by Dakota Gray
But Tarek?
Even the girls who should have taken their sour grapes and turned them into wine had no truly bad things to say about him. Based on word of mouth, Tarek was perfect. I’d learned the hard way about finding the flaws in perfection. Honestly, if Tarek wasn’t obviously imperfect when I met him, I would have run in the other direction.
“If,” he says in a low tone, “everyone you meet only has nice things to say about someone then somewhere there’s a lie being told.”
The sentiment sounds harsh and cynical coming from his mouth. I’m comforted by hearing what I believe is the truth. I shift deeper into the mattress and dig into the food. It’s the best food I’ve ever eaten, in a postcoital kind of way. He’s making nom-nom noises, but outside of that, we’re silent as we chow down.
The ugly truth is I feel so relaxed. Tarek has showed me a part of his monster. It’s not pretty in any light. His monster doesn’t hurt women because it can.
As wrong as it is to accept that gray line between us, I feel safe. At the end of this affair I won’t lie on the floor bleeding. That’s enough for me to push my plate aside and eventually doze off again.
14
Tarek
* * *
“You can’t be serious?” Nina laughs, still groggy around the edges as she wakes from her cat nap that lasted maybe fifteen minutes.
I swallow the food before muttering, “Dead ass serious. I need to refuel big time. I hope you didn’t want some of the leftovers.”
She huffs, exasperated because that is not what she meant. “You were dressed when I fell asleep. Now you’ve got your nuts on the loveseat.”
Outside of my chewing, the room is quiet enough for me to hear the rustle of sheets as she sits up.
“Okay,” she says after the quiet moment. “I’m having trouble with the fact you’re not going to leave any leftovers while sitting bare-assed in a chair.”
The sheet covers the good bits, but there’s still a curvy hip and the top swells of her breasts. I scoop up a forkful of noodles instead of replying. She seems fine now. The hollow expression on her face when I came in bearing food will keep me awake tonight.
For me, sex keeps the demons at bay. For Nina, a handful of orgasms digs skeletons out of their graves. There’s no other way for me to think of it. She seems fine now, joking and using her words as a shield.
And…her nipples poke against the sheet. She’s wary and turned on. That gray area is where I live with women. “Come sit on my lap and I’ll feed you.”
“Had I known giving you pussy would turn you into this guy…”
“You would have given me pussy?”
She buries her face into the mattress but not before I catch the smile. I polish off my plate, leaving more than enough in the containers to satisfy her later. Time is not on my side. Nina will doubt, and doubt that doubt. It took her two weeks to ask me a simple question, a business proposition at that, all because she can only see shadows even when there’s light. I don’t blame her. I do that with life instead of people.
That’s the crux. It’s why we’re not done talking and fucking. “Since you didn’t come to me, I’ll be fair.”
“What’s fair?”
“I’ll fuck the shit out of you.” I know the statement is over-the-top, but it’s worth it when she rolls her eyes.
I rise from the chair and stalk toward her. She shifts, and part of the sheet falls from her legs. She’s shorter than me. I know this, but I can’t tell by the way her legs go on forever. I stop at the edge of the bed. Once again, she’s shifting toward me, revealing more skin.
“I gave you ample opportunity to take a turn,” I say and mean it.
She lifts her leg and presses her foot to my chest. I curl my hand around her arch. Her feet are soft, pampered. The nail polish that covers her toes is vibrant, like her. Underneath the scent of sweat and sex, there’s a note of something sweet and musky clinging to her skin. She’s…fuck. It’d be so easy to lose myself in the details of her.
“Nina. Nina.”
“Hmm?”
I raise her leg high enough to place a kiss on her ankle. Her toes curl, telling me she’s still sensitive to the touch from her orgasms. “You’re beautiful.”
She bites her lip and the smile fades from her gaze. “Why didn’t you try to sleep with me that first night?”
