by JD Hawkins
Candace laughs like Teo’s flirting.
“Excuse me? Are we talking about the same person?” She looks at me and laughs again. “What’s the deal? Are you paying his rent or something?”
“What’s your deal?” he says, glaring at her in confusion.
“Teo…” I interrupt, pressing a hand on his chest to try and stop him. I’m used to Candace’s insults, used to shrugging them off and keeping my nose to the grindstone. But Teo’s having none of it.
“Ash is an awesome, talented, brilliant young woman—and if you don’t see that, I’ve got to think there’s something wrong with you. I don’t know you enough to call it jealousy—but from where I’m standing, it looks pretty obvious.”
“Teo…” I say again, a note of warning in my voice. Meanwhile, Candace just splutters, temporarily incapacitated by Teo’s aggressive defense of my character. And despite my reservations about him getting involved, the larger part of me feels like I’m on a cloud.
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, looking back at me and taking my hand. “I’m done.” He turns quickly to Jenny. “Nice meeting you. Have a good night.” Then he leads me through the crowd and toward the door.
We make for the exit, stepping out onto the cooler, quieter calm of the sidewalk. Teo turns to me and grimaces like he just fucked up.
“Ash…I’m sorry,” he says, as if the slight breeze is cooling off his temper. “I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t know what came over me… Hearing her talk like that to you just made me lose it…I’m sorry. I hope that isn’t going to cause problems when you get back into work on—”
I don’t let him finish, a sudden urge pushing me to him, pulling his face to mine, pressing my lips to his, shutting him up with a kiss.
When we pull apart he gazes at me, looking a little confused, a little surprised. Our faces tilt close, so I can gaze into his eyes, lose myself in them a little, remind myself of his essence. He half-smiles, reading my intentions immediately.
“Why don’t we take this back to my place.”
14
Teo
Ash can barely keep her hands off me in the back of the cab, grabbing at my crotch like she’s relieving stress, body pressing me into the corner of the seat. Somehow, we manage to keep from giving the cab driver too much of a show, but by the time we reach my house I’m burning up as much as she is.
My place is big, but nothing too fancy. A three-story condo in Wilshire Montana that I picked because of its proximity to the beach and the good view of the ocean. I don’t sleep much, and I’ve never liked sitting at home, so the place is pretty much just a glorified wardrobe and a safe place to keep my bikes.
I push the door open for Ash and follow her into the front room, watching her twirl a little as she takes in the empty walls, the unplugged TV in front of the pristine couch. Duke runs inside from his doggie door in the back and almost jumps at us. Ash coos at him and ruffles his fur before moving further inside as I load up his food bowl.
“Is this really your place?” she says, standing in the middle of all that empty space. “Or one of those abandoned apartments like the ones you used to take me to?”
I laugh it off.
“I’m not much of a homemaker.”
“You don’t say. I feel like I’m in uncharted territory.”
“Beer?” I say, moving through to the kitchen.
“No,” she says, smiling woozily. “I’m high enough.”
I crack one open for myself and go back into the main room to find her gazing at the empty walls like there’s a secret message in them.
“It’s so weird,” she says, her tone lowering, a little of the fun leaving her voice, “you’re so creative…so imaginative. Your tattoos are so rich and vibrant and detailed…and then here’s your home and it’s so…vacant.”
I suck down some beer and look at the wall as if I might see what she sees there.
“Tattoos are permanent. Homes aren’t.”
Ash turns to me, scrutinizing me as if reading between the lines of my lips.
“That’s such a strange thing to say.”
“It’s true—in my experience,” I say, punctuating it with another slug. “I’ve slept in too many beds to ever think of one as mine, heard too many stories with bad twists in them to think of anything as my own. Anything can go, in a second. Your house, your job, friends, money—hell, I even try not to get too attached to my bikes. All I know for sure is that, in the end, the only thing you can count on having is your body. And maybe—maybe—the shirt on your back.”
Ash thinks about it for a second, then gives me a look like she’s thinking dirty thoughts. She moves near and winds her hands around my waist, pulling herself up against me.
