Forever Us

by C C Monroe

  “Take me then. Have me.” I submit my body, admitting defeat. I don’t want to fight tonight. I don’t even know if I want to completely be myself. Tonight, I feel like pretending I’m a lost soul, walking the night and searching for the feeling of something worth making me forget. I don’t want to be Lana tonight. I want to be unknown.

  “You sure?” he questions, his rough, large hands roaming up the curve of my spine, awakening the butterflies. There is something in the way he looks at me, imploring for reassurance if I want this for him or for us both. I want to feel his touch, the rawness that can both make me feel alive but enslave me all at once.

  “Yes.” Conceding, I nod, mimicking the travel of his hands on me, his on my back, mine roaming his powerfully built chest, sculpted into a masterpiece. My libido overtakes my judgment, pushing out the last of my hesitation and replacing it with need.

  He takes over. Leaning in, his lips latch to my neck, biting and sucking while my eyes roll closed. The sudden sensation of lust washes over me, prickling from the top of my head all the way to the tips of my toes. Being mentally and emotionally unavailable may be something I have mastered, but one thing is for sure: when Kingston fucks, he does it right.

  Tonight, I caught him jerking off, and not only did it turn me on, it made me feel like the world’s worst lover. I don’t want to deprive him of sex, because what if he went somewhere else to find it? Kingston claims he would never cheat, but he’s a salacious lover and his physical drive is powerful. He needs sex regularly to feel needed. Some would say he’s addicted.

  But also, seeing him touch himself made me want him, made me need to feel like a vixen. I saw he was looking at his phone. Was he watching porn? I don’t know, but it made me want to prove my worth to him, prove I am still the one woman he claimed to only ever lust after.

  His hands grip my ass again, nudging me closer to his hard cock trying to break free from his sleep pants. When the material-clad erection hits my bare clit, I gasp, moaning into the living room.

  “Heaven,” he murmurs against my breast, his mouth worshipping my rose-colored nipple.

  “What?” I stutter, unashamedly grinding against his cock, the sensation strong enough to bring me closer and closer to the edge with each thrust.

  “You giving yourself to me, that sound you make when you’ve forfeited. That is heaven.” I drop my eyes, tilting my head slightly, taking in his mouth on my budded nipple. He lavishes it, giving it more attention then what most men would. My chest has easily become an aphrodisiac for him.

  The words he’s whispering are making me feel claustrophobic, because they further prove my inadequacy as a lover—as his best friend. Is this what he thinks I’m doing?

  Aren’t you though, Lana?

  “Forfeiting?” I yelp when he bites down hard, my nipple burning deliciously against his tongue as he soothes the pain.

  Finally bringing his eyes to me, he reaches down and pulls his cock free, the hard shaft bobbing in the air, hard and ready for me. I peek at it and bite my lip, missing the thick invasion that comes with his cock inside me, but I refocus my attention on him.

  “Yeah, you haven’t wanted me in so long—probably still don’t, but for some reason, you feel tonight I deserve you. If it’s all a show, then that’s fine, because I want to be the star of that show. I need your touch that fucking bad, Lana.”

  A knife is dug into my heart while another one digs deep inside his. I want Kingston. It’s not a matter of if I want him; it’s more about if I can fix myself enough to be worthy of him.

  I am spiraling down a long road of depression, losing myself and who I am. I feel territorial over myself, because I’m so lost that I don’t know if I trust anyone to ever have me completely. What can I give when I, myself, don’t even know what I’m giving anymore? What is my worth to not only myself but to the man of value under me?

  “Don’t talk like that. It’s not you—”

  “It’s me? Fuck that bullshit,” He cuts me off, calling my bluff.

  “It’s true, Kings. You know it, I know it, and all the world would know it if they knew me,” I admit, bringing my hands down between us to glide them up and down his warm, thick, smooth shaft.

  He groans, thrusting up into my hands. “You aren’t playing fair,” He moans as my hands start working.

