Beyond Repair (Deeper Than Desire)

by Charlotte Stein

  “And you think there’s something wrong with seeming like a sex maniac?”

  “There is if you previously thought I was a timid virgin.”

  “Oh I see, so you can’t be both?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you can.”

  “I hope so, because it was awesome.”

  “Really? You thought it was that good?”

  She could feel the tentative smile trying to spread out over her face.

  And then he answered, and suddenly it was dying on the vine again.

  “Come outside, lemme show you how good I thought it was.”

  Of course she’d known they couldn’t keep talking like this. They’d already had an important conversation through a half-open door—they couldn’t make important physical contact through one. Some part of her still hoped, however. She still wondered if there was a way to get out of this, right up until he spoke into the silence she’d allowed to spool out for far too long. Suspiciously long, she thought. And she was right.

  “You’re afraid to come outside, aren’t you?” he asked after a second.

  It wasn’t a question. A question would have given her room to maneuver.

  Instead she had to try putting it back on him.

  “It’s not as though you’ve been real big on the outside, lately.”

  “That’s absolutely true—I don’t have the slightest inclination to go anywhere. But when I use the word ‘anywhere’, what I’m really saying is toward people who are not you, and places that are not the place where you are. Whereas I think for you it’s more like...extreme fear of anything that’s beyond your front door.”

  She wondered if she could get away with focusing on the brilliant parts of what he’d just said. The ones that made her heart swell to seventeen times its normal size, and caused her to smile even though she was sort of dying inside. He’d said that he only wanted to be where she was. He’d said people who are not you. Surely she could just tell him what that meant to her?

  Even though he’d said that other thing too.

  She knew she couldn’t get around the other thing.

  “And what happens if that’s right?”

  “Then you can just imagine I’m holding you in my arms. Imagine it really hard, okay? Oh and I’m also stroking the hair away from your face, over and over until your eyes start to get a little heavy—you know the way they do?”

  “I know it. I know what you mean,” she said, though it wasn’t what she really wanted to say. She wanted to tell him that more than anything, more than anything in the world she wished she could go to him. She even took a few steps forward until she was mere inches from the threshold. If he was looking in her direction he might be able to see the hem of her nightgown as the wind lifted it.

  It was probably why he said, “And then one day if you want to...”

  “If I wanted to...”

  “If you feel like you can...”

  “Yes. Yes, if I can.”

  “We could sit out here together.”

  “That sounds nice,” she said, but only because she couldn’t manage any more without her voice breaking. As it was the words came out so full of longing they didn’t seem like themselves at all. That one little nice turned into her standing on the top of a hill calling for Heathcliff. Her whole heart went with it, and he knew, he knew.

  “Are you sure? It sort of seems like you’re crying.”

  “I am, but I don’t think they’re unhappy tears.”

  That much was true, at least. They weren’t unhappy.

  Unhappiness was having nothing, and thinking that was okay.

  This was more like having everything suddenly, and not knowing what to with it.

  I’m not used to it, she thought.

  And that feeling doubled when he stood and came to the door. The sun had risen behind him and the light formed an outline so glorious and golden she could hardly look at it. There was something too unearthly about the whole thing, something that seemed so unreal...until she took the hand he’d reached out to her.

  She couldn’t pretend this was a dream, then. His skin was too warm, his flesh too solid. His fingers closed around hers as tight and secure as a safety belt, holding someone in place. Holding me in place. And after that it was much easier to take a step forward. He didn’t pull or persuade. He just let her hold on as she walked out onto her porch for the first time in who knew how long.

  It had felt like a gradual process when it had started happening—first she’d stopped going to the store, then to her favorite takeout place, then to the ocean, then to her own front porch. Each one drawing her world tighter until finally she only saw the walls of her home. But now that she was thinking about it—really thinking about it—she knew it hadn’t been so gradual at all.

  She’d only lived here for two years, yet the wooden boards felt like the surface of an alien planet. The smell of the ocean was overwhelming, impossible—she couldn’t believe the difference that being an inch outside her door made. By the time he’d led her to the railing around the porch she was practically hyperventilating, but only because she wanted to get more of it into her lungs.

  What if tomorrow she couldn’t do this?

  She had to store it up for later reference, even if it seemed to freak him out a little.

  “Okay, do you need to go back inside? You’re breathing scarily hard. And I mean, I’ll catch you if you pass out but...I’d really rather that didn’t happen.”

  It was such a pleasure to tell him it wasn’t going to.

  “No, no I’m fine. I’m just...excited I guess.”

  “You sure? I don’t want to force you any further than you want to go.”

  “You never force me further than I want to go, Bernie. I’m more afraid that I did that to you last night, even though that seems kind of weird and backward.”

  “I promise, you took me to the exact place I wanted to be.”

  “Is that place a sex place? A really dirty sex place?”

  “Yeah, it’s definitely that. But it’s something else too.”

  “And what’s the something else?”

