by James, Ella
“What’re you getting at?” I ask quietly, because I don’t want to draw more eyes and ears.
He gives a chuckle, as if he knows my uncouth implication. “I’m asking how is she. Did she give an ordinary sort of appearance? I only ask because the missus and I are seldom ill, and so I’ve never heard her speak.”
I hold my breath a second, trying not to let frustration cross my face. Sometimes it’s hard to understand the thick Tristanian accent, and I’ve got a searing headache. “I’m not sure I get it, man.”
“Finley—she’s the mute.”
“What?”
He smiles. “Ahh, so then you hadn’t heard. I suppose I’ve answered my own question.” He looks satisfied and resumes digging.
I dig for another minute while my head throbs and my body does that shit where it feels like it’s flickering. Then I can’t help myself. “Mark—what did you say?”
He looks up. “What part then? Ms. White Coat being mute?”
“You said mute?”
“Not anymore of course. That’s been a few years past. Before her time in the schoolhouse ended, Doctor arrived, she got helping at the clinic, and she resumed speaking. When she was a younger girl, she didn’t speak. I don’t suppose she told you.”
My throat tightens. “No.” I keep digging, harder now. I wrap my hand around the shovel’s handle till my knuckles ache. “She didn’t speak at all?” I ask him tightly.
“It was the queerest thing. Her parents—they both passed on in sort of tragic fashion. Drowned with her there in the boat when she was just a wee one. Though I suppose your father and you were here visiting when that went on. I remember that. Do you?”
I nod. “I was six, so I remember some of it.”
“When we got her back, she wasn’t right up there.” He points to his head, and my stomach does a slow roll.
“What do you mean?”
He throws some dirt over his shoulder. “Didn’t speak a word for I don’t know how long, suppose near ten years.”
Ten years.
My hands shake so hard I can barely hold the shovel.
“So what, then one day she just…started talking?”
“Something like that. Her grandmother was a lovely woman. Helped her quite a bit. I’ve heard she passes as quite ordinary now, but I’ve never spoken to her. Wondered if she had a voice at all.”
“She has a voice.” His bushy brows lift, and I realize my tone was too sharp. I force a laugh to cover for it. “Trust me on that.”
That gets me a chuckle. “All the woe-men do.”
I feign another laugh and dig as fast and hard as I can. By lunchtime, I’ve run through all the dirt in my path. I pull my jeans off, revealing running shorts, and swap my boots for Nike sneaks.
“Be back,” I tell the group’s de facto leader as I pass him.
He gives me a thumbs up, and I’m gone. We’re at the Patches side of Lower Lane, and this time, I take off out that way. Other days, I’ve run up to the cottage, beyond a small plateau on top of the cliffs that rise up just behind it, past the hardened black lava field—a relic from the 1961 eruption—and toward the ponds. I’ve done that run a few times, and I know I can make it back to the trench spot inside an hour.
Today, though, I don’t want to pass the clinic on the other side of Lower Lane, so I run along the lonely road that points toward the Patches. On my right, the ocean swirls and simmers like a vat of acid. Overhead, the thin clouds shift. Everything is cast in pale green light.
I run until my toes feel numb and the air seems to tremble. My heart hammers like it might explode behind my ribs. On the way back toward the village, I get sick beside some rocks. Small price to pay for a clear mind.
* * *
Using the shovel makes my shoulder hurt, which keeps my detox dick down. But the drive home gets me every fucking time. The car bounces over the rocky road, getting me half hard. The walk from the car to the cottage’s front door drags my boxer briefs over my head and shaft. Then I’m standing in the living room, sweaty and shaking from the long day, feeling weird and empty and not real, my dick ripping a hole in the briefs.
I’ve got a routine going. Kick off boots, get some water, limp back to the bathroom. By then I feel like I’m rolling with some blue diamond on board. Once, I almost blew before I got my pants off. Run the bathtub water, sink into the tub, and finally, I get a chance to squeeze it.
I run the water hot so it’ll burn and I’ll last longer. Never works. I squeeze my head and stroke my shaft. My fingers wander over my big, puffed-out balls, and that’s all I’m good for.
