One Plus Two Minus One (22 page)

“No, it isn’t.”

“
Just let me
sort out what’s going on,” she said without looking at him.
“Then we can start saying that shit to each
other.”

Ethan nodded slowly.

She looked
up.
“Thanks.”

“It’s okay.”

“
So what did
you think?” she said.
“Of the
girls?”

“Scary.”

She laughed.

“
Seriously.
I thought you were a
one-off.”

“
Yeah,” she
said.
“You should see the staff club on a
Friday. Real lampshade-on-the-head shit there.”

He looked like he couldn’t decide if he
believed her.

“
I’m lying,”
she said.
“That isn’t true. Those four
are special people. Pretty much everyone else around the place is
boring as fuck.”

“That’s kind of a relief.”

She looked at him, a little concerned.

“
I liked
them,” he said.
“I really did. Don’t
worry.”

“Okay,” she said, relieved.

“
Seeing you
like that, with them.
You’re
different.”

“
You keep
saying that.
About lots of
things.”

“You are.”

She wasn’t
sure if she should be pleased.
She
reached into the chip box, took out the remaining cash. It should
be about six hundred dollars. She pushed it over.

“I can’t take that,” he said.

“It’s yours.”

“You won.”

“
My cards
would have won.
You called. I didn’t have
enough money. You won the hand, so you get this.”

“What about your shirt?”

“
Didn’t
count,” she said.
“You said you wouldn’t
take an IOU.”

“You’re not annoyed?” he said after a
moment.

“Not much.”

He seemed
undecided, until she grinned.
He still
hadn’t taken the money.

“
You paid
anyway,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter who
won, it’s still all yours.”

“Fair enough,” she said, left the money where
it was, and went to the stairs.

“Should I be following you?”

“If you want.”

She heard him
coming up the stairs behind her.
“I’m
going to have a bath,” she said. “If you want. Just
because.”

She lay in the bath and finished the cigar
and blew smoke towards the extractor fan, and Ethan stared at her
breast and the way her nipple poked up all hard and wet through the
bubbles they were sitting in.

“
I love how
smart you are,” he said.
“But fuck you
have nice tits.”

She grinned.

“
Are you
sleeping with him?” Ethan said.
“The
guy.”

“
Sleeping,”
she said.
She pointed. “One
bed.”

“Having sex,” he said.

She sat there for a while, then said, “Are
you sure you want to know?”

He looked
like he was suddenly wondering that himself.
“Yeah,” he said.

“
Three times
since he got here.
And I didn’t like
it.”

“Okay,” Ethan said.

“I want you,” she said.

“Not enough to have me.”

She didn’t answer.

“That’s true, isn’t it?”

She
shrugged.
And her tit moved. And he
watched it, like he was hypnotized.

She stretched, and let the water run down
her, and that seemed to be the end of talking about serious
things.

Later, after
more sex, after she’d tasted him and felt him and remembered
everything she was missing, she lay there exhausted and
said,
“You can stay if you want, but you
have to go at six in the morning. No bullshitting around, just
go.”

“
Six?” he
said.
“Not later?”

“I can’t risk it.”

“
Yeah, I’ll
stay, of course.
But shit, we couldn’t
wait a bit later?”

Beth looked
at him.
“Seven. With an alarm at five to,
and you’re out by seven exactly. Out and down the road.”

“Okay.”

“Promise.”

He smiled at
the ceiling.
She watched him and didn’t
think he realized.

“I promise,” he said.

She stroked him, and almost said something,
said she liked him or wanted him or couldn’t stand to be without
him, but none of that was fair to say, so she stayed silent.

Later, though, going to sleep, she whispered,
“Fuck I’ve missed you at night, like this.”

“Yeah,” he said, “Me too,” and she thought
his voice sounded a little hoarse when he spoke, but it might have
just been the cigars.

*

When
Robert came home the next day he sniffed and
said, “You don’t want hippies in the house because they
smell?”

She looked at him and said, “What?”

“
Years
ago.
You said you didn’t want people
around because they smelled.”

“
Did I?” Beth
said.
“What do you mean
people?”

“My people.”

“
That seems
kind of rude,” she said.
“Are you sure I
said that?”

She was in a
good mood.
He just looked at her, and she
grinned.

“
Cigars smell
better than pot,” she said.
“And it’ll
clear in a day or two. Stop fucking moaning.”

He shrugged,
and looked annoyed.
Him looking annoyed
irritated her, and suddenly she was angry, wanting a
fight.

“
My house,”
she said.
“My rules.”

“You never used to smoke inside.”

“
I never used
to smoke.
Now I do.”

He shrugged.

“
Just fucking
deal with it,” she said.
“Okay?”

He
nodded.
“Okay.”

She waited a moment more, in case he wanted
to add anything else, but he just went and sat down and picked up a
book and that seemed to be the end of it.

She was being
a bitch on purpose, trying to provoke something.
She knew why. She knew exactly what had got into her, and
she wasn’t sure she wanted to stop.

Beth and Ethan went to a hotel for a night.
She told Robert she was going out with her poker
friends and would stay over where she ended up, and he just nodded,
and didn’t ask her anything else. She’d been anticipating another
complicated lie, like with the condoms, so she could get out the
house without him making a fuss, but he didn’t seem bothered at
all. She couldn’t decide if he was confident enough not to care
where she was, or worried enough he didn’t want to start a fight.
She was pretty sure it wasn’t worry, though. Robert never saw
problems until they slapped him in the face.

