by Elle Maxwell
Her head tilts up so she can look at my face, hers sad and imploring and so, so beautiful.
“We can’t,” I remind her gently. “Because of your head. Remember the doctor said you need to take it easy for a few weeks?”
Her pale hand drifts down my body until it rests over my crotch. Unconcerned with the protocols of concussion treatment, my dick responds immediately to the prospect of her attention.
“You can be gentle,” she whispers. “Please. I need you.” Her voice is unsteady again.
I know we shouldn’t, but I am powerless to turn her down when there is so much desperation in her voice, in her eyes. I am simply not strong enough to deny the girl I love when she’s begging me to make love to her.
I move to reposition us so she’s lying flat on her back and I’m kneeling beside her. I gaze down at wide eyes filled with a trust I’m going to greedily accept even though I’m not worthy of it.
“We’ll take it slow. Tell me if your arm or your head hurts and we’ll stop, okay?”
“Okay.”
I pull off my shirt, then my pants, watching her eyes track every movement I make. When I’m down to only my underwear, I start undressing her. I tug at the waistband of her stretchy yoga pants and slide them down her legs. Then I begin unbuttoning her pajama top, kissing her sternum and each one of her breasts before continuing down her stomach as each button exposes more skin. I leave the shirt like that, spread open but not fully removed so she won’t have to sit up or pull it over her injured arm.
I sit back on my heels, taking a second to look at her laid out beneath me, and I breathe out heavily. Damn. I am no less affected by the sight of her body than that first time we slept together back in January. Finally, I slide off her panties. Once they’re gone, I return my hand between her legs and slide two fingers inside her, pumping unhurriedly. Her hand comes down and grabs my wrist.
“I’m ready,” she breathes. “I want you inside me now. Please, Graham.” Her voice is still uncharacteristically needy, almost pleading. And I still can’t deny her.
I grab one of the white pillows from the head of the bed and slip it beneath her, right where her spine meets her ass, so I’ll have a better angle. Gently, I grab hold of her near her hipbones, my dick swelling at the sight of my huge hands against her creamy skin. I keep my hands there to hold her in place so I can try and limit any jostling that could hurt her head. Then I line myself up to push inside her. When I enter her, we both suck in breaths at the same time. I move my gaze from her hips up to her eyes, and we maintain that eye contact as I start moving, still going as slowly as I can manage. Her body welcomes me as I slide in one hard inch at a time, her wet warmth squeezing my length tightly in its embrace. It’s so good that for a moment I see stars at the edges of my vision and have to focus so I don’t come.
I continue to fill her until it’s impossible for me to get any deeper. Our pelvises are pressed together, the base of my dick rubbing against her clit. Still buried deep, I angle my hips and swivel them slightly until I see the pulse in her neck jump and her eyes widen, signs that I’ve hit the right spot. I stay right there and grind against her for long seconds before pulling back out (slowly, so slowly) until I’ve removed all but the very tip. My gaze drops, fixated on the place where we’re joined, and I watch as my dick slowly disappears inside her again.
When I look back up to her eyes, I see them shiny with tears, wetness already sliding down her cheeks. I freeze in place as my brows furrow with worry.
“Are you in pain? Is this too much?” I start to pull out, but her voice stops me at the same time her legs come up to wrap around my waist.
“No, don’t stop.”
I remove a hand from her hip and skim my fingers through her tears, my touch lighter than a feather as I trail along the bruised side of her face.
“I don’t want to hurt you, baby. If you need a release, I promise I’ll get you off with my mouth or my fingers. That might be easier on your head.” I try to pull away again.
“No!” Her thighs squeeze in and clamp around me, halting my progress with those leg muscles that are so incredibly strong for such a small person. “Please don’t stop. I need this. I need you.”
Her voice is a little broken, tears now streaming down her face faster than I can wipe them away. There’s no way her head isn’t hurting, and I know we should stop. I’m probably a huge bastard for doing this in the first place instead of insisting she rest and take care of herself. But I’m not that good of a man, and my body wants her with a desperation that matches the need in her eyes. I don’t have it in me to be noble right now.
I sink within the cradle of her body again and again. Occasionally I lean in to kiss her, my tongue caressing hers with the same slow strokes as my hips. I don’t think we’ve ever had sex this slow before; we both usually want it a lot faster and harder, tending to get caught up in passion. But this … what we’re doing now is something else entirely, something deep and intense. The rhythmic movement of our bodies is almost hypnotic. The world around us disappears, narrowing until there is nothing left but this moment and the two of us. Our eyes are still locked together, exchanging professions of love and hope and fear and sadness even though no words leave our lips. Tears still trickle down Mackenzie’s face, but her hands on my body and the tight grip of her legs around my hips urge me on with a silent plea not to stop.
I’m barely holding back tears myself. Because we’re both pouring every ounce of emotion into our lovemaking, as though for the last time. It feels like goodbye.
We come together. It’s powerful, drawn out, and so intense that her tears turn to sobs. I can’t hold back a few tears of my own that I let fall onto her skin as I bury my head in her neck. Then we stay unmoving, just clinging to each other for a long time, until her body goes slack and her breaths even out in slumber.
