Boys and Burlesque

by Ripley Proserpina

  Every so often, I caught one of my friends watching her, their expressions masked as they waited for her reaction.

  I was sure I was the same way. Each time she smiled, I felt an answering grin appear on my own lips.

  “I like it,” she said as we came around the front again. “I really like it.”

  Something inside me eased and unfurled. Relieved, I took her hand. “You must want a shower. Did you see a bedroom you liked?” We climbed the steps, and she glanced up toward the second floor.

  “As much as I want to see the second floor, I’ll probably stick to this one. Is there a bedroom I can take down here?”

  “Your choice,” Westin said. “No one’s claimed them yet.”

  “I’ll take the first one off the living room then,” she said. “I’m dying for a shower. Will one of y’all bring in my suitcase and put it in my bedroom?” She covered her face with her hand and yawned. “And then I might take a nap.”

  My brain shorted out when she said “shower.” I immediately imagined glistening skin and beads of water. Ripping off her clothes and dragging my lips down her neck.

  I shifted, sneakily adjusting myself. “Sounds like a great idea.”

  Seventy-One

  Betsy

  I wrapped my leg with a plastic garbage bag, tucking it around the straps of the crutch and into the edges of the brace. The bathroom was old. The tub built into the wall, with a big lip I had to climb over in order to get inside. It was relatively clean. A little dusty. There were a few dead spiders in the bottom. I directed the water toward them, pushing the dead creepy crawlies down the drain just in case they decided to reanimate when I turned my back on them.

  I held onto the bar meant for washcloths, steadying myself before I tipped my head back into the water. It sluiced off of me, stinging the scrapes on my forearms and reminding me of how real the events of yesterday were.

  “Bets?”

  Westin’s voice echoed through the room. I finished rinsing the suds out of my hair and shut off the shower. My towel was sitting on top of the sink, and I debated asking him for it, but I also could still hear Wes’s voice in my head, telling me the boys could watch but that he wanted me.

  So I opened the curtain and stood there. I let him see me, study me, as I stood there dripping water in a garbage bag covered cast.

  His blue eyes were hot, scanning my body from head to toe. “God damn, Betsy.”

  Heat flooded me, appearing in every spot his gaze rested. “Do you still want me?”

  Rather than answer, he grabbed me, dragging me out of the tub. I dove my hands into his hair. It was damp, too. I kissed him, pushing my tongue past his lips and holding his head to mine. He smelled musky and tasted like mint. I was dizzy, breathless. I hung onto him, trusting that he’d get me where we needed to go.

  He placed me on the mattress, unstrapped my crutch, and came over me. I stared at him, memorizing the changes I couldn’t help but notice this close to him.

  “I’ve been dying to see all these tattoos.” I grazed the edges of his jaw.

  He blushed, head dropping so we were forehead to forehead. “Some of them…” He let out a breath. “Betsy. I’m a little embarrassed now.”

  “Show me.”

  He stared at me, gaze bouncing from one eye to the other before he sat back on his heels. He was wearing another black tank top, and lifted it slowly over his head.

  I sucked in a breath. “Wes.” My hands wanted to go where my eyes went. I’d never seen anything as beautiful as the art on his chest, even though I had no idea what I was looking at. “Who is it?”

  “This is Kali,” Wes whispered. I studied the dark-haired woman with heavily lined eyes and her tongue sticking out. “She’s the goddess of sex and violence. Of death. Time. Doomsday.”

  I traced the outline of her elaborate headdress. “Why?”

  “Because she is me. I was so angry, Betsy. I loved you so much, and I wanted—fuck!” He rolled off me, but I followed him, carefully lifting my casted leg over him so I could sit on him.

  I grabbed his hands, holding them over his head and studied him. “What did you want?”

  “I wanted to kill everyone. I wanted to kill my father. It was how I got to sleep at night, imagining what I would do to him.” He didn’t look at me when he spoke, turning his head to the side.

