask
about local obituary reports later. “I had no clue how to take care of myself, by
myself. But I do now. We knew it was over as soon as I forgot who you were. You
couldn’t even look at me the same after that, after I showed you a glimpse of our
mortality. It was too hard for you to stomach. You couldn’t even bear to have a
conversation about it. And once my visa got revoked, I had nothin’ left to lose.
Nothin’. And before you start spoutin’ off, I couldn’t leave you with that
bombshell before I skipped town. I know you’re stunned to be hearing it now, but
please try to understand. I’m sorry I hurt you so much. I’m sorry I’m hurtin’ you
now. I’m so sorry.”
So, I’m sorry. You’re fired, Harry.
Harry fucking hates apologies, both giving and receiving them. It’s a weak
pardon of guilt, someone else’s peace of mind at the expense of his time and
emotional energy.
And his apology is so foreign that it almost slips by you. Almost. But then
again, not much slips by you.
In short: Harry is notorious for self-inflicted downward spirals when things

feel out of control and he ends up hurting himself. And those who love him, as
displayed in your big watery baby deer eyes right now. But you always knew this
about him, even when others were completely blind to it. “So, you tried to drown
yourself twice and when that didn’t work, you tried to overdose?”
His eyebrows pull together in a sharp frown at your succinct language and it
urges him to pause and consider the lengths at which he took to escape pain. All
that time ago. Harry doesn’t consider himself the type of person who gives up
fighting, but in the same vein, he has felt so overwhelmed in moments that he
wishes he could just stick a needle in his brain and suck all the bad foam and
gunk out of it. “Sounds bad when you put it that way. Just wanted a long nap.
Who wouldn’t?”
“Harry…..” Your elbows hit the bar top, your face falls into your palms. Raging
and warring emotions completely consume your insides and outsides, trying to
make sense and justifications for his past anger and impulsivity that you’re well
aware of, while also simultaneously retracing your steps back to that day and the
following two days afterwards to try to remember what you were feeling and
thinking. What he was feeling and thinking. But it’s a fog, a mind-swept trauma
hiding under a rug somewhere. As trauma does. “I’m so worried about you.”
All of those times when you quelled the intuitive ache in your stomach over
what Harry was going through, all alone somewhere on planet Earth, with his
brain turning on him and convincing him that he’s not good enough for things
start to bubble up and surface. Mostly, you don’t want to make this about
yourself and turn it into one of those situations where he feels remorse for your
sake. Walking that balance beam of sympathy and personal distress towards
someone else’s suffering can be challenging because there simply isn’t enough
room in our bodies for the entire world’s pain, on top of our individual miseries.
And yet somehow, we manage.
It’s simple; the more you love something, the more it hurts you.
“Don’t be. It’s long gone. I feel like there’s a nuance in recognizing your
hardships and the validity in them, but also understanding how that shit taxes
the people around you. Ya know? Nothin’ is easy. For anyone. I used to get pissed
when it felt like my support systems were crumblin’, but like, they need to take
care of themselves, too. I guess what I’m sayin’ is we’re responsible for ourselves
and we’re lucky when people are there for us. I’m lucky for every nice word you
ever said to me, when I needed to hear it most. And I don’t blame you for
protectin’ yourself when it got to be too much. I woulda done the exact same. Just
sayin’. I can’t step into the future without accepting my past. And same goes for
you. Please try an’ understand. Can I hug you?”
As soon as you nod, Harry’s gripping your wrist to guide you off the barstool
and between his legs, wrapping you up in one of those hugs that feels like a fuzzy
terry cloth beach towel after it’s saturated itself in poolside sunshine. Warm and
soft, sinking into each one of your hollow crevices to protect you from that
particular sweeping chill of dusky air when your body is soaking wet. A superior
comfort uniform, more reassuring than wrapping yourself up in your favorite
precious fucking cardigan.
His arms fold clear around you, his nose and lips pressing into your hair when
he mumbles into your ear, “love is forcin’ someone to look at themselves. Really
look at themselves. Are you surprised I avoided that shit for so long? And that
you did, too? Who wants to willingly face that? It’s hard.” He pulls back to look at
your face, but keeps you in his arms. “Be mad at me as long as you need, just not
forever. ’Kay? Even the moon has to slowly build its way back up after it’s been
veiled in darkness. New moons aren’t instantly full again the very next night. It’s
just not how life works, babe. Pain level on a scale of 1 — 10?”
You missed him. You miss him. And it feels so good to have him here that
you’re scared to let him in, for fear of how much the scars would burn if he were
ripped away once more.
“Five. Six?”
“Is that a cool yellow or creepin’ closer to red?”
His gaze follows as you sit back down on your barstool, your legs crossed
towards him, your knees touching. There is no sensation of looming tears in your
sinuses or your chest and as you take a moment to mentally scan your body,
searching and searching for any feelings of tension, there aren’t any. And it feels
like even if you waited for your body to catch up to your mind, the tears still
wouldn’t come. Maybe there is a greater bit of understanding in there than you’d
previously realized, a detachment of yourself from his destructive choices. A
realization that someone can still love you more than anything else on the planet,
and still not be able to demonstrate it all the time. It’s somehow freeing, to
unburden someone of your ideal expectations and just allow them to live beside
you and not in relation to you. Existing as an extension of themselves and
themselves only.
“Still yellow. I’m not mad at you, for any of it. It’s just hard to feel the right
kind of pain over something that happened so long ago.” Holding on to residual
panic out of principle seems unfair, especially after he’s taken a leap with
stabbing honesty, but that logic doesn’t do much for the sting of sadness still
worming its way around in your heart. Transforming personal concern into
interpersonal understanding is a difficult bridge to cross. Objectively judging
actions as slight or severe when you’re in love with someone is even harder. “Is
that the only time?”
“Yeah. That night was brutal. Findin’ out you had a serious boyfriend for a
fuckin’ eternity is a close second.”
“A year. On and off. It wasn’t as serious as it seems.”
“Yeah? Well….. that’s still three hundred and sixty-five days of commitment
and decision-making based around another person. Stop shrinkin’ it.”
In a matter of words, Harry helps you realize that you were indeed trivializing
your relationship for the sake of his feelings. That you likely trivialized the
entirety of the relationship as a defense. And any bit of dishonesty, as you’ve
learned, is not helpful for either of you. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s been looming
in the back of my mind for this entire conversation, wondering how and when I
was going to tell you and then bearing the brunt of….. whatever reaction you
were going to have. I’ll admit it was better than I excepted, though.” Your
stomach starts to violently plunge through the air upon the vocalization of your
next question. “I find it hard to believe that you haven’t dated anyone else?”
Harry’s shrug meets his ears. “Handful of burners. Didn’t tell half of ’em my
name. Couple repeats.” He takes a long swig of beer and speaks with a mouthful
before swallowing, as if he were attempting to swallow his confession as soon as
it leaves his lips, “couple dudes.”
Couple repeats hurts harder than you’d like to admit and it makes you wonder
if within the spaces of him sleeping with people, and after some considering and
reconsideration, if he’d thought about the possibility of moving on with someone
else. If he tried to force himself to, like you had. If there was someone who came
close to outshining you. If he dreamed of someone else, whispered French to
someone else, shared a bed or clothes or a massage or a fork with someone else.
But then you remember how uncomfortable he must be feeling about the
magnitude of your ex and decide to let that sting of jealousy slowly wane to
death. It’s probably better not to know any of those things, because right now, his
current actions are outweighing all of those things.
“Wait.” Your jaw drops gradually and hangs in the air. “Did you say you were
with men?”
“Testin’ it out.”
Your nose scrunches up in wonder, but doesn’t exactly let a snort loose. “Did
you have sex? Were you—”
“Shut up.”
“Can I guess?”
“No. Shut the fuck up.”
“Okay.” You eat one of the cherries from your French 75, but you can’t let the
topic go without one more question. You can never let anything go without one
more question. “Did you like it?”
“Mmm—”
“I think you were a recipient.”
His smile and soft chuckle light up the entire room. A ray of Sunshine breaking
through the clouds, a rush of a thousand soft memories that you thought had
been hardened forever fiercely swim their way against the current. This entire
interaction is akin to a spring day at its most unsettled; the roll of clouds, the
burst of a fighting Sunbeam, a momentary downpour, bright light working its
hardest to stretch on a little longer than the night before.
“’Kay, I instantly regret flappin’ my gums.”
“No, no. Don’t. You should feel proud of yourself. That’s hard to confront and
admit for most people, let alone explore. But….. you liked it?”
Harry raises his eyebrows, his eyes trained on you as he puckers his lips and
takes another long sip of beer.
Your fingertips drum your lips before you break into small giggles. “That’s a
yes. It’s actually not all that surprising.” His wanton kiss with Tex at the fountain
flashes like a bolt of lightning and the thought of Tex still makes your skin crawl
and urges your mind to naturally slide to thoughts of Riff, so you shut the image
down hard and fast before that resentment starts to seep into your current, and
frankly, much more important conversation. “Look, I’m sorry, Harry….. thinking
of you with other people makes my blood boil with envy. I know that’s not fair of
me to say because it’s your life and I wasn’t in it. Of course you’ve done nothing
wrong and I’ve done the same exact thing, but kind of bigger in a different way.
But it’s still true.”
“That’s what I wanna hear.” You’re perfect. “How ’bout this?” Propping his
elbow on the bar, Harry rests his chin in his palm and nibbles on his bottom lip,
his eyelashes flicking when his sight drops to your mouth then back to your
unwavering gaze. “Drunkenly called one of ’em Cherry by accident.”
“Was it one of the men?” Harry laughs, but your smile doesn’t quite reach your
cheeks. His confession makes you feel sad for him and he can sense it based on
how the volume and conviction of your voice drops. “Liar. Better than ’Clyde’ I
guess.”
“Seriously? Ouch. Don’t drop that word around here. Fuck off. Don’t you know
me at all? No one has a chance against you. No one. You think that’s changed just
because my memory hiccupped for a few fuckin’ hours and then I roamed the
earth aimlessly, alone, meditating on my pain and mistakes and bad luck for the
next two years? I was workin’ on myself. Not erasin’ you. There’s a major
difference. I didn’t know what was gonna happen with me since I was chased out
of the U.S. and you had so much fuckin’ potential that I couldn’t dare squash, so I
cut you loose. I hope you can understand that at some point, even if it’s not
today.”
And that’s exactly why it hurts so fucking badly that you can jump right into a
year-long relationship with someone. Sure, Harry had his need of connection and
intimacy met on a few occasions, but it was merely that. But you — a whole
fucking year. Just like that. As if the two of you walked away from completely
different relationships and the one that Harry was in was much more impactful
than yours was.
It’s not that he didn’t expect you or wish for you to explore around a little bit,
to gain perspective and narrative and experience, to be happy and fulfilled and
lucky like you deserve. But a year is serious and a year is a long time and a year is
unexpected. A year could have easily snowballed into two or three or marriage
and pregnancy. A year is twice more than Harry could give you and it makes him
feel short on luck. It makes him feel inferior. It makes him feel remorseful.
Jealous. After the destruction from the Sunny/Cherry earthquake, it doesn’t
match the magnitude of the aftershock you both felt.
Or maybe it does. Maybe he’s just too sensitive. Maybe Harry is just in the
outfield all alone and never realized, isolated by impact and dodging fly balls
while you were collecting home runs. A crowd cheers for the opposite team, the
phantom scoreboard finally manifests in the distance to read a score that he
didn’t even know was being kept this entire time.
Vivienne: 1
Harry: 0
A fucking year?
The reasons why Harry left Malibu have never been a mystery to you. Even if
he hadn’t been deported it was glaringly obvious, even through your heartbreak,
that it wasn’t the right time for you to try to be together. Even though the
backlash of his brain injury wasn’t his fault, you still couldn’t see him as a
Sunbeam quite yet. Because he wasn’t fully there; he was stomped to dust on the
hot sidewalk, crushed into the creases and stuck to dry cement. He was dressed
in black from head to toe like a walking shadow, moth-bitten holes allowing his
light to bleed from his clothing. You were both lost and unable to shoulder the
weight needed for the other’s prosperity. You both had a lot to learn about love
and it seemed as though that could only happen in the loss of love. Awareness
through absence.
“I did understand it eventually. It took me awhile, mostly because you leaving

was the last thing I wanted. But reflecting back on it, I was glad you tore that
bandage off so that we could properly heal. We would’ve kept poking at each
other’s wounds and left uglier scars than we intended. And trying to make it
work by patching up our problems with sex and enabling validation would’ve
only complicated everything. I’m on your side, believe me.” But it still doesn’t
mean that it isn’t a complete shock to be telling him all of this in person.
I broke up with him just shy of a month ago.
Harry feels the need dig into you for more details, even through your soft bout
of sympathy. “Alright, let’s hear some lingo. Were you livin’ together? What’s his
name? Actually— no, stop. Fuck that. I don’t wanna know yet. Don’t tell me.” And
as soon as the dig flies from his mouth, he immediately regrets it.
Did he hold you all night long? Help you put your cardigan on before you left a
restaurant? Pull out your chair? Open your car door? Was he your sunshine or
merely a flickering lightbulb? What nicknames did you call him? What did he call
you? Did he meet your parents? Did you do things for him that you wouldn’t do
for Harry? Did you discuss your relationship with him? Did you tell him that
Harry deserved everything that happened to him? Did he make you blush? Did he
make you laugh? Really laugh? Did he make you come? Really come?
Did he even fucking dance with you?
Who is even good enough for you?
If only you could see yourself the way that Harry sees you, you’d probably
never settle for anyone. Even him.
Or especially him.
Were you in love with him? Were you more in love with him than you were
with Harry?
“Do you want me to tell you those things? Because I will—”
“Nah, I’m not ready to hear it yet. I’m still too surprised. I really wasn’t
expectin’ you to say that….. you don’t jump into shit. I thought you’d mess around
a little, but not this. Could this guy walk on fuckin’ water or somethin’?”
The expression on your face and the stark flip in topic says enough. You know
the answer, but you need to hear him admit it. “Did you come to New York just
for me, Harry?”
Taken aback by your forward, assuming question, he’s forced to pause before
he answers with his eyes dead set on yours. “Yeah. I did. Right next to a loud-ass
cryin’ baby. Just for you.” He battles between sipping his beer, eating a handful of
peanuts or lighting a new cigarette to quell his sudden oral craving, but settles on
none of them. Instead his fingertips blindly find the coaster, picking away at the
sad, frayed edge. “Or maybe I was the cryin’ baby, I dunno. Somethin’ tells me I
might be on the flight back. Do you know how hard it was for me to let you sleep
in my van that first time? I’d never let anyone in like that before, not like that.
And I haven’t since.”
Your relationship spins by on a blurry colorful wheel, the dice never landing in
a pocket to give you a solid answer. It would be impossible for the dice to land
anyway; the beat of your heart is violent enough to keep the wheel spinning for
hours.
“Okay…..” You’d figured as much, but it’s still intense to hear it spoken out
loud. The validation of being unique to him I’m terrified of being ordinary
reinforces that his abandonment was on his own accord, rather than
overwhelming slights of your own. Ones that you’ve broken down and broken
down and broken down for years, while whittling yourself to the bone on your
knotted rope, drowning your face in tears as you read The Pink Envelope to the
point of memorization. It forces you to think back to the events and thoughts
throughout Harry’s last twenty-four hours or last few days and weeks, months
even. How long has he been planning this reunion?
With Harry, it’s impossible and possibly forbidden to know if he’d been
scheming this very interaction from the moment he left Malibu, pausing and
breathing until he felt ready to face you. Until he was confident his actions could
match his words, exactly how they did the first time he told you that he loved
you. And then there’s the possibility that he’s acting on complete impulse, tired of
being lonely or just ready to take a risk on an uncertain outcome for the hell of it.
Because the moon and some purple flowers and the wind told him so. There’s
really no red line in his history that would help you draw a definite conclusion.
The blood pumping from your heart to your brain and back again is moving so
fast that you feel the need to grip your barstool for stability. “And what were you
expecting exactly? Closure? Or—”
“Yeah, at least. Maybe more.”

Your throat is tight enough now that air is having difficulty moving through,
hopping and skipping over each notch in your trachea. “More? Meaning?”
“Yeah, like….. some drippy residual feelings. Or big, obvious ones. Good or bad.
I can’t see shit through your poker face right now.” The pad of his index finger
drags through a watery heart of condensation on the bar top. “I waited, y’know. I
waited until I couldn’t wait anymore. I waited so long that I tried to start
convincin’ myself that I could be happy with an irreplaceable piece of my life
missing. But it didn’t feel right. It’s not what you’re thinkin’. It’s the other way
’round. I was countin’ down the days until you were outta Malibu and until I was
ready.”
Still not willing to raise your hope for the sake of a broken heart, you nod and
allow him the space to speak. Because even though your insides are being spun
through a wash cycle and hung to dry, his are likely being cut to pieces with
scissors. Blades so sharp he can’t even feel the injury, but the amount of blood
and frail tissue pouring from him is extraordinary. It’s not hard to admit that an
effort like this takes a lot of bravery, after all. A willingness to be completely
destroyed for a slim chance at satisfaction. “Ready for what?”
“For the right time, a time that made sense.” Your questioning is fucking him
up. Throughout the many times that he’s imagined this interaction, his thoughts
and explanations were markedly more linear. You somehow manage to throw a
boomerang into each one of his considerations, but he supposes that’s something
he’s always respected about you. “A time when you would hear me.”
“Okay….. I appreciate the amount of thought you put into this. I do. But Harry,
please try to see this from my side, too. You left and I had no idea where you
went. You didn’t want me to find you, remember? You made me love you with
every single bone in my body and when things fell apart literally overnight, you
just left without another peep. Zero communication or hope. For two-and-a-half
years. Before we even really had a chance to dig deep into our feelings and
discuss what happened or consider the next step, you made the decision for both
of us. I know that whole shitty situation was hard, traumatizing and unfair. Sad
and scary, and frankly, horrific. For the both of us, yes, but especially for you.
Your injury was not your fault, what happened to Indy was not your fault. Our
secret relationship wasn’t solely your responsibility. I’m so sorry that happened
to you, that you lost so much. And I know it must really hurt that I’ve been with
someone else, but what did you expect by just disappearing? That I would stay
completely holed-up on the slim chance that you would reappear on my
doorstep? I truly thought I was never going to see you ever again. Ever.
Especially as more and more time passed. I’m sor… y... I’m so sorry. But I couldn’t
just wait around with a vague hope and a broken heart. I didn’t want to, but I had
to try to live my life.” You choke on your honesty, “I thought you were gone
forever. Just poof — vanished. And now you’re back on your own time and on
your own accord and it just feels like everything is on your terms. Your capacity,
your needs, your timing. I can’t grasp this so quickly; I can’t just pull the right
answers out of thin air without contemplating it. It’s heavy. Our past is really
heavy.”
Harry opens his mouth to shout, but instead sucks in a lungful of air and
decides to keep his voice down for the sake of public scrutiny. He doesn’t want
the entire room to hear him unleash a fucking hailstorm on a two-and-a-half-year
long draught after all.
“Hey, how the fuck else was I supposed to do it? I fuckin’ had to split, alright? I
lost everything that was important to me in the span of what, two days? My
girlfriend, my job, my friendships, my home. My fuckin’ brain. My residency. I
burned every relationship that I had in that circus to the goddamn ground. That
was rock bottom for me, don’t you get it? I had zero spiritual stamina. I needed to
heal. Did you forget that you wouldn’t let me fuckin’ discuss jackshit with you? I
tried. I showed up cryin’ like a pansy on your doorstep after I went to the
hospital and then tried to bring it up at work before the finale, but you shot me
down every single time. I’m sorry I hurt you, but I left for you as much and I did it
for me. Everything was for us. Look at where you are now. You wouldn’t have
achieved all this if I’d stuck around back then, sneakin’ around Malibu hopin’
Rusty wouldn’t spot me. Lingering in the corner of your mind and driftin’ in and
out of your apartment while you were tryin’ to succeed. I would’ve been a fuckin’
drag. I would’ve sucked the life outta you. And I couldn’t pursue my own career
in Malibu, because it would’ve been too fuckin’ obvious I was still in the country.
And you think you’re the only person with a fear of abandonment? Why do you
think I pushed you away so hard at first? I’ve known since I’ve met you that
you’re too fuckin’ good for me. That I’d destroy you. I was scared shitless you
were gonna leave me the whole time we were together and that’s why I hid all
that shit from you. I know it wasn’t right and it was selfish as fuck and ended like
shit, but I didn’t want to just give you another reason to walk away. It felt too
good. Too good to be real. I felt like if I breathed the wrong way, everything
around me would disintegrate and it turns out I wasn’t wrong. I was really
fuckin’ good at tellin’ you what you deserved, but I couldn’t do the same for
myself. I don’t think any of us can. Catch my drift? Or should I keep goin’?”
“Oh….. okay. Wow.” Nothing could have prepared you for this. Fidgeting is
unusual for you. You’re a poised person. Fidgeting is usually Harry’s domain,
shredding coasters and twisting off the filters of his cigarettes, touching his lips
and his hair and his neck, twirling his rings and drumming his kneecaps. So, he
feels it instantly when the ice from his storm starts to melt on your skin, dripping
from your hair and clumping your eyelashes together. He feels it instantly when
you start to pick at the skin around your nails and tug on the hem of your dress.
When your gaze falls, hallmarking your resignation. “Okay, yes. But you didn’t
even try to contact me once in over two years. And it’s not like I could contact
you—”
“I had to catch my breath. I’d never fuckin broken up with someone before.
Not like that. You think I wanted to end it either? You’re fuckin’ batty. That was
the hardest thing I’d ever done.”
Once Harry started to realize that although the present is powerful and the
present is important and the present predicts the future, he also realized that
he’d been spending so much time there in order for the devastating past and
questionable future to seem tolerable. The landscape flattened. And then he
started to do things for himself. Active mental carnage, rather than the carnage of
those around him; writing, yoga, meditation. Lots of weed. Throwing his entire
body into what he loves most besides you and himself: surfing.
“I have to use the restroom. This conversation is so sudden, loaded and

happening so long after the fact that I’m having a hard time properly wrapping
my head around it. Excuse me—”
This is the exact opposite of what Harry expected or wanted. It’s completely
backwards. He should have known better; he should have known that you’re
tough and impenetrable. That you safeguard your feelings to avoid unnecessary
pain, just as he does. It seems stupid now, but all of those daydreams about
sweeping you off your feet and jumping your bones and swallowing each one of
your grateful moans the instant you saw one another again are being sliced in
half and tossed to the side like unwanted food scraps. It would appear that he’s
guilty of mentally romanticizing you to the point of illusion. He should have
known better.
Love is not a fairytale; love is a psychological thriller.
“Shit.” Harry knows that you explicitly said to drop any expectations that he
may be having, but it’s hard to when one builds up the courage to fly across an
ocean to a foreign city and finagles their way into CBS Studios in the vain hope
that they can somehow salvage a dusty, thousand piece puzzle that has a
hundred missing segments. “No….. please don’t book it. I’m know I’m pushin’ you.
I’m sayin’ too much, I’m completely unloading. I don’t mean to, I just— seeing
you again— there’s no one like you, V. You’re really fuckin’ select. It’s driving me
fuckin’ crazy all over again. I’m a sick puppy. I mean—” He spreads his palms out
in the air in a gesture of begging for your self-reflection. “Just check yourself out.
How could I ever act decent? I barely could before and you’re so heavy now.
Foxy. Please, just. I don’t know, don’t walk away and leave me like this before I
even have a chance. I have so much to say to you. Please.”
Your palm lands on his forearm and squeezes tight; his chest clamps down in
response. “Shh, I’m just going to splash some water on my face. It never crossed
my mind to leave you. I’m not anywhere near finished with this conversation.
This is very romantic and so very brave and heart-breaking that I need a minute
to process it. You’ve had time to understand it because you knew it was coming,
this is all a surprise to me. And besides,” you point towards the lobby, “you know
I’m staying in The Sunset Suite tonight. I don’t have that great of a hiding spot.”
“The Sun—” Harry actually hadn’t known that, but you sure have a way of
asserting yourself with crafted grace and dignity. So fucking cunning and he’s
starting to think you have a solid clue. He mentally races through the large lavish
room with its likely spectacular lofty view and a variety of surfaces to fuck you
on; bathroom sink, sofa, desk, coffee table, arm chair, nightstand, California king
bed, baby grand piano, breakfast table, shower, wall, window overlooking Park
Avenue and most of Midtown. Then quickly, his eyes flick from your toes to your
face. “’Kay.”
And suddenly, in opposition to what he thought just one minute prior to your
sneak attack, it sounds as though there’s no one else you’d rather have here with
you in this moment. And that just has to mean something remarkable.
You stand to your feet and wait, going back and forth in your mind about
whether or not you should say this out loud, but wind up throwing caution to the
wind for his sake. “Hey, Harry?”
“Vivienne.”
“Part of me never stopped waiting for you. Part of me knew that no one could
ever and will ever take your place. You never left the back of my mind and I don’t
think you ever will. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do with that
information and more importantly, what you’re supposed to do with it. But I
know you like honesty, so there’s a little.”
Harry’s face is so expressive and beautiful; such wide, broad, shapely, colorful,
proportionate and distinctive features. Both beautifully masculine and feminine,
depending on the lighting and the focus. Technicolor and discordant, bleeding
patterns of madras and houndstooth; pink and green and brown and black and
white. A painting that you never tire of appreciating. You could easily pick him
out a crowd of thousands. You could easily pick a bouquet of tropical flowers
from his silhouette alone. Anyone could. But especially now, with his heartbeat
written on his skin, pulsing blood flow to his cheeks, his bottom lip shiny red
from the busy work of his anxious tongue and teeth. A healthy sprinkle of new
freckles on his nose and cheeks and a new twist of thick waves framing his
temples paint him as elegantly rugged. He’s undoubtedly the most breathtaking
person you have yet to see or will ever see. You’re sure of it.
Both of your breaths catch in your throat when you brush his shoulder and
then bravely, rebelling against the sick thud of your heart, cup the back of his
neck and hover close to his heart-shaped lips. Harry stays fixed, not breathing,
his stomach tossing violently at your sweet scent and your proximity and your
gall and you and you and you.
Your fingers tangle into the hair at the nape of his neck and the tip of his nose
depresses against your cheek, his fingers slowly tiptoeing across your stomach.
An explosion of pins and needles, crushed velvet organs and the tiny splash of a
champagne bubbles popping on your chin.
Kiss, please.
Tilting your head, you sponge a kiss to his scratchy cheek and he graciously
returns the gesture to your soft one, your noses brushing when you pull back and
take one wobbly step away with your eyes still locked. And then another step,
before spinning on the ball of your foot to retreat to the restroom.
“Hey, V.” You find him over your shoulder, his body fixed and stiff. Tense and
wanting. “You made me love you with every single bone in my body, too.”
And because you know his dormant arrogance needs a bit of a competitive
shove, because you know that his confidence historically stems from action and
praise, because you know what difficult patches feel like and you know that
every unique facet of Harry is simultaneously clawing at itself and that he
obviously wants you because he’s here and you obviously want him because
you’re here, a piece of him or maybe all of him. Because that feeling has never
stopped or even shrunk and now it’s humming to life with the force of summer
Sunshine through layers of cold, frosted dirt, you push. Because you know him
and you know what he needs. You push.
“Just for you.”
A chrysalis creaks open, needless red meconium spills out in search for a new
purpose, a single newborn butterfly bounces around violently in Harry’s
stomach. “One more thing.” He pinches his bottom lip between his fingers,
making you wonder if he still tastes the same; orange juice and cotton candy and
secrets. “Did you want me to meet you at your hotel so that you couldn’t make a
run for it no matter what?”
“And how.” You’re much too curious a person not to pry into a situation, after
all.
Fuck this. Harry didn’t come all the way to New York to continue an old fight
and rekindle a teasing dance that was left inconclusive two years ago, nor did he
come here to continue a dishonest emotion-sucking rollercoaster that the two of
you started in 1965 and can’t seem to find the lever for the brakes. He knows that
you told him to drop his expectations, but he fucking has expectations and that’s
okay and rejection is okay and fear is okay, but repeated history and cold feet are
not. Cowardice to break through walls is not rejection, it’s a missed opportunity.
There’s too much to sort through and it can’t happen without an intense,
habit-breaking reconnection. And an intense reconnection can’t happen if you’re
still harboring years of anger, sadness and confusion.
So, he’s going to fuck it out of you. Because you have to start somewhere.
Throwing a wad of cash on the bar with a stroke of full-blown long-lost

momentum, Harry drops his suitcase off at the front desk and asks to have it
brought up to the Sunset Suite. Following in your path, he waits in the concealed
hallway outside the bathroom against the opulent wallpaper with his foot kicked
up against the wall behind him.
And when you emerge, cheeks pinched and lips pouty with a fresh coat of
gloss, his heart thumps inside of his throat, his palms breaking out in a sweat.
Faking confidence in the vain hope that he can somehow manifest it with false
bravado, he grabs your wrist and pins you against the wall. One hand lies flat on
the wallpaper beside your head, his fingertips trail up your arm and across your
shoulder to your throat for a quick little squeeze that prompts you to tilt your
head back. His hand swivels to clasp the back of your neck, keeping your gaze set
on his. Keeping you in his physical and metaphorical palms. “We should probably
check and see if there’s anything still kickin’ around between us then, yeah?”
Blurry, blurry, blurry.
Circling your arms around his neck to crane him close, you pant out a puff of
air against his lips and he can feel the echo of it glittering in his stomach.
“Couldn’t hurt.”
Blurry, blurry.
“Famous last words.”
Blurry.
The tip of his nose nudges yours. Once, twice. Then the long lost, familiar
golden lock and key is snapped into place when your lips fold together without
hesitation. Slow and sweet, a direct contrast to the grip on your neck, a couple of
aching seconds that buy the both of you just enough time for a pull of breath
through your noses. Just like he had always kissed you before; the right amount
of candy and control, taking charge of your course and comfort, pioneering the
role of the cog that keeps the two of you churning in sync. Chasing your tongue
for more, sucking on your bottom lip, little hums to convey his appreciation. Your
tummy flipping every second. Your supple melody inciting his own curious
murmurs past his teeth. Your absolute favorite.
“Mmm…..” Each kiss has more heat than the one before it and it takes
everything inside of Harry to stop himself from hitching your leg around his
waist. “Fuck.” His hand moves to your jaw and his eyes flick from yours to your
mouth, letting loose a single line of, “I miss you, baby,” before crashing back in for
more.
Clear.
Harry is made of orange peels. And your expertise have missed one another;
the inexplicable chemistry of two ice cream flavors warming and melting
together into a puddle to twist into a new taste. Strawberry and chocolate, sweet
and rich, an opposite and complementary pairing. A sweep from the tip of his
tongue against the tip of yours before his lips close and suck on your muscle with
a tight moan. A perfect molding that increases in volume, a perfect molding that
starts with your mouths and resonates in your stomachs. It’s addictive.
Everything has been very, very empty without it. But your body remembers,
because once you’ve had it, chocolate never forgets what a thick frosting of
strawberry tastes like.
His breath is still Sunshine. Hot, alive. Pink, pleasant. And each time he
breathes against your lips, your core flutters in response.
They say the best relationships are the ones that feel like no time has passed
once you’ve reconnected. And Harry is just like you remembered: the Sun’s light
on the longest day of the year, hovering and hovering in the very center of the
sky, expertly lighting the way while barely casting a shadow. Except now he’s
dipped in gold. A reminder of love momentarily lost but never forgotten, as Harry
crawled from the dark depths of amnesia and suffering to demonstrate.
As his mouth sneaks to your neck and collarbone for a little nibble, your
fingertips dip into the neck of your dress to retrieve your room key. You drop the
key into his open, waiting palm and a tingle runs up your spine when he clicks his
tongue in your ear, “lucked out.”
“Where’s your bag?”
“The Sunset Suite.”
The fire that you’d missed since your romp in the dressing room after the
finale starts up again with a soft hiss against his lips, “how bold. Tell me
something?”
Tell me somethin’.
“Jesus— Vivienne….. I wanna fuck you. And then make love to you. And then
fuck you again. In that order. Over and over. Hard, slow. Hard, slow. Please let me
fuck you and make love to you.” His lips hover over yours, hot panting breaths.
“Fuck, please. I need to know. We need to know. We didn’t have enough time. You
haunt me. I’m beggin’.”
“Please.”
And when his soft whine curls up from his tummy and hits the air, your core
squeezes itself so hard that your control disintegrates and propels your mouths
together again. And he practically has to peel the two of you apart and pry his
hands away from your tits to drag you to closest elevator, punching his knuckle
into the button repeatedly as you hug him from behind, your palms smoothing up
his stomach and chest.
The elevator ride and the jaunt to your suite are just as frantic and tense, with
Harry’s hands wandering up your skirt and your hands slipping underneath the
shoulders of his jacket, pausing every couple of steps to kiss again which only
snowballs into another heated makeout session. Finally, he gets you to the door,
trying desperately to unlock it as your fingertips distract him and dip into the
waistband of his trousers, your lips attached to his neck. And as soon as the lock
clicks open, you’re both stumbling inside and pulling off each other’s clothes with
your lips sealed together, breaking away only to slip his wifebeater and your
dress off over your heads.
A trail of clothing follows behind you in your path to the closest surface,
causing Harry to trip over one of your abandoned shoes and grumble a teasing
shut up through your sweet laughter. He backs you up against the couch, palming
your breasts and dipping to suck a dark spot in the skin just above your
collarbone. And then dipping further to suck your nipple between his teeth.
“Mmm— fuck, Honey.” Your little mewls and urges have an unparalleled ability
to send his brain on a lusty spiral, a dark and forbidden place that only you can
access. “Taste like seventh heaven. Missed your skin.”
When your fingertips trail down his chest to unbutton his trousers, the
sensation of a metal chain stops you dead in your tracks. You pull back and catch
his gaze first before guiding the charm from between his shoulder blades around
to his stomach, allowing the red heart-shaped locked to bounce against his skin.
Finding the clasp with your thumb, you lock eyes with him again and wait for his
permission.
Harry licks his lips and nods to push you forward, his chest heaving as he tries
to catch his breath.
“Do you—”
“Yeah. She stays on. Have a peek.”
Popping it open, you find the same headshot that you originally tucked into
your gift, but in the other side it would appear he’s added one of your
photobooth pictures from the Golden Pier. And with that, leaving hardly any
space for you to formulate an opinion, Harry gathers your hair in a fist and spins
you around to bend you over the back of the couch, winding up to leave a heady
spank on your ass that sends fire to your toes and forces you to rub your legs
together with a whimper.
His hand makes his way to your throat as he pulls you back up to standing, his
mouth meeting your ear and electricity shooting up both of your spines when he
mutters, “get on the dresser. And strut a little bit for me, yeah?”
With his cock aching and straining against the fly of his pants, he watches as
you toss your hair over your shoulder and saunter away from him in nothing but
underwear and smooth legs. And when as you make it to the dresser, you glance
at him over your shoulder, just in time to find him pitching his trousers to his
ankles and kicking them away from his feet. Pulling yourself up on the surface,
you part your legs and plant one foot beside you, gaping as he sinks his hand into
his briefs and moans at the sight of you spread open for him. Because he was
uncertain if he would ever be able to have this again.
“C’mere, Harry.”
“I’m memorizin’.” Because he’s still uncertain if this will be the last time he can
have you or not.
“Can you memorize a little closer? I miss your hands.”
Once he’s positive this memory will never go to waste, he paces towards you
and presses his hips against yours, propping your foreheads together and
breathing a shuddering sigh against your lips, “I miss everything ’bout you.” His
palms smooth up your hips and sides, cupping your neck and jaw as he taps his
nose against yours. “Kiss me.”
With each kiss and each passing second, heat builds and builds in your centers
and your stomachs as you roll your hips together. His length presses against your
entrance with firm pressure, causing you to tip your head back and moan out a
single, blunt request. “Harry….. spoil me. Don’t check on me. Just have me. Okay?”
“Are you—”
Indifferent to his question, you nod, because whatever he asks you know the
answer is likely yes. Yes to rough, yes to disrespectful, yes to wicked. Yes to
anything he wants.
Yes to (etc?).
Harry glances down when he feels movement between your hips and his heart
nearly sinks into his stomach when he finds your fingers pushing your panties
aside and slipping into your cunt just like he taught you. Just like the very last
time you were together, a moment that still crackles in the back of Harry’s mind
like a coal that won’t die out. Like no time has passed, like all great relationships.
A sharp cry resonates from inside his eardrums but he’s not sure which one of
you it came from.
“Jesus Christ.” Like a shark or a fox or a snake, his eyes pool with ink at the
scent of carnage. “Haven’t had a proper fuck in years, have you?” Just as he’d
suspected. And he also suspects you may have thought at one point or another
than you’d never have good sex ever again, but he makes a mental note to ask
that later. After he’s proved himself to be the one for you.
Your head is pitched back and Harry can see your coy quip rolling up the
ridges of your throat, “I dunno….. remind me?”
Brushing your hand out of the way, Harry immediately redirects you into his
briefs, gripping him in a fist for a few quick pumps. The pad of his thumb swipes
little upward motions on your sensitivity, his nostrils ticking and his breathing
picking up when your head lolls to the side to watch the work of his fingers. You
circle precome around the head of his cock and then drag your fingertips up his
stomach, leaving a wet path behind before slipping your fingers onto his tongue
for a taste of both of your excitement.
Harry moans and sucks so hard that you can feel his teeth scraping your
knuckles and the ridges on the roof of his mouth. His expression crumples and he
whines at the taste, missing and missing and missing everything about you.
You’re right here and you’re on his tongue and in his hands and he misses you so
much that if he leaves here without you, he doesn’t know what will become of
him. There will never be another you. And likewise for you, there will never be
another him.
Soon it all becomes too much and you’re both tearing off your underwear,
your hand guiding his cock to your folds for several wet pulses before he finally
squares off with your entrance, dipping his tip in just a bit. Just enough to have
you purring and rolling your hips forward for more. “Please….. like only you can.”
Harry wonders how long you’ve been wanting to say that, if you’ve been able
to push your pain aside and fantasize about him and all the slushy hot moments
you shared together, if you’ve imagined it was him fucking you instead of your
lame stiff-ass boyfriend. If, like him, you’ve ever accidentally moaned out the
wrong name when pleasure swept you like a surprise riptide. If it did in fact ever
sweep you like a surprise riptide.
After all, you can’t be haunted alone. It takes two to tryst.
Cupping the back of your neck, Harry folds your lips together in the same
moment that he plunges inside of you, both of your eyes squeezing shut at the
sensation of the ground falling out beneath your feet. And when he’s filling you to
the brim, tight and hot and wet, he pulls back an inch to examine your
expression, scorchy and drippy and full of passion. “Fuck—” He licks his lips,
trying to get a handle on his breathing. “Alright? Want this to be the hard or slow
one?”
“Hard. Slow is for the morning.”

That reassurance of you wanting him to stick around for longer than tonight is
all he needs and without hesitation, he strokes inside of you slowly at first before
gaining momentum. So much momentum that objects start toppling over beside
you, neither of you concerned about where they may land. His hands drop to grip
your hips tightly, dulling your skin in the spots where his fingers burn. You wrap
your legs around his waist and hold him close, whispering praises on his tongue
between kisses, toffee jelly fireworks brewing in your stomach and the tips of
your curled toes. And when Harry’s release starts to churn in the base of his
spine, his typical muddy sludge of dirty talk starts to roll from the tip of his
tongue. Just like before, but his voice sounds much more urgent and desperate
this time.
“No one like you. Jesus, baby you make me feel like I’m on fuckin’ fire. Am I
makin’ you feel good? Mm?” His thumb circles your clit, spinning and spinning in
harsh little circles until he feels you pulsing on his length. His breath hitches in
his throat when your moans and sobs reach a fever pitch that makes his heart
beat twice as fast as before. “Oh— god. Come with me. Shit. Come on my cock,
sweet girl. I can feel you, you’re right there. That’s it. So beautiful, you’re so—
Please. Please—”
His sweet coaxing draws you to the edge and violently pushes you off, his
throbbing and your throbbing persuading the intensity of your releases. Both of
your hips speed up before eventually losing cadence, but neither of you seem to
want to stop until it feels necessary to draw in a full breath. And when you finally
slow down, your fingers tangled into his hair and his hands squeezing your
breasts with the melting residue of a kiss, he props his forehead against yours
and chuckles softly in the aftermath. “Holy fuck, I miss you. Mm—” The high-
pitched whine that curls from his throat has you clamping down on him from the
inside, further prodding his satiated and dire cries, “I miss you. I miss you. I miss
you so fuckin’ much, V.”
Your smile is much too wide to be tamed. “I miss you, Harry.”

Grabbing your waist, he picks you up and guides your legs around him before
he starts blindly searching your dark and fucking massive hotel room for the bed,
flicking lights on as he goes. “Got a show tomorrow?”
Pausing the trail of kisses you’re leaving on his neck, you shake your head and
only manage to get a few words out. “Just an interview at one—”
But your answer is cut short with a big squeal and a small snort when Harry
finally locates the bed, tossing you into the impeccably smoothed linens and
climbing on top of you. He mumbles into your skin as he trails south with kisses
and licks, dipping his tongue into your belly button before pushing your legs
apart and ghosting his fingertips through your folds. “Good, ’cause you’re not
sleepin’ tonight, my sweet girl. You’re not goin’ anywhere ’til I’m done with you.”
Hiccup.
“What’s up, you got the hiccups? You’re the worst with champagne. Hold your
breath.” Sucking in a lungful of air, you and Harry keep your eyes fixed as he nods
in encouragement, “keep holdin’ it.” Several seconds tick by and your chest is
starting to hurt a little bit, but you trust him and his odd knowledge of
homeopathic remedies. Except he just nods again, pulling a drag from his
cigarette and slowly letting the pink smoke seep from between his lips as if
bragging about the ease of breathing. “Keep holdin’ it.”
You manage to open your mouth and squeak out a couple words, “Harry, I—”
“No, psst! Nah uh. Keep holdin’ it.”
And when you feel like you’re about to explode and when Harry’s grin starts
pulling at the corner of his lips, you let go of your breath and smack him in the
arm as hard as you can. Your pretty words splinter through pretty laughter, cut
short by another harsh hiccup. “Ow— are you trying to kill me?”
“If I wanted to gag you, I’d have you do it a much sexier way.”
“Harry!”
“Surefire!”
“You’re lucky I didn’t just pass out.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t just pass out, smooth brain. Can’t believe you fell for
that. You’re just layin’ here not knowin’ things.”
After Harry went down on you, and you went down on him, and then another
round of sex, he made it his business to order food and champagne from room
service. And while you waited for room service to arrive, Harry flicked on the
radio and jumped up on the bed, dragging your tired ass up from the mattress for
a proper dance session that you haven’t shared with a partner in years. “Chain of
Fools” rang through the room as the two of you did The Swim, paddling in the air
towards each other, tossing backstrokes over your shoulders, shaking your heads
side-to-side, pretending to hold your nose and wiggling down into a squat. Your
toes tangling up in the sheets.
Eventually it got too silly and he tackled you back down into the bed, which
propelled you both onto the floor in a pile of limbs and cackles. But once you
were there and he started kissing you again, he made love to you right there on
the carpet. Slowly, in the way you expressed was only meant for the mornings.
But in perfect Harry manner, he was not wrong in his decision.
Throughout the past hour of your afterglow, you’ve learned a little bit about
how Harry has spent his time in the last two years. Not exactly explicit details,
but rather broad sweeps of ideas that you’re dying to get to the bottom of.
Traveling, surfing, writing, meditating, learning, connecting, grieving, moving.
Everything feels wide-open and hazy, but you’re hoping that through the softness
of your new connection, he’ll eventually flip over some new pieces so that you
can start to paint a thorough picture.
“Where is she?” Harry rolls his head to look at you, sucking on the final drag of
his cigarette and exhaling thick clouds of pink before dropping it in the bedside
ashtray. “I miss her. Can I see her again?” His question brings tension into the air,
as tight as a rubber band and ready to pop with a snap of his fingers.
You laugh, “how can you miss her? You just saw her.”
“I’m not talkin’ about Her.” Pulling a deep breath of air into his lungs, Harry
flips onto his side and smooths his palm underneath your pillow. “Je suis encore
amoureux de toi, hm?” Following his powerful intuition, Harry feels as though he
doesn’t have to wait to say it again because just like last time, he knows his
words match his actions. He knows it matches what you already know. The only
difference with this time is he doesn’t know if it matches what you feel. And this
time, he can’t really stick around for the perfect moment. It’s now or never.
“L’aime-t-elle?”
“Elle n’a jamais arrêté.”
Harry had always thought that love was reserved for objects. For material
things, for animals or for people. He didn’t know he could love a place, a time. He
wants to dissolve into this bed these walls your skin, but then he realizes that the
place doesn’t quite matter at all. Because he loves you, he still loves you. And he
never stopped.
You’d translated his behavior as modest, nervous, maybe a bit timid when he
sat back and allowed you to guide the majority of your conversation in The
Monkey Bar, but it seems as though you were actually witnessing a vicious battle
with impulsivity on his part. It appears that Harry has a better handle on the one
thing he’s struggled with since the day you met him: control. Self-control to be
exact.
And mostly, his resilience is the sexiest thing you’ve ever had the honor of
witnessing. It’s trustworthy, it’s steadfast. By its very definition, it’s power.
It doesn’t feel exactly like the two of you are picking up where you’d left off, in
a good way, because you’re meeting one another in brand new places. His power
is making you fall for him from the beginning all over again, because the one
thing you always feared from him is his impulsivity and his abandonment, but
this is the opposite of that. This is truth through action, not words. Which is the
only real truth we have. It’s one less hurdle to consider and now the biggest
worry is how much stress can we handle together? And is this another case of right
person, wrong time?
“Yeah? Fuck. I knew I did but it almost fuckin’ knocked me on my ass when I
saw you again. I know how you probably feel with me just showin’ up like this. I
know you’re confused and tryin’ to make sense of everything. I don’t really have
a plan. You’re doin’ amazing and I don’t wanna crash back into your life like a
dumbass hippo if you don’t want me here. But….. I thought you should know I
really wanna be here. Wherever that is. With you. Whatever that takes.”
Searching his eyes for a couple breaths, you brush his hair from his face and
roll onto your side to match his posture. “Harry?”
“V.”
“I don’t want either of us to get hurt. I’m scared that something is going to
happen with your memory again—”
“No. Nothin’ even remotely close to that has happened since that morning two
and a half fuckin’ years ago. Nothing. Jack shit’s gonna happen, ’kay? It was a one-
off blip and nothin’ more.”
“But how can you be sure? What if you have another surfing accident or what
if—”
He covers your mouth with his palm and speaks against his knuckles. “I said
no. Fuck off. Don’t manifest it. You can’t live life that way, askin’ ’what if’ to every
little thing, it’s gonna drive you bananas. That’s life, okay? People get hurt and
people get sick and people die. It’s fuckin’ risky to love things. I shut it out for
years until I got my head bashed in and I’m afraid you’re doin’ the same shit. But
in a neater, more-controlled, Vivienne fuckin’ Surefire way.”
You peel his hand away and weave your fingers together, your joined fist
falling to the soft sheets with a soft thud. “This isn’t little. It’s kinda huge. That
was scarring for me.”
“I’m sorry.” A rapid-fire apology from him manifests a rapid-fire eyebrow

raise from you. “I wasn’t tryin’ to minimize your experience. I know that was the
rawest thing you’d ever experienced. Please….. I didn’t mean it like that. That was
boneheaded. I wasn’t tryin’ to be. Just hear me out; that traumatized the ever
living fuck out of me, too. All of it, that whole accident and every repercussion it
had. I’ve thought about it every single day. Every fuckin’ day. I meditated on it,
alone, for two years straight. Do you think I just fucked off and pretended like
nothin’ happened? That I wasn’t haunted and that I’m still not? Look at how my
life has stacked up over the past decade. I could’ve never imagined it would be
this way, but I’m doin’ the best I fuckin’ can with it, yeah?”
You squeeze his hand and the comfort rockets up his arm, past his shoulder
and through his heart. And his chin falls immediately into your palm when you
offer him his favorite resting spot with a consoling squeeze. “I know. I can feel
every drop of work you’ve put into yourself, Harry. I know that you drove
yourself crazy thinking about it. I think you’re doing absolutely wonderfully. I see
everything you’ve been through and how soft it’s made you. Your softness makes
you brave, much braver than before. I don’t mean to invalidate you. I’m just
trying to voice my own fears without negating your own experience. I won’t
discredit your pain and your effort and your progress, because I can feel it
clearly.”
“Hey. Dunno if you realize, but you taught me a lot about not allowin’ myself to
soak in shame. Our luggage has value, y’know? Our stories deserve narration;
celebration of protagonists, analysis of antagonists. Our stories connect us to
ourselves, to each other. The fuckin’ world. Resilience is humanity. Our stories
teach us ’bout all the shit we don’t wanna return to.” He drags you closer through
the sheets, loving the way your arms and legs and bare skin automatically mold
with his, dropping the rumble of his voice so that you have to watch his mouth to
properly hear him. “Nothin’ tougher than a broken woman who’s rebuilt herself.
You always intimidated the everlivin’ shit outta me, but I think I just figured out
exactly why you’re so spooky now. Good spooky. Can’t fight a warrior princess
and come out alive.” His fingertips paint a streak across your lips and his voice is
a whisper now. “Can I kiss you?”
“Please.” Air is forced from your lungs with the muscle behind Harry’s kiss as
he rolls you onto your back and pins you to the mattress, his tongue twisting
around yours before he sucks it into his mouth with a loud, agitated hum. He
pulls the sheets up and over your heads, allowing them to fall like a feathery
parachute around your love bubble. Gathering your wrists, he stretches you out
below him and savors your breathing and absorbs your goosebumps, then
presses your palm to his chest for a flavor of his pounding heart before he dives
in for another long stretch of slow, warm play. Hands roaming, feet tangling,
sweat building. After a few minutes, you pull back for a breath of air, unaware of
your softly heaving chest and the thirst in your eyes. Unaware of your silent
secrets spilling out into the sheets. Unaware of Harry’s memorization of it all.
“Hi.” You mouth your reply and your smiles grow and shrink together, making
way for him to dip forward to seal your lips together again, and then again, and
then again. Then softly, another vibrating moan plays out the length and
resistance to interrupting your last embrace for a little humor mixed with a lot of
honesty. “Mmm….. you’re a fuckin’ knockout in the sack. Like mind-bendin’.
Almost forgot your name again.”
“Harry!” His laughter plays through the room like a set of chrome bells and
you never thought it possible, but his joy is somehow more attractive than it ever
was before. Maybe because he’s fought for it with every half-baked cell in his
body, slowly flipping each one over to allow the pruning, pale parts their chance
to plump up underneath some much-needed summer sky. Your palms hide your
face and he allows it for exactly three seconds, his teeth nibbling on his bottom
lip as he patiently waits for you to return his sentiment with something that will
make him feel equally as squirmy. “Just for you. You’re the best I’ve ever had, no
contest. Fireworks. Loud, bright, obnoxious ones. You squash all my fantasies and
create brand new ones.”
Harry: 1
Your Ex and Every Other Bitch Square: 0
“Bitchin’. Really hot. Y’know how you’ll be readin’ a paragraph and lose your
place for a sec, but once you backtrack you know exactly where you left off? And
you can pick right up with the story, just sink into place again and find yourself?
Like a super comfy brain spot that can’t be imitated?”
“Yes, I know exactly.”
“Is that us?”
Great relationships are always like that. Understanding without explicit

interpretation. A steadfast bookmark inside of a novel that opens and closes at
exactly the right times, without feeling lost upon your reintegration. Yet again,
Harry has managed to put language to what you already held to be true.
“And how.”
“’Kay, if you say that one more time, I’m gonna feed you a knuckle sandwich.”
“I’d love to see you try.” Maybe you’re taking a cue from his annoyingly playful
tactics, such as when he trudged through five months of calling your roommate a
different name depending on the slip of paper he blindly pulled from his brain
that day.
Harry curls his fist in the air and snarls his lip, his playfully threatening
gesture dissolving into your hair when he hums against your mouth with a smile,
then rolls you onto your stomach for a hard spank that echoes through the room.
And his method of assuaging your pained shriek is to toss you his pack of
cigarettes and a book of matches. He waits for you to light one up, your face
crumbling into a pout as you rub your sore bottom which has received its fair
share of brutalization tonight.
“Listen….. I journal now. It felt so fat to write that letter to you that I haven’t
stopped since. I write down everything that happens before I go to bed each
night. Every piece-of-shit, sinister thought and every lamby one. And I read it all
back first thing in the morning as soon as I wake up. And then I write again.
Every night and every morning. And it’s all there. No mysteries, no blanks. I won’t
allow anything to disappear again. I remember everything that happened
between us and everything that’s happened since. I haven’t lost a single memory
in two years. And if I ever do, I know exactly how I can find it, yeah?” Harry
climbs from the bed and digs his thick, weathered journal out of his bag, pink-
tipped pages, well-seasoned and soggy with black, felt tip ink. Gently wafting the
scent of Papier D’Armenie in your direction. “This is my thirteenth one. So far
everything checks out. Every single word. Go on.” He tosses it onto the bed at
your curled-up feet, the sheets billowing away from its weight as if the force of
his written thoughts had enough lead to detonate an atomic bomb. “Read it. It’s
mostly about you anyway. And me, I guess. The me that exists because of us.”
He’s working on himself. He has been working on himself. He found a solution

that works for him, and even though memory loss doesn’t seem like a problem
he’s had to deal with, he sticks with the labor of managing it anyway. His
impulsivity has slackened. His control is taking shape. He’s regulating and
parenting himself. He’s maturing and taking responsibility. Most importantly,
he’s written down every action and want and need, documenting it in permanent
ink over the course of two years, living his life and transforming and growing and
challenging himself and through all of that, through all of his self-reflection and
progress, he’s concluded with metallic determinism that he wants you back in his
life. He’s had plenty of time to think and stew and consider and change his mind,
but all of the neon arrows in his head still point to you. He’s crazy about you and
it’s healthy, examined. Focused. And that just has to mean something remarkable.
And apparently, he apologizes now as well.
“I’m majorly impressed.”
“Was that sarcasm?”
“No, not at all. That’s satisfied shock.”
“I’ll take it. Read it. Doesn’t have to be now, but whenever you’re ready. You
can just dig it the fuck out of my bag without askin’. You have my permission.”
You make the conscious decision in that moment to never read it or any that
he generates in the future. His personal thoughts and awkward speculations and
intimate day-to-day events are for him only. Besides you know if you start
reading it, you’ll find something that can be easily twisted out of proportion in
your mind or taken out of context, skewed and dismantled, thrown back into his
face during a heated argument. Those thoughts deserve to be his private
sanctuary of mirror gazing, an asylum of self-trust, but it doesn’t make you
appreciate the gesture of transparent honesty any less. And curious. Just a little
bit curious.
Death bed resolutions.

Tossing his journal aside, you gesture him close with a flick of your fingertips,
pink ash dropping slowly like snowflakes in the air. Harry obeys and sits beside
you, the pads of his fingers brushing lines up and down your stomach.
“Where’d you go? After you left Malibu.”
“First Oaxaca. That’s where I sold The Pink. Then to Oahu, São Paulo. Home for
a bit. Then Bali, Bondi Beach, Sri Lanka, Phuket, Morocco, Southern France. All
primo surfin’ spots. Then home again. And I’m there whenever I’m not workin’.”
Always chasing the Sun on the crest of his god. Or maybe one step ahead of it. Or
maybe he’s just the Sun himself, propelling the earth in circles, a happy little
shrinking and swelling moon tacking his days like an implicit calendar.
“Wow, that’s incredible, Harry. I should’ve asked where you didn’t go instead. I
think you hit every continent. So….. home home? As in, England home?”
Harry nods but chooses not to add anything and the notion of his omission is
enough to keep you from prying for now. You know he traveled the world first
before landing home on purpose, to garner faith and muster courage. You know
something both old and new and nasty regarding his father must have come up.
You know he misses his mother and worries about her and pities her. You know
he feels guilt over abandoning his sister, his entire family, for his own mental
health and needs. You know that he’s here because he’s either lost or found and
ready to shed another layer of skin. But what you don’t know is what’s going to
happen, negative or positive, and how long the effects will last.
“Do you live on your own in London?” Harry pauses the lighting of his
cigarette for a beat too long before shaking his head, his cheeks hollowing when
he pulls in a drag of hot pink. “Oh. So, you have a roommate then?”
“I guess you could call her that.”

