Jeremiah Quick

by SM Johnson

  "Please, oh please," she whispered, but didn't expect her plea to change anything. She felt it, too, a chill breeze like a living thing between them, twined around them, and a sense that forward momentum was inevitable. Whatever this was, it couldn't be stopped now.

  His hand smoothed along her back, then one finger traced the line of her spine all the way to the tailbone, the cleft between her buttocks. She shivered.

  So intimate.

  His finger traced past her anus, plunged into her pussy, and she shuddered and moaned because she was still wet, and still, remarkably, aroused. She'd expected a lot more sex than there had been, to be honest. And it wasn't that she was disappointed, exactly, but then, yeah, kind of.

  He loved Jamie, she knew that, and felt ashamed for being turned on, for wanting him in a way that he'd never wanted her.

  "You're so light," he said. "But you like the Dark." His voice was soft. "You crave it. Come with me. Say you'll trust me to lead you into the Dark."

  She did trust him. More now than ever. And she knew it was a betrayal of everyone she left at home, but she couldn’t help it. He'd trusted her with important stories, and the only way to honor that was to trust him with herself, her whole self. All of her. She understood that much, kneeling on the floor in this obscene position, every part of her open to him except her soul.

  And he was asking for that, now.

  Here, was her body, naked and drawn on to make it his.

  Her heart – she'd given to him piece by small piece with those little squares of chocolate so long ago.

  There was only her soul that she kept from him, that bit of autonomy.

  "Say it," he coaxed. "You have to mean it. It's... important."

  She thought she would feel silly saying it, awkward and melodramatic, but no, the words fell from her lips like they'd been waiting to fall for an eternity, waiting for him. Waiting for this.

  They left her mouth, her throat, and floated into the air, hung between the two of them for the longest set of seconds in the universe, and then something intangible just... clicked... into place.

  She'd just given him permission. For everything.

  His fingers stroked the inner walls of her sex, a brush, a curl, and then withdrew, scraped along her clit, paused there and pressed until she whimpered just the tiniest whimper, and then he withdrew them, leaned over her, and held his fingers to her lips.

  She took them in her mouth, tasted the familiarity of herself, and it was like tasting her thoughts. She wasn't salty, she was creamy and musk, a taste intangible and difficult to describe, difficult to compare to anything else.

  Like... Essence of Me, she thought. She liked it. She'd always liked it.

  He pulled away and was gone, and for a span of seconds nothing happened. Then wet and cold between her ass cheeks, and she flinched, tensed.

  "Breathe," Jeremiah said. "Take in a deep breath, then let it out, long and slow."

  Pretty sucked in air, letting it fill her, feeling her lungs expand against her rib cage, and then, as if reading her mind, his hand was there, his fingers drumming an intimate beat along her ribs, and she let the breath go in a slow stream from pursed lips.

  "Do you trust me?" he asked, and there came a pressure at her asshole, a steady determined press, and with a little sobbing "Yes," she pushed back and was breached.

  The intruding object was long and slim, and it snaked itself deep until she thought she would choke on it.

  "Just keep breathing," he said, and she cringed as the water flowed and flowed into her. She cried out as her guts cramped and clenched, and his hands came around to massage her stomach below the ropes.

  In the middle of the worst cramp of all, his fingers dipped even lower and he tapped her clit, drew circles around it, then tapped again, and Pretty found herself clenched tight all over and for too many reasons all at once.

  She shifted her knees, which dragged her nipples along the floor, and they tightened into hard nubs.

  She was undeniably aroused.

  She'd expected complete humiliation, and she had that too, in spades, but something about his hands, his gentle murmurings against her complete vulnerability, electrified her.

  The water seemed to stop.

  Jeremiah was on his knees behind her, and she felt a couple of tugs, heard a swishing noise, and felt a sudden increase of pressure that made her release a little cry of alarm.

  "Shh," he said, and then curved his body over her back, sheltering her."Don't cry. It's just the inflatable part that keeps the tube in."

  She writhed beneath him, intensely uncomfortable because her body was telling her to empty.

  "It can't stay for long," she said, trying not to whine."

  "A few minutes," he answered. "You can do it."

  She didn't know if she could.

  He petted her and talked to her, and told her how much she mattered to him, how he devoted a great deal of his life looking for people like her, who were interested, not afraid; who were open to learning to question, open to change. "Be open to me," he said, a plea in his voice. "Please."

  There was a part of her standing off to the side again, watching this horror show, that wanted to laugh right out loud. How could she possibly be any more open?

  He made her wait there, on the floor, until she was begging him to let her finish, although she fought the actual tears because she still didn't like him licking her eyes, and because it felt like he was taking something from her.

  He finally, finally helped her to the toilet to release the water and everything else, and then he put her through the whole process again.

  This time she did cry, and he crouched down in front of her and tilted her face up, so he could capture her tears with his tongue. There was a sound coming out of him that was nothing like Pretty had ever heard before. It was a whining groan, filled with pain and yearning and the biggest sense of loss she'd ever felt. It made her guts clench, not from the water, but in pain for him, and she didn't even know what he was grieving.

