Fuck Buddy (10 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LIV

The ocean provided me a level of peace that made it impossible to think about living anywhere that didn’t have access to a beach. After high school, my parents moved to St. Louis. I chose to stay in San Diego and go to college. My father’s job required them to move; but to me, San Diego was my home. By the time I was five I had lived in Chicago and Washington, D.C., but southern California was the only place I really remembered.

With my heels pressed against my butt and my knees tight to my chest, I gazed out at the horizon. As far as I could see, there was nothing but water. Gentle waves washed up to the shore, bringing with them the bits and pieces of life too weak to resist the strength of the current.

“If I was going to compare you to something out there,” I said, tossing my head toward the horizon. “It’d be a shark.”

Luke raised his head from the towel and turned to the side. “A shark?”

“Uh huh.”

“Sharks are assholes. I’m not a shark. They’re predators. I’d say I’d have to be…” he paused and lowered his head.

“A starfish,” he said as he glanced up. “They can recover from their wounds – even vicious ones. They can regenerate even if they’re cut in two, and some species can grow an entire new starfish from the severed leg of another.”

“I wanna be a starfish,” I said.

“You can be a clownfish. They’re beautiful and playful. Hell, everyone loves a clownfish.”

“I hate clowns,” I said. “And I don’t want to be a fish that looks like one. We can both be starfish.”

He chuckled. “Okay. And remind me when Halloween comes. I need to dress up like a clown.”

“Last year you were a pimp,” I said. “With a purple fur coat.”

“And you were my hooker.”

“That was a good party,” I said.

The previous Halloween, my boss invited me to his costume party. He lived in an upscale neighborhood in La Jolla, and had invited most of the people from the office to attend. Luke and I went together, which wasn’t uncommon, but the party was. Amongst some of the city’s richest residents, we had an absolute blast, playing the part of the hooker and the pimp.

Neither of us were as drunk as everyone else at the party. Partially because our sober state, but more so due to Luke’s fabulous dance moves, we won late-night dance contest. All in all, the party was a great time, and the memories of it were still fresh on my mind.

It seemed I pushed some memories out of my mind completely to make room for the precious ones I wanted to keep. The Halloween party was a keeper. 

“No,” he said. “It was a great party. Good times. Really good times.”

He rolled onto his back and brushed the sand from his chest and stomach. His mid-summer tan was deep and dark, and the top layer of his hair had become a light brown. Each time he swiped his hand across his stomach, the muscles on his upper arm flared. At times, for me at least, it was easy to get lost in admiring Luke.

This was one of those times.

Resting on his elbows with his shoulders elevated from the towel, he gazed out at the ocean. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” I responded.

I turned to face him. “Could you live without surfing?”

He continued to silently stare for some time before responding. “I suppose so. I wouldn’t like it, but I could.”

“Without the ocean?”

“Wow. I don’t like thinking about it, but yeah. I could.”

“The two things you love the most,” I said. “And you could do without ‘em. Not me. I can’t imagine not having the ocean. That’s what I’ve been thinking about.”

“If you grew up in fucking Denver or whatever – no, let’s say Omaha. If you grew up in fucking Omaha, Nebraska or something. Yeah, let’s say Omaha, and your parents moved to St. Louis after high school. Would you have gone?” he asked.

“Are you in Omaha with me?”

He shook his head and laughed. “No, Liv. I’m right here. Kicking it at the beach in SD.”

“Probably,” I responded. “There wouldn’t have been any reason for me to stay.”

“So did you stay here for the beach or for me?” he asked.

I gazed out across the endless ocean. “A little of both.”

He continued to sit and silently stare toward the horizon. After a moment, I cleared my throat and began a new line of questioning. “What are you not willing to give up? You said you could lose surfing and the ocean and live through it. But what would crush you?”

“What would crush me if I lost it? That’s an easy one,” he responded.

He tilted his head toward me. “You. I can’t imagine not having you. Cant, and wont.”

My throat constricted and my mouth went dry. I swallowed hard and grinned. “That’s sweet. Thank you.”

“It’s true. No need to thank me.” He rolled from the towel, pushed himself up to his knees, and stood.

I tried to hide my excitement from hearing him say he couldn’t live without me, but I doubt I did a good job. I’d never been good at hiding much of anything, and my feelings were no exception.

He loomed over me, seeming much taller than he actually was. “What are you thinking about?”

I scrunched my nose and acted like I was searching for an answer, but I didn’t have to. I was thinking of him. Being with him on a bigger scale. For real. In a relationship. A real relationship.

“You,” I said.

There, I said it.

“What about me?”

“Everything.”

He laughed. “You’re thinking about everything about me?”

“Don’t be difficult. No, not
everything
. Just, I don’t know. Thinking.”

