Forbidden Flesh

The last time I touched him, I was counting ceiling tiles.

Twenty-seven of them. White, speckled, fluorescent-lit. I remember because I couldn't look at his face. Couldn't watch what I was doing to him. To us.

Now I'm standing in my mother's kitchen, and the tiles are warm wood, and he's sitting at her table like he belongs there.

"The prodigal daughter returns," Marcus says, and his voice hasn't changed. Still that low, rough thing that used to slide down my spine like honey.

I set the grocery bags on the counter. My hands are steady. That's something.

"Marcus." One syllable. I make it sound like a door closing.

My mother bustles in, wiping her hands on a dish towel. "Isn't this wonderful? Marcus just got back from overseas. He's staying with his mother for a while."

Wonderful. That's one word for it.

He's aged. Five years will do that. There's gray at his temples now, salt and pepper against skin that's been baked by some foreign sun. His hands are wrapped around a coffee mug, and I remember exactly how those hands felt on my hips, my thighs, the small of my back.

I remember everything.

"You look good," he says.

I don't say anything. I start unpacking the bags. Apples. Bread. A carton of eggs. Ordinary things. Things that don't remind me of hotel rooms and borrowed time.

"I was just telling Marcus about your gallery opening," my mother says. "The one next month."

Of course she did. My mother has no filter. Never has. She's the reason we ended in the first place. Not her fault, not really. She just walked into my apartment at the wrong moment, saw Marcus's jacket on the chair, his shoes by the door. Put two and two together and came up with a scandal.

He was thirty-eight. I was twenty-two. She was right to be angry.

Didn't make it hurt less.

"I'd love to come," Marcus says.

I crack an egg against the counter. Too hard. Shell fragments fall into the bowl. "It's invitation only."

My mother's head snaps up. "Elena."

"What? It is."

Marcus takes a sip of his coffee. He's smiling. That slow, patient smile that used to make me want to hit him and kiss him in the same breath. "I understand."

No, you don't. You never did.

I met him at a bookshop. Cliché, I know. I was browsing the poetry section, and he reached for the same volume of Neruda at the same time. Our fingers brushed. He apologized. I said it was fine. He asked if I'd read it. I lied and said yes.

He bought it for me anyway. Wrote his number on the receipt.

I called three days later. He answered on the first ring.

The affair lasted fourteen months. We met in hotels, mostly. Sometimes his apartment when his wife was out of town. Yes, wife. That's the part that makes it ugly. That's the part that made my mother cry when she found out. That's the part I still can't say out loud without feeling like I'm drowning.

"I didn't know you were back," I say. It's the closest I'll get to asking why now.

"Finished my contract early. The company downsized." He shrugs. "Three years in Dubai. Two in Singapore. It was time."

Time. As if time means anything to people like us. We spent fourteen months pretending time didn't exist. Pretending the clock wasn't ticking. Pretending his wedding ring was just a piece of metal and not a chain wrapped around both our throats.

"I need to finish this pie," I say. "For the church bake sale tomorrow."

"I'll help." He stands before I can protest.

My mother looks between us. I see the calculation in her eyes. The worry. The hope, maybe, that we've both grown up enough to be civil.

She's wrong.

He comes to stand beside me at the counter. Close enough that I can smell him. That particular scent of his. Sandalwood and coffee and something else. Something I've never been able to name, but that my body still recognizes on a level deeper than memory.

"The apples need to be sliced," I say.

"I can slice apples."

I hand him a knife. Our fingers touch. Brief. Electric. I pull away like I've been burned.

He doesn't flinch. He just takes the knife and starts working. Even strokes. Precise. He always was precise. That's what I loved about him. The way he paid attention. The way he noticed things. The way he touched me like I was something precious, something worth savoring.

"I missed you," he says quietly. My mother has turned her back, rummaging in the pantry for something.

"Don't."

"I'm not asking for anything. I just thought you should know."

I grab another apple. Start cutting. My slices are uneven. Chunks, really. Angry little pieces that look nothing like his perfect crescents.

"Your mother said you're seeing someone."

I stop cutting. "She told you that?"

"She mentioned it. In passing."

Of course she did. My mother can't keep a secret. She's the reason I don't tell her things anymore. The reason I learned to lie by omission.

