by CD Reiss
“We have something in common. We need to write that down.”
I wished the water to boil, which never worked. It just did its thing, and Elliot just waited. Goddamn him and his patience.
“I have a fantasy,” I said.
“I’d love to hear it.”
“As my therapist? Or my friend?”
“As your… I don’t know what we are.” He smiled as if it was funny. As if he was the relaxed one in the room. I was the wreck, and he was just fine with uncertainty.
My little dreams of revenge had never left my lips, and on the tip of my tongue, each one was, by varying degrees, embarrassing, shameful, painful, and very likely to make him hate me.
“I imagine I have a broom handle,” I said, watching that stupid, inefficient teapot do nothing, “and I put a nail in it. I bend the head toward me, so it goes in his ass smooth and rips him up when I pull it out.”
He didn’t seem shocked or put off, so I continued.
“The rest involve his balls. And one where I give him a boner and tie off his dick until his erection turns purple. Then I just, you know, leave it for days.”
“Making your dreams come true is going to require a whole serial killer setup.”
I laughed and he smiled, looking at me with those grey-green eyes. I was smaller, more vulnerable, and somehow safer in that little joke, because it was said without passion or judgment.
“I thought you’d think I was sick,” I said.
The teapot hissed but didn’t boil.
He stepped into the kitchen and leaned on the counter. “There’s this drug. It’s called Nortyl. It’s used for bipolar patients to manage manic episodes, and only under strict supervision. It brings them back down to earth. Helps. Really helps. But if the dose is too strong, it creates a feeling of utter despair. The psychic pain can be unbearable. They’ll be terrified, but only have the feeling of terror, because there’s nothing to be afraid of. No object. Just the feeling. The patient won’t die from an overdose, but they will commit suicide if you don’t catch them in time. I had one girl get her hands on a bunch and try to OD on it. We had to tie her down. She banged her head on the back of the chair until we tied that down too. She compared the feeling to her soul being ripped to shreds. She used words like desolation. Misery. Grief so deep she was in hell. Just the feeling, no reason for it.” He took two cups and teabags from the cabinet as if he needed to keep his body moving. “When you told me what he did to you, I wondered, really wondered… could I arrange sixty milligrams? Maybe fifty would do it, but seventy would be optimum. God, a hundred milligrams would rip a person apart emotionally. And he’s in a mental ward already, so he’d be tied down. Wouldn’t even hurt him really. Not physically.” He turned each cup a quarter turn until both handles faced him, and he stared into the empty cups as if an answer sat at the bottom of them. “For the last few days, doing it seemed not just possible, but sane.”
The teapot whistled.
“I’m not the man I thought I was.” He leaned over and shut off the burner. “I see him talking to your brother, and I can see he’s fine. He doesn’t even think about it. I start considering the Nortyl.” He poured the water.
“I thought you were going to tell me to forgive him,” I said.
He handed me the mug. It was warm against my palm.
“I ain’t Jesus. I’m just a man.”
“This whole thing got out of my hands yesterday.”
“It’s about the system, not you anymore.”
I held the cup to my chin and looked over the edge at him. “I had no idea until yesterday, when I told the story the hundredth time. He thinks he’s God, making trades and changing the rules.”
“God doesn’t make trades. He giveth and he taketh away. Period.”
I nodded. Sure. It wasn’t like I knew shit about theology. He took the cup from me and put his next to mine on the counter.
Then he kissed me.
He’d kissed me before. This was different. This was an invasion. His mouth, his tongue, the taste of toothpaste and tea. I put my hips on his, pushing against his erection, clutching him. He pulled back, lips popping when we separated.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes.”
He took a breath through his teeth. “I’m not a casual fuck.”
“Neither am I. Not with you.”
He put his hand between my legs, four fingers curling into me, the texture of my clothes a hot friction. I gasped.
“Are you wet?”
“Yes.”
There was a moment as he looked at me when he had a second thought. It was all over his face. The ethics. The impropriety. The risk to his heart. I saw all of it come, and I watched all of it drop off him.
“Show me,” he said.
I stuck my hand down my pants and touched myself. My clit was swollen with the possibility of him. Finally. I threw my head back it was so sensitive.
“Now, Fiona. Now.”
I took my hand out and put my finger to his lips. He took it in his mouth and sucked off my juice.
“God forgive me,” he said and dropped to his knees. “You taste like heaven.”
He slipped my pants down and put his lips between my legs. He opened them and draped one knee over his shoulder. He kissed my clit, groaning.
This was it. All those weeks of talking across a desk. Watching his hands fidget, his lips move, the color of his eyes—the greyish-green the ocean actually was, not the way it was imagined. His voice behind me in the depths of hypnosis, and now his tongue flicking the wet skin between my legs. Those hands not fidgeting but moving up my body and grabbing my nipples, unafraid of the pain in the twist.
“Yes. Hurt them. Yes.”
His stubble dug into the sensitive skin of my inner thigh when he opened his mouth to put his tongue inside me. I tugged his hair, and he slowed his mouth then stopped, leaving only the painful tug on my nipples.
“Do you want to come?”
“Yes.”
