Debbie

Wow, that is so sexy.

I couldn’t take my eyes off Paul riding on top of the bucking and flailing bull. His legs were wrapped tightly around the core of the powerful beast between them flopping and bucking like mad as it tried with every ounce of energy in its body to throw him to the ground. The look in the bull’s eyes was terrifying. It looked evil, almost rabid with fury and intensity that was equally matched by the raging fire in Paul’s own eyes as he owned the animal beneath him.

Each ride was only eight seconds long, but it felt much longer as if I were watching a replay of it in slow motion. My mind wandered into another place, everything in front of me becoming much larger as if I shut out the rest of the world and just allowed myself to engage with it; it was just me, Paul, and the bull.

Paul had lasted the full eight seconds about seventy-five percent of the time, but he was improving. If any of these rides had been in an actual tournament or rodeo then he would have received the best scores and most likely not been outdone.

I’d been around the rodeo life since I was very young. My dad and his brother were fanatics. My uncle Joe had even been a pro for a few years before his shoulder started giving him problems.

Unfortunately, my dad’s rodeo career ended up shorter than that. He’d fallen off a particularly wild bull and landed on his back the wrong way, rupturing a disc. This was about twenty-five years ago, but he had back problems to this day.

But he hardly ever complained. That was my dad. He just never saw the point in dwelling on past mistakes or failures; he said you just had to move on.

As I watched Paul getting off the bull and hopping over the fence before it mauled him, I realized that my father and Paul were a lot alike in many ways. Was it true that girl’s ended up with guys like their fathers after all?

Or maybe I’d just finally wised up and realized what a good man looked like.

“Wow, that was a rough one,” Paul said jogging over to me. He put his arm around me and gave me a kiss. I hardly even noticed or cared that he was covered in dirt and a bit sweaty from training all morning.

In fact I thought it was kind of hot.

“It looked really good, smooth,” I said truthfully.

Paul shook his head. “I’m glad of that. Maybe it would have even fooled a judge, but I don’t want to bank on it. Those last two seconds I was holding on by just my fingers and some of the glove.”

“You are probably just tired. You’ve been at this for hours.”

Paul sighed. “I know, but I really want to nail this down.”

“Great ride, Paul,” My uncle Joe said sauntering over.

“Thank you, sir,” Paul said. “And once again thank you so much for letting me use your place, and your bulls.”

“Don’t mention it; business is usually kind of slow this time of year.”

“I figured with the tournament you’d have the arena booked up solid with people wanting to train,” Paul said.

“No, they are over at Bud Carlisle’s place. That guy came into some money a while back and really expanded his operation. He has a much nicer facility.”

“Ah, I see,” Paul said. “Well, if it makes you feel better I’d rather train here than in some fancy looking, almost commercial facility. It’s going to be full of people treating this like it’s some kind of amusement park ride. The real riders are doing it this way; the hard way.”

My Uncle Joe’s face lit up with a wide smile.

“You are speaking my language, son,” he said. “Every word you said is absolute truth.”

“I hope so; there will be great riders there from all over the state. There is going to be some great competition, so I’m a little bit nervous.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Uncle Joe replied. “But that is good for you. I remember the nerves. Oh, I remember them well. Most riders would try to fight it and they’d puke or even pass out before a ride.”

“Uncle Joe, that’s gross…” I protested trying to keep my mind from going to a nasty visually graphic image.

Uncle Joe laughed.

I’d always loved to hear him laugh. He sounded just like my dad when he did. It was a big, loud, almost roar-like sound that blasted everyone in earshot. And it was contagious.

“You have got to get tougher than that, sweetie,” Uncle Joe said.

“Hey, I’ll have you know I’m pretty tough,” I said. “I just get squeamish around certain bodily functions.”

Uncle Joe continued. “Anyway, the point is that you don’t want to fight the nerves. Instead you want to use that nervous energy to make you more focused and even more determined to succeed. You understand?”

Paul nodded. He was really taking it all in, eager to learn from my Uncle Joe. I liked that Paul was not too arrogant to accept help from anybody. He was always looking to learn something new. That was a trait I hoped rubbed off on myself. Sometimes I tended to get stuck on something and not take anyone’s advice. I’d always been stubborn that way.