It’s intense. So much so, I don’t think much. There’s no time to work up fantasies. I imagine shoving inside a hot, slick pussy, but it’s just a pussy. Ghost pussy. Belongs to no one.
If I’m lucky, I’ll pass out for a few minutes. Slip into the water…slip into a fifteen minute dream state. When it’s over, I feel rested. That’s where I am now. Fifteen minutes of good shut-eye is a game changer.
I climb out of the tub feeling more alert than I have all day. I dry off with one of the good-smelling towels and lie on her sweet-smelling bed and cover myself with the blankets she tucked around me that afternoon when we first got back. I just have to hold on for an hour, until it’s late enough to not stick out for being at the bar.
I feel worse the longer I’m at the house alone. Fucking pathetic.
I walk down to the village at six-thirty and walk back around midnight or one. Don’t want to be the first in, don’t ever want to be the last one out. The bar guy’s got my back. I think he gets it that I only ever want the one drink: Macallan 18 in a snifter, always at the tail end of the night.
I’m halfway down the hill that leads from the cottage to the bar when I see Holly coming toward me in the dark. That’s when I remember what night it is. The dinner thing started at six. The thing to celebrate our “escape.”
I’m sweating as I talk and try to laugh with Holly on the walk down to the little place the locals call the Burger Joint.
Bikes and a few cars line Middle Lane before we reach the yellow building. People spill through the front doors, over the porch, into the dirt-patched grass. They’re playing country music. Holly takes my hand, and I see her friend Dorothy smiling on the porch. When she presents me with a mini bottle of Rumple Minze, I toss it back.
* * *
Finley
“Well, your partner in crime has finally arrived, and he’s downed the mini bottle of liquor the Australian tourist gave Dot at Christmas.”
Anna slides back into our booth and takes Kayti from Freddy. I watch Kayti lift her fuzzy head from Anna’s shoulder.
“Dot gave Declan her liquor?”
Anna makes an odd smirk.
Freddy shakes his head. “She’s shameless.”
“Perhaps more so than Holly, which is quite a feat,” Anna says.
Half-hour ago, Holly went in search of Declan, claiming they’re dear friends and she felt she should be the one to fetch him from Gammy’s.
I clench my teeth, then bring my Coke’s straw to my lips and have a nice, long sip. “Well,” I say when finished, “I suppose it’s good he arrived.”
“How long since you’ve seen him, Finley?” Anna pats Kay’s back.
“Mm, not quite sure. Perhaps five days…or six.”
“I’m a bit surprised you haven’t spent more time together,” Freddy says. He takes a large bite of his burger, and I want to slap him with the mustard-covered bun.
“Perhaps we had our fill of one another.” The words escape my mouth before my brain can screen them. I feel the blood drain from my cheeks. Perfect.
“Look at her.” Anna points, and Freddy’s gaze lands on my face. “I think she should be checked over. You’re not yourself since getting back, and who could blame you?”
“I’m exhausted,” I say. There’s no need to fake the edge in my voice. “Everyone falling, stabbing themselves, getting impregnated.” I roll my eyes and tuck a stra
nd of hair behind my ear.
“It has been a busy few days,” Anna says. “Is Audrey excited?”
I keep up as best I can while watching Holly, Dot, Declan, that horrid Bea, and Mike Green file through the doorway. They settle somewhere out of my range of vision.
I feel tethered to the booth. My brain’s a fog.
Mayor Acton comes to the table, giving me a basket of bread made by Mrs. Acton and a round of fresh congratulations.
While I swallow leaden bites of burger, someone starts the music. Rachel and Mike push booths out of the way, and although I try not to look, I glimpse Dot drag Declan out onto the mock dance floor.
He’s wearing a white shirt, which only enhances his dark beauty.
As time creeps by, people stop to hug and greet me. My head pounds. My chest feels funny, like there’s something wedged behind my sternum. A short time later, I frown down at the pager I keep on hand. Then I hold it up toward Anna.
She gives me an “oh no” look. I make a sad face, as if I’m disappointed, and just liket hat, my freedom has been earned.
