by Liz Lorde
I knew it was all finite. I wanted to scold myself, wanted to hate myself – how could you let this happen?
He said, “What’s wrong?” I’m sure my face was an open book, but I steeled myself and shook my head.
“Nothing,” I whispered, afraid that the universe might hear the pleas of my soul. You’ve fallen for a man you can’t have; your whole task is to rip him from the people that he loves, and for that he’d end you.
He’ll end you.
The pain rippled through me again, “I just want to try again,” I said, my eyes drifting down to Hunter’s magnificence; it was even bigger than I remembered it from the night before at the club. I climbed on top of him, so that I was straddling him – letting the heat of my pussy and the warmth of his cock mingle in their closeness.
“Try what again?” He breathed, his chest rising and his adam’s apple bobbing.
Try to love again, is what my heart demanded that I say. “To take you inside of me.”
Hunter’s eyes searched mine, some part of him probably unconvinced of my answer, but a smirk gracing his beautiful face all the same. “By all means, firecracker.”
I leaned down to Hunter’s lips and smashed mine against them, tasting all that he was – my tongue exploring this newly found land and claiming it for my own. He tasted divine. I pulled myself from his lips and whispered, “I don’t want you to forget me,” my hand playing with his cock, his breath hitching in his throat.
“Never.”
A sad smile walked along the lines of my face and I planted a trail of kisses down his chest and past his navel, sucking and worshiping the godliness that was his body – a temple of muscle and flesh and man. I found my way to the head of his cock and slipped my lips around it, tasting the salt of his person and savoring it – every scent and note a new delight for me to relish.
I’d make certain that he wouldn’t forget me; I’ll bury myself so deep in his heart, that he’ll bleed me out a drop at a time, for every beat of his heart. I sank down deeply on his thick shaft, my warm and wet mouth surrounding him completely – sheathing him inside of me as I moaned what I could given his gorgeous length.
Chapter 12
Jessica
We’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms, but I could see the first shafts of orange light peeking intrusively through the window of Hunter’s upstairs room. There was a dull ache that pounded against the side of my head, and I felt a scratchy kind of thirst at my throat – my lips plainly chapped. I’d a little too much to drink last night, but even as I shifted around in Hunter’s bed, his arms still wrapped tightly around me and his blanket covering the both of us with ease; I could still feel the magic of last night.
It wasn’t magic, it was just simple, basic hormones. Just a need for physical intimacy. My body shuddered in remembrance and I felt a tug at the strings of my heart when my eyes crawled over Hunter’s peaceful face, his eyes closed and deep with slumber.
It wasn’t what you think. My eyes stung and I blinked a few times to try and banish the feelings.
Spiriting myself carefully away from the man’s powerful arms, I broke free from my, admittedly awesome, cuddle prison. Standing naked just beside his bed, I watched as the man stirred in his sleep – grumbling out some noises and his hands searching for where my body once was.
I’m sorry, Hunter. An arrow of hurt threaded itself through me.
I shouldn’t have let this happen.
The cool morning air licked across my bare skin and I cloaked myself with my hands, trying to stave off the cold for a moment – spying our clothes sprawled out against the wooden floor. I quietly moved to pick them up, putting on my stained panties and all of my other clothes. After that, I looked over my shoulder to see if Hunter was still yet to wake. Somewhat comfortable, and more so curious than anything, I decided it was okay to snoop just for a moment.
It was my job. My job that I was quickly beginning to wrack myself with hate for. I padded around the room quiet as a mouse, ignoring the thought as the familiar stabs of guilt washed over me – the thought of my mother wilting away in the hospital.
Hunter had posters on the wall of rock ‘n roll bands, heavy metal and even a few glam; I wasn’t too big on any of them, but it was clear that, at least at one time, he had a real love for music. A few were even signed. The room itself had seemed bigger last night, but even though it wasn’t much, the place itself still had plenty of character. I ran my hand along the broad wooden desk, his rather small dresser resting parallel to it on the other side of the room. The surface was smooth and I saw a number of hand written letters to recipients I couldn’t possibly know.
