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Staring at the ceiling, her eyes blotchy with tiredness but she is wide awake. She feels sick to her stomach and she feels sadness choke her up deep in her trachea like how she would imagine an aortic aneurysm feels to the heart. ‘But everything is fine,’ she reminds herself, ‘I need this.’
The sex is good, it took her a while to cum. ‘Look into my eyes,’ Ellis would say but each time she did she was pulled down from her high. Eventually he gave up and Kerry closed her eyes and her mind began to wander, what was so great about this? The physical sensations were objectively nice, she supposed, but there was something missing. There was always something missing. What did her friends and colleagues see in sex? What does Jeanie see in Al? An image flashed in her mind of what her old friend and her ex husband might look like having sex and suddenly her nerves caught on. She came instantly.
But her satiety does not defeat the wave of shame.
“When you think of me, late at night, what do you think of?”
I don’t think of you.
“I think of how you look topless.”
“Do you ever think of anything below that?”
Kerry giggles out of discomfort, “Um…”
“Ah, I see, a lady never tells.”
She had failed everyone. Her family, her friends. They were all gone now.
Of course they would choose to side with the more gregarious of the two.
But she couldn’t help it if she felt alone.
Throughout their short and tumultuous marriage she felt as if she might burn up, the nerves inside her longing to break free as if the muscle of her flesh was too much for its skin confinement. And now it was over and she still felt sick.
Why couldn’t she be happy? Why couldn’t she have learnt to deal with it? Would He maybe take her back if she got down on her knees and begged?
But she didn’t want to go back.
But she didn’t want to go on.
Some people are meant to be alone.
Kerry likes her own schedule, her own home, the familiarity of it all does more than a warm hug late at night.
Then again it had been so long she isn't sure she accurately remembers what that was.
When she was a teenager, an awkward gawky thing, she dreamt of the day she would fall asleep in her husband’s arms each night. Of knowing that she was loved, of finally being where she was meant to be.
Aged 30 and this is still no reality.
When she got older, she would reflect on her life and find a memory. From when she was 15.
She had never been very popular, maybe it was her naivety or perhaps it was her unbridled enthusiasm that put people off. But that is wishful thinking. A want for Kerry to be her own worst enemy, to be in control, because when people hate you for something that is not your fault, there is nothing you can do to fix it.
As she moved through middle school and then high school, Kerry fixated on this, putting up walls before people could knock them down. She was in control. So what if they didn’t like her? She was in control.
She did make some friends though.
One in particular was special.
A tough girl, harassed often for her manliness. Kerry admired how she would never let it get to her. No matter what people said, she had a stronger retort and a wicked smile to boot.
Kerry was never quite clear as to how they became friends. They were so different in many respects. Kerry was uptight, academic, focused and reserved but She was carefree, rebellious, butch and extraverted. She had seemed to take a special interest in Kerry, spending 5 minutes each lunchtime to chat to her before walking away. Kerry was resilient at first but she eventually succumbed to Her charms and soon 5 minutes became 10 minutes and then they became inseparable.
So this is what it’s like to fit in.
One of Her many acquaintances was having birthday celebrations and Kerry was invited by association. She was excited despite herself, she could finally be a real teenager.
She spent ages in stores looking for the perfect outfit to buy with her allowance and finally settled on a loose polka dot t-shirt and a short white skirt like the ones she saw girls wear in magazines and always thought looked really pretty.
On the Saturday of the event Kerry tried on the clothes two hours in advance. They did not look how she imagined in her head. Instead of transforming herself into a model she just looked the same. She looked like a stupid child with braces and glasses and a crutch who now had the audacity to think they might be beautiful.
Her cheeks flushed deep with red and tears pricked her eyes, but she had nothing else to wear and emotions are fleeting so when it was time she wore the same thing anyway.
Her body was pulsating with nerves on her lonely walk to the party. She barely knew the girl, Michelle, at all. Maybe she didn’t know she was coming, maybe she didn’t really want her there, maybe…
She hoped beyond hope she would bump into Her on the way, unlikely, She was never on time.
The night was fine overall, the party in itself wasn’t important, Kerry could barely remember anything except for two key happenings: she tried alcohol for the first time, and She said that Kerry looked pretty.
This compliment ran through Kerry’s mind all night, all night she tried to get back to Her perhaps in the hope of more. There was no feeling under the sun that quite compared to how she felt around Her.
As the night moved on and Kerry got drunker she found herself on the couch, the room dissolving away from her.
“Hey.” It was Her.
“Hi.”
“Can I sit here?”
Kerry looked around at the couch and realised she had dozed off slightly. “Oh sure, sorry.”
“Don’t apologise to me.”
Kerry smiled, and rest her head against the back of the sofa, ready to go back to sleep.
“No, come here.” And Kerry found herself wrapped up in Her arms, her mouth touching her neck and her own body weight resting completely on Her.
Bright tingles went through her body and her heart began to race against her will.
It was the most magical experience of her life.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Sure,” Malucci said with a smug grin, tapping Carter on the shoulder with his chart and sauntering off.
Carter was right, it hadn’t been like that, and Kerry was surprised at Malucci’s assumption. She hadn’t even considered that people might… think that.
Was it normal for a man and a woman to be so platonic in such close quarters? None of their colleagues seemed to be able to refrain from sexual intercourse with one another. Yet they had so easily.
I’m probably just not his type, but… there were a few times he got a bit too close for comfort. Putting his arm around her or touching her against her will that made her tense up. Maybe he isn’t mine.
Kerry was sure Carter was attractive enough, women always seemed to find him so, although if she was being honest she could not really tell. Though, she supposed, she had never really found a man to be anything more than mediocre. So maybe she had been attracted to him?
She focused on him now, trying to force herself to feel something.
Nothing.
She looked at him with all the intent in the world and she felt nothing.
Kerry sighed, it was probably her subconscious blocking it because he was her inferior. She tried not to worry about it and continued her day.
Once she woke up again the party had dissipated into only a few stragglers, and she and Her were still on the couch, intimately entwined.
“Hey sleepyhead.”
“Hey,” Kerry croaked.
“Do you… wanna get outta here? Or, are you too tired?”
Kerry didn’t hesitate, tiredness be damned she always wanted to be where She was. “I wanna get out of here.”
Sometimes the world seems perfect and you are swimming in flowers and the brightness of colours brings back childhood rosy cheeks and you know what it is like to be so excited you vomit glee.
Or maybe that’s just being tipsy.
That giddiness was all Kerry had felt at the time, a time that in the future became untouchable.
She’d kissed her best friend that night, and forgotten. She’d kissed her best friend and it had felt so right.
“I’m withdrawing the contract. I told Anspaugh that Synergix is no longer interested in managing County’s Emergency Department.”
“Why’d you do that?” I wouldn’t’ve done it for you.
“I only wanted the contract if it meant working closely with you, Kerry. Apparently, that’s not possible anymore. You are a smart, beautiful, sexy woman. I don’t want you believing that I used you, because I didn’t. And I never underestimated you. Never once. You underestimate yourself.”
I wish I could say the same nice things about you, but I only feel sick in my stomach to look at you.