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Back Devotion Save as PDF
Chapters (47)
  1. Cover
  2. Prologue
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
  9. 7
  10. 8
  11. 9
  12. 10
  13. 11
  14. 12
  15. 13
  16. 14
  17. 15
  18. 16
  19. 17
  20. 18
  21. 19
  22. 20
  23. 21
  24. 22
  25. 23
  26. 24
  27. 25
  28. 26
  29. 27
  30. 28
  31. 29
  32. 30
  33. 31
  34. 32
  35. 33
  36. 34
  37. 35
  38. 36
  39. 37
  40. 38
  41. 39
  42. 40
  43. 41
  44. 42
  45. Acknowledgments
  46. About the Author
  47. About the Publisher

THE PERSON CARLOW HAD BEEN RIGHT ABOUT LACKING A sense of guilt was me, to some extent. It was all that isolation of my childhood. All those times I rode my bike down the hill at my dad’s house in the rain alone. It was the lack of expectation that I would ever do anything at all. There was another version of myself in my mind—fat, sitting on a porch somewhere, swatting flies, probably cancerous. She never left town. Nobody felt disappointed in her. Nobody gave a shit. And my old friends, teachers, neighbors, even my own mother didn’t give a shit about me in New York either, not advancing my career, not marrying, not having babies. If anything they probably thought my moving here was pretentious, like I thought the world owed me something more than I’d been handed. Some people were probably disgusted with me, and I liked that, I liked their imagined disgust.

33

THE WAY JAMES WAS WITH ME DIDN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO with Lonnie. He stripped me and turned me over to rub my back, moving his hands up and down the muscles on either side of my spine, his erection brushing between my legs. And then, when I rose and turned back around, he surprised me by slapping my face. It smarted where he hit me, along my cheekbone. I hadn’t been slapped in the face since childhood, when my dad was at his wit’s end. Though I would never hit a child, I felt then that I’d deserved it. I was the child, he was the adult, and I’d failed to listen to his words. I don’t remember what I was doing, but I knew I was being unreasonable, more so than usual, as it wasn’t a regular occurrence. Now, as an adult woman, the sting confused me. Was the slap punishment, as it had been in childhood? I was being bad, sleeping with another woman’s husband, but it seemed to me he was being just as bad, if not worse. I had the urge to slap him back. I brought my hand to his face, but too hesitantly; he grabbed my wrist and in a swift motion, pinned my arm to the bed. I fell back. Held down like that I felt like crying, though it also seemed like some kind of erotic joke. I struggled to figure out what role I was in—he smiled at me as if to say, We are playing, doesn’t it turn you on?

I didn’t cry, though I also didn’t raise my free hand to hit him. Even when he whispered, “You want to hit me?”