Hello Stranger

by West, Jade

  Love.

  Love from so many people from such a genuine place in their hearts.

  People I’d known since I was a boy, cheering me on through my journey along with my mother.

  People I’d known from our local street when I was growing up, waving at me every morning.

  People Mum had laughed with down the local shop, catching up on sunny gossip.

  People from the hospitals, who’d she’d shared so much darkness with on her journey.

  Love was everywhere. All around me.

  And at the centre of all that love was Chloe. My beautiful jitterbug. The one who loved me most with all her heart.

  Mum’s friend Amy took to the podium after me and told her own little story. She told the room how she was just a nervous little teenager when Mum came into her world. How Mum had helped her through shyness, and fear, and shitty relationship breakups, and had always been there with a smile.

  The whole room was smiling along through their cries, all of us remembering the twinkling rock that was my mum, and again, I learnt something right there and then – I learnt just what a funeral truly means.

  It’s not about the fluffy bullshit of her spirit hovering above her coffin, or about people wallowing in the loss. It’s not about the crappy rigmarole of assigning her body to the flames and handling all the cruddy documentation.

  It’s about reflection and celebration. Celebration of an amazing person and what she meant to the world.

  The funeral director ushered me out of the hall before everyone else, and I had Chloe’s hand firmly in mine. She stepped out alongside me, standing close as the first of the guests made their appearance and gave their condolences directly.

  Again, there were so many faces in line to speak with me. So many words. All of them so powerful and so true.

  Chloe didn’t move, she stayed steady right by me. She smiled her smile and listened along with me, and that’s when I learnt yet another lesson – my freckle-faced jitterbug was a strong little cookie. A rock, just like my mum. A smiling beacon with twinkling eyes and a giggling smile, but a pure cornerstone underneath.

  Jesus Christ, I fucking loved her.

  The final guest offered their condolences and joined the small crowds gathered around the car park, and Chloe squeezed my arm before she spoke, staring up at me with those pretty blue eyes.

  “Where is the wake?” she asked, and I cringed inside.

  “I, um… didn’t arrange one. I didn’t think there would be many people here.”

  “Oh,” she said, and I figured that even she was resigned to the impossibility of scheduling a wake in the blink of an eye, but no. Her optimism was still a gemstone shining through loud and clear.

  “We can do it,” she told me. “I mean, it’ll be tough, but we can do it. Your place is plenty big enough, we just need some drinks and some food and some… I dunno, stuff, but we can get it. We can.”

  I managed a tiny laugh at her. “I don’t think there will be many caterers set to provide a reception banquet with twenty-five minutes to go, sweetheart.”

  Her shrug set my heart on fire.

  “We can do it. We can call in at a store on the way back to your place, and stock up a trolley with some lunch stuff, and we could do it.” She paused. “I could do it.”

  I should’ve said she was crazy for even considering it, racing like a whirlwind to cater for a whole houseful of people. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say it because it wasn’t true. If anyone could do it, it was Chloe Sutton – and she’d do it with a smile on her face.

  I could feel her happiness when I cleared my throat and called everyone’s attention. I directed them to head across town to my house and I handed Amy the keys to let everyone inside.

  Then we were off, Chloe and I piling into my car and whizzing straight off to the local supermarket, and I was smiling. Even in my abject pain of grief, I was smiling. Smiling along with her.

  “Sandwiches,” she laughed. “I can do some pretty good sandwiches.”

  I remembered only too well, the image of Mum, of the three of us, tucked into that nook at the top of Mum’s mountain. Mum munching down on that ham sandwich. “They will be the most delicious sandwiches on the planet, I’m sure.”

  She laughed again. “See if you’re still saying that after eating my chicken salad ones. I didn’t know vegetables when I was a kid you know,” she said. “I got a Saturday job at a cafe once and I mistook a cabbage for a lettuce and put it in someone’s sandwich, for real. Doh.”

