I met a boy. (part 2)
c. 2005, Miriam M. Wynn
Is it only because he's the only other lover I've had? I can only hope that it will fade, that's what flings do, you remember them for what they are and you move on, right?
Have you finally caught up with Alexei? You haven't written in a while and I hope that you're alright. I hear those stories about drug trafficking and kidnappings and I hope you're being careful.
Now that I'm not working I have nothing to do with my time but write you, daydream, and read. I suppose I'll work up to trying for another job elsewhere, but Marcus might prove stubborn on that.
In any case, the great fling ended, so I can no longer be your shining example of womanly sin. But I'm hoping you have more of your own escapades to tell me.
* * *
“Smile, darling,” says Marcus, and I smile as he rings the doorbell and it swings open with John and Pauline grinning just inside.
We move forward into the warm smell of turkey and home made cranberry sauce, and Pauline hugs me for yet another gift and guides me into the house to greet the guests.
Nicolas is not among them, and I feel a headache come on, a strange heavy coating of banality coating my insides, and I excuse myself after the introductions to stand in the kitchen and stare down at the sink.
“Are you alright, Danielle?” asks Pauline, concerned, and I nod tiredly.
“Just … a little tired, that's all,” and I give her a pat on the arm before helping her carry in the stuffing and the gravy tureen.
We're in the middle of raucous suburban conversation when the doorbell rings, and John excuses himself to answer it. After muffled voices and the trampling of feet, John enters the room again, followed by two heads.
“Look who's late for dinner!” Booms John, and we all wait as Nicolas emerges from behind him, pulling off his hat and gloves. Another boy about his age stands beside him.
“Two rascals hunting for turkey,” says John affectionately, and they grin, hug Pauline, and slip out to get presentable.
Before they leave, however, Nicolas runs his eyes over the room, past me, and back to John. As if I'm not there.
I keep my eyes on my plate as much as possible during dinner, glancing up occasionally to respond to questions, answer Pauline's requests for help, and respond to murmured asides from Marcus. I eat very little, my stomach clenched from the awareness of something awful in the room. A boy who has knelt between my thighs, forced himself into my life, is now behaving as if we're mere acquaintances.
This is what they do, after all, I think. Men move on. Women don't.
“So how's work been for you, Danielle?” Asks John jovially, and Pauline freezes. I had mentioned leaving my job to her weeks ago, and she's apparently forgotten to tell him.
Marcus takes it upon himself to answer for me.
“She's moved on,” he responds, cutting into a slice of his turkey.
“Really? Why?” John, though lovable, is not always sharp, and Pauline purses her lips, staring at him. He doesn't get the hint and chews his food, looking back at me.
“I was working a lot of long hours and …” my mind falls empty. I can't think of a lie any more. Bereft, I stop talking, and stare at my water glass.
“They were overworking her, and we all know that isn't good when you're trying to start a family,” Marcus throws out, and appeased, the masses make appropriate noises of support. Surprised, I glance over at him quickly, but he only puts his hand on my knee and squeezes it.
I say nothing else, but as soon as the main course is over, I hurry up to clear plates and take them to the kitchen.
“I'm so sorry about that, Danielle,” says Pauline, taking my hands and squeezing them as she catches up with me. “I really didn't think he'd ask that in front of everyone, and I really should have told him—“
“No, no, it's all right,” I say, throat constricting. Did he really want me to have children? Or was it a lie? Did I want children?
“Ex-excuse me. I think I need a minute alone.”
“Of course.” She watches me leave, face sad.
I'm standing in the bathroom on the far end of the hall, near the back patio and sunroom, with my face pressed to the cool tile staring up at the window. I've opened it, and cold air is blowing in, covering my skin with goosebumps.
I hear a knock on the door, and I glance over at it.
“I'll be fine, Pauline, give me a minute.”
The handle turns, and I start, turning to find Nicolas slipping into the room and shutting the door behind him.
“I thought I locked that.”
He doesn't answer, just leans back against it. I take him in. He looks wilder, more savage and less innocent than when I last saw him, and his skin seems paler. There are shadows under his eyes and I feel a prickling behind my own and begin to blink, fighting it.
“Hey,” I say, to cover it.
“Hey,” he answers. Neither of us moves.
“Who's your friend?”
“Buddy from school. He doesn't have any family to spend Thanksgiving with.”
“I thought you'd be home with … with your parents.” I realize what his coming here instead might mean, but don't want to hope. Hope is dangerous.
“Why'd you quit your job?” His voice is feverish, and his eyes are gleaming in a way that frightens me. What has he been doing since we've last seen each other? A streak of worry starts low in my gut and starts climbing up, toward my throat.
“He noticed something was different about me and I lied and said work had something to do with it.”
“And he made you quit.” He sounds hard, like concrete, immovable and cold.
“Yes.” I have no other answer, as usual. “Someone's going to notice we're gone together.”
“Everyone's finished eating. They're in the drawing room.”
“Pauline noticed you and I—“
“Are you done?”
“What?” I pull up straight, feeling the anger in him, directed at me as if he hadn't tried to rape me to prove a point.
“Are you done with pretending?”
“Get out, Nicolas. I don't like you when you're like this.”
