The Ties That Bind Us: (The Ties Duet Part One)

by Danda K.

  “Honestly, I don’t. This place looks like it’s mostly warehouses.” I take a bite of my hotdog, clueless to what he has up his sleeve.

  He smiles in satisfaction and continues to drink. “Good, now finish up. I want your belly full so we don’t have any distractions this time.” He winks and takes his own bite.

  We finish eating, and he collects our garbage, carrying it over to a nearby trash can.

  We walk a few blocks between large buildings and notice more construction workers hard at work plowing into the ground with their machines. The sky is now black, the full moon standing proud overhead and lighting up the night sky. The occasional sound of planes above us is making this walk feel so real. Like I’m really a part of this life everyone is busy living.

  I start to notice the cobblestones under our feet, making a pathway closer to the East River. Of course, Jaxon and his love for large bodies of water. We continue to walk down this charming stoned street when the water comes into full view. I look up and notice we’re practically under the Brooklyn Bridge.

  He stops walking and steps in front of me. ”Okay, Nyx. Close your eyes.”

  I roll my eyes. “Really?”

  “Do you always have to be a royal pain in my ass? Close them.”

  Ever the submissive, I do as he requests. He steps behind me with his hands on my shoulders and guides me forward. I challenge myself to just try and trust him a bit more. I want to convince myself Jaxon isn’t the enemy because, deep in my core, I know he would probably sacrifice himself for a stranger. He’s just selfless that way.

  As we move forward, he helps me avoid anything that would make me fall by telling me which direction to step. When we finally come to a stop, he’s still behind me, and I wait for his instruction.

  Suddenly I feel Jaxon’s body press up behind me, and his hands move down to the curve of my waist. I tense up for a few seconds but then relax, continuing to push myself to give in to him, to his touch. I close my eyes even tighter and inhale sharply.

  I feel this man down to the depths of my soul, inside every molecule that makes up my body.

  He takes his hand and brushes my waves over one of my shoulders. I feel his nose graze my hair. My breath picks up, and I suddenly feel dizzy for him again. There’s a slight pulse between my legs, and I think I want all of this.

  No, I want all of him.

  I feel as safe as I possibly could with Jaxon, as safe as someone like me can. Could it be possible he wants me too?

  He brings his lips to my ear and whispers, “You. Are. Stunning.”

  The feeling of his lips grazing my skin has my chest rising and falling so fast you’d think I’d just skydived without a parachute. Before I’m able to respond I hear him say, “Open your eyes.”

  So I do, and out of every single thing I could have conjured up in my head as to where he’d be taking me, I never ever would’ve thought of this. I had no idea this place even existed.

  In front of me is the most gorgeous carousel I’ve ever seen. Encased in a beautiful, clear glass structure, hundreds of horses and other animals slowly move up and down and around in a circle. The light emanating from the glass building has a blue hue that perfectly matches the gorgeous city at night.

  The lights from the Manhattan skyline behind it look like stars twinkling in the night sky. It’s absolutely breathtaking.

  Looking down at me, he nods his head towards the carousel and says, ”Look, it shines blue. Just like the sun.”

  I close my eyes again, feeling tears well underneath my lids, not from sadness, but from an overwhelming feeling of happiness. I feel happy for the first time in my life. I look up at him in awe. I can’t put together a sentence. Nothing.

  “How?” my voice cracks, and it’s all I can manage.

  “It’s called Jane’s Carousel. I couldn’t believe this wasn’t on your list when I read it, but I just knew you had to see it. And I wanted to be the one to show you,” he responds honestly. “No more lists, Nyx. I’m gonna take you everywhere on that wish-list of yours. You’re going to experience everything on it and then burn it. From now on, you’re gonna live life first hand, not on the sidelines.”

  He leads me towards the beautiful carousel. “Starting with this.”

  Fifteen

  Jaxon

  Bullseye. Cameron loves it. Just like I knew she would.

