by Jenn LeBlanc
“You were wearing this long T-shirt with the pink Power Ranger on it and shorts.”
“And you?”
“I was wearing boxers.”
“And?”
“Slippers. I had my Pokémon slippers on that you gave me for Christmas that year. I still have them. They’re in my closet.”
I laugh, and his cock bumps against my belly and I remember the tease and straighten, giving him pressure the full length of me for a moment just to hear the hiss of his relief on his breath. I back off again and trail my fingers down his biceps as they shake with restraint. “Don’t move.”
“Yes. Yes, that’s what you said. Then you sat on the bench next to me as I played and you…you touched me, and every time I made a mistake, you pulled your hand away.”
“Was I that cruel?”
“You were. You were the very best kind of cruel. I absolutely loved you for it.”
“What else do you remember?”
“I already told you, I remember all of it.”
“Do you?”
“I do.”
“Have you touched yourself to the memory of that night?”
“Yes.”
“Often?” I’m like a cat rubbing everywhere except where he wants it most.
His Adam’s apple bumps against my neck before he answers. “Yes,” he groans.
“How often?”
“God, so often.”
“Show me,” I say. I push him to his back, pulling his pajama pants down so I can see his cock. It springs from the waistband and slaps his belly.
His abs tighten and he moans. “Jesus Christ.”
“I’m waiting,” I remind him, and his hand leaves my hip. First he wipes it down his thigh, then he pushes past his waistband and adjusts his balls, and I slide the waistband farther down his hips to give him room to move. I want to see this. I’ve never seen anything like it. His fingers cup his balls as his thumb coasts gently up and down the base of his cock. Then he notches his thumb in the space in front of his belly, and his other fingers wrap slowly around the shaft. His body nearly folds as he lets out a breath. He inhales what feels like all the air in the room as he straightens.
“Tell me more about that night,” I say.
“The moon…lit up the sheer curtains over the windows. It was the only light in the room,” he says and his forefinger slides over the top of his cock, gathering the precome there and using it.
“That sounds lovely.”
“Of course it does. I—I designed my studio to look just like it, or didn’t you notice?”
“I did notice. I also noticed you’ve stopped moving,” I say.
“This is…not easy.”
“Why is that? Didn’t you and Xan jerk off together?”
“Sure, but that’s…so different from this.” His voice is raw. I can feel how naked he is right now. Zero pretense. I watch his expression. His hand has stilled, but it covers his penis, his thumb sliding slowly as though to soothe it.
“Tell me more about the studio,” I say, because I want to back away from this intimacy. I want levity in this sex. I want fun. I don’t think I’m ready for what he’s giving me.
“I built my studio on memories, Cam. The only thing missing was you. Everything else was there, just waiting for you.”
“How many women have you made love to on that piano?” I ask but my voice is unsteady because I can’t get myself to recommit to the nonchalance I’m so desperately looking for…and I think he knows it.
“None,” he says, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard that fullness of power in his voice before.
“How many women have you fucked up against those windows?” I ask.
“None,” he says and stops moving, his hand coming to my chin and turning my face to his.
“You prefer a bed?” I choke out.
“I prefer you,” he says, and my skin tingles with an awareness the likes of which I’ve never felt. I want contact everywhere, which is physically impossible, but exactly what I want, what I need. I grab him and I strip him and I rub myself up against him wantonly, trying to quell this itch he’s started.
“I need you,” I whisper, and his hands travel my body, ramping up every nerve.
“I need you more.” He grabs my ass and pulls me on top of him, and I slide against him, my pussy so wet it makes it easy. There’s no friction between us, none at all.
“Je veux… Je veux… I want,” I say and don’t finish the sentence, because I’m not sure what else there is to say to him. I see him dig around in his night table and pull out a condom and smile, because I know what I want, what I need right now.
“Baby, hold on,” he says, and I lift up on my knees as he fumbles between our bodies, and then we’re sliding again, fitting together, making everything right again. But that’s when it hits me, that this is exactly what we were doing when our beautiful Isabeau came to be. This here between us is how she was given life, and suddenly it means so much more to be able to share this with him. And I’m stripped bare. He’s brought me to this place of innocence and removed the last shred of steel around my heart.
I lean up on my elbows and look in his eyes as he moves my hips against his, setting the pace he wants. “Daniel?” I say.
“Camellia, I know,” he answers, and my tears fall to his face as he lifts his chin and kisses me.
Fourteen
Daniel
Sex with Camellia isn’t the same. I feel it, and I know she feels it. And to call this sex would be a lie at the core of it. There’s something more between us, which is amazing, considering how much was already there. There’s no way I’m going to be able to put into words what I’m feeling right now and, for fuck’s sake, literally, I’m not going to try either. The way she looks at me, the way her body welcomes mine, the way her eyes hold mine and her tears streak my cheeks…everything about this is more than it’s ever been.
I think about the fact that if we were normal teenagers we’d have somehow managed to do this here before. But we were never normal teenagers, and our first time was in a magical setting because of it. Would I have preferred it in this perfectly normal setting? If it meant that neither of us got hurt like we have been? Then maybe, yes.
