The Drazen World: Release (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by A. R. Hadley

  "This is not about me? How is this not about us? The two of us?"

  "Because it's my body, Jon. It happened to me."

  "You're sharp, Jess, but I didn't think you were nearsighted."

  "You have other things..." My hand bounced in the air over ripples of grief.

  "Is this going to break us or make us stronger?" he asked, his eyes dark with uncertainty.

  Everything made me stronger. I didn't break.

  Hand out, Jessica. Stand up straight, Jessica. That is not the right way, Jessica. I never want to hear you speak like that again, Jessica.

  "I don't know," I replied. I kept my chin out, and my shoulders squared.

  I avoided truth in order to avoid consequence. I didn't need this conversation. What he wanted to talk about had never happened. We would not talk about the incident again. Talking was overrated. Deep conversation was a trick. The two of us had already endured a lifetime of that kind of conversation. His past. His demons. His father. The death and the resurrection of his teenage girlfriend. I had lived nine lives with Jonathan Drazen. How many more did I have left? I didn't know. I decided in that moment that I would spill everything into my art. More than I ever had before. All of my empty, empty bullshit, my lies, my avoidance. His money. I would take back what I deserved. I gave him what he deserved. I gave him love. I gave him all of me. Now the one thing I couldn't give him, he wanted to put demands on. My body. I couldn't do it. I couldn't give him what he wanted or needed. I couldn't talk about it. Talking only reminded me that I was inadequate.

  He stepped closer to me and put his arms around me. He buried his nose in my hair.

  "I don't give up."

  "I know." I turned. I took ahold of his face. I stared into the sincerity of his green eyes. I saw the two of us in there, dancing, without lies. It was Cinderella and her prince, except, they didn't exist.

  "No more conversation, Jon. This is the last time. I want to be happy."

  I had said those words that night as if happiness was a choice. As if he wouldn't screw it all up. As if I could be the lady I always was on the outside and pretend I wasn't slowly dying on the inside. Each day another piece of me escaped. It escaped now as he held me tight against the cold of the Atlantic Ocean. Both of us naked. Jonathan oblivious, or so incredibly in tune it scared me. Either way, another petal peeled away from my armor and floated away, lost in the breeze.

  fifteen

  JONATHAN

  I tried it. Later that night. I tried both. I became two men.

  We did go to the beach. After dark. No one else seemed to be around. The lights in most of the hotels and business were off or low. Dark. Turtles nested here. Lights disturbed them. The eerie stillness was quite a contrast to the daytime. Aside from the sound of the waves which was more like a sleep machine than noise. I had tried those machines. Nothing worked.

  Jessica had only lasted a little while in the frigid water. Okay. It was cold. I admit it. April in Florida made for a fantastic day at the beach, the sun's rays working their magic, but it made for a lousy night. In the water anyway. Sometimes the cooler current made its way this far south, chilling the Atlantic and surprising the tourists. Like me. Jesus. My dick was a miniature slice of beef jerky. My balls were raisins.

  Jessica looked beautiful in the moonlight. Stripped of jewelry and clothing. The grass smell on her skin was replaced with salt and cold. My dick tried and failed to gain an erection, what with the wind and the arctic water, the teeth chattering, it was nearly impossible. Her nipples though, they thrived in the cold. Rock hard. Perfection. We stayed huddled together, limbs wrapped around each other, her pointy little rocks the only thing attempting to rouse my useless dick. Ten minutes and we had had enough. We sloshed out, wrapped up in towels and laughed our way up the elevator and into the condo. The fireplace might come in handy...

  The first thing I did, still wet, but not dripping, was pour out two fingers of Macallan for each of us. I had caved and bought my own bottle. We had ridden our bikes, our beach cruisers, up a two lane little street yesterday. Flagler Avenue. An alley really. It ran east and west, drawbridge to the ocean. Cars were actually permitted to drive on the beach here. For a fee. Pay a toll and drive right out onto the sand. A shop owner had given us directions to a liquor store. Thank God it hadn't been far. We pedaled and triumphed, and the next day, after our attempt at nude swimming, the scotch provided us with a much-needed warmth.

  "Do you want me to start the bath?" I handed her the half-full paper cup. I spared no expense for our romantic adventure.

  "Can we fit in their together?"

  "Hardly." I peeked around her slender frame and eyed the bathroom. The entire room itself could barely contain the two of us. We took turns at night and in the morning with our routine.

  "I can warm you up quicker another way."

  "Are you sure he hasn't gone cold for the night?" She dropped her eyes to my towel covered crotch. My own nipples stood at attention. My chest hair wet like everything else. My teeth probably still rattled, and yeah, I wanted to fuck. I couldn't stop thinking about how her nipples felt and looked in the ocean or how they would taste after being bathed in salt. This is how I would do both.

  Gentle Jonathan.

  Dominant Jonathan.

  Starting now. Until I would burst.

  I want to run my teeth along your nipples and bite them, Jess. Suck on them until you beg me to stop. Until I make you cry. You think the cold water made your nipples hard. I will make them hard. Drop your fucking towel.

  I put my index finger into the center of her towel, at her cleavage. I gave it a little tug, and it dropped to the floor.

