Chapter Ten

Macs

The elevator doors close and I take a huge deep breath. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Walking away from her was the hardest thing I’ve done in a while. My dick is steel hard and dripping in anticipation. I don’t think that fucker has been this drooly in his entire life. I couldn’t think straight with her in front of me. I know it’s because I need to fuck. It had nothing to do with her personally. I’m sure of it.

I’m sure of it.

Her neighbor was hot. I could easily get in her pants. What if Teala heard? Why do I care if Teala heard? I rush out of her small lobby and make a right hand turn to exit into the parking garage. I’m still catching my breath when I slam my car door and start the engine. It’s like I just did the obstacle course. I feel crazy. Out of control. My phone is still glowing in the cup holder, the messages pouring out of it like my favorite song. I turn up my music to drown out everything else. My head is too full right now. My cock is too full right now. It should be considered a dangerous weapon.

I told her I wouldn’t sleep with other women. I thought it was a lie when I said it, but now I’m not so sure. It’s as if a part of me, the good part of me, spoke and now I have to obey him because my pride won’t let me lie. I’m good at my core. It’s everything else that’s fucked up. I need sex. It’s akin to denying me oxygen. Surely she wouldn’t fault me if I picked up my phone and hooked up with one woman tonight. She knows what she did to me. What did John call Jessica? Sexual Napalm? Yes, that. Teala is that to me. It is partly because I can’t have her whole body up front, but also partly because something else.

I like her.

I like her personality. She’s funny. I find myself enjoying her company the most when we’re just talking. I liked telling her things about myself. I like kissing her. I like the way she smells. I like the way her body presses against me. I lift the neck of my shirt and take in a breath. It smells like her. It’s sweet. It’s sex. It’s forbidden. \ I slam my steering wheel with the palm of my hand with a groan. “Fuck!”

My voice is loud and angry even though it’s not anger I feel. It’s something I don’t recognize. My phone chimes and I’m so irritated that I look at it. As I suspect, they are messages from my app. Women who could fix me right now if I let them. I scroll through the messages and one pops up while I’m scrolling. It’s a text message from Teala—a photo.

I click it open. It’s the sloth photo in her bathroom, no message attached. I laugh. How stupid and asinine. I take a deep breath. I don’t reply, but I’m not so frustrated anymore and the sloth made my hard-on recede a touch. It’s enough. I put my car into gear and drive home.

I think about Teala all the way home, our kisses on replay in my mind. I’m dissecting every move and every word spoken between us. Does it help decipher what is happening between us? Not one bit. I’m not certain there’s anything there but pent-up lust and the promise of mind-blowing sex. Also, I’m not sure what compels me, but when I pull into my drive, I ignore all the notifications from my matches and head into my phone settings to change my background to that stupid fucking sloth.

I can’t look at it without smiling. She’s right.

****

Repacking a parachute after it safely guides you to land from twelve thousand feet is the bane of my existence. It doesn’t matter how good you are at repacking, it still takes fucking forever. You have to do it right, perfectly, or you’ll die on your next jump. Perhaps that sounds a tad melodramatic, but it is truthful all the same. Tahoe is in the space next to me, rolling and packing with extreme precision. A lot of times we have people do this for us, but not today. Everyone is busy doing other shit.

The drop zone is a large open field with a few ratty structures and an airfield for takeoff and landing. Airplanes buzz overhead and parachutes litter the sky above the drop zone. My team goes up in waves. Today we’re doing HALO jumps, high altitude, low opening. It’s just an average day at the office. I have my phone silenced so it doesn’t interrupt me at inopportune times. After I finish packing my chute, I take out my phone to check the time and see I missed a call from my mom. She left a voicemail. She’s in the generation of answering machines, so she always leaves a godforsaken message even though my voicemail greeting says, “Are you sure you can’t text me?”

My stomach grumbles, reminding me I haven’t had lunch. I walk to the trailer in the corner to find my cooler of food and listen to my mother’s voice as I go.

“Sweetie, are you okay? The news is saying awful things. Have you watched it? I know you’re busy, but you really should turn on the television every once in a while. That’s silly, though. I’m sure you know what’s going on. What’s that?” she asks someone in the room. My father. “Your father wants you to call him tonight. He has a theory.”

Raising my brows, I let out a long, annoyed breath. I love talking to my parents mostly, but my dad has some real theories about the state of our world. Let’s just put them into the conspiracy category for lack of a better word.

I sit down at a tattered table in the corner and nod at a teammate named Mason. He grins at me and tosses an obscene gesture my way. I’d send one back if I wasn’t listening to my mother prattle on about the terror attacks happening.