Your heart starts to pound at the prospect of his explanation, your mind
immediately and involuntarily wandering into a dark cave which tells you that
Harry has something to hide. That he’s been keeping a secret that will break you,
that whatever he says next will cause him to somehow slip away.
Call it trauma.
“I live with my mum, yeah? Or she lives with me. Either way.”
She’d been trying to leave for years and never felt ready or didn’t have the
financial or emotional support. And Harry, being seventeen at the time when he
was kicked out of his house, didn’t have either of those things either. He used to
beat himself up thinking about it, but he’s learned over time that we arrive at
things only when we’re ready. And that time was now.
Since he spends most of his time away from home traveling and competing, it
feels more like his mum’s place on his dime where he sleeps between surfing
tournaments. His sister has a copy of the key and visits a lot while he’s out of
town, both of them taking turns cooking meals and having tea and keeping the
place clean. All of which Harry’s gotten pretty good at.
“I wanted to get her out of that house. And I didn’t want her to be alone, so. I
mean, she is a lot of the time ’cause I’m traveling, but my essence is still there,
y’know. I hope it’s comforting. I just didn’t want her in prison with my drunk of a
father anymore, okay?”
One thing that he’s always known in his heart but couldn’t properly execute
until this point, was that if someone wants a steady, healthy home, then one has
to work consistently at it. Physically, mentally and financially. There’s no
achievement in static.
Sitting up, you cup his cheeks and kiss his heart-shaped lips and basking in his
soft hum, admiring his face and his spirit. Admiring every little shred about him.
“That’s the nicest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
“Thanks, babe.” He sucks on your bottom lip before lapping your tongues
together just once, the hair on his arms prickling with a fresh set of goosebumps.
His fingers tangle into your hair to keep your face close. “Mmm….. I’d forgotten
everything I’d taught myself, learned and worked so hard for the second I got
home. So, I could only imagine how stunted mum felt. My patience and wisdom
wilted and flew out the fuckin’ window as soon as I stepped into that same
fuckin’ house. Patience I’d learned for myself and for my parent’s shortcomings.
Self-love. Forgiveness. Everything I’d worked so hard to bounce back from after
the past few years. All gone. I became an angry kid again and I had to leave again,
except this time I brought mum with me. I only stayed in London for a bit, found
a flat to come home to between competitions, kissed my sister and apologized for
being a piece of shit brother and then fucked right off again. Sometimes I wish I
wasn’t the most important person in my life, but I’m also grateful for that if that
makes any sense. Second only to you, of course. Even though it might not seem
that way. Men aren’t like women, no matter how hard we try to be sometimes.”
“Men try to be like women?”
“I do. Yeah. I’ve yet to find a woman who’s a worse example of a human being
than I am.”
“Harry….. no. Don’t talk to yourself like that, it’s breaking my heart. There’s a
difference between being dealt a crappy hand and creating your own destructive
path. You suffered accidents. They don’t make you a bad person.”
“Am I sayin’ somethin’ you disagree with or some shit? Or you just don’t like
the way the truth sounds comin’ out of my mouth because I’m sayin’ it so bluntly?
Look at my fuckin’ track record. Everything I touch dies. Tell me otherwise.”
“I completely disagree with what you’re saying.”

“I’ll sprinkle some sparkly sunflower seeds into my sentences for you from
now on.”
“No, no. I don’t mean to censor you. You can say what you want to say,
however you want to say it. I just think you’re being too hard on yourself.” And
knowing him, likely has been for the past two years. But in his own way;
silencing the mind with surfing, sex, drugs and alcohol. “You touched me plenty
and I flourished.”
“Can I touch you again?”
“One squeeze.”
Harry laughs and palms your tits before gathering your cigarette butts and
tossing them into the ashtray, lowering the both of you back down into the sheets
and folding your limbs together in a passionate knot.
“What else did you do while you were away?”
“You want the whole lowdown, huh?” You nod and he shrugs. “Dropped lots of
acid.”
“What? Really?”
“Yeah. One time I stayed up until 6 A.M. and saw this dude just walkin’ on the
beach with his dog, bein’ all productive and shit and I thought to myself, ’I’m
gonna say hi to him. I’m gonna be normal. This is fine. I’m alive, he’s alive. We’re
empathetic beings, it’ll be a great connecting moment.’ And I got closer and closer
to him, yeah? And as soon as we were about three feet apart, I just fuckin’ ran the
other way.”
“You ran?”
“Like a wild animal. His face was orange and meltin’ off his skull. The sand
turned to glitter each time he took a step, then the glitter stuck to the bottom of
his feet and glowed like a film projector. His dog was wearin’ a hard hat. There
was grass growing out of my palms. The sun fell out of the sky. A seagull called
me a narc. It was fucked up.”
“Did you answer it? The seagull?”
“Yeah, I told him fuck piggies and fuck the system. That kinda thing. Really
gave him an earful. Feel like he heard me though.”
“Before or after the grass started growing?”
“Alright. Dry up, knucklehead.”
“I want to try acid.”
“Shit me not?” He waits for your nod before pouting his bottom lip in
consideration. “I’d pay good money to take a trip with you. It’d be a spazz
parade.”
“Total sideshow.”
Harry clears his throat, finally feeling ready to hear about the parts of your life
that accelerated at a societally-accepted normal rate, easily leaving him behind in
the dust with a broken heart that ached for you. “Tell me about him.”
One eyebrow perks. “Really? Harry…..it makes me a little uncomfortable for
you. I know you’re going to feel jealous and hurt, no matter what I say. Are you
absolutely sure?”
“Um….. I think so. Tell me his name, his job, how you met. And then tell me
three personal things about him, two negative and one positive. Then tell me why
you broke up. Lay it on me.”
Harry watches as you gently inhale and then exhale even more slowly, your
perfect lips full and bitten from his hungry teeth. In all honesty, he can feel vomit
rising up his esophagus and his face is hot, forcing him to wonder if it appears as
red and tense as it feels. As soon as you open your mouth to speak, he wants to
take it all back, but he keeps quiet for the sake of creaking, painful growth. For
the both of you. Because historically, honesty has never been either of your
strong suits. No matter how much it felt like it was your expertise years ago.
“Okay. His name was Flint.”
A small scoff interrupts you and you’re kind of glad for it, hoping that maybe
he’s changed his mind and taken you off of the hook, on the verge of interfering
you and violently flipping topics to avoid confrontation that will hurt him like he
does at times. But actually, the sound is coming more from the fact that Harry is
annoyed that he was wrong about Bobby or John. And perhaps his former
judgement was more a reflection of his jealousy and his feelings for you rather
than the kind of man who would fall for you, and that thought alone makes Harry
feel ashamed. You deserve excitement. You’re not bland. You’re not gray. You’re
neon electric red and Harry is jealous, simple as that. He hates that there could
possibly be someone better suited for you than he is, because the reverse seems
impossible. The realization tightens the muscles in his neck and shoulders and
rather than fight it, he breathes and lets it be. He lets himself feel. Because Harry
now versus Harry then means self-confrontation and constructive confrontation
with others.
The word acceptance comes to mind.

And he doesn’t see that as a negative aspect of his personality.
Flint doesn’t sound stiff at all, and now his curiosity dam has sprung a leak,
but that doesn’t necessarily mean he wants you to stop. Because he could still be
right about the sweater vests. And he absolutely loves being right.
Harry also didn’t miss your use of the word “was” to cement your ex’s position
in the past, and whether or not that was your own feeling towards the situation
or intentional for Harry’s sake is uncertain. But that doesn’t make him any less
glad for it. Because it feels like hope.
You study his face carefully, his expressive beautiful face and find no traces of
regret but decide to check in anyway. “Are you okay? Should I stop?”
“I’ll tell you to stop if I can’t take it. Or you’ll get a face full of projectile vomit.
Either way. Go on.”
You’re so beautiful when your nose wrinkles with tiny laughter. “Okay, here
goes. He was an electrician and musician who was hired to maintain the lighting
and sound system at the theatre in San Francisco. Acoustics, wiring, technical
repairs….. that kind of thing. I saw him up on a ladder during rehearsal and—”
You were immediately attracted to him and wanted to get to know him, you
needed to feel the pull of another person for the fear of being stuck in Harry’s
mysterious gravity forever. But you can foresee the cracks in Harry’s heart
breaking open with that information so you backpedal and decide those details
aren’t significant anyway. “Um, someone introduced us and……e... hit it off… So...
um, are you sure you’re okay?”
“No. Sounds like you’re not either. But keep goin’, I think we need this. The
whole skinny. Open your mouth, girl.”
Trust his process. He’s pretty in tune with himself. Be vulnerable as hell because
he thrives on that shit.
“Sorry. Okay, three personal things…..” You decide to go with the positive-
negative-positive sandwich technique here that employers and administrators
use when critiquing an employee’s job performance, except reversed for the sake
of Harry’s feelings. You’re also careful to avoid anything too personal, meaning
sexually-leaning, since he’s such an intimate being that you know he will dwell
on it and mentally explode the narrative no matter what the information is,
positive or negative. And the difficulty with Harry exploding the narrative means
he’ll either internalize it and flee with no further communication, or impulsively
say things that he regrets. Luckily for you, you’ve learned from your time
together and your time apart how to navigate his particular eggshells.
“Um, he fixed things around my apartment. Like leaky sinks and running
toilets.” The images that Harry conjures up of you bringing him a glass of orange
juice or kissing him as a thank you are dark and hateful. He tries not to show it on
his face, but his scalp is suddenly really tingly and he has an urge to pull on his
hair really hard. But he manages to stay frozen as you continue. “He liked to
drink sometimes and had a short temper because of it. It got worse as our
relationship went on—”
“Did he put his fuckin’ hands on you?”
Harry starts to sit up like a bolt of lightning but you’re quicker than him,
pressing your palms to his chest with a soft hush past your teeth. “What? No.
Never. Harry— he was a nonviolent person. Don’t start freaking out.”
“Lyin’?”
“No. Stop, okay? Just let me finish what you asked for. He worked hard and
was loyal to me. He was nice, but….. serious. Mostly responsible, predictable. We
didn’t laugh a whole lot. He couldn’t make me belly-laugh like you do. No one can.
And that’s my favorite thing about you.”
Harry’s smart. He’s aware of your tactic and the fact that you’re pitting them
against each other in order to paint Harry in a positive light in contrast, showing
a comparison between the two of them to express that something was lacking
and it’s because Harry had set the bar that way.
Also, whether or not you realize to admitting this, you were actively
comparing them throughout your relationship which means that Harry never left
your consciousness. He sees your subtleties but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like
it. In fact, he kind of loves it. A lot. He loves the way you communicate; straight
forward, but still careful and well-considered, like you’ve rehearsed all of your
dialogue ahead of time. Organized. Delicate, fluid and strong all at once.
“He smoke?”
“Yes.”
It takes a good chunk of seconds for envious imagery to surface, but once it
does, it continues to cascade like a forest fire in the wind. Did you share
cigarettes with him like you had with Harry? After a shot of rum? After sex? After
smoking a joint, poking a finger into the vividly wispy ringlets in the air, the
mysteriously-colored plumes that complete Flint’s personality. He’s curious now
if you’ve ever compared the two men’s smoke, if you like the flavor of your ex’s
cigarettes more than Harry’s loyal flavor or if it’s just simply different. No
comparison. Apples and oranges. “’Kay. And what flavor?”
“Maple.”
Harry retraces his entire jealous musing once again, but this time with a rich
lens of gingerbread haze seeping from your mouth and through the room, your
legs curled around white cotton sheets with a sprinkle of hazelnut ash on the
pillowcase. Wondering what type of music the two of you listened to together
while you made him breakfast, stealing drags from his buttery sweet nutty-
sugary cigarettes, commenting on the flavor of his tongue after he’s pulled away
from a kiss. Wondering if, in the back of your mind, you ever searched for the
sweetness of cotton candy in the aftertaste, but each time found it not quite as
distinctive.
A whole fucking year of that shit?
It’s almost too painful to consider, but did him and Nettie also have heart-to-
hearts?
“Cool.” Candyass. Or otherwise known as, I’m much too jealous to form more
than a single word right now, because anything else that comes out of this mouth
will have a lick of blue flame behind it. But since Harry is trying to win himself a
spot back into your life, it’s likely not a solid plan to go straight for the throat in
the first handful of hours of his slim opportunity. He can at least wait until
tomorrow morning for any meathead passive-aggressive remarks to roll out.
“You couldn’t sound less impressed.”
A wide-mouthed toothy smile splits across his lips, his dimple sinking into his
cheek that somehow aids to convey an even less-impressed remark. His thumbs
up acts as the ultimate sarcastic whipped topping. “Cool!” He flips onto his back,
studying the paint on the ceiling before knotting his fingers into his hair before
swiping his pack of smokes from the nightstand. It’s a miracle he made it this far
through the conversation without one. “Impressed? What d’ya want me to say, V?
I’m still tryin’ to get a grip on this. And before you harp on me for even askin’, I
can’t fuckin’ help it, alright? Feels like betrayal. I know it’s actually not, but it
feels like it. ’Cause I never got over you. I’m the first pancake.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the batter wasn’t quite thick enough, the heat was cranked up too
high, I flipped too soon and too sloppily, I didn’t take enough time to cook
through. Burnt on one side and raw on the other. The first pancake. Set you up
for a more successful batch and then I got tossed in the trash ’cause I was
inedible. Half-baked and scorched.”
“Harry, no. If anything, you were the fluffy dick-and-balls shaped pancake
drowning in butter and syrup and powdered sugar and lemon zest. Served with a
really tall, freshly-squeezed glass of orange juice on ice. You were — are —
everything delicious. Sunshine on a plate. You set the pancake standard. If
anything, Flint was half-baked.”
His beautiful laugh rings through your ears, light in his eyes and heart on his
tongue. “’Kay, thanks. I wanna believe that. Why’d you break up?”
“I didn’t want to be tied down while I was touring. I didn’t want to be

worrying or checking in on someone. I wanted to be on my own. I just….. didn’t
want to be with him and so it felt like a good time to end it.”
And now for the question Harry fears most, which he knows will honestly only
breed more questions and now he’s suddenly sick to his stomach. “You initiated
the split with him then?” You nod and Harry just tosses another question without
pausing to think too much. “Did you plan on goin’ back to him after tour?”
“No, I— no. No. And I doubt there will be anything there for us after eight
months apart and no communication.”
“Well, there’s somethin’ here for us and it’s been two and a half years with no
communication, yeah?”
You don’t disagree. To Harry’s satisfaction, you don’t disagree and you
respond quickly. “This is different. We’re different.”
Your heartbeat and Harry’s heartbeat are so violent and turbulent that it’s
amazing you can both carry on with any semblance of normal conversation
through the sickening palpitations. You’re saying everything he wants to hear,
kind of, mostly, but for some reason he feels incredible unease and it just must
mean something remarkable. You’re validating what he’s felt since you first met
and everything that lingered afterwards, that your connection and chemistry is
different and simply unique. You push each other’s buttons and stoke each
other’s fires, you compel one another to succeed, you both regard the other as
inspiration. You fly at the same heights, you both have an insatiable sweet tooth,
you speak the same love language. You’re perfect dance partners, both on your
feet and on your backs. And it can’t be recreated or reproduced. It can’t be
explained. It can’t be duplicated. And it can’t be easily forgotten. Some people you
just can’t shake.
“’Kay, so. You don’t wanna be tied down while you’re tourin’ or you don’t
wanna be tied down to him while you’re tourin’?”
“I hadn’t gotten that far in my thought process because he was the only person
I was breaking up with. Or even thought to consider.”
“’Kay.” Harry rolls onto his back and studies the impeccably high ceiling,
flawlessly maintained and painted, beautiful moulding and a wall of thick, lavish
velvet curtains puddling to the floor in his periphery. A rolling cart to his right
filled with silver and bone china and hot tea, vegetable crudité and flourless
chocolate cake. So completely opposite of the hotels that he asks Mose to book
him in. Harry prefers low key and humble residing spaces for himself; local and
serene, eccentric and quaint. Easy to hide in. Unexpected to an outside eye, kind
of like his personality. That’s not to say that he doesn’t really, really enjoy curling
up with you in utter wall-to-wall hedonism. It’s not much different than the
comparison to The Pink and your duplex in Malibu, except a couple notches more
luxurious on either end. “Thanks for bein’ honest. I need a smoke and I need to
think, yeah? Gonna try to squash him in my brain so that I’m not comparin’ him
to me and to us and convincing myself that he’s better for you.”
“He’s not better. You don’t have to convince yourself of anything. You two are
opposites. There’s no correlation. Apples and oranges.”
Lights a cigarette and scratches his forehead with his thumb. “Were you
lookin’ for my opposite?”
“I wasn’t even looking. Besides, I couldn’t find another you if I spent my whole
life trying.”
“Were you livin’ together?”
“No, definitely not. We were too off-and-on for that. I wanted my own space,
my own sense of order. I wanted to be close to Nettie.”
Harry’s confidence grows with every answer you give him, especially because
it seems as though you were calling most of the shots in the relationship and it
seems as though most of the calls were leaning towards emotional distance.
Nothing like what you two shared, with a constant need for proximity. On-top-of-
each-other proximity. Between working and lunch breaks and dating and making
each other moan and sleeping, there weren’t many times that you were apart. If
his memory hadn’t glitched, who knows where you two would be now. Good or
bad; it’s hard to tell. You might have driven one another to the brink of insanity
for all he knows. But one thing he does know, whether or not you agree, with the
way your relationship ended, the physical distance was necessary for the sake of
reflection and process. And he doesn’t need to remind either of you that you
were practically living together. Unofficially. He had his own key, he was paying
rent, cleaning the sink and buying groceries, after all.
“Did you love him, Vivienne?”
His eyes follow the little bobble in your throat before bouncing back to your
watery gaze. “Yes….. I think I did.”
“Did you love me?”

“And how.”
Stubbing out his cigarette and rolling back onto his side, Harry weaves his
fingers into your hair and threads your legs together, your eyes locking into place
one moment before he slots your lips into a supple heart. He kisses you until it
hurts to breathe, your tongues lapping in soft, languid strokes before he breaks
away and presses his forehead against yours. “There’s a ton of shit I wanna know
but it’s probably rude to ask, so I won’t.” Quite different from his former personal
burial techniques and habit to pry for your secrets, but not so different from his
tendency towards perversion. “Just tell me one more thing. Anything. Somethin’
that will lighten the load in my chest, yeah? Distract me.”
“I prayed that you would show up again. The whole time. I wasn’t finished
with you yet. I wasn’t surprised to see you because I didn’t want to see you, but
because I’d imagined it so many times that it was hard to believe it was actually
happening. You’re a mirage.”
“That’s it. Fuck. Y’know you’re so good at that?” Harry groans and then finally
blurts what he’s been wanting to blurt for hours. And although it comes across as
a joke, you both know that he’s serious. “Alright….. so, how was he in the sack?”
To his pleasant surprise, you don’t back down. Not even a little bit. Your
answer is both vague and clear, perfectly you and perfectly appeasing. But just
the slightest bit more mature and confident. “Nothing like you, my first pancake.”
“Holy shit— fuckin’ sweet baby angel.” He grips your jaw, tilting your head on
an angle and hovering his mouth over yours. But the pressure from his thumbs
doesn’t at all compare to the force of his long-awaited and well-missed demand.
One that he delivers with unwavering eye contact, a galaxy of shooting stars in
his eyes. “Hey. Kiss, please?” He moans on your tongue the instant your mouths
connect, nibbling on your bottom lip and studying the curves of your face.
“Y’know, I think the most compelling way to know that a partner is a good fit
is to ask yourself if you want to be like them or not. If I don’t wanna be like
someone, then I don’t wanna be with them. Which is why it took me so fuckin‘
long to find someone worth fittin’ that spot because I’m a big fat fuckin‘
narcissist. I completely understand why you had that internal battle, why you
didn’t wanna be with me after my memory slip. I didn’t want to be like that
person either. I was drawn to you from the start ’cause there were parts of you
that I admired and wanted to emulate and match. Strengthen. Then I started to
see parts of you that irritated me, because shit that irritates us in other people is
just a reflection of things that we don’t like about ourselves. And when that
happened, I started seein’ little bits of myself that I wanted to change. My
reactions to things; my impulsive shit, the jealousy, escapism, narcissism,
arrogance. And I dunno when I would have seen those things, if ever, if we never
got together and I also wouldn’t have seen them unless we split. Remember
when I told you I wanted you to teach me to be good enough for you?” His sight
darts to your throat as it bobs on a swallow, then pulls up in time to see you nod,
“well, you did. And I think I’m a better person for it. So….. thank you. I get it now.
I get why I avoided connection with anyone for so long. Because if I connected
with someone, I’d have to self-reflect and confront and process, and I fuckin‘ hate
those things. You know that. I love/hate them. I love them. It drives me fuckin’
crazy, I dunno. It’s life. I guess what I’m tryin‘ to spit out……s... I wanna keep
growin’ with you. Right next to you.”
Throughout Harry’s speech, your smile slowly and softly grew, your eyes
filming over with a wet shade of happy tears. “That’s the loveliest thing anyone’s
ever said to me. I wish I could taste those words and eat them and keep them
forever. I like this version of you….. maybe it’s my favorite yet.”
“Yeah? Fuck. Mmm….. semi-city.”
You’re awakened the following morning with a slow peel of your sleep mask
away from your eyes, Harry’s silhouette and wild curls outlined by the light
struggling to break through the curtains. A spring dawn is much different in New
York than Los Angeles. Light in Los Angeles is blurry and soft, warm and yellow
on the horizon. Everything here is so angular, sour sunbeams reflecting off of
perfect metallic right angles, the streets somehow both cold and humid from the
shield and hammock of buildings.
And being on the road for a month, this is the first time you’ve ever missed
home so dearly. Luckily, Harry is the embodiment of everything that makes Los
Angeles special; palm trees, ocean, escape, idiosyncratic, seedy, classy. A fancy
cocktail served in a frosted glass with pretty garnish in a dingy dive bar. Pure
Sunshine.
Your own private, portable Malibu beach nap.
After carefully studying your face for a few seconds, Harry’s eyebrows pull
into a frown before he tilts his head in curiosity. “What the fuck? Do I know you?”
“Harry—?”
A slow, curling grins spreads across his cheeks and then quickly shrinks away
at a failed attempt at seriousness. “Too soon?”
“Oh. My god?”
Gatherings your wrists into a fist, Harry drags them up over your head,
sending them crashing through the luxurious down pillows and the linen sheets
and the fluffy cloud-like comforter that only a hotel like this would have. A hotel
that you would choose, no — demand, to stay in, one that’s good enough for you,
dripping in richness and satisfaction. “Take it easy, I’m just razzin’.” You grumble
and try to push him off for a few more minutes of rest but his grip is too
powerful, and his persuasion is certainly too powerful when he speaks against
your lips, “hey, stop snorin’ and wakey wakey, beautiful. Full English on the
table.”
The Sun is rising again. You can already tell that Harry is less somber than last
night, even though he was full of love then. Now in hindsight you can feel the
apprehension that he tried to cover up with faux confidence. And you can feel
how it has slowly drifted through the windows last night as you slept, replacing
the clouds with something much brighter and more familiar.
Your kiss is mushy lazy languid at first, your fingertips smoothing over his
shoulders and up his neck into his hair and as it gets more heated. You roll him
on top of you and circle your legs around his waist and Harry groans into your
mouth, mumbling with a sludgy sleepy brogue. “Mmm….. it’s fuckin’ unreal to
wake up with you. Last night was outta sight, mm? Wanna play with me a little
bit?” Electricity swims through your stomachs and to your toes when your lips
seal together again, his palm smoothing up your stomach for a handful of your
curves. “Mm, shit. I really miss you, baby.”
This is the wake up you should’ve had after your first time together, but
maybe it’s okay because it’s happening now and maybe it’s okay because what
happened before had to happen. It’s the same, you’re the same, he’s the same, the
two of you together are the same. Except now you’re here and he’s here and
you’re grown and he’s grown. It’s as if you’ve both woken up from the same
nightmare, finally placated and warm in this castaway sky rise in a New York City
dream.
Rolling you onto your side, Harry snuggles up behind you and gives you the
slow morning sex that he knows you’re desperately craving. Spooning and
cuddling, sticky messy and humid, your body slow to wake exactly how he
remembered. You both cry out at the feeling when he sinks inside of you, his
fingers hopping back and forth between slipping in circles on your clit and
shaping a V over your connection. With his jetlag and your interrupted sleep,
you’re both sensitive and dreary, two whole bodies created of exposed nerve
endings. You can feel every tickle of his breath and every brush of his fingertips,
every taste bud on his tongue when he sucks your nipple into his mouth.
He’s in the perfect position to mutter in your ear as he coaxes you along, little
sprinkles of sugar like how’s that feel? and tell me and heart’s poundin’.
And when you both reach your highs, Harry pulls out just in time to pump
himself to release on your stomach. Before you have much time to deliberate
your first orgasm, he’s sliding his way down to lick you to another one. You
whine about being sensitive but he merely hushes you with a little kitten lick,
groaning at the puffiness and wetness of your cunt. Dizzy from jetlag dizzy from
his high dizzy from your high. Dizzy from the whirlwind of being accepted by
you, again, after clawing through the fear of possible rejection. He brings you to
the edge again in half the time, for a slightly less powerful but still mind-numbing
peak. And a harsh spank.
He fucking loves you in the morning.
On his way back up, he pauses for a little nibbled greeting to his favorite
freckle and a mutter so soft that you don’t catch it. “Bonjour, miette de biscuit.
Coquine.”
If morning sex with Harry were a physical object, it would be a warm

chocolate chip cookie, crumbling and gooey. Chunks of melting decadence held
together with clumps of brown sugar and butter.
After Harry cleans you up with a warm washcloth, he snoozes for a bit with
your nails scratching up and down his back and into his hair, his nose buried in
your tits and his fingertips tucked into the waistband of your underwear. When
he pulls himself from sleep again, you lie in bed for a bit longer, kissing and
sharing a soft afterglow in the soft morning light. The phone on the nightstand
rings and violently cuts through your intimate moment and you groan, knowing
that it’s a waste of a wake-up call that is acting as merely a distraction from what
you crave.
Harry stays lying on top of you and swipes the receiver from telephone,
pressing it to his ear while his fingertips tickle up your bare stomach, his skin
warm and soft, his body heavy and loving. “Hi.”
“Good morning, this is a wake-up call for Cherry. It’s seven a.m., is there
anything you’ll be needing this morning?”
A balloon swells and pops inside of his heart, confused for half a second as to
why the front desk is referring to you by Harry’s personal wayward nickname
that has haunted him in ice cream parlors and grocery shops and cocktail
lounges for years, and then quickly establishing that it must be the alias that
you’ve chosen for checking into hotels in order to keep media and fans off your
back. And there’s no way that you could’ve known beforehand that Harry was
going to meet you here before you’d checked in, so he concludes that this is your
own habitual nostalgic doing. A comfort. A name that keeps Harry close to you, a
name that you trust, a name that you love. A secret that you still keep between
you and him.
A name that hasn’t lost its meaning.
He perks an eyebrow at you before a slow smile starts to crawl across his face.
“Miss Cherry has arisen and shone.” As soon as you realize your covert, mildly
embarrassing mishap, your palms fly up to cover your face but he’s gripping your
wrists to remove them. “We’ll call you back for breakfast in two shakes. Peace.” A
sliver of long-awaited and well-deserved cockiness breaks through with a single
tick of his eyebrow. “Somethin‘ weird just happened. You just got a wake-up call
for someone called Cherry.”
“Are you sure you heard right?”
“Fuck outta here. Is that the name you always use?”
“…..Yes. Maybe. Sometimes. Usual… y... yes.”
“Shut the fuck up. Surname? Sit tight, lemme guess. Simone?” Your lack of
answer is the only answer he needs and he shows it by laughing; first in your face
and then towards the sky after he flips onto his back. “You’re certified. You
cannot hide for shit! Fuckin’ biggest dork that has ever dorked. Get it together,
little Honey.”
Harry is likely awaiting your snort that typically accompanies his wheezing
laughter, except it never comes. It doesn’t come because his accusation has made
you realize something, and it makes you feel broken in half. Stitched together, but
still broken in half.
His head lulls to the side, fuzzy warm on the inside from the sight of your
expression, the delicacy in your baby deer eyes. Rays of natural light beam
through a crack in the curtains and pave ribbons of pearls across your cheeks.
Drawn onto his side, he traces a stripe of rainbows with three fingertips from
your belly button to your jaw, his pretty eyes journeying your bone structure. His
new freckles soften him, or perhaps they just help to expose his personal
victories. Little battle wounds from the sun itself. “Spit it out.”
“Harry, you’re the only person in the world who thinks that nickname is
obvious. You realize that….. right? You’re the only one.”
“Oh shit.” Harry takes a moment to digest your meaning and flips through a
mental photo album of the people closest to you for evidence in your statement.
Your family, your friends, your exes. Yeah, for a long while, Harry knew you
better than anyone else. Since he stepped foot from Banana Split, it’s been years
that he’s even been physically near you. You’ve had so much time and
opportunity to bring new love and new comforts close to you, perhaps even
closer to you than he was, but it seems you haven’t. He just knows that you didn’t
open up with Flint the way you did with him. Because Harry knows that you need
prying for trust to blossom and he knows it’s not easily obtained, because he
happens to be one of the very few people to have gracefully achieved it. He’s
never met your ex and hopes he never will, but just the shallow pool of neutrality
reflecting dull light back at him is enough to provide clarity. “My tummy just did
somethin’ grotty. Little pancake love flip. Sizzlin’ now.”
“Yeah, same here.” Your fingertips walk in a tiny two-step beat up his chest
before spreading out over his clavicle, forcing you to recall each and every time
your hands were on him both professionally and romantically, at a time when
you allowed yourself to blindly trust him with your entire soul. And this little
intimate action alone, even more than the act of having sex with him, makes you
wonder if you can possibly let that possibility back in without the residue of your
history lingering behind. “What’s your secret name?”
“Beau Minnow.”
“Oh my god.” This time your snort hits before your laughter does, a stop-
motion display of a strawberry ripening on the vine. “Here I was thinking it
would be the perfect complement to mine, like Sunbaby McCartney or Sunshine
Gaye, but no. It’s the dog and the imaginary duck. You’re right, I don’t think I’d
ever be able to find you if I tried. Maybe my name is lame after all.”
Scooting closer and threading your legs together with a little hum, Harry cups
your cheek and tilts your head towards him. It’s so fucking adorable that even
after all of this time, you’re still somehow clueless to your own musings and
clever insight. To your own ability to love someone deeply and holistically, even
if it means putting yourself and your fiercely-guarded career at risk. Even though
you pretended that it was a hard, almost impossible decision for you. When in
actuality you fell heavily and blindly, your brave passion demonstrating itself hot
and loud when you’d defended Harry’s character to your boss without a second
thought to the contrary. Here you are; blind to the depth of your devotion and
your keen attention to detail, a benign riddle to yourself of sorts. Especially when
it comes to your ability to trust others, comfort others, emote with others.
Especially when it comes to your timing.
Harry supposes that is one thing you both have in common, the self-
perception of feeling unlovable. Even when the whole world claims to love you.
Even when someone is breathing the words into your skin.
“Hey. You remembered the name of the imaginary pet duck that I told you
’bout once. One fuckin’ time.” His breath puffs out against your mouth, your lips
brushing together as the volume of his voice drops and disappears down your
throat. “You realize that. Right, Cherry?”
“I do now, Mr. Minnow.”
“Nice ring. Say it again, I’m hard.” He mouths the words kiss, please and hums
and your immediate obedience. “Mmm….. I think I’m in heaven. The last time I
felt this good was with you.”
“Ah, back in ’65.”
“The good ol’ days.”
“That’s what I hear. It makes me think of the line, ’I just never felt so
fantastically rocky in my entire life.’”
Harry speaks through a perfect laughing smile and a waggling index finger in
the air. “And how. Fuck off with the Salinger, we haven’t even showered yet.”
Your index finger hits the air with a little bobble in return as you mirror his
every dramatic move. “And how.”
He keeps his wiggling, too. “And how, bitch.”
“And—”
“Shut up.” Harry crushes you into the mattress and pulls the fluffy down
comforter over your heads, a little tent of paradise, warm and soft and skin and
skin and skin. “Get your ass in the shower.” He seals your lips together and hums
tightly, the little vibration rocketing down your throat and echoing in your
underwear. “Mmm….. or don’t. Why don’t you toss me another Salinger quote.”
Your fingers coil through his hair and scratch against his scalp, keeping his
head close so that your lips brush his when you mutter, “’You’re lucky if you get
time to sneeze in this goddamn phenomenal world.’”
“Bitchin’. My favorite. And ’To me, everything is beautiful. Show me a pink

sunset and I’m limp.’”
“You would say that. You must’ve already said that at some point. I think
Salinger owes you a paycheck for that one.”
“No shit. Speakin’ of Franny and Zooey, y’know we’re in New York? We’re
gettin’ dim sum.”
“Aren’t you supposed to eat pizza in New York?”
“Sure. Rookies do. But the real ones know that you’re also supposed to eat dim
sum, pastrami sandwiches and dill pickles, babka, gyros, street hot dogs, soft
pretzels, pierogis with sour cream, Boston creme doughnuts, rugelach and fat
pumpernickel bagels with cream cheese and lox. And like, linguini Alfredo with
truffles and clams. Fuck, I’m starvin’. Dim sum then? I need buns right fuckin’
now.” He reaches across you for the phone, but not before grazing both of your
nipples with his knuckles. “Whoopsie. Oh, good mornin’, look how the suns rise
just for me.”
“What are buns—”
“Yeah, hi again. Ms. Cherry and Mr. Minnow here.” His attention has already
shifted to the front desk’s voice in his ear, his fingertips lazily circling your belly
button as he concentrates, his other hand easily gripping the handset. “I’ve got a
really pertinent, life-threatenin’ situation— huh? No, no. God, nothin’ spooky.
Just need directions to the closest and best dim sum joint. Doesn’t have to be like,
really close. Just best. Mhm. ’Kay—” He rolls on top of you to reach the pen and
pad of paper on the night stand to jot down notes in his lazy, morning chicken
scratch. Half cursive, half capital letters just like the heart-shattering letter he left
you to memorize for over two years. “It’s nearby then? Thirty block— Great, kid’s
cryin’ now, thanks.” You laugh and swat at him but Harry allows it this time, his
mouth spread open into silent laughter as he tries to reel it back in for the sake of
the front desk person. “Nah, that’s cool. Hit me with the cross streets.” He hovers
the pen over the small pad of paper and you tilt your head to watch him, your
arms and legs wrapping around his torso to hold him close. A soft hum of
appreciation ripples up his throat. “’Kay, all systems go. Hey, d’you know if they
have chicken feet?” He taps your nipple with the cap of his pen, his eyebrows
perking up at your unamused expression. “Yeah? ’Kay, rad. Sounds legit. Thank
you, hey!” His fingertips tip-toe up your tummy, tracing half-moons below your
breasts. “I hope your day is good. No bossy or flustered patrons, y’know? Just
straight cruisin’. Thanks a lot. Peace.” The receiver drops onto the base and his
eyebrows wiggle in devious rouse as he palms your breast for a little squeeze.
“You and I have a date with Gold Garden, sugar tits. Hope you like chicken feet.”
“Ew. Are you kidding? I bet that’s really….. boney.”
“That makes two of us. Can I have a kiss?” Tugging him closer, you both hum
on one another’s tongue and savor the sweetheart bubbles in your stomachs
before he inches back to rasp, “mmm….. I’m just razzin’ about the claws. We need
to fatten you up with coconut custard.”
“Harry. I don’t need fattening.”
“No, mm?” He pinches your hip bone as if communicating that he begs to

differ. “What d’ya need? I could fill you up with some of my coconut custard
but….. I don’t think it tastes as good. You’re a champ though for offerin’.”
“I didn’t offer that, Sunshine.” Your giggles are so sweet and he’s so sweet
when he says stupid things for the pure reason of being graced by those sweet
giggles. “Can’t we stay in bed for a little bit first? It’s so early. Why do you even
wake this early when your surfboard is thousands of miles away?”
“Sun—” His stomach is still on a rollercoaster from you dropping that
wayward nickname out of fucking nowhere. And admittedly, it helps to stir up
the beginning of a hurricane of confidence, a little but mighty ray of light
breaking through the fog. Does this mean he’s back in your eyes? That the Sun is
peeking up over the horizon to melt the snow from a long winter? “Muscle
memory. Out of my control. I’m the sunrise. Hey,” His hand sweeps up your chest
and lands on your collarbone, his fingertips gently wrapping around your throat
for a friendly or maybe not so friendly little squeeze that pairs his question. It’s
hard to tell with him most times. “Any obligations besides the interrogation at
one?” You shake your head and swallow against his palm, swallowed up by his
gaze. He drums his fingers on the back of your neck in contemplation and allows
the little hurricane of confidence to sweep through in the form of your love
language. “Alors….. je peux te emmener pour un film plus tard……u...”
“Dépend. Laquelle?”
His heart kicks him in the ribcage, twice, violently, at how seamlessly you slip
into it. Just for him. “Mmm….. est-ce que tu me taquines?”
“Peut être.”
“Mmm….. Rosemary’s Baby?”
“Mmm…..”
“Space Odyssey? Some campy horror shit in 3-D space vision like, The Bubble. A
new dimension in terror.”
“Non, s’il te plait.”
“Barbarella? The Sound of Music? Look, I don’t give a shit which one. I just—”
“Well, then say what you mean.”
His eyebrows tick and slump into a frown before his tongue trickles out to wet
his bottom lip. You got him there. And with his own words no less. “Slick. ’Kay,
this is what I mean: I don’t wanna leave you anytime soon. I wanna take you out
on a date. On a ton of dates. I want to be with you; physically, emotionally,
spiritually, romantically. I’m ready to share a hundred percent of my affectionate
time and brain space and I know who I want to do that with, I know who I want
to figure that out with. Time is the best gift you can give someone and I want you
to have mine. I want yours. I’m just waitin’ for you to be on the same page so that
we can rock the shit out of this. I wanna be your main squeeze again. I’ll push
through the long-distance blues and support your career, I’ll make you come over
the phone when we’re apart. I’ll do whatever you need. I miss you and I’m askin’
to have you back. Exclusively. My girl. I’d do almost anything.”
“Okay…..” That was brutally honest and beautifully comprehensive and you
don’t know what you were expecting, but that wasn’t quite it. Perplexed on how
to properly respond, you cover your face with your palms as if they could
somehow act as a curtain for privacy. But he doesn’t like that and as always, he
doesn’t let it last very long. He peels your hands away, his eyes flicking between
yours as you struggle to give him an answer. “Har… y... remember you’ve had lots
of time to decide what you wanted before you come to this conclusion. You came
here with a mission and sprung it on me. This option just came crashing back
into my life twelve hours ago. I don’t know what I want, I hadn’t come close to
conceptualizing anything like this. I’m weary to commit because I’d emotionally
let you go and I just started a long, crazy busy tour. You’re practicing constantly,
making appearances and competing every few weeks. The timing is crazy. It
kinda seems like the timing will always be crazy, that our schedules are just
steadily active. I’m happy you’re back and I don’t exactly want you to leave just
yet. I just don’t know how it would work. I don’t have a clear yes or no answer for
you right now. I need a little time to think. Is that okay with you?”
“I dunno….. I dunno how to act. I just told you what I want and it doesn’t match
what you want. I’d absolutely fuckin’ ruin my life to go steady with you a… d... I
honestly think I’ve always felt that way, but I wasn’t right before. I feel right now.
I know it’s a brain fry for you, but I had to come here with a clear purpose or
nothin’ would’ve stuck. So, what am I supposed to do now? Am I supposed to
push you or back off or what? I dunno what’s right. Do you?”
“I don’t.”
“Blind leadin’ the blind. Or BLTB, if you will.”
Harry physically held you in his arms and carried you, trembling, back into a
dancing career. He’s always vouched for you, trusted you, supported and
encouraged you. And here he is, continuing to do just that. By waiting to reappear
until he felt ready, acknowledging the importance of your career and happily
stepping aside to give it proper breathing room, appreciating every dip and
freckle on your body while he has it. Even after so much time and space have
elapsed. But it simply has to be more complicated than that. Doesn’t it? “You
know….. you kind of did ruin your life to go steady with me before.”
Taking a moment to comprehend your truth, Harry’s eyebrows rise and fall
before pouting his bottom lip. You’re right, except he’s unsure of whether your
statement was intended to be a warning or not. But instead of interrupting you
and pushing you to speak, he waits for your honesty to flush out on its own.
“Listen, Harry….. I want you, too. I just don’t know how that can happen right
now without a lot of stress on the both of us. It seems inconceivable for me to
keep another plate spinning, I feel like I’m at my max as it is.”
The thing about the Sun is that when you stare directly into its light regardless
of the burn, it can turn you blind.
“Christ. Fuck. Shit….. ’kay.”

Now begins that terrible middle ground in relationships where the two parties
try desperately to see eye to eye, to claw through the bramble of their deeply
rooted personal inner workings to see if they have the correct energy and
capacity to make two misshapen pegs fit together. The confusion is unsettling for
the both of you, knowing what you know now, with Harry’s feelings and offer
clearly laid out on a table in the way a professional card dealer would do in Las
Vegas. Hearts, diamonds, jokers and all, as if he’s foolishly turned his body inside
out to blatantly display what was meant to be a secret in order to properly play
the game. Your ace of spades trumps his two of hearts with a sharp slice to his
ego. And Harry has never been a betting man.
He told you himself that he doesn’t play to lose, but now he has to do exactly
what his impulsive and decisive nature loathes; wait for your poker face to drop
so that he can collect your chips clean off the table, cash them in for something a
little more worthwhile than an uncertain game with questionable outcomes. Can
he go through all of that? Again? He thought for sure that he would slowly
unravel into insanity the first time, but this time, he’s battling against the scars
left behind on the both of you by his own self. Everybody knows that scar tissue
is an aggravating brew of sensitive and rugged. And he fucking hates it. He hates
that he’s scarred you. You were so perfect before he wormed his nails under your
skin.
But there seems to be something even more perfect about a castle with a little
graffiti.
“Okay. Oui.”
“Oui quoi?”
“Oui, Rosemary’s Baby. And after that, I don’t know. I have no idea what’s going
to happen, I feel like I need more time to make a proper decision. Is that okay?”
“I guess it fuckin’ has to be.” Harry rolls over onto his back beside you,
studying the ceiling before finding your gaze again. “So, really? Even after I
fucked you like that? Still don’t know? You came so hard I thought you were
gonna spit my candystick out and send it whizzin’ around the room.”
“Harry! Was that not because of how hard you came?”
“I mean….. group effort.”
“Besides, sex isn’t every single part of a relationship. Especially in our

situation, we have unusual circumstances that most people don’t have to deal
with. Pressure. Spotlight. The press. Noisy audiences. Busy careers. Hectic
schedules. Nosy strangers. Our families. Big distances. Difficult pasts. At this
point, having a relationship would mean letting the whole world in. It’s a lot to
consider and risk.”
Swiping his pack of smokes from the end table, he pops a cigarette into his
mouth and pauses for a moment before lighting it. His cheeks hollowing out, his
jawline popping when he exhales a blushing blur towards the ceiling. “Yeah, well,
we live in the world so we’re always gonna be letting it in, whether we’re
together or not. And that’s the kinda sex you make time to voluntarily go apeshit
over.”
He’s not wrong. Even if he is avoiding the most important part of what you
were trying to communicate. And whether or not he’s aware of that is just
another Sunny-mystery. One thing you’ve come to trust about him over time
though is that his truth always comes out, eventually. Maybe not when he’s
ready, but whenever the truth is.
“Alright. Rosemary’s Baby and some chicken feet first. Can you also take me to
Central Park? I’ve never been.”
“Oh, I see. Now you’re milkin’ this.” A high, broken falsetto voice meant to
mock yours falls from his lips, “I dunno if I want to date you, but take me out on a
bunch of dates like we’re dating? And buy me dinner and hold my hand during
the movie and pine over me and cry over me and cuddle me for hours and
sacrifice sleep and sanity and send me gifts and call me in the middle of the night
and let’s have a fuckton of sex and ooh, did you see that yellow Givenchy dress in
the Barney’s window? I wouldn’t mind one of those either. Thanks, Sunshine
Non-Steady Babe Love! I’ll keep you in the loop!”
“Oh, can we also stop by Barney’s?”
Harry’s bright laughter paints the ceiling and splashes you with a pink
monochrome rainbow, his thumb scratching his forehead before his hand drops
to his belly. “Can’t say I saw that on my Bingo card. Whatever you want, Honey
pie. I guess I’m your love servant now.”
“I kinda like the sound of that.”
“It’s not so bad, yeah. You dim sum, you lose some.”
And he’s already absorbing your giggles and blocking your strike by the time
your hand hits the air.
Hi everyone! I missed you, I missed you! This was an absolute bitch to pull
together, so thank you all for being patient. And please excuse any typos along the
way. My eyes were starting to cross eventually. I hope you enjoyed it and please
remember there is one more epilogue and an additional extra still to come. Be
good, everyone. Love you! xx Birdie
The Double Encore
“Ow? Jesus fuck.”
Something about the sensation of pain dead in the center of night, halfway
between sunset and sunrise, gives it a grisly romantic quality. Robbery at
knifepoint, alarming self-realizations, spine-racking sobs, ghostly hauntings and
demonic possessions, the onset of stomach viruses, desperate confessions of
love, existential dread below the break of an ocean wave, black-and-white
dreams and colorful nightmares.
They all seem to occur somewhere after the dark and before the light.
It wasn’t so much that Harry couldn’t fall asleep last night but rather, stay
asleep. Actually, it was one of those nights where he crashed out hard and fast,
his stomach stuffed with his favorite snacks and a splash of orange juice mixed
with Murky Lagoon. He’d almost passed out midway through his routine nightly
journaling session, a relatively recent and now-essential habit that he’d
established two years ago, when he no longer had the comfort of your tits to
ramble into as he murmured himself to sleep.
Much like a toddler, Harry fought being pulled into unconsciousness last night
until it was no longer in his control. Physically holding his burning eyelids open
at one point and chain-smoking three more Crush cigarettes before his pen
reached the end of the last pink-tipped page.
Harry has fond memories of journaling and scribbling blackout poetry in

several corners of the world. Inside of The Pink for the last time, on a beach in
Oaxaca just after a long surfing session that ended at eight in the morning. On a
crowded, smoke-filled airplane that hovered somewhere over the Pacific Ocean,
in a shaded hammock strung between two palms in Oahu, on the mattress on the
floor of his bedroom in London before the new bed frame had been delivered.
Coming down off of a mushroom trip in Phuket, poking away at an omelet and
rice between drags of his pink cigarette, distracted by the orange rising sun.
And notably, the morning after he woke up in New York with you two weeks
ago, his heart bleeding out onto the page as you applied lipstick in the vanity
mirror in preparation for your interview with The Times. “I Can’t Stand the Rain”
by Ann Peebles crackled through the radio speaker, guiding his pencil as he
shaded in the corner of your lip in a newspaper margin beside six strategically
blocked-out words.
her legs wrapped around my love
And just like clockwork, for the third sleep in a row now, Harry shot up at four
A.M. with a red static buzz between his ears and his heart pounding out of his
chest. No whispers of dreams lingering, no sounds aside from the hum of this
new hotel room’s fan and his heavy breathing. The sheets damp and clingy from
his sweat. The dim light from the bathroom flooding out onto the floor and
staining a slice of lemon meringue pie on the soft carpet in the hallway,
beckoning him to follow the path through the darkness until he was squinting
against the white harsh lightbulbs.
It must have something to do with the fact that tomorrow is coming in hot.
And there’s nothing that Harry hates more than a looming ultimatum in which
the outcome is completely out of his control.
A deadline.
And if I don’t?

Harry sucks his sore thumb into his mouth and then shakes his hand out a bit,
squinting in the halogen lighting of the bathroom to see the misshapen red mark
burned into his skin. A pair of slim-fitting gray joggers are cinched at his waist by
the drawstring, leaving him bare everywhere else, and rendering him that much
more vulnerable to being burned by an open flame.
Holding the sewing needle between his teeth, he runs his thumb under cool
tap water for a moment before trying again. With the scrape of another match on
flint and a flash of yellow that flickers across his face, Harry carefully heats the
needle and then drops the match into the sink to take its final breath of oxygen.
And before he can convince himself otherwise, he leans forward and peers into
his own eyes, then plunges the hot metal straight through the lobe of his ear. A
singe of pain runs up his spine and forces him to clench his teeth. His stomach
tosses a bit. The surge of adrenaline promises that he won’t be going back to
sleep anytime soon.
“And there she goes.” Once the sting subsides, a wave of relief bowls Harry
over, drowning and dizzy with the sight of the needle sticking through his ear.
Properly filling in the shoes of the masochist he tends to believe he is from time
to time. “Another hole in the old melon.”
After lighting a cigarette, he cranes his head to the side for a closer look at his
work, curls of strawberry mixing with curls of chocolate as smoke swims around
his face. A little spot of blood circles the sewing needle through his ear like a
stuffed, tiny bloody mouth. Or a javelin in the grass. Or the laid-out miniature
victim of Cupid’s arrow, happy and righteous to be chosen. A reminder that pain
is temporary and its residual marks, good or bad, always look distinctive to the
owner once they’ve healed.
Throughout the past two weeks since the day he jump-scared you in New
York, Harry has learned many things about himself and the world around him.
That love is blurry and confusing as all fucking hell. That consuming anything
other than tomato juice and peanuts on a flight makes him feel queasy, that
bartenders in hotel bars skimp on the rum unless they’re being watched like a
hawk, that Oreo cookies upgrade significantly when he twists them apart and
spreads the dry side with peanut butter, that he’s beginning to enjoy a hot
shower every now and again, that hotel food tastes better on someone else’s
dime, that having material to journal about comes a lot quicker with the flavor of
heartbreak lingering on his tongue. And that love is as crystal clear as a polished
vase in the morning sun, filled to the brim with sunflowers and brightening up
the darkest corners of any room.
And throughout these past two weeks where you and Harry have spent every
cloud-nine moment together, Harry has become incredibly familiarized with
your schedule, your degrees of disposition and your day-to-day personal habits.
Some he had already been closely familiar with, but under the pressure and
stress of a new and intense routine, the volume at which the two of you have
become reacquainted is nothing short of loud.
The second you arrive at a new hotel, Harry has learned to take his time filling
up a bucket of ice to allow you the space to finesse the room to your standard.
Pacing in circles as you tweak the lighting and straighten art on the walls. Beauty
products and knickknacks and clothing laid out and neatly arranged in the
bathroom, on the vanity, in the dresser and in the closet. Fluffing the pillows and
the sheets, acquainting yourself with the local radio stations, adjusting television
antennas, lighting candles. Perfecting and perfecting and perfecting until you
strip down and settle in to memorize the room service menu.
A place for Cherry and Cherry in her place.
On your days off, you like to stay up late with him to dance hard to the radio
and then sack out even harder, with your silk mask covering your eyes and
smooth legs twisted up in the sheets. Teeny tiny snores every few breaths.
Waking late the following morning and playing all afternoon, then sneaking
around the city on surprise, covert dates in Mary Jane pumps or heeled booties
and slinky baby dresses; slipping in through restaurant kitchens and cozying up
in private booths, tiptoeing in and out of dark movie theatres, hogging the
jukebox in unsuspecting seedy bars where the patrons pay no interest, cruising
in cars with tinted windows and sealed partitions, kissing in emptied-out diners
and ice cream shops, meandering walks under streetlights after dinner,
drowning in French 75s over several rounds of pool. Staying out until sunrise at
secret underground dance clubs, the names and locations of which Harry has to
aggressively wiggle out of local staff.
Sometimes you don’t last very long in dance clubs before you’re breathing into
his ear to take you back to the hotel. Especially when the two of you find a dark
secluded corner to make out, your head knocked back against the wall and your
panting drowned out by the live music, Harry’s thigh between your legs and his
mouth on your neck.
One time you didn’t even make it back to the hotel.
The very opposite schedule on travel days, with early evenings paired with
relatively silent rest, a heap of covers ending up on top of Harry that he’s learned
to drape back over you so that you don’t get cold. Packing and reorganizing your
suitcases two or three times before leaving for the airport, sitting on top of your
luggage with a grouchy huff as you struggle to zip it closed. A final, meticulous
sweep of the room before locking the door behind you. Impossibly clean
politeness with everyone you interact with; from your manager to bellhops,
stewardesses and photographers and receptionists, makeup artists and fans.
Behind closed doors, your stress manifests in one of three ways: you either
babble like a brook, stitch up invisible seams on all of your performance
costumes or completely emotionally suck into yourself. Hands busy while you
stare off into empty space and clean the wheels of your skates, seemingly deaf to
the outside world. Reserved when pushing around steamed vegetables on your
plate or when asking for help unzipping a dress or clasping a bracelet closed.
Lost in a world of over-analytics, silently bad-mouthing yourself and organizing
mental to-do lists. Struggling to exactly pinpoint what’s hogging the majority of
your mental space. The kind of anxiousness that doesn’t need to be vocalized in
order for those who know you to know it’s there.
You’re still too fucking polite for your own good sometimes.
I’m fine.
On days when you have a show, Harry has learned to wake you around six or
seven A.M., depending on his appetite for breakfast and level of mischievousness.
Mornings are particularly sensitive for him and if he wants any quality playtime
with you that day, it has to be before the sun rises. Because you like to arrive at
the theatre hours and hours before a performance, nitpicking the shit out of your
routines and then spending two hours costuming up before you hit the stage.
And apparently mascara should be applied first, because the amount of times
he’s heard you shriek after accidentally painting your cheeks with miniature
black fans is enough for him to attempt to learn the art of makeup on his own,
just to take one less weight off your shoulders.
Or to upstage you, either way. Nettie has always insisted that he looks pretty
in eyeshadow.
During your pre-show ritual, Harry usually explores around the city on his
own, swims laps in the hotel pool or kills a couple hours reading or journaling in
the suite. But when it comes time for you to hit the stage, he’s there to squeeze
the stress from your shoulders and stretch out your ankle before you put your
skates on. Watching from the backstage curtain shoulder-to-shoulder with
Roach, whistling loudly with his fingers tucked into his cheeks and trying his
damndest to get on her good side. Just in case it might come in handy one day.
Witnessing city after city wake up to the fact that you’re the best dancer on
fucking earth may just be the most fun Harry’s ever had. The ground kisses your
feet as you skate all over it.
After a show, you either need to cool down with a couple rounds of pool and
Pearls from the closest dive bar or unleash a craving for fine dining, arrested by a
case of the hiccups after a single glass of champagne. And then back at the hotel it
sometimes takes several spins and dips and several Honey Slowdowns before
you’re relaxed enough for quiet.
One evening, you’d bravely admitted after three French 75s that the act of
post-performance decompression with another person had never been a habit
for you until Harry had come along, both right now and when you were dating in
Malibu. Typically after a long grueling work day, you prefer time alone in your
precious fucking cardigan with a small plate of sugar or a bowl of mashed
potatoes, followed by the discipline of an early bedtime. But when Harry’s
around, it’s different. You’re different.
Just for him.
It makes him wonder how you’ve been surviving the stress of this past month
all on your own.
That very same night, you had also admitted that sometimes it seemed like
your ex wasn’t paying attention to you when you spoke, and that visual shriveled
Harry’s stomach up like a raisin. Imagining all of those perfect secrets and
confessions and observations wasted, inflating like pretty little rainbow bubbles
into the room and then popping without a trace or a sound, leaving behind a
sticky film of invisible soap on the carpet. The bubbles that Harry would have
gladly caught in the palm of his hand, frozen solid in fear of disrupting them.
Watching as little oily alien space signals floated around in their skin, quiet
spheres of shadows and light.
In the mornings, especially on days of rest, you’re a particular kind of

malleable. Before the stressors and boomerangs of the day have a moment to
swoop in and redirect your thoughts. Warm thick ribbons of Cherry pie filling,
uninhibited enough to be happily coerced into keeping your sleeping mask on
while the two of you play. Your stomach tightening when his fingertips disappear
under the hem of your underwear, teasing and teasing you until it only takes a
full minute to hit your high spot on his finger. The sobs and moans that leak into
the sheets when he fucks you face-down particularly hard, his own orgasm
hanging on by a thread as you tighten around him and cry out his name. That
quiet, relieved gasp you radiate yes when he slowly slowly sinks inside of you
after you’ve been edged for a long while, the single sexiest fucking sound he’s
ever heard in this lifetime. And maybe the next lifetime as well.
Preceded only by the sound of you shredded to shit with laughter.
Nothing feels better than taking breaks from kissing to laugh. Or taking breaks
from laughing to kiss. Two gardens of passion bridged by a river of joy. And
Harry never could decide which one he liked more, but he supposes he doesn’t
have to.
Sex of any and every kind is typically followed by languid unwinding sessions,
with his head between your legs to rest on your stomach. Your fingers twisting
into his curls as vanilla sugar smoke pours from his lips, his palms smoothing up
your shins. The sun burning a hole through the window. Silently asking himself if
your skin actually becomes shinier after you’ve come or if it just seems that way
because he views you through a fuzzy halo of frosted glass, surrounded by those
little sparkles that ride on the crests of waves when the sun begins to set.
He loves fucking you in the morning.
Sweet breakfasts are for days of rest. Baby silver dollar pancakes or waffles
with lemon and powdered sugar, a warm pitcher of maple syrup, thinly sliced
cantaloupe, a tall glass of orange juice on ice. Savory breakfasts are for work
days. Scrambled eggs with toast and butter, a cup of hot water with lemon and
honey. Oatmeal with brown sugar is for days when you are late. Late because you
spent a little extra time in bed with the one and only person who you’ll allow to
make you late. Late because Harry is undeniably excellent at the art of healthy
flirtation.
One time you missed your flight.
He has also mastered the art of reading the emotional cues that center around
your eating habits, because you feel deeply and you can’t always talk about it, so
it ends up manifesting in your green room rider and room service requests. A
Honeybee Jamboree after a performance means it’s okay to flirt with you to the
point of nearly getting slapped in public, but hot chocolate with baby
marshmallows at midnight means it’s time to keep his smart mouth shut.
Honestly, he’s happy with either scenario. Because both of them result in being in
your presence.
In terms of food, Harry’s diet was much more stringent in Malibu. With
working a consistent schedule and living in a van, he was forced to default to
easily-prepared meals and packaged foods. But when the world is his oyster like
this, he’ll devour it. Because Harry just eats whatever the fuck he’s craving in that
moment. And then he eats what you didn’t eat. And you don’t know this yet, but
when you leave for an interview or a rehearsal, Harry orders more of whatever
he’s craving in the next moment.
Then he’ll bide his time by flipping over a fancy knife from room service in his
palm to check his teeth in the reflection of the blade, before contemplating
whether or not this silverware was only intended for eating endangered species.
Or endive. Snacking on apples, triple-decker stacks of caviar, cheddar and Ritz
crackers and sucking green pitted olives off each of his fingertips, thinking up
new slogans for peanut butter companies that involve eating ass. All while pacing
the spacious hotel room with tall ceilings, staring at the same giant house plant
with holes eaten out of the leaves like swiss cheese.
Nutty Peanut Butter: So rich, you could eat it out of a butthole. Nutty.
Meals only stick to someone when they sit down to eat them anyway. The acts
of standing and eating cancel each other out, just like the terms “jumbo shrimp”,
“instant classic” or “living dead.”
Gobbling up.
You are outstanding at saying or doing the right thing at exactly the right
moment, as if you’ve processed actions and words in real time and then spun
them into a viewer-friendly fable with a heavy dose of positive reinforcement.
And you’re even more outstanding at that luscious act of simply dragging your
fingernails up and down his back and into his hair and against his scalp with
decreasing pressure until he’s a puddle of melted ice cream and fudgy chocolate
brownies, mumbling on about all the different ways an egg can be cooked until
he’s no longer conscious.
And sometimes the two of you end up in fits of laughter that absolutely ache,
your stomachs burning when you try to pull in a squeak of breath and your
cheeks sore from the grins slicing your faces in half.
In the beginning of your partnership and later, romantic relationship, you

would speed walk alongside him in an effort to keep up. And while you were
dating in Malibu, you had started to become a fair contender. But at times now,
he finds himself doing that same speedwalk beside you. Because you know
exactly how to play with him. And he likes it. A lot.
Vivienne fucking Surefire. You’re stunning.
One fit of laughter had even gone so far as to leading to a root beer spit-take in
the theatre when he took you to see Rosemary’s Baby in New York. Which paved
the way for his explode-cackle and a couple flying popcorn kernels in your
direction, which caused the entire theatre to shush you as Harry leaned close to
whisper in your ear, don’t laugh. It’s extremely upsettin’ for people to hear.
Which only made The Smiles worse.
The most alluring part of your beauty is that you seem to be immune to it.
Harry has caught men stopping in the street or looking over their shoulders on
their bicycles to stare at you and the best part about it is that you have never
once caught them. But he has, every time. And he tells you, every single time.
And you blush, every single fucking time.

