In the Unlikely Event

by L.J. Shen

Isn’t that the essence of love? Find

someone worth killing for? Someone with the power to ruin you?”

“Well, I’m a pacifist, so don’t worry about me. I’ll never kill you.” I turn back to face him. He smiles a sad smile I haven’t seen on him before, takes my hand, and kisses my knuckles, his eyes still on the road. The energy I felt earlier when our hands touched returns, and I can’t put

a name to it, but it’s electric. Tangible. It even has a taste. “You already have.”

“That was a minute ago. It’s time to move on. Don’t let the little things in life bother you, yeah?”

“When I need to have a word with Him or when Ireland needs a prayer during the World Cup games. My turn to ask a question.” I already roll my eyes, psychic that I am. “Why don’t you like your scar?” Birthmark, I itch to correct. “How do you know I don’t like it?” “You didn’t want to talk about it,” he says. I sigh. “There’s nothing to like about it. It’s ugly. It stands out.” “It’s the most beautiful thing about you. It makes you more than a generically beautiful face,” he says. I shake my head. I don’t want to think about it. “My turn. Do you sometimes feel like we’re all just burning alone?” “All the time,” he croaks. “Less so when I’m with you, though. My turn—have you ever climaxed with a guy?”

“What the hell, Mal?” “I’m sorry, is that more intimate than asking if I believe in God? ‘Sides, you’re never going to see

me again, remember? Who will I tell? My arsehole sheep?” He’s right. Our little world has an expiration date. “No. I mean, I’m not a virgin. I just…anyway, no. I think I’m too inside my head when I’m intimate with a dude. My turn,” I say quickly.

“Not needing money makes you rich in another way, Rory. A better way. The less you depend on it, the less it limits you. My turn—do you think you’ll marry a rich, boiled-balled man when you’re older?” “Boiled-balled?” I laugh.

“Yeah. Rich men like

taking flying classes. It boils their balls, and then they blame their wives for not being able to conceive when actually their sperm count is in the shitter. I’ve read about it at the dentist’s while I was waiting to get my teeth cleaned.” “Thanks for the anecdote.” I try to stifle a giggle. “No, I’ve no plans to marry a rich guy. Why?” “Because I don’t want you to, and you have that something that drives men crazy.” “What’s that?” I eyeball him. He shrugs, taking my hand in his and kissing my open palm. “You’re cool.” “Have you ever been in love?” I lick my lips. “Ask me that question tomorrow before you go. My turn. Ever had an orgasm from a kiss?” “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” “No,” I hiss, narrowing my eyes at him. Is he for real? I just told him I hadn’t orgasmed with a guy. Mal leans down and thumbs my cheek, the rest of his fingers curling around the back of my neck. He feathers his lips against mine. I let him, my

eyes still open, guarded and waiting. He darts his tongue out and licks the tip of my nose unexpectedly.

“That’s not gonna do anythi—” Mal slams his mouth against mine, and before I know what’s happening, he’s on top of me, pinning my wrists above my head in the damp, cold grass. I groan into his mouth as I feel his body cover mine completely in all the places that matter, because he is hard and hot everywhere, the opposite of my cold, soft self. It’s like we aren’t even made out of the same material. His tongue finds mine, and somehow—somehow—they dance together sensually and in perfect unison, like we’ve practiced it before. He is an excellent kisser, pulling me into a swirl of passion that makes me blind with need. I feel my panties becoming damp and sticking to my body. This kiss, this kiss is everywhere, dow...

“You didn’t make me come,” I rasp through swollen, numb lips. It’s more of an accusation than a taunt. Almost a whine. “Are we going to sleep together tonight, Rory?” he asks seriously, looking away. “It…it’s not your turn to ask a question,” I stutter. He is the most direct person I’ve e...

“I want to,” I confess. The muscles of his neck move when he swallows. “But we shouldn’t, should we?” I whisper. “Not when we already like each other so much.” “I don’t know,” he rasps. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering what you feel like.”

