The Stelter City Saga: Ultranatural

by Stefany Valentine Ramirez

  Lee beamed. “I like being silly around you Ace. I love to see you laugh.”

  At her words, Ace felt a tug in his gut. He loved that she cared about him. He loved it so much that he wanted to scoop her up in his arms and kiss her until his lips grew sore. But he didn’t. He knew she wouldn’t have wanted that.

  Instead of thinking about it too much, Ace decided to change the subject. “Alright, so if my initials were MD-”

  “They are.” Piped Lee, “We established this, remember?”

  It was true. According to an oak tree, Ace’s real name began with an M and his last name started with a D.

  “Alright,” he began again, “since my initials are MD, what do you think my name is?”

  If anyone on the beach had been eavesdropping on their conversation, they would have been utterly confused. There was so much mystery as to who they were and what were the odds of two misfits whose earliest memory was around the age of twelve came to meet each other?

  “M…” began Lee as she kept her eyes hooked to the end of the shore line. “Mark, Maverick, Marco- whoa, look! A chicken!”

  Lee wasn’t kidding about the chicken. To be correct there were several of them. All plump as a pumpkin and covered in brown feathers clucking their way along the beach. The whole flock pecked its way beside the outskirts of a thick palm tree grove. A few prehistoric looking bushes sprang from the sandy soil, most likely hiding more of the flock.

  Lee planted her feet and stared at them in amazement. This was the first time she had ever seen a real live chicken and as crazy as it seemed, she was completely fascinated. A hen only a couple yards away stopped pecking at the sand and gawked up at her. As the two of them stood there, Lee couldn’t help but to wonder why several of the little children weren’t chasing them.

  She broke from the staring contest first and glanced around. To her disbelief there was no one to be seen. It was as if everyone on the beach had vanished taking their towels and beach balls with them. She spun around quickly and when her eyes fell on a cluster of boulders by the shore, it all made sense. The pair had walked past the rocks sometime during their talk. She only just noticed that now they were completely alone on a small chunk of sand nestled between a rainforest of chickens and a large pile of rocks.

  “I kind of want to go chase that chicken.” She confessed pointing back at the hen bobbing along the sand.

  “Be my guest, Lee.” Replied Ace. “I shall watch from right here.” With that, he took a seat right on the shore. When the waves crashed, a miniature foamy wave traveled up the sand, barely skimming his toes.

  Lee set her hands on her hips and when Ace glanced up at her, he had to raise a hand to shield the sun from his eyes. Even with pure light shining on her, the natural gold in her hair hardly bled through. But her freckles had swollen to the size of adorable ice cream sprinkles across her nose and just beneath that, her lips curved in a half smile.

  “Yes, love?” asked Ace.

  Slowly, Lee bent to his eye level. Her hair slid over her shoulders and hung like curtains opening up to her view of Ace. “Oh, nothing.” She said and with every word that followed, her smile brightened, “I’m just thinking about how much I love you and…” slowly, she sank to a seat beside him. “how much I adore the fact that we’re alone right now.”

  “Are we?” asked Ace achieving sarcasm. He was relieved to find that she had mentioned it before he did. At least now, he knew that there was nothing to hinder her display of affection.

  “Yeah,” she replied somewhat casually before scooting closer so that their shoulders pressed together.

  “Alone on a beach in Hawaii…” muttered Ace thoughtfully as he shifted his weight to face her.

  “It sounds like we have quite a large sum of freedom.” Lee said flirtatiously. “Considering this day has no to-do list.”

  “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

  “What do you think we should do about that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” began Ace, “I was thinking about something along the lines of being adorable and intimate with this gorgeous amazing girl.”

  “Oh?” Lee raised her eyebrows as a faint flush spread over her already pink cheeks. “Who is this girl?”

  “You know her,” began Ace reaching for a piece of her hair the wind had set drifting over her nose. The tips of his fingers slid over her temple when he tucked it behind her ear. “She’s fun, sweet, has this stunning smile and these beautiful eyes.”

  “Wow,” said Lee when her fingers too found a way to touch him. As she dragged her hand up his arm, grains of sand clung to her skin. “She seems like a pretty cool person.”

