Fixing Lia

by Jamie Bennett

  I had been staying partially clothed, keeping him away from my back, but maybe…

  “Connor, thank you. I haven’t done a lot for my birthday for a long time, and I really appreciate all of this. I love my necklace.”

  He grinned. “I’m glad. Happy birthday, sweetheart.” He kissed me softly, pulling away when Jared came in, but my brother didn’t care. He had seemed to immediately accept that Connor and I were a couple, probably more than I was able to. Jared apparently thought that it was obvious and obligatory that everyone would love Connor just as much as he did. And I understood how my brother felt, because I was crazy about Connor, too.

  I picked at another bite of cake, fiddling with my new necklace, and tried not to think about Amy helping to choose my birthday present. She was probably really excited to do it, because she was that type of person: generous and nice. Kind.

  “Lia?” Connor looked at me. “Everything ok?”

  “Misiu has a birthday candle in his mouth!” Jared yelled, and we had to break away from the table to extract it.

  A few hours later, Connor slid next to me between the cool, soft sheets of his bed. “I’m already naked, because I want to move quickly to the good stuff,” he told me, reaching over to hold me. “I see you ignored my directive about wearing only the necklace.”

  “Was it a directive?” I still had on my t-shirt. “I took it as more of a suggestion.”

  Connor slid his hands down my skin. “You went halfway,” he noted, taking my butt and pulling me flush with his body. He kissed my neck. “You’re worried that I’ll see the scars on your back?”

  I nodded, my head burrowing under his chin as I did. “I think it’s pretty terrible.”

  “You think? You don’t know?”

  “I haven’t looked for a long time,” I admitted. “I’m sure it’s not as gross as it was.” I remembered seeing the red, thick skin in a mirror before I had looked away. But that had to have been at least five or six years ago, because I had still been getting treatment for it at that time, to loosen the tightness and ease the itchiness, to help me move normally again.

  “It looks like it hurt you so much.” He squeezed me tightly. “I hate that.”

  “Wait, it ‘looks like?’” I repeated.

  “I’ve already seen your scars,” Connor said. “And I’ve touched you there, too."

  I picked up my head. “How? When?”

  “You get a little loose after you come,” he told me, and snuggled me back under his chin. “Kind of floppy. Your shirt doesn’t always stay on all the way. And last night, when you were on top of me, I had my hands on your back, to stop you from tipping over. Your eyes had rolled up in your head.”

  Well, he been rubbing me against him, caressing my clit against his erection, and it had felt so good I’d almost passed out. “I didn’t remember that.”

  “It’s not what you think, Lia. It’s scarred, but it’s not gross. It doesn’t bother me at all, not like it bothers you.” He kissed my hair. “Take this off,” he said, and tugged at my t-shirt.

  I held on to the hem. “It’s more the memory of it. When I think of the burns, then I remember the fire.”

  “What—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it tonight,” I said quickly. And then, to forestall any more discussion, I pulled off my shirt, but I turned on my back, not quite ready.

  “Thank you,” Connor told me. “Seeing you like this is a present for me.” He leaned down and kissed the hollow of my throat where the silver disc rested, then traced up my neck with the tip of his tongue. His lips moved around my jaw until they came to mine.

  As he kissed me, I reached down, my fingers dancing along the muscle of his chest and stomach until I reached between his legs. His “thing,” I remembered calling it, when I had dreamed about him as a teenager. I had imagined the two of us together like this, but I had never guessed how good the reality would feel. I circled my fingers around him, gently rubbing as Connor moaned against my mouth. I used my nails to lightly score his soft skin, up and down, and I reached deeper between his legs to run them over his balls until he shivered. This whole area of him, all the parts hidden under his plaid boxers, was a new world for me. I was still exploring it, and he really liked where my journey of discovery was taking him. “That’s good,” he said now, his voice husky. His hips pushed against me, moving his shaft in my hand. “Jesus, that’s good.”

