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2019, a year for change.
This was not the first time they did something like this. There was a certain side of Isabelle that only came out on full moons, marked by her swiping a tongue over glistening teeth and sending sparks to other bar patrons through their locked eyes. This Isabelle walked through the streets of The Strip with her shoulders rolled behind her and her lips curved up, fingering the rim of a martini, laughing flirtatiously loud at someone’s joke. And Jack, well Jack was adventurous. And a fan of anything adrenaline seeking.
Jack’s thumb was drawing circles on top of her thigh, so she lifted it to place on his lap. They were curled into one of those rounded booths at a new wave bar. It was burnt orange and velvet, and tilted in a way that you could make eye contact with people sitting on one side of the bar.
That was where they first saw her. Dark curls were drenched in streaks of honey, pinned back at her eye line. Speaking of! Her eyes–warm, pooling into liquid gold as she stared at nothing in particular. Her fingers were twirling over the garnish stick of a dirty martini. Other hand caressing her cheek, brushing her lips. Soft, plush lips. Coated in a burnt umber gloss, slightly parted and neutral in expression. She blinked, eyelids languid, lashes dancing dark over warmly tan skin. It made the ivory reflections on her irises twinkle harder.
Isabelle laid her head on his shoulder, placed a hand on his chest. “Look over there, don’t be obvious.”
He blinked up, his eyes froze into hers. Fuck, that was obvious. He darted them away, coughed a little nervously.
“What?” She pulled her head off his shoulder.
“Nothing.” He looked at Isabelle. “She’s pretty.” He paused. “Do you think she’d say yes?”
“Only one way to find out.” She grinned and slapped her clutch against his chest. “Hold this for me.” He shook his head, chuckling.
She fluffed the side of her hair as she walked over to the bar, heels clacking on linoleum, silk skirt spinning a little at the motion. Luckily the seat beside the mystery woman was empty. Double lucky, the woman’s drink was too. She slid in gracefully, raised a hand to the bartender.
“Can I buy two more of these?”
The woman looked at her.
“Hi.” She said, eyes bright and wide and smiling at how forward this was.
“Hi there.” Isabelle smiled, pulling her own hands on her lap and facing the woman.
“Do you?.. have a name?” The woman asked, still holding eye contact while she handed a different bartender the empty glass. She pulled the garnish stick out to hold onto.
“Isabelle. You are?”
“Baran.” She smiled, pulling an olive between her teeth. She cocked her head. “You’re married.” She giggled, gesturing at Isabelle’s left hand with the stick.
Isabelle looked down and laughed. “Still human.” She replied, glancing back up at Baran.
–
Still human? Jack didn’t think so. You know that Greek myth about the pursuit for love? Your soulmate: the eternal search for a second half of yourself? When Jack lost that he felt halved in two. And with his leg already gone now he was only sitting at a quarter. This sub-human entity wandered the earth. Eyes like a zombie. Palms stretched out in front of him. A beggar. Hand me all the love you can spare. Allow me just a smile, a kiss, a stroke through each other’s hair. Scouring the earth for a love he had lost.
–
“Man or woman?” Baran raised one eyebrow slightly as she asked.
“Come on, at least buy me dinner first.” She reaches out to grab her drink from the bartender. “Man.” She says, finally. She risks a glance up at Baran.
Baran tilts her head up at her. “Does he know you’re here?”
“He’s sitting over there.” She threw a glance over at Jack in the booth. He was leaning back watching them, eyes like a hawk. He smiled at her, wrapped a hand around his glass. “He likes to watch.” She looked back at her.
Baran’s eyes narrowed teasingly. “A cuck?” She laughed, sharp and fresh.
Isabelle laughed too, shaking her head. “Well he’s allowed to play too, so not quite.”
“Yeah?” Baran looked into her, eyes wide and pooling like glass.
“Yeah.” A little breathless in response, words trailing off at the end.
“Want to give him something to see?” Baran said. Whispered is more accurate.
Isabelle leaned her head forward, eyes open in anticipation. Baran met her in the middle.
A crash.
Velvety soft, melting into each other like butter. Skin tightening by hands placed in hair. The slightest tug, pleasurably painful. Baran pulling away, too soon. Isabelle looking up at her, eyes wide, pupils blown, worrying her lip with her teeth.
“Come back.” Isabelle said.
“So greedy.”
“For you.”
Baran laughed.
“Come sit with us.” Isabelle said.
Baran closed her eyes for a moment, letting out a sigh. “This seems like a bad idea.”
“Fun.” Isabelle said, like she was offering her borrowed justification.
