by Callie Hart
“Fuck, Coralie. You’re even more beautiful than I remember.” His voice sounds strained, barely more than a whisper, but I can hear his desire, thick and heavy.
“I’m the same,” I tell him. “I haven’t changed.”
Shaking his head, Callan carefully reaches out to touch my nipples. He squeezes softly, making my breath catch in my throat. “You have. I have, too. We both have. We’re not the same people we were before, bluebird.”
I don’t know if he’s right or if he’s wrong. I don’t know if it’s for the better or for the worse. All I know is that my body still knows his, still recognizes and wants him in a way like no other. He ducks down and takes my nipple into his mouth, stroking his tongue over the tightened flesh, and my head spins.
“Fuck, Callan. I—” I don’t even know what to say. What I want. That’s not entirely true. I want him. I want him so goddamn badly, but I don’t know how to ask him for it. He said he wasn’t going to fuck me. He said he was going to leave his clothes on, and all I want right now is to feel his skin on mine, to feel him sliding into me as he holds me in his arms and tells me that he loves me.
“What, bluebird? Tell me what you want. Tell me.” Callan runs his hands around my body and cups my ass, squeezing. He jerks me toward him, and I can feel his erection pressed up against me, trapped between our bodies. He groans, huffing a deep breath down his nose, and I mirror him, moaning at the back of my throat.
“I don’t want…I don’t want anything. I just—“
“Your mouth’s saying one thing, but your body’s telling a very different story, Coralie. I know which I plan on listening to.” He spins me around and grabs hold of me by my hips, bending me over. I gasp when he takes hold of my panties and tears them down, forcefully lifting my feet so he can get rid of them once and for all. I’m bare then, exposed. Callan runs his hands over my back, over my hips and down my buttocks. I feel so vulnerable. Torn between two polar extremes—to slap him in the face, grab my clothes and run out of here, or just jump him, fuck him senseless. Let him do whatever he wants to me. Use me.
I’m debating which one of these courses of action I should choose when Callan makes the decision for me. I’m wet, seriously turned on and flustered, and Callan makes matters a hundred times worse when he carefully, slowly inserts a finger inside me. I lose any and all ability to think straight. In fact, my brain quits working altogether.
“Tell me you don’t want that to be my cock, Coralie. Tell me, and I’ll know you’re fucking lying. I can feel how tight you are. I can feel how badly you want this.” He slides another finger into my pussy, and I can’t help myself anymore. My body acts of it’s own accord, and I’m pushing back against him, grinding against his hand.
“That’s what I thought.” Callan stops all of a sudden, withdrawing all contact. One minute he’s as close as he can be, touching me, inside me. The next he’s just…gone. I whimper, my back arching, my skin breaking out in goose bumps. “All you have to do is say it, bluebird. All you have to do is ask for it. I’ll give you my cock. I’ll give you everything you need and more. I know how to take care of you. Do you trust me?”
It’s a strange question: do you trust me? We’ve been apart for so long. I barely even know him anymore. And yet, I do. I know him on a level that surpasses friendship or even family. He’s simply a part of me, and so I find myself trusting him regardless. I shouldn’t. It’s not safe.
“Coralie. Tell me. I’m not fucking playing. Say. It.”
“Fine. Fine! I want you. I fucking want you, okay?” I can’t believe he’s gotten me to admit this. I feel weak and empowered at the same time. Callan sounds like a wild animal as he takes hold of me. His hands are rough, pulling at me, guiding me back. He releases me for a moment, and I turn around. He’s yanking his shirt off over his head, and I’m suddenly overcome with adrenaline. I’m really doing this. It’s really about to happen. Callan Cross is about to fuck me. He kicks out of his jeans and his boxers, pulling them both down at the same time, and then he’s naked. He’s naked and he’s standing in front of me, palming his own cock, growling under his breath. He’s magnificent.