His tongue slides into my mouth, and he rolls on top of me, his hands caressing every inch of my body—my arms, my shoulders, my waist, my stomach…my breasts. He bunches my jacket and hoodie up and flicks a puckered nipple through my shirt. I’m wearing a sports bra, but the chill and the moment make everything in my body impossibly tense and erect and needy. We groan at the same time, so he flicks it again. Then he moves back up to kiss me, and we smile into each other’s mouths. I don’t know how it happens, but all my upper layers—jacket, hoodie, top—find themselves thrown beside us. He unclasps my bra with one hand, while shoving the other into my corduroys. “Anyone ever touched you there?” he asks, brushing his middle finger along my slit. I jolt in pleasure, clenching everywhere. “Yeah.” My mouth waters. “And like this?” He dips his finger into me, and we can hear how wet I am. I turn maroon between his arms. “Hmm-mm. My ex-boyfriend, Taylor.”

“Did Taylor do this, too?” He drags his wet finger to my clit, massaging it in slow circles. I throw my head back, closing my eyes. It’s not that Taylor didn’t know where to touch me. I’ve just always felt too removed from the moment to fully enjoy it. Like I was putting on a sexy act. This? I feel this. Everywhere. I’m delirious, hot and wet underneath him. Mal takes my left nipple into his mouth and sucks. Stars explode behind my eyelids like fireworks. Everything tightens with delight. I like that he thinks about me first. I like that he is still fully clothed. I like that he knows exactly what he’s doing—even if that means he’s practiced on other girls. On many girls, no doubt. “God,” I moan. “Partial about him, remember?” Mal jokes, kissing his way up from my breasts to my shoulders and neck, biting and teasing me as I begin to buck my hips forward and ride his hand that’s shoved inside my pants. He rubs my clit back and forth faster, and I prepare to explode. He dips two fingers into me and lets out a groan. Then, when my climax hits me from my toes to the top of my head, he reaches into my bag with one hand,

takes the camera out, and snaps a picture of my face as I come. He captures me in such a vulnerable moment, I want to scream at him, but when he dumps the camera on the quilt next to us and looks down, I let it go. He doesn’t look smug or happy or offhanded about it. He looks…tortured. “Rory.” “Hmm?” “I made you come.” I blink, looking down at my wrinkled corduroys pushed halfway down my thighs. “And you’re going to make me come now,” he says. “Hopefully after I put my dick inside you. Feck, I can’t stop staring at you. You’re beautiful.” He unbuckles his belt, lowers his pants, flips his wallet open, and begins sheathing himself with a condom. I kick my corduroys down, refusing to dwell on the fact that he has condoms ready at any given moment. I don’t get a good loo...

blush, covering my face. “Stop looking at me like that.” “Like what?” “With a grin that says you pissed in the Jacuzzi everyone’s chilling in and got away with it. You gave me an orgasm; you didn’t discover the cure for cancer.” “Night’s still young,” he jokes, dropping a kiss at the crown of my head. “Ready?” he asks, angling himself between my legs. God, yes. I nod. He thrusts into me, our eyes lock, and when he starts to move inside me, almost shyly—and definitely not as smoothly and skillfully as I’d imagined—we find out Taylor didn’t really do a stellar job taking my virginity after all. I squirm. Mal gasps. He kisses me with so much passion, I can feel his kiss twisting my stomach in delicious, messy knots. Without warning, he presses a hand to my left breast, frowning and looking skyward, still inside me.

“What…?” I trail off before realizing what he’s doing. I told him I’d sleep with him tonight over my dead body. I can’t help but giggle underneath him. “Still breathing,” he confirms, diving down for another ravenous kiss. “And oh, how alive you are against my fingertips.” “It hurts,” I moan into his open, welcoming mouth, clinging to his shoulders. “Don’t worry, Princess Aurora,” he growls, hot and velvety and alive against my skin. “I’ll make sure to rock your castle if it’s the last thing I do.”

