Cora
I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror, trying to convince myself that I was too drunk last night and that’s why I slept with him. I want to be able to lay the blame elsewhere. I want to be able to look into my eyes and see somebody who’s not responsible for letting my defenses crumble so easily. But the truth is last night was as much my fault as his, maybe more, because I’m the one who invited him back here. I lean closer to the mirror and try to convince myself that I didn’t seem like a crazy person when I screamed at him to leave, and that fails, too. In the end I stop trying to convince myself of anything and just go about getting ready for my shift at the dentist’s office.
Getting ready for me means painting over the rune tattoo on my hand with foundation, trying to make the coverup as seamless as possible, getting dressed, and then wrapping the light red scarf around my throat to hide my snake tattoo. All through this—and as I shower and apply my makeup—my mind drifts to Logan. It drifts to how it felt to be bent over, completely vulnerable to him, and how it felt to have his cock slide deep, deeper, deepest … And then I shut my mind to it, or try to. All I succeed in is stowing the feelings far back in my mind where they are quieter, at least.
I make myself some coffee and can’t help but think about what went through my mind when I saw him drinking from his mug. At first I felt a warm and homey feeling. It was almost like we were a couple. Part of me wanted to join him and wrap my arms around him and place my cheek against his back, feel the power of him and then ask if he wanted to hang out later after work. Part of me wanted to drag him into the living room and strip him naked, just to get another look at him. Part of me wanted to fall to my knees and blow him right there. Or go for a walk, or anything. But then I remembered who I am and my promise to myself. In the Viking Age, oaths meant everything because they didn’t write anything down. They had lawspeakers who remembered all their laws. That was what I intended my promise to be: an unbreakable oath. And so my mind moved from fantasy to trying to scrape back some of my willpower.
I sip my coffee, watching the clock to make sure I leave in time.
I might have overreacted, but at the same time, what was the alternative? I need to focus on my singing, on trying to make something of my life. Getting into a serious relationship kills that, doesn’t it? But then, nobody said I had to get into a serious relationship. So if it isn’t going to be serious, what’s the point?
“Circles and circles,” I mutter, washing my mug. “My thoughts are the World Serpent, biting their own tail, going around and around. I need to distract myself. And I need to stop talking to myself.”
I wonder, not for the first time, if my neighbors think I’m a madwoman because I talk to myself so often.
I leave for work with the feeling that I made a mistake with Logan, and yet with the feeling that I did exactly the right thing. It’s an odd mixture and I don’t know quite how to handle it. As I start my car and the engine thrums, I think about the thrum of a motorbike, and then my mind does somersaults and all at once I’m sitting on top of him and his body is a powerful engine, his metal cock thrumming inside of me, driving me to crazier and crazier heights of pleasure. I think about scratching fingernails down a sheet-rock chest, watching blood bead and then licking it up between solid pectorals. I think about—I kill the thoughts as best I can, because even if part of me regrets sending him away, it’s done now and in the end it’ll be the right decision. I have to remember who—what—I am. I am an ex-rich girl, a self-exile, a friendless wanderer whose songs sometimes make men want to fuck them. That is all.
I get to work and say my friendliest hello to Mr. Jones, the dentist who I assist for most of my shifts. He’s a redhaired man with a thick red moustache and coils of red hair on his forearms, just about covering his freckles, though they poke through here and there. He wears a silver wedding band so I know he’s married, but that doesn’t stop his eyes from sometimes straying to my chest. I wear a high-cut shirt, and I haven’t got bazookas down there anyhow, but he still finds something to look at. It’s one of those petty things I put up with because I need this job; I’m aware they could easily replace me at any moment.