  “Are we able to ride it?” she asks, hopeful.

  I look down at her and say, “There’s not a motherfucker in the world I’d allow to ever tell you no.” Cameron needs to understand I’m bat-shit crazy about her.

  “Could have used a you a few years ago when that’s all I would tell myself,” she says jokingly, but I know she means it.

  “We’ll get to that later. Right now, we’re going to ride the most beautiful carousel in New York City.” I reach for her hand, and she accepts it.

  We walk up to the ticket booth, and I request two tickets to ride. I glance at her, is she serious right now? With the sternest voice I can muster without freaking her out, I order, “Put that wallet away, STAT.”

  She looks back up at me with guilt in her eyes. “You’ve been paying for everything since we started hanging out.”

  Okay, and?

  “Uh, yeah. I brought myself up better than that.” I pause, knowing her already. “And before you go all feminist on my ass, you should know...” Another pause. “I don’t give a shit.” I take her wallet from her. “You will not be paying for anything when you’re out with me.”

  She rolls her eyes but doesn’t argue. Good. Because she sure as hell would have lost that one. I’ve bowed out of arguments with her over some things, but this one is my absolute. It’s not that I think I’m this alpha male who has to take care of the delicate lady, no. But I will never invite a woman somewhere to show her a good time and then have her pay for the experience I offered. I wanna be the one to give it to her.

  I retrieve the tickets from the man behind the booth, and we begin to walk up the steps. Those big, beautiful brown eyes are sparkling against the lights shining down from the ceiling. She smiles calmly as if there’s no other place she’d rather be.

  “So...horse, tiger, or gondola?” I ask her as I look around at all the options.

  “The butterfly,” she says, without hesitation, pointing behind the bend where I can’t quite see.

  My God, this girl astounds me. I don’t know if she chose the animal representing rebirth and metamorphosis on purpose, but she will get what she wants.

  I choose the tiger next to her for two obvious reasons. It’s closest to where she is, and choosing a cousin of Magnet’s is also a nod to my best friend at home.

  We climb aboard our metal animals and wait for the ride to start. She isn’t attempting conversation with me right now, and that’s okay. This is about her. I enjoy just watching her examine the butterfly she’s sitting on. And when she uses her index finger to trace the outline of the wing, my dick twitches. I imagine how good those soft fingers would feel around me.

  Don’t start that shit, Jaxon. There are children here, and nobody wants their good time to be distracted by your gigantic hard-on.

  The ride comes to life, just like this beautiful girl.

  It starts off slowly spinning, and I watch as Cameron takes a deep breath and wraps her hands around the pole. Nope, not going there.

  She closes her eyes and tilts her head back slightly as the ride picks up speed. Her beautiful wavy hair is now dancing behind her in the wind. Her mouth parts slightly, and I swear to God, this girl is a work of art. She has no idea how beautiful she is.

  Forget Helen of Troy, Cameron’s beauty could launch every ship on the fucking planet to go to war on her behalf.

  I watch as she goes up and down, zoned out and smiling. When the ride is at full speed, she releases her hands from the pole and raises them out beside her, embracing the force of the wind.

  She’s let go...in more ways than one.

  She grips the pole again, and
the look on her face tells me I’ve just witnessed a pivotal moment.

  Cameron looks over at me, and everything else is a blur. The ride comes to a stop, and I jump out of my seat. She’s stopped so high up that I’m looking up at her for once.

  I need to touch her.

  She looks down at me and smiles, relief pouring out of her. I grab her under her arms and guide her down. She’s facing me when her feet touch the bottom, and I have her wedged right in between the butterfly and me.

  I twirl a piece of her hair in my fingers as she continues to look up at me, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. I press into her more, daring her.

  Kiss me, Nyx, please. Put me out of my misery.

