11
Night sweats
[Hank]
We go at it again after a brief reprieve. This woman needs some taking care of. Rest. Repeat. Finally, we only rest, tangling with one another. I’m a sound sleeper especially on my back as she sprawls over me. I want to tuck her into a ball and hold her to my chest, but I also like the feel of her blanketing me, draped over my heart beat.
Suddenly, she stirs, shaking me.
“Hank, someone’s here.” When I come to full consciousness, it takes me a second to remember where I am and how we got here. I warn my brain not to think of Kit, but it can’t stop itself. Kit and I never had sex at her place. All her secrets were hidden there, and she never planned to share them with me just as she never shared her heart.
“Hank, I think someone’s here,” she repeats.
“Breaking in?” I’m groggy, but I’m slowly detecting the whispered panic in her voice.
“No, as in one of my boys.” It takes me a second to register she means one of her kids and not a collection of men waiting for a turn with her. I bristle at the thought of others touching this sweetness. Pressing over me, Midge pushes off the bed and grabs a robe from her bathroom.
I hear her patter down the stairs and wonder what I’m supposed to do. I’m sprawled out, naked as the day I was born on her bed, so I decide to dress. The only problem is my shirt is still downstairs. Her kid meeting me like this would be super awkward, but seeing as I plan to meet her kids, I slowly tiptoe down the steps.
“Elston, what are you doing here?” Midge asks her oldest son.
“Dad and I had a fight. I don’t want to stay on the boat with him.” Midge told me earlier how her husband decided he didn’t want to be a husband one day and went to live on a friend’s boat for a bit. The bit turned permanent, and the boys visit him there.
“Does Dad know you’re here?” I don’t hear a response from her son, but she adds, “I’m not getting involved. You need to call him. Let him know where you are and that you’re safe.” I didn’t have a mother I remember, so the sound of Midge’s concerned tone pinches at my chest. I don’t have a child to worry about like she does, and that wrenches the pressure tighter.
“I’m not talking to him,” Midge stresses, but suddenly, she speaks cheerfully. “Yes, Paul, he came home.” Pause. “No, I’m not getting into this with you. I’ll talk to him and talk to you tomorrow.” Pause.
Her son snorts, and it sounds strangely like the noise she made earlier tonight. I shake my head at her thought process. Where did she come up with the hot dog in a hallway thing?
“Good night, Paul. I’m hanging up now,” she says, and I suddenly think I have an idea of where her insecurities come from.
“What happened?” She redirects, her voice lowering, and I feel guilty for eavesdropping.
“He thinks I’m seven instead of seventeen. Everything is football even though the season is over. USC this and USC that. He hates how I want to go to school back home.”
“This is home.”
“No, Illinois is.” Silence follows, and a stool scrapes the wood floor. I picture the layout of her kitchen in my head.
“Honey, you need to talk to him. Work this out with him.”
“Why? You didn’t.”
“Elston.” His name mixed with a sharp intake of breath makes me not care for this kid, and he’s about to meet me, like it or not. I creep down to the bottom step when he continues.
“That’s not what I mean. I just mean, you eventually let him go, so why can’t I?”
“Sweetheart, it’s different. He’s your dad. He was beyond loving me, but he’ll never give up on loving you.”
Silence follows. A stool scrapes again. “Head to bed, honey. Get some sleep.”
This is my cue to crawl back up the stairs like a dirty little secret, especially if the kid comes upstairs first.
“Hey, who’s shirt is this?”
Shit.
“Oh, that’s where that went,” Midge says, her voice too high. “I was trying it on and set it on the stool. It must have slipped to the floor.”
“This is a guy’s shirt.” Silence.
“New fashion statement. Get some sleep, babe.”
“Mom?” her son teases. “You’re turning pink.” I want to smile until I hear her response.
“It’s nothing, honey. Now, get to bed.”
And that’s exactly where I return, feeling like what she said—nothing.
Sitting on the edge of her bed with my elbows on my knees, I wait for her. Old feelings having nothing to do with her return like a blow to the head. She turns the corner, enters her room, and closes the door.
“You’re dressed,” she whispers.
“You have my shirt.” The observation is snappy and sharp. She dangles my dress shirt from her finger by the collar, like it’s trash, like I am. I reach forward and rip it from her, hastily shrugging it over my head as it remains buttoned.
“Hank?”
“Time for me to go, right, cupcake?”
“Hank, this is so awkward for me.” She steps toward me, but I stand, my height towering over her. “I’m sorry about Elston. He isn’t supposed to be here.”
“Did he go to his room?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll let myself out.” My tone chills the air between us. I don’t reach for her. My fists curl into balls at my side.
“Why are you being like this? What did I do?” Her shrill voice cracks with strain, but the sound remains quiet enough not to give away that a man is in her house. I’m suddenly not feeling considerate.
