Call
It took great effort to turn the key in the lock. She felt a weariness that went beyond physical exhaustion. The exhileration of the afternoon's hunt had quickly faded when she remembered she had nothing but a Cup'O'Noodles to come home to. And not only had every job interview gone badly -- when she could even *get* an interview -- but her only good interview suit had been ripped to pieces. First verbally, then literally.
She collapsed against the inside of the door, thankful to have at last shut out the world that had been so cruel to her all day.
She was too beat down mentally to be startled when she heard a voice.
"Where've you been?"
Ricky.
He didn't get to ask that. Not anymore. "Working," she lied.
"I went by the fabric store."
Angela didn't answer.
She needed her medication. Especially if Ricky was going to do this.
She felt his eyes on her as she filled a glass and shook out a pill.
Judging her.
"I worry about you." He meant he didn't approve.
"I was out looking for a job." Maybe now he'd back off.
There was an edge of distrust in his voice. "What kind of job?"
"Apparently, the kind that has no use for me. It seems there's only one thing I'm qualified for."
They both knew what she meant: Sapphire, Superheroine At Large.
"Yeah." The word was drawn out. Frustrated. Sad.
There was a long silence.
Ricky stood up. "Well, you probably have stuff to do."
He headed for the door.
She moved to stop him.
Just standing there in front of the door, looking up at him. For some sign of compassion.
He couldn't look at her.
He moved to one side to get around her.
She shifted into his path.
And felt his hardness brush against her.
Her hand caressed his cheek. He started to pull away, but hesitated.
Angela could feel it building. That jangling desperate sadness. She wasn't going to make it until the Xanax kicked in.
Not if he left now.
"Please. Don't go."
Her voice was such a frightened tremble that Ricky couldn't help but look at her.
Ricky had The Look. Angela has seen it before. It was the look she was used to seeing in other men, but not Ricky -- lust checked by guilt. She didn't want him to feel guilty. It meant his heart was holding his ground, even as his body was drawing him back to her. It meant that a part of her would remain alone.
But after a day of rejections, she needed to know she was good at something. And she needed to feel good.
She needed to feel something.
"I need you." The words had many meanings, but her tone, equal parts soulful and lustful, was very specific.
So Ricky seduced her.
They had only been together a few times -- it bothered Angela that she couldn't remember the exact number -- and some of them had ended badly. But situational misfortune aside, Ricky's natural intelligence had certainly followed him into the bedroom: he was a careful student of her body, if perhaps too careful. Already he knew intuitively where and how to touch -- and as a male, irrecovably focused on The Goal, he used his knowledge to the most efficient end.
Feather-light fingertip touches, tingling but never quite tickling, approaching but never quite touching her hot buttons; delicate lip-nibbling on that special spot just to the side on the nape of her neck; his hot chest and firm abdomen and corded thigh nestling her from behind, turned just enough that his manhood did not intrude until she reached for it.
He still had a charming awkwardness when it came to removing the last of her clothing; but then he was quickly upon her, cultivating her dewiness, subtly spreading it; entering her first with just the tip of the ring finger, narrower and softer and more hesitant than the index finger, whose stronger precision was tasked to brief stints of precise circling round her hooded pearl -- just enough to make her abdomen clench, then respite, slowly building and releasing, building and releasing. She knew soon he would enter her; her fingers curled and flexed once to ask that he make it now.
Her body thrilled to the perfect stimulation. The fires of lust would be well-sated. This boy's digits would become the stuff of little black book legend if Angela ever let him stray.
She caught herself -- that wasn't up to her anymore.
But she didn't want to think about that now. He was here, and if he couldn't give her what she needed, at least he could let her forget for a while.
His orchestral maneuvers in the dark eventually coalesced into an insistent monophonic chant, pushing the backs of her thighs up to drive his pelvic bone against her clit, stroking ever more aggressively, focusing more and more urgently on the impending moment of unified orgasmic bliss. Ricky felt mechanical on top of her now, both dutiful and selfish. He'd done his best to give her what she'd asked for -- and his best was *very* good, as she built up toward a powerful peak -- but she knew he'd come here for himself. And whether it was some romantic omission by him or some unfillable void within her, she still felt hollow.
