Wandering

by Daniela Jackson

  “We’ll take a train in the morning,” Eavan says. “Just a short distance. Then we’ll rent a car.”

  “You’re the boss here.” I sweep a wisp of her hair away from her face and cup her cheek. “I thought I’d go mad. You should have told me, you know.”

  “I couldn’t afford to have a normal life. I couldn’t tell you even though I wanted to.”

  I nod as one burning need seizes my mind and body. “I want to touch you.”

  “I’m seven months pregnant.”

  “So what?” I run my palm up and down her stomach and the baby kicks me. “Wow.”

  “Yes, wow.” Her lips form a line and her eyebrows rise.

  We stare at each other for a few moments, then I cup her face in both my hands and her lips part.

  My dick grows hard and I lean towards her, covering her mouth with mine. I need to touch her otherwise, I’ll go mad. I slide my hand under her t-shirt and palm her full breast. Fucking hell, her breasts are enormous.

  “I want to fuck you,” I rasp, no sense of control left inside me.

  “Okay,” she says, her voice low, edged with a slight rasping. “Let’s fuck.”

  She rises to her feet, takes my hand and pulls me towards the stairs. We climb them slowly, my hands pulling at her t-shirt. I take it off her and toss it onto the floor, cupping her breasts as my mouth touches her neck. She smells exactly as I remember.

  We enter a bedroom and Eavan wiggles out of her trousers. My eyes roam over her pregnant belly and warmth washes over my heart as she lies down on the bed and turns on her side. Her mysterious eyes pull me to her like a magnet.

  A light knocking on the door diverts my attention and my glance travels to Ruby standing in the doorway.

  “I packed the bags and I’m going to bed,” she says. “Take your time, you two.” She steps forward and hugs me. “I’m happy you’re going to take care of us.”

  “Yes, Ruby, I’ll take care of you two,” I say as emotions strangle my throat. “The best I can.”

  Chapter 15

  Seafra

  Ruby goes to her room as I strip and lie down beside Eavan, my chest resting against her back.

  I kiss her shoulder. “There was no woman in my life after we’d had sex in that B&B.”

  “You don’t have to—“

  “No, I want you to know. I want everything to be clear between us. You left, but it was like you were my girlfriend. I was faithful to you.”

  She sighs and turns on her other side to face me. “I was faithful to you even though we were apart.” She takes a deep breath. “You don’t know how happy I am that I can be honest with you, that I can trust you. Ruby and I had nobody. Our parents... We were ghosts in our own house. My mother was a sad puppet controlled by my father, condemned to her fate at birth. Like Ruby and me.” Her voice falters. “It doesn’t matter now. Ruby...” Her eye twitches and her jaws clench.

  I kiss her forehead. “We have a lot of time for talking.”

  “No, no, you need to know this. There was a man, Jack. He was dear to Ruby. Well, we both loved him. He was our friend.” She stops and watches me with her eyes narrowing. “It’s not what you’re thinking about. He was a cop designated to watch over us. Ruby and him... Well, it happened that he died. Ruby buried him in the deepest part of her heart. Never talk to her about him. She may mention him, but you never ask her any questions.”

  “I understand, Eavan.”

  She exhales as her face softens. “We are not normal, you know. Neither Ruby nor me.”

  “That’s good. I don’t want to have a strictly normal life. I’m not a regular guy, either.”

  She bursts into laughter and glides her palm over my head. “I hate arguments. My parents fought all the time. Their marriage was a disaster.”

  “We’re very much alike. I hate arguments too.” I stroke a path down the side of her chest, then over her ass cheek and stop on her outer thigh, admiring her perfect curves.

  I hold my weight up on my elbow and my eyes sweep over her scars. I love each of them. They belong to me as does Eavan.

  “We should get to know each other better,” I say. “Your favourite colour. You favourite music. Your favourite food. That kind of stuff.”

  “We’re stuck together,” she says with sarcasm and turns her back to me. “Even if I hate you we’ll have to stay together.”

  I unhook her bra, releasing her breasts. “Kiss me.”