I carefully disentangle myself and go to the connected bathroom. I lean over the sink, splash water onto my face, and run it through my hair. Now that the sex haze has faded, my chest and throat are tight again with worry. The fear is crippling, thinking about what happened to Mackenzie today, what could have happened, and dreading what will happen to us tomorrow.
I catch sight of the little orange pill bottle on the counter, full of pain pills the doctor prescribed for Mackenzie. I reach over and pick it up, fiddle with the top, fingertips tingling with the sudden urge to open it. My heartbeat picks up in anticipation of the relief from this unbearable pain inside me. I could take a few and she would never notice.
In the large bathroom mirror, I can make out a sliver of the bedroom through the ajar door, enough for a small glimpse of Mackenzie’s bright red hair standing out against the fluffy white sheets. She almost died today. I have to make this right, have to make sure she’s never in danger again, and I won’t be able to do that if I’m fucked up on pills. Although my hand shakes, I release the grip my fingers have on the pill bottle and drop it back to the counter.
* * *
I let Mackenzie sleep in. (I, on the other hand, was up most of the night and have been out of bed since the sun came up.) I greet her sleepy face with a kiss to her forehead and a cup of coffee, waiting until she’s more awake to return with a bagel, coffee, glass of water, and her meds. I can barely look at them as I shake a couple of pills out and place them on a napkin for her. I’m disgusted at myself for what I almost did last night. It was one of the many things I stayed up stewing over.
She swallows the medicine and a couple bites of the bagel before taking a deep breath and patting the bed beside her in invitation. She seems more like her usual self, only a hint of yesterday’s vulnerability visible. When I sit down, I find her looking at me directly with determination in her eyes.
“Okay,” she says, face and voice resigned. “Now, tell me everything. Start with the night you were arrested five years ago—what exactly happened?”
32. THAT NIGHT
5 years earlier...
Graham
If y
ou asked me a few months ago, I would have insisted, adamantly, that I’d never be caught dead in this sketchy part of town. Certainly couldn’t have imagined I’d ever willingly be standing around in the parking lot of this rundown gas station in the middle of the night. A bitter wind hits me, and I duck back a few steps, hoping the graffiti covered pole will help shield me from it. No such luck. High above me, the pole has one broken bulb that causes it to cast a lopsided glow over the empty lot. The station’s small row of gas pumps sports more handles with scribbled “out of order” signs than ones that don’t. Everything about this place screams “dirty” and “wrong.” Myself included.
Curtis is late, and I’m ready to crawl out of my skin with impatience. I bounce on the balls of my feet, whole body agitated. Restless. I can’t figure out what to do with my hands, shoving them inside my coat pockets and then removing them repeatedly. Every time my right hand enters the fleece lined pocket, my fingers brush against the cash stashed there, the roll of bills held by a rubber band totaling more than a grand. Money for drugs.
If Curtis would fucking show up already.
So, yeah, I never thought I’d be here, but that was before. Before my parents died. Both of them gone in an instant, killed in a car accident on a completely normal day that shouldn’t have born witness to such tragedy. It was the middle of the afternoon on a quiet Sunday, for fuck’s sake, the sun shining brightly, and they were driving a route they’d taken a million times before on their way to the grocery store. But they never made it. Never came home. Never will again.
I don’t know who the hell came up with those stages of grief, like they come in some sort of linear sequence. My experience of grief is more akin to a pinball machine, my emotions the helpless little sphere ricocheting erratically from place to place. But whether I momentarily land on denial, or grief, or anger, one constant remains. The pain. Since the moment I answered my phone and a voice on the other end told me Mom and Dad were dead, there’s been this—I can’t even explain it—this pressure inside my chest. Day in and day out. It kind of feels like when you’re submerged in water for too long, when your lungs run out of air and your whole body buzzes with an overwhelming urgency, survival instincts screaming at you to get oxygen, to breathe. The difference is that for me there doesn’t seem to be a surface. No air just above waiting to remedy this pervasive agony inside me.
Everyone is quick to share a sympathetic word, a pitying look, a bit of advice about how they’ve “been there.” So many people have told me “it gets better.” That “time heals.” Time. If we’re talking time here, then the truth is that this second is unbearable, the next hour daunting, and tomorrow seems impossible. So, promises of feeling better within the vague parameters of “time” does more to hurt than help me. It does nothing to quell that urgency inside driving me to seek relief. The same drive that brought me here, to what is undoubtedly my lowest of low points.
I didn’t jump into drugs right away. First, it was alcohol. I started with Dad’s extensive bourbon collection. I definitely blame the anger stage for sending me to Dad’s prized liquor cabinet, chugging that covetable aged bourbon as though it was ten-dollar shit from the bottom shelf at the corner liquor store. After I drank the last bottle, I wept like a baby, my overwrought emotions pinging suddenly to devastation that another piece of my father was gone. But running out of the fancy stuff didn’t stop me from drinking. I drank anything and everything I could get my hands on. And it worked—at least at first. Drunk was okay for a little bit. Drunk put a dent in the suffocating pain and helped me sleep. Until it didn’t. Until it left me with nothing but a headache and sluggish muscles that made it hard to keep up at football practice.