  I let go of one of his hands to draw his face back to mine. “Keep going.”

  “Everything after you was shit, Betsy, but I thought—maybe everyone was right, and with time, I’d get over it all. I was eighteen. What eighteen-year-old finds the love of his life? But when I left, I died. I felt nothing. Cared about nothing.”

  “Oh, Wes.” I kissed him, tracing his lower lip with mine before I drew it between my teeth and bit gently. He allowed me to control it all. I moved my hands back to his, holding them against the mattress as I kissed his face. I did what I had been dying to do. I tasted those tattoos, running my tongue along the licks of flames drifting off of Kali’s head dress. Wes’s breath came faster and faster as I dipped my tongue in the hollow of his throat and then sat back up. I rocked against him, feeling him getting harder and longer between my legs.

  Letting go of his hands, I braced myself on his chest. I smoothed my hands over him, around his ribs, and then down to his jeans. Wes moved to help me, but I pushed his hands away. There was no rush.

  “Betsy.” He gripped my head, pulling my hair a little so I could look at him. “This is real, right? I’m not dreaming.”

  “No.” This was real. “Not dreaming.”

  He dragged me back to his mouth, kissing me deeply, his hand still in my hair. He rocked into me; one hand dug into my hip, moving me back and forth.

  I gasped at the sensation, and he smiled against my mouth. I meant to go slow and explore him, but when he moved like that, I just wanted him inside me. Sitting up to catch my breath, I stared down at him.

  The portrait of Kali was beautiful, but there was even more artwork all around her. Lines of poetry. Lyrics. Some I recognized, some I didn’t. “I would like to be the air that inhabits you…” Tracing the words with my finger, I considered how much pain Wes had been in. “Is this all about me?” I asked.

  “A lot of it,” he replied, his voice gruff. He pointed to a spot near his belly button. It was a small flower, a violet. There was no color anywhere on his body, but I recognized it. “Do you remember this?”

  The very first flower anyone ever gave me was a violet he’d plucked out of my grandmother’s lawn and tucked behind my ear. “Of course.” Pictures overlaid the ink, and it was hard to discern one image from another. “It’s going to take a lifetime for me to see all of this.”

  He moved fast, rolling me under him. “Say that again.”

  Confused, I repeated myself. “It’s going to take a lifetime?”

  For the first time since telling me about Kali, he seemed to relax. “Yes. Betsy. I want a lifetime with you. I want a thousand lifetimes.”

  This boy totally undid me. I was a twenty-six-year-old woman, but he reduced me to the swooning teenager I had been when he kissed me for the first time. We might have this long history, but for a long time, the gap between us had seemed vast and insurmountable.

  Wrapping my leg over his hip, I ground myself against him.

  “Is your ass tattooed?” I wondered aloud.

  “Take my pants off and find out.” His smile was wicked. I threw my head back, laughing.

  “Okay.” I’d call his bluff.

  I unbuttoned his pants, skimming my fingertips along the waistband of his underwear before pushing it aside to grip his erection.

  His breath hissed out between his gritted teeth. Only once had we made love, but we’d done other stuff as horny teenagers. The flood of heat pouring into my center reminded me of that, and the desperate race to touch each other in the little time we had after school and before curfews.

  But there was no race now. We had hours. The idea seemed to occur to both of us
at the same time. Those quick, hard kisses turned languid. His mouth was warm and tangy from the peppermint of his toothpaste. My tongue brushed against his. Once. Again. I was thirsty for him, needy in a way I only was for these boys.

  He crushed me to him, body heavy but not suffocating. Our kisses changed again, becoming bruising. I sucked on his tongue and shoved my hand down his pants, gripping him roughly.

  Wes kneaded my breast, then shifted to catch my nipple between his lips. He sucked hard. God. It was almost painful, and I retaliated by stroking him a little faster.

  He groaned, thrusting his hips into my hand before jerking away and jumping off the bed. His gaze didn’t leave mine as he ripped his pants down his legs, kicking them away. Muscled thighs flexed and contracted as he came over me, spreading my legs wide open.

