Girl On the Edge

by CD Reiss

  “The walls drop, and you go flying.”

  She sat in the chair perpendicular to the couch, knees apart, leaning forward with a keen attention to what she said and what she meant. “My brother is outside that spinning room.”

  “You’re not talking about going. You’re talking about being thrown. You’re talking about being powerless.”

  “I don’t think I can find out how far I can go on my own. I don’t think any of us can.”

  “Greysen.” I sat up.

  “Listen, think about it.”

  “What, exactly, are you talking about?”

  “We can’t push against our own limits because they’re our limits. It’s like a pot can’t ever get any hotter than the flame under it.”

  “I mean, what are you trying to do? You want to get out of some loop, but you can’t do it yourself, and hell knows I’m not on board for this. Who’s pushing? What’s pushing?” My hands were clawed as if I wanted to strangle her. My muscles were coiled tight.

  She saw my frustration, and it did not interest her. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Greysen…”

  “I’m just thinking out loud.” She dropped her hand and stood behind her desk, shuffling papers from one side to the other. She stopped at a small slip of paper I couldn’t see from my angle. She slid it away from the stack and continued moving the papers around.

  “Did you split?” I asked.

  She froze with a page in each hand, six inches over the desk, hovering.

  “After the shot, did you split like I did? Is there a part of you trapped in darkness?”

  “No.” She put both pages in a single pile. “I just want to know where my brother is.”

  Her intercom buzzed, and Dana’s voice came over it. “Dr. Frazier? Your appointment is here.”

  “Please excuse me,” she said. “I have work to do.”

  * * *

  I thought my respect for my wife immense. I’d assumed I was maxed out on admiration. But when I realized what was happening, that respect unfolded again and again, taking up more space in my heart than I’d thought I had.

  In New York, she’d faced an impossible situation. A new city with few friends. A husband acting in strange and dangerous ways. She’d stayed strong and competent where I would have fallen apart.

  At least, I assumed I would have. Faced with her need, maybe I had the strength. I wouldn’t abandon her.

  Maybe I was the one unfolding.

  * * *

  She answered the door to her little studio with the phone wedged between her shoulder and ear.

  “Okay, I understand,” she said into the phone. “I love you too.” She hung up.

  “Who was that?”

  “My mother.”

  “How is she?”

  “We agreed on twenty-two hundred,” she said, closing the door behind me. “You’re late.”

  I looked her up and down. Her hair was brushed and clean. She wore sweatpants low on her waist and a tight, dull-green tee that ended just above her navel, casually exposing the soft curve of her hips and stomach. Her feet were bare on the cheap Persian rug.

  “Nice to see you too.”

  Her hand was still on the knob, as if she wanted to open it and run out. I flipped the deadbolt.

  “Were you the one to tell your parents?” I asked.

  “They knew. Dad blew it off. Says Jake’s going to be fine. Worrying won’t help.”

  “And?”

  “And he’s right. I know he’s right. But I still feel trapped in a spinning room.”

  There were a few ways to ground her. One came to mind quickly.

  “Take your clothes off,” I commanded.

  She walked to the other side of the room. Not walked. She stalked there as if she was agitated and there was a purpose to the relocation.

  This was new. All of it was new. I had no idea what she wanted, much less needed. Did she need to release her energies? Go for a run through Baghdad? Did she need to be soothed? Controlled?

  I sensed the adrenaline running through her veins. I wanted to take her pulse, but I already knew her blood was pounding.

  “I can’t… I have to keep going.”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere. Something isn’t finished, and it’s not getting finished here.”

  When she finally met my eyes, I saw dark circles under confusion and aggression. She’d gotten up before three in the morning, and unlike me, she was a sleeper. Ten hours if she had her way.

  I stood in front of her. She looked at me, then over my shoulder.

  “You keep looking at the door like someone’s going to walk through it.”

  She looked up at me. All the confusion and aggression were there, along with something else. A plea for help.

  “You don’t need to go out. You need to get some sleep.”

  And, with that, maybe the change. I needed to see if she’d wake a different woman.

  Again, I was struck with my ignorance of how to help her and my trust that whatever I did was what she needed. I couldn’t imagine one without the other. My ignorance without confidence would break me. Confidence without knowledge of my ignorance would break her.

  “I can’t sleep,” she said. “I tried.”

  “Do you want to speak frankly?”

  She tried to push past me, but I wrapped my arm around her, pulling her close so I could growl in her ear. “I’d rather you tell me what’s going on.”

  I threw her on the bed. She landed on her back, and I expected her to leap up and punch me in the face. Instead, she got up on her elbows.

  “Are you going to take your clothes off, or am I going to do it?”

  “Is this how it’s going to be?” The question was so pointed it had a vector all its own.

  “You tell me.” I leaned over her, knees on the bed, knuckles digging divots into the mattress. “Are you going to be honest with me?”

  “Fuck you! I am being honest. I’ve never lied to you.”

