Reclaim

by Beth Yarnall

  “Well. It’s late.” She pops up and off me. “We should get to bed if we’re going to get an early start tomorrow. Lots to do like bring down a DA and his prostitution ring.”

  “You’re amazing.”

  She looks at me sharply. “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not? It’s true.”

  “Do you have an extra toothbrush I could borrow?”

  “Come back here.” I pat my lap.

  “It’s late.”

  “I’m not coming onto you.”

  “Maybe you should be.”

  “Why? So you can distract me from giving you compliments?”

  “Because this is only supposed to be about sex.”

  “Except that it’s not.”

  There’s a war in her eyes. She wants to deny it, but there’s too much evidence to the contrary. Instead she does what she does best, her expression morphing from challenging to seductive. Her hips have an extra sway as she walks back to me. She straddles my lap and tangles her fingers in my hair. I’m going to give in to her because I can’t stop myself from doing anything else. My want for her is a constant thing, buzzing through my veins and clouding my head.

  She grinds her pussy against the zipper of my jeans and that buzz becomes a roar. She’s going to make this, like everything else, about sex, but she’s not fooling either of us. I play along, kissing her deep and long like I’ve fallen for her trap when in reality I willingly tipped head first into it. She exposes herself to me in inches. This ploy is her not being able to say what she’s feeling so she shows me. I watch and learn and give her what she wants, while getting what I want—more of her.

  I undo my pants, lifting her as I raise up to shove them down my legs. She makes a move to drop to the floor like she’s going to suck me off, but I catch her.

  “Ride me,” I command, handing her a condom from the stash I now keep in the office. “Backward.”

  She smiles at me like she’s won. I let her think that as she climbs off me and strips. Her body is a wonder to me, all roundness and curves. I could stare at her forever. She pulls my pants the rest of the way off and then bends forward. Her tits brush my thighs as she licks me, swirling her tongue around the head of my dick. I make an approving sound that comes out as more of a growl. She laughs and places a chaste kiss on the tip before rolling the condom on. There’s no shyness in the way she turns around and presents her ass to me. I guide her down onto me, watching the way my cock disappears and then reappears with each movement.

  Gripping her hips, I glide in and out of her, keeping the pace slow and steady. I fight the urge to thrust high and hard into her. This is about and what I need to show her. We’re not just screwing. You don’t share the things she’s shared with a fuck buddy. It doesn’t matter how she thinks she’s cataloged me. I’m more. We’re more.

  Her fingers dig into my thighs. She’s close. Very close and so am I. I give her want she wants. Her first orgasm nearly strangles me with its intensity. I can’t hold on. Thrusting deep, I empty myself inside her. For a flash of a second all I am is where I’m connected to her. Everything else blacks out, then refires like the staccato of gunfire. I’m hyper conscious of everything about her. The way her hair drapes across my chest, her heavy breaths, how hot and alive she feels around me, and how necessary she’s become to me.

  I have to make her want me the way I want her, show her we can be more than this animalistic rutting. Pulling her back against me, I use my fingers on her clit and tit to make her come again. Her head falls back onto my shoulder as she cries out.

  In her ear I urgently whisper, “You’re mine.”

  20

  Lila

  He’s not playing fair. Doesn’t he understand that this can’t be what he wants? It’s already more than it should be. I went too far sharing those things with him. Instead of pushing him away it had the opposite effect. He sees my confession as proof that we can be a real couple in a real relationship, that there’s hope for a future. There is no hope. There is no future.

  Even as I tell myself these things his insistent words pulse through me with the last waves of my orgasm. You’re mine.

  This round was supposed to be me showing him what we are. Instead he showed me what we could be and I want it. I want it more than I want to fight against it. But he doesn’t know everything about me. The truth looms large over everything else—I’m deeply, deeply flawed. He only sees the scars on the surface, only has a hint of the shame. The secret is too big. It’s just too big.

  He’s going to keep pushing, keep trying to get me to see what I already know. I’ll have to show him. Vomit crawls up the back of my throat at the thought of it. I imagine myself opening the door, revealing everything to him a little at a time. As we go through it I picture his disbelief, then revulsion, and finally his rejection. It’s too overwhelming. He won’t be able to handle it.

  Suddenly feeling claustrophobic, I push against his arms tightly banded around me. His hold is too tight. It’s too much. He makes me feel too much.

  “Let me go.”

  “Why? So you can seduce me again?” The bitterness in his laugh makes me flinch. “That’s going to take a while. I can rebound pretty fast for you, but not fast enough for you to be able to distract me from getting the answers I want right now.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Make me.”

  I shake my head.

  “Lila.” He shifts so we’re a little more reclined in the chair. “You don’t get it, do you? I’m not going anywhere. We can keep playing these games, hell, a sick part of me actually likes them. It’s like my goddamned catnip. But we’ll just keep coming right back to this point.”

  He’s right. I know he’s right. I can see us months from now. Every time he gets an inch too close I’ll ripe my clothes off or drop to my knees in front of him and then we’ll be right back where we started. The thought of it makes my breath catch. I can’t keep doing this to him, to us, but I’m not brave enough to make it stop. Selfishly I don’t want this to be over. I’m not any happier than he is with the situation, but when faced with the choice I’d keep things exactly they way they are. The only other alternative is to lose him.

