The Reaction I Always Have

Businesspeople stay at classier places. Vacationing families stay at cleaner places. The homeless looking for a temporary refuge stay at cheaper places. Which leaves really only a couple of reasons for anyone to come to this run-down old motel. That said, it seems appropriate that the little soaps in the bathroom have been reproducing during the night. At least I assume that’s why there’s two more of them than last time I looked.

I don’t like to shower right after he leaves every time, but I can’t have the distraction of his scent hanging around me all day. Construction work isn’t the safest job in the world even when you’re not stopping at random moments to moon over someone who’s by now far off.

Far off in more senses than one, since it isn’t just that he lives in a city half an hour away and only comes to this dumbass little town to see me. There’s a wife and some kids and a normal, upstanding, heterosexual life in there somewhere too. It doesn’t matter that I’m not working today; I don’t need that thought, which his scent always leads to, hovering around me in any case. Too fucking depressing.

I always take a cold shower the morning after. I’ve found it’s just a good idea. And I never use the little soaps, which are creepy for reasons other than that their numbers have doubled since I last looked.

Sometimes — a lot of the time — I think it would have been better if we’d never met. If his car hadn’t gotten a flat that day just in the right spot for me and some of my co-workers to help him out, if I hadn’t caught his eye for whatever reason.

None of the times I think that are when he’s actually here.

You might take me for a gay stereotype if you saw how long I spend washing my hair, but it’s really only in this motel. At home it’s just an in-and-out thing, but here I’ve got a cold, empty room to face once I’m finished; there are some things a guy’s just not strong enough for, embarrassing as that is to think about.

I never know when he’s going to show up; it’ll be some day like every other, and near the end of my shift I’ll look over and see him on the other side of the chain-link rent-a-fence around the construction site… just standing there smoking, waiting for me.

The other guys think he’s my parole officer. In another situation, that might be hilarious.

It’s the weirdest mix of emotions, the reaction I always have to seeing him. First — and, yeah, I’m aware that’s significant — it’s this rush of happiness like he’s my best friend I haven’t seen in years, even though he’s just a fuck-buddy I might have seen a week ago.

Second, of course, there’s the arousal. The first time we slept together, it was some novel one-night stand for me — not every day this kind of bum snags a hot P.I., is it? — and some sort of stress-relief for him — for his purposes, I could have been anyone — but there’s no denying that we turn each other on, and seeing him there by the fence where he wasn’t the last time I looked is a jolt like nothing else.

Next it’s this intense irritation, because it also brings up every last bit of confusion and guilt I feel each time I think about him and this situation — not to mention he’s always got on this aloof expression like he’s better than everything he’s looking at, or this self-satisfied smirk that’s just annoying.

And then, after that… well, did I mention confusion and guilt?

It’s confusing because when I get off work, we spend the rest of the day together. I don’t remember when that started or even really why; we used to just head straight for the motel, because it’s not like we get along all that well outside it. But now we sit around at some stupid restaurant talking about what happened that day and that week and what’s going on at work — his is always way more interesting than mine — and whatever else might come up… sometimes it seems like we’re not talking about anything at all, and we argue over most of it anyway, but we’re always saying something.

The guilt’s a little more complicated. He doesn’t love his wife, and things never go smoothly at home; I don’t think they have for a while. He doesn’t talk about his family much, but when he does I get the point: they’re only still together for the sake of the kids. But they are still together. The problem isn’t really on my end, though. I’m too selfish to feel all that bad because I’m ‘the other woman’ or whatever you want to call it, and sometimes I just wish they’d get a fucking divorce already and end all the drama.

No, the problem arises from his unshakable code of moral absolutes: it’s wrong to cheat on your wife; end of story. It’s another thing he doesn’t really mention outright, but as much as I’ve talked to him by now, I can tell. He hates what he’s doing with me, hates or at least is angry at himself for it. But he keeps doing it anyway: purposely taking a route that’ll bring him by this town on every job, even when it’s out of his way; planning slightly longer trips just so he can come here and see me unsuspected… come here and fuck me…

And the next morning I get up and head straight for the shower without looking behind me at the other side of the bed or around me at the room, unwilling to admit yet that it’s painful to wake up alone… that it’s painful to think maybe he leaves so early each time because he can’t stand to look at me and think about what he’s doing wrong. And I try to keep myself from imagining what it would be like if there was no wife waiting at home, no kids that need two parents…

I guess I should be flattered that I seem to be worth breaking the rules so consistently for, but really all I feel is a little sick when I think about it. Because one of these days I know he’s going to tell me this was the last time, and he’ll just be doing what he believes he should have done long ago, doing the right thing — so I won’t be able to argue with that, because it would hurt him if I did. Or, worse, he won’t tell me anything and’ll simply never show up again. And I’ll live out my meaningless life in this boring town glancing over to the fence to see if he’s there, and he won’t be… and I’ll keep telling myself that if I just look one more time, he’ll be there… that he’s just been busy but today’s the day…

All right, yeah, so maybe I love him. God dammit, how the hell did this happen.

Motel wash-rag’s like sandpaper, but at the moment I kinda like it. It’s distracting, and I spend a couple of minutes just scrubbing at random parts of my body watching my skin turn red. I almost wish I could bleed. But I don’t really go in for all that emo shit — my hair won’t comb down over my eyes anyway, even when it’s wet — so I might as well just get out and face the music. Face the empty depressing motel room, I mean.

And, you know, the long shower’s actually made it worse today. Why did I have to fucking realize I love him just now when he’s already gone, when I’ve acknowledged he may never come back? I’m an idiot, that’s why. He calls me that sometimes, and I guess it’s true. Fucking worthless idiot.

“Were you trying to use up all of their hot water?”

These words, the smell of fresh cigarette smoke, and the bafflingly unexpected sight hit me simultaneously as I exit the tiny bathroom, and I find the rough white towel slipping from my suddenly weakened fingers to cover my bare feet on the cool, hard carpet. And I can only stand and stare.

He smiles; it’s the same look as always, but there’s added to it something more personal than I’ve ever been privileged to see before: it’s a much more private, inclusive smirk that, as soon as my utterly stunned brain manages to get control of my motionless body again, draws me inexorably to where he’s lying casually on the bed.

“You’re still here,” I state inanely as I slide across the cheap sheet to his side.

“This is your day off, isn’t it?” He seems to be enjoying my shock, the bastard. “My wife’s not expecting me home until tomorrow morning.”

And somehow, “Why?” is all I can come up with to say.

He raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t I tell you yesterday? My case took an entire day less than I’d expected.”

Is that statement entirely honest? Or is it his way of saying he planned ahead to spend the day with me? I don’t have the nerve to ask. I can’t yet bring myself to tell him what I’ve realized, because what if that’s the catalyst for him to end it? I don’t think I could bear to tell him and then have him walk away forever.

I shift into a better position for a long, slow kiss, and he reaches blindly for the ash tray on the bedside table before slipping his arms around me. The hot, ecstatic feeling of having him here, still here, here with me, ready to spend the day with me, perhaps even by prearrangement, leaves little space for other thought: for the moment I’m so full of joy I can’t help thinking that someday he’ll get things worked out on his end, we’ll get rid of the fence, and he’ll be mine for real; we’ll make this room and this motel and this town and this two-edged situation just an ambivalent memory.

This story, which I’ve rated , was for 30_kisses theme #25 “Fence.”