by Liz Durano
“Look at us, Sarah,” he orders, his mouth against my ear. “What do you see?”
My hair falls loose over my shoulders and my lace bar. His voice has me breathing hard, my heart racing. I
“Look at us, Sarah.” he murmurs again, his beard scratching my neck. “Tell me what you see.”
I frown, my mind struggling to shift gears. As his erection presses against my back, I know that raw physical need is a lot easier to process. It’s why I preferred it for so long. No time to think and ruminate about life. Just… the moment. But this time, it’s different. It’s not just something physical, it’s more than that. It’s as if Benny is seeing right through me.
“Us,” I whisper. “I see us, Benny.”
His arms tighten. “It’s always been us, Sarah. Did you know that? We just never wanted to admit it, accept it. Instead, we danced around it, running away from it.” He turns to look in the mirror. “Promise me no more dancing around the truth, Sarah.”
“I promise.” Tears prick at my eyes at the way his gaze strips everything from me, as if reminding me it’s okay to shed all the armor I’ve worn all day as I found myself reliving my humiliation, my shame. So many pictures. So many video clips. How can I tell Benny about them without changing the way he feels about me, sees me?
“I love you, Sarah,” he murmurs as I stare at him, wondering if I’d just imagined him saying those three words. “I’ve always loved you.”
As I fight back my tears, I force myself to smile, make light of what he just said for surely he didn’t mean it. How can he? “Benny, don’t. It’s ruining the mood.”
He presses his mouth softly on my neck, his warm breath giving me goosebumps. “There is no mood here, Sarah, just the truth. I want you to know how I feel for you before we keep going any further. I want you to know I’ll never hurt you.”
I close my eyes as Benny presses his body against mine, his cock hard and hot against the small of my back. I rest my hand over his hand and move it lower, to the waistband of my lace panties.
“Then make love to me. No, fuck me, Benny. No need to be gentle. Be rough,” I whisper as he slides my panties down. “I’m also on the pill so there’s no need to–”
I don’t get to finish the sentence. Benny bends me forward over the console table, positions his cock against my entrance and thrusts. There’s no gentleness this time, not when I’m already so wet for him. I gasp as he buries his cock inside me, his fingers gripping my hair and pulling my head back.
“Look at us, Sarah,” he orders and I open my eyes to the sight of us, unfiltered, raw, primal. He thrusts again and I groan, not caring who hears us. “This is us.”
I moan, the combination of his words and the sensations that hit me so intense that my knees tremble. Benny brings my arms behind me, pinning me in place. It feels so raw, the look on his face as he takes me. Skin on skin. So primal, so deep.
I want to close my eyes but I can’t. Benny growls, low and menacing, his gaze stripping me to the core.
Possessing me completely.
I see spots in front of my eyes, my body humming with an energy I’ve never felt before, building and rising like the tide threatening to take me away.
“You’re mine, Sarah. All mine.”
“Yes, Benny,” I gasp, panting as he thrusts again and again. Below me, the console table rattles against the wall. I don’t even care if there’s anyone staying in the room next door. I don’t care about anything but this moment. Benny with me, his grip tight around my wrists, making love to me. Marking me. Owning me. All of me.
“Come for me, Sarah,” he groans as I come, my orgasm crashing into me like waves slamming against the shore. Again and again. Washing over me as if wiping the slate clean of everything else that came before this moment until there’s nothing.
Just us.
It’s always been us.
As he grabs my hair and pulls my head back, his mouth on my neck, being taken by him like this is exhilarating and almost wrong. But I love it. I love every minute and every second of it. It’s my surrender, so complete and so visceral I feel like he’s looking right through me as he claims me.
But there’s also no denying why I feel the way I do. I’m in love with Benny Turner.
I always was.
When his release comes, the sound of his name filling the room is all I hear. That and the groan that comes from deep inside of him as I feel him thicken inside me, pulsing. And then he comes, releasing my arms and grabbing my hips, keeping me in place as a second orgasm barrels through me, built from his. My body shudders, trembles, my knees threatening to give way.
Still inside me, Benny slumps over me, his breath hot against my ear. I feel his teeth on my skin and I close my eyes. He’s marking me.
“You’re mine, Sarah.” His arms circle my waist, both our bodies breathing in unison as I take in the scent of him, the feel of him, the essence of that part of him that’s just for me.
“I’ve always been yours, Benny.”
We order room service afterward, too hungry and too tired to venture outside. There’s no need anyway, not when it starts to rain, making the choice to stay under the covers the most ideal way to spend the rest of the evening. We don’t speak of the transformation that just happened between us, an unmistakable shift in our relationship that’s taken everything to a place we’ve never been before.
And for the first time since I’ve known Benny, I see his scars when he gets up from the bed to get something to wear from his backpack. They’re old scars, criss-crossing his otherwise smooth back and just below his shoulder blades, I see circular marks, too, smooth circles that shouldn’t be there. I don’t need to ask him what they are. I’ve seen similar marks on a young patient at the hospital. Cigarette burns.
My throat tightens. The childhood he never talks about.