“Okay, Gem,” she says, because I’m the crown jewel. “I’ll let you get back to work now. Call us later. We miss you. Are you coming home for a visit soon? We’d love to see you. Please be safe,” she says.

My father’s beard scruff rubs against the phone and then his voice says, “I love you, Son. Kick some ass. Come home soon, though, okay?”

It takes a lot to make me feel guilt. They just had a full-on one-sided conversation and guilt is all I feel. I’ll have to go home soon to visit them. Especially before I deploy. I’m not so naïve as to assume it won’t be the last time. My job is one of the most dangerous in the world. Imminent danger is evident in every facet of my life. Take today, for example. I’m jumping out of airplanes over and over. The odds will stack against me one of these days.

I compare it to cats. How many lives do they have? Nine? How many life sucking hobbies and adventures can one person practice before they catch up to their given amount of allotted lives? You can never anticipate how you’ll go down. Personally, I hope I go down in a blaze of fire and glory, doing something to help my country. Most people want to fall asleep peacefully and never wake up. Not me. I want to know I’m alive when I go. I want to feel every nerve ending as they click off for the final time. I want to feel it all.

My morbid thoughts are broken when Mason throws a wadded up napkin. “Where are you at right now?” he asks.

My sub sandwich is half gone. My friends know not to fuck with me when I’m eating. It’s a sacred time of day. I love food.

“Fuck off, Mason. I’m trying to eat a peaceful lunch.”

“Chute packing got your panties in a bunch? You Pre-madonna,” he says.

He’s wearing the smirk that lets me know he’s trying to bait me. It’s no secret that I’m different than my friends. Where they could give two shits about their clothing, hair or their appearance, I’m in the opposite camp.

I once told a group of them that I pay forty dollars for my haircut every three and half weeks. Combine that with my collection of designer T-shirts and it was a recipe for a slew of nicknames. If I have to wear T-shirts, why shouldn’t they feel soft and nice against my skin? Most men don’t care about stuff like that. I get it. It doesn’t change me, though. My money is copious because I don’t have a family. All of my bonuses are saved for the most part or are poured like water, into my house.

“I like nice things,” I say, shrugging and chucking the napkin back at his head. It’s a direct hit. “Just because you’re fine wearing batman boxer shorts doesn’t mean that you should. Standards, fucker. Get some.” I’m joking, but I see the competitive glint in his eye. We’re all type A personalities. It’s a constant battle to best each other. At work and at home. If you can drink five beers and act rationally, I can drink six. Target practice is a pissing match. How hot our chicks are, too. Though that’s mostly an unspoken rule if we’re talking about wives.

Chicks and fucking are fair game in discussions so long as they’re only girlfriends or sidepieces. The second they turn into wives, you forget they have a vagina. It’s odd because you know sordid details about Mold-A-Dildo kits, and fingers in asses, and what sounds they make while they have orgasms, but when your buddy marries that same hot girlfriend, you are supposed to forget it all.

Mason changes the subject to our next jump, and I listen to him prattle on and nod in appropriate places, because I’m still eating, and he doesn’t expect me to respond verbally. My phone flashes a text message. It’s another photo from Teala. Of some green fucking plant in the lobby of her yoga studio. Where are the tit pics? She doesn’t send me actual text messages very frequently. It’s usually photos without captions. I turned off all the notifications for my fucking apps. Deletion wasn’t an option. Not yet. I’m not ready. And what happens after I fuck Teala and return to my old carousing ways? I don’t have time to reinstate my profiles. It’s freed me in a way I didn’t know I craved. The tether to my phone disappeared.

I’m not sure what she expects me to reply with. I’m staring at the photo when Mason makes his way to my table. I’m finished eating.

“Who are you swiping at?” he asks.

No one has noticed I’m not my normal self. I’ve realized I wanted this challenge. Needed it, even. It’s not about Teala even if it seems that way. It’s about determining how much control I actually have over my body and emotions. I control things. Nothing else does. Not even my dick. I snap a photo of the trash from my lunch in front of me and send it to her. If she wants a game of random, I’ll give her that.

“Ahh, you know, just the usual,” I reply.

Mason scrunches up his face.

“What the fuck are you doing? Did you just take a picture of the water bottle?”

This is where I could come clean, but Mason has a big mouth and everyone will know within hours that I’m not swiping any pussy on this trip and it will be more of a spectacle than I want. Typically, I’ve got at least three chicks waiting in whatever city we’re traveling to. It’s a game. See how much of a whore Macs can be. My need for sex almost affected a start time once and I got in trouble. Not real trouble, but it was enough to force a chick cap. I meet Mason’s eyes.

“Texting my friend. How’s your girlfriend?”

