Paper Dolls

by Emma Chamberlain

  I was willing to let my fear of not being enough fall aside. I couldn’t torture myself with it. There were so many other things lurking in the dark to frighten me. It wasn’t worth it. To deprive yourself of happiness because you didn’t think you deserved it. That was not what I wanted for her. She deserved more than that.

  I acted on it, kissing her softly, not insistent. It wasn’t an attempt to shut her up or throw away her fears.

  I couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or what but as soon as I kissed her I felt her lips press to mine and her hand come to tug at my neck insistently. Her heart beneath my hand beat and beat as the wind whipped by.

  “Is this okay?” I whispered.

  I’d probably frustrated the hell out of her with my inability to respond to her doubts in what she considered a logical manner.

  “I could never walk away from you because you don’t think you’re enough for me. I am way too selfish and I want you too much.”

  I let her stand, not retreating but not getting any closer. This whole night was an interesting exchange and I knew she felt bad but I didn’t. If anything, I was invigorated. The alcohol was still in full effect.

  “I’m not asking you to walk away,” she whispered so surprisingly meek and so quiet. “I can’t believe you’re still here. Even now. I can’t believe it.”

  She might've been drunk. She might’ve been unaware of what she was saying but she was serious. She was really serious.

  “Baby, I don’t want to be anywhere else. Crazy as that sounds.”

  This discussion was not new and I didn’t think we’d ever fully address it until we were past all of this. Maybe years…

  “You’re kind and loving and loyal and you see people, all of them. That’s rare. You don’t believe it but you’re not like anyone else I’ve ever met. Just be you. That’s enough for me. It always has been and it always will be.”

  I didn’t want to wrap things up in pretty packages. I just told her the truth and she felt like I wasn’t seeing what she was trying to say. I SAW IT. I just didn’t agree with her. She could never convince me that she was less than. And frankly, it was kind of insulting.

  “Ya know, I kinda want you to beat me up,” she said honestly. “You can say nice things but that shit just doesn’t work with me. It can never fix me. It just can’t. I’ll always think it’s coming from some other place. That’s just how I am.”

  “So, you want me to beat you? That’s gonna fix you?”

  I shook my head, smiling and pushing my body against the rail. I needed to know where this was coming from and what kind of beating she was talking about. Like we’d done before. Did she just want me to hit her like I had when I’d spanked her or was she thinking that I was actually going to get violent with her. It couldn’t be the latter.

  “Nothing can fix me,” she said, shaking her head and knowing it was true. “Just… Forget I said it. It doesn’t matter.”

  I took her arm and pulled her in. “Of course it matters.” My grip was tight on her arm and she peered at me with this energy that felt electric.

  I kissed her, pushing her into the railing and taking her over. I needed to stop these thoughts in her. I wanted her to feel only me, not fear or doubt. My hand sank into her hair and I pulled it hard enough for her to feel a little pain.

  She gasped, eyes opening to me, seeing me more clearly. The alcohol had calmed her but when I touched her she saw me and recognized and approved. I could see it in her when I touched her. She wasn’t out in the darkness or the waves. She was back with me. I had her safe.

  I moved her head to the side and kissed her neck, leaving little marks as I went. When I moved my tongue over her pulse point I dragged my teeth along her skin and brought them together, biting and sucking until she lost focus and moaned.

  I wanted her right now but I wasn’t going to risk her going over the balcony. I turned, pulling her to safer ground and picking her up and carrying her over to the table that sat just to the side of the ledge.

  When I set her down the legs of the table thudded against the concrete from being off balance and I immediately pulled the skirt of her dress up so that I could pull her underwear down and off. I needed to be inside of her.

  I put myself between her legs and watched her face as I slid my fingers into her, loving the warmth and love that washed over me.

  “Uh,” she let out a small surprised moan and I watched her eyes instantly roll. The alcohol slowed her down and I could tell she loved what I was doing.

  She wasn't smiling, that wasn't how I could tell. There was just something about her reactions that made me sure. Alcohol had a tendency to slow her down. It made her true feelings fully visible to me.

  She was always wet for me, always ready. Right now though she was also sort of lazy and in her own brand of haze.

  As I pushed into her, her head fell back a bit. She was trying to hold herself up with her hands behind her on the table but she was definitely tipsy and already wanting to get lost in the pleasure entirely.

  As I pulled out slow and subtle she pushed her body closer to mine and held an arm around my neck while her other hand tugged at my shirt sleeve and my skin beneath.

  When I pushed inside her again I could hear her desperately breathing. Her warm breath touched my ear.

  This was another reaffirmation. It was right and good. I was generous in my touches, moving the table, with the force and motion.