One note in particular had black ink scrawled across its face; it was folded up neatly, pristinely even. It was an oddity in comparison to the rest of the letters, which were lazily strewn about and not sealed in the slightest.
The particular note held in all black on it’s face: Dad.
I couldn’t bring myself to invade his privacy in that regard. Had he found his dad? Shifting focus from that, I sneakily opened the drawer of the desk. There wasn’t much of note, aside from what looked like a pipe used to smoke weed, a few bills that he probably kept as a proof of residence and a letter opener.
Satisfied with my investigation, I sauntered over to the door and gave Hunter one last look. It felt wrong to be sneaking off without saying goodbye, but I had to put some kind of distance between us.
I didn’t have enough for the report yet, but I couldn’t get enough of him – and I couldn’t afford to feel that way.
Chapter 13
Jessica
It was already midday and I still hadn’t finished my stack of work that had been accumulating at the office. Even though I was given a special assignment by Gates himself, he wanted me to come in at least once a week to keep touch on my other projects.
In retrospect, I preferred my dalliances with the rowdy group of misfits and hot bodies infinitely more than the repetitious droning of my clacking keyboard at normal work.
Perky and full of life Laura pranced her way over to my cubicle, folding her arms over the little grey wall that separated me from the empty neighboring workstations. She gave me that overly cutesy smile I’d grown to know over the many days of slogging through articles together with her. “So,” she said.
I perked my eyebrows up at her, only kind of casually glancing in her direction as I highlighted a few words on the document.
“How’s the super secret job going? Amanda’s going to be pissed if this gets you leverage with Gates you know.”
“It’s going,” I shrugged.
“Such a deep and insightful answer,” she mused in a mocking tone, laying her head against her hands on the small wall.
“We all can’t be philosophers like you,” I said, a smirk walking along the lines of my face. “It’s going great, actually. Almost too well.”
“Too well is a problem?”
You don’t know the half of it. “Of course,” I boasted, “I live for the thrill. For the challenge and the chase of a hard won task.”
Laura tittered to herself, “Yeah that’s why you had to fall into this gig instead of being given it.”
“I have my lazy streaks.”
“Truth,” she agreed. “Word around the office,” Laura started, burying most of her face in her hands, so that only her nose and eyes peeked out at me, like she were a scared little rabbit, “is that you’re digging up dirt on some gangsters.”
My chest prickled with heat and I straightened out my back in my black office chair, “They’re not gangsters,” I ardently defended. “They’re a band of brothers and sisters, a motley crue of well-intentioned extremists doing the dirt that the public fears to do, so that we don’t have to.”
“How romantic,” Laura teased, “sounds like you’re getting caught up in this story you’re weaving. Is it true? Or are you just wanting it to be? You know you should take off those rose colored—“
“It’s the truth,”
I said sharply and dashed my yellow marker through another word, “it’s what I’ve observed.”
“In two nights? Come on, Jess, you sure you believe that?” The sound of neighboring telephones going off punctuated the air.
“If you’d spent any time with them at all, you wouldn’t be so quick to judge.”
Laura rolled her shoulders, “Maybe, still seems pretty sketchy.”
“Your face seems sketchy,” I japed.
“Cruel,” Laura replied, “cruel and unusual punishment of a concerned and loyal friend.”
We shared a small laugh between us and I felt my phone buzz. I dipped into the pocket of my pants and produced it, seeing that it was Sabrina trying to call me. I looked over to Laura, “Sorry. Gotta take this.”
“Who is it?” She nosily asked.
“Doctor none of,” I sassed, “you know, none of your business? It’s just Sabrina.”
“I see where your allegiances are,” Laura made a funny, screwed up face, “better sleep with one eye open, Ives.”
“I’m quivering,” I responded, bringing my thumb to the green icon of my screen, “you just can’t see is all.”
Laura took her leave and I answered the phone.
