by Pauline West
“You need to go,” I said. The world seemed to hang still around us, as if everything were suspended now from a curtain rod, paper-thin, expectantly paused.
“Let me prove to you you can trust me, Lily,” Ry said. “You- have to let me. I’m going crazy without you. Give this a chance.” He dipped a little, searching out my eyes, and touched my face gently. “Please. Give us a chance,” he said, so softly that I heard his tongue press softly at his teeth to form the words.
I tightened for him. I tightened for him so much that air escaped silently through my teeth, and my breasts sharpened, instantly full and aching for his touch. I felt myself go slick and hot. Oh, so ready for you.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “How do you even know where I live?” I said.
“Even if you weren’t the most beautiful woman in the country, you’d still be easy for me to find, Lily,” he said. He moved closer, pressing his lips to my forehead, holding my arms now so that I couldn’t escape him. “I’m so drawn to you,” he whispered. “What have you done to me?”
“Take it easy, Jesus. This syrup, I’m drowning here,” I said, sarcastically.
He touched my face again tenderly, and I couldn’t help meeting Ry’s eyes, turning my face against his cupped hand, so strong and heavy, covering nearly one whole side of my head. Oh, Jesus, the smell of him. Of lemons and cedar. Hot, pounding sex. My knees went liquid.
“Let me inside,” Ry said. His thumb stroked over my lips.
I put my hand on his wrist, wanting to push him away, but I melted forwards instead, into his arms. His thumb fitted between my lips gently. I bit it, still looking up at him. I felt myself swim into his eyes.
“I don’t know,” I said, softly. And then, “I really am drowning, here.”
“You’re shaking, Lily. Let me inside,” he said, again. His voice was quiet and intense.
I knew he would never take no for an answer. Somehow, in a terrified rush, I suddenly knew that Ry Calhoun would follow me anywhere, no matter what I said or did-
no matter what his parents thought-
He kissed me. Wrapping his arms around me so tight that I felt how small and fragile
I was in contrast to him, how much I was- yes, shaking, like a leaf against a warm, unmoving stone in the current. I was scared he’d grind me to pieces, just like a brittle bit of earth, but I couldn’t resist him any longer.
I don’t even remember leading him through the door, up the stairs.
Suddenly we were in my apartment, making out passionately, tears streaming down my face as he swallowed my body up with his. Every brush of his hands, of his mouth, sent ecstasy torching over my skin.
“This won’t be the last time I apologize to you about my family, Lily,” Ry said, grabbing my face in his hands. “They’re… difficult people. I know maybe things look perfect from the outside. Every family has its own cross to bear. My family… we’ve got a couple. But it doesn’t make it okay for them to act the way they do.” His eyes were very still on mine, impossibly gentle and sad.
“No,” I said. “Does your dad always treat people like… the way he treated me?”
“I don’t want him to hurt you, I wish I could swear I’d never let anyone hurt you again. But I can swear I’ll always protect you…” he said.
“I was so ashamed.”
“Oh, Lily, Lily, you have nothing to be ashamed of, I should have protected you, I should never have-” He laughed a little, crushing me to him, and I pressed my face to his chest the way I’d wanted to ever since seeing him again. “We should have gone up into my room, like normal people!”
“I guess that was a little weird, maybe…I couldn’t have stopped myself any more than I could have stopped you,” I said. “And I didn’t want to stop.”
“You and me, we put the ‘we’ in weird, don’t we?” Ry said, smiling down at me softly. His soft, hungry kisses began to drug me again. My heart was twisting in a crazy flame.
“I just don’t know how to do this,” I gasped. “I’ve never done this. When I let myself feel-this deeply? Everything feels so good- but then I’m so vulnerable- and I shut down-”
“You have to let me carry you,” he said. “Just imagine I’m holding you in my arms.”
“You are.” I smiled.
“I am. Always. Just like this.” Ry slid down slowly over the front of my body, covering my dress with lingering kisses, and went to his knees. The touch of his mouth over my belly made me cry out, and I twisted my hands in his thick hair, pulling it, forcing him to look at me.
