Love Me Broken

by Lily Jenkins

  We walk on a little more. One of the yards has a faulty sprinkler, and we have to walk into the street to avoid it. When we get back on the sidewalk, I ask, “So, Adam, what are you doing in Astoria?”

  His head ducks a little. “Working,” he says.

  “I know that. But I mean, why? How old are you?”

  “I’m eighteen,” he says, and the way he says it sounds like he regrets his age. There’s sadness in his voice that I don’t understand.

  “It’s a bit unusual,” I continue. “I mean, what does your family think of it?”

  His face hardens, and I immediately regret bringing this up. “It doesn’t matter,” he snaps, and he removes his hand from mine. “People shouldn’t live their lives for other people. It’s wrong. My mom will be better off.”

  His mom? “Is that the only family you have?”

  Adam’s mouth forms a hard line, and I know I’m not getting anything more out of him right now.

  We walk on, and I’m confused about whether I did or said the right thing. Shouldn’t I be allowed to ask about his past? It’s a normal thing to ask about.

  But then, I don’t know what happened to him. What if he was abused? What was so bad that it forced him to run away?

  Then I think, maybe they weren’t such innocent questions. Sometimes people would try to ask me innocent questions and would only end up hitting a nerve. Even simple questions like “Are you okay?” got really annoying when asked repeatedly, and in such a way as to mean “Should I be worried about you?”

  After another block of silence, I can’t take it anymore. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I just wanted to know more about you.”

  He sighs with relief. “No,” he says. “I’m sorry for yelling at you.” He puts his arm around me, and the whole world melts. “I just, I just don’t want to ruin today with all that shit about me. It’s not the right time.”

  I lean my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat as we make the transition from the neighborhood to the long winding road that leads up to the Column.

  “Let’s just focus on us, all right?” he says.

  “All right,” I say. And I mean it. There’s enough about us to keep us busy for a lifetime, let alone an afternoon.

  The road to the Column spirals around and gradually climbs uphill. There are no cars here, and I can’t hear any other person nearby. We pass a series of orange cones blocking off the sidewalk. There’s construction ahead, and we have to walk in the street. Adam takes my hand and squeezes. I squeeze back.

  “I hope it’s open,” I say, noticing more construction equipment as we move on: a bulldozer parked on the side of the road, concrete blocks and piles of torn-up dirt.

  Adam’s eyes are focused on the peak of the Column. He keeps walking, and I can feel the heat coming off his body. He’s panting, and it makes my heart beat wildly. I realize I’m breathing heavily too, even though the incline isn’t that steep. It’s just being near him, being alone like this. I’m reminded of the first time we were alone, really alone, on the pier. And what happened there.

  We turn the bend. The street is cordoned off with a large wooden beam. There is a sign on it: ROAD CLOSED.

  I stop. “Damn it,” I mutter.

  Adam looks at it a moment, then at the empty bulldozer nearby. He drops his hand into mine and pulls me forward. “Come on,” he says.

  “But it’s closed,” I say, my excuse sounding stupid.

  He turns back to me with a sly grin. “Nobody’s around,” he says. “We’ll have the whole place to ourselves.”

  I blush at the implications, and something in his eyes lights up.

  “Now,” he says in a gasp, and leads me around the barrier. “Now.”

  I can’t wait another moment. I need to kiss this girl, and I don’t want it to be on the side of the road, here within whiffing distance of the Port-A-Potties. The Column is where we need to be. It’s perfect—tall, isolated, private. We’d be able to see anyone coming for miles.

  Erica isn’t resisting anymore as we continue up the road. It’s torn up in places, with the exposed dirt showing underneath. There are large concrete blocks on either side of the road, and we have to climb over one when we reach a gap that goes down two feet to a muddy puddle. Erica has no trouble with this, but I’m breathing heavily and feel sweat forming on my forehead. This long walk uphill has been harder on me than I thought. I need a good night’s sleep tonight.