  “Please.” I rubbed my hands over his legs, the short hairs tickling my palms. My body undulated beneath his, legs open.

  Long fingers trailed down the center of my chest, over my belly button and between my folds. “You’re so wet.”

  He dipped inside me, blue eyes holding mine as he pulled out and then thrust back inside. We kissed, but still he kept up that rhythmic thrusting that had me gasping aloud.

  “I want you, Wes.” I was getting too close too fast, and I didn’t want to come without him inside me.

  He sat back, resting on his heels and reached for the pants that he’d tossed at the end of the mattress. Like it had with Josh, it made me sad to see him withdraw the condom. Not because we had to use one, but because we’d once been so innocent that we’d never imagined what not using one would do.

  Never looking away, he unrolled the condom on his length and crawled forward. Thumb on my clit, he made hard, tight circles. “You belong to me.”

  Goosebumps blasted up my spine, and I nodded. Legs trembling, I opened for him, waiting for the hard, mushroomed tip of his cock to push into me.

  He waited for what seemed like hours, just holding himself there as he continued to rub circles. “I’m not going to last.”

  If my ability to speak hadn’t left me, I’d have answered, “Me either,” but I couldn’t. So I let my actions do the speaking. I grabbed his ass and yanked him into me.

  He sucked in a breath, hips thrusting and withdrawing, then thrusting again. I squeezed my inner muscles, lifted one hand to his cheek. The muscle jumped beneath my thumb. His pulse was a thundering beat. Joy—pure, unadulterated joy—filled me. I did this to him. His heart raced as much as mine.

  “Please.”

  The muscle clenched again, but he nodded.

  I leaned up, licking the cord in his neck as he dragged himself out of me and then pushed inside.

  “You don’t know how good you feel.”

  I knew how good he made me feel. How I was climbing ever higher, and not just because he touched me. It was the sounds he made, the indrawn breaths and slight moans. It was the way his gaze held mine even as he circled my clit and worked himself inside me like he never wanted to leave. I loved the way a blush colored the flames on his neck, moving to his face and then resting on his cheekbones.

  His neck strained, cords of muscle standing out. My clit throbbed, but it was his cock shoving in and then sliding out that wrecked me. My orgasm hit with no warning. One second, I stared into his blue eyes, and the next, I was crying out, my entire body trembling and shaking as I came.

  And came.

  He followed me. “Betsy!”

  I watched his face. This boy owned me—mind, body, and soul. I’d known him since I was a child, and had loved him in all his incarnations. The tough boy, the sensitive violet-giver, the football star, and preacher’s son. The leaver. The runner.

  The boy who returned, begging me to be better.

  “I love you,” I said and that was it. He cried out, coming so hard I felt him swell inside me.

  He collapsed onto me, his breath ragged. “Love you.” He kissed my neck, shoulders, anywhere he could reach while keeping his body weight on me. “All my heart, Betsy. With everything.”

  I moved my hands over his back, muscled and sweaty, and then down to his hips. “You’re my Westin.” Always had been. Always would be.

  Seventy-Two

  Westin

  Betsy was mine. Mine forever. Mine until I died and then after. Always had been.

  Always would be.

  Seventy-Three

  Betsy

  I fell asleep with Westin. The sun shone through the windows, it was midmorning, and I just—boom—awake to asleep.

  It took me a little bit of time to make sense of my surroundings. This happened to me a lot when I traveled. I had to backtrack—where had I danced, where had I flown, where was I now?

  I was alone but warm. Uncomfortably warm. The window was open, and the sweet scent of azaleas came in with the breeze. Outside, familiar voices chatted. Everything felt heady and relaxed.

  I’m home.

  Smiling, I stretched my arms over my head. It was all coming back to me. Virginia. Westin.

  Making love.

  Sitting up, I held the sheet to my chest and listened a little closer to those voices. While I couldn’t make out their words, their individual voices were clear as day, and I had the sense that everything was okay.

