Sitting on the kitchen counter, bright lights in my peripheral vision, I clicked the remote to my camera and the sound of the shutter promptly followed. I moved into a new position, trying to channel sensuality, and pressed the button again. A dozen clicks later, tears collected in the corner of my eyes and my throat bobbed as I swallowed.
I needed to take a break.
This was not working.
With the boys and Robert gone, I was free to take a long shower and get dolled up without drawing suspicion this morning. Planning on doing a photoshoot of myself, I invested more time primping than I had in eons. I exfoliated, shaved, applied smokey eyeshadow for a seductive look, and put on the same red lipstick I had worn to the divorce mediation. I looked sexier than I had in years.
However, as I stood in the kitchen wearing fishnets and high waisted black lingerie, I couldn’t help but feel desperately disconnected from my body. I couldn’t even blame it on ill-fitting clothes because, in the years following my final pregnancy, Robert had purchased me new lingerie. They were all styles that covered my cesarean scar, a subtle detail that I hadn’t missed.
Maybe he thought I was insecure about it, or maybe he thought it was an aesthetic flaw. However, it seemed more probable that my scar was a reminder of a wound he had not healed from. A wound we each ignored and covered with lace, satin, and silk.
Coming around the camera, I hit the button to review the pictures I had taken. The cobalt blue cabinets with the tan leather door covers I made looked incredible. The lighting on my body was perfect. My make-up and lingerie were exquisite, but there was one major problem.
I looked uncomfortable.
The pictures in no way sold that I believed myself to be an attractive, sexy woman. These were absolutely not transformation pictures. My body was different, but my essence was infinitely worse. These images were not the story I wanted to tell with this project. I wanted the woman in these pictures to be more. I wasn’t enough.
I pressed the button to turn off the camera.
This had been a silly idea. To think that a month of house projects would make me into a different person was naive. While the concept of this endeavor was still compelling, it might be years before I would arrive at an emotional space where I could pull it off authentically.
Sighing, I reached for my clothes. Maybe after a cup of coffee I could try again. If I was still unsuccessful, then I would finish up the main bathroom and deactivate the OnlyStans account.
I threw on a deep V-neck shirt and some shabby jeans. They were project clothes, so the pants had a few holes and the fishnet peeked through, hinting at why my hair and make-up were done.
I grabbed my wallet and proceeded down the stairs to walk over to African Java.
The café looked crowded, and I longed for its chaotic energy to dampen the negative self-talk going on inside my head. I noticed the tables were full of people on my way to the door, and my eyes snagged briefly on every suit that I passed by. The bell chimed with my entry, and I made my way towards the counter.
“My oh my,” Claudette said as she passed by me on her way to get a coffee pot, “Someone is done up today! Let me do a refill round and I’ll be right back to help you.”
“Take your time,” I said, admiring the movement of her beautiful finger twisted curls, “I’m not in a rush.”
Standing in the café, I closed my eyes and let the hum of the crowd fill my ears. The distant sound of a man’s rumbling laugh trampled over my feelings of failure. As the sounds filled my head, my mind emptied, finding a place of emotional neutrality again.
A moment of meditative nothingness was just what I needed after putting in so much effort to look pretty, only to find myself inadequate. A coffee break was a good idea.
Eventually, Claudette came back and snuck behind the counter. She bagged a chocolate croissant and then placed a to-go cup of coffee in front of me.
“What’s this?” I asked, but I recognized the order combination immediately. I pulled out cash to pay.
“No need for that,” she gave me a devious grin, “a customer asked me to order it when I was passing by for a refill. It’s already been paid for.”
I stared intently at the order in front of me, mostly to prevent my eyes from looking around the café. My recently achieved zen state vanished as my pulse quickened looking at the items. Longing nostalgia and fear fought for real estate inside my mind.
A chocolate croissant and a medium coffee had been the morning gift I regularly received from Joseph during my freshman year. It was almost impossible for a random stranger to coincidentally order these two things for me. When it came to probability in my life right now, it seemed to be leaning heavily in the direction of laughable torment.
I heard the same laugh that had soothed my fears moments earlier, only to realize that I knew its sound. Now that I was not distracting myself with all the sounds in the café, Joseph’s laugh was recognizable.
He was here. Right now.
He probably saw me walking by the window on my way in.