  "Drink up, baby." I pushed the cup toward her face. "I don't want you to catch cold." She smirked and finished off the drink with a shake of her head, followed by a grimace.

  I imagined tipping her head up to the ceiling, my index finger under her chin, as I finished my own scotch. I would tell her to keep it there, without moving. I would kick open her legs, and then I would pour myself another drink. She would wait. Goosebumps on her skin. Teeth chattering. Shivering. Nipples pink and hard and begging to be sucked and licked. Tortured. Maybe flicked. I was getting ahead of myself. She would stay quiet because I asked her to. She would stay spread because I asked her to and she would become wetter by the second imagining what I would do to her body next.

  This is how I would do both. My mind would do one thing. My body, another. Was it betrayal? To me.

  We set our paper cups aside, and I took her in my arms and kissed her. I let her lead. She shoved her tongue in first. I gave. My body. Without the harshness of my mind. My need. I could do both.

  I imagined pulling her down by her hair, onto her knees. Open, Jess. I would drop my towel and shove my dick into her mouth. Take me. All of me, I would say with a hiss. She would not hesitate. She would not protest. Becoming a vessel for my dick would elevate her to a different level of consciousness. I would thrust my cock into her mouth in a way I never had before, but in a way I knew was necessary. It was the same way I knew I did not need eight hours of sleep a night, or the way I knew how my body reacted to certain kinds of foods.

  I just knew.

  Respect would be on her lips and tongue, and it would push its way through each of my thrusts. We would share it. Her abdication would create a place I could always go home to. I would groan quite loudly. Lose myself. She would give to me, allowing it fully, and it would be her pleasure. My pleasure would be hers. She would look up at me, lips pursed around my dick straight to my base, nose at my stomach. I would fist her hair. I would control her mouth. I would command and insist that she keep her hands crossed behind her back. I would release and fill her throat, nearly gagging her, and after she finished the job, she would wipe her mouth and smile. You're such a good girl, I would say. We would share an intimate look between us that would surpass any words.

  My body responded to her kisses. We were both warming up. Her nipples stayed hard from our connecti
on, and I loved her. I made love to her. I was gentle. I touched her everywhere. I memorized her body all over again. The places I wanted to stay and know and revisit. The comfort.

  My mind spoke to her again:

  Go sit on the bed. Feet on the mattress. Palms behind you. Spread your knees. All. The. Way. I need to see your beautiful cunt, Jess. I need to see how wet and ready you are for me. Do you understand me, Jessica? Yes, she would say. Yes, what? Yes, sir.

  My body. I took her hand and led her to the bed. I pulled the covers down. I looked her over. I wanted her to see the apology in my eyes, my sincerity for hurting her the other day. I did break her. The trust I at one time thought I didn't deserve. I would not go backward. I wanted her to trust me forever.

  "I love you," she said. She responded to my eyes. She accepted my apology. She loved me.

  "I don't want to hurt you, Jess."

  "I know." She fingered my hair.

  I cupped her cheek. I stroked it with my thumb. I leaned in and kissed her, making love to her mouth with my tongue. It didn't get old. The way she kissed me had stolen my heart straight from my chest years ago.

  "I love you, baby." I passed the words onto her skin, in between breaths and kisses. We had warmed up. Considerably. I slid my palm to her pussy. I barely cupped her, and she went slack, closed her eyes and sighed. Everything I could ever want in the palm of my hand, and it wasn't enough. I was a bastard. I was more like my father than I cared to admit.

  My mind had thoughts of its own. They weren't about Declan. I would circle Jessica's clit until I thought she might come, and then I would stop. On a dime. I would start again, and then just as instantly as I had stopped, I would change direction, and flick her swollen nub the way I would remove an insidious piece of lint from my pants. She would cry out. Her knees would bend. I would hold her in place with my free hand, and repeat the process three or four times. Until she begged me. Until she called my name. She wouldn't know if my next touch would be gentle or rough. A sting or a sigh. The safety I would feel would out measure the feeling derived from any spiritual service I had ever attended. What we would share would border on religious without the pomp. Without the costume. No garb. Stripped bare of societal necessity. Naked.

  "Jon, you haven't shaved." Her voice, as poised as her posture, brought me back to the present. My sweet, gentle reality. My body. She was right. I hadn't shaved. Not all week. She picked right now to notice. Probably because I created a beautiful blush on her cheeks. I couldn't stop kissing her lips and her neck and her jaw.

  "You'll like it here," I said, gripping her pussy. I began to circle her clit. I dropped to my knees and spread her open. I trailed my stubble along her thighs and pussy.

  "It tickles." She giggled.

  I began to lick her in earnest, sure as fuck to drag my beard along her skin. I wanted her to burn. Everywhere. For me. Her pussy. I wanted to see her abandon class and privilege and whatever she filed under the label: "normal."