She felt a
little self-conscious checking into the hotel with Ethan, as if
everyone knew why they were there, and knew he was her student, and
half of them were on their phones right now to all their
friends.
She looked around at a roomful
of strangers ignoring her and told herself she was imagining
things. Like the time they’d gone out to the bar, no-one noticed
them and no-one cared what they were doing.

They made out
in the lift.
They made out in the lift so
Beth got weak and dizzy and felt like she just wanted to stay where
she was until she came. She mumbled a protest into his mouth when
they got to their floor, not wanting to stop kissing. Ethan picked
her up, over his shoulder, and carried her down the corridor
looking for the room. It hurt her tummy a bit, and she gasped that
he should put her down, but he ignored her and held onto her by her
ass and she didn’t really mind.

Which was
odd, since
Robert doing anything at all
like that would have infuriated her.

The hotel
room was what they needed.
They had sex
on the floor which turned into sex on the bed, and then got mostly
undressed and had sex again, while Ethan tried to get a drink of
water and Beth kept saying she wasn’t done yet. They lay there a
while, panting, then Ethan turned on the air conditioning and they
had sex again, and after a third time, they finally seemed done for
a while.

At least with the sex.

“I missed you,” Ethan said, and she kissed
him for five minutes then said, “Me too.”

“
So what
now?” Ethan said.
“Is this how we do
it?”

“
I
suppose.
Is that okay for a few weeks?
Just until things sort themselves out.”

He nodded
slowly.
He was lying on his back,
stroking her hand, staring at the ceiling. He seemed to have gotten
into a gloomy kind of mood since they’d finished
fucking.

“Are you sure?” she said.

He shrugged.

She was
sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed.
She moved, deliberately put her knees in front her chest in
case that helped him concentrate.

He hadn’t
looked, though.
She wasn’t sure what that
meant. “I don’t know,” he said.

“I’m doing my best,” she said.

“I know.”

“
I really do
want you.
How we were.”

He nodded slowly.

“
Just until
things get sorted out,” she said.
“I
promise.”

“
I don’t know
they will,” he said, still staring at the ceiling.
“Unless you make it happen.”

She didn’t
know what to say, so she decided to ignore him.
She leaned over and got the room service menu and started
looking at food.

“Want anything?” she said.

“I’m fine.”

“I’m getting something.”

“
Okay.”
After a moment. “Can you
afford this?”

“Food?”

“
The
room.
A lot of rooms, if we keep doing
this.”

“It’s fine.”

“You’re sure?”

She was
surprised.
She wasn’t sure where this was
coming from. “Go look up how much we’re paid,” she said. “Really,
it’s fine.”

He nodded.

“Want something to eat?”

“Yeah,” he said, and took the menu she was
holding out.

*

Beth spent
whole days horny and didn’t really like it.
She wasn’t seeing Ethan as often as she was used to, and
she was seeing him with their clothes on, and both those things
seemed to make her horny even worse. As if merely talking and
looking at each other reminded her what she wasn’t getting and made
her concentrate on that. She knew she should avoid him, just not
see him except for sex and lectures, but she didn’t seem to be able
to actually do that. She made excuses to see him. She agreed to
meet when he texted her. She wanted to talk to him, and touch him,
and see the way he looked at her. She wanted contact any way she
could have it, even just messages through the day or the accidental
brush of fingers as he passed her sugar in a café.

She was
avoiding sex at her house, because she didn’t want to get caught
and didn’t know if Ethan wanted the reminder
Robert was around, and she was avoiding sex at her office
so she wasn’t in there with Ethan all the time, and she didn’t know
how they were going to manage except by spending whole days in
hotels. Which was a little planned and organized for how she
usually was.

She was distracted and horny and needy, and
she didn’t like it.

She was
sensible, though, and managed to keep her head, right up to the day
she suddenly couldn’t stand it any more, and just phoned Ethan and
said, “I need to fuck you.
Just come
here, okay?”

“Where?”

“
My
place.
I miss you.”

“Is the guy around?”

“
Shit, of
course the guy isn’t around,” she said.
“Sorry. He’ll be a couple of hours.”

“A couple of hours?”

“Yep.”

“So I should hurry?”

“I would.”

He was ten
minutes and didn’t get more than five steps inside the
house.
She met him at the door, and he
pushed her against the wall, and kissed her. He seemed to kiss her
for half the time he was there, and she liked that he wanted to do
that so much. He kissed her, then she got impatient and knelt down,
and suddenly realized Robert had moved the cushion she’d left
behind the door, but it didn’t matter. He was quick. He came in her
mouth, and she came in his, and then they had sex against the wall
again.

And then he
left, and she went upstairs and had a shower and wondered if that,
just fucking, was enough to make a couple.
If constant, very good sex could actually keep them
together, as people, for years and years.

She was
getting self-indulgent
She almost thought
it could. Whatever she and Robert had, all the sensible things,
that wasn’t working, so maybe sex alone would be enough.

Or maybe she was thinking with her clit and
needed to stop.