Meatball scopin’ the sauce, nine o’clock. Hey, don’t let me catch you makin’
bedroom eyes with any of these tapeworms. You’ll be in deep shit.
Say it louder, Daddy.
Fuck you, Honey.
You’re a maneater and you have no fucking clue.
The quiet moments in between work, dates, dancing and playtime might be
his favorite. The ones that most people might find seemingly meaningless. I
Dream of Jeannie reruns, ribbons in your hair and your precious fucking cardigan
when you’re needing the feeling of normalcy. A purr of cunning smut against the
tip of your tongue at surprising and impeccably timed moments. Watching you
with a cigarette in one of his hands and a pen in the other, his journal in his lap,
as you pace around the room with a couple of books stacked on your head to
practice your posture. A red lollipop sucked between your teeth, the dip of a
tendu every few steps.
Or sprawled across the bed in his briefs and a headscarf reading a book, legs
on legs. Studying the room service menu and reciting the descriptions of desserts
out loud to Harry with a gush of sensuality. Your toes rubbing together and your
hair curious. Your tits alive and whispering against the fabric of the wifebeater
you’ve stolen.
Because Harry is a hopeless romantic and it’s second nature for him to find
sentiment in every chocolate-smudged pie plate and every crushed lollipop stick
in the ashtrays.
Just for you.

You still line up your French fries and eat them smallest to largest. You still
stick your finger in his mouth when he yawns and smack his shoulder when he
makes a dumb joke. You still request a proper slow dance before bed and steal
his cigarettes straight from his mouth. You still crawl into his lap when you want
attention and clean when you’re sad. You still snort when you’re laughing so hard
that no actual laughing sounds can come out. You still get bitchy when you’re
hungry. You still take flaming hot showers. And he missed it all. Because he loves
you.
Just as Harry had suspected by finding you in New York, you’ve successfully
nudged at that sleeping part of him that he thought would never awaken again.
Even if that gamble with vulnerability has been the very thing making his
stomach toss with dread these past couple of days.
Because after spending a few days with you in New York, Harry did not put up
a fight when you asked Roach to book him a ticket on your flight to Philadelphia.
And after several more days with you in Philadelphia, Harry did not put up a fight
when you asked Roach to book him a ticket on your flight to Washington D.C. And
after several more days with you in Washington D.C., Harry is still patiently not
putting up a fight as he awaits the verdict on whether or not you’ll want this
relationship to continue after he steps on his flight to Biarritz, France in thirty-
two hours and counting.
You know….. you kind of did ruin your life to go steady with me before.
The anticipation of waiting is worse than any answer he might receive. Like
watching a horror film, the scariest parts are the ones leading up to the
encounter that involve all those moments of dread, suspense and uncertainty.
The horror — the culmination — is actually a relief. Or so he hopes.
“Pancake…..?”
The soft mew of a kitten has Harry shifting his sight in the mirror to find your
quietly hovering figure in the doorway, his button-down shirt and briefs covering
you up, itchy eyes and a little yawn. Your sleeping mask pushed up onto your
forehead and squashing your hair underneath. Your heartwarming presence,
both in the way you take up space and each carefully-chosen quip you choose to
share with him. The nickname you stole from his temporarily pessimistic hands
and wrapped in the shiny paper of optimism before handing it right back.
Pancake.
Harry wasn’t expecting to see you this early. Typically, you sleep through his
inhumanely early mornings, through his trips to the hotel swimming pool and
through his journaling, his cold showers and his endless cloud of pink smoke, his
cold pre-breakfast Pop-Tarts and one-off tiny masochistic stabs through the ear.
All until he slinks back into the sheets and whispers into your hair that you feel
extra warm and gooey, then tangles your legs together and sponges a line of
kisses up the back of your neck. Drowning in that feeling of a woman in his bed to
return to. The only woman he wants to return to.
Harry wasn’t expecting to see you this early, but that doesn’t make him any
less stoked to see you.
Leaning over the sink with one of your earrings hovering at his earlobe, Harry
examines his reflection once more before his sight darts back to yours. “Une
marmotte, she caught me. Hi. Est-ce qu’elle va bien?” He straightens up and
tosses the earring into the soap dish, peering over his shoulder for a better look
at how fucking adorable you are. “C’mere, baby. Shit, breakin’ my heart.”
He loves when you’re sleepy, soft, slow. He loves it when you cross the room
with squinty eyes and smooth skin, two crooked zombie steps, snuggling up
behind him with a hum and folding him up in a squeezy tight hug with your
cheek smushed between his shoulder blades. Warm and snuggly. A really
particular type of melty. Your voice a rustling leaf, “Mm….. je suis bien, merci.
Can’t sleep again?”
“Nah, it’s lunch time last I checked.” With his chin on his shoulder, Harry eyes
the pillow creases pressed into your cheeks. “You really sink into la la land,
dontcha?”
“Bed is my most favorite place.”
“Why’d you jump off the lily pad then?”
Once your long, exaggerated yawn is finished, your cheek presses into the
back of his neck and the feeling alone has Harry ready to scoop you off your feet
and carry you back to bed himself. “I wanted to find you and see if I could
convince you to come back. It’s so much better with you there.”
“Oh yeah?” He expertly pushes away the image of him getting brained on a
giant lily pad, surrounded by a little jungle of lotus flowers and frogs that won’t
shut the fuck up. “’Kay. What’s your second favorite place?”
Squeezing him tighter, you glance over his shoulder into the mirror, watching
as his thumbs spin little circles on the back of your hands. “Doughnut shop.”
“’Kay. And third.”
“Your bellybutton. And the spot where your shoulder dips into your chest, the
perfect little pillow for my cheek. Puts me right to sleep.”
“Belly—” His face melts into a playful frown, one that displays realization.
“Pretty sure that one is just ’bed’ again, Honeypie.”
Since Harry is leaving tomorrow, silent stress has been weighing on the both
of you and Harry is in a perpetual state of talking himself out of pressuring you
for an answer on the status of your relationship. He considers bringing it up
several times a day, but shakes it off every single time. Because he’s aware that
he’s quite assertive and he doesn’t want to be like that anymore, to coerce you
into re-traumatizing yourself with a particularly complicated love affair at a time
when you were least expecting or wanting it.
Although, he would forever be uncertain of how to proceed in life if you were

to reject him after this two-week taste of utter bliss or worse yet, if you chose to
send him off to France with an open-ended landscape on the horizon. But at the
same time, he knows that you require a little pressure when it comes to giving
straight, decisive answers. Except there’s a slight difference between unhealthy
arm-twisting and healthy prodding, especially when it comes to the two of you as
a couple.
Especially when it comes to him.
Besides, when one makes room to speak about what exists, then there’s no
time wasted on wondering what was left unsaid.
When he thinks of the prospect of walking away from you empty-handed,

Harry imagines a cluster of birthday balloons. A dozen of them, all red, held
together with golden ribbon as they slip from his fingertips and tangle with the
breeze, dancing higher and higher into the sky until they’re nothing but a red dot
bleached by the sun.
He is conscious of his pushy tactics in the past, the ones that bordered on
persistent and obsessive at times. Perhaps even manipulative. Sure, it had once
pressured you to cave into something that was briefly remarkable. But there’s
also a reason why it collapsed. This time, Harry wants you to come to him when
he’s proved himself to be the one for you. Because even though he’s always
known it, he’s learned the hard way that love and support is proved through
consistent actions, not words. Those pesky tendencies towards stubbornness and
bluffing and sprinting away just got in the way before.
Because he’s spent the last two-and-a-half years figuring out how to prove
himself to be the one for you. To be the person that he saw reflected back at him
through your eyes. Because Harry fucking hates apologies, so the most eloquent
one that he can give you is changed behavior.
I want you to teach me. I wanna be good for you.
Harry knows that he has to put more effort into meeting you where you are,
into burying his need for immediate action, quickly followed by a need for the
next immediate action. He knows that he prefers risks and you prefer caution. He
knows that you love freedom but you also love fierce intimacy. He knows that
you love him but you also love yourself.
It took him a long time to realize that when you had insisted you didn’t want
to talk about the devastation of his memory slip until after the season Finale,
what you were really trying to say is that you were not yet able to hear it. What
you were really trying to say was I still love you and want you, but I need to get
through the immediate priorities of tonight before we tear into the darkest parts of
our hearts. Like checking off a to-do list, with conquering the tasks that come
easiest to you and saving the ones you dread for last. And now that he
understands that, he can support your need for emotional procrastination. Your
slow walkabout to fully understanding yourself and those you love. So long as he
can handle the pressure of waiting.
Truly, it’s humorous in the same way that watching a puppy be confused by an
oscillating fan is humorous. Harry knows the answer, but sitting close by and
trying not to facepalm while you figure it out is maybe just as amusing.
Although he’s been good about giving you emotional space throughout his
trip, he is concerned about how the rest of the day will pan out. Because it’s when
we’re out of our comfort zones that we typically begin to see old, unfavorable
behaviors that we were certain we’d shed. Falling back on habits is easy and
subconscious, but what we need to consciously remember is the reason why we
began to drift from them in the first place. For Harry, those old behaviors are
burial, impulsivity, escapism and hostility. But he’s not giving up on himself yet.
And hopefully those behaviors won’t blurt out after a couple of post-performance
Murky Lagoon shots and Pearls tonight, when he’s reached the end of his
countdown and composure rope.
Logically he knows that the two of you should ease back into a relationship.
And emotionally, he wants what he wants. But logically, he knows he needs to
wait. But emotionally, he’s tattered.
Besides, instant gratification is killer, but bonding with you slowly until you
suddenly realize you’ve fallen madly in love with him again is way better. Right?
“Mmm….. you feel so choice right now.” Harry’s palm finds yours, guiding your
journey up his warm stomach, your fingers weaving together when they reach
his chest. His eyes on the charade in the mirror the whole time, the sight of your
hands all over his skin. “It’s home improvement time.”
“What are you doing?” Harry picks up the needle from the sink and holds it
over his shoulder for you to see, your eyes exploding open with a little more
vigilance than before. “Are you sticking that in your ear?”
“I already did that part. I burned it with a match first.” He plucks one of your
earrings from the soap dish, shaped like a daisy with a little yellow stone in the
center surrounded by white petals. They were just too cute to pass up, even if
Harry was technically doing that thing where he’d rather ask for forgiveness than
permission. “And I hijacked a pair of your earrings from the safe. Cool?”
When Harry figured out the code for the safe and found your humble
collection of jewelry, organized in velvet pouches with drawstrings tied into
bows, he smiled and appreciated the balance of disparity. Quite a difference from
his method of caring for his belongings, which is liberating his shoes into the
ocean one by one and selling his van to a random surfer in Mexico. Which is the
exact same way that he had procured it in the first place, before driving his
transient home up to Malibu back in ’65. To Harry, it’s the fluid poetry of life that
counts, not the static stockpiling of it.
Love is truly on and on-ness, an extended glance at what’s been stared at a
hundred times, learning and re-learning oneself.
Whether it’s active or history, Love never stops teaching.
Before you have a chance to answer, Harry is spinning around to cup your jaw
in one hand and squeeze your cheeks with his fingers, then leaning in for a juicy,
stolen kiss. You gasp and push him away before swatting his shoulder, your nose
crinkling as you try but fail to keep your amusement hidden. “Behavior! Petite
vache. You’re supposed to ask.”
“Yeah? I’m rude as fuck now.”
“As opposed to the former Mr. Manners?”
“Miss Surefire, may I please, please have a little taste of those sweet
irresistible lips?” He grabs two handfuls of your curves and hitches the two of
you together, dropping his forehead to yours and then nibbling on his bottom lip.
“My favorite.” He sways your hips back and forth to the phantom, swooning
guitar solo shredding in his head. “Fuckin’ apeshit hot in the mornin’. Like warm
banana pudding and nudie mags.”
“Harry—” It’s impossible to kiss you when you’re giggling like this, but that
doesn’t stop Harry from trying anyway. Over and over again, as you try to speak
and hold him back at the same time. “Pepé Le Pew. You’re so demanding and
grabby sometimes.”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m keepin’ my voice down.” Physically breaking through
your playful little moment of stubbornness, his hands span your waist before he
props you up on the sink, then knees your legs apart to rest his hips there.
“C’mon. Really gonna make me beg for a little sugar at five in the mornin’? Baby’s
tired, y’know. A pittance if you ask me. But you didn’t ask, so.” Pinching the chain
of his necklace between his fingers, he swings the heart-shaped locket back and
forth in front of your face in a slow, hypnotic sweep that matches the cadence of
his voice. “You are dyin’ to kiss him.” But then he’s distracted again, tugging the
collar of the button up shirt that you’ve borrowed away from your chest, slipping
a peek at The Holy Mountain. “Oh? Qu’est-ce que c’est, hm?”
“Bonbons?”
“Think you’re on to somethin’?” Slipping a hand into the loose placket of your
shirt, Harry’s thumb circles your nipple before his impulse control slackens and
he’s palming for a little squeeze and a littler hiss. “Do they shake?”
“Yes.” A small devilish tilt of your head is paired with an even smaller, more
devious smile. “And melt in your mouth.”
Harry has a variety of laughter; little soda pop chuckles that bubble up his
throat and fizz past his teeth, a raspy wheeze that brings tears to his eyes and
crinkles his nose, a sarcastic snicker that thaws his face into dry benevolence, a
screaming cackle that pierces his dimples into his cheeks and displays his whole
perfect mouth. And his softest one, the one that tickles on his tongue and brings a
tender smile to his eyes, a complacency to his lips. A deep, satiated hum that
wordlessly communicates fluffy contentment. The oozing, syrupy inside of a
raspberry chocolate truffle. The one he’s doing right now as he tips his head to
the side and aligns your mouths, pink melted sugar dripping from his tongue.
Just for you.
“Fuck. Oui. Meringues….. sweet Cherry tarts. Je les aime. Kiss, please?” His
voice drops to a soft roll; more of a feeling than an actual vibration in the air.
“Cash it in, little girl. Je te défie. Je te défie double.” He waits for that one
particular nod, the one where your eyes are glued to his mouth and you exhale
just a little before your consent is admitted. A tiny desperate thing that
magnetizes him forward to fix your lips together and ease your suffering. Harry
softly hums at the feeling, his stomach tripping over its laces as it faceplants on
the sidewalk. Then he draws back an inch to mutter his thanks, then another inch
to playfully narrow his eyes in accusation. “Hang tig… t... Lint didn’t buy these
earrings for ya, did he?”
Harry is aware that you know better than to correct the childish nickname
he’s given your ex, considering he’s managed enough self-restraint to only give
him a childish nickname and lay off any heavier sorts of trash talking.
Throughout the past fourteen days, Harry’s done a pretty good job of handling
his own internal dialogue; talking down his attitude, his anger, his jealousy, his
biting impulses. For your sake and for his, and back around for both of you.
Besides, your ex would probably be pretty stunned to hear that you’ve slept
with your other ex before your bed had even properly cooled off.
And slept and slept and slept.
A glimpse of the notorious woman with the ability to simultaneously hide a high-
profile romance and climb the ladder of stardom without so much as a single hair
out of place.
Some researchers believe that jealousy is a healthy, biological human

tendency that ties in with love, in order to keep family units together to aid in the
community collectiveness needed to raise children. It preserves what’s built, it
protects foundations of loving connection, it raises the stakes and forms a clear
path of what’s important and worth fighting for. Sure, it functions on a sliding
scale from person to person. Some may feel it more strongly than others, but it’s
alive and its purposeful and it’s not something to be ashamed of. It emphasizes
importance. It’s the mismanagement that some people choose to use to handle
that feeling of jealousy — with hurtful words or harmful hands or sneaky
behavior or manipulative action — that give jealousy a bad reputation. The
sensation of jealousy is not a loss of control, the negative handling of it is. People
who claim to not feel jealous, ever, are liars.
Actions are blind. Emotions just are.
Honestly, Harry feels kind of bad for the guy. Because you dumped him for not
wanting to do the exact thing that you’re doing with Harry. And because if Harry
and Lint’s positions were switched and Harry knew what the two of you have
been up to these past two weeks, he would fly off the handle so fucking hard that
it would send him into fucking orbit.
But the positions aren’t switched and Harry is the one rounding third base
now, the scoreboard flickering with readiness at an approaching homerun. A Do
Not Disturb sign swishes to a halt on a hotel room’s doorknob, a pair of panties
tossed in with the scattered pile of clothing on the quiet carpet.
And considering how easily you fell back into Harry; it would appear that
you’ve left Lint for much more than what you lead on. Though Harry tries hard
not to dwell on those types of thoughts, instead noticing that they’re there and
then setting them free. Besides, he can’t compete with the past. It’s done.
This is different. We’re different.
So, Lint it is.
“Of course not. I bought those earrings for myself. I’m not carting around
jewelry from my ex.”
Harry points to his heart-shaped locket, resting against his stomach like a
warm peppermint candy in a glossy wrapper. Shiny and beautiful to look at, but
the treat is on the inside. And he’s the only person who gets to taste it. Hopefully.
“Why, somethin’ wrong with that?”
His question is intended to stir more questions of course. And his passive
agreement with your use of the word “ex” is meant to be a signal for you, a little
push to prompt some timely decision-making on your end. Something he knows
you’re smart enough to pick up on. A silent way to search for the answers to Do
you still have my ring? Do you ever wear it? And also, Am I still your ex?
“Nope. That necklace is the best piece of jewelry you own, just before your
new earring.” You tuck the lock of hair tickling his chin behind his ear for a better
look at the fresh piercing. “Nice work, actually. It’s perfectly centered. Do you
want my help?”
Harry nods and watches in the mirror as you gather the daisy from the soap
dish and guide his head in a tilt to gently maneuver the post through his earlobe.
A little zap of electricity climbs from his belly and fires out like a branch of
lightning, tucked into your soft hands and your gentle breath and your warm
center and your smooth legs. His fingertips trace silken threads up your legs, his
heart thoroughly invested in the sentiment of this close and correct moment.
The pad of an index finger cutting a clean line through a chocolate-smudged

pie plate.
The earring snaps closed and you lean back for a better look at your new man,
his jawline and neck and collarbone strengthened by the addition of the dainty
jewelry. A loving combination of feminine and masculine, a complete refusal of
typical societal norms, a cluster of the cutest Sunspots drizzled across his face.
His gaze darts from your face back to the mirror to see the light reflect from
the tiny shiny petals, his mouth downturning in humble approval. “Yeah? Cute as
a bug in a rug.”
Holding your palm under his jaw, Harry smiles and drops his chin there for
you to squeeze and pucker his lips out, stealing a couple kisses from him just how
he likes. “You look excellent, Sunbaby. Very pretty. Good choice as always.”
Reaching behind you, you pinch the other half of the daisy earrings from the
soap dish and fasten it into your right ear. On the same side that Harry has his in
order to mirror his appearance; a flower to catch all of your secrets, to add
weight to the things you both simultaneously value and to balance out the image
with perfect symmetry when you kiss. And that’s exactly what he does when he
understands the layers to your action, dipping forward to cup your cheeks and
suck your tongue into his mouth, one hand dropping to guide your leg around his
waist.
Throughout the past two weeks since the day Harry jump-scared you in New
York, you have learned many things about yourself and the world around you.
That love is blurry and confusing as all hell. That opposed to what Harry told you,
the Mile-High Club isn’t actually a secret award-system set up through airlines to
offer discounts on flights. That New York has the best radio stations of any city
you’ve visited so far, that the hours between midnight and nine A.M. are your
favorite, that you sleep like a pile of feathers in Harry’s arms and in his clothes.
And it just so happens that ever since Harry’s welcomed reappearance back into
your life, it seems as though most of the choices that he makes are excellent ones.
It’s not surprising that your intimacy and closeness as a pair have been
expedited these past couple weeks, with the way he’s filled the roles of a travel
companion, a lover, a best friend, a dancing partner. A therapist, a comedic relief,
a mirror. A confidant who understands the feeling of living in the limelight. Who
knows how to avoid photographers and sneak in and out of places undetected,
who is experienced with airports and hotels and navigating unfamiliar cities,
who values your privacy as much as he values his own, who understands how
schedules — although set in stone and heavily outlined — can flip on a dime due
to juggling the many people needed to keep everything in balance.
Someone who loves to keep a big secret just as much as you do.
He tips cab drivers, room service, house cleaners, bartenders, door men,
concierge, bell hops, food servers, parking attendants, restroom attendants.
Harry knows people in the industry and knows how to work a room, so he
easily integrates with those who surround you during shows, interviews, social
gatherings. He knows how to bide his time while you’re working, readily staying
back at the hotel while you practice. Happily attending your performances,
watching from the curtain or from the backstage green room with Roach
rambling into his ear enthusiastically about whatever she deems crucial in that
moment.
In fact, Harry’s dry teasing and quick, random, crass wit are the only things
you’ve seen make her pause. It seems he can charm anyone into his Sunny-
speaking culture with ease, and usually a dash of irritation, until said person
melts in his palms like butter.
No one has the ability to generate a joke out of thin air and make you laugh
quite like he can, at the most unassuming moments, which in turn only doubles
the absurdity. And those moments when you’re both dissolved into painful
episodes of laughter have now been lovingly dubbed The Smiles by your lover,
the prevailing master of abstraction.
“Jesus, fireball is rowdy today.” Harry squints at the Sun pouring through the
suite windows before flipping his heart-shaped sunglasses down onto his nose, his
creamsicle gum popping between his molars. “Kind of aggressive. Hey, how come
we’re gettin’ OJ and not Bloody Mary’s? It’s not a work day, bitch.”
There’s only one thing in the solar system that feels like the sun and that’s the
Sun. Because the thing about the Sun is that it creates its own magnificent
energy, leading by example with warmth and light. Providing true form simply by
existing.
One evening, Harry had bravely admitted after three Pearls that he rarely
travels without his surfboard. In fact, he rarely travels to places where a
surfboard would be of no use to him. His rationale behind meeting you in New
York was laced with a few secrets that he didn’t seem comfortable revealing
quite yet. But he did mention that it aligned with his schedule, that he felt ready
and somehow sensed that you were ready. That New York seemed like neutral
ground where no memories had yet been made. So, if you burned him and sent
him on his way with his tail between his legs, he could brush it off and pretend
that he was already there for work in the first place. Ultimately, Harry knew that
this entire gesture was up to the fickle finger of fate, so a Plan B explanation felt
safe to him.
But he just couldn’t live with the idea of not trying.
Why not live triumphantly, y’know? Also, didn’t hurt that I had an opportunity
to stock up on peanut butter.
Without his board in tow, Harry stays in surfing-tournament shape by doing

calisthenics each morning; chin ups in doorways, sit-ups, push-ups, yoga,
swimming. Twenty, forty, sixty minutes of meditation per day for emotional
balance, stress relief, focus and memory strengthening, which he simply calls
watchin’ cartoons.
He had explained to you that after his memory had glitched, he couldn’t stand
the idea of being a stranger to his own brain. Journaling and meditation have
helped strengthen the relationship to his own mind and body and in turn, have
made him a somewhat smoother and more agreeable person to be around. Most
of the time.
And each night before he sleeps, Harry smokes a sweet pink cigarette by the
open window to admire the skyline of whichever city you’re currently in,
twisting the tips of his heart-shaped filters before resting the butt on the sill.
Curtains swimming in a frame around him; the moon, city lights and the
reflection of flickering candles painting the glass in colorful, glowing and blurry
spatters. Your lover, inside, outside and the great beyond all in one perfect
square.
He aims to write three full pages in his journal each evening and again each
morning, with little sprinkles throughout the day. Although sometimes you’re
able to easily interrupt him by climbing into his lap and tossing his book aside.
But sometimes, he needs to focus and process and you know it, based on the
number of cigarette butts in the ash trays and how large or small his meals were
that day.
Now and then, you find him scratching blackout poetry while you prepare to
leave for a performance or pace around the room on the telephone, the cord
dragging along the floor and tangling up in your feet. He will often crumple up his
creations and toss them in the trash can, but every now and again he’ll tear the
pieces from the magazine or newspaper and ask you to read it out loud to him
before tucking it away in his journal for safekeeping.
sitting on her bed. Looking at her, a special warmth in each other. I’m glad I’m
here because it’s where you are.
One time as you were meant to be concentrating on the schedule that Roach
was rattling off in your ear over the telephone, you caught a glimpse of
something that Harry was writing. Or rather, not writing. A clear-cut reminder of
why you chose to keep your nose out of his journal in the first place and one that
urged you to never look again. The filter of his pink cigarette met his lips over
and over again, his pen hovering at the page right below two simple lines written
in tender cursive.
Indy, Do you know what ’saudade‘ means?
In typical fashion, the sight felt like something that you couldn’t let go. After
all, you’re deathly curious about Indy and you always have been, hungrily
lapping up any bits of her that he chooses to share here and there. You waited to
bring the subject of his writing up at a time when Harry seemed soft and
responsive, smack in between breakfast and lunch and a handful of hours before
leaving for your flight to Philadelphia. A final stroll through Central Park, little
Cherry blossom buds signaling the arrival of spring. The slow tilt back towards
the Sun, your corner of earth awakening with a warm hug.
“Is she upset with you?” The point of your question isn’t simply about Indy’s
posthumous opinion, but rather, Harry’s peace with acceptance of the situation. Or
simply, where his feet stand in terms of pain.
He knows that. And he’s grateful for that.
With his eyes trained on you, he shakes his head, a quiet slip of candy smoke
twisting into the air from his fingertips. “No. She’s not.”
“It’s impossible to make sense of a senseless act. Guilt and grief are just ways to
try to get the past back, by wishing things were different. Elle t’aime et elle a fait la
paix. Elle est une leçon de vie douloureuse qui continue de te l’enseigner.”
“Merci d’être.”
He knows just how to keep you calm, how to speak to fans, how to give you the
space to speak to yours. He’s flexible. He’s happy. He’s exciting. He’s patient, in
his own crude way. He gets it. He gets you. Effortlessly.
In New York, you’d thought it would be more complicated to have him around
but by the time you’d reached Philadelphia, you’d realized it’s easier. Harry
makes your life easier.
He makes you strong.
He’s Sunny.
And throughout these past two weeks where you and Harry have spent every
cloud-nine moment together, you have become incredibly familiarized with his
natural rhythm, his surprisingly fluent mood swings that range from silly to
lustful to annoyed to introspective, and his variety of physical and mental quirks.
Similar to the paper versions he used to leave for you around your duplex in
Malibu, Harry has a habit of leaving notes on bathroom mirrors with lipstick.
Except unlike the messages before, these are impermanent etchings that reflect
your similarly impermanent sleeping conditions. Scribbled either while you’re
showering, or before you’ve awoken and he’s slinked off for a swim in the pool or
a solo hunt through the city for a bakery. Doodles of a heart or a flower or a piece
of fruit, little romantic coins that have slipped through the holes in his pockets. A
big part of himself that he hides from the world and bravely parades to you, the
part of himself that you knew was always buried within. Even during his most
brutal temper tantrums. His little marshmallow firecracker heart, protected
inside of leather bones shaped like weeping willows.
Your Sunbeam through the leaves.
honey— je te rencontrerai au lit ✿ ❀
You were speaking with honesty when you insisted on bed being your favorite
place on earth. But it isn’t so much the sheets and pillows themselves that you
cling to, but rather the beating heart and cotton candy daydream who swims
there beside you. Who is choosing to swim there beside you, through time, plight
and indecision.
The most outstanding difference about Harry now versus Harry before is the
relationship he’s developed with himself; the clarity that shines with how much
time he’s sat with himself and gotten to know himself. How he’s softer on the
inside, a kind of indescribable softness, and that softness spreads out to heat up
everything in his vicinity. But only the ones who are quiet enough get to really
hear it, because his message of humanity is often delivered underneath his
words. It generously radiates to the people who surround him, pooling at their
toes and filling their entire bodies with Sunlight until the warmth can be felt in
their stomachs, their hearts, their throats. Their minds.
In essence, he’s the perfect combination of Sunny and Harry. A slice of bouncy
angel food cake topped with sliced, heart-shaped strawberries and a pinch or
two of sea salt.
He is Love.
When you are feeling tense and unable to settle into sleep, Harry has perfected
the art of what he’s coined as The Honey Slowdown. Sitting you down and
running his fingertips up and down your spine, squeezing your shoulders and
blowing air on the back of your neck, tickling your arms and knotting your hair
around his fingers until you’ve softened in his palms. Urging you to try to
understand what exactly is turning the simmering water into a boil, and guiding
you to step out of the pot. Because according to him, you’re rarely upset over the
event which you claim.
Big, deep breaths. You don’t have to stop thinkin’ about it, yeah? Let your brain
wander. What’s your breathing feel like in your tummy right now? Notice it, don’t
judge it. Give your brain lots of blue-sky space and let all that shit play out, then feel
your breath again. Over and over. You’re not your thoughts; they come and go.
You’re their perfect observer. Breathe, Honey.
On his kneecaps and palms, Harry has white bumps from surfboard friction
that are a faded honey compared to the rest of his perpetually golden, tanned
skin. Salt water has softened his hands over time, but there are still coarse
patches from years of trapeze. Rough and molded by the circus, refined and
polished by the ocean like sea glass, the hands of his god. The color of soda foam,
the taste of homemade vanilla ice cream floating at the surface.
His hair is often tangled and wild from the amount of time he spends exposed
to the briny air and sea, the hot Sun, a variety of heavily chlorinated swimming
pools, outdoor showers with hard water. But after a late-night shower in the
hotel, he’ll always let you comb your fingers through his curls as they dry, his
head in your lap and his eyes easily pulled shut to absorb the electricity moving
up his spine. Just like holding a seashell to your ear to listen to the sound of
crashing waves, you swear you can smell perpetual banana coconut suntan oil on
his neck. Especially when you’re falling asleep with your nose tucked into his
collarbone, his thumb tracing little circles on your hip. A velvet dream boy both
of the skin and the mind, quietly dribbling off the flavor of candied oranges with
his sleepy slushy husky talk.
Did ya know that chef’s hats have a hundred folds in ’em to represent the
hundred different ways to cook an egg? A hundred. Mmm….. can’t wait to wake up
and wreck the bed again. Mm’gonna dream about it. How’d I get so lucky, hm?
Can’t believe it. Doesn’t feel real. Gonna sleep like a little ball of yarn.
Or:
Vivi? D’you think puttin’ ketchup on top of fries instead of on the side technically
makes it a salad? Ketchup acts as dressing. And if you use a fork? It’s salad….. right?
By that logic, then rice and beans with sour cream could be a salad.
Yeah….. spaghetti?
I suppose so. Cereal then?
Hmm….. solid point. Don’t make me pull out my notes on ambrosia.
Or:
Wakin’ up is fuckin’ gnarly. What do we wake up from? And what do we wake up

into?
Or:
I heard someone call a fly a ’sky raisin’ once.
Or:
Cher? Have you ever seen a baby skunk before?
You’ve missed his bedtime stories. His velvet musings. His powdery slurry.
The impression of Harry is so strong that you’re certain it’ll linger behind on the
pillows in all of your new hotel rooms, on the sheets that he’ll never touch or
breathe near.
Harry is a complete disruption to your life. He has been since the very moment
the two of you spoke on the beach in Malibu. And you love it, the flutter. A placid
heart isn’t necessarily a passionate one.
Yeah? What are you like?
He still steals your deodorant and leaves his clothes in small piles in the
corners. He still picks at his hangnails and sneezes into his hands. He still listens
to music loudly and plays drum solos in the air with any object he can reach. He
still drinks you under the table twice over and smokes two packs of cigarettes a
day. He still flosses constantly with his nose practically kissing the bathroom
mirror. He still gets bitchy when he’s hungry. He still takes ice-cold showers. And
you’ve missed it all. Because you love him.
In Philadelphia, you’d thought it would be easier to have him around but by

the time you’d reached Washington D.C., you’d realized it’s more complicated.
Harry makes your life more complicated.
He makes you weak.

He’s Sunny.
Just as you’d suspected by Harry finding you in New York, he’s successfully
nudged at that sleeping part of you that you thought would never awaken again.
Even if that gamble with vulnerability has been the very thing making your
stomach toss with dread these past couple of days.
Because in thirty-two hours, you’ll have to face the precise moment you’ve
feared by allowing him and this entire notion of romance in; the moment he
leaves. And all of the mysteries that will wash in when he walks out the door;
when will you see one another again? Will you be distracted from work? Will he
call? Will he answer the phone? Will you have long distance arguments that leave
you sick to your stomach? Will you cry yourself to sleep with a newfound ache of
transformed loneliness? A loneliness that is no longer your own, but part of him.
Your collective loneliness, held hostage by big distance and noisy careers that
barely take a second to breathe.
Will he break your heart again?
In this precise moment, you’re not lonely anymore. But when he leaves
tomorrow, that loneliness that you had been facing will feel ten times as
suffocating. Because then you’ll be lonely and alone, missing and missing and
missing everything about him.
The idea of getting used to something that feels perfect, to the point of
emotional reliance, seems dangerous. Especially when you’ve been burned badly
by said perfection in the past and there’s no guarantee that it won’t happen
again.
In terms of maintaining a long-distance relationship, your clashing schedules

seem to be the tallest hurdle to cross. The biggest goal of Harry’s career is
currently pursuing a placement in the World Surfing Championship, which is set
to take place in October in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. In order to qualify for a chance
to compete in the Championship, he needs to accrue enough points in smaller
World Surfing League Tournaments, or Qualifying Series, that are held
worldwide. When all is said and done, the world title is then given to the surfer
who has accumulated the most points from the Championship as well as the
eleven prior tournaments. The World Surfing Championship takes place once
every two years and is ten days long, so if he is unable to qualify this year, he’ll
need to wait until 1970 to try again.
Harry has completed three tournaments so far this year, which means that he
has eight more events to complete within the next seven months; France, Spain,
Brazil, Chile, Peru, Hawaii, Indonesia and Australia. Although the tournaments
are shorter than the Championship, between two to six days a piece, Harry has
stated that he likes to spend time in each location both before and after a
tournament to acclimate to the waves and then unwind with local delicacies.
Especially because he goes to such great lengths to traverse the planet to be
there in the first place. All of this, while also stopping off at home in London once
every couple months to check in on his mother and sister. And all while meeting
you wherever you may be, as you pack up and haul to a new city every three to
five days.
In reality, you would be spending exponentially more time apart than

together. In the handful of light discussions you’ve had, Harry has estimated that
he would be able to meet up with you three or maybe four more times over the
course of the next seven months.
At least one thing remains consistently true: Harry is always caring for
something.
You’ve thought about suggesting to pause things for now and reconvene when
you’re both finished touring. But after the vulnerability he needed to breach your
presence again, you’re worried about facing him with that proposition. After
you’ve both waited for years to be here again, to be here for the first time.
Without actually doing so, Harry is giving you an ultimatum: now or never. Here
or there. Love me or love me not.
He hasn’t directly pressured you with conversation because he hasn’t needed
to, the silent pressure has been there since you first sat side-by-side in a pink
haze at The Monkey Bar. A big fat elephant that travels with you from hotel room
to hotel room, a red ribbon wrapped around its toe to remind you to be raw.
Just see what it feels like to be raw. I’ll hear you.
You know the notion of procrastinating will anger him, that he’ll have a retort
about your lives always being this busy or at least staying this busy for years and
years while you both climb to the height of your careers. That if you can’t do it
now, then you won’t ever be able to do it. That if Harry, of all people, is unable to
manage the existing conditions to be with you, then no one can.
He wouldn’t say that last part. But you’re certainly thinking it.
And likely, so is he. Except with reversed roles.
It’s as if stamping the uniqueness of this relationship with a label or a mile

marker would jinx it, shifting the energy just enough that the universe would
take it as a signal to step in and start messing around with all of your happily
placed elements. As it’s done to you many times in the past. A ghostly
bloodhound that sniffs out joy. A hex.
Clyde?
And since you know Harry’s habits so well, you can assume that right now he’s
anxious, angry, or pre-angry based on the number and condition of the cigarette
butts in the ashtray perched on the back of the toilet.
You’ve begun emptying the ashtrays before bed each night, so that you can
gauge his mood in the mornings when you awaken. If there’s less than three
cigarette butts, it means he’s gone swimming and showered. If there’s between
three and five, it means he’s gone swimming, journaled, and showered. More
than five means his entire typical morning routine, plus an irritating phone call
with either his sister or his manager, Mose.
But the rare, squashed appearance of a dozen half-smoked, abandoned

cigarettes in every ashtray throughout the suite means that he’s upset. Upset
with you. A tangible image of heartache; one that starts off as a hopeful flame,
smolders, then leads to sweet surrender in the midst of overthinking. A familiar
sight that had last made appearances the day after you first saw your headshot in
his wallet and the day of your season Finale in 1965.
Your legs tighten around his waist to hitch your hips together, your fingers
raking through his hair and squeezing gently to elicit a little moan against your
lips. You fold him up in another kiss, one that melts his weight into you and tips
the both of you back far enough that your spine rests against the cold mirror.
Hums and happy satisfaction fill the small room and soak into the tile as your
tongues meet and then slow to a lusty crawl, wanting and needing and wanting
to savor every goosebump of this quiet moment.
A type of quiet that for you, now only exists in strange hotel rooms. With a
person who can successfully hush your brain simply by stroking his fingertips
across the back of your neck, a caress gentle enough that it causes you to
remember your own skin. A person that appeared seemingly out of nowhere like
a mirage in the high desert, to prove to you that the Sun always comes back. In
fact, it never really leaves. It just gets dark and stormy from time to time.
Harry palms your breast and draws back a bit, just enough to plant a soft wet
kiss on your forehead and eye your pretty morning features while your head
rests back against the mirror. Your neck soft and tempting. Your hands tugging at
the waistband of his joggers and tickling his stomach. Your doe eyes big, drinking
him in.
“So….. aren’t you going to tell me how you figured out the code for the safe?”
“It’s in the guest book. What’s the snag, Cherry? You think I’m just gonna break
into the safe and steal your jewelry?”
“That’s literally what you did.”
A Sunbaby and Cherry type of quiet, of course.
Harry contemplates this for a moment before downturning his mouth into a
pout, one that conveys his consensus. “Busted. Curious….. how much is it worth?
Ballpark resale value.”
“Don’t you start, Sunshine. It’s too early for me.”
“Slow, sticky Honey. Your body is fuckin’ lush in the morning. So fuckable.
Somethin’ else, Jesus.” His fingertips tip-toe up your shins and knees before his
palms glide up your thighs and squeeze hard, a tight grip that leaves a dull burn
in its wake. “Mmm….. you’re a cat in the sack. Hey, let’s whip up your famous
cherry banana milkshake with cream and a Cherry on top.” Slipping your
sleeping mask off, he tosses it aside and leans close, the tip of his nose nuzzling
yours. “Y’know how much I dig when you’re on top, whiteknucklin’ the
headboard. Squeezin’ the hell outta me.”
A single butterfly breaks free from your stomach and floats through your
heart, light and easy. Pink and silent. “That so?”
“Mhm. Top, bottom. Side. Tummy. Top again….. kiss, please.”
Harry? What’s your favorite way to do it?

With you.
Your lips slot together as you hum on one another’s tongues, the pad of
Harry’s thumb tracing a single soft line up and down the crease of your inner
thigh. Pulling back for a breath, your head lolls to the side for a better view of his
face. His early morning bird’s nest curls, his bright eyes. The beauty mark that
sits like a blot of melted chocolate by his heart-shaped lips and the one tucked
beside his nose. Your little safety bubble. “Do you wish I was always this lush?”
“Fuck no. I’d miss the fire too much. Lush is only lush because it’s occasional.
Cool dip in the desert, lemon sherbet at the beach. It can’t be lush if it’s constant.”
Harry props his hands on the sink on either side of your hips and looks you in the
eye, his voice lowered to a rumble of thunder across a dark lake. Almost
whispering. “Wish you knew what it felt like to fuck you, yeah? Especially in the
mornin’. There’s nothin’ like it. You’re so tight and forgiving. Warm.” He sighs
against your lips, running his thumb over your center in a couple languid strokes
before circling your clit once and then whining softly. “My favorite thing to eat
for breakfast. Paradise in a person. No one like you.” He taps on your sensitive
spot a couple times before nestling the pad of his finger against your entrance to
feel the humidity slowly wicking there. “M’aimes-tu, chérie?”
Your answer splinters out between yours lips. “Yes.”
His adds a bit of pressure with his finger. “Combien?”
“Chèrement.”
“’Kay, my turn then.” If there’s one thing that Harry seems to have awoken
inside of you these past two weeks, it’s the courage to dirty talk on his level.
Almost. If he’s going to somehow convince you to be in a long-distance
relationship for the next seven months, you’re going to have to be comfortable
with it, after all, because it’ll be all you have. Vulgar smut and tender praise
through the tinny tunnel of a wildly expensive long-distance phone line, a soft
moan clawing through the fizz of time zones and continents and oceans
separating you.
And simply, obscenity is his favorite. Especially when it surprises him. And
when it comes out of your mouth in particular.
Absolute filth leaking from absolute purity. A Cherry that bleeds sin.
A soft blush heats your cheeks as you sink your teeth into your bottom lip, his
endless chain of luscious praise still burning somewhere deep inside of your
stomach. The brush of his thumb over your center never loses its stride, even
when he leans forward to ghost his lips from your collarbone to the lobe of your
ear, a pant breathing into your skin. Unless of course he does lose his stride, on
purpose, pausing on your sensitivity to add just enough pressure that entices you
to rock your hips forward.
It appears that he can still intimidate you into modesty every now and again,
in that friendly-competitive sort of way that he does, regardless of how much
intimacy you may have shared these last couple weeks. And historically.
More intimacy than anyone else you’ve ever been with.
“Sunny?”
“Cher.”
“I like it when you moan in my mouth.” Your thumb runs over his bottom lip,
pausing just long enough to let him nibble on the tip. “You always do it when I
tickle your stomach. Or scratch the back of your neck. Or when we’re kissing, that
exact moment the tips of our tongues touch for the first time after a long while.
Like I’m quenching your thirst.”
“Yeah? Fuck.” In perfect translation of one of the love languages you both
share, your hands are everywhere; tickling up and down one another’s arms,
weaving your fingers together, smoothing your palms up his chest and combing
through his hair. His fingertips softly raking down your neck. And it’s appeasing,
similar to the relief of sitting in front of a fire after peeling off wet clothes.
There’s no way either of you could ever tire from it. “Good girl. Dig it. Kept that
one stored up for a proper moment, didn’t ya? Keep goin’.”
“Something else?” Drawing back, your gaze drifts back and forth between his,
his shining hope and hooded eyes. A single nod of his head to urge you onward.
Patience and anticipation, the taste of his heartbeat spreading through his mouth
like crushed, bleeding rose petals. Catching your bottom lip between your teeth,
you set it free with a little shine and a soothing whisper that you know Harry will
soak up with enthusiasm. “Okay. I like it when you put your thumb in my mouth,
it gives me a rush to my stomach. And the feeling of you stretching me, that very
first relief when you sink inside of me. You know it. It feels more intense than
anything else. A moment to lose yourself in, one that makes you pause. A painful
squeeze to my hip or my ass and then a hard spank, then you rub it or blow cool
air on it to soothe me. Little bites and making me wait. And wait and wait. I like it
when I’m sore the next day….. when there’s a mark.”
His nostrils tick when he breathes in a lungful of air to steady the beating of
his heart, a whine crawling up his throat. He gestures you close with a curl of his
finger, opening his hand in the air with his palm facing you. The perfect resting
spot for your neck.
You respond without a second thought, leaning close and tilting your head up
in invitation. Sucking air through his teeth in a hiss, Harry wraps his fingers
around your throat and squeezes tightly, one time, before tugging you just a little
closer. “Do one thing for me, minou?”
“Mhm.”
“You’d do anything for me?”
“Just for you.”
His stomach knots. “Anything?”
“Yes…..?”
“’Kay.” Harry steps back and drums on your kneecaps rhythmically before
holding his palms up. “Do this just once.” The sides of his hands strike through
the air in a V-shape on either side of his crotch, a loud guttural meathead-esque
grunt rumbling up from his throat. Something that an American football player
would do after a winning touchdown. And it’s astounding how he can keep a
straight face through the entire jockish display, really.
But there was no chance in hell that you’d be able to. He knows it and you
know it. And after a pause to understand the whiplash he’s just put you through,
you’re barely able to push your weak response out through the bellyaching
laughter. “Harry! There’s absolutely no way—”
“Just once.” His logic is that maybe if he repeats the action, you’ll be more
likely to do it. And so, he crotch-chops again but with an extra flame of drama
and so you laugh harder, now with a pinch of tears in the corner of your eyes to
accompany a couple little haphazard snorts. Spread open on the sink, leaning
back against the mirror, winded from joy and casual in posture. Flushed and
glowy from lingering lust. And fuck, you look so fucking beautiful when your face
is painted with iridescent freedom.
Just for him.
But it’s when you actually take it upon yourself to attempt to mimic his macho
action, except breathy and delicate and delightful, that you both laugh so hard
that sound is no longer emitted, aside from a wheeze every few seconds from
your lover’s chest.
Squeezing your ankles and guiding your legs back around his hips, Harry
hunches over and drops his forehead to your shoulder, mumbling Smiles into
your skin with a flash of hot air that glows strawberry pink. His fingertips
knotting into your hair in a bout of consuming appreciation for your existence.
When he gathers his wits just barely enough, Harry straightens his posture
and points his index finger at your chest. “Hey guys, I found her!” Now he uses his
thumb, looking over his shoulder and around the room at an imaginary audience,
trying but failing to reel his giggles in. “The biggest clod that’s ever lived.” He
looks back at you with his hands propped on his hips, smiling wide and shaking
his head to playfully chastise you. “Smooth play, Shakespeare.”
And as soon as the uncharacteristic snort tears through Harry’s nose, you both
freeze for a full three seconds with your eyes bulging out of your heads as you
point to each other in unison.
“Holy— we’re fusin’!”
You swipe a couple tears away from your cheek as your laughter quiets down.
“Holy shit. Should we unplug it and plug it back in?”
“Oh, you switched on?” Harry sinks his index finger through the circle shaped
with his other hand. “Do you….. mean—”
“Oh my god. You’re extra loopy today, Harry.”
“Say a prayer for my dear friend Vivienne.” His hands form two shaka signs in
the air, wiggling back and forth for emphasis with his tongue hanging out. “’Cause
she’s sick!”
“Wow. Complete and total brain leak.”
“Live action Lady and The Tramp right here, front row seats.”
The Sun is generous in its beauty and warmth. All you have to do is look up.
Because the thing about the Sun is that it simply feels amazing.
Harry’s additional retort is a little spaghetti slurping sound sucked through his
teeth, his mouth curling into a smile when you reach your hand out towards him.
He slips his fingers through yours and sponges a kiss to your knuckles, flipping
your palm up to the sky for another kiss, softer this time, to the inside of your
wrist.
You’ve learned not to be disappointed when Harry’s little teasing moments of

foreplay fizzle into obnoxious humor, mostly because it would seem that ninety
percent of your entire relationship is foreplay. And he’s the one who usually has
consensual control over when that crosses into actual acts of sex. And to Harry,
sometimes laughter is foreplay. Exactly how you like it, the mysterious hunt and
chase. The concluding pounce a secret.
“Or maybe you’re just highly distractible?”
“Yeah? Maybe. It makes me keenly aware of my surroundings, though. Guess

who’s the exact opposite of that? Attentive-as-fuck you.” His palm bellies up in
the air and draws a line across your chest, displaying you on an invisible platter.
“’Tis herself.”
“What has gotten into you this morning? I didn’t come in here to be ridiculed
at dawn.” Another little roll of laughter sizzles through you, and it’s just small and
timely enough to express your ongoing good sportsmanship. “No one should
have this much energy before six A.M. You’re like a lion hunting at daybreak,
ready to attack. Top of the food chain….. or king of the animal world, or whatever
they are.”
“What’s that make you, a lioness?”
“Well, that depends. Are you bringing me back something to eat?”
“Well. I Am A Man, so. Probably should. What’d you come in here for again?
Refresh my memory.”
If anything, being in a long-distance relationship with Harry will be the exact

trial that proves whether or not this is an equal, durable partnership. You know
that every cell inside of Harry is vibrating with unease due to your lack of
decision-making. You know that he’s wondering why you would bother to drag
him along to three different cities if you weren’t the least bit interested in being
his girlfriend. You know that he’s fighting his very loud and powerful impulsive
side in order not to push you to speak before you’re ready, like he’s done so
many times in the past.
You also happen to know that he’s Sunshine and everything soft and easy,
except when it comes to not getting his way. And because you haven’t seen
Sunbeams this bright since before the night Tex showed up at The Pink to warn
Harry he’d ruined both of your lives, you’re not ready for the crackle of his
thunder. Because it’s loud and it’s long. It’s destructive. At least it was, in the past.
Since you’ve yet to see him angry these past couple weeks, time will tell about
the future.
You just really, really don’t want to miss somebody right now. You don’t want
to miss Harry anymore. You’ve missed him for a long, long time.
You’re scared. And now you’re stalling.

“Well, I wanted to see if I could convince you to come back to the lily pad with
me. Since it’s your last day and all…..” The pad of your index finger travels up the
center of his stomach, through the dip in his collarbones and up the ridges of his
throat. “Life felt really different just a couple weeks ago and I’m not looking
forward to it feeling like that again. I’ll miss the weight of you.” You tug him close
and then closer. “Your hands and your scratchy voice in the morning. And how it
all gets bigger and bigger all day long until it shrinks and eventually melts to
sleep. Then the cycle starts over again. Like the Sun.”
For many reasons, Harry’s heart is aching. He aches to leave you. He aches in
uncertainty. He aches for your body. He just wants to be with you. It’s all he
wants. “Hey. You make me real happy. Y’know that? Are you happy?” You nod
and he stays close, his eyes flicking back and forth between yours and your
mouth. “’Cause of me?” Nodding again, you cup the back of his neck and try to
pull him in for a kiss, but he resists. He doesn’t back off, but he doesn’t give in
either. “Were you this happy before I popped up?” Your eyes lock together,
frozen. Harry doesn’t bother waiting for your response before he presses on,
quieter this time. Because he isn’t actually looking for a response, he’s looking for
affect. “How long will you miss the taste after I leave?”
You said you missed the taste of my mouth while I was gone. How long will you
miss the taste after I leave?
“I’ll miss it until the very second I can have it again. That’s how long I missed it
the first time.”
“Is it the same?”
“Yes, just the same. But a little bit sweeter. It’s the difference between orange
juice with and without pulp.” For the first time since Harry has re-appeared,
you’re getting a taste of what it would feel like to not have exactly what you want
from him. And you know that he’s doing this intentionally. Your heartbeat begins
to race after a single heavy punch, the ash tray filled with half-smoked cigarettes
spins in your peripheral vision. “Are you okay, Sunshine?”
“Dunno. How long do I have you for?” Harry means more than simply this
morning, but it’s one of those moments where he doesn’t know how much
pressure to apply or when or how, and constantly pushing those thoughts away
for your comfort is kind of starting to drive him nuts.
Luckily for him, you’ve picked up on it. And even luckier for the both of you,
you’re learning how to open your mouth when it’s important to. “It’s a matinee
today, so I’d like to be at the theatre by noon. I know that you’re waiting for a
certain conversation and I agree that we need to talk before you go. I’ll be able to
focus and communicate better after the show. We can go somewhere afterwards,
or just come back here and we’ll have lots of time and space to—”
“Right. You still don’t have an answer, do you?” But what he’s really obsessing
over is: Are you waiting to have this conversation so that you don’t have to
deliver him bad news and then bask in the stench of it for the last day of his visit?
“Harry…..” Inhaling a soothing breath, you chuckle a bit on the exhale and can’t
help but smile at his nerve. He’s brass beyond compare and it’s a complete
conundrum how he somehow makes it charming. Sexy, in fact. “You’re initiating
the conversation after I’ve just asked you to wait.”
But you’re just procrastinating again and he knows it. He knows that you
haven’t made up your mind yet and that you’re waiting for some brilliant
revelation to take place between now and two o’clock tomorrow afternoon when
he’s ten steps from boarding an international flight to France. Harry
compromises with himself and honors your need for keeping him hung on a
loose thread until tonight, but also allows himself the space to speak his mind.
His final elevator pitch for making him your boyfriend, if you will.
“’Kay. Hey, listen….. last thing. If you push something that you want away, it’s
still gonna follow you. Then you’re just keepin’ yourself busy not doing the thing
you actually wanna do. You’re armoring your heart with your mind. Y’know?
You’re cuttin’ yourself off and you’re starving yourself, but it’s through your
heart that the universe feeds you. And you’re tryin’ to fill that hunger with your
career and stiff independence. Fame is alienating on its own and you’re
exacerbating it by clawing away at yourself and trying so fuckin’ hard to be
perfect that you won’t allow yourself to make any mistakes. You wanna be happy,
so you’re pushin’ away what you think might make you sad, but what’s pushin‘
me away gonna do? Make you the opposite of sad? I don’t fuckin’ think so.
Showing your teeth doesn’t mean you’re happy. Painting on a plastic smile for
others benefits no one. Suffering is the law, Cherry pie. Difficulty is part of the
human condition. Empathizing wakes you up, to yourself and everyone around
you. Your thoughts, your mind, your body; it’s all stuff. It’s just stuff. So let’s
smash our fuckin‘ stuff together.” He flicks your forehead with his finger. “Shit is
majorly easier after you see yourself as part of everything rather than an
individual with your own rare, unique thoughts and emotions.”
“Wow. You really have been taking lots of acid.”
“Shhhh—!” Harry presses his fingertips to your lips and then points to the
ceiling, before winding his hands in circles around each other in the air as if
urging you to get on board with him. His voice a charged whisper as he pushes
out some playful paranoia, “they might be listening…..?!” Raising his eyebrows up
and down a couple times, he leans forward to smile against your lips. “Life is a
vacation from truth, Vivienne. They don’t want you to know that, so pipe the fuck
down.”
“Oh good. So, it only gets worse from here. It’ll be our little secret.”
“Alright, we’ll wait. I am actually listenin‘ to you. But I’m buzzin’, yeah? Just…..
know that. We have a fuckin’ blast together.” Harry reaches across your lap,
plucking a half-smoked cigarette from the ash tray and holding it between his
teeth to flash you a peace sign. “And on the bright side, you’ll see me burn
through three packs of cigarettes today.”
Before he can light it, you’re pinching the cigarette from his teeth and placing
it aside. He responds instantly, by bringing his thumb to his mouth and nibbling
on the skin by his nail. But you weave your fingers through his and lower them
away, placating his anxiety to clear a path for presence. And he lets you. Easily.
With gratitude.
“I do. We do. There’s no denying that. But just out of curiosity, what’s the dark
side?”
“Not lettin’ you get off ’til I get my conversation.”
Your jaw drops slowly and hangs in the air. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh no? Fuck you. Watch me, slick.” Harry retrieves the cigarette you stole
from his mouth and lights the tip with a match, his cheeks hollowing before he
spins a spool of cotton candy towards the ceiling. “Sounds kinda motivating if
you ask me. And amusing. You alright?” He watches you attempt to gather your
bravery and nod. “Yeah? Not according to your face.”
“Don’t you want to remind me what I’ll be missing while you’re gone?”
“Don’t you already know?”
“Yes. But making new memories is nice, too. Est-ce que je peux faire quelque
chose pour te remonter le moral?” Your hands smooth down his stomach before
loosening the knot on his drawstring, your fingers dipping past his waistband. “A
sip?”
“Oh, you wanna play with me a little bit?” You give him the signal with a nod,
but he needs to clarify one more thing first. “Rough…..? In the morning?” As soon
as you nod your approval again, Harry is gathering your wrists tightly in his
hand, clasping them between your chests and tossing his cigarette into the toilet
with a wet hiss. A mental boxing bell rings once in his head, signaling the
beginning of a new round. His heart eats his ribcage, spilling all of his insides out.
“Shit. Salope. Just a sip? How ’bout you gag for me instead?”
“Then will you fill me up? Please?”
Harry breathes a laugh through his nose. “I already said you weren’t makin’
any rainbows till you woman up and talk to me, sweet thing.”
The roles you unconsciously snap into and the way you flirt with one another
is unique to you and to him and the two of you together. Something about the
way the pitch of your voice picks up and the volume drops, the tilt of your head,
the splashes of French. The chase that keeps his heart racing and his guts on the
verge of exploding.
It’s the act of unlocking the door to submission and making space for Harry to
assert control. A type of control that Harry feels is just slightly out of reach when
it comes to you, because you’re scared of getting hurt and you’re not afraid to
walk away from situations that go south. And you shouldn’t be because you know
your worth, but it only makes him that much more eager to chase you. So when
you pause the chase and yield to him and dare him in this way, it reminds him
that he is yours. Because you wouldn’t do this for just anyone. Because it’s just
for him.
And in your experience, you know that the only thing that motivates Harry
more than lustful submission is a little competitive anger. Even if he’s well aware
of your coy challenge and the reason why you’re doing it. He just can’t help it. It
saturates and lingers like nothing else.
Rock Paper Scissors. Shoot.