When he did, his eyes were dark with want. Gazing up at me, that naughty smile playing over his deliciously sullen mouth, Ry cupped his hands against my ass, bringing my hips to his face like a goblet. His fingers dug hungrily into me, searching out my shape, taking me firmly into hand.
“Jesus, you’re wet,” he said. “You’re so wet for me, Lily, I can’t wait to bury myself in you, I want to feel you wrapped all around me-” he pressed his face between my thighs, nuzzling me, teasing the tender shape of flesh barely concealed now beneath my thin dress.
He worked the hem up with his thumbs, still clutching me to him as I writhed. I was wearing simple white panties, nothing special, but he dove at them wildly, nipping at my secret places through the wet, silky cloth, sucking hungrily, low moans growling in his throat; vibrations I felt up through the core of me. I fell back against the wall, wrapping my legs around his head, and Ry held me to him firmly, his mouth open, eyes closed ecstatically.
Tilting my hips into his face so that I was cupped to his lips, Ry continued to suck and tease through my panties, his arms wrapping me ever tighter to his face. I was still achingly sore from him the day before, my body as responsive to his as tinder to flame.
“Oh, oh Jesus Ry, I don’t, I can’t-”
He fingered my panties aside, fitted his face into the cleft of me, and I was so wet that I felt myself slippery against his neck, his chin, all over him. Ry’s nose and lips were rough and demanding, unceasing; and then his fingers slipped inside me too, beginning to drill my G-spot relentlessly as he went on lapping and biting me lightly, all the while hugging me tight to his face with his free arm. I was utterly bared to him, my back curved back against the wall. Oh, I was boneless, utterly obedient and vulnerable; I was his.
Oh, oh, oh,
He was looking up at me, the undersides of my shaking breasts, as he kept up his steady, relentless rhythm. Those restless, depthless blue eyes- I shuddered against Ry’s mouth, his hands, my whole body now swept up in an ecstatic tide. I dropped fully against him, held in place only by his strong hands as I came again and again on Ry’s hungry mouth, his tongue still piked deep between my thighs.
I sank down the wall, still trembling, and buried myself in his lean, beautifully muscled arms. Ry lay me down gently, still holding me close. His face still wet with me, we kissed again, and I tasted the brine of my own body on his tongue. Tasting what he had tasted; oh, I wanted him in me, I wanted to be in him, wanted to be everything he felt and thought and experienced.
My hips rose up, grinding up into his as Ry rested against me. I pulled him down to me fiercely, my thighs snaking him closer, wanting his swell.
“I want all of you, all of you,” I said. His hand was tangled in my hair, pressing my kiss to his face. When he moaned, it went all through me.
Suddenly, my consciousness crept in. Realizing we were still on my kitchen floor, I started to laugh. “Oh shit, we haven't’ gotten very far, have we?”
“We never do,” he murmured. He ran his mouth down my throat, tracing the wetness he left with the edges of his fingers, and I thrilled to him.
“Ohh, I want all of you,” Ry said, crushing me to him again. The friction of his jeans against my raw-naked, tender flesh made me spasm again.
“Oh, Lily,” he said, tenderly, holding me close, burying his face in my hair. “Oh, my Lily.”
A dam in my heart broke open. Everything in me rushed towards him.
“
I don’t know, I don’t know if I can do this,” I said, my throat constricting. “We don’t know each other, not really.”
“Someone hurt you so much,” he said, into my hair. “But I never will.” His cock was impossibly swollen against my legs, and I ached to have him inside me. To feel the boundaries between us dissolve-
But I was scared, too. Were these lies? How did you ever know if it was real? Could people- could people honestly ever really just give themselves over-
“Tell me what’s in your head, Lily,” Ry said, roughly stroking my hair.
I shook my head, numbly.
“I can’t stand it, having you so close, and yet you’re a million miles away. Come back to me, come back…” Ry’s mouth was strong on mine, insistent. As if he could find my secrets there, bring them out and expose them to the light, rendering them powerless…
“I’m so fucked up, Ry,” I whispered. “I don’t know if you-”
“You can’t tell me what I want,” he said, huskily. “What I want is you. All I want is you. All of you. But I can’t make you give yourself to me.”
