by Celia Hayes
«Who is it?»
I went back to the door, listened to the noises from the landing.
Again, no one answered.
I opened the door without thinking. I found Nolan resting with his elbow against the doorframe, looking at me as if it hurt, and yet he couldn’t live without feeling that twinge in his chest whenever he looked at my lips.
«Why are you here?»
I clutched at the towel, looking for something to protect me from him.
«Because you are».
I don’t know how much it cost him to admit him, but he didn’t seem to care about pride. I’d left, he was prepared to accept it, as long as I allowed him to take me back.
I immediately thought he was different. He wasn’t the same Nolan I’d first met on that terrace, at a party of which I only remembered how strong the cocktails were. The Nolan in front of me only wore a pair of old jeans, a faded t-shirt, a worn-out leather jacket.
«You’re not letting me in?,» he asked.
«No,» I replied.
That didn’t keep him out of my apartment.
Nolan stepped away from the wall and pushed me aside, forcing me to step back.
I wanted to make him swallow that smile he had, but I didn’t even try to complain. I was sure he was going to win anyway. So I closed the door and watched him taking ownership of my space.
He walked around the room, his hands in his pockets. He looked at the framed black-and-white photos on the wall, my memories in the frames.
I followed him, taken with that image of his body immersed in my world. Yet I kept pushing him away, even if that meant losing him.
«You don’t have another place to go? Someone waiting for you?»
«No one I care about,» Nolan admitted from the kitchen. Then he noticed the bin bag, all the bags and parcels dumped there carelessly. He hadn’t asked what I’d done with his credit card, he knew all the same that he’d paid for that stuff.
«And this?» He pulled out the dress I’d put on to meet Greta. He noticed it was stained. It was the only explanation he wanted.
«You’re not good with people,» I murmured. «You always end up pissing them off».
He nodded, choking back laughter. The dress went back into the bin, and his hands on me.
«It’s not going to happen again,» he promised, holding onto my hips. He let go of a growling moan when he felt me under his fingers.
«You sure you can manage? That woman wanted to kill you,» I warned him. He didn’t look surprised, nor worried. More like amused.
«Scared for me?» He suggested, brazen. God, but I couldn’t stand him sometimes.
«You’re nothing to me,» I reminded him, to hurt him. He answered my rage with that same calm inability to hate me.
He missed me. In that odd way of his.
«Then why do you let me touch you?»
He tried to caress me, I pushed him away, getting his hand off me with my arm. Nolan drew closer again, I moved him aside. Somewhere within me, I hated him.
«You don’t like the fact that I’m right?»
He tried to grab me again.
«You’re not right». I pushed him again, but before I could hit him, Nolan put a hand in my hair and held me still, his eyes burning.
«You know how long I’ve waited to do this?» He took a couple steps, forcing me to follow. Then he pinned me against the wall. «Since I last did». And he took my mouth, rubbing against my lips until I could no longer say no and let his tongue break through.
From that moment it was as if all the time I’d spent without him had been erased.
Pushed against that wall, I came alive under his hands.
Even though I didn’t want to. Even though it was wrong.
Nolan realised he was one step away from losing control.
He opened the door behind us.
«What’s in here?»
He took a peek into my bedroom.
«Is it always going to be like this?,» I asked him, as he tried to decide whether or not he had time to drag me to the bed.
«What’s “like this”?,» he asked back, looking at me again.
«You take what you want and go away?,» I accused him. But I was not the only one who was resentful.
«You were the one who left,» he threw back at me, losing his customary indifference.
«You’re too busy a man, Nolan Carter».
He furrowed his brow, he couldn’t figure out what was going on with me. I kept thinking of him and Liza, with her blonde hair and her blue dress, offering herself to him, completely naked. And him, his jeans lowered on his hips, his shirt ripped, his cold eyes, spreading her legs and taking her.
«Go away». I pushed him away, restraining my anger.
Nolan caressed my breasts, grabbed them. «Give me a good reason to».
«I don’t want you».
«Try again, and a good reason this time».
His mouth brushed against me, and my breath was caught in my throat.
«If I agreed to write that column, would you leave me be?,» I tried.
Nolan really thought about it.
I thought: it’s done. He’ll go back to her. He just needed me to have the cover of the Sunset.
I wasn’t offended. This happened to me too, people used me and I used them. It was a fair exchange, I could accept it. It hurt when it was him, but I could take that too.
«So? Do you agree?,» I offered.
He looked at the bed again, at me, at the door.
«No».
He’d made his mind. He dragged me into my bedroom.
He was terribly strong, I couldn’t even slow him down.
«I’m not going to sleep with you,» I swore at him, still trying all the same to escape him. Because now I knew who he truly was, and in his life there could be no room for me, his embrace belonged to another.
«The choice is not yours». He grabbed me by the hips and pushed me towards the bed.
«Why don’t you go to her?,» I shouted at him. He didn’t even think about it before replying.
