by Jenn Cooksey
“We’ve fought a long and bitter war, my twin soul and I…”
Seriously? Now?
Well, if I may, I would be so bold as to offer some words of wisdom here…seeing as how you sniped at me for not speaking up a few minutes ago.
Without warning, Erica yanks the t-shirt over her head and then slides her thumbs under the elastic of both the boxers and her panties, pushing them down to her ankles and steps out, and with no fanfare to speak of, she stands in front of me, completely naked as my eyes drink in every drop until I have to look away. I have to or I’ll give in to the maddening temptation to throw her down and truly devour her with more than my eyes.
I’m listening. Or, trying to…
In the immortal words of Pat Benetar, “love is a battlefield.” And from Mr. Rufus Wainwright, or whoever originally did it, “love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.”
I’m failing to see the meaning here…
You have been at war. With Holden, with Erica, but mostly, with yourself. Because that’s what being in love is. It’s a brutal, bloody fight and what everyone hopes for is that it endures until death, even though the kind of love worth dying for usually hurts like a mother fucker at one point or another. There are magnificent ups and hellacious downs, you are going to fuck up and so is she, there will be wins and there will be losses. She has landed point after point in tonight’s battle. She has listened, she has argued, she has tried her very best to get through to you, giving you examples of defining moments in HER life where it was you who shone brighter than any evening star, not him, and you’ve stubbornly held onto your misguided scepter of piety and refused to accept what she’s telling you because you’re afraid. For years, even from before the moment you took her in your arms while she cried herself to sleep the night of his funeral, you’ve had Holden perched on a bejeweled throne and have blamed him for usurping your power and your lack of courage to overthrow him where Erica is concerned, and you’ve been transferring your fear onto her ever since, convincing yourself without a doubt that you will always be second to Holden because he was the end all be all for her. She’s telling you in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t. You’ve been looking for proof. Try having some faith. You still have a hurdle to get across, there’s no question, but this is war, and strategically, she’s right. It can wait. Airing that laundry out tonight won’t change the past, it won’t change how you feel, it won’t change how you’ve chosen to live your life and will continue to do so, with or without her, and it won’t bring either of you closer to the promised land.
“Look at me.”
I close my eyes and through my nose I inhale what I hope will be a steadying breath before I open them again, forcing them to stay on her face only.
“Holden never looked at me the way you did…the way you’re looking at me right now. No one has. It’s how you looked at me the first night we got to that last campsite…the night at the cove. I rejoiced in how you made me feel when you looked at me and touched me that night. I wanted you. Desperately. I didn’t say anything though because like the night of Holden’s funeral, I thought I would be forcing you into something you didn’t want to do, and I promised myself that I would never cross that line again. I thought you were just trying to distract me, because that’s what you did the whole summer, like it was your heavenly host-ordained job or something. I didn’t know that you were looking at me that way because you actually wanted me. But you did, didn’t you?”
You say you want to be loved with reckless abandon yet you’ve fought tooth and nail to keep your own love for her from shining for even her to see, let alone the world. Stop letting fear and a dead dictator snuff your light out. Shine bright like a diamond, dude.
With my reluctance ebbing, my eyes boldly burn a trail from hers down the resplendence that is her body and then back up again. “I wanted you. I always have. But the time you’re talking about…yeah, you read me right. I couldn’t do anything except think about how much I love you, and I wanted you that night more than any other. Until now.”
“Then take me. If you want me, then for once in your life, don’t work so hard at being worthy of what’s being offered to you freely. Just take what you want. Show me that the look on your face means you love me so that you can finally see the same thing in mine…”
To the victor go the spoils of war. Tonight, that’s you. Now, ditch this ridiculous sweater and claim your damned prize. Hallelujah and amen?
