by A. O. Peart
“Hey,” I croak. “I’m so thirsty. Thank you,” I say, taking the glass from his hands and gulping water like a maniac. I set it on the bedside table.
“I will give you some Tylenol, but you need to eat first. I don’t want you to take it on an empty stomach.”
Eat? Is he crazy? I feel nauseous even thinking of food. “I don’t think I can eat anything.”
“Just a few crackers. I will be right back.” He gets up and goes to my kitchen.
He returns a moment later with a box of crackers. I moan and turn away from him. Colin sits down next to me and shakes the box. The crackers rattle inside, and I look at him from over my shoulder. He lifts his eyebrows and smiles. Then he takes one cracker from the box and dangles it in front of my nose. What am I a dog? But that makes me giggle. I take the cracker from him and start nibbling on it.
“That wasn’t too bad, was it?” he whispers in my ear.
Another cracker appears in front of me and I eat that one too. Suddenly I feel hungry, so I eat more crackers and drink some water. Colin gives me three white Tylenol pills, and I swallow them without complaint.
“I will run you a bath,” he says.
Hmm, a bath. That sounds wonderful. “Thank you.” I grab his hand. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be a pain in the butt.”
One corner of his mouth lifts in that sexy smile I love. Soon I hear the water running in my bathroom. Colin returns and takes me by the hand. He leads me out of the bedroom and toward the bath. He undresses me, and I step into the sudsy, warm water. Ahhhh. That feels marvelous.
Colin rolls up the sleeves of his shirt. He dips a washcloth in the bath and squeezes some liquid soap onto it. I watch him in silence. He gently lifts my arm and washes it thoroughly then moves to my shoulder and neck.
This feels sensual but also protective. I feel so relaxed, that my eyes start to close, but I fight the drowsiness and concentrate on Colin. After he’s done washing my arms, neck, and face, he rubs some shampoo in my hair, and then rinses it, holding the shower wand in one hand and supporting me under my arms with the other. His white shirt is soaked and it sticks to his chest and abdominal. I can clearly see the outline of his lean body, and something deliciously warm stirs in the pit of my stomach. I smile at him weakly and whisper, “Thank you. I feel so much better.”
He stops what he’s doing and looks at me. A tiny smile dances in the corner of his lips but it doesn’t reach his eyes. I sigh.
“You’re not going to talk? Why were you upset with me?” I ask.
“I wasn’t really upset.” He slowly shakes his head from side to side.
“What then?” I lift my arms over my head when he starts lathering me again with the soapy washcloth.
Slowly, he moves the washcloth over my breasts, and my nipples contract. I gasp, and a tiny moan escapes me.
Colin doesn’t stop the delicious torture, and I’m not sure how much of this I can take. Between the remains of a headache, the exhaustion, and now the sexual arousal, my body screams in protest. Or maybe it eagerly claps in approval. I really don’t know.
I wrap my soapy arms around his neck and kiss his lips. He stiffens but only for a short moment, and then pecks me gently on the corner of my mouth. The washcloth travels from my breasts over my stomach and down to between my legs. The heat explodes in the sensitive area, and I inhale sharply.
The washcloth is gone, and I feel Colin’s long, slim fingers caressing me, torturing in the most exquisite ways. I urgently whisper his name over and over again. His mouth moves down my chest, trailing small kisses all the way to my left breast. His lips close around the nipple, and I feel his tongue dancing in circles over it. He bites gently, and I’m lost, forgetting our fight and his disappointment at finding me drunk last night. Nothing matters anymore. It’s only him and me, and the knowledge that I’m balancing on the brim of the most delicious orgasm.
Colin slips two fingers inside me and presses the heel of his hand over my clitoris. His fingers move in and out, making me whimper.
“Give it up, baby. Now,” he whispers against my breast, is tongue continuing its sweet assault.
My muscles clench over his fingers, and I let go, screaming incoherently. Or maybe I’m screaming his name. I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. Warm water splashes in my face, but that doesn’t matter either. Colin’s hand resumes its mission, and I feel the new orgasm building inside me. But he stops and pulls me out of the bathtub, sits me on its edge, and says, “Put your arms down and hold onto the bathtub for a moment.”
