_OceanofPDF

“I don’t want to erase you.”
“You just want to prop up our story. I know. Sure.” She twirled her hand
as if she was weaving my words from the air and throwing them back at
me. “You’re in this world but not of it, right?”
“I’m not—” I stopped myself.
What was I?
I was a man who wanted her to look the way she was supposed to.
I got up and went to the bathroom. There were two countertops, each
with their own mirror, and two sinks. My stuff was on the vanity where I’d
put them the night before. Her stuff was on the other. I scanned it for little
boxes, shiny things, trays with jewelry.
“What are you doing?” she asked from the doorway, just as I saw what I
was looking for in an open contact lens container.
“Sit.” I slid the stool from under the sink and pulled the seat to its
highest setting.
She sat.
“Look up.” I held up the nose ring. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with
here.”
“I can put it back in,” she said, pointing her chin toward the ceiling.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“I know.” I stood over her as near as I could, between her legs. “But I
want to.”
After sliding the narrowest end through the hole in the crease of her
nostril, I closed the ring and took her chin so I could look at my work.
“Better. Now you look like you should.”
“Like a jobless temp wife?”
I leaned down to whisper. “Like my wife.”
I felt her suck in a breath, drawing me closer as she put her hands on my
neck.
“Thank you,” she said, even though I hadn’t done much but slip a ring
into the hole in her nose.
“I want…” I paused to give myself a moment to change my mind—as if
I hadn’t already decided what I wanted from her. “I agreed to help you get
what’s yours, but right now, it’s not about the contract. I want to.”
I knelt on the tile between her legs and ran my hands up the length of
her thighs, to her waistband. “We’re going to wait a few months to settle in,
then we’re going to quietly start the buyout.”