“Like what? Christ, you drive me fucking crazy, you know that? I can't help it if it fucks me up.”
He kicks out at the tiled wall and balls his hands into fists.
I put my fingers to my temples. I don't know what he wants any more, let alone what I want. I want this mess cleaned up, simple again.
“This is over.” I say it very tiredly, and go to the sink. I turn the water on, and begin washing my hands.
I hear the scuff of his shoes and look up into the mirror. He is staring at me, his face full of so many things that my hands hang forgotten in the water.
“I don't know what to do about you any more.” His voice is shaking hard, as though he'll lose control of not just it, but himself. He looks angry, hurt, confused, and is a perfect reflection of my insides.
I feel the pricking behind my eyes intensify, then break, and tears begin sliding down my cheeks.
“I don't know what to do about you, how to make you happy, it's like you don't want to be happy, and I can tell when I touch you that you feel something for me. Why … why wouldn't you want to feel this?”
His face crumples, and I leave the water and turn, holding his face with wet hands as he falls into my shoulder and begins to sob violently, great big gasping sobs that shake him. Horrified, I grab him, squeeze him, desperate with regret and sorrow, full of apology, sorry that I can't fix it, sorry that I can't take any of it back.
“Nicolas, Nicolas, please don't, don't cry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” and my own tears drip down into the shoulder of his sweater. We slide to the floor, and his mouth, so wide and sorrowful, is a hair away from mine and he looks up, and his dark blue pools of pain meet mine.
“Ni-“
I don't even get to finish his name before his mouth is on mine. He sucks all the breath from me, until I'm ragged. Pushing, shoving, he smashes me to the floor but all I can see is his eyes and his mouth and he tastes like I remember.
“Oh god, Danielle,” he breathes, and he pushes my arms up over my head and holds them there so that my breasts rise and fall in his face. His free hand tugs up my shirt so he can see my bra, and he pulls a cup aside, freeing a nipple.
I don't even try to fight him anymore. I stare up at him, his wrecked and beautiful face, as his eyes travel over all of me, before he bends and takes me into his mouth.
“Uh-“ a ragged cry of surprise from me, because he bites and then sucks me hard, and I press my flesh back into his mouth, as the rhythm starts, and his mouth leaves my breast, panting to find my neck, and then he drags his face up to mine and I wriggle my hands free from his one hand to brush away the thick sweaty locks from his forehead.
“When will you stop?” He asks, hoarse. There is a bleakness in his eyes so deep and raw that I flinch. “When will you stop letting him own you and let me love you?”
I have no answer. He puts his hot hands on my face and stares at me for what seems like forever, before dropping them and pulling away. He pulls, almost throws himself away from me and stumbles up to his great height. Then he leans over the sink, and stays there for a while before he begins to wash his face.
I stand up and fumble to pull my clothes back to a state of dignity, watching him helplessly, not knowing what else I can do. Isn't it over? It should be over. There's no point to any of this any more.
When he's done, he turns the water off resolutely, grabs a towel, and dries himself.
He's got his hand on the doorknob before I ask, for no good reason, “Are you okay?”
He turns to look back at me, face haggard and body bent over as if he's been beaten down. And perhaps he has. I swallow, knowing it's my fault.
“I'm tired of this,” he says with the creaking voice of a man who's gone mad, and he turns the doorknob and does not pause at my answer.
“Me, too.”
After cleaning up, I return to the kitchen and begin washing dishes, slowly and methodically. Pauline eventually finds me and kicks me out, sending me back into the noise and fray of the drawing room, which has a roaring fire and people I don't want to be around. She does not say anything about where I've been, but her mouth pinches at the corners when she notices my red eyes.
I keep to a corner and watch tiredly as the group plays board games and charades, and I eventually fall asleep. I wake up to Marcus shaking me gently awake.
“It's late, Danny, let's head home,” he says, and I nod, standing up to give sleepy hugs to Pauline and John. I shake hands with the leftover guests, but the majority has gone home. Nicolas and his friend are absent.
As we get into the car, I look up from buckling my seatbelt and see him standing with his friend by the garage, smoking cigarettes. I had never realized he smoked. Or had he only just started?
He doesn't look over as the car pulls away. My heart tightens in my chest, and I look away.
“It's only natural in a marriage, Danny,” says Marcus, finished with getting into his pajamas and climbing into bed.
“I don't want to talk about this now,” I say, hand on my stomach. I feel sick, have felt sick ever since he mentioned my leaving work to start a family.
“Well, it needs talking about. We'll see a specialist next week. Anthony at work can probably recommend a good one, he and his wife had been trying a few years back and had success.”
“I'm not ready,” I say bluntly, looking up at him from the vanity. My hand is shaking and I put the brush down, staring at him through the mirror. He stops adjusting the pillows on the bed and looks at me.
“Not ready? We've had plenty of time to enjoy married life on our own, Danny, it's time to start planning for the future.”
Considering the discussion over, he cuts off the light on his side of the bed.
“Now, that's done. Come to bed, hon.”
I stare back at his prone shape on the bed, and then look down at my hand. It's in a fist.
* * *
I'm so glad to hear you're doing well and still tearing up the jungles. Don't you ever get tired of it and want a new scene?
