Intimate Geography
Page 3
“And haven’t you slept in some of your other Doms’ beds?”
“Yes, but that was understood. Your subs have never slept with you.”
“So what? I’ve done a lot of things with you I never did with my other subs.”
“And I’ve done things with you I’ve never done with my other Doms, but please don’t ask me for this.”
“You slept in my bed at the hospital.”
“I napped,” I correct him, hoping he’ll let me have my lame semantic argument. I don’t want to say the real reason out loud; the hospital was some weird Twilight Zone where I was allowed to say all the things I never say and feel all the things I’m not allowed to feel. We’re back to reality, and enough of my good sense has returned to know this is a bad idea. Too many boundaries have been crossed already. He could order me to and I would, but I silently beg him not to.
“So you don’t want to sleep in my bed?”
Oh, Crispin. I do, I desperately do, but it’s too…intimate. Fuck me in any and all the ways known to mankind, invade any part of my body with anything you like, tie me up and make me beg for you to do unspeakable things to me, but please. I cannot curl up with you under your sheets, cannot listen to your heart beat while I fall asleep with my head on your chest, cannot wake up to your smell and warmth with morning breath and bedhead.
So I lie.
“No.”
I can’t fail to see the disappointment darken his face. “Okay.”
I finish making dinner, stowing the icky feeling threatening to sink my stomach. Setting the table, I feel his eyes on me, but I don’t give any indication I know he’s watching. I put the food on the table, kneel in front of him, and wait to be acknowledged. It takes longer than usual, like I’m being punished. It’s as if he’s saying, You want to be my sub? Fine, you’ll be my sub. Though that’s what I’ve asked for, what I told him I want, it hurts.
“Yes, pet?”
“Dinner is ready, sir.”
“Let’s eat, then.”
He doesn’t give me permission to look at him while we’re at the table, so I pick at my food with my eyes cast down, the sinking feeling heavy like lead in my gut. I’ve never not been given permission to look at him while we eat.
Half an hour later, he breaks the silence. “I’m finished. Thank you.”
I clear our plates and clean up before coming to kneel before him again. After making me wait several minutes, during which my chest gets tight, he says, “You’re dismissed.”
Tears well in my eyes, but I blink them back and respond in a steady voice. “Thank you, sir.”
I moved my things into the studio while Crispin was asleep earlier, so there’s nothing to do but take the key from my pocket, unlock the door, and head down the familiar walkway. It’s early, and it’s strange to be in here with all my clothes on and for any length of time without Crispin. I’ve got some unread books on my Kindle and there’s always the big tub, but a book, a soak, work…nothing helps. I haven’t felt this adrift since I’ve been with him. It’s awful.
I turn to sleep to escape, but end up lying awake in this damn uncomfortable bed. I should have said yes. Why didn’t I say yes? I wanted to say yes. Maybe we could compromise and I could sleep on the floor? But he wouldn’t like that. Nor would I, to be honest. Everything swirls around in my head, a vortex of terribleness, and I can’t find a good answer. Not for both of us at any rate. It’s a long, anxious and unproductive couple of hours before I find sleep.
A few hours later, my eyes snap open because someone’s coming down the hall. Panic races down my spine—I thought Vera was coming first thing in the morning. Maybe she got here early and found a key?—but I recognize the unnatural gait of Crispin on his crutches. What is he doing? He used to check on me, but he wouldn’t have if he thought it would wake me and he’s not exactly in stealth mode right now. I lay still, waiting for him to make the trip down a hallway that’s never seemed so long before. My breath quickens when the doorknob turns.
He comes in and sits down heavily on the side of the bed, laying a hand on my cheek.
