by Doyle, S.
“Was this what it was like for your mother?”
Yes. My dad had also dropped dead of a sudden heart attack. Just like Ethan’s father. I’d been at school when it happened so when I got home… It was like all the life had been sucked out of my mother. As if she was the one who died, and my dad had just gone away on some trip.
Ethan sat on the wide leather couch that took up much of the space in the study and I joined him, sitting with my legs curled underneath me so I could be closer to him. Thinking about what my mother said. I didn’t touch Ethan very often. In the strictly professional sense, it wasn’t appropriate. As friends, neither one of us was overly affectionate. Beyond that, touching people always felt like reaching out a little further than I was comfortable with. But I needed to be here for him.
I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck and massaged the muscles there, let my fingers play at the base of his scalp.
“Tell me how you feel, Ethan.” Because it was the only way to do this thing. The only way to get from one side of grief to the other. To share it with someone.
“How I feel? I don’t feel anything. I’m numb.”
“That’s fair. But the numbness is going to wear off and when it was does, I need you to know that I’m here for you.”
He looked at me then, strangely, I thought. Like I’d given him something he wasn’t expecting.
“I’m your best friend, Ethan.” After all these years, I didn’t think that needed any kind of explanation. “You have to know there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” he said gravely.
It was odd but it almost sounded like a warning.
* * *
Memorial service at Mt. Sinai hospital
Ethan
It was beyond excruciating. Almost to the point that I wondered if it was going to happen here. Because it was coming. I could feel it. The rage. The emotion. The loss of control. I was going to have what my father used to describe as an outburst.
I hadn’t taken a pill other than aspirin since I left my parents eleven years ago. Now, I thought of the medicine cabinet in my old bathroom. Where I’d gotten the sleeping pills for my mother. Had there been something else in there? Something I could take that would, maybe, help me to lock it down?
Because it was always the anger that was the hardest emotion to control. It snuck up on me and before I could stop it, I wanted to smash and break things. That’s how I felt now.
Listening to these people talk about my father. Watching as doctor after doctor stood at the microphone to praise the work he’d done. Feeling my mother sink into her chair next to me, knowing her strength was limited.
All of it was pushing me to some brink and I couldn’t see where the ledge was.
We’d wanted the service to be small, but because of who my father was, who I was, it simply couldn’t be. It felt like all of New York’s and Seattle’s business elite were here. I could only imagine how my mother resented me being on the cover of Time now.
The last person finished his eulogy and I held my breath. If someone else walked up to the podium, if someone else started to speak, I was going to tackle that person. I was going to hit that person until I’d removed all their teeth for having the audacity to make my mother sit here in agony for one more damn minute.
I cracked my neck. It was a habit my father had broken in me when I was a child. But he was gone and hearing the crack made me feel like I had opened up a pocket of space for the anger to flow, so that I could have a hope of controlling it.
Thankfully the service was over. Jules stood on the other side of my mother. Daniel had flown in. So had several others of Phoenix’s top managers from both Seattle and Nebraska.
People who had come to show their support. To let me know that I had family beyond the father I’d just lost. I wanted them to make all these other people go away.
It was time, now, to take the urn holding my father’s ashes and go. Only I knew that wasn’t going to be possible.
Reaching around my mother, I grabbed Jules’s hand and tugged her toward me.
“You need to take my mother home. Get her to drink some water, at least, if she won’t eat anything. Make her take two sleeping pills.”
“Ethan…these people.”
“I’ll do it. I’ll stand in the receiving line and greet every one of them if I have to, but you have to take her and go. Tell Daniel to take the urn. And text the driver to let him know he can pull around the block and pick you up out front.”
“I can’t let you do this alone, Ethan. It’s too much.”
It was entirely too much. But it was of my own doing. My fame, which had brought all the gawkers out. That made nearly every damn doctor in this hospital want to say something to impress me.
My father had not been an easy man to get along with. My mother had adored him, but he had no buddies that I knew of. No male friends he would take camping trips with or anything like that. So this outpouring of people, it wasn’t out of love for my father. Respect, maybe.
More likely, it was in hopes of securing some continued patronage from his son.
I cracked my neck again and the release of the pressure allowed me to take a deep breath.
“What are you doing with your neck?” Jules whispered.
“Take. My. Mother. Home.”
It was a tone I don’t think I’d ever used with her. A command so definitive even the fearless Julia Whitford would not challenge it.
She nodded. I saw her whisper to Daniel.
I turned to my mother, who was nearly a zombie at this point, and bent down to kiss her cheek then whisper in her ear.
“Jules is going to take you back to the apartment, Mom. I’ll stay and accept condolences.”
“I should stay…they’ll want to talk to me.”
“They’ll understand,” I said. I would make them understand. That a three-hour memorial service was simply too much to bear for a woman who had suddenly lost her husband.
“He would have liked it, I think,” she said through watery, glazed eyes. “Or maybe not. He hated when people made a fuss over things.”