I head into the kitchen, past the phone table, and out the kitchen’s back door, which leads into a short hall that smells perpetually of grease. I stop in front of the battered wood doors marked with smears of pink and blue paint. Laughter bleeds from below the pink one. I feel my cheeks burn with emotion, and I know I’ve got to get away before I boil over.
With no time to make it onto the back porch, I duck into the supply closet, where I press my back against the door and sink slowly to my haunches. With my forehead against my knees, I cross myself and let the tears flow.
Stone the cows!
I push my hands into my hair the way he does and curl over, letting out a muffled sob. I messed it all up! Every shred of…everything.
I think of Declan coming through the door with Dot and Holly, and I want to rage. For what my life is. For the mockery I only now can see. I think of Mum and Hudson, Mum and my father. I think of the village’s elderly—often a widow or a widower, though sometimes a couple. I think of how they squabble. How they smile together. I think of the ones alone—widowed or never wed—and how we bury them alone and they have small, square, solitary grave stones. I think of my grave stone.
“Finley.”
My body freezes and I start to tremble, shaken as if I’d heard a phantom speak. I lift my head slowly, half expecting that. But there he is, so tall and strong and handsome, leaned against the closet’s back wall with his arms folded in front of his chest.
His face is grave. His face is flawless. His eyes hold to mine until I lose my self-control, and my gaze rushes up and down him. Declan! He looks taller, broader than I recall from in the burrow. Clad in a long-sleeved gray tee shirt that clings to his chest, chino-style pants that hang from his hips, and black boots, he looks like the worldly man he really is. He blinks, and my heart gallops with such force I feel it behind my eyes.
How is he here? Something like panic grips me as I rise to my feet. One look at him and I feel blown wide open. So much so, I can’t bear it.
As I turn toward the door, I feel him step to my side.
“What’s the matter, Finny?”
My heart pounds fast and hard, and I can scarcely keep my voice steady as I whisper, “Nothing of significance.”
What a liar I’ve become. I can’t look at him, have even shut my eyes. “You never showed up at the clinic,” I whisper.
In the ensuing silence, my blood crashes between my ears.
“You didn’t come and find me either.” The rumble of his low voice makes me shiver, and I think dimly, this is what they speak of. He’s standing so close now, I feel the heat of him.
“I never said I would.” I wrap my hand around the doorknob.
Declan’s hand touches my elbow. “Hey…why won’t you look at me?”
I do, then. I look at his face, and I’m arrested. It’s illogical. Insensible. It shouldn’t be this way. I shouldn’t feel he’s air and water.
His gaze is searing, as if he hears my thoughts. I tear my greedy eyes away from the vortex of his. I’d like to not look at him, but I can’t stop myself from taking in his dark brows and his predatory eyes, the feline-high cheekbones and sultry mouth. He’s got no business with a mouth like that—a woman’s lush lips. I note the prickle of his shadow…the dark smudges beneath his eyes. And then my belly clenches as I realize he looks ill.
My hand goes to his cheek, the pad of my thumb brushing the sharp stubble there at his jaw. His eyes shut, as if it pains him. As I lower my hand, he seals his long fingers around my wrist. His grip loosens, feather-light. His jaw clenches.
When he speaks, the words are whisper-soft, nearly inaudible. “You should go.”
I’ve never touched a man so tenderly, never felt the urge except with him. So I’m holding my breath as I lift my hand, letting my fingers brush his dark hair. His fevered eyes meet mine again, and I feel the closet tilt around us as my fingers stroke his forehead.
His eyes shut. I watch his jaw flicker with tension. And then he wraps an arm around me, pulls me to him. With my body pressed to his, he steps toward the door, bracing one big palm against the doorframe as his hips push against mine. I feel a prodding thickness at the curve of my hip for a mere instant before he shifts himself away.
“Finley—go.” The words are ragged. He looks tired and strained, his blue eyes barely open as he stands there with his fists at his sides, his erection jutting at the fabric of his pants.
I turn to go, but I can’t open the door. I feel my legs tremble the merest bit, weakness vibrating from the knees. And then he steps behind me. His chest brushes my shoulder blades, and I feel the stiffness of his sex against my backside.
