Just as I’m about to give in fully, I pull away sharply, startled by a noise from the hallway. We sit, listening—his hand still pressed against the back of my head, mine still pressed against his neck. I place the noise quickly—the distinct, muffled clang of Raphael’s key chain jumping forward and back against its clasp. It reaches its height as he walks by Damon’s door, the shadow of his feet carving into the dark brown carpeting of the room. Damon and I watch each other as the sound dissipates down the hall, eventually disappearing where he would have turned the corner to the second wing.
Damon’s eyes don’t leave mine. They ask if I’m okay. They ask what happens next. They beg for permission to keep going.
“I better go while I have the chance,” I say, barely able to get the words out over my escalated breath. I tell myself it’s not a test. I’m not saying it so he’ll counter. I say it because I know I need to.
“Or... you could stay?” He cups the back of his neck with his palm and looks through his lashes at me, the peacock-feather blue of his eyes searing me like a laser.
I stare back at him, intensity corking my airway and desire drumming between my legs.
Or, I could stay.
37.
Testimony (n.)
a formal written or spoken statement, especially one given in a court of law
the opportunity to be heard
Margot rises from the defense table and glides regally to the stand. Today, she wears a cream-colored skirt suit with a burnt sienna laced edge and an understated olive-colored silk top underneath. Her stick-straight brown bob is parted down the middle and pulled back in a barely there ponytail at the nape of her neck. She appears calm, confident, and ready to finally speak.
Once seated, she turns to the jury and forces eye contact, one by one, offering us each unique smiles of acknowledgment. She is sworn in before she can get to us all. I wonder if whatever might be happening inside her compares to the electrical storm in my own stomach.
I left Damon’s room last night, desperately wanting to stay, avoiding the disappointment in his eyes as I snuck out. I put myself to sleep with visions of him adorning me with various forms of affection. The feel of his hand squeezing my knee. His lips pressed to my forehead, lingering. I suppose it was my form of cute animal shows, if those animals were all in heat.
Today, Damon is striking. He’s wearing a deep purple, almost maroon button-down shirt that makes his eyes more piercing than I previously thought possible. We exchanged quick pleasantries thismorning, and I did take the seat beside him on the shuttle, though we were both quiet. Nonetheless, I felt the comfort of him as I always do.
He tilts his notepad toward me on his knee. I can’t help but smile. He’s drawn a small owl on the top right corner of the sheet.
It’s an exceedingly unexpected development—that the day Margot takes the stand, it’s Damon who dominates my thoughts. When I reiterated that I should leave his room last night while I could still get the words out, he hung his head, then kissed my forehead—one long, lingering kiss—before releasing his hold of me. That forehead kiss, like so much of him, was protective.
I took a lukewarm shower when I returned to my room, hoping the blast of water would soothe the nagging want at my base. Instead, I pictured Damon behind me, his broad chest pinning me against the wet tile. My fingers slid back and forth as I envisioned his tongue making the motion. It was the fastest climax I’ve ever reached.
The courtroom buzzes with excitement. Margot on the stand is the grand finale the collective gallery has been awaiting—less, I imagine, for the sake of proving her innocence, but rather because everything she says or does on the stand today will be scrutinized by the masses as soon as it’s reported.
Durrant Hammerstead slowly rises and approaches the stand, buttoning his deep gray pin-striped suit with one hand. He rests his hands atop the rail, his face only a few inches from Margot.
“Let’s start at the beginning of your time in California,” he says after his standard pleasantries to ease his prime witness in. “What brought you here?”
Margot leans forward, and her deep, punctuated voice instantly captures my attention. She’s sat so silently in this courtroom for nearly two weeks, I’d almost forgotten her voice. “I had spent my entire life in Minnesota. I felt like I was... meant for something else. A different life. I was itching to get out. And I thought L.A. was the place to go for something more.”
“Take us back, if you will, to the beginning of your relationship with Joe once you were in California.”
Margot stares forward, taking a moment before she begins. “I wastwenty-one. I met Joe during my second year in L.A. My roommate Kelly and I were eating at Don Antonio’s, our favorite Mexican food spot. Joe was seated at the table beside us at some business dinner.” She smirks to herself, flicks her eyes briefly to the ground. “Kelly and I were getting ready to leave, and the waiter told us our meal had been paid for. Joe and I closed the place down after that, drinking and talking. He made me laugh a lot. I told him he was funny. He told me he had to be, with his face.” She hints at a smile. “That was important to me, someone who could make me laugh and who could laugh at himself.”
“And how did your relationship progress after that first night?”
“He courted me pretty heavily. I’d told him that first night I missed the Polish sausage from Von Hanson’s, this small place in St. Cloud. That I couldn’t seem to find anything as good in L.A. There was a bouquet of sausages at my front door the same week. I didn’t even know how he figured out where I lived. I was sharing a tiny apartment in Westwood. It was far more phallic than he likely intended that sausage bouquet to be. That became an ongoing joke between us as well, one we retold often, how ill-advised that bouquet was. Somehow, it only added to his charm. After that, there were extravagant parties and dates, even a private jet to a beach dinner in Tulum.”
“How did you feel about all of it? About him?”
“It was overwhelming, honestly. I was young. I had barely been anywhere but St. Cloud. I had no frame of reference, so I didn’t know if this was just how men and relationships in L.A. went.”
“What about the age difference between you two? How did you feel about being courted by a man twenty years your senior?”
She makes a motion of tucking a hair behind her ear, though it’s already pulled back. “He was definitely the oldest man I’d ever considered dating.” There’s a light chuckle from the back of the room.
Margot is coming across well. She’s not antagonistic or cold, speaking calmly and openly in a way that allows us to connect with her. Then again, D.A. Stern hasn’t had his turn with her yet.