I swallowed. He did. It was one of the reasons he hated my outbursts so much. They were loud and angry and uncontrollable. To the point he’d decided medication was the only solution.
My father had expressed the importance of being in control from a very early age. So much so that it had driven me away for years.
That was time I was never going to get back. And I couldn’t even say that I regretted it. Leaving back then had been my only option.
But I was older now, and in some ways, I could see what my father had been trying to do with the drugs wasn’t just about controlling me. It was about helping me keep control over myself.
Like I was doing now when really all I wanted to do was scream at the top of my lungs.
Jules took my mother’s hand and Daniel carried the urn down the aisle behind both of them.
I watched Jules walk away. Watched as she carefully took each step with my mother, who I could see was still shaky on her legs. My mother had been a fit, healthy woman in her early sixties.
Now she looked like she needed a cane to walk.
I waited for them to leave. Then I walked to the podium and thanked everyone for coming and the kind words that had been said. I apologized for my mother, but as everyone could see with their own eyes, she was suffering deeply from my father’s passing.
Then I stood to the side and waited as person after person came up to tell me how sorry they were. I cracked my neck again and again. When that stopped working, I used my old breathing techniques to try to quell the rage building inside me.
And three hours later, during the drive to the apartment I knew what I needed. Knew the only thing I could take that would keep me from going on a rampage and destroying the apartment, old-school Ethan style.
One place where I could pour my hurt, my grief, my rage, and every other emotion I’d held in check through
sheer willpower since I’d stopped taking the damn pills.
She’d promised me anything I needed.
I needed Julia.
* * *
Ethan
I opened the door to the apartment and immediately Jules came from the living room to greet me.
“Oh my God, Ethan. Were you really there another three hours? Are you hungry? Can I make you something?”
“Where’s my mother?”
“She’s asleep. Two pills, like you said. I just checked on her and she’s so dead to the world a tornado wouldn’t wake her up.”
I reached down and grabbed her hand, then I started walking down the hallway that led to the bedrooms.
“Ethan? What are you doing? What can I do? Let me make you some dinner.”
I opened the door to my room and shoved her inside, closing the door behind me.
“I need you to get on your knees and suck my cock.”
Her mouth opened. “Ethan, you don’t know what you’re saying…”
I captured her face in my hands, forcing her to meet my eyes, to know I meant everything I said.
“If I don’t have you, I’m going to break.”
“You won’t. It’s just the grief talking.”
“Julia,” I said, pressing my forehead against hers, breathing in the air she breathed out. “Please. Please, let me have you.”
I heard my voice break. Knew she heard it, too, and it almost brought me to my senses. Almost made me realize what I was asking her to do when that’s not who we were because I would never let us be that way.
I dropped my hands from her face and fell back against the door. I was about to summon an apology when the most miraculous thing happened.
Julia Whitford dropped to her knees in front of me. She’d changed into loose cotton pants and a tank top. Her hair was back in a short ponytail. She wore no makeup and her eyes were red from crying. Crying for my mother, for me. She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen in my life.
Her hands reached for my belt and I closed my eyes. I was painfully hard. Had been the whole car ride home, knowing this was what I needed. Who I needed. I felt her hands clutch my ass and looked to see she’d already pulled my pants and boxers down.
Then I watched her take my heavy erection between her lips. Almost reverently, like she was praying. I tilted my head back and banged it against the door, once, twice. Yes, this was my salvation.
Her mouth was hot and tight, and she sucked me so deep I felt rooted inside her.
“Don’t let me go,” I whispered even as I sank my fingers into her hair, my nails grazing her scalp, pulling her tighter against me.
I started to thrust my hips, fucking her mouth even as her tongue danced around the head of my cock. So hot and wet and tight.
“Fuck, yes!”
Julia would suck me. Julia would take all my fire. Julia would keep me from splitting apart. Only her. Only ever her.
I came in hard bursts and watched as her throat worked. Watched her swallow all of me like she understood everything she drew out of me was poison that had been building up inside.
I bent over, my cock so fucking sensitive as she sat back on her heels, panting short breaths. Her lips were swollen from taking me as hard and as fast as she had.
“Get on the bed,” I croaked out.
“Ethan…”
“The bed, Julia. Now. And get naked.” I started ripping off my own clothes. Kicking off my shoes, stripping myself of anything that would touch my skin that wasn’t her skin. “I’m going to worship you, my little hero. I’m going to kiss and touch every part of you. Because every part of you is mine. That’s what you promised me.”
She turned away from me and I watched as she pulled her tank top off. She wasn’t drunk this time. No, she was dead sober and knew everything she was doing. Knew everything I was going do to her.
So fucking brave.
I came up behind her and ran my hand down her spine, loving the way it dipped at the bottom, right where her ass started. I pushed her head to the side and took her neck in a bite that would leave red marks, and I didn’t care. I reached around her body and found her breasts and thought of how many ways I was going to wring orgasms from her.