I obey and watch him, biting my lip in anticipation. He unbuttons and unzips his jeans to reveal his erection. I marvel at the fact that he’s not wearing underwear. Again. This is the most erotic view ever. Colin pushes his pants lower and steps out of them. He lifts me up and onto him. I wrap my legs around him and hold onto his neck. He splays his hands over my buttocks and plunges inside me, his teeth gritting.
I scream a short, satisfaction-driven scream.
Colin pounds inside me hard, moving in and out fast, and I am so close to orgasm again.
“Cum for me, Natalie,” he breaths in my ear.
His teeth graze my ear lobe over and over, and this is all I can take.
“Now!” I cry.
Colin pushes my back against the cool wall, and I shiver at the contact. He supports me with his hands pressed to my butt. His thrusts are even deeper, angled more from the bottom and up. His breath is uneven. I feel his fingers curling over my buttocks like talons. But they don’t hurt me. My back starts to protest though. It’s becoming sore from rubbing against the wall, but then Colin growls and stills for a moment.
He pulls me away from the wall, turns around, and sits me by the sink. He continues to move in and out of me, but slowly, teasing.
I look into his eyes. He rests his forehead against mine and exhales. I clutch him in my embrace, and we stay like this for a long time, just breathing heavily. After what feels like eternity, Colin’s lips find mine. His tongue slides over my lips, as if asking for permission to enter. My mouth knows what to do without me even thinking. It opens, and our tongues welcome one another. The kiss is long and sensual, unhurried. I don’t ever want it to end. I feel spent, satisfied, and complete.
He slides out of me, leaving me craving him already. His features are not the same as they always are after we make love. This time there is no smile, no sign of his boyish happiness. Instead, there is something dark, crouching behind the mask of concern.
I search his face, but he averts his eyes.
“Colin? What is it?” I try to keep my voice steady, but the traitor betrays me and it quivers a bit. Dammit.
He smiles, but if I were to categorize that smile, I wouldn’t hesitate in putting it into the DREARY COUSIN OF DEPRESSION folder. I raise my eyebrows in the ‘come on’ expression. He sighs and pulls his jeans back on. Really? That’s all I get? No explanation? Nothing?
He takes a bath towel from the cabinet and wraps it around me.
I appreciate it, but I won’t let him derail me from finding out what’s gnawing at him. So I grab his arm and make him face me. “Talk.” I order.
“You need to sleep more, and then eat a real breakfast. I will fix us something soon.”
“Colin?” My voice takes on an incredulous tone.
He sighs again, and I make a face. I roll my eyes too, because I just can’t help it.
“I’ll take you to bed now. I want you to sleep. We’ll talk later. Promise,” he sounds impatient.
There is no way to persuade him. So I resign myself into a ‘whatever you want’ attitude in order not to escalate the problem any further. I’m not even sure what the problem is. I slide off the bathroom counter and go into my bedroom. Colin follows and sits with me on my bed. He rubs the towel over my skin and hair, and I welcome this caring gesture. It feels like my real Colin. My heart swells, and I wrap my arms around him, burying my face in his wet shirt.
“Take this off. You’re soaked,”
I say.
Colin unbuttons his shirt, and my heart skips a beat. The gods of lust pull me by my arms, inviting me to dance again. Eros, Himeros, Pothos, Peitho—seriously? Again? Ah, what the heck.
I lean toward him and lick the corner of his mouth with just the tip of my tongue. He responds immediately, pushing me onto my back and laying on top of me. His mouth is on mine, kissing me hard, urgently, as if this is the last time ever. I feel his breath speeding up, and soon he’s panting and pulling his half-unbuttoned shirt over his head.
My legs wrap around his waist, and he clenches his teeth. “I can’t get enough of you, Natalie. I want to make love to you over and over.”
“Me too,” I say against his mouth. “Do it. Now.”
He’s out of his jeans in record time. He tosses them onto the floor. I feel his firm erection pressing onto me. And then he’s inside me. I cry from the initial shock. But then scorching heat and moisture make me melt into him, and we move together, slamming onto each other hard and fast. We both moan and cry out when the waves of deliciousness wash over us at the same time. I can’t stop. It goes on and on, and I don’t want it to stop. Ever.