“Tell me to stop.”
When I don’t, his arm slides around my waist. His hand spreads over my ribs as his mouth moves in my hair, his warm breath making something pulse between my legs. His cheek presses atop my head as his hand delves under my blouse, his rough palm moving over my bare belly.
“Tell me no,” he rasps, rocking his forehead against my hair.
When I don’t—I can’t—he presses my backside against his sex.
“Finley…”
His hand on my belly trembles. My head spins. I understand it now—the power other women speak of. Declan’s breaths are ragged pants at my ear. I don’t know why he didn’t come to me; he sought me out not once since we spoke outside the café the day after arriving back. And suddenly it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter that it’s sinful and beyond forbidden, doesn’t matter that I mustn’t.
Declan.
Behind me, he’s big and thick and sturdy. With each of his breaths, I feel his long erection nudged against the curve of my buttocks. He lifts the hair off my neck and begins to kiss me there.
His mouth is soft and hot, his fingers gentle as they stroke above the button of my pants. He sucks at my neck. I’m not sure I like it. Then I’m moaning. Saints be praised! It feels like he’s…biting me.
His fingers delve into my pants. They’re stroking lightly as his lips brush my ear. I’m aware I’m panting, but I can’t stop. His big hand strokes lower, low enough that he’s there at the top of my underpants.
“I’ve been wanting this.” His low words vibrate by my ear. He nips gently at the lobe, and his deft fingers pet me. His breaths come heavy as he strokes my soft curls. His large body quakes behind mine. He trails one finger lower, pressing his thickness against my backside as he very, very gently strokes my most forbidden place.
“Siren…” He sounds desperate as he rocks against me.
I push my rear against him. He groans roughly, and his fingers part me. His mouth stills on my throat, and with his gusted breaths there near my ear, he dips a fingertip into my crevice and paints gently up and down.
Exquisite pleasure rolls through my legs. They give way. His arm is tight about my waist, holding me against him as his lips drift over my shoulder. His hand makes me quiver and gasp. He r
olls his finger around something that lights up the world, causing me to lose myself for an electric moment. Then he drags his finger gently downward, resting right there, where I—
“Fuck, Siren.”
He prods right where I’m slick and needy. The sounds coming from my throat are foreign to me. Wanton. When he pushes his sex against my backside, I rock against him, eager for unnamed relief. And then his finger curls, pushing inside me.
He hugs me against him as bliss unfurls within me. I feel so full and…good. I hear a ragged gasp—my own—as his thick finger pushes deeper. He’s doing something…else. Up at the other place—my clitoris. It makes me cry out.
“Quiet.” His breath shakes. “Gotta…stay quiet, okay?”
I whimper, feeling almost fearful at the pressure building beneath his hand. He does something to my clit that makes me rock against him. As I do, his finger in me strokes, and I can’t help a ragged groan.
“Someone’s going to hear,” I whimper.
“Nah. Just stay quiet.”
I bite my cheek as his thumb grazes my clit, and his finger delves still deeper. My legs quake. My body sweats and tenses.
“Ohh!”
“You’re okay, Siren. I’ve got you.” I feel his arm secure around me, his thickness behind me. And then his thumb performs some witchery. He drags his finger partway out and pushes in again, and at the same time, his thumb circles me. Pure, ecstatic bliss streaks through me as my hot flesh pulses, followed by a wave of throbbing pleasure so intense I lose track of my mind and body.
When I come into myself again, I’m trembling and breathless, feeling like I might weep. He’s easing his hand out of my panties, still hugging me against him.
I whimper his name. He kisses my hair, and then my shoulder. One hand cups my hip. His lips are pressed against the top of my head. I can feel his breath there.
“Jesus, Siren…”
I turn around—too bashful to look at his face—and then I do, and he gives me a small, heartrending smile. He folds me against his chest, and there I feel the rhythm of his breaths: a bit unsteady. I can hear the thunder of his heart. His chin is tucked atop my head. His shirt is warm and damp under my cheek.