  “Then are you going to be honest with yourself? Because I’m not as patient as you. I’m not half as nice. You’re going to talk to me, or I’m going to take what’s mine.”

  “What if I tell you to stop?”

  “Then it’s not mine, is it?”

  A shade of her aggression wore away, and a few layers of confusion turned into attention.

  “Are you talking?” I asked. “Or am I taking?”

  She laid her hands on my chest. She was going to push me off her, which meant she either needed space for talking or she was telling me to stop.

  “I’m not in the mood to talk,” she said. “I’m not stripping for you just because you say so.”

  “Then I’ll fuck you with your clothes on.” I pulled her shirt over her bare breasts. “I really don’t give a shit.”

  I kneeled over her as I undid my pants and pulled out my erection. When she looked at it the way she always did, like a lioness terrified of her prey but too hungry not to pounce, it throbbed harder.

  I toyed with her until her body was slick with sweat and every touch made her shudder. Then slowly, so slowly, I slid my dick inside her.

  “All the way,” she whispered, hungry, begging.

  “I’ll take what’s mine. Any. Way. I. Want.”

  With the last four words, I pulled out and in just enough to be felt. Just enough to drive her crazy. Then I buried myself so deep she howled.

  Her legs over my shoulders, the pants against my chest, my own waistband restricting me, I took her hard.

  I knew my wife. I knew how to fuck her. I knew what she liked and how she got off.

  But no matter how hard I drove, she didn’t come.

  No matter how deep I went, she stayed on the edge.

  I bit her breast, pinched her hips, gave her as much pain as I dared, and still, she cried and scratched but didn’t come.

  “Fuck,” I said, coming inside her.

  I kissed her neck and down her belly when her fingers tightened in my
hair.

  “Stop,” she said. I looked up at her, and she stared down at me. “I need to drive this.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She sat up and pulled off her pants. “I can’t be a passenger right now.” She peeled her shirt off as I got up and stood by the side of the bed with my dick out.

  I helped Greysen up and led her to the cheap loveseat. I sat on the edge and pulled her close until her knees were on either side of me, and I leaned back as I let my hands roam her body, finding the crook between her legs.

  She stayed my hand. “Don’t.”

  She put my palms on her hips, lowered herself onto me. When I moved my hands to her breasts, she moved them to her hips again.

  I let her set the pace. Let her push against me. Let her move any way she liked.

  She took my right hand and laid it between her breasts. “I’m spinning.” She put my hand on her throat, pressing my thumb and middle finger to opposite sides. “I need a straight line out. Give it to me.”

  Her veins pulsed under my hand, and the lump in her throat shifted when she swallowed. The control she offered was so precious that I took a moment before agreeing to it.I tightened my hand just a little. Her eyes on me, her jaw in the cradle of my hand, she moved again, and I drove a little, moving with her. All my focus was on her reaction, her pleasure, the release of tension from her face.

  When her lips opened and her eyelids fluttered, she was back on the edge. I tightened my hand. “Say no while you still can.”

  “Yes.”

  She groaned under my hand. The orgasm was pushing at the boundaries, looking for a way in.

  Tighter.

  She went rigid mid-orgasm, shaking uncontrollably. I wrapped my other arm around her to bring her into me, pushing heragainst my body as the last of her air gave out. I couldn’t come. I couldn’t lose control while I had her life in my hands.

  When I was sure she’d peaked, I let go, and she pulled in air like a drowning woman, then let out a long vowel sound that told me her body had elongated the orgasm while it dealt with the lack of air and exploded when she breathed again.

  She collapsed on me.

  “Hey,” I said, pulling her hair away from her face. “Let me look at you.”

  She groaned, getting her arms under her with her head still bowed.

  I reached past the curtain of hair for her chin. “Hey. Come on. Look at me. I need to see if you’re all right.”

  I wanted to check her body, but when she looked at me, it wasn’t her body that needed my attention.

  “Greysen?”

  She just looked at me, and I wondered what her name was.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  GREYSEN

  Distant in the darkness, a blue dot appeared, coming faster and faster, revealing its shape.

  Speeding toward me, the blue rectangle glowed and shimmered. Under the water, black lines divided lanes.

  Diving pools didn’t have lanes, but the one hurtling toward me did.

  Black hashes joined the lines, defining themselves into letters, numbers, instructions. The edges of the rectangle curled, and when I hit the surface at an impossible speed, the water was as dry as paper, and I was plunged into darkness so Respite could remember.

  * * *

  SAN DIEGO

  JULY - 1992

  I tried to keep my printing tight and clear, but I didn’t feel well. My stomach felt like a dirty washcloth, wrung out and stuffed too high up my rib cage, regurgitating bitter yuck into my dry mouth that toothpaste couldn’t cover. My head had a rock embedded on the left side where my brain should have been.

  I saw through a layer of gunk as I tried to copy my driver’s license number onto the blue form. I shook the pen. Copied the first three characters. Blinked gunk away.

  Was that a 5 or an S?