“Yes, sir,” Paul said. “I’m usually nervous until I actually get in the gate. Then it’s like something turns on inside of me and the adrenaline takes over. After that I’m excited and eager as can be to get out there and show that bull who is boss.”

Paul gave my Uncle Joe a high five and the two had a good laugh.

Paul practiced for a few more hours. Most women probably would have been bored by now, but I loved sport and I loved to watch Paul in action. By the time he was done I have to admit I was so turned on I could hardly see straight. But I decided not to let on just yet. Paul and I were planning to spend the whole day and evening together. I knew we would have plenty of time for whatever else we wanted to get into…

After we left the ranch Paul drove us back to his house. There was a movie that had just dropped on Netflix we both wanted to check out. It was a horror film, which was not usually my thing, but this one did look interesting and it was rated TV14, so I figured it couldn’t be too crazy scary. It had been a while since I’d seen anything scary, and while I have always been a chicken when it comes to that stuff, I decided to do this for Paul.

Besides I figured he could comfort me during the scary scenes. Now that was a thought that really got me going.

When we arrived at Paul’s place he quickly hopped in the shower. I was tempted to suggest I join him, but since he was actually filthy covered in dirt and sweat, that might have defeated the purpose.

While he was in the shower I grabbed myself a beer from his fridge and looked around his living room a bit. I’d been to his place several times, and I never got tired of looking through his collection of books and DVD’s. It reminded me of being in a video or a record store.

As I browsed through the shelves I bumped into his desk which was in the center of the one wall between two big shelving units full of books. I noticed that Paul’s typewriter (I couldn’t believe he used a typewriter, but the man hated technology for the most part) still had a page in it full of writing and a stack of pages sitting beside it of what looked to be a completed, rough manuscript.

I picked up a few pages and began to read, but not before glancing towards the bathroom to make sure the door was tightly closed and listening that the shower was still going. Paul was crazy weird about anyone seeing his pages before he’d decided that they were ready. If I knew anything about writers from every interview I’d ever read, they were notoriously paranoid about their writing ever actually being ready.

Quickly leafing through a good third of the pages I picked a spot and started reading. I’d been reading for about a minute when I began to pick up things in the manuscript that seemed oddly familiar. As I read on it started to become blatantly clear to me what was going on.

Paul was writing about me. Not just me, my friends and family, too.

I knew that writers and artists typically drew inspiration from the people around them, but this was almost identical to us and things that we’d shared with him, things we’d shared and done together.

At first I was mildly amused, but as I read on and started to really think about this I became concerned. This concern quickly turned to anger. I felt oddly violated. If Paul was going to use us in his book, I felt he should have at least have asked permission.

It was almost like reading a recap of everything that had happened with Paul since we met, but there was of course a strange supernatural slant to them. After all, it was a horror story.

But then I read a scene that could have been a direct play by play of our first time in bed together. He was putting our sex life—our personal sex life—in his book for people to read one day?

No, how could he? It was enough to make me question whether our relationship was a joke to him, something to be used as a muse for his book.

I heard the shower turn off and I started to put the pages back the way I’d found them and pretend like I still knew nothing about this, but my anger remained and it wouldn’t let me do it. I stood there holding the pages waiting for Paul to come out of the bathroom.

When he did come out he stood there in the doorway naked. His body was still a bit wet and his muscles were glistening. Everything was fully exposed and I found myself getting weak in the knees and a bit turned on at first, but holding onto the pages in my hand quickly reminded me of how angry I was.

“What the hell is this?” I demanded through gritted teeth.

“What are you talking about? Why are you reading my book?” Paul asked.

“You know what I’m talking about,” I said. “You used me, my friends, and my family for your book without even asking us if it was ok. You put very personal stuff in here. What were you thinking?”

“Take it easy,” Paul said. “These characters are inspired by you, but they are not actually you. If you actually read the book you would realize that there is plenty of fiction to them.”

“Oh, I read enough,” I said. “You even put our first time together in here? The Halloween Party, the haunted house prank after, and then a blatant description of our first time together.”

“You didn’t read the part where that item the Johnny character carried out of the house was haunted and it possesses the Emily character?” Paul asked.