“Beg for it.” He ran the very tip of his tongue along the edge of my clit. He was going to drive me insane.
“Please, Elliot.”
He pulled away. Paused. Set his jaw.
“Turn around. Hands on the counter.” He raised an eyebrow, and a little smile played over his lips.
It was my turn to pause. Elliot wasn’t Deacon. He meant it, but playfully. I put my chest to the counter.
I had no idea what to expect when he drew his hand down my back and over my ass. It went away then came down hard with a smack. I gasped with surprise. I couldn’t see him, but he might have gasped as well.
“This is for being a tease.” He slapped me twice more. Hard enough to sting. Hard enough to make my skin feel alive. “No. It’s not. It’s just because I want to.”
He spanked me again, laying them quickly over each cheek, then he slid his fingers between, feeling how wet I was. I made a sharp vowel sound, and he was a little more articulate.
“Wow.”
I shot out a laugh, and so did he.
“First time?” I asked over my shoulder.
“Not the last.”
I sucked air through my teeth, breathing in the promise of it, and he leaned down to look me in the eye, then hit me again.
I groaned and whispered, “Harder.”
He grabbed a handful of hair on the back of my head and tightened his fist while pressing me down until I couldn’t move. The rain of open-handed blows stung, and I tried to wiggle away, but he held me still, moving unexpectedly to the backs of my thighs.
Two fingers, right inside, down to the webs of his hands.
I didn’t have to be silent. What a relief to just say it.
“Fuck me,” I growled. “Please. God. Just fuck me.”
“Not yet.”
He leaned down and put his tongue to the sore part of my ass, raising the sting in loops, then compressing the flesh and biting it.
“First, you come for me.”
He bit the sore spot where my butt
met my thigh, a new sort of pain awakening me. He opened the skin of my thighs, exposing my cunt to his tongue. He was rough with his fingers and gentle with his mouth, sucking on my clit while his fingers moved inside me.
“Elliot,” I squeaked. “Please. Let me. I want to come so hard for you.”
He reduced the pressure just a touch but kept moving consistently, so when I did shudder for him, tightening my muscles around his fingers and exploding in his mouth, the orgasm lasted until I felt boneless. My orgasm was defiance and surrender. Fuck him. Fuck the world for saying I couldn’t have him. He owned me with his gentleness and roughness. This fucking fuck. I was his.
He pulled me onto the floor and got on top of me, wedging himself between my legs. I reached for his pants, but he slapped my hand away and got out his own damn dick.
“I haven’t fucked anyone in my life as hard as I’m going to fuck you right now.”
“I love it when you—”
I never finished the thought because he put his cock in me, sliding in against the slickness of my juice and his spit, and my words turned into a single groaning sound.
He fucked me as hard as he’d promised, but slower than I’d expected, letting each thrust explode into pleasure, fade, then rise again. I put my hands on his face, because I couldn’t believe how beautiful he was, but he ripped them away and pinned them over my head. His thrusts picked up speed, driving deep, his body pressing against me with each stroke.
“I’m… God…” I gasped. “Again, I’m going to come again.”
“Yes. You are. With. Me.”
“Say when. Tell—”
“Now. Now, Fiona.”
I saw the first seconds of his orgasm. His face went red, stiffening and slackening at the same time. I’d done that. I’d brought him there. He was mine. And with that thought, I said his name and exploded around him.
We slowed our rhythm, kissing the remnants of our pleasure away.
37
ELLIOT
Freud defined three strata of the unconscious. They battle constantly. The animal instinct that wants to hurt, to fuck, to eat and shit. The higher self that want to love, to keep peace, to do right, to live in society. And the director that manages the two actors, letting the animal out when food was necessary and the conscience out when cooperation was necessary.
Mostly, the referee shuts the two factions backstage so the subject can function.
But the battle rages where it can’t be seen, and when the ego is weakened, the victor steps out from behind the curtain and pulls levers and switches.
I brought her back to my bedroom and took her again and again. She became vulnerable before me, opening herself and letting me own her until I lost myself and became a beast.
Without her armor, she was more beautiful than I’d imagined possible. In her sleep, lids fluttering, lashes glowing copper in the morning light, I loved her. I just did. When she cringed in her sleep and whispered, “No, stop. It hurts. No,” and her eyes squeezed tight against a remembered pain, a need to jump from the bed and take action cut through me.
For too long a war had been raging behind the scenes. A war between a physical need for her and an intellectual need to detach myself from her. Fucking her tore the curtain down, ripped it to shreds, and burned the theater to cinders.
The director was gutted.
In the wreckage stood an animal.
I was willing to do whatever it took to keep her from that pain again. He’d marked her with it, and I wanted to take that away.
When she flipped onto her stomach, I drew my hand over her back and down her ass, feeling the depth of the seam between.
She sighed and opened her eyes. “Good morning again.”
I got on top of her, hard again, and kissed her shoulders and the back of her neck. “Good morning.” I put my hands under her waist and pulled up her hips. “On your knees, please.”
She stuck out her ass. I pushed down between her shoulder blades, pinning her to the bed. The way she transferred all the power to me and let me do whatever I wanted stirred the animal part of me. I wanted to consume her and care for her in one bite.
