Come Undone

by Jessica Hawkins

  “Just go.”

  I crinkled my nose at him. “David,” I whined.

  “Fine,” he exhaled and turned his back.

  “Really?” I said, mimicking his irritation with my own exhale.

  “Olivia, I just fucked the shit out of you, who cares?”

  I hadn’t had to pee before but now that I was in position, I couldn’t hold it any longer. I relaxed and let the stream go. It was oddly intimate even though I’d peed in front of Bill countless times. And I had the advantage of admiring David’s toned ass as he waited, obviously magnificent, even in the dark. Once I’d flushed, I hoisted myself onto unsteady legs. He was picking me up again before I knew what was happening.

  “Aren’t I heavy?” I asked coyly, with my arms draped around his neck. He laughed heartily and tossed me in the air slightly before catching me.

  “No honeybee, you are not. You think I could’ve fucked you that long standing up if you were?”

  “The wall did most of the work,” I pointed out, as he held me over the bed.

  “Oh, is that what you think?” he asked, nipping my unharmed cheek with his teeth. “Should we try it again and see?”

  My eyes widened in response, and I bit back a giggle. “Can you?”

  “I could have you ‘til the sun comes up, but you need to rest. We both do.” He dropped me then and I let the giggle out as I hit the springs. “First, I have to pee though.”

  “What, I don’t get to watch?” I teased.

  “You can if you want,” he said, gaiting away.

  But my lids were heavy and my legs were leaden and did he call me honeybee again? and the sheets must have been a thread count somewhere in the thousands because they were oh, so . . . .

  I was disoriented when I felt the mattress give underneath me. I wasn’t sure if I had fallen asleep, but suddenly David was climbing in next to me. I reached across the valley between us to touch him and said, “I’m cold.”

  “Come here.” He pulled me to him, and I complied, fitting myself against a body I wasn’t used to. I rested my bent arm on his torso and lay my face on his shoulder.

  “How do you feel?” he asked into my hair.

  “Sore,” I sighed.

  “Good, I want you remembering this all weekend.”

  “Can I tell you something?” I asked.

  He rolled onto me and looked me straight in the eyes while his chin rested on my chest. His body seemed miles long with him below me, and I wondered if his legs were hanging off the edge. “Olivia, I have been waiting for that question for weeks. Please, tell me something that I don’t have to beat out of you.”

  I swatted his shoulder and snickered. “Don’t be ridiculous.” His face remained passive though, and he didn’t laugh.

  I cleared my throat uncomfortably, feeling suddenly on the spot. “It – that was . . .” I felt myself reddening and shifted under his weight, wondering if I had time to change my mind. I curled my arm up to touch my earlobe, but he caught it without even a glance and kissed the inside of my wrist. I held my palm out instead. “That was my first orgasm with anyone. Well, first and second,” I added, looking up at the ceiling.

  “What?” His tone conveyed his shock. “You can’t be serious,” he said, moving off me and sitting back on his calves.

  “It’s true. Does that freak you out?” I asked simply. My hand fell back on the bed and I shivered, suddenly cold.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, snuggling back between my legs and tucking my arms underneath him. A huge smile crossed his face, that broke only long enough for him to kiss me quickly on the lips. “No,” he said emphatically. “I just can’t believe it. How?”

  I faltered, wondering if it was possible to explain. “I’ve orgasmed on my own of course, just never with a partner. I always thought Bill and I would get there, but he stopped trying after a while. Not that I blame him. The harder he worked, the less turned on I became. I let him watch me, but I could never get into it.” I was silent. “So I might be on another planet right now.” He kissed the base of my neck more times than I could count. “I guess it helps that it’s been building for two months,” I added.

  He stopped. “Oh yeah? Then how do you explain the second one?” I gave him a shy smile and his face turned serious. “You have no idea what that means to me,” he said, placing another kiss in the hollow of my neck.

  “It means you are an experienced lover,” I kidded, even though I knew it wasn’t the reason. I had blossomed for him. Beneath him, clasped to him, we were in our own world, and I felt safe.