I hugged him tightly.
“We can take it slow,” he said, sitting back, lifting me up between his legs so that I felt his stiff cock against my belly. The pressure of it made me swoon. “We’ll make it right,” he murmured. “I want you to trust me, to feel safe.”
“There’s part of me that wants you to hurt me,” I said to him, softly. “I don’t understand why. And it scares me as much as I want it to happen, too.”
Ry’s eyes were soft, questioning.
“I mean there’s something in me that wants you to destroy me. Like a moth drawn to flame. Do you understand?”
Ry closed his eyes for a moment, kissing the side of my mouth. When he drew away again I knew he was tasting my tears.
“We’re from the same country, remember?” he said. “You and me. You can trust me with what you want.”
“Our secret country…”
Abruptly, my purse next to us on the floor began to pulse and sing. I couldn’t help but laugh, even though Ry didn't even seem to register the sound.
I knew the sound of that ringtone. It was Steve.
“Hang on, I gotta take this. He worries when I don’t answer, if he knows I’m not at work,” I said. “Hey dad!” I said, still lying flat on the floor, delectably crushed by Ry.
I put my hand over my receiver, trying to stifle laughter as Ry brushed his lips teasingly over my neck. He sucked at me so that I curved helplessly with desire. My eyes hot, I tried to kiss him back soundlessly.
“Hey babydoll, how you doin?” Steve said. His warm, familiar voice made my heart swell. I hadn’t realized how much I missed him.
“I'm okay-” I said.
“You sure, kiddo? You sound kinda off. Settling in okay?” Steve knew me so well it was impossible to lie to him.
I tried to, anyway. I couldn’t exactly tell him I was on the floor of my apartment with a Calhoun tangled on top of me. There’s a man in my pants, dad!
“Yeah, I’m in the bath. I’m just bein’ a bum,” I said, trying to stifle a laugh. It didn’t work at all, and I only made the sound again.
I covered my mouth desperately, making my eyes big at Ry.
He rolled off good-naturedly, running his hand affectionately through my hair as he grinned, propping himself up on one elbow, watching me talk.
“Well, uh, good for you, taking care of yourself, babydoll,” Steve drawled back. “You call me when you get out. Ain’t hardly heard a peep from you since you left.”
“I will, dad!”
“All right, I'd like that,” Steve said.
I hung up, giggling hard. “Your dad sounds awesome,” Ry said. “I always like hearing how it is with other people and their parents.”
I kissed him. “I’m lucky,” I said. “It was worth all the shitty stuff that happened when I was a kid to end up having Steve find me.”
“What do you mean?” he said.
“Um…” I smoothed back my hair, pulling myself away from Ry neatly. Oops. Somehow, despite all Ry’s confessions of adoration, I doubted a Calhoun would feel attracted to me once he knew my parentage.
“Do you want something to drink?” I said, drifting into the kitchen.
“Hey, you’re doing that thing again,” Ry said, following me, moving his finger in a little circle. “You know, that thing where you run away in your head?” He grabbed my waist and kissed my forehead, murmuring against me, “How can you be a million miles away and still be right here in front of me?”
“It’s black magic,” I said, grinning.
“It really is.”
I cracked two seltzers from the fridge and dabbed a couple shakes of bitters in each. He watched, grinning. “This is your favorite drink?” he said.
I nodded.
“Okay,” Ry said, obviously filing it away.
“What’s yours?” I said, touched.
“Guess,” he said.
“Bourbon...”
“Bingo. Especially with cookies.” We moved lightly against each other, smiling softly. “But seltzer is good, too. I’ll imagine I’m your mouth as I drink it. Mm. Lily’s mouth...”
“Who says things like that!” I said, cracking up. Then I grinned at him. “You know, I do like it... that you’re a little weird…”
“Whoa, now. I’m the weird one? You’re this black magic priestess, you’ve got my head spinning.”
“You know,” I said, tapping Ry’s nose lightly, “you’re just a little too slick…”
“Oh yeah?” He scooped me up in his arms.