“Look at me.” I don’t want to obey him, but Rey taught me better than that. I blink my eyes up to his and fight to maintain my neutral expression. “I’m sorry. I was angry with you and frustrated. But that was cruel and I shouldn’t have done it. I apologize. Sleep wherever you’d like. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He’s tired, his voice heavy with all kinds of disappointments and vexations. He can’t walk properly, he can’t surf, he’s going to have a stranger in his home, he’s still in pain, his pseudo-submissive isn’t giving him what he wants, and he can’t even punish her for it. Poor Crispin. And he’s still doing his best to be a man. A good man. This is something I love about him.
He leans over and plants a kiss on my forehead before he strokes my hair a few times and struggles to his feet. He goes back the way he came, and I listen to the telltale thump of the crutches until the door on the other side of the hall shuts. Maybe I should go to him, climb into his bed, and nestle into his side. But he’s reminded me how precarious this is, so I don’t risk it. At least he’s soothed me enough that I can fall asleep within minutes instead of hours and not wake again until morning.
*
Crispin is a bear for the next few days. He doesn’t deal with frustration well, and that’s pretty much what his life consists of at the moment. I do what I can, but it’s not easy to both manage everything and pretend I’m not so he doesn’t feel entirely out of control. It’s also been two weeks that I’ve been here. While Jack has been more accommodating than I could’ve hoped, my absence has started to grate on him. And, to be truthful, on me as well. I’m not used to being Kit for long periods of time like this, and it’s difficult to snap back and forth like I have to with Vera and occasionally Mary around.
Not to mention I’m running out of things I know how to cook offhand. Luckily Crispin’s a generous critic of my attempts in the kitchen—although tonight’s meal came out well if I do say so myself, emotional dizziness notwithstanding. Vera’s disappeared herself to my room for the night, and we’re having a private dinner like we used to.
“Crispin.”
“Yes?”
“I need to start thinking about going back to San Diego. For a while at least.”
“You’re leaving?” His forkful of mahi mahi pauses in midair, and he sounds more alarmed than I thought he would. Crap.
“I’ve been gone for two weeks, and there are some things I need to take care of. You know, people I need to yell at in person.” I try to deal with business in the studio so I don’t bother him. (Talk about a mindfuck. It’s awkward to type on my laptop on a table on which I’ve been bound, gagged, fucked, and all manner of other things.) But sometimes he needs me or I get a call I have to take when I’m cooking, so he’s been privy to some JVA business and the real India Burke. His face the first time he heard me on the phone with Jack: priceless.
“Sure.”
“For a week. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
“Of course,” he mutters, pushing some rice around on his plate.
I get out of my chair and kneel by his side, resting my head on his thigh. He reflexively pets my hair.
“I don’t want to go, but I can’t lose my job. I want to be here with you, but the only way I can keep doing that is if I at least pay lip service to the rest of my life. I’m sorry.”
He pauses for the barest bit. It’s not okay. He wants me to stay. But I can’t, for lots of reasons.
“Yeah, India. Whatever you need to do.”
He’s trying, but he doesn’t mean it. He’s hurt, and my hackles rise. Why should I feel bad about this? I’ve been accommodating. I’ve put my life aside, put my career in jeopardy, neglected my best friend, and all for him. Does he not realize this is about a thousand times more than I’d do for any other person on the planet besides Rey? I’d like him to give me some credit instead of acting like I ran over his dog.
He’s been in a foul mood, and I’ve tried so hard to give him what he needs, regardless of how irrational it seems to me. For the first time, I get an inkling of what it must be like to deal with me all the damn time. It’s exhausting. But unlike top-form Crispin, I don’t have a bottomless well of patience to draw on and it’s not as if I have any place to go if I get fired.
“I’ll book a flight for tomorrow.”
“Fine.”
I want to protest and tell him he’s being a jackass, but I just take it and get up to finish my dinner. We’re eating in silence a lot these days, and I wonder how long this is going to last. Usually I’d be able to dismiss the awkwardness, put up with the discomfort until I fly home and then it’s over. But the rules have changed and I want to fix this. How do I do that? How would someone who isn’t me fix this?