This question again, and that tells me she didn’t believe my previous answer. I run my palm down the back of her leg. Her sigh ends on a moan. I brush my fingers just to the left of her pussy. I should tell her the truth. The night isn’t over yet and we’re still revealing everything we’re brave enough to show each other. Better to tell her now than to wait for a moment where she’d be pissed. The decision is stupid easy to make.
My fingers draw closer to the plump folds. She arches into my hand. Her pussy is ready, so ready for my dick again.
Fuck me.
“Tell me about the damage your ex made.” My voice is pitched low, but I know the moment she hears me.
Her heel digs into me, and she uses that leverage to push from my hand. “Tell me about yours,” she rasps.
I scrape my fingers over the soft flesh of her ass. “It’s an ugly, gnarled wound that occasionally oozes.”
She has no hesitation saying, “I want to see your ugly.”
Like any rational human faced with the idea of exposing the parts of me that are not perfect, I think, who thought this shit was a good idea?
Oh.
Right.
Me.
I hold her gaze. My fingers search for her heat and it’s there, whispering to me to sink into her. Make words useless. With the flex of my wrist I can soak her brain in sex. I don’t want to, I need to. Because I do, I lean forward to take her mouth. I suck and bite at her lips, forcing her to whimper and pull at me, just daring me to break the connection.
The question still tugs at me.
I bite her bottom lip. Her moan huffs out, sounding full of frustration. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve stopped kissing her or because there are now two questions I haven’t answered.
I choose the harder question, because that’s who I am. “Sophomore year, I fell in love. Vanessa Cartwright was the one I was going to marry. I knew it the moment she smiled at me in class after I let her borrow a pen. What I didn’t know is that…” I lift my head and turn my face to kiss the inside of Nina’s shoulders. The move gives me time.
Nina palms warm my neck. Her hold tightens until I’m forced to look at her. Her pupils are blown, and her brown eyes are so dark. She knows. There’s no way she can meet my eye and not see we aren’t all that different. Someone came into our lives and wrecked us. The only difference, and the most important one, is that I did it to myself.
“I didn’t know that she was sexually abused as a kid.”
Her nails dig into my skin. “And you wanted to make her ugly go away.”
“I wanted to save her.” The pain from her nails burns, but I take it.
“Same thing.”
I close my eyes because the censure in Nina’s gaze weighs a ton. “I could tell her her hair was beautiful, and she’d cut it. She’d start fights to push me into leaving her, and I never did. I was young and stupid and thought love could be enough. If I stayed and proved love didn’t hurt, didn’t manipulate it was…love would be enough.”
The pain of her nails is replaced with her mouth. She’s breathing so hard. “Let me guess, she never believed she deserved love instead of hurt?”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
“And you? How did you take it? The man who has a mother and father who live happily ever after.” There’s no venom in her tone. It’s in every word though.
“Not well. I thought I knew the truly ugly underbelly of the world. By twenty, I had already lost count how many times I fit the description. I hadn’t considered just how much more fucked up living could be for a girl. And when I had to face the truth, I didn’t…take it very well. And then Vanessa brok
e up with me. That all led to me getting the scars on my legs.”
She brushes her nose along my jaw line then laughs. It’s bitter. “A young man learns the universe both hates him and caters to him. What would he do? What destruction would he wrought? Correct me if I'm wrong.”
“You’re not wrong.” Shame washes in, like always, and the emotion is what I deserve. “I played chicken with another car.”
My boys know. They didn’t and don’t shun me. On dark days, I think they should.
I go on, “The other driver had been guzzling tequila shots at a club before he climbed behind a wheel of the car, but I didn’t know that when I made my decision. All I saw was a car weaving into my lane, and thought how easy it would be to…”
I can’t say the rest. I wanted to die. The choice didn’t seem easier but felt like relief. I wouldn’t have to carry the truth of the world on my shoulders anymore.
I hold my breath, bracing myself for condemnation.
Nina’s quiet then says, “’I am the creator of my own destruction.’”
“That was my first tat.”