  I turned my face side to side. I licked, keeping her on the edge. I imagined more. Always more. Tell me what you want, Jessica, I would say as I took my tongue away. Beg me. She would whimper. She would try to pull my head back into her heat, but I would grin and resist her. Beg, I would repeat. Please, she would say. I would begin again, but truthfully, I could eat her pussy all night. I could keep her on the edge. I could tip her over and bring her back again and again. She had no idea what she had taught me. Not to be a victim. Confidence beyond my wildest dreams. What she had unleashed. I would graze her desperate clit with the tip of my tongue. Close, yet so far. So good, Jess. I would say as I stopped. Beg me. I would grip her hips. She would dig her nails into my scalp. I would return the favor and dig mine into her thighs. I would lap at her, holding her in place, digging my nails in, and then I would pinch the bud with my teeth. Fucking beautiful. She would see stars, lift her ass up and arch her back. I would pin her body to the mattress and forbid her to move. I would begin again. This time with the taunts.

  I can keep this up all night. Do you want to come or not? I would trail my tongue over her clit, down her folds, circle her hole. I would lick and lick and lick.

  Yes, she would answer through gritted teeth.

  Yes? Lick. Lick.

  Yes, Jon. Please. Let me come. I'm begging you. Please.

  "Please... It burns..."

  What the fuck? I picked my head up. Shit. I lost myself in my mind. I gave her razor burn on her thighs. I wiped my mouth.

  "I got carried away, Jess." I tenderly caressed the blush that pleased the hell out of me. "I'm sorry."

  She pulled me to the bed, hand on my shoulder, guiding me with her eyes. I slid into her at the same time. In one fluid movement. Her back hit the mattress as my cock hit her inner walls. She clenched around me. Her eyelids fluttered like the wings of a butterfly. She gripped my shoulders, my biceps and then my ass. I started to move faster, controlling the pace. All of it. My passion. I dropped my head. She couldn't see what was in my eyes. The hunger. Could I carry on this charade? Fuck. I needed to hear her beg.

  Don't say it out loud. Imagine...

  I would pull out of her pussy, to the hilt. I would enjoy watching the shadows play on her face and the changes in her expression, her need for my attention. I would tie her ankles to her wrists using the long, green pieces of the palm frond I had stripped off and taken earlier. God. She would look beautiful. A work of art. I knew what I was doing. I could be trusted. I had complete control of the situation. Nothing beyond the walls of the room mattered. Nothing outside the bounds of her ties mattered. It was all secure in the knots I made and in each breath we shared.

  I would enter her again, except now I would thrust into her so hard that she would cry out and slide across the bed. I would touch her clit and take it away again because I could. I would make her shed tears of pleasure, and when I would finally let her come, she would scream my name. The sound of all those letters mixed with her breath and her comfort and her smell, it would all render me speechless, done for, completed. I would finish, truly satisfied. Nothing missing. Unbroken.

  I would be whole.

  "Jon," she moaned.

  I rocked her gently. I circled her clit. I kissed her lips. I licked her nipples. I held myself inside of her body as she shook against me, my name a whispered nothing on her lips.

  I followed on the heels of her orgasm, pulsing my own release inside of her, except I made no sound, only the death of something inside of me hissed, leaving the room and the earth like an untied helium balloon. Released for kicks. The stuff kids did for fun. I didn't think it was fun. Trying to be two men inside one body. Not anymore. I was surely fucked. I had been given a great gift from the woman lying beneath me, the woman I loved. Control. She didn't know the lengths I would go to in order to keep it.

  Was I patient or fucked? How long could I pretend? Do both? Be the man she married and fine-tuned, and not the newly-minted confident bastard who wanted to do delicious but despicable things to her body, who needed an unusual understanding, an acceptance? Would that ever come? Total acceptance? Even inside my own mind?

  How much time would pass before I turned into a controlling asshole? Would shame and need blind me to the love I had found and earned while swimming in the sea of her blue eyes, the same way the damn morning sun had blinded me as it shone through the measly one-inch slit in the curtains?

  A man could see nothing in that blinding light. Nothing but specks of dust, and floating purple and black disks.

  Hallucinations.

  Weak and fading splotches.

  About the Author

  Thank you for taking a leap of faith and reading two of Christine's beloved characters through my eyes. I had so much fun writing Jonathan and Jessica! I would love to connect with you on social media or online:

  https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010102454025

  https://twitter.com/ARHadleyWriter

  http://arhadley.com/

  A.R. Hadley writes imperf
ectly perfect sentences by the light of her iPhone.

  She loves her husband.

  Chocolate.

  Her children.

  And Cary Grant.

  She annoys those darling little children by quoting lines from Back to the Future, but despite her knowledge of eighties and nineties pop culture, she was actually meant to live alongside the lost generation after the Great War and write a mediocre novel while drinking absinthe with Hemingway. Instead, find her sipping sweet tea with extra lemons on her porch as she weaves fictional tales of love and angst amid reality.

  A creative writer since elementary school, A.R. all but gave it up after her children were born, devoting herself to the lovely little creatures, forgetting the pleasure and happiness she derived from being imaginative.

  No more.

  She rediscovered her passion in 2014 and has not stopped since — writing essays, poetry, and fiction. She is currently working on completing several novels as part of a romantic trilogy.

  Day or night, words float around inside her mind. She hears dialogue when she awakens from sleep. She is the one who has been awakened. Writing is her oxygen. Cary Grant fans the flames.