Fix Up

by Stephanie Witter

  His tongue, lips and teeth are driving me crazy. With his teeth he bites my lower lip, and the next second his tongue brushes it before entering my awaiting mouth to dance with my own very demanding tongue. I sigh loudly, but I don’t care one bit. I claw at his back and put one of my bare legs over his hips, intensifying all the sensations his body pressed against mine is making me feel.

  But it’s not enough, and soon I’m breathing loudly and erratically in the tiny room along with him. He moves his hips against mine, making me want more. Always more. The feel of him between my legs is too much for my control. I whimper in his ear and bite his earlobe, making him hiss out his breath.

  “Skye, baby …”

  “Don’t stop,” I say in a sigh, tightening my leg around his hips.

  He groans into my neck. In one swift movement, he’s on top of me, trapping me between him and the bed, but I don’t care. I’m not afraid, and I don’t think about what happened with Sean. I’m just thinking about how good it feels to have him like this with me, to hear his groans and to feel how his taut body shakes when his control is about to escape him.

  He brings a hand to my chest, and I find myself cursing the thin cloth preventing any skin contact. He pinches my sensitive nipple through the fabric causing me to moan very loudly. I’m pretty sure the occupants of the rooms next door can hear me, hear us, but at that very moment all I can think is, Duke touching me. This feels so good.

  “Fuck, Skye. I want you so fucking much,” he groans into my neck, his fast breathing tickling the hot skin of my neck.

  “I want you too. Please …”

  He freezes above me, his hand still on my breast. He puts his other hand on the bed and braces himself above me, putting some space between us so we’re looking at each other. His eyes are burning with desire and love, his lips are swollen from our kisses and he is still breathing loud and fast. Just like me.

  “It’s too soon, Skye. You know that.”

  I feel a frown replacing the awestruck expression on my face. “Then what was this?”

  “Me acting like an idiot with my girlfriend,” he replies without missing a beat. He kisses me on the forehead and lies beside me on his side. “But seriously, don’t wait too long to talk about that son of a bitch with your psychologist because I don’t know how long I can wait before making love to you all night long again.” He tugs down at the hem of my tee-shirt which rode a little high. “It’s driving me completely crazy to think about being inside you again.”

  I feel my face getting hotter than it already is. “You can’t talk like that.”

  “Why’s that? Don’t you remember that time when I told you that if we’re on board to get more physical together, to truly be together, I wouldn’t censor myself?”

  “Yes, but I thought you were exaggerating like guys often do.” I bring both hands to my burning cheeks and hear him chuckle. He’s always laughing when I’m embarrassed.

  “I like dirty talk and you know it. Whenever you’re a little brazen, I lose control.”

  “Is it the key for us to have sex again?”

  “Would you do it just for that?”

  “Don’t underestimate the effect you have on me and my libido, Duke.”

  “Now we should really sleep before it gets out of hand.”

  “You started it!”

  “I know.” He smiles mischievously and gives me a quick kiss on the lips before he opens his arms for me to crawl against him. “I love you.”

  My heart does a cartwheel in my chest, and my stomach flutters. I’m smiling like a lovesick idiot against his chest. “I love you, too.”

  We do have a lot of work to do to be a real functional couple that will last, but when in moments like this one, I feel like nothing can come between us. But once I close my eyes, listen to his heart beating and feel the thin necklace under my fingertips, doubts are crawling back in, tainting everything inside of me.

  *

  DUKE

  I let Skye finger the necklace, and for once I don’t feel the twinge of pain hit me. Sure, I still miss Juliet a lot, I think about her daily, but it’s different now. I’d do anything to have her still in my life and breathing, but I can’t imagine never feeling the way Skye makes me feel. Yet, Skye is still bothered by my past. I can understand that.

  And as usual, I take the easy way out and say nothing. I listen closely to her breathing getting slower, deeper until her hand settles over my heart, only beating for her. I kiss the top of her head and will my body to settle down for the night. Trying to forget about how much I’m craving Skye, how much I want to be inside her tight body again … Fuck! Just thinking about the way her voice gets deeper when aroused …

  I sigh and tighten my arms around her slender body. I can’t let my desire get the better of me. It’d be a mistake, too soon for the both of us. I can’t help but imagine Sean assaulting her, and it makes me sick. He touched her against her will; he touched her and forced himself on her! How can I touch her the way she deserves? How can I touch her to make her forget everything after what happened?

  There’s no manual, nothing written that could help me, help us. So, maybe I’m the one who needs to talk about this because it’s blatantly obvious that I have an issue here. I’m afraid of having sex with my girlfriend.

  Up until now, I’ve never been so deep in lust for a woman.

  Once again, sleep doesn’t come as I watch the minutes, the hours passing with that one woman who holds so much power over me in my arms, peacefully sleeping. Loving her is confusing, and it makes me afraid of myself and what I can do—because I can break us both.

  *

  SKYE

  “How is it going since the last time, Skye?” Dr. Marshall asks me as soon as I’m in the chair in front of his desk. His pen and notebook are all ready to take some notes. It still makes me uneasy to think about his synopsis of me and the conclusion he makes. I suppose it’s common to all the patients.