  It helped. She no longer looked troubled. She was lost in me.

  “I love when you fuck me,” she rasped through a breathy whimper. “Makes me feel less stupid.”

  “Then I'll do it all the time,” I explained.

  I had to keep hold of her with my other hand. It meant I couldn't touch her where I wanted. There was so much of her body that lay before me. A temptation I could only think on.

  My attention was on her face and how it changed with the differences in pressure and position.

  I pulled my fingers out of her and lifted her up, flipping her body. She was on her stomach now. If I couldn't touch her the way I wanted I'd do it this way.

  I put my hands on her hips and rubbed her back with my thumbs, digging into the muscles there. I wanted her to miss me inside. I slipped one hand down to her butt and grabbed her.

  “Do you like this?” I asked.

  “Which part,” she gasped, taken.

  I moved my hand back over her smooth ass brought it down. My palm hit her skin with a crack.

  “That part.”

  “Ahhh,” she gasped, relieved.

  I did it again, hitting the same spot. After a second I put my fingers back at her opening, letting her get an idea of what was about to happen.

  Then I pushed into her hard and I fucked her. It was ferocious and punishing. Like she asked for, I left her barely any space to consider this or breathe. The noises she let out excited me, but when I got her again with my other hand It got even better.

  Really fucking Olivia was something else. We had sex. We made love. This wasn’t that. Yet I knew she wanted this right now just as much as she wanted it loving sometimes and soft and painfully slow.

  Her head was probably spinning from the alcohol. I knew she must be burning everywhere right now.

  I know I was. I rarely drank like that and we hadn't eaten. The tequila had gone straight to my head.

  My inhibitions were gone and all I cared about was making her feel anything but worthless.

  I leaned over her back, running my hand into her hair and scratching her scalp with my nails.

  She hissed in the pleasure.

  “I like it,” she managed to rush out. It must’ve been too hard for her to do it before. It was like she had been waiting for me to let up just enough so she could tell me.

  “I love your body,” I whispered next to her ear. “It talks to me.”

  She whined in pained pleasure. Back to no words. Back to just sounds.

  “Please talk to me,” she asked, surprising me. “I like it
.” She was back to whispering now. Back to a constrained throat since my body was pushed down onto hers and touching hers everywhere except the places it physically couldn’t.

  “When I touch you I feel real. I'm so aware of everything in my body and it takes everything bad away. That's why you don't scare me when you touch me unexpectedly. I jump when anyone else does but you are home. You are mine.”

  I was out of breath and so emotional. The words had poured out of me like salt from an open shaker.

  “Babe,” she gasped emotionally. I’d softened her. I could hear the desperation rise in her. My words could affect her just as much as my touch. Together, with her, I was definitely dangerous.

  “Yeah?”

  I put my hand around her neck from the back so I could feel her pulse.

  She moaned, twisting her face, to look and lay her head down the other way, so her neck would twist in my hand, so I’d have to feel more of it, more of her.

  Night noises happened all around us. The waves crashed harder and wind blew the branches. We were a part of it. The sounds coming from us blended in amongst all the others.

  Two people surpassing the problems of human thought with pure physicality. In this realm we always spoke the same language.

  Touches and moans were ways to form sentences. To each other we were great orators but only when we weren't speaking a word.

  “I love when I’m the only thing you know and see,” she panted. “Just you and me, on a cliff in the dark. Just you and me,” her voice was getting all high-pitched and stretched with the heat of us.

  I needed to see her. Her eyes, her face… I could hear her words but I couldn't see them.

  I pulled out of her again and helped her turn back over. She was panting with the effort and I could not move.

  She was perfect.

  I kissed her. It was necessary. She was good at everything sexual. Too good at times but kissing was where she excelled even beyond that. Right now, I wanted her all over me.

  Her hands went to my hair and she held me there. I had to keep reminding myself to keep moving my hand because I needed her to cum. Watching her when she did was a favorite thing of mine.

  She whimpered in my mouth and I felt one of her legs as it wrapped around me and then she gasped.

  “Don’t stop,” she begged. “Please, don’t stop.” She was looking at me and holding my head with both of her hands, her eyes meeting mine as I felt her inside.

  Her request wasn’t needed. I couldn’t stop right now. She was too close and I was too hungry. I added a third finger and moved my thumb over her clit again and again.

  Her fingers tightened in my hair, and her head fell back, I felt her pulling me too her out of a lack for a better way to brace herself.

  I knew she couldn’t breathe. She had me locked. I could see her face clearly but her eyes were closed.

  “Olivia, look at me.”

  It took a moment but she did as I said. It was hard for her, close as she was, but I wanted to watch her go and when she did I was rewarded by everything I saw.

