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It only ever happened twice, despite what one might be led to believe. The sex thing. Or, rather, the not-sex thing. The sex-adjacent thing. Roman jerking off in bed, his cheek mashing a sheen of sweat into a phone screen. Fucking his hand in a bathroom, the other hand pressed against a closed door. Fingers grasping nonsensically around the air like it could turn to flesh at any moment. The old money marble tile cold under his feet.
Roman has a shitty memory in general – from his childhood trauma, as his bonehead therapist would have him believe – but not for this, his thing with Gerri. Every single second is etched permanently onto his brain. Cognitive scar tissue. It’s what makes it so hard (ha) when it just… never happens again.
Because here’s the thing, right. Everything comes in threes – death, billy goats, witches. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen. And now that they’re at two, Roman waits for the other shoe to drop. Waits a damn long time, through weddings and funerals and shareholders’ meetings. Waits so long, in fact, he’s forced to accept there was never any second shoe to begin with. Just some poor peg-legged motherfucker.
Okay, so Gerri was doing it for laughs then. Shits and giggles, if you will. He can live with that. He can go back to being some pseudo-asexual pervert who jerks himself off with the insults of the day ringing in his ears, alone in his stupid empty penthouse apartment. Sure. Business can be all the fucking he needs. Who cares about the emotionless core of it all? He’s not about to cry over something so childish as feelings.
But then months go by and he starts to rethink the hands-off bullshit, the futile CEO-ness of it all. What does he think he’s playing at, aiming for king of an empire his father’s not keen to give up – no way, not in a million years, over his dead body, etc. etc. Sure, Gerri’s gotten him where he wants to be, snug in his dad’s pocket, but at what cost? Gerri doesn’t even talk to him, except to hand out nuggets of business advice. Like fortune cookies, crisp white in their hard little shell.
Who could blame him for getting desperate? This certified MILF saying all these horrible things to him, making him actually, truly turned on for the first time in his whole miserable life. It’s more than enough to make a man do some crazy shit.
So he starts sending her pictures. Gets some toxic combo of drunk and bored and horny one night and snaps one measly iPhone photo of his dick. And sends it to her. Oopsies. These things happen.
Gerri responds with, Are you fucking kidding me, Roman? You’re disgusting.
It’s almost exactly what she’d said to him before. When, well. Needless to say, he takes it as an invitation. She doesn’t stop him.
Then comes Italy. Then comes the deal and his dad dying and the family falling apart. Thus begins the fall of Rome.
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After the funeral, Roman tries to die. Not in a showy way. Can’t tarnish the company’s reputation after all – and by extension, the man who made it. It’s hard to be so honor-bound to something that – literally, palpably – does not exist. Or it would be, to someone else, some poor schmuck from nowhere and nothing. Roman was raised in the life. Weaned from the tit straight onto a diet of stocks and shares and fiscal quarters. He’s not the captain and so he certainly can’t take the ship down with him.
Roman is 34 years old, and that’s surely enough life for anyone, except maybe God. Except Dad. He’s done way too much shit already than he can even come close to absolving in another fifty to sixty. It’s over for him. He’s done.
The thing is, he’s too much of a pussy to do it himself. The thought of taking a gun or a handful of pills and shoving ‘em down his throat is easy, doable in theory. But actually doing it requires a surety he’s pretty sure he’s never possessed even once.
The opportunity, as most things do, gracefully presents itself to him the day they put his father in the not-ground.
He’s seen the ATN pieces, knows how vicious and bloodthirsty these democratic socialist radical feminist gender-fucked trans-whatever people can be. Roman might be operating under the influence of sketchy pills and overwhelming grief, but even his little peanut brain can see how easy it would be to end it like this. Get out there, get trampled. A tragic accident, heir apparent to the Roy family fortune publicly slaughtered by a group of commies. If Mencken didn’t have the vote already, this would surely put him over the edge.
The reality, Roman is often dismayed to learn, is far less sexy than the fantasy. Sure he catches a stray elbow or two. But the angry mob, despite his best efforts, does not live up to its reputation.
