The Charlotte Chronicles

by Jen Frederick

  “Yes.” He licks his lips. “I’m going to fuck you in this. Spread your legs.”

  His hot eyes rove over me with greedy raw desire. I do as he commands. A wild urge overtakes me, and I dip my French-tipped fingernails between my legs, rubbing the very parts that he had just sucked and licked until I was shuddering with passion.

  “Fuck,” he hisses.

  The momentum has shifted, and I feel infused with power.

  “Take off your pants,” I order. He responds with hasty, jerky motions. His pants are ripped off, and his hard desire juts out proudly from the curls of hair between his legs. I want to investigate his length with my hands and tongue. Sweeping my legs under me, I attempt to rise, but he falls forward.

  “Oh no, you don’t. One lick and I’m coming all over your tits,” he says, crudely pushing me down. “And tonight? Tonight, I’m filling you up.” He rolls on a condom and takes his hot shaft in his hand and arrows into my ready heat. The staff between his legs is his real weapon, and he wields it mercilessly within my delicate flesh. Each stroke of his hips, each deep thrust is made with deliberate intent. On either side of my head he braces an arm. The prominent veins in his forearm proclaim the effort of his restraint.

  I wriggle beneath him. The tight corset binds me like a rope, constricting my breathing and heightening every sensation. He is everywhere. Inside me, surrounding me. The smell of his plain soap and clean sweat invades my head. Above me are acres of golden, muscled skin. And between my legs is the relentless invasion of him against my most intimate nerves.

  “I’m ready,” I moan.

  “Not yet,” is his dark response. His hips thrust and drag against mine, compelling me to some place I’ve never been. His clever tongue laves across my collarbone, up the delicate column of my throat to cleave to my mouth.

  The sure, heavy strokes drive me deeper into the vortex of sensation. I grab at his arms, slick with perspiration as they strain to hold his body over mine, to hold his passion at bay until I’m there. At the ephemeral mountain that he keeps inexorably pushing me toward. Upward, forward, until the air is so thin, so wispy, so scant that I can only gasp in tiny, short breaths.

  He does something with his body, some infinitesimal movement of his hips, some special caress deep within, and I can’t hold on anymore. My grip on his arms loosens, and I dive into the spiral of sexual euphoria as the waves of pleasure crash over me. His eyes gleam with triumph as I fall.

  “Tell me you’re mine,” he demands.

  His heavy chest pins me to the mattress as he powers to his own release. Elbows replace hands beside my head and hunger stretches the skin taut across his cheekbones.

  “I’m yours. Now. Always,” I manage to choke out.

  The words of submission light him up, and he tenses and then throws back his head shouting out his climax for so long and so loudly I fear the walls of The Drake Hotel might come down.

  * * *

  Nathan

  I roll to the side so I don’t crush her. I should be exhausted. The day was long and tiring. Even on short notice, there were plenty of guests at the house wanting to congratulate us or maybe just stare at the spectacle we’d become. Charlotte’s flat stomach was the subject of not-so-quiet whispers. I wish that was the reason we married so quickly. Instead, her negative pregnancy test was met with relief on all sides. If she had been pregnant? I shudder at the dilemma that would have presented.

  The doctor warned me that we’d have to use prophylactics, as birth control pills couldn’t be trusted during treatment. He’d also suggested that sex might be too tiresome for her. In fact, his whole private discussion with me while Charlotte was receiving treatment was how I should keep my dick in my pants.

  I had to stifle my urge to punch him. I went nine years without. A few months of celibacy while I still get to hold my girl in my arms? That’s a cakewalk.

  For now, though, I’m taking advantage. This is our goddamn honeymoon after all.

  Charlotte lies in boneless repletion next to me. As pretty as her underwear is, I know she’ll be more comfortable out of it. Besides, I have a strong yen to see her tits unbound and suck on her nipples.

  A perusal of her front reveals no obvious fastenings. As I turn her over, a murmur of protest escapes.