  “It’s feeling safe to be myself. To be the kind of man I want to be, and not the one expected of me. I could never have done what we did last night with any of the girls I’ve dated before—you get that, right?”

  “Maybe they’re just not as weird as I am.”

  “Well, that’s probably true. But it’s also...it’s just that...I’ve never trusted anyone as much as I trust you. Not anyone, not my family or my friends or people who supposedly work for me. They’d sell me down the tabloid river for a dime, but somehow I know you wouldn’t.”

  “How? How do you know?”

  “Because when you care for me, I feel that caring. When you touch the back of my neck as I’m reading, it’s not just to get my attention. It’s because you want to touch me. You want me to feel that affection. When you ask how I’m feeling today, it isn’t out of fear that I’ll stop making you money, that I’ll stop being famous. It’s out of fear that one day I won’t be here anymore. That I might still decide my life isn’t worth living.” He paused and that was good. She needed a moment to catch her breath, before he continued. “And finally I know it because when I say that last thing, you look like you’d do anything to convince me it is. You’d play a million movies and have a thousand conversations about Clark Kent, just to keep going. And I want to keep going, for you.”

  She knew she was crying again. She knew it was in a weird way too. She wasn’t making any sound or doing those little crying hitches. He spoke and her eyes just spontaneously gushed water. It ran down her face in big, stupid lines—so stupid she wanted to reach up and wipe it all quickly before he could say anything about it.

  But she didn’t need to. He didn’t make her feel like a fool.

  He did something far, far worse than that.

  “I want to do the same for you,” he said, which sounded so lovely, it really did. He took her in his arms and stroked
her hair in that exact way he’d just said. The way that moved her, deeply moved her—and it still did. Those feelings were still inside her. It was just that they came with something else now. A new and startling knowledge that almost made her take a step back.

  In order to do what he’d just suggested, she would have to tell him.

  He was probably waiting for her to tell him now. She could practically see it in his eyes—a tentative waiting for all the things that troubled her, and all the ways he could heal them. Somehow, somehow the balance was shifting right in front of her. She wasn’t the one with her hand on the back of his neck anymore. She wasn’t the one who got to care for someone and look after them and make up for things that weren’t her fault.

  He was trying to be that one.

  She couldn’t let him be that one.

  “You already do,” she said, because wasn’t that true? It wasn’t just the kisses and the caresses and the conversations that made her feel so much better. It was the sense of fixing something. Or if not fixing, then at least helping. God, she hadn’t realized how much she just wanted to help.

  It was probably a compulsion.

  Dr. Sanderson would have said, You need to recognize when you’re sublimating the trauma, Enid. When you start dealing with it in damaging ways. But she no longer spoke to Dr. Sanderson, so really what did it matter? What good had all of that done her? It was better to just go on as they had, distracting each other from important things.

  She even knew a good way to do it.

  A really pleasant, thrilling way to do it that seemed to spark through her the second she thought of it. It wasn’t even a difficult thing, either. She was still completely primed from the night before, and even if she hadn’t been...her face was right next to his throat. All she had to do was maneuver him inside, inch by painstaking inch. And then once that was done she just turned her head a little...

  “Are you kissing my neck, or is it just that your face is wet?”

  “I guess I’m kind of kissing your neck.”

  “That’s...you know that wasn’t the point of this hug, don’t you? I mean you...that is really...oh okay that...don’t do it like that come on Al I was trying to...”

  “What were you trying to do?”

  “I don’t know. There were...words in it.”

  “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I see.”

  “And I...I really...I know what you’re doing.”

  “I think I’m putting my hand under your t-shirt.”

  “Yeah, I’m getting that. I’m getting that. But—”

  “Do you like me doing that?”

  “You know I do. I like it too much. I swear you could stroke my toe with your elbow and I’d go fucking nuts. Why do you make me so nuts?” he asked, but he clearly wasn’t expecting an answer. He was too busy turning his head so she could lick along the line of his jaw, eyes closed and everything just as blissed-out as he’d been the night before. Or almost as blissed as he’d been the night before.

  He was still resisting just a little.

  “It’s just that...it’s just I want to do something for you. Is that really so bad?” he asked, while she did her best to not hear. It didn’t even take a lot of work, really. Once she got to a certain point her instincts just took over, and suddenly everything was all hot and fierce like it had been the night before.

  If anything it was more than the night before. Now she had the luxury of experience behind her, and the knowledge that he wasn’t bothered by anything she’d done. It opened up possibilities that hadn’t been there previously, like the one she’d really wanted to try but hadn’t quite dared.

  This time she dared. She didn’t even wait for him to take anything off or say that it was okay. She wasn’t sure he could say it was okay, considering that his eyes were already closed and his head was already back and he seemed to be using her hallway wall to keep himself standing up. So she simply went for it, bending over to mouth hot and wet over the obvious curve of his hard cock. Then when he choked out an oh you’ve got to be kidding, she went one further than that. She knelt on the floor—with the door still halfway open and the possibility of someone passing by—and tugged his pajamas allll the way down, down, down.

