Page 51 of Dirty Like Seth
Like I was doing now. Like I’d done every waking minute lastnight.
I’d definitely forgotten, somehow, how potent it was to be around her. How potent she was. Sexy… all strength and vulnerability. That hot-cold thing that had always intrigued me, secretly confounded me and made me wonder about her… How she could burn like a thousand suns onstage, and then act so damn cool off ofit.
And how I’d always been drawn to those two conflicting sides of her—in equalmeasure.
I’d almost forgotten, even, how I’d let myself fantasize about her… about touching her, just once, to feel that fire ignite betweenus.
How I’d pictured her, taking off her clothes for me, slowly, baring herself to me, letting down herguard.
Letting herself be vulnerable, withme.
Choosingme.
That fantasy had gotten me so fucking hard the first time I’d really thought it through, suddenly, late one night on the tour bus… it had scared the living shit out ofme.
Scared me… but didn’t stopme.
I’d jerked off in my bunk thinking about her that night, and for a long while afterward, jerking off thinking about Elle had become a habit. That was just after Dirty had hit the road in support of our debut album, and just like so many of my habits in those days, it was deeply dangerous and self-destructive.
I’d even fucked other girls, back then, thinking about her. Blonde girls. Girls who, if I was just wasted enough, reminded me ofElle.
I’d rationalized to myself that what I was doing was for the best. That it was necessary, even. So I didn’t bring any of that misguided lust into my life with the band; with Elle. I’d just screw it out and no one ever had toknow.
A man was entitled to his fantasies, right? It didn’t meananything.
And yet, itdid.
I could see thatnow.
I could see how blind I’dbeen.
It wasn’t like I’d totally forgotten about that particular crush… yet I’d managed to convince myself that it was just another fucked-up thing I’d done at a fucked-up time in my life, and swept it under the drug abuserug.
I’d more or less pretended it didn’thappen.
But itdid.
And I’d never really examinedit.
It was probably the only thing from that time period that I hadn’t talked through, in depth, with my sponsor. On my path to sobriety and living chemical-free, I’d talked to him about everything. I’d talked to him aboutJessa.
But not aboutElle.
Instead, I’d managed to downplay my attraction to her in my own mind. To convince myself it nevermattered.
And yet, somehow… it reallydid.
And now I’d seen her nearly-naked… and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. That bikini she was wearing… It was some kind of really loose knit, and through the holes… yeah, I’d seen her. Pretty much all of her. And it seemed to be changing everything. Shifting the Earth beneath my feet in some seismic upheaval, unsettling and resettling my relationship with her so that it felt all weirdly off-kilter.
I knew it wasn’t just that I’d seen her likethat.
It was that she’dletme see her likethat.
Maybe she wasn’t expecting me to come strolling along while she was on the patio, but when I did, she didn’t exactly run away screaming, or even cover up. She looked flushed, a little embarrassed, maybe, but not in a bad way. More like in a self-conscious way, the way you looked when you knew someone was looking at you, but youwantedthem to look atyou.
And then she checked me out. Slowly. Or at least, it felt slow to me. Maybe because it was something I’d wanted so long ago, but believed would never happen, and now that it was happening, I’d only been able to process it thatway.
Fuckingslowly…