  “I need a minute,” she sighs. “Maybe ten.”

  “Take all the time you need.” I kiss her bare shoulder. “But I bet you’ll be more comfortable if we take this straight jacket off.”

  “I thought you liked the straight jacket.”

  “I love the straight jacket, but I think your squashed internal organs probably need to breathe.”

  “You just want to look at my breasts.”

  “That too.”

  The corset has a silk cord interwoven between tiny eyelet holes and fastened at the base of her spine with a familiar mooring hitch with the one tie serving as the stationary object. A quick tug on the loop releases it. A shudder of relief chases up her spine. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say a sailor was in the sunporch tying these knots.”

  “It was your mom. Maybe it’s all those years of sailing.”

  A memory flashes before me of a rope lying half under the bed in my parents’ room. I shake my head quickly to dispel the image of my mother, rope, and a bed all in one setting. Instead, I concentrate on the pale skin before me. The corset sides fall away to reveal deep red marks running vertically along her frame.

  “Poor baby. Do these hurt?” I press my thumbs against her shoulder muscles in long sweeping motions from the curve of her neck to the arm and back again.

  She groans in delight. “No, but that feels good. Don’t stop.”

  I apply myself with dedication to kneading out any soreness or cramping. Along the bruises made by the corset, I soften my touch. Around us is our wedding finery—my uniform that I’ve never treated so callously, her expensive dress, and fancy underwear.

  “You’re my wife, Charlotte,” I exclaim in quiet wonderment.

  After all this time, all of our years apart, after her disease, my fucked up head, we’re together. Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Jackson. She’s mine until time folds this world up and moves on. And even then, I imagine we’ll be two atoms bonded together floating out into the great unknown.

  “Mmmhmmm,” is her sleepy response.

  I keep massaging until her breath evens out and deepens and I know she is asleep. The bed in here is destroyed, but I manage to set one side to rights and tuck her in. Folding my body around her, I close my eyes and follow her down with a smile.

  We make love for the next two days, stopping only to rest. The rest of the time, I’m touching her, inside of her, covering her. When we have breakfast, I hold her on my lap and feed her with one hand while the other one fingers her curls and rubs her pussy. When we shower, I take her up against the tiles, my arm holding her tight against my body as I pound into her from behind. The water sluices over us making everything slippery and wet.

  This place has six rooms and a dozen flat surfaces. I’ve fucked her on all of them at least twice. By the day of her treatment, she is bruised, worn, and never looked more gorgeous.

  When a knock on the door sounds, I think it’s room service and open the door. Leaving it ajar, I walk toward the bar where my wallet is. “Come in. You can put it on the coffee table by the sofas.”

  “Chief,” the voice at the door says. I spin around because no room service wait staff is going to call me chief. The gold bars on his uniform mark him as a lieutenant junior grade.

  “No.” It slips out involuntarily.

  “Sorry.” And he is. The officer rocks back on his heels, as awkward and unhappy as I am.

  “Is it room service?” Charlotte calls. She meanders out of the bedroom, swallowed up in the hotel robe and looking sexy and disheveled. Her hair is a rat’s nest, and her gorgeous skin is flushed with exertion.

  The officer can’t stop gawking at her. I clear my throat, and his gaze falls to the floor.

  “Y
our phone is off, and you were unavailable. According to section—”

  I cut him off. “What is it?”

  “You need to come in ASAP.”

  Of course I do. “I’m on shore leave.”

  “Not anymore, Chief.”

  He apparently isn’t leaving until I go with him. Charlotte presses her lips together and disappears into the bedroom. Inside she is throwing my clothes into a case. There are a million things I want to do right now and none of them include leaving her. Throwing the LT out the window is one. Slamming the suitcase shut and shoving it in the back of the hotel closet is another. Tossing her onto the bed and ramming myself into the wet heat of her body is on the top of the list.

  Leaving is way down on the bottom. It’s not even on the list.

