Fire Down Below (5 page)

“Thank you for inviting me,” I
told Megan as we were leaving. “I had a nice time.”

She shrugged. “Ben invited you,
not me.”

I stared at her with my mouth
open. I looked around to see if Ben had heard her, but he was across the room
saying good night to Bernard. All I could think was—what a bitch!

Once we were in the car and
driving away, I told him what she said to me.

“Well, it’s true I did invite
you.”

“Yes, but she made it sound like I
was unwelcome.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “That’s
crazy. She’s only just met you.”

“She hates me though.”

“No, she doesn’t. Though I will
say, Kate, that you could have acted a little more enthusiastic. You hardly
spoke the whole night.”

Now it was my turn to stare at Ben
with my mouth open. What was I supposed to say to this?

“You know what? Take me home. I’m
not staying with you tonight.”

He looked at me in surprise. “Come
on, don’t you think you’re making too much of it? All I’m saying is that you
could have been a little friendlier.”

I didn’t say anything. It struck
me then how Ben and I were too different. I stared out the window as we drove and
had an intuitive flash where I knew with absolute certainty that not only did
Ben not “get” me, but that he never would.

We arrived at my house and I
immediately reached for the door handle on the car.

“Kate...,” he said, but I ignored
him and silently got out, slamming the door behind me as hard as I could. Walking
up the front steps, Ben waited in his car, presumably to make sure I made it safely
inside, or maybe he was waiting for me to change my mind and go back to his apartment.

Once inside the house, I locked
the door and went upstairs to my room. I could see the street from my bedroom
window, but when I got up there his car was already gone.

Good riddance, I thought. Asshole.

I took a long hot bath and as I
soaked I wondered if this was it then, if Ben and I were going to stop seeing each
other. Despite my anger, I felt saddened by the idea.  I think I really was
falling in love with him. I knew one thing for sure though. I could not hang
out with his friends, especially not that horrible Megan. Ben was either so
dense that he couldn’t see how rude she was to me, or he didn’t want to see it.

After my bath I brushed my teeth
and put on my favorite flower print nightgown that I’ve worn in times of stress
since I was sixteen. I tried to sleep, but felt too riled up, so I read for a while,
trying not to think about Ben and all his pretentious friends that I’d wasted a
perfectly good Saturday evening on. Around midnight I heard the sound of the
doorbell being rung over and over again.

I figured one of my roommates must
have forgotten their key.  It wouldn’t be the first time. It never occurred to
me that it might be Ben, which is, of course, who it was.

I stared at him. He didn’t strike
me as the kind of guy who went around ringing doorbells in the middle of the
night. Seeing him I felt angry all over again.

“Stop it!” I hissed. “Are you
crazy? You’re going to wake up the whole house!” Although in truth I didn’t think
anyone was home but me.

“I need to talk to you.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.
We’re too different.”

He got a pained expression on his
face and stepped in closer towards me. “Don’t say that. Please let me come in.
I’m sorry you had such a lousy time tonight.”

“Go home, seriously. We’ll talk
tomorrow.”

He didn’t say anything, but stood
there, worried. “Please, Kate.”

I had to admit he looked miserable,
and I knew it must have been hard for him to come here. I took a deep breath. “All
right,” I sighed.

As he followed me upstairs to my
bedroom, I wondered whether we would end it and immediately knew I didn’t want
that. Obviously there was all that fabulous sex, but I wasn’t ready to give up trying
to make this work. I cared about Ben and I wanted us to figure this out.

I sat down on the bed, and scooted
until my back was against the wall, watching as Ben climbed next to me. It felt
odd to have him here in my bedroom. It occurred to me that while he’d been here
a few times we’d never even slept in my bed together. We always slept at his
place. He seemed so big, filling the space in a way that I never did. The lamp
on my nightstand put out a silky yellow light, sending both of our shadows
across the wall.

“I don’t want to stop seeing you,”
he said bluntly.

“You don’t think we’re too
different?”

“You’re totally unlike anyone I’ve
ever been with, but I like it. I feel good when I’m with you.”

I wasn’t ready to give in that
easily though. “I can’t hang out with your friends. I’m sorry, but I just
can’t. I felt totally out of place there tonight, plus Megan really was awful to
me whether you noticed it or not.”

He nodded. “I understand. Honestly,
I don’t know why Megan was so rude to you. I thought about it after I dropped
you off and all I can figure was that it must be because of Wendy. She and
Wendy are good friends and Wendy never wanted to break up with me. I suspect
Megan thinks there’s a chance we’d get back together again if I wasn’t seeing
you.”

“What business is it of hers
though?”

“None, but she’s...well, you saw
what she’s like.”

“Do you want to get back together
with Wendy?”

“No! I’m the one who broke it off with
her. It’s finished.”

I chewed on this for a few
seconds. “Why did you break up with her?” I had to admit I was dying of
curiosity. They seemed to have so much in common, plus Wendy was attractive. I
honestly couldn’t imagine why he would have dumped her.