  “It’s good, I guess.” I shrug and offer a little smile.

  Today he’s only wearing a white shirt with rolled sleeves above his elbows and navy blue slacks. I can’t help myself but compare his forearms to Duke’s more muscular and tattooed ones. It’s really different.

  His clear blue eyes look down at his arms with a frown, but he doesn’t ask anything. I’m relieved because I don’t know how I’d explain that I’m comparing him to Duke, my boyfriend. Somehow, it feels wrong.

  “Did you talk with your boyfriend?” he asks without looking at me but down at his notebook, which I find odd. When he asks me something, he always looks at me. It’s a way to observe the body language of a patient, things the patient doesn’t need to put into words, but that the psychologist understands and can keep track of. Maybe he’s not having a good day. I bet it’s awful to feel down on yourself and have to go to your office to hear about others’ problems all day long.

  “You know, if you prefer we can reschedule this session.”

  He looks up at me, his blond eyebrows up high on his forehead. “Why? Is there something wrong?”

  I scrunch up my nose, shrug and wave at him. “You don’t seem like you want to hear about it.”

  He shakes his head. “Of course I want to hear about everything. I was just a little … distracted. Yeah, distracted.” He nods repeatedly like he’s trying to convince me.

  “Well, I don’t want to be rude, but you’re acting weird today, Dr. Marshall. I can understand if you’re having an off day.”

  He puts down his pen and massages his temples, eyes closed. Am I that annoying as a patient? I thought it worked out well, but maybe I’m exhausting. And again I think it’s my fault even when it’s probably not even about me. Sometimes I wonder if I’m not self-centered. I sure act that way even if it’s more about my fear of inadequacy slash social awkwardness than anything else.

  “That’s not it, Skye. I truly want to know what happened during the last couple of days, but if you want to talk about something else to start with,
you know we can do that.” His voice is calm, sincere and genuinely soft to my ears. He never really puts any pressure on me to talk, and yet his words always make me want to say more than I first intended. He’s really talented in his work. I see more and more why his colleagues—and family members―thought it would be a good idea for him to take on my case. So far so good, even if the subjects are anything but good, more along the line of painful.

  I nod and entwine my fingers tightly over my knees. “It’s better between Duke and me. We talked a little, but it was difficult.”

  “Why do you think it was difficult?” he asks me, now all professional and almost with a hint of distance, something I never gathered from our previous appointments. Maybe it’s just another trick of my mind.

  “Because we’re both afraid, even if it’s for different reasons.” I shrug. “I guess that’s when you ask me to explain.”

  He chuckles, his cheeks immediately taking a rosy color. “You know the drill now.”

  I bite my lower lip, my eyes not focusing as I remember Duke’s and my moment. Here in this office I feel not of this world, like I’m in some kind of neutral place, another dimension. I can analyze and even understand with a clear mind things I usually only see and react to with my emotions and fears. “I’m afraid he’ll be disgusted now that Sean sort of tainted me. I never truly understood before what rape or sexually assaulted victims meant by that, but now I really understand. It’s like I’m afraid Duke won’t see my body as desirable as before because someone else claimed it which I was unable to defend. And I’m afraid he’ll always think about Sean when we are intimate again.”

  “That’s a good start, Skye. You know it’s normal to feel this way and that you’re not alone. You have to take some time to feel good in your own skin to be ready to be with a man. It’s not really about trust, but more about your ability to make peace with your sexuality and intimacy.”

  We look at each other, and it bothers me that I’m unable to read his clear blue eyes. They’re striking, but too extraordinary to be able to decipher them. I don’t know how long we hold our gaze, but at one point I blink and the weird tension disappears. I cross my arms over my chest and then realize what I’m doing. I don’t have to protect myself in here. I’m in a safe zone. I force my arms to fall back on the arms of the chair and sigh.

  “But I think I’m fine with this aspect of my relationship with Duke. We almost …” I stop in my sentence and feel my cheeks burn bright. It’s weird to talk about my sex life with Kate, but it’s epically weird to talk about it with a man I know nothing about besides his last name. “We almost … you know.”

  He clears his throat, squirms once on his large leather chair and nods. “And why didn’t you?”

  “Because he stopped. He told me about what he’s afriad of. He’s afraid to pressure me to do anything I don’t want to or to go too fast for me and ruin the efforts I’m making to get better.”

  He writes something and puts both of his palms down on his desk. He looks exactly like my psychology professor when he’s about to tell us something very important for us to remember. Maybe it’s a trick you learn when you study for your PhD.

  “Don’t you think it means he cares deeply about you?”

  I make a face and arch an eyebrow. “That’s all you have to say? You ask me another question? Can you have, I don’t know, some reassuring words?”

  “All right, I can do that.” He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his chair. “Duke is in love with you. He fell in love with you when you were both feeling very low. He was still suffering, and he was overwhelmed by you and what you were bringing in his otherwise dark life. He knew what you were going through. He knew you were already dealing with tough things in your life. You had a hard time just fighting for yourself, for your happiness instead of simply going day after day without doing anything to improve your life. So think about how he sees things today after what Sean did to you. It’s worse, and he knows it takes time to move on. And you told me he’s an assistant in your psychology class, so he knows more about it than you do. He studied cases like yours, and even if it was just on paper, he knows how bad it can turn out if the people close to you do something to trigger a bad emotion. Everything can go awry really fast, Skye. That’s why he wants to take it slow, for you and for him because he’s trying to protect you both.”