I have to blink away her tears before they sting my eyes, so I can keep looking up into her gaze and wondering…all of these things. How any of this is even possible to begin with. It feels larger than life, like something from a movie screen. But it isn’t, it’s just us, the two of us, in my bed that’s been the scene of so many illicit teenaged daydreams.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks, and I close my eyes to vanquish my thoughts and concentrate on the sweet slide of her flesh around my dick.
“You. You as a woman, you when we met. You when I didn’t know you anymore. You—all I can think of is you and nothing else. You, surrounding me, filling me, how soft your body is inside, how warm… God, Camellia I don’t ever want to lose you again no matter what happens next.”
“Promise me?” she says, and I open my eyes and look up into her worried gaze.
“I promise, anything, anything you want, I’ll promise. You are everything. You were my past, you’re my present and you’ll be my future. There’s nobody for me but you. There’s no life for me without you. I love you.”
I watch her close her eyes and nod, then she arches her back and comes against me as I thrust and I’m not ready to be done yet. I’m nowhere near ready, so I hold her hips and push. Then I find her clit and stroke her back to life as I move my other hand around her hip and let my middle finger slide along the crease of her ass as she rocks against me.
“Come again, Camellia, come again and remind me what it’s like to be alive.”
“I am, I am,” she says and her hand comes down against my chest, her nails digging into my flesh, five tiny pricks of light against this darkness inside, but I don’t feel it like I should. All I feel is her. All I know is her. All I want is her. I come so hard my jaw tenses and the come
draws through me like an arrow, filling my veins before it empties everything I am into her.
“Camellia.”
“Keep going,” she says. I know she’s close again, so I take her hips and try to give her some sort of stability against my wild, jerky movements. Her hand slides around my neck, her thumb resting perfectly in the divot as her fingers wrap around it, holding my face steady for her kiss as she leans down and gives me her tongue.
There’s no doubt in my mind. None. I doubt nothing about her, or this, or us, or anything. And I vow I never will again.
The next morning, what wakes me is the smell of pancakes. This is why we stayed here. Pancakes. Pancakes and…Isabeau. I close my eyes and let my body remember yesterday and all it brought. My arms tighten on the warm body in front of me as the day before starts to come back and all I can do in response is hold on to her tighter.
“Good morning,” she says.
“Good morning,” I say. “How are you? Ready for Mom’s pancakes?”
“Absolutely,” she says, but it isn’t really an I’m ready for pancakes kind of voice.
“What’s up?” I ask as I turn her toward me on this tiny teenaged bed.
“Oh, just, you know, everything.”
“Yeah. Hey, we’re going to figure this out and you…whatever you need, we’re going to figure this out.”
“I want to take Isabeau home with me.”
“I think…yeah, of course, we’ll figure it out. We’ll definitely get to that point.”
“No, I mean today. I want to take her home today. I lost ten years with her. I need to get to know her. I woke up this morning and I just knew this was what I wanted. I can’t wait. I want my daughter back,” she says, and I hear the joy in her voice and… Whoa. Okay.
I just got Camellia back and for some strange, probably irrational reason, I feel like I’m losing her to my sister. Daughter. She’s my daughter. I sit up in the bed and throw my feet to the floor, running my hands through my hair. “I don’t know how to… I don’t know what…”
Her hand runs up my back. “I know this is a lot for you, I understand, but you can’t know what this is like for me.”
“I can’t, you’re right. I have no idea what it’s like to lose my child and wonder what my life with her would have been like for ten years, only to find out she never died. What I’m dealing with is a whole lot faster. I only just found out I was a father and then wasn’t and now I am—and hey, I’ve known her all along. You’re right, I don’t know how you’re feeling because I don’t even know how I’m feeling. Except that I know she’s safe and she’s happy and I know that anything else can be figured out with a little time.”
“Time.” She stands up, and I watch as she puts her shirt on and pulls on her pants and slides into her shoes. “It’s been ten years of time that I haven’t had her and you have. I think it’s my time.”
“Wait.” I say. “Wait. Ten years of having her or not having her or… Wait, just… This isn’t—we can’t… Okay, just give me a minute to catch up, please? I’ve been doing nothing but trying to catch up with all these new revelations since you came back into my life. I seriously just need a little time, okay?”
“In the meantime, she can come home with me.”
“But wait, you have things to do! Why… She’s happy, she’s safe, she isn’t going anywhere—why would you want to pull her away from everything she knows right now?”
“Because, Daniel! I lost ten years of life with her! Just like you lost ten years of life with me. If you could get that back, what would you do? And since I’ve been back, what have you wanted?”
Nothing but you in my arms every single minute. The answer comes immediately, but I don’t say it out loud. “Yeah, okay, I understand, I do. I just… What are we talking about here? Is she going to live with you? With me? With us? What are you thinking right now?”
“I don’t know. What I know is that I want her to know who she is, right now. I want her to know I didn’t give her away. I don’t want her to go another moment thinking her mother abandoned her or didn’t want her or whatever it is she thinks since she knows she was adopted. Has she had those questions? Does she know? What has she been told? There are…so many questions. So many questions.”
