Him

Him is part of a series of essays/short stories from a body of work I am writing entitled Butterflies Crossing Highways. Additional stories will be added here as they are written and completed. Thank you for reading.

He waited outside of her apartment in his truck. She came out, nervous, deep brown hair with flecks of gray swept to the side and in a natural wave. She wore a vintage white tank top to accentuate her tan and confidence.The confidence she had little of so a white tank top was clearly the solution to her challenges with confidence. For as long as she could remember, she found most of her solutions and faux confidence in visual appeal and validation. In clothes. In lipstick. In the materials that covered her. In approval. The opinions of others and approval rendered her life rarely as her own until now or so she wanted to believe
She knew why he asked to pick her up. She knew what was going to happen once they arrived at his apartment. She got in his truck and he kissed her on the mouth. It consumed her. His lips. His hair. His skin, which she wanted to taste even though she knew it would be the worst choice she could make. She imagined their first kiss at her apartment, where he picked her up and she asked him to put her down, cringing and wanting to cry but she stayed strong and made the request in his ear so he couldn’t look in her eyes. The fact that a man would pick her up in a moment of passion, or attraction seemed so unrealistic that she had to say something. She didn’t deserve to be swept or fantasized about. He put her down and took her by her hand, up the stairs to her bedroom they walked and laid down on the bed - kissing.
They drove in silence, up the long, winding, flower lined, never ending street to his apartment. She replayed their first kiss. It lingered in the silence. He stopped the tuck and pulled over to go into a store, coming out with beer. He opened the car door, leaned in and placed a six pack on her lap. He said, “we might want these.” She was silent, smiled and looked away. She didn’t even like beer. 
They arrived at his apartment. Before he put down the beer he closed all of the shades. “There’s no privacy,” he said, frustrated and short. She was silent, smiled and looked away. They moved to the kitchen add she took a seat while he went to the bathroom. She thumbed through stacks of cookbooks, cookbooks she imagined using with him. How silly. Who cares if he didn’t know she didn’t like beer? That she knew nothing about him either, nothing of his values or substance, morals or history. She always fell in like with potential. Her downfall. Her patterns. She heard the sound of him brushing his teeth - water running and her anticipation growing. She was already wondering whether or not they would speak again after tonight, if he would continue to message her and kiss her mouth.
He came out to the kitchen and sat in the chair next to her. He said “it’s good to see you, I’ve been waiting all day for this,” stroking her left thigh, touching her knee, working his hand down her calf, to her ankle - holding his hand there and removing her shoe with his other hand. His hands made their way up her legs, uncrossing them and opening them slightly. Now her legs were parted and she grew more nervous. He made his way down her other leg to her calf, to her ankle, to her foot to remove her other shoe. He moved his chair closer to her so they were facing one another, knee to knee, and he parted her legs again. They kissed. He tasted like mint. He stopped and whispered in her ear “you make me nervous,” but she couldn’t imagine why. She thought so little of herself that she couldn’t imagine why. In her mind she thought about what he might think when he saw her naked. A pile of loose skin, silicone and stretch marks, covered by a white vintage tank top. Her thighs sweat and got nervous under her terracotta pants, and she shuttered thinking about the sag in her right leg. She bit his lip. But she kept kissing him. He smelled like summer, the taste of the salt from the skin of his neck on her tongue. She promised herself this would be the last time. There was attraction and her hunger to be seen as pretty, attractive, acceptable enough to sleep with - if even once. “How sad?,” she thought to herself, but she didn’t want to stop. He kissed her neck and she forgot about the promises she made to herself. The promises to change. Break a promise to someone else, never, but to herself …ok.
Years of intoxicated sex - far from intoxicating sex - and tonight she found herself sober, beers untouched, and wanting to forget herself. He continued to stroke her leg and looked into her eyes with his bottomless brown eyes, thick with thoughts, anticipation, questions, and skin like chocolate. She knew nothing about him. She stopped caring. He took her by the hand as they went to his bedroom. She hoped maybe he’d call.