I stir awake in Mal’s bed. The room is so dark—no light from lampposts or passing cars or electronic devices—there’s no difference between opening my eyes and closing them. I feel his hot,

wet tongue between my thighs, lashing hungrily as it swirls deeper between my legs. “What are you doing?” I moan. “Tasting you.” He dips his tongue into my folds, and I squirm with pleasure. “Christ on a cracker, Rory. You taste like heaven.” “Mal, what are you…” But then his tongue brushes my clit, and his lips clamp down on it, sucking. I squeeze my thighs against his face and grab his hair, arching against the pillow and moaning as I press his head into me. “You’ll wake England, darlin’.” He dips a finger into me, flicking my nub with his tongue at the same time. “What do you care? You have a beef with them.” He laughs as he French kisses my clit, his fingers curling to find my G-spot as my toes coil deliciously. I come again, his name on my lips.

“It’s more about enthusiasm than technique,” Mal explains, his penis staring back at me. It’s thicker and longer than Taylor’s. Angry-looking and purplish. I finally found something about him that’s less than perfect, even though it does feel good inside me. “Just give it your best go. Honestly, I’ll probably come after twenty seconds, anyway. You’re a ride, Rory.” I wrap my lips around his shaft, then realize he was right when he pushes me back not fifteen seconds later, coming on my chest. We fall from the bed to the floor, limbs tangled, laughing hysterically. “Rory!” he thunders. “I pre-ejaculated. Now I must kill you to keep my secret safe.” “Relax. I’m not going to tell on you.”

“Just admit that I can kill you, too,” he says from across the room now, both of us lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling. “Why?” “Because you’re stealing my breath, so you’re already halfway there with the killing part.” I shake my head, zipping my mouth with my fingers. He grabs a guitar pick from the floor and throws it at me. “I’ll let you hold on to your heart for a little longer. Just don’t get attached.” I laugh, but then he stops and looks at me, and I swear there’s regret etched on his face. “Forgive me?” he asks. “For what?” I scrunch my nose. He looks away, swallowing. “Good question. For not giving you what you came here for, I suppose.”

“So you understand.” He smiles, relieved. “I won’t sell my songs. They’re mine.” “Do what makes you happy. The world will understand. If it doesn’t, it’s the world’s problem, not yours.” Silence. “Marry me, Rory.” He turns to me. “Let’s just stay here and feck and make music and take pictures.”

“Mal…” I say. Jesus. He’s still looking at me, waiting for an answer. “I have school. I’m going to college in a few weeks.” “We have colleges here.” “I’ve already enrolled. Paid. I have a dorm room. My best friend, Summer, is coming with me.” “I have some savings,” he insists. “I’m good at what I do. I can provide for us.” “You’re insane.” “I never claimed not to be.”

“Call me this weekend?” “Depends on a certain bell,” he says. Bell means a ring, a booty call, a one-night stand. But Belle is my name, too. Not that he knows that.

“Let’s try this again in broad daylight.” He clears his throat. “Stay.” I tear open a pack of chips and throw one into my mouth, chewing to buy some time. “As I said, I’m starting college in two weeks.” “Feck college.” “What about my mom?” “Don’t feck her. That’s the kind of kinky I’m not quite into. But you hate her, Rory. Besides, we’ll send her hairspray every month. And plane tickets every Christmas. Easter, too, if you insist.” He reaches for his Guinness—yes, in the morning—taking a generous sip. “Stay, Rory. It’s kismet. Tell me you didn’t notice the rain stopped when we kissed yesterday.”

“Rory?” he asks. “I don’t believe in kismet,” I say quietly, keeping my eyes trained on the open bag of chips. “You’re twenty-two, and I’m eighteen. We both know it won’t last.” Am I working against my own fate?

Mal says nothing. His face falls, like he just realized I’m right. I pinch the hoop in my nose and slide it back and forth. “Hey, what about doing a long-distance thing? I’m planning on getting a job while I study, so I can probably visit you next summer. Maybe even Christmas, depending on the ticket prices.”