  “I don’t want to play fair. I just want to play.” My inner minx has awoken, my demons hushed for now. The heavy talk is mute to me, because there is nothing he can say right now that will be able to fix me like he seems to think. I’m not a twenty-four-hour bug that can be cured with some treatment in love. I need more than that. I need salvation.

  “On one condition.” He stops my hands with his, banding them around my wrist.

  “What’s that, Daddy?” I wink, already in full costume, my dirty ways unleashed, but this doesn’t make him laugh. Instead, his face grows stoic.

  “You pretend that you love me tonight, that never once have we been anything but happy.”

  His words sting me into emotional paralyzation. Has he never been happy? I know we both have problems, but have I made him truly unhappy, and if so, why the hell did he stay?

  I leave his body faster than he has time to stop me. Grabbing my nightie, I slip it on fast. Moving my hair out of my face when I am fully dressed, I point at him. “You didn’t have to stay! You could have left!” I yell, as he rights himself in his pants, standing to face off with me.

  “What? Leave you when you were pregnant with Prince? Yeah, because that’s the right thing to do.” He scoffs, and my jaw unhinges, falling open.

  “Wow, so you stayed for the baby? I don’t need the support or pity, Kingston!” I push his chest and go to move around him. Surprisingly he lets me, but he stays hot on my heels as I stomp into the kitchen.

  The constant loop of this fight is becoming far too much. We have done this dangerous dance for so many years now that I’m pretty sure it’s happening more than us actually talking, laughing, having fun, or just being best friends. We’re toxic at this point. Shit, we’ve been toxic since day one.

  “No, I stayed because we were finally happy. You were finally happy, Lana! Don’t drag our son into your shit!” he yells, and I lean back, turning on him, my back on fire now.

  “My shit? Wow! Wow! Thank you. I’m already well aware that I’m ‘shit’ and that I’m the problem, but thank you for reaffirming it.”

  “Oh my fuck! What do you want from me, Lana? What?” he screams, actually screams at me for the first time in our relationship. I cower, backing up against the counter.

  “Don’t you fucking cower from me! This is us. You stand up and either fight for it or we end it here and now!” he roars, and my eyes lift from the ground, rounded and filled with consternation.

  “Excuse me?” What does he mean end it?

  “You heard me, Lana. You either make it a good fight, or I will leave with our son. You aren’t right, right now, Lana, and I’m tired of this. So tired. And our son deserves a stable environment.” Those words have the impact of a thousand men, an entire village of savages, tearing me limb from limb.

  “I’m not a bad mother!” I leave my hunched over position and thrust my chest out to defend myself. He will not take our son from me, and I will not let him sit here and threaten me with it either.

  “I never said you were, Lana.” His voice is ice-cold, as if I’m the crazy one here. I can’t believe he has the nerve to make me sound like a delusional psychopath, incapable of taking care of our son.

  “You will not take him from me. I’m a great mother and I love him,” I seethe, stepping away, ready to leave. I can’t even look him in the eye anymore. We have surpassed strangers and in this moment I will admit he feels like my enemy.

  “You need help.” He grabs my arm, pulling me back, and I yank it from his grasp.

  “Don’t you ever touch me like that, Kingston! Ever!” I scream, pushing his chest, his big frame barely shifting.

  “Lana, listen
to me—”

  “No! You threatened to take our son. I honestly can’t even look you in the eye right now. I resent you,” I admit out loud finally, the words falling like rain from a heavy dark cloud.

  “And you don’t think I’m starting to resent you?” he counters. I shake my head, my heart physically constricting, feeling like the squeeze will eventually dissolve what’s left of my heart.

  “Then fucking leave! You don’t have to stay for charity!” The room is closing in and spinning like a Tilt-a-Whirl. My stomach is churning, and the overwhelming need to vomit starts to rise.

  “Fine. Is that what you want? You don’t even want to try therapy? You don’t want to do anything to forget your fucking past? Joel is gone, Lana. He isn’t coming back!”

  “You don’t know that! You have no idea what he is capable of!” We scream back and forth, like gladiators in a ring.

  “That’s a worn-out excuse. You have PTSD and postpartum. Me and Dr. Moore are sure of it.”

