When I finally plodded home, it didn't come as a surprise that Skylar was already there, well settled in. It was after eight o'clock. She had been busy too. She had every bowl I owned lined up on the counter and there was a big pot of something simmering on my stove. And it didn't dawn on me what was in there or supposed to be in there hours ago.

"Hey," she greeted me brightly. She shuffled over to me wearing only one of my zip-up sweatshirts and her underwear. I had to dissuade her from coming closer to me with my hands up and an I'm-too-gross wince. She held off, but she did glance at my empty hands. "Do you have the lobster?"

"Shit. Sorry. I forgot."

She did one of those accepting but disappointed nods. "Okay . . . I'll. . ." She played with the end of her hair while she brainstormed through the contents of my kitchen for an alternative main course. Unless she could work her magic with baking soda and ketchup, we were going to have to make other arrangements or go without. At this point in the day, I was opting for the latter.   

"Don't trouble yourself," I said. "We can do takeout, just side dishes, cereal . . . really . . . whatever." Then I headed for the bathroom.

"All right," she replied. Her voice was meek and sad, and that wasn't like her. The feeling I had as I shut the door was heavier than guilt. Why did I have to fuck something else up?

Washing away the day's shit in the shower was a promising step toward redemption. I was in a better mood stepping out than I was stepping in.

When I came out of the bathroom, Skylar was at the counter with her back turned, chopping vegetables. I snuck up behind her and buried my face in her hair and my hands beneath the loose sweatshirt. For the first time all week, something smelled divine . . . her hair, her skin, her aura.

"I'm sorry," I said again, raw, honest, and pretty damn pitiful this time. "Can I make it up to you?"

Her body softened and she leaned her back against me. "Bad day?"

"The worst. But it's better now."

I finally said something close to right. She rewarded me with a deep kiss and let me lift her onto the counter for the full body embrace I really needed when I first walked in the door. The someone in my life who was my everything was happy to see me and quick to forgive me for my shortcomings. And for that I was grateful.

After we devoured the salad, dinner rolls, and coleslaw she had prepared right down to the last scrap, I took a seat on the side of my bed.

I was rolling a joint by candlelight. Skylar was on her knees flipping through my box of records, evaluating the front and back cover of each one. When it was her responsibility to establish "ambiance," it was a painstaking process.

"No disco?"

She looked up at me with a playful glint in her eye because she already knew my answer.

"I don't listen to that shit," I said between my teeth as I lit up.

"Yeah, it's easy to dance to, but that's about it."

I decided it was my turn to dig through the records. I knew exactly what I was looking for, the album that reminded me of her thanks to our road trip and her top-of-the-lungs rendition of "Me and Bobby McGee."

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We made a wrong turn in rural Alabama just before dusk. About thirty seconds after the song was over, I just couldn't take it anymore. So I veered to the side of the dirt road, came to an abrupt stop, and we crossed another state off the list.

"I have trouble believing that you, the dancer, ever have trouble finding your groove. All you need is a little soul. . . ." I set the needle down on Janis Joplin's Pearl and found track two, "Cry Baby."

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My eyes followed her as she rose through the haze of smoke. Then the music began to move her, beginning in her toes and carrying through to her toned thighs. It rolled through her hips and lifted her hands into her free hair. And I was the only one in the world lucky enough to watch.

I leaned my elbows on my legs, took a long drag, and when her arms went high over her head, exposing her underwear and a sliver of waist, I stood to join her. I couldn't dance, not like her, but I was compelled to feel her move. And move she did, right into my wanting hands.

She took the joint out of my mouth to kiss me, deeply, and then she shimmied away, keeping the joint out of my reach. I followed her and grabbed for it, but I was more fixated on the zipper of the sweatshirt. As I lowered it to a much more eye-pleasing location, she took the tiniest of puffs and blew it back out like a peck on a cheek, more for show than anything else.

"It'd work better if you actually inhaled."

"Oh yeah?" She stuck the joint back in my mouth and danced toward me, forcing me to step back. "Trying to give me lessons so I can be cool like you?"