As Benny zips up his jeans, his brow furrows. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lie as he pulls a shirt over his shoulders and walks back toward the bed. “Just ogling you, that’s all.”
“You’re a terrible liar, you know.” He playfully pinches my chin. “If you’re wondering, it was a long time ago. Another lifetime.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?” He asks. “Not everything’s your fault, Sarah. Some things… well, they just happen and we move on.”
“How can you?”
Benny shrugs. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“But– ”
“And that’s all we’re ever going to say about that, Sarah,” he says as a knock on the door further ends the conversation. “That should be Room Service.”
We set the dishes on the table by the window. Outside, the lights from the neighboring buildings appear only as muted colors as raindrops create streaks across the glass. I can hear the muffled sounds of the traffic below as the rain hits the window with every gust of wind.
My heart is beating so fast and I know there’s no more denying what’s happening as Benny takes my hand to his lips. I catch my breath, accepting the inevitable.
I’m in love with Benny Turner.
“When do you fly back?” I ask when he sets my hand back down on the table and proceeds to spoon vegetables on my plate followed by slices of steak.
“Tomorrow morning. But I want to drop you off at your father’s place before I go to the airport.”
I stab a piece of broccoli with my fork. “There’s no need, Benny. I can find my way home.”
He reaches across the table, lifting my chin with his finger. “I will drop you off in the morning.”
I smile, my broccoli forgotten. The way his voice dips makes my stomach clench. I want to hear it again and again and again. “Okay.”
Benny grins. “That’s my girl.”
We spend the next ten minutes eating, no words until we get food into our bellies. When I’ve eaten my fill, I set my fork on the plate.
“Benny, when my case goes public,” I ask, “or if the pictures make it
to Shiprock, how’s this going to affect you? Your work? Your family?”
Benny doesn’t answer right away. He leans his elbows on the table and studies my face. “I’ll worry about my reputation and my family, Sarah. You worry about taking this bastard to court. You worry about winning, no matter what it takes or how long it takes. No matter what happens to me, you make him pay for what he’s doing to you and your family.”
“It could take years.”
“I’m not going away, Sarah,” he says. “I’ll be right here. Team Sarah. No matter how long it takes.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.” He points his fork toward my plate. “Now eat up. The night’s not over yet. You’re going to need the energy to last until morning with me.”
Just like he promised, Benny takes me home in the morning. Even though I’d texted Dad last night to tell him I was staying with Benny, he doesn’t look pleased when he opens the door. But I’m also twenty-six, I almost want to tell Dad. I’m old enough to spend the night with a man.
But then, I’ve also got naked pictures and videos floating all over the Internet so I get Dad’s annoyance.
“Good morning, Sarah,” Dad says stiffly as Benny nods at him. “Benny.”
“Mr. Drexel.”
“Would you like a ride to the airport?” Dad asks. “My driver should be in shortly.”
“No, thanks. I’m good,” Benny replies before turning to face me. “Call me when you get back.”
“I will.”
“Goodbye, Benny,” Dad says. “Have a good flight.”
“Thanks, Mr. Drexel,” Benny says. “Goodbye, Sarah.”
After Benny leaves to catch his flight home, Dad turns to look at me, an eyebrow raised. Suddenly I wonder if I’m being foolish to jump into another relationship when I’m still reeling from the consequences of a previous one.
Am I making a mistake with Benny?
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Sarah,” Dad says as the service door in the kitchen buzzes and Dave walks in and wishes us a good morning.
I nod. “I do now.”
Chapter Twenty
Mother is standing by her front door when I arrive at the house. She must have spotted my truck on the road and decided to wait for me, her arms crossed in front of her.
She doesn’t smile as I step out of the truck and for a moment I wonder if I’m still welcome in my old home. I don’t think it’ll come to that but if I’m not, I’ll accept it. In going back on my word, I’ve brought shame to the family and the clan.
“Shi’ma,” I say as I approach the house. Inside, I can hear my nephews and nieces laughing at something playing on the TV screen.
“What are you doing here, Benny?” Mother asks, frowning.
“I wanted to apologize to you for what happened when I was last here. The dinner,” I say.
“Noelle came by two days after you were here, you know,” she says. “She said she found some things you left at her place and she was just dropping them off.”
“She didn’t have to make the long drive,” I say, frowning. “I could have picked them up myself.”
“She was visiting her family and so she figured she might as well stop by here, too.” When I don’t say anything, Mother continues. “You broke her heart, Benny. She waited a long time and she said she only had one condition if you two were going to be together for good. But you said no.”
My father’s wedding band. “I did.”
“It’s only a ring, Benny. His wedding band. Would it kill you to not wear it… and close to your heart for that matter?” Mother asks, sighing. “You know how our people view things like that.”
Yes, I know how our people view death. We avoid it. We abandon a home if someone dies in it, never to enter it again. As poor as we were growing up, Mother never bought anything from a thrift store, afraid that its owners may have died. It’s why she gave away all of Dad’s belongings, thinking it was connected to her dreams of him—his ghost visiting her—along with my insistence at six-years-old that Dad was simply sleeping, that he’d wake up and come back to get me. I’d been trapped in that car with him for hours, begging him to wake up. I didn’t know any better then.
