Fated Desire

by Noah Harris

My hungry mouth driving down against his as I grind. I can feel him working a hand down beneath me to get his own cock out. The smile on his face, the sheer delight, makes me feel worshipped. Precious.

  There’s no line between his love and his lust, his adoration and his desire for me. They’re the same thing. I feel like I could come again just from that, from the joy that brings me.

  Dominic crushes me suddenly to his chest again, to slow me down. He tips his head back up to me. One more of those kisses, one good, long, deep one, before it’s time to decide whether we go inside, or if he should just finish us both off here and now.

  Here. There. I don’t care. I want him everywhere. It’s almost a kind of vertigo, thinking about it, like looking down from a great height. To spend the rest of our lives slowly and tenderly considering each other’s every angle. A marathon, an endless feast. Christmas every day.

  And just when I start rocking against him again drawing a hiss against my stomach, hand cradling the back of his head against my…there’s a knock at the door.

  Specifically, the driver’s side door. I assume it’s the police, and I’m already giddy and laughing as he places me back in my seat as gently as possible and turns to the window.

  But it’s not the police.

  It’s Jonesy Kirkendall, wildly afraid. Blood gushing from a cut on his forehead, eye nearly swollen shut. Bashing his hand against the window over and over, desperate for us to roll it down and answer.

  “Jonesy? Are you okay? Get in. Get in the car, we’ll get you some help.”

  But he just shakes his head, wild-eyed, and points down the alley, back the way we came. I can’t get an angle on what he’s pointing to at first, but when Dominic sees it he chokes on a strangled shout, almost a scream, and bolts from the car.

  Those lights, red and blue, their insistent screeching. Blinding and bright, but still no match for the flames.

  For the angry, hot tongues of fire licking up into the moonless night. Devouring our home behind us as we kissed and laughed, like fools. Like kids, just a few houses away.

  I know I’ll never really remember the next hour or so. I’ll get flashes but Dominic’s definitely the one in charge for the majority of it. He pulls me along down the alley, shoving Jonesy behind him so he’s leading the squad. I recognize him scenting the wind, scanning for body heat in the backyards we pass, but Jonesy won’t notice.

  Jonesy is losing it. If it weren’t such a mess under there from our recent adventures, I’d be using my shirt to clean him up and figure out what’s bleeding. I don’t think he’d thank me for that with the state it’s in.

  “I called and called, bro. Why didn’t you answer?”

  Dominic grunts angrily, acknowledging what Jonesy’s saying without slowing down.

  “Jonesy, what are we looking at?”

  “They know. I mean they know. The fire’s not as bad as it looks. Mostly the yard, not the house. I can’t believe you drove right by.”

  Dominic doesn’t have a response for that. But I remember taking that corner, and there was nothing going on.

  “It was deserted when we got here. Twenty minutes ago, maybe less.”

  Dominic still has it in him to scoff at me, cutely.

  “Yeah. Maybe. Jonesy, where’d you come from? How did it start?”

  I notice he’s not getting clarification on what “they” know, so that’s encouraging. But I’m pretty curious too, it’s my house that’s on fire, so some details would be appreciated. I can smell more on the air than he’s telling us.

  “I was at the Wall Street, having a drink. It came on the news, and they all saw your face. Dom, it was bad. Bad.”

  Dominic growls in frustration. I know better than to bother interrupting.

  “They ran out to the parking lot and I went out there too. I didn’t have a plan so much. Just being drunk and ornery. But I felt like maybe I could talk them down.”

  He waves in the general area of his ruined face.

  “I did not. But I beat them here, so they couldn’t do too much damage. I was so scared you would be here. Or the kids, or…”

  He shivers, eyes hazy with shock. I pat his shoulder.

  “No such luck, Jonesy. The only ass that got kicked was yours.”

  He wavers on his feet. When I pull him in for a hug he comes gratefully.

  “Dominic. I think we’ll just stay back? Unless you want me to…”

  He shakes his head, winking at me.

  “I’ll holler if I need backup. You just keep an eye on our boy here.”

