DREAMS of 18

by A. Kent, Saffron

  “Graham,” I gasp, my eyes wide and my nails clawing at his chest.

  “You wanna know my secret?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m an asshole for you, Jailbait. In fact, I’m the biggest asshole on this planet for my baby. For her slutty cunt and I would’ve fucked her with my big, bad cock, anyway.”

  Then, he goes for it.

  He fucks me with his big, bad cock and all I can do is revel in it.

  Revel in his dirty, perfect words.

  All I can do is juice up even more, become even messier and sloppier as he strokes in and out of my slutty cunt.

  Cunt that’s gripping him so tightly that his stabs are short and stubby. They have to be. My pussy won’t let him go. She won’t let him out so he makes do with short, hard pumps.

  And fast. Oh my God, they’re fast.

  They’re jiggling me up and down, shaking my tits, producing sounds that I never even dreamed of. Wet and smacking sounds. Sounds of my pussy sloshing and running over and his cock shoving into it, pushing into it again and again.

  I feel my juices spreading all over my thighs, all over his thighs too. A thick stream of it is running down between the cheeks of my ass and smearing over that dark hole of mine. And that is so shameful, so erotic that my spine bows.

  Clutching his biceps, I arch and arch, taking it all, soaking up the sounds, filling my lungs with the tangy smell of our sex. I take it all and I moan.

  Yeah, I moan at his every stab, his every ram and his every pound.

  I’m moaning as loud as last night, rattling the windows, alerting everyone in the world that I’m being fucked by him.

  By the man I love.

  And he loves my screams so much that he comes back down again. He roams his hands on the outside of my body, tracing my sweaty, jiggling curves before settling them on my thighs. He raises them up and hooks them around his waist tightly, making me hold onto him as he rides my cunt.

  He rides it and rides it to the point where I think I’ll come again.

  I’ll come for the third time just because he’s beating into me so good.

  So, so good.

  But more than that, it’s him.

  It’s the look he’s giving me, like he can’t get enough. It’s his husky, thick breaths that echo in the room, echo in my soul.

  It’s the way he’s grabbing onto my face with both hands and the way he’s so tightly locked around my body.

  And it’s his words again.

  His growly, sand-papery, panting words. “Pussy so tight you can’t put a tampon in, huh? How come you’re taking me so good now? How come your pussy is eating me up, Jailbait?”

  His slurred words make me so full, as full as his cock is making me, as full and tightly wound as if his meaty fist is pressing down on my stomach.

  “Graham, I’m gonna… I’m gonna come…”

  As soon as I tell him, it happens.

  I jerk against him and my eyes clench shut. They shut so tight that I feel like I’ll never get them open again.

  I’ll never catch my breath again either. My heart will never stop hammering. My pussy will never stop clenching over his length.

  And he’ll never stop telling me things in his savage, broken voice. So savage that it doesn’t even sound human. They sound like they belong to a beast.

  “Fuck, fuck. Tight fucking pussy,” he says as I writhe around on his cock. “God, so greedy. So goddamn greedy. You’re gonna make me come…”

  And then, he comes as well.

  He comes with a large shove and stumbling, stuttering strokes that I feel in my teeth. He groans and I open my eyes to catch him arching up, his neck strained and his Adam’s apple jutting out. His chest is so tight that I feel like his bones will bust through as he jerks inside of me, his cock pulsing.

  He’s so beautiful like this. So breathtaking and wonderful.

  So perfect that my heart swells.

  It floats inside my body with unadulterated happiness.

  This is what it feels like, I think. When your dreams come true. When something you’ve wanted for so long is finally yours.

  He is mine.

  This man is mine.

  At least, some part of him is. At least, until the summer ends and I go back to where I came from. Not college, no. Not to a guy who’ll love me.

  But to that town that has never seen me. The town that’s never looked at me or paid attention to me until I kissed the man I love.

  The town where I was always lonely.

  Finally, he rides his climax to the end and looks down at me, breaking my strangely morose thoughts. His messy hair falls on his forehead and his eyes look relieved.

  Gosh, I’ve never seen so much relief in someone.

  It’s leaking out of him like sweat. Drops and drops of it that fall on my skin as he comes down at me.

  I meet him in the middle.

  I wrap my arms around his neck and lift myself up so I can go hug him, while he’s still twitching inside my fluttering pussy.

  I kiss his cheek and whisper, “Thank you for making all my dreams come true, Mr. Edwards.”

  His answer is to kiss me and despite everything, I smile into it.

  I smile because I’m eighteen and his.

  ***

  I wake up a few hours later only to find him gone.

  His side of the bed is warm, so I guess he’s just left it. With a wary heart, I climb out of bed and wear his discarded plaid shirt, going out of the room.

  The back door of the cabin is open and I walk up to it.

  And there he is.

  Under the moonlight, working on his roses.

  His shoulders are bent and he’s clipping the dead leaves, holding them in his hands so gently, so reverently. Like he held me a few hours ago.

  Tears fall down my cheeks. I shouldn’t cry, I know. It fucks with his head and I don’t wanna do that.

  But look at him, he’s keeping his promise to me. He’s working on the roses.