And I'm sorry about Alexei … but are you really going to take no for an answer? I've never known you to. He just sounds as though he needs to sow his wild oats. Why not let him for a while, if you want him so badly?
What's it mean, to want someone so badly, I wonder, that you throw it all to the winds? It's a bold thing, and I don't think I'm brave enough for it. I suppose I could have done that with the boy but, honestly, how far would I have gotten? At least I know my boundaries, my limits.
But I don't want to talk about that any more. I'm trying to figure out how to handle Marcus. He wants to start a family now, after all these years. I might have been persuaded before, but now … now, I just don't know. I don't think it would be right. You don't make children because it's the thing to do. You make them because …
You make them because you love each other. My mother loved my father, regardless of his character. She thought he was a noble, chivalrous soul, and God bless her, she died thinking it. And I can't shake that that's how she made me, out of love. And my father loved her, in his way. He was a cold, selfish bastard but he knew she loved him and he took care of her for it. He didn't want to burst that bubble. Neither did I.
So how can I go on and make children knowing it's merely a plan? How can I raise them? I can't sit there and tell them their dad is wonderful. Because I don't feel it. I don't feel he's awful either but … you should be able to tell your children that you love their father, that you think of him every moment you're not with him, that you couldn't wait to have children with him. They're going to ask why you waited so long, aren't they?
How could you ever be a decent parent and tell them you made them because it was time?
* * *
I watch the clock ticking on the wall. The doctor is coming in shortly, and he'll be bearing charts and tests, and explaining how prepared I am for pregnancy.
When he enters, I hold my breath, and he proceeds, as I knew he would. Marcus nods, hand on my knee, and I look down at it, wishing it would go away.
The monotone continues. I am not listening. Eventually the doctor pauses, and asks calmly if he can speak to me alone. He just has a question or two he'd like to hear answers on from me directly. Marcus gives in only because he has no choice. He steps outside, and the doctor fixes his kind brown eyes on me.
“Mrs. Russo,” he begins, and he sets his chart down, and eyes me over his glasses. “I'm getting the feeling you don't want to be here. Am I right?”
I stare back at him stupidly, knowing I can't say anything either way.
“Anything you say to me is in confidence. You are going to be the one who has this child, and that's a major undertaking, psychologically, and physically. You have to really be ready and eager to take this sort of challenge on.”
His kind voice breaks through the fuzz in my brain, and I inhale, deeply.
“My husband feels it's time,” I say, flatly. I look down at the doctor's shiny shoes under his white coat and black slacks.
“Ah. And do you feel it's time?” His brows draw together, concerned. I lift my eyes to him, and my voice echoes around the room, sharp and ricocheting dangerously in my ears.
“Never. Not with him.” There's a finality to it. I'm embracing my nature. I cannot have children with him. If he doesn't like it, so be it. My hands are white-knuckled, clutching my purse as if death is just outside the door. I tense up. It could be.
“Mrs. Russo … I think you need to discuss this with your husband before you go any further.”
“Yes.” I keep sitting there, afraid to get up. If I get up, I'll have to do something about it.
“I'll call your husband in.”
“What did you say to him?” Marcus now sports his own white knuckles as he drives us back in his freshly cleaned car.
“I told him how I've been feeling very tired and I'm not sure if I'm up for pregnancy.”
“Danny, we discussed—“
“No. We didn't. You told me what you wanted, and disregarded my answer.” In the silence of the car, I hear the clicking of the blinker as we pull off the freeway, closer to home.
“I don't know what's gotten into you, but—“
“Wait until we get inside.”
He shuts his mouth, and after we pull into the garage, I head into the house, hang up my jacket, go into the kitchen, and sit at the breakfast table. My feet are bouncing skittishly on the large carpet beneath it, and I stop them when he walks into the room.
He sits down in front of me. His eyes, dark pools the same as ever, fix to me like a hawk's, and I draw in a slow breath, a careful breath, preparing my tired brain for the onslaught. I press my hands to my skirt, smoothing it down, and wait.
“Danny, please explain this to me. Why are you changing your mind?”
My smile is tight. I look up at him, placing both hands on the table, forcing myself not to twist my fingers together, or look down and away. If I do, I'll give in, because it's easier.
“Children should be made in love.”
“But, of course they'll be made in love.”
“No, they won't. They'll be made because you feel it's reached that time in our marriage schedule.”
“Well, naturally, we're getting on in years, and—“
“I won't. I don't feel well. I tell you why, and you won't listen. If you won't listen, fine. But I'm not going to do it. You can talk until you're blue in the face but I'm not going to allow a human being to grow inside of me just because you feel it's time!”
My voice begins at a normal volume but somehow becomes a shout by the time I'm done. Marcus looks at me as if I've grown a second head, and clears his throat.
“I recognize that … the change in your lifestyle recently may have … disturbed you, but I'm only thinking of your health. You didn't need the stress of that job, and you certainly—“
“I don't need the stress of my husband insisting in public that I have left my job because I intend to start a family, when I haven't even discussed it with him. I don't need the stress of being forced to take steps to begin a family, when I've already made it clear I am not ready, and do not want to right now. Do I need to carve it into this table? ”
I don't know where it's coming from, but I can't stop it. It vomits out of me like lava, and spills everywhere, eating up the space between us, turning his eyes black, so that his face looks like a specter on the other side of the table, unhealthy and cold.