  It’s comforting. But there’s a sadness in his eyes that wasn’t there before. I haven’t seen it in a long time, probably not since last spring. When I first found him again.

  The lawn’s trashed, toys and the mulch pile on fire. Townies trampling our garden. A local TV crew is driving up, live antenna snaking up out of their van, focusing on the firemen as they take down the blaze.

  “The scale of this is…this is like a murder drama. Dominic, what the hell did you do?”

  He holds his hands apart before him like a fisherman at my question, anguish painful to see. “I didn’t do anything. Not exactly. But my company was doing some pretty shady stuff. When I found out, I left. I didn’t know they still…Oh, heck. It was Highpoint, Christian. I worked for Highpoint. I was part of it.”

  It doesn’t make much sense, what he’s saying. He’s saying it with urgency and pain, and I want to help, but the words he’s saying don’t fit together.

  “I don’t understand,” confusion lacing my words.

  He turns his back to the townies to stare at me. They’ve got bottles and knives, but I don’t think they’re going to rush him. Not with the news cameras right there. The firelight makes his beard shine gold.

  “You look like a warrior in some old-time fantasy movie. Maybe that’s a good Halloween costume idea, Dominic. Something sexy and sort of exploitative. Lots of skin. Barbarian, or a…”

  He looms over me, disturbed. Eyes wide.

  “Christian, did you hear me? Are you in shock too? Do I need to get you both to the…?”

  A bottle shatters at our feet and I can smell gasoline. We’re not safe here.

  I hope nobody will notice me carrying Jonesy. I’m half his size, and far too strong for my own good, but we don’t have time. Dominic watches our rear as I loop us around the crowd to the far edge of the trucks, in relative solitude and unnoticed.

  I take a seat on the curb, stretching back onto the sidewalk, to watch the mayhem. Dominic and Jonesy spend a few minutes at the edge of the commotion before he sends Jonesy off, hopefully for some first aid.

  “Dominic, you know we lost all our money with a company called that. It’s the boogeyman to me now. Highpoint. Just that word makes my guts go loose and cold.”

  Please, just tell me I’m confused.

  He nods, a tear catching the firelight as it runs down his cheek.

  “Yeah. I didn’t know about…”

  I shake my head, suddenly violently ill, and push him away.

  “You didn’t know…what? You didn’t know we lost it all? Or that you were ruining people’s lives? Did you know this? Ernest hated his job at the plant. He was a history teacher, that’s what he was trained for. But four cubs in three years? You better believe he went back into petroleum. The other roughnecks didn’t like him, he didn’t like them. But it was honest work and it paid well.”

  Dominic sits down suddenly, as if he’s about to pass out. I squat right in front of him, mouth just inches from his face, to make sure he’s not missing any of this.

  “You know why it pays so well, right? You grew up here, you know how it works. In an oil boom, money comes shooting out of the ground and you just stand in it. Like rain. The pay is high, but the lives are cheap. Lose one guy, ten more flood in. Fighting to take his place.”

  Dominic holds his hands up between us, like I’m going to attack. Like I’m pushing down on him with an invisible wall.

  “When we c
rashed we lost everything. Everything. You thought I was desperate last spring? Double it. Back then we were underwater. I was researching homeless shelters, just in case. Six of us, number seven on the way. So he went back to the fields because it was fast money and he had some fond memories of working summers in high school. Just for a month. Then just for a season. Then just for a year. He was halfway through that year when a pump jack blew.”

  Dominic drops his head between his knees, looking like he might puke.

  “He wasn’t even supposed to be there. He was taking extra shifts because of the baby.”

  My voice twists, choking on that last word. Dominic looks up, confused.

  “We were going to name him Hickory. He didn’t make it. I was lucky to have hit bingo three times in a row, doc said. But after Ernest. I…well, anyway. That was a pretty crummy year. The anniversary’s in a couple of weeks. Of when it all…when he died.”

  I sit down, staring between the trucks at the dispersing crowd. Wondering what happens now. Jonesy limps over, looking patched up but still awful, and sits with some difficulty.

  “I didn’t think anything would calm ‘em down once it got going. I was right. I’m sorry, Dominic. They just wanted somebody to pay.”