“It belonged to my father, Shi’ma,” I say. “You gave everything of his away. Or whatever Aunt Melody wasn’t able to save.” Like the pictures and Dad’s wedding band.
“They were mine to give, not hers to take with her. She already had control of the trust fund as it was. Why should she get his things, too?” Mother pauses and sighs heavily. “But that’s neither here nor there. I just don’t understand why she had to include that wedding band in her letter to you about the trust fund. You changed after that. You started thinking differently.”
“It’s not because of the ring that I changed or think the way I do,” I say slowly. “It’s who I am. Don’t blame it on anything or anyone else. It’s me.”
Mother takes a deep breath and goes back in the house but I don’t follow her inside. Somehow, the place stopped being my home the moment I brought shame to its doors that night. It stopped being my home when she stood in front of the front door.
Mother emerges with a sports bag and hands it to me. “Here. Your stepfather didn’t want it in the house but I hid it. Figured you’d come by.”
“Thanks.” I take it from her and watch her fold her arms in front of her again. “I wanted to take back the water containers so I can fill them up when I come back.”
“Don’t bother, Benny. We can get the water ourselves. It’s about time Tahoma and Tsela start doing things around here anyway,” she says coldly. “Besides, your stepfather doesn’t want you in his house.”
My throat tightens. His house. In our culture, it’s her homestead, just as it was passed on from her mother. It’s why I didn’t want to jump into marriage with Noelle. It would mean leaving Mom and my half-siblings without any additional support. With Ray spending all his money on booze off the rez, they need me. Or maybe that’s just what I tell myself. Maybe it’s my way of making up for what I always knew would happen, me turning my back on my culture. My duty.
“What about you, Shi’ma? Do you think the same way as Ray?”
Mother’s expression hardens. “You get rid of that ring and you can come back, Benny. Until then, stay away.” Her gaze goes to my chest where my father’s wedding band hangs on its chain. “I just want peace in my house for once. I’m tired of having to choose every single time.”
Her words sting and for a few moments, I can’t speak. But even if I can, what is there to say when your own mother turns you away? And I get it. Ray hates me and my guts. And now he’s got another reason to hate me. I went back on my word. I brought shame to the family and the clan.
I want to talk to my grandfather or at least, say goodbye but I don’t want to hear Mother tell me to leave again. The first time was bad enough. “Alright then. Tell everyone I said hello.”
I turn away and head back toward my truck. I open the passenger door and toss my workout bag in the back seat.
“I hope she’s worth it, Benny. You threw away everything that you are for her. I hope she knows that,” Mother says as I walk around the front of the truck and open the driver side door.
“I didn’t throw anything away, Shi’ma. I’m still the same son that you know,” I say, the words hoarse. “I’m still Benny. Bidzii.”
Tears glisten from my mother’s eyes but her chin is held high. She shakes her head. “Just go before your brothers come home. You’ll only make them upset.”
I gaze at the homestead in my rearview mirror as I drive away until I can’t see it anymore, the dust cloud forming behind the truck obscuring the view. But then, it could also be the tears in my eyes that almost fall down my face.
Only they don’t, for to cry would mean Mother is right, that I’m making a huge mistake… that Sarah is a mistake.
But she’s not.
Letting her go the first time was.
The next day, I hitch a
ride with Tony to Santa Fe and meet Sarah at the airport. As she walks through the double doors toward me, her smile is so radiant I forget to breathe. And when she runs into my arms, I forget all my troubles.
“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” she breathes into my neck as she wraps her arms around me, not letting go.
“I’m happier to see you.” As I hold her in my arms, I inhale her scent and everything that she represents to me from this moment on. Home.
There’s no way I’m letting go now.
On the drive back to Shiprock, Sarah tells me that she’s completed everything on her end as far as the situation with Ryan is concerned. The lawyers can’t prevent any more pictures to pop up online but if they do, they’ve got steps in place to have them removed. She also tells me that a civil rights organization has stepped in as well although she doesn’t know the details of what they can do. Everything basically will take time and she just needs to hang in there.
For the next two weeks, Sarah quietly settles into a routine. After she finishes her shift, I meet her for a run at the back of the hospital. She was right about the trail along the irrigation canal being popular with runners especially with a Suicide Prevention Marathon happening in a month. After the hourlong run, we have a quick breakfast at a local restaurant before we head to her apartment so I take a shower and get ready for work and she goes to sleep.
Some days we run along the trails around Shiprock and Farmington, including one that gives us a wonderful view of Tsé Bit’ai’í. She’s still not keen on going out to dinner, afraid that someone might recognize her and I understand. In the meantime, I do my best to remain vigilant, keeping an eye on anyone who could be hanging around at her apartment or at the medical center during our runs.
And when we’re not running or talking or cooking together, we’re in bed, exploring and experimenting, learning new things about each other, seeing what works and what doesn’t.
It’s all I can do to keep my mind from thinking about my family and how things went down between my mother and me. Even Marjorie has stopped talking to me and it hurts. How could I have fallen so far, and all for a woman I thought I could never have… a woman I’ve fallen madly in love with?