  Of course he tried to be polite about it. “You don’t have to do that,” he said, as though there was really a possibility that she might not want to. That this was all about distraction, and absolutely nothing to do with the urgent need to taste the very swollen and slippery cock she’d just revealed.

  But if he really thought that he had to be insane. All she could think about now was taking him in her mouth—if only to hear him moan the way he did when she finally did it. He damn near keened as she let her lips just slide a little way over the thick head—but it was when she dared to suck that he really gave in to it. She just wanted to taste him better really, and somehow ended up with this long, slow pull.

  One he seemed to appreciate very much.

  “God, yeah, just like that,” he said, at which point she knew she had him. He didn’t care about anything now but watching her with those hooded eyes and helping her when she struggled, gently guiding himself toward her when she got too sloppy and crazy and went off course. Murmuring encouragement every time she glanced up with questioning eyes and moaning the second she hit it just right.

  He seemed to like it best whenever she licked as she sucked, though she did it quite by accident. Or not by accident, exactly—more out of a sense of what turned her on. She found she liked running her tongue around that glossy head, and even more so when her swirling, slippery laps at him produced a burst of that clear liquid. It didn’t taste the way she’d imagined, all pungent and vaguely unpleasant.

  It tasted like the ocean outside, and every time she got a bit of it a gush sensation went through her body. More than that really. It felt as if she were right on the verge of coming already, though this time it was completely obvious why. She’d spent a good portion of the night before doing things she barely dared fantasize about, and then instead of going to the bathroom to sort herself out what had she done?

  She’d forced herself to fall asleep. Somehow, insanely, she’d forced herself to fall asleep, and now the whole thing had rolled over into today—into this tsunami of unresolved desire. She suspected that was why she was being so crazy, so lewd, even though neither of those things made it any more bearable.

  It was just making it all worse. She could actually feel her own wetness on her thighs, all slippery and messy and rude. Every time she moved something slick slid against something slicker, until she was moaning right along with him.

  Not that he minded. The sound seemed to drive him crazy—or was it the buzzing sensation that same sound produced? She wasn’t entirely sure, but kept right on doing it anyway. When she did it he said some wonderfully filthy things, most of them about her hot little mouth sucking him off. Dear God, she could have died over him saying, Fuck yeah, suck me off. It was too crude for the kind of guy she’d come to know.

  Yet strangely all the better for it.

  It was shocking and rough, and most of all it washed away any hint of the things he’d been suggesting. There was nothing healing about a thick cock in your mouth and a hand in your hair—because by God he was doing that too. He almost had a fistful of it. He was actually really close to the scar on one side, but for the first time she found it didn’t matter at all.

  She wasn’t afraid of him unearthing it, because they were fucking. That was what this was—fucking and sucking and having him grunt and pump his hips. “Oh fuck I’m gonna come, I’m gonna do it in your mouth,” he said, and every inch of her rejoiced and reveled in it. She worked harder on him, harder, just to have him spill over her tongue.

  And when he did it was a different kind of bliss. It was feeling him let go, feeling him find pleasure and release—and in such a visceral way. His cock damn near leapt in her mouth, swelling and spurting and ohhhhh so much sweeter than anyone had ever said. Why didn’t people say what this felt li
ke, to so thoroughly pleasure someone?

  He trembled as he came. He actually trembled, and called her name.

  It was without doubt the most satisfying experience of her life—or at least it was until she tried to stand. She tried, but man alive did she fail. Her legs felt as though they were made of straw—shuddering, shaking straw—and God only knew what had happened between her legs. Everything seemed to have swelled to three times its normal size, and no amount of breathing calmly through her nose made it die down.

  But more importantly, she suspected he had noticed this.

  She could feel him watching her, despite her best efforts to look normal. She even managed to make it to her feet finally, and smoothed down her probably crazy hair. Got her heaving chest under control, kept her gaze as innocent as possible. By the time she’d straightened her nightgown he was bound to think she was perfectly fine.

  She hoped he thought she was perfectly fine.

  She hoped in vain, however.

  “You’ve got to let me do something for you this time, honey. Please tell me I can do something for you. You look like you’re gonna pass out. I’m surprised you haven’t—Jesus Christ you must be going crazy. Aren’t you going crazy?”

  She didn’t think he needed to ask. She was pretty sure she was drooling out of one side of her mouth, and her face flashed so hot she was afraid of losing skin. It felt as though her cheeks were about to peel right off her, so he was fine to make the assumption.

  He just wasn’t fine to act on it. It made her go all rigid just to hear him offering to act on it. She felt her hands come up when he stepped closer—despite her best efforts to do otherwise—and was only saved by the gentling gesture he made and the cautious, calming words he said.

  “Look, look, we can do it however you want. You don’t have to take measures to make sure I don’t ask or see or say, okay? I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do. I won’t try to make you give what you can’t. I just want to make you feel good, honey, that’s all,” he said, but it was the last little thing that really broke her. “I can do it just fine over your clothes, you understand? You don’t have to take anything off.”