A phantom Rey whispers over my shoulder. “You know, India, most people would try talking.”
He’s even annoying when he’s not real, but it’s not a terrible suggestion and I’m desperate. I rack my brain for something—anything—to discuss and finally draw something other than a blank.
“How’s your dad?”
Crispin looks surprised I’ve asked, and to be fair, it’s not my standard MO.
“He’s been better.”
“Do you not want to talk about it?”
“No, it’s fine. He’s been in and out of the hospital a lot. Not with anything major, but still. It happens every few years. He’ll take a turn for the worse, and I start to think maybe this time…” His expression shutters, as he’s drawn into some far off, disturbing place. I’m sorry I’ve asked. But his face clears, and he continues. “But I’ve been wrong every time. That old man is going to outlive us all. He just likes to fuck with us when he’s feeling neglected.”
I snort, and my amusement loosens my tongue.
“Did your parents ever meet your other subs?”
He looks surprised I’ve asked, but not as surprised as I feel. “Yeah.”
“As your subs?”
“No, as my girlfriends.” His chagrin shows up as a humorless half-smile and a shake of his head.
“How’d that go?”
“Not well. My parents were nice to them, but I could tell they didn’t particularly care for any of them. That’s not who they’d choose for me to be with. Maybe they were picking up on how I felt about them—I don’t know. They’ve never pressed me about it, though. I think they figure I’m a permanent bachelor, never going to give them grandchildren.”
“And are you?”
“A permanent bachelor or never going to give them grandchildren? It’s never been clear to me that those two things are all that closely related.”
“Either.” Desperation’s made me bold, but this is getting into the DMZ of even regular relationships. Marriage. Babies. All the things I’ve been dead-set against for as long as I can remember. I make a note to tell phantom Rey to give me more direction next time. If this is what I come up with when left to my own devices, I clearly need the help.
“I don’t know. I’ve never felt a burning desire to procreate, and my understanding is you need something like that to get you through the worst of child-rearing. I’ve been careful to not let it happen by accident. I never gave much thought to getting married.”
“Why not?” Watching my parents go at each others’ throats—sometimes literally, though my mother was always the aggressor—is the clear frontrunner in my reasons for not getting married, but Crispin’s parents are wonderful. Maybe if I’d grown up with the supportive and easygoing Ardmores instead of the unrelenting, can’t-win-for-trying Burkes, I’d feel differently.
“I realized early on that growing up watching the Mal-and-Mary show created unrealistic expectations of marital bliss. Not that they didn’t ever snipe at each other, but on the whole, they fit together. They challenge each other in the right ways. Anyway, it didn’t seem like the appropriate kind of contract to make with the women I’d been with, and you…”
He grimaces, and I laugh. “Fair.”
But if we’re going to talk about this—and it appears we are—I could at least slake some of my curiosity. I’ve been holding onto these questions for so long, it seems they’re going to come in a flood now. “And no one’s ever asked you?”
That line forms between his brows, and the corners of his mouth tug down. “Not in so many words.”
Oh? I raise an eyebrow in an invitation to please go on, and because Crispin doesn’t have the word cagey in his vocabulary—not like me, whose picture is plastered by the definition—he shrugs. “There’ve been a few women who wanted to get more serious, but I think they realized that what they wanted, I couldn’t give.”
“Marriage and babies and stuff?”
“Not necessarily. Some of them probably would’ve been content if I’d moved.”
“They wanted you to move? Why?”
Crispin’s like those critters who help keep coral alive. Zooxanthellae, that’s it. Probably the only thing I remember from the ill-advised marine biology class I took in college. While his home wouldn’t suffer as much should he be torn away—though his parents would likely sell it if he were gone—I doubt Crispin would survive long away from here. Not without turning dull and listless at any rate.
He narrows his eyes. “You know not everyone’s like you, right? Most women aren’t thrilled at the prospect of spending half their life in transit, even if they could afford it. They got sick of it, found someone else. Someone more convenient. Job market in Kona’s not great, even if they considered living out here, but for most of them, it’s way too isolated.”