“Fun.” Baran repeated. After a moment she stood. Followed Isabelle around the bar, glasses in hand.
“Hi.” She said warmly to the husband.
“Jack.” He reached out a hand. She shook it. Set her glass down, then slid into the booth. Isabelle followed her, sandwiching Baran.
Nervously looking around for a moment. “Do you two come here often?” They laughed at her joke, laughed like it was something they had done for so long together that it came in the same rhythm.
“We would’ve come more if we knew you’d be here.” Jack offered. Baran giggled at that.
“You wouldn’t have seen me, I just moved here.”
“From where?” Isabelle took a sip, made eye contact with Baran.
“Technically? Afghanistan.” Isabelle switched her gaze to Jack, eyes widening.
“Wow.” He said.
“Doctors without borders.” She explained.
“Oh.” Isabelle said. “Jack’s a doctor. He’s practiced abroad as well.”
“Really?” Baran said. She looked at him. He shifted uncomfortably.
“Millitary medic.” He qualified. He wouldn’t look at her.
Her eyes hollowed.
–
Her eyes were hollow. That’s what Jack was thinking about standing over his wife’s dead body. Open casket was self-flagellation. Surely a concept invented by some billionaire funeral director with a masochistic streak.
–
“Where are you working now?” Isabelle asked.
She didn’t break her gaze from Jack. “The VA.”
“Nice.” He said, trying to break the tension. “I’m at PTMC.”
“I’ve been hearing that abbreviation since moving here. What does it stand for?’
“Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center.”
She hummed, nodding in response. Turned to look at Isabelle. “What do you do?”
“I’m a teacher. 12th grade, English Lit.”
“I loved my English classes.” Baran smiled.
“Me too.” A reply.
The conversation continued pleasantly. At one point Isabelle placed a hand over her thigh while making full, heavy eye contact with Jack. Their legs were all brushing together. Funny, the legs didn't start out that way.
Baran didn’t realize how late it was until “last call” rang out from a bartender.
Isabelle frowned. “It’s so early… I’m barely getting to know you.” That second part worded suggestively.
“Well, you’ll just have to take me with you then.” Baran’s eyes sparkled mischievous, leaning her head close towards her. Isabelle took her hand, stood them, and walked them to the door as Jack went up to close their tab.
–
“Can I get you anything?” Jack said as he took her coat. “Drink? Water?”
“Do you have whiskey?”
“Yes.” He replied.
“Neat.”
Isabelle reached out to kiss him. “Same.”
Baran looked on at them from her position near the door. Her eyes softened, looking on fondly. Arms crossed, curls falling in curtains before her face, mentally replaying the kiss over and over and over again.
Isabelle quirked her head back to look at her.
“Lonely?”
“A little.”
“I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to leave you out.” She stepped forward. Took Baran’s hand and pressed salmon colored lips to it. “Jack.” She angled her head. “Come kiss her.”
He moved like a programmed device. Starting immediately at the first hint of direction. Or like a well trained Chocolate Labrador. Your choice.
Her hand was still taken in Isabelle’s as he crowded her against the wall. He positioned himself over her, made her feel smaller. Isabelle was tall too. Maybe he never got to do this height-based power play. He bent in, lips pliant against hers. Play dough. Wetter. And not as salty. He came against her countless times. She felt Isabelle’s thumb stroking the fleshy skin between her thumb and forefinger as he did. Jack was oddly a little silent. Baran was too. Funny, Isabelle was the loud one. Humming as they kissed, gasping in pleasure the first time they touched. He pulled off.
“I’ll go get those drinks.” Walked away.
“I think I’m jealous.” Isabelle said, leaning in, pressing her head against the wall adjacent to where Baran’s leant.
“There’s plenty to go around.”
“Yeah? You’re plenty?” Their heads got closer.
“More than enough.”
–
“More than enough.”
There had been a fight. A tear soaked, raging fight. A fight when it was storming outside and Isabelle was soaking wet coming home from a wedding late at night. Jack hadn’t been there. Jack had been at his shift.
“Will I ever be enough for you?” A scream.
“More than enough.” Quickly.
“Really?” Desperate.
A beat. A moment passed. A sigh and a lick of the lips. Another sigh. An exhaustively long second beat.
“I. I don’t know.” Quiet, guilty.
–
Lips on lips. Baran’s tongue sliding into her mouth. Teeth grazing against it. Painful. Bending her tongue into it more. Harder. Hurt me harder. Time passing. The end marked by an ornate glass pressed against her back.
“Hi.” He says flirtatiously and a little like a jealous lover who’s just caught the affair in the act. He kind of is, she supposes.