  “I know,” I tell him. “I know.”

  “What is it? Are you not who you say you are? Did you kill someone? What? What could be so bad that you can’t share it with me?”

  “You’re not going to understand.”

  “Try me.”

  My heart speeds up. The panic crawls over me like a million tiny ants. Sweat pops out all over my body and I shiver, suddenly cold despite his warmth at my back. If I show him I have to face it, really face it. The enormity of it all is too much. I’m overwhelmed. It’s too big. I try to lick my lips to talk, but my mouth is dry and the words stick.

  “I…I have to show you.” My mouth suddenly fills with saliva. I can’t believe I’m doing this.

  “Okay. Show me.”

  I push at his arms. This time he releases me and I bolt for the bathroom. I barely make it in time to throw up. He gathers my hair and holds it, while I shake over the bowl. Rubbing my back, he murmurs words that don’t soothe me. I close the lid and lay my head on my arms, trying to catch my breath. The plastic is cold and a new shiver runs through me.

  “I’m sorry.” He presses his face against my back and holds me. “Forget everything I said. You don’t have to do this.”

  “No.” My voice comes out as a rough rasp. “I need to. I need to show you.”

  He helps me stand and waits while I rinse out my mouth, then hands me a new toothbrush and toothpaste. I wish I knew what he was thinking. I’m a freak. I know I am. I must look like a crazy lady to him. He has no idea just how crazy my life is. I try to steal myself against his reaction while we dress and get in the car. I tell him to take me to my place.

  He doesn’t say a word on the drive over. He doesn’t extend a second offer to give me way out. He doesn’t want to let me off the hook. He wants to know what I
’m hiding more than he wants to hold on to what little we have now. I childishly cling to that, turning it into resentment against him that morphs into anger. He’s doing this to us. He’s the one pushing, looking for a way out. Well, I’m going to give it to him. He’ll realize I was right all along. He can’t handle it. He can’t handle me. We should’ve just kept it about sex and nothing else.

  I’m out of the car before it comes to a complete stop. He catches up to me just as I unlock my front door.

  “You want to know what my big secret is well, here you go.” I push the door open as far as it will go and flip on the light.

  There’s enough room for me to slip past him and inside. I don’t turn back to see if he’s following. I know he is. I stop a few feet away and turn to look at him. He maneuvers through the entrance and then halts. His gaze roams the room, taking everything in. There’s a lot to see. The stacks of things are nearly as tall as he is. I stand at the end of the narrow path that branches out to the bathroom and kitchen. He says nothing, but his expression says everything. Just as I’d feared—shock, disbelief, revulsion. All of it flashes across his face. He doesn’t even try to hide it. I’m not sure he could.

  His hands fist in his pockets and his jaw hardens. He doesn’t look at me. I’m not going to cry, I tell myself even as the first tear falls. Despite the way it looks I feel safe here. This is my cocoon, my place to hide from the world. It might look like piles and piles of junk, but these things—my things—mean more to me than anyone or anything in the world.

  I know what he’s thinking. I know what I am. There are shows about my condition that people watch for entertainment. They laugh and make fun of it. They think the people they see living in houses packed to the rafters with stuff are crazy. They don’t understand. This I control. Everything outside of here is completely out of my control. I’ve built walls both mental and physical, barricading myself against the world. I know all of this about myself. I know what all of this looks like to other people. But to me, it’s a haven. It’s safe. It’s the one thing that makes me feel like I have some sense of power.

  Nolan’s really making an effort. I’ll give him that. He hasn’t blurted out the first thing that came to mind. He hasn’t asked me why or how could I? He didn’t even gasp. He just stands there, taking it all in. When his gaze finally lands on me what I see in his dark gaze is pity. It makes me take a step back. That’s the last thing I want from him. His anger and frustration I can handle. His quiet disappointment and sympathy is more than I can deal with.

  “Now do you see?” I lash out. “Now do you see why we can’t be together?”

  He shakes his head. I’m not sure if he doesn’t know what to say or if he doesn’t quite trust himself to say the right thing.

  “This is what you wanted,” I taunt. “Now you know my secret. Happy now?”

  More head shaking.

  “Get out.” I point at the open door. “Just get out.”

  His head still moves back and forth, but he doesn’t say anything. He just keeps staring at me like I let him down. He feels sorry for me. I can’t take that. It makes my skin feel itchy and too tight.

  “Get out!”

  “No,” he finally says.

  “Stop looking at me like that!”

  My face and neck are wet from the tears I don’t hold back. He may as well see all of it, all of me. I don’t have anything else left to hide. I open my arms as wide as I can, accidentally hitting a stack of stuff and ironically knocking a box of trash bags into the cleared path.

  “This is it,” I yell. “This is what you wanted to see. You made me do this. Don’t stand there and say nothing. Not now. Where are all of your you can tell me anything’s and there’s nothing you could do or say to drive me away’s? The it won’t change the way I feel about you’s? I told you that you couldn’t handle it, but you kept insisting. Well, here it is. Here it all is.”