“You don't want to do this, Danielle.” We are both aware that when he uses that tone, and that version of my name, I am in trouble.
“Do what, Marcus?” I respond. My voice is soft, but my eyes are direct on his.
“Destroy this marriage, this home. Have the past nine years meant nothing?” Looking back at him, feeling the coolness that has filled him up to overflowing and that now threatens to numb my mind, I conclude that it must have.
“I'm tired, Marcus.”
“So am I. I think … I think you need to take some time to reconsider. I think a visit with your father might do the trick.”
I narrow my eyes. He's always known about my aversion to my father, and the use of it against me drops like a lead weight in the lava pit of my gut, cold and heavy.
I swallow calmly, and shrug. It takes everything in me to do it, but I do it.
“Fine. I'll pack my things and leave in the morning.”
His blink is surprised, but he recovers quickly, nodding.
“I'll call your father tonight, then.”
“You do that.”
The chill inside me at his calculating gaze intensifies, and it's only as I make my way upstairs to our bedroom that I allow it to vibrate its way out of my body and into a tiny, controlled sob.
Will the two of them put their heads together to cow me, I wonder? Or will my father still be jealous of the hold Marcus has on me and work against him?
It doesn't matter. I pack my bags as I'd promised, get into my car, drive it to a local supermarket. From there, I take a taxi to the airport. At the airport, I use an account card I hid away ages ago and withdraw cash.
My mother left a trust in my name, created by her when I was a baby. She had funneled small sums into it until I'd graduated from college, and given it to me with a burning gleam in her eyes I had taken for pride. Now, I wonder if it had been knowledge of the potential need for a backup plan, for independence, if that need ever came. I'll never know.
The fund is a good size now. Not enough to make me rich, but enough to live off of for a while, if I ever need to. I hadn't told Marcus about it, wanting something to keep a secret, something that was mine.
I use the cash to rent a car. I drive the car nearly two hundred miles away to the New Castle , New Hampshire bed and breakfast that was once owned by my family.
It sits off Beach Hill road, and faces the eastern sea. Someone else owns it now, because my father sold it after my mother died. It had belonged to her grandmother and had been passed on to her; she'd given up running it when she married my father. She'd left its caretaking to trustworthy locals.
She had loved to come here, when I was little, and I hadn't been here since high school summers.
The owners greet me kindly, and help me carry my bags up. I stand in the best room in the house, staring out at the ocean, sit down on a chair, and start to cry.
* * *I've run away from home. I can't believe I've just written that. But I wanted to tell you you shouldn't write me at my home address any more, in the case he plans to read my letters. He might, I don't know. I thought I knew what kind of man he was and that his demands weren't too much to ask of anyone but eventually I had to say no.
In any case, please use this post office box. I'll rent it until something changes, and if so I'll let you know.
God, Francine, who knew I'd end up here. All because of … well I can't blame him really. It's my fault really, isn't it?
What did you decide with Alexei? I am wishing you the best because, obviously, I don't know what to do with my own mess. So I am hoping yours cleans up better.
I don't do anything out here. Maybe I'll buy a house or move somewhere else. I don't know. I'm just focusing on his not knowing where I am. I don't think he hasn't known where I am for the past … what, thirteen years? Ever since college. That … that makes me sick to write down.
I spend a lot of time thinking about my mother. I miss her terribly. I don't think I ever really got to grieve, before. So sitting in her favorite room, looking at her favorite view … I'm reconnecting with her and … thinking about her choices, and my choices. I read a lot. I stare at the beach a lot. I walk on it. It's too cold right now for anything more than that but maybe in the Spring, if I'm still here, I'll get the chance to enjoy it.
* * *
“Danielle, is that you? Please tell me you're all right!”
Pauline's voice is loud and alien on the other end of the line, and it dawns on me I haven't spoken intimately to someone in weeks.
“Yes, I'm fine.”
“Did you leave Marcus?” She says this more softly, and I swallow.
“Yes.”
“My God, Danielle, the look on your face that night in the kitchen … I hadn't realized he'd go that far, I'm so sorry …”
“Don't worry … let's not talk about it. Don't worry about it. I'm fine, and I'm … I just wanted to let you know that I'm okay.”
“Can I come visit you? Do you need anything?”
“I'm fine, Pauline. I need to be away from things, from … from everything.”
“Well, I won't tell him you called, and if you need anything at all, please let me know. And please call again. I just want to be sure you're safe.”
“I'm very safe.” My smile feels forlorn but genuine. “It's good to hear your voice.”
“You, too, Danielle. John's been missing flirting with you.”
“Tell him I said to take you out to dinner.”
“I will.”
On Christmas Eve I sit staring into the fireplace, the only one in any of the rooms other than the owner's downstairs. I have no tree, no gifts, and I don't want to call anyone.
I wonder if Marcus has stopped looking for me. I figure that he hasn't, and jump when the telephone rings.
“Miss Miller, you've got a package just arrived.” It's the sweet voice of the owner's wife, a batty woman in her fifties who makes a mean key lime pie.
“Thank you Letty, I'll be right down.” But I sit staring at the phone.