He sighed. “I don’t know. Why does
anybody end a relationship? It just wasn’t working out.”

“But you both like all the same
stuff.”

“Yeah, well...not necessarily,” he
hesitated, “if I tell you the real reason, you’re going to laugh.”

“Why?”

“I shouldn’t tell you. It wouldn’t
be nice.”

“Oh, come on.” I pushed against
him, bumping his shoulder. “You can’t throw that out there and then not say
anything.”  

Ben gave me a wry smile. “Wendy
and I didn’t have any passion.”

“You mean, like, sexual passion?”

“That’s what I’m talking about.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

“See, I told you, you were going
to laugh.”

“How is that possible? I can’t
believe it!” Although truthfully, when I thought of Wendy, I could believe it.
“But was it always passionless? Or did the passion die out over time?”

“No.” He shook his head. “We never
had it. I tried different things and I was always asking her what she liked or
didn’t like, but she never seemed into it. She didn’t respond at all. Eventually
I couldn’t take it anymore. I began to realize that I need
this in my
life.”

“Wow...you’ve certainly got it in
spades now.”

He laughed, running a hand through
his hair. “I know! It’s been crazy. It’s like going from zero to mach ten with
no breaks in between.”

I sat there grinning. I had to
admit I was feeling a bit smug and self-satisfied. So Wendy was lousy in bed! “And
you guys dated for a whole year? No wonder you’re so horny all the time.”

Ben flopped over on his back and
groaned. “I shouldn’t have told you any of this, it’s too embarrassing.”

I lay down on my stomach beside
him. “So it didn’t work out with Wendy—why is that embarrassing?”

He met my eyes. “Because for the
longest time I thought it was
me
. I thought I was doing something wrong
and that’s why she was so unresponsive.”

“It wasn’t you,” I said, putting
my hand on his arm. “Trust me. You’ve got me in such a state of constant arousal
that I can barely see straight.”

Ben grinned and rolled towards me,
his face close to mine. “Yeah, is that right?”

“You know it is.”

We smiled at each other—co-conspirators
sharing the same secret.

I leaned in and kissed him, opening
his mouth with mine, letting my tongue wander over his. My fingers ran along
his jaw scratchy with stubble. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me in
close and rolled onto his back taking me with him. We kissed like this for a
while, my arms up, his hands roaming under my nightgown.

I sat up to pull it off over my
head, but Ben stopped me.

“Leave it on. I’ve never seen you
in anything like this before. It’s so...wholesome.”

“You mean it’s so ugly.” I glanced
down at my thread bare gown. “I’ve been wearing this since I was a teenager.”

“Did you ever wear it back when I
knew you in college?”

“Yeah, why?”

He smiled. “I used to wonder what
you slept in back then.”

“Why would you have wondered
that?”

“Because I had a crush on you.”

“No, you didn’t. Why are you
saying that?”

“Yes, I did. Don’t you remember
all those playlists I made for you? I used to hang out after class hoping to
run into you, so we could go have coffee together.”

I was stunned into silence.

“You didn’t know that?”

“No...I thought we were just
friends. I figured I was too weird for you. Did you really have a crush on me?”

He nodded.

I met his gaze, but didn’t say
anything. All my memories of that year had just shifted before my eyes and been
reshuffled like a deck of cards.

“Okay,” I said softly. “I’ll leave
it on.”

I reached down and unzipped his
pants, putting my hand inside his boxers to feel him. “We’re not leaving
your
clothes on though.” I smiled.  And then I began to undress him, slowly, but not
too slowly, enjoying myself as more of his body came into view under the soft
glow of my bedroom lamp, running my hands over his legs and chest, taking my
time. I bent over him to kiss his stomach and heard him gasp softly. Encouraged
I moved farther down and took him in my mouth.

“Yes...,” he breathed, his hands tangling
in my hair.

I knew exactly what he liked. He
liked me to start slow and firm, no teeth, a little tongue, but mostly hands
and mouth, and so that’s what I did. Most of all he liked to pull my hair away
from my face, so he could watch what I was doing to him. I began to have this little
fantasy, almost like a hallucination really, where I was eighteen years old
again. I could even smell the flowery perfume I used to wear wafting up from
the fibers of my nightgown.

After a while I pulled my panties
off and climbed on top of him. He put his hands on my hips guiding me as I
lowered myself down. I’d never had any decent sex back in those days, never had
a real boyfriend at all. I lost my virginity when I was nineteen, the summer
right after I dropped out of college, to this arrogant jerk named Adam that I
dated for all of two weeks. But if I had had a real boyfriend this is exactly
how I would have wanted it to be. I would have wanted my first love to be just
like Ben. I would have wanted us to have silly fights over inconsequential
things, to spend hours obsessing over each other, to laugh at our own private
little jokes, to be so into each other that we couldn’t keep our hands from
constantly reaching and touching.

So maybe I never had it back then,
but why the heck can’t I have it now?

The Present Day….

“You look
exceptionally
pretty today.”

“Thank you.” I smile at Declan.