  He nods.

  “I did too. I wanted it to be me.”

  I roll my eyes, turning on him again with fresh rage.

  “Oh, did you? I can’t help but notice it’s Jonesy here that’s got the black eye. His face looks like hamburger, sorry, Jonesy, and I’m pretty sure that’s on you. So while your heroic willingness to sacrifice is appreciated, it seems like once again somebody else actually paid.”

  He meets my gaze, glassy with tears, and shakes his head.

  “Nothing to say?”

  Dominic stretches his legs out into the street with a groan.

  “Nothing to say.”

  “It seems like it’s been a year since the sun went down. All I want to do is sleep. But I can’t sleep with this guy in the house, so…”

  Jonesy nods. “We already talked about it. But Christian…”

  I shake my head. It’s entirely possible that down the road I’ll feel more forgiving. I don’t think I’ll be any more rational, because I feel incredibly rational right now. But maybe there’s something I need perspective to see.

  I just want my babies. I want to wrap them up in a blanket, all five of us in one huge burrito. We’ll sleep for a million years. When we come out, the world will be a better place.

  Soon enough, Goodboy drives up in his pickup, kids all in a row belted in beside him, sleepy and shocked. Was it selfish to ask for them? Is it unreasonable to trust people a little bit less than I did twelve hours ago? Maybe. But I won’t feel okay until I can see them, hold them. Wouldn’t they rather sleep in their own beds? Of course they would.

  Most of the crowd’s gone, although the news truck is still hanging around in hopes of getting a quote from Public Enemy number one. Dominic refuses to leave, sitting with Jonesy on the edge of everything. Presumably until they can see us safely inside and off to bed.

  Bodhi spots me across the street from the cab, and waves excitedly. I can see Goodboy ordering him to sit still until he can get the twins down, but Bodhi’s practically running in circles, bursting with news about everything he did with the pack tonight, I’m sure.

  Goodboy barks again and Bodhi straightens up, taking the twins by a hand each, as usual. Goodboy flips Poppy over his shoulder like he’s burping her, reaching down for the rest of the kids’ stuff.

  She’s the only one facing back, toward the house, as they’re crossing the street to us. I’ve heard her cry, full-throated operatic murder screams, and indecipherable rage practically at the edge of hearing, but the roar of her. This little girl, roaring at whatever she sees back near the house…it’s terrifying.

  It’s scary because it’s my kid, of course. And because it’s a horrible, metal-twisting sound you can feel in your sternum. But mostly, if it’s bad enough to get fearless Poppy so upset, how bad must it be?

  The scream fades to a howl, enraged, just as Dominic’s shouting angry curses from the far end of the street. He’s running straight at them when I finally go into action, rushing toward Goodboy to get the kids behind me so I can kill whatever’s scaring her, Dominic at my side. I’m so angry time slows down. The only reason I don’t shift is the strobing lights on the two remaining cop cruisers. Just distracting enough to remind me where I am and keep me human.

  Rounding the firetruck as Dominic’s reaching us, I follow Poppy’s line of sight to the edge of my house. The shadowy figure hiding there. Dominic’s moving with purpose, so I know he recognizes the shape. I’m more interested in putting myself between it and my family. Questions can be answered once the threat is dealt with.

  Just then the figure steps brazenly out into the spotlight, outlined against the house. A shambling, skinny scarecrow of a figure, wearing a business suit, wild hair. He comes ambling slowly toward us, staring out into the dark like he can’t see anything at all. Then, he raises his shotgun with a cold smile.

  Dominic growls as deeply as my daughter, hurling himself to the top of the firetruck and dropping between the old man and me. Goodboy is trying to form a wall or something, putting himself between the gun and the kids as best he can. Dominic runs straight at the guy, even as he’s taking aim at my babies.

  The first blast goes wide, scaring some birds down the street. You can hear the rat-ta-tat of the buckshot hitting pavement as it falls.

  The second shot, he takes his time with. Dropping to a knee like a sniper, aiming down the sights. He’s definitely going for one of the kids.

