by James, Ella
* * *
Finley
I look up and down the path once more, and then down at the bit of it below us that’s within my range of vision. When I feel reasonably confident we’re in the clear, I lay my hand over his bulge and squeeze a bit.
“You came here uninvited, didn’t you?”
He laughs, but it comes out a groan. “Finley…” His hand circles my wrist, but still I pet him, smoothing fingertips over the outline of his long, stiff sex until it’s straining at his pants.
“You came here of your own accord, and I tried to dislike you, remember?” I catch his head in my fingers and rub my palm against it. “I didn’t want to be your friend. I didn’t want to be your lover, either, but we were trapped, and you were very, very easy on the eyes and quite a bit too kind for me to freeze out, weren’t you?”
I can see him try to focus on me as I speak, but I’m making it difficult for him with my hand.
“Then we arrived back at the village, and the choices were impossible for me.”
His chest pumps as I work his sex with my hands. His head is leaned a bit back, so I can see him swallow. Even his neck is a thing of beauty.
“I felt that I should tend to you. I wanted to be near you quite against my will, you see. I tried to stay away, but that’s not how it went, and now I’m telling you my secrets—all the things I sought to lock away and just…forget. And you’re touching my hair as if we’re lovers. Making me feel as if we’re lovers.”
I look around again before unfastening the button of his pants. I delve inside until I find him, hard and hot and ready, and I begin stroking.
“I don’t know how you know that women adore having their hair touched, but I’ve got a fair idea, Carnegie. I don’t think you realize it’s pure torture being near you.” I clasp my hand about the base of him and tug my way back up his thick sex, loving how he looks in this moment, with his eyes narrowed in confusion and his head tilted back.
He looks like a fallen demigod upon the rock, and that thought fuels my raging heart.
“I’d like you better if you were a bit less handsome or a bit more mean, but you’re neither, and it’s too much for me. It’s too much for someone like me. Because you’re leaving, see?” I work the head of him until he groans. “And I’ll be here without you. And I know how that works out, you see. It doesn’t work out pretty.”
Suddenly, I want to slap his face—for teasing me this way. For dangling himself in front of me like a carrot I can’t help but bite, except the carrot is his warmth and kindness. It’s his hands and that hot mouth that makes me shiver, makes my lose my sanity.
I stimulate him as best as I know how—which likely isn’t very well, in fact—but I give it my all, and I assault him with my words and hands until he seems quite lost, until he’s at my behest.
I can tell he wants to speak—he puts his hand over mine to halt me so he can—but I won’t let up. As my fury builds, my hands feel smarter and more skilled. I’m a bit rough, perhaps, but he’s so hard he could cut marble, and he’s wet there at the tip, as if he’s very close to losing control. So I suppose I’m doing something correctly.
I ease up a bit, and when he opens his eyes, I look into them. I try to tell him the things I cannot say. I try to say them with my eyes, because now that we’re here, and I’ve said that, and he’s kissed my tears, I realize I can’t speak to him—ever again.
As he moans, I work him faster. I drink up his moans, his lovely grunts…the way he stiffens further, groaning. Then the moment comes when his hips jerk and his warmth overspills my hand.
I cried in his arms…but he spent in my hands.
I want to wipe it up and laugh and lay my cheek against his chest. I want to feel his fingers pushed where I feel soft and wet. But I can’t.
“I can’t do this with you.”
I jump up and grab my bag and race off down the path toward the village. Where I live. And suddenly I understand my mother more.
Part I
If you want a happy ending, that depends on where you stop the story.
—Orson Welles
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Declan
June 20, 2008
“Happy seventeenth, mofo.” We’re in the junior common room, a big square at the center of the Carogue campus high school boys’ apartments, shoving New York-style pizza into our pie holes, when I reach into my bag and lift out a handle of Saloon Moonshine.
“Well, dammit. I don’t think it’s big enough.” Alf’s dark brows jut into his mop of hair as Farhad swipes the bottle from me.