  “Believe me, she is.” He muttered. He was leaning in slowly now as his fingers traced around her jaw to her chin. He felt her hands glide over the sleeve of his shirt and over his chest until it clung comfortably to his neck. Their lips were still inches apart but he could hear Lee’s heart hammering inside her. He had never noticed this before, but even with only her fingers clinging to his neck, she trembled ever so slightly. Maybe it was the moment, maybe it was the anticipation, or maybe it was just the fact that everything was so perfect on that beach. As Ace’s eyes slid half shut, he couldn’t help but to think how adorable it was that kissing him still made her nervous.

  “Ace?” she uttered as inches turned to centimeters.

  He knew her eyes were shut now too, and could feel her soft breath on his lips as he hung there waiting for her words. “Yes?”

  Lee swallowed a quick cool breath before exhaling, “I love you.”

  Ace’s stomach flipped as his heart took off sprinting. He couldn’t find it in himself to hold back any longer. A mixture of emotion and hunger exploded inside him until the next thing he knew was the movement of his lips on hers. Both his hands sprung to her face, clinging to her as if he could never get enough.

  When Lee kissed back with the same amount of fire, Ace only wanted to pull her in closer. With his eyes closed there was nothing to guide him around aside for his hands, and at the moment he was sliding them down her spine until he was able to grasp onto her boney hips. He wasn’t sure if he was holding her too tight, or if his touch was making her uncomfortable. All he knew was that the more her lips tangled with his, the more he could feel himself losing control.

  “Ace?” Lee moaned when she managed to pull her mouth away for a quick breath. “Love, I don’t think-”

  In Ace’s mind, this wasn’t a time for talking. Passionately, he pulled her mouth back on to his with a little too much force. In the darkness he felt their unsteady embrace wobble until they were falling. Ace’s back collided with the hot sand pulling Lee’s weightless body atop of his. Her hair tumbled over his cheeks so that a few strands got tangled in their lips.

  “Love,” Lee murmured again as she pulled away.

  Over the pounding of his own heart and the crashing of ocean waves, Ace didn’t hear her call him a second time. When her lips were away from his, he brushed her hair back before craning his neck up to kiss her. With each passing moment, Ace felt the intoxicating sensation of wanting more and never getting enough. He needed to feel her thin ribs and small chest pressed tighter against his. Before Lee could pull back a third time, Ace had rolled over once more.

  Carrying his weight over her was completely foreign. They had never been pinned together like that and Lee didn’t like it one bit. The weight of his legs was crushing her own as his stomach pressed do tightly against her ribs that the air was forced back up her lungs. She could feel the sand covering every inch of her body. The movement of his lips had gone from tasteful to overwhelming. She could hardly even breathe especially since his face was pinning hers in place.

  Not a moment later, a vibrant zap escaped her fingertips as they were pressed against his chest. With a faint grunt, Ace pulled back and gaped down at her with a dazed expression. A faint blush covered his cheeks just beneath his golden skin and his lips seemed swollen and pink.

  “Ace.” Lee said, serious
ly before he could press his mouth against hers once more. “We need to stop.”

  For the first time in their relationship, he had lost control. Intentionally, Ace had never wanted their kissing to grow this fierce. Every time in the past, when their lips were touching, he knew where he was. He knew where he placed his hands, how tightly he held her, even on Valentine’s Day when he pulled her around him, and he knew full well what he was doing. But this time around- this time it was completely different.

  He couldn’t remember how they had gotten there. As he flashed back through the previous moments together, all he could remember was the intoxicating hunger pounding through his body. When he finally gazed down at her frightened face, things began to piece together. The rapid rising and falling of Lee’s chest beneath him, the hammering of his own heart, the swollen feeling in his lips… He had never been so powerless- especially in a situation like that. As his sight focused down on her, he could see her wild hair tossed about like tangled curls in the sand. When the radiant sun fell around her, her lashes almost seemed invisible. It turned her face to an even blanker canvass with nothing but two deep green eyes and identical pink cheeks.