“Good thing you’ve got such a nice body then,” she says, tongue flickering between her teeth. “Though I’m gonna make sure you lose the shirt real soon.”
I half smile as I lean in to press my tongue against hers but she dances away from me, snatching the beer from my hand and swaying a little to the music in her head as she moves back. She takes a sip and I nod for her to follow me.
“At least let me show you the bedroom first.”
I lead her upstairs to the large master bedroom, French doors along one wall leading out to a balcony.
“Wow,” Ash says, sipping my beer as she casts her eyes over the messy bed, guitar leaning up against the wall, record player on the floor beside the armchair, LPs scattered around it. “It’s like a fourteen-year-old boy’s dream home.”
She circles the room slowly, and I find myself hypnotized by her hips. She walks like most women dance, captivating and thrilling. Her body so incredible that even the slightest movement seems charged with erotic energy.
I move to the French doors and open them, stepping out onto the balcony, leaning on the rail. Ash follows and leans beside me, breathing deep the smell of the ocean, the cool air of night.
We stay like that for a while, lazily watching the reflection of the moonlight on the shifting waves. A police siren sounds in the distance, a few car horns and shouts, faint and fading, carried only by the emptiness of the night. Somehow it makes standing out here on the balcony feel even more intimate.
I grab the beer back from Ash, finish it and put it down as she smiles at me. She turns around to lean back against the railing, arching her body back as she looks up at the sky, then turns to me, eyes lost in thought.
“You know…I guess that cliché is true. About opposites attracting,” she says, dreamily.
“Who says we’re opposites?”
She thinks for a while, then says, “Well, it’s like, you’ve spent most of your life going from place to place, trying to find a home, some stability. And here I am trying to break free of the path that would be so easy to follow. Trying to make my own way instead of the one my dad wanted to hand to me, trying to take some risks at work, instead of just doing what people ask and taking home a check for it.”
I don’t say anything for a while, the conversation a little too close to the bone, a little too close to that question I still can’t answer for her. Why did you leave? I try to think of how to change the subject, try to think of something I can say or do that’ll stop us from thinking about the past, about all those years without each other—but I can’t. Everything, from the way the moon hangs above us, to the distant sound of the water pushing and receding, seems determined to push us into thinking about the past.
“Maybe…” Ash says, a quiver in her voice now, trailing off as if retreating into herself. “Maybe I should have gone with you, Teo. Back then…when you asked me to run off with you. Maybe I should have just—”
I don’t let her finish—I can’t. I pull her toward me and kiss her, soft and deep. I squeeze her body to mine like I’m afraid it might disappear into the night, kiss her to show how much I don’t care about the past, to stop her from thinking about it, to show her that all I care about is right now, right here, together. A kiss to show I’m not lying. A kiss that s
ays I love her.
Our bodies melt together, our lips locked tight. I hold her close enough to feel the tremulous shivers run down her back, the swelling breaths pushing her breasts against me, the weakness of her knees. Her back against the railing, our torsos leaning over the edge of the balcony, it almost feels like we’re floating in the ether, out of time and out of space. Her jacket slips from her shoulders, my shirt comes off, then hers, then her bra—both of us acting in perfect unison to remove all the barriers between us, until it’s skin against skin. Softening breasts against my hard chest, her delicate neck against my taut jaw, her pure, shivering, moonlit skin against my tattooed, rough, flexed muscles.
She bites my neck, pulling away to gasp slowly in my ear.
“Don’t leave me again, Teo.”
My tongue traces the outside of her ear and I whisper inside it, “I promise.
The whispers and inhalations of the ocean match our own, half-breaths and groans over the soft rustle of our jeans, the swish of cool night air on warming skin. She throws her head back, arching over the railing again, and I run my tongue up the softness of her neck, fingers dancing down her spine. I stop under her jaw, where the scent of her hair mixes with the smell of her skin, where I can feel the stuttered breaths rise and fall in her throat, moans vibrating against my lips and setting my own pulse racing. At the nape of her neck I suck softly, running my tongue gently across her skin, making her fingers turn to nails on my back, scratching and digging in as if clinging on to reality.