Nate reaches across the table, grabbing his birthday gift. He turns the bottle around, checking out the label before giving me a funny grin. “What the fuck is this?”
“Came from Texas, cowboy.”
“How the fuck did you get moonshine here from Texas?”
“I’ve got my ways.”
And my dad has a jet he and my cousin Bryant flew here on back in December. Avoided customs and all that. I can see the wheels turn in Nate’s fat head.
“Bryant?” he asks, catching on.
I laugh.
“You were planning birthday shit for Cowboy in December?” Makis gives me bug-eyes, and I roll my own.
Nate turns the bottle around again. “A hundred and eighty percent.” He gives a low whistle, shaking his head. “You must wanna kill me.”
Alf snorts.
“I think you’ve got the monopoly there,” Farhad mutters.
Nate doesn’t even blink at Farhad’s jab as he shoves his chair back. “Hands off, ladies.” He pushes the bottle to the center of the table and stands, nodding toward the hall behind the table as Alf makes some wise-ass crack about the two of us and “swordplay.”
I get up and follow Nate, because I’m not worried about that dumb shit. Last night, I fucked Ms. Keller, the new ninth-grade history instructor—but if I wanted swords, I wouldn’t let a bunch of fools like Alf and Farhad make me feel bad for it.
Nate strolls down the hall and steps into the laundry room.
“Check this out.” He grins darkly as he reaches into his shorts pocket, pulling out a bag of…oh fuck, that’s a lot of pills.
“Knock-off Xannies?” My throat damn near closes off.
“Oxy.”
“Fuck, dude. Where’d you get it?” That Ziploc must be stuffed with a hundred of the little oval-shaped pills.
He laughs. “I don’t wanna tell you that now, brother.”
I’ve got half a second—maybe more like a quarter-second—to decide how to play this. I’m afraid I know exactly where he got them, but I don’t want to spook Nate. He’s been skittish as fuck since last summer, starting on his birthday, actually, when he got too coked up and Makis found him razor-blading his wrist in the shower. Had to call a goddamn ambulance.
“If it’s who I think it is—” I’ll play it low key— “you should be careful.”
He snorts. “Says the kettle to the pot, man.” Something crosses his face—some kind of look that wants to be aloof but falls short. His thick eyebrows narrow. “You think you’ve got the monopoly on Laurent?”
Hearing his name makes my stomach knot up. “What does that mean?”
He laughs, shaking his red hair like a mane. He shakes the bag in front of me. “It means your days of having to share Xanny with your boy are over.”
“How’d you get him to do it?”
It’s there on his face. The way he smirks, and how his freckled cheeks round on a smile that’s unmistakably smug.
“How did you?” he asks.
My body goes cold as the air leaves my lungs. “What do you mean?” The words echo through me, hollow and surreal.
“Laurent told me.”
“Told you what?”
Nate laughs, a low rasp, and the floor tilts under my feet.
“What did he tell you?” I don’t realize that I’ve grabbed his shirt till Nate steps back. He holds both hands out.
“Calm down, bro.
Laurent is…like a mentor to a lot of us.” He can barely get the words out without snickering.
“He’s not your mentor.”
“No.” His face cements into a serious expression as he stuffs the baggie back in his pocket.
“For how long?” I rasp.
“Long time, brother.”
“Did he—”
He holds his hand up, shakes his head. Don’t ask.
I’m so stunned, I don’t feel anger.
Nate. Holy fucking shit, how did I not see?
“So you’re saying—”
He chuckles. “Since Caitlin.”
Jesus Christ. I can’t draw a breath as Nate claps my shoulder and leaves the room. It’s my fault. Holy fuck, it’s my fault that this happened. Holy fuck.
Somehow, I say bye to my buddies, still eating their pizza. Nate is opening the moonshine. In years to come, I’ll remember how he looked as he took off the top. How his eyes held mine for just a second too long, asking if I was upset. Asking, maybe, how I felt about him being gay.
