Between Lovers by Eric Jerome Dickey Page B

did I have to prove how much I love you? How many ways?”
    â€œStop. Nicole, knock it off.”
    â€œNow I’m asking you to do for me.”
    I say nothing.
    She goes on, “What is it about my wanting more that makes you want less? Do I intimidate you?”
    I shift.
    â€œWhy does the man have to be the one who drives the sex? Why?”
    I let her vent, hope the batteries run down pretty soon.
    She says, “Every day I have to review my life, ask myself how I got here, what’s more important, pleasing others or being true to myself. I do that every day.”
    â€œWhat’s your point?”
    â€œWhat I’m trying to say is that you should feel me on that. You broke away from what was expected of you. You had to disappoint a lot of people, but you found yourself.”
    â€œTrue, I write.” When I say that, I feel like a nervous teenager, young and wishful, the same teenager who stood in front of his old man and told him that he wanted to take a different road. And I wonder what my old man would think if he could see me, hear me now, in this moment. My voice sounds younger, almost as if I’m talking to my daddy now when I say, “That’s who I am, what I do. I write.”
    â€œAnd I’m proud of you. I’m your biggest fan.” Nicole pauses, thinks, speaks with ease, “I don’t get it. Why does everyone want me to change when I love who I am?”
    â€œBecause... because we’re assigned roles. Men do this, women do that; normal people do this—”
    â€œNormal. There’s that biased, subjective, insensitive word again.”
    â€œGive me a break. Damn. You know what I mean.”
    â€œPeople can’t heat me up, pour me into a mold and make me be whatever they want me to be. They can’t make me... conform. I don’t conform.”
    â€œEven the nonconformist conforms.”
    â€œTo who?”
    â€œTo the nonconformists.”
    For a moment, we sit and say nothing. We’re planes in a black cloud, spiraling out of control.
    Nicole whispers, “I’m trying to include you in all of my life. I want you to see all of me.”
    Silence.
    â€œEnough bullshit,” I tell her. “If I give you this fantasy, are you gonna try to get back to where we were?”
    Those bracelets sing when she raises her hand to her face. “Things have changed over the last few months.”
    â€œWhat things? I need you to be who you were before you moved up here. I want my inexperienced, body-shy, frigid country girl from Elvisland to come back to me.”
    She says, “Evolution moves forward, never backward. Butterflies never become caterpillars.”

7
    Some time goes by. Some talking. At some point I hold her. Touch her. And that naughty grin blooms on her face. The one that starts in the left corner of her mouth, and expands with desire. We lay back under the covers. And we explore each other. The magic is always there. The chemistry remains so strong.
    I put my mouth on her breast, a hand between her legs, tell her, “You’re wet.”
    Her bracelets jingle as she moves me up and down. “I know.”
    â€œWhen did you get wet?”
    â€œWhen you opened the door. How many times do I have to tell you that you have this effect on me?”
    â€œThought you were mad.”
    â€œI might get mad, might scream and shout and hit you upside the head with a pot, but Bermuda is never, never, never mad at you, don’t you know that? She always welcomes you.”
    I kiss her. Touch her.
    She says, “Seven years and I still excite you?”
    â€œJust like you did in the Jeep.”
    Her tongue traces from my chest until the heat from her mouth consumes that growing part of me. She used to be afraid to do that, now she won’t stop until I beg for mercy.
    She stops savoring, stares at my handle with studious eyes. “Hard to believe all of this goes in me.”
    We turn, and like