But he shakes his head, sitting back and balancing his chair on its two back legs. “I’m an all-or-nothing type of lad, Rory. There’s no way in hell I can manage long distance.” His answer angers me a little. So he wants me, but only on his conditions? That’s shitty. If someone isn’t willing to wait for you, they don’t really deserve you. I can’t tell him to uproot himself and come to the States, to leave six siblings, his nephews and nieces, a mother, an elderly adoptive grandfather, and a mourning childhood friend who is pining for him and probably wants to wear my skin. And after the offhand way he treated me when I brought up long distance, I won’t even try. “We could stay friends on Facebook or MySpace—” I start, but he cuts me off. “And watch as you move on with other guys? Nah, thank you. I try to keep my self-hatred below suicidal level. And we both know watching each other fecking other people would be dazzlingly stupid.” I give him a hard stare, folding my arms. “Fine. Then we go cold turkey.” “I can’t go cold turkey,” he says. God, he is difficult. “You leave no room for much else,” I grit out. “False,” he retorts. “What do you suggest?” “A contract.”

“You Yanks love legally binding shite, yeah?” He reaches for my bag next to me, flipping it open. He takes out my camera and a pen, sprinkles the utensils out of a folded napkin, and straightens it on the table. “It’s not the right time to be together, I agree. But if we meet again, under any circumstances, any time in the future, we’re making this work, Rory. Feck spouses. Feck boyfriends and girlfriends. Feck the world. If kismet happens, we are letting it happen, no matter what, you hear?”

“The chances of us meeting again are less than zero.” “Bzzz. Wrong again. They are slightly more than zero. I would put it at zero point fifteen percent,” he says cheerfully. I don’t know how he can be so nonchalant about it, but I guess I can’t complain. He proposed to me, and I’m almost sure he was serious. I turned him down. Publicly, too. “What if one of us seeks the other person out?” I ask. “That’s cheating.” Mal shakes his head. “It needs to happen organically. We can’t look for each other.” “But what if someone does?” I have a feeling this someone is going to be me. “Then the contract is terminated, and you don’t have to marry me.” “I have to marry you if we meet again?” My eyes flare, but I’m smiling. He shrugs. “High stakes make good stories, Princess Aurora of New Jersey.” “So much for me having the power to kill you. You won’t even give me your phone number,”

“I’m not giving you my number because I don’t want this to kill me,” he grinds out, his eyes darkening. I’m trying not to hate him right now, because I know everything he says is right and true. We can’t be together, and keeping in touch would leave both of us craving more. Mal jots the terms of the contract on the napkin. Then he signs it and slides it toward me. “Whenever you’re ready.” I read it first.

“Your copy of the agreement, for safekeeping.” Mal tucks the napkin into his back pocket and takes a sip of his Guinness. “I mean it.” He shrugs. “I’m getting this notarized and apostilled.” “I know.” I throw another chip into my mouth, trying to act nonchalant. “Let’s just hope I don’t die from heartbreak first.” He downs the rest of his Guinness. I think about Kathleen’s open arms and the herd of girls who follow him everywhere. “Oh, I think you’ll survive.”

We disconnect slowly, like we’re glued together. “Don’t be with Kathleen.” I look up at his face, whispering, “She doesn’t kill you.” That Bukowski quote pops into my head: “Find what you love and let it kill you.” I think I just did. “I won’t. Don’t be with a stupid, shiny guy with boiled balls. You were born for greatness, Princess.” “I won’t.” I smile. He lifts my chin with his finger so our eyes lock and says, “Ask me again.”

“Have you ever been in love?” I can’t swallow the emotions lodging in my throat. He grins down at me. “Goodbye, Rory.” My eyes flare, but I grin. “Bastard!” “What?” He laughs. I laugh, too. This time it’s a real laugh. We both needed this, I realize. An icebreaker. “Why did you tell me to ask you this if the answer is no?” “I didn’t say the answer is no.” He runs his hands along my arms. “But if I admitted it to you, I’d admit it to myself. Then I’d have to look for you, and that’d be a breach of contract. You have to understand, Rory, next time I see you, I’ll have you. I won’t care if you have a boyfriend, or a husband, or a harem of men vying for your love. If you have children, I’ll raise them as mine. So, I guess an apology is in order.” “For what?” I blink. He turns to leave. I’m not ready to say goodbye, but I know I never will be.