  She tried to stand, after, but collapsed, legs too weak to hold her up.

  Jeremiah cleaned her up, then carried her to his bedroom. She wanted to protest the carrying, but she felt child-tiny in his arms, fragile and insubstantial, as if she only existed in a dream.

  He set her on a padded bench and unwound the rope, untied her hands. He opened a dresser drawer and handed her a pair of white panties and a white tee shirt. "Put them on," he said, voice soft, eyes kind. She did, grateful for the cover, for this tiny reprieve from nakedness that felt like privacy.

  When she was dressed, he tucked her into a soft bed with an upholstered black leather headboard, said, "Just rest," and went into the bathroom and closed the door.

  Pretty felt strange and floaty, so she snuggled into Jeremiah's blankets and drifted for a while.

  Jeremiah returned wearing only a towel, which he stripped off as he came to the bed. Pretty's eyes caught on bumps of bone, ridges of rib cage, and that fall of long black, black hair.

  He slid underneath the sheet and blanket, long pale nakedness, and she was embarrassed to see him that way, embarrassed that he put her into clothing and took himself out of it. It was strange and wrong and she didn't know what to do now.

  Her arms sticking out of the armholes of the white tee shirt looked like odd sticks that didn't belong to her, unrecognizable, the limbs of some brave tattooed woman, all twined with fine lines of ink, so fine her skin was gray with it.

  Her legs, the same, her feet, her toes for gods' sake. She hadn't braved a look in the bathroom mirror at her face, just… not wanting to know. She looked the way he wanted her to look. That, ultimately, was what mattered.

  Again, for the she-didn't-know-how-many-times time, she wondered what the point was. Whether he let her shower or not, his little pen drawings were going to fade and wear off from sweat, oil, what have you – they weren't going to last, no matter what he did or didn't allow.

  He erased the space between them wi
th a combined motion of moving toward her and pulling her toward him by an arm hooked over her waist. It was as startling as it was awkward, and she laughed out loud at the awkwardness, the ridiculousness of this whole situation.

  She was supposed to be at home, in bed with her husband, not here with a man who used to be a boy she loved. It was like a fantasy, a fiction, not real life. Certainly not Pretty's real life.

  She cut off the laugh, wondering if this was it, if she was now certifiable.

  "I love your laugh," he said, his voice low and intense. "It winds itself inside me and uncoils something there. If things had been different, if I had been different, I think I could have lived forever on your laugh."

  Something in his expression was wholly open, unmasked.

  And no makeup.

  "Where's your makeup?"

  His clear eyes widened for a second, and then he grinned. "Part of the ritual. I have to be all the way naked for this part of the magick. But later… I'll do makeup again. It'll be like… formal."

  "Have I seen that?"

  "Not on me," and his mouth crooked into a little grin, the one she was starting to realize was his form of true happiness, anticipation, excitement… it meant he could hardly wait. For whatever was coming.

  Back in school, he'd called her the night before Halloween. "Just wait until you see me tomorrow," and she could hear that crooked grin in his voice. And the next morning, yeah, she saw.

  It was astonishing. His hair spiked up into the spines of a Mohawk, each spike standing at least eight inches into the air – ludicrous, ridiculous. And… perfect. Perfect because he hated Them, all of Them, and all They could do was stare. There was less snickering than she would have thought, though maybe just because it was Halloween.

  Now the grin made her slightly nervous. Here she was dressed all in white, like a virgin sacrifice.

  She lifted her hands to cup his face, let her thumbs trace his perfect bowed lips, lips that were too pink for a boy, and especially too pink for him. The reason he preferred dark lipstick she found herself thinking.

  She crooked her thumbs then, and pressed them past his lips so the tip of each rested against his teeth. He did one of those quick, teasing snaps that clicked his teeth, the way her brother used to do, pretending he was going to get her, and that made her laugh all over again. "No biting," she said, and watched his pupils flare.

  Oh.

  She stopped laughing.

  He stared at her and something was happening within him, something she didn't understand and would never understand.

  "You want to, don't you?" Pretty was suddenly much more scared than she'd been just seconds ago.

  "You would hate me," he said, his tone whisper quiet, matching hers.

  Hers was breathy and scared.

  His was just breathless.

  She wanted to tell him to do it, give this to him, but fear crawled up her throat and prevented words, so she pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth instead. He didn't kiss her back, didn't move at all.

  She pulled back and let her fingers slide from his cheeks into his hair, adoring the feel of the silk black waterfall.

  She studied his face, looked for signs of aging, crow's feet, frown lines… he hardly had any. He looked almost the same as he always had.

  He rolled on top of her, pinning her to the bed, and once again she remembered that one night in the woods, imagined his spikey jacket poking into her, only this time it was his knee bones, hip bones, elbows… if he were hers, now, she'd make sure she fed him sandwiches. Regularly.

  He held her hands above her head, his fingers twined tightly around hers.

  "I have to tell you the rest about Corrie."

  She nodded. Waited. Didn't say anything, because this was the lesson of Jeremiah Quick – he taught her how to listen more than to talk.

