by Alex Riley
She stared at his lips as they moved. If she were to place his age, he couldn’t be more than two or three years older than her twenty-two but his words revealed a wisdom beyond his years. As much as she was intrigued by his words, she also knew that they were true.
“I know. It is just hard to let go,” she said to him.
“What would your parents have you do?” he asked suddenly.
His question came as a blow to her senses. There was no doubt that her parents wouldn’t have blamed her for their death. They were most loving and kind, their only fault was loving their daughter so immensely. They would still want her to be the best she could be.
“Emily, your parents’ death should have taught you the most vital of lessons; life is short and you have to live it to the fullest. Aim high, shoot higher; go for your dreams; scream with friends; make yourself happy. It is the only way to live,” he said.
She didn’t know what to say in the face of his wise words. Spoon in hand, she stared at him. He returned her stare for a moment before opening his plate and beginning to eat. Still clueless about what to say, she dug her spoon into hers and began to eat too.
As they sat on the table, eating their ice cream, she remembered the awful teenager that she had been.
Her parents were hardworking citizens that almost never took a single day off. However, they always had time for their only daughter and child. She was raised with love and affection, perhaps too much. Selfish, spoilt and self-centered did not begin to describe her as she always got what she wanted. In the end, she learnt the hard way that life was not a bed of roses, you had to work for it to have it.
She wished she had learnt that before her parents’ death.
Steadily afterwards, her grandmother had helped her to get back to her feet. She owed her life to the woman, she thought. Living with her had taught her to be responsible for her actions and mature. She learnt how to think for herself and for others. She learnt how to be selfless instead of self-absorbed. She taught herself to be thoughtful of other people’s feelings, she taught herself to think before taking actions. She related less to other people; the less she did, the lesser the chance of hurting them, wasn’t it?
Where had she gone wrong? she thought. She didn’t want to hurt others with her selfishness ever again.
Gradually, she had let go of the guilt of her parents’ death but with a promise to constantly be better. Perhaps, she had taught herself too well, she considered. She decided that she was way too cautious, too thoughtful, too introverted; Shannon had said so too.
Now, this guy, Ryan was in effect saying the same thing; that she was overdoing it, overplaying her guilt and putting her life on hold.
Was there a middle ground, she wondered. She decided to try.
When they finished the ice cream, she asked him to take her home. He hailed a cab without questions. Through the ride, she expected him to demand at least a comment or reaction to his speech from a while ago but he only held her hand in his. It was like he had said his bit and the rest were entirely up to her. She was beginning to respect him for this; he only advised and suggested, never pushed. Again, she wondered how he became so wise.
Perhaps, she should have asked but she didn’t. When they reached the small apartment she shared with Shannon, she invited him in. She was feeling a bit hazy and woozy from too much wine, the emotional dredge and ice cream. He closed the door behind him and turned to face her. She took her first impulsive moment and kissed him on the lips.
It was unlike any feeling she ever had before. She felt both hot and cold immediately and simultaneously. It was like an electric current ran between their lips at the touch, enough to take her breath away. His gaze flew to hers, his fingers came up to touch his lips and then hers. Her senses tingled at the touch.
This time, there was nothing impulsive about it. Staring into his eyes, she reached up on her tiptoes and brought her mouth to his. At first, he stood rigid as his lips touched hers unmoving then that electric feeling sizzled again. He made a low sound deep in his throat and snatched her to his chest. His lips descended on hers with such tenderness and passion that she was swept off her feet. She reached for him, groping his chest and every other part of his body that she could reach between them.
He grabbed her butt and pushed her up and closer such so that she could feel his erection. She moaned and rubbed herself against him drawing a hiss from him. She put her hands underneath his polo to caress his bare stomach, running her hand all the way across his chest.
“Sweet Jesus!” he muttered as if in pain. “Are you sure about this Emily?” he asked, trying to pull away from her.
She didn’t answer his question. She brought her lips back to his and kissed him deeper. He had said she was not taking chances but he was the one trying to be the gentleman when she wanted him to be wild with her. She took another impulsive decision. Ryan sighed pleasurably as she brought a hand down to squeeze his hard erection. Wrapping her legs around his butt, she ground her pelvis into him.
The action seemed to drive him wild as he turned and pushed her up against the wall. He held her there with his hips and without halting the kiss, he reached for the boat neck of her black dress and yanked it down to reveal two ripe breasts with rosy tips; she wasn’t wearing a bra. His eyes were fixed on her breasts and his mouth hung open as if he was afraid to touch them. Tilting her chest upwards, she reached for the nape of his neck and pushed his mouth to one nipple. She shuddered as a hot breath grazed over her breast and his wet tongue touched her nipple.
He began to suckle her gently just as she delved her fingers into his luxurious hair, massaging his scalp and writhing in ecstasy. Without stopping, he dragged her dress down past her hips and let it fall to the floor. His hands found her panties and slipped his fingers inside. She was already soaking wet and his fingers slid in easily. Her mind went wild with lust and she bucked into his hands.