  I’m glad she wasn’t looking at me, because the love in my eyes would have surpassed every expression of love she’d ever known.

  “Here it is!” she announced when the store came into view, and the white rabbit was off hopping, even before the car was properly parked, racing off to the trolley bay and beckoning me after her with a Cheshire cat smile on her face.

  I followed her. I helped her. We stocked up the cart with loaves of bread and piles of cheese. With ham and chicken and salad, and strawberry jam, and a whole host of snacks to go alongside them. Then wine, bottles and bottles of wine, and bags of tea, and jars of coffee and gallons of milk.

  The car was rammed full of supplies when we set off to my place, and I was still smiling, picturing Mum’s face laughing along with the spectacle of the last-minute banquet arrangements. The front door was open wide when we arrived, people milling around and chatting. I was usually the most pedantic of parkers on the driveway, but today I pulled the car up on the front lawn without giving a shit for the grass.

  We rushed the shopping into the kitchen with hellos and Chloe was a whirling dervish as she set up the sandwich bay on the countertop, flashing me one of her pretty smirks as I rolled up my sleeves to help her.

  “No,” she said. “Your place isn’t here, Dr Hall. It’s out there… with your guests. With the people who want to see you.” She was already getting the ham out of the pack and poked her tongue out. “Clear off, please. Your mum would be loving them being here.”

  She was right. Mum would have loved people being here.

  I didn’t try arguing with the bouncing bunny, just kissed her on her forehead before I left, and if I’d have believed in a heaven, I’d have believed in one right then.

  But there wasn’t a heaven. Not for me. That hadn’t changed. Despite just how much every single part of me was desperate for that girl to be at my side for every single moment of my life, nothing had changed – my gemstone of an angel needed to fly away and leave me behind.

  But I couldn’t do it. Not anymore. I couldn’t send my angel away.

  Her sandwiches were incredible, even the chicken salad ones, and her teas and coffees were perfect. She dished out the food and her laughter along with it, listening to everyone’s stories of Jackie Hall with a shimmer in her eyes.

  And so did I.

  I listened to everyone’s stories of Jackie Hall with a shimmer in mine.

  It was long past sunset when the last of the guests finally said their goodbyes and left us to it. Chloe was already in the dining room collecting empty glasses from the table, the industrious little white rabbit still bouncing around the room. But no. No. Not now. I couldn’t take a single second more without her body next to mine.

  Heaven. It’s not the afterlife. Not for me. It’s the stunning power in the here and now, the passion and the primality in people’s flesh when the need for closeness eats them alive.

  Glasses went crashing from Chloe’s hands as I grabbed her from behind and spun her into my arms. My mouth pressed to hers with a ferocity I’d never known, breaths frantic as I backed her up into the counter, sandwich bay be fucked.

  And I was done.

  In that moment my rationality and my reservations were all gone, crashing onto the floor tiles along with the fragments of broken glass, pulse racing as I kissed my way down her neck, seeking more, more, more.

  Chloe was a shining light in my world, and she blinded me. In that kitchen, with the carnage of my mother’s goo
dbye all around us, that beautiful creature blinded me with her light.

  50

  Chloe

  So many feelings spinning inside, tumbling together. Hurt and love and grief and relief. I couldn’t kiss him hard enough. I couldn’t tear his suit from him quick enough. My hands were a complete contradiction of strong and stumbling, both at once.

  He slammed me back against the counter and the leftover sandwiches shunted into the wine bottles, the whole load clanking and rattling.

  Like my heart.

  My heart was clanking and rattling too.

  His skin was burning, his mouth was hot, his breaths were frantic and so were mine, hands heavy and desperate. With him I was always desperate. He hitched me up on the counter top and the sandwiches scattered. My fingers sank into the mess of a platter as my back arched, thighs trembling and spreading as he slid my knickers down my legs. He nipped at my tits first as I moaned for him, his teeth gripping tight and tugging. He kissed down my scar, peppering my imperfections with pure damn lust, and then he pressed his lips so close to my clit that I bucked against him, begging for more. Always begging go goddamn hard for more.

