A Call From DanielleMature

Oh god, I thought, and gulped. Madison slipped off of the bed and moved across the room with a cat like fluidity. With each step she looked as if she were floating on air. Her deep blue eyes never left mine, even as she maneuvered through the items I had scattered all over the floor. I wondered how she hadn’t fallen and tried to say something, anything --even a stupid joke-- to diffuse the tense silence.

Finally she reached me and stood not a foot away. Her arms, long and dotted with freckles, hung down at her sides. Madison took hold of both ends of my belt and pulled my hips toward her own, held me there when my pelvis was pressed into her. The more she pulled, the more of my underwear she revealed, and the more embarrassed I felt. She looked down.

“Spongebob?” she asked and the corners of her lips twitched. Madison looked like she was about to laugh.

I could feel face grow hot. “Is there a problem with my choice in undergarments?”

“No,” she said. Madison pulled my belt off roughly and tossed it to the floor. “So. You still need help getting these off?”

I shifted my weight onto my other leg. “I wouldn’t mind the help.”

“And I wouldn’t mind giving it.”

Madison dropped to her knees before me and slid her fingers under the waist of my pants and I hissed. Her fingers felt like ice. She began pulling them down. Slowly, almost teasingly it seemed.

They were about halfway down my thighs when I noticed my underwear being pulled down with them, and I gasped and gripped the waistband. I hoped she hadn’t noticed what she’d almost done. But she had.

“Woops,” she smirked.

“Whatever happened to buying me dinner first?”

“Earlier didn’t count?” Madison asked. “I guess I’ll have to stop then,” she stood up.

I almost groaned. “How unfortunate for me.”

“Mmm, very,” she said. “Pull them off, though; I wanna see those tattoos of yours.”

I nodded and made quick work of tugging the tight denim off of my legs. A minute later I got them off and kicked them to the side. I fixed my underwear and angled my body so that she could see the artwork that covered most of my thigh. Madison nodded approvingly and motioned with her finger for me to turn the other way.

“Nice ink,” she commented. “Any other hidden tattoos?”

“Nope,” I answered and picked up my t-shirt, slid it over my torso. Madison pulled the back of my shirt down.

“It bunched up in the back,” she explained and smiled sheepishly.

The both of us jumped when one of our phone’s blaring ring tones went off. Madison and I separated, searched for our phones. I took mine out of the pocket of my jeans and checked it. No one had called or text me. I looked at Madison. She sat on the edge of my bed and spoke to whoever was on the other line in hushed tones. Her whole body seemed to go rigid. Tentatively I went around to the other side of the bed and sat next to her.

“Is everything okay?” I whispered, my voice barely loud enough for even me to hear.

She frowned and shrugged her shoulders, kept listening to the person talking to her. I pat her back and pushed off the bed but was immediately pulled back down. I looked at Madison, confused.

“Don’t go,” she mouthed. She looked like she had tears in her eyes.

“I won’t,” I promised.

And I didn’t leave. I sat there for almost an hour while she trembled and mumbled half-hearted apologies into the receiver. I couldn’t stand watching her sit there on the verge of tears. All I wanted to do was take the phone out of her hands and just hold her until she felt better. Til she was smiling again.

A few moments later she pressed the END button and closed the call. Madison slumped over onto her side and let her arms hang over the side of the bed. Her cell phone fell out of her hand and clattered to the floor. The back fell off and the battery fell out. I let her lay there and picked up her phone and placed the battery in, set it on the nightstand next to her. I plopped down and looked up at Madison, who had tears streaming down her cheeks. I rested my chin on the mattress.

“What’s wrong?” I asked softly.

She wiped the tears from her eyes. “It’s Danielle…she flipped out on me because I wasn’t still at the movie theater when she came back with her friends.”

“Why would she flip on you?”

Madison didn’t answer, only exhaled a ragged breath.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” I said and smoothed my thumb over her arm.

“It’s fine. She just…she gets mad. A lot…and mostly at me,” she began crying again. “And I hate it. I can never do anything right in her eyes.”

“Don’t listen to her. She’s just a bitch,” I said and knew immediately that I had probably crossed a line, insulting her girlfriend like that. But it’s pretty clear what Danielle is, and I have no problem saying it. My only concern is making Madison mad. She wasn’t though, which surprised me. She actually agreed.

“She is…sometimes. But, I guess I deserve it,” she shrugged. “That’s what it feels like, anyway.”

I climbed onto the bed and placed her legs on top of mine. “Look, I know that I haven’t known you that long or anything, but you don’t deserve that….you’re too good to be treated like that.”

“You don’t have to try and make me feel better, Kat,” she sniffed.

“I don’t. But I want to. I don’t like seeing you sad,” Madison rolled over and looked at me. I opened my arms up and after a minute of sitting there with her watching me blankly, I doubted if she even wanted to come in contact with me. Maybe I had crossed a line with her somewhere, pissed her off. The thought hit me hard, and I actually felt a little sad.

But all doubt was erased when she lurched forward and wrapped her arms around me in a tight embrace. Madison buried her head in the crook of my neck and shuddered. Seconds later I felt a wet spot on my neck. She was crying again.

I ran my fingers through her hair and tried to soothe her, to calm her down. “What’s the matter?”

She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, pressed herself closer against me. “No one’s ever been this nice. Actually cared about me. Thank you, Kat,” she whimpered and placed a kiss on my neck.

“Don’t thank me,” I said quietly. “Only treating you how you should be treated.”