I stuck my fingers in her. “How often do you wake up wet?”
“Whenever you tell me to get on my knees.”
I spread her knees, drawing my fingers along her seam. She groaned, and I pressed my other hand down on her.
“Open yourself for me.”
She reached behind and pulled her thighs apart, pinkies separating the soft flesh of her ass cheeks.
I put my dick to her opening and slid inside her. I could have narrated how tight she was. How wet. What a perfect fit her cunt was. But I had other plans.
“Touch yourself. Make yourself come.”
She twisted her arm between her legs and moved her finger over her clit. I felt her warming and tensing. I’d never met such a sexually responsive woman. I could fuck her forever. I could fuck her and say filthy things I could never say to anyone else. She was free. Unrepressed. An open door.
She started gasping, clenching and releasing, as I fucked her.
“Come. Show me how you come.”
I pressed open her cheeks and watched her ass clench when she came as she was told.
“Fiona,” I said, losing my own control, “I’m taking you back. I’m marking you where you’re hurt. It’s mine.” My balls ached, and the pressure became too much.
I pulled out of her. One hand on her ass cheek, exposing her, and the other on my dick, I came where he’d hurt her. I didn’t enter it, she wasn’t ready for that, but I shot myself on her ass, coating it until it was salved with me.
When I was empty, I kissed her lower back and pressed my thumb to her asshole, entering it slowly and my juices letting it slide in.
“Oh, Elliot.” She gasped in pleasure.
“This is mine,” I said. “No one can hurt you again.”
38
FIONA
It wasn’t until the late morning that I started to see his room in the sunlight. I noticed things he wouldn’t have chosen. A picture frame with flowers. Curtains in a modern pattern. Too many Q-tips in the bathroom and, behind the towels, tampons. He’d had a girlfriend. She must be gone or on vacation. Who was she? Did he love her? Was I just a fling?
I couldn’t believe I cared. I was literally seething with jealousy.
The feeling was new. It was a sticky, putrid ochre bubbling inside me, and it felt valid and important. It puffed out its diarrhea-yellow chest and pounded its ribcage and demanded to be heard because it was its own justification.
He’s mine.
He marked me.
There is no one else.
He was in the small backyard, talking on the phone. Two cups in front of him. He’d made me tea. Did he make her tea?
Maybe if I’d had more experience with jealousy, I wouldn’t have taken it so seriously. But I had no calluses, no scars, no pattern recognition. Just asking him what was happening with the woman who lived there wasn’t even on the table.
I was about to go outside and spew at him when my phone rang. I woke from emotional suffocation.
The number was unknown. That usually meant a reporter or a random fan who got my forwarding information. I usually sent those to voice mail, but I needed to stall going outside in this mood.
“Hello?” I sounded impatient. I knew that.
Elliot sat outside, still on the phone, leaning back. Now that I knew the body under the clothes, I was rabidly aroused.
“Fi!”
“Jonathan?”
“I miss you in here.” His vowels were thick and heavy.
“How did you get a phone?”
“You can get shit when you need it hey what’s with Chilton he keeps saying something about paying him for something the same way you paid and I didn’t know how much?”
There was no punctuation or pause in his sentence.
“You’re drunk.”
That alone was weird. Jonathan could pack it away
without blinking an eye. If anything, whiskey made him sharper and more awake. I’d had to throw his keys in the pool twice because he swore he was alert enough to drive.
“I had a little I think I have a cold so it’s worse.”
“You let Warren get you whiskey? What the fuck is wrong with you? All you had to do was stay straight for a month.”
“Pot kettle something something can you get me some money to pay him?”
“No. Jonathan. Stay away from him. Don’t be alone with him. Do you understand? And he spiked that shit. Don’t drink any more. Not a drop.”
“Fuck you. You have no business—”
There was a scuffle on the other side. A rustle of clothes and some laughter.
Another voice came on. “Who is this?”
“Warren, you fuck.”
“Fiona! Nice to—”
“You leave him alone, you hear me?” I turned away from Elliot and faced the corner. I couldn’t get distracted. I couldn’t take an ounce more input, or my panic and rage were going to set something on fire.
“Aw, why does it have to be like that?” said the little fucker.
“How much? How much do you want for the booze or whatever. Cash, okay?”
“Money’ for the poor, Fiona. Come on. It’s not that big a deal. You’re okay, right? I hear you’ve been out with everyone a few times already.”
The insinuation in his voice made me sick.
“Stay. Away. From. Him.”
“He won’t remember a thing.”
“You fuck. I will murder you.”
“Shoulda kept a dick in your mouth, sweetheart, instead of talking. See, I’m already incarcerated, and they’re keeping me away from the girls now.”
“Warren!”
But he wasn’t there. It was just me and my shaking hands. My breath hitched in a sound that had no vowels.
“Your tea’s cold.” Elliot was at the door.
When I looked at him, my face must have betrayed the tangle of emotions. He came in and put his hands on my wrists, pulling them up so he could see my hands. When he saw the phone, he let them go.