I rip my gaze away from his and mutter, “Happy birthday, fucker.”
Then I’m down the stairs and out into the breezy night. I find the old man in his place across campus, watching 30 Rock with subtitles and wearing a black bathrobe. When he opens the door, I break his fucking face—for the second time in five years. I unleash the threat I’ve never had to make; instead, I blackmailed him, promising to keep quiet about what he did to me if he kept me stocked with the pills I needed.
“I don’t give a fuck about that now, you fucking piece of shit!” His blood splatters the rug. My knuckle splits as I knock one of his teeth out. I kick him so hard he can’t walk for days, I later find out. Then I kick him again.
“You fucking pedophile. You fucking freak!”
When he tries to tell me Nate came onto him, I kick him harder. Caitlin was three years ago. This piece of fucking shit has fucked my friend up for three fucking years. I think about the razorblade stuff, and I want to kill him. Then I think of Nate. I think of me and what I’d have to fucking say if someone calls the cops, and I get out of there.
I’ve got his blood all over me, so I can’t go to my room; Nate and I share a bathroom. I spend that night at Ms. Keller’s place, letting her suck my dick and patch up my knuckles.
She’s young—just a few years older than me, and likely years younger in experience. She never notices something is off with me. When I fuck her from behind, wrapping my arm around her neck, she giggles and she gasps and sighs like it’s a game. I’m glad it’s a game for her. She isn’t scared like I was. I get off pretending she is.
I fuck her three times that way, each a little rougher than the one before. After the last time, I lie down facing away from her, and she touches my back. I lose my shit and fucking yell at her, then say I’m sorry and let her pick out the movie. Some royal shit about King Henry.
Nate won’t answer any of my texts. I figure he’s fucked up or maybe mad at me for Laurent—that is, if he’s heard already.
I stay up all night, paranoid as shit that I’ll get found out for Laurent and sent to fucking jail or something. I can’t sleep. I can’t breathe, and I dropped the Xanax that was in my pocket, maybe at Laurent’s place.
That’s why I walk back to my room at five-fifteen in the morning. I leave Ms. Keller a note, calling her Rachel and saying I’m sorry for the yelling.
Walking across campus to my place, I realize what they told me last year at that two-week program Dad forced me into was right. There’s something wrong with me. I can’t use Xanax or, fuck it, anything, without becoming like this. No way Laurent keeps getting me stuff after last night, and maybe that’s a good thing.
I feel just a little better as I open up my dorm-room door. My hands are shaking, but it’s no big deal. Now that I know there’s a problem with the Xanax, I can stop it—easy.
Something’s off about my room, but I can’t figure out what. Maybe it’s just me. I get the baggie from inside one of my boots and take a Xanax, laughing. What a fucking addict. Then I strip my bloody clothes off, open up the bathroom door to bury them at the bottom of my hamper.
That’s how I find Nate. He’s slumped over on the padded bench that lines the bathroom’s back wall with a belt around his arm and all those pills swimming around his cold, bare feet.
Chapter Thirty
Finley
Doctor has a wardrobe full of yellows, greens, and reds. I stand in the closet adjoining the master bedroom in the clinic residence, and I thumb through his shirts. I suppose he’d never be caught wearing gray or black or dark blue.
I bring the hem of a bright green shirt to my face and inhale the slight, soft scent of washing soap.
Here is a man who is within my grasp. I could have his babies, serve the people here, and help make Tristan stronger. Yes, he’s puritanical and patriarchal, but I can’t live with that? Mummy endured worse without losing her brains or running off, as I’ve dreamed of so often recently. (Not that I could, given my fear of boats). Mummy endured everything and always did her best for me.
I wander out of the closet and curl up in bed, and I don’t leave until it’s time to make two house calls. After that, I scurry back to Doctor’s and soak in the bath. I’d like to cry, but I feel nothing.
I remember the morning and try to sear his touch, his lips, his voice into my memory.