You suck your bottom lip into your mouth and make sure your muscles are
relaxed and compliant before you throw your first dart, “and what makes you so
sure you can make me come?”
Just as you’d suspected and hoped, Harry’s fingers are wrapping around your
throat with a rough squeeze as he guides you off the sink and to your knees with
your pulse throbbing against his palm. The tile burns your kneecaps from the
force of his sudden harshness, your breath caught in your lungs as you pretend to
remain composed.
“Watch your fuckin’ mouth, little girl. You look beautiful on your knees for me,
don’t you? Lemme see those pretty eyes tear up, hm?” He grips your hair in a fist
to keep you trapped in the confined place between his hips and the sink, his eyes
following the gentle movement of your hands when you begin to slowly unbutton
your shirt from top to bottom.
The fabric slips from your shoulders first before dropping to the ground to
reveal your bare tits and soft shoulders, your eyelashes flicking when you gaze
up at him with those big baby deer eyes. The ones you embellish in order to send
a wave of blood to his center. The ones that shine with watery sensuality in
reserved moments like this.
Licking your lips, you sponge a line of kisses down a path from Harry’s
bellybutton before nibbling on the skin just above his drawstring. And as soon as
the heel of your hand drags up his thigh and as soon as he releases the hold on
your hair to sweep his thumb along your bottom lip, you’re rising to standing.
Face to face with him, wearing nothing aside from his briefs and a soft glow.
With your palms resting on his chest to feel the thump of his heartbeat and
hear the hitch of his breath, you press against him and whisper into his ear,
“either you make me come or I will. So come take your pussy, Daddy.” Your
threat is punctuated by pinching his nose and grinning in his face, before
spinning on the ball of your foot to quietly retreat from the bathroom. Reveling in
the image burned into your brain, of Harry’s cock thickening in his gray joggers
and his lips parted in awe.
Just a moment later, his briefs that you’d been wearing are flung from across
the room to land on floor just outside of the bathroom.
He’s created a fucking monster.
His body hasn’t budged, and his sight is still trained on the briefs sitting in the
quiet light spilling from the bathroom onto the hallway carpet. Before he speaks
any words out loud, he takes a quick moment to silently mouth holy fuck and shit
to himself. “C’mere, Vivienne.”
“Make me.”
“Viens ici maintenant. Tu veux pouvoir marcher ce soir, Cerise?”
“Qu’est-ce que tu marmonnes?”
“One.”
“I’m not a child. Counting to three doesn’t work on lovers.”
His voice is louder, sterner this time and you imagine him licking his lips to
quell his smile before he snaps, “two.”
He’s playing your favorite game. The one that makes your heart pound and
your palms sweat. The one that neither you or him felt the need to explicitly
discuss in order to establish, because the dynamic was understood and decided
for you the very first time your flirtatious chemistries of pink and red mingled in
the same room together. Two people with different internal and external battles
of control, meeting in the atmosphere to wrestle the other to the ground for a
kiss.
You do realize that you’re going to have to touch me at some point.
I’m aware.
Presently, you’re left wondering: what’s better? Making Harry angry enough
that he has to come punish you in the bedroom or succumbing to his demand in
an attempt to soften him in the bathroom? Either option seems to end with off-
the-charts lusty obscenity on either end of the spectrum; loud or quiet.
But what it boils down to really, is whether or not you want to get spanked.
So, you stay put. Because you can taste the sting on your skin and it tastes like
a thick coat of crystallized honey melting and dripping down your throat. And
because he happens to be wearing a couple rings this morning.
You hadn’t even heard him approach but suddenly he’s in the doorway, eyes
dark and narrow, a small smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Three.”
And you can’t help it; your grin merely grows and grows as he takes two steps
closer and the moment he springs forward to grab you, you’re bursting into
sparkling laughter that arcs into a little squeal as he scoops you off your feet and
tosses you onto the bed with a residual bounce.
The clock on the nightstand flips from 5:41 to 5:42 and so does Harry’s mental
countdown, his joggers dropping to the floor and kicking from his feet as he
crawls onto the bed after you. The sheets are rumpled and still a bit warm, one of
the pillows turned onto its side from when Harry tucked it in as a placeholder for
his body. Before you can squirm too far away, he’s latching onto your ankles and
dragging you through the sheets on your belly, his palm rising in the air then
landing with a hard smack on the curviest part of your ass.
Fire spreads through your core, down your legs and to your toes and before
you even take a full enough breath to cry out and before you can register the
residual sting, another spank is landing just as hard in the exact same spot. The
metal from his rings stings particularly harshly and when you close your eyes,
you can imagine several puckers of skin blistering from the acidic contact. Ones
that are likely to stick around for days after he departs.
“You’re a massive fuckin’ tease, Cherry.” Both inside and outside of the
bedroom. “Care to repeat that little bomb you dropped and see what happens?”
He tugs you by the ankles once more, knocking the breath from your lungs a
third time when he collects your legs into his hands and then pins them to the
bed. You squirm exactly once, just enough to realize that you couldn’t move very
much if you wanted to. “Which? The part about whether or not you could make
me come—”
Lying down on your back with his cock pressing between your legs, his hand
slips between your tummy and the mattress to trace his finger through your
folds. He tilts your head to the side and aligns your mouths to murmur, “the part
’bout whose pussy this is.”
Technically Harry has a minimum of four hours playtime with you this
morning, five if you let him push it far enough. Of course this includes a nap, a
shower and breakfast, but all of those things are usually interrupted by more
make-out sessions. Since it’s his last day with you, he plans on fucking you a few
times if you’ll let him. Maybe in the shower or on that clean, plush couch by the
window, in the filtered light from the white curtains when the sun starts to come
up. Because, yeah, maybe he does want to remind you of what you’ll be missing
while he’s gone. And maybe he completely agrees that making new memories is
nice, too.
A piece of you that he can bring with him anywhere.
“Mm….. I don’t remember. The memories are slipping away already—” Your
toying is clipped short with a pinch to your hip that burns and increases in
intensity until you squirm again and whimper out, “yours. Just yours. All yours,
Sunshine.”
“Fuckin’ god, you’re so tough.” Licking the pad of his thumb, Harry sits back
and swipes a wet streak across your burning skin before blowing cool air on the
shiny, darkened spot. Your little hum encourages him on, the verbal gifts that you
shower him with ten times a day, your legs rubbing together for a bit of relief.
“Mmm….. look at you. Do you know what I’m gonna do to you? Combien de temps
peux-tu te retenir, Honey?”
Little bites and making me wait. And wait and wait. I like it when I’m sore the
next day….. when there’s a mark.
Before you can answer, the second of respite is chipped away by the click of
Harry’s tongue against his teeth, one that signals an impending command.
Followed by a harsh squeeze to the backs of your thighs that slowly moves its
way up; your ass, your lower back. His thumbs press into your spine and smooth
up to your shoulders, leaving a pleasing burn and a trail of goosebumps that
fizzle out somewhere near your toes. “Hands and knees, sweetheart.”
You gather yourself to all fours and crawl towards him, your stomach swirling
and swirling in anticipation as Harry settles back onto his haunches with his eyes
trained on yours. A couple loose curls swept across his face and his heart-shaped
lips shiny, a tick of surprise rolling through his features when you straddle his
lap with your arms circling his neck. Your question is delivered with a soft moan
for his sake, because you know that enthusiasm turns Harry even more than the
act itself. “I can’t wait to have you in my mouth. Est-ce que cela te va? Please,
Daddy. I want you to feel good.”
“Oui, tu peux m’avoir, my sweet girl. Perfect.” Your sentiments are deliriously
overkill, shielding Harry in a salacious bubble of charm that is oftentimes too
foggy to steer through. “Fuckin’ love it when you talk to me, when you ask.
Always know just what to say.” His fingers twist around your nipple before
pinching tightly, his sight on your face in order to watch you start to crumble
apart. “So foxy like this. So lucky to feel your mouth on me. You make me
completely apeshit.” He brushes the end of his nose against yours before sealing
your lips in a sweet kiss. “Love, love how you feel.”
“I love your taste….. And I like when I leave you tongue-tied.” Wrapping him in
a fist, your thumb spins in rings to polish his slit as you leave a trail of kisses
down his throat, his head knocking back to breathe a curse towards the ceiling.
Harry’s panting grows heavier with every kiss that falls further and further
south; his collarbones, his chest, his stomach, your fist gently pumping on his
length to send his hips into a pulsing wave. Until the holy moment when you’re
lying flat on your belly and glancing up at him, your lips brushing his sensitive
skin. “Will you be nice?”
His gaze lands on yours. “What are you mumblin’ about?”
Instead of swatting at him for throwing your line back in your face, it’s much
more effective when you flatten your tongue and lick a bold path from his base to
his tip, over and over again to saturate his silky skin. Harry’s eyes roll back
before his head tips back next, his fingers weaving into your hair to help guide
your pace along with his typical slew of raspy praise, broken into bits by soft
moans and gasps.
He loves you like this. He loves you always, but there is something so carnal,
so content, so kittenish about his girl searching for him in the dark first thing in
the morning, touching him everywhere and guiding his hands where you ache for
him. There is something so soft, so sweet, so submissive about his girl whispering
in the afterglow that you want pancakes but not the regular kind, the baby kind,
with lemon and powdered sugar just before you sink your hand between his legs
for another squeeze.
A drip of Honey filling up his tongue.
“That’s it— Know just how to drive me mental, don’t you? Lemme feel the
back of your throat—” And when you obey on command, sinking him into your
mouth slowly and steadily until he’s filling you, his words catch as he struggles to
collect himself. Your cheeks tighten around his cock and you swallow before
sending a vibration through his core with an eager hum, one that unabashedly
makes him shudder. “Oh god— yes. That’s it, Cherry baby. Heavenly. Mhm…..
keep goin’.”
You alternate between long, tight sucks that soak his shaft and little kitten
licks to his crown, your thumb firmly pressing on the tender spot just below his
balls. Harry no longer needs to coach you on technique and if he’s honest with
himself, he never really needed to. You seem to know how to polish him off
better than any lover he’s ever had, but that may have more to do with the fact
that it’s simply you loving on him. That doesn’t mean that you don’t both
appreciate the coaching, though.
“Can you take me deeper? Comment es-tu sale?” He doesn’t physically push,
but rather allows you control as he settles back onto his palms and ruts his hips
upwards. A waterfall of moans and smut and compliments flick from the tip of his
tongue when you take him deep enough that you choke and tear up from the
force of his drive. Pulling back, you sniffle and give yourself a moment to recover
with a swirling lick around his head. “Are you cryin’? Am I fuckin’ your mouth too
hard? You can take me. Take me.” His fingers tangle into your hair again and
steer you back, a groan rumbling up his throat when you champion him again
without a hiccup, your nose slowly pressing into his stomach. “Oh my— god, yes
— fuck, so sweet. J’aime la façon dont tu m’aimes.”
But it’s when you pause and settle back to suck your thumb into your mouth
that Harry freezes and pulls his eyebrows into a frown, his sight darting back and
forth from your face to your tits. “I have a curiosity for you, Sunny. Sois honnête.”
His breathing seems to have doubled in pace, his skin shines with sweat. He
cups the back of your neck and pours his attention into you, his blunt nails
scratching your scalp. “Yeah? Rattle it off.”
Both of your heartbeats are pounding and communicating to one another

through your bones and skin, all of the hair on Harry’s body standing on end
when you scoot up to press your lips against his ear. Your fingertips tip-toe up
his chin, tapping on his bottom lip. He sucks your fingers into his mouth, moaning
and biting down on your knuckles.
A statement purrs out that he knows you’ve been dying to expose for two
weeks now, one that has his cock jumping against his stomach and a small
wayward whine slipping between his teeth.
His cheeks pool with red fire in the aftermath of your detonation.
Gripping your wrist, he pulls your hand away. And in rare but not unusual
Harry form, he decides to give you a clear, no-hurdle answer. But not before
licking his lips and then laughing, rolling his eyes and swiping a palm down his
face. “Yeah….. no shit.”
A grin pulls across your cheeks, your eyes sparkle. “I knew it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Queen Honey detective. Is all right with the world now? Copacetic
planet?”
“Not yet….. but maybe one day?”
For many reasons, his heart soars. But mostly because you’ve suggested a
future with him of some sort, which immediately soothes his puckering anxiety
about your stalled conversation. And any future with you, no matter how vague
or insignificant, is one that Harry will willingly cling tightly to. “Electric. Honestly
the most smokin’ shit you’ve ever said to me. You’re lucky I didn’t flatline just
now.” He cups your cheeks and mutters against your lips, “of course. Whenever
you’re ready. Kiss, please. Gimme a taste of your choice work. Shit….. my head’s
spinnin’.”
Harry moans into your kiss and savors the flavor on your tongue, a thick
breath of air pulling through his nose when he squeezes your tits with both
palms. Inching back, he whispers the single question of can I get a lick? and gives
you one full second to nod before he’s tossing you back onto the bed on your
belly and wedging a stray pillow underneath your hips. “Spread those pretty
cheeks for me.” Eager to please, you’re reaching behind for two handfuls of your
skin, offering him a peek of your arousal. Exactly how he’s asked. Just for him.
“Bonne fille. You’re already oozing. That’s what I needed to see. How are you this
fuckin‘ choice, huh? Shit, I’m already blitzed.”
Your toes curl the instant he’s got his mouth on your legs, kissing and licking a
trail up the backs of your knees and thighs, before finally spreading you open and
hissing at the sight of you glistening underneath him. You glance over your
shoulder just in time to catch his eyes as he dips down and presses his tongue to
your swollen bud, flat and wide. With more and more pressure until your legs
start trembling and you’re whining through your gasps and pants, “Sunny, please.
You’re teasing me.”
“Mmm…..” He pulls back an inch. “That’s the point.” Harry licks his lips before
soaking you with his tongue slowly, wide and flat, up and down, over and over
again. Then he nibbles at your sensitivity, watching your legs jump each time
with every little bite, until he chooses to end your misery by harshly sucking your
clit past his teeth and softly tracing your entrance with the pad of his finger.
Reveling in the sound of your moans increasing in pitch and volume, reveling in
how responsive you are to his touch.
So naturally, the telephone practically jumping off of the nightstand with a

screaming ring is the last thing either one of you wanted to hear in this moment.
Harry glances at the clock to see that it’s six in the morning on the dot,
revealing that you’ve placed a request with concierge for a wake-up call. He loves
and hates the idea; understanding that it was your attempt to spend more time
with him today in case he happened to sleep in and also, it’s interrupting your
last few hours of alone time. Ultimately, considering the timing, he hates the idea.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, gimme a break. Cut the hassle, girl. Fuck— Cherry, just
yank it off the hook—”
“I’m sorry—” You scramble for the phone with the intention of picking up the
receiver and promptly slamming it back down, but through your sleepy fog of
toffee jelly, you fumble the phone and drop it onto the sheets in time to hear a
metallic, annoying chirp from the other end.
“Good morning, Miss Cherry! This is Piper from the front desk with your six
o’clock wake-up call, and a reminder that breakfast is being served and ends at
nine—”
You’d thought that you were already in the midst of emotional whiplash, but a
fierce spank to your same sore cheek sends your brain swirling into a tight circle
and then slurping itself down the drain, your muscles clamping down hard. Like
a light flicking on then quickly flicking off, the blue neon light still burns
somewhere behind your eyelids.
Harry grips your throat in his palm and whispers loudly, “hang up, V.”
“—give me a call here at the front desk if you’d like room service or if you have
any laundry that needs taken care—”
Collecting yourself, you grab the receiver and hold it to your ear and hope for
a quick dismissal through the literal and proverbial grip on your throat, “okay,
okay, great, thank you—”
Lying down on top of you and sinking your weight into the mattress, Harry
squeezes his hand under your stomach and runs his fingertips through your
folds, gently alternating between collecting moisture from your entrance and
circling your swell. The tip of his cock hovers just beside his fingers, adding
pressure to your center that instinctively ruts your hips back with a nearly silent
whine.
His lips press to your other ear, mumbling in a low drone that concierge is
unable to hear. “Are you soakin’ me, sweet Cherry?” He hisses through his teeth
when he sinks two fingers through your crushing, wet heat, your muscles
gripping him when you gasp quietly and drop the phone back onto the bed.
“You’re so kinky, tryin’ to get off in secret. Dirty little whore, so fuckin’ tight and
beautiful. Prends-moi. How do I make you feel, hm? Wet? Full?”
Your voice is a weepy whisper. “Oh my god, Harry—”
Harry slows his fingers to a pause inside of you, stroking your front and
pulling in and out little by little to keep the heat of the moment. He grabs the
receiver from the bed and perches it to his ear with his shoulder, his stomach
sweaty against your back. He’s the slightest bit out of breath, but that may only
be obvious to you.
“Yeah, hi. Do you make little baby pancakes?” He knows that you prefer savory
breakfasts on performance days, but his intuition tells him that you’re craving
something sweet this morning. His finger spins around your bud before plunging
back in. “Yeah, right. Silver dollar pancakes. ’Kay….. with powdered sugar and a
wedge of lemon. Can you make sure the maple syrup is nice and warm for my
sweetheart, please?” Sitting up, he takes the heat of his hands away and spreads
your cheeks, watching as his cock pulses up and down your slit, pooling your
excitement all along his shaft while you whimper and beg below him. He
breathes a curse past his teeth, “and a big pitcher of OJ. Sunny eggs, sausages and
dark toast. Fuckload of fresh fruit and a pot of hot water with lemon. And give us
an hour, yeah? Thanks so much. Peace.”
Instead of hanging up, Harry rips the cord from the base of the telephone and
tosses the handset over his head onto the ground. “I thought I was your wake-up
call?” Another spank has you sobbing into the pillow. “You know better.” And
then another spank in the same spot, harder this time, blooming dark roses upon
your skin. “No more interruptions ’til I’m done with you. You’ll let go when I say
so.”
Hiking your hips up into the air, Harry pushes you down to your elbows,
drawing your knees together to sit back and admire the view. A perfect peach, a
scoop of strawberry ice cream melting into a sugar cone, an endless array of
sweet treats for his eyes and his mouth. Holding your cheeks apart, he dives
forward and sinks his tongue inside of you as far as he can reach, butterflies
erupting when you moan and squirm against him for more. And then menacingly,
he replaces his tongue with his finger and then slowly, carefully, licks a circle
with the tip of his tongue around your back entrance.
The single, dripping approval of yes paired with a moan of his name is all
Harry needs to start lavishing you with his tongue, moaning against your skin
and using his free hand to grip your hip in a tight squeeze. One that balances out
the rocky ocean in his belly, or at least attempts to. He dips his tongue far into the
tight space, echoing your cry and drenching your opening until it drips into the
crease of your thigh.
There’s a pause when Harry inches back and just a second later, you hear him
spit and then feel a hot, wet wad on your rim. You hike yourself up a bit and
glance at him over your shoulder, his curls damp with sweat and his mouth neon
pink, his gaze devilish.
“Have you ever tried it? One finger?”
“I definitely have not.”
His smile pulls at one corner of his mouth, and after half a pause he bounces
his head left then right. “Wanna?”
“Do I…..?”
“Um….. do you wanna come really hard?”
“Harder than— Really…..?”
Leaning over towards the nightstand, Harry downs a giant gulp of water, then
wipes his mouth with the inside of his wrist. “Only one way to find out, daredevil.
Let’s light up some new buttons. You’re the boss. Just say whatcha want.”
In the very least, it’ll give you something to remember while you make your
decision on long-distance dating today. Just like you asked for.
Harry’s certainty is still swimming deep in your stomach, pulsing to your toes
when you breathe out, “yes, please.”
Both of your heartbeats are slamming up against your chests and urging your
blood so quickly that you both fall lightheaded with anticipation. He groans and
sucks his middle finger into his mouth, gripping his ring in his teeth and spitting
it out into the sheets. When he’s soaked it enough, he swims his finger in a circle
around your rim before slowly sinking the tip in to the very first knuckle with an
empathetic hiss. “Good girl. Talk to me. She okay?”
“Yeah—” It pinches and it’s strange how enticed you are to explore it even
though it pinches, because there’s a heaviness in your guts that is promising
more, a whole lot more, if you allow yourself to peel back this extra layer of
control alleviation. “Yes, stop— wait.”
Harry freezes. “Yes, stop or wait? Be clear with me, Cherry. It’s important.”
“Wait…..” You breathe out and lower yourself further down onto your elbows.
“Just wait one second. It feels kinda weird.”
“Hey. Hi.” Leaning forward, Harry kisses you and hums with a little smile,
knowing that in the very least he can distract you while he also urging you
forward. He slips his finger in another half inch and shushes against your mouth
when you hiss. “That’s good. So, so good for me. I know my baby can take it.
You’re gonna be so fuckin’ blitzed out in a sec. Just try and relax, ’kay?”” And with
that, his finger sinks in completely and he moans loudly at your bravery, knowing
that he’s about to make your day and maybe your whole fucking year. “Yes—
that’s it. So good. Perfect angel. How ’bout this?” And then his ring and pinky
fingers are slipping back into your heat, filling you up with the promise of
fireworks on the horizon. “How’s that—”
“Oh my god, yes. Yes—” After a couple relaxing breaths, your core starts to
ooze all over his fingers. Your legs liquefy. You grip his wrist and push him
further inside, as far as his fingers can go and he can feel and imagine every
nuance of tension rattling through your insides echoing in his own. So he uses his
other hand to spin figure-eights on your clit while he presses further down inside
of you towards your bellybutton, putting even more pressure on your front wall.
Slowly dragging his fingers in and out, breathing heavier and heavier in your ear.
The moisture pooling from your center urging a blurt of precome from his slit
and into the sheets. And that’s when you start sobbing into the pillows. “Harry—
don’t stop. Don’t stop. Please, please don’t stop—”
“Wanna get fucked?”
“Yes, yes. Please—”
“You’re gonna talk to me, right? Tonight….. fully honest and brave, yeah?
Promise me.” When you don’t respond, he pulls out — everything, his fingers his
mouth his warmth, before hitching back to slap your center. Whining, you writhe
around and flip onto your back underneath him trying to hold your lust off, so
that your orgasm isn’t completely ruined by letting go too soon and diluting half
of its power. “Answer me. This dick’s not free.” But when your hand starts
traveling to your center in an effort to finish yourself off, Harry’s jaw drops and
his eyes bug out of his skull before he grabs your wrists and pins them to the bed
above your head, his voice just short of an angry growl, “what a little slut. You’re
unbelievable. I said no fuckin’ way, sweet cheeks. Speak up or suffer for the rest
of the day.”
Your legs kick up around his waist, drawing him close and rubbing his length
against your core as you try to tempt him back to you. “You know I’m yours,
Sunbaby. You know it. I’ll spill my heart wide open for you, scout’s honor. Just for
you—” Dropping the grip on your wrists, Harry holds your hips still, his fingers
burning your skin when he slips his tip inside of you and stays frozen while
electrical pulses surge through your stomach and down your thighs. “Please fuck
me. Please, please…..” He pushes in another half inch and spreads one hand out
across your belly, his thumb barely brushing your bud which sends you off into a
blubbering tangle, pulsing and throbbing and numb and frenzied. Wild. “Har… y...
do you like it when I’m a mess for you? Because I am. I will be. You have to know.
I’m crazy for you. Please— I am—”
It’s beautiful, the sight below him; your skin glowing with sweat and your lips
and eyes dark, your chest rising and falling and your legs squeezing him tightly.
This is easily the most undone Harry’s ever seen you before and if he were the
slightest bit more morbid, he would allow it to continue. If he were the slightest
bit in control when it comes to you, he would walk away right now and let you
wallow in a pain that seems akin to what he’s emotionally going through today.
An absolute fucking mess for you. Do you like it when he’s a mess for you?
Because he is. You have to know.
“Shh, shh….. that’s it. So pretty like this. Such a patient lover. Outta sight, babe.
Take a little breather for me, ’kay? You alright?” The sexiest part of Harry’s
dominance is that it always comes with soft pillowy bookends on either side;
curiosities, consent, praise, puffs of cool air. Lucidity. A distraction for attentive-
as-fuck you. Before he moves on with anything filthy, he waits for that one little
nod, the one that you have to mull over for precisely two seconds before
concurring. And then he’s ready to jump right back in.
Pulling out, Harry keeps you on the edge by swiping his cock up and down
your heat, pausing each time his head brushes your sensitivity to add a bit more
pressure there. Pausing at your entrance as if he’s going to sink inside of you and
waiting for you to whine a plea before continuing on with his tease. “Right there,
yeah? Want me to fuck you? You’re drenchin’ me. Thought you said I couldn’t
make you come. Mind takin’ that back real quick?”
“Yes. Yes, please. You know I was just playing with you, right?”
“Mhm, devil woman.” He sucks his middle finger into his mouth. “Spread your
legs for me, show me your sweetness.”
Planting your feet on the bed with your legs on either side of his hips, Harry
keeps his length nestled against you as he twists his finger into your back
entrance again, the ease of your muscles and height of your arousal readily
granting him access this time. His sympathetic moan parallels right along with
yours, a lustful crease folding between his eyebrows. “Want you to take my cock
in your ass one day, fuck your pussy with my fingers ’til you gush. Beggin’ me to
go harder. Beggin’ me to make rainbows inside you.” Wrapping himself in a fist,
he angles his head at your entrance. “Now take it back, Cherry pie.”
“I take it back.” Your hips swim in circles to feel the sweet tension of his finger
inside you, your core tight and hot and wet and fiercely squeezing on itself for
mercy, for just a breath of air in its direction. Just for an inch of him. Jelly
swimming inside of your stomach in suspense, fireworks ready to burst. Both of
you knowing that you won’t last more than a full minute when he finally decides
to end your misery. “Give it to me like you’ll miss me, Daddy. Like only you can.”
Considering the mood of today, there’s no other way he’d be able to give it to
you. But it sounds hot as fuck coming from your mouth, because he knows what
you actually mean is, I’ll miss you, you fuck me better than anyone else, you’re the
one for me, please miss me back?
“Shit, how else? Sweet girl. Je te veux. I want you to feel so fuckin’ good.
Wanna feel you coming on my cock, hugging me tight. See what you do to me?”
Your begging is ceaseless below him, breathless, but Harry somehow remains
expertly composed. Continuously stroking himself up and down. Up and down.
Wetter and wetter. “Hmm? Want this? Feel me…..”
At this point, with your eyes struggling to stay open, all you can manage is a
string of whimpers and a distant prayer for his surrender.
Anchoring his tip inside you, Harry dips down to seal your lips in a kiss, his
tongue taking sweet sips of yours when he plunges through your folds in a
steady, mind-numbingly slow pace. That gasp that you always emit in moments
like these slips out just how he likes, bringing on an almost pained expression as
your head drops back into the sheets.
Harry cries out at the sensation of you fluttering and squeezing and molding
around him, taking obvious note of how tight you feel with his finger also inside
of you. Taking obvious note of how he can feel it pressing against his length. And
when he fills you to the brim and your chest is heaving and your legs are
trembling around his waist, he drops his forehead to your collarbone and peels
out a high-pitched moan through his nose. “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kiddin— you
are fucking unreal, baby.” His lips fumble against yours as he battles between
breathing or kissing you properly, his hips slowly drawing back and driving
forward to nudge at every tender spot inside of you. “God….. love watchin’ you
fall apart ’cause of me. Love watchin’ you get high off me, hm? Tearing……p...
you’re so beautiful when you’re wrecked. So wet.” He picks his pace up, pausing
on each pitch to press his pelvis against your clit.… “Mm... tell me a little secret?”
Your back arches, your head tipping back to focus on every sensation running
up and down your spine. But it’s impossible, there’s too many, you’re too
saturated with burning nerve endings that it feels like you’re about to reach your
high every single second, but you hold back because you know to wait for Harry’s
signal. Because you never want the feeling to stop. The feeling of being on edge,
the feeling of having power over your own indulgences while also being
completely at Harry’s mercy. The same feeling as staring at a single drip of ice
cream as it winds down to the point of the waffle cone, cream and sugar covering
your fingers, that little single drop clinging to the end for an eternity before it’s
set free and caught on the tip of your tongue.
Your voice drips out like hot honey, delirious and in love. Intoxicated. Red.
“Harry….. je t’ai… e... your cock is so… big... you feel so, so good inside of me.
You’re s… deep... I love you,…Sunbaby... you’…e perfect... please never sto…
fucking me...”
“Wh—? Fuck.”
Whining, you rock your hips and Harry somehow pushes your verbal gushing
away to find his footing and match your pace. All of your moans are raining
through the air and soaking into his skin, drenching his hair, grabbing his entire
heart in a fist and squeezing the blood out. Your je t’aime still melting deep inside
of his stomach. He needs and wants you closer somehow and without a warning,
he’s holding your centers together and flipping you on top, his gaze scanning the
view of your body from the new angle.
“You like that? Take it. Ride me how you like.” With his finger still working you
and following your rhythm, he plants his feet on the bed and pulses into you with
little ticks that poke a particularly sensitive spot. You gasp against his lips and
dig your nails into his chest, a grin pulling across his face when you both
intuitively slow for a beat. “Mm, what’s that? Find somethin’ unique? Get what
you want, girl. Say it.”
“Don’t stop—”
“Mm…..?” Pinching your hips, Harry keeps still and starts rocking you along to
ride his fingers and his cock, your jaw dropping open when he locates the same
spot inside of you again, expertly. He keeps you pinned, spinning his hips in little
circles to target your knot as well. “How’s that?”
You drop your forehead to his, his curls damp with sweat and tickling your
cheeks. “It’s good— Sunny….. keep doing that.” Your gasps and cries and moans
burrow straight into his eardrums and quickens the pace of his heart and stride.
The both of you are moving in tandem now, with his cock buried to your limit
and your hips flushed. An itch that only he can scratch. “Yes— please. Don’t stop.
You’re gonna make me come. Don’t stop. Don’t st… p... oh, god, please—”
Harry fucking loves when the color of your voice contrasts from a shiny apple
red to bleached-out pink; tight and agitated, then trusting and washed away.
Frantic and feverish. Lost in him.
He fucks you hard, your foreheads pinned together as he makes you wait for
his decision to end your suffering. Your lips and noses bump together as he
speaks in infinite filthy loops, raspy and lewd, one that keeps you present and
clinging to the edge of the cliff by your fingernails. It could very well be only a
few seconds of purgatory, but it feels more like a lifetime in heaven.
“You right there? Want more of that? Holdin’ on? Wanna come? Yeah? You
gonna soak me? You gonna come all over me? Feel it? Feel me. Fuck. So good for
me. Your pretty pussy is so tight around my cock. Shit— you’re gonna drain me.
That what you want? God, fuck. Fuck— fuck.” The two of you echo each other’s
curses and little bubbles of yes yes yes yes back and forth for a few seconds, with
Harry polishing your sensitivity in tight vicious circles, waiting for you to blubber
out some sort of nonsensical yet coherent response. And when you do, he finally
finally finally oozes your permission with his favorite release phrase, “let go.”
There’s a moment right before a firework detonates, when the wick is burned
to its end and those hot sparks agitate every little explosive chemical inside. The
ones that produce all of the neon lights, rainbow colors and deafening sounds.
The ones that contrast the black of night so intensely that it burns a memory into
your eyelids. Harry likes to keep you at that painful moment before the
detonation for as long as possible, with your guts on fire and gunpowder angrily
bouncing off of every warm divot inside of you, screaming for escape.
But when those explosives reach their threshold, and you know it and he
knows it even before you did, your mind bleaches white upon hearing his
declaration to allow space for the eruption. A launch into the atmosphere at first,
followed by thunder and gasps, crackling and a shower of fiery glow. Harry’s
voice bubbling up from under water, praises and praises that leak through your
fog. And this time, you’re sure to moan Harry’s name again and again as you
reach your forceful peak, so that he knows that when you’re like this, it’s just for
him. Because of him.
Harry’s jaw is dropped open, eyes squeezed shut, nostrils ticking, his
eyebrows tugged together in sheer agony as he tries to hold off for you through
an expressly powerful climax. Concentrating on all of the possible things he can
that would delay his own release as you weep and pulse and crush and throb
around him; snowballs to the face, steamed red cabbage, itchy wool on the back
of his neck.
Anything that will keep his mind off of how firmly you’re gripping him, your
softness siphoning his cock, the wet tight suction as he stays painfully frozen
while your hips roll and roll, taking charge of your own pleasure and pushing
him so close to the brink that when he feels a strong pulse in the base of his
spine, he’s forced to pull out before he blows it. Panting and sweating and cursing
because he wants to draw this out, but it’s really fucking hard when you won’t
stop coming and urging him to paint your walls with technicolor rainbows.
And before you have enough time to recover, you’re tossed onto your back
again and Harry is hovering over you with his tip tapping your bottom lip. “Finish
me off, petite allumeuse. Such a bombshell like this. Light me up?”
Still strung out on your orgasm, you wrap him in a fist and take him to the
back of your throat, your eyes locked on his to watch his expression melt. It only
takes a couple strokes and your cheeks suctioning tight and his tip knocking
against your tonsils for Harry to sob out and release on your tongue, with his
fingers knotting tightly into your hair and your name dripping between his teeth.
And after a couple little licks to give him a moment to come down, you suck him
right back into your mouth, all hypersensitive and vulnerable for a bit of playful
torture.
It feels equally painful as it does pleasurable and Harry is caught between

oozing turbulent moans and mystified laughter at the same time, his breath
hitching in his throat and muddling the two sounds together into a gritty sugar
bowl; minty and citrusy and salty and sweet. It’s a sound of joyful surprise laced
with heavy satisfaction, sparkling sparkling sparkling. And it’s easily the single
sexiest sound you’ve ever heard in this lifetime. And maybe the next lifetime as
well.
Harry tries to push you away but you don’t stop, senseless praise in the form
of groaning and hissing rolling off his tongue as he chuckles a little, “Vivi— baby,
it’s really fuckin’ sensitive, ah— Quit—” You still won’t stop. In fact his
reprimand only makes you suck tighter, cupping his balls in a gentle fist and
tugging until he gives in and moans loudly. His head tipped back and his neck
veins popping, his hands shaking at his sides. He whimpers and laughs and sobs,
all until it becomes too raw and too much and he finally grabs your hair to pull
you off, unable to hide his gravelly breaths. “Fuck! Enough.” It’s unusual, the
heavy tremble in his voice. “You’re so bad. Fuckin’ hell, girl. Holy shit.”
After Harry takes a beat to breathe and rally, his sticky hot, boneless weight
collapses into you and his forehead drops to yours, his little chuckles still peeling
through his groans. And as soon as he’s grinning and giggling in your face with
his nose scrunched up in bewildered amusement, you can’t help but start
laughing, too. The both of you drowning and lost in the glittering aftermath of
your sweaty, disastrous highs, completely enraptured in him and you and what
the two of you are capable of together. And how insanely good you make one
another feel.
It’s either thirty seconds or an eternity, but neither of you are able to
formulate thoughts yet. Slow fingertips gliding across skin, the perfect melding of
your lips and tongues over and over again for a lingering taste. Moans that have
melted into laughter that have melted into hums. Harry’s predictable velvet
dream boy moment, perhaps one of the only conscious times of day where he’s at
a loss for words.
After several minutes he inches back, exhaling against your lips. “Score.”
Just like that, your game has ended and your players have removed their
opposing uniforms, stripping down to your bare skin and bare hearts, ready to
hit the showers after a couple friendly pats on the ass.
“Yeah.”
“Jesus Christ, V. You’re like a fuckin’ spunk cat burglar. Or Disneyland, Flying
Saucers and Submarine Voyage. Adventure Through Inner Space. I’m spaced out.
Think I had a retrosip when you rainbowed.”
“What the heck is a retrosip?”
“Like an acid flashback.”
Your explosion of laughter knocks Harry’s right out of his chest, the both of
you rolling onto your backs shoulder-to-shoulder in a dustbowl of wheezes and
snorts and a stunted utterance of Smiles. Wiping a tear from your eye, you sniffle
and glance over at him. His bright wide smile and shiny happy eyes, his hair a
curly mess and a daisy stud twinkling in his ear. “I swear you get half of your
talking points by drawing random nouns out of a hat.”
“At least they’re all similar subject matter.”
“If we’re lucky. Do you ever worry how hard it’ll be to translate you if you start
slipping into dementia in thirty years?”
“I do not.”
“Mmm….. word salad.”
“What’d I tell you? That was the hardest you’ve ever busted, yeah? Felt like my
wood was in a vice.”
“Yes, easily. No contest.” Your hands meet in the air for a loud high five before
he laces your fingers together and drops your fist to his sweaty tummy.
“Butt stuff, I’m sayin’. You dug it? Want more?” Your wide eyes and
enthusiastic nod sends his stomach on a little ocean wave, lapping at the shore.
“Shit….. right on. That jobbie at the end was torture though. Like a screaming
tickle.”
“I think you kinda liked it, actually.”
His eyes narrow at you. “Quit discoverin’ all my fetishes before I have a chance
to.”
“Isn’t this how they’re supposed to be discovered?”
“Mmm…..”
“Festishes?”
Harry counts off on his fingers. “Edging, spanking, choking, blindfolds,

handcuffs, Daddy shit, ass play, dirty talk, praise, shootin’ rainbows inside,
secrecy, sneakin’ around, PDA. And now apparently a little post-come torture,
which actually makes sense considerin’ I’m a massive masochist.”
“Alright, we get it. What don’t you like?”
“With you?” You nod and he puckers his lips as he does his best to pull an
answer together. “Um….. I don’t think I could share you, watch you fuck someone
else. I don’t even like thinkin’ about it.” He laughs and then swipes his palms
down his face, before dropping one hand to his belly. “I’m way too fuckin’ jealous.
I’ve never been this jealous over another person before. It’s annoying.”
For some reason you were expecting a humorous answer, a classic Sunny-
response that would have you slapping his shoulder because sometimes there’s
just no other way to respond to his obscenity. But this has taken a bit more
serious turn, by the way his expression darkens and his eyebrows pull into a
frown as he tries to push the images away. But in perfect Surefire-way, you’re
saying the exact thing he needs to hear. “Except no one can love me like you can.”
“Massive hill to die on, Honeysuckle.”
You nod and mouth the word huge while holding your hands far apart, then
shape your fingers into a large circle over your eye.
“Damn, sister. Watch it. I’ll poke your eye out.” Reaching for you, Harry tugs
you back to straddle his lap, admiring your curves and edges with the tips of his
fingers. “She okay? Feelin’ good, Nina Simone style?” You nod and breathe out a
little laugh before reaching for his cigarettes from the night stand. Sparking a
match and lighting two with neon raspberry tips, you perch one between his
waiting, puckered lips. After a long, full drag and sweet exhale, Harry licks his lips
to leave them shiny. “Thank you. You’re on a whole other plane, it’s way
psychedelic. Majorly trippy. Think we should propose that the U.S. amends The
Constitution so that it says, ’Come take your pussy, Daddy’? But with permission,
of course. That line was somethin’ else. Scripture. I was tongue-tied….. all I could
think to do was count to three. Did ya catch that?”
“Definitely caught that. It was very satisfying.”
“Do I have to step it up now?” You start giggling and nodding and he absorbs
your naturally flushed beauty, how drop dead gorgeous you look after a couple
orgasms. Especially one as intense as that. Especially with this view, your warm
thighs holding him captive and your tits in his face, your palms smoothing up and
down his stomach and toying with his heart-shaped locket. Miette de biscuit
hanging out by your bellybutton, begging for a lick. “No shit. I’d nail you anytime
you’d ask. I could never turn you down. You’re almost too good at this. J’adore te
baiser. Je t’aime putain.”
“Je t’aime. You’re my favorite.” You lean down for a kiss and he smiles against
your lips, quickly stealing another peck and breaking away for you to ask,
“Harry?”
“Vivs.”
“I wanted coffee cake for breakfast.”
“Coffee—” One eyebrow darts up on his forehead, his stubble somehow

making his eyes appear brighter, the flirtatious ring darkening. “My fault. Freak
me out, Honey. Who is she? You never order coffee cake.”
“It’s breakfast cake.”
“No shit.” He holds the butt of his cigarette with his teeth as he rakes his curls
out of his face, his cheeks sucking in with another full drag. “Want me to call ’em
back? They can tack that on real easy, no sweat. Wait— don’t even answer that,
I’m all over it.” Reaching for the receiver and spinning the dial on the phone,
Harry continues to address you, but is a bit distracted by the line ringing in his
ear. But not too distracted to trace circles around your bellybutton. “Otherwise
you’ll pull some chick shit and pout for the rest of the day if you don’t eat it.
Because it’s kinda my fault, but not really, and you don’t wanna be mad at me
over somethin’ stupid but you’re still disappointed, so. I’m gettin’— Hi. Miss
Cherry requires coffee cake this morning. Told me she’d hurl the lamp if she
didn’t get those crumbly sugar clumps in her bloodstream. Huh? Wait, hang on a
sec. She’s not gonna like this.” He covers the mouth piece with his palm and ticks
his chin up at you. “They said they don’t have any. And the whole city’s out.
Maybe even the state. Shortage.”
“I guess I’ll have to eat you instead.”
“Do I….. cancel the coffee cake—”
“Take your best guess.”
Removing his hand from the mouth piece, Harry guides it back to his heart-
shaped lips. “Yeah, we’ll have two slices.”
“Sunny, would you mind? It’s probably Roach. Just tell her I know and I
remember and I’m almost ready. And that everything’s perfectly fine.”
The telephone is ringing beside the radio that warms the room with Dusty
Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man,” near where Harry is lazily sprawled out on
the bed in his joggers and wifebeater, his pen smoothing sweeps of cursive
across the pink pages of his journal. The clock on the nightstand flips from 11:09
to 11:10 and so does Harry’s mental countdown, his chin reaching over his
shoulder to peer at you.
Dressed in a sleek black slip dress, you’re sitting on the floor just like a
ballerina would. Touching up your makeup in the full-length mirror, hair done
and prepared for your responsibilities today. Sunlight warming the carpet and
your skin as you smudge red pigment onto your lips with the pad of your bare
ring finger.
“Course, babe.” Harry seeps in every opportunity to speak with your manager,
mainly to lay the sweetness on thick and become her new best friend, for strictly
virtuous and friendly purposes. So, he doesn’t hesitate to stretch across the bed
and swipe the receiver the second the request flies from your mouth and you
may or may not regret it when he leads the conversation with, “yeah, hi Bug.
She’s almost ready. Hey, Vivienne looks mint as fuck with the new mop-top.
That’ll fly for any new promo shots, yeah? She’s a real mover, ya know. It’s
obvious how much she admires John Lennon. Do you want me to make sure she’s
got enough rosy pit guard? Because we’ve all been victim to how bad—”
“Harry!”
He jams his index finger into his other ear to block out your voice. “Yeah, no,
she’s mad at me now.” Harry grapples with the cord and the receiver when he
sees you marching across the room towards him, his face splitting into a shiny
grin when you dive onto the bed and attempt to wrestle it from his hands. “Yeah?
I know, right? There wasn’t much I could do about it. Once she got it in her head
to donate it all to charity, I couldn’t tear those scissors from her hands if I tri—”
Using his sensitivity as a weapon, you climb into his lap and pinch the first
nipple your fingers land on, causing Harry to yelp and drop the phone into the
sheets. You swipe it up and gently knock his head with the earpiece, shooting him
a dirty look when he laughs at your now unfortunate position. He always has a
way of making things just the slightest bit more difficult, but you’ve missed all of
the spontaneous buzz he brought into your life simply by being his ad-libbed,
Sunny self. “Hi, Roach. I’m so sorry, don’t listen to him. I still have hair. And I’m
just about ready.”
“Is Mr. Styles in a silly mood this morning?”

The walking tangle of a person she’s referring to now has a firm grip on the
back of your neck, his lips sponging wet kisses up the span of your throat. “Yes,
that he is. And he’s sorry, too.”
“Lyin’.”
“Delightful little devil, isn’t he?”
As if on cue, Harry ruts up into your center just once, because once is all he
needs to express his longing and his aching tension. And when you try to climb
from his lap in an attempt to focus on your conversation, it only eggs him on to
grab your hips and pin you in place.
Instead of engaging in an unwinnable battle, you drop your forehead to his

and bask in the warmth of his little humming praise of good girl against your lips.
His nose nudges your chin up, his teeth sink into your neck, his thumb holds your
head in place.
“You have no idea.”
“The driver will be there in twenty. A journalist from The Washington Post will
be at the theatre to ask questions, then watch and review your performance.
Afterwards, there will be a short closing interview and some quick photographs.
Then you’re all set for the evening, I’m estimating you’ll wrap-up around seven.
How’s it going, sweetie? Are you doing okay?”
He hasn’t heard the question that you’re answering, but your response is all
Harry needs to send his eyes rolling straight to the back of his head. “Yes, I’m
fine. Thank you.”
Roach lowers the volume of her voice. “Feel free to let me know if this is out of
line, but I’d like to say something as a friend rather than a professional. Because I
do care about you, Vivienne. You seem remarkably happy. Comfortable. I imagine
after tomorrow that you’ll be hurting and that’s perfectly understandable. I want
you know that I, along with many others, are here to help and make sure
technicalities are running as smoothly as possible from here on out. Mose Benson
connects with the best publicists in the industry, therefore expertly knows how to
manage an image. The difficulty will be in your heart, but we can handle the other
details. Just worry about your magnificent self. Any questions?”
“Um….. about that, not at the moment.” Glancing at Harry’s hard stare, you’re
forced to peel your gaze away just a moment later in order to concentrate.
“Thank you so much, Roach. And yes, two other questions. Am I free tomorrow?”
You and Harry lock eyes again as he eagerly awaits the answer that will affect the
outcome of his day and mood on the flight to France and perhaps a long while
after, mentally clocking the hours in which he has to sway you towards that
tricky realm of trust that you so expertly dance beside. He watches you nod,
watches you listen, watches your lips shape the word okay again and again,
watches the way your eyes jump back and forth between his and then sighs a
mega-breath of relief when you reply to the phantom voice in your ear. “Harry’s
flight isn’t until the afternoon; would it be too late to arrange a car for the both of
us to the airport? I’d like to send him off if I can.” His heart is thumping twice as
much blood now. “Okay, thank you for looking into it, Roach. Ta-ta.”
Gathering the receiver from your hands, Harry returns it to the base with a
little jingle of metal and plastic and then raises an eyebrow at you. “What’s
hangin’?”
“I don’t have any obligations until tomorrow evening, so I’d like to ride with
you to the airport if that’s alright. I want to make sure you have a proper
goodbye.”
“Honestly?” But what he’s really obsessing over is: Would you bother to join
him for a proper goodbye if you were planning to break things off?
“The whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

“So help me god.” Harry splays his palm out across your belly, his lips
attaching to your collarbone and tickling your skin when he mumbles, “need a
kindred spirit for the ride?”
“No, no. You should rest and maybe start packing, call Mose, get your ducks in
a row. You have a big day tomorrow and a brand-new headspace to be in. See you
in a few hours?” His hand spreads up your chest and neck, latching comfortably
below your jaw for a taut squeeze and he must admit his pride when your voice
both quivers and chokes out, “I’ll be late…..”
The pad of his middle finger drags up your thigh and under the hem of your
skirt. “Who gives a shit? They’ll wait.” Harry breaks into a smile when you press
your forehead to his, cupping his cheeks in your hands and swiping your noses
back and forth a couple times before stealing a kiss. “Mm….. hi.” Drawing back, he
eyes you from bottom to top, admiring the heavy arch of eyeliner in the crease of
your eye and the little flower you drew at the top of your cheekbone. His palm
smooths up your stomach and between your breasts. “This dress is real slinky.
Your hair’s majorly shiny, too. And makeup’s flippin’. Nice one. Look extra pretty
today, babe. It’s hard not to make a mess of you. What’re ya thinkin’ about right
now? My joy knob inside you?”
“Harry!”
“Get this off—” His hands are dipping into your neckline and tugging at the
cups of your bra. “You don’t need a bra to support your cans. I support ’em
exactly how they are.” In another effort to distract him, your arms wrap around
his shoulders for a tight hug, his body successfully melting into yours as his head
falls onto your shoulder. Curls in his eyes, dimple heating his cheek, Adam’s apple
bobbing when he rasps, “mmm….. whatcha sayin’ so much for? Wanna make out
with me a little bit? Why do you have to feel so fuckin’ good, hm?”
Your hand smooths up his scratchy throat then down his warm belly, “must be
the drugs.” His half-whine half-hum blurs your question, which is yet another
attempt at distraction. “What are you writing, Sunbeam?”
“Top secret shit.” Cradling the back of your head, his nails scratch against your
scalp before he gathers your hair in a gentle fist away from your face. “Kiss,
please.” He hums at your doting reward, sinking his teeth into your bottom lip for
a taste and allowing you to draw back for some air. “Je t’aime, mon lapinou. I was
listin’ a hundred different ways an egg can be cooked. But I can only think of
forty-eight.”
“Forty-eight? That’s really impressive.”
“What’re the other fifty-two?”
“Did you write down scrambled?”
“You’re a troll. This is serious, Cherry. Knock it off or I’ll fertilize yours, and
then guess what? You’re stuck with me.” He pinches the back your neck when
you attempt to pull away, “tsk, hey. What the fuck? Where ya goin’ so fast?”
“Je t’aime.” You kiss him again, momentarily halting your retreat. “I have to
finish getting ready. And I’m not wanting to disturb your stroke of genius.”
“I know of a more genius stroke we could mess around with.”
“Alright, I’m going to be completely raw if you don’t stop trying to get into my
pants for at least the next fifteen minutes.” You reach across him for the glass of
orange juice on the nightstand, his palm smacking your ass loud and burning
hard as soon as enough surface area is provided.
You yelp and turn to Harry with a withering glare, but he merely responds
with soft teeth. “Wasn’t me.”
“Did I imagine it then?”
“Or! It was a ghost. Or somethin’ to do with the Bermuda triangle.” A smile

pulls across his lips. “You had that one comin’.”
“Oh. So, you’re trying to tell me I asked for it then?”
Harry’s eyes widen in fear, immediately sensing his mistake in both language
and action. “No! No, no. No, no, no. Shit—”
“I’m joking with you. Your face right now is priceless. You can spank me any
time you want. Well, pretty much any time.”
Glacially slow to return your kiss, Harry’s eyebrows tug into a frown and then
dart up his forehead when you draw back. “’Kay, shaggin’ a feminist who dabbles
in sarcasm and also likes to be spanked is hard sometimes. Worth it, though.”
“Actually, you’re really, really good at it.”
“Mmm. That’s the hottest thing you’ve ever said to me, no contest. Besides,”
his fingers shape a triangle in the air, “Y’know the damage a triangle can cause.
Easy to get lost in.”
“I hear they can make you late for flights.”
“I hear they swallow bitches whole.”