  She removes her bra and turns her face to mine, her lips parted, the tip of her tongue pink against the whiteness of her teeth.

  I bend my neck forward and close her mouth with mine, our tongues stroking against one another.

  “Ruby likes me,” I say.

  “Yes, she does.”

  “Do you like me?” I pull her panties down and she wiggles out of them.

  “I do.”

  “Do you like me enough to spend your life with me?”

  “Yes, I like you enough.” The tempting raspiness of her voice makes my heart race and my dick ache.

  “You will be my wife. Hope you’re aware of that.”

  “Very aware.”

  I stroke my cock then run my fingers up and down her wet slit. My arm slides under her neck and I cup her breast. “I love you, Eavan.”

  “I know,” she hums and pushes her ass against my groin.

  Well, it would be fair if she told me that she loved me too.

  I run the head of my cock up and down her slit, circling it around her entrance. Eavan takes a sharp breath and exposes the side of her throat for me.

  “Tell me you love me,” I growl.

  “You know I love you. I’ve loved you since the moment we met.”

  I push my cock into her and her divine wetness sheaths me like hot heaven.

  Eavan

  He buries his length inside me and stops. The sounds of our ardent breaths fill the evening’s silence around us.

  I nuzzle his cheek with my nose and he kisses my neck. A tingle spreads across my skin.

  I missed his touch so much.

  A moan escapes my mouth as his finger circles my nipple and his lips caress the side of my neck.

  He strokes my pregnant belly then moves his hips against my ass. Flutters of pleasure radiate from my pussy.

  “Good?” he murmurs into my ear, nibbling on my earlobe.

  “Good,” I gasp.

  His chest slides against my back as he pumps his cock in and out gently. I bend my knees and raise one, to give him access to my mound as his fingers search for my clitoris.

  “You’re so soft,” he murmurs into my ear then lets out a guttural growl.

  “You mean I’m big.”

  “I mean,” he says, rubbing his finger against my clitoris, “that you’re really pleasant to touch now.”

  I gasp, open my mouth, but my brain is unable to form a sensible reply.

  It’s different now. Every nerve of my body seems to be hypersensitive. Every stroke of his cock, every circle of his finger around my clitoris sends me into shivers, gives me bliss, and makes me rise higher and higher.

  I arch against his chest, our bodies moving in a feverish dance, rubbing, slapping against one another. My sweat blends with his; the smell of my arousal is intense, heavy around us.

  “You’re pregnant, woman,” he says like he’s gritting his teeth. “Slowly.”

  His words bounce off the cloudy wall of my desire. I’m pure wild sensation.

  I push his hand away and massage my swollen clitoris with my middle finger as Seafra thrusts into me faster, harder. His breath puffs into my neck, scorching, enslaving. His mouth grazes the angle of my jaw as he cups my breast and pushes into me deep. A husky moan leaves his mouth as his cock twitches inside me, and he fills me up with his come. I rise into my white forgetfulness, shake, and moan his name.

  Seafra

  She’s asleep.

  Coldness stabs me like an icy dagger at the thought that I could lose her again.

  No fucking way.<
br />
  It will work.

  Fuck concerts, fuck my career, and fuck my old life.

  I’m an outcast like Ruby and Eavan, a fugitive like them. A ghost for the society.

  It’s a bit unnerving, but I’m more focused on my new role. I’m responsible for Eavan and our baby, responsible for Ruby.

  I pull Eavan into my arms and she shudders in her dream.

  “I’m here, baby,” I say and she turns her face to mine, her sleepy eyes locked on mine.

  “Stay with me forever,” she whispers.

  “I will. Forever.”

  We have a nap, get up as the day is about to dawn and walk out of the house. I dispose of my bike on the outskirts of the town, then we catch a taxi and travel to the train station. Ruby looks very excited, but her eyes cloud with sadness from time to time and she seems to drift away to somewhere far from here.

  As we settle ourselves into our seats and the train pulls forward, Eavan watches the beach stretching along the railway tracks. Boats sway on the greyness of the seawater.

  “Everything fine, Ruby?” I ask.

  “Sort of,” she says.