“That doesn’t make it ok,” I said. “That doesn’t change a damn thing to add a ghostly element to it. The truth is there. I feel so… violated.”

Paul shrugged. He seemed genuinely confused as to why I was so upset.

As I watched his nonchalant reaction I started to question whether I was completely overreacting or not. But I was too fired up to strongly consider it. I’ve always been a very private person and to see myself so vividly described made me feel very naked and exposed to the world.

“Is that why you came here? To study some people for your book? You put things in there that I told you in confidence.”

“I’m sorry,” Paul said. “I came here just looking to get away and start fresh. Honey, everything I’ve told you is true. I already had an idea for the book but then I came up with a better idea. So things just kind of fell into place. These are fictional characters; they are loosely based off of people close to me. Every writer does that.”

“These are spot on. It’s us, all of us, exactly. There is no fictional element there besides the ghost thing. This is really upsetting and you don’t seem to care.”

Paul walked over to me and reached for me to hold me close to him. I wanted him to, but I was too mad to let that happen.

I quickly moved away from him.

Paul sighed. “Honey, I think you are reading way too much into this. It’s a fictional story; no one is going to see this as being inspired by any truth. It’s far too outlandish. You can’t see it because you are so close to your family and friends. But really it’s all just a small collection of their traits. If you want I can rewrite and change it a lot to make them way different.”

I paused and took a sip of the beer. My mind was racing. I was furious and I just didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want this to ruin the evening, but I didn’t think I could forgive this so easily. It was a huge violation in privacy.

Wasn’t it? Was I crazy and just overreacting? I wished Lara was there to give me a second opinion. In some ways I guess I should have been flattered that Paul thought I was interesting enough to put in his book, but it kept sticking in my mind and I felt my temper growing hotter.

Perhaps it felt like such a betrayal of trust because of what had happened with Daniel. Was I still being affected by the aftermath of that? It couldn’t be… I was over all that… right?

“Honey, please,” Paul said. “Just calm down and let’s talk this over. I already said I would change it. It will be a lot of work… but I will gladly do it if it will make this better.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want you to have to go through the trouble of fixing your mistake,” I said sarcastically. Really? He was complaining about how much work it was going to be?

Paul groaned.

“Listen, I’m sorry. I should have told you. I should have asked you and everybody else’s permission. But it’s just a rough draft. Do you have any idea how many changes and revisions it will go through before I even send it to agencies or publishers?”

“I don’t care,” I said. “It is the principle of the matter.”

Paul looked at me as if he didn’t know what else to say and honestly there wasn’t anything he could have said in that moment that would have mattered to me. I was too upset.

And thinking back on it later, I wasn’t sure if I was mad at what he’d done or the fact that he didn’t care enough to even ask.

“Ok, I don’t know how many times I can say I’m sorry,” Paul said. “But what are you doing looking through my manuscript? You know how I feel about that. It’s a complete invasion of my privacy.”

“Seriously? You are mad at me?” I asked in disbelief. I couldn’t believe he was trying to turn this around and make it something I did wrong.

“It’s true,” Paul said. “I’m very sensitive about people looking at my work before it is ready.”

I realized he was right and I had snuck around and looked at his book which I knew he wouldn’t have wanted me to do. But that didn’t change the fact of what he did.

“This is ridiculous,” I said.

I grabbed my coat and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Paul demanded.

“I need to be alone,” I said.

“Come on, we can talk about this. I already said I’d fix it. What more do you want?” Paul asked.

I closed the door behind me without answering him. As I walked away from his place I grabbed my phone and called Lara.

“Hello?” She answered in her usual cheery voice. I had never known her to be actually upset about anything. Maybe she was just good at holding things inside or hiding her feelings from others. I wished I had that; I’d always worn my heart on my sleeve.

“Can you come and pick me up? I’ll be at Mookie’s donuts.”

The donut shop was just around the block from Paul’s.

“Sure. Are you ok?”

“Yeah, I’ll tell you about it when you get here. Thanks.”

I went inside Mookie’s and ordered a donut and a cup of coffee while I waited for Lara to pick me up. It would probably take her ten minutes or so from her house.

As I sat there and my anger subsided I thought about the way I had just left things with Paul. What a way to end an evening. I kept getting the nagging feeling that I was in the wrong somehow, but he was too. I knew that. He wasn’t innocent in this.  But maybe I should have been a bit more understanding.