  Charlotte can read every sad and sorry thought. “Even if you wanted to quit, you’d still have this mission or training exercise or super secret adventure, so you have to go.”

  I don’t want her to be right, so I keep my mouth shut.

  She runs over to the desk and pulls out The Drake Hotel stationery and shoves it into the suitcase. “You write me every night, no matter what, and it’ll be just like you were here.”

  Grabbing my robe lapels, she pulls me down and plants a bruising kiss on my lips. The force of her kiss is the first—and maybe only—indication she’s not happy.

  “I can’t send mail all the time.”

  “Save them up and send them when you can.” She throws underwear and then jeans and then a T-shirt at me. I catch them and start dressing.

  “I didn’t write before in part because I’ve got zip to say. I’m shit at writing.”

  “This isn’t for me, it’s for you, babe.”

  I pause in zipping up my jeans and watch her as she dresses. Delicate blue and white polka dotted panties and matching bra are quickly covered by a slouchy silk blouse in a navy blue trimmed with white over a pencil thin pair of navy pants that stop around her calves. “How so?”

  “You feel guilty leaving me, right?”

  “Right.”

  Guilty and mad. She pulls out her hair from the back of her shirt and attacks it with a brush. I’ve gotten so little time with her, I think, I can’t leave now. All these little intimacies that I’m getting acquainted with are being taken away, and I want to howl like a toddler at the unfairness of it.

  “I need to be here with you,” I argue. “You’re just starting treatment.”

  “There’s nothing you can do here but hold my hand. I’ve got a lot of people to do that. I have only one Nathan who owes me a shit ton of letters. Write me all those letters you owed me during the nine years we were separated.”

  The reminder of my delinquency makes me wince. “I’m supposed to be your shield.”

  “You are,” she says patiently. “You’re merely going to be farther away. Writing me every night will be doing something for me. I’ll look forward to getting your letters, and eventually you’ll think of me reading them and we’ll be connected.”

  “It’s not the same thing.” Shit, am I whining? I think I am.

  “It will mean a lot to me.” She zips my suitcase shut and then pulls it off the bed. Her struggle with the luggage rouses me out of my stupor, and I rush over to take it from her. I push my feet into my boots and heft the case in my hand.

  “Writing a few words every night?” Color me skeptical.

  “Yes. Every night. Consider it your homework assignment.”

  Our argument, if we even had one, is over and I’ve lost. She’s pushing me out the door with one hand, and the Navy is pulling me with the other. Resigned, I grab her before she walks out the door. I don’t want our last moments to be morose. “I’m only doing this if we get to play teacher/student when I get back.”

  She smirks. “I have no problem slapping your fingers with a ruler.”

  “I was thinking of being the teacher, but if you want to dress up in a pencil skirt and have me nail you against a desk, I’m for that too.”

  She places a palm against my cheek. “You come back to me safe and sound, and we’ll play out any fantasy you’d like.”

  I capture her mouth. The LT can cool his heels until I kiss my woman goodbye. I pour everything I have into the kiss, and she gives it back a hundred fold until we are left gasping and clutching each other.

  My forehead meets hers, and we rest against each other trying to catch our breaths. “I am your shield, your weapon. Fight for me too, Charlotte.”

  She wraps her arms around my neck and buries her face into my chest. Through the thin fabric of my shirt, I feel the wetness of her tears dampen the cotton. “Our love will never die.”

  At the LT’s cough, I separate from her and lift my bag. I don’t look back because if I do I won’t ever be able to leave.

  46

  Dear Charlotte,

  I can’t tell you where I am. I can’t tell you what I’m doing. I don’t even know if I can tell you who I’m doing it with, although you can probably guess. Looking back it’s possible that my letter writing never took off because I never had much to say. What I know is I miss you like mad. You said that these letters would make us feel more connected, but they only remind me how far away you are. The morning after we learned you had cancer, you woke before me. The sheets were cold, and I had this terrible fear that you were gone.

  Fight hard for me baby. I can’t imagine this life without you.