No one should know where I am. Whatever package is down there will not be a good thing.
The phone rings again.
“Miss Miller, I'm sorry to rush you, but we've got to close up soon. We need to head out to my son's for Christmas dinner. You're welcome to join us if you'd like.”
“No thank you, Letty, I'm sorry to keep you. I'll be right down.”
The walk fills my stomach with that churning I thought I'd left behind with Marcus. I walk down two flights of stairs and take a breath, looking up finally at the last one.
On the far side of the room, sitting by the door with his hands tight on his knees, biting his lip for all it's worth, is Nicolas.
“Oh my goodness, the poor girl is fainting—“
That's the last thing I hear before I black out.
When I wake up, it's seconds later, and Nicolas is holding my head in his lap, combing back the curls from my face, his eyes wary and tense.
“Are you alright?” He mumbles.
Letty is peering at me from over his shoulder. I nod, and she backs up, fretting.
“Oh, honey, do we need to take you to the hospital? Tom's getting ready but he'll be out in a minute, we can drop you off—“
“No, no, I'm fine.” I sit up, clutching Nicolas's arm, willing him to stay and never leave and not budge until the world explodes and there's nothing left but dust. He avoids my eyes and I struggle for air, finding little specks in my vision as I try to look around. My head is throbbing.
“I think … I need to … lie down.”
“Where's that package you said you had, young man? I've got to close up.”
“I'm the package.” He looks up at her, face mutinous, and she puts her hand to her mouth.
“Oh, my … well, excuse me.” She bustles off, throwing him a glare, and I laugh, hiccupping as it loudly echoes and startles me.
Letty locks up, closes the shutters, and heads into the back of the inn, leaving us in silence and dim Christmas lighting from the tree by the window. The lights are white, and they blink on and off like sputtering candles, obscuring his face as he gently sits me up, guides me into a standing position, and moves back.
“How'd you find me?”
I stare at him, eating him up with my eyes. It seems impossible, but he looks even bigger and taller than before, and more gaunt and haunted. I clutch my fingers together, stopping myself from reaching out to touch him. I don't like the hollows under his eyes. I miss the fullness of his face, his quarterback appetite. I miss him inside of me, his breathing inside of me.
He pulls his fingers through his hair, which looks unwashed. He fumbles for a minute before answering.
“I showed up for Christmas. Surprised the shit out of Aunt Pauline, that's for sure. I noticed she was upset and I asked what was up. She didn't answer but Uncle John said you'd disappeared and no one knew where you were and it had shaken her up pretty bad.”
I nod, looking around for someplace to sit. The breakfast tables look really far away. I opt for the bench he'd sat on by the door, sinking down onto it slowly.
“I called her. I told her I was okay, and not to worry.”
“Yeah, well, she's worried.” He takes a step forward, then stops, and sticks his hands in his dark green corduroy pants, which are not frayed at the hems, but which are soaking wet with snowmelt instead.
“I … I asked what happened. Kind of angry. Uncle John kinda looked surprised but Aunt Pauline … she gave me a look like she knew. Maybe she'd just figured it out, maybe not. So she told me, flat out. Said you'd left him, but didn't know where you went.”
His voice starts to shake, taking on a speed and a vehemence that makes me grip my hands tight around the edges of the bench seat. I don't know where's going. I don't know if I want to know.
“Then I asked her if she knew a place you might stay if you went to the beach in New Hampshire . And she mentioned New Castle , but she didn't know the name of where'd you stay. And we weren't about to ask him. So I drove out here all last night, and I've been to every goddamned bed and breakfast in this town. And then I saw you from outside, sitting in that window. And I came to the door, and lied to that little old lady and told her I had a package, because—“
His voice and his body are shaking, so hard that he stops. He stares at the Christmas tree, then the fake presents beneath it. My eyes are wet, filling up, but the tears haven't started falling yet, and I don't want them to, because I won't be able to see his face, and that would be a crime.
“What I've got,” he says, so low I stop breathing to hear it. “What I've got is something I know you want. And maybe you'll still say you don't want it ...” He exhales before finishing.
“But I'm here. I wanted to see you were safe with my own eyes. And I can go home now and tell Aunt Pauline you're okay.”
He keeps his eyes on the floor. I don't think Letty realizes it, but we're still in the foyer; the lights turn off from somewhere else in the inn, and we're left standing only in the light of the Christmas tree.
I stand up, and reach out to find him by the flickering white glow. The first thing I find is his eyes, which I cover, then his cheeks, then his lips, then his chin, covered in dark day-old stubble, and he doesn't move. I rub my palms and fingers across his face, remembering it, tracing it, as though I am blind.
“I'm sorry,” I whisper, soft, soft, afraid to really say it. It will mean I am saying yes. It will mean …
“Nicolas, I'm sorry,” I say again, a little louder, and my face is wet and salty, and his eyes rise up to meet mine like a terrible, wanting thunderclap and I give a little whimper and start to shake.
He doesn't say anything else. All I can do is stare up at him. His blue eyes are terrible in their beauty, terrible because he is not speaking and I do not know what he wants to do.
He takes me by the wrists and holds them in front of him as if he doesn't want me to touch him any more. I stare at his hands, slender and freezing from being outside for who knows how long.