After that, my descent into drug abuse was predictable, almost inevitable. Nothing you can’t find in any cautionary tale about the slippery slope of drugs.
It’s fucking pathetic, really. In the end, I’m nothing but a cliché. Just another poor little rich boy buying drugs with his dead daddy’s money, popping pills and sniffing powder to take the pain away for a few hours.
Speaking of, I could use a couple pills right now. Thanks for nothing, Curtis, you motherfucker. I’m going to take some as soon as I leave here tonight, one or two to loosen the knot inside my ribcage and help me sleep. I generally let myself have more at night, because the nights are the hardest, and also because during the day I’m walking a thin line making sure to keep my little habit a secret from my classmates, coaches, teammates, and most importantly, Mackenzie.
When was the last time I took something? My mind isn’t sure, but my body is certain it’s been too long. Lately the days are getting harder, my attempts to stay sober at school less and less successful.
Today, at least, a little midday orgasm took the edge off. A smirk tips at my lips remembering how I talked Mackenzie into some oral in the back of my Range Rover during lunch. My girl would never have agreed to that shit three months ago, but she’s been giving me pretty much whatever I want lately. Kenz probably thinks I’m using excessive amounts of sex to cope with the grief. Shit, I wish that were true. It might even work, if I could somehow keep my dick inside her twenty-four hours a day. I’d even give her a break every now and then, let her rest as long as she put it in her mouth or even her hands. If only.
My Mackenzie. Guilt hits me hard. What would she say if she saw me right now? No, I don’t want to think about her, not while I’m here. I don’t want her near any of this, not even in my thoughts.
“Wyatt.”
I nearly jump a foot in the air, cursing at Curtis for sneaking up on me. He gives me an unapologetic grin and pulls a plastic bag from his back pocket.
“Went through that last batch fast, huh?”
I grunt and shrug, eyes focused on the bag in his hand. I pull out the cash. His gaze lands on it, and the greed gleaming in his eyes is so clear he might as well be a cartoon with dollar signs popping from them. We make the exchange, each pocketing our respective treasure.
Suddenly, there’s a commotion on the other side of the parking lot. Curtis and I both look up to watch a short Hispanic man stalking toward us, ranting in rapid Spanish.
“You sold to my baby sister?” he yells at Curtis when he’s perhaps a car’s length from us.
“Nothing personal, amigo.” Curtis sneers in a mocking tone, butchering the Spanish word by drawing out the vowels (ay-mee-go). “She came to me. I guess her big brother would deal to everyone else but wouldn’t share with her, so she had to look elsewhere. I simply obliged.”
Curtis has been smug, almost combative, but when the guy raises his hand revealing a gun, his whole body language changes. He tenses beside me, and before I can blink, he’s pulled out his own gun from somewhere.
Holy shit. I blink. Is this really happening?
“Don’t compare us,” the man growls, literally spitting onto the pavement in disgust. “We don’t sell to kids. And we don’t move bad product. The shit you sold her was laced!” He’s now waving the gun around as his hands gesture with his words. “She’s in the hospital in a coma, on a fucking respirator!”
His pain is palpable, the manic shine in his eyes making him look unhinged. I’m pretty sure he didn’t bring that gun for show-and-tell—he looks ready to use it. Shit. I want to run, but I make myself stay put. I don’t move or speak, not wanting to draw his attention.
“Hey now, it’s not on me if she doesn’t know her limits.” Curtis uses a placating tone now, obviously sensing the danger of the situation. But even though he’s put on a false friendly demeanor, he doesn’t put his gun away. In fact, I think I see the muscles of his arm tighten.
“No!” The man’s shrieked denial is broken, his voice cracking with the force of his emotion. He steps closer to Curtis with determination, gun still clutched in the hand now hanging by his side. “No, she didn’t overdose. The docs said they found fucking Fentanyl.”
Fentanyl? I think I’ve heard that word thrown around in the news. Something about dealers increasing thei
r profits by lacing heroin with it? I remember the reporter saying it’s cheaper and gives a more intense high than heroin, but it’s also far deadlier. Fuck.
He takes another step forward, eyes fixed on Curtis. Beside me, there’s movement then a click that seems to echo through the gas station. Before I can process what’s happening, a deafening crack sounds. I flinch back, instinctually expecting pain that doesn’t come. Instead, not five feet in front of me I see the other man jerk back. Blood and God knows what else sprays from his forehead where the bullet hit and lodged. It doesn’t look real, the blood too red, the spray and unnatural movement of his body making me feel like I’m in a Quentin Tarantino movie. Then he drops, a pool spreading out beneath his head far too quickly, his face too pale, body too still. I feel moisture on my cheek and reach up a finger to swipe at it. My world narrows as I stare fixated at the red staining my finger, my ringing ears supplying the soundtrack to my shock.
Oh my God. Curtis just fucking shot him. I have a dead man’s blood on my hand.
Then something hard slams into my chest, snapping me out of my stupor and back to reality. Looking down, I see that what I felt was Curtis’ gun, which he’s now pointing right at my chest. He yells in my ear.