“I hear they suck men dry.”
“I hear they’re tight as fuck.”
“This one is.”
“Damn! You are the shit right now.”
Harry whines when your heat and weight disappear with an abrupt slink away
from the bed, returning yourself back to the mirror to fix the lipstick that he
accidentally smudged. Sliding his journal closer, he watches your black skirt
brush your legs for a moment, his soft humming melody of “Long Cool Woman”
chasing after your quiet footsteps. Your feet and arms flip up in a playful little
rendition of The Frug dance, which he immediately gasses up by singing the line
just one look I was a bad mess. And when you whip your hair in a circle, Harry
cups his hands around his mouth and provides you with a hearty whoop.
With a graceful pause, you point a finger at him. “Oh, mayonnaise.”
“What are we doing now, rhymin’? X-rays. Malaise. Sundays. The good old
days—”
“It’s one way to fix an egg. Also, quiche. And hollandaise, which also rhymes.”
“Whoa, totally different head. Rad. I dig it. Thanks, babe.” The phone rings
again and this time Harry answers without waiting for your authority, assuming
that it’s Roach calling again for another bout of pressure or with a bit of
information that she forgot to spill the first time around. “Hey Bug, did you drink
Bad Timing Juice this mornin’ or somethin’?”
“Henry?”
Harry flies up to sitting and runs his fingers through his hair. “Winnie?”
Your eyebrows pull into a frown. “Winnie?” You pace towards him and try to
swipe at the receiver, but he ducks away from your advance. Gasping, you point
an accusatory finger at him. “That’s my phone! Hands off, Melvin.” This time
Harry gives it up easily with his palms guiltily held in the air and you grab it,
sticking your tongue out at him before you press the phone to your ear. “Hello?
Nettie?”
“Hey, baby. Am I interrupting something? And can you please take two seconds
to explain why that sounded exactly like Harry Styles?”
But before you can answer, Harry grabs the phone from your hand and belly
flops onto the bed, his feet kicked up in the air behind him and his chin in his
palm like a teenage girl at a slumber party, prank calling her crushes. “What’s
buzzin’, cousin? I have a fuckin’ bone to pick with you, y’know.”
And you can hear Nettie through the earpiece pressed to Harry’s ear when she
scolds him, “I know you didn’t just rip the phone from my friend’s hand, little surfer
boy.”
“She did it first. And we’re only little in the pants, no sweat. Viv loves it. Right,
Honey? What’d you call me last night….. the ’one-inch pinch’?”
“Harry!”
“Give the phone back or I’m hanging up. Long distance is super expensive, you
know.”
“’Kay. Hey, miss you a shitload.”
“I miss you, too. We all do.” The volume of her voice drops a notch to ensure her
next sentiment is private from nosy ears. “Next time I see Bibi, you’re gonna be
right there with her, okay? I don’t know if she told you, but she’s got a string of
shows in the Bay Area and then a short residency in LA in late August, so see if you
can somehow work your schedule around that. It might be the only time she’s in
one place for that long. I’ll sneak subliminal messages into every sentence I say to
her until then. And over the next seven months. It’s in the bag. How’s it going, by the
way? On a scale from cold lentil soup to warm cherry cheesecake.”
“Fuckin’ Cadillac of desserts.”
“Not surprising, Casanova. I don’t have to see her to know that she’s over the
moon. You make her feel alive. Don’t give up, okay? And for the love of god, swallow
your herculean venomous pride for five minutes. I’ll see you soon. Give me back
now, please and thank you.”
“’Kay. Love you, too.” Harry hangs the phone up and rolls onto his side to look
at you, his eyebrows darting up on his forehead when he realizes what he’s done.
“Oh shit. You probably wanted to talk to her.”
“Airhead. It’s okay, she’ll be thrilled she doesn’t have to pay the long-distance
bill. What were you two even talking about?” Pressing the receiver to your ear,
you dial down to the front desk and tuck the mouthpiece under your chin to
muffle the volume of your voice as the line rings, “and did you call her ’Winnie’
just now?”
Harry shrugs. “Wynette Winters. Your roommate? Sister from another mister?
Professional face painter? Win Squared. I think you’ve met?”
One eyebrow perks up along your forehead, instantly recognizing Harry’s
classic answer circumnavigation tactic. “Since when do you call her Winnie and
not eight thousand variations of any word that starts with the letter N?”
“Ever since the HPP, Honeycat.”
“The HPP?”
“Time will tell.”
“Okay….. well, it’s a far cry from Nancy— hi, can you please place a long-
distance call for me?”
“Yes, ma’am. There will be a $1.05 deposit for the first three minutes.”
$1.05. Three minutes. This simple statement forces you to yet again consider
what the next several months could possibly sound like in a long-distance
relationship. Short, clipped, wildly expensive, barely-audible conversations
through thousands of miles and ever-changing hotels and separate frantic
schedules. Missed calls, short calls, dropped calls. Days and days without
speaking. Weeks and weeks without being on the same continent. Months and
months without a kiss, please whispered against your lips.
And you know, without even having the conversation, that Harry will insist
that it’s not a problem. That he doesn’t mind waking up in the middle of the night
to compensate for your time differences. That he’ll gladly funnel hundreds of
dollars into lengthy phone calls if it means keeping you in his ear. And thousands
to keep you in the same bed whenever possible. But that doesn’t help to make the
situation feel any less stressful. In a twisted way, it fuels it. Because it feels
serious and it feels like pressure and it feels like something that you’re still
unsure if you have the mental capacity to manage right now. But a part of you is
buzzing and compelling yourself to be brave and try, even if you haven’t admitted
it out loud yet. To yourself or to your lover.
It’s merely shifting your focus from a world you’ve carefully created for
yourself by yourself to abruptly sharing that world with another person to create
a new one altogether. No big deal.
“Would you like me to proceed?”
Sadness mutes your features. “Oh, pardon. Um, yes—”
Noticing your little moment of floundering and the unnatural timing of your
pause, Harry sits up and frowns. He reaches for you, his other hand pushing his
hair from his face and the volume of his voice pitched down, his Adam’s apple
rolling up his throat. “Hey. You alright? How bad did I fuck up?”
“No, no, you’re fine—” In an act of reassurance, you thread your fingers
through his and direct your attention back to concierge, “Excuse me. Actually, no,
thank you. Nevermind. I apologize for the confusion. I’ll have to call you back.”
Waiting patiently for you to hang up and finally find his eyes, Harry pulls in a
drag of air and slips his next question out on a sigh. Hoping that it’ll tame the
wild thumping of his wild heart. “This is gonna be bogue, isn’t it? Am I—”
“Oh, god.” Your big baby deer eyes start to shine and reflect the light in the
room, before a fat tear spills down your cheek and takes a bite of mascara with it.
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Harry’s stomach clenches uncomfortably. “Hey, hey. S’okay. You’re just

trippin’ up a bit. C’mere. Honey Slowdown.” Grabbing your arms, he tugs you
onto the bed and tucks you between his legs, wrapping you up in a tight hug with
his stomach pressed up against your back. And as soon as you start to soften, his
thumbs squeeze into the knots in your shoulders while he blows cool air on your
neck and acknowledges your soft thank you, “mhm….. big breaths.”
Seeing you cry is always profound for him. Not only because you don’t
typically cry, but because you try your hardest to keep your shit together over
big, difficult things. Especially when it comes to your career and the heavy
situations that you find yourself wrapped up in, the things you view as life
choices. Or alternately, the things that you have zero choice over; like your bum
ankle, your conservative parents, your violent assault.
Harry has seen you lose your shit over a run in your tights though, but that’s
more likely the simmering water from all those bigger aforementioned things
boiling up and over through the guise of torn fabric at the knee.
“I feel like I’ve spent so much time missing you.”
He pauses his massage and peeks over your shoulder for a better look at your
face. “’Kay….. keep goin’.”
You turn your head to find his gaze. “This is going to be difficult. It already
feels unbalanced.”
“Why?”
“Well, when we’d want to see one another, you’d always be coming to me and
—”
“Hey, hey. Stop….. stop. Do ya think I haven’t already thought about this? That
I didn’t beat the details of how this would work into a bloody pulp before I
bothered to surprise you in New York? That’s just how our schedules are for the
next few months. Listen, I know you’re on stage every couple days and flying once
or twice a week. I know I stay in one place and work in big chunks and then have
little chunks of time off. And I’m still here, aren’t I? I just wanna chunk with you
when I can. I don’t mind travelin’. I love traveling. And I love you. It’s no sweat.
C’mon babe, don’t do this right now. You’re gettin‘ twisted. You said you wanted
this convo to wait until after your performance, so just fuckin’ wait. Let it go for
now. You gotta be out the door in ten and I don’t wanna untangle any bigger
knots than I have to. Besid… s... you’d find ways to even the score.”
“How so?”
“Extra sloppies.” He waits for your little giggles to be set free before he joins
you in this quick flicker of sunshine. “Salinger said all good boys deserve knob
slobs.”
“Oh, that’s right. I think I remember reading that in Catcher in The Rye.”
“You’re fulla shit.” Harry flops down onto the bed and snuggles his head into
your lap, humming at the feeling of your fingers sinking into his hair and
scratching his scalp. “You gotta admit it’s crazy hot, right?”
“What is?”
Reaching for his smokes, he holds the pack to his mouth and grabs one with
his teeth. “You know what. Sneakin’ around, meetin’ up, hiding, hotel boom-
boom, phone sex, goin’ crazy thinking ’bout you.” He lights the tip next, the both
of you pausing to watch the end smolder like a melting strawberry. “Missing each
other. Spacin’ out on your tits through a cloudy airplane window. Suspended,
compacted and intense romps together. Seeing my name in a newspaper article
and knowin’ all my secrets. Seeing your face in a magazine and knowin’ I’m yours
even though no one else does. Knowing you’re so much more than the best
dancer in the world. And that you like fingers in your butt.” He doesn’t even
bother blocking your weak swat. “Daddy’s baby girl.”
“Yes, you know me. I love every bit of that, too. So much. It’s my absolute
favorite. It’s very us, but bigger. Riskier. Sneakier.” And much, much more distant.
“Shit, that’s killer. Doesn’t get more Us than that. You’re speakin’ my language,
but what’s new? We’ll get to live with that constant feeling of nostalgia, which is
the best feeling ever, y’know? Then time will slow down when we’re back
together, and everything will feel severe. It’s like coming home.” And he doesn’t
mind it at all when you steal the cigarette from his mouth and indulge in a drag
yourself, the dark pink cloud dancing behind your teeth before spilling back out
into the air, lighter and softer. “God, you’re so pretty today, Honeycomb. It’s
majorly distracting. Like someone rubbed mica into your skin. You sure you don’t
need a kindred spirit for the ride? I don’t really wanna be alone today. I can be
ready to jam in five.”
It’s like coming home.
“I think I’d actually love one, yes.”
It feels as though you’ve been stuck in a loop at this theatre for days upon
days, between speaking with the press and warming up and costuming and
performing, followed by cleaning yourself up for more press and photographs.
Realistically it’s been just shy of eight hours since you left the warmth of the
hotel bed this morning, but with the atypical addition of Harry dangling like a
delicious carrot in the background for all of it, it may as well have been a week.
Especially when you’re being photographed and he shouts things from across
the room like find your light, Surefire. Find your light. Especially when you’re
sitting at the vanity applying stage makeup and he hovers behind you, tickling his
fingers up your throat and under your chin, tilting your head back to plant a kiss
to your forehead. Then your nose, then your mouth. Underlining his last kiss with
a mumble of foxy today. Especially when you’re being interviewed and he looks
up from his book to mouth things from across the room like show me your tits
with a tongue full of pink smoke. Especially when you wait for the journalist from
The Washington Post to turn their back on you so that you can slip the neck of
your dress down to grant him a quick peek.
There’s truly nothing better than your lover’s face dropping in surprise before
widening in elation, little crinkles puckering the corners of his eyes and a silent
laugh rippling up his throat. An air high-five beaming to you from across the
room, his finger wagging in a reprimand before he pulls a drag from his cigarette.
That’s a set of fuckin’ lungs, Jesus.
The taste of your cherry lollipop dances on the back of your tongue as you
swing the greenroom door open now, ready to face another smaller crew of
people armed with another smaller list of social demands before you’re set free
for the evening. After tonight’s performance and after Harry leaves tomorrow
afternoon, you have just one more show in Washington D.C. before making your
way to Nashville next. And the prospect of spending a night alone in that same
hotel suite with Harry’s ghost makes your heart clench sadly, offering just a taste
of what may come for the better half of a year.
He exists in every corner of your sheets. Your skin. Your heartache.
Monochromatic from head-to-toe; powder blue ribbed miniskirt with a

matching lowcut buttoned top, your hair swept off of your neck, heavy eyeliner.
You haven’t seen Harry since the brief encounter when you skated off stage well
over two hours ago, but it’s likely he’s off charming Roach or carrying around a
Pearl, neck-deep in conversation with a stranger about how corrupt American
policing is.
So, it scares the hell out of you when the greenroom door violently stops short
with a harsh slap, the door slowly rebounding closed as a loud cry yelps from the
other side.
“Fuck! My perfectly handsome face!”

You gasp and push the door open to find Harry hunched over with his fist
covering his nose, his hair in his face. Clapping your palm over your mouth, you
rub his back and bend down, trying to get a better look at his injury. “Oh my god!
Harry— I’m so sorry. Are you okay? Can I see?”
But he perks up and dances away from you with a little shuffle, swaying his
hips with his fists at his sides, then spreading his palms in the air and loosening
his shoulders a bit. Dressed in a patterned quilt button-down shirt and cuffed
green wool trousers, feet nestled into worn black leather oxfords. Curls animated
against his cheeks. “Nowhere to Run” by Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
clambers loudly from the turntable speakers through the room, over a couple
dozen people milling and loosening up in each corner of the small space around
him. The surrounding energy is light and jovial, but that may have everything to
do with the Sunshine currently dancing with himself.
And he has to shout over the music to be heard, “no duh, take a joke!”
“What? Harry!” Pressing your hand to your chest, you wait for your pounding
heart to settle. “Oh wow. That was way too believable….. don’t tell me you stood
there waiting for me to hit you with a door for half a second of a joke?”
“Things get a little stale back here sometimes. I gotta take some responsibility.
Get over here already.” Dancing up behind him, you wrap one arm around his
shoulders and he smiles and reacts immediately, spinning in your grasp and
tugging you close to swing your hips back and forth, your hands clasped together
by your shoulders. “Outta sight, Cherry. Fell six times just watchin’ you. Press
outfit’s killer. How’d those marks on your ass feel, hm? Bet they stung. Freshies.
Hey, is this enough pineapple juice for your Honeybee Jamboree? I told ’em you
like it chilled, but they only had room temp, cool?”
Greenrooms are typically stale just as Harry remarked, a breeding ground for
clock watching and forced small talk. But these last two weeks have felt much,
much different backstage. With loud music and extra booze and dancing and
smoking and laughing throughout the entire room. So, accepting Harry’s
impending and eventual departure seems impossible in this moment, in this
irreplicable atmosphere of his making.
Nowhere to hide.
Six single shots of Murky Lagoon rum with six backs of pineapple juice are
neatly placed on a tray with the rest of your limited selection of requested snacks
per your rider; fresh fruit and raw sliced vegetables, hot water with lemon and
honey, a bowl of cherry lollipops. Rum with pineapple juice is historically yours
and Harry’s favorite tradition after a show, ever since working together at the
Victory Theatre in Malibu. A tradition that, after some warm-up time, you and
Soren picked up as well. Except your lover has coined the term Honeybee
Jamboree for when you’re in the mood to have more than one round. Like tonight.
And nowadays it seems as though you take them like a champ, without
pausing for a breath or even a wrinkle of your nose. As you demonstrate right
now, with the first empty chaser clacking back onto the tray.
“Oh, damn. You’re gonna be in twinkle town in twenty minutes. Wait hang on,
I’ll meet you there. One sec.” Harry blows on his fingertips and licks his pinkies
before using them to slick his eyebrows down, then dips forward to pick up the
shot glass with his mouth. Except he chokes when he tips it back and then
completely loses his stride when your snort rolls through the air. The glass drops
but he catches it mid-air, coughing a few times into his fist to catch his breath, his
eyes bulging out of his head. His hands cup around his mouth as he wails in
agreement of his own failure into the space of the room, for whoever will listen.
“Boooo! Swing and a miss.”
The familiar ache that only his humor can bring is tying your stomach into
knots. “What did I even just witness?”
“Not sure myself. Aggressive Party Tips from Your Friend Sunny.”
As expected, someone from the crew approaches to pull your attention away
and after a brief greeting, Harry quiets down and allows you a moment of space
to plow through another networking-based conversation. He glances around the
busy and lively greenroom, calculating how to patiently bide his time while you
tie up all of the typical loose ends after a performance.
Soft pink clouds cloak him as he slowly circles around the space exactly once,
half-assing affable conversations with whoever is smiling and physically closest,
snacking on whatever food is lying around on the crafty table. The two of you
catch eyes several times from your separate corners, but ten twenty thirty
minutes pass and as soon as it’s the slightest bit polite to, Harry swipes your
precious fucking cardigan and purse from the coatrack and returns to you.
Gently gripping your elbow, he ducks down to mutter in your ear, “hey, can I
steal you for a sec?”
Eyeing your belongings in his hand, you politely pardon yourself from your
conversation to glance up at him and return your question in his ear. The one
with the daisy sparkling in it, “are you okay, Sunny?”
“Yeah, ringin’.”
The clock on the wall ticks from 7:32 to 7:33 and so does Harry’s mental
countdown, his eyes darting around the room to make sure no one else is circling
around for a bite of you. When he’s certain the coast is clear, Harry leads you
around the corner and into a small dressing room, his fingers wrapping around
your throat as soon as the door slams shut. Without hesitation you meet each
other for a bruising kiss, stumbling a couple steps backwards to reach the
nearest wall, Harry’s hand slipping up your blouse to palm your breast. And
immediately after you suck his tongue into your mouth to feel him hum in relief,
three loud knocks echo through the room.
Harry groans and pries himself away to announce his annoyance. “Yeah, yeah,
keep your shirt on!” Licking his lips, he admires the flush of your skin before
cupping your cheeks, his thumb sinking past your teeth and into your mouth. His
insides toss when you flatten your tongue and suck hard while peering into his
eyes, the volume of his voice slipping into a murmur that matches the allure of
your action. A raspy, lustful secret. “Mmm….. you’re drivin’ me crazy. So hard to
keep my hands off you. Whose girl are you?”
Popping his finger from your mouth, you speak against his lips. Your volume a
perfect parallel to his. “All yours, Sunny.”
The butterflies in Harry’s stomach are flying in a hundred different directions.

“Yeah? She wanna take a little stroll with him?”
The way Harry’s bottom lip sucks into his mouth and his eyes shine brightly
makes you feel sad, maybe understanding that it isn’t so much the content of the
impending conversation that you’re dreading, but perhaps it’s simply an aversion
to saying goodbye in any capacity. Because when he leaves tomorrow, whether
or not Harry is labeled as your boyfriend, you’re going to miss him so much that
it feels like your lungs might explode just thinking about it.
You nod, knowing exactly what’s coming next and feeling the sickness of it
swimming in your stomach. And Harry can see it all over your face. “Yes. Let me
just check—”
“Bug will wrap up the extras and grab the rest of your shit for you. I got your
precious cargo. We’re ready to rock and roll. C’mon, babe. Banana Split.” He
knows all your ducks are in a row because he’d already double checked with
Roach while you were taking your last round of photographs. And since Harry
knows that your mental to-do list is nine miles long after a show, he’s gotten into
the habit of clearing out all of the debris for you before you hit the road. Because
roads are a lot easier to navigate when the rocks have been swept from the path
first. Besides, he’s never been one to just sit on his hands.
And he fucking hates waiting.
“But what about—”
“Car’s pickin’ us up at eleven tomorrow morning. Your wake-up call,” he

points to his own chest, “is set. Vanity’s packed, skates are in the bag, show’s
done, interview’s done. Everyone’s been thanked. We’ll grab a taxi from the curb
if we need.” Harry points to your shoes next. “Your feet okay in those shoes? They
look pinchy.”
Kicking up your foot, you glance at the heel of your two-toned red and coral
slingbacks over your shoulder. “They’re fine.”
Harry mockingly grumbles the words they’re fine against your lips before
slotting them together in a kiss, then mumbling into your mouth, “did you eat
anything?”
“Little bit.”
“Enough?”
“I’ll be okay for two hours, tops.”
“Lyin’?” Honesty shines through the adamant shake of your head and it’s one
of those times when Harry doesn’t know if you’re just being polite or not. Except
right now he’s too anxious to gruel over it for very long. “’Kay. So, what d’ya say?”
It’s rare for you to blindly trust someone in this way, to allow your things to be
managed and handled behind your back without your input. And to have faith
that not only are those things managed correctly, but to your standards. Or
above. It’s a heavenly experience to allow your constant self-supervision to just
melt away. Which is exactly what your lover flourishes in, both backstage and
behind closed bedroom doors, as well. Like no one else can.
You don’t have to question him. In fact if you did, it would probably piss him
off.
Kissing him again, you drag the pad of your finger under his chin. “What am I
gonna do without you, hmm? Thank you for taking such good care of me,
Sunbaby. Like only you can.”
“Welcome. Fuck.” He hisses loudly. “That one went straight to my nutbag.”
Harry catches your swat before it can land, lacing your fingers together and
guiding you through the backroom theatre wings with your cardigan tucked
under his arm. One keen glance back at you tells you everything you need to
know, and without another word, the two of you are weaving through press and
sneaking past technical directors and sound crew and publicists and
photographers and stylists and runners and Roach, hands clasped together as
you escape through the discreet backstage exit with sweet secrecy at your backs.
“What does your tummy feel like when you think about the tournament in
France?”
Your tender night-walk through the Washington D.C. streets provides plenty
of access to inspirational window shopping; darkened floral shops and swoon-
worthy restaurants, shoe stores, barber shops, newspaper stands. The one-off
dive bar that makes you pause before changing your mind, unhurried to
introduce pool and cheap liquor into your discourse.
“I dunno. Keepin’ it real. Waves are outta sight right now. I’m gonna be pullin’
’em out like tuna. Eight-foot sets in Biarritz this time of year, Cherry. Wish you
could be there. I’d feed you macaroons.”
“I wish I could be there, too.” A slow-motion wave arcs high, high up in your
imagination, foamy crests and sparkly Sun reflecting off of each ripple. It blinds
you for a moment, the images nothing but light and shadows. Then your lover
effortlessly backsides on his board through the hollowed-out barrel of ocean as
he dares his god to teach him a new lesson. Wet, apt, hot. “That sounds…..
heavenly.”
“Fuckin’ right?”
“You are an outstanding example of a human being. You completely blow my

mind sometimes. I hope you’re so proud of who you are.”
“Shit.” Grabbing your arm, Harry stops the both of you on the empty sidewalk
below a dull yellow streetlight, the Washington Monument jutting up like an ice
sculpture in the far distant center of the cherry blossom-lined street. “Thanks,
babe. Mmm…..” He cups your jaw in one hand and dips down for a soft kiss. “Fuck
— that was super deluxe. Indulgent. I’m callin’ the fuzz on you. Open up or I’ll
blow this door off the hinges.”
“I’ll abolish you.”
Laughter bleeds through his next statement. “Gonna be a panty raid.” And
when you laugh against his lips, he feels powerless in his impulse to steal another
kiss without asking. His fingers digging into the back of your neck, his mouth
memorizing the taste of your smile. As he eases back, he hums at the excellence
of sensation, the relief of it all. “Startin’ to become a habit?”
“Mmm….. maybe. But I like when you ask.” And not just because he’s asking for
permission since he doesn’t really need it, but because it’s his language. It’s him.
It’s yours.
“’Kay. Hey, thanks for cuttin’ me some slack. I know it’s hard, with me just
turning up and intensely bein’ in your face for this long and then bookin’ it.”
Harry pauses to lick his lips before rolling them together. Eyes light and bright,
searing through yours as he considers all of the different approaches to stringing
together the hundreds of sentiments he wishes he could say to you all at once.
Mainly gratitude for the grace in which you’ve allowed him back into your life
thus far. It seems stupid now, but all of those daydreams about sweeping you off
of your feet and jumping your bones and swallowing each one of your grateful
moans the instant you saw one another again unraveled exactly how he wished,
into his trembling open palms. Despite the river of sludge that his brain tried to
flood to convince him otherwise. “I hope I make you feel as safe as you make me
feel, V.”
“Safe? You’re my sanctuary.”
Your laugh is small. Microscopic really, just a little huff of air through your
front teeth. One that conveys delighted surprise rather than humor. Surprised by
his simple approach and how it somehow carries more sincere gravity than his
long heartfelt tangents and his dirty smut and his je t’aimes. More than his
surprise ambush in New York City after two and a half years of silence to embark
on what has felt like a belated two-week-long honeymoon.
Maybe not quite that sincere, but close.
“Hey, Sunny. Wouldn’t it be funny if you didn’t love me like you think you do,
but instead your brain has glitched over the idea of me so many times that now
you’re just like a broken record forever?” His unamused expression makes you
start giggling against your will. “You know, like….. stuck.”
“Whatcha babblin’ about?” To Harry, you’re starting to sound a little nervous,
so he does what he always does in times like these and soothes you with humor.
“This conversation was goin’ so well.” Then he starts growing a smile too, before
he starts half-singing and half-mimicking a broken record, “she got the way to
move me, Cherry— she got the way to move me, Cherry— she got—”
“Exactly, you get it.”
Slipping your fingers together, Harry tugs you along with him at a sedated
pace, hoping the speed of his brain will match his feet. “Right, so….. you got
somethin’ against an LDR or what?”
“What’s an LDR?”
“A long-distance relationship. What’s the hitch? We’ll just use Instant There
when we need each other and then boom, comfort in a jiffy.”
“What’s Instant There?”
“I made that up. Telephones exist, though. We can surf our schedules before
my flight and pencil in some playdates. I’ll come see you as much as possible. I
can bum around LA with you for a few weeks. You got a bunch of shows comin’
up there, yeah?”
“Late summer, yes. I don’t remember telling you that, though. How do you
know that? Roach?”
“Covert sources.”
After Nettie dropped that information bomb on him this morning, Harry
checked the itinerary jotted down in the back of his journal during your
rehearsal this afternoon, discovering that he has a tournament in Hawaii that
perfectly butts up with your long stints in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
So, he stepped out of the room to use the phone in the theatre lobby, placing a
long-distance call to Mose to consider details around him spending a hearty
chunk of time with you between competitions. It turns out that he doesn’t have to
be in Spain until mid-September, which would give him three full weeks of
nothing but free time for you. And just before his final tournament before the
World Championship in Puerto Rico. The tournament with the heaviest amount
of pressure, because it’ll be the final piece to determine whether or not he
qualifies for the Championship. And he could sure use a heavy dose of late
summer California waves and your soothing, sweet, choice luck before heading
off.
Harry can’t remember the last time he’s had a cigarette and so that means it’s
been too long. Tugging one from his shirt pocket, he pauses to light it, taking his
time to watch the match turn black. “I’ll be in Hawaii in August. It’s no prob to
hop over to Cali for a bit. I know it’s far off, but we’ll have a few other jaunts
along the way. Where will you be in a month?”
“At the end of April? Miami, I think.”
“Rock on. I could drop by for a couple days before I head to Australia in May.”
You’re quiet. Thinking. And his heart is breaking in the silence. “Um….. or maybe
just hang-and-bang th… n...?”
“Can we just hang and bang, though?”
It won’t stop. This crack in his heart, it’s clawing itself into a wider and wider
gap. Maybe this is unreasonable, maybe he is unreasonable. “Uh, science says yes
—”
“Alright, alright. You know that’s not what I’m asking, Harry. Let’s be serious
for a second.”
“Yeah, okay. I have a clarifying question though. Are you askin’ me this ’cause
you think it’ll be harder for me than it’ll be for you?”
“I’m asking to make sure we’re both aware of what we’re getting into. Both
starting a new relationship and patching up an old one, with thousands of miles
and a handful of times zones between us. That’s a lot of space for
miscommunication. And….. yes, I think it might be stressful for you. I’m worried
it’s gonna wear you out and possibly jeopardize your career. That’s a lot of
running around, long flights, strained emotions, exhausting work—”
“I decide what’s best for me. You don’t have to shoulder my emotions. I got
’em. And it’ll only be like this at the get-go. You’re actin’ like life isn’t supposed to
be complicated or somethin’—”
“A seven-month get-go. That’s longer than we were together in Malibu. And I

just have to know; why did you choose now, of all times? We’re both running
around like complete maniacs.”
He’s still not ready to tell you the entire story of his timing, mostly because
Harry likes to harness the energy of cheap thrills and shock value for his own
personal entertainment. But at least this time when he’s ready to tell you the
truth, there’s no chance it’ll break your heart.
And he’s starting to think that he received a signal to start his Cherry-pursuit
based on the timing of a certain break-up, which was conveniently omitted from
every conversation. But he’ll make sure he gets a chance to pick a bone soon.
“Why not? It’s just a little trust that’s missin’ and I don’t blame you for feelin’
that way at all. I flipped on you over and over again back then. We just have to
keep proving to each other that we’re resistant. That I’m not goin’ anywhere,
even when shit gets rough. That’s it. Rewire the brain to push past our fallout. It
was a gnarly one, but don’t give up on us.”
“I’m not giving up on us, but I do need to be honest for a second.”
“’Kay…..”
“Okay….. it’s about Flint.”
And for the love of god, swallow your herculean venomous pride for five minutes.
“God.” Stopping in his tracks again, Harry pinches the bridge of his nose until
the thunderstorm settles in his stomach. Then after a couple seconds, he sucks
the last quarter of his cigarette down to the filter and flicks the butt into the
sewer. Nodding, he spins his finger in the air in a circle, wordlessly conveying for
you to carry on. And quickly. “’Kay, hit me.”
Stopping and spinning to face him, the streetlight above pours over your
figures, creating a honeyed illumination upon what deserves attention right now.
“Flint felt safe. I dated him for a lot of reasons; because he’s not in the industry.
Because I’d been on my own for a year and a half and felt pressured to try a new
relationship because I thought I’d be lonely forever if I just kept waiting for you.
If I kept waiting for something that was uncertain. If anything, he acted as a basis
of comparison to you — someone who completed the whole picture — that I
wouldn’t have otherwise. A side role that highlighted your lead role. A stand in.
He showed me that no one could really touch you. I dated him because he
couldn’t break my heart. I’m scared to date you again because you can. You can
destroy me and I know it because it’s happened before and if something
crumbled between us while I was in the middle of touring, or ever again, I don’t
know if I could withstand the emotional devastation of another fallout alone and
away from home. That was really hard. Our breakup was really hard, for many
reasons.”
“Okay, so. What does that make me? Not safe? You called me your sanctuary
two seconds ago—”
“No, no. The exact opposite. You make me feel very safe. Taken care of.
Dependent even. Flint just felt safe to me….. I simply trusted him. I didn’t feel as
though I leaned on him. There’s a difference. And I think it makes you superior. It
makes you powerful. It makes you risky. Entering a relationship with you is
delicate because when it comes to you, I’m delicate. I love how you make me feel
and I know how much it hurts when that feeling is absent. You have more control
over me than I’d like to admit. You take up a ton of space and it’s amazing when
you’re here, but it feels desperately empty when you’re not. That’s what the next
seventh months will feel like; empty. I’m dreading the heartache. Please, please
tell me this makes sense.”
“Yeah, it makes perfect sense and I can say that with confidence because I feel
the same exact way. But I see it in a different light. My perspective is if you’re
gonna soften me, if I’m gonna be thinkin’ about you constantly and seein’ you in
other people and little things and shit, then I should be with you. And look, you
can be scared and still do things. We’re not equipped with all these fuckin’
feelings just to only feel one of them. You’re sad I’m leavin’ and you don’t have an
answer yet. You’re crazy about me and you’re scared to grieve again. You’re
frustrated that you feel so deeply and don’t know where to fit it all. It’s okay to
feel sad. It’s okay to feel scared. It’s fuckin‘ okay to feel weak and confused. It’s
okay to feel things. No buts. It just is. That’s why they exist. Feel the emotions you
have, Honey. But live a little. You can feel all that shit and still love me at the
same time. Know that.”
Your pause is long. It’s so long that Harry starts to worry before you finally
rattle out, “you’re right. I do know that. And I need that reminder sometimes.
Often. I try too hard to hold it all together that I end up squeezing and suffocating
myself. I appreciate you for saying all of that. So….. can we call Flint an
experiment?”
“We can call him Lint. And I dunno since I wasn’t there, but somethin’ tells me
you didn’t let him in either. You let him in even less. I mean, thank god for my
sake. But Jesus Christ, V.”
The psychoanalysis wasn’t needed. Especially because you’ve already worked
through it one hundred times on your own and concluded that for you, a high
level of control equals security. It’s not healthy, but you recognize that as well.
Through your own processing, you’ve also concluded that Flint doesn’t hold a
candle to Sunshine. Flint doesn’t even spark. But Harry has to know that by now.
Doesn’t he?
“And you’re not giving any energy to Lint?”
“Not on your watch, Honey honey.”
Harry waits. He waits for you to wrinkle your nose, to breathe out a little
snort, to laugh. To give your palm as a resting space for his chin, to tilt your head
up and silently beg for a kiss against his mouth. He waits, but none of it comes.
And in that second of waiting, that dreaded moment happens that Harry was
really hoping wouldn’t happen because he was hoping that he’s a different
person now. But it doesn’t work that way. We are who we are and we slowly
carve prettier shapes with time. The idea of complete change is much too simple
for life’s curveballs.
And when curveballs become too tricky, we start to seek our shells for
protection.
“So, what’s goin’ on? Making big life decisions left and right or something? It’s
a good thing. Confusion is actually clarity, y’know? Nothin’ that holds worth is
easy to decide on. So….. there’s your answer right there. I hold worth. You’re
afraid to lose me. Then fuckin’ have me, Cherry.”
“Harry….. let’s get a taxi and go back to the hotel so we can be comfortable and
finish this conversation in private—”
So, Harry dodges the curveballs and resorts to protecting himself.
“Goddamnit— no. Fuck! The hotel—”
Harry starts panicking. He doesn’t want this; he doesn’t want to be wrong.

Because playing a game chances a loss and he doesn’t play to lose. Losing is
vulnerable. It’s public and it’s loud. He wants to run. Mostly because he doesn’t
want to say the wrong shit and also mostly because he can’t stand this feeling
inside of his guts. He’s not ready for this immature version of him to appear. He’s
not ready to not get his way. He’s not ready for this to end. It can’t. Not after
these past two perfect weeks and how much they’ve meant to him and to you and
the both of you, not after all the fantasies of how this could continue to develop in
the future. Not after everything he’s done to try to meet you where you are. Not
after he’s had a taste of exactly what he wants. Not just a taste of you, but a taste
of what the two of you have together.
He’s not ready to walk around with a broken heart again.
It’s right. You fit. Why can’t you see it?
“Does that mean you’re breakin’ things off? You wanna go back ’cause you
don’t want me to lose my shit in public and embarrass you? Why? Give me one
good reason.” It only takes one stare in your direction from a passerby for Harry
to take your hand and lead you into an alleyway beside a bar with a green awning
and a brick façade, the volume of his voice dropping to a Harry-whisper. “C’mon,
you’re stringin’ me along, V. Why am I here right now, huh? Because you’re
fuckin’ lonely, scared and sex-starved? Because you want me to take care of you
and then punish me for takin’ care of you? You’re okay with me just walkin’
away? You’re gonna be able to just shove these two weeks into some cold corner
of your mind as if they never happened? How are you even capable of that? It’s
ruthless.”
Playing a game chances a loss, but it’s also incredibly brave.

An exasperated gasp leaks from your mouth and claws through the air. Your
jaw hangs open in space for a few painful seconds, an ice cream scoop hollowing
your chest out and leaving it cold and empty. A mental search for the flutter of
your heart as you try to string a sentence together.
You hate the particular burning type of friction that conflict with loved ones
brings on. You hate that your mind immediately defaults to vacating in defeat in
the midst of arguments or difficulty like this. You hate how Harry’s stubborn
nature breeds your stubborn nature and how you can watch it unfold like a
weathered piece of paper you carry around in your back pocket, soft and cottony
and full of creases no matter how many times you try to smooth it down when
your mind is more rational. You hate it mostly because you don’t want it to
happen, but you can’t seem to stop it and neither can he.
This is the baffling side of Harry that you knew was still there, but was lying
dormant in his patient effort to woo you.
“How could you— How can you turn around and say things like that to me,
essentially calling me weak, cruel and manipulative, after also pushing me to see
how tough I am? After calling me your ’favorite thing to eat for breakfast,
paradise in a person’? You completely flip and throw scathing insults at me when
you’re afraid you won’t get your way. When you don’t even know what I’m going
to say and just assume the worst of me. And you wonder why I feel uncertain
sometimes. Don’t you see that?” Your chin quivers and your big baby deer eyes
glass over. “We both suffered a lot when you left Malibu. Please don’t speak to me
that way or chastise me for trying to think rationally about this. I deserve better.”
Harry’s expression crumples at the sight of you tearing up because of him for
the second time today and the validity of your words, his face falling into his
palms as he digs the heels of his hands into his eye sockets until he sees purple
stars. He always says the wrong shit. “Oh my god.” His voice is much smaller now.
“Fuck. Pardonne-moi. You do. You deserve everything. I’m ticked off, yeah? My
defenses shot up. It’s not your fault. J’ai encore perdu le contrô le. I regret sayin’
all that. I dunno how else to prove it to you, but I’m tryin’ to be better. I really,
really am.” And even smaller now, “I deserve better too, Vivienne.”
“Harry…..”
“You are tough. It’s good and bad. It drives me to you and it drives me up the
fuckin‘ wall. You’re so much, but I can’t get enough. It’s— you. I’m crazy ’bout
you. The good and the bad. I just want you to show me that I’m worth it.”
For some reason, his raw statement stops the argument dead in its tracks. Just
like that, neither of you have anything to add. Words have turned into alphabet
soup and there’s no use stirring the pot anymore.
But it’s not defeat. It’s acceptance. Acceptance for one another’s areas of
expertise and areas of improvement and areas of weakness. Acceptance for the
awareness of it all and the cooperation needed to move forward, healthfully and
genuinely as two separate parts that have to learn how to work together towards
a certain goal. Duplicates and opposites that fall perfectly into place, like teeth in
a zipper.
An umbrella of space descends down on your burst love bubble, protecting all
of the broken pieces and sheltering you from the rain as you both take a moment
to collect the jagged shards.
In a moment of quiet space like this, there’s an opportunity to consider first

and then respond, rather than allowing an emotional reaction to a hurtful
statement. It’s time to deliver a skillful response rather than a knee jerk response
that would hinder resolution. Contrary to popular belief, stillness isn’t passive —
it’s an active ingredient in difficult conversation.
And Harry pushes through that space without running away, even though it
feels icky and tight and horrible. And you push through that space without
closing yourself off, even though it feels raw and unpleasant and dreadful.
Then reaching for you, Harry grips your wrist and tugs you close, wrapping
you up in the warmest, tightest hug he can muster. His cheek presses against
your head as you hold each other and sway slowly back and forth, a silent
promise to notice one another’s shortcomings and use the power of one’s own
inner dialogue to work through personal difficulties instead of unleashing hell on
each other. Because that’s all conflict is. Inner turmoil, turned inside out and
lobbed at another person.
Just fuckin’ tell me I’m not good enough for you, V. Say it. Just say it.
“You have endless worth. This isn’t your fault either.” You peer up at him,
eyeing his mouth first before focusing on his eyelashes. “You’re not wrong at all. I
get it. You have every right to be frustrated right now, considering how much
effort you’re putting in. And I have every right to feel uncertain. This isn’t about
you and your character. I don’t want long distance to stress either one of us out,
it’s a particularly difficult type of relationship. Of course you deserve everything
good. Look at how everything disintegrated around you and you persisted. You
exceeded. It’s noble. You’re incredible and you’re so good to me, Sunbaby. So
good. Perfect, really. It’s not even a question. Thank you for existing.”
I’ll never tell you that.
Heart and mind a soft pink bubble, Harry studies every inch of your face as he
waits for a proper response to come. He needed to hear that. He knows that you
said that because he needed to hear it. Most importantly, he knows that you
believe it.
“You know you’re real fuckin’ solid at that, yeah? Belly feels like the inside of a
jelly doughnut.” Gripping your chin, he forces your eyes on his and leans close
with a little more intensity than you were expecting. “Hey. You’re not alone in
this spiral, V. You gotta fuckin’ talk to me. Alright? You don’t have to try to work
all the complicated details out in your head by yourself and then come to me with
a perfect black-and-white answer. We can talk through difficult shit, y’know like,
how people in relationships need to do if they want it to work? Since there’s two
of us? But I dunno, I’m just guessin’.”
You really, really missed his moxie. Only he can pull it off. It’s perfectly Sunny.
“Okay. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to say. Let’s go back to the suite and
explore all of those fun gray-area details before you have a brain aneurysm on
this street corner.”
“Oh okay, is that all?” In an effort to fight the humor carving into his cheeks,
Harry’s face curls up in sarcastic annoyance. “God, only took her two weeks.” He
cradles the back of your head and tilts it forward, leaving a soggy kiss to your
forehead and then to your lips. “Sorry, didn’t mean to completely put you in your
place like that.” He artfully dodges your swat and backs up towards the entrance
of the bar. “Gotta grab ciggies. Don’t run off with any bad boys in leather ridin’ on
murdercycles while I’m gone. One day you’ll be runnin’ away from home to join
the circus and the next thing you know, you’re nappin’ on a tropical island in
paradise, strung out on the devil’s lettuce and mango sticky rice. Two shakes,
yeah?”
“That’s what’s happening, isn’t it?”
“Isn’t it?”
After waiting a second to study each other’s facial expressions, Harry spins on
the ball of his foot and presses his hand to his chest, mumbling to himself like an
angry old man. “Jesus, take the fuckin’ wheel. Future Harry better not be
surprised when the gray hair starts comin’ in. Talk about playin’ hard to get. Got
my goddamn work cut out for me. Piece of work. Fuckin’ Rube Goldberg machine,
makin’ simple shit complicated for no reason—”
Harry nods and forces an empty smile at an older man staring at him from his
perch at the bar, before slipping a couple dimes out of his pocket and shaking
them in his palm, eyeing the iridescent packaging in the machine tidied into
rainbow-ordered rows. The lights on the machine remind him of a jukebox, big
hot bulbs chasing each other in a frame to illuminate his choices.
His muscle memory creates a dog-like Pavlovian response to the pink box
decorated in shiny pink hearts, his usual choice, before his attention is grabbed
by the one directly beside it. Cherry Crush, the candy-red smoke he shamelessly
swam in for a couple months after leaving you. The habit he’ll likely fall into the
moment he leaves Washington, D.C. The habit he’s still yet to admit to you and
maybe never will. Some habits Harry likes to keep all for himself.
“Life is short, life is long. Speed up, slow down. Talk is cheap, my man. Women
will be the first to let you know.”
Harry deposits exactly one coin into the machine before he glances over his
shoulder at the stranger who’s addressing him, the man nursing a beer with an
empty barstool on either side of him. “Oh yeah?” Harry points a finger at him to
signify his interest. “What’s your clever take on love, old man?”
“Inside of an apple seed is the idea of a tree. Don’t pull your seedlings out of
the ground every day to examine the roots. Just let them grow. Fruit takes a long
time to drop. It’s spring, things are just beginning to blossom.” He takes a sip
from his beer and lowers it to the bar, his fingers still wrapped around the
sweaty glass. “The Russian author Visotsky once said: ’You can be a thousand
times right, but what is the use in this, if your lady is crying?’” There’s a long
pause, with Harry’s finger hovering over the buttons on the cigarette machine,
before the man at the bar adds, “also, don’t stick your dick in crazy.”
“Um….. right on.” In a snap judgement, Harry presses the combination of

buttons that drop packs of Cotton Candy and Cherry cigarettes into the dispenser
before immediately rolling one up into his sleeve and hiding the other in his
pocket. “’You Can’t Hurry Love’.”
“Good song.”
“Mm. Thanks, actually. I needed to hear that. Except I don’t think I have to
gruel over that last part—”
“Just ask my ex-wife.”
“’Kay. Later.”
Harry’s got a fresh sugary cigarette lit before he even steps foot from the
building, spotting you immediately at the curb as you pull the cuff of your sleeve
back to glance at your wristwatch. Off to his left, there are two guys pulling drags
off of their cigarettes. Tangerine orange and coconut cream smoke twisting
together, their sleazy gazes glued to your legs while they mutter to one another.
Of course you pay no mind, and Harry has admitted to himself on more than one
occasion that he sometimes worries about your obliviousness. Especially after
what that fucking meathead with the red Dodge Charger did to you.
Sliding up beside them, Harry checks you out for a moment along with them,
listening to what they have to say bet she puts out after two drinks, knows her way
around a joystick, how else do you think she got famous? before exhaling a wall of
pink smoke that dissolves theirs. “What’s poppin’? Fillin’ up your eyeballs, buds?”
The taller of the two addresses Harry with zero hesitation. An accidental mano
a mano, one that sends Harry’s blood to a boil. “Check out that tail, brother. You
know who that is, don’t you? Vivienne Surefire. What a piece of ass. Heard she’s
real fine in the sack.”
Similar to the conversations he would have with friends whenever you’d

happen to pop up on television or in a magazine and they would start foaming at
the mouth like dogs, Harry’s shield of Cherry-protection shoots up hard and fast.
“Oh yeah? Did you hear that?” Behind his eyelids, red blood is dropping like a
curtain. “Your insecurities are showin’. How ’bout you knock it off? Be decent, for
fuck’s sake. That rag is fulla shit and you don’t know shit about shit. Women
aren’t your toys or your subordinates. Glorify them. It doesn’t matter what your
intention is, it’s the impact that matters. Dig?”
“Uh—” The two men look at one another and then back to Harry as one of
them formulates a weak retort. “Yeah.”
“Yeah?” A shiny, plastic smile paints across Harry’s face as he grips one of
their shoulders and squeezes, tightly. “Y’know damn well a woman like that
wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot-pole, mate. She’d turn you into a two-pump-
chump.” With a gulp, the man nods in agreement and Harry pats his cheek. Hard.
“Far out.”
Taking a drag of his cigarette, his cheeks hollow and his eyes narrow before he
walks through the cloud of soft pink, leaving them with his trademark scent of
burnt sugar.
From behind him, Harry can hear them mumbling to each other like a couple
of dumb pricks. “Shit….. hey, wasn’t that Styles—”
Tossing an arm around your neck, Harry tugs you close and revels in the wash
of his stomach when you smooth your hand under his jacket and glance at the
men that he’s just very skillfully put in their place. “What were you guys talking
about?”
In order to spit out a little white lie without too much guilt, Harry skirts your
eye contact. “How pretty you are.” He sponges a kiss to your temple and mutter-
sings I need love, love to ease my mind into your skin. “C’mon, let’s get you a taxi. I
know your dogs are barkin’, Miss Vivienne I’m-fuckin’-fine Surefire.”
.
At this point, the amount of time that you’ve spent in the bathroom is
bordering on suspicious. You don’t have to see Harry to know that he’s mentally
tallying up the number of cigarette butts in the ashtray beside him to keep track
of how long you’ve been missing. That he’s likely bitten his hangnails raw, that he
may have pressed his ear to the door and raised his fist to knock once or twice,
but instead convinced himself to back off and give you space.
Because he fucking hates waiting. But he’ll do it for you.
Harry was unusually quiet in the taxi back to the hotel, spilling only one joke
about a passing bar called The Triple Nickel, which he merely pointed to the sign
and mumbled Triple Nipple. Doesn’t have shit on me. He still helped you out of the
car and held every door for you and carried your cardigan and your purse to the
suite, his eyes widening as he breathed in an annoyed huff of air when you asked
for a moment to yourself in the restroom.
Staring at the soap dish, you recall the instance early this morning when you
found Harry piercing his ear in this exact spot. How soft and warm his body was,
the muscles in his back, the long roundabout seduction on the sink. And
everything that came after it, down the detail of him feeding you a crumbling bite
of coffee cake and then jokingly reprimanding you when it sprinkled onto the
sheets.
Hang on, I gotta burst the water balloon before I scarf anything.
Wash your hands.
Fuck off? I know?
Finding your reflection, you stare at the single daisy stud in your ear and try
your best to push your fears away. Trying your best not to focus on the sting of
your time together quickly slipping away. Trying not to imagine yourself
standing in this exact spot in twenty-four hours, alone, wondering what Harry
could be thinking about all the way across the Atlantic Ocean.
Along with the pain of distance, there’s also the reminder that you love
freedom. Harry loves freedom. You love your individual life paths and you love
each other. You both want what you want; to love every bit of yourselves and
love every bit of one another with an equal burn on both ends. And even though
it’s easy to forget at times, it’s integral to remember that any relationship,
whether it be with a lover or not, is going to have its bumps to shovel through.
And distance just happens to be the bump of yours.
But you’re trying your best to accept this unique relationship for what it is;
plenty of love mixed with plenty of trust and tons of breathing space for your
careers, which you’re both wildly passionate about. Just like the daisy earrings,
you’re a pair even when you’re apart. A statement both on your own and as a
partnership, balanced and complete in one another’s presence. No two
relationships look the same and very few relationships will ever look like yours,
so it’s pointless to try to compare it to anything else.
Ultimately, your ideal partnership would involve someone who has the self-
confidence to handle a woman burgeoning boldly on her own, happily allowing
you to put yourself first while your partner is content to do the same for
themselves. Someone who can make you feel loved and supported from any
distance, and vice versa for them. Someone who knows how to function and
carry themselves in the spotlight. Someone who has the ability to carry their part
of the weight in a relationship that requires extra caution, maybe even gracefully
letting it roll off their back. Someone who makes you laugh, dance and come
equally as often and intensely.
And that’s Harry.
Harry is a gemstone; a precious rock. He wants to give you everything you

need and more importantly, he actively and consistently makes an effort to. He’s
what you want and he’s what you have, the two of you have become what you’ve
created together. Both you and Harry are forever destined to unconventional
lives and therefore, unconventional relationships. Lives that you can continue to
shape and clip together with scraps and offerings and opportunities and stardust
from the atmosphere and the ether of your imaginations, strange and
extraordinary, and there’s nothing more beautiful than that. No one else could
even come close to giving you that.
Diamonds are created by intense heat and pressure. Gold is formed by the
collision of neutron stars.
Separately, you’re diamonds. And together, you’re gold.
With a stride of certain and beautiful bravery, you creak open the bathroom
door and quietly pad through the suite with your heart pounding blood harder
and stronger on each step. Past the breakfast table and soft couch and coffee
table, past the meticulously made bed, lamps and dresser and armchairs.
Avoiding your own reflection in the mirror as you turn the corner to find Harry
perched in his nighttime window spot. An ashtray with two cigarette butts sits by
his side, the one between his fingers half-smoked. Whispers of pink steadily
swim upstream.
The clock on the nightstand flips from 9:16 to 9:17 and so does Harry’s mental
countdown, although he doesn’t really need the symbol of numbers to track your
level of evasion. He knows it quite well, considering at times he knows you better
than you know yourself and he can see his own habits reflected in yours more
often than not.
When Harry hears you approach, he pauses before braving a look at you.
Because he’s only ready to receive the answer that he wants, not the myriad of
curveballs that you could possibly pitch at him. Anything painful that may come
out of your mouth will send him on a wildcard loose-cannon ricochet through
this room. And it would possibly be the final memory you have of him.
The last thing that Harry expects when he finds you is a face drowning in
silent tears, the little drops streaming down your cheeks and neck. A clear
bloodshed of vulnerability; raw and rare, leaving him voiceless and achy. You
look so pretty, juicy and fresh even. But Harry has to take a deep, shaky breath to
clear the ick out of his chest. Otherwise he won’t be able to properly hear it when
you break open for him. And it feels as though all he does is wait for you to break
open for him.
“I don’t want to say goodbye.”
The third time you’ve cried because of him today. -Me, anything involving me
Just like that, Harry has finally figured it out. It hurts to watch you cry because
it makes him want to cry, too. And if he were to cry right now, he wouldn’t know
whether he’d hate it or love it. But maybe right now he needs to grow a little bit.
So, he starts crying.
Hot emotion prickles and heats his skin, the kind of tears that weaken his
chest and make it hard to pull in a full breath. The kind of tears that tickle and
squelch, the ones that most people close to him have never and will never see.
The kind of tears that seem to only be reserved for deep heartache. The soggy,
drippy, melancholy ones. The ones that are impossible to speak through. The
ones that were last witnessed by another person at Banana Split in 1965.
But the best part is that you know exactly how that feels.
The color blue leeches through Harry’s cracking voice, wet and scratchy.
“…..I’ll be thinkin’ about you all the time, V.”
With rare determinism and resolve, you close the space in three big steps and
Harry rises to standing, collecting you to swallow you up in a proper hug. Your
arms wrap around his neck and he crushes your waist tightly, his fingers
spreading wide across your back. Torn open with pride at the gift you’ve finally
decided to give him; the gift of intensity. The embrace seems to stretch on for
long enough that he can hear the minutes flitting by on the clock. But maybe
that’s just the frenzy of his mental countdown, exhausted from ticking since four
o’clock this morning.
Your grip hasn’t relented one bit. And as soon as your lungs fill with air to
speak, Harry is coiling his fingers into your hair for stability. Because he knows
you and he’s learned you and he knows and has learned that you always say the
right thing at exactly the right time.
“We need to see each other again. As soon as possible. Miami, next month.”
“Yeah?” Harry’s mouth splits open with a small breathy laugh, his eyes
squeezing shut before he drops his forehead to your shoulder. His weight sags
into you, depleted and relieved. A velvet dream boy. “Fuck.” Nestling his nose
into your neck, he sponges a soft, slow kiss to your throat before mumbling,
“…..does that make me your trusty milkman or just a slam piece?”
“Grab some rum?”
“Alright. Jesus—”
“It’s for me.”
“Jesus.” Putting out his cigarette, Harry makes his way to the minibar for a
half-full bottle of Murky Lagoon and flicks on the radio on his return. “Dream a
Little Dream of Me” lazily drips through the air as he pulls the cork out with his
teeth and spits it out wherever it may land, sucking down a hefty sip before
passing it off to you and then joining you on your impromptu camp-out on the
carpet. He watches as you also down a long swig, tears still streaming down your
cheeks. They’re still streaming down his too, but that doesn’t stop him from
digging at you. Because he knows you and he knows that right now it’s exactly
what you need. “Aw, c’mon. You can boohoo when I leave. Seriously, get a grip
and keep that shit to yourself. Tired of you.”
Harry is gifted the honor of a big, silent laugh except for the crackle of a
wheeze and a single loud snort.
And he thanks the ocean for your very existence.
It’s really fucking hard to find someone who just gets you and Harry would’ve
never forgiven himself if he’d stopped fighting for this. It’s in this moment that he
promises himself that he’ll never stop. This is the moment to encapsulate your
relationship; a bit of necessary pain that’s smudged with a drop of honey to
sweeten the sting. Where he doesn’t have to explain or defend the crass sense of
humor that he chooses to live with in order to cope with bouts of sadness. Where
he doesn’t have to sugarcoat his sarcastic blow for the interpreter, because his
palpable love for you is threaded throughout your history, written and spoken in
several languages and surfaces and in return, your love for him translates every
syllable.
Because you and Harry bear each other’s truth; your history. The experiences
and the story that only you two truly know and the exact things that led you on
your similar but different life paths; the pain and the passion. The marks that
linger and how and why. The images of every little trauma. No one else can
understand or access that.
Flicking on the camera of his mind’s eye, Harry pops on an emotional soapy
filter with a tonic of infatuation and consciously records this moment to his
eternal memory. This is a moment of clean appreciation that he’ll recall in his
wedding vows. Sunflowers, Cherries, Honey and his little mascara-coated trash
panda who just fucking gets him.
Vivienne fucking Surefire. You’ve always seen him. What a blessing.

“You’re so sweet to me, Sunbaby.”
“To the fuckin’ max, Honeypie. What I’m here for. Now lay it on me.”
“You came out of absolutely nowhere, Harry. If someone had told me a month
ago that this was going to happen, I would’ve called them insane. Thank you for
being a patient angel while I process everything. Can I have a cigarette, please?”
He tosses his pack to you and lights the tip as soon as the filter is resting
between your lips. “I’ll miss you, Cherry. I was gonna try to be tough and coddle
the shit out of your feelings and tell you everything’s gonna be fine, but this feels
a lot more liberating. Can’t be tough and fuck your girl and just walk away. Can I
get a little honesty in return?”
“You have so much light. I’m going to miss your Sunshine. A lot.” It’s quiet for a
long enough that it goes from comfortable to clumsy to comfortable again. Three
breaths. “So much that it hurts to think about and feels impossible to say out
loud. Je t’aime. You’re my favorite person in the whole world to have around. I
can’t thank you enough for your persistence.”
“There she is. Little by little. I’m gonna win you over. All the way. Again. But
louder.”
“Oh, so, he’s confident rather than tough then?”
“Tough and confident are different. Tough is fabricated and confident is

faithful. Toughness is a flimsy, menial shield around a broken heart. It protects
you from stray bullets and shrapnel, but it won’t stop an onslaught. Confidence is
iron guts. I’ve never not been confident, even if it was a lie I was tellin’ myself in
order to shoulder on. Outsides versus insides. Am I makin’ sense?”
Is he ever wrong? “You call me tough all the time, though.”

“Yep.”
Oh. “As a compliment?”
“As an observation.”
“Are you ever tough?”
“All the fuckin’ time. It’s hard to keep them separate sometimes and know
which one comes first and breeds the other.” Harry nibbles on his bottom lip and
then lets go, leaving it shiny and wet. His eyes match. “What d’ya need from me,
Cherry? You don’t have to answer right now, but what is it ’bout me that’s hard
for you and what can I chip away at? Or what can we compromise on?”
“I don’t need to think about it: withholding information that personally affects
me, running away and bursts of anger. Everything else about you was and is so
perfect that it almost overshadows those three big things, but they’re too big to
ignore. They make or break entire situations.”
“I know. I see that shit. I’m workin’ on it. Thank you for comin’ clean. My chest
hurts, but thank you.” The dregs, they’re finally mixing in and thickening you up,
just how he likes. Real and spirited.
The two of you are both swimming in baby pink cigarette smoke now, the
bottle of Murky Lagoon making its way back and forth. Your legs threaded
together and your fingers touching every so often, the space between you slight.
“And what about me?”
“Uh— is this a trap?”

“No. You’re not the only person who makes mistakes, Harry. You know that,
right?”
“Yeah, you’re right. I’ve seen you trip a couple times.” You swat at him and he
dodges it, “and that one time you dropped the burnin’ joint behind the couch and
climbed over the back in your underwear like a baby deer, ass over tit—”
You clap your hand over his mouth and he laughs into your palm, nose
scrunched and eyes creasing in the corners. “If I let you speak, will it be out of
your mouth or your ass next?”
He raises an eyebrow and points to your hand as a signal for you to move it
and when you do, his answer is roundabout as usual. But better than the options
you laid out for him. Better than you expected. But not at all surprising,
considering it’s coming from his mouth. “It’ll be from my heart this time.” Harry
holds the back of your head in his palm, craning you close for a kiss to the tip of
your nose and after whispering kiss, please and pausing, another kiss to your lips.
And he keeps you there, close enough that you can see the sea in his eyes and feel
the puffs of cotton from his mouth. “But I gotta question first.”
“Hopefully I have an answer.”
“What would you do if you weren’t scared?”
As soon as his question seeps in and snaps into place, any uncertainty or
hesitation seems to ooze out to make space for bravery. For trust. Like the
moment that the opening movie credits end and a sheet of silence encompasses a
theatre in anticipation.
“I’d have you.”
“Then I need you to not be scared, Vivienne.”