He puts my hands down to my sides. I close my eyes and take a deep, shuddering breath. We're done.
When I hear his voice, it is rough, sorrowful and low, in my ear.
“Will you let me love you now?”
I have no answer. I just look up at him. I don't know what loving means. This awful feeling of loss and confusion, of seeking air where there isn't any, of wanting someone in your life you cannot stand to be without, of the world no longer making sense?
I don't know what loving means. But, it seems, he does.
In the dark, he bends down and picks me up swiftly. Startled, I hug him around the neck. He carries me upstairs, breathing into my ear, only breathing, while I hold so tight I'm sure I must be bruising him. I keep my eyes on his hand, wrapped up from under my knee, and keep my ear pressed to his lips, to that breathing sound. It is deep, and constant, and true. Frightening but always true.
At my door, I reach out and turn the handle, and he carries me inside. He sets me down, and I turn to face him. I have never been alone with him like this. I'm scared and drunk at the same time. I have never felt like this.
I run to the bathroom. I stop up the tub, turn on the water, toss in bath salts and bath gel, and hurry out with a big robe. He is freezing and soaking wet, but hasn't shivered once, and I know it's because he wants to be strong for me.
“Come here,” I whisper. He moves forward, and I undress him almost roughly, taking everything off and dropping it all on the radiator, on the floor, on the backs of chairs. All that's on is one lamp by the bed, and the nightlight in the bathroom. It all looks like candle glow on his skin, damp with snow and sweat, and I want to see the real thing.
With him standing in his boxers, I kiss him lightly on the nose, and turn to dig around in a drawer. I find a handful of votives, and set them on paperback books, lighting them around the room and in the bathroom. His eyes intensely watch my every move, until I hurry back into the bathroom and turn off the water.
When I come back to him, he bends, slips his fingers into the back of my hair, and looks deep into my eyes. He holds me still, so I can't look away.
“No going back?” He searches my eyes, his mouth in a tight line.
“No.” I am breathless, and I watch the shadows bouncing off his sharply angled cheeks, the long thick lashes as they shift with his gaze. I imagine them fluttering against my thighs again, as his tongue finds me.
“What now?” Husky, because he's seen me lick my lips, can feel the change in me. His eyes, dark and ominous, are getting that horrible look, the look of greed that makes my whole body turn into one big electric pulse, his eyes the trigger.
“A bath.”
“With you in it?” His grip on the back of my neck grows tighter, hurting a little, and I feel my nipples get tight and hot again. “I need to be inside of you.”
Truer words were never spoken. My pussy throbs in agreement.
“In a minute,” I breathe, and I pull away from his grip, pushing him away, then take his hand, and tug him toward the bathroom. By the tub, I press my hands to his chest. He is warming up now, and his skin is firm and unlined, moles here and there, rosy nipples puckered with the cold.
I kiss each of them, and brush my cheeks against them. He slides his fingers into my hair as I trace my palms down his arms, to his hips, to his waist.
“Beautiful, Nicolas, beautiful,” I tell him, and he tenses beneath my fingers and skin. He is firm, there's a faint six pack, grown lean with … I shake my head. I will feed him so much food that never happens again.
I tug slowly on his boxers and slide down, brushing my cheek against his hip and upper thigh as they come down.
“Danielle,” he warns, but I don't answer. I make him step out of the boxers. His beautiful penis is half awake, cold, and I kiss it, lightly, halfway down, breathing in the scent of his youth and his maleness. He smells so freakishly sweet, sweet in a way that has never existed in a room where I have been before, and I sway a little. It's as though I've chugged a gallon of sugar water, it's so strong.
“Get in the water,” I say, looking up at him. He gazes darkly down at me, hands at his sides, and I squeeze his ankle. He complies.
Stepping into the water, he closes his eyes for a minute and leans back. I take up the loofah, squirt some soap onto it, and reach out for him.
“I don't need you to do that.” He says, drunk on the warmth of the water. “I can do that.”
“I know. But I want to.”
“Why?” He blinks, wipes the water from his face, with his right hand. I lean forward, scrubbing his chest and shoulders, taking up an arm, working it into his ruddy skin, flushed with hot water. In the gaps of bubbles and splashing, I see the red-purple flesh of his sex, alive and waking beneath the water.
“Because I want to. Don't ask any more questions.”
He stays silent for a while, until my fingers reach between his thighs to find the piece of him that is waiting, and he draws in a breath, reaching for me.
“Now, Danielle.”
“Wait—“
He ignores me, tugging on my shirt, until I'm out of it and in my bra. I stand up, and he tugs even more insistently on my jeans, and when I'm in my underwear, I scamper back out of his reach.
“Calm down, little boy.”
His look is dark when he launches up, splashing water everywhere.
“You're going to fall and crack your head open, and I don't need to do it a second time tonight.” I can't hide the amusement in my voice, and try hard not to show him my smile.
“You won't if you're in the tub.” He plucks me up off the floor and into the tub, and I splash, shrieking, into his arms. When I'm where he wants me, he smiles, a rare treat, working his hands under the water, undoing my bra, then getting my panties.