  His mind was still fogged up from kissing, and in all honestly, a major part of him wanted to be back in her embrace. But he felt her body wiggle beneath him a she tried to pull away. When he sat up, she did too and for a moment he eyed her with a perplexed expression before saying. “No one is watching Lee. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  Lee hadn’t lifted her eyes from the small waves in the sand since she sat up. “I thought that was what I wanted too.” She mumbled softly. She could see the outline of where their bodies had been in the sand and her stomach churned with embarrassment.

  Ace chucked as he reached for her once more. “Well then what are you doing over there? Come here.”

  “No,” She replied finally pulling her eyes up to meet his. She nibbled on her thin lips anxiously as she thought about what she was going to say next. She had lead him to think that she wanted the same amount of fire as he wanted, but she was also the one to pull away. It wasn’t fair to be sending mixed signals to him and with a sigh, she realized she couldn’t delay talking about how the physical part of their relationship made her feel.

  “We should talk.” She finally said. She had spoken so softly that the oncoming sea breeze nearly ate up her words. “About… us.”

  Ace pursed his lips together before frowning. When he brushed his fingers through his hair, tuffs of sand fell out and were carried away by the wind. He didn’t like the way Lee said that. Even she looked uneasy as her eyes went back down to the sand by her side. But he chose not to say anything until they were sitting side by side on the hot dry sand. “What did you want to say?”

  Lee swallowed hard. She had been thinking about it for weeks now. It should have been easy for all of her thoughts to tumble from her mouth but when she opened her lips nothing came out. “I’m kind of embarrassed to say.” Lee confessed.

  Ace frowned as he glanced over at her. The rising sun was scorching the back of his neck, but he didn’t care. He reached over to set an arm around her small shoulders and pulled back the wall of hair that had been separating their gazes. “Lee.” He muttered gently as he stared into her eyes. “You can tell me anything.”

  Her heartbeat had dropped to a regular pulse and the soothing flow of his words helped loosen her tongue. She nodded, took in a big breath and found herself closing her eyes before she let the train of thoughts run out her mouth.

  “I love kissing you Ace. I love being with you, I love it when you hold my hand and I love it when we are silly together like when we were walking along the beach. Times like that make it so easy for me to fall in love with you. But I get confused when all the kissing comes in. It’s like my… my body wants to be kissing you, but my heart and my mind are telling me this isn’t the way to go. When physical romance gets out of hand, I feel embarrassed and all… icky inside.” Lee sighed. She hoped she was making sense to him because the words sounded like vomit in her ears.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say;” She tried to conclude, “Is that…” But her mind was starting to swarm with all these different thoughts and she couldn’t spit anything out.

  But Ace nodded and wove his fingers in between hers. “Like sometimes we go too far.” He said for her and she nodded with agreement. “And you want to talk about the limits.”

  Lee nodded. Her stomach churned as another blush rose to her cheeks. She wasn’t sure what it was about the subject that made her feel so uneasy, but she was relieved that Ace understood her. “Ace, is this a weird thing to be talking about? I feel like it is…”

  Her brows were folded in an unpleasant sort of way and her cheeks hadn’t stopped sporting the color pink since she started talking. Ace sighed. She was so innocent; it was everything that he wasn’t. He thought back to the time after they had been chased by the entire Tarrillian City Police Department. He had gotten sick after evading them and had invited Lee to lay in bed with him. But instead she chose to sit on the floor. It wasn’t that she was rejecting him, but rather she was uncomfortable when situations grew too intimate. It was innocent, but it was honest and that was the reason why he loved her so.

  “It’s not weird at all.” Ace said as the corner of his lip turned up. “I’m actually glad you brought it up. It’s about time we talked about this.”

  “You feel awkward too?” she beamed with a twinge of relief in her voice.

  “Sometimes.” He confessed, “Don’t laugh at me. This is kind of a taboo subject for me, but I mean this with all sincerity. Lee, I love you. I want to treat you like you’re a princess, but sometimes all this passion gets in the way. I know that I need to respect you, and I want to- but Lee, you are so much fun to kiss. I’m sorry for letting things get out of hand.” He concluded, “Do I sound like a total loser or what?”