  He sucked me. Lip smacks mixed with a twist of his tongue, a rhythm that drove me crazy as I squirmed. Yes. Yes. Fucking hell, yes.

  My legs wrapped around his shoulders like a vice, but it didn’t make a difference. He was in control, in power, the force in the fury of my love. Because I was furious. I was furious that he’d cut me out. I was furious that he’d tried so hard to leave me behind. I was furious that he didn’t answer me, when I was reaching out. So, I told him so, I found my hiss of a voice amongst the passion.

  “Why the fuck didn’t you invite me to the funeral, Logan?”

  He met my eyes, and his were as shuttered as ever, even through his need for my flesh.

  “Because a funeral means nothing, Chloe. I expected just me and a coffin. It’s just a tick box ritual that people gloss up to be some spectacle of a circus show.”

  But no. It wasn’t. And he knew it. I knew he did. Even his shuttered eyes couldn’t hide his real soul through his words.

  “You know that’s bullshit,” I said. “You know it means something. You felt it today.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what I felt today,” he grunted at me. “I just want to feel you now.”

  He picked up the rhythm and I sank right back into his touch. I gripped his hair tight, tugging as he squirmed his tongue against my clit. The smooth patches of his scalp were silk against my fingers, just as his lips were silk against my body. I couldn’t hold back. Not for a second. I squealed the house down, riding the waves, then I panted, shuddering, the nerves still cresting, cresting, tingling.

  And he didn’t stop.

  Even when I moaned at the tender spark of my clit as his tongue kept on digging, he didn’t stop.

  He pushed three fingers inside my pussy, and slipped one back for my ass, and this time the bucks were straight from my hips, my palms crushing bread and strawberry jam against the worktop.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  He was rough as he stretched me. His eyes were the darkest I’d ever seen them when he stared up at me, his tongue still lapping at my clit. My head fell back and I was lost to the second burst of sensations, shaking and shuddering right the way through.

  “I hope you’re ready for a long fucking night,” he said, and his tongue kept on moving.

  I was ready for a long fucking night, alright. I was ready for a long fucking lifetime with Logan Hall.

  So I told him so. I met his eyes and I told him so, my voice alive with the passion.

  I’m ready for a long fucking lifetime with you, Logan.

  That’s when I felt it. Saw it. Sensed it. The change in his stare. The change in his stance. He tensed, and darkened even more, and that ocean inside him was a hurricane.

  I didn’t get it. Didn’t understand. And he didn’t give me chance to, just roughed his fingers up some more and thrusted another two into my ass. I don’t know how I managed it, but I raised my heels up on the countertop and spread my legs as far as they would go. My pussy was spread wide between them, exposed in every scrap of its intimacy, and I wanted that, I wanted to bare it all to him.

  That’s when he surprised me to a whole other level.

  That’s when he palm-slapped my clit. A sharp little tap that had me yelping.

  “You’d better be a good girl for me tonight, Chloe. I’m going to take every little bit of you and make you mine.”

  “I’m already yours,” I said back, still catching my breath.

  He slapped me again. I liked it. Liked it even though it hurt. Liked the dark stare from his eyes.

  “More,” I whispered.

  “My fucking pleasure,” he said and ran his tongue up my pussy lips first, flicked at my clit and then slapped me hard.

  I bucked and I cursed and I loved it, a sharp shock of physical pain to dull the pain inside.

  He gave me another slap, and I moaned for him. He gave me another and I bucked and cursed some more. I didn’t know this part of myself – needy in a whole new sense of the word, right from the pit of me.

  This wasn’t Chloe Sutton, the bouncy little jitterbug who smiled at the world, this was a whole different Chloe. A Chloe who felt the roughness of the depths, and the pain in the waters, and still craved the love in Logan’s arms.