“So tight,” he said into her mouth, “So fucking tight.”
She only kissed him deeper.
“Where is the bedroom?” he asked urgently.
Now, he was talking, she thought with an inward triumphant smile. She pointed a finger in the direction of her bedroom and he liften her up. He reached their small room in ten powerful strides with his finger still inside her and a breast in his mouth while she threw her head back, making small mewling sounds that seemed to drive him wilder.
“Oh Emily.”
Ryan was as exhilarated and aroused as she was. Emily reached for his torso with the palm of one hand began to fondle his bulge with the other. He was as hard as a rock. He groaned when she dared to reach for the solid mound of flesh inside his trousers and drag it out. She began to stroke him up and down, each groan only intensifying her excitement.
“Emily.” He cried again.
Something inexplicable had taken control of Emily. She forgot about being thoughtful or disciplined. The only thing that she could think of was Ryan burying his hard member inside her.
Hell, I long for his cock deep inside me!
It was the truth. She didn’t care about how impure her thoughts were. Pleasure. This was the only word that she could think of.
Ryan stopped suckling her nipple and began to trace kisses from her neck down to her abdomen. He moved lower, slowly plastering his lips on her warm pussy and then flicking his tongue smoothly over her clit. It was incredible. Emily lost control of all her thought, her speech and her energy; just as his tongue penetrated the insides of her pussy.
When he stopped to glance up at her, Emily smiled looked down at him begging with her eyes that she wanted him now. Finally, she muttered her first words since the raw animal hunger took over her senses.
“Fuck me, Ryan,” she whispered, “I want you deep inside me.”
That was all he needed.
When she felt the heavy shove of his cock inside her, Emily gave in to all her feelings. She felt connected like she never had before. She urged to go deeper, harder and faster. He
r ecstasy built up with each of his powerful strokes. Harder and faster he went, driving into her with everything he had, and just as she started to climax he screamed out a low guttural sound as he spilt his seed into her.
Spent, they both fell into a blissful sleep.
*********
The next morning, he was gone before she woke up. It was as if he was never there, like she never met him. There was absolutely no evidence that he had been in her room at all except the feeling between her thighs and note he left on her pillow. It was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes and she knew immediately that he was gone. There were only three words written on the paper in a large manly scrawl.
I am sorry.
Holding the paper to her chest, she thought about everything that happened. He might be sorry but she wasn’t. It was the most delicious night of her life and she was going to hold it dear. It seemed that Ryan Jones had his own woes but he had managed to make her let go of hers and see through her cocoon last night. Just like he respected her decision last night, she was going to respect his. She was not going to seek him out or try to find him. He had been hesitant to make love to her but she had left him with no choice; he was a perfect gentleman all through, her perfect gentleman.
Curiously, she was certain that he had a reason for leaving her this way and she understood even though she had no idea what his reasons were. Everything that happened last night was startlingly clear in her mind and she had no intention of ever forgetting. They were going to be her memories to keep.
He wouldn’t be there to see her change but she was going to. Taking a determined breath, she got out of bed. The first thing she grabbed was a pair of scissors.
Shannon found her in front of the mirror, cutting off her hair.
Ryan
Four
July, 2016
His little ray of sunshine was gone.
Tears were streaming down his face onto the picture in his hand but Ryan Jones barely noticed. He traced his fingers along the frame of the picture, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders.
How was he to live without his little sunshine? He asked himself for the umpteenth time over the last two hours since the doctor told him the news.
Hardly anyone would believe that Claire was not his but he loved her like his own. She was the brightest child in the entire world despite being born with Down Syndrome. Right from the start, the doctors had warned him that she would not live into her teenage years but his heart had hoped and refused to believe that Claire would leave him.
“It was a miracle that she lived this long,” the doctor had said.
Ryan had really wanted to smash his fist into the doctor’s face. How was eleven years of living a miracle? It was damned too short! For the past eleven years, it had been him and his little sunshine. Despite her medical condition, Claire was bright, fun and she had filled all the void spaces in his heart and now, he couldn’t imagine living without her.
Why? He asked all over again.
Why did she have to suffer this fate? He wondered bitterly. Claire was only a baby; his baby and she shouldn’t have been born with the disease that finally claimed her life. He remembered clearly the circumstances that led to her birth; who could ever forget? It was twelve years ago and he was sixteen years old; he wasn’t even an adult by then but fate had thrown him a fast ball so cruel that he lost his youth forever in that year.
The year of Claire’s conception was the most gruesome one of his life. He should have known better, he could have done better but in the end, he hadn’t. Those months, he had lived in a haze, blaming himself for everything while shuffling from the police department to the hospital and then from the court to the hospital again. The paparazzi would not let him rest either and besieged him everywhere he went. At night, he would drink himself to sleep, wishing everyone would just leave him the hell alone.