Boundless and without inhibition, compelling truth finally surges through me, immediately transforming me into a zealot, intrepid and absolute, the very moment I pull her to me. Not a scant second is allowed to tick by before we’re wholly engaged on the righteous field of battle, sharing breath after breath, broken and ragged as they’ve become already. It’s a right here right now moment, although the hunk of glass I can feel underfoot through my sock has me breaking the kiss to look around in evaluation of our nearby options. There isn’t much.
Hard wood floors…? Guessing Erica’s back won’t appreciate those nor will my knees, or vice versa, although I kind of want to be on top the first time. Not even going to consider the dining room table. It might look romantic and all passionate to clear a table or desk with one arm and then throw a woman across it, but then you’re really just right back to being on a hard wood floor with the addition of a huge mess to clean up afterwards. My big comfy chair…maybe. Oh, nope. My luck, the cat is up in the loft right now, which means he won’t be as soon as we’re settled on that chair. Large round coffee table in front of the couch taking up the real usable space of the area rug, not to mention the lit candles on top of it. And the couch, currently upholstered in Christmas shit…
“What’s wrong?” she pants, swinging her head to the other side of my neck in trying to see what I’m looking for or at before attacking my throat with her lips.
My eyes open, still looking around, and in between trying to keep my lips caught up to hers, I mumble, “Mm, nothing…broken glass…trying to, mmmm, decide…where…”
With her mouth on mine, she cracks open an eye and glances down. “Table, wall…I don’t care.”
I pull back and look at her. “I love you but you’re out of your goddamned mind if you think we can pull this off against a wall the first time. One or both of us will end up with a concussion or broken bones when my legs give out. And they will.”
“You sure?” she purrs, longingly staring at the bookcases lining the walls on either side of us.
My eyes fall to the dampened skin of her delicate neck and down to her breasts, rapidly rising and falling with her excited breath. My heart-rate picks up in pace even more, adrenaline like nothing else furiously pumping through every vein. I know I have the physical stamina, but not the emotional stability, as is evidenced by the unsteadiness I can already feel beginning in my knees and elbows, not to mention how my hand is starting to shake as it follows my eyes on their visual pleasure cruise. I would love nothing more than to give her what she wants and just take her against the wall, but…not gonna happen this time.
“Definitely.”
She turns back to see me engrossed in watching my hand as it glides over her, and under the fingertips of that hand, I can feel the thunderous beating of her heart as it kicks into high gear. “Couch?” she gasps.
Meeting her eyes, I nod, feeling the same urgency as she is again. Reluctantly and not at the same time, I remove my hand from her breast and use it to pull her leg up around my waist. She follows suit on her own with her other leg, wrapping herself tightly around me as I lift her from the floor to carry her to the couch, our mouths crashing down on each other’s once more, while I do my best to avoid the crystalline splinters and shards sharp enough to cut through your average pair of Fruit of the Loom socks. Successful in our journey, I move my hands from the backs of Erica’s thighs, sliding them up and running them over her ass to her back as she begins slithering her way down my chest to stand on solid ground again. Jus
t as her toes touch down though, she pulls away from my lips with a hiss of pain escaping hers.
Instinctually, I look down around our feet. “Glass? All the way over here?”
“No, your bells.”
Your what?
“My what?” I swear I just heard balls…
Me too.
“Your jingle bells?” she says, flicking the front of my sweater and rubbing a spot on her chest, she continues grumbling, “Festive, my ass. Those things pinch.”
I told you to ditch the sweater…
Beyond hastily, I yank the sweater over my head and murmur an apology from inside it while Erica impatiently tugs at the button of my jeans. Stuck in the damned sweater and the t-shirt I forgot I have on under it, though, I remember the order of operations and finally at least freeing my head, I use my chin to indicate the couch and all the crap on it, so that I can work my zipper myself. “Clear that stuff off.”
Again, I love her, but I’ve seen There’s Something About Mary, and after just hearing balls associated with pain and pinching, you know I’m gonna take my time there whereas she probably won’t even be thinking about my beans, being that she’s clearly focused on getting to the frank as quickly as possible, God bless her.
