by Nivia Borell
“I think your mother went first, Damien. She’s always been the most courageous of them all. Rebecca said, ‘Well, Bria and Damien, please take a seat. We wish to discuss something with you.’”
“At first, I thought, fuck, is someone going to die or are we bankrupt or what is causing their stiff posture. And then my dad blurted ‘We want to talk to you about sex,’ and our mothers’ wide eyes were an indicator his outburst was not planned.”
“George then spoke up, ‘Rebecca, Katherine… maybe you should continue this conversation in our absence.’ He was in a half-rising position but decided against it when your mother shot daggers with those cat eyes of hers.
Bria shuts her eyes, remembering. “I can’t even recollect who said what, Damien. I just wanted to disappear.”
“One of them asked if we were intimate with each other. I tried to stall and asked what he meant by intimate. Do you remember how he explained it?”
“Oh, yes, unfortunately. He asked if we were doing things.” Years have passed, and still heat pokes her cheeks at the recollection.
“And I said, ‘We’ve been doing things since I can remember. Can you be more precise.’” I chuckle at the recollection of how they cornered us.
“I think Andrew couldn’t stand it anymore and asked outright, ‘Have you two had sex with each other?’”
“We yelled no in unison, Damien, and they relaxed, but then he asked if we intended to in the near future,” she says, and covers her face behind her hands.
“We’d enough with the trespassing of our boundaries. I said, ‘Well, Mom, Dad, with all due love and respect, that only concerns the two of us.” We were not stupid, and we knew how babies were made.
“They turned crimson, Damien, but thankfully, after we promised to be responsible we were excused. Afterward we ran to your room and researched the best protection method and agreed on the pill. You squeezed my hand in yours and emphasized you’d wait as long as necessary. Warmth spread through me, feeling your love, and how you put me first.”
Of course I did, I never knew how not to.
“To love you in every way possible became an unshakable urge. For me it was you, and just about you, until… ”
We both sigh. We can pretend all we want, but that night will always be between us, and no hate, no love, and no desire will ever erase it. Even now in our most sacred memories, it has the power to blemish them.
We both glance up at the ceiling, and Bria says in a brittle voice, “It will always be there.”
I slam my eyes shut for mere seconds and answer, through gritted teeth, “Like a fucking tumor that keeps growing, and no surgery or chemotherapy can eliminate it for good.”
“Very poetic, Damien.”
“It is what it is, the disease that rooted itself in our love.”
“Yes, Damien, like you’re the only one who has a right to be angry about it.”
“Well, Bria, you were on the other side of the barricade. I don’t know which of us has the right to be more annoyed, but as I see things, and I try my fucking best to remain objective, it seems I have the right more than you.”
“Like I would paint myself as the saint in this picture,” Bria groans, her hands gripping the blanket.
“Well, don’t, Bria, because we both know you aren’t.”
Our eyes lock in a battle of wills. Seconds later, she sinks in the mattress and seeks my body. I raise my chin to the ceiling as agony washes over me. In my attempt to push her off me, I find myself clutching her instead.
DAMIEN
“And so we come to my number seven dearest memory.”
Bria snuggles into me, sighing as incapable to core herself into me as I stroke her back. I try to conjure the image of the perfect little girl who stole my heart long before I knew what the repercussions would be. In her place, the woman I can never hate more than I have loved her. I dig my fingers into my shut eyes as to shove away the misery engraved behind them.
“My very first memory is of your bubbly face, and with you in my life, there has always been a determination in me to protect you, Bria.”
It’s not the first time during this night I catch her eyebrows draw together, and a pensive expression dawns on her porcelain skin after one of my admissions. I prop myself on my elbow, and my mouth is only one inch from hers as I suck in her rapid and warm breaths.
“So, this is why you always seemed to be around me. I thought it was because we were stuck together.”
“Caring for you was the most important thing to me. Not even when my sister came along did I feel this strange urge to protect her, not like with you.”