I know Colin must be feeling the same. His jaws are tightened, and his teeth are bared. He’s heaving, crushing into me continuously, hard, driving me toward the edge of the bed. My legs are shaking from exhaustion, and he finally slows down, only tenderly pulsing inside me. He kisses me softly, as if apologizing for the earlier assault. But I love being assaulted by him like this.
Colin buries his face in my neck, breathing hard. His firm chest presses down onto my breasts. I welcome that closeness. I wrap my arms and legs around him and hold him tight. I want him to open up to me. And I want to tell him so. But I’m torn—what if this is something he’s not prepared for? What if he doesn’t want or doesn’t know how to? He’s been distancing himself from me lately. Bit by bit, slowly, as if trying to introduce the idea, instead of going full blast with… what? Leaving? I want to talk to him, but he doesn’t take the hint. And I’m so tired now.
I drift off to sleep with Colin still inside me. At some point I feel through the heavy haze of my sleep that he slides out of me and covers me with the comforter.
FIFTEEN
“Is there no way out of the mind?”
Sylvia Plath
I jolt awake. My head hurts like son of a bitch, and I suppress a groan. Alcohol and I will never be friends. What in the hell possessed me to down one drink after another, adding a beer to the mix? I sit up in the dark and immediately lay down again. I turn to see if Colin is asleep next to me, but he’s not here. I’m wearing a t-shirt. Colin must’ve put it on me without waking me up.
My heart lurches when I remember last evening. Why did he get so rattled? It’s not like him. And it’s not like me to get drunk. I rehash the events from the time I called him and I cringe at the memories. Geez, talking about overreacting.
I may be losing him. Slowly. There’s definitely some hostility between us, which doesn’t come from me. Even though he’s been nothing but caring, and the lovemaking is still amazing. But deep under that I sense he’s discomfort. Some strange pain emanates from Colin, and it’s been growing and showing its ugly head more and more often lately.
I don’t know how to bring him back without acting like an over-possessive girlfriend. I despise over-possessive people. If he doesn’t want to stay with me, well, I will let him go. Even if it breaks my heart, I won’t beg him to stay.
I am lying on my side, facing the window, with my knees bent and close to my stomach. The mattress caves under Colin’s weight. He climbs onto the bed and nestles behind me, wrapping his arm around my waist and molding his body to mine. I smile and relax. Last thing I feel before I fall asleep is his warm, gentle breath in my hair.
A car alarm somewhere outside my window wakes me up. My bedroom is quiet. Colin’s rhythmical breathing and the ticking of my grannie’s old clock from my bookshelf are the only sounds I recognize at first. Then I hear the water running in the pipes, as one of the neighbors flushes their toilet. A helicopter’s rumbling noise in the Seattle sky becomes louder, and high-pitched laughter carries in the apartment hallway somewhere right outside my front door. Life is still going strong around us. But something between Colin and me is dying, and I only hope that we can save it in time.
Colin’s hand grasps my t-shirt and presses against my stomach, as if he wants to make sure I won’t leave without waking him up. I wrap my fingers around his hand and caress his warm skin. He stirs and makes a little sleepy sound. My alarm clock displays 9:11 a.m. in red digital numbers. I don’t want to get up. I want to stay like this forever—with Colin perfectly spooned to me, holding me close, calmly breathing in my hair.
I fall back asleep.
When I feel his lips on my cheek, I crack my eyes open. He bends over me on the bed, supporting himself on his arms and knees.
“Hey,” he whispers.
“Hey,” I whisper back and glance at the alarm clock on my bedside table. “It’s past eleven a.m. already? We slept all this time?”
“Go back to sleep. I should go.”
“Why? You can stay the rest of the weekend.” I yawn and stretch.
He smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
My eyebrows furrow. Is that it? Are we done? “Talk to me.”
“I haven’t been honest with you, Natalie…”
My heart lurches in my chest, and I sit up. “What are you talking about?” Is he cheating on me? Not another one, dammit. Not Colin!
He sits back on his heels and rakes his fingers through his hair. His jaw muscles tighten. I wait, speechless. Am I supposed to know? Or am I stupid enough to fall for him, head first, despite all my bad experiences from the past. What the hell is happening? Why couldn’t I just find a guy who I could trust?
