by Kent, Julia
He was sitting up on the edge of my bed, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, his head bent over the plate. He stopped eating and looked up at me, again with a half smile of something intimate and more than just sex – or maybe I was just reading that. I have a tendency to do that.
“I’m a sure thing,” I whispered inches from his face.
He swallowed hard. We stared into each other’s eyes for way longer than we should have. I broke away first and then laughed, the sound tinny and uncomfortable as I felt myself ruining this.
Dammit. Dammit, Darla, why do you always do this?
He swallowed a few more bites – good God, did the man ever chew? – and laughed, a throaty sound of something special, a vibration that I would save inside my heart forever, to pull out when I needed it most.
“Darla,” he said quietly, nodding. “I’m a sure thing, too.”
“Then there’s no rush, is there?” I said, letting myself go serious.
“No rush,” he answered, reaching out, brushing a stray strand of hair out of my face. The sweetness of the gesture made me swallow and pull back, tenderness cutting through my shields and turning the entire night into something more than I could handle.
He dropped his hand, finished eating, and then walked over and set the plate on the table. He looked funny in my uncle’s clothes, the pants hanging down so low I could see the top of his ass crack. It was mighty fine, with little dimples at the top of each buttock, his lower back tight. His spine was clearly visible, not from sickly skinniness, but because his well developed, well-formed tendons and bone had honed his body from the privilege of his life – just as his lyrics intuitively honed angst and heartache and pain into hope.
He turned and he stood in the glow of the cheap Christmas lights that I’d scavenged from God knows where. And then he said the words that I never expected him to say.
“I’m sorry, Darla but I need to use the bathroom.”
Trevor
Darla burst out laughing and I felt myself crawl in my skin a little bit but I couldn’t help it. I had ignored nature’s call for who knows how long, and something about sitting here and filling my stomach made me need to go. It felt like the least romantic thing I could have blurted out but dude, when a dude’s gotta go, a dude’s gotta go.
Besides, I knew what was coming. We both did. We were exhausted, and horny, and tired, and horny, and frustrated. And did I mention horny? With the inevitable in front of us I figured maybe I could slip back into the trailer, take a quick shower, and at least be as ready and raring to go as possible.
She looked me up and down and shook her head. “Of course, Trevor. Of course you can go to the bathroom. You probably want to shower too, don’t you? How long have you been on the road?”
I looked around this little cottage, a hippie version of a hobbit home. “Well, there’s no clock. I don’t know what time it is.”
She reached into her pocket and took out her phone. “It’s nearly 2 a.m..”
“Shit,” I said as she opened the door and led me back out, over to her mom’s house.
“That’s OK,” she said. “Besides, I probably should help my mom check her sugars.”
“Her sugars?”
“She’s diabetic,” Darla said, her eyes averted, her voice floating next to me in the dark.
A cool breeze slipped across my neck, my body warm from the tiny space we’d just shared, by my full stomach, and by the clothing which I was starting to get used to again.
The wall of cigarette smoke hit me again when we opened the door, but not quite as fiercely this time. Cathy looked up from her spot at the table and said, “What are you doing?” to no one in particular.
Darla held a contraption like a label maker out to her mom. “Check your sugars, Mama. Trevor’s gonna go and freshen up.”
Cathy looked me up and down and smiled, her face heavy but her warmth evident, making me smile back. “Well, I would imagine wherever Darla found you, you’re gonna be dirty.”
“Mama,” Darla said, her voice scolding and a little bit ashamed. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want her to turn away from what I’d seen in her, from that creature who created something so good out of so much that wasn’t. She was a conundrum.
She led me back to the tiny, cramped bathroom and handed me a clean, threadbare towel and steered me away from the medicated shampoo, handing me something involving colored hair. I couldn’t help myself and just reached out, shut the door, and grabbed her in my arms.
She melted against me, our bodies separated by two layers of clothes now, the feeling weird. My mouth found her and she responded, lips parting quickly. Whatever we’d been holding onto, or holding back from, we allowed to spill over right here, right now in this tiny, cramped bathroom, her back shoved against the door, my ass pressed into the corner of a sink more cigarette-burned than I’d ever seen in any dive bar bathroom.
I didn’t care, my hands roaming through her lush hair, down to find fistfuls of ass. Her hands sliding under my unfamiliar t-shirt, reaching to that sensitive spot just where my ribs met my shoulders, making me shiver, making me rise up to take her with no more waiting.
But she decided to exert control, pulling back, pushing gently until I had to move slightly to the right to avoid being penetrated by the corner of that sink. She held her head down, then looked up, all bliss and full of hope.
“You freshen up Trevor. Meet me back at my place. That’s where this belongs, not here.” She looked around. The shower was covered with soap scum but the room smelled of bleach. It had been cleaned recently but, like so many other things in Darla’s life, it was worn, neglected, the towels faded and old, the walls pockmarked and stained, the room designed for function but not for anything else. This life she lived seemed to have no room for purple walls and glowing lights that created an atmosphere of something more.