“Lie down on the ground and spread your legs, bluebird,” he commands. I feel completely out of my depth, but I do it anyway. Callan stands over me, studying every last inch of me, the most intense expression on his face. He shakes his head, his lips curling up at one side. ”You’re about to come so hard,” he tells me. “You have no fucking idea.”
He shows me, though. He doesn’t touch my pussy again. He holds himself over me, still shaking his head, and then he slams himself inside me. He feels huge, so hard and rigid. I feel like I’ve had the wind knocked out of me. Callan bares his teeth, grinding them together as he slowly begins to thrust himself into me. I can feel myself tightening around him as he speeds up, fucking me harder. Neither of us is going to last very long, I can tell.
Callan hisses, swearing as I dig my fingernails into his back. Soon I’m panting, barely keeping my shit together, and Callan is shaking. He licks and bites at my neck, sucking hard, squeezing my breasts as he rocks against me. Our bodies fit together perfectly; my clit feels like it’s on fire as he grinds his pelvis against mine, causing the most amazing friction.
“Fuck, Callan. I’m going to come. I’m going to—“ Speech becomes impossible. My back arches off the ground, and Callan curses. He presses his forehead against mine, eyes locking onto mine, jaw clenched as he fucks me even harder. I fall apart, my vision blurring as my orgasm rockets through me. I can’t catch a breath. When I do, it’s to scream out his name, to beg and plead him not to let me go.
“I’m not going to, bluebird,” he whispers into my hair. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. I am not going anywhere.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
CALLAN
Friday
NOW
She’s gone when I wake up, and I hate it. My cellphone’s obnoxious ringtone is blasting out at full volume. Rae’s face greets me when I check the caller ID. God knows when she assigned that photo to herself in my contacts, but she’s wearing the same blissed out face she wears when I’m fucking her, her head angled to one side, lips slightly parted, hair fanned out around her head against a pillow. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was fucking herself with a vibrator when she took the shot. I answer the call, because I know Rae. If I don’t answer now, she’ll be blowing up my phone every five minutes for the rest of the day until I do.
“What’s up?” I ask into the receiver, palming my dick. I’m not hard, but my cock is throbbing like a bastard. Last night was crazy. I haven’t fucked anyone with that kind of intensity in a very, very long time. I fully expect Coralie to be experiencing trouble walking, wherever she may be.
“Hey, handsome. Just thought I’d check in, see when you were coming home? I think I left my underwear at your place the other night.”
“You always leave your underwear at my place.”
“I know. But this is my good stuff. I want it back.”
I groan, rubbing my eyes. The clock on my bedside table says it’s one o’clock in the afternoon; the sun was coming up when Coralie and I ended our adventure earlier. I definitely don’t feel like I’ve had enough sleep. “Rae…I don’t know what to tell you. You can get the doorman to let you in if you really want them back. Otherwise, I’ll be home in a week or so.” I can practically hear her sulking on the other end of the phone.
“But where’s the fun in being let in. If the doorman lets me in, you won’t be there to fuck me.”
“Get the doorman to fuck you. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to oblige.”
“Hmm.” Rae pauses, like she’s considering this as an option. She probably is. “All right, then, Cross. I’ll see you when you get home.” She hangs up, the line going silent. I take a second to mull over calling her back and telling her not to fucking the doorman in my bed, at least, but then I decide against it and get up.
I pad downstairs in my boxers and my heart
near explodes out of my chest when I see a figure sitting at the dining room table. At first I think it’s Coralie. It’s not, though. It’s Friday, of all people, sitting at the table, eating Capt’n Crunch out of a bowl I don’t recognize. She must have brought it from home. “Jesus Christ, Friday. You scared the living shit out of me. Did you bring your own cereal over here?”
The old woman doesn’t lift her head to look at me. She spoons another mountain of cereal into her mouth, frowning deeply as she stares straight ahead out of the window on the other side of the room. “You and that girl got a lot of ghosts hoverin’ over you, Callan Cross. You know that?”