  Like a whip, my head turns and my eyes scorn him, the air passing hotly between us. “Dr. Moore? As in Trey’s therapist? You’ve been talking about me to a therapist?” My voice lowers, no more rage, only—deceit. He betrayed me.

  “Yes, I have been seeing a therapist, because honestly, I’m drowning here too, Lana. It’s not just you anymore, and it’s starting to wear on me.” His hands run through his hair, and I watch every single strand reappear from under his hand as he goes.

  PTSD—postpartum. I put those on spin cycle in my head. Combine his secrets and the shitty way he is treating me, and it makes me dizzy. What is happening? This isn’t real. What are those, the PTSD and postpartum? I don’t have those, do I?

  I can’t stand straight. The ground is slipping from under me and I feel like I’m about to collide with gravity head-on.

  “Lana! Lana!” Kingston shouts, reaching for me before I hit the floor. He catches me in his arms and I begin to sob, completely shattered. I’m no longer cracked pieces; I’m officially a pile of ash. No longer myself, no longer a person, but more like a body with just a name.

  I don’t speak, because here on the kitchen floor, in the arms of the man I love, Joel has won; he defeated me. I have nothing left to offer anyone, not even myself. Not only does Kingston hate me, I hate myself. Pity isn’t what I want, so I just stay quiet and cry, feeling pity all on my own.

  “Lana, are you okay?” He worries, but his face is a blur. I can hardly see through the fog of tears storming in my eyes. I register him picking me up to carry me up the stairs with little effort. My eyes flutter closed and I whimper like a wounded animal. I bury my face in his rigid chest, the warmth helping to subside my cold shivers just a bit.

  “Lana, hey, talk to me.” Laying me down, he sits beside my head, where it rests on the fluffy grey pillow. Only problem is, I have nothing to say. Just moments ago, he was screaming at me and threatening to take my life—my son. Then he tells me that he has been seeing a therapist and I’m supposedly suffering from some sort of sicknesses? But even before that, we were about to make love. The emotions are all over the place, the wiring inside me completely crossed and sparking.

  With maximum effort, by all the power in me, I reply, “There is nothing to say.” Turning from him, I let the heaviness in my eyes and the calamity of my day pull me under.

  I watch her sleep, paying attention to the smooth rising and falling of her chest. Still whimpering, even in her sleep, it tells me the wounds and reminisces of our fight are still there. The hurt has wrapped her up and consumed her. As much as it hurts to see her destroyed, my words had to be said. My choice to tell her what I felt needed to be done.

  She’s haunted, and tonight, I know her silence meant her confession—that she knew it. She knows this is rock-bottom, that we already left the station of no return. While I watch her sleep, I begin to feel like the world’s biggest dick. I was harsh tonight, not safeguarding anything I said, defiantly not lacing it in sugar. But Prince comes first, and Lana isn’t herself anymore, and she is in no place to be stable enough to deal with a child.

  Lana is a great mother—that isn’t the issue—but she doesn’t have a grip on who she is in order to fully understand the power she has over wrecking herself. We can’t have our son watch her die slowly. What would that do to him, to her...to me? I’m supposed to hold my family together and I can’t. I’ve tried using all my resources, all my strength, my patience, my love, and nothing has worked. Lana has to do this on her own now. I have no more power here.

  I hear Princeton crying, pulling me away from Lana. I look her over one more time, covering her up in a blanket and leaving for his room. Walking in, I see his little arms and legs thrashing in the air alongside his sobs.

  “Hey, little man, don’t cry. Daddy’s here. Shhh.” I approach him, pick his onesie-clad body up, and cradle him to my chest. His green eyes peek at me, his little face turning red from his wailing.

  “Mama made you a bottle. Let’s go get you one, buddy.” I bounce him gently in my arms, taking the stairs slowly, trying to quiet him so he doesn’t wake Lana.

  His cries begin to die down, turning into little grunts and whines. I reach into the fridge, find the bottle, and warm it up. Once it’s the right temperature, I place it to his lips, and with a few seconds of hesitation, he finally takes the bottle. I sit at the table and peer out into the night, the street light in front of our house the only light coming into the kitchen. Some neighbors still have their lights on. I look at the clock on the stove and see it’s nearing midnight.