Scared to talk, scared to be honest, scared to be intimate, scared to make a
mistake, scared to have your heart broken, scared of being left behind, scared of
asking for help, scared of doing the wrong thing, scared of looking weak, scared
of expressing love. Scared of judgement. He doesn’t have to explain it any further,
because you already know.
The tips of your noses bump when you nod. “I’ll try. That’s a lot and it’s really
hard to just settle all of those things, but I’ll try. Just for you.”
“Bonne fille. It’s scary to be brave. And you’re not doin’ it for me, you’re doin’
it for you because you want to. Because it’ll create something new inside of you.
Yeah?” Waiting for your nod, his lips catch yours, sucking you in for a kiss and
caressing your tongue just once, “mmm….. fuck.” He pulls back, swiping his
thumb across your bottom lip. “You feel so good. Nothin’ like it. I’m a Cherry-
junkie.”
“If we do decide to revisit and explore this, it needs to be quiet. I don’t want
the press or Rusty or anyone new or old complicating or conflating things while
we’re so far apart. Especially considering of all the rumors that circulated after
you were fired. He threatened to go to the press with a negative spin on Indy’s
accident, remember? A whole exposé. I had reporters knocking on my door to ask
about your sudden disappearance for months.”
“I want it to be quiet too, you know that.” Harry appreciates that you
acknowledge his forced departure from the circus, his mishap with Indy as an
unfortunate accident and not retelling yourself the story in Rusty’s narrative.
Although he wouldn’t expect you to fall for Rusty’s lies so easily, it still feels
incredible to have someone standing by him throughout stretches of time and
space. Someone who bears his truth. “I don’t give a fuck about Rusty. Let him lie.
And you’re too big in the industry now. He can’t touch you.”
“No, that’s not true. I’m a woman, remember? And we’re too fragile as a
couple. Too new. It worries me. I want to protect this.”
“Hold up.” His finger bounces between your chests, “’a couple’?” The size of his
grin eats your silence. “Protect ’this’? C’mon, I need some transparency. Just
imagine me swallowed up by the airport wearin’ a pitiful pout, sadly journaling
all alone in a crowded terminal with speckles of rain on all the big windows and
scrawlin’ on about whether or not you like me. Then answer.”
“Okay.”
“’Okay’? ’Okay’ what? Say more, please. Big girl sentences. Go on, nudge it out.
Somethin’ I can’t misinterpret. I need it. I deserve it. Be clear for me.” Harry
pinches your chin and clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, his
uniquely soft wordless way of coaxing answers. “Ça va? You payin’ attention?
Shinin’ me on?”
“Wait, wait. Hold on. Before I answer that, there’s just one thing I need to
know first. Two actually.” Your fingers weave into his hair as you climb into his
lap, his soft hum sinking into your skin your muscles the carpet. You didn’t know
it was possible to miss the physical weight of someone’s body against yours, a
lead blanket of loving protection. And you don’t yet know how much you’re
about to miss it, but you’re finally ready to brave the mystery. Your eyes narrow
and your mouth pulls into a coy smile when you whisper, “did you see me topless
that first day in the dressing room?”
Harry shakes his head. “No.” A small smile tugs at each corner of his mouth,
then drops.
“Harry…..”
“Move it along, what’s the second one?”
“Fine. What did you name your motorcycle?”

“Well played. ’Kay, can you keep it a secret?” With an eager nod on your end,
he dips closer, his grin slowly pulling into his cheeks, his voice slipping into a
whisper. “Piggy Magnet. But you’re right Honeysnoop, she’s red for you. Cherry is
my favorite ride. Now you answer my question.”
She’s my little Piggy Magnet.
Harry’s ability to hide in plain sight is astonishing, a master of conspicuous

camouflage, and you show your appreciation with giggles and one baby snort
that bleeds honey. Squeezing your legs around his hips, you cup his cheeks in
your hands and he stays fixed, waiting to see how you’ll steer the rest of this
moment. And his heart and stomach inflate like a beach ball when your fingertips
slip into his hair, your head tilting to leave a hot puff of whisper against his ear.
“You’re definitely my boyfriend now.”
Harry grabs your jaw and takes it upon himself to lend him your ear. “You’re
supposed to ask, Cherry.”
“Oh, right. Will you be my main squeeze, Sunbaby?”
“Oh yeah?” His face scrunches up in faux distaste. “Mmm—”
“Harry!”
“Oui.” His smile hasn’t lost an ounce of spunk as he angles his head up to press
your foreheads together. And he tries everything in his power to keep his
obvious, desperate enthusiasm at bay. But it doesn’t work. “Shit. Cool. I’m high.
C’est mon amoureuse. Can’t wait to tear your clothes off the second we’re alone
in Miami. You gonna think ’bout that for the next month? My tongue inside you.”
He hisses. “Fuck. Hey. We’re so lucky we get to miss each other this way, don’t
you think? I mean….. we were missin’ each other anyway. Look at what we get to
remember this time and look forward to next time. It’s fuckin’ gnarly. Feels good
to finally miss someone in a healthy way.”
Just like his hugs, the heat of the Sun lingers far longer than when the embrace
ends.
Pinching the hem of your skirt, Harry starts to slowly slip the fabric up your
thighs, his fingers inching towards your center. His stomach spinning at the
prospect of his touch, your heat drawing him in like a moth to flame. “I have two
questions for you now, Cherry.”
“Okay, I’ll do my best.”
Apprehension is swimming in his eyes, but it washes away when he licks his
lips and blows his lips out on an exhale. “Do you still have my ring?”
“Of course.”
“Yeah?” His entire face is alight with surprise. “Really? Fuck. ’Kay…..” He’s not
really sure what to do with that information and he’s not really sure what to do
with the next answer you may give him, either. But he asks anyway. Because
Harry’s on a roll and his stomach is kicking and his intuition is strong, as always.
“Second question: did you choose the name Cherry Simone so that I could find
you if I went lookin’? Like, just for me?”
Harry, you’re the only person in the world who thinks that nickname is obvious.
You realize that….. right? You’re the only one.
Tangling your fingers into his curls, you grip tightly and smile into his smile.
“And how.”
Harry is stunned all the way down to his skeleton. It’s as if before you had left
for tour, you locked yourself inside of a sunny vault with a special code that only
Harry had memorized. A little intercontinental game of hunt and chase that
tastes like dreamy romantic hope and chocolate cream pie, bathing in sunflowers
and powdered sugar. Over and over again. Rock Paper Scissors, shoot.
“Jesus— alright.” Nodding slowly, Harry attempts to count the teeny pauses
between each rapid heartbeat for grounding. His palms are hot and for the first
time in years, his brain is illuminated with neon electric love. All of the little
nooks and crannies, red and pink passion replacing his five senses. “Hey, what’d I
tell you about that rinky-dink phrase?” He catches your swat mid-air, lacing your
fingers together. “Kiddin’. Listen….. love has no boundaries, yeah? Love is
awareness and awareness is peace. You die into it. I’m gonna treat you like royal
silk and pistachio ice cream and baby seedlings. I’ll prove it, I’ll show you. I’ll do
anything I can, I won’t fuck this up.”
“I’ll show you too, Sunshine. The very best I can. Just for you.”
Sweet dreams ’til Sunbeams find you.
And then he simpers out your favorite question in the whole world, a question
that you’d thought about daily, but had been deprived of for two-and-a-half years
until it sprung up again, as unpredictable as an earthquake. A question that, for a
long time, you were convinced you would never hear again; a brush of his lips
against yours, his nose scrunching in amusement, his hair tickling your cheeks.
Your heart swallowing every syllable. “Kisses, please? Un, deux, trois? No….. five.
Surreal to have you back. Thank you for takin’ the plunge with me. M… m... I’m
beamin’. Je t’aime. I love you. Love you so much, Cherry pie.” And your favorite
request is paired with the wordless promise that one of those kisses will stretch
much longer than all the rest, but you could never guess which one he’ll hold you
hostage with. Or for how long.
This time it was the fourth. Long, slow fourth. Punctuated with a little Cherry
on top.
.
As per usual, and unsurprisingly, Harry was right.
There’s something wildly sexy about a stealthy, remote love. It hurts so good,
as if there were no forces on earth powerful enough to stop either of you from
indulging yourselves in a little painful pleasure. In an odd way, missing someone
can feel incredible, because the time that you do spend together feels like it’s on
fire and the time apart is spent reflecting on those flames with your teeth sunken
into your bottom lip. Counting down the days until you’re allowed to dance in
that inferno once again. The two of you had a bit of experience with this sort of
romance in Malibu, but this time around is a much higher magnitude. Since
you’re hiding from the world instead of merely the local circus, local press,
unwitting coworkers and your boss.
Since March, you and Harry have seen each other a grand total of two times;
three days in Miami in mid-April and five days split between New Orleans and
Austin in early June. Each time that he leaves you is exceptionally difficult, with
tears from both parties and lots of intimacy that feels like a heartbreaking
combination of makeup and breakup sex. Each separation follows a pattern
where you both cling to one another in your absence and attempt phone calls
that connect and phone calls that are missed and phone calls that disconnect.
Gifts sent to each other’s hotel rooms. Until it’s snuffed out by exhausting
schedules and exhausted hearts, then the cycle begins again.
Distance also roots up insecure arguments about your time apart with Flint
and Harry’s slew of random hookups, about the future, about the present. About
the past. It all washes away when you see one another again, but those reunions
are so rare that at times, it’s a challenge to remember why you’re both choosing
to suffer like this in the first place. But you both have your moments of strength
and your moments of weakness, taking turns to step in and bolster the other
when things are feeling particularly challenging.
It’s provocative to imagine Harry, half a world apart and half-listening to Mose
reading his upcoming schedule over the phone, scribbling black-out poetry in a
magazine article, lost in thought about the scent of your perfume on his clothes.
And for Harry, he loves to imagine you sleeping in the pair of briefs and
wifebeater he quietly left behind in D.C. for your sake. Maybe even pumping the
volume on the radio as you wear them, allowing yourself an opportunity to
drown in music late at night, the way that you do only when he’s around.
Luckily the sphere of Hollywood instinctively and contractually keeps its

mouth shut to the outside world and turns an ignorant eye to this sort of tryst.
Not a word or question is breathed your way when Harry lingers backstage at
your performances, requests an extra key to your hotel suite, or slips into the
backseat of a car with heart-shaped sunglasses outside of an airport terminal,
smothering you in kisses as soon as the door slams shut.
Those in and around the industry know that all sorts of affairs and closeted
liaisons are taking place in every back room, and stars as high-profile and well-
loved as you and Harry are guaranteed to be protected. Truthfully, what you and
Harry have is innocent in comparison to the corruption, misogyny, drug use,
cheating, extortion, operations, violations and crimes of its other members.
Because the situation that you and Harry have is nothing short of a personal
choice, simply to cushion the novelty of a prominent romance without any more
added hurdles.
At times, it feels as though Hollywood just wouldn’t function the same without
the hidden or contrived scandals, the very things that the general population
would view as offenses if they were allowed a closer peek. That type of privilege
has an unfortunate tendency to breed the worst in some people who are lucky
enough to possess it, but you and Harry aren’t interested in abuse of power.
You’re just interested in each other.
You can trust Roach and Mose to guide your worldly rendezvous whenever
you and Harry request them, you can trust close friends and family, hired drivers,
hotel employees, crew members and producers to remove their noses where
they don’t belong. You can trust Harry to back off, and vice versa, when
interactions with the public take place in order to professionally uphold your
appearances. And since information doesn’t seem to spread quickly unless it’s an
above-the-fold newspaper headline or magazine cover, you can trust casual run-
ins at local dive bars and hotel lobbies, so long as the two of you utilize separate
exits and covert entrances.
For better or worse, there is a scaffolding of security in this business due to

the volume of money that revolves around it. That’s just how it works; so long as
the players are happy, then the game is successfully played and its fans will
continue to cheer. Most seedy Hollywood secrets never leave the shadows of
backstage. And the stricter, the wealthier, the more powerful the inner circle, the
tighter the lips.
Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, ya dig?
After returning from the Dulles International Airport from your first of many
tearful goodbyes with your lover back in March, you were delighted to find his
Peace ring sitting on the nightstand. The one that he plucked off with his teeth
and spit onto the mattress in the heat of one of several farewell lovemaking
sessions. Likely discovered by housekeeping when the bedsheets were changed,
leaving you with the deep ache of loneliness once you’d realized that his scent
had also been washed clean. You had immediately threaded the band onto a
chain and clasped it around your neck, knowing that it’s precisely what Harry
would have encouraged you to do. And the only time it’s ever removed is during
a performance, but it’s always waiting for you alongside your Honeybee
Jamboree afterwards.
Months ago, Harry was not ashamed to admit that he fully cried into his
tomato juice on the flight to France when something quite uncharacteristic
slipped out of his book and into his lap; your impossibly tidy, sensual
handwriting scrawled across a sheet of complimentary notepaper from the hotel
nightstand. Torn perfectly at the seam, not a single corner bent or ripped, folded
precisely in half. Sealed with a kiss in bold red lipstick. The printed equivalent of
the very first lick of a cherry lollipop.
To the Sun, Thank you for your bravery. And for every single drop of light you
shed. Then, now and tomorrow. You’re the only one. If the ocean is your god, then I
think the sky might be mine. And how I love you, V Also — My body is skating,
flying. But my mind is xpls, xpls. I will not be scared. You like that, don’t you? Till
Miami ♡
His new, new favorite bookmark.
Over the course of the following five long months, yours and Harry’s
relationship has consisted of a roster of every clever long-distance technique in
the book. Every new hotel suite that you check into has a fresh bouquet of five
happy Sunflowers waiting on the breakfast table, a small piece of the Sun himself.
Something that to you, communicates that Harry is wishing he could feed you
pancakes and orange juice at that exact moment.
The sight of them standing proudly in his absence clarified that each and every
time he gifted them to you throughout your relationship in Malibu, they weren’t
ever yours. They were his. Each Sunflower was a shred of him, a petal a seed a
root, existing to joyfully soak up unfiltered water in your presence. Scattered
around every corner of your bedroom your kitchen your dressing room, happy
and brilliant.
And on Harry’s end, he’s been known to receive a variety of daisies wrapped
in brown paper and tied off with red twine; pink Gerberas, Oxeyes, Wild ones and
Common ones, with their white petals and little yellow middles. Something that
to him, communicates that even though the pair of jeweled daisies may be
separate, they’re still a pair.
Returning late from a performance and sometimes on your way out in the
mornings, there is often a note written in French waiting for you at the front desk
of your hotel. Something along the lines of:
Hi, Je me branle souvent quand je pense à toi. Comment est-elle? Appelle-moi à

onze heures, chez toi. xpls + waffles stacked to the ceiling, ton Sunbébé
Or:
Honey, Il y a une part de tarte aux cerises dans ta suite. Je ne peux pas dire la
même chose pour moi. Bon appétit. Appelle-moi quand tu te réveilles. xpls + tout ce
qui est trop torride pour être dit à haute voix, ta Crêpe
Or:
Qu’as-tu mangé au petit déjeuner, Cerise?
And over the course of those five long months, yours and Harry’s one-on-one
time has consisted mainly of words funneled in and out of telephone receivers:
Vivienne: Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 10:02 P.M. May 17th, 1968. Harry:

Bondi Beach, Australia. 3:02 P.M. May 18th, 1968.
“Hello—”
“Mon chouchou. Finally. Hey, it’s just your boyfriend.”
“Hi, Sunshine! I’m so sorry we kept missing each other. I’ve had the worst day,
just nonstop pulling from all directions. But I just got your sweet note at the front
desk and it brightened me up so much. How are—” Four loud knocks ring
through your hotel suite for the second time in thirty seconds. “Oh gosh,
someone’s knocking. Would you mind hanging on just a second?”
Harry clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth in sympathy. “Sweet girl.
Did you choose answering the phone over answering the door? Thinkin’ it might be
me callin’? Wow. Hot. Hey, babe? Go on and check the door. Bring me with you
though, yeah?”
Clutching the base of the telephone, you drag the cord across the floor while
Harry waits and listens. Truthfully, you’d been trying to get in touch with your
lover for three whole days by this point, but this particularly massive time-gap
between the U.S. and Australia is testing the limits of your LDR. Your last attempt
was from the greenroom just before your performance earlier this evening,
hoping for a bit of Sunny luck to offset the string of annoying incidents today.
On the other side of the door stands the hotel concierge with a rolling cart,
adorned with a vase of five golden Sunflowers, a bottle of expensive brut rosé on
ice and a single coupe glass. Concierge nods at you and wheels the cart into the
room, lifting the silver lid off of a tray to reveal several small plates: a dish full of
green pitted olives, a spread of hard and soft cheeses with water crackers and
buttery crackers, a single Belgian waffle topped with powdered sugar and lemon,
another shallow bowl with dark Luxardo cherries and dollop of sweet cream.
And lastly, a plate with steaming, salted French fries with a miniature glass bottle
of ketchup. “Room service for Miss Cherry from,” he double-checks the slip of
paper clutched in his palm, “Mr. Minnow.”
You stand stunned into silence, tears in your eyes, smiling wide at the hotel
employee, but the smile is truly meant for your lover. The quiet space around you
diffuses with Harry’s soft, resonant voice rumbling in your ear, “that’s you,
Honeypop. Thank the nice person.”
“Wow, um….. thank you.”
Harry’s voice acts as a little, private devil on your shoulder. “Nice one.”
“My pleasure. Will you be you needing anything else at the moment, Miss?”
Harry remains in your ear feeding you lines, crushed velvet and a wispy
frayed knot tickling your cheek, “nope, you’re all set.”
“No, I’m all set. Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome.” Concierge wheels the cart beside your breakfast table and
then backs up towards the door. “Enjoy, Miss.”
It’s impossible to peel your eyes away from the luxurious spreading,
overwhelmed with lots of sticky emotions that refuse any shred of lucidity.
“Thank you…..”
“Good girl. Tip’s taken care of. Lock the door, pop the cork and get into bed for
me. Let’s spin the shit outta your ratty-ass day. Didn’t know if you were cravin’ salty
or sweet, so I got both.”
“You’re perfect. Je t’aime, Harry. Thank you— how could you possibly know
that I needed something like this?”
“Superb clairvoyance….. and a little Bug.” Harry knew that rubbing elbows with
Roach might come in handy one day, for strictly virtuous and friendly purposes,
of course.
“Harry! You and Roach have to stop gossiping behind my back. I’m starting not
to trust what I say to her—”
“Hey. Would you thaw out? I called you right back, but you were already
warmin’ up and she answered instead and mentioned some stressful shit happened.
I buttered her up, alright? It’s on me. I can back off if you want, but save your
breath for now. Bug is the shit. She only wants you to be happy.”
“I decide what makes me happy.”
“Goddamnit. Jump back and let people love you, Vivienne.”
“Sorry. I’m sorry….. you’re right. Again. I get irritable when I’m anxious and
I’m projecting onto you. I’m a control freak who’s terrified of intimacy and
commitment, can you blame me?”
“Not one bit. But I’ll chisel that layer of ice off of you one chip at a time until you
start to trust yourself. Now shut the fuck up and pour yourself some bubbles.
Actually, y’know what? Check and see if the phone cord reaches your bathtub.
’Cause guess what else is also on the menu? Rainbows.” It’s quiet on your end for a
beat too long and Harry looks at the handset before jiggling the adapter for a
better connection and then chirping out his most theatrical French, “allô?”
“Je suis triste maintenant.”
“Non. Cerise. Pourquoi? ’Cause of me?”
“No, of course not. I miss you and now I miss you even more and this just
made me think about how lonely I feel and maybe have felt for a long time
without even realizing because I’m too busy to stop and think for a single second.
I never just sit and relax and breathe and be—”
“’Kay. Babe, je t’aime, but you’re just spiraling ’cause you’re havin’ a fuckin’ shit
day. You love your independence like a fierce lioness. This is what you wanted — a
full time career and a part time steady — and don’t take that shit lightly because
you don’t make flippant choices, remember? You’re allowed to feel sad and to miss
people and still be a bad bitch. I know it sounds stupid as fuck and I think it’s like a
Thomas Jefferson quote or something, but ’this too shall pass.’ It’s a rusty link in
your chain. You have a long, shiny one ahead. Nothing will feel perfect or consistent
all the time. Things get shaken up sometimes, especially on tour. I’m right here,
’kay? I’ll stay up all night with you if I have to. You just need some physical touch
and I’m so sorry I’m not there to do it. I’ll give you a Honey Slowdown for a hundred
hours next time we’re together. Once you realize you’re not simply looking for
happiness, but instead not wanting yourself to have to live with difficulty, then
contentment comes in. Once you understand that difficulty is part of the human
condition, you can take a step back from it and start to process it. Now test the
length of your fuckin’ cord before I send a bellhop to do it for you. Cherry! Are you
listening? Turn on the bath, pop the champagne, strip. Can you do that for me?
Fuck it, I’ll do it too.”
You know that he’s counting off his demands on his fingers, even though he’s
the only one that can see it. “Will you?”
“I actually already am.”
Your face twists as you comprehend his statement, paving the way for a long
pause before you start giggling into the receiver. “Are you?”
“Yeah, I’ve been in the bath with my marbles in my hand for like, twenty
minutes, waitin’ for you to get your shit together.”
Your laugh grows distant and Harry knows that you’ve dropped the receiver
to your chest to properly expel your amusement. Rewinding the conversation to
reframe everything that he’s said throughout your phone call; imagining him
now staring at his bare wiggling toes, gesturing as he speaks with little plinkets
of water falling from his fingertips and scratching his wet belly with wet locks of
hair sticking to his cheeks puts a whole new spin on things. And Harry mentally
counts down the seconds, waiting for your snort to fill his ear before your voice
returns to a normal volume. “I didn’t even know you liked baths.”
“I kinda don’t. I always take a cold shower after.”
“Is the water getting cold?”

“I think it’s….. somehow hotter?”
“Did you really say ’this too shall pass’ while fondling your balls in a lukewarm
bathtub?”
“I’m a complex person with simple needs, Honeydew. Been sayin’ this for years.”
“Understatement of the century.”
Vivienne: Seattle, Washington. 5:28 P.M. June 15th, 1968. Harry: Bali,
Indonesia. 9:28 A.M. June 16th, 1968.
“Harry, do you like practicing yoga? I hear lots of people mentioning it. I’m
thinking about giving it a try. I saw a studio a couple blocks away from my hotel.”
“Uh, yeah. I downward raw dog you whenever I get the fuckin’ chance.
Where’ve you been this whole time?” Harry crouches down in front of the dated
black and white television, flipping through staticky channels on the dial and
adjusting the antennae for a clear signal. “I don’t understand television.”
“What do you mean?”
“Majorly advanced egghead NASA-level technology, for what? So that people

can sit in their lounge and watch cowboys eat steak and shoot each other? Which
is like, somethin’ I’d do if I were four percent more unstable, I think. Jesus Christ,
it’s like watchin’ hair grow.”
You’re giggling in his ear, beautiful and herbaceous. Just like basil. “You’re
perfectly stable. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat a steak before. Aren’t you in
Bali? Why don’t you go outside? What time is it there?”
“Nine A.M. sleepy jet lag fluff. I already surfed for two hours, Honey. I want
snuggles and honesty now. Can you ramble off a naptime story for me instead?
It’s gotta be better than this horseshit. What’re you havin’ for dinner?”
“I think I’m gonna order a giant bowl of spaghetti with a mountain of parmesan
cheese. And a slice of cherry cheesecake. What’d you have for breakfast?”
“Ooh, that was a funky answer. Nice one. I had Nasi Goreng, banana crepes and
Pisang Goreng, babe.”
“And you thought my answer was funky? What’s all that?”
“Fried rice with veggies and a fried egg, a big plate of banana pancakes with
coconut syrup and fried bananas.”
“Oh wow.”
“Knocked my socks straight off. Ready for round two.” Opening up the
cabinets in the kitchenette, Harry peers at the practically bare shelves and then
mumbles more to himself than to you, “guess I’m the only snack in the joint. I
miss peanut butter so fuckin’ bad.”
July 12th, 1968. Vivienne: Las Vegas, Nevada. Midnight. Harry: Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil. Five A.M.
“Hang up, Sunny.”

“No, you hang up, Cherry tart.”
“No, you hang up.”
“No, seriously. You hang up. Double dare you.”
And it’s even better than the type of play that Harry assumed he was going to
receive, when you dryly and directly obey his command with a firm, “okay,” and
instead deliver his je t’aime through the click of the handset and the sound of the
dial tone.
Perfect little trash panda.
August 8th, 1968 Vivienne: Detroit, Michigan. 8:08 A.M. Harry: London,
England. 1:08 P.M.
“Hello?”
When you’d rolled out of bed this morning and stumbled over to the phone for
a quick distant-kiss from your lover, you hadn’t been expecting a feminine voice
in your ear. And it’s honestly so light and lovely and chipper that you’re not in a
hurry to rush her off the telephone.
Even though you send flowers to Harry’s flat every Sunday to help brighten
his mother’s week seeing as she lives alone, you’ve yet to fully hear the sound of
her voice. Except for that one time when Harry was on the phone with her in
Philadelphia and you were trying your hardest to expedite his conversation. By
nibbling on his stomach and peeking into the waistband of his joggers, a quiet
hiss of no coupled by his hand swiping through the air and wagging a disciplining
finger at you with another hiss of bad. You had then squirmed your way under
his arm and plucked the cigarette from his mouth, kissing his lips before putting
it back in its place. Listening as his mum rambled on, you purred a soft greeting
into the mouthpiece pressed against his lips, hi mama. And you could hear a
happy chirp back from the handset, something along the lines of, —darling…..
pretty petal!
On the back of Harry’s right hand, he’s habitually scribbled the words call
mums so often that he’s joked about the idea of tattooing it. Because he’s gotten
really tired of abandoning and fleeing from things when they feel difficult. He’s
too big, too grown, to act like his life is too difficult for him to live.
“Oh— hi there! This is Vivienne calling for Harry. Are you—”
“Goodness, Vivienne! It is so delightful to finally hear your voice. I’ve heard

endless things. Oh dear, here he comes. Thank you so very much for the flowers
each week, I always put them in the kitchen—”
Harry and his mother wrestle over the telephone for a bit until he finally grabs
it and pretends to bonk her over the head with it before pressing it to his ear.
“Oui, allô? V? Parle français, d’accord?”
“Salut, garçon amoureux! Comment est-il?”
“Chérie, je suis incroyable. Tu me manques tellement, ouais? Comment va-t-elle?

Parfait? Dis oui, s’il te plaît.”
“Oui, je le suis maintenant. Merci. Je t’aime. Je veux te parler de California, tu

as cinq minutes?”
“Yeah, Pop Tart. Puex-tu attendre pendant que j’entre dans ma chambre? Nosy
people ’round.” Harry points to his mum and raises an eyebrow in accusation,
which she takes like a bullet to the heart. And lets him know with a guilt-tripping
pout, that he then retorts with a heavy eye roll.
“That’s fine, Sunshine.”
“Ooh, poetry. I think I heard piccolos. Say it again.”
“Hurry up, clod.”
“Even better. That had more of like a….. farty bass drum to it.”
“Harry, you’re hurting my pockets here.”
“Be cool.” Harry cups his palm over the mouthpiece to address his mother,
who is slowly bleeding out on the couch with a rerun of Thunderbirds flickering
on the television screen. “Mums, can you hang this up for me in a sec?”
He doesn’t wait for her to respond before he’s jogging down the hall to his
bedroom to pick up the second line. Then peeking around the corner, he finds his
mother slowly raising the telephone that was left off the hook in the kitchen to
her ear in an effort to snoop. A loud gasp of treachery pulls through his teeth,
covering the mouthpiece in his hand and hissing down the hall to her, “hey! Don’t
be like this, alright? It’s bizarre.” Waiting for her to hang up, he grumbles
something to himself about women and their infinite toughness before softly
clicking his door closed behind him and dragging the cord of his telephone as he
paces across his hardwood floor. “Hi.” He licks his lips and flops down onto the
edge of his bed, his body and voice relaxing with you now pressed against his ear,
in a quiet space. Just how he likes, just for him. “Eighteen days, yeah? Lotsa time
to work on Harry: The Musical. How’s your bod?”
“Good. It’s dreaming about your hands every single night. What are you doing
right now?”
His voice is calm, deliberate, slow. “Thinkin’ about fuckin’ your brains out.”
Everything below your bellybutton squeezes itself tight, a small gasp sucking
through your lips. “Wow—”
“Y’know like, when we haven’t seen each other in so long that we can’t even get
past the airport loo without loving on each other. Still dressed, panties pushed
aside. Tryin’ to come without makin’ a sound, my hand clamped over your mouth.
Leavin’ with a secret.”
“I think I’ll need to sit down for this conversation—”
“Shit hurts, but you’re still a goddamn rainbow. Do you miss me?”
Your voice softens to a flickering blue flame. “Oui, tu me manques. I was just
reminded of that club in New Orleans—”
“The loo with the purple sink at The Meters show?” He can hear your voice
trembling in his ear, he can feel your pause in his stomach, he can taste your hiss
in the back of his throat.
“Yes.”
“I had to stick my thumb in your mouth to keep you quiet. You came as soon as I
told you to. Left my handprints on the mirror. And your ass.”
“Harry—”
“Same night you let me hold your hands behind your back while I loved you.”
“I slept for twelve hours after that.”
“I remember. So indulgent. Honey kitten needed her sweet recovery. Next time
you’ll let me tie your hands to the bedposts, fuck you on your belly.”
“Please….. you’re teasing me. You know that’s my favorite position.”
“I know.” You can hear an audible but soft hiss, followed by a hearty exhale of
smoke. “You get so wet when you’re face down. Especially in the morning. You like
the comfort, the softness, the release of control. Being taken care of. Getting fucked
straight into the mattress. Pillow under your hips. You like when I pause and lay
down on top of you. Polish your pearl. Sweaty skin. Slow rockin’. Kiss you sideways.”
Your sigh is tender and sweet, the color red after it’s been baking in the sun
for days. “I want that….. I miss you so much. Your hands, your arms. Your
shoulders and your feet. Your freckles. Your thighs. Your heart-mouth. Your
bellybutton.” He hums in response, piquing your curiosity about the room he’s
inhabiting right now, wishing that you could transport there even if it were just
for five minutes. Your lull is drawn to a close with an echo of his earlier question,
air sucking into the holes on the receiver, “do you miss me?”
“Comes in waves, right now I’m drownin’. Jealous of everyone who gets to see
you. Hell is lovin’ you in my sleep and then waking up alone. You look beautiful
today.”
The rollercoaster of emotions from his rickety sentence ends with a small
chuckle on your end. “How can you even be sure?”
“I just know.”
“Harry…..”
“Hey, I’m losin’ my fuckin’ mind here.” Harry winds his finger into the telephone
cord and stretches the coils out. “Think I’ll cut out from Oahu a day or two early to
get a jumpstart on our California Honeymoon. Mose can reschedule my flight real
easy. Then I can catch one of your shows in the Bay and maybe cop a couple Honey
Princess Hours. I’ll get you lei’d and bring you chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.
What d’ya think?”
“You know we all want to see you, but I don’t want you to feel pressured to
rush around. I don’t want you to be exhausted. And it’s so expensive to
reschedule—”
“Yeah, uh-huh. And?”
“…..Really?”
“No, I’m completely fulla shit. Fuck off, Cherry.” The soft scrape of a match on
flint is followed by the purse of his lips through an exhale of smoke. “Listen, I got
some casual news to spill and I don’t want you wiggin’ out.”
“I promise nothing.”
“’Kay, so….. first off: flying, sleeping, driving arrangements and all that are
booked for LA. Roach is all caught up, so she’ll fill you in when you see her next.
Don’t sweat it. Cool so far?” Harry listens for your soft agreement, knowing that
you’re relieved to be so cleanly taken care of, before he pulls in another heady drag
of cotton candy. One that makes him light-headed enough to admit his next piece
out loud.…..And I scheduled a shoot and interview for Aerial Magazine while we’re
in LA. “
Harry can hear in your voice that you’re grinning from ear to ear and he
knows you well enough to know that you’re doing your very best to stay as low-
key as possible right now so that you don’t make him wig out any more than he
already is. “Pardon? Aerial Magazine? This is huge for you! Congratulations on
the feature, Sunshine. I’m completely shocked to hear that you’re agreeing to do
that — but in the best way possible. I’ll buy a hundred copies when it’s released.
I’ll memorize the entire article. I’m so, so proud of you and proud of every choice
you’re making with your career and your life. You’re going to touch so many
people just by being exactly who you are. It’s groovy. You’re groovy. I admire you.
You’re exactly the man I want in my life.”
“Jesus Christ!” The butterflies in Harry’s stomach are so explosive that he feels
the need to hunch over and squeeze his eyes shut for a second. “Ow— do you hear
this shit? That’s my sweet fuckin‘ girl. Thank you so much. I don’t know how you do
it, but you’re a walkin’ cloud-nine-daydream. I’ve got a couple things I wanna get
off my chest and now seems like a good time. Aerial seems like the right move.”
“Trust those instincts.”
“I will, shit.”
The telephone line turns staticky and tinny for a couple of dreaded seconds,
both of you pausing to wiggle the cord in the handset in a desperate effort to stay
together.
“Harry, are you there?”
His voice finally swims through the static and breaks free with clarity. “Allô?”
“Phew. Almost lost you.”
“Imagine how weird that would be if it happened in real life.”

Your giggling softens to a pause to pave the way for a burning question. “So…..
is it a cover sto… y...?” Harry stays silent and your eyes dart around the room as
you wait for the answer that never comes. And somehow and in some way, you
can hear him smiling in the silence. “Hello? Are you still there? Are you going to
be on the cover of Aerial? Are you putting your face on the cover of an actual
published magazine? And saying things directly, out loud, to a person of the
press, that will be printed in ink forever?” Before he has a chance to respond,
you’re gasping and jumping up off of the arm of the couch. “Harry, this is major!
I’m so proud of you! Say something, oh my god!”
Aside from the statement Harry made to the Associated Press in 1965 about
his departure from the world of circus, the only other splashes he’s made in the
media are the viciously rare paparazzi photo or brief one-sentence comments
about surfing and participating in tournaments. Not a lick of anything personal,
not a drop of his heavily-guarded Sunny personality anywhere in existence. And
nothing remotely close to voluntarily sitting down for a one-on-one pry-session
paired with a styled photoshoot, something that you know the world is foaming
at the mouth for.
“Yeah, it’s weird. I dunno. Just….. feels good. First and last time, probably. At
least for a long-ass time. Not exactly my scene.”
“Oh, wow. That interviewer is going to need a debriefing first. And maybe a
weed brownie.”
Harry laughs and you know it’s the kind that makes his eyes crinkle in the
corners and you wish more than anything that you could see it. “Fuck you. I’ll be
on my best behavior. So, you didn’t disagree to me showin’ up early. You want me
there just as bad, yeah?”
It takes a moment for the information to resonate. “You caught onto that,
hmm?” But when it does, you’re flooded with nostalgia, the sensation of
perpetually living in between two seasons and the excitement and jitters that
comes with the next one as you leave the other behind. “Yes….. I want you here. I
need you here. I can barely remember what you look like.”
Harry chuckles quietly and it’s one of the sexiest sounds on earth. Aside from
his agitated hums when you squeeze your hand down the front of his trousers,
the moment the world is muffled quiet by the slam of your hotel room door. “Ten
fingers, ten toes. Tall drink of water. Hard dick and heart eyes.”
“It’s all coming back to me.” You imagine that he’s sitting shirtless in his
bedroom window, flicking dusty rose-colored ash into an ashtray with the phone
perched between his ear and his shoulder, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear.
Just like he does when you’re together, his final cigarette before sleep. “And you
mentioned your precious Honey Princess Hour, are you wanting to hang back
with Nettie during my show in San Francisco? Do it. You absolutely should.”
“…..Yeah?”
“I can hear you smiling, Sunshine.”
A small laugh puffs through the receiver, pink and cloudy. “Do I sound cute?”
“Yes, very. And please hang out with Nettie, Ash and Beau. They miss you so,
so much. They’re going to be wildly happy to see you.”
“Fuck yeah. Je t’aime. Wait— is this a chick trick?”
“No, of course not. You can’t honestly think that. You’ve been to at least a
dozen of my shows, I can feel your support from across the planet. I want you to
enjoy your trip and you’d have much more fun smoking a joint with Nettie than
sitting backstage, watching the same routine while Roach paces the room and
plans world domination at the same time.”
“Je t’aime. Je t’adore. Tu es tout pour moi. Can’t believe how fuckin’ mint you are.
Eighteen days, sugar bear. You’re all gettin’ tackled. Hard. Hope you have a good
helmet.”
Late August, 1968 San Francisco, California
“Can I please borrow The Thing?”
The biggest time-gap of your distant romance is finally drawing to a close after
you and Harry have both shuffled through your LDR rolodexes a dozen times
over. The last time the two of you saw one another was in Austin, Texas
approximately eleven weeks ago, due to Harry’s schedule pulling him to South
America for three back-to-back tournaments in Chile, Brazil and Peru throughout
most of June and all of July. And because he hadn’t been back to London since
early April, he’d felt a strong need to first check in with his mother and sister
before heading off to Hawaii earlier this month. His final stop before your
California Honeymoon. Inching and inching closer to you, the Sun slowly pushing
past the horizon for a warm splash of daybreak.
Little earthquakes vibrate and tremble the earth that you walk upon, sizzling
with anticipation over the prospect of getting your hands on one another after so
much time apart.
And in perfect Vivienne-Surefire-fashion, you’ve gone to great lengths to

prepare your home for his visit. Sweeping, mopping, sweeping again. Three loads
of laundry including sheets, blankets, curtains and at least half of your closet.
Dusting cobwebs from the corners of the ceiling, giving Beau a long, warm bath,
organizing your books and records, vacuuming the carpets, shaking out rugs,
squeaking every window and mirror clean. Pulling all of the food from the
refrigerator for a deep clean, before meticulously putting every item back in its
place.
When all was said and done, you stood back and carefully surveyed every
nook and cranny of the living room. Taking in the familiar fluffy terracotta,
orange and yellow shag carpet littered with patterned floor pillows, the acrylic
coffee table, the record player with loads of shelved vinyl. A swag lamp hanging
in the corner, plants swimming around the curtains, the same red vinyl couch
from Malibu. The jutting bay windows with a view of Haight-Ashbury and
Piedmont Boutique across the way, a pair of risqué women’s legs in fishnets
kicking out of the shop’s window. There’s no way that Harry wouldn’t
immediately fall in love with the space that you’ve curated in his years-long
absence.
Since you know that your lover has an appetite that’s equivalent to a family of
four, you’d also gone out of your way to stock up on all of his favorite American
foods that he can’t get his hands on while he’s traveling: peanut butter, brown
sugar and cinnamon Pop Tarts, Oreos, Ritz Crackers. Plus the classics; two
cartons of orange juice, avocados, eggs, bread, pancake mix, apples, cheddar
cheese, bananas and absolutely anything else at the market that screamed
Sunshine to you.
To top it off, you called your mother and obtained your Aunt Cleo’s famous
ambrosia salad recipe, to finally give him a taste of the treat that he’s been
hounding you about for years.
“Come again?”
Rinsing out your glass in the kitchen sink, you place it in the drying rack
before smoothing your skirt down and fidgeting with the headscarf tied below
your chin. That and a pair of dark sunglasses has become your newly-acquired
uniform for going out in public, especially places as public and crowded as an
airport. “I was just wondering if I could borrow your car to pick Harry up from
the airport?”
“No, no. I heard you. I’m asking you to explain the audacity.”
Nettie and Asher exchange a glance from across the kitchen, which forces her
to reconsider her harsh dismissal and then groan out loud. Nettie knows that no
matter how many luxurious utilities are at your disposal through your manager
and the like, that you still prefer the normalcy of doing things on your own. Even
if in this case, doing things on your own means borrowing a car that doesn’t
belong to you. The beloved yellow Volkswagen Thing that Asher washes once a
week for his girlfriend, using a newspaper and vinegar diluted with water to
make the windshield and windows shiny.
“Fine. But do not let that grubby friend of yours even put his hands on the
steering wheel. He’ll pull something reckless and entitled, I know it. I’ve never
seen him in a convertible before, but I have a feeling he acts a lot like a dog with
his head hanging out of the window on the freeway. Just….. tongue flapping, hair
everywhere. You get the picture.” She swipes her key from the hook in the
hallway, hovering it over your open palm before she raises her eyebrow. “No
backseat bingo.”
“I—”
“No. Backseat. Bingo. Ash will never be the same if he has to clean that up.”
Asher looks up from his bowl of cereal, the spoon hovering in front of his open
mouth as his expression coils up in disgust. “Why is it automatically my
responsibility?”
The drive from your duplex to the San Francisco Airport is normally less than
a half hour from your place, but today every minute is stretched into an hour.
And every minute of waiting for Harry to appear through the terminal exit is a
lifetime, forcing you to continually question if your copper-colored dress with
bell sleeves and block-heeled strappy sandals was the right choice for a reunion
outfit after being apart for so long.
You have already walked inside the terminal on two occasions; once to check
the flight information display system to ensure that Harry would be arriving at
the scheduled time. And browsing the different statuses on the electronic board
only caused your anxiety to increase, seeing words like delayed or cancelled or
missing aside some of the flight numbers. Even though it appeared that his flight
would be arriving as scheduled, you still made your way inside a second time to
check with an attendant that it was indeed correct.
It was Harry’s suggestion to meet in the parking garage for as much privacy as
possible. And since it’s in your very nature to obey his commands, that’s where
you’ve been standing for the past twenty minutes. Leaning up against Nettie’s car
with the top up so that Harry can strap his board to it, your sweat pushing
through every pore on your body, a half-chewed lollipop between your teeth.
Your gaze flicking to your wristwatch every thirty seconds. Harry had originally
been expecting you to pick him up with a hired driver, so you can only imagine
his reaction to seeing you alone. All to himself. Just for him. With a car that he
just so happens to historically drool over every time he sees it.
And then, all at once, you see him.
First, you recognize the bounce in his walk, then the bounce of his grown-out
wild curls, then the easy swing of his pink suitcase. His pink surfboard tucked
under his other arm. Donning psychedelic, wave-patterned yellow and brown
trousers and a lacy see-through button-down, wifebeater underneath and tucked
into his waistband. His red, heart-shaped locket nestled against his stomach and
his daisy earring shining in his earlobe. A walking piece of the Sun, his smile
stretching wider and wider with every step he takes in your direction. His eyes
are hidden by his heart-shaped sunglasses, but you know without seeing them
that they’re currently scanning your body from head to toe. Just as yours are.
Your heart eats itself.

He’s more beautiful than you remembered. He’s more beautiful than the last
time you saw each other. He’s beautiful.
Harry tucks his fingers into his mouth to deliver an ear-piercing wolf whistle
that echoes through the parking garage, then stops in his tracks as he pretends to
lose control of his leg as if he were a dog being scratched in the right spot. He
shouts over the hoods of several cars, “the fuck you sportin’, girl? My heart’s
weak, I just descended from the ozone layer.” He clicks his tongue against the
roof of his mouth. “I got bubble ears, so speak up.”
Somehow both incredibly obnoxious and incredibly charming: your boyfriend.
Your voice is naturally much quieter than his, most people’s voices are, but
you do your best to uncharacteristically match his volume. “Are you lost, sir?”
You point towards the west. “The beach is that way, dude.”
Harry laughs brightly, that great wheezing raspy thing that can be heard from
several tables over in a crowded restaurant, cutting through clouds of rainbow
cigarette smoke and snaking in between everyone’s dimly-lit conversations.
Sometimes he does it on the telephone and the image of his wide-open smile
projects through the earpiece on your receiver, flicking a dusty rendition of it on
the wall above your headboard. A beam of light with a heart-shaped tongue and
happy, shining eyes.
“Shit, Honey. I’m buzzin’ to see you, too.” Dropping his bag and his board to
the ground, Harry tears off his sunglasses and tucks them into the neck of his
undershirt, his arms stretching out wide for a hug before he’s even within reach.
And you’re bounding towards him, your skirt hitching up around your waist
when you toss yourself into his grasp, squeezing tightly as both of your bodies
immediately heat and melt upon contact.
Hauling you into the air, Harry guides your legs around his hips and holds you
in place for maximum, close viewing. “Mmm…..!” His hum is as enthusiastic and
warm and tight as his love. And you’ve missed it. More than anything else in the
whole world. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” He tugs the neck of your dress away from
your chest and peeks in for a private glimpse of your bare tits, pleasantly
surprised to see that you’ve spoiled him by going braless today. “Holy—! What?
Good god. Still there. Still hollerin’. Et ça?” He slips the skirt of your dress up even
higher and steals a private peek of your panties this time. “Sh… t... outta sight.…
And... I’m already horny.”
Backing you up, Harry pins you against Nettie’s car for balance, his hands
sinking into your hair as he tilts his head to align your mouths. His breath puffs
out against your lips, the volume of his voice dropping to a Harry-whisper. “Hi,
my sweet babe. You know what I’m gonna ask?”
“Please.”
Cupping his cheeks, you kiss his forehead and his nose first before slowly
folding your lips in a kiss that has weeks and months of hunger behind it. Slow
and severe, red and pink. His tongue slips out to circle yours and send Sunlight to
your stomach along with his quiet moan, your legs holding him captive with your
centers flushed together. It feels alien at first, giving and receiving love and
butterflies in this way with this person, until half a second melts by and
strawberry meets chocolate again. The memory of a feeling that can never fully
die. His weight, his security, his orange-peel kisses.
Inching back, you tap a freckle on his cheek. “Hi. This one’s new.”
“Sunkiss just for you. Je t’aime.” Taking two big handfuls of your ass and
squeezing hard with another little moan, his actions slow down once his body
remembers just how much he missed you from this motion alone. He tugs on a
loose strand of your hair and pulls your sunglasses off, smiling brightly with his
dimple kissing his cheek after glancing down at your cleavage once more. “Damn.
You’re super hot.” And then his voice drops even more, the tip of his nose poking
yours and your lips nudging together a couple times to wake up the mess in your
stomach. As he speaks, he toys with his Peace ring that you’ve got strung around
your neck. “Hi. Fuck. Wow. Miss you so much. Oh my god, my noggin can’t fuckin’
keep up with everything that’s happenin’ right now. Big time Smiles. Hi, Cherry
pop. How’s she?”
“I miss you, Sunbaby. You’re so pretty and happy. Je t’aime. I’m so excited to
see you, my hands are shaking.”
“Yeah? The hell is taking you so long to dish out a gobby? Has the fire burned
out? Should I head back to Hawaii? It was bitchin’ there. I hoovered a Loco Moco
every single day.”
“Well, this has been fun.”
Planting your feet back on the ground, Harry gathers his belongings from the
spot where he dropped them and tosses his board on the roof of the car. “I’m
drivin’!”
“Oh— no, no, no. Nettie will kill me if anything happens—”
“What, did she say that? Nothing’s gonna happen. I haven’t driven a car in
fuckin’ ages and this is a VW, Cherry. It’s my shit. Toss me the keys. Winnie won’t
mind, cross my heart.” Pulling a bundle of rope from his suitcase, Harry quickly
hitches his board to the roof. Then he shoves his suitcase through the open
window to plop onto the backseat, rather than using the trunk like most people
would. “Keys, Miss Thing. Or I’ll hot wire this bitch and then we’re both in
trouble. Double trouble.” He spins to face you, squatting down low to take on the
stance of a baseball catcher. “Hit me. Two strikes. Last chance. C’mon, what the
fuck? Let’s boogie, I’m starvin’ here. I’m gonna wolf down all your chocolate-
covered macadamia nuts if you don’t—”
His sentence is interrupted when you take off in a sprint towards the driver’s
side of the car and reach for the handle, in an effort to plant yourself in the seat
and wordlessly end this argument. But he’s hot on your heels, gathering your
arms behind your back and then locking your wrists together in a fist, his hand
clamping down over your mouth to cut your squeal short.
Licking his lips, he breathes into your ear. “I said I’m the one who’s driving,
ma’am.” Walking you around to the passenger side, he clicks the door open and
then grabs the back of your head in one large palm, sending you cackling into the
car when he roughly shoves you into the passenger seat. “Shut up. You have the
right to remain silent and all that bullshit. You’re goin’ downtown. Watch your
feet, Honey.” And then the door is slammed shut behind you, effectively putting a
cease and desist on your conflict.
Aside from the multiple fake-out swerves on the freeway, Harry manages to
get you back to your place safely. And he’s full of remarks the entire drive,
pointing at every single restaurant the car passes with a happy gasp and keeping
his palm hot and heavy on your inner thigh when he isn’t shifting gears. He’s
floored by the exterior of your home, right in the heart of Haight-Ashbury, with
its gradation of green, yellow and orange shingles and a giant golden sun painted
on the garage door.
Harry doesn’t bother to cover up his appearances on the street as much as you
do, with your usual headscarf and sunglasses that he loves to tease whenever he
has an opportunity. In fact, with his bright clothing style, full-sleeve of tattoos
and noticeably distinctive curls, he’s typically spotted quite easily. Especially
when he has his bright pink surfboard tucked under his arm. So, on the short
two-block walk from Nettie’s car to your front door, he’s stopped three times by
people asking for a handshake or a hug. And you absolutely love watching him
interact with his fans; calm, cool and collected. Bright and joyful to be chatting
with any and every one who takes a genuine interest.
And the final interaction with a fan happens just half a block from the entrance
of your home, when she bounces up from her perch on the street corner where
her friends sit with guitars and bubbles, her hands closing into fists as she
screams at the sight of Harry in front of her. Then suddenly, all of the blood
drains from her head and she faints at his feet, her knees buckling as she withers
back down onto the sidewalk into her friend’s arms. Harry reacts faster than
lightning, propping his sunglasses on top of his head and bending down to help.
But the girl’s friend brushes him off, explaining that when she comes to, she’ll be
so embarrassed to see him standing there that she’ll likely faint again.
The last few steps to your house are stunned into silence until you pipe up,
with your key spinning in the lock of your door, “I think she thought you were
cute.”
“Scared the daylights outta me.”
“Does that happen often?”
“Not the first time.” Before you can get the door fully open, you’re spinning
around to face him with your giggles starting off quietly and then gaining volume.
Harry rolls his eyes and pushes your front door open, then shoves his suitcase
into your arms. “What are you, five? Help a brother out, would ya? Jesus.”
“I explicitly asked you if I could carry your suitcase for you and you said—”
“Beau!” Harry is already charging up the steps two at a time to your top floor
apartment, kicking the door open, propping his board against the wall and then
whistling loudly with his fingers slipped into his cheeks. But Beau didn’t need the
announcement, he’d already flung himself off of the couch when he’d heard the
key in the lock followed by the sound of Harry’s voice at the bottom of the steps.
Forever his favorite human.
As expected, their reunion is dramatic and physical. By the time you make it to
the top of the steps and drop his suitcase in the foyer, Harry is crumpling to his
knees and then flopping onto his back, allowing Beau to climb on top of him with
his tail wagging so fast that it blurs. His tongue pouring out of his mouth and
slathering every inch of Harry’s face as Harry loudly sings “Top Of The World” to
his long lost pet.
Nettie and Asher step out of the kitchen to survey the scene in front of them,
with Beau playfully nipping at Harry’s neck and swatting at him with his paws.
Harry climbs to his knees and shoots him with a finger gun, which Beau
immediately obeys and plops onto his back with his tongue dangling towards the
floor.
Nettie shifts her attention to you. “Was someone screaming outside just now?”
“Yeah, it was me. Just so stoked to see you.” Harry pins Beau down as they
continue their play, with Harry blowing raspberries in his belly and scratching
everywhere he can access. Taking a break from whispering against Beau’s snout,
Harry glares at you and then Nettie with a raised eyebrow. “Hey. Someone’s
givin’ him too many snacks. What’s with the jigglebelly?”
Both you and Nettie point fingers at one another and her face drops in
betrayal. “Traitor. I may give him a tiny little bowl of cereal with bananas for
breakfast every morning, but you give him an apple and a giant scoop of peanut
butter every night before bed.”
“But he loves peanut butter.”
“Like father like son, my little drama dragon. Does he still make bubble sounds
when he sleeps? Slippery soap, little poppin’ hiccups? I miss it. His tummy hops
when he lets me nap on him.” Harry squishes his face into Beau’s belly and
growls, “baby Beau bubble machine. Fuckin’ love you, dude.” Then he slurps, “just
wanna suck your eyeball outta your head like a little wet marble.” And he looks
beautiful like this, smiling up at you with one busy hand scratching behind Beau’s
ear. Harry grips your wrist and cranes you down close, his grin stretching farther
across his lips. “Mmm….. thank you for takin’ solid care of him, mama. Real sexy
of you.”
Nettie interrupts your kiss, since everyone in the room knows that if she
doesn’t, Harry would have you on top of him after one more swipe of tongue. “To
be fair it’s been mostly me lately.”
“Whatever, thunder thief. Take it easy.” He dodges the flying pillow hurled at
his face, allowing it to softly collect onto the carpet. “Brain injury alert! Violence
isn’t the answer, peacenik.”
But then he’s jumping to his feet and crossing the living room in three steps,
gripping Nettie’s elbow and tugging her in for tight, warm, encompassing hug.
They embrace for a solid ten seconds with Harry muttering a greeting in her ear,
something along the lines of didn’t know if I’d ever see you again and love you,
Winnie. Then he pulls back to study her face, the both of them smiling and
smiling, before they go in for another hug, humming and squeezing one another
with years of missing time between them.
Asher is greeted similarly, except with a wet kiss to his cheek that he wipes
away and grumbles about once Harry releases him from his clutches.
Harry scans the impeccably clean space and knows damn well that in
preparation for his visit, you spent hours on your hands and knees scrubbing the
baseboards until they glistened. “Nice pad. What’s up, you couldn’t even run a
broom across the floor, Cherry? You knew I was comin’.”
Shaking her head, Nettie breathes in a long huff of composure. “I’m trying to
decide if I missed this or not.”
“Where are the snacks hidin’?”
Not harboring much interest for a grand tour of his surroundings just yet,
Harry threads your fingers together and makes his way into the kitchen with you
in tow, immediately swinging the refrigerator door open and popping the carton
of orange juice for a long swig straight from the carton. He hums softly when you
crowd up behind him, smoothing your hands up his stomach and chest for a hug
while Beau circles your feet, hoping for a piece of food to fall to the ground.
“I made you something, Sunny.” Reaching around his hip, you pull the giant
bowl of ambrosia salad from the fridge and hand it off to him.
Harry doesn’t hesitate to rip the lid off, his eyes bugging out of his head with a
loud gasp. “No fuckin’ way! Thank you so much, Cherry tart. I’m gonna destroy
this. Toss me a fork. Or a spoon? How does this work? Smells like magic. Ooh,
look at the baby marshmallows. What a treat. Where’s that spoon at?”
Nettie joins you in the kitchen, pulling herself up to sit on the counter with her
legs swinging in the air. “Has Bibi told you how I feel about ambrosia salad?”
Depositing the orange juice onto the counter and collecting the spoon from
your hand with a muttered thank you, he digs his utensil into the sweet salad and
widens his eyes in anticipation. “No. How do you feel about ambrosia salad?”
“Indifferent.”
Harry laughs and plows a heaping spoonful into his mouth, trying his best to
talk and chew with his mouth closed at the same time. “I dunno why she never
told me that. Seems worth mentioning.”
Hopping down from the counter, Nettie puts the orange juice back into the
refrigerator and then turns to watch Harry’s reaction. Which is guaranteed to be
entertaining, just like everything else he does. She crosses her arms over her
chest and leans against the fridge. “It’s salty, it’s sweet, it’s a little confusing. It’s
the salad equivalent of an affair that wasn’t worth it.”
Harry squints while he chews, his jaw popping and his face looking a bit
uncertain. But then he reconsiders with a downturn of his mouth and shovels
another giant mouthful past his teeth. “Yeah, passes the test for me.”
You’re standing patiently by, with your hands held together in prayer while
you wait for Harry’s consensus. “What’s the test?”
“The extremely low Hungry Harry Bar Test. I’ll eat anything.” His eyelid drops
in a wink. “Anything.” And then he waits for Nettie to turn around before
mouthing to you, ass a la carte.
“Are you two always this suggestive? Or do you let it rest from time to time?”
You point at Harry at the same time that he points to his own chest. “Just this
guy. This girl’s catchin’ on though.”
“Adorable.”
“Y’know, this tastes kinda like—”
You interrupt him, “no.”
“I was gonna say—”
Nettie interrupts him, “no.”
But in reality, nothing can interrupt him once he’s put his mind to it. “Post-
breakfast pom-pom. Y’know? Like, extra sweet sleepy goodies that are also a
little zesty. I think it’s the mandarins.”
Nettie’s eyes fall closed as she pulls in a long drag of air through her nose,
likely a visual signal of her attempting to erase her memory clean and harness
her patience. Ash’s laughter can be heard from down the hall, starting off low at
first before rolling into a full-blown cackle. But the kitchen is annoyingly quiet in
comparison.
“Hey, Sunshine? Just eat the salad, okay?”
“Okay, okay. Mellow out. I’ve got a lot goin’ on here.”
Nettie finally speaks up after finding her footing, “It’s the sour cream.”
Harry starts laughing with his lips sealed around the spoon. Your stare
bounces back and forth between your two best friends before you shake your
head and hold your palm up in the air at them as a signal for them to please stop.
“I’m never eating ambrosia salad again. I should’ve known the two of you would
run off with this. Thanks a lot.”
“Aww, don’t sweat it, Cherry. Y’know breakfast is my favorite meal. This is an
easy runner-up, though. Flawless. Ten out of ten. Freaky-deaky, but saucy. She’s
got a lotta personality, very quirky.”
“You two probably should’ve gotten some action before you came home and
started sexualizing a dessert salad right here in my clean kitchen.”
About a quarter of the bowl of ambrosia is already missing, swimming

somewhere in Harry’s belly. “We did. Ten times. Well, she did. I didn’t have that
much reserve. Savin’ it up for later.”
Nettie’s jaw drops as she spins and glares at you. “Bibi! In the Thing?”
Your sight shifts to Harry with your jaw now hanging open as well. “No, we did
not! Harry, please stop talking. Please. Just for two minutes.”
With his eyes dead set on yours, his tongue flattens wide to lick the back of his
spoon clean. And he figures the best way to keep his mouth shut is by shoving
something in it, so he begins pacing the kitchen and raiding the cabinets and the
freezer, looking for a way to keep himself occupied before he pisses you off and is
sent back to Hawaii on the next flight. Locating a frozen TV dinner that consists
of turkey, mashed potatoes and peas, he rips open the box and tosses it into the
microwave, standing extremely close to the electric oven while it works its
magic. Salivating and staring at it, watching it cook on its little turntable.
He’s still eating the ambrosia straight from the giant bowl. “Hey, isn’t it kinda
bad to stand too close to a microwave?”
“Yeah, you should back up. That’ll scramble your brain or something.”
But Harry’s response to being told what to do is the exact opposite, so he leans
forward and smushes his face against the glass. Nettie laughs and Harry loves it
because she so rarely laughs, then grabs him by the arm and tries to tug him
away. She struggles a bit at first, because it’s way too easy for Harry to continue
fucking with her and resist her weak force. “Henry, why make the damage
worse? Honestly.”
“What damage? It was an upgrade, in my opinion.”
Asher shuffles his way into the kitchen, scratching his tummy and giving
Nettie a kiss before he swings open the refrigerator door, on the hunt for some
leftovers. And much less than the two minutes you’ve requested pass before
Harry blurts, “hey, Smasher. If you had to choose between super strength and
super speed, which one would you choose?”
“Strength. Who wants to be super fast? That’s embarrassing. Like, you’re the
only one who goes that fast? Cool.”
“Is this actually what boys talk about?”
Harry hauls Nettie close with an arm around her neck, hugging her and
swaying back and forth with his chin propped on her head, her arms around his
waist. You watch the two of them chum it up for less than a minute before you’re
ready to breach a topic that’s been haunting you for months. Ever since Harry
dropped a hint back in Washington D.C. in March, when Nettie had called your
hotel suite for a chat and was interrupted by Harry’s gusto. “Hey cuties, since I
have both of your attention, what’s the HPP?”
Now seems like the best time to surprise them with your inquiry. When
they’re together and completely blindsided, leaving no room for he said/she said
and plenty of space for full real-time analytics of all of their micro-facial
expressions. A gentle backing-into-a-corner, if you will.
Time will tell.
Harry and Nettie exchange a long, hard stare before they both look at you.
Harry plucks a cigarette out from behind his ear, bending down to light it with
the gas stove, watching the smoke curl around his fingertips before he becomes
brave enough to speak up first. “Don’t get hacked, ’kay?”
“I promise nothing.”
Another long, hard stare is exchanged between Nettie and Harry. Asher gets
involved in the stare-down this time, and for some reason that makes you even
more nervous. Likely because Asher tends to not get involved in many things.
“It’s the Honey Princess Pipeline, Cherry pie.”

