Alone

by E. J. Noyes

  Olivia groans at the light touch of my fingers to her entrance, her hands loosely fisted in my hair. “Oh, God. Just make love to me.”

  Love.

  Not fuck.

  She wants me to love her.

  I do love her, I never stopped loving her. Every part of me loves every part of her and now I need to show her. I need to make her remember us. And if she doesn’t, I’ll remember enough for both of us until she catches up to me. I want to be on top of her, to cover the length of her body with mine. I want to be inside her, to feel those muscles pulse and flutter around my fingers. I want to leave no part of her untouched, unkissed, or unworshipped.

  “Inside me, please,” she breathes, and when I glide into her, she groans.

  My thrusts are gentle and shallow, fingers curling to find the spot that makes her breathing hitch and her toes press against my calf. When I kiss my way down her body, lingering on her breasts to suck her firm nipples into my mouth, she urges me on with increasingly incoherent encouragement.

  I feel her desperation with every tense and release of her muscles, in the clench around my fingers and the way she begs me. When I settle between her thighs and spread her apart, Liv’s breathing grows even shorter and more erratic. I draw in a slow breath at the sight of her puffed and shining with desire.

  I kiss her gently, my nose against her curls and I taste that desire. Liv moans, an unabashed sound of surrender and a small part of me takes pleasure in it because the sound is all for me. It’s me she wants, and it’s me that’s going to give her exactly what she needs.

  There is time enough for teasing later, right now I just have to feel her glorious climax. I make long firm strokes with my tongue to bring her to the edge, exactly the way she likes. Then when she begins to crest, she will want a light touch, circles around her clit, and gentle lips to carry her over. Nails dig into my shoulders. Hips lift to meet me.

  She’s so vocal now, a long keening cry of, “Ohmygodpleaseplease…please.” Her ass muscles clench, pushing her even more forcefully up into my mouth. She’s so close all it would take is a light swirl of my tongue around her clit. I pinch a nipple between thumb and forefinger, rolling it gently back and forth, loving every miniscule tremble and twitch of her body.

  This coordinated dance of hands and fingers and body and tongue is something I thought I’d lost. With a final, breathy whisper of my name, she begs me to finish her, to make her come. I suck her between my lips and do exactly what she wants, and when I run the flat of my tongue around her clit she explodes and floods my mouth. I can’t help my groan of pleasure as her pleasure covers my tongue.

  Liv squirms and shudders, her hand stroking my hair. She whispers something that I think sounds like thank you but I can’t be sure because my blood is thrumming so loudly in my ears. I make my way back up the bed to lie beside her and she pulls our bodies together so we’re face-to-face. Our kisses are sweet and slow.

  Time stretches. It gives me every millisecond like a precious gift. I close my eyes and snuggle into her. Liv pulls the covers up and she’s saying something, but I’m already drifting away, thinking of having endless slow time with her.

  Light passes through the curtains and the sound of cars outside on the main street startles me awake. It’s stopped raining. She’s still with me in this motel bed, our limbs twined together like vine and tree. I touch her chin. Her cheek. Her nose. She smiles and reaches up to grab my hand. “That tickles.”

  I replace my fingertips with my lips and after a thorough good morning kiss, she sighs. It’s a smiling, contented kind of sigh. “Are you okay?” she asks me.

  After a moment’s pause, I answer, “Yes.”

  “But?”

  I capture her hand and kiss her palm. “But…I’m confused about where we go from here. I don’t know what this means.” Are we together now, dating? And if we are, can I bear to see her only at weekends or whenever she can make time for me during the week between her job? I can’t leave Jekyll and Hyde from Friday to Sunday night while I go visit her.

  “I want to keep seeing you.”

  “Me too. But I’m just not sure what that looks like.”

  She barely takes a breath before she says, “I told you, I like this town, it has a nice feel to it.” She hitches my leg over her thigh and draws patterns on my skin with her nails. “I’m growing tired of big cities and daily commutes.”