“Teo…” she whispers up at the moon, as I kiss and blow my way across her chest, tasting my way across that perfect terrain, leaving a hot trail that’s now sensitive to the soft sea breezes that unfurl over us. My hand under her jeans, finger between her ass cheeks, teeth grazing across her breasts, as if leaving her no room to pull away now, fixing her in my reach, my desire. I curl my tongue around her hard nipples, blow softly and feel her convulse in my grip, breasts shaking under my mouth. First one, then the other, where I bite softly and tug with gentle teeth until she can take it no more. Her hands in my hair, pulling me away—then realizing it’s even more unbearable without, and pulling me onto her chest again.
Her legs wind themselves around my waist, arms around my neck, clinging to me. I turn and carry her back inside, lay her down on the bed and pull away, pausing a moment to drink her in. Soft and pliable, she slips out of her jeans easily, as I undo mine and pull a condom from them, rolling it on as she watches, writhing a little in anticipation, her finger in her mouth.
“I could look at you forever…” I say, solemn as a prayer, as I kneel on the edge of the bed and pick up her foot. I run my tongue slowly down the side of her calf, enjoying the way she squirms and twists, kissing softly at the back of her knee. “Every inch of you as perfect as I remember…” I say, parting her knees as I move my tongue up the inside of her thigh, sucking softly, darting kisses, cool breaths mixing with the gusts of ocean air that make the drapes dance. “The smell of you…” I say, brushing my nose across her thigh. “The feel of you…” I say, reaching up across her taut stomach to take her breast in my palm. “The taste of you…” I say, holding back until she shivers in anticipation. A moment of glorious expectation, where the feel of my breath against her pussy makes her moan through closed lips, makes her squeeze her thighs around my head, fistfuls of pillow, urging me to her.
My tongue is light, a brush stroke working its way up her pussy, agonizingly slow. I watch her in the dimness of the night all the way, her face contorting, losing control, gaze tipping backward. When I’m almost there, at the clit, she looks down and meets my eyes, suddenly throwing her head back again in a spasm of joy, an outburst of heat that I feel rush over me. I take it into my mouth, soft and full, curl my tongue around it and flick it to the rhythm of her convulsing back, always a little slower than she wants, making her ache for me, making her beg on unresolved sighs and desperate moans.
“Don’t stop,” she pants.
I kiss and suck, tongue and lips and teeth working her clit until she’s senseless, until her toes curl and her grip is almost tearing my pillows apart, almost pulling my hair out, until her body is surging with bliss, hammering intensely with every movement of my tongue, my lips, my teeth. Until I can ignore my own lust no longer, condensed and hard enough to explode, until waiting a second longer would send me permanently insane.
I kneel in front of her spread legs, finally feeling the blood thumping through my muscles like tribal drums, the jaw-clenching rush of testosterone, the cock-aching sight of her wet and writhing in front of me.
“God damn you’re incredible,” I growl, taking her leg on my shoulder, opening her up to push myself between those wet lips, to press myself into her warm tightness. I savor it, go as slowly as I can, to relish every squeeze of her pussy walls, the music of each drawn-out moan, the magnificent sight of her breasts shaking in front of me as I pound into her deeper and harder with every thrust. I savor it, until my body won’t let me anymore, until every fiber of my being wants to be inside her, wants to be one with her, wants to fuck her so good it’ll leave a mark on her essence, to push her so far into ecstasy she’ll know she’s forever mine.
“Yes…yes…fuck me,” she whimpers over her own wails and groans.
Clinging to the bed as if afraid to let go, we find the rhythm of our bodies together, slowly building up the synchronicity of our desires. The slow and steady push inside of her gathering like waves before a storm, turning into a hard, forceful rumble, a quake that shakes her bones, that makes the sweat pour. I lean over her, her leg still on my shoulder, never deep enough, never hard enough. Fucking her until her entire body is almost vibrating, and the screams sound like a whole crowd is making them. Each thrust lighting the fire in our bodies, pushing us closer to burning up, to flaring one final time.