It’s enough embarrassment for one day to make him consider killing himself for real. Cutting out the pussy bullshit and taking a nosedive off his balcony. One-way ticket away from this bullshit life he’s been living in lately. He stumbles home with a sick, pulsing headache and thanks a god he doesn’t believe in that his father died before he could see his fuck-up son hit rock bottom.
What Roman Roy, idiot extraordinaire, fails to take into account is how many miles it is between here and where he wants to go. No car, no driver. No public transit card or, really, any idea of how to use one if he had it. His headache is pushing into concussion territory – nausea, dizziness, blurry vision. All in all things are, as one might say, shaping up to be a total clusterfuck.
The worst thing is there’s no one to call. His dad? Dead. His stupid siblings? Sure, yeah, let them come watch him cry again. And maybe puke this time, just to spice things up. Roman doesn’t have friends. Not like that, not the kind of people with kindness in their hearts and a sofa bed to crash on. He’s utterly, pathetically alone.
Unless, a tiny voice in his brain says. No. Just fucking no, he tells it. He’d be lucky if she hasn’t blocked his number by now. No way will she offer him shelter like one of those biblical Samaritans. No way will she even answer the phone.
Except she does.
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Roman kind of blocks out the next two hours of his life. Not that much happens, as far as he can tell. Ostensibly a car picked him up off the corner of Fuck St. and Shit Rd. and drove him here. Somehow the blood on his face is gone, headache reduced to a mere hint of itself. His clothes are different, softer. He’s lying on the floor, expensive-ass carpet cradling him like a baby. Overgrown man-child that he is, the metaphor feels appropriate.
From somewhere very far away, or perhaps much closer than he thinks, Gerri sighs. “There’s a lot we need to talk about, Roman.”
“Uh huh. Yep. Sure.”
She steps closer, looms over him like a five-foot-something avenging angel. “I mean it,” she says. “When you’re feeling better, we –”
“Yeah, what the fuck did you give me.” Roman squeezes his eyes shut. Doesn’t trust himself not to look up her dress. Doesn’t trust himself to meet her eyes. “I feel fucking – what’s that ten dollar word? Unhinged? Unmoored?”
“I gave you Tylenol,” Gerri says. “And you can have Advil in four hours if the headache comes back.”
“Okay, sure Gerri. I know the sweet, sweet taste of oxy. Sucked it down from my sippy cup all the time.” He tries to sit up, takes a few false starts to get there. Leans against the couch. Keeps his eyes closed. “I feel fine now. Fire away.” He aims finger guns, mumbles pew-pew to illustrate his point.
“You’re grieving,” Gerri says. “And concussed. This is not the right time to –”
“Wrong, aaaand wrong. I’m resilient. Like a fuckin’... rubber band or some shit. I pre-grieved, I post-grieved. I’ve literally never felt better.”
“Roman. Will you look at me.”
He can’t. But he opens his eyes in concession, keeps his gaze down. Stares at her ankles, her bare feet. Roman never goes barefoot in his own house, can’t stand the feel of laminate on skin. Needs socks at least, a buffer.
“I know,” he says. “I fucked up. I fucked you. I should’ve never listened to my dad, blah blah blah. I fucking know.” He inhales, a thin, shaky thing. “I’m sorry.”
Gerri crouches down, kneels in front of him. Roman tilts his head down, down. He still doesn’t have the stomach to look at her, to see her closed-off and cold and disgusted like he knows she must be. He looks at his own feet now, safe in their shiny funeral loafers.
“Thank you,” she says after a while. “I accept your apology. But it’s more than that. There are things we haven’t discussed, Roman. We’ve both done some terrible things to each other.”
He laughs. “Why do you think I’m here?”
Gerri is quiet again. It makes him nervous. “You want me to punish you?”
“Duh.” Roman laughs. “I mean… obviously. I’m a sick little freak.”