  "I loved her," Jeremiah said. "As much as I've ever loved anyone in my whole life. You have to understand that, or you won’t understand what happened the last time I saw her."

  His voice was tight with pain, and she could tell it wasn't going to be a nice story.

  She wasn't ready to hear more about pain. She thought maybe she already knew more of his pain than she could bear to know.

  "Wait," she whispered, pleading. "Don't tell me. Not yet."

  Chapter 26

  She.

  She begs me to wait, she doesn't want to know more quite yet. But she has to understand how important Corrie was, how Corrie saved my life, and that what I did, I did because I had no other choice, because anything else was not kindness, but cruelty. This is imperative to the magick.

  If she can't get this part, she won't get any of it.

  She.

  She needs to know what terrible things can be accomplished out of love.

  I've never told this to anyone, not even Jamie.

  But she deserves to know this, she has to know this, to understand what I'm going to ask of her.

  And I… well. I can only hope she loves me enough.

  Just that.

  Chapter 27

  "Why did you come with me?" he asked, still draped over her, letting go of her hands to run his fingers through her hair. It was like petting, sort of.

  Soothing and distracting the Sacrifice.

  Pretty shook her head. "I don't know."

  "Bullshit. You know."

  What did he want, some kind of confession?

  "We weren't finished. You know that. You abandoned me."

  The look on his face.

  Those words hit a nerve, damaged him somehow, but she didn't know why.

  "I could only do what I could do, Sunshine. You think I could change a lifetime in the little pieces of time we had? Obviously not. I mean, look at your fucking life."

  The bitterness in his tone made her cringe. He thought he'd failed.

  She let her own bitterness come through. "Yeah, I think you could have. If you'd have wanted to. But I wasn't worth the time. The other girl, girlfriend, whatever – she was easier and got your time. I just got whatever was left. Crumbs." She spit the truth at him, vicious. "Whatever I am now, I am because you didn't finish me."

  Jeremiah Quick's face changed, eyes shining and dark, as if he were going to cry. But he didn't. And yet, it wasn't because he was fighting it, it looked more like because… he couldn't.

  This stunned her. Hurt her. She thought he'd been making that part up.

  It hurt her more than him calling her spoiled. Spoiled, to him, was like calling her retarded or stunted. This she knew. Spoiled was the worst, as if she and her family should, what, donate their worldly possessions to charity, and then what? It wasn't all that clear.

  It hurt her because he didn't want her, not really. Not for keeps. So there was nothing he would appreciate other than hardship. Suffering.

  "You're wrong about me," she said. "I was worth it."

  When he spoke, he sounded so angry. Hateful. "Everything given to you. Your father. Your husband. Little girl holds out her hand, and whatever she asks for practically appears out of thin air."

  Pretty shook her head, although, in a way, he wasn't completely wrong. He wasn't completely right, either.

  She lifted her hands to cover his lips, to shut him up. It wasn't like that.

  He sucked her fingers into the soft wet cavern of his mouth, caressed them with his tongue, and, when her instinct was to pull away, he grabbed her wrist and held it so she couldn't.

  "You're wrong. I took one big risk, and ended up eating hot dogs and store brand potato chips for a month, because it was the last food in the house and there was no money to buy more. I shivered in the mornings because I couldn't afford to turn the heat on. I counted out twenty-five pennies and traded them at the gas station for a quarter so I could call about my promised job. Every day."

  It had been utterly humiliating, those weeks, the one time, especially, that she stood in the welfare office crying, begging for food stamps, mortified, but too hungry for pride. One of her blacke
st days.

  She didn't tell him that story. She couldn’t bear it if he mocked her, not about that, not now.

  Some things about her were still the same, would always be the same. Pride was probably one of them.

  But she wanted to fix Jeremiah. And thought she could, in a place so deeply hidden that she would deny it. That's why she was here, wasn't it? That's why he could do anything he wanted, no matter how weird or fucked up, and she would accept it.

  If he was broken because no one had ever loved him unconditionally, then she could fix him, right?

  Take his broken parts and love them.

  Take his soul in her hands and breathe in love.

  Love love love love love. I love you, Jeremiah. I've always loved you. I will always love you. Even when you're mean to me, I will love you. Even when you rape and bleed me, I will love you. Loneliness is killing you, and I can take that away.

  Jeremiah wasn't okay, not really. The way he focused on eating her tears, that he would demand them all, coax them out of her, drink them like they were the key to life. Spew the kind of words at her designed to wound, then just… sit back and wait, clinically, watching her face, her eyes, waiting for her to process, waiting for her to cry.

  He really was a fucking bastard.

  She never understood how much she didn't know him. She'd thought there was a connection between them, like the thinnest filament line, from soul to soul. She'd thought he was Hers, in some sense. She didn't know, until now, that it was the opposite. She was his, and he had brought her here to make of her what he willed.

  And parts of it were working, even while parts of it weren't. They were… learning each other.

  But this she did know: When he fucked her, it wasn't love or lust or desire. It was hate, revenge, frustration. He used his body as a weapon, fully with intent to hurt, and, partly, she supposed, because he knew she knew it.