As Angela reached climax with him, she began to cry.
When her shaking subsided, and his pistoning stopped, she threw her arms around him, pulling him to her, crushing him against her hot chest, rocking gently back and forth, doing her best not to let him hear her soft desperate whimper for a bond they'd bypassed.
Ricky just held on for dear life, sensing both his lover's physical closeness and her emotional desperation, both of them wishing he could make everything better, both of them knowing he wouldn't.
They lay there a long time, gradually disentangling, shifting wordlessly into an awkward spoon, emotional distance at odds with physical closeness.
Eventually, Ricky disconnected. "I wish I could stay, but you know my dad. He'd shit a brick if he knew I was here, especially after-" Ricky cut himself short.
Angela smoothed right by the mention of her break with the elder Aquino. "Your dad would shit a brick if he heard you talking like that." The comment and her thin smile covered her quiet desperation.
It was a mistake, him coming here. Staying here. Leaving.
Ricky began to get dressed. Angela found an oversize T-shirt on the floor and threw it on; she was thirsty. It was maybe four steps to cross the studio apartment to the kitchenette. Sitting down on the floor, her back against the refrigerator, she nursed a glass of water as she watched her lover finish buckling himself up.
When Angela's tears again surfaced, Ricky confronted them.
"I'm worried about what that Xanax is doing to you. Maybe you should stop taking it."
It killed her that he showed concern. Why couldn't he make things simple and just hate her?
"You don't know how I get when I'm not on it."
"I know how you are when you're on it. This is not a good place you're in right now." He wasn't talking about the crummy apartment.
"It's not the Xanax." Obviously not all the Xanax. Not when they stood here together, torn apart. How could he even bring it up as if it wasn't partly his fault?
After an uncomfortable moment -- she could feel him wondering just how long he was supposed to wait -- he got back up. "I really have to go. Dad'll be home from bowling soon."
"Okay."
"You gonna be all right?"
"I guess." She was and she wasn't.
"Here," Ricky said, as if to give her something. Angela looked up; he was fishing in his jeans pocket. He pulled out a wad of something and handed it to her.
Money.
"Ricky, I can't take this."
"Take it. You need it. You can pay me back later." When he saw she was about to repeat her protest, he cut her off. "It's okay, Angela. I've got a job now, remember? I've got plenty of money." He bent down to kiss her forehead. "Be careful."
He left her wondering: be careful? why should I?
She unfolded the bills. Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, hundred... hundred sixty... two hundred. It was really too much. But there was something about the way they'd been neatly folded, tucked into her hand, so soon after he'd been in her bed...
...it made her feel dirty.
Angela looked down. Her hands were shaking again. She felt her heart hammering away in her chest. It shouldn't take this long.
And then the gray calm washed over her.
Angela looked up at the counter where the bottle of pills sat. Maybe Ricky was right: maybe the meds were making her feel dull and depressed. But it was better than the way she was before. At least now when she was on it she wasn't always one step away from an uncontrollable, inconsolable crying jag. At least now she wasn't immobilized by guilt. At least now she wasn't constantly terrified of everything and nothing.
Only between them.
But she knew the pretty little pill wouldn't fix everything. She sat down on the bed, feeling the safe dullness spread. Her eyes shifted disinterestedly about the small studio apartment. It didn't take long for them to home in on the folded curl of twenties on the floor.
The Xanax wouldn't make her feel clean. It wouldn't make her feel useful.
Damn you, Ricky. Why do you have to be just like your dad?
She wasn't some helpless, delicate flower.
And she wasn't a kept woman.
She was more than this.
She was better than this.
She had a gift -- a duty -- a *calling*.
Shaky hands reached into the closet and pulled out a pair of metallic stiletto mules. The large sapphires swinging from the toe straps glowed. And she found strength in them.