“Ash…”
Her name comes out like a low roar, as I look down at her one last time, the sight of her raptured face, of her shaking body, finally too much for me to handle. Explosions going off in my body, the hardness of my lust breaking down into the tender form of her juddering body.
I fall beside her on the bed, spent but for the waves of relief that tingle throughout my muscles, ultra-sensitive to the breeze coming past the curtains. I hear her laugh softly and turn my head to see her, squirming herself into the bed covers as she looks at me.
“How did I live without that for so long?” she says.
I roll toward her, brush a lock of hair from her forehead and kiss her.
“You didn’t.”
For hours I lay awake, looking down the length of our bodies out at the night. Ash sleeps against my chest, squirming occasionally in comfort, until she starts hunching a little and I draw a thin sheet over her. It’s quiet enough that I can hear her breathe, and I stay still, in case a rustling movement might wake her up and spoil this perfection.
It feels pure. Good. An end—a happy ever after. A perfection that makes sense when I think about all the suffering and turns that brought us both here, to this night. The top of a mountain we both spent a lifetime climbing. For the first time in my life I don’t want anything else—couldn’t think of anything that would make me happier. Her slow breath running across my chest, her sleepy hums when I stroke her messy hair—this is it. This is everything.
But life doesn’t stop when you get what you want—and getting it means that I’ve got something to lose now. My thoughts turn dark, even as the moon sinks and the pitch black of night turns almost imperceptibly blue, warning for dawn. I can sense it, like a sudden drop in temperature preceding a storm. Nothing this good comes easy, without a fight, without earning it.
I tell myself I’m being paranoid. That years of looking over my shoulder, of thinking about tomorrow, have made me unable to relax and enjoy this. I tell myself I just need to get used to this new normal, to let myself be ‘open to everything that’s going right’ like Esther said a few weeks back, but it feels like a lie.
My cel
l rings, vibrating against the side table like a jackhammer in the silence. Ash groans and lifts her head.
“Shh,” I say, stroking her head to coax her back to sleep as I reach over to grab my phone and answer it. She sinks back into my chest, shifts her naked body a little and is out almost before I get the phone to my ear.
“Teo?”
It’s Ginger.
“Yeah,” I mutter, quietly.
“Did I wake you up?”
“No,” I say, putting a little urgency in my voice to show I don’t want to talk. “What is it?”
“Damndest thing. See, I was crashing at the shop tonight, just me and that Rose there—you remember Rose? Big chick? One I had my eye on since the bike rally last month?”
“Get on with it,” I say, looking down to check that Ash can’t hear.
“Well,” Ginger says, his voice slowing to an even more southern drawl. More serious, his tone a warning. “’Bout half an hour ago somebody starts slamming on the shutters like they think they’re congas, so I get up—half-naked, so you—”
“Faster, Ginger.”
This time Ginger takes a few seconds before he speaks, mentally editing to get to the point.
“Your dad was here, Teo. Looking for you. And it seemed like he wasn’t about to give up until he finds you.” He waits a few breaths for my response, gets none. “Teo?”
“I gotta go.”
I hang up and look down at Ash, hoping that she can’t feel the coursing heat of frustration that’s growing inside of me. I sensed right.
And something tells me my dad is just the beginning of my problems.
15
Ash
Teo picks me up from work the next afternoon, waiting on his motorcycle that’s so clean the chrome glistens and sparkles in the sun. It’s been a couple of days since I first slept over—or rather, a couple of nights, because we’ve slept at each other’s places each one. Every moment together feels like it’s filled with something, a sense of meaning and purpose—even when we’re just hanging out in the back of his tattoo shop eating takeout and listening to Ginger tell stories behind his worst tattoos. I spend quite a bit of my free time (limited though it is) at Mandala now, waiting for him to finish working, or just passing time until we head home.