I squealed. “Wait, our seltzers!”
“Okay, okay, the seltzers-” Ry bore me back into the kitchen, and I triumphantly seized our cans of seltzer, holding them aloft and giggling as he carried me into the living room.
We tumbled onto the couch, knotting into one another as easily as if we’d never been apart a day in our lives, and hours folded by. Bliss is a lazy river.
Until my phone began to ring.
“Oh shit!” I rushed into the kitchen, scooping my phone off the floor. “Dad, I’m sorry, I forgot to call you.”
“It's all right, baby, I just-” I knew he was trying valiantly to hide it, but Steve sounded crestfallen.
“Are you okay, dad?”
“Sure, honey. You're out of the bath?” he said.
“Yes, what's wrong?"
“Are you sitting down?” he said.
Oh no. Oh, Jesus, oh no. My heart swirled up into my mouth. I began to pace, and Ry leapt up from the couch, heading towards me protectively.
“No, yes- what is it?” I said, waving Ry away, just as there was a knock on the door. “Can you get that?” I mouthed to him.
He nodded.
“Oh, nothing, just…surprise!” I heard Steve’s voice ring out simultaneously in my phone, and in my apartment as Ry opened the door on my stepfather.
Steve was standing there grinning in my doorway, his cell-phone pressed to one shoulder, a big bag of Chinese take-out in one hand and a six-pack of beer clenched in the other.
“Woo there, well hey, excuse me, oh my,” Steve said, equally surprised and then annoyed as he took in Ryland Calhoun standing in front of him.
Not the person he was expecting to see.
“Dad!” I ran to him, smiling like a kid.
“Hey- darlin-!” Steve said, still regaining his equilibrium. He hugged me back and I felt the bag of Chinese food rustle warmly against my hip.
Ry was still right behind me. “It’s good to meet you, sir. I’m Ry Calhoun,” he said, with just a hint of the command that I loved in his voice.
I pictured him extending his hand out to Steve in welcome. Then, too late, I realized how Ry must look to my step-father. A tall and muscular stranger; a smooth-faced man with wolfish, unreadable eyes.
Even though there wasn’t anything flashy about Ry, my lover’s effortless confidence, his Caesar’s bearing and the quality of his clot
hing instantly gave him away.
Not one of us.
“XYZ there, boy,” Steve said. His eyes were hard. He didn’t shake Ry’s hand.
Or maybe Ry hadn’t offered it to him in the first place.
“Dad,” I said, turning, hoping I was wrong. Then I saw Ry grin and zip up his fly. Uh oh. This was going way south, and fast.
“Welp, uh, I guess it’s a little late for this now,” Steve said, hoisting the bag of take-out, “but maybe you can have this for your breakfast or something. Just thought I'd come down and surprise you, see how you were settling in. Didn’t mean to bust in on y’all. Sorry, kiddo.”
“No, it’s great, I’m so glad you’re here.” I shooed Steve inside and shut my door. “Ry, this is my dad, Steve. Dad, I actually was just telling him about you.”
“Great.” My step-father put his offerings down on the kitchen counter but then seemed to regret it. He looked around as if he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He was a big man, and seemed even bigger inside my shitty little apartment.
“Well, looks pretty good in here, kiddo.” Steve’s eyes crinkled slightly as he took in all the little things around the room that only he would understand. The cool vintage sofa we’d found together on the curb one day. My collection of lucky rocks. The photograph we’d taken together on that perfect, stainless, long-ago day on the beach.
Dad was wearing athletic shorts that didn’t match his threadworn military-issue shirt, which was too small now for his round belly. He rocked in his sneakers silently, as if he’d used up all the words he’d allotted for the day.
“Uh, you guys hungry?” I said, darting to the cupboards.
“Nah,” they said, simultaneously.
“Well, I am,” I said, getting down paper plates. “Ry, can you get out the silverware there- in that drawer? I actually have some cool chopsticks we can use, too, I love Chinese food. Dad, you want to, uh, get the food out on the table…”
Dad, cracking open a beer one-handed, silently complied.