  Finally, we round a bend and come upon a circular grassy clearing. In the center is the Column, ascending into the sky.

  “Do you think it’s locked?” I ask, looking at the heavy metal door at the base.

  “Probably,” Erica says.

  “But you said you had a key, right?”

  “I think so. I mean, if they haven’t changed it.”

  We cross the grass and approach the door. I try the handle, but it is definitely locked. Erica starts rummaging through her purse. She sticks her hand into a side pocket and pulls out a long copper key. She looks at it, then at me. Then she fits it into the lock.

  “Here goes nothing,” she says.

  She turns the key. It catches. She twists her hand, and I hear the bolt shifting back.

  I’m so excited I feel like screaming. But I know we’re technically breaking the law by being here, so I keep quiet. My feet are all jittery though, and I lean in and kiss Erica on the neck to celebrate our victory. She leans her head back against mine, and I breathe in her smell.

  Then she opens her eyes, looks behind us, and says, “Come on. Someone might see.”

  She takes me by the hand and pulls me inside the dark base of the Column, then shuts the heavy door.

  It’s dark at first. There’s a skylight at the very top, but it’s so far away that the light barely reaches us. Plus it’s blocked by an ever-ascending spiral staircase that seems to go on forever.

  Erica is standing in front of me, looking up. She’s not moving.

  I put a hand on her shoulder, and she turns back to me. “It’ll be fine,” I say. “We’ll leave if we see anyone coming, okay? I won’t get you in trouble.”

  Her green eyes dart to the side, and she bites her bottom lip. It makes my cock jump in my pants, and I’d be surprised if she hasn’t seen the outline of it by now. Part of me hopes that she has noticed.

  She takes a step to go first up the stairs, and I don’t complain. It’s not completely black in here, but dim enough that I respect the hell out of her for being brave and not chickening out about a little darkness. She takes a step up, and I catch sight of her ass almost directly in front of me. The fabric of her skirt lifts up just enough for me to see its outline through her leggings. Damn. I throb again in my pants, and seriously start to worry about being able to control myself.

  I follow her up, my eyes glued to her directly in front of me. I have enough mental capacity to keep an arm free, just in case, to catch her if she trips or anything. As horny as I am, I still care about her and don’t want her getting hurt. Plus I really don’t want to have to carry her back into town. Well, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, having my arms all over her, having her depend on me, put her arms around me—

  Damn. This is a lot of stairs. We’ve gone up at least three or four flights, and I’m starting to feel my heart beating in protest. It’s harder to breathe in here too; my lungs feel scratchy with all the dust and I have to fight not to cough. I don’t want to admit that I need to rest though, so instead of saying we should stop, I wait until we get to a landing and say, “Erica?”

  She turns around. “Hmm?”

  Then I put my mouth to hers, and press her against the wall.

  She kisses back eagerly, her arms rising so that she can run her fingers through my hair. I push forward, pressing my hardness against her. I think the feel of it surprises her at first. She quickly recovers though, and presses back against me, grinding her body against mine.

  After a minute or so of this, I pull back. We’re both breathing heavily now,
but in a way that gives me strength to continue. Without a word, I take her hand and we continue onward, stopping every few flights to rest and kiss.

  “We’re almost at the top,” she says finally. We turn another bend in the stairs, and the outline of another door is ahead of us. It’s much easier to see here. A circular skylight lets in light from outside at the top of the Column.

  Erica pushes open the second door, and golden light spills into the stairwell.

  We step out onto the tower. It’s a small ledge that runs all the way around the Column, giving a 360-degree view of Astoria: the Columbia River, the evergreen forests, the town itself and rows of houses. The sun sits at the horizon, and the sky glows with orange, pink, and darkening blues. The clouds reflect off the water in the river, and the light makes the outline of ships glow.

  “Wow,” I say, looking out at the sight. Erica is looking too. I breathe in the fresh air, letting it cool my burning lungs.