Maybe I was just tired. I didn’t know. Lately I had not felt well and I had been getting crazy irritated over the stupidest things. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Too much stress at work? The stress of a new relationship and the mess with Janice and Paul being in the hospital had been really hard to get over.

“This is definitely not how I planned this evening going,” I muttered out loud to myself before reaching for the donut. I scarfed down the rest of the donut and ordered another one.

They were delicious. For some reason I had been so hungry lately. I normally didn’t have that much of an appetite, but the past few weeks I just wanted to eat everything in sight. I glance down at my belly. Was I gaining weight?

Great. Now I was probably going to get fat and Paul wouldn’t want me anyway.

When Lara arrived a few minutes later she ordered herself a cup of coffee and a slice of pie while I finished my donut.

I told her about what had happened.

“He did that? He’s been writing about us? What did he say about me?” Lara demanded with a flurry of questions.

I laughed at how high strung she was sometimes.

“Nothing bad,” I said. “But I just think it was wrong that he has been using us for material without even asking or mentioning any of it.”

“You’re right. I’m pissed too.”

I paused a moment. Then I quietly added, “He wrote about some pretty intimate stuff between him and I.”

Lara’s eyes went wide with shock.

“No way… wow… so what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess it will cool off in a few days.”

“So you didn’t break up with him?” Lara asked.

“No… I… I’m in love with him.”

I had never seen Lara’s face full of so much happiness and excitement before. I really thought she was going to cry and she had never shed a tear in front of me before.

“That is awesome!” Lara said. “Does Paul feel the same?”

“He says he does,” I replied. “Of course now he probably just thinks I’m a psycho. God, why did I go so nuts about this?”

“Because he did something wrong. I’m not saying it makes him a horrible person or anything, but he made a mistake and he should own up to it.”

“He did. Well, he said he would fix it anyway,” I said.

“That’s good,” Lara replied.

“By the way he was naked during this entire argument,” I said with a grin.

Lara snorted almost choking on her pie.

“What the hell? Why did you feel the need to suddenly tell me that?” Lara said chuckling.

“I just thought it was important,” I replied. “It was really hard to concentrate and stay mad during all of it. He was just coming out of the shower.”

“Oh yeah? It was really hard?”

I blushed.

“Of course you would put that together? You have the filthiest mind,” I said.

I was already feeling better about it all. But I still wanted Paul to know that I was mad as hell about this and that I didn’t forgive things so easily. I was going to wait a few days before I talked to him.

But then again, what if he thought I was done with him or he didn’t want to see me anymore?

What was I saying? We loved each other, right? I knew how I felt about Paul. And I hoped he really felt that way about me. But what if…

Had I just ruined a wonderful thing about something that looking back was kind of silly, or at least not important enough to get this upset over?

“You need to chill,” Lara said as I voiced my concerns. “If it’s love then it will be fine. And this is a good way to check.”

“How are you able to be so nonchalant about things like this? I mean you have the most uncanny ability to compartmentalize your feelings so that things just don’t overwhelm you.”

“I don’t know,” Lara said. “It’s a gift. Besides, you used to be a lot more that way. Here lately it seems that you dwell on things and worry about stuff way more than you ever did as long as I’ve known you. Are you ok?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t know. I was just thinking the same thing earlier. Everything is just bothering me lately. I guess I’m just stressed and I have too many things going on in my life. It will be a lot easier after this month passes by at work. Then things will slow down again.”

We finished up our pastries and coffee and Lara took me home.

My parents had not expected to see me again, but I just told them I wasn’t feeling that well, which wasn’t exactly a lie.

As I lay in bed drifting off to sleep, my mind was racing with fearful thoughts. It felt like I was almost on the verge of a panic attack and I felt a bit nauseous. What was wrong with me? I’d never felt like this before. Normally I was so calm and in control of myself.

I just needed rest and to let things go a bit. There were things in this world beyond my control.

And sometimes I needed help reminding myself of that.

As my eyes closed and I drifted off to sleep all I could think about was how badly I wanted Paul’s sexy, hard body to be lying next to mine.

I wondered if he was thinking the same thing right then.