Electric Moonlight Shuffle

13. Gold Dust Woman

Before dinner, I creep upstairs to change out of my heavy dress. Jason, coming out of his room, stops me in the hall.

Jason pushes me against the wood-paneled wall, starts kissing me.

"Let's go into your room," he says.

I open the wooden door, behind me, and we fall through the opened door.

He slides out of his jacket.

I unbutton his shirt.

He unzips my dress.

The dress falls around my ankles on the floor.

I step out of it, stand in just a corset.

"That's ten thousand dollars you're standing on right there," he says.

I kick it aside. "And now it's a dust rag. What, don't tell me you believe in capitalism? Just as fake as love."

"This is why I love you," says Jason. I pause briefly. I want to scream, I love you too!!! But he doesn't mean it the same way I'm thinking. I bite my tongue. If you tell him you love him now, it's going to ruin everything. Calm down.

I pull him into me. Kiss him. He's hard already.

I unbutton his pants, he touches my boobs through the corset.

"You're going to have to unlace me," I say.

"I'm honored," says Jason. He goes behind me, pulls the strings loose.

"Thank God we don't live in the Victorian era anymore," he says.

"Thank God," I say.

The corset falls to the floor.

We're kissing again, skin on skin.

"Do you think the ghosts are watching?" says Jason.

"Let's hope not," I say, running my hands through his hair.

He runs his hands up and down my hips. "Your skin is so soft."

"Thanks I was born from a lilac bud."

"Makes sense," he says. "Explains why you smell good too."

He leads me over to the bed.

Pushes me down on the bed.

We go under the heavy duvet.

He draws spirals around my nipples with his tongue, reaches down to my lace underwear.

"Pretty sure they didn't have Victoria's Secret in the Victorian era," he says, putting his fingers under the band.

"Bitch," I say, "They named it after her."

"Hmm, I don't know," he says. "We might have to reshoot the whole video. For historical accuracy and shit."

He's doing that thing where he smiles while we're kissing again, and I can feel his smile form against my lips.

"Shut up," I say, laughing.

Jason slides my underwear off.

"You're really wet," Jason says.

"You're really hard," I say.

"Do something about it."

"Jason—"

My heart feels like it's going to explode. I love you. I can't believe I'm thinking this. I need to tell him.

"Jason, I—"

"Shh, baby," he says, putting a hand over my mouth. "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night."

He wraps his legs around me. Presses his pelvis against mine. Does circles with his hips.

Oh. My. God.

Okay, okay, perves, don't get your hopes up. He doesn't even get it in because, all of a sudden, a voice comes through the door.

The voice is singing, quite possibly, the worst song I have ever heard in my entire short life. (And remember, we live in a world where Nickleback exists).

I know a girl named Wren.

The girl's a perfect ten.

She is loved by all the men.

I think about her now and then.

Me and Jason stare at each other, open mouthed. Jason is half-grinning.

I'm just a boy named Flynn.

I can't play the violin.

But I throw a mean pigskin.

We could be great, Wren, let me in!

Now Jason is laughing.

Ohhhhhhh Wren!

Be the Barbie to my Ken.

You pretty jungle hen.

Ohhhhhhhh Wren!

"Someone's whipped," says Jason.

"I gotta stop this," I say, untangling myself from Jason. I climb out of bed, pull on a pair of shorts, open the door.

Flynn is standing there. He's holding a weird stuffed animal—the Rick and Morty he won at the carnival—and a bunch of flowers, which I'm approximately 100% sure he stole from the dining room table centerpiece downstairs.

"What are you doing?" I say.

"Wren Snow, I'm in love with you," says Flynn. "I can see that now. Don't tell me you didn't feel it too, when our hands brushed when we touched the ice. That was magic, Wren. And I've been using Molly as your replacement. But Molly is shitty. When she talked to you like that—oh my God, Wren, I wanted to knock her out. No one can talk to you like that. Wren—"

"Flynn, please—"

"I don't care," says Flynn. "If you say I'm ridiculous, or anything. But I feel like you're changing Wren, really changing. There's something different, in your eyes. You've got the love. Even Jamie told me, you're different. You're opening up to love. We could be something."

I hear Jason rustling around in the bed behind me. My palms are sweating. Jason can't know.

I clench my jaw, and a knot of forms in my stomach. "Jamie's confused," I say. "There he goes again, projecting." I laugh. "He's always doing that bullshit."

This blatant violation of our "Don't Throw Thy Best Friend Under the Bus" rule makes me nauseous but I can't stop. (Jason is, after all, right there—RIGHT BEHIND ME.)

"Jamie is so much, so much of the time, he forgets how real life works. It's not a romance novel, you know? I'm sorry Flynn, but..."

I open the door a little wider.

Flynn peers into the room. His eyes settle on Jason, who is shirtless, sitting up in bed.

Jason waves, grinning awkwardly. He's lighting a cigarette.

"Oh," says Flynn, his face turning bright red. "I'm sorry. I can—I'll just." He stammers, and the floor creaks under his shifting weight.

"There's, uh, mashed potatoes and lobster downstairs." Flynn turns away. "Tanner saved you a plate."

"Flynn—"

But Flynn is already gone.