  While all I’ve done is lie to him ever since I got here.

  All I’ve let him think is that I’m this normal college-going girl who’s vacationing. When nothing could be further from the truth.

  I’m not normal. I’ve never been.

  I’m a liar.

  “I’m lying to him.”

  I say this into the phone as soon as Willow picks up the call.

  “What?”

  I’m sitting on the couch and it’s morning. Graham has already gone to work and I’m holding what he left me on my pillow.

  A rose.

  Fresh and full and velvety. Peace, lemony yellow petals with pale pink edges.

  So now I’m crying, sobbing almost because I’m a liar and he’s giving me roses for it.

  “I’ve been lying to him ever since I came here and I don’t know what to do,” I say, wiping my nose with the back of my hand.

  “Oh, Vi. What happened? Why are you crying?”

  I sniffle, trying to control it; it’s ridiculous the amount of tears I’m shedding as I hold his gift to my chest. But it’s just so sad. It’s so sad that he keeps being so wonderful to me and I can’t even tell him the truth.

  Everything about my life is so sad right now because I’m a liar.

  “He thinks I go to college, Willow. He thinks I’m vacationing.” I bring my knees up to my chest and smell his shirt that I put on last night. “And I’m letting him think that. I’m letting him think that I’m this normal girl whose whole life is ahead of her. When I can hardly get out of my house. If a random stranger even looks at me, I go crazy. I start to hyperventilate. I’m so… weak. And defective and a loser, and he thinks I’m going to college and I’m going to meet someone and I –”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, okay. Stop,” Willow cuts me off and I go silent, sniffling again.

  Then she sighs and says, “First of all, you’re not a loser. You’re not weak or defective. You ha
ve an illness. You’re struggling, Vi. You’ve been struggling ever since you got out of Heartstone. Like the rest of us, and that’s okay. But you’re struggling more because you keep insisting everything is fine. You keep denying it. You keep pretending.”

  I keep pretending.

  She’s right and I’m too emotional right now to admit it.

  Yeah, I pretend.

  I pretend that everything is okay. I pretend that I’m handling things my way.

  I pretend that it’s okay for me to use crutches and slip in notes to strangers and hide when someone knocks at the door.

  I’ve been pretending ever since I got out of Heartstone and doing that in front of everyone and even to myself was easy.

  Pretending to him isn’t.

  Not when he looks at me in that special, protective way of his. Not when he looks at me like he’ll kill and destroy everything and everyone who hurts me.

  “He said I was beautiful,” I rest my forehead on my knees and whisper.

  “Really? He did?”

  I’ve been texting on and off with the girls. I told them about what Brian said and how Graham kissed me the other day. But I haven’t shared any intimate details with them.

  I didn’t want to.

  They were mine.

  I guess, I’m a true loner. It’s hard for me to share things. But I can share this with Willow. Maybe because we have things in common. Things like eighteenth birthdays when our worlds kinda blew up. Plus she’s in love like me.

  “Yeah. He said I deserve things. He said I deserve someone to hold my hand and walk with me on the beach. He said I’m made of moon and magic.”

  Willow sighs; it sounds happy and dreamy. “Oh, Vi, that’s wonderful. Ah, I’m so happy. Why are you crying?”

  I frown. “Because didn’t you just listen to what I said? I’m lying to him. He doesn’t know about… about my illness and everything else.”

  He doesn’t know that I pretend.

  He doesn’t know that I do it because it’s so easy to deny things. It’s so easy to deny because the alternative is dealing with my doomsday brain.

  It’s so hard to do that. It’s so hard to fight anxiety. To distinguish between rational and irrational thoughts when every single insecurity of yours is heightened.

  Not pretty. Not worthy. A slut.

  I know I shouldn’t believe these things – especially after everything he’s said to me, and there are moments when I do believe him.

  I do.

  But sometimes it’s so hard. Like right now.

  And I’m so weak.

  He doesn’t know that.

  He doesn’t know that I drown in insecurities and anxious thoughts every day. And the only way to survive is to pretend everything is fine.

  “Then tell him.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. If you’re lying to him and that’s giving you so much grief, just tell him the truth.”

  I lift my head from my knees and stare at the wall opposite the couch. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope.”

  “I can’t tell him.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because…” I grip the phone tightly, almost shrieking.

  I mean, I know it’s the obvious solution. If I hate lying so much, I should tell the truth. But I can’t.

  I can’t tell the truth.

  “Because why?”

  “Because look at my life, Willow. Look at it. I’m alone. I’ve always been alone. I’ve always been lonely. No one cares about me. My dad doesn’t even acknowledge my existence. My sister has a bone to pick with me about everything. My mother wanted me dead. Even before I was born. She wanted to abort me because I’m the result of an affair and she didn’t wanna ruin her reputation.”

  She gasps. “I didn’t… I had no idea.”

