This Empty Love

Back at the hotel room, I armed myself with a bottle of water and took station on the bed. Oliver sat opposite of me on the other mattress. He grabbed the hotel phone and pulled it until the cord stretched straight and rested in his lap. His tattooed fingers grazed over all the correct numbers belonging to Dr. Owens. I hoped he wouldn’t mind a call from London.

The phone was set to speaker, allowing the dial tone and Dr. Owens’s voice to sound through the room. “Taylor, Oliver, it’s nice to hear from you.”

“Hey Doc,” Oliver and I managed to say at the same time. We glanced at each other before I focused on the phone.

“How was your dinner date?” he asked, emphasizing the key word of ‘date.’

“It was good,” I replied first, maneuvering my legs into the Indian style.

Oliver agreed with me. “It was nice. A bit awkward at first, but over all I thought it was pretty okay.”

Oli hung his legs over the edge of the mattress and leaned his torso back, letting his arms fan off to the side to support him. For what felt like the millionth time these last few days, he was shirtless. His tattoos were exposed and attractive as ever. Even if I knew their locations by heart, seeing them would never get old.

“Well, you know what they say, it’s only awkward when you make it that way,” Owens said

“I guess so,” I responded meekly. “So what great advice do you have for us today? We’ve accomplished making it to London and getting through a dinner without any murders. What now?”

Dr. Owens paused for a moment. You could hear the infamous scratching of pen-on-notebook but nothing more. I couldn’t tell if he was thinking of something to tell us, or solving the crossword puzzle out of the L.A. Times.

“Can I be blunt with you two for a moment?” He asked suddenly. His tone was nervous, like we were going to shoot him down.

My eyes drifted towards Oliver. He was looking back at me with his eyebrows raised. I shrugged and brushed a piece of hair from my face, “What could it hurt?”

“Alright Doc, ‘ave at it,” Oliver replied.

“I don’t really think me saying this is necessarily creepy, because I’m in my early thirties and dating and whatnot,” Owens said, rambling. “But I need to get to the point. I think you two should have sex.”

Immediately, I choked on my water and sputtered while trying to clear my lungs of liquid. My eyes shot in the direction of Oliver, wide and staring. Instead of looking at me, Oli was gawking at the phone in his lap.

Owens didn’t even give us time to recover before he started talking again. “I’m serious. Between you, there is anger, frustration, tension, awkwardness, and some covered up remaining love. I honestly think sex would be the best way to let all of that out.”

I was still trying to recover from inhaling the water while Owens said everything. Worse than the choking was the fact that everything he said was completely on target.

Once again, Owens didn’t bother sticking around to hear our responses to his idea. “It’s just an opinion, call me in the morning.”

And that was it. The line went silent along with the rest of the room. I wasn’t choking anymore, Oliver was now staring at me with a blank expression on his face, and the dial tone had finally shut off. If Owens was trying to cure the tension and awkwardness, I’m pretty sure he just made it worse.

I finally managed to recover. “I’m not quite sure how we’re supposed to respond to that.”

“Obviously there’s two responses,” Oliver said with a laugh. “One, we ignore what he said, or two, we ‘ave sex. Either way, that was a weird conversation.”

As he spoke, he moved the phone off his lap and placed it back onto the end table which separated his bed from mine. He stood and walked over to me, looking down as his shins and knees touched the mattress. I sat near the edge with my legs still crossed under me. I tilted my head up and watched as he leaned forward, bending at the waist, and lowered his face in front of mine.

Oliver’s hands rose from his sides and cupped my face, keeping me in place while he inched even closer and pressed his lips to mine. Instantly, I shut my eyes and soaked in the feeling. His lips were warm and softly, something I missed for so long.

The angle that we were in was uncomfortable. My neck was strained up and Oliver was bent almost completely over but it didn’t seem to matter. His hands moved down my neck and over my shoulders. His touch was giving me goose bumps while his palms ran down my back and cupped my butt, pulling me up out of my sitting position and to my knees.

The height difference from the previous position was suddenly gone. Now, our faces were nearly level and our lips connected in a soft kiss. But I didn’t want soft. It was my turn to move my hands. I slipped my arms around his neck and wove my fingers into his messy hair. We were kissing each other as if we needed it to live.

I had no complaints when his hands moved from my butt to wrap around my back. He lifted me lightly, enough to let me move my legs, before he laid me back against the bed. I maneuvered my legs and let his body rest between my thighs.

Oli sucked in my bottom lip, nibbling lightly before he began to kiss down my neck. The feeling was amazing. It was everything I knew I missed, but actually having his skin on mine was heaven.

He wasted no time slipping both hands under my shirt and tugging the fabric over my head with ease. His breath was fast and warm against my collarbone. It wasn’t long until his lips were back on mine and his hands continued roaming my body.

I was turned on and wanting this, but something wasn’t right. It felt forced. There was no way I could let our first intimate moment in almost a month happen because our therapist said so. As much as I wanted this, it would be better if we actual meant it.

I ran my hands up Oliver’s chest until my palms were flat against his shoulders and lightly pushed him up. To my dismay, our lips separated and he lifted his body to hover over mine. His heat was practically gone.

“Oli, I can’t. I mean, this is great. It really is, and I want to but something just doesn’t seem right, something –”

“– is forced,” he finished for me. I nodded and watched as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Oliver rolled off me and back onto the mattress. We laid there in silence for a while, catching our breath and thinking. At least, that’s what I was doing. If only I could have read Oliver’s mind, because he sure as hell wasn’t speaking what he was thinking.

I rolled onto my side and faced him. His eyes were closed and his chest was moving up and down heavily.

“Oliver,” I whispered and touched his chest. He looked at me through half closed eyes. “Will you tell me what’s on your mind?”

“Honestly, not much other than your body at the moment,” he replied and closed his eyes again. “I do think yeh are right though. It didn’t feel right, would ‘ave ended up more stressful.”

Relieved that he agreed with me, I scooted over in the bed and rested my head against his chest. Oliver snaked his arm under my body and wrapped it around me like it was something we did every night.

In the morning, we would probably call Dr. Owens and inform him that his plan backfired. Only to follow up telling him that it resulted in the most comfortable sleep either of us had received in a very long time.