With my arms still caught in the sweater and shirt, it’s like my hands have mittens on them as I—gingerly—pull the zipper of my jeans down while watching her spin around and consider the stuff on the couch for a second. Coming to the same conclusion I do, she just bends and uses one arm to shove everything to the floor in a single sweeping movement.
She turns back around to see me struggling in my clothes. “Oh my God…you’re wearing layers?”
“I have to wear a shirt under this sweater! It’s itchy!” I holler in chastised self-defense and finally freeing one arm, I use that hand to start pushing my jeans down while she helps me out of the rest of my clothes that in my eagerness I’ve gotten myself tangled up in. Once my upper body is no longer encumbered, I’m able to get both sides of my pants down to my ankles, and efficiently multitasking, although maybe not too gracefully, I remove my jeans, boxers, and socks together at one time by hopping on one foot and alternating to the other until I’m just as naked as she is. Finally.
I feel like throwing my arms up in the air and shouting a celebratory, “Done!”
“You good?” she asks, her hands on her hips, as she’s been standing back and waiting.
I blow out a breath before nodding. “Yep.”
She smiles and shakes her head at me just as she lets her gaze roam freely over my body. Then she twirls her finger, indicating for me to turn in a circle.
“Seriously?”
She waggles her eyebrows at me and nods enthusiastically. “Just once. Real quick.”
Slowly and with my hands raised to the side in a “what you see is what you get” gesture, I turn around in a circle for her, and just before I’m done and facing her again, she murmurs, “My God…you have got to be the sexiest man alive.”
My response is a mock look of arrogant agreement while nodding my head and sarcastically saying, “Yet, I still haven’t made the cover of People Magazine.”
She lets out a quick snort of laughter and we just stand here, appreciating each other, the moment stretching out until the evocative batteries in the impassioned atmosphere swirling around us are fully recharged and ignite us again, and I reach for her.
“Come here…” She steps to me and taking her face in my hands, I bring my lips to hers…and the dance begins.
My body relishes the feel of hers as she presses closer, the fingers of one hand splayed on the back of my head, the others pressing into my shoulder blade, flexing, all ten fingers frenzied and insistent. We move in unison to the couch, our bodies connected and communicating our need and destination for us. I ease her down onto her back and hover a moment, her lips not quite ready to relinquish mine. My eyes crack open when she arches up under me and reaches underneath herself to pull out a glittered plastic icicle. Breaking the kiss and pulling back to look at her stretched out before me, I smile to myself as she hurls the ornament across the room before reaching for me again. A moment’s hesitation when I run my hand over her bent leg and place it under her knee has Erica opening her eyes and seizing my biceps.
“Cole, you are phenomenal at that, but I promise,” she says in between heavy breaths, “I am already way good to go.”
I look down and meet her smoldering eyes lasciviously trying to convince me to douse my rampant desire to taste her again after all this time; that her level of hunger is more critical than mine. I don’t think it is. For almost a decade I’ve lived with a thirst I thought would never be quenched except by memories conjured by the hateful demons inside me. That’s ending tonight.
Shaking my head and moving down her body, I continue to lift her leg over my shoulder and then move on to the other, lightly trailing kisses beginning at the side of her knee, along her inner thigh, and to the bend of where her leg becomes her hip, and just before I settle myself and duck my head, I tell her, “I need you to let me do this.”
Her protest directly turns into a drawn out, wholly gratifying moan the moment my mouth is on her. Erotic sensory overload is mine to savor and I revel in all of it, marveling that she smells and tastes exactly how I remember. Slowly, my tongue meanders down and around, drawing circles on and within her, gently probing and drinking in the honeyed nectar that is ever befitting of the goddess she is. Holding her hips as they rise off the couch of their own accord to meet my hungry mouth voraciously consuming her, I find the spot that from past experience is where guaranteed triumph will be found with her in using my teeth. Careful to not bite down hard, I gradually draw her into my mouth, my lips closing around her and the tip of my tongue teasing her, just barely licking at her hot flesh. I repeat the delicious exercise until she’s ravenous, panting, and clutching the back of my head and shoulder, ardently holding me to her and trying to get away at the same time.