A trick everyone should know. People love to talk about themselves. They prefer it to almost any other sort of conversation. Even if it’s bitching about their horrible lives, it still means more than if I was talking about my awesome life. He takes the bait.

“I broke up with her. It got stale.”

Picking up my trash, I wad it using one hand. “Too many missionary trips?”

He shrugs. “She was awful at head, too.”

I nod like I know exactly what he’s talking about.

“Joining the dark side now?”

Mason squirms. “No one is as dark as you.” Little does he know. “It’s hard to find anything stable with all the trips. It’s okay, though. Being single works right now anyways. Maybe after deployment.”

I agree with him and tell him it’s a great idea. I tell him about a few of the apps I use, and he seems interested, if only for the reason to switch the conversation back to me and my life.

“Hey, I gotta get back at it. I want to get on the next lift,” I say, hiking my thumb at the door. I palm my phone when Teala texts back and slide it into my pocket. My dirty little secret isn’t so dirty.

He’s looking at his own phone, searching the app store for the ones I just mentioned. Mason is a good guy. I wonder if I can turn him into a baby me. The thought makes me smile and cringe. Giddy with power, but sorry for the corruption.

Mason mumbles his goodbye, and I amble out the door into the cool breeze. I take the phone out of my pocket to find a photo of her bare foot against a solid dark, wooden floor. Just one foot, and I wonder where the other foot is. Is it in some yoga pose pulled over her head? What position is that? Could I fuck her in that pose? My mind wanders away from me for a second and I tamp down on my testosterone coursing straight to my dick.

Her toenails are light blue, like an Easter egg. I think it’s an unusual color choice for nails. Red and pink are what I’m used to. One of my favorite sights is of pretty pink nails on fingers wrapped around my cock. Yes, that’s a sight I like, one I’m accustomed to. I resist the urge to ask if her fingernails are blue and send a photo of Tahoe floating to the ground in the distance, his large lumbering legs dangling like useless strings. She won’t be able to recognize him nor has she even met Tahoe before. That’s a meeting I’ll avoid at all costs.

That is amazing! You must love that. What do you love? Give me a list. Is the text message Teala sends back.

Ah, something worthy of her words. A few moments later Tahoe lands safely. Landings are always sketchy depending on the winds. Knees get blown pretty easily. We’re big men and unless conditions are for us, landings are against us. I watch as he unhooks his chute and bends down to start retrieving the nylon fabric that spreads across the ground around him.

Your foot was so beautiful. I wasn’t sure what could compete with it, I reply back to her quickly.

The gray bubble pops up instantly. She’s into our conversation, or she’s bored, perhaps in between classes or already off for the day. She told me her schedule, but I’ve already forgotten it.

I wouldn’t be disappointed if you wanted to send me photos of other body parts. I send it before I think twice.

My heart hammers, but I try to distract myself by watching landings as I type out a list of the things in life worthy of my love. There are a lot. It’s not as if boobs and pussies aren’t something I typically get in messages, but they aren’t from people I’ve met before. They’re strangers I’ll meet up with later. This is somehow different. Everything about Teala and me is different. The gray bubble disappears, and her message comes through. A photo of her hand. Red nails. I laugh, and then another message.

Your list is longer than War and Peace. I just rattled off the first things I could think of. I pocket my phone.

Making my way to the plane, I pick up my chutes—the main and the backup. With a stomach bordering on too full, I get on the small aircraft and ready myself to deal with nerves. Believe it or not the worst part of skydiving is the ride in the plane. They pack us in too tightly. What if someone bumps my gear in a way that makes it defective? The smell of fucking farts is also foul and nerve-wracking. Ascension causes gasses in the body to exit. I still curse out Moose and scowl at the shit-eating, or better yet, shit-stinking grin on his face. There are two benches lining each side of metal tube of death. Lights that the pilot turns on let us know when it’s time to start falling out into the sky. I stare at the red light above the hatch with disdain and will it to turn green.

My heart thumps a little jaggedly and I have more adrenaline in this moment than I will when they finally let me out into the vacant atmosphere, plummeting toward the ground. Because I control that. It’s all on me. I’m not relying on pilots, or worried about the dickhole sitting behind me accidently screwing with something. I play well with others when in it’s in my best interest.

I stare at the red light while I let my mind fill with everything that needs to happen next. Plan A and then Plan B and everything after that and in between. It’s mostly autopilot at this point in my career. I’ve skydived hundreds upon hundreds of times. I’ve jumped out of an airplane at night when it’s pitch-dark, when it’s raining, when we’re so high we have to wear oxygen, and it almost feels like we’re in outer space. Someone lets a fart rip and it’s so loud I hear it over the goddamn roar of the engine.

