Sex in a Sidecar by Phyllis Smallman Page A

I went over and pounded on the door, demanding an answer not entrance.
    He flung the door open. “You never got to Orlando,” he said. “You let yourself be trapped out on South Beach with a crazy woman.”
    â€œShe wasn’t crazy.” He started to close the door but I stopped it. “And how was I supposed to prevent that? I didn’t have any choice. No keys remember? I had to go with Gina.”
    â€œYou should have got rid of the pickup months ago. You don’t even like it. You only keep it because it was Jimmy’s.”
    That was too stupid even for a reply but then what part of this argument wasn’t stupid? And when had we stopped just being glad to be alive? The door closed.
    â€œFine, whatever,” I yelled at the door. “You know best. You always do.” I heard the sound of a razor start up. “I’m going out to get a toothbrush and some clean clothes.”
    Then I remembered I had no money and no car. the door opened. He stood there naked, the electric razor in his left hand. “My wallet and keys are in my pants pocket.”
    I started to smile. His answering smile put the shopping trip on hold.
    Things got rocky as soon as the fun stopped. We went from mad passionate love to mad passionate hate with nothing inbetween and I don’t know why or how. We fought about things that happened years before we even knew each other and we fought about things that happened during the hurricane. Clay was normally unflappable, his calmness and dependability in any crisis earned him the reputation of a stand-up guy who could be counted on. I wasn’t seeing it. In fact, I never saw it.
    There was something about the chemistry between us that turned up the heat a notch in all situations, love, anger or outright silliness.
    We were back in bed, the only place we fit together fine, when I asked, “Why do you always seem mad at me?”
    He removed his arm from under my head and slid away from me.
    I propped myself up on an elbow and looked down at him. “Seems to me you hate needing me, loving me.”
    He looked startled. He started to speak and then closed his mouth, tossed back the covers and left the bed. I watched him dress, quickly and efficiently, the way he did everything.
    â€œYou said right at the beginning you don’t like losing control of yourself. Is that what this is about?”
    He glanced at me but didn’t answer, sitting on the end of the bed to put on his shoes.
    â€œLoving me means everything isn’t in your control anymore, doesn’t it?”
    He picked up the remote. Conversation over.
    I called Marley. “How could you let that happen?” she said when I told her my story. “How do you get yourself into such messes?”
    â€œThis one wasn’t my fault.”
    â€œThey never are.” The conversation ended abruptly. We watched the news channel in silence, staring at pictures of destruction while I stole glances at Clay. His profile, lean and hard and uncompromising, never flinched. His stillness makes you aware of Clay, like a rock in a raging river, unmovable and hard to his core.
    I wanted to stroke his cheek and kiss along his jaw, wanted to wrap my arms, my legs and my whole body around him. I ached to soften his coldness towards me, to touch him, to taste him, to cry out in the delight of him, but he’d shut me out.
    The man’s heart was made of Kevlar and nothing could pierce it. Even when I sighed and moved restlessly, he stared straight ahead and ignored me. His toughness must be genetic. Clay’s family was among the early settlers in Florida, wrestling hundreds of acres of scrubland from snakes, gators and other hard men out in the Piney woods. Actually, they were the true crackers, Florida cowboys who used whips to move the long-horned cattle through the thick underbrush. Clay’s family survived everything that nature could throw at them but it was progress and