Her fingers find the exact spot on my skin. “It’s safe to say you’re not only emo but have a tendency to self-sabotage in dangerous ways.”
I refuse to take her speculation head-on. “That last is a therapy phrase.”
“I went for three years.”
“Why?”
“I...let…a man be my destruction.”
I take her words in and it feels like the first time I’ve heard her truth. My stomach tries to crawl up my throat. Like I said, I’ve trained women who were in the same position. I didn’t keep count, because one is one too many.
I pick up words and put them down until I find something close to what I want to say. “ ‘Let’ is such a sly word that makes it too easy for things to fester.”
“Maybe.” She buries her face deeper into me. “Some days, I’m completely clear on what predators do. They make their actions seem so reasonable, and you’re the one being irrational for making a fuss. Other days I ‘let’ him.”
Then why today is it ‘let’? I should put my dick up. I should hold her, touching her softly to scare away the ghosts of her past. Nina doesn’t want that. She told me she didn’t when derision had filled her voice at ‘make her forget her ugly?’
I cup her chin and lower my face to hers. “What happened wasn’t your fault.”
“What happened was in part yours. Am I to hate you now?”
“Do you?”
Her gaze traces every inch of my face. “What happened to the drunk driver?”
“Walked away without a scratch. My car was totaled. I ended up with scars and injuries that remind me to never get that low or angry with life again. To never believe in my own hubris. I can't take someone’s pain away. Not even a woman I love with my everything.”
By the time I became lucid enough to answer a cop’s question regarding the car accident, the drunk driver had confessed all. Or what he assumed was everything. The man had drifted into another lane while drunk off his gourd. He collided with another vehicle.
Duke hadn’t yet entered law school at the time, but he’d given me the kind of gaze that said shut the fuck up. Confusion, guilt and shame had kept me quiet until I couldn’t hold the words in any longer. I told them I’d had plenty of time to swerve out of the way.
Physical therapy and therapy went hand in hand, but ever since, I’ve swallowed that ugly truth about myself and gave harder, cared more, fucked insatiably, offered a woman all of her darkest desires, as though if I can find a woman as broken as me, everything will be all right. I’ve tried again and again to fill the hole that told me love wasn’t enough, kindness wasn’t enough, giving everything until I’m spent is the only answer.
“You could have killed him.”
“It is something that I never forget.”
“Don't ever.”
She's touching me, and I don't know if that is to soothe me or herself.
“So,” I say, bringing my mouth back to hers. “A man tried destroy you. I tried to destroy myself to feel better. That’s as bad as I get. That’s as bad as you’ve experienced. That’s who we are at our rawest, most human state. Do you trust me now?”
A wry smile lifts only one corner of her mouth. I’m sure a kiss from her now would taste bitter. “I trust you a little bit more.”
That’s all I could ask for. “How do you want the dick this time?”
She laughs. “Do you have to say it like that? I’m not ordering dick medium-rare.”
“You want romance?” I’ll give it to her. Lay every romantic thing I can think of at her feet. It’s been years since I told anyone the unvarnished truth of my accident. She’s unimpressed. She’s given the empathy I deserve for my actions. And, yet, she’s not walking away.
So, I don’t wait for an answer to bend to her ear. “I can’t breathe, can’t think without wanting you.”
She turns her head and her mouth is on mine. Jesus. I shift plans then and there. Kissing her is good enough because it’s an experience. Her mouth is soft, knowing. Her tongue is wet, seductive. My dick pounds between us while she’s slick and hot. She reaches down between our bodies. My heart skips at the implications. I’m already experiencing just how warm and soft her hand is. How fucking big and hard I’ll feel in her gentle ministrations.
Except, her hand slides between her legs, her fingers brushing her clit. I groan into her mouth, so fucking turned on. Her legs tighten around me while her hand moves in shallow, fast swipes.
I break the kiss to watch her. Nina’s fingers and mound glisten from her arousal. She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip and closes her eyes. Nina switches to only one finger to roll her clit.