  “No,” he sighed, exhaling against my neck. “It’s different.” His voice was so soft, that I had to strain to hear. Is it different for you too, David? I wanted to ask, but I just enjoyed the feeling of his lips, his breath, him, on my body. He lifted his head to give me a mischievous look. “Mmm,” he moaned, grinding his hips against me softly, alerting me that he was hard again. “That might be the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard. Even better then banging a virgin.”

  “David!” I squealed. He laughed, and it was such a playfully uncharacteristic comment that I couldn’t help but join him.

  “I mean it. You are such a fox. If you were my girl, I’d have you coming every chance I got.” My laugh melted and my mouth watered at his words. He slid down my body and nuzzled my breasts, sighing into them and scraping his facial hair against my skin. “Did I tell you you’re incredible?”

  “I’m thoroughly worked over, is what I am,” I responded.

  “You know, when I looked into your eyes at the theater, I was stunned. Nothing like that has ever happened to me. And when I saw you in that gold dress, at the restaurant, I knew you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. You were glowing. But right now, in my bed, naked and undone,” he paused, leaning forward to kiss me softly on the lips. “You are perfect. I never want you any other way.”

  I ran my hand over his cheek and through his hair. It hurt me that I couldn’t respond the way I wanted, so I just touched, memorizing him with my hands.

  His gigantic hands splayed over my ribcage. “So smooth,” he commented, moving his fingers over my skin. Everything is smooth in the dark, I thought.

  My body jolted when his index finger ran over my scar, causing the muscles underneath it to contract. “Except for this. What is it?” he asked. I gulped and squeezed my eyes shut, thankful for the night to hide whatever nuances might give me away. Why is he asking me this? Who cares what it is? I balled the sheets in my fist and willed that he would leave it alone. Instead, he leaned closer and examined it. “What’s it from?”

  “Wasn’t that enough for one night?” I asked, half-joking. His silence was response enough. I sighed and pushed his hand away. “It’s ugly, and I don’t like talking about. Let’s not.”

  “What happened?” he persisted.

  “I don’t want . . . to lie to you. So please don’t make me.”

  He laughed softly and buried his nose in my chest, placing a feather light kiss between my breasts. “Don’t lie. I’m not easily scared.” Suddenly his body against mine began to feel heavy, and his breath on my skin was grating, as though it hit a nerve with every exhale. I must have moved, because suddenly he insisted, “Stop. Don’t pull away. Tell me what happened.”

  I was quiet for a moment, debating. “My mother accidentally stabbed me when I was a teenager.” It felt ridiculous to say out loud. I hadn’t had to since that night at the hospital. All that blood. “My parents fought a lot the year leading up to their divorce, but it had never become violent until she pulled a knife one night. I don’t think she meant to do anything with it, but I jumped in the middle and, well, you can guess the rest.”

  With the words out of my mouth, I no longer felt cornered, and his body began to feel less like a trap and more like a shield. I glided a hand over his smooth upper back. I’d said it aloud and the world hadn’t come crashing down . . . . Well that’s something, I guess.

  “What’s the rest?”

  Agai
n with the questions. “You ask a lot of questions,” I said. I moved my hand to his hair, letting the silky strands sprout from between my fingers. “Why, are you going to rescue me from my past, David?” I asked sadly.

  I pulled lightly on his arms, and he snaked back up to my face, settling on top of me. He pecked me on the lips softly, lingered there a moment and then kissed me again, this time opening my mouth with his. Slowly, he caressed my tongue with his while running his hand along my jawline. “You’re hard,” I whispered into his mouth. He nodded without separating from me. He weighed heavy on me and I took it, wanting nothing more than to stay securely underneath him as long as he would let me. When the kiss hardened, he tore from me.

  “You’re distracting me, Olivia. What’s the rest?”

  “Hmm?” I asked sleepily. I opened my eyes, wondering if I could convince him to keep kissing me. “Oh. The rest . . . Hospital. Blood. Screaming,” I said, closing my eyes again. “Really, that’s all the detail I care to remember. I hate hospitals. Blood scares me blind.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  I puckered my lips and cocked an eyebrow at him. “No, of course not.”