I clean the equipment and pass it to him and smile and fake-laugh at the bad jokes of the nervous patients, and then it’s lunchtime and I retreat to the breakroom. I want to take off the scarf around my throat. The AC is on but it seems intent on blasting warm hair half the time, to test our patience. I tug at the scarf but I don’t dare remove it, especially when Cecilia comes strutting in. She’s the look-at-me-type, red high heels, low-cut shirt flashing a red bra, tights with a ladder up one side which must be purposeful since it’s always there, and always with a new loud hairdo. She pouts at me with her bright red lipstick and marches over.
“Hey, doll,” she says.
“What’s up, Cecilia?” I reply.
“What’s up.” She drops next to me and takes out her fat-free sugar-free all-natural yogurt, unwraps her pink novelty spoon with pictures of flowers on, and starts eating in tiny mouthfuls. “You sound like a man when you say that.”
“I know. Do you know how I know? Because every time I say it you tell me. How’s reception today?”
“Answering calls, making calls, booking appointments. Reception’s reception. Did I tell you?”
I’ll never understand why Cecilia latched onto me when I first started working here. The only thing I can figure out is that we’re around the same age, but apart from that we couldn’t be more different. I barely talk to her; she always catches me in the breakroom. Maybe if I didn’t have that rule about friendships, something would blossom between us.
“Tell me what?”
She leans in and whispers, “I’m getting a boob job!” Then she just stares at me for a long time. “Well?”
Oh, right.
“Congratulations!” I squeal.
She places her hand on her chest and soaks it up. “Thank you, thank you. What about you? What’s on your mind?”
What’s on my mind? All morning I’ve been thinking about Logan, and when I haven’t been thinking about Logan I’ve been thinking about how I have to find another gig to replace the one at The Devil, and then I started wondering if I need to move to LA where there are more opportunities for singers, where maybe I could get spotted by someone and scooped up out of obscurity. And then I began to think about what that really meant, becoming a rock star, and I had one of my customary panicked moments when I don’t even know if that’s what I want anymore. I don’t know if I can be bothered to deal with this shit, these petty tyrannies of married men staring at my chest even when I give them no reason to. And then I felt guilty, because I shouldn’t be allowed to forgo the petty tyrannies of my life just because my dad was rich. But then I reasoned that I didn’t choose to be born to a rich family, no more than poor people choose to be born to theirs. And then—
“Hun,” Cecilia says. “Are you okay? You look a little funny. What’s gotten into you? You’re all red.”
“It’s just so hot in here,” I mutter.
“Isn’t it?” she squeaks, as if it’s a revelation. “I came in this morning and I thought—yeah, it’s just—I thought: why is it so hot?”
I’m spared further explanation when Ryan walks in. He’s a classic twenty-something skater type, with those ten-inch stretching earrings and tattoos all up his arm. He looks like a teenager to me, but he’s the boss’s dad so he’s allowed to stick around. He swaggers over to Cecilia, completely ignoring me, and talks at her breasts. “Wanna come to dinner with me?”
Cecilia reacts as though these are the words of her finally-found Romeo, flutters her eyelashes, and replies, “Yeah, sure.”
He walks away, and that’s that.
For the rest of the day I can’t get that exchange out of my head. Can it really be that simple? Can you really just talk to each other like that, and then have it be fine? It’s never been like that for me. Ever since I was a girl and I had my first awkward conversation with a boy, it’s never been like that. I never dreamed it could be. For me it’s always been forcing words out, trying to navigate the swamp of social humiliation. For me it’s always been a tightrope-walking act, with an abyss of caring too much on one side and an abyss of not caring too much on the other, the result being that I end up not doing much of anything, and the relationship—if it ever is a relationship—fizzles out like a faulty fuse.
“Except with Logan,” I whisper on the way home. “With Logan … oh, shit … with Logan, it was different. I was comfortable. I don’t even know him. I don’t even have his number. I have to be strong now. Come on, Cora Ash. What is Cora Ash? Why did you make her? Because she’s strong. Cora Ash is strong!”
I stop screaming at myself in the rearview mirror when I spot a couple of kids in the backseat of a car the next lane over, giggling and pointing at the crazy lady.