My arms wrapped around her and she leaned in, her cheek pressed against my chest, sighing deeply. And then she pulled away and turned around. The door opened before I could stop her.
“Go ahead, Trevor. Take care of everything and then,” she said, locking her eyes with mine, her face intense and so deep I wanted to fall into her eyes and just live there forever, “and then come take care of me.”
“Jesus Christ, with an offer like that – ” Unsnapping my pants was a chore because Darla’s words had made me rock hard in an instant. I scrambled to turn on the shower, which was about as low flow as you could possibly get, like a baby bottle squeezed listlessly upside down. But hey, I couldn’t be choosy these days, and while it certainly wasn’t the four-head shower and jacuzzi tub I was used to at home, it was a shower and I could wash the crud of being naked on the road for a day off of my poor body.
Poor body.
As if. My body was rocking right now (pun intended) and about to rock Darla’s world.
Relatively clean in three minutes, I threw my clothes back on and stopped for a minute, fumbling through the drawers attached to the tiny sink. If I guessed just right…yup, there it was. A brand new toothbrush, still in its dental-office wrapper.
Certain they wouldn’t mind if I used it, right? I pulled it out, threw the wrapper in the garbage, found a half-squeezed tube of toothpaste and brushed my teeth for the first time in days. It felt like getting high and having a massage at the same time. But nothing would be better than what I was about to do with Darla.
I stuffed the toothbrush in my back pocket and quietly opened the door. There was no sign of Darla anywhere as I peered down the hallway, past the stacks of newspapers and magazines and what appeared to be an entire box of Christmas themed potholders, new with tags on them. I saw Cathy slumped in her chair, a light snore pouring forth from her mouth.
Pausing, I let myself take a couple of breaths and really thought about this for a minute. My dick di
dn’t want me to do that but something deeper in me, the part where song lyrics poured out without effort, like paint filling a canvas on its own, told me to stop and think. Think, Trevor. This really wasn’t all that different from home. My mom was likely to be asleep in front of our TV right now, her last whiskey sour diluting on the coaster on the end table next to her, the ice cubes melting with the vestiges of alcohol. The house disheveled until the maid service came that week and the quiet, the 2 a.m. preternatural calm. I could link my home to this place and strip away the differences.
Darla was somebody who wanted more but had decided to – no, had resigned herself to – take what the world laid out for her. And in my own, completely different way, that’s exactly what I had done. I slipped past Cathy and outside, off the crooked porch. My footsteps crunched through whatever made up the door yard and thwacked against my soles, the flip flops little better than nothing. My hand shook, just a little, as I reached up to open the door to Darla’s carved-out little piece of paradise.
Darla
Mama’s sugars had been fine, which surprised me, but her issues were an afterthought, my brain so full of candy and fog and Trevor and – oh, dear God, all of it. I wanted to will all of the crazy, all of the neglect, all of the daily grind away and just focus on him. I’d gone into the back bathroom and done as quick a cleanup job as I could, a washcloth, a toothbrush and some dental floss like magic potions in a witch’s bag.
I needed to beat Trevor out to my little shed to prepare and be ready for what was coming. It’s funny, when I picked him up on the side of the road and found myself wanting him, that’s all it had been. Just wanting a romp, something novel. An experience that just got me out of my head and out of my life and gave me some crazy yarn to spin, sitting at a bar, telling stupid stories to other people as we descended into drunkenness.
I wasn’t so puritanical that I wouldn’t have a beer or eight when the time was right. My pot-smoking days were few and far between, and unlike so many people I knew, I didn’t get stupid drunk. Unlike two thirds of my graduating class, I had other forms of entertainment besides Netflix and altered states.
For me, it was the music – and now I had my real life lyrics in physical form before me. The maker of so many of my dreams walking up the steps to my little dream maker home. I’d spun this place into what it was as a haven. It started out because I couldn’t stand the smell of stale cigarettes – at least that’s what I told myself.
And now as Trevor walked in, the creak of the door hinge like a prayer being answered. He closed it, slid the bolt into its proper hole and then turned to me, hair damp and perfect, darker, clinging to his scalp. Those blue eyes right on me.
Then he said, “Come here.”
I took the deepest breath I could muster as Trevor kissed me, his hands roaming all over my ass and back, taking me in like he was greedy for me. My hands did the same, finding tight muscles and loose clothes and a slightly-stubbled jawline that made me want to scratch myself against it forever, inhaling the sweet scent of Trevor and my own soap and a pureness.
Lavender and eucalyptus were my favorite scents, sprinkled liberally throughout my little home, wafting through my senses as he explored me with hands and mouth and ragged breaths that spoke a language so different from what we’d said to each other even at the rest area.
Something had shifted. Something had changed. Showing him my life and making myself naked before him in a completely different way made him more there. Our there was more there and damn it if he didn’t use those large man palms to pull my ass up and grind his hard, needy erection into me.
“Sure thing,” I murmured when we came up for air between kisses, the glow of my Christmas lights making us seem warmer than I ever imagined I could be. Time to take things nice and slow, to let this little cocoon just be. Letting go of my worries about what he thought of my life was my biggest challenge until right now.