  “You flinch when I touch it.”

  “A reflex, I guess. I can’t control it.” The room quieted, the only sound a pair of mirrored breaths.

  “To protect you from your own mother,” he said finally. “I don’t know anyone who can do that.” It was an odd statement, and I wondered what he meant by it. Did he also have problems with his parents?

  “Well, it was a long time ago. It never happened again. My dad left her the next day, and I went with him.”

  “Your dad sounds like a smart man.”

  “He is,” I agreed. “But she never got over it. She thinks we abandoned her.”

  “What is it?” he asked gently, noticing my change in cadence.

  “It’s weird to talk about. I haven’t in so long. I guess since it happened.”

  “How? What about . . .” He hesitated. “What about Bill?”

  I looked down at him. “Now you can say his name?” I let out a laugh, which promptly turned into a yawn. “No, you’re right, I forgot. Of course I told Bill.” How could I tell him that that wasn’t true without scaring him? That Bill had never asked? That I’d just shared with him one of the most personal things about myself that I hadn’t even shared with my husband?

  CHAPTER 24

  WHEN I AWOKE, I FELT the puffiness of my eyes, the unfamiliarity of the silky sheets under my skin, the raw stickiness between my legs. Hard, strong arms clutched me from behind, locking me to a strange body. Guilt flowered within as I remembered, but my muscles clenched at the memory. Before I could fully recall, David stirred behind me. His hand lifted my hair, and he touched his lips to the curve of my neck, causing my eyes to flutter shut and a moan to escape.

  “Perfect,” he whispered into my skin.

  My body tensed instantly and my eyes flew open. In the cruel sunlight, the darkness had lifted and all that lay there was the truth.

  “Oh,” was all I could say as I lifted my body onto weak arms, carefully avoiding his stare. My eyes stung with lack of sleep, but my weariness was only physical. I looked at my watch, wondering how anything on my body could have survived the night before. Six o’clock. The shame weighed on me so heavily, that it had woken me up, not allowing me to forget for more than a few hours.

  “I have to leave.” It came out coarser than I’d intended, but all I could think was that my husband would be flying back later. That, and the fact that I didn’t know how I’d be able to leave David in that moment. I was torn between this thought and wishing I had never come.

  I let myself look at him then. The white sheets were pulled up to his muscled stomach, and his head rested back against his arm as he watched me. Matted hair fell over my shoulder, and I imagined that eyeliner had smeared around my eyes. He looked perfectly unaffected meanwhile.

  “Stay,” he said, no pleading, just flat. I knew that if I allowed myself, my worries, my fears, my inhibitions would melt away under his gaze. I would melt away.

  But I no longer felt adventurous or sexy. I just felt wrong. A dull pain began to throb behind my eyes as I looked for something to cover myself up. I heard David get up and when I turned, he had put his underwear on. His muscular body, now that I could see it in the daylight, was robust and ridged, and it took every shred of my willpower not to drag him back into the bed. He gathered up his side of the sheet and offered it to me.

  Wrapping myself in it, I stood, and we stared at each other from across the bed. I might have expected that the electricity between us would diminish, even slightly, but it didn’t; if anything, it amplified as my body recalled the night before. I longed to submit myself to him again, to feel the weight of him on top of me. I knew without words that he felt the same; by the way he looked at me and by his twitching but restrained erection.

  “Bathroom,” I said, shifting on my feet. He nodded. I quickly glanced around a bedroom that was all sunlight and whiteness, except for a wall of grey-shaded stone behind the bed. In the bathroom, I shut the door behind me. It was just as beautiful and immaculate as the bedroom, with more rock and a glass shower that overlooked the water.