“Want help?” Heat and need wrap my brain in fuzz.
A moan is her only answer. I kiss her again because that sound needs to be tasted. It’s so fucking sweet. But she wants to get off. I am a willing servant. I test her pussy juice with my middle and ring finger, just swirling my fingertips in her wetness before I trace her delicate opening in tight circles. The lips are puffy, darker from the rush of blood. Nina’s whimper is everything I need in life. I curl my fingers to fuck her. She’s swollen and soft on the inside too. I rub the flesh of her plump pussy in short jerks.
Her moans become cries as she speeds up her pace. I can feel it all. Her pussy squeezes my fingers in rolling waves. Each undulation gets shorter and shorter until she holds me in a vise. I get to watch her fall over the peak of pleasure. Her heels dig into the skin right below my ass.
My dick weeps at the knowledge we could have come at the same time if only I had been selfish. Each heart beat that throbs in my balls is punishment enough, but I just watch because Nina is beautiful post-orgasm. A smug smile brings out her dimples and then she pulls me down to her mouth. And, fuck. Fuck. She’s taking my dick in her hand. Her hand is wet from her own play. She’s using her come to get me off, making me wetter than I already am. I melt to nothing but my dick. Her hand wrapped around my cock is the best feeling in the damn world.
Nina hums against my mouth. “Pre-come is like getting a job well done.” She moans then presses her face into my shoulder. “It’s so warm. There’s so much. You are so turned on.”
Her hold turns firm as she strokes me. I can only hiss and jerk my hips to follow the mind-numbing sensation. Heat wraps around my spine. Words fall out of my mouth, guttural, and I don’t fucking know what they mean.
But it’s Nina. Her teeth sink into my shoulder for a second. “I want you to come so bad. I want that wet, liquid heat in my hand. On my stomach.”
She moans, her hand stroking me faster, tighter. That heat sinks into my balls. My brain falls into the pleasure and I know I want to say she’s beautiful, keep pumping my dick just like that, please don’t stop until I come. She shifts then her other hand cups my balls. The groan that rips out of me hurts, but it pales in how the rest of me pulses. So good. My body throbs until I’m coming and then
I am each spurt of nut, just liquid heat pouring out. I’m shaking, but I seek her mouth and lick my way inside. When her moans join my grunts, I hit bliss.
After a while, everything goes still.
She lays a kiss on the love bites on my shoulder, snuggles her face into the crook of my neck and laughs. There’s something so pure about it. Nina sounds like she’s surprised at the laugh and that only makes the noise roll over me.
She says, “Do you have any idea what you were muttering?”
“No,” I answer honestly and meet her gaze.
The laugh is right there in the way her brown eyes twinkle. “Just know I will forever be motivated to make you come.”
I’m hollowed out and there’s nothing but her to fill me. I take her mouth again.
NINA
* * *
THE NEXT DAY I’m lowkey annoyed at how effortlessly handsome Tarek is. I dig my knee into the dirt to better frame him in the wooded area. The light cuts across his face, his arms. He looks like an avenging angel, with his profile set into hard lines and the other half softened by ethereal light. The sheen of sweat makes his brown skin glisten. The shutter of my camera fills the silence with its soft click-click.
Then he smiles, stops digging our pee and poop hole to direct his grin towards me. “Nina, for real?”
“What?” I say and try to capture the crook in his lips.
Without having to glance at the digital preview screen, I know I’ve captured the real Tarek. Outwardly he’s handsome. There’s no denying that simple fact, but he also has dark recesses. Those pitch-dark pits show a man who doesn’t deserve redemption. Those finger-dug holes go soul deep. Yet the light parts of him are filled with laughter and dirty words.
This is why I love photography. People are black and white and gray. There’s wrong and there’s evil. There’s right, righteous and pious. I now know where he stands, and he’s far from perfect. He has self-inflicted scars. Shit, he’s been a danger to himself and someone else, literally. I wonder what he's done to make amends or reconcile that boy with the man he is now. Can he?