“Thank you.” She says, reaches a hand out to grab it. Fingers brushing each other.
“Thank you.” Isabelle mimics, leans in to give him another kiss.
The wash down is sharp and hot, liquid prickling at the back of her throat like hands placed too close to a bonfire, touching the edges of its dance. She finishes in another gulp. Jack takes the glass back, drinks the remaining sliver of liquid. Eye contact on the whole time. He reaches to meet Isabelle’s hand, who is passing her finished glass as well. He walks to the kitchen, deposits them on the countertop. Finally, Baran lets herself cross the invisible threshold of the coat hanger. She steps inside the apartment. It’s elegant, she thinks. Looking at Isabelle it’s apparent that she has good taste. And of course Jack has good sense to follow along with it. They look like one of those extremely attractive celebrity couples with complimentary aesthetics. As she steps forward Isabelle presses her left hand on the valley of her back. She turns her head to look at her.
“Do you like it?”
“I do.”
–
“I do.” That was the happiest day of Jack Abbot’s life. Those were his favorite words. She took this man, in sickness and in health. And then sickness took her.
He’s still married to her in some way. Still clutches his ring after a particular kind of trauma comes through the ED. In sickness and in health. What about in life and death?
–
“I’m glad.” She giggles. “Do you want a tour? I can show you the bedroom.”
Baran stares at her, mind blank for a moment. She looks her up and down slowly.
“I’d like that.”
A door closes. Behind it clothes are falling to the floor. Laughter is filling the room. Bodies move against each other, sharply sliding and grinding. There’s biting too. It’s unclear where it comes from. Who receives it. Baran is laid down on an extremely comfortable mattress by two sets of hands. Head to foot she is covered in lipstick stains and hickeys and bite marks. She imagines a gloved hand tracing over each mark, scientifically deducing whose mouth it belonged to. Her eyes flutter shut in immense satisfaction. A boneless, all breath, moan escapes her lips.
Isabelle wraps a leg around her now. Straddling her stomach. She bends down to whisper in Baran’s ear.
“What do you want?” She presses a finger inside Baran’s mouth, she glides it over the tops of her teeth. Secretly, she hopes blood is being drawn.
“Anything.” Muffled by the finger.
Isabelle removes it, kisses her.
“Everything.” Baran decides.
“Do you want him to fuck you?” Isabelle challenges.
“More than want.”
Isabelle kisses her again, then slides her body off. Coaxes Jack into her old position. He dips a finger in. Slow. Walls of molten gold close in around him. Wet. He takes it back out. She curls her hips into it, chases his finger. He lifts it to Isabelle’s lips. She sucks it off in one quick gulp. He places the finger back inside her. Then with the rest of his hand, grips his dick. He guides it inside. Groans somewhere low and deep as she closes in on him.
She throws her head back in pleasure. Lets out two short gasps. Then, a contented sigh, signalling something to him. He responds promptly, begins sliding in and out. She moans and moans, breathlessly. She begins to beg.
“Please. Please.”
“Use your words baby.” Courtesy of Isabelle.
“Please.” Baran whines. “Come sit on me.”
Isabelle startles a bit, looks up at Jack. He only looks infinitely more turned on.
“Well. She did what you asked. Give her what she wants.” He motions a hand for her.
Isabelle obliges without another thought. She fits her hips over Baran’s mouth like it’s home. She’s facing the other direction this time, so she can look straight into Jack’s eyes. They move like this, one continuous, grinding, force. Into. Into. Deeper.
Her eye contact with Jack is some of the heaviest she can recall. She catches her eyes nearly rolling back on several occasions.
It’s harmony. The fact that they all reach a climax at the same time. An explosion. Of love and lust. Isabelle pores her eyes into his. “I love you.” Are the words she mouths to him.
–
“I love you” are the words he says in their last moments together. She replies, breathlessly. Exhausted in illness. Lying on a hospital bed, her mouth moves in the shape. She knows he understands. He holds it with him forever. He takes it to the PTMC roof, to SWAT runs in active gunfire, to moments in his SUV when he contemplates taking turns off of cliffside bridges.
–
They fall together like dominoes. They curl in, bonded kittens. Do not separate. Sleep comes quickly, comfortably. The morning comes too. At 5AM someone’s alarm beeps and they jump slightly apart from each other. Baran rubs her eyes wearily. She remembers where she is. She remembers it all. Maybe a little too well. Jack has stood and is soon making eggs in the kitchen. Isabelle offers her a robe, and they sit on the island admiring him. Admiring each other.