  I pressed Connor onto his back and straddled his hips, then I leaned and let my hair trail down his body. He loved this, the tickling softness, and I went all the way past his stomach until I could put my tongue where my nails had been. I licked as gently and carefully as he had to my neck, teasing the round head, nibbling with my lips. “Still good?” I asked.

  “All good. Very…” he gasped, and when I pulled him into my mouth and sucked, he just moaned.

  “Lia…” He twisted his hands in my hair, petting and playing. “Come here, come here.” I moved back up his body until I sprawled on top of him, skin molding to skin, and I tried not to flinch away when his hands came to rest on my back. “It’s ok,” he whispered, and lightly stroked over my scars. It didn’t feel terrible, but I still didn’t like it, and I moved off to lie next to him.

  He leaned over me and kissed me, warm and deep, hands roaming over my body. “I’m going to try to make this an even happier birthday,” he said. He kissed around my breast, circling until I moved impatiently. Then he put his mouth over my nipple, warm and wet. He licked and suckled, rolling the other one with his fingers as I held his shoulders and arched up to get more. His hand went between my legs to rub me, to feel how ready I was for him. And I was ready—really, really ready. He tweaked my clit and when I gasped, he pressed firmly and let me move my hips against his fingers. I gyrated and shook, close to coming. When he put his mouth there, lips sucking and tongue flicking, I did come, clenching down around Connor’s long fingers inside me.

  “Now, again,” he said, and his mouth moved more. I cried out, my hands on my breasts, my thighs gripping his shoulders. “Lia?” he asked after the second time, when I was a mass of jelly, wrung out with pleasure. “Sweetheart…”

  “I want to,” I told him, my voice throaty and hoarse. “I want to do it, now.” I heard him reach beside the bed into the drawer where I knew he kept condoms. Then he moved his body on top of mine, just the way I liked to feel him, heavy and close.

  “Ready? I’m going to go slowly.” He gently guided himself, and it felt…strange. Not just physically odd—I was used to his fingers now, but this made us connected. It was like we had joined together with more than our bodies.

  I looked up into his face, his handsome, loving face. “Are you all right?” he asked me, and shifted his hips.

  I gasped. “Yes! Yeah, that felt good. Oh, there!” I gripped his shoulders, as he caressed that place again. “Can you do that more?”

  He laughed softly. “I’m not going to be able to stop myself. The way you look, so sweet, so beautiful…” He moved again, and again, and I bit his shoulder to stop from crying out. He thrust and touched my clitoris and suddenly I was almost flying. Connor pumped into me, saying, “Now, now, Lia, now,” and both of us orgasmed. I had never…my God. I clutched him to me and slowly, slowly drifted back down to Earth.

  We lay joined, breathing together, then he carefully pulled away and out. “Come here, get in close,” he said, and I did, not minding that my back was in full view to him as I cuddled against his chest. I closed my eyes and tried to hold on to the feeling of us being two parts of the same whole.

  “Was that actually a good birthday gift? Sometimes, the first time isn’t so spectacular.”

  “You made it wonderful,” I assured him, my voice still hoarse, and I kissed his neck. “How did you know it was my first time?”

  “I got the feeling you weren’t that familiar with male equipment when you saw mine. Your eyes got as big as the pancakes you made this morning.” He laughed, his chest vibrating. It made me smi
le too, smile and kiss him again. “God, I love to touch you. Last week at work, it was a little distracting to have you a few floors below, knowing that your ass looked so inviting in those black pants.”

  “Please.”

  “You may not think those pants are attractive, but I do.” His fingers made circles on my back but moved down to my butt, where he gripped. “And there’s no doubt that this is very cute. I watch you in the gym, too.”

  “Pervert. Keep your eyes to yourself.” I watched him right back.

  “I almost dropped a weight on my foot when you bent over to get your new water bottle.”

  Amy had given me one of the special metal ones so I could stay hydrated like she did. I swallowed. “Connor?”

  “Yes?”

  “Remember how you told me that you raised hell in high school? Did you ever do anything really bad?”

  I felt his chest rise and fall with a yawn. “Sure. We all had fake IDs.”

  “No, that’s not…ok, what else?”