«Because she’s not you». He didn’t even care who I was talking about. «Is this why you didn’t come today?,» he challenged me, with that bloody tone of voice he had.
«Who is Liza Raisman?,» I urged him.
He took one more step, reaching the edge of the mattress.
«Down». He pushed me on the bedsheets, took off his shirt and placed himself between my legs.
He had a terrible urge to touch me, I could see it in his eyes.
«Speak to me,» I whispered. His silence scared me sometimes.
«I don’t feel like talking».
He ripped the towel off me and once more I found myself naked in front of him, even though letting Nolan look at me was starting feel like the most natural of things.
«What do you want?» I asked.
«To punish you».
From that moment it was like all the other times.
Silent, painful, almost suffocating.
But Nolan was like that, he didn’t speak if he didn’t need to.
He was a boy from the street, with a past he needed to hide. You had to learn to interpret the rhythm of his breath, his pauses, his looks.
I ran my fingers over his tattoo. A stylised hawk covering his side and climbing up his back.
«Hands down,» he ordered, and when my arms dropped to the bed, his mouth landed on my breasts and opened, to lick a still-warm droplet of water.
«Open you legs».
He slid down, holding me by the waist so I couldn’t escape.
«Nolan, wait...»
He held me still, forcing me to endure his mouth running against my skin. Then I felt his fingers clench on my hips to force me to make room for him, and his mouth brushing against my groin, wrapping me in a smouldering grasp.
I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of the night falling over the room, of the snow falling on the street that had dampened his jacket.
His face was between my
thighs, his tongue sliding softly in my sex, with a caress that guided me between his lips.
I arched my back, he started licking at me, his beard scratching me. His touches went deep, letting the dampness inside me guide him in. Droplets of me that excited his senses, as his movements made my breath hitch.
I slid my fingers through his hair to pull him closer. All I wanted was for him not to stop.
Nolan’s muscles tensed in his shoulders and I watched the outline of them between my thighs, thinking there was nothing more erotic than his mouth taking me.
He touched me as if he owned me, sucking at me as if he couldn’t go on without my taste on his tongue.
I reached my climax just like that, looking at him. But before I could let myself go, Nolan pulled himself up and knelt in front of me.
«Make me come».
He loosened the belt from his jeans, his eyes staring into mine. He unbuttoned them, pulled himself out and pulled me towards him, grabbing me by the arm.
«Open your mouth, Madison».
He grabbed me by the hair and pushed his sex between my lips.
«Open it».
I obeyed him, as I had always done, feeling my body shaking with the need to have more. I opened my mouth, let him slide inside. Nolan plunged into me, wetting himself with saliva.
«Take it all».
He pushed in slowly, then pulled out and started again. He plunged in, looking at my tongue caressing him. I could feel his arousal growing, and I followed his thrusts. I cared about nothing now, only about feeling his pleasure mount.
«More… Like that, more. Hold it».
He took my hand, made me hold his cock, and pushed so deep down my throat that I thought I could no longer breathe.
He came with a hand resting on the bed’s headboard, and he held me under him until the last droplet of seed dripped into my mouth.
«Keep sucking it». Nolan was still panting.
I drew away slowly, running my tongue over his scorching skin, and laid down, underneath him.
«I want you». I could no longer wait.
Nolan put a finger in my mouth, then another. «Get me wet».
He pulled the fingers away from my face, his eyes still pinned into mine. He placed them against my sex, feeling me jump faintly at his touch. «Do you want me?»
«I need you,» I whispered.
«No».
«Please».
«I waited for you for hours, you didn’t come back». He said it without anger in his voice, this time. But the fact remained that he’d opened the door to his apartment, and I wasn’t there.
I could feel his touch on me, and could no longer restrain myself. I took his hand and guided his fingers inside me, as the look in his eyes darkened again.
«You didn’t keep to our agreement, Madison».
Nolan held me by the wrist. He was calm now, he could take all the time he wanted. He ran his tongue over one of my nipples, then on my neck. He found himself a breath away from my mouth.
«I… I can’t,» I whispered.
«Do you want me to fuck you?»
«Yes,» I admitted. Differently from him, my pride was wounded.
«It will hurt».
«I don’t care».
«I will hurt you,» he warned me, but I couldn’t pull away. Because it hurt already. He couldn’t hurt me any more than he already had.
In any case I had just told him yes. And Nolan had waited up to that point for me to beg, his hands clenching with anger.
He pulled himself back up kneeling, grabbed me by the waist and forced me to turn my back on him, no longer calm.
He raised my hips.
«Stay like that, don’t move».
He kept his hands on my thighs, keeping me underneath him, running a hand over my sex, over my back, as he became aroused again. I looked at the pillow under my arms, just waiting for him to touch me.
Instead I heard a rustling of fabric, then his hand resting on my back and a moment later, his belt hitting me.
I grabbed the bedsheets.
«Ssh».
He hit me again.
I clenched my fingers, closed my eyes.
He hit me again. On the labia, on my thighs. He rubbed the reddened skin and brushed his cock against me, running it against my labia to get it wet.