“Well, you did a great job.”
“Not always.”
She rolls her eyes, scrunches her nose, and then states, “Damien, you couldn’t have watched over me twenty-four-seven, and it’s a known fact kids tend to hurt themselves.”
“Well, Bria, the scar you have on your knee will remind me my entire life I failed.”
She puts one hand on my forehead taking the strand of my hair that hangs over my eyes and tucks it behind my ear. I have to restrain myself because the intimacy of this act goads me into doing stupid things like grabbing her and putting her in my lap and ravishing her until the dusk of the day after forever arrived. She suspends my obnoxious thoughts when she resumes her speech.
“You whispered such encouraging words while you carried me back home from the playground, I didn’t even feel the pain.” She positions her head against my shoulder blade. Her addictive sweet scent and her nearness do odd things to every part of my anatomy.
I give her a look. “I could see your bone, Bria. My heart constricted when you screamed and blood dripped down your right leg.”
“I thought you could do anything, and I wanted to prove to you I was cool, too, by showing you I could fly,” she answers, and shakes her head, and her lips arch into a bemused smile.
“Well, you succeeded in making my heart halt for a moment. Fear paralyzed me while you raised yourself on the branch yelling you could fly.”
Her giggles rush straight to my heart as it drums an old forgotten tune.
“And boy, did I fly… for all of two seconds. But the best part was I learned from my mistakes, and I was a really brave girl afterward.”
The minx winks at me as I cup her face and say, “I didn’t give you much of a chance to get hurt again.”
She takes my hands in hers trailing kisses, and with every second, she melts something in me. I can feel it, how she shoves the darkness in me away. But would I allow it?
A small smile lifts in the corners of her lips. “Thank you, Damien, for always being there for me, although I don’t think it’s good for you to feel guilty about something you couldn’t have prevented. I was a stubborn and rather independent girl on a mission.”
My eyes bulge out, and I fake-cough. “You were? That would imply you’ve stopped being one, which I can’t believe. I recall the years I was there massaging the throbbing in my head over your good-girl behavior.”
She pokes me in the ribs, and the playfulness screws with my head and heart.
“Hey, I wanted to impress you by being a superhero. You can’t hold it against me.”
“You just had to flutter your lashes, or open that smart mouth of yours Bria, and it had the same effect.”
I stare at her as her cheeks turn crimson. “Are you blushing, Bria du Mont?”
She nibbles on her bottom lip and says, “That was just beautiful.”
“You were the most beautiful girl in the world, and you became the most beautiful woman to me, too.”
She taps her mouth, and her brows furrow. “Except for the time between those two.”
“No, you still were the most stunning person in the world to me,” I declare, holding her gaze.
“Damien, I was all hands and no legs, and then my legs remembered they had to grow, too. I hated that time. And then, my breasts began to show, so they could have something to say on the matter, and the mood switches... ”
<
br /> “There hasn´t been a day where I saw you as anything less than beautiful.”
She raises her eyebrow at me, and I purse my lips not to add how I sprinted to her house when nightfall emerged. Not tumbling on my head as I climbed the tree next to her bedroom window night after night was a miracle. But the view cloaked any rationality as I would drink in the image of her—her minuscule flowery-imprinted shorts leaving little to the imagination, glued to her round bottom and creamy thighs, and her top melding on her perky tits. I restrained myself to stay put. Spit gathered in my mouth viewing that skin of hers, milky and silky, shining in the diffused light, and her soft curves. I draw to mind every contour and line of her lean body. The sight of her golden-brown mane covering her entire back as she combed it, and those succulent and carnal lips turning up into a smile as I texted her…
Damien: You´re gorgeous.
To gaze the dreamy expression transforming her face it jolted the chord right to my heart. I lived to follow Bria spring to her cell, spin around, her eyes shining, her juicy lips curving into a smile while replying…
Bria: Don´t fall!
The little vixen.