  “Uhh, you guys gotta get off the ride now to make room for the next group.” A short bald guy, who seems to be questioning if I’m a predator, interrupts our trance, and I want to strangle him. He stares between us uncomfortably, so Cameron smiles at him and steps out of our cocoon.

  Walking down the steps of the carousel, the mood has officially passed. I figure we can sit on one of the benches facing the river and talk. Walking us over to a small stand, I grab each of us a coffee. I hand Cam a cup, and we continue to stroll along the pier.

  “So, tell me something about you, Nyx.” I blow into the cup to cool the liquid.

  “What do you wanna know?” she asks, looking straight ahead.

  I tell her the most honest answer I’ll ever give another person.

  “Everything.”

  Sixteen

  Cameron

  Everything.

  There’s so much I could tell him.

  “Can we maybe sit for a bit?” Because there’s no way I can multitask having this conversation. He nods in agreement, and we walk over to a bench and sit down. I cross my legs and face him. I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna open up to him. When someone tries this hard to know who you are, they deserve the reward in return.

  “I don’t have a relationship with either of my parents. They both despise me.” I start off, easing him in. He nods and takes a sip of his coffee. “My mother was in and out of my life for as long as I can remember. When she was around, she barely acknowledged me. She’s been gone for two years now.” I pause, taking a much-needed breath for what comes next. ”And my father is an abusive drunk.” Jaxon tenses up immediately, his jaw tightening. I inhale another shaky breath, feeling my anxiety surfacing.

  He cracks his neck, and then, with clear insinuation, he asks, “Abusive how?”

  I shake my head. “Not like that, not him anyway.”

  He stays quiet as I continue. “His friends used to come over, they were drunks like him, and some of them would grope me, but it never got further than that.” I look down at the pavement, and he lifts my chin, urging me to continue. “My mother never stepped in to protect me. She left me to be victimized by him for the majority of my childhood and into my adolescent years.”

  I take a sip of my coffee, and he asks, “In what ways did he abuse you?” I hear the tightness in his voice, and I contemplate stopping, afraid to ruin the night, but I don’t.

  “Oh, you know, regular beatings, degrading words, threats, and starvation sometimes.” I’m all too aware of how natural this sounds coming out of my mouth, and I can tell Jaxon is holding back his emotions.

  “I also fell victim to high school bullying because of my appearance. But that never really got to me like my father did.” I rub out the tension in my neck. “I never left my house unless necessary. I worked from home and even attended online courses for Business Management. I kinda walked outta my house during my shift with U-Haul the night you saw me in your store.” Jaxon nods his head in understanding, his body stiff as if this history lesson was his own.

  But I feel nothing about what I said; not a single tear has spilled for my father since I was six years old.

  “I do have one good memory from my house, though.” I try to soften the mood because it looks like he may combust.

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?” he asks, his lips tight in a straight line.

  I feel guilty about the night taking such a turn, but he interrupts me before I can answer. “Let me just say this.” Jaxon adjusts himself on the bench to face me better. “You just described several ways your father’s toxic and abusive, but you only referred to yourself as a victim.” He pauses and scoots closer to me, squeezing my knee. “You’re not just a victim, Nyx. You’re a survivor.” He cups my cheek with his hand. “And what you’ve been through would have broken most people. Hell, unfortunately, it has. But it didn’t break you.” Removing his hand from my face, he continues, “You’re here now, and yeah, it may have taken you a while. It took me a while, too.” He leans his back against the bench and shrugs. “We’re not broken, Cam. We’re just bent differently than most people.”

  I absorb Jaxon’s words, storing them so maybe one day I can convince myself he’s right. Turning the tables on him, I ask, “So, what’s your story?”

  He blows out a long breath and begins, “I was abandoned in front of a supermarket at only a few days old. I went into the system and learned the hard way that it’s a broken one. Most of my foster parents were selfish and just looking for a monthly check.” He stares off into the water. “I switched homes constantly, and when I finally graduated high school, I decided to leave and be on my own. I lived on the street for years and picked up street fighting to make money. I continued to live that way until my boy Morgan let me crash on his couch for a while. That’s when Gelissa came along.”