  He laughed softly, sleepily. “Do you want a comprehensive list, right now? I think my worst was prom night, senior year, when we decided to drive to New York. We made it over the Pennsylvania state line before calling our parents.” He yawned again and reached to move my leg over his body, pulling me even closer. “There.”

  “Are you falling asleep?” I whispered after a few moments.

  Connor answered with a noise that I thought meant yes.

  “I’ve done some really bad things,” I told him quietly. “Lots of them. I don’t know how much I should tell you, because I’m so afraid of—” I choked on the words. “I’m so afraid of losing you. But I have to because it’s not fair that you don’t know. It isn’t fair to you.”

  He made another noise, kind of a sigh.

  “Connor.” I took a deep breath. “I know more than what I told the police seven years ago. I know more about who shot you. When that white car pulled into my uncle’s parking lot, I recognized it. Those guys ran our neighborhood then, like the ones who Jared was mixed up with do on our street now. I had seen what they did, terrorizing people, hurting people. I saw them that night, I saw them shooting, and I could have identified them. But when my uncle came to the store after they took you away in the ambulance, he went right to the old video recorder. He took out the tape of what had happened in the parking lot and stepped on it, breaking it. He told me not to say anything to the police, or those guys would come after me. After all of us. I was so afraid…”

  It was hard to explain, impossible to explain, the confusion and fear. I had been covered in Connor’s blood and crying, and my uncle had held me by the arm, waving the broken tape, shaking me hard, telling me to keep my mouth shut. Did I want my brother to die? Did I want to die? he had demanded.

  “So I didn’t tell, when the police asked me. I said I hadn’t seen any faces, I couldn’t ID anyone, I didn’t know what had happened to the video tape. You probably weren’t aware of it then, but the shooting was pretty big news. The police were coming down hard, trying to make an arrest, trying to turn up leads. We started getting threats to keep our mouths shut.”

  I remembered the constant, unrelenting anxiety that devolved into constant, unrelenting terror. “Every day when I came home, I looked over my shoulder and hid from cars. Once, there was a guy waiting outside of the preschool when I dropped off Jared. He watched me and he followed me down the block, faster and faster until I was running. But he caught me and grabbed me, and he got right in my face and said, ‘We know where to find you, bitch. You and the kid.’ My uncle bought a gun and carried it loaded and ready all the time. He didn’t know what he was doing, and I was afraid he was going to shoot us by mistake. He was freaking out, hysterical.” I remembered him screaming at me while I held my hands over Jared’s ears and hugged him so he wouldn’t be scared.

  I took another breath. “They set the fire. The guys who shot you, they set fire to my uncle’s store with us in it. They either wanted to scare us or kill us, I don’t know. But it worked, because I’ve never said anything, except…” Except to his mother.

  I picked up my head to look at Connor’s face. He was asleep, but smiling a little, the corners of his mouth quirked up. “I know I have to tell you. You deserve to know that for all these years, I’ve kept the secret of who hurt you, and I let them get away unpunished. I let you live in fear, and I’m so, so, sorry.” I kissed his cheek, my tears wetting his skin as well. “I’m so sorry, Connor.”

  I put my head back down on his chest. I had to tell him, and I would lose him for sure, but he deserved better. And I had been right about sex binding us together: now, I felt my heart so intertwined with his, I didn’t think it would beat again on its own.

  ∞

  “Happy belated birthday!” Amy exclaimed when she came into my office on Monday morning. She placed a gift bag with a beautiful ribbon on my desk. “Why didn’t you tell me last week?”

  “Honestly, I forgot,” I told her, eyeing the bag. “You didn’t have to buy anything for me.”

  “Birthdays are so fun!” she said. “Of course I wanted to get you a present. Did you like the necklace?”

  I nodded. “It was wonderful. A wonderful surprise.”

  Amy smiled widely. “I’m so glad. I had a bunch of different ideas for you but I was sure you’d like to get that from Connor and your brother. That was sweet of them. Connor put me on speaker while they were driving and they were both so excited, sneaking off to shop for you together.”

  “It was sweet of them,” I echoed.