  I pause, trying to decipher the words. “Are you implying what I think you are? If you are, then you have to say it, Liv. I don’t want any uncertainty. Not after all our other half-truths and confusion.”

  Her hand moves to my cheek, her gaze unwavering. “I want to move here, or somewhere nearby. I want to live close to you because I want us to try dating or being a couple or whatever you want to call it. I want that because I love you and the thought of being away from you makes me feel like I can’t breathe. And I promise, no more secrets.” She laughs. “You already know what I do, so I don’t have to hide it from you.”

  “Okay, but what about that research, and your job? How can you do that from here?” I don’t even know why I’m asking, as though some part of me still wants to sabotage this gift she’s offering me.

  “I can easily work remotely. Once a month or so I will need to go back to Seattle for a few days for meetings and planning sessions but other than that…” She shrugs, leaving all that’s unsaid linger between us. She wants to be here with me and will do what she can to make it work. “I mean, it will take a few months to get everything set up for me to work offsite so we might have to have a breaking-in trial period. If you don’t mind having me as a weekend houseguest until I can move?”

  “I don’t mind,” I say immediately. “They’d really let you do that?”

  “Yes, I can do pretty much whatever I want, Celeste. My father is one of the Directors of The Organization. He didn’t just get me a job, he created a department for me to run. Why do you think I’m still working there after what I did? I mean, I’m very good at what I do but there’s a little bit of nepotism at work here.” She grins cheekily.

  “Ah, lucky.”

  The smile dims. “Yes, very. When I came home, Papà put on his Director’s hat for about three minutes to give me a dressing down for potentially compromising the study. Then he hugged me until I stopped crying and told me it’d be all right in the end.”

  I swallow this piece of information. She cried over me. I roll onto my back, pulling her on top of me. “You’d leave everything to live in Nowhere, USA with me?”

  “I’ve already lived in Nowhere, USA with you, Celeste.” She laughs. “And I loved every second of it. I don’t want to be apart from you anymore, it’s too hard.” Liv steals a kiss then rests her forehead against my cheek. When she blinks, her eyelashes tickle me.

  I grunt, then pull slightly away. “Butterfly kisses.” After a pause I add, “Riley used to do that.”

  Liv’s response is quiet, almost gentle. “She did?”

  “Mhmm. I never told you that, did I? I never told anyone while I was in that place?”

  “No, darling. You never did,” she says earnestly. Her eyes widen, willing me to believe her.

  And I do.

  Olivia is the thing that keeps air in my lungs, blood moving through my veins. If she leaves me again, or I her, I don’t think I would survive it. Everything is already there, right under the surface, just waiting for me to be brave enough to give her my yeses again. I swallow my uncertainty and my worry and give her my truth. “Liv, I just…love you and I need you. It’s as simple as that.”

  “I need you too, darling. I’m going to stay with you for as long as you’ll keep me.”

  “You promise? You won’t leave me again?” It sounds so needy and childish but losing her again is now my deepest fear.

  Olivia’s smile is soft, her eyes gentle, and when she speaks I know she’s telling me the truth. “No, Celeste. I love you. I promise I’m not going to leave.”

  Epilogue

&nbs
p; Samantha, wearing blood-spattered scrubs and paying no attention to the fact I turned the sign from Open to Closed ten minutes ago, breezes through the door. “Tell me you haven’t cleaned that machine yet.” She makes good use of the thirty-dollar-per-week coffee subscription I offer for locals, coming by twice every day for a takeaway and a chat between clients. Then she sneaks a pastry and waves goodbye as she walks out with it already in her mouth. But my good friend gives me free vet consults, and flea and worm treatments for the boys and my Seven Dwarfs goats. Everything works out in the end.

  “Another minute and I would have told you to go away.” I start on her usual tall extra-shot skim latte.

  “You’re a goddess disguised as a mortal.”

  I huff a dramatic sigh and fake a hair flip. “I know.”

  Samantha leans on the counter, watching the progress of her coffee like a parent watching the birth of a child. She raps her knuckles on the counter made of polished wood I sourced from old railroad ties. “Oh! Shit, also sorry but not really sorry. I have to cancel girls’ night tonight. Brad wants to take me out again.”