Friday’s always been a little out there. Even when we were kids, she would say the strangest things about spirits and what she termed ‘hauntings.’ If someone drank too much or beat their animals, or failed a test, it was because they were the victim of a haunting. It was entertaining as a kid to listen to her speak, but now I realize it was just a way of forgiving someone their flaws. Perhaps wrongly in some cases.
“What are you talking about, Friday?” I shuffle past her over to the window, where the curtains are partially drawn, allowing only a narrow pillar of golden light to slice through the otherwise dim room. “I don’t believe in ghosts. They’re not real.”
“Sure they are, child.” Friday speaks around her food. “They just as real as you an’ me. Just less...” She stops chewing and looks up at the ceiling, her body still, as if she’s listening for something. After a couple of seconds, she shrugs and carries on eating. “Can’t remember what I was saying now. Never mind.”
I stand with my hands on my hips, watching her as she spoons more food past her lips. “Not that I don’t love house guests, Friday, but is there something I can help you with?”
She arches an eyebrow at me, giving me a once over from head to toe. “Well. You could start by puttin’ some pants on. There’s a thought.”
It’s hilarious that she thinks letting herself into the house is okay—god knows why I even bother locking the damn door anymore, everyone seems to know where the spare key is—but the fact that she then wants me to put on pants is almost too much to bear. “Friday—”
“Can you hear somethin’?” she asks, holding one hand up. She pulls the same vacant face she did a moment ago. “Sounds like someone laughin’ upstairs, child. A woman. You got someone up there?”
I did a pretty good sweep of the upstairs floor when I got up just to make sure Coralie wasn’t in my mother’s room or something, but she wasn’t. And even if she was up there somewhere, I doubt very much that she would be laughing to herself right now. “I promise you, I’m alone here. Or at least I thought I was before I came down and found you here. And for the record, I can’t hear a thing.”
Friday purses her lips. “They say people done lose they hearin’ as they get older. Seems to me that I hear more and more.” She spoons another load of cereal into her mouth, grunting. “I came by to see if you got her to go into that house yet,” she mumbles.
“Next door? No. How could I? How can I get her to do anything? You saw her last night. She doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
Friday points her spoon at me, arching one eyebrow into a savage curve. “Don’t you be churlish with me, boy. I saw her hurryin’ on outta here this morning before sun up. I know you saw her after you were arguing like children at my place.”
“And yet you still thought I had another woman upstairs?”
She shakes her head a little. “Ain’t none of my business what people get up to. An’ these days, you New York folk...the good lord knows whatever goes on in the big city. What’s unacceptable here might be just fine over there.”
Debating twenty first century morals with a woman in possession of an eighteenth century mindset is a pointless and exhausting task. I brace myself against the back of the chair opposite Friday and give her a stern look. “Why would I persuade Coralie to go next door, Friday? There’s no reason for her to do it. No reason to make herself feel worse than she already does, just by being back here.”
“It’s important,” she replies. “She’s got to face what happened there, child, otherwise it’ll hang over her head like a sword for the rest o’ her days. She’ll never move forward.” More spoon pointing.
“Maybe you should talk to her then. Go with her. I doubt very much that she’d want me with her.”
Friday gives me a look that implies my IQ is somewhat lacking. “Be smart, boy. What good would I be, facing her demons with her? He wasn’t my father. It wasn’t my relationship.” She pauses. It looks like she’s measuring her words, trying to decide what to say next. Eventually, she says, “And it wasn’t my child either now, was it?”
I’ve never been electrocuted before, but I imagine it would feel pretty similar to this. Every single nerve ending I posses, even the ones I didn’t know I possessed, snap and fire at once in the most painful way. I’m literally winded by her words. “I—I didn’t think anyone knew about that. I didn’t think she’d said anything,” I whisper.