“That’s what I’m asking, Liv. About what? You’ve been staring out at the waves for the last hour and a half. What’s on your mind?”

I knew better than to tell him the truth. We’d talked about it too many times, and he made himself crystal clear. Luke was scared to death of losing me, and even though I knew there was nothing he could do to cause me to leave him, convincing him of that was impossible. He felt whatever caused his relationship with Valerie to end was something that naturally occurred as a result of him being who he was.

Although I didn’t know exactly what it was that caused the breakup, I also knew it didn’t matter, at least not for now. I actually had everything I needed with our current arrangement. I had Luke, I spent as much time with him as I would if we were married, and we were having sex.

“I was just thinking how grateful I am to have you in my life,” I said.

I stretched my legs out, quickly realizing Luke was right. I had been sitting in the same spot with my calves scrunched into the backs of my thighs for longer than I had thought. I wrinkled my nose and squinted as I rubbed my thighs with my hands.

“And I’m grateful to have you in mine. Are you alright?”

“I think I sat there for too long. My legs are killing me,” I said as I tried to stand.

“Here,” he said a she shook the sand from the towel. “Lay down. I’ll rub them.”

As he knelt down between my feet and rubbed my legs free of cramps, I watched the sun slowly melt into the ocean. As the sky turned to the most beautiful shades of oranges, deep blues and pinks, I realized Luke could see the same colors I saw, and it saddened me.

“What color do you see when you look at the sunset?”

He stopped rubbing my legs. “Orange and blue.”

“No pink?” I asked.

“I don’t see any,” he said.

“So you still see most of the colors in the sunset, just not all of them?”

“I don’t see them the same as you see them. But I see them,” he said.

“Is it beautiful?” I asked.

“It sure is,” he said.

His hand softly gripped my shoulder and he carefully turned me from my stomach onto my back. He brushed his hair from his eyes and held his hand in place to keep it from falling down again. As our eyes met, he grinned. “And so are you.”

He leaned into me and kissed me fully, removing the memory of the sunset and replacing it with a new one. One of him kissing me on the beach as the sun set in front of us.

As he kissed me, I realized I
was
in a relationship with him. It just wasn’t something a person could put a conventional label on.

And, for the time being, I wanted nothing to change.

CHAPTER TWELVE

LUKE

She opened the door and stepped aside. “Come in, Sir. I didn’t want to ruin it at the beach, so I didn’t say anything. Well, that and I wanted to do some more research first.”

“Sir? Where the hell did that come from? Research? And what the fuck is that around your neck?”

She was wearing jeans, black heels, and a tight-fitting black button-down top. None of her clothing seemed too out of place – at least not for her. The wide black leather studded strap around her neck, however, did.

She motioned toward the living room. “I’ll be in the living room, Sir.”

I stepped past her and walked into the kitchen, my eyes remaining locked on her ridiculous leather necklace until I was half way to the refrigerator. “I need a yogurt. And what the fuck with the
sir
shit?”

I searched through the flavors of yogurt, looking for coconut. After determining there was none, I grabbed a cherry and shut the refrigerator door. “And why’s your hair up like that?”

“It’s called a tendril. It’s sexy. I did it for you,” she responded from the other room.

I grabbed a spoon and walked into the living room. As I entered, she was pacing back and forth across the living room floor. I stopped, pressed my hands against my hips, and shook my head. “What in the hell is going on?”

Some women looked like fools as they attempted to walk in heels. Others looked sophisticated, placing one foot directly in front of the other, their posture and their gait elegant as they took each well-placed step.

Liv was the latter.

She continued as I sat down. I peeled the foil top off of the yogurt, licked it, and shoved the spoon into the container.

Slowly, she paced the length of the room, gazing down at the floor as she walked past.

I lifted the spoon to my mouth.

“Luke, I am a submissive.”

I coughed out a laugh, and along with it came half of the yogurt. After wiping the chunks of yogurt from my legs, the couch, and my shorts, I cocked an eyebrow and cleared my throat.

“Liv, stop pacing!” I demanded.

She stopped.

I motioned to the couch beside me. “Sit down.”

She sat down on the opposite end of the couch. Although her hair was in complete contrast to her studded leather fuck-me-necklace, it looked elegant nonetheless. With her hands placed on each knee and her eyes fixed straight ahead, she sat in a statuesque pose. I studied her. She looked quite beautiful. The studded leather, attitude, labeling me Sir, and her claim of being a submissive meant someone or something convinced her she was submissive.

I gave an exaggerated sigh, finished my yogurt, and turned to face her.

“Spill it,” I said dryly.

She reached up and delicately tapped the bun with her palm. “What?”

“Stop the act, you little weirdo. What is going on? And why are you wearing that strap on your neck?”