The microwave beeps to signal its completion, but no one moves a muscle.
You stare at Harry for a long time without blinking, until you finally do, then
flick your gaze to Nettie who stands with her hands on her hips and her line of
sight moving everywhere; to her toes, her nails, her boyfriend, Harry. Then
finally back to you.
“Um. Wait, stop. No. Hold on. What in the hell is the Honey Princess Pipeline?
You two have not been in touch this whole time. No. Have you? I refuse to believe
that.”
“Yeah, well….. kinda? Not the whole time. But yeah. Almost two years. Little
less.” Harry directs his next statement to Nettie even though he’s not looking at
her. And every word in Harry’s sentence gets incrementally louder and sterner
until he lands on the last word, which is a frustrated exclamation point. “Which is
why I was so fuckin‘ pissed that I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”
Throughout all of the information that was passed on to him by Mose and some
other covert sources, the one thing he could never get a handle on was your
romantic life.
“Excuse me? Nettie is not a referee, nor my personal gatekeeper. She’s my

friend.”
“She’s my friend, too.”
“Was that a separate thought or are you continuing to argue with me?”
The latter. But Harry doesn’t want to make anyone in the room even more
uncomfortable, so he settles with, “separate thought.”
You look at Asher. “Et tu, Bruté?”
“How did I get dragged into this?”
In all of the letters that Harry had sent to Nettie over two years with
international postage and no return address, he was careful to remain vague
about whether he would be returning or not. Because truthfully, he didn’t know
until this year. But he did mention to Nettie that if you and him happened to get
back together or you tried to marry some other bozo, whatever happened first,
that Nettie would be given the green light to pass all of the letters over to you so
that you could read them all. Nettie, being the excellent friend that she is, tucked
them all away in a shoebox and slid them underneath her bed. All of the missing
pieces of your two-and-a-half years apart.
And maybe, just maybe, Harry had a dark and twisted fantasy of you standing
at the altar with some other clown. And the moment that the officiant would say
speak now or forever hold your peace, Nettie would calmly rise from her pew in a
yellow mini dress and sunglasses propped on the top of her head as she began
reading one of Harry’s letters out loud in front of all of your friends and families.
Beginning with the words, 05 July 1967. No time for formalities, my lungs are on
fire. I’ll never stop missing her. We carved rays of sunlight and drips of honey into
the other and no one else is shaped quite like that, no one else will fill the space the
same way. It’s too exact and clean, like an ice cube frozen in a tray.
“Guys, guys. Stop. I’m standing right here. Henry, do you want to explain this
to your very stunned girlfriend or do I have to?”
“Wynette, you’ve got to be kidding me. I’m so beyond floored right now that I
can’t even formulate a sentence—”
“Hey, Cherry? It’s not on her. I asked Winnie to lemme know if you moved
outta Malibu, so she sent me your address when you booked it to San Francisco.
In case I wanted to contact you. That’s all, ’kay? And then I wrote her a couple
letters so someone close to you would know I was alive and thinking ’bout you. I
asked her to keep it hush-hush until I was ready for you to see them. I didn’t plan
on keepin’ it from you forever. Honest.”
“Harry told me to save the letters and give them to you if New York didn’t
work out.”
“You knew that Harry was going to surprise me in New York? Sunny, she
knew?”
Nettie nods, carefully choosing her wording and her tone in order to keep you
from flying off the handle. “I’m the one who told him you were going on tour,
baby. And I also happened to know you were freshly single, which I chose to
verbally omit because I figured it should come from you.”
You’re living your dream. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Literally nothing. Do
your thing.
Ashing his cigarette in the sink, Harry scratches his forehead with his knuckle
and then sucks down another long drag. “So, then I asked Mose to find any dates
that aligned in our schedules. And I chose the very first matching date. Honestly
had my heart broken into little bits, but I managed somehow.”
Yeah. That night was brutal. Findin’ out you had a serious boyfriend for a fuckin’
eternity is a close second.
After Nettie had sent a letter to Harry’s London flat to inform him of your
move, Harry had discovered through industry chatter that you’d joined a new
circus in San Francisco. So, he phoned a friend that lives there and asked them to
check the phone book for Nettie’s number, knowing that you wouldn’t be listed.
Harry waited to call Nettie until he thought you would be at work, except the first
time he tried, it backfired when you answered and his heart beat into his mouth
as he slammed the receiver back down before you could hear him breathe.
He didn’t try again for a few months.
You’re quiet now as you struggle to process this load of information. And your
jaw has been hanging open for this entire conversation, causing Nettie and Harry
to look at one another again in an effort to seek answers. A look that is somewhat
difficult to read, but it looks a little bit like guilt on the former and liability on the
latter. “What if Harry and I ended up not getting back together? Would you have
ever told me that you were penpals with my missing ex that I cried over for
years?”
Years. Plural. Cha-Ching.
“That depends on what Harry wanted, baby. Please understand. You know
how much I supported you in your efforts to drop Flint. It was for lots of reasons,
not just because he’s kind of a dipstick.”
Harry’s big grin makes any confusing feelings or anger begin to dissolve in
your chest. Mostly, he loves hearing from others that Lint is exactly how he
imagines; nowhere near being exciting enough for you. “Told you I was writin’,
Cherry.”
“I’m either blind or you’re both way too sneaky. I take it back. You’re not cute.”
“Like I said before, ’tis herself. We’re spooky, like the wind. Can’t catch us.”
“I’m suddenly on the outside of my own relationship.”

Harry pinches your elbow and drags you close, using his thumb to tilt your ear
up towards his mouth. “Gotta couple extra days….. we can book it to Vegas. Get
hitched. Tuck you right into the center of this relationship, cozy Honey. Flashy
billboards. Mrs. Sunshine and her dreamboat.” He guides your head back down to
lock eyes with you, his stomach quivering at the narrow and blank expression
freckling across your face. The blush on your cheekbones. The softness in your
eyes that you’re fighting against, so, so hard.
“You’re going to have to work on that proposal, Sunshine.”
“Am I? Make it one that you can’t refuse it, or?”
“Okay. You’ve just backed me into a corner.”
“Yeah, a sexy one. And to be fair, you backed your juicy ass into that corner all
on your onesies.” Cradling the back of your head in his palm, Harry silently
mouths kiss, please against your lips, humming quietly at the buzz of electricity
that flares up in his stomach when you oblige. Each and every time. And it seems
as though this time Harry remembers how to whisper. Actually whisper. Just for
you. “Merci….. oh hey, when you’re ready, I want you to husband me.”
You might not ever admit it out loud, but your stomach dissolves into foam
each time he throws that word around. But he probably already knows that.
After a beat of shared silence circles around the stuffy kitchen, you step
forward and wrap Nettie up in a hug, squeezing her tightly and breathing into
her ear after several seconds, “thank you.”
Harry stands idly by with his arms held in the air in disbelief, palms up. His
face pinched up in exasperation. A silent what the fuck? “What am I, chopped
liver?”
Then you step forward and wrap one arm around each of them, pulling them
both in for a warm embrace. The trust and support that you have standing by you
and holding you and humming in your ear is something that you will never take
for granted and something that you vow to reciprocate to the best of your ability.
Your group hug is long and silent in nature, but speaks volumes about the
strength of harmony.
Je t’aime, je t’aime, je t’aime.
You could’ve sworn that you’d packed a bottle of aspirin in your purse before
you left your duplex for the airport. It’s proving to be evasive now, as you dig
through your purse about twenty minutes before your flight descends into Los
Angeles. The sun is setting just outside of the airplane’s windows, pink and
orange and yellow and maybe even a little purple. A perfect horizon of fluffy
clouds eating away at the sherbet light.
Harry sits beside you, his head angled down towards his journal as he chews
on a hangnail and writes at the same time, a sugary cigarette burning to the filter
between his fingers. A glass of tomato juice with melting ice is collected by a
passing flight attendant and Harry hums out a thank you before flicking his gaze
your way, curious as to your plight.
Leaving San Francisco seemed to be a lot harder on Harry than you’d

previously assumed. A lot of it had to do with the guilt he feels over leaving Beau
behind, but it helps him to know that he’s in such careful hands with Nettie and
Asher while you’re both on the road. Before the two of you left this afternoon,
Harry took a moment to whisper promises of his eventual return in Beau’s ear.
Then he kissed both of your roommates and skulked out the door with his
surfboard in tow, trying his best to make peace with the fact that he’s chosen a
life that requires many goodbyes. Or maybe this life chose him, it’s hard to tell.
After your performance in San Francisco, you were finally blessed with a
glimpse into the world of the elusive Honey Princess Hour. Even though you’d
only overheard a tiny piece of their conversation, it gave you a pretty good idea
of how they typically play out. And even though all the windows in your home
were open, the apartment was an absolute hot box with Nettie’s favorite album,
Surrealistic Pillow, lazily drifting through the golden haze of incense and grass.
An open bottle of bubbles with the sticky soapy wand laid in a tiny puddle on
the coffee table, heart-shaped cigarette butts and pineapple-scented joint
roaches in the ashtray, Harry and Nettie sprawled out on the shag carpet on a
pile of patterned floor pillows, Ash carrying a big plate of freshly cut cantaloupe
from the kitchen. Candlesticks flickering all over the room, the illuminated swag
lamp hanging from the ceiling to cast watery light on the walls. Haight-Ashbury
humming with dreamy, vibrant energy just on the other side of the bay windows.
Plus, Harry was sporting a new yellow manicure and a soft sweep of marigold
eye shadow, brightening his pretty irises from all the way across the room.
The snippet of conversation that you overheard concluded with Harry saying,
…..so, li… e... I wake up the next mornin’ and realize it’d been bakin’ in the oven all
night, right? My entire flat was filled with smoke. And when it cooled off, the peach
cobbler was just like a solid black, rectangular, bumpy brick. I hung it up on my
wall as art though. Mums thinks it’s grody.
But the best part was Harry’s facial expression when his eyes landed on you,
exactly like someone had turned his lights on.
And even though you had told Harry that he didn’t need to bother showing up
to your performance, he still quickly stopped by about an hour before you were
meant to hit the stage. With a bouquet of Sunflowers in tow and kiss pleases and
good lucks, armed with a simply tender line of, I know you told me to hang back
but I also don’t listen to anything anyone says, so hi. Do good, Honeypot. Proud of
you.
And maybe he also popped in just to double check that Lint wasn’t stupid
enough to show his face.
“Still gotta headache?” Harry remembers you mentioning the onset as you
were leaving your apartment in San Francisco, when you mumbled more to
yourself than anyone else that you could feel the pain sneaking in and then didn’t
bother to mention it again. Which likely means you’ve been quietly suffering for
hours in cars and airport security and take-off without saying a word. His palm
lands heavy and warm on your thigh, which he rocks back and forth when you
don’t answer him straight away. “Earth to Cherry. Come in, Cherry.”
It’s the details. The way he listens to you, holds on to insignificant gripes, cares
about your comfort. His presence that you strive for and have also condemned in
the past, due to his lack of processing his history and concern about the future.
But his presence is an absolute gift in a companion and it makes you want to try
harder to emulate it. “Sorry, I hear you. Yeah, I do, but it’s small and I’ll be fine.”
You locate yours and Harry’s sunglasses in your bag and slide yours on, then hold
his pair out for him. “So long as no one flashes any bright lights in my eyes or
asks me any challenging questions in the next twenty minutes.”
Harry gathers his heart-shaped sunglasses from you and slips his on as well, a
perfect match to his mouth. “All you gotta do is strut your pretty ass into a pretty
car, Cherry. Breezy.” Glancing over his shoulder and into the aisle to make sure
no one is eavesdropping, Harry leans into your space and whispers in your ear,
“really missed an opportunity to hop on that plane to Vegas. Coulda gotten
hitched real quick before our Honeymoon. I think that’s the order it’s supposed
to happen.”
After a moment to comprehend his words, your face puckers in distaste before
shaking your head in disagreement. “You’re not serious. Vegas? And while we’re
on the subject, I can’t help but hear innate bias in the words ’husband’ and ’wife.’
Why is wife such an ugly word and husband is so….. soft and comforting? It’s like,
’oh, I can’t wait to go home and curl up with my husband’, or ’that’s such a lovely
husband, where did you find it?’ But wife sounds like, ’ugh, I keep scrubbing these
dishes, but I just can’t get the wife off of it’, or ’I should probably take out the
trash, it’s starting to wife.’”
“Okay, okay, I see you. You think bein’ a wife sounds like hardcore shit.
Personally, I’d eat and fuck the shit out of a wife. But I think you’re on to
somethin’ bigger here anyway, Honey. I’ll be the wife if you prefer. You can be the
husband. I’ll even take your last name; Sunny Surefire sounds bitchin’. And you
can wife your tongue through my asscrack whenever you fuckin‘ want.”
“Wouldn’t it be the other way around—”
“Then husband my grundle, whatever the fuck.” Your lungs, everything inside
of your chest and your throat ache from laughing so hard and just when you feel
like you can catch your breath, a snort rattles through your skull and sends Harry
cackling back into the chair with his hand on his belly. “Every fuckin‘ time!
Unbelievable. You’re too easy.”
“How dare you say the word ’grundle’ to me.”
“You’re a big girl. Hey, question.”
“Oh, god….. okay. Go ahead.”
“Gettin’ knocked up.”
“That technically wasn’t a question. And either way, no. Not now. You’d be
such a naughty dad. Slipping them cookies behind my back after they’ve just been
disciplined. I can see it now.”
“What the fuck, Cherry? I’d never undermine you….. but even if I did, you’d
have to just accept it. How else am I supposed to get them to love me?”
“Just accept you being sneaky?”

“Babe, no crime….. but, you’re worked up over an imaginary fuckin’ kid right
now. Usin’ all your pretty brainspace for hypothetical stressbubbles, as usual.
Chill out. Just imagine me sittin’ around like this, scarfin’ pancakes, readin’ the
paper. But also bouncin’ un petit poussin in one arm at the same time. Is your
lady stuff talkin’ yet?”
Just like he asked, you take a second to imagine it. Harry shirtless or in a
wifebeater, drinking orange juice from the carton or boiling water for tea with
soft streaks of Sun melting through the windows. A little baby effortlessly cradled
in one arm as he goes about his business wholly unbothered, cooing softly in
conversation in his typical madlib-style ramblings of praise or laced external
processes. Quietly singing “Dream Baby” to them just as he did outside of your
bedroom window years ago. Glancing up when he sees you step into the kitchen
with your hair squashed up on one side, a bowl of pancake batter ready to be
fried.
“No.” Maybe.
“Liar. Fulla shit.”
Adjusting the knot of your headscarf below your chin, you glance out the
window for a better idea of how much longer you have until landing. “Thirteen-
year-olds aren’t as cute as babies. You know they’d be thirteen one day, right?
Screaming in your face that they hate you and wish they were never born?”
“Wait. Babies grow? Nevermind, you’re right. Fuck kids.” The tray in front of
him rattles when Harry tosses his pen down. Then he strikes a match and lights
another cotton candy cigarette, taking a long drag that burns a quarter of the
paper down, before exhaling past his teeth and settling in for sincerity. “’Kay, so
let’s take a quiz an’ see if we’d be decent folks, hang on a sec.” Harry slides his
journal in front of him and leafs it open to the back, popping the cap of the pen
between his teeth and holding it there while he talks. That same rascally lock of
hair brushing his face, sharpening his dry humor and tapering the cut of his
jawline. “Question one— this is multiple choice, by the way. ’Kay, question one:
The kid is cryin’. What do you do? A, pretend you don’t notice and continue
napping. B, scream in their face. C, put them in a basket and send them
downstream. Or D, hug ’em and tell ’em it’s okay to feel sad.”
“C.”
Gasping, his jaw falls open and the pen cap sticks to his lip for a moment
before dropping into his lap. “That was the bitchiest option.”
“I’ll put you both in the basket.”
“What— alright, I’m stoppin’. Hey. Je t’aime, ouais? Je t’adore. Je veux que tu
sois heureux. Je veux que tu sois heureuse avec moi. I want you to be fulfilled. I
want you to have everything you want. I think you know that, but just in case you
don’t, please hear me.”
“Tu es parfait pour moi.”
“Tu es parfait.”
“I want you to be blissful, Harry.”
A big beautiful open-mouthed grin spreads across his face before he shoves a
giant handful of salted peanuts past his teeth, his cheek popping when he
mumbles with his mouth full. “I am. Bliss city, girlfriend. Oh, we have a little date
planned, by the way.”
“What? We do? When? What is it? Really?”

“As soon as we land. We’ll grab the Mini Cooper that Mose hooked us up with
and then the world’s our oyster.”
Your sleeping arrangements have already been organized between Harry and
his manager and your manager. When Harry told you that he was taking care of
every single detail in LA, you allowed him to keep his secrets without prying and
with full trust. You know how much they mean to him, after all. Both keeping and
executing them. And how well he functions in and around mystery. “You’re not
gonna tell me what it is, are you?”
“Nope. But you’re gonna be in a blindfold for about an hour ’til we get there, so
enjoy the sights while you can.”
On the walk through the terminal towards the parking garage, you and Harry
are only stopped one time by a fan who happened to recognize you through your
headscarf and sunglasses. Luckily they were polite and kind, requesting an
autograph on the back of a gift shop postcard which read Greetings from Los
Angeles, California! which you happily agreed to sign. It had dawned on you in
that moment that this was the first time you were traveling without Roach on
your tour, simply because the first show of your residency at the United Artists
Theatre in LA wasn’t for several more days. Because you and Harry wanted to
make the most of your time alone. And what that alone time consists of is yet to
be determined, since Harry takes so much pride in keeping secrets.
And even though Harry is carrying his suitcase, his surfboard and your
cardigan, he still manages to hold your hand as he leads you towards the spot
where you’re meant to pick up the loaner car. Opening doors for you and pausing
every so often to plant a kiss on your lips when no one is watching, muttering the
words hope you’re hungry or how many bikinis did you bring? against your lips
with a smile pulling into his cheeks.
That is, until you reach the exit and are blinded by a bright flashing light
before you can even make it through the door.
Wrapping his fingers around your elbow, Harry hauls you backwards and
behind the nearest corner. “Oh….. no. Oh, shit. Pisser. Son-of-a-bitch.
Motherfucker— how do they— ’Kay. This is fucked up. Fuckin’ hell. They were
probably campin’ out and got lucky. Just keep your head down, V. S’okay. It’s just
noise, that’s all. You’re a cloud. We’ll drift past it. It’ll be over in ten seconds. We
just have to get to the car. You okay?”
But you know it won’t be over in ten seconds. You know that this is the very
beginning of a big change that neither of you were ready to embark on yet.
Before heading out through the potential clusterfuck outside, Harry drops
your hand out of respect for both of your wishes to keep this relationship a
secret, even though a big part of him realizes at this point that the effort to hide is
futile.
But you reach for him, weaving your arm through his to squeeze his bicep and
feel the warmth of his knowing light beam down to your stomach. It begins as a
pinprick of Sunshine in the center of your chest at first, but gains traction as it
spreads in all directions and past your toes, bowling over Harry everyone in this
airport lobby parking lot city state country oceans world, past the atmosphere
and through the asteroid belt, as far as the mind can possibly imagine. A
shimmering, golden, impossibly Sunny blanket of contentment that paints the
galaxy with glitter and doesn’t stop with the mention of the universe’s limits.
“I’m fine. Actually fine.”
And with that, you both march forward, through the sliding glass doors and
through the blinding flashing bulbs and glassy soulless lenses. Through the shiny
oxfords and black jackets. Through clicking and chattering. Through the faces
that are no longer faces, but clunky analog cameras that desperately try to beam
your relationship to the world with a giant, fuzzy question mark.
Are you and Mr. Styles dating again?

Doesn’t your notorious fallout concern you as a couple?
Are you a couple?
Are you enjoying your evening?
Where are you headed?
How’s your date going?
When did you reconnect? How long has this been going on?
Mr. Styles, how long are you in town? Are you here to support Ms. Surefire? Or to
practice? Both?
Harry, are you concerned about your performance in the World Surfing
Championship?
Ms. Surefire, what do you plan to do when your tour is over?
Vivienne! Vivienne! How do you balance your career with your personal life?
That’s the question that makes you stop dead in your tracks and spin on your
heel to eye the reporter up and down, before locking on his face. The crowd
grows still with your unexpected and curious halt, the camera clicks growing
sparse. Harry’s grip stays tight on yours, his grin slowly spreading wider and
wider because he knows you are very carefully choosing each word of your
response. And it’s going to knock them all on their ignorant asses.
“In the same way that men are expected to do it, sir. Although, I can’t help but
notice that women are the only ones asked this question. Why is that? We all
struggle equally. You have quite a bit to reflect upon and manage. And please
don’t step on my shoes, you’re awfully close and they’re quite expensive.
Goodnight.”
The press all turn their attention to Harry, awaiting his additional comment.
Harry, who continues to stand there with a toothy smile and sparkly eyes, his
gaze trained on your profile in admiration until the very second he peels it away
to address the photographers. An exceedingly rare occasion. “Night night. Hope
you wake up.”
Not much conversation happens between you and Harry before you reach the
private sanctuary of the Mini Cooper. Mostly because being photographed has
created a storm of paranoia inside the both of you, concerned about who may be
listening or who may be ready to jump out from behind a parked car for an
ambush of more camera flashes. And mostly because what has just happened to
you is a lot to process. And mostly because Harry fucking hates the paparazzi
since they always manage to put him in a shitty mood, especially because he does
everything in his power to outsmart them and usually succeeds. Except the
exchange that he just witnessed between you and those slimy fucks was
titillating enough to keep him fully turned on for the next six months.
As soon as his board is strapped to the roof and the car doors slam shut
behind you, five seconds of silence and deep breathing is dissolved by Harry’s
declaration. “Damn. Bien cuit. That was juicy as fuck. Fuckin’ field day of torn
buttholes. Butthole massacre. We’re pinched, baby. Fuck. Feminist princess
Honeybee, standin’ up for men and ladies everywhere. You groovy?”
“I think so. Are you?”
“I think so.” Studying your face, he nibbles on his bottom lip and notices the
sensation of his palms prickling with sweat. “Now what?”
“Um….. hope their film gets exposed?”
“Mhm.” Harry rakes his fingers into your hair and scratches his nails into your
scalp, “and when it doesn’t? Bitches love scuttlebutt, Honey. That was annoying
as fuck.”
“Then Mose and Roach can pay the papers off to get rid of the photos….. or at
least tell the press to put the pictures on hold until we’re ready for them to run?
If ever? Maybe?”
“They definitely could, yeah. No question. But do you want ’em to run…..?
You’re the boss.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. Who the fuck else?”
“Well….. what about you?”
“You already know my answer, Cherry. Dig real deep and you’ll find it.”
“This is just all on me now?”
“No. Doesn’t have to be. Rock Paper Scissors?” With your stomachs twisting
into knots, both of your fists meet in the air before shaking and tossing your
shapes; two stubborn rocks on either end. A bold, unflinching stalemate. “Shit.
Fake me out. Two out of three?”
“No, I think this is our answer right here. We agree that we like what we have
and we don’t want it to change. And I feel like it’s threatening to change. We
weren’t ready to face this and we certainly don’t want anything to spoil our trip,
so let’s just go easy for a bit. We don’t have to take action right this second. Let’s
connect with Roach and Mose tomorrow, right now we can just let it go.”
“Nah, it didn’t change. We’re cool, trust me. I won’t allow that shit to run. Fuck
those dorks. We’ll figure this out and keep our secrets. They’re gonna double
now. We’ll be like James Bond and Honey Ryder. Or Bonnie and Cly—”
You stare at one another with blank expressions. Somewhere in the far
distance, a cat hisses.
“Anyways.” Harry holds his hand up for a high five, appreciating the way you
stay tough and level-headed in potentially nasty situations that involve your
career. “’Kay? I’m with you. Got this one in the bag, Cherry. Patience is ten outta
ten after witnessing that patriarchal castration.”
Shaking your head, you deliver the high five he’s waiting for and burst out into
laughter. “You’re a dream.”
“No shit. That’s what I’ve been tryin’ to tell you.”
“How are you so obsessed with the dissolving of patriarchy when you directly
benefit from it?”
“Are you kiddin’ me? I’ve seen women get hired for jobs because their tits hit
the wall before their toes did. Not even one percent ironic. It’s a major bummer. I
hate it.”
“I’ve been asked to do that before. I didn’t actually do it, but I was asked to.”
Clenching his teeth together angrily, Harry decides to change the subject
before he follows through with the urge to rip the steering wheel from the car
and hurl it at the next man who walks by. Also, he’d rather not experience
anything else this evening that would threaten to ruin the date he has planned.
“How’s the headache?”
“Oh….. actually, I forgot about my headache. It’s completely gone.”
“Righteous.” Loosening the knot under your chin and slipping your headscarf
off, Harry folds it over a couple times in his lap before guiding it over your eyes
and tying it behind your head. He mutters bye, bye. kiss, please against your lips
and hums at the feeling of your mouth folding with his. “You look so pretty like
that, don’t you? I could eat you right now. Thank you for trustin’ me, babe. Ready
to scope the scene?”
“Um—” That was a lot of information with significantly less senses. “I can’t see
anything, but yes.”
“Cool. Hang tight, we gotta long drive. You can pick the tunes— oh shit, you
can’t see. I got it, Honeybunny.”
“’Kay, stay right there. I’m gonna help you out. Don’t sneak a peek or
anything.”
The car rocks gently as Harry lets himself out and closes the door behind him,
leaving the scent of cotton candy in the now stuffy vehicle. A muffled silence is
splintered by a backdrop soundtrack of his feet crunching in gravel outside, until
he pops open the passenger side door and stands still for a handful of seconds.
You can hear the crackling of his cigarette paper before he inhales and flicks the
butt aside, sweet breath fanning out against your lips a moment later. “Such a
sweet girl, sittin’ pretty just like she was asked.” His palm finds your throat and
squeezes just enough that your pulse can be felt against his skin. “Does she have
a kiss for him?”
“I’m afraid if I pucker, your junk is going to be in my face or something—”
A laugh explodes in your face before the sound is directed elsewhere, likely
because Harry has either bent forward or pitched backwards in order to get the
volume out properly. “Shit, wish I thought of that. And very valid fear, I’m
ashamed to say. Just razzin’.” He helps you out, spins you in circles a few times
until you’re properly disoriented and then steers your shoulders for several
steps before pausing.
Your breathing is heavy and your mind is on fire as you frantically try to
blindly adapt to your surroundings, taking in any smells or breezes that might
give you a hint as to where you are. Trying your best to guess what is about to
happen, even though in perfect Sunny-tradition, you know there’s no use in even
trying. He has a way of surprising you with the obvious, words and experiences
that make perfect sense the moment you’re introduced to them. Proving again
and again that you can trust each and every one of his talents.
“Wanna take a stab at it?”
“Well….. we’re outside.”
“Wow, look out. She’s a magic eight ball.”
“Sorry, um….. I can hear the ocean.” Your laughter is so sweet and lovely, with
the gentle gloss of your retort fizzing through it. Vanilla ice cream floating in a
frosted glass, overflowing with root beer foam. “My anxiety is through the roof.
How much longer are you going to make me wait?”
His mouth meets your ear, “you love when I make you wait, don’t you?” Harry
snuggles up behind you, his arms squeezing around your waist as he sweeps
your hair from your shoulder and blows a puff of cool air against the back of your
neck. His hand spreads out over your tummy to both soothe and spur the
butterflies already flying there. “’Kay, let go.”
Slipping the blindfold off is one of the more disorienting experiences you’ve
had, with adjusting to your surroundings at whiplash speeds with a tidal wave of
emotion hovering just over your head, ready to knock you down. And in an
instant, you know exactly where you are.
The lights inside of the small building are clicking off one by one, saving the
name of the establishment written in cursive neon lights until last, grapefruit
pink breaking off into blackened silence.
Susie Q’s.
The faithful diner just a few blocks from your old duplex in Malibu, where you
and Nettie had milkshakes the morning after Chubby’s and Harry plowed down
everyone in his path for a chance to talk to you. The diner where you would often
indulge in celebratory root beer floats after particularly great performances. The
diner where you and Harry had become somewhat regulars for Sunday morning
pancakes while you were dating. The diner where you picked up an order of
waffles for your lover at midnight, only to have your life tossed up in the air the
following morning. Your favorite diner in Malibu. Your favorite diner in the
whole world.
Fuck, Honeymoon. Is it haunting you too? I barely slept.
How little things have changed.

Harry props his chin on your shoulder and you glance back to meet his gaze.
There are a hundred things that you want to say, but your mind stumbles over
every half-sentence. Instead, you cup his cheek and brush the tips of your noses
together, whispering a soft thank you, Harry before sealing your lips in a kiss to
swallow his loving hum.
The parking lot is empty aside from the loaner car and another one parked by
itself underneath the street lamp. Since you’re well acquainted with this diner,
you happen to know that it typically stays open until one o’clock in the morning.
And since it’s nowhere near one o’clock in the morning, you surmise that Harry
arranged to have the restaurant close to the public a couple hours early so that
the two of you could have the place to yourself.
Slipping your fingers together, Harry walks you to the backdoor right as the
chef walks out, who accepts a folded fifty-dollar bill before exchanging it for a key
in Harry’s open palm. “Don’t forget to lock up on the way out, brother.” He pats
Harry on the shoulder and smiles at you on his way out, with Harry’s cool
gratitude following behind him on the silky breeze.
Inside, the chairs are all put up on the watermelon pink plexiglass tables, the
jukebox softly glowing near the wall of windows. Harry turns only a few lights on
to keep it a bit dark and romantic and then covers your eyes with his palms,
maneuvering you through the tables to sit you down on the center red vinyl stool
at the counter. “Keep ’em closed.”
Strolling around behind the counter, Harry tugs his matchbook out of his
trouser pocket and lights two pink tapered candlesticks that the chef has set out
for him. Then he honors your favorite scent in the world, by the extinguishing of
a flame with his wet fingertips. Cementing yet another warm memory tied to the
fragrance of heather gray cashmere smoke, the scent of slowing down. The scent
of satisfaction. Your favorite.
Harry rings the cook’s call bell twice as a signal for you to open your eyes. And
when you do, you first find a vase filled with five happy Sunflowers. Next you see
a bottle of rosé brut with a pair of flute glasses and two place settings side-by-
side, with one directly in front of you. The napkin tucked beside your plate has a
joint rolled in tissue-thin pink paper and a book of matches gently nestled
underneath. On your plate is a breakfast menu and on top of that, a key attached
to a keychain that spells out Malibu in cursive, with a palm tree curling around
behind the u.
Harry is wearing a chef’s apron, his palms spread out wide on the counter, his
head angled towards you with a lock of hair slicing into the corner of his grin.
“Hi.”
Your mouth slowly curls into a smile. “Hello, Sunshine.”
“What d’you want for breakfast, Cherry? Whatever your heart desires. I’ve
gotten pretty fuckin’ good at this, by the way. Just haven’t had a shot to show you
yet.”
A grandiose gesture. But not by way of money or artificial, cliché romance. It’s
grandiose in thought. Harry is perfectly sentimental, thoughtful and easy,
achingly classy in the most hush way possible. A chic and soft silk dress with
years of wear and tear and a little stitchwork, endlessly loved by all of its
keepers; the Sun, the Ocean and you.
Simply sexy.
And maybe he’s working hard at shedding some light on what your future
could possibly look like as well.
I would imagine you as my wife when you would make us breakfast.
You lean over the counter and pull him in for a kiss, slow and fervent, sucking
on his top lip and then his bottom, before sealing your lips together with a
charged moan from both of your chests. It feels as if you breathed hard enough a
tear would come along with it, so instead you hold the sensation tightly and
imagine that same pinprick of light softly burrowing a hole there instead.
Allowing the light to flood to your toes and the tips of your fingers until you’re
saturated in gold, seeping into Harry’s hair and straight into his ribcage.
Harry cups your cheek and inches back for some air, his breath puffing out
softly. “Hey, that’s alright. I was hopin’ you’d have some big feelings. What’s the
skinny? Tell me everything.”
“This is the nicest possible date you could’ve taken me on. It’s completely
perfect. I’m kind of speechless.”
“Oh yeah?” Tipping his chin up, a little smile pulls at the corners of his mouth
and his eyebrows raise up before dropping back into place. “Go on. Spoil me
then.”
“It feels like you’re rewriting history. Not trying to erase it, but reminding me
of where we came from and how much potential we have. That no matter how
much things may change, our adoration for one another is constant; a private and
reliable sanctuary, just like our favorite quiet Sunday morning spot. How things
just are and how we’re observing them be. Our collected experiences then and
now and all the little pieces of us that make us who we are, together and
separately. All with a stack of sweet pancakes piled to the ceiling. You’re such a
good man, Harry. You’re everything and I’m so grateful for you. Thank you. I’m so
happy right now. Je t’adore absolument. Are you happy, too?”
By now, Harry’s smile is so wide that it doesn’t feel like it could possibly fit on
his face anymore. With squinted eyes and crinkles puckering at the corners, a
small and sexy chuckle sparkles behind his teeth. “Fuck yeah.” He cups your jaw
in his palm, then tangles his fingers into your hair with a tight grip. “Je suis
tellement amoureux de toi. Tu sais, hm?”
The symmetry of your daisy earrings, split in half between the two of you,
glow in the harmony of it all when you kiss again. A perfect match.
“Je sais.” You both breathe out a small laugh together, a light exhale of curious
nerves and overflowing contentment. Whatever the sentiment is, you’re both
drowning in it. A time-lapse flip book of a heart breaking open and sprouting
chrysanthemum and palm trees, daisies and sunflowers, growing and growing
until it multiplies off of the page. His fingers weave through yours and you
squeeze for a bit of stability. “I’m not really sure that I’ve ever felt this way
before. And thank you for that.”
Besides, instant gratification is killer, but bonding with you slowly until you
suddenly realize you’ve fallen madly in love with him again is way better. Right?
“Nous sommes tombés amoureux deux fois.”
“Nous avons deux fois plus de plaisir.”
Chewing on his bottom lip, Harry chuckles softly through a closed mouth. “I
think that’s the feeling of entering a new echelon of love, baby. Just when you
thought it couldn’t level up any higher. Trippy, huh? My tummy’s buggin’ out, too.
Hey, wanna hear somethin’ original?”
“From you? Impossible.”
Harry leans forward, gesturing you close with a curl of his fingertips. And then
again, but this time with his eyebrows raised in playful annoyance when you
don’t immediately respond. He waits for your giggling to die down and the
butterflies in his stomach to land from the sound of your sweet giggles, with his
hand cupped around your ear and his hot breath on your skin, before muttering,
“I save all your articles, too. Ads, magazine covers, interviews. All of it.” It’s in a
shoebox underneath his bed, along with Frank Sinatra’s mugshot and a small
stack of photographs. Alongside another shoebox stuffed with blackout poetry.
The personal items he’s never been able to part with, through all of the parting
he’s done in his lifetime. “Gimme your hand.”
You extend a shaky hand towards him and watch as he isolates your ring
finger instead of your middle finger this time, and slips a well-known warm hunk
of jewelry into its rightful spot. Your thumb runs along the familiar, worn red
thread wrapped tightly around the silver band. A warm, clunky hunk of jewelry
that he earned for football in secondary school and gave to you on your first
official date at Temptations in 1965. A hunk of jewelry that you haven’t touched
in years, ever since the day you took it off. The day Harry forgot you.
During Harry’s allotted Honey Princess Hour time in San Francisco, while
Nettie and Asher were in the kitchen cutting up fruit to snack on, Harry tucked
his hands into his pockets and glanced out into the hallway with his lips
puckered, casually, to see if they were paying attention. And when he discovered
that they weren’t, he sauntered into your bedroom and over to your vanity,
casually, and flipped open the lid of your jewelry box. His ruby red varsity ring
was tucked neatly between two soft red velveteen pillows, exactly in the same
spot you’d always kept it before, with a glint of light reflecting off of the corner.
So, he plucked it from your jewelry box, casually, and slipped it into his pocket.
“Love you to death. Je t’aime à mourir. Might need more thread to tighten it
up, though. Looks real pretty on that particular finger. What d’ya think?” Vague
and straightforward, very Harry. Drawing on the past for inspiration, while
facing the future with fearless optimism.
Your smile doesn’t feel like it could possibly stretch any farther. “It looks
perfect on that finger, Sunbaby. Je t’aime à mourir.” Vague and straightforward,
very you. Soaking up every drop of presence that he has to offer, while facing the
future with trembling bravery.
“Cool. My stomach’s gonna explode. Jesus. Let’s eat somethin’.” He takes out a
pad of paper and grabs a pen from the cash register to write down your order.
But first he tucks the pen behind his ear to seem more professional, then pulls it
right back out and pops the cap off between his teeth. “’Kay, what’s she havin’?”
“What’s he having?”
“Sunny eggs, rye toast with butter, crispy potatoes, chocolate chip peanut
butter pancakes with strawberries, an avocado. OJ. Maybe a milkshake. The
standard. Now spill, sky’s the limit.”
Your nose scrunches up in amusement. “Is that all?”
“Hey judgy, I haven’t eaten since lunch and I know you’re gonna bogart some
of my spuds.”
“You’re right. How’s your French toast?”
He pauses to think about it before flashing you a thumbs up. “Optimistic.”
“Okay. Can I have French toast, please? With maple syrup, powdered sugar,
bananas and cherries. And a big glass of orange juice on ice. And some of that
champagne. And by some, I mean half the bottle.”
Nodding along, Harry listens to your order but doesn’t actually write down
anything that you’re saying. Rather he scribbles the words SUNBABE, IOU 1 EGG
WHITE SURPRISE XOXO, CHERRY in his big, sloppy half-cursive. Then tears the
small sheet of paper away from the pad, crumpling it up in a ball and holding it
over his head to aim at the trash can in the corner. “Alright. If I make this, you’re
due for a sucktask later.” Before you can answer, he shoots and sinks it in, then
points to you with a little finger gun and a click on his tongue. “Make with the jaw
stretches, sugar. You’ve got a big pill to swallow later. Real big. Then a game of
Doctors and Nurses, so. Hope you’re rested and hydrated.”
Your laughter is warm, the type that speaks both humor and agreement.
Melting sugar cubes on your tongue, medicine pooling through his bloodstream.
“Duh. And where are we going later exactly…..?” The key dangles from the tip of
your finger, swinging back and forth in the air.
Swiping the key from your hand, Harry tucks it into his pocket and spins
around to flip on the griddle while also serving you a helping of sarcasm. “Oh, are
you confused? I dunno why, I explained it so well.”
“Well, there’s lots of places to stay in Malibu.”
“Yeah? Name one.” Gripping the cork of the champagne with the bottom of his
apron, he pops the bottle open and angles the spout over your mouth. “Glou glou,
Cerise.” A little bit dribbles down your chin, but you catch it with your fingers.
“Jesus— don’t fuckin’ waste it all. It’s supposed to go in your mouth. Show me
how good you can swallow.” After you, he helps himself to a long swig from the
mouth before filling both champagne glasses to the brim, then tapping his against
yours and mentally counting the seconds until your first hiccup. “Cheers and je
t’aime. To the kisses we’ve snatched and vice versa.”
“Santé and je t’aime toujours.” Downing half of the glass in a single gulp, your
eyes widen when Harry drops a tidy stack of nickels onto the counter. “What’s
this?”
“Now you don’t have to be paranoid about hoggin’ the machine. Just us and all.
Put on whatever the fuck you want.” Gripping your chin, he dips forward to smile
against your mouth. “All I ask for is a couple Marvin Gaye cuts. Kiss, kiss.” And his
smile grows all the way to his ears when you fulfill his request, as always.
Always.
“Can I help with—”
“Fuck off. Defeats the whole purpose. Make with the jams.”
Harry stays busy prepping fruit and pancake batter and French toast while
you dance across the diner towards the jukebox, champagne flute in one hand
and a heart so saturated with love that it feels like it might pop. Flipping through
the music choices, your eyebrows tug into a frown when you realize a rare
moment of recognizing nearly every selection on the machine before you. Ever
since you and Harry dated in Malibu, your musical appreciation has continued to
expand. But still, this seems particularly uncanny.
“Wait a minute. There’s a ton of Nina Simone records in here. And Françoise
Hardy…..”
Harry speaks to you over his shoulder, and even though he doesn’t turn to face
you completely, you can still see the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Mm. Spooky stuff, Cherry.”
“Harry….. did y… u...?”
“You’re lucky you have such a nice rack. Like, really nice.”
“Not as nice as yours.”
“Kiss ass.”
A dozen nickels disappear into the slot.
B8 Marvin Gaye “You”
E5 Nina Simone “Revolution”

C9 France Gall “Laisse Tomber Les Filles”
D7 Nina Simone “See-Line Woman”
D5 Françoise Hardy “La Fille Avec Toi”
A1 The Marvelettes “Please Mr. Postman”
B4 Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell “You’re All I Need to Get By”
C6 The Zombies “Can’t Nobody Love You”
A3 The Mamas and The Papas “Dedicated to the One I Love”
F7 Barbara Lewis “Baby, I’m Yours”
And as soon as the needle is making contact with the first record, Harry is
swaying his hips and slicing and avocado open at the same time, his face twisting
up as he sings with as much theater as he can muster from his belly. His wing-
tipped oxfords easily sliding across the black and white tiled floor. Marvin is his
favorite, after all. You’re his favorite, after all. This song encapsulates your
romance, after all. At least in his opinion.
And he’s delighted into further dramatics when he glances over his shoulder
to find you dancing towards him behind the counter, your hands tugging at his
shirt in wordless beckoning to join you in your playful production. And he
doesn’t need very much coaxing to participate in playful production.
For the next half hour, any food cooking is abandoned for a heady dancing and
singing session. The Freddie and The Watusi, his sarcastic Twist and your
sarcastic Hitch-Hiker thumbs. The intermittent slow dance. Harry climbing up
onto the counter and then reaching a hand down to hike you up next for a proper
and comprehensive duet of “You’re All I Need to Get By,” with straight faces and
hands curled into fists of passion. Harry making sure to drop to his knees before
you to fully convey his fervor. Taking on the male/female roles in this song and
taking turns dancing, spinning and dipping, silly and light.
Eventually, he tires himself out enough that he’s forced to retire to cooking
again while you light the joint and continue dancing around the diner until he’s
finished. And when he’s finished, you’re squashed into speechlessness at the
decadent spread before you.
Eating your first bite of Harry’s French toast, your face melts into one of the
most hilarious sights Harry has ever seen, but all he can do is press his knuckles
to his mouth and laugh quietly through his shiny smile. With a half-frown, half-
smirk, your eyebrows pull together as you gather your senses enough to
compliment him. “This is insanely good, Sunshine.”
His facial expression wipes clean to make way for sincerity. “No shit.”
“Really, really good.” It almost feels rude to say how surprised and impressed
you are, as if you never imagined him of being capable of such a fundamental,
somehow socially-perceived female-oriented task, with crispy buttery French
toast and powdered sugar melting on your tongue. “Whoa, um…..”
“Don’t choke, Honey. Spitters never win. The trick is extra soakin’ time. And a
little cinnamon. Toss me that syrup? My shit’s all soaked up already.”
Passing him the bottle of maple syrup, you watch as he douses his meal for a
second time and eats half of an entire pancake in one bite. “Hey, Sunbeam?”
“Honey pie.”
“I was surprised to hear that you keep my articles. Normally you don’t hold on
to anything.”
“Yeah, the here and now is too rich to hang thick in the past. Whoever actually
looks at that shit? It’s powerful to be simple. I like havin’ everywhere to stand.
But those articles of you are too fuckin’ precious to toss. Especially the Surefire
Roller ads, I’ve got a solid stack of those.” Sliding from his stool, Harry gets down
on one knee to mock the pose in your magazine advertisement, his mouth
knocked open in a dry smile and his chin resting against his closed fist. His voice
breaking with the force required for the effort in impersonating yours. “’Why
walk when you can skate? Skate all day, that’s the Surefire way! Do the exciting
gliding dip on’,” his fingers wiggle in the air like falling confetti, ’Surefire Rollers!’
“ He points a hearty finger at you, his voice crackling back to normal.”” Those are
absolute gold. Gonna make bitchin’ wallpaper in the loo one day. “
“Harry, don’t you dare make a Surefire Roller bathroom!”
“Life comes at you fast when you become a roller skate pusher.” He rises to his
feet and pretends to search his pockets for a nickel. “Lemme call mum and see if
she can pick up some plaster. Hey, how come Quickies never mentioned how
tight your grip is, huh? Talk about Quickie—”
You gasp and this time, his name is spewed with even more teeth. “Harry!”
“’Fast roll, tight grip’ would’ve been more accurate. That’s all I’m sayin’, but no
one asked for my opinion. Unless…..?”
“You’re right, no one asked. Not a soul asked.”
“Maybe I should agree to a sunscreen advert just for all the potential lube
puns.”
“Are we still on this?”
“Yeah, let’s fight forever.” Harry grips your wrist and tugs you off of your stool
and into his chest, the volume of his voice dropping to a soothing rumble that
perfectly mimics a radio advertisement. “Sunshine Oil: because the only thing a
woman should burn is her bra. Sunshine.”
Your nose scrunches up in humor, suddenly roped into his little flirtatious
parlay. “Actually, I think you’re on to something. What about surfboards?”
“Sunbaby Boards: for a stick that grooves to the motion of the ocean. Sunbaby.”
Gripping his shirt, you tug him closer and speak against his lips, “Sunbaby, his
stick and the motion of the ocean is between you and me, Slick Daddy.”
“Horny.”
“Goon. Don’t you have an off switch?”
“Only on, unfortunately for you.” Pinching your waist, he smooths his palm
around and down your back to hitch your hips together. Guiding you in a little
rhythmic sway back and forth, he cups your cheeks and dips close to smile
against your lips. “Y’know my mouth is both the pro and con of datin’ me. Kiss,
please? Just one.”
You fold your lips together and hum at the little drive of urgency in your
stomach that you weren’t quite expecting. Something about the way he tastes
and how relaxed his mouth is and how smoothly your hips are swaying together
in a romantic impromptu slow dance and how tingly his little rumbles of filth are
make it too good to pull away. And maybe that was his plan when he only asked
for one and then gently slipped his fingers through yours as soon as your lips
found each other. Or maybe it surprised him too. A Sunny-mystery that you’re
content to never solve.
Drawing back, you kiss his bottom lip once more before running the pad of
your finger over the shiny spot. “Sunny-Sweet Orange Juice: a quick, pulpy shot to
the back of your throat is guaranteed to wake you up each morning. Sunny.”
Harry’s mouth opens wide with a neon pink cackle that echoes through the
people-empty and love-full diner, his palm resting on his stomach, his eyes
glittering. Each booth in the half-lit room glows gold and sparkles on the edges,
ecstatic to be in his presence. “Good one, Cherry pop. What does she win? I
thought my comprehension skills maxed out after that kiss, if I’m honest. Still got
it, though. You surprised me with that one. And I’m not just sayin’ that ’cause you
let me put my dick in you. Which feels incredible, by the way. Thank you for that.
Hey, guess what?” You raise your chin and your eyebrows to silently grant him
permission to continue and he does. In a whisper, in your ear. “I own a pair.”
With a gasp, you shove him away by the shoulders and point an accusatory
finger at his chest. “No, you don’t! You do not. Do you really? How come you
didn’t tell me until now?”
Your shove does very little to actually move his body anywhere. In fact the
only thing that moves is a finger, pointed back at your chest in the same way.
“Sure as fuck do, Honeycomb. They have pink heart brakes, of course I do. Got
pairs for all my godchildren and cousins, too. Although I had to order ’em special
for me ’cause of my big ass Wile E. Coyote feet. Speakin’ of, I don’t know how I
end up bein’ late sometimes though, with these massive hooves. Feels like I
should be able to get places faster than most people, ya know?”
“I think that only helps you if you’re Fred Flintstone.”
“Bamm-bamm. Could you fuckin’ imagine that shit?”

