The Other Foot

Chapter Three

That was a strange time for us, the time when Brian was moving to New York to head that office and I couldn’t go with him. I wanted to go, I guess. I just couldn’t right then. I had to finish out the semester.

I wasn’t worried about us at all. I mean, we’d had problems, lots of them and we still fought but we both knew that we loved each other and that we were solid. Besides, I knew that I’d be able to go to New York almost every weekend and that he’d be back most of the times I couldn’t get there. We e-mailed a lot and I think we probably should have gotten our own eight hundred number, we spent so much time on the phone.

I missed him like crazy, though and I know he missed me. I could tell when he called that he was lonely and I know how much he hates sleeping alone. Me, too. I hate it.

I’d gotten so used to going to sleep wrapped around him and waking up with his arms around me that I had trouble sleeping for a while. I don’t know how many times I called him at like two or three in the morning just because I needed to tell him that I loved him. He never got mad at me when I did that.

Oh, he didn’t like being woken up, but he always sounded happy to hear that it was me and, I don’t know—he sounded sort of relieved. I guess he was afraid that I might find another violin player or something.

I didn’t want to, though. I wasn’t looking. I just missed him like crazy and the loft was just too fucking big without him to fill it up.

I missed sex with him and I know he missed it with me. OK, I know, like duh, but it was more than just feeling him inside of me or occasionally being inside of him. It was the connection between us, the closeness that I missed. I tried to tell him that once and he laughed and told me that I’d been spending too much time with the lezzies.

I did, though, I missed that closeness of making love or even just fucking and then holding him and feeling him kiss my neck or something. I missed him pressing up against me in the shower or coming into the kitchen to ask what I was making for dinner this time. I just missed him so damn much.

I’d watch a movie or something on the big screen TV and think about how he would let me use him as a pillow when we were on the couch and how he’s kiss my neck or the top of my head as we just lay there.

I loved it when he did that.

I hated those months waking up in that big empty bed in that big empty loft and knowing that he was like four hundred miles away and I wouldn’t see him until Friday night.

A lot of nights he’d call me just to make sure that I was alright or to ask how my day was going or to say good night to me.

He called me more than I called him, which surprised me. I mean, he was super busy getting settled into the new job and the pressure on him was pretty intense.

New York is a whole different ballgame than Pittsburgh and even though Brian is as Type A as you can get, it was a lot even for him.

You see, it wasn’t just the new job and being in charge, there was a lot more going on and he didn’t want to talk about all of it to me. That’s Brian, though. I know that about him.

One of the things we would do in the beginning of his time in New York was to go house hunting together.

By then we had made the plans for me to transfer to Parsons at the start of the fall semester and that we would spend the rest of the spring and the summer just getting settled into the new place and getting to learn the city.

We looked at all kinds of places and with what Brian was being paid on top of his bonus, we could look at some pretty nice stuff.

I had my heart set on something near the park, but he told me pretty fast that he was just a partner, not a fucking owner and the park would have to wait. Then I thought that it would be fun to own a townhouse on some quiet little street, but they were going for like a million dollars and up, so that idea was dumped.

Well, anyway, after about a month or six weeks of looking we finally decided that the triplex we’d found about four blocks from the agency would suit us, at least for now. It was in a decent sized town house that had been completely restored with the original wood and all of that. There was even a small garden out back that was ours. We had the top three floors with the bottom floor being taken up by a doctor’s office. The business and living floors were completely sealed off from one another and the doctor—a sweet old guy in his sixties— was sort of semi retired with limited office hours, so it was almost like he wasn’t there. Besides, when he was with patients, we usually weren’t even home. It worked out really well.

I had the use of the back half of the top floor as a studio since it had a skylight and big windows facing the back. I loved that place. Brian had the rest of that floor as his office and he’d brought his exercise equipment in there, too.

The floor below was our bedroom and bathroom. Huge and fabulous. You wouldn’t believe the shower. It was double headed and had this sort of bench in there…well, you get the idea.

The main floor had the living room with a working fireplace and the kitchen and another bathroom. The whole place had high ceilings and I just loved being there. There were even trees on the street outside.

Oh, and we could use the roof, too. On nice days I’d sometimes go up there and just hang out or read or paint. It was so great.

It was a really terrific place and we spent most of the summer pulling it together. Brian had sold the loft and most of his furniture and we started with all new stuff.

Oh, yeah—he gave Mom the exclusive listing for the loft. I think the commission went a long way to keeping her solvent that year.

OK, that was the summer, after I moved to New York. The three months I was still in Pittsburgh were hard on both of us.