We’re both standing in the lunch
room at work, refilling our large mugs with coffee. I had told Declan about
Ben’s quick response to my email yesterday before I left work and that I was
going out to buy something new to wear.

“So this is what you bought last
night I take it?”

I nod. I feel sort of nervous,
like it’s the first day of school or something. I know I’m blowing this thing
all out of proportion. I’m sure Ben probably has a wife or at least a girlfriend,
but I still can’t shake the feeling that this lunch has all sorts of
possibilities.

“Let me see you,” Declan says.

I do a slow turn for him,
conscious of the way his eyes linger on my body. “What do you think?”

“It’s perfect.” He nods, sipping his
coffee. “You look sexy, but not like you’re trying to look sexy.”

I grin because, of course, that’s
exactly what I’m hoping to achieve. I’m wearing a dark skirt with a white silk blouse
that Suzy and I finally decided on after I tried on at least a dozen different outfits.
Declan glances down at my feet. “New shoes too?”

I smile sheepishly. “Not really, I
bought them a couple of months ago. I didn’t have anything to wear them with
until now.”

“I hope Ben is smart enough to
appreciate all this.”

“Probably not, but at least he’ll
see that I’m doing well.”

“I’d say you’re doing more than
well, Kate.”

I shrug and drink some coffee.
“How are things with you?” I ask. “What’s happening on the Lorna front?”

“Em...Lorna and I broke up.”

“Uh oh. You guys haven’t dated
that long.”

“It wasn’t really working out.”

“What was wrong with her?” I ask,
hoping for some fun details. Occasionally Declan dates some really unusual
women. I remember this one who turned out to be in a witch’s coven.

“Nothing really. I’m making some big
changes and I thought it was best that Lorna and I went our separate ways.”

I stare at him. “What big
changes?”

“Actually, there’s something I
need to talk to you about, but let’s talk later,” he says. “Are we still on for
tonight?”

“What big changes? Are you moving
back to Dublin?” I know he was considering it for a while. I felt shocked when
he told me.

“I’ll tell you about it later,” he
says, noticing some people that just came into the lunchroom.

My heart sinks. “That’s it, isn’t
it?”

“Not quite.”

“Come on, Declan, you know I can’t
stand stuff like this. Tell me!”

He sighs. “All right, listen, I
have a meeting that runs until ten. Why don’t you meet me in my office after
that and we’ll talk.”

“Okay.”

When ten o’clock rolls around I meander
down the hall to his office. When Declan was promoted they gave him a large
office with an honest-to-goodness view of downtown Seattle and every time I
come up here I can’t help feeling a teensy bit jealous. My office is nice and I
do have a window, but no view.

He’s not here yet, so I walk over and
stare out of one of the large windows. People always think it rains a lot in
Seattle, but it mostly drizzles.

I take a seat in one of the cushy
chairs. I probably should have waited until tonight to talk to Declan about
whatever’s going on. He’s coming over to my house because I’m starting a portrait
of him. I’ve decided to start painting again.

I haven’t painted anyone in years,
but we were having dinner together after work last week when it came to me. It
was a beautiful summer evening and we’d been lucky enough to be seated outside
with a view of Elliot Bay. Declan was talking to me about something, flashing
his brilliant smile, and as the sun cast a honey gold light all around us, it
occurred to me that I’d like to paint him.

“You want to paint
me
?” he asked,
astonished.

I nodded, “Yes.”

Declan was silent for a few
seconds before he asked softly. “Why would you want to do that?”

“I’m not sure. It’s been ages
since I’ve painted anyone, but sitting here now it occurred to me that I’d really
like to paint you.”

Declan looked out at the Bay for a
while and then back to me. “Right, so you’re saying you want to paint my
portrait?”

“You don’t have to let me if you
don’t want to,” I said quickly, since he was obviously uncomfortable with the
idea. “It’s okay, I—”

He put his hand up to stop me from
talking. “I’m just thinking about it, that’s all. Where would you do this?”

“At my place, I guess. “ I figured
I’d put a big drop cloth on the floor of my living room and set up my easel on
top of that.

He nodded slowly. “All right, Kate.”

“You’ll do it! You’ll sit for me?”

“Sure, when do you want to start?”

I considered this. I wasn’t
currently seeing anyone. “How about Tuesday?” I asked.

“Shall we meet after work?

“That would be perfect. I’ll pick up
some Thai for dinner.”

That’s one of the nice things
about Declan, I can’t cook to save my life and I know he doesn’t care. I never
have to pretend to be something I’m not with him.

I don’t know how many guys I’ve
dated, and it seems to be getting worse now that I’m older, who have a mental
checklist they’re going through to assess whether I’m worthy of them or not. I
had one guy tell me my shoe size wasn’t quite his favorite. My shoe size! Not
that I don’t have my own checklist, because of course I do. I have a penchant
for tall, good looking men. I also don’t like men that are prettier than me—guys
who take longer to get ready than I do. I like them to be gorgeous without
effort, is how Lauren once described the men I date. Unfortunately many of them
have been assholes without effort.