I inched closer, because I only wanted him to fill me.
«Not like that. I want to fuck your ass, Madison».
Nolan came up between my cheeks, holding himself tight, and pushed in so hard that I thought I would faint.
I don’t know if I screamed, but he didn’t stop. His fingers were clenched where he’d hit me because he knew the skin there would sting, and he was taking revenge because I had not been there, because I had left him alone in front of a window, alone with the lights of the city. Nolan pushed inside me in long thrusts, his arousal so desperate that only my screams could calm him.
«Touch yourself».
I could barely hear him, as my heart pounded desperately in my ears.
«Touch yourself for me, Madison».
I complied, shivering. The night felt huge around me, and then I was sucked into the grasp of the pleasure, forcing me to sink my nails into the pillow.
Nolan came again, pushing in hard until he was fully buried inside him. His seed ran like a long electric shock, and it felt to me like it was filling even the darkest crevices of my soul.
It wasn’t the only time we did it that night.
But after that it was different. It was just a need, a constant, unending need to touch each other, find each other between the sheets, while outside all was still snow and ice.
Around three AM, four perhaps, I saw the early signs of the city starting to move under the stars.
I leaned against his chest, breathing deeply.
He ran his hand through my hair, closing his eyes.
He liked keeping me close, feeling me under his fingers.
«Tell me about you».
My voice relaxed him. His made me feel warm.
«I didn’t have a cent to my name. I was nobody».
He relaxed. I was looking out of the window, as he stroked my back.
«When I got out of school I walked around the project, we sold drugs to avoid being hit».
His slurry, gravelly voice was like barbed wire catching on my skin. When he closed his mouth it hurt, when he opened it again it started digging into me once more. I would never hear a voice like his again, anywhere in the world. Maybe I’d fallen in love with that voice, before anything else. Before his cocky smile, the strength of his arms, his burning eyes.
«I came back home covered in blood, drunk more often than not». He grabbed my face. «Are you scared of me?»
I should have been, but in his arms I felt safe.
I pulled back, rested my cheek against his chest again. I ran a hand over his abdomen, pushing the sheet aside just for the pleasure of seeing him completely naked. Nolan didn’t stop me, pushed my hand on his crotch.
«Why don’t you touch me, when you want to?»
I caressed him. He was strong, impossible to grasp at times, but in that moment he was mine.
«Why did you choose me?,» I pushed, even though I knew that he would pull away one more time.
He rolled through the sheets, and I ended up underneath him, again among the pillows.
«Because you told me no». He kissed me lazily, voluptuously, looking me in the eyes.
«I never told you no».
«You did once».
He kissed me again, sweetly, which had never happened before. He pushed his lips against mine, so soft that I felt like being pulled away from reality.
I didn’t remember him. I couldn’t even imagine a reality, even the worst, where I could have said no to Nolan. But he seemed so sure of what he was saying, so I had to believe him. Strange as it might sound, I found out that I’d met him one day, I’d spoken to him, and I’d pushed him away when he’d come close. But I didn’t know wh
en that had happened.
Four years ago? More? Was I already working at the Sunset? I had no clue.
I was actually sure that he would tell me, if I asked him. But I worked the other way around. I didn’t care for what reason Nolan had approached me that day. I wanted to know, instead, for what reason Nolan, another day, had come back to look for me.
«Are you making me pay?,» I asked. If it was revenge, I wanted to know.
«I don’t know who is going to pay in the end,» he confessed.
Ours was a fight without quarter, and it wasn’t guaranteed that anyone would survive it.
Thirteen
Nolan took me back to his place.
He made me bring just the basics: some clothes, my make-up bag, shoes.
«We can come for the rest during the weekend».
There were clothes worth two thousand dollars apiece in there; he’d stuffed them in a bag without even folding them. When we got to his place he dumped them on the sofa.
That gesture was a territorial delimitation of our relationship. It determined the limits within which I could act.
Where I was allowed to be, which was where he was.
Where I was not allowed to go, which was where anyone else was.
I played along. I followed him with my hands in the pockets of my leather trousers, on high stilettos, with a see-through shirt.
I’d put on his jacket while we were in the elevator, then a woollen scarf, and I’d sat on his bike, discovering that Nolan on two wheels was the most electrifying thing I’d ever felt between my legs.
He rode like a madman, but that scorching cold wind, my hands on his hips, and the road running under our wheels made me feel alive, when up to a moment before life had been running through me without leaving me anything, not even memories.
The last few years had just trickled by, and I had felt barely there. I just wrote. Sometimes I went out, met someone, slept with him. The next day I lied. I’ll call you back. Let’s keep in touch. Where did you go? Sorry, I was busy.
That morning, speeding through the traffic, I realised I had suddenly woken up. Something had brought me back into that chaos that to everyone else was life, while for me it was just a fifty-word story to fit under a black-and-white photo, signed: by Madison Hill. Gossip – Bake Up. Rinse and repeat. The next morning would be like any other.