  Our minds converged at a single point. The meeting of two lines of trajectory, like a car crash with a happy ending.

  I held onto her as she came, arching her back over the support of my arm.

  “It’s okay, baby. I’ve got you.”

  I took my fingers from inside her and cradled her with both arms. I couldn’t let her go.

  As she began to come down, her body shuddered and her hands clung to my arms even though her eyes were gone now not seeing me or anything really except maybe the night while she gasped.

  I lay with my body bent over the table on top of hers until the chill got to me. I knew she must be colder than I was since she had nothing on past her waist besides me.

  “I can’t wait to be married,” she said through calmer pants. She’d settled down enough now, enough to talk.

  “Yeah? Me either.”

  “Yeah,” she said. She seemed so suddenly sure.

  “Let’s go inside,” I said, pulling her body up with me.

  “I’m happy. It’s insane.”

  “Insane?” She asked, smiling awkwardly and still trying to come back down to land. I could really tell now how tipsy she was. She wasn’t drunk but she wasn’t entirely with me. There was definitely a sort of delay.

  “Well, not insane but I’d never have believed it if you told me that I would feel like this before I met you.”

  “Happy?” She asked, sort of surprised and a step away from being sad. She looked up at me when she asked and she was waiting for my answer, hanging on by a thread.

  “Yes, not regular happy though. What’s the word…” I chewed my lip and looked away. “Incandescent.”

  “InCANdesss…” A laugh escaped her and her voice trailed off in the middle of the word. I watched her trying to calculate the meaning.

  “Babe, I’m like radiating happiness right now. If it was actual radiation you’d be in trouble.”

  “Mmmhmm,” she hummed, clinging onto me with most of her body as we walked. Her smile seemed a bit plastered on like I couldn’t remove it if I physically tried.

  “Come on,” I said. When I put her arm around my shoulder she clung to me.

  I turned my head, saying goodbye to the night before we slipped through the doors and back into the house.

  “We haven’t eaten,” she laughed.

  “No, we haven’t but we can. I’ll make something if you want to sit on the couch.”

  The open concept of the house meant that I could see her from the kitchen. I didn’t want her out of my sight just in case she had really drank too much too fast.

  “And what if I want to sit at the piano while you make something?” She asked, not interested in being told what to do.

  “Then you should do that.” My eyes widened and I let go of her and went into the kitchen to open the fridge.

  I needed something quick and easy. “Yes,” I said, grabbing the tub of white queso I saw down below.

  If they had this they had to have chips somewhere. I went in search, going through the pantry until I found an unopened bag of tortilla chips. Back in the fridge I found some organic black bean salsa. That could go on for a little more flavor.

  Once I’d microwaved the queso and poured it over the chips on the plate, I grabbed it and went to her. The music she was playing was nice, a good backdrop for our last unmarried night. I set the nacho plate down ontop of the piano and waited for her to stop.

  She did, right in the middle of the song.

  “Um, it was quick and easy.”

  I shrugged, a little worried that my food choice would horrify her.

  “Oh my God,” she gasped, taking a chip and shoving it into her mouth. It was very NON-OLIVIA to just grab at food and devour it, and yet she did. “Mmmmm,” she said, eyes closing as she plopped back down on the bench and savored it.

  Her fingers soared over the keys. She seemed sort of weightless now; a bit unlike herself but definitely weightless.

  “God, that’s good,” she said, finishing her piano phrase and then stopping her hands to look up at me with a sort of calm appreciation. “Aren't you even a little bit worried that once we’re married I’ll become this total unruly bitch?” She asked, eyebrows raised. Her eyes fell down to the nachos and she took another.

  “Wait? How is that different from now?” I teased.

  “Oh wow,” she laughed to herself. “Fuck you,” she chuckled, wiping her hands on her legs. She proceeded to ignore me and play something intense on the spot instead of playing her thoughts any further with me.

  “Sure, but maybe after you finish playing pretty songs.”

  I took a chip and put it in my mouth, chewing as I walked over to a chair and fell into it. I was a bit tired now. The alcohol had worn off and I had burned calories I didn’t have in me.

  “You okay?” Olivia asked, after seeing me. I hadn’t caught her gaze in time to correct.

  She stopped playing and shut
the key guard as she stood to come be close to me.

  When she found her body near enough she lowered down onto her knees and made a home for herself by mine side on the floor. I felt her take my hand and hold it. She rest her chin on my thigh and looked up at me sort of guilty.

  “I’m sorry I ruined our last night,” she said.

  “You didn’t ruin it.” I tugged at her hand until she caught the drift and rose until I pulled her into my lap. She sat across the chair with her butt resting on my lap.