Chapter 19

As soon as my head sank into my pillow most appreciatively, my cell phone rang. I immediately bounced out of bed and struggled extracting the phone from my pocket praying it would continue playing Shaft.

"Molly!" I exclaimed.

The second seemed like minutes. "Joe?"

"I'm here."

"I didn't... ?"

"No. I came home alone. I just got in bed."

"So I didn't wake you?"

I chuckled. "A second later and you might have."

"Maybe I should let..."

"I love waking up to you," I told her emphatically.

Hearing her sniffle pained my heart. I waited.

"Everything's changed Joe," she finally said quietly. "I'm not who I used to be. I loved my sanctuary, my escape from the world. But now ... Now it feels empty and I feel alone."

"I'm sorry, Molly."

"Why?"

"You mean why do you feel this way or why am I sorry?"

"I know why I feel this way."

"That's why I'm sorry."

"Do you meditate Joseph?"

"I strum my guitar to relax. It helps empty my mind."

"That might be a bit noisy."

"You chant or something?"

"I hum. I guess that's noisy too. But it reverberates my body and guides my mind away from its busy preoccupations. I need to quiet my mind sometimes."

"Me too."

"It's just ... I felt your absence so much. This afternoon wasn't so bad. I knew we'd see each other and work together. You noticed I was uptight at the studio."

"Unh-hunh?"

"But I didn't freak out, did I?"

"Oh fuck!" I exclaimed. "I didn't even realize! Wow!"

Her chuckle gladdened my heart. "I'm ass backwards, Joseph. I don't need to be alone. I need to not be alone. I need you Joseph. Could you..."

"I'll be there as soon as I can," I told her, filling a pause.

"No. Not tonight. It's late. You're exhausted, aren't you?"

"Right now I'm much less," I argued.

"I talked to Fanny this evening. She called me after you called her to come to the studio. She called me for permission because I wouldn't be there, you know? She's an incredible woman not being jaded after so long in the adult film business with all those fucked up people. I know you got out because of that, because your colleagues depressed you. She was the exception, wasn't she?"

"Yes," I replied contemplatively. "She hasn't an arrogant bone in her body. And when confronted with arrogance, she cuts right through the bullshit. She's not afraid to confront foolish behavior, like when the man or woman comes to work too fucked up to fuck let alone speak lines. I've seen her go right up to the fuck up and ask why he or she is wasting her time and everyone else's. You know how really clever people like Mikhail for instance enjoy flaunting their cleverness by reducing victims to flummoxed idiots. To me she's the wisest woman I ever met, because she realizes cruelty hurts everyone, including the cruel. She's smarter than the smart ass."

"So why did you stop seeing her?"

"The porno business sent me into a depression, Molly. Everyone seemed so self destructive and lost. It reminded me of a girlfriend I had and lost to her demons."

"The coke whore?"

"Carol. Everyone in porn had that lost look. The men looked like the men who used her. And the sex ... It was joyless, mechanical. More and more the distance between fucking and love, between intimacy and cocksucking separated until I started to forget those moments when me and a girlfriend made love. It freaked me out.

"But with Fanny..."

"Yeah. I know. We'd fuck and then we'd make love. That last night before we told Delores about my decision and talked her into representing me in legitimate work, it was really sweet at the end. Probably the best night of sex I ever had until I met you. We were saying goodbye. But ... at that time she reminded me too much of what I needed to escape. And ... as much as I enjoyed her as a friend and lover, I never ... She kept me at arms length, made it clear we could be good friends but never like boyfriend and girlfriend. So ... I guess I needed a girlfriend, someone I could be intimate with and make love to. That wasn't her."

"And did you find a girlfriend?" Molly didn't sound jealous, just curious.

I chuckled. "More a series of women freshly wounded by recent relationships ending, sort of sharing each other's losses I guess. Rebounds."

"Not a good place to start."

"Nope."

"And you never realized Fanny loved you?"

"As a friend, maybe, but ... I think she needed you in my life first, Molly."

"How so?"

"She never told me how fond she was of me, just like I never told her how fond I was of her, because it wasn't safe. She'll always be a free spirit, never to be held down by a conventional relationship. She doesn't want to be caught and trapped. If she finds a new boy toy to play with, she doesn't want some asshole telling her not to. At the same time, she wants to be loved the way I love her and you love her. She needs that closeness, and it hurt because she hadn't had it before except with me I guess. I think this weird relationship got tested recently."

"Tom the boy toy," Molly realized. "You were jealous."

"Sorry."

"No. I think it's cute."

"Don't get any ideas," I joked.

"Nah, I'm not interested in any other boy."

"I hope not."

"But she basically attacked you with her cravings."

"I think it was a test, Molly. Not that she would have thought of it that way. She's definitely not the manipulative type. But I passed the test: I got over it. She saw that. I think it made her really happy."

"So you'll be jealous again?" asked Molly.

"No. It was the timing I think. We'd discovered we loved each other only a day before and for some reason it hurt she would immediately jump on the next big cock. The shock's over."

"You don't think she worried it would end your relationship with her, that you would consider her too much of a ... well ... too much of a slut?"

I laughed. "Too late for that. It might have worried her, but that's the point. She is who she is and damn anybody who would dare to force their attitude on her, even if it's someone she loves and wants to keep loving."

"Anyway," Molly began, returning to the source of the long tangent, "I gave her permission to fuck you without me being there. So obviously you're tired because you're not fucking her."

We laughed. "I'd still love to snuggle up to you, my love," I said.

"You and me both, believe me. We'll have to snuggle our phones tonight I guess."