Her nipples were her weakness. Pull on them, pinch them, tease them, suck them, and she might come from just that. Her cotton pants dropped to her ankles and I ran my hand down the front of her body, down to her pussy to find her already wet.
“You like sucking me off? Feels like you did. What about you? Are you going to like it when I consume you? Because that’s what I’m going to do tonight, Julia. I’m going to consume you.”
“You’re in pain,” she said, as if trying to justify to herself why this was okay.
“Not now I’m not,” I said, thrusting my hardening cock against her ass. “Remember when I fucked you here. Remember how you squirmed around it as I pushed deep inside your ass, but then I made you come so fucking hard.”
She shook her head. Like the words were too much. But I needed to say them. That was part of releasing the poison inside me. So I wouldn’t explode.
I moved her to the bed and together we crawled on it like two animals seeking a safe place from the storm. Rolling her on her back, I hovered above her, all my weight on my knees and forearms. I looked down at her body and thought that I wanted to mark all of it. So there wouldn’t be a spot of skin where she could look in the mirror and not see that I had claimed her.
Her hand cupped my cheek then and I was forced to meet her eyes.
“Anything you need from me, you have it,” she whispered.
It felt like my chest was exploding. I crushed her then with my weight, letting her take all of it, while I feasted on her mouth. Kissing Julia was unlike kissing any other woman. Because when I did it, I wasn’t thinking about my dick, or what came next, or how good coming was going to feel. When I kissed Julia, it wasn’t a means to an end, it was the only thing.
When I wanted more of her taste, I slid down her body. Nipping at her nipples, teasing with them with just a hint of the pressure I knew she needed. That could come later. I wanted between her thighs now. I wanted to suck on her pussy like she’d sucked on my cock, and I wanted to feel her come around me. Feel the shake of her thighs while I tongued her deep.
She opened for me and I put both her legs over my shoulders as I brought my mouth down on her core. Slick and wet and hot. Her clit was already so plump and swollen, just the wiggle of my tongue over it had her writhing on the bed.
And when I sucked it and pushed two fingers high and deep inside her at the same time, she came for me quick. Just like I knew it would be. Her body shaking, her mouth clamped shut so that I couldn’t hear her moaning.
Because Julia didn’t like to give away her secrets. She liked to try to hide herself, but I saw her. I always saw her. Moving back up her body I licked and sucked and bit until her legs were wrapped around my waist, urging me to come inside her, to fuck her.
No, this wasn’t fucking. I slid my cock inside her soaking pussy and thought this was beyond fucking. I didn’t give a shit about my orgasm; I only wanted to please her again. To give her what she needed after giving me so much.
“Julia, Julia,” I whispered into her mouth. Sucking in her breath, tasting me even as she tasted herself. I rocked into her pussy like I would do it all night. Like I would do it for the rest of my life.
“Ethan,” she sighed, wrapping her arms tight around me so that I was held.
So that I would know I was loved.
I pressed into her deeply, so that I was rubbing my pelvis against her mound and she came again with little soft cries into my mouth. And I didn’t stop until I made her do it again. And again. Only then did I let go, let her pull more of my cum from me and when I collapsed next to her, I knew, in that moment, that the storm had passed and I wasn’t going to break.
She’d saved me.
10
Two months apart
&nb
sp; Jules,
Okay, I realize that last letter might have come off sounding more bitter than I intended. I’m supposed to be groveling. I get that. You’re the victim. Although I’m sure you hate that word. I know I was the one to fuck up. I do.
Not by fucking you. You need to understand that I do not regret that night. Whatever happens going forward, I will always know that you saved me from some kind of horrible breakdown. But that night also cracked something open in me. Something scary enough that I ran.
I thought maybe give myself time to heal? But the truth is, the longer I sit with it, the more I learn to adjust to how this feels…and the easier it is.
Are you listening to me? Do you hear what I’m telling you? That thing I’ve been scared of all my life, losing control, happened that night. But turns out it’s not so scary after all. And I don’t want to get over it. Ever.
Please write back. But you should know, even if you don’t, that this, us, is not over. Not by a long shot.
Ethan
* * *
The morning after
Ethan
She was asleep in my arms. Completely oblivious to the turmoil of my thoughts. Of course she was asleep. I’d never taken a woman that many times in that many ways in my life. I considered myself to be a sexual person but last night had eclipsed any previous experience.
Except, of course, for the last time we’d been together.
Maybe it had been the abstinence these past years… God, if she knew about that. If she knew the last person I’d fucked before her last night…was her.
It all made a twisted sort of sense now. What was the point of other women when having her was beyond compare?
I needed to get up. I needed to get out of this room. I could feel the panic filling my chest, but still I didn’t move. Because I liked the feel of her naked thigh pressed against mine. Of her soft belly cradling my flaccid dick.
Listening to her breathe helped me to breathe.