  “You can talk to me,” I say.

  “There are things I want to have buried inside me and don’t want to share them with anybody,” she says. “They need to be buried otherwise, I won’t be able to be happy again. And I want to be happy. I want to be happy for the baby, for you and for my sister.”

  I raise myself, sit down beside Ruby and throw my arm around her back. “I will be for you in whatever way you need me.”

  “Can you marry my sister?” Ruby says. “I want to attend a wedding.”

  “Sure,” I say. “This won’t be a problem.”

  Eavan looks at me, stroking her belly and biting her lower lip. She nods at me, flashes me a mysterious smile then sinks into her own thoughts.

  “You two look very much alike,” Ruby says. “Almost like siblings, but I guess soul mates look like this.”

  We fall silent and I watch Eavan. She has a wig on, a platinum-blonde bob. It makes her look sexy as hell. Ruby looks like a teenage boy with her oversized tracksuit bottoms to cover her prosthetic legs and a baseball cap and I’m hiding behind sunglasses and a bandana.

  Eavan

  It’s been three days since we escaped Natalie’s supervision.

  We’re standing in front of a devastated barn, the smell of rotten straw and animal droppings all-pervasive, mixing with the smell of fish and seaweed carried by the gusts of the wind. The droplets of rain are pricking my face like needles.

  “There are holes in the roof,” Ruby says.

  “Well,” Seafra says, scratching his head as his feet sink into the mud around us.

  I’m actually very excited.

  It’s the middle of nowhere, the queen of all the holes we’ve lived in so far. Three old fishermen and their wives occupy the village nearby and there is a small devastated pub at the further end, run by a woman who looks two hundred years old.

  “Perfect,” I say.

  “You like it?” Seafra looks at me with relief.

  “Needs work, but we can do it,” I say.

  Ruby holds Seafra’s hand as her feet squelch in the mud. “We will live like cavemen.”

  “Well,” Seafra says.

  “It’s perfect,” I repeat.

  Seafra sinks his fingers into his drenched hair. “It’s worse than I thought it would be, but there is no going back now.”

  “No, there is no going back,” I say.

  Chapter 16

  Eavan

  Seafra grasps Ruby’s waist and lifts her up, throwing her over his shoulder. She squeals like a mouse then giggles, sheer unconstrained joy laced with excitement radiating from her.

  “Let’s go inside,” Seafra says.

  A transparent nervousness coats his voice and I can sense the effort he’s putting to hide it from me. He wants to be the man here and I have to let him be the man even though everything inside me screams to hug him and comfort him.

  We move towards the double door with iron details, and Seafra kicks it open. It creaks, sending chills down my spine. Seafra goes first and I’m right behind him. Ruby’s face waves in front of mine, her cheeks red, and her forehead wrinkled.

  The red bricked walls on the inside wear signs of abandonment, cracks, grey spots of mould, cobwebs. There is a metal fireplace in the middle of a room serving as the living area and opening into the kind of kitchen. Trash and cans are strewn all around the floor.

  “The previous owners started the conversion, but never finished it,” Seafra says. “They were a couple. The man hanged himself on the tree nearby and that’s why this place was so cheap.”

  “We’ll have a ghost haunting us,” Ruby says.

  “Maybe,” Seafra says.

  “Are you scared of that possibility?” I tease him.

  “No. You?” He winks at me.

  “A little.”

  My feet sink into a tiny puddle formed by the water filtering through the gap in the roof.

  Seafra plants Ruby on the stone floor and rummages around the room, looking for something. He kneels in front of an arched niche and opens a square metal door forming its back wall. The sound of scratching and clicking comes to my ears as he takes out a strongbox and opens it. I move closer to him and look down.

  “Wow,” I say as my eyes flick over two rolls of money inside of the box.

  “Ten thousand?” Seafra turns his face to me and grins. “My brother told me he’d left some money but I didn’t expect that much.”

  “We won’t die of hunger,” I say, “and we can renovate this barn.”

  “We need a kitchen, a bathroom and a room to sleep,” Ruby says with excitement. “I like it here.”