Sabrina was using her low, husky Ghostface from Scream voice, a common prank of hers: “What’s your favorite scary movie.”
“The one where you never stop calling me.”
Sabrina had what could only be described as a case of verbal diarrhea, “You know, I try really hard to keep you cheery.”
I snorted, “You do a good job, for it not being your professional career.”
“Imagine if it was,” she chuckled. “How’s things? Shit, are you at work right now?”
“Yep,” I looked over my shoulder, feeling eyes on me but noticing nothing unusual. “So I have something to tell you, but you cannot tell a soul, seriously Sabrina.”
“Well now you have to tell me. Don’t give me blue bits.”
“I spent the night with one of the Hell Reapers. I, uhm,” I rested my chin on my fingers, a wave of heat licking at my chest, “I kind of spent the night. You know.”
There was what could only be described as a giddy silence before the storm known as Hurricane Winters. “You, you slept with this dude? No. Way. You slept with him?!” She was so seemingly stunned she had to ask twice, her mouth racing with a dozen different thoughts and assaulting my ear with each and every one.
“Y-yes would you just—“
“Christ on a cracker Jessica! You just met these dudes I don’t want to have to award you the blue slutty ribbon award, but I think you’re kind of a major contender right now – you could go national if you tried my girl. I’m a weird mix of proud, intrigued, jealous and slightly dubious of your conquest; you never jump a boys bones like that.”
Just listening to her flurry had a draining effect on me. But it was a love hate kind of relationship that I had with her way of dissecting and commentating my life choices. “Yeah,” I said simply, “well the big leagues for professional courtesan can wait, I’m not doing it again. It was a huge, huge mistake.”
I had to pull the phone away from my ear when Sabrina howled. “In what way? You know you liked it. Oh Jesus, you loved it, didn’t you? I can hear it in your voice,” she gasped, “you have feelings—“
“I do not have feelings!” I protested so loudly and stupidly that I saw Robert, who was a good twenty feet away, poke his head up above the cubicle of his workspace. He was a good and kind man, though quite bookish; he had coke-bottle sized glasses and a thinning comb over of black hair.
Sabrina chuckled, “Excuse me while I fan myself off at being so right it physically pains me to feel this way.”
“Okay, okay. Maybe… maybe I have some feelings—“
“Oh yes, oh yes, oh hell yes you do. We’re meeting this week at my place, no is not an answer and yes you have to bring the wine this time,” Sabrina was no doubt driving her place of work insane at the moment, as I imagined her doing some kind of silly jig. “Get a bottle of that Raven’s Wood Merlot.”
I caught a glimpse of some man in the distance, moving from desk to desk and cubicle to cubicle. He was carrying a rather large bouquet of red roses; which were my personal favorite. It was impossible to make out just who it was though, as the person’s face and most of their top half was obscured.
“Jess?” I heard Sabrina call out, “hello-o-o.”
There was a pit that began to form in my stomach, “Still here.”
“Seriously get that wine this is happening we’re doing this,” she went on but my eyes were fixed on the man now, who was approaching me. He looked familiar, and my heart began to tap quicker and quicker still against my breast.
“Okay,” I responded flatly, “I’m gonna let you go my boss is looking right at me,” I lied and promptly hung up the call. I caught a couple more glimpses of the man and right before he got to me, I knew that it was him.
Jerry huffed as he set down the bouquet of roses on the neighboring empty desk beside mine. He looked proud and pleased, and it looked like he had even bothered to preen himself – not including the least of which seemed to be a shower.
It was then and only then that I remembered the foul stink of the man as he had invaded me. I could feel the roaches of fear and guilt and shame skittering all over my flesh.
His disgusting eyes crawled over me and he flashed his pearly white teeth in a smile, “I know you said you never wanted to see me again,” he started, “but when I saw you at the park, when you came—“
“I need you to leave,” I blurted with a rage twisting inside of me, “right now. Right. Now Jerry.” I don’t even know how he got past the front desk, I’d specifically let Alyssa and our security know about him.