  “Do you have an idea when you’d like to start?” The recruiter folded her hands over the stack of papers I’d brought. She was white with a gash of red lipstick at the bottom of her face and flat platinum hair tied into a bun. It had the faintest line of brown at the roots.

  My purple nail polish was chipped, and I had to tilt my head just so to see her through the fall of hair over my face. I’d dyed it Nuclear Black in the bathroom sink. I liked the idea of a black so black it could wipe out a city. “I get to pick?”

  “You test now but… might want to go to college first?”

  I went back to the forms. “I’m done.” The pen made a colorless M-shaped furrow in the paper.

  “Get married?”

  “Not happening.” I shook the pen and made circles in the corner of the page until the ink ran.

  “Those are just examples.”

  “I can start right away.”

  She cleared her throat. “Do you have any idea what you want to do? As a job?”

  “Whatever.” I stopped writing. Tapped the pen. Put my nail between my teeth and removed it quickly. I wasn’t supposed to bite my nails. I looked at her to see if she’d noticed, then I realized my answer wasn’t going to fly. “I don’t…” Tap-tap. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I want to serve. Not kill.”

  “There are plenty of ways to try to avoid that, but in the end, you’ll have to serve in the capacity you’re required.”

  “I can live with that.”

  “You’re probably going to want to cut your hair before you test.”

  I flicked my head to get the fall of hair off my eye. “Sure.”

  “And if you come in without makeup, that’s fine. Just get it all off.”

  She touched the outer corner of her eye, and I mirrored her. A streak of sludge was left on my fingertip.

  “Yeah.” I snapped a tissue from the box on her desk. “Okay.”

  “Greysen?” Her voice was kind but firm as she tapped my hand. “Don’t worry. We’re going to turn you into a soldier.”

  I believed her, and in that belief, I found comfort.

  * * *

  Fear didn’t keep me still, nor did an inability to leave. I didn’t want to move. I wanted to watch my story play over and over. The phones ringing at the recruitment office. The way the recruiter’s lipstick ended in a crisp line across a bump that crested the boundary of her lip. The tang of alcohol seeping through my skin. I could remember every detail as if I was living it—except the reason I was there.

  When I got up to go to the bathroom, it was with a certain resentment of my bodily functions. Caden was gone; I didn’t know for how long. I was supposed to go to work but wouldn’t.

  A part of me was crying to get the fuck up, get the fuck out, move it like it mattered, but that part of me wasn’t in charge.

  The part of me on an infinite loop of past details was in complete control, and I had no choice but to watch as the story unspooled backward.

  * * *

  Jake pulled into the strip mall recruiting office and put the car into park. It was hot as hell, and it wasn’t even noon.

  “You go quicker if you have everything.” His eyes were red-rimmed, and he smelled of sanitary wipes. “Passport. Driver’s license.”

  “I have them.” I pulled my knapsack out from between my knees.

  “All your transcripts?”

  “Back to third grade.”

  “Did you find the immunization records?”

  “Jakey, I have everything.”

  He looked in the rearview. I didn’t know what for. Maybe he was checking his own face to see if he’d aged in the past six hours. He had. “All right. I’ll go talk to Mom and Dad.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I know.”

  I pulled the latch on the car door. The dashboard beeped. This was it. The moment my life split into the dozens of things I could have done and the one thing I did.

  “Thank you,” I said without looking at him. I was looking into my lap, where I could see my raggedy nails half-covered in chipped purple polish. I’d wanted to clean them up but had run out of time.

  No. It hadn’t been time.
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  I’d run out of desire to do anything to make this easier on myself.

  “I love you, sis.” Jake laid his hand on the back of my neck and gave me a little shake.

  “I love you too.”

  “You’re going to be fine.”

  “Don’t make me cry, fuckhead.”

  He put both hands on the wheel. “Then get out of here.”

  I flipped the fall of hair out of my eyes and got out, dragging my knapsack. I closed the door, took three steps to the double glass doors, and…

  * * *

  “Grey, baby.”

  His voice overlaid the hundredth time I walked the strip mall pavement from the car to the recruiting office, skirting a beige wad of gum shaped like a rabbit.

  Grey baby grey baby grey baby.

  My face tickled when he pulled hair away from it. The screen telling the story flickered, and the details got muddy. They needed my attention. They needed to be memorized and cataloged. But with the flicker of that screen, desire came through. A desire to do things. To move. To lurch forward with big steps toward a goal.

  The flicker straightened itself again, and I read every sign, decal, and flyer on the glass doors as if time had slowed down and I’d stopped myself from going in.

  “How long has she been like this?”

  That was Ronin.

  “Twenty-three hundred.”

  “What was happening right before?”

  Before.

  His hands were on my throat. Would he tell Ronin that?

  “She slept for a moment.”

  * * *

  Caden: “I’m taking her to the hospital.”

  Ronin: “Let us take her. We know what we’re dealing with.”

  Caden: “No, you don’t. I’m not interested in protecting you or the people you work for. I’m interested in protecting my wife. Get in the way of that. Just try.”

  Ronin: “I’ll get the car.”