“Can’t do something to nothing.” Fuck being somebody’s someone. It never works that way. She blinks, her eyes going wide and glowing like they did in the candlelight long ago. I’ll add it to the memories of women I need to forget.
“Hank?” She still doesn’t get it, but she doesn’t need to. I’m lost in my head because getting kicked to the curb is all too familiar for me. Sweat dots my brow. A distant need for a drink creeps through my bloodstream. Clutching at her chest, clasping the robe closed, she steps forward. She’s too close. “I don’t want you to go. Not like this.”
“This is the way it rolls.” I lie, my chest clenching. I step around her and leave while making as much noise as possible.
+ + +
We work Sundays. The garage is our church. Plus, it works best for our customers. I’m elbow deep in grease with my arms shoved under an engine when Chopper calls my name.
“Hank. Yo, woman’s here to see ya.”
What the fuck?
My first hope is Midge, but I can’t see her. I’m still too raw after the other night. I mean, I came like I’ve never come before, that I remember. I saw stars. My toes curled. But the sad thought is I can’t remember most orgasms I’ve had with a woman. Were they all as incredible as I thought with Kit? Or did I just build her up to be something, someone? Midge’s voice filters through my brain.
I want to be somebody’s someone.
Me too, I think.
Midge made me feel this way for a few minutes. She had this effect on me. I don’t fault her kid for coming home—I recognize she couldn’t help it—but I am disappointed. However, being in her bed wouldn’t have been the best way to meet her child. Midge is a lady, not some hussy taking guys to her bed with her kid in the next room. She’s good, and clean, and smells sweet—not smoky, and musty, and used like rock chicks can be. Like Kit could be. I realize leaving was all on me. I overthought, and I sigh as Chopper calls my name again.
“I’m coming,” I bellow, the double entendre not lost on me. My head screamed it while I filled a condom enough for it to leak. Midge did that to me. My heart races as I’m suddenly hoping it is Midge here to see me.
I cross into the lobby and stop short.
“Stephie?”
“Hey Hanky. Haven’t seen you around for a while. Then we crossed paths at the party. Thought I’d track you down. See if you were up for a hit.”
Shit. I don’t need this kind of thing here. Her here. Why can’t history leave me alone lately? “I don’t do that anymore.” I scrub at my scalp, forgetting about the oil on my fingers. Stephie’s nose scrunches as she takes in my dirty hands.
“Just one little hit. I’m good for it.” She steps closer, and my life flashes before me. Kit. Her needs. Her way of getting me to do things.
“I’m not on that path anymore.” My hands shake. Her face pinches again, but she reaches for my belt, curling her fingers inside the waist.
“Hanky, please,” she purrs. Her pouty lips are too red. Her eyelids layered in bright blue powder. I can’t even describe what she’s wearing because it hardly covers anything. Did I fall for this before? Did I fuck Stephie when she wanted drugs from me? When I had drugs in me? I tremble with the thought or, rather, lack of memory. Maybe?
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m not into that anymore. I can’t even tell you who is.” This goes against my training. I should be helping her like I’d help some kid at the center, but Stephie is too close to me, to my history. Some people I can’t help. It took me a long time to realize that—in both others and myself.
“Not you, too?” she whines. “Look at Tommy. Now, you. Denton will be next. What happened to all of you?”
Mentioning our old mate, who refuses to speak to either of us, stabs my gut.
“Life,” Brut says from behind me. “Get your own.” He scowls at the washed-up, needy groupie, desperate for old times. Brut’s eerie eyes linger. He’s stronger than I am in so many ways, and his voice projects his strength at the moment.
“Get out of my garage,” he demands, and I relax a little. My big brother. Always fighting battles for me.
“And who are you, handsome?” she trills, turning her wasted seductive sound on Brut.
“No one you need to know. Now leave.”
The bell to the front door pings. Stephie turns to see who the next witness to this dog and pony show will be, and then swivels back to me. Her expression hardens as if a thought occurs to her, and she spins for the woman behind her.
“I know you,” she meows, swaying her hips as she sashays toward Midge, who holds a Styrofoam cup. “You did him in the bathroom. How’d you get to him to score? Blow job?”
Fucking bitch. Midge’s eyes open so wide, I’m positive they’ll pop out. Brut rounds me for Stephie, gripping her arm and dragging her to the door.
“All right, that’s enough. I see you again, and you’re leaving in cuffs.” He pushes the door with one hand while he yanks Stephie toward the lot. Midge silently stands to the side and stares after them through the front glass.
“Midge?” I choke, afraid to look at her, yet knowing I’ll crumple if she doesn’t look away from the scene outside.
Her voice shakes as she speaks. “I thought I’d bring you the coffee I owed you the other night. But I see that you’re busy.” Forget Stephie. Forget Kit. Midge is the one who will break me.