  A sound from outside of the barn diverts my attention, the hum of a car engine and the scrunching of tyres, as coldness rushes through my veins.

  “What the fuck?” Seafra raises himself in one motion. “It’s not Charlie.”

  The sound of a car door banging shut makes all the atoms of my body jump as a figure enters the barn.

  “I will kill you,” Natalie yells, her voice echoing threateningly.

  She moves closer to us and stops, her eyes shooting snaps of lightning.

  “How did you find us?” I mumble.

  “I’m a cop, remember?” Natalie’s eyes roam over us, two assessing blades, and she puts her hands on her hips, her face sharp with anger. “I’m a really good cop. Fuck. That’s really... really... You’re the troublemakers of the worst kind. I really want to send you to jail. All of you.” Her eyes bore through each of us. “I had that gut feeling so I decided to watch you. Imagine my surprise when a rock star parks his bike in front of your house and twelve hours later three masqueraders leave the house with bags hanging on their shoulders. I decided to follow that procession of masqueraders. So, here I am.”

  There is a gloomy silence, stillness, the dread of unpredictable pricking my skin.

  Natalie huffs out then looks at us with her face softening. “Nobody knows.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say.

  “Jack might have been right about the spy in the department,” Natalie says. “Nobody knows that you’re here, except me. I will help you.”

  “You will?” Seafra asks, his voice laced with suspicion.

  “I have two kids,” Natalie snaps. “You’re somebody else’s kids too. I’ll help you, but you will have to listen to me.”

  Ruby moves closer to Natalie and falls into her embrace. Consternation followed by sympathy paint Natalie’s face.

  “Thank you,” Ruby shrieks. “You’re really nice. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome,” Natalie says, her voice trembling. “Now, where are we going to sleep tonight? In my car?”

  Seafra

  I like working with my hands.

  Calluses and scratches cover them, the reminders that I have a new life, that I’m happy not searching for happiness. An old fisherman
is helping me with the roof and other repairs. He’s sixty-eight, but works like he’s thirty. Only his time-ravaged face betrays his age-his arms are as muscular as mine and his frame has a better stamina than mine. We sometimes sit on the white cliff and sip beer, watching small boats swaying on the surface of the sea, the wind smacking our faces. In those moments, Owen is telling me about his life, his wife, children, and grandchildren. He’s a crude man with simple principles and has never cheated on his wife. I really like him.

  Natalie visits the barn every two weeks to check on us. I think we can trust her. Our contacts were kind of stiff, formal in the beginning, but the more I know her the more I like her. She reminds me of Tania.

  Natalie acts kind of crazy when Eavan is in labour and Owen’s wife comes to help deliver the baby. Ruth has delivered a lot of babies; she’s an experienced midwife and we prefer not to go to hospital to avoid unnecessary exposure.

  My son lets out his first breath at 4.15 am and Natalie goes to do a massive shopping. We don’t interrupt her, and she brings five boxes of stuff for the baby.

  Our life becomes very unorganised though happy.

  Eavan and our baby are fine, but I’m concerned about Ruby. She needs something or someone to heal her. Coyote would be a perfect medicine for her, but he is as dead for us as we are for him.

  Owen gave me an old guitar. I have repaired it so I can sing for my girls and my baby every evening. Ruby calms down in those moments. She’ll stroke Eavan’s arm and shake her hands with excitement.

  I think I died in a certain way, and it’s not only about that fake suicide. I’m different, resurrected; I have new goals and I love my new life. It’s not easy and I don’t mean the money or the condition of the barn.

  Eavan is sometimes difficult. She was on her own for the majority of her life and learnt to trust only Ruby and herself. And then that cop, Jack. Her emotions are blocked because the life she had demanded that she developed such an ability. She doesn’t communicate properly.

  I talk to her a lot about everything, the weather, her favourite colours, her beloved castles, the baby and Ruby, taking off layer after layer to reach the true Eavan. It’s getting better. I know she’s ticklish on the sides of her chest and just below her ass. She loves chocolate ice cream. She‘s scared of ghosts, but loves watching ghost movies. Tiny things, day after day.