Make Me. Charlotte Stein

      

      There are lots of things that go through my head when I enter the bar. But my head tries to bypass all of them, for some reason, and just focus on the most inane of the lot: I shouldn’t have brought this potted plant. It’s a stupid, stupid gift to give two old friends when they’ve done something as monumental as create this beautiful, incredible place.

      It’s dark, but I can make out all the little touches that are uniquely them – a gaudy jukebox crouched in the corner, amidst leather so thick and luxurious I can smell it, before I’ve even managed to perch my ridiculous gift on the bar. There are framed pictures of obscure movies that scream Brandon; dark mahogany that reminds me of Tyler.

      It’s as though someone smushed them together and somehow made a watering hole, and not only because of the décor. There’s a workbench by the door marked STAFF, as sloppy as anything I ever saw Brandon around. And over the back of one the seats by the skating-rink-slick bar there’s a suit jacket.

      It smells of Tyler – of Scotch and cigars and that stuff he used to wear that cost more than the gross domestic capital of Brazil. Though of course once I realise this, I have to also accept that I just smelled his clothes.

      Five years, and I just smelled his clothes. Lord only knows what I’ll do when I see either or both of them. Blurt out something embarrassing about threesomes, most likely, and then never dare to show my face around them again.

      Like I did last time.

      ‘Maisie!’ someone cries from the front door I definitely shouldn’t have put my back to. I can’t let either of them catch me unawares ever again, and yet somehow I’ve already done just that.

      Brandon is on me before I’ve even worked up the wherewithal to turn around. And he doesn’t do anything half-hearted, either, like pat me on the arm or offer me an awkward smile. He actually loops one arm around my shoulders from behind, in a way that’s so reminiscent of The Thing We Did I almost gasp. It’s like having a bucket of cold water dumped over my head – if a dumped bucket of cold water was one of my kinks, and having it done left my vagina in a quivering state of arousal.

      ‘I can’t believe you came,’ Brandon says, but I understand where he’s coming from. I can’t believe it, either. I spent all day yesterday thinking about what a bad idea this was, and now I’m here I know one thing with a deathly certainty: it’s a hundred times worse than my wildest imaginings. My entire body has clenched so hard I can’t even turn around and greet him properly, and the feeling gets stronger when he finally makes his way to my front.

      He looks exactly as I remember, right down to the backwards baseball cap and the hunched shoulders and, oh, that kinking-sideways grin. ‘It’s like you’re a robot from the future who’s trying to simulate a smile,’ I used to tell him.

      Back when I dared to do things like that.

      Now I just stand here and stare at his stupidly handsome face, head full of ridiculous thoughts like: Were his arms really that big before? And, Oh Lord, you could cut your finger on that jawline of his.

      Because you could, you really could. Up this close he’s almost unbearably handsome, and apparently I’m not responding to that very well. The clenched feeling has gone, but it’s been replaced by a prickling under my arms and a heavy sensation low down in my gut, like maybe he punched me when I wasn’t looking.

      I want to double over, quick, before this staring contest gets any weirder.

      ‘It’s totally awesome to see you,’ he says, but as he does so he puts both hands in his pockets. Those shoulders bunch together even more tightly, and even if I didn’t know him I’d understand what that means.

      It isn’t totally awesome to see me, at all. I’m a relic of his odd threesome-having past, thrown up on the beach of this bar. This place that now looks more and more like a cocoon they’ve both wrapped themselves in so that they don’t have to face the kind of people they once were.

      Brandon – goofy and too sweet. Tyler … oh God, Tyler.

      I’m wrong, I’m wrong about Tyler. He can face himself.

      When he emerges from behind the staff door he looks so eminently confident in who he is, so flawless and be-suited, that for a moment I can’t look directly at him. I have to gaze somewhere just north of his right shoulder and hope for the best.

      ‘Here she is,’ he says, and I find myself wondering: Was his voice like this before? And if it was, how on earth did I bear it on a daily basis? It just pours out of his mouth like melting chocolate, and before I know where I am the stuff is up to my inner thighs.

      I’m not going to come out of this alive, I know.

      ‘God, you look good,’ he tells me, as he glides around the end of the bar, arms outstretched. And then I realise – he’s not signalling to some imaginary plane that’s flying in, he’s moving towards me like that because he actually expects me to hug him. Front to front, too, and not just the little half-cocked one-armed thing Brandon attempted.

      I can’t, I think, I can’t, but by the time I’ve finished resisting in my head I’ve been engulfed. The scent from the suit jacket surrounds me, deeply familiar and almost too much to bear, but it’s the feel of his body that really pushes me over the edge. The shirt he’s wearing is strangely flimsy, and I swear I feel the burr of his chest hair against my cheek. I feel his heavy flesh pushing against various pressure points on my body: the tips of my tits, suddenly sensitive; my lips, which I didn’t actually mean to part when he pulled me in.

      Now I’m practically kissing his left pec, and, oh, that muscle is so damned heavy. It’s so solid. I think I might be wet between my legs, over nothing more than some brief hugs and a generous compliment.

      ‘Doesn’t she look good, Bran?’ he asks, but he’s talking out of his ass. I’m wearing jeans and my hair’s all loosely pulled back in a way that suggests I’m about to wash my face, and both things look singularly incongruous in a place like this. I need a cocktail dress, I need high heels, I need Prada.

      I need some goddamn steel plating.

      ‘Yeah,’ Brandon replies, but he seems about as convinced as I am. There’s this expression on his face that I don’t recognise – a sort of uncomfortable, half-pained look – and it gets tighter and more intense as this goes on.

      By the time we’ve gotten around to talking about tonight, he’s almost beside himself – though I’ve no idea why. Is he really this bothered by how I look, five years later? I feel like telling him: people age, you know. And also, sometimes they just want to wear their comfortable trainers and an old jersey. Not everyone can be as awesome and Calvin Klein as you, jockstrap.

      All of which is a little unkind, I know, but sue me. I’m caught in a mahogany cage, and I’m vulnerable.

      ‘So, are you staying in town?’ Tyler asks, and of course he does so at exactly the wrong time. It’s just after I’ve noticed that Brandon seems overpoweringly eager to get away, and right before he makes this sound: hurk.

      So I don’t think I can be blamed for my response, exactly. ‘Oh … no. No, I just thought I’d … you know, stop in and say congratulations. I mean, I have this hair appointment, and I’ve got to call at the dry cleaner’s before it closes, so …’

      There’s no hair appointment. And I’ll be perfectly honest, I don’t even own any clothes that need dry cleaning.

      ‘I should probably just get going.’

      Of course I think of the note I left for them both the moment I’ve said it. The similarities are uncanny, they really are – the same awkward excuses about having to do something that doesn’t exist, the same vague end to it. I mean, could I have crammed more non-specific hedging in there? All I need are some littles and maybes to go with those