  “How come, when you say it, I can accept it better than when he says it?”

  “Maybe because you’ve got some other kind of trust in me than you have with him. It’s different. We’ve got a professional relationship, where you’re involved with Duke. You can’t compare it because in your mind you tell yourself that I have nothing to win by lying when Duke could lie to protect you.”

  I cock my head on one side and nod. It’s all very logical and way less crazy sounding when he says it. If only I could see Dr. Marshall everyday as soon as my mind starts turning in circles or making up nonexistent obstacles. It would be easier.

  “Is it always like this with your patients?”

  “Like what?” he asks me distractedly as he’s writing something fast, his knuckles turning white with his death grip on the pen.

  “I don’t know, like a talk between friends, but not.” I shake my head, feeling stupid. My back and shoulders are killing me. The tension I feel there is awful.

  “No, but it depends on the patients. Some prefer to be called by their last name, others by a nickname and others barely want to hear me say a word. It depends on their needs and personality.”

  So, it is different between us. I mean, it’s not common to be so … familiar. I feel relieved, like it eases some of my fears, but it’s irrational because I know Dr. Marshall is not only seeing me. He would never be able to afford anything in Seattle if he was only working with me. It’s really weirding me out all of a sudden.

  “I had a nightmare about Sean,” I blurt out without even thinking. His head shoots up, and he lays his pen and notebook on his desk to focus all his attention on me. Now, I just have to go all in because I know he won’t just let me dodge his questions for the next forty minutes of the session. “It was just before the police rescued me. I could feel his hands on me and even hear his breathing. I woke up suddenly and I was sweating like I just ran in the midday sun in August.”

  “Were you still afraid once you woke up?”

  “Yes, because I could still feel him.” I look down at my knees, and I hate myself for it. I’m not trying to hide myself from Dr. Marshall; I just feel so ashamed. Not about my nightmare, but about this thing with Sean. I don’t want to feel ashamed. I know it’s ridiculous because I’m not the one who is a psychopath, but I do feel ashamed because I waited so long to do anything. Even when Duke wanted me to do something, I didn’t. I did nothing beside telling my parents and Derek. That’s all I did, and it resulted with me abducted and almost raped. In a way, I feel like I’m an accomplice in my own fate; it’s awful.

  “What did you do?” he asks slowly, like he doesn’t want to frighten me or see me cry. My eyes are already so full of tears that I can barely see him through the blur barely contained.

  “I asked Duke to come for the rest of the night. Kate was out, and I didn’t want to be alone in my room.”

  “It’s good that you called for help. Do you realize that from what you told me, you never would have done that before?” He smiles at me, and I blink several times to force the tears away. “You’re doing really well, Skye. You’re not staying alone when you’re afraid or not feeling well, you’re seeking your friends’ presence and you’re coming here diligently. You’re making real progress.”

  I shrug, not sure about this. Everything is still difficult in my life. I’m not afraid to cross Sean’s path anymore, but it’s because I know he’s in prison. Nevertheless, what Sean did for the last three years is still messing with my everyday life. For example, when I walked in the building for my session with Dr. Marshall, a man passed next to me, and his arms brushed against
mine. I thought I’d die hyperventilating. Everyday is like a war with myself, and I know one day soon, I’ll lose the battle. I just need to fight again and again to not lose the war.

  “Tell me this again once I’m confronted with Sean again.”

  “When do you meet with your lawyer again?”

  I think back to the lady I saw at the hospital. The officers gave my parents her card, and she came for the first statement to build my case for Sean’s trial. She was very professional, but a little hard too, not very sweet and gentle as you would expect from a woman dealing with a victim of a rape attempt. But I guess I don’t have to like her to work with her in order to see Sean sentenced to years in prison.

  “In two days. Kate is already planning a night out to take my mind off it afterwards. It’ll be the first party I’ve been to since that day.”

  “And you’re not very fond of going out.”

  “I like to spend some time with my friends, but I don’t like packed places. Body contact with unknown people, you know?” I really hope Derek and Kate will be able to have a real talk this time, and it’d be good for Duke and me too.

  “You have to confront these situations to allow yourself to overcome these fears. Look how it worked out with your friends.”

  “Yeah, well, if a guy gropes me and Duke punches the guy, I’ll give you a piece of my mind.”

  “Is Duke violent?” he asks me immediately, and it makes me smile. I want to laugh it off because I know Duke is not violent. Even if he sent Sean to the hospital once, it was the first time in years he fought. A softer man you could not find.

  “Not at all, but he is very protective of me. He often tells me I’m his weakness. Though, he doesn’t have a violent bone or ill-placed possessiveness in him.” I look at the clock. Still over twenty minutes to go. “I know the difference by now.”

  “Because Sean made you feel differently even before he hit you.”