  I dropped the sheet when I stood because I wasn’t going to put my crutch on just to go to the bathroom. Using the furniture to propel myself on my one leg, I wound my way to the bathroom, grabbed another plastic bag from the box someone had thoughtfully placed on the sink, and got into the shower.

  God. My body was sore. But deliciously so. Between my legs was a little achy and sensitive when I cleaned myself up. I didn’t bother washing my hair, but I wet it since the humidity would do whatever it wanted with it.

  No one was in my room when I finished. I thought maybe someone would try to take advantage—something I was fully okay with—but nope. It was just me. My suitcase sat by the bureau, and I rummaged through that, sitting on the ground with my foot stuck out in front of me. Brant had packed for me, and I smiled at the things he’d grabbed. Summer dresses. Shorts. And workout clothes.

  Leaving off the bra, I shimmied into my underwear and pulled a sundress over my head. The crutch was the last accessory I needed and then I was ready.

  More clear-eyed than I had been when I first arrived, I studied the house with interest as I made my way toward the voices. They were in back of the house where I remembered a little stone patio and an overgrown garden right off the living room.

  Sure enough, they were there, sitting in old plastic lawn chairs, faces tipped toward the sun. Landry and Josh were shirtless and sweating, a flash from the past that had me making sure my tongue was in my mouth.

  “Morning,” I greeted.

  Instantly they went from lounging to alert. “Hey.” Landry got to me first. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t want to miss anything. What have you been doing?”

  Landry didn’t answer, instead, he put his hand behind my neck and drew me forward until he could kiss me. Our lips met and lingered. He held himself against me, turning his head with each kiss as if he had to explore how each change in position affected our kiss. I wished I could stand on my tiptoes to reach him better.

  His palm was dry and rough against my skin, but gentle. He didn’t squeeze too hard or move me; he just kept me in place.

  “I’ve been waiting and waiting for that,” he said when he drew back.

  “Me, too.” Each time one of the boys kissed me, it felt like the first kiss I’d ever received. Had I ever taken those kisses for granted? These were once-in-a-lifetime kisses, and I made a promise to myself that I’d be thankful for each one.

  “So,” I said, leaning against his chest to study the other boys. “What have you been doing?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Josh asked with a wink, “we’ve been weeding the garden.”

  Now that he mentioned it, there were piles of weeds everywhere. But they
didn’t begin to touch the overgrowth of the garden. I opened my mouth to offer my help, but there was no position I could really get into that would let me pull without toppling over. So I settled on, “Good job.”

  “There’s so much to do.” Brant took his hat off and wiped his arm across his forehead. He turned the hat around, brim backward, and stuffed it back on his head. “Throw a rock and you’ll hit something that has to be fixed. The only thing keeping us from it is how much it all costs.”

  Something flew across the patio and hit Brant in the head.

  “Wes, what the fuck?” Brant bent to pick up another baseball hat and flung it at Westin. His face flushed suddenly, and he choked out, “Never mind.”

  I’d missed something. “What?” I asked. I hated being left out. I hated it at twelve, and I hated it at twenty-six. “What’s the problem?”

  “I wasn’t hinting that we need money,” Brant answered quickly. “We’re just doing a pay as we go plan. Paying in cash.”

  “Not better,” Westin said through clenched teeth.

  Brant threw his hands in the air and let them drop, slapping his jean-covered hips. “What the hell do you want me to say then, Westin?”

  “Boys!” I laughed. They were freaking out over nothing. “I know y’all don’t want my money. Calm down.”

  “I wasn’t hinting that, Bets,” Brant’s eyes were wide. He came over to me, pulling me away from Landry. Bending at the knees, he stared into my face. “Do you believe me? I promise that wasn’t what I was hinting.”

  The desperation in those hazel depths made all my laughter die. “I know, Brant,” I replied. “Stop worrying.” I thought of something. “I need your help, actually.”