“Oh, God, now. Now, Cole. Please.”
I give her one more pass, slowly massaging every luscious fold with my tongue, bringing her right to the brink of oblivion. Releasing her hips, I raise myself up and over her, glorying in my reward of her labored breathing, her legs wrapping around my waist and gripping me tight, and the way her body writhes, flagrantly beseeching mine to fill her utterly, to slake the yearning built by design and with purpose. Reaching between our bodies and taking me in hand, she holds my eyes with hers and I’m guided to salvation untold. On the precipice, her hand moves away and mine assumes its place while I take a bare moment for myself, locking away every detail of her and the absolute enthrallment held in this single grain of time so I can remember it for an eternity.
Capturing as much breath as I’m able to, I press inside her. She topples over the edge at once, and I rest in the ultimate embrace as time stands still; a lifelong ambition at long last realized, feeling her body stretch and contract around me in the continued throes of her climax. On a moan of sheer ecstasy, her head pushes further back into the cushions and her back arches up, heated brilliance rolling off her in waves as I ease back marginally before thrusting forward again, driving deeper inside her. Her fingers curl and dig into my hips, urging me still further into the slick, sleek heat of her body. I withdraw and plunge back, again and again, her hips meeting mine, matching me thrust for thrust now. Our torrid bodies moving in tandem, the tide of ardor rising higher yet; the imperative ache quickly reaches an all-time high before either of us is ready.
I work hard for enough composure and breath to gasp, “Oh, Eri—I’m gonn—”
“No, don’t stop. You feel so amazing… Please don’t stop, Cole, keep going.”
Her breathy plea a symphony, it rollicks and reverberates through me, yet the divinity of it fuels the pandemonium so intensely, my sanctified redemption crests on the horizon. Accepting that complete consecration is at hand, I can do nothing but utter a fractured apology through gritted teeth before I surrender
and my breathing shatters.
“I’m sorr—I can’t. I need to cu—”
One last, powerful thrust and I’m jubilantly lost in timeless euphoria.
Claimed by nirvana both of us, exaltation is ours to share…manic breathing begins to calm, the fanatical beating of our hearts subsides and settles into a deeply soulful hymn, our fevered bodies wet with sacred dew fractionally cool, and rabid conflagrant kisses turn tender and sweet in the diaphanous afterglow.
My lips trail from Erica’s to her collarbone where I pause for more air, just brushing my mouth on her skin before resting my forehead in the curve of her neck, and she releases a big breath, one of her hands softly stroking the back of my head and neck, and the other drifting languidly up and down the base of my spine.
“That was—”
“Incredibly quick. I know, I’m sorry. That was all for me,” I tell her, blowing out another breath and lifting my head again to gaze into the deep pooling blue of her eyes.
She lets out a small chuckle. “Incredible is all I was gonna say.”
I feel my lips tilt into gladness as I touch them to hers softly. “Still. Next time…well, I’m gonna have to work on it.”
She cups my cheek in her hand, kissing me back once, twice, and a third time before opening her eyes to stare into my soul. “You have nothing to work on. Seriously. Thirty seconds, three minutes, three hours…I don’t think I’d know the difference. Until I had to walk anyways. Which I still might have trouble with because having firsthand experience now, I can say that you are a veritable power house. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Nope,” I answer truthfully, sweeping a hand over the top of her head and into her hair.
Her head falls back onto the cushion and almost musing to herself, she says, “Honestly. I think that was my first time actually making love.”
I let my gaze roam her face, feeling humbled and proud concurrently. “I know it was mine.”