  I feel her put her hand in mine. She has such soft hands. I run my index finger along the base of her palm. We’re both still looking at the sunset, facing outward, and I lift her hand to my mouth and kiss the tips of her fingers gently.

  “You’re just what I need right now, you know that?” I tell her. The words do little to describe how she makes me feel, but I think she understands. She smiles, and presses her body next to mine, so that our sides are touching. I’ve still got her hand near my mouth, and I’m exploring it with small kisses. I turn it to kiss the back of her hand and smell the fruity scent of her lotion. Then I kiss the back of her wrist, and then once on the top of her forearm.

  I look up to her. She has her eyes closed and her head tilted slightly back. She hasn’t moved her hand away, so I go right on kissing. When I reach her elbow, I turn her arm so that I’m kissing the inside, and here I slide out my tongue, and lick the inside of her arm. She lets out the smallest moan, and her body shakes a little. It’s not a flinch. It’s more like a bolt of electricity has passed through her. She doesn’t pull away, so I work my way up. I kiss the top of her arm, through her shirt, until I reach her collarbone. I go delicately here, kissing once, then twice, before I reach her neck. Oh, her neck. I inhale deeply here, taking in the smell of her and trying to remember it forever. I breathe in again, trying to drown myself in the scent. She smells like her lotion—peaches or mango, something like that—and has the faintest after-smell of the water and the pier. It’s a seaside smell, full of waves and sunshine. And then, beyond that, in the crook of her neck right under her chin, she has a smell that is distinct to her. It is the smell of her body: clean, young, and passionate. It makes my cock stiffen even more, so that it’s stretching forward in my pants. If she didn’t feel it before, there’d be no missing it now. I’m not exactly small. I’m pretty well endowed, actually, and when it’s hard like it is now, you can probably tell from across the block. It’s straining to get out but I’m not ready for that. I don’t care about that at the moment, actually. I just want to go on discovering her.

  My tongue extends and licks a spot right under her earlobe, and she moans. I feel the rumble pass from her body and into mine, and I push against her harder, now pressing myself against her leg so that there is no question whether I’m hard or not. She doesn’t pull away. I start running my tongue upward, to her earlobe, and lick it once, then bite it tenderly between my teeth. Her knees must go weak, because she almost stumbles. I take both her hands and place them on either side of the railing behind her. Then, taking her face in my hands, I stand up to my full height and press my mouth on hers.

  We share one brief, close-mouthed kiss. Then I pull away, to see her reaction, and she opens her eyes. Her face is one of desperate passion. At the sight of me, she leans forward and presses her mouth to mine, and her tongue extends and licks my lips until I open them, and then we are letting our tongues explore each other’s mouths. She’s pressing against me now, even while holding onto the railing behind her, and I can feel her heartbeat against my chest. We kiss. It’s so needful, so hungry. We only break our embrace reluctantly, regretfully, to gasp for air before connecting again.

  My hands are on her face at first, then they travel to the sides of her soft neck below the ears, then to the back of her head, holding her tight to me. It’s almost by chance that they make their way down to her neck again, grazing against her collarbone. It’s then that she lets go of the railing and takes control of my hands. At first when she squeezes them, I think it’s to tell me to stop. That we shouldn’t go any further. But to my surprise and delight she takes them and guides them down, sliding them down the front of her chest until they rest firmly on her breasts. At this permission, my enthusiasm increases, and I press against her directly and can’t help but moan in pleasure myself. At my moan, she moans too and the whole thing is just so hot that I can barely think.

  I slide my hands under her shirt and feel her breasts through her bra. I can feel her nipples harden through the fabric, and cannot take it anymore. I reach around to her back, and with one deft movement unlatch her and pull her bra away, setting it on the floor of the tower ledge.

  At this undressing, she must become self-conscious. She pulls back and looks over the side of the ledge. I look around too. We are just as alone as before. We are so alone we might as well be the last two people on earth. No one is watching. We’re in public, but we have complete privacy.