Sometimes I think that Brian was getting worried about us while we were in the two different cities. I know how badly I hurt him when I had the affair with Ethan and I swear to God that I’d never do that to him again—even if we were breaking up or having really bad problems, I’d never do that to him. I’d come to him and tell him that I’d met someone and that it could become a problem, but I’d never cheat on him like that again.

Never.

I swear that and he knows it. I’ve told him that.

I wish he’d believe me but I know he still worries about it.

He never says anything about it and never brings it up, but I just wish to God that he’d trust me again as completely as he used to—like the way I trust him.

It kills me to know that he has doubts in the back of his mind about us. It really kills me and I don’t know what to do about it other than show him every day how much I love him.

The first time I went to New York to visit him was amazing.

He met me at the airport and took me back to the hotel he was staying at since we hadn’t even started to look for a place of our own yet.

It was the fucking Plaza Hotel. I mean the fucking Plaza right on the corner of Central Park South and Fifth Avenue and the two agencies were paying for it. We went in and I could hardly keep my hands out of his pants in the elevator up to his—our—room and he was laughing and we were both so damn happy.

So we got to the room and he was pulling my shirt off and his hands were like fucking everywhere. I remember that we were naked on the bed and he was on top of me and he was on every inch of me with his mouth and his hands and even his feet. He was rubbing his chest across mine and his cock was pressing against me and I almost couldn’t stand it because we hadn’t been together in almost two weeks.

God—it was incredible. Even after he came he just kept moving on top of me and kissing me almost like he was in some kind of a trance or something and then I came and he came again and this time I started laughing and he called me a twat and kissed me. Half an hour later we moved things to the shower and when I caught a look in the mirror I saw all these hickey’s on my neck and my chest and I hadn’t even noticed when he was doing it because I was just so into the whole thing.

It was like he was trying to mark me or something and the whole weekend he could hardly take his hands off of me—even just walking down the street he held my hand and when we went to his new agency so that I could see it, he practically raped me in his office when no one was there.

It was like he couldn’t get enough of me, he was saving up memories or something for when I wasn’t there and like he couldn’t stand to have me more than a few inches or feet away from him, almost like he was afraid of something.

Later, on Sunday afternoon when he took me to the airport to leave he kept looking at me with an odd expression on his face. It was—I don’t know, it’s hard to explain, but it was like he was looking for some kind of answer or something, or like he was trying ask me a question and couldn’t…or maybe he was afraid of the answer.

I knew what he was thinking, at least I thought that I did, so I kissed him at the gate and told him that I love him and told him not to worry, that I’d be back the next weekend and I’d call him later that night.

He hugged me then, which isn’t like him surrounded by strangers in a public place like that, but he did. He hugged me so hard and he kept his arms around me. I could feel that he was upset about something but he wouldn’t say anything and when I was going to break the hug he tightened his arms so that I couldn’t.

I just said “Brian?” and he didn’t answer, just shook his head with his arms still holding me.

Finally, a couple of minutes later they were calling for boarding so he lowered his arms took a sort of shaky breath and whispered that he loves me.

That’s what threw me.

I know he loves me and I know that he missed me as much as I missed him, but it was weird to have him come out and say it like that in front of everyone—especially a bunch of staring breeders.

I knew that he was under a lot of pressure and that the separation was hard on both of us, but that was when I realized that there was more going on than he was letting on.

I started wondering if there were problems with the merger or if his job was in any danger. God, Vance could be such a prick.

I had to get on the plane then but I told him that I loved him and that I’d call him later. I kissed him, he squeezed his hand and I left.

The whole flight I wondered what that caused his reaction and I realized that he was worried about us. He was worried that I’d find some twink to fill the time while he was gone, until I could get to New York.

Fuck.

I knew that. Better than anyone I knew that. Under all that armor and under all his masks and behind all his walls, Brian is as scared as anyone that he’ll screw up or get hurt and—shit—I was the one who had hurt him the last time.

As soon as I got back to the loft I called him and we talked for like an hour and a half.

I told him how much I loved him, how much I was looking forward to being together in a new place with him. I told him how I slept with his pillow so that I could smell him and I told him that he had nothing to worry about, that I wasn’t looking and I just wanted him.

I even told him that I knew I’d screwed up the last time and it wouldn’t happen again. I promised him that. I told him that he didn’t have anything to worry about on that score.

Anyway, after we finished with all that I think he was feeling a little better.

I told him how much I loved him and he told me that I was being a Goddamned drama queen again and that I should get my beauty sleep. Then I teased him and told him that he didn’t need his since he was always beautiful and he laughed and said “Fucking A”.

It was OK.  

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