I doubt he’ll come back ’round this time. Why would he? I know what my assets are; I realize I’m not utterly without them, but I’m not exceptional. I’m just a girl locked on an island, and he’s him.
Yes, he holds my hand and gives kisses that reach down to my soul. But he’s a natural-born romantic. He knows Neruda; how could he not be? He loves tugging at my hair and giving me his dimpled smiles. He’s got a big heart; I suppose it just spills over onto who’s nearest. Here, he’s had no one but me. No one else who knows his demons. No one whom he trusts with his deft, shaking hands. That doesn’t mean he needs me, I tell myself.
Still, I dream of getting on a boat with him, sailing away. I think of what it might be like, but then my chest feels like it might collapse on my heart. I’m locked inside a cage, and I feel it. I’ve got to get out, even merely for an hour.
I crave the wind on my face and the moonlight in my eyes. I know where I want to go, but I clean house instead, arranging all the knitted pillows neatly on the couch and picking lint off the rugs as if the queen herself might drop in for tea. Finally, when even Baby is tired out, and I feel numb enough for comfort, I put on my coat and boots and slip into the darkness.
Night has always been my favorite time. When I was young, I’d sneak into the grass beside the house and lie there looking at the constellations. When Mummy would catch me, she’d chastise me for going out so late, but then she’d pinch my cheeks and say, “I see you in a space helmet one day, my wee dearie.”
Before I spoke again, before I learned to throw clay, I spent my time painting nighttime landscapes with the watercolors Gammy ordered from our old suppliers’ magazine.
For years, it’s been my habit to walk up to Vloeiende Trane at night and sit there on the moonlit plateau talking to Mum. The nights are often cold and windy, but that matters little to me. I button my jacket to the neck and wear the hood if needed.
As I walk up the ribbon of a road that leads to Gammy’s cottage, I think of my mother. What would she think of me now? I’m not an astronaut, nor am I brave or strong or happy. I’ve failed her.
I hear Gammy’s voice, though, and I think about her favorite quote, which says that if you want a happy ending, it depends on where you stop the story. My story’s not over—that’s true. But I know down in my soul that it will never be a fairy tale. I’ve made choices that have locked me in, and that’s my burden to bear.
As I near the cottage, my heart sits like a lump of steel in my chest. The house is dark except a light that shines on the back porch, where there’s an awning that wraps partway around the house, covering my
potter’s wheel.
I assume he’s sleeping. I’m a horrid person for the way I left him there, for using pleasure as a weapon. Perhaps I’m twisted from my perverse past. The idea makes me ache.
I take the trail that winds toward the volcano, following it up the hill that leads to the top of the plateau. It’s mostly barren here, but there’s a single cluster of these massive shrubs that grew up in a circle. I think I might lie there at the center, watch the stars move till I don’t feel so horrid.
I do just that, lying on my back with my knees drawn up, watching my breaths drift in puffs of fog to be tossed by the sea breeze. I hear a whale’s song, which my mother used to tell me was the merpeople. That’s all it takes to fill my eyes with tears, smearing the stars.
The ground is cool. It chills me through my jacket. Even though I thought it would be good up here…it isn’t. It’s just the barren earth and the projector image of the starlight. A bit of wind to chill my nose and numb my hands. The reality of things is quite different than daydreams.
“I’ve nothing to say,” I whisper to her.
More and more it seems a cruel trick—all of this. I see no meaning in my own existence. Nothing sweet or special, nothing even offering a bit of comfort. There are only obligations and the feeling that I’m no different than the cows. I’m just a thing to step about the grass and color up the matrix of our island. I am nearly nothing, really.
I wonder how the others do it. But I know the answer. It’s as meaningless for them as me, but they’re not alone as I am. Anna lives for Kayti and for Freddy. I suppose Kayti’s wee, round belly and Freddy’s arms around her in their bed at night must ease the pain, lessen the numbness. That’s what makes her warm, what gives her universe its starlight.
I wipe a tear from my cheek.