His misery had continued for seven months until Claire was born prematurely. Jasmine, Claire’s mother had suddenly gone into labor for torturous hours before finally giving birth to a squealing infant in the hospital where she had been all through the pregnancy.
He was there in the delivery room from start to finish, sweating, cursing, hoping and praying. When the baby slid out, full of blood and goo, Jasmine was alive only long enough to see her baby held up by the doctor’s. The stress of the past seven months finally got to him and the last thought on his mind before he collapsed was that she was lucky to escape it all into death. He wished he would too.
He was out for just a short time and woke to find himself on a stretcher. The doctors and nurses obviously did not have time for a fainting teenager when they were still trying to save the baby and her mother. When he opened his eyes, the nurse was cleaning up the baby beside him. He instantly knew that there was something wrong with the baby with the way her skull and hands were proportioned.
However, his attention was not held by the deficiency he noticed in that instant. He was pulled by the baby’s eyes on him, it was like her steadfast gaze had woken him up from his faint, urging him to come back to her. There was no way he could be sure but he could have sworn that the baby smiled when his eyes clashed with hers.
“Ryan, thank God you are awake. The baby has not taken her eyes off you since you fainted.” The nurse said to him in a relieved voice. He barely heard her; he was fascinated by the baby’s eyes.
They were a pair of brilliant gold; exactly like his.
Her hair though fairer, was blonde like her mother’s but there was no mistaking that she had his eyes. And she was staring unblinkingly at him. He was entranced and instantly captivated. For him, that was the most defining moment of his life. He had fallen in love for the first time. Losing his mom when he was only three and growing up with his busy father as he did, he couldn’t lay claims to being loved or having ever loved, but the tiny baby in the nurse’s hand had him wrapped around her little finger in less than three seconds of setting eyes on her.
“Claire,” he had whispered to her.
When the nurse was through, she placed the girl in his hands and his heart almost dropped at how fragile she was. But his Claire was not fragile of heart. Still holding his gaze, her tiny fingers latched onto his thumb as if to trying to tell him something.
“We are in this together,” he fancied she was saying to him. In that moment, though she was not formed from his sperm, she immediately became his.
An hour later, the doctor diagnosed her with Down syndrome. At first, he was heartbroken for his baby. However, he made up his mind to love her as much as he could. Perhaps, love would help her evade the death that the doctor warned him would surely come to lay claim to her life before long, he had convinced himself.
He had been wrong.
Loving his Claire was the greatest thing he had ever done, he knew without a single doubt. And she had loved him too. Oh, how his Claire had loved him. From the moment he brought her home from the hospital, she wouldn’t sleep anywhere else except on his chest. Loving her had helped him to love himself too and he retraced his footsteps to pick up the broken pieces of his life. He learnt to forgive his father and let go of the past. He brushed himself up and took reign of his father’s companies, teaching himself along the way.
As soon as he was stable, he had employed the best specialist doctors to care for her medically and a live-in nurse to cater for her needs when he couldn’t be with her. He never spent a night away from her if there was absolutely no need. One of such moments was when he had to go to college. Schooling for him had been on hold since the ‘incident’ surrounding Claire’s conception hit the news but after Claire’s birth, he realized that he wanted to complete his education not for his own sake but so that he could lay a good precedent for his daughter. He started school again on her first birthday. He was the oldest in his class but he did not mind in the least; he lived only for his Claire. Another three years and he gained admission into the University of Georgia.
That was when Claire spoke
her first word. She called him ‘da’.
He hadn’t wanted to go, he hated to leave her alone for long periods of time but he was assured in the knowledge that Nina, the nurse he employed loved Claire as much as he did, perhaps even more. She was the one who finally persuaded him to go. College did nothing to distract him from home. He didn’t live in school, attending classes infrequently just so he would not miss any stage of her growth.
Watching Claire grow was pure bliss. Though her development was slow, she was bright and loving. She was patient and she understood him like no one else ever did. She was his best friend as he was hers. They braved the world together and took solace in each other’s company.
With her, he learnt to smile, play and have fun. Knowing that she didn’t have long to live despite the tiny hope in his heart, he spent every waking moment of his life to make each day her best yet.
Gradually as she grew, defying death each year, he learnt to live for the moment and worry less about what tomorrow held for them both. Wanting a normal life for her, he enrolled her in school when she was five and taught her at home by himself whenever he could. During the holidays, they would visit interesting places in different parts of the world. He soon took to taking pictures of her everywhere they went and discovered that he had an interest in photography.
“Da, you would make the best photographer.” Claire told him one day when they were both looking at the pictures of them that he had taken during their visit to the Eiffel tower.
Her words opened the gates to a hobby for him and he took to it like fish to water. He had countless pictures of pictures of places, people, animals and more of Claire to show for it. Graduation from college set him free once more to spend time with his daughter and pursue his hobby; his companies were expanding and money had never been an issue.
