I’ll Believe Anything
It may or may not have been raining, but what I do know is that I hadn’t seen her in two years and I still loved her in places that hurt to remember. She wasn’t perfect and she wasn’t good for me, but she took me places I could never find on my own.
As always, I didn’t even know she was in New York until she called me from our old bar and asked how quickly I could get down there because she needed me to pick up her tab. Five minutes later I was in a cab kicking myself for being so predictable. I tried to reason with myself, but at the end of the day she knows me as well as I do.
Two hours and two martinis later we were back at my place, and she was naked in my shower. I listened to the sound of water and pretended to read by the window until she walked across the room wearing just my old Japanese robe. She climbed up onto my lap and kissed me on the cheek, and I could tell she had been crying. I kissed a few tears and held her until she settled deeply against my body and wouldn’t let go.
She dropped the robe on the floor behind her as she entered my bedroom and I didn’t move for a long time. When I finally followed, I found her lying under the blankets looking out the window onto the streets below.
“Would you believe me if I told you he left?” she asked.
“I’ll believe anything you tell me, even if I know it’s not true.”
“It’s not true.”
“It might be,” I told her as I undressed and climbed into the bed behind her.
He body was warm from the shower and when I kissed the back of her neck she reached back and took my hand. She turned and kissed me slowly on the lips and all those memories came flooding back.
“Will you do all the things to me that I never let him do?” Her eyes were still a bit red, but her breath was quicker, and her body was now pressed firmly against mine.
“I’ll do anything you want,” I told her as I pinned her arms above her head. She struggled against me for just a moment and then let out a sigh when I moved her beneath me. I took a deep breath before I released her hands and kissed her gently on the mouth. I slid the back of my fingers gently down the side of her cheek and kissed her ear tenderly. She moved her hands to my back and dug her nails in before she caught herself and gently began to caress my lower back.
“I love you,” she whispered as I kissed her again, and I knew she almost meant it.
She cried a few more time as we made love that afternoon and I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t cry as well. She was tender like I had never seen before, and with each outpouring of affection her body relaxed even more and her heart beat faster. It took her hours to fully retract her claws, but as the night moved on the tension and tightness slipped from her body, drifted out through the cracked window, and slid down the curb and through the grate to the subway below.
It was the only time she spent the night, and the only time I asked her to stay longer. It was the only time she didn’t mark me, and the only time I used only endearments when I spoke to her.
It was a game just as well, but it was one she needed to play no matter how difficult it was for me to end it. When she left the next day I walked her down to the street and grabbed her a cab. I kissed her softly one last time, and I didn’t go back upstairs until I could no longer see the taxi.
–Guy New York