“For no doubt disrupting your life and tearing it apart next time I meet you. All’s fair in love and war, yeah?” But he doesn’t wait for me to answer. He gets into his car and drives off, leaving me standing there, with his pulse still beating in my palm.

She has a Marilyn Monroe-like beauty mark above her upper lip, that prominent, crescent scar I bet she still doesn’t know the story of, and lashes so thick, they shadow her cheeks when she looks down. Positively lovely. The same way many women are. Many women I haven’t thrown my life away for. The idea that I’ve been sick with guilt over everything I hadn’t told her, everything I couldn’t say—promised not to tell her—makes me want to laugh now. Yes, I kept things from Aurora. But she went the extra mile and ripped things from me. Ask me what drew me to her in the first place that fateful day on Drury Street, and I still won’t be able to pinpoint it. She’s a fine thing, but too in love with the idea of herself,

I cut myself some slack. Ages sixteen to twenty-two had been a blur of getting sloshed and treating myself to periodic blackouts. A girl like Aurora had slipped easily into my hopelessly optimistic heart. Age thirty, however, brings with it a heart that’s frosted like a winter garden. Also, I stopped taking destructive lasses into my bed and promising them forever a while ago. Lesson learned, and Rory was an excellent teacher. Yeah, Aurora Belle Jenkins hasn’t changed. Me, on the other hand? A completely different fella.

I had the luxury of spotting her as soon as I walked through the doors this evening. I needn’t a single glance to recognize her. She is, after all, tattooed in my mind, permanent and painful.

“Work,” I say. “You?” “Same.” She clears her throat, straightening her back, gaining her composure. “You’re a singer now? That’s great, Mal.” “I write songs,” I correct, taking a sip of my whiskey. I can tell she’s shocked and hurt by the fact that I’m not hurling myself at her with love declarations. That makes both of us, if you ask twenty-two-year-old Mal. “You?” I jut my chin in her direction. “Photographer for Blue Hill Records.” She smiles, trying to break the ice. “Gosh, Mal. I never thought I’d see you again. But I see we’re still as predictable as the places we come from.” “Speak for yourself.” I run my eyes down her body, making a point not to stop anywhere of previous interest. “You might be predictable. I have a few new tricks up my sleeve.”

Which brings me to Jeff Ryner’s second conquest—yours truly. I’m supposed to write songs for Richards’ next album, for the modest sum of one million euros. I say modest, because there’s no price for my dignity. Yet, here I am, stripping myself of poise for the greater good. Another thing she is responsible for. Thanks for that, Aurora.

I wonder briefly if it was Aurora’s concept before deciding I don’t care. So, the traitorous lass turned out to be decent at what she does. Call the fecking press. “Rory, Mal is one of the biggest poets of our time. He’s sold some of the best songs on the billboard, including ‘Finding you, Losing Me’, ‘On Drury Street’, ‘Underneath the Stars’, and ‘Princess from New Jersey’.” If she connects the painfully obvious dots together, she doesn’t let it show, and for that, I’m grateful. Dumb or heartless? My bet is on the latter, based on what I know about her. “Pleasure,” she clips sarcastically, her eyes boring into my skull, trying to make a dent.

She nods, her attention on him now. She is still deadly beautiful. That’s the thing that bothers me most. But it shouldn’t. That just means it won’t be a terrible inconvenience to shag her, which I fully plan on, before discarding

her back to her motherland, this time with no affection and zero promises.

“You can’t expect me to live in Ireland for the next couple months,” Aurora says through a tight smile. I know what she did to make me hate her, but I wonder what I did to warrant such sour behavior. Other than being a cunt just now. Come to think of it, that’s probably all it took. Then, of course, there’s the matter of the boyfriend. The rich, shiny boyfriend she said she’d never date, yet I saw her in the ballroom, clinging to his Brioni-clad arm like bad breath on a fecking alcoholic.

What disappointments we are to each other, Princess. “I can fly in and out of Ireland,” she suggests, munching on her lower lip. “It’s no trouble, and I bet you’ll need me here, too.”