Page 37 of Kitten

James kissed my breast. “Lie down,” he said, his voice gentle.

I squirmed. He repositioned our bodies so we lay side by side. I took his hand, led it up and down my ribs until he repeated the motion on his own, his strokes slow and heavy. My limbs needled with the surprise of pleasure. Noticing, he increased the pressure. I inched closer to him, the pressure of his strokes increasing, until I felt his weight solidly, heavy enough to suffocate me, and then, without thinking, I turned and bit his shoulder.

“Hey,” he said, flinching.

“Sorry,” I untwisted my leg from beneath him. “I felt stuck.”

“Better now?”

“I think so.”

“We can stop if you want.”

“Well,” I said, considering it, and other things: our first night here, the sea then lovely and unbroken, the house observing me with watchful eyes. Lou’s voice in my head, coaxing me to see reason: it wasn’t so bad, at least I had James. The last time I saw her, the night of my twenty-second birthday, her tongue purple from the cupcakes. Our legs crossed in the living room, which was also the kitchen, the areas separated only by a large bookshelf, repurposed as an organizer for Lou’s bags and shoes. It would be empty now, the bookshelf, all her things sitting somewhere bigger and better. I didn’t understand why she’d chosen to livewith me when she could’ve picked anybody else. I thought about her job at her uncle’s gallery, conspiring with talented people in beautiful shoes. Maybe she knew she was my only option. She felt sorry for me.

I said, “Let’s keep going, I want to,” and James went inside me with a small gasp from the both of us while I thought about my lack of a place or plan or job. Softly he breathed in my neck while I pictured Silver’s tiny ears, the perfect size of her life. My limbs lolled to the side. “Oh,” he said, and relaxed. “That’s so nice.” “Yes,” I said while he took my arms and bunched them toward my chest. “It is,” and then I thought of the paints again, all that money for only ten tubes. “It’s so nice,” James repeated, holding me. It was useless, I was useless. I was numb and small and at least a little bit happy being more thing than person. Yes, I had always been this way. Yes, Lou was right, a threshold existed, and it had passed below me, or had at least begun to, so that each day I was moving deeper into James’s world, with its knowledge and judgments and objects that could not be unthought or unbought, which was to say that each day I was moving further away from my mother. Not thinking about what was happening did not make it any less real. Yet, I realized with a feeling of having been tricked, confronting it would not stop it from continuing. I only had one option left.

“You feel so good,” James said.

I turned to face him. “Lou moved out, and her cousin is kicking me out of the apartment. I no longer have a place to live.”

James stopped. That was unfortunate; I was finally starting to enjoy it. “You can keep going,” I said. My skin slidagainst his, both of us sweating now. He put his hands on my hip bones and pulled out.

“Wait, what?”

“There’s a fly somewhere in here,” I said. “Is a window open?”

“Lou moved out?”

“Yes, but you don’t have to make a big deal about it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? This is big.”

I reached for my shirt. The new distance between our bodies made me shiver.

“She just ditched you?”

“Well, I was late on utilities, so.”

“How late?”

“Late.”

“I would’ve given you the money.”

“I know,” I said. “If I wanted your help, I would’ve asked for it. I clearly didn’t think that it was enough for her to ditch our four-year relationship.” I was actually upset about this, I realized. My throat closed.

“Okay,” James said. “It’s okay. Do you have a plan?”

I looked at the clock. “You have to leave soon.”

“Don’t worry, I can stay for a while.”

I said nothing.

“Don’t worry,” he repeated. “I’ll help you figure something out.”

I kept quiet, waiting for him to open his mouth. I knew what he would say.