Page 61 of Courtroom Drama
He holds still, allows me to treat him like a puppet. Finally, I drop his face, satisfied that it can, in fact, move the way of a smile. That the gesture is available to him, if and when he was to choose it.
When I release his face, he cups the back of my neck with his hand. I instantly flood with want, my senses pushed to an alertness I haven’tfelt all night. I examine his eyes, nose, mouth, and skin, and my vision goes blurry as it fuses my two versions of him—past and present—together. His hand holds firm to the back of my neck.
We stare at each other, and the sadness that never seems to leave him is momentarily replaced with desire. Still, I know it’s there. A flicker of a sentiment has been swirling in me all night, and, staring into his eyes now, I am finally able to define it. I would do just about anything to work that imprint of pain from his eyes and body and heart. This idea is scary and impulsive. It feels like a free fall—uncontrolled and thrilling and terrifying at once, knowing I might die at the bottom when I finally land. Even so, what a ride.
I lean in and kiss him, not at all softly.
Everything feels... more. My skin more sensitive to his touch, my tongue more tactile, my whole body tingling with excitement. Somewhere in the depths of my mind, I thank the gummies. As our kiss grows deeper, I scoot into him where there’s no room to be had, my hips rocking toward his stomach. He presses into me, our bodies connecting at several points. His hand snakes around to the front of my neck. When he squeezes, I feel the pulse of it between my legs. When I shift more firmly in his lap, I feel his erection rising against me, so closely aligned to its intended place it makes me moan into his mouth.
“I want you so bad,” he murmurs into my ear. His voice is like fingertips grasping the edge of a crumbling cliff, and it makes me writhe against him. He exhales, leans his head against the wall, closes his eyes. I feel powerful, sitting on top of him, causing his arousal. I’ve never felt more capable. Damon is the thrill I’ve never fully had but now, exposed, need to continue to feel.
His hand releases from my neck, moves down to my waist, then back up underneath my sweater. His hands are ice cold from the evening chill. Their touch causes an immediate eruption of goose bumps across my entire body. He releases his breath, seemingly enjoying being the cause of my skin’s reaction. His fingertips press into the small of my back, and I practically whimper. We stare at each other a moment, the strand of connective tissue between us thick, throbbing. Helooks at me like I’m the most intriguing thing he’s ever seen. Like I’ve stopped him in his tracks. Like I have a presence akin to Margot Kitsch.I get it,I think, as I stare back at him. I get how valuable this power is. How addictive. I lean back in and kiss him more deeply than before, my hand making its way down to his erection just below his jeans. I envision the solid mass below and believe I may come completely undone right here on this rooftop. Right here in his lap.
“I knew it!” Cam’s voice infiltrates, and Damon and I freeze. He’s still lying several feet away, though he’s lifted his head in our direction, clearly observing our intimate moment. Damon reacts by covering me with the discarded blanket beside us as if I am naked, though we are both fully clothed.
As quickly as he burst in, Cam lays his head back down and closes his eyes again as if he were a corpse experiencing a phantom muscle spasm. Damon and I look from him back to each other, me still atop his lap, his hands still clasping the bare skin under my sweater at my sides. Our laughter is immediate.
29.
Communal Property (n. phrase)
assets and possessions owned jointly
after last night, Damon’s lap
Tuesday morning, we are introduced to Shane Windham, Joe’s longtime business manager and executor of his estate. Though the same age, Mr. Windham looks as though he could have had a good ten years on Joe. While Joe defined as he aged, Shane Windham has a worn, reddened face and hair receding severely at his temples. He reminds me of a melted candle, his skin folded and molded over, winding paths down his face, collecting at the center point of his neck.
As we await Shane Windham being sworn in, Damon scrawls a note on his pad and shifts it toward me on his right leg.HI,it reads. I look up at him, and the muscle in his jaw clenches.Hi,I write back, then promptly look away, pressing my eyes shut. Last night I dry-humped Damon Bradburn on the roof of the Singer Suites while high on smuggled gummies with Cam lying just a few feet away. There could be no greater indication that I am making questionable life choices.
Something about this environment makes me feel young and stupid. It’s as though the more parameters are placed around me, the more I regress to being incapable of rational thought and decision-making.
The cedar and nutmeg scent of Shane Windham’s cologne wafts toward us from the witness stand, and it makes me sneeze.
“Bless you,” Damon whispers beside me, and his hungry tone reminds me of his whisper to me last night.I want you so bad.I shift in my seat, suddenly feeling so exposed I might as well be naked from the waist down.
Damon tilts his notepad toward me once more. Under our exchange of hellos, he has written:I HAD A DREAM ABOUT YOU LAST NIGHT. Before I can react, someone clears their throat, and I look over to find it’s one of the courtroom bailiffs, Maurice, stationed just to the right of the jury box. He’s looking directly at me. Jurors eleven (the quiet young man) and twelve (the mom of four) also seem to take note of the exchange. I smile awkwardly and shove Damon’s notebook back to him.
Last night was a low point. Technically, it was a high point—a very high, best-make-out-of-my-life high point. But I’m acting impulsively, and my actions have real potential consequences that supersede my own wants. I sit up a little straighter. Today, I draw a line in the sand. I won’t tell Damon that not only did I dream about him, too, but that, once back in my room last night, I pleasured myself thinking about our rooftop encounter.
D.A. Stern dives in, and I am grateful. He asks Mr. Windham about his relationship with Joe, which we learn dates back an impressive thirty-five years. Mr. Windham describes their friendship, which extended far beyond their business relationship, including dozens of sails to Catalina Island on his catamaran and private viewings of Joe’s upcoming films in the Kitsches’ theater room. After this background information, D.A. Stern gets to it. “Mr. Windham, will you tell us the details of Joe Kitsch’s will?”
Shane Windham clears his throat and leans forward, bumping his top lip against the microphone. It’s become a slight amusement of the trial, seeing how few people can speak into the microphone with appropriate clarity and spacing. He leans back slightly. “It was actually quite basic, despite his complex income streams and wealth.”
“What do you mean by ‘basic’?”
Shane Windham clears his throat again and looks to us in the jury box as he says, “He left everything to his wife. To Margot.” He motions a hand toward the defense table where Margot sits, right ankle crossed behind left, legs at a forty-five-degree angle, just as she usually does.She looks on, rather stoic today. I think of the magazine article, the gallery member who described her as unapologetic and spiteful.Is she?
There’s something different about her today. She’s dressed sharply, as always, in a perfectly tailored black midi dress with a draped mock neckline and pointed nude heels. Her hair hangs straight and smooth, just as it has each day of the trial. Her makeup is neutral but present. Though perfectly groomed and styled, there’s a sunkenness to her eyes. Maybe the trial is getting to her. I wonder if she’s been sleeping. Is it trial fatigue or guilt?
Shane Windham clears his throat again and regains my attention.
D.A. Stern strolls to the jury box, rests a hand on the small wall ahead of me. “So Margot stands to inherit how much, exactly, as a result of her husband’s passing?”
Shane Windham’s response is immediate, eyes clearly full of contempt and on Margot as he answers, “Just under eighty-five million.”
A murmur breaks out across the courtroom.
“Eighty-five million dollars?” D.A. Stern asks.