  Who would do that? Why would any person do that? Not even Poppy could have started a vendetta on this scale.

  When he fires the second shot, it’s a last-minute change of plans, swinging the gun up at Dominic’s chest before he empties both barrels.

  It takes less than a second. Not much more than that for Dominic to cross the distance and tear the man’s throat out.

  The smell of blood and cordite, that’s a strong memory. That Fourth of July smell of gunfire. Dominic’s eyes, shocked. Stuck that way, even as they’re loading him up. Jonesy saying they found rat poison and some kind of homemade bomb in the man’s pockets. It seems unlikely any of us would have survived whatever mad plan the Silly Man cooked up.

  The cameras caught him firing, but not how Dominic put him down. So there’s that. I wish I could say I feel conflicted about it, but I really don’t. There isn’t an acceptable reason to attack kids. The rationale doesn’t matter.

  This is about the point where I lose a lot of time. I know I saw the gunshot, the attack, because they kept making me tell the story on the way to the hospital.

  There’s footage from the news van, of course. But there are gaps. Things I’ll never really figure out or fit together.

  I’m going to have to get used to that, I think. It makes me angry.

  When Jonesy arrives at the hospital he’s already decided to stay with me until Dominic wakes up, sending Goodboy back home with the kids to their own beds.

  I want to be nowhere else but home. Claiming not to care what happens to Dominic, and then immediately bursting into deep, heavy sobs.

  Jonesy drags a couch into Dominic’s room when nobody’s looking, sits and holds his arms out, creating the perfect space to lay my head. A literal shoulder to cry on. So I do.

  And then I drop like a stone.

  When I wake up, the sun’s rising. Dominic looks exactly the same as he did when they brought him in. My sweaty curls are sticking to the leather where Jonesy was before I fell asleep.

  Jonesy’s quiet but not grim when he returns a few minutes later, with coffee and hope. As it happens, Jonesy is great in a crisis. The infinite mystery. Maybe it’s because he is one ongoing crisis in the form of a man. Or maybe because he’s just a solid guy, who got there the hard way. Either way I’m unbelievably glad he’s here.

  Goodboy
appears a few minutes later, and when Jonesy asks for my house key I just hand it over. Cleaning up, probably. Or baking a cake, for all I know.

  “So the kids didn’t love sleeping at home, they said it smelled ‘burny,’ and I took them to the ranch before I came here. Is that okay?”

  “That’s fine. But I wish you’d go. You’ve got a pack to take care of, and I’m just here on my own. I’ll be fine.”

  Smiling quietly, he inspects the floor.

  “With all due respect, you won’t be fine. You’re not here on your own, either. Please, just let me be of use. You’re an omega, you know what it’s like. I’m restless and itchy. I just want something to clean, or chop, or yell at. Right now, that’s you. So, get back on that couch and see if you can get back to sleep.”

  He produces pajamas and passes me those as well.

  “When Dominic wakes up, I gather you have things to discuss. But here’s what I think. You’re going to discuss them. If you really wanted him gone you’d have left by now. He’d get the hint, trust me. You’re here because you love him. You can’t just turn that off, Christian.”

  I sit on the couch, horrified inwardly to be pouting in front of Goodboy Miller but too tired to address it.

  “Goodboy, thank you for your wisdom but I feel like that’s not exactly true. He did the one thing I can’t forgive. And…”

  Goodboy’s eyes snap to me from his coffee mug, ready to read me the riot act.

  “Not that. The money stuff is vile, and I can’t believe he kept it from me. But that’s not what I’m upset about. Currently, I’m upset because he could die and that’s unacceptable. I won’t have him doing that or putting me through it. Or Bodhi, or the twins. Even Poppy. If he died on us, I would just…that would be on me. Wouldn’t it? Don’t I know better?”

  Goodboy seems reluctant to answer, but his eyes are alert.

  “He took a bullet for your kids.”

  “It was a buckshot.”

  “Don’t be pedantic, Christian. I hate when you do that. This man is in critical condition because he stepped in front of a gun. Without a second thought. For you.”

  “A gun that was intended for him, though. For his sins.”