My lashes were fluttering, the action stopping my eyes from moving to look for him against my will. I took slow breaths as I reached to pick up the goodies.
“Want me to pass a message along?” Claudette asked, her brown eyes filled with vibrant amusement.
“No,” I chuckled uncomfortably, “My divorce isn’t even final yet. I’m not—I’m not ready.”
“Oh?” Claudette said curiously, as if she detected something in between my words, “Not ready to give someone a simple thank you?”
I felt my face flush, realizing that my behavior had tattled on the complicated nuance the situation had.
Both Kendrick and Joon knew who Joseph was. Chances are that Claudette knew him too, but she hadn’t referred to him by name, just as ‘a customer.’ She did not know that Joseph and I knew each other.
But now she probably did.
If I had accepted it without awkwardness, then Claudette might have thought it was a normal moment between strangers. People can buy each other coffee for many reasons, but instead I had made it obvious this wasn’t just some random guy.
Now she seemed to be evaluating my appearance today in a whole new light.
“Pass along my thanks,” I said quickly, grabbing the items to leave.
Claudette cackled and waved goodbye as I sought refuge from her insinuating stare. Goods in hand, I made my way back towards the stairs that led to the apartment.
My legs and my eyes were arguing. Every time I quickened my pace to escape, I unconsciously slowed as my eyes started sliding across every single silhouette in the window. I wanted to get away, but I also wanted to find him, needing to confirm his presence with my own eyes.
Next to the window, at the very last table I was passing, was Joseph. He was sitting with another formally dressed man. Joseph was in a tan suit with a blue button-up shirt. Both men had their ties pulled to the side, likely to avoid becoming a victim of a stray coffee spill. Robert had done the same thing in the suits he wore.
Joseph was leaning forward, reviewing paperwork as he sipped a mug of coffee, nodding absently to his companion. Assuming he was preoccupied, my eyes lingered longer than I should have let them. But as I got close, his gaze shifted to find my eyes immediately.
Had he been acting distracted to give me a false sense of security?
The glance had been so precise. His eyes did not wander to eventually find my face. It was as if he intuitively knew where I was, and found me as quickly as possible. Almost like he wanted to catch me looking at him, the way I used to catch him looking at me.
After his eyes caught mine, they slid to take in my whole appearance before he turned his gaze back to his documents. The moment could have been considered unremarkable had it not been for the fact that he bit his lower lip as he returned to his work.
It was such a stupidly simple thing.
It could have a multitude of different meanings.
However, I had seen that furtive glance and lip bite during the time I attempted to tease Joseph into making a move. I recognized it as if it had only happened yesterday. If it was the same look, could it possibly mean the same thing as it had then? Because—
Back then it had meant that he wanted me.
After all this time, after all of his silence, was he still attracted to me in that way? Could the casual sight of me still be a temptation to him?
My mind brought up the image of our first kiss in the elevator, the breaking point of my patience after all my fruitless teasing. Except, instead of visualizing the moment as it truly was, my mind modified the scene. Joseph was in his tan suit, I was in my fishnets and lingerie, and we were in my elevator. He still pressed me up against the wall, ravenous for me, but this fantasy had no librarian to interrupt us.
My cheeks felt hot as the scene hijacked my mind.
Without realizing it, I was suddenly in the apartment again, the trip up the stairs had no existence in my memory. I placed my café goodies on the floor and immediately went to turn on the camera. Grabbing the wireless remote, I pressed the button to ensure it was still connected.
Click.
Maybe it was cheating, to use his gaze and an erotic fantasy as a crutch. Or maybe this could be a touch stone to guide me back to believing I could be desired. Either way, I wasn’t really worried about it because finding anything to help me remember the forgotten parts of myself was integral to the process of healing.
I had to remember desire before I could move in my body as if I were desirable.
Thinking of him, I slowly began removing my clothes. Remembering the way he kissed me, the way his arm wrapped around my waist as he pulled me to him, and the way his nose felt sliding down my neck as his lips found my collar bone. The tenderness of his kisses was perfectly paired with the way his hands felt as they snuck under shirts and skirts. His touch was firm and soft as his hands sought out forbidden places, and I gasped as he found them.
The shutter clicked as often as my emotions and my body reconnected.
No silence remained because its sound was
continuous.
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