  He explains how she was always pushing him to fight more and make more money. She wanted him to take the heavyweight fights even though the fighters were much more experienced and known to play dirty.

  “All of this because she didn’t like the idea of her boyfriend not having his own apartment.”

  My eyes open in shock. Swallowing hard, I ask, “Did you love her?”

  He shakes his head immediately. “No, I cared about her, sure. But she almost got me killed. Gelissa convinced this guy Gunner to tell me an upcoming fight was a lightweight one, but it wasn’t. The asshole almost killed me. I ended up in the hospital right after.”

  He rubs one hand up and down his bouncing leg. “I found out she was cheating on me with him, and they both intended to rob me if I won the fight.”

  I have to physically force my mouth closed at his revelation.

  “After I was released from the hospital, I went back to Morgan’s apartment and packed up my shit.” He stifles a small laugh before he continues sarcastically, “He put up quite the fight, too. Practically throwing my clothes into bags and shoving me out the door.”

  He shakes his head. “Not that he was a dick.” He pauses another second to think about it. “Okay, maybe he was a bit of a dick.” He shrugs. “Turned out, having his homeless best friend snoring on his couch didn’t go over well with the ladies he brought home.”

  He laughs again, but louder now. “Especially for a guy named, well, Morgan.”

  Taking a sip of his coffee, he changes the subject. “Enough with the past. Let’s talk about the present.” He places his coffee down and rubs his hands together in anticipation. “Let’s play a game called dare or dare.” He holds back a laugh. “It’s truth or dare, without the truth.” I stare at him with a really? look on my face, but he continues to try and convince me. “It’ll be fun, I swear. We each pick a dare that the other has to do. No backing out, or else.”

  “Or else what?” I shake my head, waving him off. “This game sucks.”

  He shrugs. “You’re right, it does. But I still think we should do it.”

  He thinks about it for a second. “How about this...” He clears his throat. “As a trust-fall of sorts, we each have to do one thing the other says, but it can’t be now. We won’t know what it is until it’s announced, and then we have to do it, right then and there. No exceptions. We say the words trust-fall, and that’s how we know it’s time. In the meantime, we trust that the other person won’
t take advantage of their power. And to show appreciation of that noble character, we do whatever the hell it is they want.” Tossing his coffee in the nearest trash can, he takes out a pack of Big Red, winks, and pops a piece in his mouth.

  It’s actually not a bad idea. I get to choose whatever crazy thing I want him to do.

  But knowing he has this over me, and trusting him enough to not put me in a compromising position, would be a testament to how far I’ve come. I check my phone, it’s almost ten o’clock at night. I could let him sweat a bit more but decide against it.

  “Fine, let’s do it.” I agree.

  He reaches out a hand for me to shake, so I roll my eyes and place my palm in his.

  Suddenly, thunder rumbles in the sky, and all the people around us scatter. I look up and feel a raindrop land on my cheek. As Jaxon and I get up to leave, the skies open up, and floods of water begin to fall.

  Jaxon grabs my hand and runs. I can barely see through all the rain drenching my glasses and the darkness from the night. I’m glad he can somehow. His bike is blocks from the park entrance, and the inside of the carousel has been closed for an hour now.

  Wherever we’re going, I hope it has some type of roof. I’m slipping on the muddy grass in my boots, slowing us down. Jaxon notices and turns around, scoops me up over his shoulder, holding onto the back of my legs with his arms, and sprints towards shelter. I remove my glasses, so they don’t fall and hold both them and my bag as tight as possible.

  “I’m sorry, Nyx, but those little legs can’t keep up!” he yells into the rain.

  “Where the hell are you going?! I’m getting soaked!” My question dies along with the feeling of rain on me when we enter a small enclosed gazebo.