  “Just give me a goddamned minute, okay?”

  “No. Tell me we’re possible now, Nolan. Tell me how none of this matters. Go on, do it.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  I laugh. “Who are you trying to convince, me or you? Because I’m not convinced, Nolan. I never was. I told you from the beginning this would never work, but you had to push it, didn’t you?”

  He runs a hand through his hair and looks around the room again like he’s searching for an answer. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You were more believable the first time you said it.”

  “What do you want from me?” He makes an angry, all-encompassing gesture. “Would you just give me a fucking minute here? This is a lot to take in.”

  “Take your time. Nothing’s going to change.”

  I swipe at my face, angry with myself for holding out the smallest, barest hint of hope that we can somehow work through this. I hug myself and glare at him, watching him, waiting for the questions I know will come. Questions I don’t have any answers for.

  “How long?” he asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does your family know about this?”

  “No. No one knows. Except you.”

  “You’re so on top of everything else…”

  Like I can stop this at any time, like I would want to stop it.

  “Maybe if you saw a counselor or talked to someone…” He’s trying to fix this, fix me.

  I don’t give him any hope or make promises I can’t keep.

  He picks up a stack of junk mail. “Aren’t there specialists…organizers…something that could help?”

  I give him a shrug. There probably is, but I don’t know that I want anyone in here telling me what to do. He sets the mail back down and I let out the breath I was holding. I don’t like people touching my things.

  He turns in a tight circle, still trying to take everything in. “Is the whole place like this?”

  When he faces me again I give him a curt nod.

  “Show me.”

  I carefully step into the path to the bedroom and motion for him to go ahead of me toward the kitchen. He picks his way forward. I try to see it through his eyes. There’s a small spot cleared on the counter that’s big enough to put a bowl or plate down. The rest of the kitchen is cluttered and dirty and basically unusable. The stove broke and I never had it fixed. The sink is unusable hence the reason I have to get water for the coffee pot from the bathroom.

  He takes a breath through his nose and takes the same slow perusal of the space that he did in the living room. His gaze snags on the dining area where I created a small niche for myself.

  He points to it. “What’s that?”

  “Where I sleep.”

  His jaw moves like he’s grinding his back teeth.

  “You want to see the rest?”

  He gives a jerky nod and moves out of the kitchen. I follow him down the path to the bedroom and bathroom. The doors to both are open, too crammed with stuff to close. The bathroom is somewhat serviceable, but the bedroom is packed. This is where I keep things like old clothes and broken things I can’t throw away, things I found and things I bought. I’m suddenly fiercely possessive of them and how he might be judging them, judging me.

  “Have you seen enough?” I ask, defensive. “Are you done yet?”

  He inclines his head and goes back the way he came, straight for the front door. He doesn’t look back at me. He just bolts like he’s suddenly been sprung free and he can’t wait to get out. The door slams behind him. I give it a glance and then head to my bed and lie down. Curling up in a ball, I let the tears come. My body shakes and my throat is raw.

  I told him we’d never work out. Looks like he finally believes me.

  21

  Nolan

  I stumble out into the parking lot and bend over, clutching my knees and trying to pull in air. I’m suffocating. Somehow I slide to the ground next to my car. It’s too much. I can’t take in everything I saw. There was just so much. Of everything. It was everywhere. I wouldn’t even know where t
o start to clear it all out. Lila looked at all of that junk like it was the most important thing in the world. I’d give anything to have her look at me like that. I let out a laugh that sounds more like a sob.

  Fuck that’s stupid.

  I press the heels of my palms into my eyes, rubbing at the unexpected wetness. I don’t know what to do or say. This is so far out of my comprehension I can’t grasp at any thoughts. I don’t know what to make of it. How did that happen? Why can’t she make it stop? How are we going to get past this? All of the daydreams I had of us being a couple, someday living together, come crashing down in bitter chunks around me. She warned me. She told me I shouldn’t get close. I can’t say she didn’t. I foolishly, selfishly ignored her, pushing all of her protests away like they were puny, inconsequential objections.

  I built it all up in my mind. We were bigger than any issue she had. We could get past anything together. I pull in a ragged breath. Except this, I realize. This is all her. None of it is me or us. There is no pushing this aside. She wants her compulsion more than she wants me. That’s a hard blow to take. It knocks the wind out of me and sends me reeling. I can’t fix her. Jesus. God. I was such an idiot. So goddamned naïve and stupid. Just dumb. So dumb.

  I picture her face wet with tears, standing there in the middle of all of that chaos, knowing I couldn’t handle what she was showing me. Why did I have to keep pushing her? What had I been thinking? I suck in deep breaths, trying to get some control. I don’t know whether to punch something, go to her and demand answers or just walk away from it all. My first instinct is to get in my car and leave. I tamp it down, ashamed at the thought.

  I should go to her. Maybe we can work this out. Maybe I can talk her into getting help. Maybe if she had enough support… Those are all lies. We can’t work this out. If she wanted help she would’ve already gotten it regardless of how much support she had. She’s not a weak willed person…and yet she is. There’s a whole house packed full of shit to prove it.