They didn't talk much that morning. Only about how Baran has a shift at 7AM and quite the coincidence Jack does too. He offers to drive her. She declines, partly because she wants to go home and take a year-long shower to wash the scent of sin off her. Partly because she can’t think of any more conversation to come up with between the two of them. Isabelle walks her to the door when her Uber arrives. She gives Baran her phone number and forces her to text her right then and there as confirmation.
“Anytime you want to do something.” She smiles. “We’re your go-to Pittsburgh travel guide.”
She gets busy so it doesn’t happen. Work is stifling and news of a pandemic in East Asia is reaching her. She buries herself in it. Easier than the memories of Kabul.
One year and a half later, when the dust has settled and she feels comfortable seeing friends again, she finds herself with an open night and a feeling of spontaneity rare these days. She picks up her phone, scrolls down to the message thread she has with Isabelle that still reads a “get home safe?” message reacted to with a thumbs up emoji. She types out. “Are you busy this evening?” She hesitates for a moment, then sends it. The message turns green. Odd, she thinks. She doesn’t receive a response and so she forgets it was even sent in the first place. She meets her now ex-husband shortly after. And then she meets her son a year after that.
–
Isabelle never wanted children.
“These are my kids.” She would say, beaming when she introduced her students to Jack. He pretended he was happy to go along with it. He was. In nearly every sense that mattered. It was just this “what if?” clawing at the back of his throat during late nights when he couldn’t sleep.
–
2026, The Fourth Of July. A day that haunts those who know what war sounds like.
Jack stormed into the ED, playing battletorn soldier in his uniform. Eyes dialed in on the prize, Trauma 2. Hands are roaming his friend's body. Compressions are performed, drugs are ordered. Another attending steps into the room.
Dark curls were drenched in streaks of honey, pinned back at her eyeline. Deja Vu–stronger than ever before. He blinks for a second, then readjusts, spinning back onto the patient. They work swiftly and accurately together. His friend is wheeled off to a higher floor. Now, just them, standing alone, together. Oh and Robby is in there too.
“You work here now?” His eyes roam over hers.
She angles her head silently at Robby, who is distracted with writing a procedure note. Mutual understanding passes between them.
“Ahh.” He sighs.
He makes something up about trading war stories. He knows she would hate that. Knows he would too.
She agrees to the drink. She looks better, he thinks, like fine wine. She thinks the same of him. Leaning into the salt and pepper aesthetic is good for him. She wonders if it’s Isabelle’s doing.
The drinks come two days later when they both happen to have a night off. He picks her up from the ED at 7:30 PM, giving her enough time to wrap up charts and handoffs. They go to a bar on The Strip, a different one from last time. She confesses that she isn’t drinking anymore. She also confesses her disappointment.
“I kind of thought you would bring Isabelle with you.” She laughs, trying to play it off coolly.
He blinks dumbly at her. Shifts his gaze down to the neck of his beer.
“She’s um.” Tears threaten to puncture his eyes. “Isabelle passed away a few years ago.” It never gets easy to voice. “Covid.” He says, wiping a tear away.
“Oh god. Jack, I'm so sorry.” She places a palm on top of his. He looks back at her.
–
His apartment looks the same. She takes in the decor as she steps into it for the second time. Everything where Isabelle had no doubt expertly placed it. Everything is clean, untouched, like a showroom in an open house. He holds her hand, letting her trail behind him as they make their way to the bedroom. The route is the same, so is the decor. A door closes. Behind it clothes fall to the floor. There is no laughter in the room. Only sharp gasps and heady sighs. His eyes show no expression when she bores her doelike ones into them. He looks down at her, her short stature, and remembers how Isabelle was not. He closes her eyes as he takes her lips in his. With that, it is easier to pretend. He holds her tightly as he fucks her. Rough and heavy into the bed. The sounds she makes lead him to believe this is how she has always wanted it.
He pretends she is Isabelle. And she lets him.
Somewhere deep inside, she pretends he is Isabelle too. And somewhere deeper inside him, he recognizes that. And he lets her.
–
When they are finished silence falls muggy over the room. They lie together for a moment. Then Jack mutters something about how she should go, refusing to look at her. She does not protest, eager to escape. He doesn’t offer her a ride home.
They run into each other again the next evening, she hands him a case with a few words of advice. Everything is the same. Neither person reveals a thing.
Somewhere in the clouds Isabelle is smiling down upon this scene. Likely, she is not, but Jack must believe he is. Or else he must realize he has cheated on his wife. Cheated on a woman he still calls his wife that he has not seen in five years.
Well, aside from in his dreams.