Even when I struggled to stay away and withdrew for a while, I couldn’t escape the pull she had on me and how I ached to see her. It was then when my obsession with her developed and rooted in my cells.
Bria nudges me, and I surface from my memory.
“I have to show you something so you can clear out your guilt.”
She heaves her right knee so I can see it. I gulp the lump in my throat as I put my palm on it. “It’s barely recognizable, and you can’t really feel the scar, can you?”
This is such a bad idea, but it gives me the opportunity to caress her bare skin. I trace my fingers along her scar and felt her tremor at my touch.
“Damien…” Her voice sounds raspy.
“What is it, Bria?” My voice is guttural and full of desire.
“Your touch… it’s just… so much, Damien…”
“Should I stop, then?”
She has to rein me, to shove my hand aside. “No… yes… I don’t know. Every rational thought eludes me when you place your hands on me.”
Why after all this time does she still take my breath away? Her admission cracks some more of my slippery control. As I brush her soft thigh, my finger throbs but ascends, and I find myself subdued—soft, warm, and so damn feminine—it makes the man in me want to claim and mark her. When I reach the apex of her thigh, my hand stills, waiting to see if she pushes me off for I am long gone. And when I trace the line of her lace underwear, a shiver rocks me as I battle my yearning. Our breaths turn heavy with desire. Raw lust overcomes me. Her pupils dilate and darken as her fingernails claw at my back over my shirt. I groan as she buckles under me. Only inches separate our lips.
“Do you notice what you do to me? I touch you only once and lose all control. I see only you, feel only you, smell only you, and it’s maddening. What should I do now, Bria?”
She peers at me through her thick lashes. I see my desire reflected in her sparkling eyes, and it turns me on even more as the front of my slacks rubs on her pants.
“Whatever you want, Damien.”
I expected any other response, but not for her to hand me what I crave wrapped in an untold plea.
“Do you like to play with fire, Bria?” I whisper as I bite her earlobe, and the skin where my breath settles prickles in response. “It may burn you in the end.”
“Then I shall burn by your lips and touch.”
It’s all I need to lose myself in her. I seize her mouth with mine and kiss her as if I brand and destroy her for any other man’s touch. Sparklers erupt, painting the dark sky in my heart. My ears pound, my hands grip her silky hair, and my lips attack her plump and sweet ones. I bite and suck and invade her mouth with my probing tongue like a starved man as the taste of cherries explodes in my mouth. As her tongue battles and dances with my own, my heart flies to paradise. My hands release her hair only to become more courageous seeming to have a mind of their own as they palm Bria’s perky breasts. I let them fill my hands, and the ache I feel to have her and make her mine blinds me as I groan into her mouth, and the vibrations echo in the form of her body shuddering under me. I graze the bow of her mouth with my tongue licking it as she makes these sexy noises that ring through me as my body presses into her, elation unfolding itself in me. When I open my eyes, which is a stupid mistake, I see her as she is at the moment—not mine. And I state the evident, “You’re not mine to take any more, Bria, now are you?”
Her mouth gapes to contradict me, but I press my finger to her lips and shake my head.
“Hush, Bria. Don’t say something that would only make things worse. One night, baby, but I can’t let you ruin me again afterward.”
I adjust my slacks and slide toward my side of the bed with my back to the bed frame as my lower body part curses me through hell and back. My response is a low growl. My entire body shouts at me… fool! But my heart and I, we know better than to give in to the temptation of Bria du Mont. I place one hand on my chest as with the other I massage my temples, while my eyes fasten on hers.
With her hands folded in her lap, she tilts her head and complains, “Damien, your willpower is admirable.”
“It’s not self-discipline, but the fact I can’t see you as mine anymore. I see it smeared all over you, and it’s making me insane. You know I’m a selfish bastard, but I can’t find in me the power to mask my feelings behind a release. Do you want me to reduce you to a quick fuck, Bria?”