"His name is David. He's an architect. He's kind."

"Kind."

"He treats me well."

"I'm glad." He says it like he means it. That's the worst part. He probably does.

We work in silence for a while. The only sounds are the knife against the cutting board, the hum of the refrigerator, my mother humming some old song under her breath. Normal sounds. Domestic sounds. The sounds of a life I tried to build after he left.

It didn't work. Not really. I went through the motions. I dated. I laughed. I pretended the hollow space in my chest was just loneliness, and that loneliness was curable with enough time and enough distraction.

But I never stopped counting ceiling tiles.

"I think about that night," he says. "The last one."

"Marcus."

"The hotel on Tenth Street. The one with the blue curtains."

I set the knife down. My hands are shaking. I hate that they're shaking.

"You asked me to stay," he says. "You asked me to leave her."

"And you said you couldn't."

"I know."

"So why are we doing this?"

He puts down his knife too. Turns to face me. His eyes are the same. That dark brown that used to swallow me whole. "Because I'm divorced now."

The words land like a punch. I feel them in my chest, my stomach, my throat. I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again.

"Three months ago," he says. "It's final. She moved to California with the kids. I'm free."

Free. Such a simple word. Such a complicated thing.

"Does that change anything?" he asks.

I look at him. Really look. At the lines around his eyes, the gray in his hair, the way his hands are still steady while mine are not. Five years. Five years of distance. Five years of learning to breathe without him.

And now he's here. In my mother's kitchen. Asking me if I still want him.

"Elena?" My mother's voice cuts through. "The pie crust needs butter. Can you grab some from the fridge?"

I turn away. Open the refrigerator. The cold air hits my face, and I let it. Let it freeze the tears I can feel building behind my eyes.

"Yes," I say. "I'll get it."

But I'm not talking about butter.

When I turn back, Marcus is watching me. That patient smile is gone. In its place is something raw. Something hungry. Something that makes my knees weak and my pulse race and every cell in my body remember exactly what it felt like to be wanted by him.

"I have to go," I say.

"Your pie isn't finished."

"I'll finish it tomorrow."

I grab my purse. My mother calls after me. I don't hear what she says. I'm already out the door, down the steps, into the cool evening air.

He follows me. Of course he does.

"Elena."

I keep walking.

"Elena, please."

I stop. Turn. He's standing on the porch, backlit by the warm light from the kitchen. He looks like something from a dream. Something I've been trying to forget for five years.

"Don't do this," I say.

"Do what?"

"Make me choose again."

He steps closer. "I'm not asking you to choose. I'm asking you to let me prove that I've changed."

"Change doesn't undo the past."

"No. But it can build a different future."

I want to hit him. I want to kiss him. I want to walk away and never look back. I want to fall into his arms and pretend the last five years never happened.

Instead, I do the only thing I can.

I tell him the truth.

"I'm engaged."

The word hangs between us. Heavy. Final.

Marcus goes still. His face doesn't change, but something in his eyes shifts. Dims.

"Congratulations," he says. His voice is flat.

"It's not what you think."

"Then what is it?"

I don't have an answer. Because the truth is, I don't know. David is safe. David is steady. David doesn't have a past that feels like a wound that won't heal.

But David isn't Marcus.

And standing here, in the dark, with the man who broke me and remade me and broke me again, I realize something terrifying.

I don't want him to be.

"I have to go," I say again.

This time, I walk away. I don't look back. I get in my car and drive. I don't know where I'm going. I just know I need to move. To breathe. To outrun the thing I've been running from for five years.

My phone buzzes. A text from David. *Can't wait to see you tomorrow. I love you.*

I don't text back.

I drive until the city lights blur into streaks of gold and red. Until the road runs out and I'm sitting at the edge of the bay, staring at the water, feeling the cold air seep through my jacket.

My phone buzzes again.

Unknown number. But I know it's him.

*I never stopped loving you.*

I delete the message.

Then I turn off my phone, drop it in the passenger seat, and sit in the dark, listening to the waves, trying to remember how to breathe.

The moon is full. The water is black. And somewhere behind me, in a kitchen that smells like apples and cinnamon, the man I can't forget is probably still standing at the counter, holding a knife, waiting for me to come back.

I won't.

I won't.

I won't.