She shifts a bit and he tenses, waits for the backhand. It doesn’t come. “Unless,” Roman starts, “that was just a two-time offer.” He thinks about getting up, leaving. He thinks about finding another group of protestors, more violent this time. Maybe Antifa. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t – should I be here? I shouldn’t be here. Sorry for calling you or whatever.”
“It’s fine,” Gerri says. Then, softer. “It wasn’t a two-time offer. It wasn’t supposed to be anything at all.”
He feels like throwing up. “O…kay? So I’ll leave then?”
“No.” Gerri sighs. Her voice changes shape, hardens. “We still need to have a conversation, but for now you can stay. You can have what you deserve.”
The bottom falls out of Roman’s stomach, an elevator of a feeling. If he’d had any expectations for the night, any thoughts at all in that big empty head of his, he never would have dreamed of this. That it could be so easy, like old times.
He looks up at Gerri, for the first time all night. Sees it all on her face – the cogs at work, the hesitation. Something dangerous like anticipation.
“Fine,” she says. “You win, you spoiled brat. Just like you always do.”
Roman feels it like a slap to the face, a headrush. He’s never felt so present in his body, so real.
“Go sit on the couch,” Gerri says. “Show me what all the fuss is about.”
Roman sits but all of a sudden it feels wrong. He feels wrong somehow. Gerri’s right there, she’s looking right at him. She never looks at him. Not for this. It flays him, strips him bare. “I don’t think I can do this,” he says, and hates the lump in his throat as he says it. The catch of tears.
Gerri cocks an eyebrow. “Isn’t that why you called me?” she asks. “Isn’t that why you invited yourself over?” She’s squinting at him and it’s making his guts squirm. He can tell she’s irritated – at his fickleness, at herself for bending to his whims, who knows? It’s anyone’s guess.
“Yes,” he says. “Yes. It is. I don’t know why – I don’t know. I think, maybe – can you just not look at me?” His voice pitches up like a whiny child and he hates it, he hates himself. “I don’t think I can do this with you looking at me. I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” she says. Still assessing. “Why don’t we sit back-to-back.”
It isn’t a question. He turns, obedient, and she settles behind him, back pressing firmly against him. It’s quiet for a long moment. Roman can feel Gerri breathing, the push and pull of her ribs against his own. Finally she speaks.
“Well, Roman.” Her voice is at its sweetest, meaning she’s about to say something awful. “I’ve said it before but you are, truly, a disgusting human being.”
“Yes.”
“You’re conniving and cruel.”
“Yes.”
“You are a pathetic coward and I pity you.”
Roman’s heart constricts. “Don’t say that.” He’s whispering, the tears closer now than they were before. “This is the game, right? You don’t really think that.”
“Of course it’s the game,” Gerri says, and he can tell she’s thrown a bit. Confused. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“Yeah,” Roman says. “I thought it was.” And then, for the second time in that day, he finds himself sobbing. Like a baby. Like a pathetic, stupid fucking baby.
Gerri turns faster than a woman her age ought to be able to, hands rising towards him. Roman flinches, ducks his head down to avoid the blow. But Gerri only reaches out, slowly, and cups his face in both her hands.
Roman doesn’t move. If he stays still, this won’t hurt. If he keeps his eyes closed, this isn’t real.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m fucking everything up again.”
“No.” Gerri stokes one thumb gently across his cheekbone. “You’re alright. I didn’t mean it. I thought that was what you wanted.”
Roman laughs, a horrible gurgly wet thing. “I don’t know what I want.”
They sit like that for some time, Roman crying and hating himself for it. The floodgates are open now, he supposes. He’ll be a blubbering mess for the rest of his life.
Eventually the tears stop, as quickly as they began. Roman catches his breath in shuddery, hiccuping fits, embarrassed at the sound of it. He can’t look at Gerri, doesn’t want to open his eyes and see her pity. Or, worse, her disgust.
“I’m good,” he says after a moment. “We can try that again.”
Gerri’s hands fall from his face. He misses their warmth. “I don’t think so,” she says. “I’m not going to let you use me to punish yourself. No matter our difficulties, I won’t do that to you.”