  “It seems like things are going really well for you!” Amy told me. “I’m glad. You had it rough, and you deserve a lot of happiness.”

  I couldn’t speak; suddenly, the room felt very hot, and I was having trouble getting a breath in. My mouth filled with a tinny, metallic taste and I thought I might throw up. “Amy,” I said, “I don’t. I don’t deserve that.”

  She stared at me. “The birthday present? What do you mean?”

  “I took your ring,” I heard myself say. “It was me. I found it on the shelf in the bathroom on that Friday after you left, and I took it. Then I put it back in the bathroom on Monday so you would find it.”

  Amy’s face was the picture of shock. “Why? Why would you do that?”

  The words came spilling out. How things had been terrible at that moment with Jared, how afraid I had been, and how I’d thought that selling her ring might have been the way to save my brother. How jealous and angry I was about her going to that benefit for the soup kitchen that I had needed to survive, how I had rationalized taking it by telling myself that she could get another ring. I told her how sorry I was. How incredibly sorry.

  “If you had told me that, that your brother had problems…that you…the soup kitchen…you never said anything,” she said slowly, rubbing her temple. The ring sparkled. “I don’t understand.”

  “I was embarrassed about needing the help, I was ashamed that I had been hungry back then because I didn’t know how to take care of myself. And about Jared, I wanted you to think that I was doing a good job as his guardian. I wanted everyone to think it. But there’s no way to fully explain why I did it, and I don’t have any excuse. Ever since the shooting, the fire, I’ve been on my own and doing whatever it took to get by, but this was the worst…” I thought of Connor, of not turning in the guys who shot him. “Well, this was one of the worst things I’ve ever done.”

  “The shooting, the fire,” she repeated, kind of blankly.

  “I don’t expect you to ever forgive me, I’m not even asking you to try. If I were you, I would hate me for the rest of my life. You should know that I hate myself for this, too.”

  Amy nodded, looking at the ring on her finger.

  “You don’t have to fire me,” I said. “I quit, ok? This was the best job I’ve ever had, and you’re probably the best person that I’ve ever met, right up there with Connor.” Oh God, I had just lost him, too. “You didn’t deserve to be treated this wa
y by me. And I want you to know, it isn’t your fault, not at all. How could you ever have guessed that I would be so awful? No one could have, because I hid it so well. And I’m so sorry.”

  She had sunk down in the chair across from my desk, pale and horrified. I ran to get the water bottle out of her office and handed to her. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this,” she repeated.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not only did I trust you as a co-worker, I thought we were friends,” she said, finally looking me in the eyes. I wanted to curl up in shame.

  “I did think of you that way.”

  “This is how you treat your friends?” she asked, incredulous.

  “No. No, because I don’t have any.”

  “No wonder!” Amy said loudly.

  “Exactly,” I agreed, and stood up. “I’ll get my purse and go.”

  “So you’re just going to leave me in the lurch? Without Dayana, how do you think I’m going to run this business?” she asked furiously.

  “I…”

  “You can’t quit until I find your replacement. I’ll start looking right away, and you’re not to talk to any client, email anyone, do anything without my approval. In fact, we’re going to work in the conference room so that I can watch you.”

  “Ok.”

  Amy stood too, and picked up the gift bag, crumpling it in her hands. “Now,” she told me flatly. “I want to keep an eye on you at all times, so come now.” She waited outside my office and watched me collect my purse and laptop, the files I was working on, my phone. I could feel her gaze burning into me as we walked down the hall, and she kept watching me for the rest of the morning. It was a relief to leave for lunch, except that I was sure she was going upstairs to tell her husband about the ring, if she hadn’t written to him already. He would certainly tell Connor. Then I felt worse for worrying about myself when I had made Amy so miserable, once by stealing from her, and then again this morning by letting her know what I’d done.

  I thought that maybe I shouldn’t have told her, because she would have been blissfully ignorant. Except that she deserved someone better for an employee, and she certainly deserved someone better as a friend. I stared at the sandwich I had brought then went to the bathroom to throw up.