  “Yeah.” I swallow. “She never cared about me. I’ve always been a burden to her. A headache. Well, except now. She texts me now. Asks after my health. The yoga thingy. I guess she’s only doing it to ease her conscience. I don’t know. But it’s sure as hell not because she cares about me. And I’ve always accepted that, you know. I’ve always accepted that she won’t love me or care for me or treat me like I matter and that’s okay. I can take that. I have taken that for years. I’m used to it. But I can’t… What if…”

  I trail off, my heart hammering inside my chest. All these panicky things coming to the surface. All these fears that were easy to keep inside up until now. But they won’t stay in anymore. My doomsday brain won’t let me.

  “What if what?”

  “I love him, Willow. I’m in love with him. God, I love him so much and no one has cared for me like he does. Not one person. And he looks at me. He’s been looking at me since I was sixteen. I’ve always been visible to him, Willow. Always. Me. The girl no one sees. What if I tell him and he stops? What if I tell him and he thinks the same thing that I’m thinking? What if he thinks I’m defective too?”

  Gosh, if he thought that, I’d die.

  I’d literally die.

  I’m clutching his rose to my chest right now. The rose he left me on the pillow because I told him I wanted it.

  And it’s not even a dead rose, no. It’s not something discarded or dying. He plucked it out fresh and alive and rosy.

  Just for me.

  I’ve got it in my hands and I’m crumpling it with my fingers like I imagine my heart would crumple in on itself, if he thought that. If he thought that I was defective too, like everyone else in my life.

  I wouldn’t be able to live. I wouldn’t be able to move on from that.

  “Vi, he won’t think that. He can’t. Because you aren’t defective. There’s nothing wrong with you. Not one thing. And you’ll know that if you tell him.”

  Tears stream down my cheeks. “Why wouldn’t he? Everyone else does. I can’t, okay. I’m just so scared.”

  I can hear her tears too. She’s crying for me and I could just hug her for being my friend. “Listen, Vi. Listen very carefully, okay? I know it’s scary. I know that. I know it’s easy to deny and pretend. I did it too, remember? So I know. And you love him. That’s scary too. I get that.” She pauses before saying, “But now you have to decide if you trust him or not.”

  “Of course I trust him.”

  “Enough to tell him about yourself?”

  My heart jumps to my throat and all the words I was going to say get trapped there, just off my tongue, unable to get out.

  “You have to decide, Vi. You have to decide if the man that you love, the man for whom you drove thousands of miles, the man for whom you were ready to take anything because he was hurting, you have to decide if you trust him or not. If you trust him enough to tell him this scary thing about yourself. You have to decide that, Vi.”

  I have to decide if I trust him or not. The man I love.

  Do I trust him?

  The thought flashes in and out of my mind all day, long after I’ve ended my conversation with Willow, long after I’ve dried my tears.

  It comes and goes and it’s bobbing on the surface still when he gets back from work.

  I hear the crunch of gravel outside and I realize he’s here.

  I was in the kitchen, finishing some things up, and I rush to the door. I throw it open and run out to the top of the porch stairs. The ones he fixed the other day. It smells of new wood and polish.

  But I’m not focusing on that.

  I’m focusing on him.

  Graham.

  He sees me as soon as he climbs out of his truck. Without breaking our stare, he shuts the door behind him. And as soon as I hear the bang of that, I take off.

  My sneakers slap against the stone pathway as I run to him and he does the same. He strides over to me and we meet in the middle.

  Panting, I watch him.

  His eyes are bright, brighter than anything I’ve ever seen and he’s watching me back with breaths as heavy as mi
ne.

  He’s looking at me. Looking.

  “You left me a rose this morning,” I tell him in a breathless sort of way.

  “I did.”

  His raspy voice gets me right in the gut, right in that quickening that seems to have started the moment I laid my eyes on him, and I bite my lip for a second.

  “Because you promised me.”

  “Yeah. I can’t just say something and not do it.”

  He repeats my casually thrown out words from last night and I swallow. I swallow my heart down because it’s trying to get out of my body. It’s trying to fly out to him.

  “I want you to know that no one has ever given me a rose before you,” I say, batting away the wayward strands of my hair. “So that’s another thing no one has ever done for me. I want you to know that.”

  Watching me intently, he takes a step toward me. “People are fucking morons, aren’t they? Although…”

  “Although what?”

  “Although, I’m not sure how good of a gift it is for someone like you.”

  “Someone like me?”

  He nods slowly, still watching me with a singular focus. “Someone who blushes like a rose and looks gorgeous as fuck doing it.”

  A wave of emotion rolls through me. A wave, an avalanche of it. It rolls through my entire body before settling deep in my stomach. Deep in my soul.

  Deep in between my thighs, and I clench them.

  I clench them so hard, as hard as my heart is clenching right now.

  Because the way he said it… feels like love. The way he’s watching me feels like love too.

  I know it’s a lie. I know that. He told me that he can’t love me. That he never will.

  So he’ll always be this broken dream of mine. This unfulfilled wish. My unrequited love.

  But in this moment, he’s looking at me like he does. Like he does love me.

  I’d kill for that look. Kill and steal and lie.

  Yeah, I’d lie for that look because if this is the only thing I’ll have from him – a look – then how can I lose that?

  “I missed you,” I whisper, taking a step toward him.

  “You did.”

  “Yes. So I spent the day baking all sorts of things for you. Everything with cinnamon. I know you like that.”