  Still, Erica takes a step back to the doorway, so that she’s covered by the shadow. She relaxes instantly, and guides my hands back under her shirt. I feel her bare breasts, cupping them lightly as I press my mouth back to hers. I run my finger around her nipples, feeling them harden even more as I kiss her mouth. She trembles, and I pull back to whisper, “Put your hands on the doorframe.” She does this immediately, and is able to hold herself up while I massage her breasts and kiss her mouth.

  My cock is practically ready to explode at this point, but I hadn’t planned on any of this. I didn’t think our date would take this turn, and I didn’t bring a condom. I pull back and look into Erica’s face. I am too far gone to be anything but honest.

  “I don’t have a condom,” I tell her, “so, as much as I want to, I can’t do more.”

  She looks at me for a moment, taking a beat to comprehend this. Then she says, “Oh.” I sense a note of disappointment in her voice.

  “But,” I say, a side of my mouth going up in a grin, “that doesn’t mean we can’t have any fun.”

  She’s confused at first, the cutest little crease appearing between her eyes, but she begins to understand when I lower my hand from her breast, sliding it down her stomach, to the hem of her skirt.

  I smile at her, waiting for her answer. Then all at once she seems to realize that I’m waiting for her permission, because she nods and says, “Okay. Yes.”

  I squat down before her. She looks around again above me, but she must not see anyone because the next thing she does is guide my hands to the waistband of her leggings.

  I pull them down delicately, revealing her creamy thighs, and she steps out of them. I set them aside next to her bra. Then I look up, able to see directly under her skirt to her underwear. I put my hand up to touch her, and then I stand again, cupping her sex with my hand as I lean in to kiss her. She moans, and presses forward against me. The warmth coming off of her is almost like fire. A pleasurable fire, and again I’m kicking myself for not bringing a condom.

  But, like I told her, that doesn’t mean we can’t have any fun.

  My body is trembling with anticipation. His kiss is harder now, the earliest hints of stubble scratching against my lips as he presses his face into mine. I don’t care. It feels too good to care about a little stubble. If anything, that adds to the sensation.

  His hand is on me, putting pressure on me through my underwear. I press back into him, and it feels so good. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything—even kissing—that this is like being with someone for the first time. Even comparing what we’ve done so far to my other
brief encounters makes those few other times feel like kissing boys in preschool. Nothing counted before now. Nothing felt like this feels. Before, it was nice, pleasant—but not like this. Any time Adam touches me, it’s like my whole body is set ablaze, and only his mouth can soothe the fire.

  I pull back from his kiss, unable to take the teasing of his hand anymore. I reach down, grasp him by the wrist, and push his hand inside my underwear. His fingers touch me directly, and the sensation makes my head lean back and my eyes close.

  “Mmmm,” I moan, and he stays close to me. I can feel him watching my face, enjoying my enjoyment, and it feels so good. He touches me, running his index finger along the outside, almost tickling it he’s touching so lightly. Then he presses firmer, and leans forward to kiss my neck at the same time. His tongue touches that spot just under my ear at the exact same moment his finger slips inside me, and the dual sensation is so overwhelming that I let out a much louder moan than I intend.

  Rather than stopping, this only encourages Adam. He presses his finger all the way inside me and touches me directly on my button. My legs feel feeble, and I grip the doorway of the tower for dear life. I gasp, and wonder at his precise knowledge of the female anatomy. He’s either had much practice, or he’s gotten lucky with me on this first try. I don’t really care which, because my body is squirming and writhing as he rubs me where it feels so good. His other hand is wrapped around my back, holding me to him as he licks and kisses his way to the front of my neck, and then kissing down to my breasts.

  He finds a nipple and bites it through the fabric of my shirt. “Oh!” I squeal, and I can feel his excitement growing too. He finds his way across to my other breast, kissing it tenderly, and then looking up into my face as he bites that nipple too.

  Then he leans back, his finger still inside of me, and locks eyes with me. His eyes are hooded, and his mouth parted slightly. I know what he’s asking.