And then it just unfolded and dropped, like an apple that decides to release itself from its ripe little connection to the large tree. His fingertips grazed my face, as if memorizing the lines of my cheekbones, my lips, and I opened my mouth to take his index finger in, sucking and laving it, his groan my victory lap.
Well, not quite. That would come much, much later.
He held me and leaned me back, slowly, down to my tiny little bed, his arms and legs strong enough to gently stretch us both with little effort. So strong, so controlled – no man had done that before, a move you would see from a prince resting his princess in a bed of roses. All I had was a down-covered memory foam mattress and that was more than enough as his hands touched every part of me, cupping my breasts and inhaling me, seeming to revel in just my very presence, as if I were enough.
Without asking, he tugged my shirt up and I helped him, my silent yes an eager response to a question he never had to ask. The confidence was something new to me – Trevor wasn’t taking, and he wasn’t assuming I owed him something. This was a partnership, two people enjoying each other, and it was his sense of respect for me that was the biggest damn turn-on ever, making me pulse and throb because at the core of my being I’d always wanted this and here he was, handing it out effortlessly, eyes trained on mine, sharing a sense of something bigger than us both.
I could live like this forever. A sob crawled up my throat and I swallowed it down, the joy of finding this so great I nearly cried. Then a cold wave of air hit my chest as Trevor stripped me, his hands at my waistband, pulling my unbuttoned pants down.
“What about you?” I murmured, eager to touch his nude body once more.
“You’ve seen me naked already,” he whispered, eyes excited and impish. “Time to even things out.”
Time seemed to move at a snail’s pace and all at once with him, and as he peeled off my pants and then glided my panties down my thighs like a man who made it a form of worship, I braced myself for the full unveiling. What would he think? A full body like mine is one thing when it’s crammed in a shirt and pants, but under the glow of my lights, on my tiny little Hobbit bed, would he find me beautiful? Was his haze of desire just a blend of polite gratitude and leftover peyote?
All I needed to do was to look into his eyes and see what I was searching for, as he inhaled sharply and stripped naked to his own words. “Oh, Darla, you are so beautiful.”
“You don’t have to say that,” I blurted out, as if some inner demon was working to sabotage everything good and whole in my life.
“I know I don’t have to. I want to,” he replied, stretching out naked and lovely and manly and just so Trevor. Our bodies were long and parallel now, the heat of skin like a thin line between us, both on our sides and facing each other, my breasts full and dipping a bit, gravity winning where it came to being a bit lusher than most. It seemed to turn him on, his hands filling with me, his mouth coming to taste my neck, my clit beginning to respond and my V welling up with warmth and wetness that craved him. Finally, finally, finally we could cleave and connect and I could ride him blind.
Seconds passed and he pulled back, one hand deep in my hair, the other making its way to find my soft, red nub and when he did – ah, that alone was almost enough to make me come.
His mouth was so lush and searching, and then his hands lifted my hips, beckoning me to straddle him. I bent down, first, and grabbed my purse. This was embarrassing but a necessary step. No babies for me (yet), thank you. I handed him the foil wrapper and he nodded appreciatively, rolling on the condom with a respectful grace that made me want him even more.
Not that that was possible.
The slide of his hands against my skin, the sound of his breath along my shoulder, how he just was, all Trevor and strong muscle and warmth and flame, his hands moving me and urging me to climb on top of him, my body feeling free and real once more and forever – it made me close my eyes and just feel. His fingertips tickled my ribs, making me
shiver as I became a bit coy, not letting him enter me just yet, wanting to stretch the moment out long enough to kiss that incredible mouth one more time, our lips touching and then hungry.
My head nearly exploded as his hand slid in my hair and grasped a handful, gently but firmly pulling my head back as his eyes sought mine. Most guys didn’t kiss much during sex, much less look at you. It was like all that was there was body parts and hands. This? It was more like all that was there were our souls, and the flesh was an afterthought.
“Darla,” he murmured, the word suspended in the air between us, as if hung by the moon and stars and some sort of life force that drove the universe. Inhaling felt like a form of supplication and as our eyes remained locked I fought my usual inclination to look away, to be unnerved by the depth of emotion that flowed between me and another person. No expression, no deflection, no defenses.
It fed my hungry heart. Each breath infused love into my soul, and even if it wasn’t the kind of love that lasted, it was here for this second, for this inhale, for this instant, suspended in time. If I couldn’t have this forever, I could have it now and be nourished and treasured and enjoyed. How many people could say that?
“Yes?” I answered, unsure suddenly, a bit muddled in the head by all of this, with a body raring to go and shaking with anticipation. Whoever I’d thought Trevor Connor was, it had been a cardboard shadow compared to the man under me, the man who, as I let my thoughts come back into focus, stole another kiss.
His hands rested on my hips, face serious. “I’ve never felt this way before.”
Oh. Oh! Oh! Oh! Please mean it, please mean it, please mean it, my mind screamed and my heart prayed. Don’t forget me! my wetness shouted, lost in the fray.
We were about to get to that.