When I'm naked, he settles me in a straddle over his thighs, and I lean down, breasts at his neck, where he wants them. He nuzzles them lightly, kissing them wetly, and I sigh, leaning forward.
“God, yes,” he moans, and I shiver, hugging him close. He doesn't finish, but he doesn't have to.
I kiss the corner of his mouth reverently. His thighs are strong beneath mine, his breath in the room moving like a fog that dampens my brain, makes me feel sweet, and heavy with wanting.
“This is it, you know,” he says in the fog of my brain, and I blink, sleepily.
“You won't say that in a few years.”
“Shut up and say yes.”
“That sentence makes no sense. And don't tell me what to do.”
“I'll tell you what to do. And you'll do it.” He pinches my nipple and I cry out.
“No,” I squirm, and his eyes settle on mine, challenging. I find that I can't fight them, must give him honestly. “Okay. Sometimes.”
He gives me a lazy smile, and I settle quietly back into position, my groin floating lightly against his cock, half asleep in the water.
“Say it,” he insists, pressing his lips to each nipple, to my neck, to my ears, to my nose. I could lie here and let him do this forever. Would we have that long?
“Yes, little blue-eyed boy.”
“I'll let you get away with the boy bit for now.”
I only smile, and float in his arms.
He ends up doing the rest of the work, washing me up, emptying the tub, drying us off and sopping up all the water on the floor.
He puts me in my robe and carries me to the bed, eases me down, and gets onto it beside me.
“Now. Time for business,” he murmurs in my ear, and I stretch like a cat, finding his hand sliding up between the folds of my meager clothing.
“No, sir,” I whisper, and I feel the bed shift, and opening my eyes, I look up to see him kneeling above me, shrugging out of his robe. He is large, alive, and hard between his thighs, and I swallow nervously, half sitting up.
“What's wrong?”
“I've never … except for you … I've only been with …”
I envision the marriage bed, and memories of Marcus, coldness. I fear that's what I'll find. Here, in the bed, it's official.
He frowns, tugs the robe down around my shoulders, and guides me out of it.
“Close your eyes,” he commands, and I do.
Lying naked on my back, I feel his body slide over me, doing nothing else. He only slides, fingers and stubble and penis and thighs, lips and tongue and chin and chest, until I feel bold, and I reach down, grasping him, sighing at how hard he is in my hand, and I open my eyes to find him looking at me, eyes a black hole I'll fall into.
“Give it to me, Danielle,” he mutters, and I turn my face into his shoulder, kissing it. “Look at me. You're beautiful. Stop hiding from me and give it to me .”
“Give you what?” Exasperated, I push at his shoulder, and he looks back at me intently, unapologetic.
“Whatever you did before, we're going to start over. Whatever you want, we'll do. I'm here to love you, and take you, and give you what you want and need. I drove how many hours in the snow to get to you, so you'd better open up and let me inside.”
“Oh my God, Nicolas,” I panic, squeezing hard on his arms thinking about squirming away, but he gives me a feral look before lunging forward and biting me on the neck. I gasp, and hold still.
“What are you—“
“Give it to me,” he growls against my neck. He bites harder, and it feels good. I moan, because I've never been bitten before. Satisfied, he releases me.
“No one's ever done that—“ I gurgle, not sure if the sound coming out of me is exultant or frightened, and I half push at him, half pull.
“Want me to stop?” Eyes locked on mine, I realize he knows exactly what I need. I don't know how he knows, but he does. The thought of those teeth not on my skin seems like sacrilege.
“No.”
“Good. Because I like to bite.”
He does it again. And again. I squirm, urging him on, until my own urge to bite comes, and I wrestle with him, finally squirreling around until I'm on top of him, triumphant. I look around, and sit back, panting.
“What now?” He shoots it out, clearly fed up, hand tight on my waist and squeezing. There'll be a bruise there, later, but I realize I don't mind at all. I want him touching me everywhere, leaving his mark everywhere, taking me everywhere.
I put my hands against his chest. “You're being rough.”
He takes a breath, loosens his grip. I shift above him a little, kind of missing it.
“But you like it.”
I take a long moment to answer. “Yes … but ...” He tugs my hair back out of the way so he can see my face, and I lean my head into his hand, sighing.
“In nine years, I have only had sex in pretty much one position. Occasionally from behind, but generally on my back.”
“Fuck. That's …” He pauses, seeing my face, the way I'm holding my breath. He starts again.
“I'm sorry, Danielle. But you need to get over him.”
I stare down at him and think about it.
“You know I'm right.” His hands fall to my hips, subtly guiding me lower. I let them.
“Maybe.”
“Yes, not maybe.” The head of his cock butts against my lower abdomen, and I lift up on my knees a little, biting my lip as I watch him watch me.
“Okay, yes,” I breathe. My blood is pounding in my ears now. The pressure builds against my pussy, the rub of his red-purple, plum-sweet, slick-wet velvety skin making my breath come short. The thick head of him finds me damp, the tip of him nudging.
“No condoms?” I pant, suddenly aware.
“We're way past that.” I close my eyes. Yes, we are. I tilt my pelvis back, and slide myself against him.
“Christ,” he breathes, his shocked blue eyes dilated and crazed on mine, and I take him in my hand, and guide him home.