  Where do we go from here? I told Lana she needs therapy or we’re over. I threatened to take our son from her, standing my ground and fighting her for the first time in fifteen years of friendship. I don’t think she’s ready to go to therapy; she’s too stubborn, too in denial to admit she needs help. If that’s the case, then she and I are over. We can’t go on living like this and we know it.

  I hear gurgling and look down to see Prince has almost finished the entire bottle. I let him have a few more sucks then grab his burping cloth. As I gently pat him on the back, he burps in my ear. I smile, but then something outside catches my eye, a quick movement. Squinting my eyes, I look toward the tree across the street to the house just diagonal to us and focus. I swear I saw something, but there is no more movement. Deciding my mind is playing tricks on me and I need some sleep, I go back to focusing on Prince. After a few burps, he starts to coo, making little noises, the kind that are nothing significant, but they feel monumental in his growth.

  I move to the living room and place him in my lap, my knees bent and my feet on the coffee table. I play with his little hands then count each tiny toe on his fabric-covered feet, the material still not enough to showcase how small his toes are in my large, tattooed hands.

  The light of my life sits in my lap, a small emblem of who I am. Such a small little man with the power to make me do anything to keep him happy and safe. I bond with my father. We have this deep connection. I always wondered what it would feel like to be in his shoes, and now I am. Being Princeton’s father is my greatest accomplishment. He’s an extension of me. When he hurts, I hurt with him. When he smiles, I feel that smile in my blood stream. That happiness makes me content. When he breathes, I match him breath-by-breath. It’s unique, a love I have never had before—except with his mama. Lana will always be my one real love, with or without her as mine.

  The alpha in me is weakening, because I can’t fight anymore. The part in me that screams she is mine is now silenced. The dominant in me is giving up the restraints and handing them over to Lana on a platter, because the fight is dead. I never thought a day would come where she and I would be over. Damn.

  “Your mama is my world, buddy, but I don’t know what to do anymore.” I gaze into his eyes, finding a getaway. Lana and I could never continue down this perilous road without the sure chance of completely destroying our son.

  She and I are both emotional beings. To know her inside and out, the pains
and burdens she carries, is enervated—one drowns even in her silence. To know me is to be suffocated with my need to dominate and own all that is mine and never be the submissive. Lana and I are two butting forces, clashing head-on, and it drags everyone down. That is precisely why I know we cannot let our son witness this train wreck.

  I won’t do it.

  Princeton eyes me, mirroring me with his heavy orbs, ready for sleep. And I think if stopping time were possible at this very moment, I would do it. I would slow it down and hold off on the rising dawn that’s about to come with a whole new world of problems. Tomorrow may be the day Lana and I say goodbye as lovers.

  Prince nods off, closing his eyes gently, and I stare at him for a few moments longer before I reluctantly tear myself away and take him to bed. I place him in his crib, double-check his camera monitor and confirm it’s turned on, and then I bow out, shutting the door until a small crack is left.

  I think of tomorrow, and the faint sound of her words telling me with a chill to them, ‘It’s over, Kingston. I can’t do this anymore,’ repeats like a broken record in my mind. So standing behind the door that holds so much to lose, I revel in the gluttony for pain and selfishly take one last night holding her in my arms as my love. As a trophy of our friendship and a symbol of what once made me whole. Lana James was once the key to all things that made me Kingston.

  Tiptoed steps carry me into the room, where her back faces me, the outline of her silhouetted hips and pointed shoulders breaking my heart. Physically, I feel a tight vice rip through the skin of my chest and grip hold of my aching heart. That is my life lying there asleep, her dainty pink toes a tangle as they lay on top of each other, the long, thin legs leading to her perfect round ass and her back curved and never ending. All the way up to the pouty lips and wispy brown hair on the pillow. Remembering her in this state, her asleep innocently but tortured and detached deep inside, I realize she’s something I have failed to protect.