That’s it, then. He had his second chance and blew it. Now he’ll have to go home to his lonely apartment and finish it the old-fashioned way with a bottle of Xanax and a handle of bodega liquor.
“Please,” Roman begs. “Don’t make me fucking leave. I don’t care what you do, I just – I can’t – I need you to –”
She cuts him off. “Alright. Then turn back around.”
Back-to-back once more, Gerri takes a big breath and exhales it in a heavy sigh. Roman rocks with the movement like a ship at sea.
“I don’t really think you’re a coward,” she says. “Your father was horrible to you but you stood up to him, right until the end.”
“That’s not true,” Roman protests. “I –”
“Hush. I’m talking.”
He hushes. Gerri takes another big tsunami breath.
“Despite your flaws, I think you are a good person. I think you want to be good. I think the life you’ve been given makes it hard to be good. And yet, you still try.”
Roman can’t breathe. There’s a feeling in his stomach like nails on a chalkboard. Like a step-cousin to shame. It’s eating him.
“You love your siblings and you’re devoted to them. You loved your father no matter how poorly he treated you.”
It’s too much, this feeling. He wonders if he’s about to throw up right on Gerri’s clean white couch. “Please,” Roman starts, but doesn’t know how to end the sentence.
“Touch yourself,” Gerri says.
“I can’t.”
“Do it.” She tips her head back against his, soft pressure. “You deserve to feel pleasure.”
Roman unbuttons his pants. His hands are shaking. He wraps one around his dick, wills it to be hard. Pumps his hand once, twice. Come on, fuckhead. You can do this.
“You’re funny,” Gerri says. “You’re smart, cunning.”
Roman feels flushed, feverish. “You don’t have to say all this shit,” he says. “I know you don’t mean it.”
“I never say anything I don’t mean. Not to you.”
And that’s about a million double negatives at once, but Roman gets the idea. It’s true, he supposes. He and Gerri’ve been in a lot of metaphorical fistfights but she’s never once pulled her punches. He wonders what it would feel like if she hit him for real.
“Roman,” she says sharply, pulling him back from thoughts of a black eye, bruised ribs. “What did I ask you to do?”
“Sorry,” he mumbles. Forces himself back to the task at hand. Ha, hand. Hand on his dick, tight, pulling. He’s hard now, bewilderingly so. Somewhere amidst the not-quite shame his body heard something it liked. He gasps, a shocked unbidden sound.
Gerri laughs, high and sweet. “That’s it,” she says. “That’s my good boy.”
Roman feels it like a punch to the gut. He moves his hand faster, wonders if she can feel his shoulder working.
“Do you want me to tell you what else you are?” Gerri asks.
“God. Yes, fuck. God, yes.” He’s so close. He’s shaking.
“You are a man in a shell,” she says. “You live behind a mask. You’re a liar. You tell yourself you don’t care about anyone or anything but yourself, but the truth is you care so deeply you worry it would kill you if you let yourself feel it all.”
He’s crying again, tears pouring down his face. He wonders how he still has any left, how he hasn’t dried up like a tumbleweed and drifted away. He’s crying, he’s coming. He’s going to come.
Gerri turns her head, speaks directly into his ear. “You are full of love, Roman. Fucking full of it.”
It’s too much. He comes.
It’s quiet once again, after. Roman’s cut has opened again, blood trickling down his eyebrow. He’s a mess of fluids. “Thank you,” he says. Whispers.
“You’re welcome,” Gerri says. “Now go clean yourself up.”
“Can I –” He can’t finish the sentence, doesn’t want to hear the answer he knows is coming. Can’t bear the rejection, not again.
But Gerri only hmms. “You can sleep in the bathtub,” she says. “ Guest bathroom. We’ll talk in the morning.”
He doesn’t have to thank her. She knows. An ocean of time later, he forces himself to move. Stumbles drunkenly from the couch to the bathroom. On the closed lid of the toilet seat she has left him a handful of Advil, like chocolates on a hotel pillow.