The light turns green. Just in time. I was about to add another name to my hit list. The hatch is opened and the sound of the wind overtakes the small space. I stand immediately, holding on to the bars overhead. Sweat beads on my forehead as I watch a few of my teammates exit the plane. They drop like rocks the second they leave the hatch. We only have a certain amount of time and it’s with precision accuracy that everything is measured. A few moments later I’m freefalling, finally able to take a deep breath. I have my altimeter on my right wrist and I glance at it every few seconds so the ground doesn’t creep up too quickly.

The world looks round up here. If Christopher Columbus had this view there would be no doubt the Earth is just one spinning dome. The sky is the place where I feel smallest. There’s no way I can change anything significant in something so large. I’m a fleck. A miniscule thread woven into a tapestry so vast you can’t even tell what the pattern is. My altimeter says I’m at three thousand feet, so I pull the ball on the right side of my parachute strapped to my back. I look up and over my shoulder to make sure it’s deploying properly and grab on to the handles as they rise over my head.

I see my friends who jumped out before and after, everyone a perfect distance away, forming an octagon of sorts. I steer, pulling one handle and then the other to close a gap. Under parachute is the longest part of a jump. After falling at what feels like warp speed, cruising to my landing seems to be at a snail’s pace. Studying my surroundings and the tiny buildings on the ground, I find my way to the landing zone. Minutes pass, as does the agonizing thump as I hit the rough grassy patch of field.

I look at my left wrist and calculate the time. I did it.

I went a whole thirty-six minutes without thinking about Teala. I snap a photo of my parachute behind me and send it off without another word.

I did it. Why does this make me so happy? I start cutting away so I can drag my rig over to begin the packing once again. She doesn’t respond right away, but when she does, it simply says, Take me next time.

I raise my brows. That definitely has potential for a date. “Why do I care about a date?” I chastise myself under my breath.

Tahoe grunts from behind me. A place I didn’t realize he was. “You’re acting like a straight fool today, man. What’s going on?” His voice is cavalier. He doesn’t really care, he’s just asking because he’s my friend. That’s the way it is with dudes.

“I hate this shit,” I mutter. I turn to glance his way, and he nods, his piercing blue eyes assessing. He’ll think I mean packing my chute.

He grunts again. “Leave your phone in the car. You’re a little bitch with it today. Checking it constantly. What’s the problem? Is the pussy well dry here?”

I could lie. He wouldn’t have a clue if I was being truthful. I think back to the voicemail. “Nah. Family issues,” I reply, doing my best to avoid his acid gaze.

“What’s wrong with Shirley and Robert?” he asks. “They doing okay?”

I should have known better. I’m digging a deeper hole. SEALs pride themselves on honor, and I adhere to that ethos. I’m shit at deceit.

I nod. “They’re fine. Ma wants me to go for a visit. I’m trying to hash out the details. We’ve got a lot going on the next few weeks.” All truths.

He spits, a huge, brown hued pile behind him. “You’re a cagey motherfucker. It has to do with a chick. Check that shit, bro. Check it,” Tahoe says.

I could argue, but I want his help this weekend. And his tools.

I sigh. “Don’t spit that nasty shit near me,” I snap back. A lot of the guys dip or chew. I find it repulsive. I tried it a time or two when I had to. You’d be surprised at the things SEALs have to do to blend in. The long ass beards and mustaches while deployed are just the tip of the iceberg, what we want you to associate with us. I can be another person entirely. That’s true for me more than other guys. Because I do care about clothing and my hair and vain things most don’t think twice about. I can also go without showering for weeks while rotating two outfits that stay filled with sand, dirt, and sweat.

Tahoe laughs, spits again, farther away this time, and shakes his head. He knows. I’m failing at keeping Teala and our arrangement hidden and it pisses me off. My skin prickles with heat as my hands work. I won’t look at my phone again today. Maybe not even tomorrow either. I decide I’m done for the day and check the fuck out. I head back to my hotel, a five star resort that carries Pappy at the penthouse bar. I dial my mom as I drive the shitty rental car down the long road. When she answers, I put her on Bluetooth. I tell her I’ll be home for a visit the following weekend. She’s so joyful and her voice is so soothing that I go a step further.

“I’m going to bring someone home I want you to meet,” I say. I don’t think I’ve heard her that happy in a long time.

She squeals, screams the news to my father, and then tells me she has to go so she can prepare. What she really means is she needs to go so she can call all her friends and spread the good news faster than burning Chlamydia. Teala will agree. She has to.

What’s that saying? It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask permission?

I hang up the phone and concentrate on the road. It’s not until I get back to the hotel parking garage that I realize I haven’t stopped smiling.