She took off her beanie then combed her fingers through her straight hair. “This again? Didn’t we just watch this?”
“Shh, it’s almost over…” I stared at the corridor scene I could quote word for word. I barely stopped myself from mouthing out the lines.
“I’m just a fucked up girl who’s looking for my own peace of mind. I’m not perfect.”
“I can’t see anything that I don’t like about you.”
“But you will!”
“But I can’t.”
“But you will…”
When the end credits appeared, I looked at Gray again. I flashed her an apologetic smile for shushing her. Yes, I was annoyed with her, but I knew I was the one being unreasonable. “Sorry, but that ending scene is one of my favorites… Anyway, how was your date?”
“Yeah, you mentioned that before.” She shook her head when I began to move my calves off of her. “No, you’re all warm. Don’t go anywhere.” Her words caused a flutter in my chest. “It was okay. Awful service, but it’s Valentine’s Day, so I was expecting that.”
“It is?” I played dumb and she flashed me a look that told me she didn’t believe my attempt at obliviousness. “Was she nice?”
“Yup.”
“Attractive?”
“Super.”
“You two going out on a second date?” I used my phone as a prop to seem disinterested. I wondered what qualified as ‘super attractive’… She didn’t give an answer, so I repeated myself. “Are you seeing her again?”
“Not sure yet.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, she didn’t seem very into me.”
I squinted at her in incredulity. “I know you said it was a blind date… But was your date actually blind? How could anyone not be into you?”
I really wasn’t making a joke, but she was laughing hard. The sound of her laughter made me smile. My eyes focused on the sprinkling of light freckles on her cheeks and nose bridge… On my face, the tiny sun spots were a flaw, but on hers, they were definitely a feature.
“I don’t think she was. But ‘not sure yet’ ’cause although there wasn’t a lot of chemistry, we made a pact… If we’re both single next Valentine’s Day, we’ll give it another shot.”
“You’re not going to be single next year.”
“Hope not… My twin told me that she needs to approve whoever I’m bringing to her wedding since she wasn’t a big fan of my last ex,” she replied. “Like I’m not looking for a relationship at the moment, but hopefully, I have a girlfriend by next year ’cause if not, she’ll definitely hire an actor to be my date. No way in hell she’d let me bring some random.”
“Worst case scenario, you could always take me,” I suggested as casually as possible. “I know she doesn’t like me… But at least she knows me.”
“She likes you. She’s just an ice queen ’cause obviously, I sucked up all the good traits while we were in the womb. That’s why I’m so amazing.”
“Uh-huh, that’s also why your date didn’t seem into you, right?”
“Nah. I think it was because she could tell I wasn’t very mentally present. Again, I’m not looking for anything. Like trust me, I would’ve preferred staying in with you tonight and watching that sad as fuck movie again… Even if we just saw it last week.”
I bit back a smile. I scrolled through my phone. I hoped the heat I felt on my face wasn’t enough for a noticeable blush to form on my cheeks. “There’s no such thing as too much of a good thing.”
“Truer words have never been spoken, Cass.”
For the first time since I’d heard about her Valentine’s date yesterday, I felt at peace, happy. So, although it was late and I had to work in six hours, I stayed put long enough for her to play a few rounds of her go-to video game. Her colorful, tattooed forearms rested on my bare, pale legs.
Staring at Gray as she gamed, I realized that the answer to my earlier question had been in front of me all along-she qualified as ‘super attractive.’
. . .
Tossing and turning in bed at night? That was something I was familiar with. Tossing and turning on the couch while filming? That was something new to me.
Whenever I recorded adult content, I aimed for efficiency. The less time I spent performing in front of my camera, the less time I’d spend editing on my computer. If I was dating someone new, then I preferred to be wined and dined before things got hot and heavy. But if I was touching myself for a scene..? Then my motto was wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am all the way. The shortest road to the big-O, the one with the earliest ETA? That road was the best one during these R-rated shoots.
Which was why I was getting so frustrated. For the past twenty-odd minutes, I’d been trying and failing to get comfy… It was winter, but the lights on my skin were so warm, I was starting to sweat.
“Fuck it,” I cursed after yet another false start. It was evident that my mind was elsewhere… Fortunately for me, that ‘elsewhere’ was located within Apartment 202’s walls, too.