  I whistle through my teeth. “Well well well, lucky you. I suppose I’ll just have to drink wine and have a rom-com marathon all on my own.” Liv isn’t due back from Seattle until late tomorrow, and as is customary for the nights my girlfriend is away, Samantha and I hang out with wine and takeout and movies, and talk shit until we fall asleep on the couch.

  “I hate thinking of you all alone, and I was totally going to turn him down but he wants to show me his prize-winning bull.” She scrunches up her shoulders. “Isn’t that the cutest thing?”

  “Is it a euphemism?” Instead of the usual animal I make in Samantha’s latte foam, I do a decidedly lewd interpretation of Brad’s Prize Winning Bull.

  Samantha’s eyes widen. “Actually, I don’t know.” Her lips curve into a cheeky grin. “But now that I think about it, lord help me I hope it is.”

  “I don’t even want to know.” I leave the lid off the takeaway, slide the cup over to her and wait until she has had a good hard look at what I’ve drawn in the foam.

  Samantha bursts into laughter when she notices, both eyebrows bouncing up and down as she raises the cup to her mouth. “Come by once you’ve closed up, I did a cesarean this afternoon and I swear these are the cutest kittens I’ve ever seen.”

  Every kitten is the cutest kitten she’s ever seen. “How about I drop by tomorrow before I open, and you can also tell me about this…bull.”

  “Oh I will,” she says airily. Samantha leans over the counter to hug me and swans out of the store as brightly as she came in.

  “Have fun,” I call at her departing back.

  I double-check the sign really does say Closed and get to work finishing up. Breaking down and cleaning the coffee machine is mindless second-nature work, the kind I love, the kind that lets me think about Liv. This work trip is slightly longer than usual, with an extra meeting to go through a new client contract. She’ll call me late tonight to let me know how it went, and if Samantha was there, I would have hidden in the bathroom for ten minutes while my girlfriend said dirty things to me and made me listen to her pleasuring herself.

  Even though our time apart isn’t long by any stretch, the absence of Olivia is everywhere and not just at home. Since I opened this place four months ago, she’s come by every day for lunch and her second coffee of the day, then driven back home to work for the afternoon and to wait for me. Our domesticity is the target of good-natured teasing from our friends in town but I barely even remember what it was like before. Without her.

  It didn’t take me long to get used to the differences between that time living together and this time. The smell of her perfume and her wearing makeup when she leaves the house. Her working until late and sliding into bed to slip into my arms and pillow her head on my breasts. The odd way she folds laundry and doesn’t care if she leaves books and papers strewn over the table. Now our shared space is my haven. Olivia is my safe place.

  My day’s totals balance and I send a silent thanks to the accounting gods who have smiled favorably on me. Everything is locked away and I’m just doing one last wipe down of the counters when the door opens. “Sorry, we’re closed,” I say as I turn around.

  Liv smiles, unbuttoning her long cashmere coat. “Well, that’s a pity. I have a craving for something tasty.”

  I drop the cloth and spray bottle on the counter and cross the floor in three long strides to pull her into a hug. In the nine months since she moved here, Liv’s flown back to Seattle eight times, mostly only for two or three days. But when she comes back and I hug her again, I feel like I’ve been holding my breath the entire time she’s been away.

  “You’re home early. Thank you.” I frame her face gently with my hands and kiss her. She responds as she always does when we kiss, with a gentle sigh as if all her worries have suddenly left her. “Missed you,” I murmur.

  “Missed you too.” She kisses me again. “Sorry to barge in on girls’ night.”

  “Not that it matters, but you didn’t. She canceled on me because of Brad’s bull.” At Liv’s slow eyebrow raise, I laugh and tell her, “You probably don’t want to know.”

  “No, sounds like I don’t,” she drawls.

  “I’m almost done here if you can wait a minute?”

  “Darling, I’ll wait longer than a minute for you.” Olivia shoos me back to the counter.