Friday pushes her bowl aside and stands from the table. She makes her way to me, slowly, grimacing a little, as though the movement hurts her. Given her increasing size and age, it probably does. She stops in front of me, reaching up so she can place her weathered hands high on my bare shoulders. “Coralie never kept nothin’ from me, Callan. Not in all the years I helped raised her. But she never did tell me ‘bout that.”
“Then, how—”
“There’s only so many things that can hurt a person so deeply in this life, boy. I witnessed that girl lose her mother. I witnessed her suffer at her daddy’s hands. But when she left Port Royal, it was like her soul had been ripped clean outta her body. For Coralie, it was the ultimate hurt. And only losing a baby can do that.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CORALIE
Life
THEN
“Does Jo know I’m here?”
During the six months I’ve been sneaking into the Cross household after dark, it’s never occurred to me that Callan’s mother might not know about it.
“Mmm,” Callan says, pressing his lips against my hair. “Your stealth mode setting is impressive. But yeah. She knows. I told her. Hope you don’t mind.”
While most teenaged boys are doing anything and everything in their power to hide things from their parents, Callan and his mother have a unique relationship. Watching them together is pretty special. Their dynamic is more that of a close friend than your average mother/son deal. The first time I ever met Jo, I’d been scared. Nervous. But when I walked into their kitchen, hands clasped in front of me, fingernails digging into my own skin, she’d cupped my face in her hands and said, “Beautiful girl, you look just like your mother. What a gift. What a wonderful thing to have happened,” and I knew I was going to love her almost as much as my boyfriend.
She never asked about my father.
“No. I don’t mind. Does she, though?” It would be terrible if Jo decided she didn’t approve of my tiptoeing into her seventeen year old son’s bedroom well after midnight. Sleeping in the same bed as him, having him hold me as I fall into unconsciousness—it’s the only thing that keeps me sane sometimes. It’s hard not to tell Callan the truth. If he knew my father hurt me, he would lose his mind, though. He wouldn’t be able to take it, and I wouldn’t be able to take my father ripping him limb from limb when he went over to the house to confront him.
Sure, hiding the bruises is hard. But Callan’s been patient, hasn’t pushed me once. It’s growing more and more difficult to stop myself when we make out; I love him more than anything in this life. When his hands are on me, underneath my clothes, on my breasts, his fingers teasing me beneath my panties, I want so much more. I want to give myself to him. I want him more than I ever thought I could want anything, and yet every time I manage to pull back. I know, if it were up to him, Callan and I would have slept together months ago. But like I said, he’s patient, he’s kind…and in turn he’s never seen
the black and purple thumb prints on my stomach, on my back, on the tops of my arms and my thighs.
I feel like I’m living two lives: the life where I’m carefree and easy with Callan, at school and after dark, long after Dad’s passed out in a drunken haze, and then the life where I’m beaten and manipulated, shoved and bullied, permanently trapped by the fear that one day something far worse will happen.
I shiver out of my thoughts, running my fingers up and down Callan’s chest as I lie with my head resting on top of him. He makes a pleased, mildly frustrated sound at the contact, but he doesn’t move to touch me. “I’ve been thinking,” he says.
“About?”
“About our little photography challenge. I don’t think we should develop them anymore.”
“See. I told you mine would be terrible.” I cringe, recalling the fact that most of my images were either entirely black or entirely white at the beginning, over or under exposed to the point where the focus of the picture was indiscernible. Callan had been amazed that I’d even been able to achieve that with a point and shoot disposable. Over time, he’d taught me enough about lighting to know what I would and wouldn’t be able to get away with, though. The first time we’d developed one of my pictures and it had come out clearly, he’d hollered so loudly Jo had hammered on his bedroom door, worried that something terrible had happened.
“Your photos are awesome, bluebird,” he whispers. “I just had an even better idea. What if we didn’t develop them for years? We should keep them, until our tenth anniversary or something.”