In just a black choker bra and tight lacy underwear set, I knocked on then opened Gray’s door. She was using her phone on her bed. Her full attention was on me once she looked in my direction though. Her ocean-like eyes traveled up and down my scantily clothed body. She was blatantly staring at my barely covered boobs.
“Why, hello there…” The grin on her face made it clear that she liked what she was seeing. “What can I do for you, Cass?”
Although I was so nervous, I didn’t see the point in vacillating. She did say I could talk to her about anything, so I just went for it. “I can’t film ’cause I can’t stop thinking about how you can hear me through the walls.”
“Oh, no worries, I can run some errands to give you some privacy?”
It was past ten p. m. I had no idea what ‘errands’ she could even do at this time of night. “No need.”
“Uh, alright, what do I do?”
It was ridiculous that she was asking me for directions since at this stage of my life, I was more lost and confused than I’d ever been before. By deferring to me, the blind would be leading the blind… One thing I was sure of though was that we were at yet another crossroads. And it was possible that what I was about to say next would irreversibly alter our friendship for the worse. But after everything that’d happened already, an apocalyptic outcome seemed improbable.
“I want you to watch, Gray.”
. . .
To describe the unfolding, ever-escalating situation with Gray as a slippery slope would’ve been nugatory. This wasn’t the time for caution. It was way too late for me to heed any warnings, to watch my step. ‘Cause I’d already fallen down the rabbit hole… I was only realizing it now, but I’d been well and truly in the thick of things for a while.
Looking back, Apartment 202 had always resembled ‘Alice’s Wonderland’ in that they were both places ruled by madness, governed by surreality. Located in the real world, our two-bedroom apartment’s verisimilitude made it nowhere near as visually arresting as the land of giant mushrooms and smoking caterpillars… But similar to that magical place that resisted all reason, that lost all logic-our home was a constant setting for the bizarre, too. Flawlessly lawless.
We lived in a sprawling city that seemingly had new residential skyscrapers sprouting up every month… But even in an urban metropolis I shared with countless other human beings, I was willing to bet that none of my city-mates’ nights were playing out the way mine was. Like I was 99. 9% sure no one else was editing self-made porn beside her roommate who was (very skillfully) filling in the page of a coloring book.
At our dining table, I was editing explicit footage without any headphones for the first time ever. Despite losing their direct path to my ears, my moans sounded so much louder coming from my laptop’s speakers. Even when I was alone, I didn’t edit videos out loud. Gray, however, had told me she wanted to hear what I was working on. And at this stage, if she asked me for something I could give, chances were, it was as good as hers. Like she could ask me for the literal moon one day and I’d give it my best shot before letting her down.
So, here we were, sitting at our dining table, both doing our own things, while my sex noises resounded in our little home. Our Wonderland and Neverland wrapped up in one… A place that was ours and no one else’s.
. . .
Like everyone said, ‘the road to hell was paved with good intentions.’ Unwilling to repeat what’d happened during ‘Gray appreciation day,’ my roommate was the first person I’d invited to my twenty-eight birthday celebration. I didn’t have a friend group as established as her ‘superhero six.’ But I did have friends whom I loved and wanted to spend the penultimate birthday of my twenties with. This year, I’d kept things simple by inviting everyone I regularly hung out with to our go-to dive bar.
Before tonight, I was so excited to finally introduce Gray to my friends… Especially since for a while now, how much I talked about her had been a running gag within our group. They regularly teased me for my inability to go more than a few minutes without mentioning my roommate ‘out of the blue.’ As if she wasn’t always, always running through my mind.
Anyway, regardless of how I felt, Gray wasn’t art displayed in a museum… I couldn’t tell everyone she’d met earlier tonight to ‘look but not touch.’ Which was why I was in this awful situation in the first place.
Sitting on Apartment 202’s couch were two of my closest girlfriends. Among all the people I’d invited, they were the only ones who’d taken Gray up on her ‘post-party party’ idea. And despite my unremitting hints that the unplanned afterparty was over, they weren’t picking up what I was putting down… Either they were too intoxicated with alcohol or too infatuated with my roommate, but they seemed adamant about spending the night.