  She watches from the other side as I get to work rushing through my final cleaning. “How’d the meetings go?”

  “Good. We got the contract.”

  “Congratulations, honey. You worked so hard on it.” I set my cloth and bottle under the counter. “What about the figure? Did they agree?”

  “Celeste…” Liv reaches for me, pulling me close. “I don’t want to talk about work.”

  “What do you want to talk about then?” I kiss her neck.

  “I want to talk about the dinner we’re going to make, the bottle of wine I’m going to open, the long hot bath we’ll take…and then the hours I’m going to spend showing you exactly how much I missed you.” She slips her hands under my shirt, nails carefully scratching my skin.

  I close my eyes. “If you keep doing that, we’re not going to make it home.”

  She laughs lightly, and withdraws her teasing hands. “You don’t let me have any fun.”

  “I let you have plenty.” I make a deft subject change, knowing if I don’t then I’m going to drag her in back and let her have all the fun she wants with me and then we’ll never get home for her hot bath and wine. “How’re your parents?” I shrug into my coat and guide her toward the door.

  “They’re both well. Papà wants you to know he bought a new Scrabble board, and I have a letter from Mamma to give to you.”

  “A letter?”

  “Mmm, if I had to guess the contents, I’d say it’s thanking you for the lovely book and then a passive-aggressive paragraph about why you haven’t visited for two months.”

  “Noted. You told her we’d both be there next month for your birthday, right?”

  “I did, yes.” Her eye roll tells me that her mom still thinks that’s too far away. “Oh…and I received another underhanded dig about the grandchildren thing.” She exaggerates her accent, gesturing expansively. “Oof! It is getting so late, Olivia, and you are getting so old. If you and your Celeste wish to start a family then you need to do it soon!”

  My tummy drops and lifts like I’m riding a rollercoaster. “Oh. Did you say anything?”

  “Aside from mentioning that we’ve talked about it? No, I thought we’d wait until it was certain.” She doesn’t even bother disguising her joy.

  We’ve done more than talk about it. She’s had checks and tests, and next month, we’re going to try. When I think about her with our child in her belly then later nurturing it at her breast, me raising a child with her, my heart grows so full I think it could actually burst if any more love were to be put into it. “I love yo
u.”

  “Love you even more.”

  Arms around her waist, I keep her close. “Good. Looks like we figured out a way to procreate after all, habitat or no habitat.”

  “Yes, we did.” Her low chuckle echoes through the café. “If we’re going to have a baby, we should probably get married then, right?”

  “Probably,” I agree. The words sink in, and my heart flutters like it wants to leap from my chest and run a victory lap. “Did you just propose?”

  Both eyebrows lift in surprise. “Actually, I think I might have. Did you just accept?”

  “Yes,” I blurt.

  “Good.” She kisses me fiercely, possessively. “Come on, let’s go. I want to see if sex with your fiancée is as incredible as sex with your girlfriend.”

  I laugh and usher her out of the café. When I turn around to lock the doors, her loving hand finds its way under my coat to stroke my back. Liv says hello to someone across the street, and brief conversation about the weather is called back and forth. I can’t help smiling at how perfectly pedestrian it all is.

  “I’m parked just over there beside you,” she says.

  The air is cool, hinting at frost in the early hours, the crispness bringing clarity. I lift my face to the late afternoon sky as her hand snakes into mine. A memory teases at the edge of my thoughts—a log entry from that time, of things I missed—walking down the street holding hands with someone. She’s holding my hand and we’re walking down the street. I lean into her, squeezing her fingers.

  Liv’s voice is quiet and curious. “What are you thinking about?”

  There are so many things in my head that I could never find words for, but I focus on one important thing. “Just…how I finally feel like I’m where I should be, but it’s even better than I imagined.”

  “It is?” she asks teasingly.

  “Mhmm, because I have all these things plus the things I never even knew I wanted.” The words spill out in an emotional, nonsensical jumble. “And now I have them, or I’m going to have them, and I can’t help but wonder how I never knew what I needed. Until you came along and showed me what I could have and what things could be like.”