“I know. I have them, too.”
“But you don’t need answers like I do?”
“No, I guess I don’t feel that urgency because I’ve known her all this time and I know she’s safe. So I don’t feel the urgency you do. But we can do this. We can figure it out. Let’s talk to Mom and Dad and find out what she knows, because above all, I know you don’t want her to be hurt.”
“Yes, but I also don’t want her to question why I wasn’t here, and when she finally learns, I don’t want her to wonder why I kept my fucking mouth shut, Daniel, like your parents have for years now. Do you understand that?” Her voice rises, and I take two steps toward her and run my hands down her arms to comfort her.
“Hey, Cam, we aren’t enemies in this. We’re on the same side, aren’t we?”
“Are we? Because you’re doing an awful lot of arguing right now.”
“Just let me talk to my mom first. Just for a minute. Stay here if you want, and I’ll bring her up or, talk to her alone, whatever you want. But please, just let me talk to her first.”
“What happens if she tries to keep her from me? What happens if she tries to bring all the legalities in and keep her from me? What then? Whose side are you going to be on then?” I hear raw, true fear in her voice and look in her eyes and see the same and I suddenly understand how frightened she is.
“Is that what you’re really worried about? Cam,” I say and take her hands and pull her too me, wrapping my arms around her and trying to comfort her. “I’m going to be perfectly honest, I don’t think we need to take sides here. I think we’re all on the same side, whatever that means. But if you need to hear me tell you I’m on your side, then listen to me,” I say and I hold her face until she looks in my eyes. “I’m on your side. Whatever you need, I’m here for you. So let’s do this, but let’s be reasonable about it. Okay? I just don’t want to hurt Iz.”
“Okay,” she says. “Okay, I trust you. Go talk to your mom, but don’t leave me here for long, Daniel, because I don’t know how long I can hold myself together.”
“Okay, I won’t.” I get up and pull my jeans on and walk to the door, but she grabs my hand. She doesn’t say anything, but the look on her face is enough to tell me everything I need to know. Meli needs her daughter. Now, sooner than later. I have to make sure that happens for her, but doesn’t hurt Iz at the same time. “Stay here. I’ll be back. I promise.”
She kisses my hand, and I walk out, closing the door behind me. I’ve got to find Mom.
Meli
Sitting on Daniel’s bed waiting is one of the strangest feelings in the world. It’s like I’ve been running for years and only just see the finish line, but a wall of bulletproof glass has come down in front of me and I simply can’t get there. I can feel my heart racing and I know if I’m here much longer waiting, I won’t be able to be still.
My daughter is in this house.
Everything is so much more complicated than it was just twenty-four hours ago, and the only thought I have that’s clear enough to concentrate on is that I want her with me from here on out. This one thought I can’t get out of my head. It won’t dissipate or lessen; it’s only grown stronger as I’ve slept and now lie staring at the ceiling.
The door to the room creaks open slowly, and my heart gives a single heavy thump, knowing I’m just a little closer to the end, to a resolution, to less waiting.
“I’m sorry I was so abrupt,” I say. “I just can’t seem to get a handle on how I feel.”
“When?” she asks, and her small voice has me sitting up, my heart racing again.
“Iz?”
“Hello.”
I turn and sit at the edge of Daniel’s bed and pat the mattress next to me, and she comes over, b
ut she doesn’t sit down. The only thing going through my head is a string of commands to not fuck up this moment. I’ll tread lightly in this, be careful in this, even as I feel like a bull in a china shop about all of this. “Did you sleep well?”
She stands before me and stares, and I can feel her eyes inspecting my hair, the tight curls, the soft, natural texture that matches her own, if a different color. She looks at my hands then lifts one of hers, and I take it, but she isn’t greeting me. She turns my hand over in hers and inspects it, the shape of it, the lines of it. She holds it next to her own hand and compares them, and I don’t think I can breathe right now.
She scrapes one finger along the edge of my pinky nail which twists when it grows long.
Then she’s looking in my eyes and they sting, they sting so much my nose tingles and I want to push my finger to it to stop the sting, but she still has my hand and I can’t move.
She fidgets, then she speaks. “Are you…” Her voice fades as she loses her nerve, and I can’t seem to find my own because I know exactly what she wants to ask me. “You're a lot like me. But really different too,” she says finally.
“True.”
“Like…”
“Like?”
“I'm adopted,” she says, and I nod because I can't speak.
“Daniel said your mom and dad died.”
“They did, but yours didn't.”
“No. My mom and dad love me very much and if they could be here, they would be,” she says. It was a well-practiced script, and it brought tears to my eyes. Then she whispers as she stares at her feet, her hands twisting at her waist, “I think you wanted to be here but you couldn't.”
The shudder that runs through me starts my hands to shaking. I nod and then I pull my hand from hers and open my arms. “You have no idea how badly I wanted to be here,” I say, and she falls against me and all I feel is the rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathes deeply against me.
“Do you want me now?” she asks, and there’s no force on earth that will keep my tears at bay.