You haven’t stopped giggling throughout this entire conversation. “Can you
even skate?”
His glare wordlessly reports your insolence.
“Well, I’ve never seen you on roller skates, so—”
“What can’t I do?”
“You can’t say no to me.”
Harry pauses, his entire body frozen with his palms in the air as he
contemplates your correct musing. His body sways with the force of his quick
halt. “Shit. Got me.”
Reaching for him, you tug him back onto his stool and push your plates of food
away. Because ever since you’ve left the airport earlier this evening, Harry has
felt the slightest bit off. Which makes sense, because so have you. And because
you know him and you’ve learned him and you know and have learned that he
prefers the method of burial when he’d rather be a big bowl of butterscotch
pudding.
Or a holy terror, depending on how deep his level of burial is.
You being here just proves that she’s never, ever coming back and it’s all my
fault.
“Secrets?”
Harry leans forward and steals a kiss, humming softly with a faint smile before
stealing another. “Yeah, actually. Just one.” Your chin ticks up as a silent gesture
for him to continue, so he pulls in the warmth from your fingertips traveling up
his forearms and even though it’s hard for him to calmly confront in a way that
isn’t pushy or emotional, he tries anyway. Just for you. For the both of you.
Because maybe he’s still working hard towards pushing aside his impulsivity and
adopting your tactic of storing information for the right time; when he’s ready
and when you’re ready. And maybe he’s succeeding at it. “Earlier it kinda
sounded like you wanted to say you wouldn’t mind if people knew we were goin’
steady…..?”
When you a nod, a whirlpool swirls around in Harry’s stomach and begins
sucking him down through the ground to the very center of the earth. “I did. I did
want to say that, but it was scary to admit out loud because once you set that sort
of thing free, it’s hard to take it back. It felt too soon to say for sure.”
“Yeah? Am I pushin’ you right now?”
“No. You’re not. Absolutely not. We can talk about this.”
Running his fingertips up your thighs, a whirlwind of dripping candle wax and
half-eaten meals and empty champagne glasses spin in his peripheral vision. All
of the sugar and music-leaden air and pain and allure around him seems to grow
in size, then close in on you as you sit in the middle of the diner, his palms
cupping your cheeks before one slips to the back of your neck, waiting patiently
for you to finish your thought.
“I think yes, but let’s put a stop to those paparazzi photos from being run. I’d
like to come at it from a different angle, something with more control and tact.
Classy and not flashy. Subtle. Something natural, but direct….. whatever that may
be.” And you have a feeling the outcome will be a surprise to you, since that’s
how Sunny-mysteries function. And you’re perfectly okay with that, because all
of the choices he makes are excellent ones. Because you trust him. “What do you
think?”
“Groovy. Kinda powerful.” Powerful because this means that you think your
relationship is sturdy enough to withstand the storm of allowing the world in for
a tiny little peek. And Harry, he’s always known that. “Decent as fuck. I dig it.”
Powerful because to Harry, this means that your relationship is stormproof.
“I love you, Harry.”
“I love you, Vivienne.”
Before you can utter another sentence, Harry is grabbing you by the waist and
propping you up on the counter with his lips nudging yours. He mutters your
favorite question into your mouth before awaiting his permission, kissing and
kissing until he scoots you to the edge and lays you back, folding himself over on
top of you. Your legs tighten around his waist as you kiss, with Harry sliding your
hands along the counter over your head, toying with his ring that’s snuggled onto
your finger. Your bellies slowly breath together, the sleepy jukebox crackling
“Baby, I’m Yours” through the warm air. Hot pink wax melting into the
countertop.
A time to just kiss, with smiles that won’t die.
Early September, 1968 Los Angeles, California
“What’s the glitch, baby? Can’t get there, mmm? First for us.”
After your surprise date at Susie Q’s, you quickly learned what the key on the
Malibu keychain was for. These past two weeks, otherwise known as your
California Honeymoon, have been mostly based out of a humble but beautiful
Malibu beach house, a vacation home that belongs to one of Mose’s family
members. A private getaway with direct beach access so that Harry could surf
every morning at dawn and every evening at dusk. The private entrance to the
beach ensured that he could have his own slice of the ocean without any other
surfers or swimmers getting in his way. But every now and again, he had been
known to hop in the Mini Cooper and drive to other locations to practice. To spice
things up, in his words.
And these past two weeks, you have performed a short residency at the United
Artists Theatre in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesdays, Thursdays and
Fridays for evening performances and a couple Saturday matinees. Harry drove
you to and from each and every performance, and even stuck around for more
than half of them. The times that he didn’t were to squeeze in extra surfing
practice or to grab dinner and drinks with friends that he hadn’t seen in years. Or
to just be on his own, shooting pool or journaling or soaking in the swimming
pool or hot tub at the house, his thoughts of love and life swirling like pretty pink
clouds inside of his pretty heart and brain. And even though he skipped some of
your performances, he would always appear to cheer you on during the finale
and accompany you for a Honeybee Jamboree. Every single time.
He took you on several dates just like he did when you both lived here in ’65,
except those dates functioned under the guidelines of now versus then. At the
house, lots of meals were cooked and lots of joints were smoked. Lots of skinny
dipping and topless sunbathing took place, in the morning and in the afternoon
and in the late evening. A far cry from Harry begging to see your tits in that
mansion’s stolen swimming pool years ago. But he always knew that you had it in
you.
And he likes it better this way.
Harry peers out of the French doors that look out over the ocean and the
swimming pool from the master bedroom. Right away, he notices you stretched out
on one of the outdoor chaise lounges, sunbathing with your tits out and a novel
clutched between your fingers. He steps out onto the balcony in a pair of sherbet
orange shorts and whistles down to you with his fingers tucked into his cheeks.
Shielding your eyes from the sun, you squint up at him through your sunglasses.
“Hey. You got baby oil on your knockers?”
“Yes.”
“Lyin’?”
“…..Yes.”
“’Kay, I don’t wanna hear you complain later.”
“I won’t—”
“Snacktime in twenty.”
“Okay. Thanks, Dad.”
“Anytime, kiddo. Go clean your room.”
During this time, Harry also spent hours with Aerial Magazine for his infamous
photoshoot and interview. Afterwards and in typical Sunny-mystery-fashion, he
shared very little about the experience. Instead he made you promise that you
would buy a copy and read it once it hit the newsstands in a month, just in time
for him to embark on his journey to Puerto Rico for the Championship. That
request for support wasn’t necessary and you both know it, but that doesn’t
mean that Harry doesn’t like to indulge in your sweet reassurances whenever he
gets the chance.
And the very next day after the two of you were nonconsensually
photographed at the airport, it only took two or three phone calls for those
pictures to be wiped clean from the planet without a trace. Mose Benson,
everybody.
Fuck those dorks.
But in just a few hours, Harry will be heading off to LAX to catch a flight to
Spain for his final qualifying series tournament before the World Surfing
Championship in Puerto Rico. Rightfully so, he’s feeling nervous about possibly
botching his chance to compete in the Championship, so he’s choosing to spend
an extra week in Spain to practice before the tournament begins. And if
everything works out according to plan, he’ll be able to visit his mother and sister
in London for a bit before flying to Puerto Rico, also taking extra time to practice
there before a long, nerve-wracking, ten-day Championship that will determine
how he feels about his chosen, wildly unpredictable career.
Years ago, he can recall telling you not to rely too heavily on your body as your
only means of identity. But here he is, doing the exact opposite of his own advice.
Because at the end of the day, his body is all he has.
Which is extra true right now, considering he still hasn’t been able to get a
straight answer out of you on what exactly is going to happen with your
relationship once you’re both finished touring and running around like maniacs.
But this time, Harry doesn’t push. Because he doesn’t need to. Because you
always say and do the right thing at exactly the right time. All he has to do is wait.
He fucking hates waiting, but as always, he’ll do it for you.
And right now, the stress of saying goodbye for another six-week split and the
stress of the impending tournament and the stress of finishing up your tour is
weighing heavily on the both of you. For Harry, this stress is manifesting in biting
his fingers raw and chainsmoking far too many cigarettes.
For you, this stress is manifesting in an absent orgasm.
“Hey, hey. What’s goin’ on? S’okay, yeah? Just happens sometimes. Just a snag.
Try to not go nuts over it, it’ll make it worse. You alright?”
Harry strokes his fingers inside of your heat slowly, dragging his thumb in
circles on your clit, the charm of his red heart-shaped locket dangling from his
neck to rest on your stomach. Trying his best to tease you and ease you back by
being slushy and languid and soft.
But you’re two sides of Velcro; soft cotton and scratchy plastic. It’s your last
day together for a long time and neither of you know what’s going to happen
after that long time ends. So for you, the pressure is tangling you up into a knot.
The evasive orgasm is making you feel frustrated and worried. And now you’re
thinking too much, and you know that thinking too much will just make it worse,
so you’re trying hard not to think about it, but that requires thinking about it.
And it’s not Harry’s fault and you don’t want him to think that it’s his fault. And
now you’re thinking that he’s thinking it’s his fault, but maybe this just means
that you’re broken forever and you’re spiraling spiraling spiraling and
demolishing any lusty head-spaces in five seconds flat with a mental press of
your thumb.
“Harry.” With a groan, you flop down into the sheets and then draw out a
pathetic whine. Harry doesn’t think it’s pathetic, though. In fact, he thinks it’s
pretty adorable, but he stays quiet to allow you the space to lament. “I feel like
weeping. I hate being frustrated more than anything else. It’s so….. frustrating.”
Your fingers tangle into the chain around his neck, the metal hot from his skin
which immediately transforms to cold with the air and then hot again wrapped
around your knuckles. “I think I’m just sad.”
“Hey. Honey Slowdown.” His palm is extra smooth traveling up your stomach,
as he holds your regard with no trace of judgement or intimidation. “Your
feelings aren’t the problem and neither are your thoughts. It’s the second layer of
thinking that’s the problem. The thinking about thinking. It’s a habit to jump in
and react to each thought, to try to control it. But once you realize that, then
there’s an opportunity to let go, to allow it to pass. You’re not your thoughts,
baby. Remember? You’re so fuckin’ good at makin’ rainbows, aren’t you?
Mmm….. you ooze orgasms, Honey. It’ll come back twice as hard, don’t even
sweat it. Yeah?”
Harry’s personality doesn’t chaotically bounce around like an amateur using a

pinball machine as much as it had before, colliding into walls and sinking into
holes and catapulting from bottom to top and plunging into escape without a
trace. He’s mastered the board now; nestled tightly in nooks and crannies and
liberating himself at the perfect moment, grazing every button that lights the
machine up one by one, gliding through narrow chutes and alleys, saving himself
at the last moment before he can slip away too soon.
But he’s definitely still a walking, talking flashy light show.
“I miss you a lot when you’re not here with me. I feel like I don’t make any
memories when you’re not around and I just count the days until I can see you
next. I barely explore cities, I go to sleep by eleven. I talk to myself and hug my
pillow and stare at the ceiling for an hour after I wake up. It’s like day and night,
really. Sun and no Sun.”
A love-filled heart-shaped balloon sucks past his teeth, red and shiny, before
slowly inflating back out on his tongue. A lightbulb flickers to life in his mind’s
eye, the pull chain swaying through space. His statement is heavy, layered,
loaded and his fingers are just tight enough around your neck that he can feel
your pulse on his skin.
Tip, tap.
“I’d do anything for you, V. You know that, right?”
I wish we’d met at a different time….. I would’ve sacrificed anything for you.
And right now, he can.
Slipping your fingers through his, you suck in a full breath of air and crane
your head to speak against his lips. For Harry, your choice in words is something
far more loving than declaring your admiration for him. He can already feel your
appreciation perfectly fine. What he needs is admiration for himself. A sponge
bath for his competitive nature. Reassurance of his worth. Acknowledgment of
his efforts. A reminder of the truth, that he’s a good person with good intentions
who takes good actions and it shows in the way he positively affects others.
“You’re so good. You do so many things so, so right, Sunbaby. I cherish you.”
Your palm smooths up his throat as your fingertips fall petal-soft over his lips.
He grasps your wrist, guiding your thumb past his teeth for a split second and
then huffing hot air against your skin when he murmurs. “Tu es tout.”
“Je t’aime.”
“Je suis fou de toi, hm? Je t’aime davantage.”
“É galemente.” Still unable to shake the feeling of defeat, which you loathe,
your head lulls away from him as you tangle your fingers through your hair. “I’m
going to splash some water on my face, okay?”
It pains Harry to burst the soft bubble of this moment, at a time when you
were shining beautifully in your vulnerability. But instead of pushing you to
fulfill what it is that he wants, he nibbles on his bottom lip and nods. “Course.
Take your time, babe.”
It feels extra pathetic to slink away from a warm bed full of Sunshine to lock
yourself in a cold bathroom full of anxiety. Taking a lead from Harry’s habits, you
turn the tap on to frigid and fill your palms up with the ice-cold water, sinking
your face into the little puddle until the chill can be felt to your toes. His calming
words echo around in your mind until you convince yourself that your elusive
orgasm isn’t the problem at all. And neither is your relationship, your careers, a
few weeks of distance. The problem is your thinking; that chokehold of fear that
tries it’s hardest to steer the course of your life. That second layer of
consciousness. That childlike voice that you’ve outgrown, because you’re
parenting yourself now and you don’t need her.
A cluster of tears fill up in your nose and your sinuses and rather than stuff
them back down like you usually do, you allow them to fall. Because that’s what
Sunny would tell you to do. Because sometimes, that’s just what needs to happen.
And after a couple minutes of continually splashing water on your face and
taking loads of deep, cleansing breaths, you hype yourself back up enough to face
him again. Ready to talk through it or convince him it’s okay and you’re okay and
not to worry about it and you’re both going to be fine and this isn’t going to hang
like a cloud over your farewell and time will move quickly and he’ll be brilliant
and you’ll be brilliant.
And he’s a perfect sugar-drenched pink Sunbeam. And you love him.
Padding quietly from the ensuite bathroom with slightly pink cheeks, you turn
the corner to find your lover in bed again, your stomach ripping open to unleash
butterflies and your core squeezing on itself as you stop dead in your tracks.
Because Harry has handcuffed himself to the bedpost, the key strewn onto the
carpet. Your silk sleep mask sits beside his hip, his hungry eyes trained on you.
His hair curling like a dollop of chocolate-flavored whipped cream; heart-shaped
mouth red and cherry shiny. Pitched black briefs hugging his hips, stomach rising
and falling with heavy breaths under your scrutiny. Legs long and toned, toes
curling every couple of seconds.
A precious rock indeed. A solid diamond.
“However you want me and need me, Cherry. I’m yours. Help yourself.”
“Oh my god.”
There’s a pause where you’re just staring at him. Or taking it all in, either way.
“Milkshake doesn’t suck itself, sister.”
You toss your head back with laughter and a tiny little snort before pulling
yourself into his magnet, swiping the key from the floor and tucking it into the
cup of your bra. You knee up onto the bed, then sink into a straddle across his
lap. Your palms drift up his chest as you lean forward and smile against his lips.
“This is truly something.”
His breaths are trembling into your mouth. “’Kay, I regret it. This was a
massive oversight. I gotta touch you. Get the key.”
“What key?”
Harry tries to lick his lips in order to hide the smile that’s creeping in to
deceive his tone. “Sweetheart….. get the key.”
He might as well not be saying anything at all because you can’t hear it over
the blood throbbing inside of your skull. And his agitation only increases when
you take your sweet time with him, first kissing his lips before traveling
downward with more kisses and licks and nibbles; his neck, his throat, his
collarbone, his chest and his stomach, licking a line to his bellybutton. And a final
kiss over the fabric of his briefs, before you’re sucking his clothed cock into your
mouth and Harry is crying out in a lusty frenzy, his tummy quivering in suspense.
He groans and struggles against the force of the handcuffs and then gives up
with a huff, his body melting into the sheets. “I kinda hate this—”
“Hmm?”
“Vivienne.”
“Harry.” Tapping his hip as a signal for him to lift them up, you dig your fingers
into the elastic and draw them down his legs and off of his feet before tossing
them onto the ground. His cock springs up and bounces against his stomach,
tapping the happy trail below his bellybutton. One of your favorite places on
earth besides a doughnut shop.
And without any further hesitation, you’re sinking his length past your teeth
and to the back of your throat, propelling Harry’s eyes to roll back in his head
before his head tips back into the pillows. “Oh, god—” He tugs on the handcuffs
again, but they’re not budging and he wants more than anything to weave his
fingers into your hair and this was a massive, massive oversight. “Baby, please
get the—” But then your cheeks suction around his shaft as his tip taps your
tonsils and your nose buries into his stomach, a loud high-pitched moan
wooshing through his nose. “Fuck— Cherry baby, please have some mercy on
me.”
It turns out that all you needed was to feel some control somehow. Not over
your partner, but over a situation, any situation. Because of the way everything
spirals around you at such a fast, wistful pace. Sweeping you away and sweeping
Harry away and dashing you back together and ripping you apart again. And
Harry knew that about you before you did.
And he always, always wants you to feel good.

And he really, really dislikes giving up control in the bedroom. But he’ll do it.
For you. At least for a couple minutes.
And you always, always love to hear him beg.
Harry feels like he can finally breathe when you back off and pop his cock
from your mouth, stroking him up and down a couple times in a gentle fist before
letting go completely. His eyebrows tug into a curious frown as he watches to see
what you’ll do next, and what you do next takes him by complete, utter surprise.
Sitting opposite him, you kick your legs over his with your feet planted on
either side of his hips. Your centers aligned and so close that you can both feel
heat radiating off of one another, but not touching. Harry cranes his head up for a
better view, just in time to find your hand traveling down to your core, your eyes
falling shut as you lazily spin circles on your clit, your hand bumping his cock
every so often due to your teasing, obscene proximity.
His jaw is dragging on the floor.
“Harry…..” You’re not exactly addressing him, but rather the fantasy in your
mind as you work yourself up. Which is exactly what you do when distance pulls
you apart into separate hotel rooms on different continents, with his voice
rumbling smut and demands through a telephone receiver. Harry recognizes this
and his breathing falls hot and heavy into the room, his legs restless and trapped
underneath yours. “You feel so go… d...” Your fingers sink into your heat and your
mouth falls open, soft moans leaking out through your teeth. “Oh god, Harry.
Juste là . Please don’t stop.…Mmm...”
A dribble of precome blurts from his tip and oozes down his length. Harry
feels like he could reach his climax just by watching yourself get off to the
thought of him, but he doesn’t want that. He wants you. And these handcuffs are
way too fucking tight.
Your chest is rising and falling, sweat pushing on your skin, nipples hard and
begging for a lick. And when you shudder to indicate the approach of your climax,
that’s when Harry pulls hard enough on the handcuffs that the bedpost rips from
the frame in a loud crackle of splintering wood before clattering to the ground.
Even Harry seems surprised. “Oh shit.”
“Holy shit!” Your laughter spins through the room when Harry sinks his teeth
into his bottom lip to repress a smile, springing up to his knees and pinching
your waist, tossing you down into the sheets and piling on top of you. “Sunny,
you just—”
“Give me the key, sweetheart.” Handcuffs still wrapped around his wrists, he
gathers your hands and pins them to the mattress above your head, the outline of
the jagged metal sandwiched between the lace of your bra and the sweat of your
skin. Absorbing the pounding of your heart.
“With what hands exactly?”
“Smart ass.”
“Who’s paying for that—”
“You are.”
“Harry—!” You smile into his kiss and allow him to sink you back into the
mattress, his mouth traveling down your neck and chest to catch the key
between his teeth and then hover it over your face. Plucking it from his lips, you
unlock his handcuffs and toss them aside, granting him the freedom to touch you
as he wishes.
And he does, by immediately aligning his tip with your entrance to feel the
excitement you’ve produced all on your own. “Want me? It’s your turn to beg,
Honeypie.”
Sometimes it feels like your body is a heat-activated complicated panel of

electronic buttons, blinking and glowing all sorts of colors to clue Harry in on
what to tap and in which sequence. He didn’t have quite enough time to
memorize the sequence the first few times you’d had sex years back, but these
past several months and especially past couple of weeks have boosted him to an
expert-level player. In the mornings, there is hardly anything that Harry could do
wrong to send you over the edge. You’re a ball of soft lust, bending to his every
whim and command. An extension of the sheets and the pillows and the
comforter; burning nerves on fire and wet satisfaction that sucks him dry in five
minutes flat.
In the evenings, you prefer him rough, controlled. Spontaneous, twenty, forty
minutes of attention, minimum. And you’ve got the love bites, bruises and
soreness underneath your little swanky dresses to prove it.
It’s in those moments between morning and evening that are a toss-up in
terms of preference. An obstacle course of spontaneity and public places or
racing back to the hotel. Like right now. And Harry, he’s always up for a
challenge.
Rocking your hips towards him, his head sinks into your heat and you mewl
out a soft cry, nodding and whispering against his lips. “Please, I’m so close. I
need you, Daddy. Please. I need you—”
Because this situation is particularly delicate, Harry doesn’t wait too long to
give in to your pleas. He just wants you to feel good, and so he does, watching
your face closely as he plunges through your muscles. Fast and potent. Sinking in
to the brim, hasty and rough.
Just what you need.

Sobbing out, your head tilts back for a moment to feel him filling you up,
before you suck your middle and ring fingers into your mouth. And then you
offer your fingers to him which he accepts readily, swirling his tongue around
your digits and nibbling on your knuckle as he continues to work you with his
hips. And then chasing your fingers for another playful nibble when you
withdraw. “Mmm….. how’s that feel? Am I stretchin’ you? Are you—”
Without a verbal response, your wet fingertips tickle all the way down his
back and Harry slows his pace in anticipation of where you may be going with
this. He hitches a knee up to your hip to spread his legs a little, still slowly
pumping in and out of you with his eyes on fire. Right on cue, the pads of your
fingers sink between his cheeks and circle his rim. And right on cue, and with a
bit of disbelief, Harry conveys his enthusiastic consent with a facial expression
crumpling into helpless desperation. Something that you rarely, if ever, get a
chance to see from him. “Yeah— fuck, please….. yes. Oh god, Cherry. Mhm. Neon
rainbows. Please, please, please.”
Craning close, you seal your lips together before he’s dipping you back down
into the mattress with his tongue circling yours, his eyes pinched closed and his
breathing shuddering through his nose in suspense. You circle his back entrance
in small loops a couple times before dipping one finger in to the first knuckle. “Is
that okay?”
Harry nods enthusiastically, his mouth parted in awe. “Very, very okay. Keep
goin’.” When your finger pushes through as far as it will go, Harry’s nostrils flare
before a whimper crawls up his throat, overcome by sensation with his cock
buried inside of you and firm pressure on his gland. The combination of the two a
brand-new sensation to him. And it’s euphoric. “Jesus fuckin’— Christ.” His face
drops into your neck because it’s so overwhelming and intense, his hips rocking
back onto your fingers and rolling forward into your heat. Slow at first as he
adjusts to the feeling, until sparkles start to rain up his spine and his pace
instinctively speeds up.
Toffee.
Jelly.
He has enough wherewithal to suck his thumb in his mouth and then press on
your rim as well, your eager approval sobbing out with a cry of oh my god, oh my
god which spurs Harry into an even more heady state than usual, completely lost
and swept away in that mindset that can only be achieved through lusty euphoria
with the person you love. His thumb sinks into your back entrance, adding even
more pressure to his cock from the inside and your fingers are working him and
you’re so tight and wet and gripping him like a soft, pillowy fist that his vision
starts to turn purple and glittery behind his eyelids.
“Viv….. I’m— gonna come— and it… s...” Clenching his teeth, he moans through
his nose. “I don’t want it to end.” His tummy and center tighten and he hunches
over in pause to stave the sensation. “God— perfect cunt. Perfect person. Je
t’aime tellement putain.” His voice rises in pitch with every phrase. “Fuck me,
baby. Just like that. Give it t… me... tha…’s it...…fuck me….. harder... fuck—”
Your core clamps down, hard. And then Harry experiences something he’s
never experienced before.
Fireworks.
A frenzied and curt shout bounces off of the walls when he reaches his peak
and paints your walls with technicolor rainbows, his body jerking as he pushes as
far inside of you as he possibly can, sobbing and weeping into your shoulder.
Your high sucks on his high and milks him dry, his fingers grabbing a fistful of
your hair and tugging as he struggles to stay in the fog as long as possible, while
simultaneously clawing his way back to earth.
And after he’s gained an ounce of sense, he pushes forward in a few sloppy
thrusts that are each met with a whine, a whimper, an involuntary blubber to
draw out his ecstasy. Both of your ecstasies. It’s like nothing you’ve ever heard or
felt from him before, with his blunt nails dragging down your sides to pinch your
hip so hard that you’re certain it’ll bruise. Mumbling your name, pumping and
pumping inside of you, slower and slower and then still, until his weight sucks
you into the mattress with the thump of his heart pounding against your chest
like a bird attempting to escape its cage.
A long silence, heavy breathing, a complete loss of control and loss of senses.
Paradise.
Today, Harry’s velvet dream boy moment consists of an intoxicating round of

self-torture. He pulls his cock from your heat to allow his release to ooze out, and
then sinks right back in, a harsh gasp filling up his lungs at the sensation of his
excitement and your excitement swimming around inside of you.
“Sensible?”
Harry weeps out between a couple raspy moans, “yeah—”
Rolling your hips forward, you dig your heels into his lower back to keep him
locked in place. “Et ça te plaît?”
“It’s hot as fuck— you’re so puffy and wet. Please. Your skin’s glowin’. So, so
foxy.” Harry chuckles softly and dips down to rest his forehead on yours, slowly
pulling out and pushing back, full wet puffy strokes. Trembling breath against
your lips. “I never wanna stop fuckin’ you. Even if it tickles really bad.”
“You’re giving me phantom pains.”
Giggling in your face, Harry slowly pulls out and pauses to watch, a heavy
exhale falling from his lips after he’s freed himself and his cock springs up and
bounces against his stomach. He drops onto his back beside you, his hand on his
belly and his sight memorizing the paint color on the ceiling. Memorizing what’s
just taken place between the two of you.
“Um…..” Harry rolls onto his side and tugs you close, laughing a puff of air
against your neck. “Powerful move, Honey.”
You drag your fingers through his sweaty hair, your nails scratching up and
down his back, your legs tangling together with his in an intimate cuddle. “This is
a really fun addition.”
“Great. Is my bottom showin’?”
“Yes. But you’ve never been able to hide it from me, Sunshine.”
A statement purrs out that he knows you’ve been dying to expose for two weeks
now, one that has his cock jumping against his stomach and a small wayward
whine slipping between his teeth.
“Are you a recipient? Do you want to be?”
His cheeks pool with red fire in the aftermath of your detonation.
“Yeah….. no shit.”
“I knew it.”
Harry’s sigh turns into a soft moan and then a little chuckle. “That’s forever
locked in the vibe vault now. Little taste of heaven. ’Mm shredded.”
“Are you gonna journal about it?”
“Every damn day, mornin’ and night. Like, 20 September, 1968. Dear Diary,
Twelve and a half days since Cherry checked the oil. I think I finally came as hard as
she does. Now I understand why women are so tough: they walk around with
bombs ready to explode inside of their bellies every second. Yours truly, Harry.”
“Wait a minute. You think I come harder than you do?”
His mouth flattens and his nostrils flare in an expression of overt certainty, as
if all of the empirical evidence he’s collected over the past several months should
have already spoken for itself. Reaching for his smokes on the nightstand, he
grabs two and lights them both, passing off a freshly spun stick of pink cotton
candy. “You nearly fuckin’ black out sometimes. It’s like watchin’ a telly lose its
signal. Sometimes I dunno if I’m ever gonna see you again.”
And then he remembers it, how you squirm to the point where he has to hold
your hips to steady you, legs trembling, back arched away from the mattress. His
name and moans and gasps and whispers falling from your lips. Sometimes you
squeeze him so hard that it forces a laugh out of him, the kind of confounded half-
ecstasy, half-tickled laugh that boils up from his stomach and wriggles through
his moans.
Harry watches your smile slowly transform into a luscious little giggle, one
that has your hands clapping together before you flip onto your back and
playfully kick your feet up in the air. Victorious and elated. Storing up each and
every memory of every orgasm you’ve ever had just to spray it back in his face
like a garden hose. “Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh at you. But women deserve
harder orgasms. We just do. Merci, au revoir.”
He snaps his hand open and closed in the air like a blabbing mouth. “Yeah,
yeah. Where’s my credit, huh? You’re not exactly alone when it happens. Wait,
unless—”
“You’re right.” Rolling back onto your side to face him, you reel in your
laughter by sinking your tooth into your bottom lip. Your eyes sparkle at him,
beautiful and free. “Thank you for watching me come so hard.”
“I’ll let you rub that in exactly one more time before I’m declarin’ celibacy.”
“Why are men so horny if they only have subpar orgasms?”
Harry checks his wrist for an imaginary watch. “And….. that’s a wrap.”
“Hey.” Looping your fingers through the chain around his neck, you hover over
him close enough to tap the end of your nose against his. “You know that you’re
the only person who can do that to me. You’re the only one. You’re magic.”
“Just for him?”
“Oui, juste pour lui.”
The two of you decide to take an afterglow shower together today before
Harry sets off for the airport, compromising on the heat of the water being
somewhere in between frigid and boiling.
Over time, Harry has learned not to pack his suitcase in front of you because it
makes you sad, your eyes traipsing over his every move from your cuddly spot in
the sheets, molding like melted wax to the mattress. The ones that Harry has to
practically unglue himself from whenever your time together squeezes to an end.
It’s hard for him to ignore your pouting so in turn, his packing is interrupted by
him crawling back into bed for another kiss. Which turns into another kiss. And
then a moan. And a titty grab. And then sex. And then a nap.
One time he rescheduled his flight.
So, now he waits until you’re in the shower or running off for an interview or
sleeping or snacking to compile his slim assortment of belongings; usually only
consisting of a few changes of clothing, clean underwear, a toothbrush and dental
floss, a book, several packs of candy-sweet smokes and his journal.
His suitcase is packed and sitting by the door now. Mose has just called for a
brief rundown with Harry about his impending travel plans and when Mose
asked how the house was treating him, Harry very conveniently left out the fact
that he’d destroyed the bed just a couple hours ago. It’s okay though, because
he’s already contacted a local furniture store and ordered a replacement. And
since you’ll be here for a couple extra days, you can make sure everything is
restored without the homeowners hearing a word of it.
You’re dressed in a pair of his briefs and one of his tropical button-down
shirts, your fingers tangled into Harry’s curls as he kisses your stomach and
pokes his tongue into your bellybutton. He nibbles at Miette de Biscuit, muttering
a soft goodbye and then pausing for a moment to watch you with his chin
perched on your hipbone. His hands drifting up your shirt to softly squeeze your
breasts.
“My heart hurts.”
Harry chews on the inside of his cheek, his eyes surveying all the details of
your face so that he can properly revisit them in daydreams. “Yeah, ditto. Fuck,
feels so good though, right? Makin’ X’s in mosquito bites. We’re so lucky to have
someone to pine over. The pain is like nothin’ else. Lucky as fuck.”
“I’ll be thinking about your mouth. Your legs. Your brain. And your
bellybutton.”
“Belly—” He pinches your hip bone, “I’ll be stewin’ on ta chatte. J’aime ton
amour. C’est parfait. Parfait pour moi, je sais cela. Suis-je parfait pour toi?”
“Parfait. Je t’aime.”
“Maybe we’re both masochists.”
Your gaze traipses across his eyes and nose, his cheeks. His freckles and his
rarity. You watch as he licks his lips and his heart-shaped mouth relaxes, shiny
and soft like bubblegum, appealing enough to not lose focus on. “I know we’re
both masochists.”
Sliding down the bed, Harry wraps his fingers around your foot and then lifts
it to his ear like a telephone. “Ring ring. Allô ? Feelin’ real crummy right now,
mama. Down the tubes.” He pauses and glances at the bottom of your foot before
planting a big wet tickly kiss there, your squeal of disagreement only egging him
on as he kisses the inside of your ankle, your shin, your knee. His fingers tickling
ten soft lines up the back of your thighs. “Six more weeks.”
“Six of them.”
Harry pauses for a while, his attention flying to the wall and his eyes glazing
over with concentration.
“Are you getting sad?”
“Nah. No, I mean, yeah. But I’m just tryin’ to figure out how many days that is.”
Your laugh is coated in powdered sugar and when Harry snaps his attention to
you, his smile grows fast and strong before a little chuckle breaks through.
“What?”
“It’s roughly forty-five days. Are you that bad at math?”
“Everyone’s got a fatal flaw. Mine just happens to be a basic necessity. What’s
yours? Bein’ hot?”
“Overthinking.”
“Right, right. Attack of the Honey Bad Brains, as we saw just earlier.”
Sitting up, you drop the volume and pitch of your voice to that special sound
that only occurs when you’re speaking with utmost rawness. Harry’s favorite. “I
hate the moment when you leave, when the room empties out behind you. Like
someone turned off the lights and I’m forced to just bounce my thoughts off of
myself in the dark. It’s such an empty feeling. It’s like extreme boredom wrapped
up with a barbed wire of anxiety and sadness.”
“That was a real fuckin’ wordy way to say that you feel lonely.”
“Petite vache. Get bent.”
“If you ever want your day to be me-themed, you know who to call. And if
anyone hits on you, just give ’em my number.”
“Wow. You’re super scary sometimes.”
“Just wanna chat. Hey, wanna take a quick stroll before I go, Cherry pie?”
“Where to?”
“Like I’d tell you. Get your ass up.”
The last place that you would have expected Harry to take you on your walk is
exactly where he takes you. Down the beaches and boardwalk for about a mile,
hand in hand, until the heartachingly familiar sight reaches up into the sky and
sways in the breeze.
Banana Split.
Backing you up against the scratchy bark, Harry hovers his mouth over yours,
cocking his head to the side in delighted interest. “Kiss, please? Classic, for old
time’s sake?” Marveling in the tears pooling in your eyes, he waits for his special
nod before folding your lips together. He sucks on your tongue, doing everything
in his mental power to transfer his strength to you, and vice versa.
He wants to wash away all of the sordid history that the two of you share at
this tree, but that would defeat the entire purpose of why this tree evokes so
many emotions. It tingles and it hurts. It feels good and it feels bad. Just like life.
Inching back, Harry stays close enough that he can deliver his next statement
against your lips. “Gonna fill you up like a Twinkie next time I see you.”
You burst out laughing. “Oh— my god. That visual.”
The sound effect that he makes to punctuate his joke sounds a lot like a water
balloon bursting inside of an angel food cake, muffled by its sugary doughy walls.
“Harry! Stop.”
“I imagine if we had a tiny little microphone, that’s what it would sound like.”
“You’re sick.”
“Sometimes you’re a sugar cookie and sometimes you’re a Twinkie, dependin’

on the mood. I’m hungry all of a sudden?” Catching your swat, he weaves your
fingers together and lets them drop to your sides. His other hand plays with the
Peace ring dangling around your neck as he harnesses some bravery, licking his
lips to quell his nerves. “Hey….. would you follow me?”
“Oh, well….. where?”
He sucks on his bottom lip. “I dunno for sure, Honey. Anywhere. Everywhere.
Wherever the sun shines. I don’t have a chosen destination in mind. Wherever
we’d end up. I mean, just….. be with me? All over. Nomad city, population Sunny
and Cherry.”
Yeah? Where’s home?
Wherever the sun shines.
You take a moment to understand what he’s asking you and the true depth
behind the question. It could be as simple as him asking you if you’d travel to see
him from time to time. It could be as deep as him asking you to be his companion
on his mysterious winding life-tour of earth that hasn’t stopped for eleven years,
ever since his dad kicked him out of the house at seventeen.
Would you follow him anywhere? Would you follow him anywhere and never
stop? Could you? Could you exist as an airborne seedling, no certain home base
or one in sight, but rather allow Harry to be your home? Existing to follow the
Sun?
Harry feels like the luckiest man on the planet watching your face change;
four-leaf clovers blossoming up from the ground around your feet, pennies
rolling in winding circles, shooting stars burning across the sky, a pair of fuzzy
dice swinging from a rearview mirror, a rainbow framing the loving lean you
both have against Banana Split’s trunk.
Your eyes gloss over with tears, your smile slowly growing until you sink your
teeth into your bottom lip and nod. “I like the sound of that. I’ll think really hard
about it. Or maybe I won’t think about it very hard at all. Time will tell?”
It’s not a no. So, to Harry, it’s basically a yes.
He smiles and starts singing against your lips, quietly, his best Little Peggy
March impression. “I love him, I love him. And where he goes, I’ll follow, I’ll
follow, I’ll follow.”
And it delights but doesn’t exactly surprise him when you sing right back,
quietly, right against his lips. “There isn’t an ocean too deep, a mountain so high
it can keep, keep me away.”
You breathe in his little chuckle, his softest one. The oozy raspberry chocolate
truffle kind. “You get it.”
October 13th, 1968 Aguadilla, Puerto Rico
It’s about two hours before dusk and Harry is feeling a little short on luck at
the moment. It’s exceptionally hard to find a private place in the ocean to practice
when there is a Surfing Championship vibrating on the horizon, with hundreds of
people milling about armed with the same plans he had. And just about an hour
ago, he’d ventured out to that same market he visited yesterday in search of their
stellar tostones. The one about a half mile from his small, rented cabana. The one
that just so happened to close early today, for reasons that still make no fucking
sense to him.
And just about thirty minutes ago, he’d tried to call you again, for the third day
in a row to no avail. It had crossed his mind to try and give Bug a call just to make
sure that you’re alive and well, but he knows that you don’t particularly like it
when he does things like that. So, he sat on his restless hands and buried his
impulsivity, instead whipping out his journal to allow his feelings to bleed out
onto the pink page.
The last time you two spoke, you were preparing to finish up your tour. Your
final performance of the season was last night and Harry had made sure to send
you two bouquets of sunflowers rather than one, along with adding an extra
Honeybee Jamboree to your greenroom rider and an order of French fries. It’s
not so much that he needs you to tell him that you were amazing to understand it
as truth. And it’s not so much that he needs to hear a thank you in order to feel
your appreciation, but it’s more relating to the fact that he would just like to hear
the sound of your voice if possible. The Championship starts in a couple days and
he’s more nervous than he would like to admit anyone out loud, except for you.
He needs you to know that he’s wigging out.
Three days ago, Harry asked you what your plans were after tour ended. And
you gave him the same answer that you always give him, which is that you were
heading home. Each time he asked you the same question he’d hope for a
different answer, but it seemed like your heart was set on finding a little bit of
familiarity before making any more big life decisions. Which he understands.
Touring is insanely hard on the mind and body.
But selfishly, Harry is worried that he’s not going to have an opportunity to
speak to you before the biggest moment in his surfing career thus far. And maybe
he’s also a little pissed that you wouldn’t try your hardest to prioritize him, at
least in some capacity. A single notion, any notion.
A harsh ringing cuts through the quiet of room and before answering, Harry
lights a cotton candy cigarette which he knows will only be smoked half-way. But
he lights it anyway, before swiping the receiver from the telephone. “Hi.”
“It’s Benson. Beaches are pretty clear in comparison to the past couple days. I
think it’s best if you head out there now. Do you want me to join you?”
“Nah, that’s alright. I’ll put my suit on now. Thanks, Mose.”
Upon receiving the green light, Harry pulls on his swim trunks and gathers his
wet suit under his arm, along with some zinc for his nose and a pack of smokes.
He swings open his front door, swiping his keys from the foyer table and then
turning to step out into the hot sunshine.
And he certainly wasn’t expecting to see you standing here. In a little baby
dress with a small stack of sizable suitcases resting beside your strappy sandals,
indicating that you plan on being here, or anywhere, with him for much, much
longer than a weekend.
Harry’s mouth parts in astonishment, his hands flying up to cup his cheeks
before they slip down to cover his mouth. Watching you, he blinks twice before
doubling over and erupting in a loud, immense cackle, proving himself to
consistently be the best person in the whole world to surprise. Straightening, he
holds his arms above his head in victory, a piece of chewing gum popping
between his teeth. “Holy shit! Jump the fuck back! Sweet Cherry pie?” His fists fall
to his shoulders in another little pump of victory, of astonishment. Of sheer joy.
“No goddamn motherfuckin‘ way. For me? Shut the fuck up. Hello? What are you
doin’ here?!”
“’Talking shit. Grooving. Sex.’ Rock Paper Scissors? I win, I stay. You win, I
don’t leave?”
“You read it…..” His gaze travels down to your fist hanging in the air,
unfaltering in your desire to play to win. “Oh my fuckin’ god. ’Kay.”
You both throw your shapes and Harry gathers your hand in his without even
bothering to acknowledge the outcome, tugging you into his arms and cupping
the back of your neck for a long-winded kiss that sucks air straight to the back of
his throat, setting his lungs on fire. Then he wraps you up into a hug, sponging a
wet kiss to your cheek before squeezing you tight. And you melt into him just
right, his cheek smooshed up against the crown of your head.
“Here for me? To watch? Cheer your lover on? To stay?”
Witnessing city after city wake up to the fact that Harry is the best surfer on
earth might just be the most fun you’ve ever had. The ocean kisses the board he
rides on.
“To watch you kick everyone’s ass while I taunt people from the sidelines, yes.
To stay, et cetera. Whatever happens. I’m here for you. For us. Hi, Sunshine.” You
toss your arms up in the air and sway side to side, loudly singing your best Little
Peggy March Impression. “He’ll always be my true love, my true love, my true
love. From now until forever, forever, forever.”
You get it. He gets it.
His grin is so bright that it could light up the entire earth if he needed to.
Shaking his head slowly in disbelief, the tip of Harry’s nose reddens as he sniffles
and rubs it with his knuckle. “Hi. Gonna reduce a grown man to tears, Cherry
pop.” He sucks on his bottom lip before sinking his teeth in the plush skin.
“How’d you know where I was stayin’? We haven’t talked since I landed. You’ve
been MIA and now I know why.”
“People talk. My manager let me know. She keeps tabs on your per my
instruction.”
“Wow. Stalker. Wouldn’t it be killer if Mose and Roach got together because of
us and our obsessive needs? A love story for the ages. Couple of Cupids.”
“Or if you and Roach got together.”
“Hey!”
“Nevermind, I think you’d both be fighting for dominance too much.”
“Well, we both know who’d win.”
“Aww, you sound just like her.”
“’Kay, enough.” Harry picks up your suitcases and places them in his foyer
before pointing to his pink surfboard, propped up against the side of his teal
cabana and baking in the sun like strawberry pie. “I was just ’bout to make some
shapes in the water. Wanna come with? Need anything? Got an itsy bitsy teenie
weenie yellow polka dot bikini on under that little dress?”
You pull down the neck of your dress to show him your cherry red bikini
underneath.
“Alright— sick. Holy shit, I can’t believe you’re here. Fuckin’ shocked the shit
out of me to see you standin’ here when I opened to door. I’m still recovering.
This is easily the nicest, most romantic shit anyone has ever pulled for me. I love
it. Je t’aime tellement. Holy— am I gonna cry right now?” Harry rubs his eyes
with the heels of his hands, “Jesus….. yeah. Here she comes.”
Mostly the gesture behind it; the timing of you boarding the first plane you
could catch after your final performance of tour, traveling a long distance on your
own to an unfamiliar place. The surprise that you cooked up and served all by
yourself. You’re completely different and exactly the same. Just for him.
Just right for him.
“Harry.” All you can do is nibble on your bottom lip at the sight of his chin
quivering and red-rimmed eyes, a splash of sadness dripping around your heart
at the physical evidence of the toll this relationship has taken on him. It would
appear as though that up until this moment, he was unsure of your conviction
and maybe harbored fear over this not working out the way he wished it would.
But it has. You’re both getting your wish and it’s so overwhelming for him that
he’s shedding actual happy tears over it. And it’s incredibly endearing. As earnest
as it is heartbreaking. “We’re together now. Steady. Just for us. Je t’aime.”
Just right for you.
Because he’s here and you’re here and he’s grown and you’re grown.
“That was a fuckin’ vow, Honey.” Pulling you close, he whispers kiss, please
against your lips and then hums at your obedience, taking slow, sweet sips of
your tongue before drawing back to mutter, “alright, I gotta practice. We can
boom-boom in a couple hours. Ready?”
Nodding, you swipe a couple towels drying off on the back of lounge chair and
flip them over your shoulder. “Do you need my help with anything?”
Harry picks up his board and then scans the area around him, sliding his
heart-shaped sunglasses onto his nose and then pointing to the table right beside
you with a nod of his head.
“Hand me the sex wax, babe?”
undefined—------------------------------------—
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THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING!

Here Comes the Sun // One on One with the Elusive Harry Styles The world-
famous ex-trapeze star, who has traded the sky for the sea, gives Aerial Magazine
an exclusive interview about everything under the sun.
For those of us who dwell on land, it’s easy to forget that more than seventy
percent of the earth is composed of ocean. Sixty percent of our bodies are also
composed of salt water. It’s a powerful life force, a chaotic mystery, powered by
tides, wind, the rotational force of the planet and the sun. The ocean is a universe
as cosmic and vast as outer space, right below our feet and our noses that we’ll
likely never fully traverse in our time on this planet.
Becoming acquainted with merely the surface of the ocean is something that a
lot of us may never experience, but will instead gawk at with a sense of awe and
amazement. Because it’s risky, it’s daunting, it’s unpredictable. It’s a terror. And
one must be a terror themselves to outsmart it, or at least be radical enough to
try.
Born and raised in England, Harry has led a life that most of us will only ever
watch on film screens or read about in books. He dropped out of high school and
fled home as a young teenager to join a traveling European circus, working his
way up from shoveling elephant droppings and slinging cotton candy to
becoming the world’s most renowned trapeze artist. Even then, Harry withheld a
high degree of secrecy, never giving more than single-phrase answers in
interviews and avoiding public speculation at all costs. That tendency only
increased when he disappeared without a trace for over a year, only to resurface
in California with a new gig and a new trapeze partner in tow. And then the
pattern repeated once again, but this time with a whole new surfing career and
outlook on life.
Credit is due to Mr. Styles for pioneering a major and possibly permanent shift
in surfing and tournaments. Before Harry had made a splash in the world of
professional surfing, most surfers defaulted to long, eight-and-a-half foot boards
for their practice and competitions. Longer boards are slow and not as easy to
maneuver, but their large size does facilitate paddling and wave-catching.
Shorter boards are quick, easy to turn on and flashy in the waves. However, that
also means they require a lot of extra experience to ride, as they’re more difficult
to paddle due to the fact that they create less foam in the water. Less board space
also means less balance and less area to stand on, making them harder for
beginners to learn on.
From what Harry has shown us, once the short boards are mastered, the air
that can be caught and the tricks that can be accomplished are well worth the
training and potential danger. Which is exactly why the professional surfing
realm is rapidly following in his footsteps in order to keep up. Proving himself
once again to be an adrenaline-junkie and trendsetter, simply by following his
heart.
On a typically balmy, sunny summer day in Los Angeles, Mr. Styles and I meet
at a quiet beach spot of his choosing. He’s already there when the photographer
and I arrive, with a pink Mini Cooper parked in the sand and his surfboard
strapped on top. Styles explains that he’s been here for hours already, riding
waves under the sunrise and then eating a large meal before napping in the sand
with his T-shirt draped over his face. In the backseat of his rental car, there is a
horribly tattered copy of J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey which he claims to have
read over a dozen times, two open and squashed packs of pink cigarettes, a
couple changes of clothing, a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses, suntan oil and a
well-loved journal that appears to be on it’s last leg.
At first, I am nervous to be in his presence. Not only because of the unspoken

energy he exudes, but because the opportunity to be in his presence is unheard-
of and a first for one of the most paradoxically prominent and elusive athletes in
the industry. Why he chooses to speak with Aerial Magazine here and now is an
utter enigma, but I try to allow that pressure to roll off my back. Mr. Styles‘ last
official statement was with the Associated Press in 1965, three years prior, to
announce his departure from the circus as well as an indefinite departure from
the spotlight, without a promise of return.
It left the whole world with leaking buckets, filled to the brim with watery
inquiries.
Admittedly, I entered this interview hoping that the mystery of Harry Styles
would be solved. I didn’t expect it to leave me with more questions. Not about
him, but about myself and those around me. As if Harry were delivering a quiet
message from some secret interstellar black hole that I didn’t realize I was
waiting for. It took several hours, but upon finally returning home later that
evening, I’d realized I felt energized. Renewed. Humbled and awakened. Grateful.
A sparrow of the air. A silver bullet of the sea. Mystery man. Heartthrob.
Fashion trailblazer. A quiet strength in public. Loud and vulnerable in private.
Most likely to steal your girlfriend. Harry wears many hats. Some of which are
rumors and fabrications due to the insurmountable stealth he has managed to
withhold throughout the past ten years. But some of his “hats” are obvious to
anyone with a pair of working eyeballs.
Harry is indeed intimidating upon first glance. He walks with confidence and
enunciates with his hands. He threads an impressive pearl necklace of profanity
that is strung together by a pink thread of cotton candy, which he chainsmokes
like he’s being sponsored by Crush Cigarettes themselves. His tobacco smells of
baking waffle cones and he dresses like a scoop of Neapolitan ice cream, frosted
with a cool sprinkle of jewelry. It’s as if the past, present and future can
simultaneously be seen in his bedroom eyes, but he’s too privy to burden anyone
with all of that pain, so he chooses to keep it to himself. He feels familiar even
though we’ve never been in the same room before. And once I’d gotten over the
shock and allure of his appearance, my mind slowly humbled and allowed me to
begin absorbing his wisdom. If you’re paying close attention, it lingers like a
sunburn. Because Harry speaks in pastel jewel-toned shapes, not words.
You’ll see what I mean.

Aerial Magazine: Hi, Harry. Harry Styles: What’s happening, man?
AM: Thank you for taking the time to sit down with me. You’ve competed in ten
tournaments this year, which leaves one last competition in Spain in order to
qualify for the World Surfing Championship in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, coming up in
October. Are you scared of the contenders? HS: Yeah. And no, it’s cool. Should I be?
Honestly, I’m mostly scared of sharks. I’m just razzing. Take that shit out. That was
a terrible way to start.
AM: Alright. Let’s ease in with some ice breakers first. You’re stranded on a
desert island for an unknown amount of time. Which three musical albums do you
have? HS: Three? Okay. In the Groove, Safe as Milk and Forever Changes. Also, The
Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Face to Face and Surrealistic Pillow. Really digging
Electric Ladyland and Os Mutantes right now, too. Oh, and Astral Weeks. Begin
Here, Disraeli Gears, Beggars Banquet, Revolver and Pet Sounds are always on solid
standby, too. Shit, I can’t choose just three. You’re asking too much of me. That’s
fucking nuts. Maybe I’d be better off just covering my eyes and pulling three at
random. Are there even record players on deserted islands?
AM: Not without electricity, I suppose. Great albums, by the way. I love The
Piper at the Gates of Dawn. I listened to that album for six days straight when it
was released. HS: And on the seventh day? AM: I rested. HS: Hey, what three
albums would you bring to a potluck funeral in the south? No, I’m pulling your
leg. You can keep asking the questions. But I’m going to be thinking about that for
the rest of the day. Probably something with lots of trumpets?
AM: And an electric organ. Okay, how about three foods? HS: Peanut butter,
apples and OJ.
AM: Three personal items? HS: Ciggies, sunnies and my journal.

AM: Three people, dead or alive, aside from loved ones, friends and family? HS:
Dr. Martin Luther King, Nina Simone and Marlon Brando. Somehow, I feel like the
four of us could put our heads together and figure out how to get the fuck off that
shit-island.
AM: Solid Crew. You’re a fairly recent addition to the pro-surfing world, yet
you’ve climbed your way to the top at whiplash speed. Over the past year and a
half, you’ve won high titles in Hawaiian Pro, Mavericks, Oi Rio Pro, Gold Coast
Open, Sunset Open, Carve Pro and Tahiti, amongst many others. Before this, you
were a world-renowned trapeze artist for two different circuses throughout the
course of seven years. What made you want to dramatically change careers? HS: I
had to. My first partner was injured, but pressured into performing by our
ringleader anyway. She slipped and fell during a performance in ’63, breaking
her neck and dying instantly. I blamed myself and still do when things are
particularly dark. It was nearly impossible to return, but I was lured back in
Malibu under false pretenses against my better judgment. And at the time, I
didn’t really want to leave that job either. But Russell Buchanan is a money-
hungry, lying, manipulative, criminally misogynistic piece-of-shit that trapped
me when I wasn’t ready and cut me loose when it was too late. He uses people,
then discards them when he stops seeing dollar signs on their foreheads. Soulless
fuck. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was embezzling cash, just saying. Maybe
someone should investigate that soon.
AM: That’s going to print. HS: Rad.
AM: And I’m deeply sorry to hear about your first partner. HS: Thank you.
AM: Your most recent trapeze partner, Vivienne Surefire, has her own touring,
bustling solo act now. Do you ever wish you were a part of it? HS: If I was, then it
wouldn’t be her bustling solo act, would it? She deserves everything she’s earned
and I don’t get to stick my slimy fingers in her career. I don’t even get to have a
wet dream about it, because it’s not mine. It’s hers. And she’s far out at what she
does, without anyone’s help.
AM: Would you go back to the circus if she asked you to? HS: She wouldn’t ask
me to do that.
AM: Why not? HS: When the universe screams in your face over and over
again that it’s time to move on, then it’s time to move on. The universe carries us
to a certain degree, but it also developed the ability for our brains to rationalize
for a reason. We have the gift of being able to step back and think for ourselves
and draw big, fat lines to carry ourselves, too. This isn’t a game of free will versus
determinism. Our lives are both, because nature is both. I’m capable of what I’m
capable of and I can push myself or not. I can choose this direction or that. It’s
freedom within limits and everyone has different freedoms and limits. Our
experiences guide us, our intelligence advises us, our resources limit us, our
inspirations compel us. Does that make sense?
AM: Sure. You’re done with the circus. [Harry laughs hard at this]. Are you still
in touch with Vivienne after your fallout? HS: Can you stop a hurricane?
AM: I’ll interpret that as “yes.” Your life seems to be fast and hectic between
traveling, working, public appearances, rare promotional spots and your ever-
growing fanbase. What makes you pause? What makes you slow down? HS: It’s
kind of hard for me to sit still for very long. I read a lot on airplanes. I find places to
play pool. I smoke. I write. I meditate. I fucking snack hard, then I crash out.
AM: How do you handle the attention from your fans? HS: They’re not just my
fans, man. They don’t exist solely for me. They’re people with common interests
and I love them. I don’t feel the need to handle anything. I just talk to them.
AM: How has being famous made your life better or worse? HS: I’m happy with
what I’ve achieved and am grateful for everything that’s happened, good and bad.
I don’t think too hard about how my life is now, because then I start thinking
about how it could have been different and it’s not different, so what’s the point
in speculating? My life is my life and I don’t see the point in gloating or
complaining about it. It just is. Like how your life or anyone’s life just is. Our
work is in appreciating and understanding the things that affect us, and then
honoring and improving them for the people around us.
AM: I appreciate that. What are your thoughts about family? You’re on the road
a lot; do you miss yours when you travel? HS: A healthy family nourishes one
another equally and consistently. I also think a healthy family is rare. It’s okay to
put up hard boundaries when you’re being malnourished. It’s okay to accept the
family you were born into, with all of their strengths and weaknesses, and then
choose your second family. And yes, I do. I miss my mum and my sister a lot.
AM: Do you want your own second family? HS: Uh….. [Harry laughs and lights
another cigarette]. It’s not solely my decision to make. We’ll know when we
know. I’m stoked on what I’ve got and I’m always ready for more. I don’t want to
say the wrong shit, I’m just sitting here in my business casual. Who sent you?
AM: Well, if you did settle down, where would you want it to be? HS: [Long
pause] Maybe Biarritz or somewhere in the South of France. Los Angeles. Or Baja,
I guess. But I don’t think that’s ever going to happen, you know? I learned the
hard way that I don’t stay in one place for very long. I’m not the stagnant kind.
There’s too much to know.
AM: The hard way? HS: Nothing worth discovering is easy.
AM: After the year you’ve had, with one or two new tournaments every month, I
bet you’re ready for a long break. What are your plans after the World
Championship? HS: Eat gooballs and grilled cheeses and tail Jerry Garcia around? I
don’t know, I’m happy wherever there’s sun, waves, love, baby pancakes and
mimosas.
AM: Aside from your past trapeze tricks and your current surfing lifestyle, how
do you express yourself creatively? HS: Talking shit. Grooving. Sex.
AM: Are there any events that you would change if you could go back in time?
HS: Nope.
AM: Not even the surfing accident that caused your head injury in 1965? HS: I’d
be a completely different person if I didn’t crack my head open and leave part of
myself on the ocean floor.
AM: It’s surprising to me, and the world, that you had the fearlessness to return
to surfing, or the circus for that matter, after that. HS: Fear doesn’t ever leave you.
It just moves around, morphing shape and attaching to different things. It never
fully withdraws, it just finds new meaning. New dominion. You have to keep
looking in and sharing what you’ve discovered, you know? I think that’s the only
way to refine it. Self-excavation unearths a lot of nasty shit, but sometimes you
have to level houses and start over when they’re beyond repair. And ghosts
never abandon their grounds. But sometimes if you ask them nicely, they’ll leave
you alone for a bit. You’re the common denominator of all your problems. It’s not
all your fault, but you’re responsible for any improvement that happens or
doesn’t happen. Get me? Besides, what are the odds of something like that
happening again? Actually, don’t answer that. That was rhetorical. Next question.
AM: Rumor has it that you suffered a bout of pretty serious amnesia following
your head injury. How did that affect you? HS: It slammed a couple doors closed
and blew some new ones wide open. Then slammed them closed again. Then
opened them again. The damage to myself and those around me was fucked up. I
didn’t process my trauma properly or listen to anyone’s warnings before I’d flung
myself into a tidal wave without any muscle or oxygen. I don’t necessarily regret
anything I’ve done, because hindsight has taught me a lot about how to proceed
in the future. But that entire experience was just like a fever dream within a
nightmare within a dream, and I went through several versions of recovery
before I’d started to feel like myself again. A new rendition of myself.
AM: Sounds surreal. I’m glad you’re alright, man. You’ve fallen off of the grid
and out of the public eye twice since your entrance into the limelight. The first time
was back in 1963 and the second time was in 1965. Where did you go? What did
you do? HS: You know when you drop something, the best way to recover it is to
relax, step back and watch it fall, right? It’s easier to find and pick up. And do you
ever notice how it’s a person’s instinct to slow down and breathe when we are
about to go through something that we anticipate to be painful? Like when you
pull a bandage off of raw skin, get blood drawn, or walk barefoot across sharp
rocks. It’s a lot different than experiencing blindsiding pain, like when you burn
yourself on the stove or get a paper cut, where your instinct becomes to yank
yourself away as fast as you can. Blindsiding emotional pain should be treated
exactly the same as a burn. Your first instinct being to yank yourself away and
your second instinct is to nurture the bleeding wound slowly. The wound should
be protected and become priority. You know, take time unringing the bell in your
own psyche. Except we don’t do that with emotions, and it’s a learned behavior
that comes from generations of shame. Reflecting on how you treat yourself and
how you interact with the strategically placed elements around you is the key to
unlocking hidden doors.
AM: Perceptive. Did you feel concern over how the public would view those
decisions? HS: No. Why should I? Humans don’t exist as objective entities.
Anything someone else is saying or thinking about me is their subjective
experience, so whatever they project is a reflection of what is going on inside of
them. Not me. They don’t know what’s going on inside of me.
AM: So then, what’s going on inside of you? What do you see when you close
your eyes? HS: Warm cherry pie. Sweet honey streusel. Cookie crumbs and holy
mountains. Jamborees, smiles, boom-booms and slowdowns.
AM: Alright, and what’s the first thing you think of when you wake up each
morning? HS: Usually I have to remember where I am. Then my stomach starts
lip flapping.
AM: You’re pretty inked up. Do any of your tattoos have special meaning? HS:
Everything has meaning if you dig far enough.
AM: What will be your next coup? Trapeze, surfing, what’s next? HS: Accounting.
AM: Finally, if “love” is the answer, what is the question? HS: “Why?”
AM: The expression on your face makes it seem like you might have a particular
person in mind when you ask yourself that question. HS: Vivienne fucking Surefire.
But when is she not?
AM: Is the infamous, perpetual bachelor confirming a rekindled romantic

relationship with his ex-trapeze partner? HS: And how. But I haven’t been a
bachelor since I’ve laid eyes on her, if I’m honest.
AM: Listen closely. That’s the sound of a thousand hearts breaking. HS: Life is
real fucking rough, man. I get that. I’m lucky I have a person who supports every
single thing I say and do. They’ll find theirs, too. Vivienne is the human
equivalent of cutting that perfect first slice of cake and finally getting a glimpse of
what the inside looks like. All those hidden, pretty fluffy layers of chocolate glued
together with cherry buttercream. The residual scent of burnt rosy smoke
extinguishing and all that. She’s a brick house, stone fox, badass bitch that puts
up with my funk. I wouldn’t trade that for shit. I don’t think there’s a better
feeling than realizing you don’t live in the same dimension that you used to. And
it’s even more powerful to see that same growth in another person and recognize
that you’ve done that together. That you couldn’t have done it as powerfully or
extensively if you weren’t together. The fact that she excites the shit out of me
isn’t random. Vivienne’s connected to my purpose and I’m going to continue to
follow my purpose. She’s way too good for me, but she hasn’t figured that out yet
for some reason. Let’s not tell her, yeah?
AM: It’ll be between you, me and the world. Thank you for everything today and
good luck in the World Championship. I’m impressed by your awareness and
grounding. It seems like you really know how to take care of yourself. HS: Hey,
thanks a lot, brother. I’ve learned a lot for someone who never learns.

Aerial Pasar

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Table of Contents

FicLab ID: f4E7TxoO/kuefpavi/do70M6

The First Chapter

The Second Chapter

The Third Chapter

The Fourth Chapter

The Fifth Chapter

The Sixth Chapter

The Seventh Chapter

The Eighth Chapter

The Ninth Chapter

The Tenth Chapter

The Eleventh Chapter

The Twelfth Chapter

The Thirteenth Chapter

The Fourteenth Chapter

The Fifteenth Chapter

The Sixteenth Chapter

The Eighteenth Chapter

The Nineteenth Chapter

The Twentieth Chapter

The Twenty-First Chapter

The Twenty-Second Chapter

The Twenty-Third Chapter

The Twenty-Fourth Chapter

The Twenty-Fifth Chapter

The Twenty-Sixth Chapter

The Twenty-Seventh Chapter

The Twenty-Eighth Chapter

The Twenty-Ninth Chapter

The Thirtieth Chapter

The Thirty-First Chapter

The Thirty-Second Chapter

The Thirty-Third Chapter

The Thirty-Fourth Chapter

The Thirty-Fifth Chapter

The Thirty-Sixth Chapter

The Thirty-Seventh Chapter

The Finale // Part One

The Finale // Part Two

The Pink Envelope

The Double Encore

Here Comes the Sun // Aerial Magazine

updatedMarch 25th, 2021

Most impressive rankings // #2 in Conflict and #62 in Comedy!

Please read with discretion.

New adventure coming to you lovely people on October 13th, 2018!

This is the Grease/Endless Summer/Dirty Dancing/Ringling Brothers story of

Welcome to Birdie’s fantasy world of pure, whimsical fiction. It includes an

Love you all! Missed you. Xx Birdie

My curse splinters into a desperate shout of helplessness.

Twisted, mangled, gnarled, contorted, deformed, tortured.

Malibu, California Late spring 1965

Another flawless ride.

“Hand me the sex wax, babe?”

I missed you all so much!

“I can already taste them.”

The ringleader Russell, or Rusty, has concocted a groundbreaking idea to tell a

Labor and kismet; you own them both.

A handful of footsteps down a short, echoing hallway and you’re deposited

“Come in, come in!”

“Can’t exactly do much physical activity in an outfit like that.”

Fuck Harry and his stupid, beautiful face.

“Russell Buchanan here.”