“To be honest, Damien, I don’t know. Maybe...” She taps the place above her heart, and her face goes blank.
“I won’t, Bria.”
Now my address information should be—on Pain Avenue, take a right to the Masochist Road, and after hundred meters, you’ll reach Asshat Place, living alone, yours intended, neighbor to self-punishment bloke and sanctimonious bitch.
DAMIEN
The temperature in the room drops by the second matching the storm gathering between us. I hold my chin high and sputter, “Do you know what I find the most appalling thing of all, Bria? You won’t say you’re sorry for what you’ve done.”
She glances up at the ceiling as her arms drops on the mattress and says, “What would my apology bring to you? Everything but forgetting, so no.”
“I’ve forgotten nothing about the promises I made to you, and tonight won’t change it if this is your goal, Bria.”
Her head snaps as our hot breaths merge and battle for supremacy. “I have only one goal left, Damien. For you to let the past rest, so you can find your happiness.”
“Well, who said I haven’t?”
She raises an eyebrow overpowering the challenge in my voice. “Then say it, and this ends here and now.”
“Are you threatening me, Bria?”
“No, Damien. I’m just stating a fact.”
It’s hard to tell with her poker face now on, but I remain unfazed. It never lasts long with our emotions scattered everywhere around the room.
“Reverse psychology, Bria? You should keep practicing because it doesn’t work on me.”
She rises up on her knees as I crane my neck. “I’ve never manipulated you or tried to play you.” Her finger drills into my chest as she snarls.
I can feel the line between my brows digging a road as I sneer, “But in the end, you played me like a fucking moron,” I shout in her face.
“So much rage inside you. It’s not good for you, Damien.” Bria’s shoulders sag, and she slumps on her bottom.
“As if you care about my wellbeing. Quit pretending.”
“You obtuse idiot,” she shouts, her eyes blazing. I grab her and pull her onto my lap.
Bria’s head falls back. She turns me on so damn much I fight for control as I nibble on the sweet flesh under her ear and trail wet kisses on her soft, alabaster-exposed neck. I hunger to feel her and have her, even just once. “Do you miss having me buried inside you? Ho
w I spent hours learning and devouring every sensitive spot on your inflamed skin?” To reinforce my point, I pinch her erect nipples through the fine fabric of her dress to the edge of pain as she moans in response and clutches my arms. For every moment of weakness she awakens in me, I´ll take my control back out of her writhing body.
And with my last shred of control, I heave her up and plop her beside me again,
She hugs her legs, and her head rests on her knees, her gaze forlorn. “Just tell me the next one of your top ten memories.”
I reach for her but stop mid-air, yanking my hand to my side and add, “Number six, then is of you swimming with that dolphin in the Bahamas. We both tilt our heads as we find the one picture I’m talking about among hundreds plastered on the wall, and the corner of her mouth curves up.
“The image of your glee will stick with me forever. You were radiant, sun-kissed, sea-kissed, dolphin-kissed, and love-kissed, gazing eyes and light freckles covering your delicate nose. You looked out-of-this-world beautiful.”
Her eyes well up as they lock on mine. I drown the desire to hold her to my chest.
“I was seventeen, and you were nineteen, and it was our first holiday trip alone. Just the two of us… with our love, and certain yearnings…” Her hand darts to her mouth, while I erupt into laughter. She muffles her laughter as I confess, “Well, this is the second-best part of my memory. I had you all to myself, and did I ever take full advantage of the situation.”
Her cheeks turn to fire, and she sends me a knowing look that has me playing a very dirty movie in my head with us as the main characters, and lust surges through me.
“Our parents’ reaction when we came back was hilarious.”
I put on a falsetto voice, “Bria, Damien… weren’t you supposed to go to the Bahamas? We all know how hot it is there, but you don’t even have a proper suntan.”
“Crimson enveloped us from head to toe. They all wore the same knowing look, and it made everything worse. It was your fault, Damien. You couldn’t get enough.”