He shook his head and the lines of his face twisted into confusion, his brows dropping and his eyes narrowing, “I don’t understand?”
I leaned forward slightly in my chair, my tone becoming a harsh whisper, “Clearly you do not. What part of ‘I never want to fucking see you ever again’ did you not comprehend?” I was never one to pray, but I found myself hoping beyond hope that nobody was watching us.
I never wanted to be seen near the man. Never wanted to be near him ever again.
“But wasn’t it fate?” Jerry asked rhetorically, his face scrunching into something twisted and angry; how dare I question what brought us together again? I questioned everything after a vulnerable mistake of my heart brought us into the same damn room, when we first met. I’d never been so sure of a moment I wanted to cut from my life than that one. “How else do you explain it, Jess?” He went on, he was always the creepy type – I just mistook it for something that it wasn’t originally.
“Explain what Jerry?” Even his name made my mouth sick, made my guts want to leave me. “Were you delusional enough to think I was there to see you?”
“We—“
“Let me make this clear to you,” I spat, the rage crawling up my spine like twin fiery snakes. I shot up out of my chair, sending it rolling backwards a couple of steps – my fingers dancing with electricity, the soles of my feet feeling as though they were kissed by coals. “I never loved you,” the venom dripped from my tongue, “how could I? How could anyone? Do you know what I hate about you?” I asked, feeling so weightless as I approached him. “Everything. There isn’t a singular redeemable quality about you as a person or human being.” I could see that people were looking now, I hadn’t realize how loud I had gotten.
Jerry swallowed, and looked as though he wished to step back.
I would not let him. I pinioned him under my gaze and brought my tone to a deadly susurration. “I trusted you, I trusted you enough to tell you what happened to me when I was just a little girl.” I felt the tears threatening to swell up, but I pushed them back. “And like the coward you are, like the slime you wish you could aspire to be; when I’d gotten sick of all of your lies and your bullshit and your constant cheating, your, your fucking belittlement o
f me—“
“Jessica—“
“No!” I shouted it so loud that my bones flashed with heat and I couldn’t even recognize my voice. All the memories flooded back into me, all the times I had told him ‘no’ and all the times I had fantasized about going to the police; all of the times that I blocked his number, the countless times I’d been polite enough – the numerous chances I gave him.
Everything swirled within my mind and plucked at my breast.
Robert called out to me, “Hey do you need security?”
“I do not,” I announced confidently. “I want you gone, Jerry,” I pushed a hard breath through my nose, “you made everything so much worse for me. I can’t even shower anymore without having a panic attack. The next time I see you, I will put the restraining order to use. When I say this, I hope that you’re sincerely listening through that thick skull – die away from me.”
There was a stillness to this storm. His nostrils flared and I could see the color had long since left his face, his cheek twitching for just an instant. Jerry looked all around, taking in his surroundings and making note of my co-workers that were watching him; a small gathering of people having stopped their daily routines to gaze like animals at the circus of drama. He sucked in a breath and became taut as a bowstring, his eyes looking over me, as though he expected me to get on my knees and apologize for embarrassing him.
Jerry moved over to the table where he had put the flourish of roses, sweeping a hand hard across the table and spilling them over the floor – grunting in a rage and stomping on them madly. Every press of his shoe was accented by the dramatic, piss boy whining that I’d come to know him for – petulant and resentful and completely full of himself.
He went for the chair next and shot it across the room, whipping his head back to me – the lines of his face becoming hard, the blue of his veins showing. “Spiteful bitch,” he shouted at the top of his lungs, his head thrusting at me and his eyes rounding like he’d just gotten high for the first time in his life.
If there was one thing that I could always count on, it was for him to be a coward – a man of truly rare action. All bark and little bite. Jerry quickly turned on his heel and walked as quickly as his stupid feet would take him, his screaming not coming to a stop when people looked at him; he made sure to give them their own personal dosage of misery before leaving the office.