Right. The very things I like about Crispin’s island hideaway wouldn’t universally be considered plusses. But that can’t be the only thing that’s kept him from being permanently attached, so I poke.
“And you didn’t… It wasn’t…” Spit it out, India. You want to know. “You were never tempted to leave?”
“My parents need me.” He says it automatically, like he’s said it a hundred times before. He probably has. But I’ve met Mary. She’s more than capable. I understand why he wouldn’t want to leave the islands, but Honolulu would offer more opportunities and for the right woman… “And there was no one I felt so strongly about that it seemed like a reasonable trade-off. There were a few who thought about staying anyway, but why give up your life for a guy who doesn’t seem all that busted up at the idea of you walking away?”
I’ve always liked that Crispin is so warm. Having tasted the odd cold snap, though, I can imagine how those women must’ve felt. If he got defensive, aloof, it would’ve been like the sun going out. No, I can’t imagine they would’ve wanted to live in the shadow of what they’d lost, not knowing if he would ever heat up again.
And though I have a laundry list of unreasonable demands, insisting he leave this place wouldn’t be one of them.
“I wouldn’t ask you to do that.”
“I know.”
The tone of his response is indecipherable. I shake my head, embarrassed. I should shut my mouth before I give up anything else. Like that I’ve thought about how it might be to have more than a weekend-long contract with him.
Not that I’m clamoring to walk down the aisle, but I’m beginning to understand why people might find marriage not abhorrent. At least if they could find a man like Crispin. Possessiveness wells in my chest at the thought of anyone else having him. Mine. I interrupt the awkward silence, desperate to sink my claws a little deeper, even if I can’t give him what he wants because I have to go back to real life. Instead, I offer a farewell gift.
“Want to have a sleepover?”
*
In the morning, I wake to a warm body next to mine. I’m in Crispin’s bed. He’s not touching me, but his eyes are open, watching, waiting for me. I scoot over under the sheet to curl against him, and he takes me under his arm, holding me close. When’s the last time I woke to a man who wasn’t Rey without having sex immediately preceding it?
Oh. This is unexpected. But welcome. It’s been too long since we’ve fooled around, and this is enough to start a pleasant low burn in my belly. If he slipped his fingers inside of me—hell, if he put anything inside me—he’d find me ready. Days and days of affectionate contact have primed the pump of my desire, and the feel of him beside me is stoking a flame of something other than tenderness. No, this is straight-up I want to jump his bones.
I slide my hand over his stomach—still hard despite his inability to get out on his board or go for a swim—and over that muscular notch peculiar to men that defines his hip. I tease him, fingertips grazing the curve of his butt, skimming the back of his thigh. Rolling up to kneel beside him, I draw down the sheet. He’s not wearing any clothes. I don’t know if he usually sleeps naked—a good thing, otherwise I would’ve crawled into his bed before now.
“I see you’re feeling better.”
He’s swept his arms up, and his hands are resting behind his head; he’s at peace in his body. And why wouldn’t he be? He’s a masterpiece honed by the ocean. A work of art with a hard-on.
“Some.”
The word must kill him, but it’s his way of saying we can’t play like we usually would. We’ll have to find another way to enjoy each other. I inventory his injuries—the ones that have healed, the ones that are mending, and the ones that still cause him pain. If I’m careful…
I straddle him below his ribcage and lean down to kiss him, asking if he’s okay before I do. He answers with an aggressive kiss, claiming my mouth with his. More than okay.
I slide my hands from his elbows to his palms in offering, and he takes my wrists and puts them behind my back, holding them together. This mild bondage is enough to make me rock my hips, seeking relief. I kiss him how I’d like to fuck him, hoping to exhaust my pent-up frustration with twisting, seeking tongues and bruising lips. A desperate, I missed you. I am missing you. I will miss you.