"I could try, but I'm not sure it'll take." 

Her jaw dropped. And she shoved me to the bed for that one. Well, really, she nudged me and I collapsed to her liking.

I ditched the joint and put my hands behind my head, relaxed to the extreme. And when her underwear slid down to her ankles, there was a profound surge in me as well.

Not missing a beat or a tender note of the music, she climbed astride and with a tug on my sweatpants, she exposed me to her revelry. And I unzipped the rest of the sweatshirt, pushing it from her bare shoulders.

Her lips moved up my chest, lingered at my lips, and then kissed their way back down. She took a taste of me to get me wet and then moved on again. She was in no hurry, but I wasn't very good at waiting.

I sat up to anchor her to me with my mouth and hands. I only let go to reach for that frequented canister of condoms, no longer lonely. It was almost in my grip when she slipped me inside of her, bare as the day I was born. My determined fingers went flaccid with both shock and ecstasy. It was impossible to question, to protest, to worry while experiencing every twist and turn of her in mesmerizing detail.

The sex, the music and the way it moved her, and the high of my life. . .  

There would be no better. So I kissed her everywhere I could reach like the world was about to end. And maybe it was. We were on the brink of being torn apart for any number of reasons. But there we were, defiantly together. And I made that matter, and so did she.

We drove each other to climax without restraint, free to do exactly as we pleased to the point we were possessed by it. Then we clung to each other, staying interconnected until our gratified bodies stopped shouting for more.

I reclined to my pillow with her on top of me, her ear pressed to my heart, and I drifted away from myself. There was a moving road ahead of me. On the breeze, I could almost smell the country's fertile soil warming in the sun. Skylar was beside me, holding my hand, and I was driving so fast that no one could catch us. 

When the music and laughter dimmed, the distant sound of weeping filtered in. The last I saw before I opened my eyes was Skylar's smile. But her once bright image was fading into the background of the moving trees.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim of the room, I stroked her hair from her cheek and discovered her tears. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Her sob worsened with a shudder upon discovery.

"Is it something I did?"

She shrugged. "Not intentionally. And not anything I didn't do to myself."

"Well, then, you can't be that mad at me."

"I'm not mad. I'm. . ." BIG PAUSE. "Late."

"Late for. . . ?" I sighed, realizing I was an idiot. There is only one "late" a woman would be crying over. "How late is late?"

I slid out from beneath her and sprang to a sitting position. She sat as well and pulled the sheets and her knees to her chest. "A little over a week."

"But you were sick. Couldn't that change. . . ?" My hand waved as I searched for words. I couldn't even come up with the vocabulary to finish the thought.

"I've considered that, but I don't usually get that sick, or recover so slowly. And I was expecting it a few days before I fell ill. Plus, I feel . . . different."

I swiveled to the side of the bed and pulled on my sweatpants. Then I hunched over and buried my head in my hands. "This can't be happening." 

She stroked a knuckle down my back. "I know you're probably wondering if it's yours. It is. It has to be. Sam hasn't been—"

"I believe you," I interrupted. "I don't want to hear about you and Sam."

I stepped out of bed. I didn't want her to see the mess I was about to become. So I locked myself in the bathroom.

Tears of shock and denial poured from my eyes. Then came the heaving and full body spasms. When the worst of the bodily rejection was over, I looked up from the drain of the sink and into the reflection of my bloodshot eyes. It was hard to believe I was once the dignified son of a king. The heir. The one destined to end wars, not create them.

What I saw instead, what I had turned into, was truly horrifying. I was such a disgrace to my kind and a lousy excuse for a human being too. Fear, over the years, had changed me into something I barely recognized. And that fear had just multiplied by three.

Three, Goddammit!

How much more time did I need before I could face Skylar and talk through our future? I didn't know and would never find out. An angry, persistent knock on the front door whisked my eyes away from the mirror.

~~~

Janis Joplin, Me and Bobby McGee (1971).

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Janis Joplin. Cry Baby (1971).

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