  Lee giggled as she gave their fingers a light squeeze. “Not at all. You sound like someone I want to be in love with for the rest of my life.”

  Ace smiled as he pulled his fingers from her and wrapped them around her back. He pulled her close but not too close and held her there for a moment. His eyes sailed over her shoulder into the lush tropical forest surrounding them. “Those chickens are still there.” Ace muttered.

  “Oh cool!” Lee exclaimed whipping around to gaze at them. “Ace lets go chase a chicken!” Lee tried to scurry to her feet but Ace tugged her right back down.

  “Wait a second.” He said when Lee gaped up at him. He leaned in and pressed his lips against hers for a sliver of a moment. It was just long enough to express how he felt before he pulled back and muttered, “I love you.”

  Lee smiled back and whispered, “I love you too.”

  ~To Larissa’s left a young girl in a summer dress let the bundle of balloons slip from her fingers. The four friends watched as the cluster drifted into the sky, nearly catching on to the arm of the harbor’s fairs wheel. When the little girl began to cry, her mother promised to buy her an ice cream. That was the last Larissa heard because now their group had rounded the corner of a hot-dog stand and now stood on the farthest end of the harbor. Cassie climbed on the wooden fence and sat on the railing. Her hand hooked onto a lamp post to keep her from falling back into the dark blue waves.

  Ammon leaned on the wood beside her and glanced at Larissa just as the wind picked up. Her hair tumbled behind her shoulders elegantly as she leaned her forearms against the freshly stained railing. From Ammon’s view of her profile, her lashes almost seemed to fan out past her nose as she stood there watching the sky melt to dusk over the horizon.

  When the wind died down, Ammon could hear the light splashing and thunking of the waves against the thick wooden posts beneath their feet. From somewhere behind the hot-dog stand, a room of arcade games sang out carnival anthems and, as Josh stood behind Ammon, his arms swung as if conducting that music. From beneath sunglasses, Josh watched as a pelican glided across the almost sm
ooth ocean, its white belly reflecting off the deep purple. If Cassie had seen it, she might have whipped out her camera. Instead her eyes were glued to Ammon. “You’re checking out Larissa.” She sang nudging him with her bare knee.

  Larissa looked up to see Ammon turning away flushing.

  “You want to hold her; you want to kiss her…” Cassie continued to sing. “To be her-”

  “Shut-up Cassie,” Larissa spat, “Nobody likes you.”

  The blond girl scoffed and used her free hand to clutch her chest, “Ouch Larissa. That hurt! Normally Josh is the one that throws insults, but-”

  Just then Josh pounced and grasped onto the wood on either side of her hips before shaking the railing ferociously.

  Cassie’s screamed rang thought out the amusement park and reflexively, her hands sprang for the light post. “Josh you ugly monster, I hate you!” she wailed kicking him in the chest. “I almost fell!!”

  “That would have been hilarious.” He mused, rubbing his wife beater from where the bottom of Cassie’s sandal had imprinted. “I never would have jumped in to save you.”

  “Uggh, you’re a total poopy-head!” she exclaimed sliding off the wood without getting a butt splinter, “But since we’re all here, I might as well take a picture.”

  Ammon took this opportunity to slide his arm around Larissa as he positioned himself between his friends.

  “Face the front, Josh!” bellowed Cassie as she positioned her camera over her eye.

  Josh disobeyed and instead flexed his arms so that the muscles in his thick shoulder defined themselves. “No!” he objected, “I want to see what I look like from behind.”

  “Um, ugly.” Replied Cassie, “How many times have I told you?”

  “Just take the picture!”

  Cassie rolled her eyes and clicked the button. Normally, the gang would have all swarmed to see the newest image, but that was roughly her twelve thousandth picture that day, and frankly the comrades had seen enough of themselves. “One step closer to home.” She sang. That was her new thing now that she couldn’t say “one step closer to Hawaii.” “I’ll stop by a Walgreens and print these out for you.” She announced tucking away her camera once more. “So we can cherish these moments together.”