He pushes slowly inside, a sound coming from between his lips that sounds like I might be killing him. Which, after all, I may be – the little death, but big, between the lips of my sex, searing and hot like a brand, demanding entry. This penis is wild and selfish and loud and messy and young and different, one that juts and lunges for me with hunger, with desire, with the knowledge that I must be had and will be had by him.
He is thick and hot and bigger than I remember, rubbing wet and tight against my inside walls like a burrowing thing, demanding home, demanding me, and I gasp, falling forward to feel his lips panting against my cheek as he thrusts up, my hips working down.
“Yes, yes, give it to me,” Tangles raggedly from Nicolas' lips to mine, and a low guttural grunting is coming in answer from mine, my eyes closed, because my pussy is wet, dripping wet and slapping down against him. I have never made so much bodily noise in my life. It is driving me beyond all reason, the wild scent of us like animals rutting in dirt on a farm, improper, without decorum, completely selfish and free.
My eyes fly open. I thought it was his hands on me, but it's my own fingers on my own breasts, I am squeezing the softness, hard, trying to feel. And I am feeling, the hard, aching nipples, and I grab his hands and smash them to me, and he pinches, eyes open to watch as I slam down, down.
Noise is falling out of me, too fast, too fast to make sense. None of it is planned. It just comes.
“Yes, yes, yes ,” I pant, and the clapping noise rattles through me, his balls smacking up in the rhythm at an angle that I've never had. They feel good, slapping against the underside of my pussy, and I collapse, breasts rubbing slick with sweat against his chest. My ass is raised and then falling, raised and then falling, his hands tearing away from my breasts to squeeze the mounds of my rear end hard. The pain feels good.
“Fuck me, fuck me ,” I scream, not caring, that I am urging him on with a breathless begging. That begging is my own. Mine.
We build, fast and faster, running, running from his age and my age and my husband and his aunt and uncle, and the snow outside, and the empty Christmas tree, and my empty former life, and toward the sound of my low, deep, mournful, hungry sobs, his hitched breaths and gutwrenching shouts, our sweaty, slippery rhythm and our urging, until the explosion comes, loud and messy and like nothing I've ever had before, the space between my thighs filling up with the loose wet river of our mingled bodies that I wouldn't exchange for anything in the world.
* * *
Francine, I met a boy, and I've run away with him. Someday I'll have to face what I ran away from. Nicolas still has school, and I can't live in a bed and breakfast forever. Maybe I'll buy one, somewhere else, someplace new. Maybe I'll try something exotic, like Malaysia , or Hawaii.
Anyway, I wanted you to know that the whole world has turned upside down in less than six months, and this is where I am.
I'm glad to hear that you're all right. I'm sorry about Alexei, but I hope that you realize how amazing you are, and that … that you can be happy, some other way, some way that you choose. You can always choose. You can always choose something else.
* * *
On New Year's eve, my empty bed is now filled with the naked limbs of Nicolas Thierry, who is setting aside his finished glass of champagne to watch me from half-mast eyes.
“You made your resolution yet?”
“Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you.”
He sits up, tugging me into his arms and squeezing fiercely before letting me go.
“You're mean, lady.”
“Only because you deserve it.”
“Why?”
“You're incorrigible. You're spoiled. You have no discipline.”
“Well, I'm here to give you the discipline, so give it a rest.” His hand slides to the small of my back and makes small circles there, making me shudder in fits and starts.
“Always so sensitive,” he murmurs in my ear. Unable to answer, I turn into him, falling into him.
He lays me back on the pillows and brushes his fingers over my eyes.
“Close.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.” He rubs the stubble he knows I love against my chest and neck, and I writhe against it, reaching for him. He pulls back. “The longer you make me wait, the longer you'll have to wait later.”
I sigh, and do it. I feel him get off the bed, hear him rustle around.
“Don't peek, or no biting.”
“You wouldn't dare.”
“Watch me.”
I wait in silence. I hear him come back, slide onto the covers, knocking them out of the way. I feel him kneel between my thighs, easing them apart, and I eagerly reach out. He slaps my hands away.
“Calm down,” he murmurs, coming closer. I feel his thighs against mine, and then hold my breath as he takes up my left hand.
“What are you doing?”
“I've got a New Year's resolution.”
“What?”
“Open your eyes.”
As I do, he slips a ring made of shell onto my ring finger, which has been naked since I left Marcus.
“Get you to say yes, every time I ask.”
I say nothing. I stare at him, then at my finger, then back at him.
“I'm serious, Danielle. You'd better say yes.”
“What if I don't?”
“I'm going to spank your pretty ass black and blue.”
“ Why?” I sit up, clutching the ring, but desperate to understand why he'd do such a silly thing, so young.
He stares back at me for a long minute, face moving from angry, to impatient, to sad. Eventually it settles on resigned, a cynical smile on his lips.
“You'll argue with me every step of the way. But eventually you'll say yes.”
I don't say anything. He always makes me lose all words, leaving me only with the feeling in my gut that doesn't leave me, that didn't ever leave me, even when he was gone.
But this time, I know what to say. I press the hand with the ring to his cheek, so we can both feel it.
And he leans forward for the kiss he knows means yes.
for Jake Gyllenhaal