  “Kiss it better,” I said and he grinned right up at me before peppering my clit with soft little kisses that had me sizzling through. He straightened up, and his chest was magnificent, even more so with his scar stretching right the way around his side. I loved him like that. Worshipped him like that.

  He undid his belt and dropped his trousers, and his cock was a beast with its veins, already glistening with precum. He was inside me in one thrust, fucking me hard, and I took him deep, moaning so loud as he hit the spot.

  God, I loved him. God, I loved that man.

  “I need you,” I whispered. “Fuck, Logan, I need you.”

  “You don’t,” he said, and he kissed me fiercely enough that I could barely breathe.

  He didn’t come inside me before he hoisted me down from the counter. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he carried me upstairs with his mouth still on mine. I closed my eyes as we passed Jackie’s bedroom, not wanting another stab of the grief to steal my joy.

  He threw me down on the bed, and my knees were up on my shoulders in seconds, his balls slapping me as his cock drove inside. My tits bounced underneath me, mouth open wide as he stared down.

  He saw me as me. The me now. The woman I had become, self-assured and confident and determined to be with the man I loved.

  Because I was.

  I was a woman now.

  I was that woman now.

  A woman in command of my destiny, gifting my body to Logan, to take his all.

  He took his all and gave me mine. I was crying out as he pounded his dick against my sweet spot, tender and crazy for it both at once. He cursed under his breath as he came inside me, muscles rippling in his arms as he tensed up and let himself go.

  I thought it would be over when his weight collapsed on mine, but I should’ve known better. The kisses kept coming, bodies grinding, sweat on sweat, and he touched me, and coaxed me and loved me until time lost its track and I lost all sense of it.

  It felt like hours that I was nothing but tingles, my whole body shivering and shaking. I knew what was coming as he positioned himself above me all over again, and I wanted it. I wanted it rough.

  He gave it rough.

  His cock pushed inside my ass in one shunt of his hips, and I cried out to a whole other tune. His weight was all on mine as he made me take him, and I loved the way it was so sore and so fucking good both at the same time.

  Yes.

  My voice didn’t sound like sweet little Chloe when I asked him for more.

  Yes.

  I sounded like a whole new creature.

  Yes!

 
His eyes were onyx, pitch black as they pooled in mine.

  Yes! More!

  It hurt me when he thrust even harder and filled me deep.

  More!

  I hissed like a bitch when he fucked me fast.

  More!

  “I’ll give you fucking more,” he said and rolled me onto my side, slamming in even harder still.

  He wrapped his arm around me and slid his hand between my legs, and this time the stretch was a demon. Three fingers in my pussy as he pounded my ass.

  I was going dizzy with it, pain turning to pleasure.

  But still I said it. Still I wanted more.

  More! I’ll always want more from you, Logan!

  That’s when he came for me, pulling his fingers from inside me to strum at my clit and cresting my peak along with his as he shunted his cum into my ass.

  It was heaven, right there, right then.

  Both of us gasped for breath, both of us exhausted as he rolled away from me. This time he didn’t come back, just lay staring at the ceiling with his chest rising and falling.

  “I mean it,” I told him. “I’ll always want more.”

  I propped myself up on my elbow as I caught my breath, but he was still staring up at the ceiling, those damn fucking shutters still down.

  That’s when I saw it, standing like a monument on his bedside table. The huge insulin bottle. I recognised it from his bathroom cabinet all those weeks ago, but I didn’t think about it at the time. I didn’t understand.

  But now I did understand. That’s what palliative care work does for you – it opens your eyes to a whole load of new things.

  Scattered conversations about strange contemplations that barely anyone else would consider.

  So how would you do it? If you had to? How would you do it?

  Insulin. The answer people gave, nurse to nurse, was always insulin.

  Logan saw me looking at it, but didn’t say a word.

  “Please tell me you weren’t going to…” I started, and again he didn’t say a word. “I know you’re not diabetic. Please tell me you weren’t going to do it.”