  I sat on the toilet and ran my hands over my face. I’d actually gone through with it. I’d betrayed, deceived, lied. And with someone like David, who’d probably done this a thousand times before. I wondered if he normally let women spend the night. At the thought, I pushed the heels of my hands into my eyes until I saw white. It didn’t matter; he’d gotten what he wanted. And hadn’t I? It was a moment I’d furtively fantasized about, yet my daydreams were nothing compared to the reality. The reality of his skin on mine, his length stretching and filling me. The reality of him working my body as if he owned it.

  I shook my head hard. No. I’d done so much more than acted out a fantasy. I had a husband, and a family, and a life to answer to. What had I done? Something profoundly wrong. Something bigger than myself. Something that could never been undone.

  I stole a quick glance at my reflection as I washed my hands. I was right about my smeared make-up, red eyes and tangled hair. The bruise on my face was ripe, but it didn’t shock me anymore. Did I look different? How did adulterers look? Would a scarlet ‘A’ appear, branded into my skin somewhere?

  I wet my thumb and wiped the smudges from under my eyes. I raked a hand through my hair, starting at the roots. I needed a brush, I needed my hair to cooperate. It was the only thing within my control at the moment. My fingers stuck on several tangles, and I bit my lip to keep my crying out; underneath a slight wave had developed from my sweat.

  When I opened the door, David was waiting on the edge of the bed in those disarming sweatpants. I leaned against the doorway.

  “I liked the bedhead,” he said, jutting his chin at me.

  “Nah. Left to it’s own devices, my hair would put me in an early grave. It does not know how to cooperate,” I said, tossing it over my shoulder.

  “Well I like you that way. Disheveled.”

  “David, last night was . . .” I let the sentence hang, wrapping the sheet tighter under my arms.

  “It was,” he said, his head bobbing slowly. And then, “I meant what I said.”

  “About my hair?” I joked.

  “No,” he replied seriously.

  “Then what exactly?”

  “Everything. That I want you in my life. That I have feelings for you. That you’re incredible,” he said, a lascivious smile forming on his lips, the perfect partner to his tousled inky hair. “I want more, Olivia.”

  My mind raced. Our connection only intensified once we’d given into it. For the first time, a question I had been battling broke through: does he actually care for me?

  “And I meant what I said.” I needed to cut off the flow at the source. The conversation could not continue; too much damage was already done. “I’m not good for you. I’m, I don’t know . . . broken and - and married. Trust me when I
tell you, there is no other way.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment and then whipped them open. “You’re broken?” he asked with a look of disgust. “And you say you have nothing to give? How the fuck can you say that to me after last night?”

  “I understand. Being with you last night was,” my voice hitched as I tried to find the words. “A release, and I don’t just mean sexually. But that doesn’t change the fact that I belong to someone else.”

  He stood from the bed.

  “Don’t.” I held up my hands, stepping back instinctively. His eyes narrowed into a closed face, and my heart tightened in response. He took a measured pace. “This isn’t how this goes,” I explained. “It can’t happen again.”

  “Olivia.” It was a command; he must have known what it did to me. He reached for me confidently, gone was his moment of hesitation. He gathered me in his arms and kissed my wounded cheek, my neck, my shoulder. I cherished the feel of his lips on my skin, knowing it would be the last time. With that, I began to weep silently in his arms. This time I cried for what I was losing, not from guilt or regret. He held me closer and let me cry into his chest, his large hands caressing my back as the sheet fell to my hips. My nipples tightened against him, and I felt his equal desire hard against my stomach.

  “Shh,” he whispered in my ear. He bent and kissed me full on the lips, pressing my wet face against his and sharing the tears. The slow and sensual tempo of his kiss turned urgent and deep. His hand slid down my back and under the sheet, massaging my ass and inspiring the fervor again. My legs quivered instinctively.

  I’d been with boys before; I’d been with boys I’d thought were men. But this was different. David kissed like a man. He tasted, he smelled and he fucked like a man. It would take all the strength I had and then some. I understood now that I was the one who would have to be strong for everyone; for David, for Bill, for myself. It had been unfair to ask him to be. It was all on my shoulders.

  “No,” I said resolutely and pulled away, drawing the sheet over my shoulders, hiding in it. I felt so small, looking up at him from under wet lashes.