“It’s a collar,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Like a dog?”

“No, like a submissive.”

“Who have you been talking to?”

“I don’t need to talk to anyone to embrace who I truly am.”

I cleared my throat. “Liv, have you talked to anyone about what we’ve been doing?”

With her hands still on her knees, she stared straight ahead. After a short moment, she turned her head to the side and made eye contact with me.

I glared back at her.

She lowered her head. “Yes.”

“Who?”

She sighed. “Chloe.”

“The girl you said was a slut? The one you called the other day?”

“Uh huh.”

“And she told you that you were a submissive?”

“No.” She pressed her forearms against her thighs and slumped forward. “I took a test.”

I stood up, peered down at her, and shook my head. “At the submissive school?”

I walked to the kitchen, tossed my yogurt container into the trash, and placed my spoon in the dishwasher. As I walked into the living room, I began to chuckle at the thought of her state of mind.

There were many things that made Liv attractive to me. The biggest one was that Liv was just Liv. Sitting on the couch with her shoulders slumped and her mouth in full pout mode, the studded leather collar looked slightly more out of place.

But, all things considered, she was adorable.

I sat down on the couch beside her and rested my hand on her thigh. “What happened, Liv? Who gave you the test?”

She sighed. “I took it on the internet.”

I fought not to laugh. “The submissive test?”

She nodded. “Uh huh.”

“And the results said you were submissive?”

She sat up from her slumped position and cleared her throat. “It said I was 88% submissive. So I did some research. In the last two weeks I’ve read a ton of stuff. I’m definitely submissive.”

“Interesting. And you took your test and did your reading on the internet?”

She raised her hands between us and began to plead her case. “I know what you’re going to say, but there’s so much information out there, and it’s really easy to access it. Everything on the internet isn’t garbage.”

Since high school, I hadn’t so much as turned a computer on. I didn’t own one, wouldn’t use one, and truly believed as useful as they were for many things, that they had become a huge contributor to the downfall of society.

“Okay, just for the sake of saying it, let’s say your internet research is spot-on. Tell me how that changes things between us.”

“Well, I’d say it lets me embrace my true self. I realize why I am the way I am. Why I like it when you do what you do to me, and why I have some of the desires I do.” She raised her finger in the air. “Oh, and knowledge is power.”

“So you feel empowered?”

“I do,” she said with a nod.

“Take off that collar and I might listen to what you have to say.”

She unsnapped the collar and formed it around her thigh. As she played with the silver studs, I considered her newfound knowledge and feelings of empowerment.

I had a pretty good idea on what caused me to be the way I was – at least from a sexual standpoint. Although I was anxious to find out what she felt she learned about herself through the course of her research, I was reluctant to ask for fear of her asking me the same question.

Eventually my curiosity won the struggle. 

“So, why are you the way you are?”

After asking the question, I realized a small part of me wanted her to pry into my inner workings. To ask questions. To search for answers. She turned toward me and locked her eyes on mine. I braced myself for the inevitable. With her face begging for my acceptance, and her eyes filled with sincerity, she sighed lightly. 

“I want to please you,” she said.

Her response was much more satisfying to me than if she had pried. I returned her gaze and swallowed hard. I hadn’t done any research or read any information regarding submissive behaviors on the internet, but somehow I felt I already knew the answer to the question I felt compelled to ask.

I asked anyway. “Why?”

“Honestly?” she asked.

I swallowed hard again. “Yes, honestly.”

She chewed against the inside of her lip and lowered her head slightly. I lifted my cupped hand against her chin until her eyes met mine.

She released her lip. “Because I love you.”

Her response filled me completely. In being entirely honest with myself, I had spent years loving Liv, yet fought against the urge to act on my feelings for fear of losing her. Our current arrangement initially provided me with a sense of security, but as time passed I felt I needed more. Feelings of selfishness, however, prevented me from even admitting how I felt.

Now, I felt the gate had been opened.

I felt consumed by the love I felt for her. Warmth washed over me. I turned to face her fully, swallowed heavily, and opened my arms. The words rushed from my mouth.

“I love you, too.”

She all but collapsed into my arms. Holding herself tight against me, she brushed her cheek past mine and breathed against my neck.

“Finally,” she whispered.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had been suppressing my feelings.

In each other’s arms, we swayed back and forth without speaking. We didn’t need to. At that moment, I was completely content, and no spoken word could have satisfied me more. After an immeasurable amount of time, I eventually felt a need to speak, but it was more out of excitement than out of necessity.

“You want to please me?” I asked.

She nestled her face into my neck. “Mmhhmm.”

“I’m happier than I have ever been,” I whispered.

She lifted her head slightly. “Because?”

“Because of you,” I responded.

Because of you.