  Missing you,

  Nate

  * * *

  Dear Nathan,

  You were right. If you had told me when I was in Switzerland that you were going to enlist, I would have thrown myself at your feet and begged you to stay. I realize now why I got sent away. It was because I wasn’t strong enough to stand on my own two feet. At sixteen, though, few of us are, so I’m not going to beat myself up over it. But I leaned on you and Nick far too much.

  In hindsight it is so obvious. With an ocean between us, I could concentrate on my sole mission of getting better. When I was near you, I wanted to pretend that I was a normal high school student who could keep doing all the things she had been doing. I’m sorry I placed the burden on you. And yes, it was a burden, even if you protest that you wanted to carry it. We were all too young for those kinds of expectations. And I was too fearful of everything.

  Radiation and chemo are a lot easier this time around. I know what to expect. There’s no real uncertainty. It doesn’t hurt that I have such an amazing view. And your mother has been tremendous. Two days ago, she came in with her box of letters and read a couple that your dad had sent when he was deployed. He was so poetic! I think I made him blush with all my compliments about his mad correspondence skills.

  I’m sleepy now. I need to be ready for surgery in a few weeks, so I’m going to put away my writing materials and get some rest. Learning to pay attention to my body is a lesson I’m still learning.

  Love you,

  Charlotte

  * * *

  Dear Charlotte,

  I don’t know when you’ll receive these letters. The mail doesn’t go out on a regular basis. Although that’s probably more than I should be saying. Did I ever tell you that Cab reads poetry? His mom is a high school English teacher, and she got him hooked on Walt Whitman and E.E. Cummings. Whitman, if you aren’t familiar with his work, didn’t believe in rhyming. I told Cab that I was more of a Dr. Seuss man myself.

  Not much makes Cab recoil in horror, but that was one of them. Since our first deployment, he’s been shoving Whitman down my throat. We’re bunking together, as we always do, and he’s reading it out loud. There’s a whole section in Leaves of Grass about love. I think we skipped that in American Lit at North Prep. The only poet I remember is Cummings because Nick and I laughed like the juveniles we were at his last name. Cummings. HA HA HA. Right?

  I also remembered he’d written that poem about fog and a cat. Oh shit, apparently that’s not Cummings but Carl Sandberg. Your mom told me this in the kitchen after I snuck out of your ro
om after spending the night. Our first night. Should I be proud that I know the names of more than one poet or ashamed that I’m messing them all up?

  Cab says the perfect passage for you isn’t Whitman at all but from Alfred Tennyson.

  Oh heart, are you great enough for love?

  I have heard of thorns and briers.

  Over the thorns and briers,

  Over the meadows and stiles,

  Over the world to the end of it.

  Flash of a million miles.

  Love your now learned husband,

  Nathan

  * * *

  Dear Nathan,

  You wrote me poetry.

  You wrote me poetry!

  Yes, I realize that you were transcribing someone else’s words but poetry? In a letter? I about orgasmed on the spot. Yes, orgasmed. ;) <- that’s an old school smiley face. I have to type my letters because holding a pen in my hand is a little challenging. It’s cramped from over use. Hmm, what’s the evil smiley face?

  Don’t worry though. Masturbating is never going to be as good as you touching me. Are you scandalized I’m writing this? I can’t help it. God, it just occurs to me that maybe someone prescreens your mail for security purposes?

  I should just go all out. I miss your body, the warm drag of your lips along my skin. I love your big hands and how they make me feel protected and delicate. When I close my eyes, I replay a few of our interludes. I have favorites, but I’m not going to tell you what they are until you get back because I’m evil like that.

  Hornily yours,

  Charlotte

  * * *

  Dear Charlotte,

  Jesus Fucking Christ, baby. If poetry gets you to write dirty letters to me, I’ll just copy the entire volume of Leaves of Grass in each letter. No, my letters aren’t prescreened, and if they were, someone just got an unfortunate boner.