“What do you mean, you haven’t been honest with me?” I finally say. “Is there someone else?”
“No. No! Never.” Clearly, he didn’t expect such reaction from me. What then?
Guilt gnaws at me. Why would I immediately jump to such a conclusion? Colin has never given me any weird vibes. I know he wouldn’t cheat on me. He isn’t the cheating kind.
Colin strokes his thumb across my cheek and lower lip. His face relaxes, and a shadow of a sad smile slides over his handsome features. He takes my face in his hands and presses a hard kiss onto my lips. The kiss feels voracious, almost forceful. I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him back. His tongue skims around my lower lip. I open my mouth and admit him in. Colin kisses me so eagerly as if he hasn’t kissed me for days; as if he hasn’t seen me for months. There is so much passion in that kiss and in the way his hands rove over my back, my neck, and my shoulders as if his life depends on it.
But I need to know what is happening to him, so I pull away. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
I lay down and Colin draws near to hover over me, supporting his weight on his forearms. I feel his fingers skim around my hairline. It is such a familiar touch. I crave it. I crave Colin. He rolls over to the side and rests on his back, covering his eyes with the crook of his bent arm. I wait.
After a minute of silence he moves his arm off his face. His voice is raspier than ever; and very quiet. “When I was twenty-one… a junior at UCLA, there was this girl I mentioned to you. Faith…”
I move to my side so I could see his expression. And what I see scares me—his face is twisted with pain and sorrow. He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
“She was a freshman, hardly eighteen, right out of high school. Her mother kept drinking herself into oblivion until, one afternoon after school, Faith found her dead on the front porch, bottle in hand. She didn’t want to talk about it much, but once it kinda slipped.” He takes a deep breath.
I feel my eyebrows pull together, but I don’t interrupt. Colin’s arm goes back to drape over his eyes. It is so hard to watch him in such pain. I want to express my support, so I touch his shoulder and ge
ntly stroke it.
He takes another slow, deep breath, and the words tumble out, “Faith’s father was a control freak. He wouldn’t let her go anywhere, even with her best friends. She wasn’t allowed to leave the house after walking back from school until he came back from work. And even then she could only go to the grocery store. Everything else was driving distance from their little town. She didn’t own a car. Her father would drive her to the library or if she needed to go shopping. Faith got accepted to five colleges, including one Ivy League. But her dad wouldn’t hear about her moving away from California. Her only option was UCLA. That’s where we met, at a party. It was the very first party in her life, and she was in awe. She was so naïve and so… pure. There was something different about her, something… child-like. She was fascinated with everything she saw. I asked her out, and she got so shy, she couldn’t even look me in the eye. But we started dating… slowly. Faith was… well, you know… she was a virgin; never been with anyone before.”
Colin stops talking, and I am waiting, not wanting to ask any questions. Hell, I have no idea what to ask. He seems so fragile, so vulnerable. I’ve never seen him like this. It’s as if he morphed into a complete stranger right in front of my eyes. My confident, funny, sexy Colin is gone. And in his place is this sad, broken guy. But it is Colin, and that’s what scares me. I realize I don’t know my boyfriend at all.
He turns his head to look at me and takes my hand in his. He presses his lips to my knuckles. I think this is his way of calming himself down.
“After a while, Faith started to get drunk at every party we went to. Really drunk, to the point of passing out. She tried drugs too. I didn’t think much of it. Hell, we all did it.” He closes his eyes and shakes his head, as if disbelieving his own words.
Now I start understanding his reaction to me getting drunk. I feel horrible. I wait for him to keep going.
“First it was some Ecstasy and weed, but soon she moved onto crack and meth. She hid that from me. Or maybe I was a dumb ass and didn’t… fuck, I had no idea! No idea that she could get so into this shit. It happened really fast—the innocent, sweet girl that I knew disappeared. Faith became mean and confused. Aggressive too. She couldn’t sleep. She was rapidly losing weight. She was a tiny thing to begin with. Soon she looked like a skeleton of a child. And she wouldn’t listen. She would sneak out and get high, miss classes, throw violent fits, stuff like that.”
